California’s gay marriage ruling signals next step for both sides

The next campaign in the gay-marriage fight has already begun.

Less than 90 minutes after the California Supreme Court released its ruling on Proposition 8, both sides had already e-mailed supporters soliciting funds anticipating a new ballot measure on gay marriage that could reach voters in 2010.

 ”We don’t have time to mourn the failure of the state court to restore marriage equality to California,” wrote Rick Jacobs, chairman of the Courage Campaign, in a 10:15 a.m. e-mail. He added that it was “time to go on offense” and asked supporters to send money for pro-gay-marriage advertising that could begin airing on television later this week.

Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com, waited until a little after 11 a.m. to hit up his supporters, writing: “We must turn our attention to protecting this victory . . . and must raise several million dollars to get our message out. . . . Please click here to make a contribution.”

In addition to buying advertising on TV, both sides are also hiring community organizers who will help supporters reach out to sway individual voters.

Among those prepared to keep fighting is Bill Welsh, senior pastor of Refuge Calvary Chapel in Huntington Beach. An ardent supporter of Proposition 8, Welsh spent hours on the street with a sign reading “Marriage is one man and one woman” and leading his congregation of 1,500 in gathering signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.

On Tuesday, he said he felt “pleased that they upheld the will of the people, especially in the increasingly lax moral climate that we’re in.” But he added that it would be “foolish to think this will be the end of the battle.

“I don’t have any desire to get in a violent war with anyone over this, but we won’t back down,” he said.

On the other side, gay rights activists, who had widely expected to lose, indicated after the ruling that next time they intend to be far more inclusive in their quest to sway Californians. During the last election, the No on 8 campaign was sharply criticized for not reaching out enough to black and Latino voters.

Accordingly, gay activists summoned the media to the Lucy Florence Cultural Center in Leimert Park in the heart of Los Angeles’ black community for a news conference chaired by Ron Buckmire, an African American mathematics professor who is also president of the Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black gay rights group in Los Angeles.

Then they made sure that Southern California’s first post-decision protest rally was held in East Los Angeles, in the region’s historic center of Latino culture.

At that event, more than 100 people gathered outside the L.A. County office building on Cesar Chavez Avenue chanting slogans such as “Gay, Straight, Black, White, Marriage is a Civil Right.” Three gay couples then occupied the marriage license office, saying they would not leave without a license to wed. County officials refused to give licenses out — but also refused to take the demonstrators into custody. About 3:45, the demonstrators left.

In the evening, same-sex marriage supporters took over a swath of West Hollywood, spreading across Santa Monica and San Vicente boulevards. The general mood was disappointment, although many said they’d expected the court to rule as it did.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, police arrested more than 150 people after pro-gay-marriage demonstrators marched to Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street and sat down, blocking one of the city’s main arteries. They were cited and released.

“It’s about raising awareness and keeping the struggle going,” said Aubra Fletcher, 33, of Berkeley, as she sat, smiling and waiting to be arrested.

Other rallies were planned for more than 100 California cities, including Eureka, San Diego and Palm Springs.

Across the state, gay marriage supporters emphasized the same message.

“Tonight, we take to the streets. But tomorrow, we must continue the hard work,” said Lorri L. Jean, head of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center.

But even as they pushed forward, many gay activists said they felt unexpected grief over the reality of a decision they had been expecting for months.

“I’ve just been told that I have less equal rights than my colleagues,” said West Hollywood Councilman John Duran, who is gay.

Gay marriage issue returns – to a changed America

Dante Chinni

Posted: 04.06.2009 / 7:04 AM EDT

Without a doubt, a ruling Friday by Iowa’s Supreme Court opened another front in the battle over gay marriage – and follows on the heels of a hotly contested ballot initiative on the same issue in California’s November election.

But does that mean gay marriage is again becoming a big wedge issue in national politics, as it was in the 2004 presidential election and, before that, since Vermont enacted its civil unions law?

In all likelihood, it isn’t.

The explanation for why not lies in the answers to these two questions. How much has public opinion shifted on gay marriage? And how deep is America’s appetite for a debate on the issue right now?

With the exception of the vote in California on Proposition 8 – in which voters agreed to define marriage as between opposite-sex individuals – gay marriage has not been a big part of the political debate since 2004. In that presidential race, “defense of marriage” proposals in key states, such as Ohio, were thought to have brought out conservative voters who helped reelect George W. Bush.

An Annenberg Election Study poll from 2004, analyzed by community type, reveals little support for gay marriage in all 11 Patchwork Nation groups. The highest number “in favor” – 45 percent – came from people in big cities (our “Industrial Metropolis” locales). The next highest level of support – 40 percent – came from the tony suburbs (our “Monied ’Burbs”). No other community type reached 40 percent.

But the world in 2009 is a very different place.

New numbers?

First off, there is reason to believe those numbers may have moved since 2004. Polls from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that national public attitudes on the question had changed in just two years.

Pew’s surveys showed a spike in opposition to gay marriage in 2004 to 61 percent, but by March 2006 the “oppose” number had fallen to 51 percent.

In other words, this is an issue over which the American public is in flux, and opposition may have abated even more in recent years. Why? Concern about the economy is trumping almost everything else.

From talking with our community correspondents and reading the numbers, it’s clear that the financial news is so troubling that there is little room in the political discourse right now for much else. Though different factors are shaping the fortunes of our 11 community types – it may be unemployment in some places and foreclosures in others –the economy rules, for now. Last week’s high-court ruling in Iowa – that a law limiting marriage to a man and a woman violates the state constitution – seems unlikely to change that.

A few weeks ago we asked the Patchwork communities if the media had been covering the economy too heavily and, while some took issue with the way the media were covering the story, most said the issue was dominating their local conversations.

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No equal rights for North Dakotans

Many state citizens are disappointed after ND House fails bill aimed at equality.

DS Report

Issue date: 4/7/09 Section: News

Friday, the North Dakota House of Representatives voted down Senate Bill 2278 54-34, thus stopping the addition of sexual orientation and transgendered persons to the groups protected by the state’s Human Rights Act from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.

House members argued the bill down, stating that its supposed consequences were not in the best interest of the state and that there are more pressing laws North Dakota needs to worry about.

This bill was previously passed by the Senate but with the negative vote, North Dakota will become one of 30 states that still do not have laws barring discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Nearby Iowa, however, is defying the Midwestern odds by legalizing gay marriage for partners.

Iowa joins Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only states that permit gay marriage after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

There is still some controversy surrounding the decision and opponents may try to enact residency requirements for marriage so that homosexuals across the country could not travel to Iowa and wed. However, the county attorney who defended the law said they were not going to seek a rehearing; the only course of action that could be taken would be a state constitutional amendment, which wouldn’t get on the ballot until 2012.

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On the Iowa Court Ruling – Marriage in the heartland

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Friday was a banner day for marriage equality. In a unanimous decision, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages. The decision makes Iowa the first state in the American Midwest to grant marriage rights to

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Meanwhile, in Vermont, the state House of Representatives approved a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The bill, which has already passed the state Senate, awaits a promised veto from Republican governor James Douglas.

The Vermont legislature may not have enough votes to overturn a veto, but the vote is still evidence of a palpable and crucial shift in legal and public opinion. Gay marriage opponents are finding fewer and fewer legal grounds on which they can oppose the civil rights of other people. And slowly but surely, the public is realizing that there aren’t many benefits to their opposition either.

That doesn’t mean the fight’s over – not in Iowa, not in Vermont and not here. The process of amending the state constitution is long and arduous in Iowa – experts say the soonest gay marriage could be repealed there is 2012 – but plenty of same-sex marriage opponents and state legislators are eager to begin the march. And Iowa’s victory won’t necessarily affect the California Supreme Court’s decision on Proposition 8. The California court’s decision still hinges on whether or not the voters’ amendment to our state constitution was valid, not on what happened in another state.

Still, it’s obvious that Friday’s decisions represent a leap forward, not just a step. Vermont’s bill recognizes that only marriage represents true equality. And Iowa isn’t Connecticut or Massachusetts or even California – it’s the heart of the heartland, the country’s classic swing state.

The next few years will give both Iowans and the rest of the country the opportunity to witness how same-sex marriage can bring greater fairness for everyone.

As we have long maintained, time is on the side of what has become the civil rights movement of this era.

This article appeared on page A – 13 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Obama’s pledge to gay soldiers

By Derrick Z. Jackson

February 3, 2009

DON’T ASK too soon, our new pragmatic president says, if you want to do away with “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The Globe reported this week that President Obama wants to cooly build irrefutable facts to support ending the ban on openly gay and lesbian soldiers, and break down old attitudes in the Pentagon and among politicians. Many gay activists seem prepared to give Obama at least a few months. Rea Carey, president of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, “We’re not worried we’ll be left behind.”

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Cool pragmatism is getting a chance, especially given how the molten lava of President Clinton flamed out.

During his 1992 campaign, Clinton spoke before 600 mostly gay and lesbian supporters in Hollywood, then the biggest such gathering. The San Francisco Chronicle said Clinton “choked up” in his address. The Globe said “his eyes filled with tears.” In speaking about AIDS, he said he would give up his race for the White House “if I could wave my arm for those of you who are HIV-positive and make it go away tomorrow.” He was resolute on lifting the ban on homosexuals serving in the military.

A 1992 General Accounting Office report said the Defense Department expelled an average of 1,500 gay soldiers a year during the 1980s. The report said the Defense Department’s own reports concluded that “there was no factual data to substantiate” claims that homosexual solders were a particular security risk. One draft report compared the ban on gays to the former resistance to integrate black soldiers, commenting that none of the “dire consequences” and “predictions of doom” for discipline, group morale, and achieving military goals “has come true.”

Clinton knew that when he said, “Every day that we discriminate, that we hate, that we refuse to avail ourselves of the potential of any group of Americans, we are all less than we ought to be. This country is being killed by people who try to break us down and tear us down and make us little when we have to be big.” Clinton specifically said of the ban, “My fellow Americans, we have too much to do to endure quaint little rules. We can’t afford to waste the hearts and minds of the gays and lesbians.”

The quaint rules endured, as Pentagon and political backlash forced Clinton into the convoluted policy of upholding the ban but telling the military not to pry into personal affairs and essentially telling gay and lesbian soldiers to stay in the closet. It did not work. A follow-up Government Accountability Office report in 2005 found that expulsions were briefly cut in half in 1994 and 1995, but climbed back to over 1,100 a year in the last three years of the Clinton administration. Four out of five of the 9,500 total soldiers kicked out in the 10-year period from 1994 to 2003 were discharged simply for admitting they were gay.

The estimated replacement cost for these soldiers was $95 million. The loss of skills was priceless in a post-9/11 world, as 322 of the kicked-out soldiers could speak some levels of languages such as Arabic, Korean, Russian, Chinese, and Farsi.

The American people get this, as CNN and Washington Post polls last year found that 75 percent to 81 percent of Americans say openly gay soldiers should be allowed to serve. President Obama gets this, citing the 2005 GAO report on his new White House website, saying he “agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve.”

In his pre-inauguration speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Obama specifically mentioned gay Americans among the people he hoped Americans could “recognize ourselves in one another.” If Obama can get the military to recognize the value and valor of soldiers regardless of sexual orientation, even if it takes a few months more than the gauntlet of an executive order, cool pragmatism may be the new molten lava of true change.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

Cops eyeing hate crime at Bay Shore gay youth center

BY SUMATHI REDDY | sumathi.reddy@newsday.com
February 3, 2009
Suffolk police are investigating a vandalism incident at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth Center in Bay Shore as a hate crime.

Employees of the center, at 34 Park Ave., came to work yesterday morning to find the center’s front door shattered. The windows of their 2003 Ford van were also smashed to pieces, the tires slashed, and the mirrors mangled.

There was no anti-gay graffiti left at the scene but David Kilmnick, center chief executive, contacted the Suffolk County police bias crime unit because he believes the vandalism was sending a strong anti-gay message.

“If they wanted to steal something in the center, they could have walked right in,” he said. “If they wanted to steal the van, they could have instead of destroying it. It’s about sending a message. They’re sending a message to be scared, back down, get out.”

Police have classified the incident as criminal mischief as a hate crime.

“This type of attack against the gay community will not be tolerated in Suffolk County,” said County Executive Steve Levy in a news release. “Our police department will seek to apprehend any wrongdoer and help ensure that there is swift justice to deter any such activity in the future.”

Kilmnick said the center expects the door to be fixed by today.

A group for gay seniors canceled its meeting and some seniors expressed fear, said Kerrie O’Neill, coordinator of the program. Similarly, two volunteers who showed up to work at the center left abruptly after seeing the vandalism.

The van picks up students for group meetings. Kilmnick said he hopes to have the van back in operation on Friday.

The incident shook up staff at the center. Nick Tryling, the center’s safe schools coordinator, said she came to work and the “glass was everywhere.”

“Obviously we don’t want to keep the kids in the dark, but we also don’t want to scare them,” she said.

Kilmnick and the center plans on installing surveillance cameras to prevent future such incidents and has raised $1,500.

Detectives are asking anyone with information to contact the Hate Crimes Unit at 631-852-6323 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.

Next State to Usher in Gay Marriage May be Iowa

by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Contributor
Monday Nov 24, 2008

Only weeks after a ballot initiative put marriage rights for gay and lesbian families in California to a vote–with families in that state losing the right to marry being the outcome–families in the state of Iowa may see the way cleared for marriage parity.

A Nov. 21 story in the Iowa newspaper the Press-Citizen detailed how a ruling from that state’s Supreme Court is poised to determine whether or not marriage equality will be permitted there.

For anti-gay groups who have begun to characterize marriage parity as “anti-family,” a pro-marriage equality ruling may signal the start of a bruising campaign to amend the state’s bedrock law by pushing for a constitutional amendment similar to the one approved by California voters earlier this month.

For Iowa’s gay and lesbian families, however, such a ruling would constitute the start of a new day.

Said the director of communications for GLBT equality group One Iowa, Justin Uebelhor, “It could be a big step forward for Iowa and something Iowa could be proud of.”

Added Uebelhor, “It is important for Iowa to take the lead on this.”

The suit scheduled to be heard by the Iowa Supreme Court has been brought by six couples seeking legal recognition of their families, the article noted.

For opponents of marriage parity, however, there’s no such thing as a family headed by two people of the same gender.

The anti-gay group Iowa Family Policy Center’s Chuck Hurley referred to the rights being sought by the six couples as “anti-family.”

A Nov. 19 article in the Des Moines Register quoted Hurley as saying, “The people of Iowa have not consented to a radical change in the definition of marriage being imposed on them by the courts and anti-family groups.”

In 1998, the Register article recalled, Iowa state legislators adopted a state law, called the Defense of Marriage Act, that restricts marriage rights to couples consisting of one man and one woman.

Since that time, Vermont has provided for civil unions for same-gender couples in 2000, Massachusetts has granted full marriage equality in 2004, gay and lesbian families in California have won and then lost the right to marry, all during the course of 2008, and marriage parity has become part of state law in Connecticut as of last month.

The Press-Citizen article referred to the recent loss of marriage rights in California, citing Uebelhor as saying that although voters approved the rollback of rights for families in that state by a slim margin, it has had the result of energizing the conversation on marriage parity nationally.

A media relations director for GLBT equality group Lambda Legal, Lisa Hardaway, was quoted in the Press-Citizen article as saying, “I think time is on our side. I think progress is in our direction.

“The broader view is we have to take it in steps.”

Lawyer Dennis Johnson, who represents the couples along with Lambda Legal, said of the lower court decision that sent the case to the Supreme Court, “[T]his is not a close constitutional question.”

Based on the current version of the Iowa state constitution, Johnson assessed the case as having a good chance for success.

In Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut, the courts found that denying gay and lesbian families the right to marry was a violation of guarantees of equal protections set out in the state constitutions.

In thirty states, ballot initiatives to incorporate anti-gay language targeting the family rights of same-gender couples into state constitutions have been approved by voters.

Only one state, Arizona, saw voters reject such a ballot initiative, in 2006, because of fears that the broadly-worded amendment would impact the finances of mixed-gender couples cohabiting without being married.

A revised version of the amendment more specifically targeting gays and lesbians only was approved earlier this month by Arizona voters.

Voters in Florida also approved an anti-gay amendment to lock gays and lesbians out of marriage rights, and adoption rights were constitutionally denied to Arkansas couples of the same gender, as well as unmarried mixed-gender couples.

The Iowa Supreme Court will hear the case starting Dec. 9, the Register article said.

Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.

California to investigate Mormon aid to Prop 8

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California officials will investigate whether the Mormon church accurately described its role in a campaign to ban gay marriage in the state.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission said Monday that a complaint by a gay rights group merits further inquiry.

Executive director Roman Porter says the decision does not mean any wrongdoing has been determined.

Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, accuses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of failing to report the value of work it did to support Proposition 8.

A representative from the Salt Lake City-based church could not be reached for comment

‘Milk’: The story of Harvey Milk finally comes to the screen

By Charlie McCollum

Mercury News

Posted: 11/22/2008 12:00:00 AM PST

At times in recent years, longtime gay activist Cleve Jones was fearful that the legacy of Harvey Milk — his late friend, mentor and one of towering figures in the early gay rights movement — was fading into the mists of history.

Whenever he speaks on college campuses, Jones said, “I ask young people, ‘Do you know who Harvey Milk was?’ If a few hands go up in the audience, I’m pleased.”

This week, against the backdrop of Proposition 8 and the national battle over gay marriage, that may change with the release of “Milk,” the first film about the murdered San Francisco supervisor to make it to the big screen after years of abortive attempts by such directors as Oliver Stone and such actors as Robin Williams. With a high-powered cast headed by Sean Penn and directed by high-profile director Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting”), the movie — already mentioned as an Oscar contender — could thrust Milk back into the spotlight three decades after his death.

In many ways, the story of Milk is the story of the gay rights movement in this country. In the 1970s, Milk went from closeted gay man to civic activist to being the first openly gay man elected to high public office. His success reached beyond the city when, in the fall of 1978, he led the successful campaign to defeat Proposition 6 that would have banned gay teachers from California schools.

But just days later — on the morning of Nov. 27, 1978 — Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered in San Francisco City Hall by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White (who committed suicide in 1985.).White fired five bullets into Milk, the last shot at close range.

Dan Jinks — the co-executive producer of “Milk” — was a student at Los Gatos High School at the time, and he remembers “sitting and watching the candlelight march after the shooting. “He was a hero in a movement that has had very few public heroes.”

“That’s the biggest reason we wanted to make this movie,” said Jinks. “There’s an older gay population that knows who Harvey Milk is but outside of San Francisco, he has become a forgotten figure. Certainly, younger gay audiences don’t know who he is.”

Anne Kronenberg, deputy director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, was Milk’s chief of staff at the time of his death and believes that “Harvey would have loved the film.

“Sean Penn, this hunky Hollywood actor, playing him? Oh, my God, somewhere Harvey is loving the film,” she said with a smile.

Those who knew Milk and lived in the Castro of the 1970s say that the film, directed by Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting”), captures the complexity of the man and the spirit of the place. Jones, who acted as a consultant on the film, said “you look at the crowd scenes on Castro Street, the facades on the buildings, the way people are dressed and it’s just amazingly real.”

But it’s the performance of Penn as Milk that has truly mesmerized those who knew him. Watching Penn, who lives in Marin county, as his former boss “was a remarkable experience,” said Jones. “It goes well beyond an impersonation.”

So much so that actress Alison Pill, who plays Kronenberg, said the cast “really had to keep reminding ourselves that we too were on camera and we couldn’t just sit there in awe of this man’s performance.”

The movie captures Milk not just as a one-dimensional saint but as a multi-faceted human.

In most of the news footage from the time, Milk can come off as “a joker,” Van Sant says. But the director suggests that Milk also could be volatile, intense and not always discriminating in his choice of lovers.

“Harvey was older than most of us and had come out later in life,” said Jones. “So there was a sadness — and a gentleness — to Harvey.”

But what most of those who work with him remember best is his ability to reach people, even those who were initially hostile to the growing gay rights movement in San Francisco.

Milk had “a charisma about him” that could soften even hostile audiences, said Kronenberg. “When he smiled, you just couldn’t help smiling yourself.”

For someone like Jones, understanding the tactic of finding allies in the straight world was life-changing. “At that time of my life, I was incredibly hetero-phobic,” said Jones. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with straight people. And it was working with Harvey, watching him cross all of the boundaries, that changed me.”

And he had a keen sense of how to generate publicity for his causes, whether it was stepping in dog poop to promote a new leash law or challenging Assemblyman John Briggs, the man behind Proposition 6, to a series of debates. “Harvey was always making allusions to theater,” said Jones. “He always referred to the steps of city hall as a stage.”

Yet, it took years for the very theatrical, almost operatic, story of Harvey Milk to be made into a film. Every attempt — most involving scripts based the late San Francisco journalist Randy Shilts’ book “The Mayor of Castro Street” — failed.

Then writer Dustin Lance Black, best known for his work on HBO’s “Big Love,” began researching an original script with the help of those who knew Milk and tape recordings Milk had left behind. When he was growing up as a closeted gay teenager at Ford Ord in Monterey County, Black said, he “found Harvey Milk’s story very inspirational. But then I saw the story starting to fade and I felt it had to be revived.”

In early 2007, Van Sant (who had been involved in one previous attempt to make a Milk picture) agreed to direct Black’s script. Jinks — a friend of Black — called the writer to offer congratulations.

“I was thinking that this was a movie that was set up and on its way to being made,” said Jinks, the son of former Mercury News publisher and executive editor Larry Jinks. “There was actually no financing and — amazingly — no producer.”

The next morning, Jinks and his partner Bruce Cohen (“American Beauty”) became the producers. A few days later, Penn signed on. “In movie terms, that’s pretty fast,” said Jinks.

Now, the question is how film audiences will react to events that took place more than 30 years ago and to a character study of a man many don’t remember or only vaguely recall. Jones feels strongly that there is a universal appeal to Milk’s life and his legacy.

“Harvey Milk was, in many ways, an ordinary man,” he said. “He wasn’t a genius. He wasn’t a saint. His life was full of all of the failings and problems that all of us face.”

“But because he had courage, because he truly loved people, he changed the world.”

Contact Charlie McCollum at cmccollum@mercurynews.com, or (408) 920-5245.

Gay-rights activists call for LDS help

By Aaron Falk

Deseret News

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008

Gay-rights activists again called on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to support a body of proposed legislation aimed at securing rights for gay couples Monday.

So far, however, the church has not responded, Equality Utah’s executive director said.

“It is a little disappointing,” Mike Thompson said during a morning press conference in Salt Lake City. “But we understand … it will take some time. We continue to be optimistic and hopeful.”

“The church is not planning on commenting on civil unions for the time being,” spokeswoman Kim Farah said in a statement e-mailed to the Deseret News on Monday. 

Members of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays said Monday the activist group would be lending its support to the series of five proposed bills called the “Common Ground Initiative” and asked the LDS Church to do the same.

In supporting California’s ban on gay marriage, the LDS Church said in a written statement it “does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional right of churches.”