Tag Archives: gay rights

Which Politicians Supported Gay Marriage and When?

by Justin Elder Posted on March 26, 2013

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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage. On Wednesday, the court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which for the last 17 years has prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples. With new polls showing a significant majority of Americans endorse marriage equality—and three new Senators announcing their support in the last week—it’s tough to shake the sense that attitudes to once-polarizing issue have shifted irreversibly. Even RNC chairman Reince Priebus now suggests that support for marriage equality may no longer be a deal-breaker for conservatives.

Over the last three years, dozens of politicians have, to use the phrase du jour, “evolved” on marriage equality, starting with a trickle of mostly progressive politicians and culminating in recent months with mainstream figures in both parties calling for an end to the marriage wars. (Maybe it was all that sushi.) Here’s a look at how it went down:

Mother Jones
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Which Politicians Supported Gay Marriage and When?

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Here Are the 7 Worst Things Antonin Scalia Has Said or Written About Homosexuality

by donkorleone842 Posted on March 26, 2013

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Justice Antonin Scalia has written that “it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings.” Judging by the things he has said in court or written in his legal opinions about gays and lesbians, he doesn’t really mean it.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over whether the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s ban on same-sex marriage are constitutional. Despite Scalia’s long public history of expressing revulsion and contempt for gays and lesbians, on the subject of whether people of the same sex should be allowed to marry, he is among the nine people whose opinions will really matter. Here are the lowlights of Scalia’s anti-gay comments:

“Flagpole Sitting”

What’s a little frat-boy humor between justices? In 2003, during oral arguments in Lawrence v. Texas, the case challenging a Texas law that criminalized homosexual sex, Scalia came up with a tasteless analogy to illustrate the issue. “Suppose all the States had laws against flagpole sitting at one time, you know, there was a time when it was a popular thing and probably annoyed a lot of communities, and then almost all of them repealed those laws,” Scalia asked the attorney fighting the Texas law. “Does that make flagpole sitting a fundamental right?”

Let’s throw gay people in jail because some people don’t like them

In his dissent in Lawrence, Scalia argued that moral objections to homosexuality were sufficient justification for criminalizing gay sex. “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home,” he wrote. “They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.” Some people think obesity is immoral and destructive—perhaps New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should have imprisoned people who drink sugary sodas rather than trying to limit the size of their cups.

Laws banning homosexual sex are like laws banning murder

In his dissent in the 1996 case Romer v. Evans, which challenged Colorado’s ban on any local jurisdictions outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, Scalia brought out an analogy that he’s used to attack liberals and supporters of LGBT rights for years since. “Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings,” Scalia wrote, in the classic prebuttal phrasing of someone about to say something ludicrous. “But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible—murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals—and could exhibit even ‘animus’ toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of ‘animus’ at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct.” It’s true that people generally disapprove of murder, but there’s more going on in laws banning murder than mere disfavor—the rights of the person being murdered, for example.

…And like laws banning child pornography, incest and bestiality

Scalia decided to take the “moral disapproval” argument up a notch in his dissent in Lawrence, writing that the Texas ban on homosexual sex “undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are ‘immoral and unacceptable,'” like laws against “fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity.” Scalia later tees up “prostitution” and “child pornography” as other things he thinks are banned simply because people disapprove of them.

Homosexual couples are like roommates

Not content to analogize laws singling out people on the basis of sexual orientation to laws banning murder, Scalia suggested in his dissent in Romer that the relationships of same-sex partners were comparable to those of roommates. “Colorado’s ban prohibits special treatment of homosexuals, and nothing more,” Scalia wrote. “It would prevent the State or any municipality from making death benefit payments to the ‘life partner’ of a homosexual when it does not make such payments to the long time roommate of a nonhomosexual employee.” Like his “flagpole sitting” comment, this remark goes far beyond the law in expressing Scalia’s basic animus towards same-sex couples, implying that what they experience together cannot even properly be considered love.

First they came for the Cubs haters…

Scalia’s dissent in Romer is a long lament over the supposed “special rights” being granted to people on the basis of sexual orientation. In one section, he complains that banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in hiring amounts to granting gays and lesbians special treatment that Republicans, adulterers, and Cubs haters don’t get. He writes “A job interviewer may refuse to offer a job because the applicant is a Republican; because he is an adulterer; because he went to the wrong prep school or belongs to the wrong country club; because he eats snails; because he is a womanizer; because she wears real animal fur; or even because he hates the Chicago Cubs.”

Have gays and lesbians tried NOT having homosexual sex?

During oral arguments in Lawrence, the attorney challenging the Texas law argued that it was “fundamentally illogical” for straight people to be able to have non-procreative sex without being harassed by the state while same-sex couples did not have the right to be “free from a law that says you can’t have any sexual intimacy at all.” But Scalia pointed out that gays and lesbians could just have sex with people of the opposite sex instead. “It doesn’t say you can’t have—you can’t have any sexual intimacy. It says you cannot have sexual intimacy with a person of the same sex.” Later on in his dissent, Scalia argued that Americans’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law wasn’t violated by the Texas law for that reason. “Men and women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, are all subject to Texas’ prohibition of deviate sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex.” That should sound familiar: It’s the same argument defenders of bans on interracial marriage used to make, arguing that the bans were constitutional because they affected whites and blacks equally.

Scalia has been on a tear lately, calling the Voting Rights Act a “racial entitlement” and ripping into the president in a dissent on Arizona’s harsh anti-immigration law in the middle of an election season. But when it comes to LGBT rights, he’s been off the rails for a long time.

Mother Jones
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Here Are the 7 Worst Things Antonin Scalia Has Said or Written About Homosexuality

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Anti-Marriage Equality Leader Says America Cannot Remain "Half Slave and Half Free"

by sreg2 Posted on March 25, 2013

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Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which since 2007 has successfully fought to ban same-sex marriage in several states and fought to punish legislators and judges who have supported it, offered interesting analogy on the eve of Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Friday, appearing on the show of conservative radio host Steve Deace, Brown argued for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, saying “We need a solution in this country, we cannot be, as Lincoln said, half slave, half free.”

Here’s the transcript from Miranda Blue at Right Wing Watch (emphasis mine):

I think we’re going to win these cases. But say the worst happens and we lose in a broad way—that means that the Court somehow does a Roe, a Roe v. Wade, on marriage and says that all these state constitutional amendments are overturned, gay marriage is now a constitutional right – well, we’re going to press forward on a Federal Marriage Amendment. We’ve always supported a Federal Marriage Amendment, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about it. Some people try and argue, ‘Well, this is against federalism.’ No, our founders gave us a system where we can amend the Constitution. We shouldn’t have to do this, we shouldn’t have to worry about activist judges, you know, making up out of thin air a constitutional right that obviously none of our founders found there and no one found there until quite recently. But if we do, for us, the Federal Marriage Amendment is a way that people can stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough.’ We need a solution in this country, we cannot be, as Lincoln said, half slave, half free. We can’t have a country on key moral questions where we’re just, where we don’t have a solution. And if the Court forces a solution, the way we’ll amend that is through the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Brown is referencing Abraham Lincoln’s famous “House Divided” speech, which was about the inevitability of conflict within the Union over the issue of slavery. In Brown’s analogy, presumably, the states where relationships between same-sex couples are legally recognized are the “slave states.”

The issue of same-sex marriage will most likely be resolved with less bloodshed than the abolition of required. But judging by the evolution in public opinion on the issue, the marriage equality “solution” won’t be the one Brown is hoping for.

Mother Jones
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Anti-Marriage Equality Leader Says America Cannot Remain "Half Slave and Half Free"

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Critics of Gay Ban Battle Boy Scouts Over Results of Internal Survey

by BakenKesselring341 Posted on March 25, 2013

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In the fall of 2012, months before the Boy Scouts of America announced it would consider overturning its decades-old ban on gay Scouts and scout leaders, the group sent a survey to Boy Scouts, parents, and scout leaders. The survey did not include a question about the ban, but it did ask respondents to explain what impacted their decision to recommend the Boy Scouts to their friends and families. Despite the open-ended nature of the question, around 5,500 (about 8 percent) of the 68,441 respondents volunteered that the gay ban negatively affected their “customer loyalty” to the Boy Scouts. Only a tiny fraction of the respondents—a few hundred—expressed explicit support for the gay ban. Now a fight over how to interpret those results is brewing between the Boy Scouts and Scouts for Equality, an independent organization pushing for an end to the gay ban.

“The biggest takeaway from the survey is that there is a ton of energy in the scouting community for changing the policy,” says Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by two lesbian mothers, and founder of Scouts for Equality.

But Deron Smith, director of public relations for the Boy Scouts of America, tells Mother Jones that since the survey didn’t include any specific questions about the ban, and only 9 percent of respondents brought it up in an open-ended question about why they would or wouldn’t recommend the Boy Scouts, “it is insufficient to accurately predict the beliefs of our membership as a whole.” The Boy Scouts’ summary of the survey also noted that people who were happy with Boy Scouts were less likely to comment on the ban, “perhaps since the reinforcement of the policy did not put the current status at risk.” In other words, because the Scouts hadn’t yet considered ending the ban when the survey went out, the Scouts and parents who back it didn’t feel they needed to express their support.

The politics of the gay ban have changed significantly since the fall survey. Several major funders, including UPS, United Way, Merck, and Intel dropped their support for the organization late last year, and in January, the Boy Scouts announced it would reconsider the policy. Since then, pop stars and Tex Mex fast food chains alike have joined the fight against the gay ban. What Scouts, leaders, and parents think about the ban should be clearer soon. A 2013 spring survey specifically addressing the ban was sent to about 1.1 million scouts and their families earlier this month. It includes questions like, “David, a Boy Scout, believes that homosexuality is wrong… Steve, an openly gay youth, applies to be a member. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for this troop to deny Steve membership in their troop?” The results of that survey are expectedâ&#128;&#139; April 4, just over a month before 1,400 members of the group’s national council will vote on whether to end the ban.

Boy Scouts of America

Even if the national ban on gay scouts and scoutmasters is lifted however, local troops could still decide for themselves whether or not to discriminate.

Wahls says that the fall 2012 survey indicates that even conservative areas, there is still some support for overturning the ban. “I think we’ll see at least one inclusive unit in each state, and when people see that the unit is going to the same jamborees, it’s fundraising, it’s flourishing, they will realize that including gay youth and their parents makes the most sense… I had a lesbian den mother* one of Wahl’s mothers, and she was great. It was the most fun unit.”

But just because the certain members support inclusive scouting, doesn’t mean that the ban is going to go down without a fight. On Saturday, Boy Scouts leaders and parents launched a national coalition to “keep sex and politics out of scouting” and “influence the resolution committee.”

“That’s the problem with folks who are intervening on the other side of this issue,” says Wahls. “This isn’t about scouting to them, this about their problem with gay people.”

*A “den mother” is a term for the supervisor of a den of Cub Scouts. Wahl’s “den mother” was also one of his mothers.

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Critics of Gay Ban Battle Boy Scouts Over Results of Internal Survey

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Do Conservatives or Liberals Have Better Gaydar?

by AmberPkk Posted on March 22, 2013

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Last week the conservative world was roiled by prominent Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s dramatic reversal on the issue of gay marriage. Having learned two years earlier that his son, a college junior, is gay, Portman says he struggled deeply with the issue—and finally pulled a Dick Cheney, coming out politically in favor of the same-sex marriages that many grassroots conservatives find viscerally abhorrent. In an op-ed explaining his reasoning, Portman noted that he and his wife were “surprised to learn” that their son is gay—but added that they now have “a more complete picture of the son we love.”

Here’s an interesting question: How do conservatives arrive at their assumptions about who is or isn’t gay—in the absence of those people coming out to them directly?

A new paper just out in the March issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology casts surprising light on this subject.

Continue Reading »

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Do Conservatives or Liberals Have Better Gaydar?

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Pope Francis I is Really, Really Opposed to Gay Adoption

by NielPostma231 Posted on March 13, 2013

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We have a winner. On Wednesday, about an hour after white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was formally announced as the new head of the Catholic Church, replacing the recently retired Pope Benedict XVI.

So what does it mean for the Church? We have no idea—we don’t write for the National Catholic Reporter. But John Allen Jr., who does, has a pretty useful quick guide to Bergoglio that is worth checking out. This part stood out:

Bergoglio is seen an unwaveringly orthodox on matters of sexual morality, staunchly opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he asserted that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children, earning a public rebuke from Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Bergoglio was considered a top candidate for the job the last time there was a conclave, in 2005, when he was subjected to this bit of last-minute research. Here’s the Associated Press press reported it:

Just days before Roman Catholic cardinals begin meetings to select a new pope, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against an Argentine mentioned as a possible contender, accusing him of involvement in the 1976 kidnappings of two priests.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio’s spokesman on Saturday called the allegation “old slander.”

The complaint filed in a Buenos Aires court Friday accused Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, of involvement in the kidnappings of two Jesuit priests by the military dictatorship, according to the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarin.

The bar for Worst Pope Ever is pretty high; here’s hoping Pope Francis I comes nowhere near it.

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Pope Francis I is Really, Really Opposed to Gay Adoption

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VIDEO: Heartwarming Story About Student’s Sex Change Surgery Was Misunderstanding, College Says

by jex34c67 Posted on March 6, 2013

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UPDATE: Collins posted a statement on Wednesday night, that he received “very unexpected news regarding his insurance claim.” Collins reports that his insurance will be covering most of the cost of his breast removal procedure, except for $2,000 needed for his co-pay, travel and care expenses. He says the rest of the money (about $18,000) will be going to the Jim Collins Foundation. In a video Collins posted on YouTube last night, he said, “It’s been a really incredible experience…I honestly couldn’t be happier with the way things are turning out. Also, the Ironman 3 trailer came out! Which I’m super excited about.”

Donnie Collins, a 19-year-old transgender student at Emerson College in Boston, was rejected by his student insurance when he tried to apply for sex reassignment surgery, so brothers at the fraternity he was pledging pitched in to raise money for the operation, according to a heartwarming story published last week by ABC News. But Wednesday, a spokesperson for the university told Mother Jones that, in fact, Collins’ surgery was covered by his student health insurance all along, and the rejection was a mistake by the insurance company.

“Emerson College is pleased to have confirmation that its policy with Aetna will cover Donnie Collins’ surgery,” Carole McFall, a spokesperson for Emerson, told Mother Jones. “After the rejection of his initial request, the college contacted Aetna for clarification—knowing that transgender benefits have been part of its insurance policy with Aetna since 2006. The conversations that followed led to the discovery that the policy language had inadvertently not been updated by Aetna on their internal documents. This inaccuracy led to the rejection of coverage.”

McFall adds that all treatments related to transgender patients are covered, including hormone treatment (which Collins’ mother’s insurance did not cover) and surgery, but could not comment immediately on whether that policy also applies to staff. As the New York Times reported, at least 36 other universities already offer insurance coverage with transgender benefits for students. McFall says Emerson was one of the first universities to do so, and expects that Phi Alpha Tau (which is a “professional communicative arts fraternity” and not a traditional national Greek organization) will issue a statement about the news this evening. The organization already told ABC News that it plans to donate excess funds raised to the Jim Collins Foundation, which provides financial assistance for transgender patients.

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VIDEO: Heartwarming Story About Student’s Sex Change Surgery Was Misunderstanding, College Says

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Al Qaeda Hits Obama for Supporting Marriage Equality

by AshleaMelina844 Posted on March 1, 2013

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Al Qaeda says the United States has another crime to add to its litany of atrocities: support for same-sex marriage.

In the latest issue of Inspire, the Al Qaeda-produced English-language magazine that teaches readers how to cause traffic accidents, torch parked cars, and “make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” the terrorist group goes after President Barack Obama for “evolving” on marriage equality. In an infographic titled “The Nation Standing on ‘No Values,” the magazine also goes after “gay congressman” Barney Frank, who is no longer a congressman. It also cites statistics showing American Catholics are less likely to attend Mass and are increasingly supportive of same-sex marriage.

Here it is:

Al Qaeda is a strict “traditional marriage” outfit.

The image calls Frank a “symbol of the American dream,” which appears meant to be insulting. Let us all tremble at the thought of the infinite masses who never thought about being a terrorist before they stopped to consider Obama shifting his position on same-sex marriage.

Why bring this up at all? Al Qaeda “fundamentally believes there is a moral decay because of Western cultural and social norms,” says Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The issues of Western policy in the region loom larger for sure, but the socio-cultural issues are also important when one goes beyond the surface rhetoric.”

There’s no way to know if Al Qaeda is following the legal developments over same-sex marriage, but it’s certainly fortuitous timing. On Thursday the Obama administration filed a brief to the Supreme Court urging the justices to strike down California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Hat tip: Will McCants

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Al Qaeda Hits Obama for Supporting Marriage Equality

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Chart: Generational Attitudes on Sushi and Gay Marriage Correlate Almost Perfectly

by gorso6 Posted on February 27, 2013

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The younger you are, the more likely you are to support gay marriage. But what if there’s another dimension to this generational shift—the sushi gap? Raw data from a new survey of Americans’ food preferences shows that age-based unwillingness to put delicious uncooked fish in your mouth correlates nearly perfectly with existing data about who disapproves of marriage equality.

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Chart: Generational Attitudes on Sushi and Gay Marriage Correlate Almost Perfectly

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Rights Groups to GOP: Stop Watering Down the Violence Against Women Act

by KetaHeadraf Posted on February 25, 2013

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When House Republicans released their version of the Violence Against Women Act late on Friday, advocacy groups for victims of domestic violence were unanimous: They hate the Republicans’ plan.

“There are over 20 House Republicans who have made public statements in support of a bipartisan VAWA that protects all victims. This is not that bill,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence said in a statement to reporters Friday evening. Monday, Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, called the House GOP’s version of the bill “nothing less than shameful.”

For more than a year, Republicans have been blocking the reauthorization of the once bipartisan Violence Against Women Act, which was first passed in 1994. House Republicans had three main objections to the new VAWA drafted in the Democratic-controlled Senate: It increased the number of visas available to undocumented victims of domestic violence, it denied grant money to organizations that discriminate against LGBT victims of domestic violence, and it allowed Native American tribal courts to prosecute non-tribe members who are accused of abusing their Indian partners.

In order to address House Republicans’ concerns, Senate Democrats removed the section of the draft VAWA that would have granted more visas to undocumented victims of domestic violence who cooperate with police against their abusers. Although law enforcement determines whether an individual has been helpful in an investigation and is therefore eligible for such a visa, Republicans charged that increasing the number of visas available would lead to fraud. This compromise version of the bill passed the Senate last week with 78 votes.

That wasn’t good enough for House Republicans, however. As the Huffington Post‘s Jennifer Bendery reported Friday, the House GOP’s version of the bill lacks the Senate language related to LGBT protections:

Specifically, the bill removes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from the list of underserved populations who face barriers to accessing victim services, thereby disqualifying LGBT victims from a related grant program. The bill also eliminates a requirement in the Senate bill that programs that receive funding under VAWA provide services regardless of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Finally, the bill excludes the LGBT community from the STOP program, the largest VAWA grant program, which gives funds to care providers who work with law enforcement officials to address domestic violence.

Sharon Stapel, executive director the New York Anti-Violence Project, released a statement saying that “Leaving LGBT survivors of violence behind is an unacceptable response to the real violence that LGBT people face every day.” The Centers for Disease Control has found that same-sex couples experience domestic violence at the same rates as heterosexual couples.

As for allowing tribal courts to prosecute non-tribe members accused of abusing their Indian partners, Republicans altered—but did not remove—those sections of the bill. The changes the House GOP made to the law, however, make it harder to prosecute non-tribe members and harder to protect victims, according to the National Congress of American Indians. The Senate version of the bill requires that tribal courts meet the due process standards of the US Constitution. But under the Republican version of the bill, the tribal courts would also have to get the permission of the US attorney general before prosecuting a non-member. That’s a heavy burden.

That’s not the only change the GOP made that will affect American Indian victims of domestic violence. Tribal courts have long dealt with an epidemic of domestic violence by issuing civil protection orders (similar to a restraining order) against non-tribe members. Derrick Beetso, a staff attorney at NCAI, called these protection orders “the only recourse that Native women have against non-Indian abusers.” The House GOP’s version of VAWA makes it harder for tribal courts to issue these sorts of orders. Under the GOP’s plan, even a restraining order-like ruling would now require tribal courts to get permission from the US attorney general. That’s the same standard Republicans want tribal courts to meet in order to prosecute non-tribe members. “Now to exercise civil authority, they have to meet a criminal threshold,” Beetso explains. NCAI opposes this new certification requirement.

The House is expected to consider the bill later this week.

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Rights Groups to GOP: Stop Watering Down the Violence Against Women Act

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