Mary Cheney marries her girlfriend, Dick is "delighted"

Regardless of your feelings about dad (or mom, or that other sister - or Mary for that matter), this is helpful, as is Dick Cheney's response. Read the rest of this post...

François Hollande pledges support for gay marriage in France

The new French government is planning to make a number of changes on the economy, but they're also looking at many other changes from the past including support for gay marriage. Read the story at AMERICAblogGay. Read the rest of this post...

How gay marriage may just get Obama re-elected

Wedding via Shutterstock

From a piece I penned for the Daily Beast this morning. In this part of the piece I'm talking about liberal frustration with the President the first few years when it seemed he was almost afraid of change.

The turning point for many progressives was the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in December 2010. While the repeal was obviously a big deal to those of us in the gay community, I was surprised by how many of my straight friends on the left shared our sense of victory and elation, and by those in the media who characterized the repeal as a necessary first step toward Obama’s winning back the left in 2012.

Gay rights switched from being perceived as an albatross around the necks of national Democrats to an issue that could galvanize the party’s base.
In that moment, the conventional wisdom shifted.

LGBT civil rights stopped being a ghettoized issue important only to a small (but noisy) Democratic constituency and started being seen as a core Democratic value.

The Obama campaign now regularly cites DADT among its top first-term achievements—and not just when speaking to gay voters and donors but to the public at large. Gay rights switched from being perceived as an albatross around the necks of national Democrats to an issue that could galvanize the party’s base and, just as important, showcase the president’s courage.

And that’s the second important change that began with the repeal of DADT and was cemented with Obama’s embrace of marriage equality. Barack Obama became a leader in the eyes of a number of doubting Democrats and independents (57 percent of whom back gay marriage).

The president who seemed almost afraid of change became an agent of change. The man we voted for was finally back.

Read the rest of this post...

Mitt Romney's untraditional grandson

I can't swear to know every word in the Book of Mormon, but I'm pretty sure that when Mitt Romney spouted off the other day about his reverence for the 3,000 year old definition of marriage, nowhere in that definition did it include a man, his wife, and the unnamed other woman who gave birth to their twin sons.

(Well, actually, the only place you would find multiple women mothering the same child is in Mormon tradition.)

But that's exactly what Romney's son Tagg did, he used a surrogate.  Even though it's a pretty big no no in Mormonism:

Mitt Romney and his five sons are all practicing Mormons, and according to the handbook of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church “strongly discourages” both surrogacy and in vitro fertilization.

“The Church discourages surrogate motherhood but leaves the decision to individual members,” said Michael Purdy, a church spokesman.

Put aside the fact that in traditional Mormon marriages if one of your wives was infertile you could simply go to one of your other wives.  I do find it interesting that Mitt Romney is happy to take potshots at our families for "discarding tradition" while his own family isn't exactly a font of tradition either.  Yet another Romney flip-flop.

Get ready for someone to claim that it's a low-blow criticizing Mitt's kids, while three days ago Mitt had no problem going after ours.

Jesus didn't have two mommies, Mitt.*

*(Though he did have two daddies.) Read the rest of this post...

Video: I debate same-sex marriage, and sex with turtles, on CNN

No lectures about the lack of jacket and tie - I'm in Chicago and don't have any business clothes with me, so you get casual John for this appearance. Also, there are the glasses, which are a first for me and TV - I'm getting cataract surgery later this week, so not permitted to wear the contacts. Now back to the substance. The segment was about media bias vis-a-vis President Obama's marriage equality announcement this past week (i.e., was the media too giddy?). The conversation veered into some other unexpected areas as well, but I think it went well overall. See what you think. JOHN

Read the rest of this post...

Chris Matthews takes down Tony Perkins over gay rights

Yes, Chris Matthews.

There's an interesting backstory to this story (thanks to emailers for all of these links).

Matthews had previously been all deferential to Tony Perkins of the "Family Research Council" — not only by not challenging his lies and distortions, but by handing out cred like cookies with comments like those noted below (see first quote block).

But thanks to Obama's sea-change (regardless of its cause), many in the media and government are getting religion, the real kind, and rethinking their gay positioning. Yes, this really was a big deal, what Biden–Obama did. (It probably helps to have the well-liked Rachel Maddow over there as well, spreading her think-this-through pixie dust.)

According to this story, someone confronted Matthews at a book signing in late March of this year, and the following occurred (video at the link; my emphasis and some reparagraphing throughout):

Last weekend, Faithful America members from the Boston area confronted Chris Matthews at a book signing in Framingham, Massachusetts about his track record of inviting Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Hardball as a representative of Christian voters.

FRC was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010 for spreading hateful lies and junk research about the LGBT community — and in part because of an incident in which a senior FRC staffer said on Hardball that there should be “criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.”

Matthews, who just received Human Rights Campaign’s Ally for Equality award, responded by falsely claiming that Perkins has never “pulled that homophobic stuff on my show,” and insisting that “every time he’s on he’s challenged.” ...

That’s just not true. ... Instead, Matthews has gone out of his way to give credibility to Perkins, calling him an “honest conservative” with “true views” whose conscience he trusts. Viewers who trust Matthews’s judgment and honesty come away with the impression that they should do the same of Perkins. ...

As you can see in the video [click link to play], when Faithful America member Jeff Bridges raises the question of legitimizing Perkins’s off-air comments, Matthews has no real response, admitting that “you may be right. I may agree with you, but not right now.”

The sea around Matthews has changed since then, and Matthews seems to have changed with it. Thus the new Matthews in this May 10 exchange with Tony Perkins (helped out by Barney Frank, who knows a thing or two). Watch:



This is how the media should treat Perkins, each and every time he appears. The "Family Research Council" has been named a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That should be part of his intro wherever he goes.

(Why the quotes around "Family Research Council"? Because they don't stand for real families; they don't do research; and as far as I know they're not a council, but the policy arm of Tony Perkins. Ever see anyone else but Perkins represent them?)

Good work, Mr. Matthews. Good work also by Jeff Bridges of Faithful America, who confronted him. See, not all religious people are not-religious — just a great many of them.

GP

To follow on twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius
  Read the rest of this post...

Are Americans in the Vatican – including disgraced Cardinal Law – behind the Nuns Crackdown?

As Joe reported here, the Vatican has opened a new front on the war against women with a crackdown of the largest and most influential organization of nuns in the U.S., the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

From Joe's story, quoting the NY Times (please click to get the full picture):

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” ... Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise, Sister Sanders said.

That's the background. Now comes news of who's running this Vatican operation — a bunch of American priests, possibly including disgraced Boston Cardinal Bernard Law (my emphasis and [bracketed notes]):

When the Vatican last month announced a doctrinal crackdown on the leadership organization representing most of the 57,000 nuns in the U.S. [see above], the sisters said they were “stunned” by the move. Many American Catholics, meanwhile, were angry at what they saw as Rome bullying women whose lives of service have endeared them to the public. ...

[I]t turns out that conservative American churchmen living in Rome—including disgraced former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law—were key players in pushing the hostile takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, or LCWR, which they have long viewed with suspicion for emphasizing social justice work over loyalty to the hierarchy and issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Vatican observers in Rome and church sources in the U.S. say Law was “the person in Rome most forcefully supporting” the LCWR investigation, as Rome correspondent Robert Mickens wrote in The Tablet, a London-based Catholic weekly. Law was the “prime instigator,” in the words of one American churchman, of the investigation that began in 2009 and ended in 2011. The actual crackdown was only launched in April.

Also named in the story are Cardinal Raymond Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis; Cardinal William Levada, a former archbishop of San Francisco; and Cardinal James Stafford, a former Denver archbishop.

Conservatives all. Levada has Ratzinger's old job as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal watchdog."

At issue is not just the fact that Bernard Law and Raymond Burke were given "asylum" in Rome after being driven out of the U.S. in the wake of the child abuse scandal. It's that the Vatican dragged its feet to protect its priests while putting its female community into receivership:

“American Catholics have not forgotten how long it took bishops to wake up to the sexual-abuse crisis they created. And now they see that the Vatican took just three years to determine that it had no other option but to put 80 percent of U.S. nuns — whose average age is 74 — into receivership, an effort led in part by Cardinal Bernard Law,” Grant Gallicho, an associate editor of Commonweal, a liberal Catholic periodical, wrote on the magazine’s blog.

The average age of nuns in the U.S. is ... 74 years old? Man, do these guys owe them.

Is it safe to say that, like all troglodytes, these males hate women? Is it safe to say that if this weren't a "church," most of these types would be serving time for sexual abuse of minors in prisons around the world? I would say Yes on all counts.

The good news? There really are good Catholics — Catholics who are also actually good — Fr. Daniel Berrigan types, who live and breathe under the Bush-like dictatorship of the conservatives who control their organization.

What do you call a religious leader who loves power more than doing right? Not-religious.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
  Read the rest of this post...

Why Obama acted now on gay marriage, and the danger for Republicans

Politico explains that it was Biden's snafu on Sunday, and the White House Press Corps subsequently eating White House spokesman Jay Carney for lunch, that spurred the President to act now:

In the end, people close to the president say, it wasn’t a close call: The core of their argument against Mitt Romney is that he is an untrustworthy politician with no real core of conviction. Obama’s advisers — who are acutely conscious of the media’s criticism despite their professed contempt for the news cycle — simply couldn’t afford to have the president appear like a coward on the front and editorial pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, according to senior Democrats.

If Biden’s comments were the catalyst for Wednesday’s historic announcement, Jay Carney was the immediate trigger, officials said. The White House press secretary took a serious drubbing on Monday when reporters all but accused the White House of cowardice on the issue.

I have to give the White House Press Corps credit for doing an incredible job on this issue over the last few days, but really over the last year and then some.  They dogged this tenaciously.

AP's Charles Babington says that Obama's move poses a risk for Republicans as well:

Public opinion about gay marriage has changed so rapidly that President Barack Obama's historic embrace of it may pose as many political risks to Republicans as to the president and his fellow Democrats.

The president's dramatic shift on the issue - a watershed moment in U.S. politics, even if many people felt it was inevitable - is the latest sign that Democratic hopes increasingly rest on younger, college-educated and largely urban voters, whose lifestyles are shaped by social mobility more than religious and community traditions. Many young adults find the notion of discriminating against gays and lesbians as incomprehensible as their parents' and grandparents' accounts of living through racial segregation.

Read the rest of this post...

Eric Cantor's culture war is my life

Here's a snippet of something I just posted over at AMERICAblog Gay:

Brad Dayspring, the former spokesman for the number two Republican in the US House, Eric Cantor, had the following to say about President Obama's support for same-sex marriage:

Brad Dayspring ‏ @BDayspring
With the economy in stagnation and crippling amounts of debt, the President seeks to further divide America by launching in a culture war.

Your culture war is my life.

And isn't that the problem with so much that the modern Republican party stands for. They've turned all of our lives into one big culture war.

Access to affordable health care is a culture war.

Jobs are a culture war.

Protecting the environment is a culture war.

Student loans are a culture war.

Civil rights are a culture war.

What isn't a culture war to these people?

While Eric Cantor is talking about a culture war, we're worried about the young gay kid who is so without hope he'd rather hang himself than face another day of bullying.  We're worried about the lesbian Virginian whose partner of nearly twenty years died when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on September 11, and she found herself in legal and financial limbo because the woman she loved was not her legal wife.

Daily life in America isn't sexy.  It's about trying to put food on the table for your family, trying to pay your bills, trying to take care of your children, and trying to build a future in a country in which you pray that the dream is still alive.  It's not about gay couples and straight couples, it's about families, all families, trying to make ends meet and simply get by in trying times.

Why the Republicans offer those families mockery instead of assistance goes to the core of why Barack Obama deserves to be President of the United States, and they don't.

You can read the rest here. Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Barack Obama supports marriage equality

On October 27, 2010, I asked the President Obama what his position was on same-sex marriage.  He told me that his position was evolving.  Today, Barack Obama's evolution on marriage equality is complete.

Obama has told ABC News that "same sex marriage should be legal.... I think same-sex couples should be able to get married." (ABC has the video.)

OBAMA: I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Obama became the first President of the United States to support marriage equality. It's a very welcome development. As you know, the President first announced that he was evolving during our interview on October 27, 2010. In response to my question, the President said:

I think it’s a fair question to ask. I think that -- I am a strong supporter of civil unions. As you say, I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you’re right that attitudes evolve, including mine. And I think that it is an issue that I wrestle with and think about because I have a whole host of friends who are in gay partnerships. I have staff members who are in committed, monogamous relationships, who are raising children, who are wonderful parents. And I care about them deeply. And so while I’m not prepared to reverse myself here, sitting in the Roosevelt Room at 3:30 in the afternoon, I think it’s fair to say that it’s something that I think a lot about. That’s probably the best you’ll do out of me today.

I told the President that if our relationships weren't treated like everyone else's, we aren't equal. Today, he acknowledged that we are.

Five progressive bloggers interview President Obama in October, 2010.

Now, this doesn't change any law or over rule any constitutional amendment. It's symbolic. But, it certainly feels different to know that, for the first time, our President thinks our relationships are equal.

During our interview, the President said, "The one thing I will say today is I think it’s pretty clear where the trendlines are going." Now, he's with the trend. And, our talk concluded:

Q The arc of history. THE PRESIDENT: The arc of history.

Yep. The arc of history. And, I'm honored to have played a small role in this. (h/t to ThinkProgress for the transcript of today's interview.)
------
NOTE FROM JOHN: A few points.  First, this is major news and these aren't "just words."  When the President of the United States makes a statement about an issue this big, the words have impact.  They can impact court cases around the country, and just as importantly, people's attitudes. Those attitudes matter at the ballot box and in the schoolyard.  The President's opinion matter.  This is an important day for gays and lesbians, our allies, and for all Americans who believe that our country stands for more than cheap political slogans.  Today we showed that it does. Read the rest of this post...

Obama just finished gay marriage interview with ABC

UPDATE: Two sources have told me they've heard ABC will have a special report at 3pm Eastern about the interview. Stay tuned.

A source tells me that ABC's Robin Roberts, who interviewed the President today about gay marriage, has just finished her interview with Obama. So the news could come at any moment. Read the rest of this post...

Increasing rumors Obama may endorse gay marriage today

The rumor mill is off the charts on this.  And there's no indication that the White House is trying to dampen expectations.  Very interesting.

And remember, it was AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay who got President Obama to say, in an interview at the White House, that he was "evolving" on gay marriage.

Q So I have another gay question. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: It’s okay, man. (Laughter.)

Q And this one is on the issue of marriage. Since you’ve become President, a lot has changed. More states have passed marriage equality laws. This summer a federal judge declared DOMA unconstitutional in two different cases. A judge in San Francisco declared Prop 8 was unconstitutional. And I know during the campaign you often said you thought marriage was the union between a man and a woman, and there -- like I said, when you look at public opinion polling, it’s heading in the right direction. We’ve actually got Republicans like Ted Olson and even Ken Mehlman on our side now. So I just really want to know what is your position on same-sex marriage?

THE PRESIDENT: Joe, I do not intend to make big news sitting here with the five of you, as wonderful as you guys are. (Laughter.) But I’ll say this --

Q I just want to say, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you this question.

THE PRESIDENT: Of course.

Q People in our community are really desperate to know.

THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s a fair question to ask. I think that -- I am a strong supporter of civil unions. As you say, I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage.

But I also think you’re right that attitudes evolve, including mine. And I think that it is an issue that I wrestle with and think about because I have a whole host of friends who are in gay partnerships. I have staff members who are in committed, monogamous relationships, who are raising children, who are wonderful parents.

And I care about them deeply. And so while I’m not prepared to reverse myself here, sitting in the Roosevelt Room at 3:30 in the afternoon, I think it’s fair to say that it’s something that I think a lot about. That’s probably the best you’ll do out of me today. (Laughter.)

Read the rest of this post...

NC votes to oppress a minority

The racist law passed in 1956, as did the anti-gay one last night.

Plus ça change...

(H/t Jeremy Hooper) Read the rest of this post...

Biden's office now says he's "evolving" on marriage, backs off earlier support

Just got this from a Biden spokesperson:

"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."

No he wasn't. The VP explained that all marriages, gay and straight, are the same. See my earlier post. Read the rest of this post...

Biden endorses same-sex marriage, White House tries to take it back

These ongoing episodes of gay panic from the White House are, sadly, expected but not helpful.  Read the rest of this post...

Vatican opens new front in its war on women with attack on American nuns

While the GOP continues its war on women, the Vatican, which has been in the forefront of that war for centuries, has set its sights on American nuns. Their "sin"? Among other things, not being sufficiently anti-gay. From the NY Times:

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.” 

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”  During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.

The nuns weren't expecting this broadside from the men who run the church:

Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise, Sister Sanders said. She said that the group’s leaders were in Rome on Wednesday for what they thought was a routine annual visit to the Vatican when they were informed of the outcome of the investigation, which began in 2008. 

“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

And, to complete the homophobic circle, the Archbishop of Seattle, J. Peter Sartain, who is leading the jihad against the nuns, is also leading the effort to repeal Washington State's new marriage equality law. But, this past weekend, a number of parishes rejected the Archbishop's edict to collect signatures for an anti-marriage referendum. In fact, via Igor Volsky at Think Progress, we learned that one Catholic priest got a standing ovation from his parishioners by announcing he wouldn't participate in the effort to gather signatures for an anti-marriage petition. Read the rest of this post...

Mike Signorile to President Obama: "Come Out of the Closet on Gay Marriage"

Mike Signorile has a must-read post over at Huffington's Gay Voices with a very clear, concise and important message for the President on marriage:

it's time for Obama to now kick down the closet door.

Read the post -- and people at the campaign HQ should read it, too (not that those geniuses ever listen to anyone.) We posted this at AMERICAblog Gay, too.

Mike outlines very clearly why this matters to the President's reelection:

And there are two things happening now that will make the president seem more disingenuous, fearful and weak if he does not come out for marriage equality. His own party is moving at light speed on the issue, with pressure mounting to include marriage equality in the Democratic Party platform. This week four former Democratic National Committee chairs joined the Democratic National Convention's chair, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in calling for the platform to include full equality. As Greg Sargent explains, this makes the issue unavoidable for Obama at this point.

Secondly, Mitt Romney is now emerging as the sure Republican nominee, a man who supports "gay rights" but not "gay marriage" -- in other words, in the broad brush of politics and the media, having the same position as Obama. And you better believe, just like his buddy Chris Christie did, Romney will say that. Yes, of course it's not true when you look at the details. And true, Romney has veered far to the right in the primaries. But Romney is whipping out the Etch A Sketch as we speak, and our media can't be counted on to stop him from erasing the past and keeping the details submerged.

I've heard from caller after caller to my radio program, people from all across the country who describe themselves as gay Republicans and gay independents, or as straight, socially-liberal independents or moderate Republicans, who voted for Obama in 2008. They're experiencing Obama fatigue and were never really that loyal, voting for Obama mostly because the GOP had hit rock bottom under Bush. They're looking for reasons to vote for Romney, or, rather, against Obama. The president has got to clarify every blurry line between him and Romney, and on this issue, relevant to many of them, one way to do it is to come out for full equality.

Some people ask, If everyone assumes Obama secretly supports marriage, why does he need to say it? Because staying in closet makes him look scared and dishonest. It keeps him on the defensive and far behind his party -- not to mention behind Dick Cheney and Laura Bush. And it depresses energy. The campaign surely wants to tap into the youth vote it galvanized in 2008, and certainly an issue like this, a civil rights issue of our time and one that is a driving force on college campuses, is the way to go.

Obama and his campaign need to stop the fretting and the fear -- the cowering in the closet -- and get back to the bold message of, "Yes, we can!"

Read the rest of this post...

Constituent: "Sam Arora is a liar"

For any of you who know Maryland Delegate, and former progressive, Sam Arora.  Read this. Read the rest of this post...

Ask Landmark Theaters to show "Question One," about Maine marriage campaign, nationwide

Landmark Theatres is the largest art house theater chain in the US. And there's a serious proposal before the company to show the documentary "Question One" in its cinemas nationwide. We'd like your help in letting Landmark know that there's genuine interest in seeing this film.

Question One is the story of the campaign to repeal/save marriage equality in Maine back in 2009. Produced and directed by gay film maker Joe Fox and his co-producer/director James Nubile, the movie takes the approach of following both campaigns, the good and bad (as it were), from behind the scenes, up until election night. I saw it last fall and thought it was really well done, in addition to quite damning of the religious right. Now, we've teamed up with Joe F. and James to ask Landmark to show the movie. Given all the intensity around marriage equality across the country, the timing couldn't be better.

What's most interesting about the documentary is that even though it's "fair" - both sides get to tell their story - the anti-gay campaign does a bang-up job of indicting themselves by the end of the film. Their campaign manager, Mark Mutty (who works for the Catholic Diocese of Maine), makes it clear that they lied to the people of Maine in order to take away our civil rights. And the mastermind behind the lies was Frank Schubert, who did the same thing on Prop. 8 (won by telling voters the lie that we were coming after their children) - and, no doubt, will again. The admissions are damning. And that's one good reason for anyone who is interested in the quest for marriage equality to see this film.

So here's how you can help:
1. Email Landmark Theatres: Q1Landmark@gmail.com

All you need to do is send a quick email to Landmark, telling them you'd like them to show "Question One," the documentary about the marriage equality battle in Maine, in their theaters, and that of course you'll go the show and tell your friends about it. Use this email address: Q1Landmark@gmail.com The film's directors will then hand deliver the emails to a Landmark executive. If you want, put your home town in the subject line of the email, so that the geographic diversity of interest is clear on its face just by looking at the subject lines.

2. Tweet this post.
3. Share this post on Facebook.

There's some great commentary on "Question 1" from Bill Nemitz of the Portland Press Herald:

[Mutty] insists that the central campaign theme for “Yes on 1” – that same-sex marriage, if not repealed, would be required teaching throughout Maine’s public schools – was “hyperbole” and “not a completely accurate statement and we all know it isn’t.”

Yes, the Bishop's aide actually admit that their central message was a lie.

We aren't surprised that the other side lies. It's just stunning to see it in their own words. And, it's critical for our straight allies to know this, too. Just this we learned that the National Organization for Marriage, NOM, is trying to incite a race war in order to win the fight on marriage equality. Again, not surprising to us. But, it's clearly captured the attention of the traditional media.

The duplicity of the anti-LGBT industry needs to be exposed. The true story of how dirty they are in the way they handle these anti-gay campaigns - a story told in their own words - needs to be seen by as many people as possible. And, getting "Question One" into Landmark's theaters in 21 cities would be a major step in the right direction. You can watch the six minute trailer here.

More from Nemitz:

New York City-based filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile were allowed in with their cameras by both sides – giving the documentarians, and now us, a strikingly unvarnished view of what went on behind the scenes during those oh-so-divisive days two years ago.

Help us get this critical documentary shown at Landmark's theaters across the country. Send an email to Q1Landmark@gmail.com, and tell Landmark that you think they should show "Question One" in their theaters, and if you'd like to explain why you think it's important for Landmark to show the documentary, that would certainly be welcome. But even a short note letting Landmark know that you and your friends woulde go see the film if they showed it, would be very helpful. Joe and James will then hand deliver your emails to a Landmark executive.

Share on Twitter:

Send a Tweet to Landmark urging them to show "Question One" in their theaters: @LandmarkLTC
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Thanks so much. JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Is Michelle Obama stumping for gay marriage?

First Lady Michelle Obama mentioned the right to "love whomever we choose" in a recent fundraising trip to NYC.  And although she's said that phrase before at events, this time it's gotten noticed.  Why was the phrase non-controversial before, yet causing controversy now?

Because the issue of marriage equality, aka gay marriage, is moving at a faster clip than politicians can keep up with.  On its own, organically, marriage has become the putative number one issue for many in the gay community.  In part because of all the anti-gay ballot initiatives in the states this fall (but also a pro-gay one in Maine), in part because it's been 500 days since the President claimed to be "evolving" on the issue, and in part because of a growing number of victories on the issue in the courts.

For whatever reason, gay marriage is a hotter topic today than it was a year ago.  And the President, and the party, are finding that what was kosher to say six months, even one month, ago, now stirs controversy.  The best thing the President could do is make this issue go away, now.  And the only way he can do that is to evolve already.

Read the rest of this post...