U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) Endorses Marriage Equality; 4th Sitting GOP Senator To Do So

Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins became the fourth sitting Republican Senator to endorse marriage equality on Wednesday. Collin, Republican of maine, joins her colleagues Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Collins told the Portland Press-Herald:

On Wednesday, however, her campaign issued a statement that many in the gay-rights community had expected much earlier from a lawmaker who is viewed as one of Congress’ friendliest Republicans on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. 

“A number of states, including my home state of Maine, have now legalized same-sex marriage, and I agree with that decision,” Collins said in the statement. “Today, same-sex couples can be legally married in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Nearly 44% of Americans live in a state where same-sex couples can be legally married, and I believe this number will only continue to grow.” 

Earlier Wednesday, Collins was endorsed once again by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization.

Many Democratic LGBT observers (like myself) are dismayed that HRC is endorsing a Republican who had not endorsed marriage equality yet when her opponent is someone who was a champion for marriage equality in Maine as head of the local chapter of the ACLU. Shana Bellows issued a statement in response to the news of the endorsement:

"I've been proud and very privileged to be a leader in the LGBT equality movement for many years. As executive director of the ACLU of Maine, I spent every day bringing Republicans and Democrats together to expand civil liberties and strengthen equal protection under the law. I believe in taking strong stances in favor of Constitutional protections and equal rights even when they're unpopular. Remaining silent on some of the biggest civil rights issues of our generation, even after the voters have spoken, isn't leadership, and it isn't how Maine became one of the most inclusive states in the country for LGBT rights. 

"My opponent, Republican Susan Collins, had the chance to speak up in favor of marriage equality in 2012 or any time in the previous decade. Two years after her constituents made their feelings known at the ballot box, she has refused to break her silence. I believe Mainers need, want and deserve more proactive representation on equal rights -- on allowing LGBT students to learn without fear of bullying, on applying for jobs and going to work without fear of discrimination, and on much more. I'm running for Senate to provide that proactive representation and to expand Constitutional protections for our LGBT community.

I understand that HRC feels like it needs to endorse Republican incumbents over Democratic challengers, but I disagree with the lack of political principle involved. The largest LGBT political organization in the country should make its endorsements based on which candidate actually has the best pro-LGBT record. By endorsing a Republican, HRC is endorsing someone who will vote for Mitch McConnell to be Senate Majority Leader, which will mean absolutely no legislative progress on LGBT rights while Republicans control the Senate.

GRAPHIC: The Flag of Equal Marriage

This is what the flag of the United States would look like if you only included the states where marriage equality is currently law. This ongoing online protest is a project of MakeItEqual.org.

Hat/tip to LGBT Think Progress.

BREAKING! U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (ME-2) Comes Out As Gay

Mike Michaud is a Democratic congressman from Maine and candidate
for Governor.  He publicly confirmed he is gay on Monday November 4.

Mike Michaud is a 6-term Democratic Congressman representing the 2nd Congressional District of Maine who is also running for the Democratic Nomination for Governor of Maine (and has been the leading contender in most polls). In articles published on Monday Michaud revealed that he is gay.

Growing up in a large Franco-American Catholic family, it’s never been in my nature to talk about myself. I write this now merely to let my opponents and the outside interests who fund them know that I am not ashamed of who I am. And if seeing someone from my background, in my position, openly acknowledge the fact that he’s gay makes it a little bit easier for future generations to live their lives openly and without fear, all the better. 

I don’t plan to make my personal life or my opponents’ personal lives an issue in this campaign. We’ve had enough negativity in our politics and too many personal attacks over the last few years. We owe it to the people of Maine to focus on how we get our state back on track.

Michaud has a reputation as one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, with a 10% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America and is a card-carrying member of the Blue Dog caucus in the U.S. House. Wow, a 58-year-old, openly gay, pro-life Democratic candidate for Governor of Maine.

Michaud's announcement means there are now 7 openly LGBT members of the U.S. House of Representatives, with Michaud having the most seniority.

It should be an interesting to watch how various political constituencies react to Michaud's announcement!

Hat/tip to Chris Geidner

33% Of U.S. Population (100+ Million People) Living With Marriage Equality

One decade ago there were exactly zero states that had marriage equality, even though the Defense of Marriage Act had been federal law for seven years. In November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state constitution required equal marriage rights for same-sex couples under the law and issued an order to go in effect on May 17, 2004. Note that the second state, Connecticut did not have marriage equality until November 2008 (and for a brief 173 days starting in June 2008 Californians had access to same-sex marriage prior to the passage of Proposition 8). So, really in a little over 5 years marriage equality has increased from roughly 10 million to another order of magnitude.

With New Jersey becoming the 14th state to enact marriage equality this week there are now well over 100 million people who live in states with marriage equality, about 33% of the entire U.S. population.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) summaries the astonishingly rapid progress:

State	Date Effective	Population	Percent
Massachusetts	May 2004	6,547,629	2.12%
Connecticut	Nov. 2008	3,574,097	1.16%
Iowa	Apr. 2009	3,046,355	0.99%
Vermont	Jun. 2009	625,741	0.20%
New Hampshire	Jan. 2010	1,316,470	0.43%
Washington, D.C.	Mar. 2010	601,723	0.19%
New York	Jun. 2011	19,378,361	6.28%
Washington	Dec. 2012	6,724,540	2.18%
Maine	Dec. 2012	1,328,361	0.43%
Maryland	Jan. 2013	5,773,552	1.87%
Delaware	Jun. 2013	897,934	0.29%
California	Jun. 2013	37,253,956	12.07%
Minnesota	Aug. 2013	5,303,925	1.72%
Rhode Island	Aug. 2013	1,052,567	0.34%
New Jersey	Oct. 2013	8,791,894	2.84%
	Total	102,216,846	33.11%

Any predictions for when the United States will hit 50%? Remember Illinois, Hawaii, New Mexico and Oregon are widely expected to legalize civil marriage for same-sex couples sooner rather than later.

WATCH: History Of Marriage Equality Laws In United States

With Delaware's dramatic movement yesterday to become the 11th state to enact marriage equality since 2003 (and the second state this year after Rhode Island) it's a good time to look back at how far the issue of marriage equality has come in the last four decades. The cool graphic created by The Atlantic (shown above) does just that.

For the record these are the years and states that have enacted marriage equality:

• 2013: Delaware, Rhode Island
• 2012: Maine, Maryland, Washington
• 2011: New York
• 2009: New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa, District of Columbia
• 2008: Connecticut (and California*)
• 2003: Massachusetts

*California had marriage equality from June 15, 2008 to November 5, 2008. California is the only state where same-sex couples have had the right to marry and then have had that right revoked by the passage of Proposition 8. Whether Proposition 8 is constitutional is a question the United States Supreme Court is currently considering, in the case Hollingsworth v Perry. 

As I reviewed the 11 states that have enacted marriage equality I noticed that the only Republican governor to sign a marriage equality bill into law was Jodi Rell of Connecticut, and she did so after the state Supreme Court had already enacted marriage equality and the legislature passed a bill codifying the Kerrigan decision. Republican governors in California (2005 and 2007), New Jersey (2011) and Vermont (2009) have all vetoed marriage equality bills. Only Governor Jim Douglas's veto has been over-ridden. Chris Christie's veto is subject to override until January 2014 and may happen.

All 11 states that have passed marriage equality are "blue states," i.e. states that consistently vote for Democratic candidates for president. Iowa is probably the least blue of these states, and is primarily a red state at the state level. New Hampshire is probably purplish-blue, and has had a Republican legislature since marriage equality was enacted. These are probably the two states where marriage equality is the most vulnerable to repeal efforts. However, in the last few years the movement has been in the direction of more marriage equality. In fact, since 2004 every year has ended with more people living in jurisdictions that allow same-sex couples than the year before. Does anyone think that process is going to be reversed? Only bigoted heterosexual supremacists, but they are quickly receding into a vortex of delusion, denial and demagoguery.

All eyes are now looking at Illinois and Minnesota where there are Democratic majorities in the legislature and Democratic governors eager to sign marriage equality bills into law. And California may have marriage equality after June's Supreme Court decision. In 2014, there will be ballot measures on marriage equality in Oregon, Nevada (and possibly California).

New sources say that Minnesota may enact marriage equality as soon as next week!

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

GRAPHIC: Current Map Of Marriage Equality

USA Today published an update on the current state of marriage equality and published the above graphic so that readers could visualize the changes.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Saturday Politics: Majorities In 12 States Support Marriage

In 2012, there was majority support for marriage equality in 12 states and the District of Columbia, according to a recent report released by UCLA's Williams Institute. Those states were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Maine, Washington, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Colorado and California. (The District of Columbia had the largest support, at 62%.) The seven jurisdictions in bold already have marriage equality, while Hawaii (54%), Oregon (54%), New Jersey (51%), Rhode Island (50%), Colorado (50%) and California (50%) all have either civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships. Hawaii, Oregon, Colorado and California all have voter-approved state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. However, Oregon and possibly California and New Jersey may be voting to enact marriage equality at the ballot box in the near future.

The Williams Institute report's analysis indicates that ballot measures in several states (including Oregon, California and New Jersey) may be successful in the very near future.

This research brief identi ed that there 12 states plus the District ofColumbia presently with a majority (50% or above) in support of same-sex marriage. And, given current trends in public opinion on this issue, an additional 8 states will join this group by 2014. 

[...] 

Finally, there are 10 states that have previously passed constitutionalamendments to not introduce same-sex marriages that now have a majority or are within five percentage points of a majority in favor same-sex marriage (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). These states may be the future political arenas where existing constitutional amendments may be repealed in order to perform marriages for same-sex couples in those states.

This does put the poll question I previously asked back on the table: now that majority support is indicated for marriage equality, should those in favor of it use the ballot box to enact our public policy aims of enacting the civil right to civil marriages in those states? The dilemma is that it has long been a policy position of civil rights activists that "civil rights should never be subject to the tyranny of the majority." So, to now say that we will use the majority now that it is in our favor could be perceived as hypocritical. However, there are clear real and tangible harms to LGBT citizens by sticking to principle and not using every available means to end discrimination against same-sex couples as soon as possible. What do you think? Vote now:

Should New Jersey LGBT activists agree to allow a referendum on marriage equality in November 2013?
	Yes, since polls indicate a wide majority support marriage equality, the measure would pass easily.
	No,because allowing a vote on marriage equality violates a core principle of civil rights.
	Unsure, this is a tough question!
pollcode.com free polls

The Williams Report gives the level of support for marriage equality in every state in 2004 (numbers in green) and 2012 (numbers in blue) and uses that data to conclude that the rate of support is about 1.6 percentage points per year, on average, in every state. (It should be noted that that is the average rate; in some states the rate of increase of support for marriage equality is increasing at a more rapid rate, in some it is doing so at a slower rate. The key point is that support for marriage equality is increasing in every state.) This is shown in the figure below:

I think the proper thing to do is probably wait for the United States Supreme Court to weigh in on the civil rights of LGBT people in the Hollingsworth (California's Proposition 8) and Windsor (Defense of Marriage Act) cases. If the judiciary branch refuses to play its traditional role in our democracy of protecting the civil rights of minorities, then going to the ballot box to enact those rights seems perfectly justifiable.

Godless Wednesday: Which States Are Less Religious?

This is not your typical red/blue map of party affiliation or presidential preference but instead a map depicting religious affiliation. This map was produced by David Jarman of DailyKos.com who explains it thusly:

The red states are those where the plurality of adherents are Evangelical Protestants; the blue states are home to a plurality of Catholics. Yellow are Mainline Protestants, while green states have "Other" as a plurality, which clearly means Mormon in the three states in question.

The curious aspect of the map is that Jarman decided to ignore the data of "unclaimed" persons in each state. These are people who are either non-believers (welcome, my fellow godless Americans!) or are not associated with any "organized" religion. If he had included that data, the map would look very different, but he was trying to show the correlation between evangelical belief and partisanship.

However, if you look at the actual data yourself (which is publicly available), you can see that in most states the unclaimed dominate the population, with the Top 5 "unclaimed" states being Maine (72%), Oregon(69%), Vermont (66%), Alaska (66%), and Nevada (66%).

That's today's lesson in godlessness, folks!

Obama Lobbies For Illinois Marriage Equality Bill

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that President Obama has been in personal communication with legislators in Illinois to lobby them in support of marriage equality legislation which is expected to be considered during a lame-duck session in January.

"While the president does not weigh in on every measure being considered by state legislatures, he believes in treating everyone fairly and equally, with dignity and respect," White House spokesman Shin Inouye told the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday.

"As he has said, his personal view is that it's wrong to prevent couples who are in loving, committed relationships, and want to marry, from doing so. Were the President still in the Illinois State Legislature, he would support this measure that would treat all Illinois couples equally," Inouye said.

The lead sponsors of the "Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act," state Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago) and state Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago), intend to put the measure up for a vote during the upcoming January lame-duck session.

The toughest challenge for gay marriage backers will be winning passage in the Illinois House. Prospects for approval in the Illinois Senate--where Obama once served--are brighter.

The practical impact of Obama urging his home state to legalize gay marriage is to prod--and give political cover to--reluctant Democrats from conservative suburban and Downstate districts.

Illinois has a civil union law that went into effect on June 1, 2011. Governor Pat Quinn (D) is one of the most unpopular governors in the country but has stated his support for marriage equality. Illinois's current discriminatory marriage law is being challenged in court and the governor and attorney general are refusing to defend it, since they support marriage equality as well.

Obama announced publicly in May 2012 that he supports marriage equality and released statements in support of marriage equality ballot measures in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington during the 2012 presidential election campaign. This is the first state marriage equality bill that Obama has lobbied for, but since he started his political career as a member of the Illinois legislature, it is expected that he has a personal stake and interest in his home state enacting marriage equality.

Hat/tip to Talking Points Memo

Marriage Equality Begins in Maine

Same-sex couples in Maine were able to start getting civil marriage licences at 12:01am Saturday night and legally married soon afterwards. Above is a picture of the very first couple to get married in Portland, Maine: Michael Snell and Steven Bridges (right).

Maine becomes the 8th state in the country where marriage equality is legal, and the first to do through passage of a citizen-initiated ballot measure. Seems like the world is not ending even though literally hundreds of thousands of more citizens are getting access to marriage equality in the next few days (Maryland's marriage equality law goes into effect on Tuesday January 1st).

WA Ref. 74 Near 54-46 Win For Marriage Equality

The passage of Washington's Referendum 74 was known sometime last week when the heterosexual supremacists conceded and preliminary election results showed a decisive 52%-48% victory for marriage equality.

Washington is now a 100% vote-by-mail state now so their election results take a little bit longer to be finalized. The very latest results (from November 21) show that Referendum 74 is being approved by over 225,000 out of well over 3 million votes, with 1,652,306 in favor of marriage equality and 1,426,742 against it, which in percentages is 53.66% to 46.34%.

The other states where marriage equality also passed currently indicate that in Maine Question 1 passed 52.59% to 47.41% (369,220 to 332,904 although bizarrely the Maine Secretary of State does not have easily accessible online election results in 2012? #FAIL!). In Maryland Question 6 passed 52.4% to 47.6% (1,373,504 to 1,246,045).

In Minnesota, the attempt to amend the state constitution to prohibit marriage equality failed when only 47.44% of the total votes cast were in favor of the measure, with 1,510,434 No votes and 1,399,916 Yes votes.

I find it fascinating that there are millions and millions of people who voted for marriage equality this year. (Of course in 2008, there were even more people who voted for marriage equality by voting No on Proposition 8 but there were even more millions who voted against it.)

Black Gay Blogger Elected to Maine State House!

Craig Hickman, elected Maine State Representative!

There are so many election results from around the country from Tuesday November 6 that it is taking awhile to catch up on all the good news. Regular readers of this blog will know that I covered the race of the 51st Assembly District of California between my friend (and fellow LGBT activist) Luis Lopez and Jimmie Gomez fairly closely (especially since I live in the district and I tend to support openly LGBT candidates).

However, I just learned that my fellow openly gay, Black blogger Craig Hickman (who created the Craig Hickman's Tennis Blog that I post my Grand Slam predictions to) has been elected to the Maine House of Representatives! Hickman, a 44-year-old Democrat, won with 2,915 votes to 2,057 votes for Republican Scott Davis in the 82nd House District, which covers the towns of Winthrop and Readfield.

Here is a short bio for Hickman:

Hickman is the son of a Tuskegee Airman and a wise woman. He’s also a Harvard graduate, President of the Rotary Club of the Winthrop Area, National Poetry Slam champion, award-winning author, chef, and founder of Craig Hickman’s Tennis Blog. He grows the best collards, tomatoes, okra, beets and butternut squash around. People call his eggs magic. He’ll bring his unparalleled passion for life and his strong, independent voice to Augusta to fight for the people of Maine and move us toward prosperity.

By winning election, Hickman becomes one of the very few Black LGBT people ever elected as a state representative in this country. I know of approximately a half-dozen openly gay, African-Americans who are currently serving as state legislators: Marcus Brandon of North Carolina,  Gordon Fox of Rhode Island, Mary Washington of Maryland and Simone Bell and Keshia Waites of Georgia. Hickman's achievement is even more impressive in that he was not associated with the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the national organization devoted to promoting and supporting the election of LGBT politicians around the United States.

Jason Bartlett of Connecticut and Rashad Taylor of Georgia used to be state legislators but are no longer in office.

Hat/tip to Tennis Now

Queer Quote: Legalizing Gay Marriage & Marijuana

This funny comment is going viral on the interwebs:

It all makes sense now: Gay marriage legalized on the same day as marijuana makes perfect biblical sense. Leviticus 20:13 "A man who lays with another man should be stoned". Our interpretation has just been wrong for all these years.

The quote is attributed to Katie Stephens and appeared on George Takei's Facebook stream.

Queer Quote: Frank Schubert Reacts To Epic Fail

Frank Schubert is the man behind the anti-gay, deceptive ads promoting the heterosexual supremacist position on all four ballot measures in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington.
After losing all four ballot measures, Schubert issued an official statement which  is today's "Queer Quote":

"I am, of course, very disappointed with the very narrow defeat it appears we’ve suffered in each of these four states. It appears that we have lost by a point or two in each state. It’s important to consider that these battles occurred in a very difficult political landscape. We were contesting in four deep blue states and were outspent very badly in all of them – at least four-to-one, and greater in some states. I have to accept that losing in this very difficult political environment was always a real possibility. 

"I firmly reject the spin surely to come that this result signals a fundamental shift in American opinion in support of gay marriage. It means that we very narrowly lost four difficult contests in four very deep blue states after being badly outspent. Despite the outcome, I am extremely grateful to all the donors, volunteers, staff, vendors and committee members who were part of our team. I am honored to have played a role in these campaigns to preserve marriage in America. It is an institution worth defending, and I look forward to continuing to play a role in this historic debate." 

Of course you would probably continue the fight for discrimination too if you made more than $3 million this year alone!

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Marriage Equality Approved In Maine and Maryland

LGBT history was made last night when voters in Maine and Maryland voted to approve marriage equality at the ballot box for the first time in history.

Question 1 Results in Maine:      312,021 (53%)   YES  to  272,613 (47%) NO
Question 6 Results in Maryland: 1,208,068 (52%) YES to 1,112,998 (48%) NO

The victory in Maine was particularly sweet since in November 2009 a referendum on that state's enacted marriage law was rejected by a vote of 53% to 47%.

The victory in Maryland was even more exciting because there had been numerous questions raised about the way the campaign was run with Freedom to Marry, the primary organization in charge of the campaign to win marriage equality nationwide, initially refused to engage in the battle in the state. However, as polls consistently showed that Maryland's Question 6 was ahead (albeit far less ahead than Maine's Question 1) the LGBT activist community coalesced around Maryland and important high-profile donations from billionaires raised the profile of Maryland's attempt to make history.

With wins in Maine and Maryland there are now 8 states in which marriage equality is legal (or will be soon). Marriage is also legal in the District of Columbia and there are nearly 18,000 married same-sex couples in California and there may be many more married lesbian and gay couples soon depending on the Supreme Court's decision to take up the Proposition 8 appeal.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

0 Days Until Election: Obama 290, Romney 191

Today is election day and the TPM Electoral Scoreboard indicates that Obama-Biden will win the election with at least 290 electoral votes. The only undecided states at this time are Florida (29), Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15) with the only change from the electoral prediction I posted 2 days ago was that Virginia has slipped from being in the Blue column to the yellow column. The Romney-Ryan team has essentially been stuck at 191 electoral votes for the last week.

Happily, since Virginia's polls close at 7pm on election day it is very possible that the networks may be able to call these states rather early in the evening, and since Romney basically need to win all three of these states and flip a blue state red, the overall presidential election results may be known at that time.

That will not mean there will not be a lot more races to follow even after the presidential election is called. I will be interested in the four marriage initiative results (in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington), whether Tammy Baldwin gets elected to become the first lesbian U.S. Senator and what happens with important California propositions (Prop 30, 34 and 36).

What results are you looking out for in today's elections?

POLL: Maine Marriage Equality Fight Now Very Close

The latest poll from PPP on Maine's Question 1 to legalize marriage equality shows that  the pro-equality side has a slim 52% to 45% lead. This is a much smaller lead than has been found in previous polls of Maine which at one point indicated a nearly 22-point gap in favor of marriage equality. The margin of error in the latest poll is ±2.2 percentage points, so technically it no longer indicates a majority in support of marriage equality.

PPP characterizes the current poll this way:

Maine's referendum to legalize gay marriage is leading for passage by a 52/45 margin, numbers virtually unchanged from 52/44 in our last survey. What we've found historically with these gay marriage ballot measures though is that undecided voters tend to end up voting anti-gay so if I had to guess this is something more like a 52/48 advantage and at that point it can go either way- this is likely to be a pretty close vote. 

Maine is widely considered the best-run of the three ballot measure campaigns to enact marriage equality and the one most likely to succeed. Hopefully, the forces of equality will indeed be successful on Tuesday and finally end the streak of losing "popular votes" on whether the fundamental right to marry should be extended to same-sex couples.

Maine Has My Favorite Pro-Marriage Equality Ad

I think this is the best pro-marriage equality ad that I have seen so far this year from all of the four marriage equality ballot measure states of Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. It has a straight married couple named Eric & Jen Humphrey, clearly in love, talking directly to the camera and matter-of-factly stating the obvious: allowing the same-sex couple down the street to get married will have absolutely no impact on the lives of the straight couple. This message is delivered twice in a mere 30 seconds. First, with the sentence "Allowing the same-sex couple down the street to get married doesn't change our marriage. We know who we are and what we mean to each other." This is a devastating rebuke to the claim that marriage equality somehow impacts heterosexuals' marriages.

Then the "no impact" message is repeated again at the end with  "Allowing loving, committed couples to get married isn't going to change our relationship one bit; we're voting Yes on 1." It's also significant (and effective) that it is the husband in the couple who delivers the no impact line, since almost always, men are more opposed to marriage equality than women.

And so the ad basically summarizes a basic truth at the core of the ballot measure fights: marriage equality only impacts the people who would be able to get married. The heterosexual supremacists have to try and scare and confuse voters that somehow allowing gay people to get married is going to have some detrimental impact on children, on society, on marriage itself. But these claims are not based on facts or evidence but are appeals to simple homophobia, discrimination and ignorance. This ad rejects these appeals and re-affirms the basic principle at stake of "live and let live." I would have liked to see an inclusion of the golden rule in the ad, but it's corollary is in there and is also effective.

Anti-Gay Marriage Side Using Same Ad Everywhere

The heterosexual supremacists who are paying Frank Schubert to run all four of the anti-gay marriage ballot campaigns in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington should be annoyed that he is charging each one of them for his services (to the tune of millions of dollars personally) while he is creating the same, identical campaign in each state. Surely there should be a buy one, get 3 free deal?
Look at this new video compilation of the identical ad airing in four different states from Leadership Lab's David Fleischer who has been fighting anti-gay marriage initiatives since the first one in 1998(!) in Hawaii which demonstrates that the fight around LGBT equality at the ballot box has always been about reconciling in heterosexual minds the connection(s) between homosexuality and children, regardless of what the actual issues (i.e. gay marriage) has actually been about. Do heterosexuals really think it is okay for their own kids to group up to be gay or lesbian, or would they try and take some action (i.e. vote) to stop that from occurring, if they could? Logically, of course, most parents must realize that there is no action that can impact their child's sexual orientation, but emotionally they may be able to be manipulated to vote a certain way to indicate that they wish they could do something about that.
Eventually, homosexuality will not been by a significant majority of heterosexuals as a "disorder," and that is the day when these ads by Schubert will stop working to enact discriminatory ant-gay laws at the ballot box. The million-dollar question this year is, is 2012 the year that happens? We'll know more in just over a week. Stay tuned!

Obama Picks Pro-Equality Side In Gay Ballot Fights

Huge news today from the Obama for America campaign on the issue of marriage equality. The president's re-election team today sent out statements to the groups fighting to enact marriage equality in Washington, Maryland and Maine saying that President Obama is endorsing the pro-equality side in all four of these ballot measure campaigns.

The official statement of the President in favor of Washington's Referendum 74 (issued by Washington state Obama for America press secretary Paul Bell) is:

“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the president believes in treating everyone fairly and equally, with dignity and respect. Washington’s same-sex marriage law would treat all Washington couples equally, and that is why the President supports a vote to approve Referendum 74.”

While the official statement on Maine's Question 1 issued by Obama for America's Northeast regional press secretary Michael Czin reads:

"While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the president believes in treating everyone fairly and equally, with dignity and respect. The president believes same-sex couples should be treated equally and supports Question 1."

The official statement on Maryland's Question 6 from Obama for America spokesperson Frank Benenati reads:

“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the president believes in treating everyone fairly and equally, with dignity and respect. Maryland’s same-sex marriage law would treat all Maryland couples equally, and that is why the president supports Question 6.”

Way back in April the Obama-Biden campaign released a statement in opposition to Minnesota's Proposition 8 copycat measure which would amend that state's constitution to ban marriage equality. That statement read (in part):

"While the President does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples. That's what the Minnesota ballot initiative would do -- it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples."

Today's statements are especially significant because they show that not only is the President opposed to discriminatory measures like Minnesota's but they are also in favor of affirmative measures like Question 1 in Maine, Question 6 in Maryland and Referendum 74 which would all enact marriage equality if passed by voters on November 6th.