I've blogged before about how we don't really have a way of describing the political diversity within the American queer population on LGBT issues. So I'm humbly proposing a few terms to discuss the way people think and talk about same-sex marriage. We're far from uniform within the queer community when it comes to our beliefs about this institution and our activism around it, and instead of starting from zero every time we talk about what X or Y person thinks about it, it would make sense to develop a meta-political vocabulary.
I came up with six rough categories, based not on polling data or studies since I don't know of any that are sufficient to this end, and therefore these terms are entirely inappropriate in a policy discussion. It's based instead on what I've learned from reading several dozen queer blogs and a dozen queer journals daily for going on three years now, as well as political discussions here on the site and among friends. Sure, there are as many beliefs when it comes to same-sex marriage as there are people in the LGBTQ population, and there's lots of diversity within these categories, but it's a starting point.
In order of descending size:
Continue reading "Toward a same-sex marriage political vocabulary"...
A coalition of grassroots groups seeking to repeal Prop 8 in California next year filed an initiative with the state Attorney General Thursday morning. However, there is still no consensus on strategy or ballot language.
The proposed initiative submitted by Love Honor Cherish opens with strong language that protects "religious freedom" - exempting religious officials or institutions from have to perform same sex marriages.
The initiative then strikes the current definition of marriage as between a man and a woman and substitutes - "Marriage is between only two persons and shall not be restricted on the basis of race, color, creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or religion."
Love Honor Cherish (LHC) co-founder John Henning said that the group conferred with attorneys and pollsters "within and outside the LGBT movement" on the language - some of whom do not favor the 2010 strategy - before the initiative was submitted.
Executive director Geoff Kors confirmed that they helped with the language.
Continue reading "Los Angeles Group Files Ballot to Repeal Prop 8 "...
The following has been clipped from The Bilerico Project Report dated 18 September 2009.
Here's the most recent polling in Maine from Research 2000 by DailyKos:
The numbers aren't too bad right now; this could go either way. The break-down is what we've seen in all these campaigns before: women, younger people, Democrats, and urban areas are more likely to be OK with same-sex marriage.
The LGBT side of the question is already doing a better job with the ads and framing of the debate. Now they want more volunteers to show up and do more than phone bank:
Via Politico comes news that the archdiocese of Washington D.C. has officially affirmed its support of the "Marriage Initiative of 2009," banning gay marriage in the District of Columbia. In effort to stress the definition of marriage under civil law as the union between a man and a woman, the archdiocese wrote letters to 300 priests to advance the Church's position.
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