Mayor Booker nails it on the issue of a ballot referendum on marriage equality in NJ
By Adam Bink
Brilliantly put.
2 Comments January 27, 2012
Marriage equality bill clears Washington Senate committee
By Jacob Combs
Today, Washington state’s marriage equality bill was approved in the Government Operations, Tribal Relations & Election Committee on a party-line 4-3 voice vote. The bill will move to a full floor vote next, although no date for the full vote has been announced.
Several Republican amendments to the bill were rejected by the committee, including one that would have required sending the measure to the ballot in November. Nevertheless, opponents of marriage equality in the state have promised that if the bill becomes law, they will attempt to collect the more than 120,000 signatures required before July 6 to trigger a referendum.
Congratulations, Washington, and on to the next vote!
5 Comments January 26, 2012
Other LGBT news from the week so far
By Jacob Combs
This week has, for the most part, been dominated by the landmark news coming out of Washington and New Jersey. Here’s a look a two other stories that were less noticed, but no less notable.
First, the good news. On Tuesday, the Maine legislature’s Education Committee unanimously passed a new anti-bullying bill. The bill, sponsored by openly gay Rep. Terry Morrison, was scheduled to be taken up during the last legislative session (and was expected to pass with strong bipartisan support), but was carried over to the current abbreviated session instead. It is unclear whether the state’s Republican governor, Paul LePage, will support the bill.
And now the bad news. Yesterday, New Mexico Rep. David Chavez introduced a bill providing for a mini-DOMA that would amend the state constitution to recognize marriage as valid only between a man and a woman. New Mexico does not allow gay marriage, but an opinion issued by the attorney general last year held that marriages performed elsewhere were likely valid under state law. You can sign Equality New Mexico’s petition against the bill here.
Finally, AFER’s Matt Baume did an interview this week with Daniel Wein, a Washington, D.C. college student who came up with the idea of bringing the powerful Australian marriage equality ad “It’s Time” to the United States. You can watch Matt’s full interview with Wein below, in which he talks about his plan to get the ad on TV and how he convinced media professionals to help him do so.
3 Comments January 26, 2012
The Maryland marriage bill, religious exemptions and a possible shift in attitude
By Jacob Combs
Three nights ago, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley introduced a marriage equality bill in his state’s legislature. On Tuesday, he held a press conference with LGBT advocates and religious leaders, among them the Rev. Delman Coates, an unlikely supporter of marriage equality.
Rev. Coates does not personally support gay marriage. His church, Mt. Ennon Baptist in Prince George’s County, will probably not be the site of a gay wedding for quite some time. Yet Coates stood next to Gov. O’Malley on Tuesday and announced that he supports Maryland’s marriage equality bill and is confident his church will not be asked to solemnize a union it does not recognize. ”I think everyone is protected here,” he said. “You don’t have to agree with same-sex marriage as a matter of personal religious choice.”
This kind of support may be absolutely critical if Maryland’s bill is going to make any headway this session. The unexpected failure of a marriage equality measure in the Maryland House of Delegates last year was due in part to lawmakers who withdrew or withheld their support for the bill because of pressure from religious institutions in their communities.
As the Baltimore Sun reports, this year’s bill has four significant changes from last year’s:
It is now stated that religious leaders, as well as their institutions, are protected from lawsuits; that the state can’t withhold funds to penalize a religious institution that does not recognize same-sex marriages; and that the state can’t dictate religious doctrine. There also is an attempt to clarify that some programs run by religious institutions can exclude same-sex couples.
Passage in the House this year is still uncertain, and it is likely that the issue will be passed on to a voter referendum if the bill does pass. Still, Rev. Coates’s position is significant and, I hope, may be part of a trend in the attitudes of those who are uncomfortable with gay marriage. When Washington Senator Mary Margaret Haugen announced that she would support Washington’s marriage equality bill, she said in a statement that her personal faith-based opposition to gay marriage had not changed, but that she had decided that she could not cite her personal views in denying others the right to their own views. ”My beliefs dictate who I am and how I live,” Haugen said, “but I don’t see where my believing marriage is between a man and a woman gives me the right to decide that for everyone else.”
I certainly don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t continue to strive to change the hearts and minds of those who oppose gay marriage. But in this case, the distinction between the terms ‘gay marriage’ and ‘marriage equality’ is important. We can be clear that while we wish to show that same-sex unions are just as important and valid as heterosexual ones, we also affirm that marriage equality is fundamentally about the right to have access to marriage and to have the choice of marrying. If we frame marriage equality as a battle to provide equal rights and access to all individuals to enter into the marriages they choose, we can work to gain the support of more people like Rev. Coates and Sen. Haugen, who may not personally support gay marriage but will stand up so that gay couples can have their relationships fully recognized. If we do so, marriage equality can and should be a big tent issue.
11 Comments January 26, 2012
