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Archives – January, 2011
Seizing our national moment
By Adam Bink
A quick thought. Over at AMERICABlog, my friend Joe Sudbay hits on an important point: through anti-equality efforts to repeal the freedom to marry in Iowa and New Hampshire, and President Obama’s “evolving” moves of late, it’s becoming virtually guaranteed that marriage equality will be a subject in the 2012 Presidential debate. I think perhaps especially in the Republican primaries, given Iowa and New Hampshire’s prominence, will it be particularly spotlighted.
It also represents some excellent organizing opportunities around both President Obama and the Republicans. My head’s been firing some neurons on some really interesting useful, and fun projects to help drive the debate. More on that when they’re finalized- including a project Courage will be rolling out next month- but I just think it’s important to keep in mind that this, combined with the Prop 8 trial ongoing, represents perhaps the biggest opportunity to come along in years to take the stage at a national level and win people’s hearts and minds. The possibilities are endless to drive this conversation into American homes. Let’s seize this national moment.
139 Comments January 27, 2011
Poll: New Yorkers support the freedom to marry by record margin
By Adam Bink
We’re blessed with having a bevy of polling outfits in my home state of New York. Sometimes it means overkill, like when an average of 4.25 polls per week on the New York Governor’s race came out every week from September 27th through Election Day last year, when it was clear Cuomo would win in a landslide, while competitive House races remained largely unpolled. But often it’s a good blessing as it helps activists gauge work to do in the state. And often there’s good news.
Today, the Quinnipiac poll, in my opinion quite reliable, has a new poll showing that by a margin of 56-37%- the highest ever- residents support the freedom of same-sex couples to marry. A June 2009 survey showed a 51-41% margin. It’s also a big shift since 2004, when 55% surveyed were opposed.
Among other interesting numbers, the figures reach 55% support in NYC, 54% in “upstate” (an absurdly imprecise term, but we’re stuck with it) and 61% in the suburbs. Republicans are opposed 41-52%.
The test of time and many years’ hard work in getting us to this point. Now we have the hard work of moving New York State Senators to the right place. For those interested, I wrote a few weeks ago about the optics of how things are looking back in New York State. I’ll say it again- to borrow the motto of the New York State lotto, hey, you never know.
92 Comments January 27, 2011
Here's what Chick-Fil-A defenders don't understand: The more they shoot the messenger, the more we're going to dig up new messages!
Jeremy did a great job of pushing hard here -Adam
Cross-posted at Good as You
By Jeremy Hooper
First some background:
The WinShape Retreat Center on Berry College’s mountain campus is just the kind of development to advance Martha Berry’s vision, said Don “Bubba” Cathy, senior vice president of Chick-fil-A, at the retreat center’s grand opening on Wednesday.
Chick-fil-A has spent about $18 million to renovate Berry’s old Normandy buildings — the long-time home of the school’s dairy — during the past year. The company now will run the WinShape Retreat Center, primarily as a marriage seminar and ministry center.
“We felt like God has given us a vision for this,” said Cathy, who led Chick-fil-A’s effort to find a use for the 70-year-old buildings.
WinShape Retreat Center to help mend marriage [Rome News-Tribune]
This is the same retreat center that hosts an annual Marriage Comission seminar, featuring invited guests like Maggie Gallagher, Jennifer Roback Morse, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, and many more who fight in the public square against equality for gay people. A seminar where Chick-Fil-A higher ups both speak and receive personal shout outs (see videos of that here). At a retreat that was born out of Chick-Fil-A profits: Profits you contribute to anytime you eat at one of the chain’s many locations.
So why are we bringing up more Chick-Fil-A stuff here and now? Well, we honestly didn’t want to. But to be perfectly honest: We’re pretty tired of the disingenuous way the company and its defenders keep acting like we were wacky and out-of-line for simply letting people know about the company’s ties to anti-gay advocacy. And we’re also getting annoyed with the way they keep making it all about the one Pennsylvania Family Institute sponsorship, when we’ve brought out soooooooooo much more than just that (and have clearly shown why that particular sponsorship does have demonstrable anti-gay advocacy attached via both its local and national parent).
Here are just two recent examples of defenders denying anti-gay attachment and generally sidestepping the actual message we brought forth:
“A local Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A decided to donate some box-lunches to a seminar called ‘The Art of Marriage: Getting to the Heart of God’s Design,’” reports Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins. “Since then, the fast-food chain has come under attack from liberals, who say these sandwiches are somehow a political statement against homosexuality.”
But Perkins points out that seminar sponsor Michael Geer sees nothing wrong with the donations and has issued a statement encouraging people to “applaud institutions that want to strengthen marriage.”
…
Just last week, homosexual bloggers squawked that the Pennsylvania Family Institute was sponsoring what they called an “anti-gay,” “anti-equality” conference; and worse yet, that a prominent food chain, Chick-fil-A, was a co-sponsor. Of course, the conference was no such thing. The conference’s title is “The Art of Marriage, Getting to God’s Design.”
I happen to know the founder of Chick-fil-A—Truett Cathy—a wonderful, outstanding Christian businessman. Why should they be bashed for supporting a good thing—promoting healthy marriages?
Free to Speak [Chuck Colson's Breakpoint Commentary]
Issue-shirking asides that are especially annoying considering new evidence that was just sent this site’s way in the past 24 hours. Evidence that makes it even more abundantly clear that our loves, our lives, our families, our marriages are not part of this particular company’s vision:
Bottom, undeniable line: Gay consumers are not included in the company’s view of love, family, and marriage. You, as a consumer, may be perfectly fine with that. Heck, you as a consumer might be happy about that. That’s all up to you. Personally, as a vegetarian in a city where Chick-Fil-A is as available as Dodo-Fil-A, I wasn’t likely to be found in one of the company’s stores anyway. So I don’t have a personal hen in this fryer — I’m leaving the consumer choice completely to the fast foodie’s personal discretion, and leaving the outreach choices completely up to the company.
But this site, as a defender of a societal standard that does include gay people, sees it fit to let you know what’s all crunching underneath that pickled bun. And the more the Chuck Colsons and Tony Perkins of the world paint us as radical squawkers who hate free speech for simply utilizing our own, the more compelled we will feel to defend our name. Our well-being. Our truth.
98 Comments January 26, 2011
Hawaii Senate advancing on civil unions
By Adam Bink
Today, the Hawaii Senate is scheduled to move forward on a civil unions bill, following passage of the bill out of a committee.
Via Equality Hawaii:
The Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee passed SB232 SD1, Hawaii’s new civil unions bill, by a 3-2 vote Tues., Jan. 25.
Equality Hawaii thanks Sens. Clayton Hee, Maile Shimabukuro and Les Ihara, Jr., who voted in favor of the measure.
The bill now heads to the full Senate for a second and third reading. The second reading is slated for Jan. 26 with the final reading anticipated Fri., Jan. 28.
We thank all the groups and our members who submitted testimony.
You may remember that Gov. Lingle vetoed the bill last year. At the time, many called for a boycott with ferver. I did some writing (found here) on the tendency to always jump to a boycott of an institution, when there were often better ways to achieve the same goal. As I wrote, I always thought the best, and fastest, way to improve the situation was to elect Rep. Neil Abercrombie as Governor. That is now where he sits, and should the legislation make it to his desk, he will sign it with full support.
I often encounter someone- friend, stranger, colleague, family, otherwise- who express cynicism that the political process works and politicians only do things to ensure their own re-election, etc. etc. Just last week, I had the same argument with another friend. When Gov. Abercrombie signs the bill, proof will emerge again that elections really do often change things for the better. I felt the same way at the DADT repeal signing- sometimes, after you bang on it for awhile, the system really does work.
42 Comments January 26, 2011
Moving forward in Maryland
By Adam Bink
Yesterday, legislation was formally introduced at a press conference in Annapolis to legalize the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. I didn’t have time to write about it the last two days, but some background via press release:
On January 25, 2011, Equality Maryland, along with Senate Majority Leader Rob Garagiola, House Majority Leader Kumar Barve, Senator Rich Madaleno, Senator Jamie Raskin, Delegate Ben Barnes, Delegate Keiffer Mitchell and community partners who support the freedom to marry for gay and lesbian couples in Maryland, will hold a press conference at the state capital to announce the introduction of the Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Protection Act. This bill ends the exclusion of committed same sex couples from civil marriage and protects the religious freedom of churches and synagogues.
[...]
Speakers:
Majority Leader Rob Garagiola (District 15)
· Sen. Rich Madaleno (District 18)
· Sen. Jamie Raskin (District 20)
· Majority Leader Kumar Barve (District 17)
· Del. Benjamin Barnes (District 21)
· Del. Keiffer Mitchell, Jr. (District 44)
· Morgan Meneses-Sheets, Executive Director, Equality Maryland
· Sean Eldridge, Political Director, Freedom to Marry
· Melissa Goemann, Legislative Director, ACLU Maryland
· Maryland Representative from Catholics for Equality
· Representative from Maryland Black Family Alliance
· Representative from the Maryland NAACP
· Sister Jeannine Gramick, Maryland Coordination for National Coalition of American Nuns
· Frank DeBernardo, Executive Director, New Ways Ministry
· Rion Dennis, President, Progressive Maryland
An impressive and worthwhile lineup.
Concurrently, a new poll showed that 51% of Maryland residents support allowing same-sex couples to marry, with 44% opposed.
As we’re doing in New Hampshire with our Granite State Camp Courage trainings, teaching local supporters to organize in their communities, we’re looking to help as much as we can in Maryland, and more on that in the coming weeks.
87 Comments January 26, 2011
