Tag: gay marriage

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Chicago Mayor urges marriage equality supporters to contact their state reps

In the home stretch for marriage equality in Illinois, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is reaching out to his supporters to turn up the heat on lawmakers in Springfield.

From the Sun-Times:

“The clock is ticking. The House is poised to vote… in the coming days. And I know from talking with several of my friends in Springfield that some members of the House still haven’t decided which way they’ll vote,” Emanuel wrote in a personalized email to supporters Monday.

“If we’re going to pass this bill, it’s crucial that members of the House hear from marriage supporters every single day until the freedom to marry becomes law in Illinois.” [snip]

“It’s time for the laws of our state to reflect the values of our people. It’s time for Illinois to take the lead,” the mayor wrote.

“Real change happens when citizens stand strong, tell their stories and urge their lawmakers to do what’s right….What happens in the next week is up to you. Let’s do what it takes to bring home a victory for the thousands of Illinois families who are counting on us right now.”

There are reports that supporters are still looking for the votes needed to pass the bill in the House.

Click here to find your state representative.

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Rhode Island: 60% support marriage equality

A new poll conducted by the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, found that 60.4 percent of respondents favored allowing same-sex couples to legally wed, a number that is nearly identical to the findings of a May 2009 poll by Brown.

The poll found 26.1 percent of respondents were opposed to same-sex marriage.

The poll surveyed 593 Rhode Island voters from Feb. 21 to 23, and has a 4 point margin of error. 

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Press Conference: President Obama speaks on Prop 8 repeal

At a press conference, President Obama was asked about his administration’s amicus brief filed in the Prop 8 SCOTUS case:

“The specific question presented before the Court right now is whether Prop 8 and the California law is unconstitutional and what we’ve done is we’ve put forward a basic principle which applies to all equal protection cases. Whenever a particular group is being discriminated against, the court asks the question, what is the rational for this. And it better be a good reason. And if you don’t have a good reason, we’re going to strike it down.”

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Finland: Parliament committee rejects marriage equality

Finland, the only Scandinavian country which has not legalized same-sex marriage, has seen a parliamentary committee in Finland has reject a proposed marriage equality bill there:

The bill, proposed by the National Coalition Party (NCP) minister Alexander Stubb proposed the bill, which would have made marriage gender-neutral, therefore allowing same-sex couples to marry.

It was rejected 9 votes to 8, and so it will not go before the full legislature for consideration.

The bill would have made regulations relating to marriage equal for all, irrespective of the gender of the partners. In Finland, gay and lesbian couples can currently register their partnerships, but do not automatically take each others’ surnames, or adopt children, reports YLE.

A signature drive has now begun to place the issue at the ballot box.

(source)

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Ellen Degeneres “files” her own brief with the Supreme Court

“I’ve never filed a brief to the Supreme Court, so I thought I would post mine here. I’m sure someone will tweet it to them. Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life. And in those 4 years, I don’t think we hurt anyone else’s marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they’re fine.   But even though Portia and I got married in the short period of time when it was legal in California, there are 1,138 federal rights for married couples that we don’t have, including some that protect married people from losing their homes, or their savings or custody of their children.

“The truth is, Portia and I aren’t as different from you as you might think. We’re just trying to find happiness in the bodies and minds we were given, like everyone else. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.’  And there’s another famous quote that says ‘A society is judged by how it treats its weakest members.’ I couldn’t agree with that more. No one’s really sure who said it first, so if anyone asks, tell them I said it.” – Ellen DeGeneres, writing on her website, “files” her own brief with SCOTUS
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Obama administration files amicus brief in SCOTUS Prop 8 case

The Obama administration has filed a “friend of the court” brief asking the Supreme Court to uphold the repeal of Prop 8.

From the AP:

While the administration’s friend-of-the-court brief in the Proposition 8 case does not call for marriage equality across the United States, it does point the court in that direction.

A Supreme Court ruling in line with the administration’s argument could have broad implications and almost certainly expand the rights of same-sex couples to wed.

The administration’s nonbinding brief contends that denying gays and lesbians the right to marry violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The document urges the justices to give extra rigorous review to any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

SCOTUSblog writes:

Administration sources said that President Obama was involved directly in the government’s choice of whether to enter the case at all, and then in fashioning the argument that it should make.  Having previously endorsed the general idea that same-sex individuals should be allowed to marry the person they love, the President was said to have felt an obligation to have his government take part in the fundamental test of marital rights that is posed by the Proposition 8 case.  The President could take the opportunity to speak to the nation on the marriage question soon.
In essence, the position of the federal government would simultaneously give some support to marriage equality while showing some respect for the rights of states to regulate that institution.  What the brief endorsed is what has been called the “eight-state solution” — that is, if a state already recognizes for same-sex couples all the privileges and benefits that married couples have (as in the eight states that do so through “civil unions”) those states must go the final step and allow those couples to get married.  The argument is that it violates the Constitution’s guarantee of legal equality when both same-sex and opposite-sex couples are entitled to the same marital benefits, but only the opposite-sex couples can get married.
The eight states that apparently would be covered by such a decision are: California (whose Proposition 8, which denies marriage to couples who already have all of the other marital benefits, would fall), Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Rhode Island.
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Frank Rich: The die is cast on gay marriage

I’d say Frank Rich is dead-on with this one:

“The die is cast on this issue, and the signatories are belatedly getting ahead of history before it flattens them like a tank. Generational turnover alone assumes gay marriage will be a done deal in America; public opinion on this issue has moved faster than any civil-rights battle in our history.”