Category Archives: Marriage Equality

True Story

by D Gregory Smith

From my friends at the True Stories Project:

Last week President Obama “evolved” on marriage equality, coming to the conclusion that, personally, he supported the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples.

We couldn’t be any happier or prouder – after all, we’re in the evolution business, nudging along hearts and minds one audience at a time.

500 Screenings!

In fact, last month, we reached our 500th community screening of Inlaws & Outlaws with a very special screening to raise money for our new partners, Washington United for Marriage.

As wonderful as that evening was, we are no less proud of our 499th screening, put together by two churches and a PFLAG chapter in a small town in southwestern Washington. They got over a hundred folks to turn out on a Tuesday night and got a wonderful article in the local paper. The 501st was presented by students at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana as part of Diversity Week. A Virginia chapter of Integrity,the LGBT Episcopal organization put on the 502nd.  And Number 503 kicked off the first Pride Week at Salish-Kootenai College, a small tribal school in rural Montana – the first of three screenings this month in that state.  

We could go on — and we’d love to!  But we can’t do it without you.

With marriage equality finally center stage on the national agenda, we wanted to make it even easier for schools, congregations, and non-profits to host our next 500 screenings.

Introducing our Equality Deal, an easy way to host a screening of Inlaws & Outlaws for free, raise money for your local organization and help more folks evolve in your community.

Here’s how it works:

Equality Deal!

  • First, you pick an Equality Deal package that’s the right size for you.   The screening license is free when you purchase a package of DVDs with the Equality Deal.
  • Next, register your event with us, and we’ll make you a nice event page and give you access to lots of free tools to help promote it.
  • Then, at your film showing, you sell the DVDs at full price, making back your money and, keeping the extra for you or your cause.

We designed it to be win-win, and a great way for us to helping folks in our community evolve. Check out the Equality Deal.  We are so ready to welcome you to our Outlaws Posse.

We all know that the fight for equality is truly about love, family, belonging, the pursuit of happiness – something all Americans can relate to.   That’s been the idea behind Inlaws & Outlawsfrom the start. All we have to do is share our stories, and that truth becomes eviden to our friends and neighbors. And that’s how you build support for equality.
With gratitude and pride,
Drew Emery

PS  If you’re not up for hosting a screening, consider making a donation to our Hearts + Minds Campaign. Every $100 of support helps us offer a free screening to a community organization to help create change.

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Anne Rice Reviews “Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage”

by D Gregory Smith

One of the most contentious issues of our time, marriage has been “claimed” by Christians (and others) as an unchanging “institution”, “sacrament”, “contract”, etc. This is far from historically accurate. Author and- I would argue- theologian Anne Rice weighs in with a recommendation from her Facebook page yesterday:

The nation’s talking about marriage, Same Sex Marriage, definitions of marriage, who owns marriage, etc. Well, here is a link to an excellent History of Marriage written by Stephanie Coontz that I reviewed for Amazon a while back. I recommend this book to all who have strong feelings about the institution of marriage and how it has been viewed over the millennia. Comments welcome. (I’ve linked to my review, but there are a lot of others posted on the site).

From the book description: Marriage has never been more fragile. But the same things that have made it so have also made a good marriage more fulfilling than ever before. In this enlightening and hugely entertaining book, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the sexual torments of Victorian couples to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is-and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was only 200 years ago that marriage began to be about love and emotional commitment, and since then the very things that have strengthened marriage as a personal relationship have steadily weakened it as a social institution. Marriage, A History brings intelligence, wit, and some badly needed perspective to today’s marital debates and dilemmas.

Her Review: This is an extremely well researched investigation of the institution of marriage from earliest times to the present. It may prove shocking to some readers to discover how recent our concept of “traditional marriage” may be. But information such as this book provides is essential for those concerned about marital values. History provides us with immensely important lessons regarding the attitudes and feelings of human beings over the centuries; and we must not shrink from the observations made here as we seek to understand the social and economic and even religious crises of our times. The scope of the book is incredibly ambitious yet it is clearly and at times entertainingly written, and always inviting. It can point the way for further research in many areas. On all counts, a fine and important book.

Agreed. To have this information in one place is important- and the scholarship is undeniable. Click book to see more reviews on Amazon and get a sample of the book.

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Dave Strohmaier’s Ad- Equality At The Forefront

by D Gregory Smith

If you haven’t seen the ad yet, you’ll see what I mean:

Send this to everyone you know.

Sullivan In Newsweek:

by D Gregory Smith

If you haven’t read Andrew Sullivan’s cover story in this week’s Newsweek, you must. It’s an authoritative synopsis of Obama’s civil rights policy evolution on behalf of the gays. Excerpt:

This, by any measure, is an astonishing pace of change in one presidential term. In four years Obama went from being JFK on civil rights to being LBJ: from giving uplifting speeches to acting in ways to make the inspiring words a reality. And he did so by co-opting the forces of resistance—like the military leadership. He fooled most of us much of the time, our outbursts often intemperate—I went on CNN at one point to say that the president had betrayed the gay community on the military ban. We snarked about the “fierce urgency of whenever.” Our anger built. And sometimes I wonder if he goaded us into “making him do it.” If he did, it worked.

Click the cover for the full essay.

Inlaws And Outlaws Heads To Montana!

by D Gregory Smith

This month, Inlaws & Outlaws heads to Big Sky Country, with three community screenings in Montana!

Salish Kootenai College’s Spirit of Many Colors Gay-Straight Alliance is holding their first annual PRIDE Week and the film kicks it off with a free community screening on Monday, May 14 at 2 pm in the college library.

Later in the month, Montana Pride 2012 and the Montana Human Rights Network team up to present two screenings of the film with a special appearance by filmmaker Drew Emery at each.

On Wednesday, May 23, the film will screen at Plymouth Congregational Church in Helena. On Friday, May 25, the film screens at the Bozeman Public Library. Both screenings are free and open to the general public and a Q&A and discussion with the filmmaker will follow.

The screenings happen as the battle for LGBT rights in the state heats up, including the upcoming vote on Helena’s Non-Discrimination Ordinance. If the city passes the law, it will be the second city in Montana to offer civil rights protections for LGBT Montanans. Missoula became the first in 2010.

D Gregory Smith of Montana Pride shared his excitement over the film’s timeliness. “A basic understanding of the humanity of LGBT relationships is often what’s missing from our discussion of LGBT rights. This film helps remedy that. No one will walk away wondering about differences – the shared humanity is obvious, and celebrated.”

Montana Outlaws Tour
Mon, May 14
2 pm		 Salish Kootenai College
Pablo, MT
Wed, May 23
7 pm		 Montana Human Rights Network
and Montana Pride 2012
Pilgrim Congregational Church, Helena, MT
Fri, May 25
7 pm		 Montana Human Rights Network
and Montana Pride 2012
Bozeman Public Library, Bozeman, MT
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Who’s Your Daddy?

by D Gregory Smith

As if you had to ask.

 

Where Is It Best To Be LGBT in the US?

by D Gregory Smith

 

 

Click pic for story

 

Catholic Biden: “Who do you love?”

by D Gregory Smith

From New Ways Ministry Blog:

Vice President Joe Biden’s statement in support of marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples on NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday offered one of the simplest and most practical criteria for defining who a person should be allowed to marry: “Who do you love?”

Not surprising that such support comes from the first Catholic Vice President, since it so precisely reflects the views of at least 74% of American Catholics (according to a PRRI poll) who are in favor of marriage rights for same-gender couples.

A good news summary of Biden’s statements can be read by clicking here, or you can watch a video clip of the interview with Biden:

New Ways Ministry is delighted with Vice President Biden’s remarks.  He reflects the thoughts of millions of American Catholics on marriage equality, and it is great to have such a prominent Catholic lay person be the spokesperson of the laity’s views on this matter, which differ significantly from those of the Catholic hierarchy, whose voice is usually the only Catholic one heard. Biden’s comments may not be the fullest statement of support one could have hoped for from the Obama administration, but they certainly move the discussion one giant leap forward.

The vice president’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, has long been an advocate for LGBT equality, and we are delighted that these two Catholics are helping to spread the message of equality and justice which comes from our faith experience which promotes the dignity of all human beings.

Interestingly, Biden’s question, “Who do you love?” echoes the title of an article written three decades ago by New Ways Ministry’s co-founder, Sister Jeannine Gramick:  “With Whom Have I Fallen In Love?”  The article, published in a Catholic periodical, focused on how people can determine their sexual orientation.

How does the Catholic veep’s views reflect the the views of President Obama?  Opinion is divided.

Political analyst Josh Marshall, editor of TalkingPointsMemo.com, thinks it might be a foretaste of what is to come:

“. . . I’m curious whether today’s remarks by Joe Biden on marriage equality are another example of Biden’s off-the-cuff indiscipline or something more like the White House trying to moon walk the President’s position on the issue, i.e., nudge and ease the president’s position forward while seeming to walk it back, so we’ll wake up one day and it will simply be different without ever being able to point to a day when it changed.

“Needless to say, we all know at this point that President Obama supports gay marriage but thinks the political tides aren’t quite safe enough to come out and say so. Lots of presidents telegraph this kind of equivocation but I have seen few cases where it’s been done so out there in the open.”

Pam Spaulding, writer/editor of Pam’sHouseBlend.com, did not think the remarks were significant because she felt that he was only endorsing support for civil unions, not marriage:

“I guess you could see this as yet another attempt to placate the LGBT community (i.e. open the gAyTM), or a hint that the President is about to tip-toe out of the closet, perhaps after the election. I don’t hold my breath for such things. . . .

“Biden’s comments are interesting in that they represent the President’s exact view – that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same civil rights, save the whole bit about the word ‘marriage.’ Talk about threading the political needle.”

Joan Walsh, editor at large for Salon.com, asked some interesting questions of the situation:

“It seemed an important step for an administration that can’t seem to get the president all the way there. President Obama is going to have to come out for gay marriage one of these days – can anyone honestly believe he’s against it? — but having the Catholic Biden endorse it helps, too. The group Catholic Democrats immediately Tweeted the little known fact that Catholics are the most pro-gay marriage of all Christian groups. Yet the backwards politics of the U.S. Bishops means most people don’t know that, and thus view gay marriage as a no-fly zone during an election season when the  Catholic swing vote is particularly important. So Biden’s comment mattered.

“Then the Vice President’s office issued a clarification:

‘The Vice President was saying what the President has said previously – that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights.  That’s why we stopped defending the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in legal challenges and support legislation to repeal it.  Beyond that, the Vice President was expressing that he too is evolving on the issue, after meeting so many committed couples and families in this country.’

” ‘He too is evolving.’ Actually, it seemed as if Biden had finished evolving, and actually supported ‘men marrying men, and women marrying women.’  For a moment, I actually thought having Biden step out ahead of Obama was a deliberate, maybe even slightly cynical campaign move. But apparently the campaign isn’t ready to take that chance. Why would it be a problem to have the grandfatherly Irish Catholic VP a step ahead of the president on this one, anyway? I don’t know, but backtracking seems like a lose-lose to me.”

Let’s hope that the next steps will continue to be steps forward, as Biden’s original statement certainly was.

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

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Steve Bullock Just Lost My Vote

by D Gregory Smith

Here’s why. From an article in Montana’s Lee newspapers on gubernatorial candidates and social issues:

The nine candidates were asked whether they favored changing Montana’s constitution to allow gay couples and lesbian couples to marry.

Miller opposed such a change, noting that 67 percent of Montanans voted in 2004 to say that “only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

Hill, Livingston and Lynch, all Republicans, said, “I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Bullock said, “I do not favor changing the constitution but would support legislative measures giving committed same-sex couples the opportunity to be together, free from discrimination.” This would include allowing a person to visit his or her partner in the hospital, he said.

Stapleton said he would oppose amending the constitution for that purpose, adding, “I think it’s healthy we support and cherish the traditional family.”

O’Hara said he would not change the constitution, adding: “I think our constitution adequately protects the lives of Montanans.”

Fanning said the ban on gay marriage should stand: “I believe that the sanctity of the family is the core of our society.”

Standing alone among all candidates, Margolis said it makes simple common sense to change the Montana Constitution to allow gay or lesbian couples to marry or form civil unions.

“The Montana Constitution guarantees fair and equal treatment to all people,” she said. “People should not be discriminated against, including gay and lesbian couples.”

I have to say I’m very disappointed in Steve Bullock. Ironically, he apparently is unaware of the pain and suffering of LGBT persons in his state because of legislative discrimination (including a sodomy law still on the books)- or he’s unwilling to acknowledge us in the face of staying safe and winning votes. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has done some amazing things, like already (2 years ago) extending LGBT partner visitation rights in most hospitals. What has Steve Bullock done for us lately ever? Not much. I’m taking the Bullock sticker off of my car.

At this point, my primary vote is going to Margolis.

Yeah, it’s that important.

Update: My Dissent Explained

HT:JG
Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/most-in-gop-governor-s-race-want-to-restrict-abortion/article_4988a480-9338-11e1-ab41-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1tikfD2MI

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ACLU Presents Montana Supreme Court Appeal Friday For Same-Sex Domestic Partnerships

by D Gregory Smith

The American Civil Liberties Union will appear before the Montana Supreme Court Friday for oral arguments on behalf of six committed same-sex couples seeking domestic partnership recognition.

The case, Donaldson and Guggenheim v. State of Montana, was filed in July 2010 and seeks protection for same-sex Montana couples and their families under the Montana Constitution’s rights of privacy, dignity and equal protection under the law. The goal of the lawsuit is to ensure that same-sex couples have access to the legal protections and obligations they need to take care of each other and their families.

In 2011, District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock dismissed the case. Friday’s oral arguments are part of the appeal of that decision.

WHAT:       Oral arguments in the appeal of Donaldson and Guggenheim v. State of Montana.

WHO:          Arguments will be heard by the Montana Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs available for comment will be Jan Donaldson and Mary Anne Guggenheim, Mike Long and Rich Parker, Rick Wagner and Gary Stallings, Denise Boettcher and Kellie Gibson, and Stacey Haugland and Mary Leslie.

Cooperating Attorney James Goetz, ACLU and ACLU of Montana attorneys will be available for comment.

WHEN:        Friday, April 13, 2012
9:30 a.m. MST

WHERE:     University Theater
University of Montana
Missoula, Montana

More information is available at www.aclumontana.org and www.fairisfairmontana.org.

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