Dramatic leap in support for gay marriage: California poll.

A new poll shows gay marriage has arrived in California – in public opinion if not in state lawbooks.Golden State registered voters now favor same-sex unions by 59 percent to 34 percent, a 25-point gap that is the largest margin of support for the issue in the three-plus decades the Field Poll has been asking the question.

The new Field survey shows support has leapt markedly in the three and a half years since California voters approved Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, 52.3 percent to 47.7 percent.
Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said the move to a 25-point gap goes beyond the gradual increase in support that has been expected as young voters age and "replace" older voters in the electorate.
"This is now showing that opinions are changing irrespective of generational replacement," DiCamillo said. "This is real change."

-The Sacramento Bee

(The Sacramento Bee also has links here to the detailed results)
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NH Bill to Revoke Gay Marriage Will Harm GOP - State Rep

February has come to an end, and there's still no sign of the threatened bill to repeal marriage equality - a bill that was originally promised as a priority for the New Year, then was delayed until after the January primary, then put off until February, and then put off until....... when? and why?

With recent polls showing that only 27% of state voters favouring repeal, GOP Rep has a simple explanation: the bill will hurt the Republican party's electoral chances for November. In this libertarian leaning state, they're getting cold feet.

Mr. Bates said that if the repeal bill failed this year, he would not give up. Governor Lynch is leaving office at year’s end, and both Republicans who have entered the race to succeed him support repeal. 

State Rep Seth Cohen (GOP)

But Representative Seth Cohn, a libertarian Republican who opposes the repeal, said he thought it would in fact harm the Republicans’ chance of staying in power after 2012, whether or not it succeeds.

“They want this as an election issue,” he said of the Democrats. “I think it’s going to backlash against the Republicans who, in the face of the polls, are choosing not to believe the average person is O.K. with this situation.”

 - NYTimes.com.

Iowa Poll: Majority opposes ban on same-sex marriage | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com

In Iowa, Republican state legislators are trying to force through a constitutional amendment by public ballot to overturn the 2009 court decision that provided for gay marriage - but most Iowans are against the idea:

Iowa Poll: Majority opposes ban on same-sex marriage

"A majority of Iowans oppose passage of a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a new Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows.

The poll found that 38 percent favor a legislative initiative to pass a constitutional amendment, while 56 percent are against. Six percent aren’t sure.

The findings show little movement on the issue from February 2011, when 40 percent of those surveyed supported passing an amendment, while 54 percent were opposed."

 The Des Moines Register

Marriage equality is here to stay, in Iowa. The proposed ballot has passed in the house, but is stalled in the state Senate, where the Democrats have a narrow majority, and the Senate president won't even consider introducing it. Even if it is introduced and passed, that will not end it. It will need to be passed again, in both houses, in the next legislative session, 2013 - 2014. With public opinion turning against them, even some GOP senators may well turn against a public vote, just as they are currently doing in New Hampshire. 

Then - they still have to win the balllot. If public opinion is against overturn now, that will be even more true in another two years.

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Sherry Harris, Pioneer City Councillor.

b. February 27, 1965

All real and lasting change starts first on the inside and works it way through to the outside. Politically speaking, each person being the change we wish to see in the world is the only stance that can make a lasting difference. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Believing it impossible to win election as an out lesbian, many people warned Sherry Harris against running for Seattle City Council. In 1991, Harris proved her skeptics wrong. She defeated a 24-year incumbent councilman and became the nation's first openly lesbian African-American city council member.Prior to politics, Harris pursued a professional career in engineering. In 1980, she received a B.S. in Human Factors Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She worked as a project engineer for PNW Bell Telephone Company. 


As Seattle City Councilmember from 1992 to 1995, Harris championed downtown interests. She promoted the expansion of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center and supported a downtown symphony hall. A native of Newark, New Jersey, Harris said, "I was raised in a city where the downtown died, and so did the rest of the city."

Harris has worked with Humanity's Team, an organization that emphasizes interpersonal connections. One volunteer who worked closely with Harris said, "She is truly a fine leader demonstrating great passion for humanity's well-being [who] displays uncompromising strength of character."

Lesbian judge refuses to perform marriage ceremonies

Dallas County civil Judge Tonya Parker, a lesbian, is making national news after announcing she won’t perform marriage ceremonies in her court until gay couples can legally wed in Texas.

According to the Dallas Voice, Parker says:

I don’t perform marriage ceremonies because we are in a state that does not have marriage equality … it’s kind of oxymoronic for me to perform ceremonies that can’t be performed for me, so I’m not going to do it.

Parker announced her decision while giving a speech on Tuesday at the monthly meeting of the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, of which she is a member, the Dallas Voice says. See the YouTube video below: 

- chron.com

Poll finds Irish support for gay marriage at 73% ( PinkNews.co.uk)

Is full marriage equality on the way for Ireland? The signs are encouraging:

"Equal marriage advocates have welcomed a poll which puts public support for allowing gay couples to marry at 73%.

The poll, by Red C, showed nearly three quarters of those asked said they would agree with the statement: “Same sex marriage should be allowed in the Constitution”.

The results were presented to Ireland’s Oireachtas yesterday in a report prepared for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on the last Constitutional referendum.

Kieran Rose, Chair of Ireland’s Gay and Lesbian Equality Network said: “The poll confirms the openness of Irish people and their support for further critically important progress to achieving equality for lesbian and gay people."

- PinkNews.co.uk

Meanwhile, a powerful opinion piece at the Irish Examiner says unequivocally that civil partnerships are no longer enough: "It's time!"

CIVIL partnerships were always a first step, not a full stop, but it is remarkable the way public opinion has now swung so rapidly behind the move to gay-marriage equality.

The latest poll on the subject shows an overwhelming 73% back amending the Constitution to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.

While civil partnerships offer some guarantees for same-sex couples, such as stopping homophobic relatives barring lifelong partners from their loved one’s death bed, in practice it cements a status as second-class citizens within a society in which all should be equal.

The change to marriage equality is about the State and its responsibility to recognise its citizens as equals.

This is about people who want to have their lifelong emotional commitment to one another recognised by the State that they fund as taxpayers.

If South Africa can do it, there is no reason Ireland cannot follow Canada and Belgium, to name but two others, and let same-sex couples have the civil rights to which they are entitled.

- full article at  Irish Examiner 

Related articles

• Coalition for (Equal) Marriage: Sign the Petition (queeringthechurch.com)
• In Valentine's Week, Marriage Equality Advances: Update (queeringthechurch.com)
• Three cheers for marriage equality in Maryland! (queerlandia.com)
• Religion and Gay Marriage - No Longer in Conflict (queeringthechurch.com)

Bishop Mary Glasspool

b, February 23, 1954

A suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. She is the first open lesbian to be consecrated a bishop in the Anglican Communion.

Glasspool was born on February 23, 1954, in Staten Island Hospital, New York, to Douglas Murray Glasspool and Anne Dickinson. Later that year the Glasspool family moved to Goshen, New York, where her father served as Rector of St. James’ Church until his death in 1989. She entered the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1976 and was ordained a deacon in June 1981 and a priest in March 1982. In 1981, Glasspool became assistant to the rector at St. Paul’s Church in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, where she served until 1984. She was the rector of St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Church in Boston from 1984 to 1992, then the rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Annapolis, from 1992 to 2001, and was called to serve as canon to the bishops for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland in 2001.

Glasspool was elected a bishop suffragan on December 4, 2009, on the seventh ballot at the 115th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in Riverside, California. On March 17, 2010, the Presiding Bishop’s Office certified that her election had received the necessary consents and she was subsequently consecrated on May 15, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Glasspool is the 17th woman and the first openly gay woman elected to the episcopate in the Episcopal Church. Her election has gained worldwide attention in the context of the ongoing debate about gay bishops in Anglicanism.