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Iowa's bipartisan Civil Rights Commission voted unanimously Thursday to formally support the state's Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. In addition, they voted to oppose any constitutional amendment that would ban marriage equality that would officially undo the decision.When President Obama appointed former Democratic Iowa State Rep. John Whitaker as the Iowa director of the Farm Service Agency, he open the door to a candidate who is going to make same-sex marriage in Iowa a major issue in his campaign.Thankfully this bipartisan commission's decision has been announced before these races gather steam. Marriage equality opponents running for office will be hard pressed to come up with a response to a commission whose sole purpose is to protect citizens' civil rights. Would you want to oppose them if you were running for office?
The Republican candidate in the special election for Iowa House district 90, Jefferson County Supervisor Stephen Burgmeier, became known this past spring after he called for resolution to forbid Jefferson County Officials from issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples soon after the Iowa Supreme Court’s issued its opinion upholding a lower court’s decision that granted marriage equality in that state."
Australia's Labor Party has voted to recognize same-sex unions but was unable to go the final stretch and recognize these relationships as marriages due to LGBT organizations and allies being unable to get enough signatures for a resolution that would allow it. A system will be set up to register these couples and will most likely be done through civil unions. The Australian statistic bureau announced it would count these unions as marriages in the next census.Rainbow flags, wedding dresses, high heel boots and disco music were de rigueur in cities across Australia, as thousands of people rallied in support of same sex marriage.Equal Love, the campaign that lead up to the national day of action, wonderfully provided videos of the marches and of the rally in Federation Square.
More than 250 couples even tied the knot, albeit illegally, to mark the occasion.
More than 8,000 people took part in the national protests, organisers said.
In Melbourne there were roses, wedding veils and even a three-tiered cake. But the illegal wedding ceremony held on the steps of the city's registry office felt a little hollow for the 65 participants who bravely committed themselves to their life partners in front of thousands calling for same-sex marriage laws on Saturday.
Participant Kathy said the service was a step in the right direction but expressed frustration at the wait for legislative change.
"I guess it's a little bit sad that we still have to be here fighting for the chance to show our love for each other," she said.
"We're just people and we love each other.
"We want the same rights as anyone else."
But for Adrian and his French partner Romain, Australia's legal position on preserving nuptials for heterosexual couples has an immediate effect.
Romain's visa expires in a month but the pair cannot marry and remain in the same country in a committed relationship together under current law.
The couple will wed in France later in the year but the union will not be legally recognised when they return to Australia.
"I've had heterosexual friends in the same situation and it's been quite easy for them to resolve," Adrian said.
"It just makes you feel like you're not accepted wholly by society."
The service followed a colourful rally at Federation Square in central Melbourne, as almost 4,000 people draped in rainbow colours waved banners and balloons that read "Equal Love".
Contributor Sara Pollaro is one of four founders of Equal Roots Coalition,a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting for equality for all LGBT people and a member of the OUT West Coalition. Stand Out and Fight Together.
Justice Moreno explained that the Court had voted in 2008 to include gay and lesbian people as a suspect class, thus providing special status and protection under the law for this group. The Prop 8 ruling made an exception to equal protection. “You cannot chip away at equal protection…If you make an exception to equal protection, then you don’t have equal protection,” he said."The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there probably has never been less discrimination in America than there is today. But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray to their God. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.Read the whole speech.
On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America."
Check out these amazing pics from my friend Alexandra Gibson's, The Visual Advocacy for Marriage Equality Project, taken of people with their marriage equality signs at Meet in the Middle.
Frank Rich of the New York Times, a loyal ally to the LGBT population, recently wrote a piece La Cage aux Democrats, in which he writes about how Obama's campaign refrain, "Change" is hardly heard now that the steel cold reality of the Oval Office has come into play.And yet the changes aren’t coming as fast as many gay Americans would like, and as our Bill of Rights would demand. Especially in Washington. Despite Barack Obama’s pledges as a candidate and president, there is no discernible movement on repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy or the Defense of Marriage Act. Both seem more cruelly discriminatory by the day.Rich rightly states that the problem doesn't lie with the ever-shrinking GOP or the mostly ignored right-wing "wingnuts" but with the Democrats, who has a legacy under Bill Clinton of enacting DADT and DOMA, after giving the LGBT population promises of support.
So what’s stopping the Democrats from rectifying that legacy now? As [Evan] Wolfson [of Freedom to Marry] said to me last week, they lack “a towering national figure to make the moral case” for full gay civil rights. There’s no one of that stature in Congress now that Ted Kennedy has been sidelined by illness, and the president shows no signs so far of following the example of L.B.J., who championed black civil rights even though he knew it would cost his own party the South. When Obama invoked same-sex marriage in an innocuous joke at the White House correspondents’ dinner two weeks ago — he and his political partner, David Axelrod, went to Iowa to “make it official” — it seemed all the odder that he hasn’t engaged the issue substantively.I couldn't agree more with Rich's piece. I also see a chance for the Democrats to take the lead now or forever pay for the consequences.
“This is a civil rights moment,” Wolfson said, “and Obama has not yet risen to it.”
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. . . Obama has long been, as he says, a fierce advocate for gay equality. The Windy City Times has reported that he initially endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage when running for the Illinois State Senate in 1996. The most common rationale for his current passivity is that his plate is too full. But the president has so far shown an impressive inclination both to multitask and to argue passionately for bedrock American principles when he wants to. Relegating fundamental constitutional rights to the bottom of the pile until some to-be-determined future seems like a shell game.
As Wolfson reminds us in his book “Why Marriage Matters,” Dr. King addressed such dawdling in 1963. “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait,’ ” King wrote. “It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”
On April 4th, a march in Los Angeles will be held on the 41st anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. Hosted, among others, by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, the organization founded by MLK, its focus will be on quality jobs, quality education and safe neighborhoods.
"People of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others. That, it has been, that our movement has been so widely imitated. That our tactics, our methods, our heroes, our heroines, and even our songs, have been appropriated or served as models for others."
SAFE, Straight Advocates For Equality, was formed in the wake of a devastating loss. After the passage of Prop 8, two straight couples got together at a pub in Fresno,CA and dreamed up a straight advocacy group. The idea was outlined on a cocktail napkin (like many good ideas) and SAFE was born. These two couples invited others who were dedicated to equality and the first SAFE meeting occurred.
On February 21, a NY Times op-ed piece written by David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch argued that the federal government should recognize state marriage laws and itself only extend civil union status to relationships recognized in such states. This argument was presented as an attempt to compromise the opposing views on same-sex marriage.
. . . and they're just as motivated as ever.
"The Power" is commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots by starting a petition to expand the Civil Rights Act to the LGBT community.
The new White House Website is up and running, and many agenda issues are addressed clearly. Many questions can be answered here.
