It's time, N.Y.

Hear that, New York? The Obama administration says the federal law that banned recognition of same-sex marriage -- and with it, denied health and pension benefits to countless Americans -- is unconstitutional.

Unusual, if long overdue, clarity came Wednesday with the concession that a law passed 15 years ago, in a very different climate for sexual politics, couldn't pass constitutional muster. It's legally indefensible, to be quite blunt about it.

Politically difficult, too. The President, who says his personal position on same-sex marriage is an "evolving" matter, has given further momentum to the push for equal rights for gays.

In Albany, not even the most socially conservative or politically tone deaf state lawmakers can deny that continuing to prevent gays from legally marrying just got noticeably harder. So much so that its advocates -- from Governor Cuomo, in his position of resounding popularity, to Thomas Duane, in the trenches of the state Senate -- should push for another vote on gay marriage.

The 38-24 vote against same-sex marriage in the state Senate two years ago just might represent politics as obsolete as the Justice Department's vow last month to keep fighting in court against the very forces it's now joined in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act. Even a closer, albeit losing vote, could upend the political dynamics.

It's a different Senate, remember, than the one that voted down gay marriage in 2009. The Republicans who voted unanimously against it have seven new members.

There will be more pressure to put on the old members, too. That means you, Roy McDonald of Wilton. You, too, Hugh Farley of Niskayuna.

As for the Democrats, there's little reason to think that eight of their members would oppose gay marriage, as was the case in 2009. Five of the 30 Democrats now in the Senate hadn't been elected then.

Keep in mind, too, the 50,000 or so gay couples who would be able to legally marry in New York if the Senate rewrote the law to reflect a more tolerant era. They have the public on their side. A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed that New Yorkers favor same-sex marriage, 54 percent to 39 percent.

Among them is Edith Windsor, an 81-year-old widow who filed a federal lawsuit seeking reimbursement of $360,000 she had to pay in estate taxes because the federal government did not recognize her marriage.

"I think it removes a great deal of the stigma," she said of the Obama administration's abandonment of a misguided law. "It's just great."

Imagine, New York, what Ms. Windsor might say when justice prevails here.

THE ISSUE:

The Obama administration's change in its position on gay marriage creates an opening.

THE STAKES:

It will be harder to resist equal rights here.

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ORIGINAL SOURCE

Valentine’s Day marked with rallies, protests to call attention to marriage equality

Advocates for same-sex marriage marked this year’s Valentine’s Day with rallies and protests across the nation, many responding to a call from GetEQUAL and Marriage Equality USA to raise awareness about federal marriage equality.

“As we cheer on our heterosexual fellow citizens who are able to marry on this wonderful day of love, we will remind the world that falling in love and the desire to marry the person you love is a universal sentiment and that all citizens should have the freedom to marry the one they love.” said Molly McKay, Marriage Equality U.S.A. media director, in a press statement.

In at least 25 cities nationwide, same-sex marriage couples requested marriage licenses Monday to highlight the fact that they are denied full marriage equality in 45 U.S. states, and also denied federal recognition in the five states and District of Columbia where same-sex marriage is legal.  Read more here....

Md. Senate - largest remaining hurdle to same-sex marriage - likely to approve bill

By John Wagner, Washington Post Staff Writer

A majority of Maryland's state senators have said publicly that they will vote to legalize same-sex marriages, greatly increasing the odds that the highest-profile social legislation being considered by the General Assembly will pass in coming weeks. read more here...

Washington state lawmaker introduces marriage equality legislation

OLYMPIA, Wash. — In what may be a mostly symbolic move, one Washington state lawmaker thought Valentine’s Day an appropriate day to introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in the Evergreen State.

It was on Valentine’s Day in 1998 that lawmakers passed the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

But today, 13 years later, Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle) introduced Senate Bill 5793, which would allow same-sex couples to enter into civil marriage in Washington.  read more here...

Suits on Same-Sex Marriage May Force Administration to Take a Stand

 

by Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON — President Obama has balanced on a political tightrope for two years over the Defense of Marriage Act, the contentious 1996 law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Now, two new federal lawsuits threaten to snap that rope out from under him.

Mr. Obama, whose political base includes many supporters of gay rights, has urged lawmakers to repeal the law. But at the same time, citing an executive-branch duty to defend acts of Congress, he has sent Justice Department lawyers into court to oppose suits seeking to strike the law down as unconstitutional.

The two lawsuits, however, have provoked an internal administration debate about how to sustain its have-it-both-ways stance, officials said. Unlike previous challenges, the new lawsuits were filed in districts covered by the appeals court in New York — one of the only circuits with no modern precedent saying how to evaluate claims that a law discriminates against gay people.

That means that the administration, for the first time, may be required to take a clear stand on politically explosive questions like whether gay men and lesbians have been unfairly stigmatized, are politically powerful, and can choose to change their sexual orientation.

“Now they are being asked what they think the law should be, and not merely how to apply the law as it exists,” said Michael Dorf, a Cornell University law professor. “There is much less room to hide for that decision.”

James Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer helping with one case, said the new suits could be game-changing.

The Obama legal team has not yet decided what path to take on the lawsuits, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the internal deliberations. But the Justice Department must respond by March 11. The debate has arisen at a time when Mr. Obama has signaled that his administration may be re-evaluating its stance.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama backed civil unions for gay people while opposing same-sex marriage. But last month, after Congress — in the final hours before Republicans took control of the House — repealed the law barring gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from serving openly in the military, he told The Advocate, a magazine that focuses on gay issues, that his views on marriage rights “are evolving.”

“I have a whole bunch of really smart lawyers who are looking at a whole range of options,” Mr. Obama said, referring to finding a way to end the Defense of Marriage Act. “I’m always looking for a way to get it done, if possible, through our elected representatives. That may not be possible.”

Since 2003, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing gay sex, the legal landscape for same-sex marriage has shifted. Eight states now grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples or recognize such marriages if performed elsewhere. But under the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government cannot recognize those relationships.

That has raised a crucial question: Is it constitutional for the federal government to grant certain benefits — like health insurance for spouses of federal workers, or an exemption to estate taxes for surviving spouses — to some people who are legally married under their state’s laws, but not to others, based on their sexual orientation?

The Constitution declares that everyone has a right to equal protection by the law. But many laws treat some people differently from others. Courts uphold such policies as constitutional if they can pass a test showing that the discrimination is not invidious.

A law singling out an ordinary class — like owners of property in a district with special tax rates — gets an easy test. It is presumed valid, and a challenge is dismissed unless a plaintiff proves that the law advances no conceivable rational state interest.

But a law focusing on a class that has often been subjected to unfair discrimination — like a racial group — gets a hard test. It is presumed invalid and struck down unless the government proves that officials’ purpose in adopting the law advances a compelling interest.

Gay-rights groups contend that the marriage act ought to be struck down under either test. Last year, a federal judge in Massachusetts agreed, saying it was unconstitutional even under the easy test’s standards.

But the Obama administration, which appealed that ruling, contends that a plausible argument exists for why the act might be constitutional. Justice Department officials say they have a responsibility to offer that argument and let courts decide, rather than effectively nullifying a law by not defending it.

Justice officials have argued that the marriage act is justified, under the easy test’s standards, by a government interest in preserving the status quo at the federal level, allowing states to experiment. And in its brief appealing the Massachusetts ruling, the department stressed seven times that a “binding” or “settled” precedent in that circuit required the easy test.

But for the new lawsuits, no such precedent exists. The Obama team has to say which test it thinks should be used. Courts give a class the protection of the hard test if it has been unfairly stigmatized and if its members cannot choose to leave the class, among other factors. By those standards, it could be awkward, especially for a Democratic administration, to proclaim that gay people do not qualify for it.

But under a hard test, the administration’s argument for upholding the marriage law would be weaker, legal specialists say, in part because when lawmakers enacted it in 1996, they mentioned only in passing an interest in preserving the federal status quo as states experimented.

Some conservatives have accused the administration of throwing the fight by not invoking other arguments, like morality. And in particular, lawmakers’ primary focus in 1996 was “encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing.”

But the administration’s filings in other cases disavowed that rationale, noting that infertile heterosexuals may marry and citing studies that children raised by same-sex parents are as likely to be well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexuals.

M. Edward Whelan III, a former Bush administration lawyer, said the Obama team’s rejection of the children-based rationale amounted to “sabotage.”

Another possible path, legal specialists say, would be to urge the judges to adopt the easy test because courts elsewhere have done so, without laying out any full legal analysis of how to think about gay people as a class.

Gay-rights supporters, however, call that option dishonest: those cases largely derived from decisions before the Supreme Court’s 2003 sodomy ruling. The premise that it was constitutional to criminalize gay sex short-circuited appraisal of protections for gay people from lesser forms of official discrimination.

“We think there is only one answer the government and the court can come to if they apply the test conscientiously, and that is that the government must have to prove why it needs to treat gay people differently,” said Mr. Esseks, the A.C.L.U. lawyer.

“And if the government has to have a real reason, as opposed to a made-up reason, we don’t think there is any way that the government wins.”

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Nightly Wrap Up With New Mexico GLBTQ Centers

Montana couples want partner recognition.

Wyoming forwards another antigay bill regarding same-sex marriages performed out of state.

Paintball attack on a San Diego LGBT Center will be investigated as a hate crime.

Oscar nominations for The Kids Are All Right is a nod for Marriage Equality.

Rahm: Back in the Race for Now.

Gay Doritos Ads Won't Air.  Of course!

Racer: Bar Gays From Dancing on TV.

"But it's not about your work. It's about how you exist as a person in the world, and the idea that your work is more important than you as a person is a horrible, horrible message." - Alan Cumming

Iowa House Committee Backs Marriage Ban.

Marriage Equality Bill Introduced in Maryland.

Jason Mraz: No Wedding Until Marriage Equality.  Didn't Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie already say something like this a few years ago?

Bening, Franco Score Oscar Nods.

Illinois Gov. to Sign Civil Unions Law.

Obama’s Gay State of the Union.

Obama’s flip-flop on gay marriage: What changed between 1996 and 2011?

Oscar celebrates gay films, roles and females - oh my! 

A Gay Agenda for Everyone

By DAN SAVAGE

I’m not an idiot: Now that the Republicans hold the House, only wishful thinkers and the deeply delusional expect to see any movement on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender legislative agenda this year or next. Nevertheless, President Obama should address gay rights in his State of the Union speech this week, and he should tackle the biggest, most meaningful right of them all: the right to marry.

When he was a candidate for the Illinois State Senate in 1996, Mr. Obama told a gay publication that he supported “legalizing same-sex marriages.” Twelve years later, right about the time he decided to run for president, he came out against marriage equality. But, as the president likes to say, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Where a Gallup poll in 1996 found that just 27 percent of the nation supported equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, a CNN poll last summer found that a majority now supports marriage equality.

The president — perhaps after introducing Daniel Hernandez Jr., the openly gay intern credited with saving Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s life — should declare that the trend is clear: this country increasingly believes that Mr. Hernandez and other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans should have all the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens.

Gay Americans are eventually going to win on marriage just like we won on military service, the president should tell Congress, so why not save everyone on both sides of the debate a lot of time, trouble and money by approving the entire gay rights agenda? Send the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Student Non-Discrimination Act, the Uniting American Families Act and the repeal of the odious Defense of Marriage Act to his desk for his signature.

He can assure the lawmakers that, yes, there’s something in it for Americans who disapprove of homosexuality too.

Social conservatives long to raise their children in a country where they don’t have to hear about homosexuality every time they turn on the news. I’d like raise my son in a country like that too. And guess what? In countries like Canada — where the fight over gay rights is essentially over, where there is gay marriage, open military service and employment protections — homosexuality hardly ever makes the front pages of newspapers. There’s nothing much to report.

Conservatives can’t get rid of us, but they can hear less from and about us. They just have to bend toward justice.


Dan Savage is the editorial director of The Stranger, a Seattle weekly.


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Mexican same-sex couples gain more rights

by David Taffet

Mexico has become a model of equality for gay and lesbian couples.

After Mexico City legalized same-sex marriage last year, the law was challenged. But Mexico’s Supreme Court has stood on the side of fairness.

The administration of Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s conservative president, challenged the law. The challenge backfired when the court ruled that not only may same-sex couples marry in Mexico City, but all 31 states must recognize those marriages.

Since then, Calderon’s administration has continued to throw roadblocks in front of same-sex married couples — but so far it has continued to lose.

According to the Mexican newspaper Vanguardia, when a couple wanted to register as married in the national social security system, they had to go to court to establish their right to do so. The Secretary of Labor and Social Security tried to block them from doing so.

Based on the earlier Supreme Court ruling saying all states must recognize a marriage performed in Mexico City, a lower court ruled last week that the women may register as a couple with the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social.

The government bureau dropped its appeal and said the ruling applies to all married couples.

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Bills aimed at legalizing same-sex marriage introduced in Rhode Island House, Senate

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island may be poised to become the next state to legalize same-sex marriage as bills were introduced Thursday in the state’s House and Senate chambers aimed at doing just that.

The move comes just two days after Governor Lincoln Chafee, in his inaugural address, called on legislators to swiftly legalize same-sex marriage, so that Rhode Island could “catch up to her New England neighbors.’’

The two bills, reintroduced in the House by Rep. Arthur Handy, and in the Senate by Sen. Rhoda Perry, call for legalizing “civil marriage” between people of the same gender, while specifying that no religious institution would be required to marry same-sex couples if it goes against its teachings.

The House bill was co-signed by 29 lawmakers, including House Speaker Gordon D. Fox, who is openly gay. Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed (D) opposes gay marriage, but her spokesman said she won’t block a vote on the legislation.

Efforts to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island have been introduced several times in recent years, but failed due to opposition from former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, a Republican, and previous legislative leaders.

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