hunter of justice

Gay marriage ad campaign begins in Maine

A new ad campaign with nation-wide ramifications begins today in Maine, described in the San Francisco Chronicle:

...[Today] in Maine, where voters in 2009 repealed a state law that would have legalized same-sex marriage, supporters of gay nuptials will launch a new TV ad that shows what they have learned - much of it culled from research in California and led by an Oakland pollster.

Maine is being targeted because the issue probably will be on the ballot there next year. Instead of being preachy, the ads aim to empathize with the "journey" voters are taking as they try to sort out their conflicted feelings about same-sex marriage.

National gay leaders and funders will closely gauge the reaction from the target audience: the one-third of Maine voters who are comfortable with civil unions but conflicted about supporting marriage. Reaction to the new messages will have implications for how activists approach other state ballot fights.

"You bet that people are watching this nationally," said Rick Jacobs, chairman of the 750,000-member Courage Campaign in Los Angeles, whose online members contributed $250,000 in 2009 toward research into the marriage question.

Nationally, the movement is nearing a tipping point. Although polls show that most Americans support same-sex nuptials and the military has ended its "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay and lesbian service members, the movement has failed to win a ballot initiative in nearly three dozen tries.

Winning at the ballot box in Maine could have national reverberations, analysts said, reviving fatigued donors in the gay community to support other state ballot fights, including possibly in California. But winning won't be easy. Past ad campaigns in support of same-sex marriage have been criticized as too preachy. The language used didn't connect with independent voters. In 2009, 53 percent of Maine voters supported overturning their legislature's decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

Pastor Bob Emrich, who helped lead the repeal campaign in Maine, said the new ads aren't going to persuade Mainers. There is "lingering resentment" among opponents of same-sex marriage, he said. "People here don't want to talk about it," said Emrich, who leads a 150-person congregation at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Plymouth. "They don't want to make it so personal. People here ... don't want to change what the institution of marriage means."

Still, supporters of same-sex marriage see Maine, a geographically small state with 1 million voters and a mostly white electorate, as a state they can swing. It is small enough to make direct contact with voters, which is key to changing minds on such an emotional issue...

Timed to run around Thanksgiving, when families gather around the table and in front of the television, the first 30-second ad features a close shot of an elderly Catholic couple from rural Maine who have been married 42 years, describing the journey they took to accept that one of their daughters is a lesbian. At first, Jeanette Rediker says, "there were a lot of emotions." But after they asked their priest for advice, Rediker says, "I will never forget the answer he told me: 'She is the same person you loved yesterday.' " The closing frame features the words "Love. Commitment. Marriage" over two gold wedding bands.

The anti-gay marriage attack on Iowa's Supreme Court

The American Prospect has the backstory on the campaign that defeated three justices of the Iowa Supreme Court in their retention campaigns as payback for votes to allow same-sex couples to marry:

The Iowa Supreme Court publishes, on average, a little more than 100 decisions a year. Each ruling goes online first thing Friday mornings. When Varnum v. Brien went live at 8:15 A.M. April 3, 2009, the court’s website crashed when more than a million visitors tried to read the opinion. In a unanimous decision, the seven supreme court justices--five Democratic and two Republican appointees--had ruled that Iowa’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples violated the equal-protection clause of the state constitution. When county clerks began issuing marriage licenses three weeks later, Iowa became the third state with legalized same-sex marriage...

Opponents of gay marriage... were dismayed. None more so than Bob Vander Plaats, who had risen early that morning and driven three hours to join several evangelical pastors in praying outside the supreme court building... 

Vander Plaats lost the Republican nomination for governor [in 2010], but Varnum gave him the issue he had always been looking for. A year after the decision, he mobilized an unprecedented attack against Iowa’s judiciary, which had been known for its lack of partisanship. With assistance from a powerful evangelical organization from out of state, he exploited an obscure clause of judicial selection and mounted a full-throttle assault against the supreme court judges who legalized same-sex marriage. No laws changed, but three of the judges lost their positions. The state’s progressive community is still grappling with the question: How did a fringe political candidate upend what had once been a model of judicial independence?...

The state owes that reputation [for nonpartisan courts] to its 1962 adoption of the “Missouri Plan” for placing judges on the bench. Under the system, a panel of 15--seven selected by the governor, seven by the bar association, plus a sitting state supreme court justice--interviews potential judges on their experience and knowledge of the law. The panel is barred from asking interviewees their political affiliation. The governor picks from three finalists. Supreme court justices go on the ballot at the first general election after they are selected and every eight years after. Until 2010, Iowa’s retention votes had always been ho-hum affairs. Only four lower-court judges had ever lost a retention vote, in each case because they were accused of malfeasance. A campaign had never been waged against a supreme court justice...

After [the] hearing [in Varnum], the justices [met] in a small conference room on the fourth floor of the supreme court building. ...Justice Mark Cady, one of the two Republican appointees, had been randomly selected to write the majority opinion on the Varnum case, which meant that he would speak first. If any of the justices were going to find fault in the plaintiffs’ interpretation of the constitution, it would likely be Cady, the strictest constitutionalist of the group. After laying out both sides’ arguments, Cady announced he was ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. The justices went clockwise around the granite-topped table. They did not agree on every legal point, but after two hours, all of them had sided with the plaintiffs. “We went around the table, and we just pushed back and said, ‘Jeez, this is going to be unanimous.’ We were just shocked,” a justice later told me.

Notes from Lavender Law in Los Angeles

OK, posting the photo at right may be silly, but this example of the LA school of urban sculpture looms over the hotel where the Lavender Law Conference just wrapped up, so I've had to look at it for several days running. And it's a scene too absurd not to memorialize.

More seriously, on to a few thoughts inspired by the conference:

I spoke on a panel on popular constitutionalism, where Michael Boucai, Kim Buchanan, Praveen Fernandes, Amanda Frost, and I discussed the tension between expansion of the devices of direct democracy (including ballot referenda and judicial elections) and the risks they pose to unpopular minorities, as well as the kinds of mediating institutions (a very different structure for campaign finance, for starters) that could mitigate the downsides. California is obviously the example of direct democracy run amuck, but the question of how to preserve the value of popular constitutionalism without repeating California craziness is not necessarily easy.

Although many people see Prop 8 as irrefutable evidence of why popular constitutionalism is a seriously bad theory, I think it's more complicated than that. A vote to eliminate a fundamental right from a group classified on a suspect basis is pretty squalid. On the other hand, if Prop 8 itself were eliminated by popular vote rather than by a judicial ruling, that arguably would be a far more powerful embedding of the norms of equality and dignity into the bloodstream of the body politic. The prime strategy chosen (but by whom and for what reasons?) was to seek relief before the federal judiciary. Now the existence of that lawsuit plus the staggering cost of mounting an initiative campaign in this state virtually precludes any chance of opting for an electoral strategy.  I'm not prejudging the debate; I can imagine deciding to take either route after weighing all the pro's and cons. (NB - I would frame the constitutional claims in the way that the City of San Francisco has, which is different from the framing by lawyers for the individual plaintiffs.) But it would have been nice to try to think through those questions before the proverbial train left the station. 

This morning, as part of a panel on family law, James Esseks of the ACLU described ballot measures that are likely in the future, noting that 2012 may mark the first time that pro-lgbt advocates place a same-sex marriage question before voters. At this point in time, only one ballot measure is certain.  In Minnesota, a provision to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage will be on the ballot. Such a provision may also go to voters in North Carolina.

In Maine and Oregon, though, there could be ballot questions in 2012 that would repeal bans previously adopted by voters. Advocates in Maine have already begun collecting signatures in a petition campaign, and Basic Rights Oregon is seriously considering whether to do so. To both stop an anti-gay law in either Minnesota or North Carolina, and to repeal an existing anti-gay law in either Maine or Oregon - by popular vote - would mark another turning point on this issue, politically if not legally.

In general, advocates have come to assume that legislative adoption of a marriage equality law will not end the debate in any given state. If any mechanism for a popular vote to amend the state constitution exists, they assume that gay marriage opponents will use it. This means that a legislative strategy is incomplete without first doing the same kind of opinion polling and other prep work that go into an election campaign. So, for example, the strategy to enact a marriage bill in a state like Maryland, where legislative adoption may be possible in the next few years but which also has a referendum mechanism, will include grassroots election campaign style work and not just the efforts required to lobby members of the state legislature. Enacting a marriage equality law is only the first step; whether the law endures will depend on whether it can be sustained by popular vote. 

Popular constitutionalism.

The politics of gay marriage: "Only idiots fight demography"

Rapidly shifting opinion on gay marriage is occurring among not only the general public but also among those who are presumed to be the sharpest, most pragmatic political insiders.

From its most recent poll of political insiders (for a list of names of those polled, see after the jump), the National Journal reports that the bulk of Democratic politicos are urging politicians to embrace the call for marriage equality, while Republican operatives increasingly counsel candidates to avoid it.

In part, these results may be a bump from the realization that Governor Cuomo's masterful steering of the issue through the Republican-controlled New York State Senate has landed him in a political punditry winner's circle. Whatver triggered it, I think the shift in views from 2009 (see below) will hold. And the change strengthens my prediction that the split between economic and social conservatives within the Republican Party will be the big political news of the 2012 election. 

Democratic political operatives overwhelmingly say the time has come for gay marriage, while a majority of Republicans now believe they should just avoid this issue, according to this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll. Both positions represent significant gains for gay marriage compared to two years ago, when the same question was asked in the wake of the Iowa Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the state...

Which statement comes closest to your political views on gay marriage?
Democrats July 2011 (102 votes)		Democrats April 2009 (102 votes)
My party should support it	84%	59%
My party should oppose it	1%	2%
My party should avoid the issue	14%	32%
Other (volunteered)	1%*	7%
*Also receiving votes: My party should move gradually towards support, 1%.

At the same time, less than a third of the Republican Insiders think their party should oppose gay marriage, a position that's been enshrined in the party's national platform.

Which statement comes closest to your political views on gay marriage?
Republicans July 2011 (105 votes)		Republicans April 2009  (104 votes)
My party should support it	14%	8%
My party should oppose it	30%	50%
My party should avoid the issue	56%	37%
Other (volunteered)	0%	6%

Many Democrats believe that gay marriage is not only "the right thing to do," but that it is also no longer a wedge issue that cripples the party. "The country is moving quickly toward acceptance of gay marriage," observed one Democratic Insider. "There is no need to hang back and expect civil unions to provide cover."

Democrats also felt that support for gay marriage would solidify the party's grip on younger voters. "It's this generation's civil rights movement," exclaimed one Democratic Insider. "It's a huge demographic opportunity for Democrats because almost every voter under 30 supports it," said another."

Still, a handful of Democrats were more cautious. "Let's not push the envelope," said one Democratic Insider. "We need to focus on swing voters in swing states."

Some of the same arguments that prompt Democratic support also had an impact among Republican Insiders. "Huge issue with young voters we need," asserted one GOP Insider who said the party should support gay marriage. "Only idiots fight demography."

Another GOP insider who said the party should avoid the issue explained, "We haven't come to a consensus on this issue but the country is changing so rapidly that it will a non issue in a few years. A confrontation now would just delay the inevitable." But some of the old arguments still hold sway among Republicans. "As it has been defined for thousands of years, marriage is between a man and a woman," declared one GOP Insider. "End of story."

But another Republican who said the GOP should oppose the issue added, "State the position and move on. Do not make it the focal point."

Forecasting the 2012 election results for marriage referendum questions

Nate Silver has projected results for ballot initiatives on gay marriage already slated in Minnesota and possible in North Carolina. The bottom line is that he predicts a statistical toss-up in Minnesota, with the edge going to pro-gay forces opposing such an amendment, but a likely win for the anti-gay forces in North Carolina. If an anti-gay marriage state consitutional amendment is defeated in Minnesota, it will be only the second time that has happened.

So, let's imagine that you are advising the White House -- It's hard to build a win in the 2012 election without Minnesota. North Carolina, on the other hand, may be expendable - it produced the narrowest margin for Obama of any state in 2008. But note the raw numbers: Minnesota has 10 Electoral College votes, while North Carolina has 15. One indicator of how badly the White House wants to carry North Carolina again is the fact that the 2012 Democratic Convention will be in Charlotte. 

If you want to know why Obama hasn't evolved already, do the math.

Nate Silver's detailed analysis after the jump -->

Rich libertarian Republicans + Gays in the family = Marriage equality in New York

To be published in tomorrow's N Y Times, and already up on its web page, there is a fascinating tale of the political dynamics that gelled to get the equal marriage bill through the Republican state senate in New York. The highlights: wealthy Republican donors who support gay marriage lobbied fence-sitting members and promised enough campaign donations to insulate them from challenges by social conservatives; members who had voted against gay marriage two years ago were pressured from within their own families to change their votes; and Governor Cuomo's stellar performance must mean that he aced the course in political leadership that he has presumably gotten since birth.

It all came together to create what I think is the only genuine first from New York's experience, but it's a big one: the first state legislative chamber with a Republican majority to approve same-sex marriage.

My view: The split in the Republican Party between economic and social conservatives is going to be the big political story of 2012.  You read it here first.

Full N Y Times story after the jump -->

Socialists hope to make gay marriage an issue in next year's French election

Last Tuesday, the French Parliament defeated a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. The bill was put forward by the Socialist Party; President Sarkozy's UMP Party led the opposition, though a few UMP members supported it. Now the Socialists are considering whether to make the issue a major part of their campaign against Sarkozy's re-election.

From France 24:

The bill to legalise marriage for homosexual couples in France was introduced by Patrick Bloche, a Socialist member of parliament for Paris, after France’s constitutional court ruled in January that the existing ban on gay marriages was not unconstitutional. While the political left has unanimously rallied behind the bill, the debate in parliament has also helped highlight some divisions in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party.

UMP member Claude Bodin denounced a bill that he said was meant to stir controversy before the 2012 presidential election. He called Bloche’s text a “response to communitarian demands” and added that homosexuality was a “private issue, which cannot become a standard like any other". But breaking with the majority of their party, a handful of UMP members spoke in favour of the law... 

Since 1999 France, like Britain and Germany, has legally recognised civil partnerships, known as the “pacs” to the French. Last year France saw 203,882 of these civil unions, but less than five percent of them involved homosexual couples.

Activists say the pacs does not afford gay and lesbian households the same rights as marriage. “The protection afforded under the pacs - in terms of the right to reside in a country or custody over children - is not the same as marriage,” explained Gilles Bon-Maury, president of the advocacy group HES (Homosexuality and Socialism)... Bon-Maury said he hoped [marriage] would become one of the key issues of the looming presidential campaign.

François Hollande, the frontrunner in forthcoming Socialist primaries, wrote on his blog that he supported opening marriage to homosexual couples... Supporting gay marriage has become a relatively safe bet for opposition candidates. According to surveys published by French pollsters TNS Sofres and BVA this year, between 58 and 59 percent of French people support allowing same-sex couples to marry.

Centrist Jean-Louis Borloo, a former UMP member who is now threatening to challenge President Sarkozy’s bid for re-election, has also come out in favour of homosexual marriages.

The wedge turns: Republicans now gun shy on gay marriage

The NY Times this morning makes it official that the political tide for cheap anti-gay political attacks is ebbing, with an article (read it after the jump) on the astonishing degree of silence from the Republican establishment in reaction to the Attorney General's announcement that the Justice Department will no longer defend the constitutionality of DoMA.

The Times article concentrates on reactions, or the lack thereof, from likely Republican presidential nominees, but the let's-just-think-about-cutting-spending response from Republicans in Congress is much more important because Congress actually has some authority to respond to the Justice Department decision. Each chamber of Congress can determine independently whether it will seek to intervene in the pending lawsuits to defend DoMA as constitutional.

Consider the statement issued by Speaker Boehner:

While Americans want Washington to focus on creating jobs and cutting spending, the President will have to explain why he thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation.

The statement gave no indication of whether the Speaker will ask the General Counsel of the House to actively defend the law. Since the Dems control the Senate, as a practical matter it would be only the House that can exercise an option to ask the courts to allow it as a body to intervene as a defendant. [Both chambers have their own independent counsel offices. The General Counsel of the House has authority under 2 U.S. Code 130f to "provide legal assistance and representation to the House..." I will write more about these possibilities in the DoMA litigation in coming days.] 

Individual members can seek to intervene, as Rep. Lamar Smith already has in the Gill case, arguing that the Justice Department was not defending DoMA strongly enough. But if only individual members of Congress seek to intervene, that will simply add to the marginalization of arguments in support of DoMA. The courts will be hard pressed to sustain a statute repudiated by the Executive Branch and effectively abandoned by Congress.

On the technical jurisdictional issues, it is unclear whether parties other than DoJ would have standing to appeal a ruling that the law is unconstitutional (shades of Perry). However, here, unlike in Perry, DoJ seems to be saying that it will seek review of decisions that the law is invalid in order to eliminate the possibility of a standing question such as has arisen in the Prop 8 case.

All of this indicates to me that the wedge has turned, and in a stunningly short period of time. Seven years ago, Republicans rolled through the states with constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage (and it will be a while before those get dislodged). Gay marriage as an issue was no-lose for them and no-win for the Dems. Now it has become an "oh no, let's avoid" issue as much for Republicans as for Dems.

We saw the beginnings of this crack emerge with the brouhaha over the C-PAC conference just a few weeks ago. I wrote then that "we may look back on this in a few years and see it as watershed marking the beginning of the end of the coalition of economic and social conservatives in the Republican Party." Whatever else happens, this is going to be fun to watch.

Conservative conference shaping up as family values feud

THE event each year in DC for political activists on the right is the C-PAC (C for Conservative) conference. Thousands of activists attend, as do conservative celebrities and the entire stable of Republican presidential hopefuls, for whom it is essentially an audition. The next one is scheduled for February 10-12. but this year the biggest excitement is happening right now.  Conference organizers are allowing GOProud to participate, and some social issues (ie anti-gay and anti-abortion) groups are boycotting the event and blasting the American Conservative Union, the conference organizer. ACU's statement of principles stresses free market and limited government arguments, as does GOProud's statement of its beliefs. 

This may just be the right's version of silly fringe politics, but it is also possible that we may look back on this in a few years and see it as watershed marking the beginning of the end of the coalition of economic and social conservatives in the Republican Party. The Washington Times says that the dispute about GOProud's participation is a sign that "the alliance may now be fraying." More from the newspaper of right-wing record:

Conservative online media mogul Andrew Breitbart is supporting GOProud's foray into CPAC. "Oh, by the way. Gonna have a party welcoming Gay conservatives to CPAC. Deal with it," he said on his Twitter account last week.

Groups such as Citizen Link, the political-action arm of Focus on the Family, plan to attend this year's CPAC, but say the conference is on a short leash. "It's obvious the influence of social conservatives has been missing and there needs to be more of it," said Tom Minnery, senior vice president of Citizen Link. "If the ACU can't manage this problem that they've brought upon themselves, we'll have to make another decision."...

Andy Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project, called the move to marginalize values voters self-defeating. "The rather arrogant treatment of social conservatives by libertarians is troubling," said Mr. Blom. "Social conservatives are the foot soldiers of the movement. Marriage has never lost an election. Being pro-life does not lose elections. It wins elections. This is not only a serious principle mistake, it's a serious political mistake."...

Breitbart is a web publisher whose comments quoted above seem in line with his rightwing bad boy, Drudge wannabe persona. His website published the heavily edited Shirley Sherrod video that created a scandal and initially led to her firing, until the NAACP released the video in full, making it clear that Breitbart had manipulated the facts way beyond even "truthiness." 

Besides Focus on the Family and American Principles Project, other groups either boycotting C-PAC or threatening to next year if there isn't a policy change include the Heritage Foundation, Concerned Women for America, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Center for Military Readiness, the Liberty Counsel and the National Organization for Marriage.

Well, you live by the wedge, you die by the wedge. How fitting that gay issues may start to cut in the opposite direction. The right-wing has brilliantly used anti-gay and anti-abortion politics to peel off voters from the Democrats, but now the worm turns. To the I've-got-mine economic libertarian crowd, individual freedom is gospel, and pretty much any form of choice is the holy grail. The appeal to them of allying with vaguely amusing bumpkins from uncool places is that the traditionalist rhetoric could haul in tons of votes, if not dollars. If that calculation changes, which perhaps it is beginning to, the so-called social issues crowd will be looking for a new home.

2010: From trans liberation (?) to geezers on the left and into 2011...

As a way to close out 2010, here's the official pronouncement from the NY Times that this was a technicolor transversal year:

It's certainly a statement on our times that, in the same month, James Franco graces the covers of GQ and Candy. In GQ, he appears in a moody head shot. In Candy, a style magazine dedicated to what it calls the “transversal” — that is, transsexuality, transvestism, cross-dressing, androgyny and any combination thereof — Mr. Franco, shot by Terry Richardson, vamps in trowel-applied makeup, heavy jewelry and a woman’s dominatrix-style power suit.

Candy, it turns out, is but one of the more visible bits of evidence that 2010 will be remembered as the year of the transsexual. Yes, Mr. Franco is just dressing up and doesn’t feel he was born the wrong sex. But it is a grand gesture of solidarity with gender nonconformists and certainly hasn’t affected attendance at “127 Hours.”

Other celebrities have flirted with “the other side,” cross-dressing for fashion publications. On the cover of the current Industrie, Marc Jacobs is decked out in one of his signature women’s designs (albeit with a beard). Japanese Vogue Hommes revealed its new male model, Jo Calderone, who was, in actuality, Lady Gaga.

Not since the glam era of the 1970s has gender-bending so saturated the news media. ...The only thing that would have raised more awareness of trans people would have been a link with the president — even better, a link that rhymed. That’s when the “tranny nanny,” Barack Obama’s transvestite nanny from his boyhood in Jakarta, Indonesia, was discovered and made headlines...

[The third photo is of model Lea T, in feathers, who told the Times,] “I hope we have a big revolution, and people change their minds about us — that it is just the beginning.” 

If only.

And then there's this photo of a group that looks (especially by comparison to the first photo) like the new leadership team for Geezers Anonymous, or maybe for a group representing everyone ever voted off the island.

Not so funny, though, when you consider that no political entity in the country produced more significant legal change this year (or this decade) than the House of Representatives 2010, which led every successful progressive initiative - from health reform to new regulation of the financial markets to literally hundreds of bills that were blocked in the Senate to, at the end, kickstarting the final push to repeal DADT. No, none of those is perfect, but compared to anything we've seen come out of either chamber of Congress in 30 years, it's a pretty darn impressive list of accomplishments.

So, unlikely as hell, this crew really can claim to be fierce advocates. Yes, Virginia, liberals can be fierce. Too bad they're about to return to the political equivalent of the North Pole.

It's not over til the last gavel strikes: How to repeal DADT this session

By Guest Blogger Michelle Benecke

Yesterday's Senate vote was disgraceful and disheartening.  Contrary to the claims of some, however, this fight is not over.  It is still possible to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) in this Session, if we have the will to fight.  There are at least two options:  amending the Omnibus bill pending in the Senate, and a stand alone bill.

The Omnibus spending measure is the one piece of legislation that will pass before the Senate goes home for the holiday.  It funds every federal agency.  While supporters would need to show "germaneness" under Senate rules, this should not be a high hurdle given the sheer breadth of the Omnibus and its many additional provisions for the Department of Defense.  Once it passes the Senate, the Omnibus would be sent to the House for a vote.

The White House could help by releasing Secretary Gates to ask Congress to include DADT repeal in the Omnibus.  Attorney General Holder sent such a letter recently concerning the Guantanamo detainees.  Ideally, Representative Pelosi or Hoyer, the House workhorse, would say publicly they would consider the measure if sent to them, cutting off any arguments for delay.  

On the stand alone measure, a Senate provision called Rule 14 is one way to do it.  Basically, if we have the stomach to take one or two more shots at this -- as we must -- supporters can introduce Section 591 of the National Defense Authorization Act (or a clean repeal) as a freestanding bill, and have it Rule XIV'ed whereby it will go directly to the Calendar, bypassing the usual Committee process.  Then they could work to get an agreement to take up this bill with no amendments and seek to get cloture on it.  Having the tax bill on the floor will buy them some time to tee it up.  If there is time left after taxes, they could give it one more shot.  If successful, this bill would be sent to the House for a vote. 

These paths are difficult, but they are absolutely possible.  Senator Lieberman is right in pressing to stay until the job is done.  Last year, Senator Reid (Majority Leader) kept the Senate in session 24/7 all the way through Christmas Eve to pass the health care bill, and he could do the same here to demonstrate this is a priority.

When I first developed the idea to start Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) more than twenty years ago, I was serving in the Army, surrounded by witch hunts and utterly alone.  Although I survived the witch hunts, I ultimately resigned my commission and reluctantly left the military because of the previous policy and the ethical dilemmas it imposed.

While today's military members now have somewhere to turn for legal advice (SLDN), they continue to experience profound isolation and ethical dilemmas because of DADT, which requires them to live a double life and forbids them from confiding in parents, friends, doctors, anyone without risk of being outed and discharged.  Like the sword of Damocles, this law hovers constantly, ready to take them out.

If we miss this window, it will be another five to ten years before legislation can make its way back to the fore - another five to ten years of living in constant fear for gay military members, having to guard against "friendly fire" under DADT even as they risk their lives fighting the enemy before them in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The time for repeal is now, in this Session.  Military members who cannot speak for themselves under DADT are depending on us.  It’s not over until the last gavel strikes. 

Michelle Benecke is a former Army Captain and Battery Commander, and a founder and former Executive Director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which is dedicated to repealing DADT and has provided direct legal assistance to more than 10,000 military members under this law. 

 

Deconstructing DADT beltway-ese

Chris Geidner summarizes where things stood at the end of Wednesday on DADT repeal, heading into a possible vote today:

The repeal train was constantly teetering from side to side and likely almost fell off the tracks a few times, were it not for Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and a potentially repeal-saving blink from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Read in between each line, and you see a picture of today painted pretty clearly:

SENATOR COLLINS’ STATEMENT ON DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL NEGOTIATIONS
 
WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. Senator Susan Collins, who supports repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” [Noted.] released this statement tonight.

“Senator Joe Lieberman and I continue to negotiate in good faith with the Majority Leader [Collins is pretty directly claiming Lieberman as being on "her side" in this, which appears fitting in light of Lieberman's strong defense of her earlier today.] to try and come up with a fair process under which the important Defense Authorization bill could be considered in the limited time remaining in this session. [Important. Limited.] Without a fair process, the motion to proceed to the bill would likely fail in the U.S. Senate. [By acting in a way in which she gets to define the terms, however, she's pushing Reid.]

"Senator Lieberman and I requested a meeting with Senator Harry Reid last week [Both of them. She's making it clear that she believes she has been looking to reach a deal for a while.] during which we outlined a specific plan for allowing debate and amendments similar to how the Senate has considered the authorization bill in the past.
 
"It wasn’t until 1:35 pm today that I received a legitimate offer from Senator Reid [Slam. Without noting Reid's morning call for a "likely" vote this evening, she implies that any "bad faith" here came from him. Her qualifier of "legitimate," however, does soften the blow of that. Also, there are several sentences here that could prompt a response from Reid; this is the most clear of those.], which I consider a good starting point. [Negotiations are ongoing.] We made a counter offer which would provide sufficient time for debate, and includes protections to help ensure that Republicans would be able to offer a limited but fair number of amendments that are relevant to this legislation. [She did -- "15 guaranteed votes on amendments (10 for Republicans, and 5 for Democrats), and somewhere around four days to debate the bill" -- and he has it.]

"I am encouraged that the Majority Leader decided to postpone the vote he had scheduled for tonight. [This is true. Had he not, and had she held by her pledge to vote no, the odds are fairly certain that DADT repeal would be dead for the year. It would have set up a partisan vote, and Reid could have then attempted to use that to move on to a stripped-down NDAA. That would have caused an uproar, no doubt, but a losing vote tonight would have been a killer.] I urged him to do this so that we could consider the tax legislation first, which I believe could be on the floor as early as tomorrow and completed quickly.  At that point, I believe we could move immediately to the Defense Authorization bill under a fair agreement, and I would vote to do so. [This is could be essential for there being enough time left for the debate on the NDAA that Collins is requesting. It also appears to be the key to Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)'s vote as well.] I would hope he carefully considers our proposal.  I believe we have outlined a very clear path forward for the Majority Leader to take that would allow this very important debate to occur." [It's this, as with the above statement about the "fair process," where one could question Collins's motives. Does she personallywant all 10 GOP amendments to the NDAA, etc., or is she pushing a partisan agenda regarding the NDAA in spite of her personal support for DADT repeal? That's not to make a judgment on whether she or Reid is the one being more partisan; it's just the obvious counter-point to the direction of the statement issued by Collins.]
 
###

The bottom line for today is that neither side blew up negotiations, Collins laid her demand on the table, and repeal prospects likely improved heading into Thursday.

 

What to watch for on election night

Polls (see chart at right) say that fewer than half the voters in this election will be motivated by a candidate's position on abortion and only a third are much concerned with gay marriage. Whether these issues are foremost in voters' minds or not, however, the outcomes Tuesday night will have a huge impact on sexuality/gender law and policy for at least the next few years. Aside from the endlessly predicted changes (or not) in who controls Congress, the most consequential outcomes are likely to be in state government, especially in the gubernatorial and state attorney general contests.

Here's my list of what to watch for when you're changing channels or checking twitter:

Gubernatorial and AG races

• California - Everyone knows that the outcome of the battle between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman for the governorship may have an impact on Perry v. Scharzenegger, the challenge to Prop 8. Less well known is that the contest between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Steve Cooley to be Attorney General could have the same impact. 
• Florida - As in California, both the governor and the AG in Florida can independently make litigation decisions when state law is involved. There are likely to be diametrically opposite decisions made if Dem Alex Sink is elected governor versus Republican Rick Scott, or if Dem Dan Gelber or Republican Pam Bondi becomes attorney general.
• Illinois - Republican Bill Brady is battling Dem incumbent Pat Quinn; one clear contrast is Brady's vehement opposition to civil unions, which Gov. Quinn supports. If Brady is elected, any chance to move Illinois into the civil union category would disappear for at least the length of his term.
• Maine - From Lisa Keen: "Equality Maine, the state LGBT civil rights group, says Tea Party Republican candidate Paul LePage would not only veto a marriage equality bill if one came to his desk, but "supports gutting the Maine Human Rights Act," which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. [Both] Democratic candidate Libby Mitchell [and] Independent candidate Eliot Cutler support same-sex marriage...
• Minnesota - Dem candidate Mark Dayton has promised to sign a gay marriage bill; in response, anti-equality groups financed an ad suppporting Republican Tom Emmer, because "gay marriage has consequences."
• New Hampshire - Last year, Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who said he opposed gay marriage, signed a bill legalizing it after lawmakers approved provisions affirming religious rights. Lynch is up for re-election, facing a Republican who opposes same-sex marriage, and the National Organization for Marriage is running ads against the governor depicting his signing of the bill as a betrayal of voters.
• New York - Republican candidate Carl Paladino promised to veto a marriage equality bill and criticized Dem Andrew Cuomo for taking his children to a gay pride parade. The latter move may have tanked his campaign, although it was already a hot air balloon waiting to burst. Polls show Cuomo, who supports gay marriage, massively ahead.

Judicial retention in Iowa - Three of the judges who joined the Iowa Supreme Court's decision requiring an equal marriage law are before the voters for an up-or-down retention vote. Conservatives have organized an unprecedented campaign against them, and polls predict a close race.

House of Representatives:

• CA 45 - Openly gay Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet is challenging incumbent Mary Bono Mack in this "Inland Empire" district, which offers one of the very few chances the Dems have to take a seat now held by a Republican. 
• MA 4 - Barney Frank's re-election was a foregone conclusion until rumors spread that he was in trouble, seemingly validated by Bill Clinton traveling to the district to campaign for him and Barney loaning his campaign $200,000.  If Barney loses, it means the Dems are getting wiped out.
• PA 8 - Former GOP Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick is looking for revenge against two-term Democrat Patrick Murphy, who defeated him in 2006. Murphy has been the lead champion in the House of repealing DADT. 
• RI 1 - Openly gay Providence Mayor David Cicilline is running to replace Patrick Kennedy, who retired. 

Trial court judgeship in Alameda CA Superior Court - Now an administrative law judge, Victoria Kolakowski could become the nation's first openly transgender member of the judiciary.

State legislatures -

• New Hampshire House and Senate - From Lisa Keen: "This bellwether state enacted a marriage equality law just this year and already three bills have been filed seeking repeal in 2011. Meanwhile, the Democratic majority in both the state House and Senate are in peril...  [T[he margins of victory on the marriage equality bill in 2009 were razor thin... If Republicans do take back the majority in the legislature, a repeal bill has a strong chance of succeeding. 
• New York - The incredibly dysfunctional NY State Senate has been on a roller-coaster, with Republicans having controlled it forever, more or less, until the 2008 election when Dems barely got control, but then couldn't deliver a majority vote for either marriage equality or a prohibition on discrimination based on gender identity. Paul Schindler at Gay City News identifes the critical races for this election cycle and maps out the chess pieces in play to try to line up the necessary votes on those two issues, a byzantine gambit that can't possibly be summarized in a paragraph. 
• CA Assembly 5 - Andrew Pugno, one of the leaders in the campaign to pass Prop 8, is running in this Sacramento-area district to become a member of the state legislature.  Sure would be nice if he lost.
• NC House 60 - Marcus Brandon could become only the fifth openly gay African-American member of a state legislature in the U.S.

State constitutional amendments - The Colorado right to life constitutional amendment is again on the ballot; in 2008, it got only 27% of the vote. Time to put a nail in the coffin of this idea. 

Mainlining money into elections

The following two charts from the Sunlight Foundation compare this election cycle to the midterms four years ago to illustrate how dominant "independent" campaign groups (which accept unlimited donations) have become. A detailed breakdown shows that they are overwhelmingly Republican.

NAACP President reaches out to lgbt groups

A young and dynamic NAACP president - Benjamin Jealous - is behind what could be a turning point in coalition politics: the full embrace of lgbt equality issues as part of the upcoming (October 2) One Nation march in DC organized by the NAACP. Note coverage of lgbt issues as an integral part of the agenda in this morning's NY Times.  A Gay City News report of his speech last week at the NYC Lesbian and Gay Community Center provides a flavor -

A Rhodes Scholar who formerly worked at Amnesty International on issues of prison rape, the criminal justice system’s treatment of juvenile offenders, and racial profiling, Jealous earned a warm response from a crowd of more than 100 with a discussion about the possibilities for progressive change through coalition politics; his remarks showed him well versed in LGBT issues. Mentioning having in his family both HIV and a gender-nonconforming brother who’s been beaten up, Jealous talked about the NAACP’s advocacy for black gay student victims of homophobic violence at the hands of African-American attackers in a Coffee County, Georgia college; the school responded by kicking those assaulted out of their dorm.

“It is the NAACP in places like Coffee County, Georgia,” he said, “that is the civil rights institution, not the black civil rights institution, the people of color civil rights institution, the civil rights institution.” The group, he said, let the school "know that nothing like this would ever happen again.”

Jealous talked about the NAACP’s long push for the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act and about the work the group is doing in partnership with the federal Centers for Disease Control to target areas of high HIV prevalence in the African-American community, especially among young gay and bisexual men. Lamenting the fact that the public’s attention toward the AIDS crisis has lagged as infection rates remain persistently high and the population of those infected increasingly poor, with a larger proportion of people of color, he pointed to one such effort being undertaken this month in Brooklyn...

Jealous couched his remarks in the broader context of a participatory relationship he hopes will continue long past the march. In response to questions, he voiced receptiveness to having “a conversation” on a variety of topics... And he agreed with several questioners about the need to end the political dispersion of progressive communities in discrete silos, where they have too little dialogue with each other...

Details about the march after the jump -->