Flickr/Phil Romans

Having enlisted the same PR firm, Schubert Flint Public Affairs, that handled the publicity behind the pro-Proposition 8 push in California last fall, opponents of gay marriage claim to have amassed enough signatures to prevent a new law recognizing same-sex nuptials from taking effect on Sept. 12. A referendum on the issue would be held in November. Back to the voting booth, Mainers.

Boston Herald.com:

Mark Mutty from the Stand for Marriage Maine coalition says it took only four weeks to gather the more than 55,087 signatures necessary to put gay marriage to a vote. But he says signature gathering will continue to ensure there’s more than enough petitions.

http://tiny.cc/Rv0Ic

The first Gay Pride marches were a response to the Stonewall Riot in June 1969

New York’s Stonewall riot in 1969 is credited with launching the gay rights movement – and 40 years on, its impact is still being felt by politicians in the UK.

It seems a world away from modern-day Westminster, where openly gay MPs and peers sit around the cabinet and shadow cabinet tables while politicians on all sides of the House profess their tolerance.

On 28 June 1969, following a campaign of police harassment, patrons of Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn – mostly gay men, lesbians and transvestites – fought back following a raid.

The event prompted the first gay pride marches, inspired a new wave of the equality movement and eventually gave its name to the campaign group Stonewall.

The impact of this movement can be witnessed during the past dozen years when the age of consent was equalised, civil partnerships were permitted and the ban on gays in the military was overturned.

And another legacy has been to allow gay and lesbian politicians into the mainstream – not just demanding equal rights, but as representatives of the wider community.

Click HERE for more info

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.

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.

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.

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.

For more information click HERE

DS Report

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — More than $83 million was donated to support or oppose the ballot initiative that abolished same-sex marriage in California, according to campaign filings released Monday.

The new filings cover the weeks immediately before and after the Nov. 4 election. They show that elected officials, businesses, churches and individuals poured more than $28 million into the campaigns during the contest’s closing days.

The final tallies show that opponents of Proposition 8 raised $43.3 million in 2008 and had a little more than $730,000 left on hand at year’s end. The measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million and had $983,000 left over.

Even before the late contributions were added, the race was the most expensive ballot measure on a social issue in the nation’s history. Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. Gay marriage backers have asked the California Supreme Court to overturn it.

The new disclosure forms reveal that the state Democratic party and Democratic politicians gave heavily in the campaign’s closing days to defeat the gay marriage ban, which overturned the state Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in June.

The Democratic State Central Committee donated $150,000 and spent another $202,647 on mailers and other in-kind contributions. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom funneled $20,000 from the committee he has established to explore running for governor next year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the same amount from her re-election account to the No on 8 campaign.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has been criticized for strongly encouraging its members to support Proposition 8, for the first time assigned a dollar value of nearly $190,000 to its role in getting the initiative passed.

More than half, or $97,000, went to the time staff of the Utah-based Mormon Church devoted to the Yes on 8 campaign, according to the church’s report. Another $21,000 was for the use of church buildings and equipment during the campaign. Most of the rest went to airline tickets, hotels and meals for church officials.

The church said it did not make any cash donations supporting the measure.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission has been investigating the Mormon Church for allegedly underreporting its spending on behalf of Proposition 8.

Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said Monday that the church has complied with all campaign finance laws and that the updated figures come in response to the state’s disclosure deadlines, not the FPPC investigation.

“The value of the Church’s in-kind contribution is less than one-half of one percent of the total funds raised for the Yes on 8 campaign,” Farah said.

Focus on the Family, the evangelical Christian media empire based in Colorado, reported giving $657,000 in cash and services to promote Proposition 8.

The new round of reports also list about 530 small and late donors whose contributions in support of the same-sex marriage ban had not been publicly available until Monday. Proposition 8′s sponsors had sought permission to keep the identities of those contributors secret, arguing that the identifying information in previous campaign reports had led to donors being harassed.

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the donors had to be disclosed for now, but said ProtectMarriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage could proceed with a lawsuit seeking to have the information removed from the secretary of state’s Web site.

Associated Press writer Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.