Anti-gay Marriage Ballot Initiative Fight Heats Up

While the eyes of the media were on happy lesbian and gay couples getting married, LGBT lawyers focused on the anti-gay constitutional amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot that would overturn those marriage rights.

In a legal brief filed June 20, Equality California and other LGBT rights groups asked the California Supreme Court to block the initiative as “invalid” since “it is a proposed constitutional revision, not a proposed constitutional amendment.”

A “revision” of the state constitution requires approval by two-thirds of each house of the state Legislature, while a constitutional amendment only needs the approval of a simple majority of voters in an election. Additionally, the revision to the California Constitution would severely compromise the “core constitutional principle of equal citizenship [and] depriving a vulnerable minority of fundamental rights,” that is, the fundamental right for same sex couples to marry.

“Equality California and its allies are desperate to evade democracy,” said Glen Lavy, attorney for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund. “Now, they are trying to silence the people's voice forever.”

Meanwhile, the Mormon Church issued a letter to all its wards in support for the initiative. And the Capitol Resources Institute dropped its effort to overturn SB 777, legislation that protects LGBT students, to focus on the amendment.

However, pictures of happy same-sex couples are changing perspectives.

“I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding this issue [same-sex marriage],” Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told Frontiers, “but I think more and more people have come to the realization that it doesn't affect me, it doesn't bother me, nobody's views are being imposed on me—why not let same-sex couples who have and want to enter into a long-term relationship have the blessings of civil law?” —KAREN OCAMB

30% Admit to Racial Bias, Survey Says

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., may have just become the first African-American presidential candidate of a major party, but roughly one-third of Americans said they harbor racial prejudices in a recent survey, the Washington Post reported June 22. In a Washington Post-ABC News telephone poll conducted June 12-15, 30% of whites and 34% of African-Americans admitted to such feelings in a nationwide random sample of 1,125 adults. Blacks and whites are more split in their views of the general state of race relations in the U.S., with more than six in 10 African-Americans rating them “not so good” or “poor” as compared with 53% of whites holding positive views. The likely effect of voters’ racial attitudes on the presidential election is not clear from the poll. For example, almost 90% of whites said they would be comfortable with an African-American president, with about two-thirds saying they would be “entirely comfortable.” Nonetheless, just over 50% of whites said Obama was a “risky” choice, with two-thirds calling Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a “safe” choice. Roughly one-fifth of whites said a candidate’s race was important, but Obama fared no worse among such respondents than among those saying race was a small factor, or not a factor at all. At the fringes, Obama’s candidacy appears to be fueling a surge in interest in racist and white supremacist Web sites, according to another June 22 Washington Post report. “We’re finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net,” said Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that monitors hate groups. “There are probably thousands of Web sites ... I couldn’t even tell you how many… because it’s growing so fast.”

Hollywood Turns Out for Obama

Hollywood's elite-actors, studio executives, producers, and directors attended a gala fundraiser for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles June 24, the Los Angeles Times reported. The event raised more than $5 million, organizers said. It was Obama's first visit to Los Angeles since primary opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., conceded defeat June 7. In a nod to Clinton supporters at the event, Obama acknowledged that the primaries “caused some heartburn,” but said he and Clinton “were allies then and we're allies now.”

Santa Rosa Gets First Openly Gay Mayor

John Sawyer (shown), 53, has become Santa Rosa's first openly gay mayor, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported June 19. The city council chose Sawyer to replace Mayor Bob Blanchard, who died of cancer June 14. Sawyer had been Vice Mayor and has served on the city council since 2004. “For me, it's a nonissue,” Sawyer said of being gay. “For others, it's a very major issue. The voters who elected me didn't think it was an issue. But for gay youth who may be are struggling, to them having a gay mayor is meaningful.”

Bienestar Launches Latino Campaign Against Homophobia

Bienestar, a Latino LGBT community service and advocacy group, has launched a “Latino Campaign against Homophobia,” states a June 10 Bienestar release. The effort, supported by internationally renowned Mexican actress, singer, and comedian Angélica Vale (shown), seeks 10,000 Latinos to sign a “Latino Promise” which states, “We all have the right to live a happy life, with respect and dignity,” and “I... promise to fight against the rejection of LGBT individuals by their very own family members, against social stereotypes and against unjust laws.” To read the whole promise and sign, visit http://www.bienestar.org. —PETER DELVECCHIO

ACLU Holds Online LGBT Pride Symposium

The American Civil Liberties Union held an online LGBT pride symposium June 16-24 involving “several of the nation’s top lesbian gay bisexual transgender writers, leaders, and supporters,” states an ACLU release. As part of the symposium, blogger Chris Hampton posted an interview June 20 with out lesbian Air America host and MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow (shown). Asked about her listeners’ concerns, Maddow said, “LGBT people that I hear from are mad about the same things as everyone—the war, the Constitution, gas prices, health care. We’re just also mad that Democrats think we’re politically disposable.”

First DOJ Pride Celebration in Five Years

For the first time in five years, the federal Department of Justice June 18 permitted DOJ Pride, a gay employees group, to hold a pride celebration at the department in Washington, D.C, the Washington Blade reported. Since 2003, attorneys general have barred the celebration and prohibited DOJ Pride from posting notices on department bulletin boards, policies reversed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey (shown), confirmed last November. “All employees in the Justice Department have a right to be proud of who they are and the work they do here,” Mukasey said at the event.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy Slams Women Hardest

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the controversial policy permitting gays and lesbians to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation secret, hits women much harder than men, the New York Times reported June 23. While the Army and Air Force are only 14% and 20% female respectively, nearly 50% of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discharges last year were of women, according to data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a group opposing discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military. —PETER DELVECCHIO

This page compiled by PeterDelVecchio from The Associated Press and other news reports.

The Wedding March Continues!

It didn’t feel like history in the making. On the contrary, it all seemed so—well, ordinary, as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa married Oscar-winning producer Bruce Cohen and art consultant Gabriel Catone in the Mayor’s Press Conference Room in L.A. City Hall June 23.

Cohen and Catone joined a steady march to the county clerk’s office since marriage licenses started being legally issued to same-sex couples throughout California on June 17.

In Los Angeles County, Acting Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan told Frontiers, 1,805 licenses (with “60% plus” going to same-sex couples) were issued between June 17 and June 23 with a total of 960 civil marriages performed. That’s compared to 4,064 marriage licenses issued for the entire month of June in 2007, with a total of 1,043 civil marriages performed for the month.

After the official ceremony, as Cohen and Catone took up campaign glasses for a toast, a woman took the podium, said she was “an angel of the Trinity,” and decried same-sex marriage. At first respectful when it appeared the woman would issue a blessing, Villaraigosa immediately interrupted and shooed her away. (Several reporters later questioned how she got past security).

But Cohen and Catone were the epitome of cool.

“We were joking with the mayor that it added spice to the festivities,” Cohen later told reporters. “I mean—this is America—that’s one of the great things about it—that people are entitled to their opinion. Hopefully, maybe our reaction is even metaphorical—to ignore her. It doesn’t spoil our day. It doesn’t take away our joy. It certainly doesn’t change the fact that we are legally married in the state of California, by the mayor of Los Angeles. And nothing that she or anyone can do can take that away, now that the California Supreme Court has ruled on that.”

What about the segment of the population that opposes your love, they were asked?

“I truly believe that that’s going to change—that that does change—love story by love story by love story, week by week,” Cohen said. “And that the more people see these love stories developing—starting last Tuesday and over the next couple of months, not all at once but couple by couple, person by person—people are going to begin to feel the same way we feel—which is: ‘Alright, you can have differences of opinion, we don’t have to agree on everything—but wow! These people have as much a right to happiness and marriage and love as any other Americans do. It’s part of our birthright as Americans, from the Statue of Liberty and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence—that’s what we love about this country.’ And I think more and more people are going to start agreeing with that.” —KAREN OCAMB