08/08/19: Married 11 Years Today!

Although we have been boyfriends since 1991 and living together since 1994, domestic partners since 1999, and civilly united (in Vermont) since 2000, we were only married in California on August 8, 2008 (Roger Federer's 27th birthday!) before Proposition 8 passed and after the California Supreme Court legalized marriage equality in the Golden State with the In Re Marriage Cases decision and upheld my marriage (and 18,000 others!) in Strauss v. Horton.

The above pictures were taken on our latest vacation in Valencia, Spain in July 2019.

Happy anniversary, hubby!

08/08/18: My 10th Wedding Anniversary Is Today!

Today is 08/08/18, the tenth anniversary of my wedding day on 08/08/08. Here are some rare pictures of MadProfessah with The Other Half, taken on our recent trip to Reykyavik (Iceland) and Paris (France) in summer 2018. (See my Instagram feed for more images from our trip, and lots of pictures of my the outfit I wear every day!)

Coincidentally, August 8 is a famous tennis birthdate: (Roger Federer is 37 and Felix Auger-Aliassime is 18)

POLL: Support for marriage equality now 67% Yes 33% No

I'm still on vacation in Iceland but could not resist posting the information that public support for marriage equality has now been completely inverted in the last two decades, from 2:1 opposition to 2:1 support! I have been working for and involved with the freedom to marry movement since the early 1990s so this result is quite heartwarming.

Hat/tip USA TODAY

GOOD NEWS! Australia Plebiscite Shows 61.6% Support Marriage Equality

The results of the months-long mail-in plebiscite on marriage equality in Australia were released yesterday and show that a vast majority of the country supports marriage equality down under!

The New York Times reports:

MELBOURNE, Australia — A solid majority of Australians voted in favor of same-sex marriage in a historic survey that, while not binding, paves the way for Parliament to legally recognize the unions of gay and lesbian couples. 

Of 12.7 million Australians who took part in the government survey, 61.6 percent voted yes and 38.4 percent voted no, officials announced on Wednesday morning. Participation was high, with 79.5 percent of voting-age Australians sending back their postal ballots. 

“The Australian people have spoken, and they have voted overwhelmingly ‘yes’ for marriage equality,” said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who called the survey in a move described by advocates as a delay tactic devised to appease his party’s far-right faction. “They voted ‘yes’ for fairness, they voted ‘yes’ for commitment, they voted ‘yes’ for love.” 

The high turnout and unequivocal result amounted to a rebuke for Australia’s most conservative politicians, many of whom saw a majority of their constituents vote to support same-sex marriage despite their arguments against it.

Woo hoo! I think it may be time to plan a return trip to Oz in 2018!

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Jacinda Adern, 37-yo PM of New Zealand, is Agnostic

Jacinda Adern is set to become the next Prime Minister of New Zealand. She is 37 years old and a former Mormon. She says she left the church over its homophobic stances on LGBT equality and same-sex marriage recognition. That was the main reason why I was going to blog about her but then I saw these quotes:

“I have a real respect for people who have religion as a foundation in their lives. And I respect people who don’t.“I’m agnostic. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.“I just think people should be free to have their personal beliefs and not be persecuted for it, whether they be atheist or staunch church members."

Clearly New Zealand politics is very different from American politics! It is unlikely that the not-yet-sworn-in leader of our country would say something. After all, atheists are the one group that a majority of poll respondents still feel should not become President.

Germany's Marriage Equality Law Is Now In Effect!

Germany's equal marriage law, called "marriage for all" went into effect on yesterday. It was passed on June 30 by a vote of 393-226 in the German parliament when Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition agreed to allow a free vote on the matter, even though she herself voted against the measure. The bill was signed into law by the German president in late July.

The first couple to be married under the legislation was a gay male couple from Berlin named Karl Kreile and Bodo Mende who had been together for 38 years.

The fact that Germany now has marriage equality was one reason my husband I decided to finally visit Berlin in August for our 9th wedding anniversary.

Hat/tip to the Washington Blade.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Edie Windsor, 88, Is Dead

Edith Windsor was the named plaintiff in the landmark civil rights lawsuit, Windsor v. United States, which challenged the constitutionality of the 1996 "Defense of Marriage Act." In 2013, the United States Supreme Court struck down DOMA and two years later marriage equality was the law of the land following another high court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Windsor died this week at age 88, and President Barack Obama issued a statement in memoriam:

America’s long journey towards equality has been guided by countless small acts of persistence, and fueled by the stubborn willingness of quiet heroes to speak out for what’s right.  

Few were as small in stature as Edie Windsor – and few made as big a difference to America. 

I had the privilege to speak with Edie a few days ago, and to tell her one more time what a difference she made to this country we love.  She was engaged to her partner, Thea, for forty years.  After a wedding in Canada, they were married for less than two.  But federal law didn’t recognize a marriage like theirs as valid – which meant that they were denied certain federal rights and benefits that other married couples enjoyed.  And when Thea passed away, Edie spoke up – not for special treatment, but for equal treatment – so that other legally married same-sex couples could enjoy the same federal rights and benefits as anyone else. 

In my second inaugural address, I said that if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  And because people like Edie stood up, my administration stopped defending the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in the courts.  The day that the Supreme Court issued its 2013 ruling in United States v. Windsor was a great day for Edie, and a great day for America – a victory for human decency, equality, freedom, and justice.  And I called Edie that day to congratulate her. 

Two years later, to the day, we took another step forward on our journey as the Supreme Court recognized a Constitutional guarantee of marriage equality.  It was a victory for families, and for the principle that all of us should be treated equally, regardless of who we are or who we love. 

I thought about Edie that day.  I thought about all the millions of quiet heroes across the decades whose countless small acts of courage slowly made an entire country realize that love is love – and who, in the process, made us all more free.  They deserve our gratitude.  And so does Edie.  

Michelle and I offer our condolences to her wife, Judith, and to all who loved and looked up to Edie Windsor.

Hat/tip to Talking Points Memo

#EqualityDay: Today is Anniversary of Obergefell, Hollingsworth and Windsor

Today is June 26, which some people are calling #EqualityDay, since it is the anniversary of numerous landmark Supreme Court decisions that have expanded equal rights for LGBT citizens. The most recent are 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges, which resulted in the dissolution of all the remaining state-based prohibitions on marriage equality, and 2013's U.S. v. Windsor which struck down the section of the so-called federal Defense of Marriage Act that had barred the U.S. government from recognizing legally married same-sex couples and 2013's Hollingsworth v. Perry which invalidated California's Proposition 8, restoring marriage equality to the nation's largest state. Amazingly, June 26, 2003 was the day that Lawrence v. Texas was announced which struck down the last remaining state laws criminalizing consensual homosexual relations between adults. June 26 is a important day in the history of LGBT equality!

The Williams Institute has analyzed the impact of these decisions and these results can be summarized as:

• As of June 2017, nearly 1.1 million LGBT people in the United States are married to someone of the same sex, implying that more than 547,000 same-sex couples are married nationwide. 
• Since Obergefell, at least 157,000 same-sex couples married. 
• Since Windsor, at least 317,000 same-sex couples married.
• 10.2% of LGBT adults are married to someone of the same sex (Source: Gallup)

Gallup also notes that the latest data indicates that 4.3% of U.S. adults identify as LGBT and that even today in 2017, a larger percentage (13.1%) of LGBT people are married to someone of the opposite-sex. More men (11.4%) than women (9.3%) are married to a same-sex spouse.

Happy LGBT #EqualityDay!

Today Is #LovingDay: 50th Anniversary of Nationwide Interracial Marriage Legalization

As someone in an interracial same-sex marriage who has taught students the details of the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia  several times I can't let today go by without acknowledging that it is the 50th anniversary of the release of that unanimous ruling striking down laws banning interracial marriages (because such statutes seek to maintain "White Supremacy").

Happy #LovngDay!

POLL: Support For Marriage Equality Nearly 2:1 (64%-34%)

As someone who was in the trenches fighting for marriage equality for close to twenty years, it is exciting to report that public opinion has now swung dramatically in favor of supporting same-sex marriages.

According to Gallup, 64% of Americans support marriage equality, with opposition at 34%. Even Republicans have plurality support for the position that the law should support marriages between same-sex couples.

To put it succinctly, Gallup says:

Though the Supreme Court has settled the legality of same-sex marriage, a third of Americans are opposed to it. 

But support for gay marriage has gradually increased over the past two decades, reaching majority support with new groups, as it did with senior citizens in 2016 and Protestants this year. Republicans' support for gay marriage is also at a new high and could trend toward majority support in the near future.

It is worth noting that nearly two years after Obergefell legalize same-sex marriage that a full third of respondents think it should be illegal.

However it is pretty awesome to see the trend; hopefully it will remain monotonically increasing from now on!

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Serena Williams Announces Engagement To Alexis Ohanian

Serena Williams blew up the internet on Thursday when she announced that she is engaged to be married to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Williams, 35, is a 22-time major tennis champion while her fiance, 33, is a well-known Silicon Valley investor and was twice named to Forbes magazines 30 under 30 to watch.

The story of the engagement was posted to reddit in poem form:

I came home
A little late
Someone had a bag packed for me
And a carriage awaited
Destination: Rome
To escort me to my very own "charming"
Back to where our stars first collided
And now it was full circle
At the same table we first met by chance
This time he made it not by chance
But by choice
Down on one knee
He said 4 words
And
r/isaidyes

Ohanian's net worth is estimated to be under $10 million while Williams' is said to exceed $150 million. Hopefully, a prenuptial agreement is in the offing! Also, one hopes that Williams' engagement ends better than the one her bestie Caroline Wozniacki  had with  golfer Rory Mcilroy.

Good luck and congratulations to the happy couple!

QUEER QUOTE: President-elect Trump Says His Position on Same-Sex Marriage is "Irrelevant"

Today's Queer Quote is from President-elect Donald Trump who  on said in an interview that aired on 60 Minutes last Sunday night that his position on marriage equality is "irrelevant" because the issue is "settled." He might want to alert Vice-President-elect Mike Pence of this public policy position.

This excerpt from the transcript of Trump's remarks regarding marriage equality are our Queer Quote for today:

LESLEY STAHL: Well, I guess the issue for them is marriage equality. Do you support marriage equality?
DONALD TRUMP: It---it's irrelevant because it was already settled. It's law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it's done.
LESLEY STAHL: So, even if you appoint a judge that---
DONALD TRUMP: It's done.  It -- you have -- these cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They've been settled. And--I'm--I'm fine with that.

The National Organization for Marriage clearly doesn't agree with Trump that this issue is "settled." We shall see!

MAP: New Data Show Same-Sex Marriage Geographic Distribution In The USA

The New York Times Upshot blog has a post today on a Working Paper (pdf) by researchers at  the U.S. Treasury department about same-sex joint married tax filers in 2013 and 2014, after the United States v. Windsor decision ended discrimination by the federal government against legally married same-sex couples (like yours truly).

By linking the tax returns of same-sex couples who filed jointly in 2014 with their Social Security records, researchers are able to give us the most accurate picture of same-sex marriages to date. And their estimate is this: In 2014 there were 183,280. same-sex marriages in America, roughly a third of 1 percent of all marriages.

Of course, implicit in this estimate is the assumption that all married couples file their returns jointly. But as a proxy for that, it’s pretty good. The Treasury Department estimates that 97.5 percent of married couples file joint returns.

One highlight of the study: Pretax household income of same-sex married couples is higher than that of heterosexual married couples. Most of that is driven by the average earnings of male same-sex couples: $176,000. On average, they make $52,000 more than married lesbian couples and $63,000 more than married straight couples.

A key factor in the reason why same-sex male couples make more than their married counterparts is where they tend to live, which is urban centers. Here's the list of locations for the top 10 places same-sex couples reside:

No surprise that San Francisco is #1 on the list (for gay couples and #3 for lesbians), but it is also interesting to note that Washington is #2 and #6 respectively. Los Angeles and Long Beach are represented well.

Colombia Joins The Group Of Countries With Full Marriage Equality!

Great news on the international LGBT equality front! The Supreme Court of Colombia has ruled 6-3 in favor of marriage equality.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court voted in favor of legal marriage equality today, in a 6-3 decision, reports Spanish-language Colombian LGBT media outlet EgoCity. The ruling takes effect immediately, meaning same-sex couples can now marry throughout the South American nation.  

The decision was not wholly unexpected, as the court had long been considering a case filed by four same-sex couples who argued that the state was required to provide equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.  

In 2011, the Constitutional Court ordered the national congress to create a law establishing marriage equality by June 20, 2013. Lawmakers failed to meet this deadline, which means same-sex couples in Colombia have technically been able to legally recognize their relationships since 2013, though to do so couples were required to seek out a notary or judge to formally solemnize their commitment.  

Because there was no definitive policy regulating these unions, many same-sex couples were turned away by judges and notaries. Four such couples filed the lawsuit that was decided today, which determines that no judge or notary can legally refuse to marry a same-sex couple.

The Advocate seems to indicate same-sex couples can marry in Colombia now because the ruling should go into effect immediately but that has not been confirmed by other sources.

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: In Mississippi, New Law Says Religion Trumps Civil Rights

What a shocker! More bad news out of Mississippi regarding civil rights and the equal treatment of all its citizens. Governor Phil Bryant, A Republican, signed House Bill 1523 into law on Tuesday. The bill, which goes into effect in July, is titled "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act" and purports to provide people with "sincerely held religious beliefs" the right to deny services and public accommodations to certain people. But it is also to support only certain religious beliefs, such as:

The act states that the government cannot penalize an individual, organization, or business for acting according to the following "sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions": that "marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman"; that "sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage"; and that "male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth."

It looks flagrantly unconstitutional as well as discriminatory to me. It will be interesting to see if the response to Mississippi's bill mirrors the negative response North Carolina and Indiana have received for enacting similiarly bigoted legislation.

QUEER QUOTE: Hillary Clinton Blasts Roy Moore's Attempts To Obstruct Marriage Equality in Alabama

Our first Queer Quote of 2016 comes from Hillary Clinton who blasted Alabama Chief Judge Roy Moore's bizarre attempt to prevent marriage equality in Alabama. Here's the quote:

“Marriage equality is now the law of the land—including in Alabama. Today’s unconstitutional order reminds us that, despite the Supreme Court's ruling that all Americans have the right to marry the person they love, our work is far from over.  There are still judges who are determined to stand in the way of people's rights.  There are still politicians who argue the Court got it wrong and states should ignore its ruling.  We need to ensure that marriage equality is guaranteed and enforced nationwide.   And we need to fight discrimination against LGBT Americans wherever it occurs.  There are places where you can get married on Sunday and are at risk of being fired from your job or evicted from your home on Monday because you're gay.  That's not how it should be in the United States of America.  As President, I'll fight for the equal rights of all Americans, no matter who they are or who they love.”

Hat/tip to New Civil Rights Movement 

POLL: Marriage Equality Has Majority Support In Japan

A new poll shows that marriage equality has majority support in Japan. This is something of a surprise because previous polls have shown that support for LGBT equality is not high in the Asian island nation.

Fifty-one percent of people polled by researchers from universities and the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research back such partnerships, the Asahi newspaper reported. Support exceeded 70 percent among respondents in their 20s and 30s, while 38 percent in their 60s and 24 percent in their 70s were in favor, the Asahi said.

Hat/tip to TowleRoad 

REPORT: Almost 1 Million Same-Sex Married People In United States

A report has been issued "Marriage and Same-Sex Couples after Obergefell" by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School which demonstrates how well the kultukampf over "gay marriage" is going for the forces of equality. The graph at the top of this blog post demonstrates the exponential growth in the estimated number of same-sex couples in the United States, which is near the 500,000 mark, which means that nearly a million Americans have a legally married spouse of the same-sex.

The report notes that there has been a rapid change since the U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell decision legalized marriage equality nationwide in June, overturning provisions in the last remaining states that were still enforcing bans on same-sex marriage despite an unprecedented series of legal rejections by dozens of federal judges.

In fact, in the figure below one can see that the percentage of all new marriages that are what used to be called "gay marriages" has jumped from 6.4% before June 2015 to 11.2% afterJune 2015.

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Rogue Kentucky County Clerk Demonstrating Necessity Of Church-State Separation

In case one needed more evidence of why the separation of church-state is so important, the ongoing saga of  Kim Davis (the rogue Rowan County, Kentucky clerk) who has been refusing to issue marriage licenses despite exhausting all her possible legal avenues. (The United States Supreme Court denied her request for a stay on an order from a federal district court judge to issues marriage licenses on Monday night.)

On Tuesday, Davis responded to a question asking what authority she was using to continue denying marriage licenses to duly qualified married couples by saying "God's authority."

Davis and her Deputy Clerks have been ordered to appear in court on Thursday to explain to federal judge David Bunning why she should not be sanctioned (held on contempt of court) for not following his court order. Maybe this saga will be over soon and the proper relationship between church and state will be restored.

POLL: Support For Marriage Equality Holds Steady In Post-Obergefell Era

Now that marriage equality is the law of the land everywhere in the United States thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, activists and pundits have been waiting to see what impact this fact would have on public opinion. One poll released earlier this month from the Associated Presss showed a decided decrease in support for marriage equality (of 6 points), but the well-respected Gallup organization is out with its new poll, which it released with the headline "U.S. Support for Gay Marriage Stable After High Court Ruling."

Though the Supreme Court's decision has not immediately influenced Americans' overall opinion on the issue of same-sex marriage, this is not to suggest it will not affect opinion in the long run. 

Even after a 1967 Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriages, Gallup's polling in 1968 found that only one in five Americans (20%) approved of such marriages. It took three more decades to reach a majority of support. 

The path to legality of interracial marriage differed from same-sex marriage, though, in that the Supreme Court led public opinion bylegalizing something that Americans largely disapproved of at the time. Approval of same-sex marriage, however, has ascended significantly faster, and has enjoyed majority support for a few years before the court's decision. Still, a long view of the trend on gay marriage illustrates that support for it was steady and incremental, and that the movement's big victories in statewide ballot initiatives and legislature-enacted laws had limited effect on public opinion at large.

I really do not understand how one person's civil marriage affects someone else's. Hopefully even Republican Presidential candidates will figure that out eventually!