{"id":3436,"date":"2006-03-19T17:40:01","date_gmt":"2006-03-20T01:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2006\/03\/19\/3436.html"},"modified":"2006-03-19T17:40:01","modified_gmt":"2006-03-20T01:40:01","slug":"optimism-about-samesex-marriag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2006\/03\/19\/optimism-about-samesex-marriag\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimism about same-sex marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><cite>The American Prospect<\/cite> recently published a remarkably optimistic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/web\/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11177\">article about same-sex marriage<\/a> by E.&nbsp;J. Graff.  Here's the blurb from the top of the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This November, anti\u2013gay-marriage bills will be back on ballots with a vengeance. But this time around, the gay and lesbian activist network is ready to play hardball.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The article explains that there are a whole bunch of upcoming DOMAs (Defense Of Marriage Acts, explicitly banning same-sex marriage) and \"SuperDOMA\" initiatives (banning not only same-sex marriage, but \"marriage-like\" quasi-equivalents like California's domestic partner law and Vermont's civil unions). However, according to the article, \"public opinion toward lesbians and gay men is warming more every day\"; and perhaps as importantly, \"the 'gay agenda' now has a new plan for winning over the long haul\"--a fifteen-year plan involving cooperation among all the major LGBT political organizations.  The plan includes several important goals:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>By the year 2020 (give or take five years), the goal is for 10 states to have full-marriage equality; 10 states to have civil unions or the equivalent; 10 states to have nondiscrimination laws and be repealing (or peeling back the effects of) their anti-gay marriage amendments; and the final 20 states to show progress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The article claims that these goals are achievable.  I have no idea whether the author's optimism is warranted, but I hope so.  And just reading about it makes me a lot more hopeful about this stuff than I've been in a while.  Go read the article, and if it moves you to action, go out and get involved!<\/p>\n<p>Here are some organizations involved in the effort; if you're interested, you might consider joining them, volunteering with them, giving them money, or even just dropping them notes of support.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetaskforce.org\/\">National Gay and Lesbian Task Force<\/a> has been fighting for LGBT rights for over thirty years now. Unfortunately, I can't seem to connect to their website right now, but I assume that's a transient glitch.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.equalityfederation.org\/\">Equality Federation<\/a>: \"a network of state\/territory organizations committed to working with each other and with national and local groups to strengthen [...] lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy organizing.\"<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrc.org\/\">Human Rights Campaign<\/a> (which I'd previously been a little dubious about for various reasons) now appears to be \"[helping] state groups create their own organizing plans.\"<\/li>\n<li>If you're a Democrat, you may be interested in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stonewalldemocrats.org\/\">National Stonewall Democrats<\/a>, who are working on \"[helping] gay-friendly Democrats win in such states as [Pennsylvania,] Arizona, Maine, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.\"<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/ceciliaregent.livejournal.com\/\">ceciliaregent<\/a> for the pointer to the article.)<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American Prospect recently published a remarkably optimistic article about same-sex marriage by E.&nbsp;J. Graff. Here&#8217;s the blurb from the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-samesex-marriage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}