In the wake of the major electoral victories for marriage equality across the country this fall, the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage (NOM) had some explaining to do. No longer able to rely on its long-standing argument that voters always reject same-sex marriage, NOM did some soul searching and finally identified the reason it suffered […]
Advocates welcomed the American Psychiatric Association’s decision on Saturday to remove being transgender from its list of mental disorders. The APA specifically removed the term Gender Identity Disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel (DSM) of Mental Disorders and replaced it with Gender Dysphoria. The organization, which represents more than 36,000 psychiatrists from around the
It’s been a year full of news on gay marriage, including President Barack Obama’s statement that he personally favors allowing it and several state votes in November supporting it. Now one of the biggest developments may be imminent. Supreme Court justices are discussing gay-marriage cases at their conference today and may announce as soon as
Word to conservatives: Don’t bother trying to peddle your divisive politics to African-Americans; it won’t work anymore. A post-election poll conducted by The Economist suggests that social issues may no longer be an effective means for Republicans to get Black voters on board. (Further evidence suggests that the same goes for Latinos.) A co-worker handed
Eleven LGBT groups on Tuesday called on House Speaker John Boehner to stop wasting money defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court. After the Department of Justice announced it would no longer defend the law in court, Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, directed the so-called Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to step in.
It was no secret during past decades of ballot-box pummeling that social connections help determine where people stand on LGBT rights, say the organizers behind November 6′s same-sex marriage wins in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. They knew the public-opinion polls. Simply having a gay family member, friend, or colleague doubles the likelihood of support.
The Supreme Court chose a Harvard professor of constitutional law, Vicki C. Jackson, to argue that the Court does not have the authority to rule on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. She will file a brief and appear to argue the two procedural issues that the Court itself had raised in
Earlier I cited centrist Democratic think tank Third Way’s poll on marriage equality support in Washington, where same-sex marriages just got underway. Well, that report, showing that framing marriage equality as a matter of love, rather than rights wins the fight, is now out. Here’s a telling excerpt about movement among political lines: The victory
It doesn’t take a professional pollster to understand what the chart tells us. In 1996, as the country was easily re-electing Democratic President Bill Clinton, two-thirds of the public opposed gay marriage. Sixteen years later, as the country was re-electing Democratic President Barack Obama just 43 percent opposed it while 48 percent favored it. Go
America is about to head over a fiscal cliff, but apparently the GOP thinks there’s plenty in the bank to spend on protecting traditional marriage from those heathen homosexuals: House Republicans secretly raised the $1.5 million cap on litigating for DOMA to $2 million. Roll Call first reported Thursday that the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group
