It’s going to turn into a landslide soon:
Half of all Americans believe that gay men and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll in which a large majority also said businesses should not be able to deny serving gays for religious reasons.
Fifty percent say the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection gives gays the right to marry, while 41 percent say it does not.
Just great news.
Burt Hutt
I expected 27%, not 41.
Comrade Mary
I think you’re obliged to link this whenever you use that phrase.
Roger Moore
@Burt Hutt:
All in good time, all in good time.
John Arbuthnot Fisher
Remember when Obama coming out for marriage equality cost him re-election?
Hawes
OTOH, this could just be a lack of understanding what’s IN the Constitution. I mean are people really basing their decision on the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the 14th Amendment?
Or do they think the Constitution literally changed in the last five years.
Villago Delenda Est
@John Arbuthnot Fisher:
Heck, I remember when Mitch McConnell made it his mission in life to prevent an Obama second term.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hawes:
Some of these people believe that Jesus delivered the Constitution on stone tablets to Philadelphia in 1776.
ranchandsyrup
Keep on shoving it right down their throats, Reality. Don’t pull out until the job is done.
SatanicPanic
@Hawes: Actually I don’t have a problem with interpretations of the Constitution changing over time.
schrodinger's cat
Isn’t it funny that the same bigots who call Obama a communist are the biggest fans of an ex-KGB operative, and they love him for his gay bashing among other things.
Litlebritdiftrnt
Despite Scarborough saying every morning that the country is center right, the fact is that the country, as a whole is center left, on social issues at least. Even the pope came out for civil unions today. Whodathunkit.
Omnes Omnibus
@SatanicPanic: Living constitution, baby. It’s anathema to Scalia.
Wag
@Burt Hutt:
Give it time. Give it time.
JPL
OT.. Wow Alan Grayson is fighting back on his wife’s claim of domestic abuse. Mediaite has a copy of a video of her shoving him.. link Divorce proceedings are hell.
Litlebritdiftrnt
@schrodinger’s cat:
I was listening to Sean Hannity this afternoon, he was positively salivating over the fact that Putin was pictured swimming barechested in a freezing lake and that was being shown by a picture of POTUS biking with a helmet on his head. I am sure that Hannity could not actually say that “the POTUS is a fucking wimp” on air, cause of regulations but it is what he wanted to say. The very idea that POTUS on a bike with a helmet is somehow a sign of weakness tells you all you need to know about these psychopaths.
Roger Moore
@Hawes:
You’re right, but that actually makes the message a bit stronger. People think of the Constitution as protecting all our most important rights, so when they say that it protects marriage equality, they’re saying that marriage equality is an important right of the kind that ought to be protected by the Constitution. That’s probably more important, because it means that in states with direct democracy they’re likely to pass laws and state constitutional amendments that protect marriage equality.
Botsplainer
Backlash to the overreach, particularly with regard to 2004. They jacked with a lot of states in elections, and all those constitutional amendments made it clear that there was no intention of deferring to the will of the majority (either by legislative action or referendum once people were ready to accept it). Now that people are over the shrieks of how gay marriage will lead to apocalyptic smiting, they’re able to be sane about Full Faith and Credit, and the inevitable 14th Amendment in-state claims.
scav
@Litlebritdiftrnt: As they have the math, they have the interpretations and will no doubt soon proclaim they led the charge to this foundational plank of center-rightness, the central-rightness of marriage for all.
danimal
@Litlebritdiftrnt: I think I found a good reason for Hannity to hold his fire about prezinitin’ on a bike.http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jpattitude.com/Images/PutinObama/BushBike.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jpattitude.com/101201.php&h=620&w=475&tbnid=KJ2xmf3hag8P6M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=69&zoom=1&usg=__1b4YBAwz2eUOgq9HZLyr39x2SMA=&docid=WBOpwxtDSfiiaM&sa=X&ei=-MwXU5-iN8fuoASV5ICgAg&ved=0CCsQ9QEwAg
Dolly Llama
Mr. Cole, I wish what you said was true, but overwhelming majorities of people believe in sensible gun regulation and safety measures, and if anything, that shit is moving in the opposite direction at alarming speed. So having a majority of Americans believe one thing or another doesn’t give me any particular optimism about anything.
WereBear
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Hannity doesn’t use his head, so he sees no need to protect it.
Botsplainer
@JPL:
Ouch. Nothing like eating video that contradicts something that you testified about in order to obtain a restraining order. Doubly so in a high profile case.
Her lawyer has got to be pissed
JPL
@Dolly Llama: Most Americans like ACA when asked about the individual components but the polling doesn’t show that. The bigots message control the airways.
RSR
Even the pontiff is dipping a toe in the water.
I’m glad this fight is wrapping up.
Not quite time for the victory formation yet, but we’re almost ready to rest our starters.
Still, I’m quite depressed about so many other fights. Inequality–racial and financial. Education. Privacy. Voter rights. Oligarchies (Comcast Nation – Kabletown). Climate change denial. And on and on.
JPL
@Botsplainer: Since the news station could not get a comment from her lawyer, I presume you are correct.
Citizen_X
@WereBear: I fully support Fox News viewers not wearing helmets when riding bikes or motorcycles.
Howard Beale IV
What’s sad though is that even though they’ve lost the battle in the US, Chiristianist low-lifes has moved their beliefs over to countries like Uganda and spread their hatred over there.
If you ever see this man injured or in a life-threatening situation, offer no help or assistance-after all, it’s what Christ would do.
JPL
Supposedly, the Christians want to discriminate on religious principles but aren’t some gays Christians? How does that work?
Marc
You know what this means, right?
The time to run on same sex marriage is NOW. After the majority turns in favor of it, before the Republicans jump on the bandwagon. Time to make the wedge issues work for our side for a change. Every state in the union should have some sort of legislation or ballot initiative for this, a minimum wage hike, a state version of the DREAM act, or marijuana legalization, depending on local support.
(Granted, the obstinacy of the Republican base should keep this window open for a while. But this is how you turn out your side in a midterm election.)
Pogonip
@Litlebritdiftrnt: This sounds like a great opportunity for Phun with Photoshop. Putin wearing a helmet in the lake, Obama biking shirtless!
FlipYrWhig
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Remember how Putin’s attendance at the figure skating competition at the Olympics was interpreted as evidence of his ridiculous effeminacy? Me neither.
NotMax
The bigot spigot never runs dry. All that ebbs and flows are the intensity and direction.
Cleaning up what spurts out is an eternal, Sisyphean necessity.
Howard Beale IV
@JPL: Those who claims they’re Christians aren’t Christians, but are in reality Neo-Phairesees.-mostly those of the Southern Baptists/Assemblies of God/Fundamentalist/Charismatic Catholic orbit.
Howard Beale IV
@FlipYrWhig: Don’t forget, that when the Russian figure skaters were doing their routine the music played during their routine was composed by that notorious homosexual Pitor Ilytich Tchaikovsky.
And dig this little tidbit: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is considered by the Russians to be the American equivalent to Tchaikovsky’s works. And, yep-Barber was also gay as well.
Dolly Llama
@JPL: True that, but the gun control issue is a little more stark. The GOPer dissemblers will say “Oh, we’ll make sure OUR alternative plan accommodates pre-existing conditions” or whatever other part of the ACA is popular. (That’s not true, of course, but at least they have enough self-awareness to lie.) Gun control? Take the most extreme position you can imagine — “We believe paranoid schizophrenics should be have the right to bear arms” or “Anybody can buy anything any time any where at a gun show” or “If you bought it on the Internet, no rules, ever” or “Private citizens should have the right to tactical nukes” or what-have-you — and it doesn’t make a tinker’s damn how it polls. 99% to 1%? It goes whatever way the NRA wants it to go, poll results be fucking damned. Just a non-starter. Beats all I’ve ever seen.
gbear
@Citizen_X: ..and I fully support Fox News viewers jumping into frozen lakes.
Gex
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Francis has been “for” civil unions before in Buenos Aires, but mostly as a way to defeat marriage equality. As far as I can tell, anti-gay religious organizations tend to say they are for civil unions as a means for derailing marriage equality.
Note that the amendments that were spear headed by the Catholic groups in this country specifically banned anything “marriage-like”. They had a chance to compromise with us on civil unions around 2003-2004. They had no interest in compromise when they had the upper hand.
Now marriage equality has scored a bunch of unanswered points and the lawsuits and the US Constitution are about to put more points on the board for us and now they want to stop the game and call it a tie?
It doesn’t even make any sense. There have been no changes in Catholic dogma about homosexuality. As far as they are concerned gay people should try really hard not to be gay. Celibacy or ex-gay are the options. So what kind of union between gay people do they really support? It just face-saving rubbish. Like the meaningless friendly words about gays that he spoke that meant nothing but got a lot of good PR.
JPL
@Dolly Llama: yup
Dolly Llama
@JPL: Holy shit, dude. Are you kidding? I worked for a time in two mega-wealthy resort communities in the western North Carolina Mountains a few years ago that were incredibly gay-friendly, and gay congregants were the backbone of most of the communities’ churches in the same way they were the backbone of most the communities’ business sectors. Gays and lesbians LOVE them some God, now. I never understood it, but it was the case. ETA: When it came to better than half the churches in these communities, had they come out forcefully against gays, they’d have found their pews half empty the next Sunday. So they didn’t. They knew where their bread was buttered. They were islands of “tolerance” in a big sea of ole-time-religion hillbilly hate.
Botsplainer
@JPL:
Her lawyer is regrouping over a bottle of mid level bourbon, and calculating just how much this will impact the fee that was to be demanded to be awarded from Grayson. Following that is the “Come to Jesus” session with the client, informing her that she managed to crush her own case from the start, and that any attorney fees will have to come from the liquidation of marital assets that are to be awarded to her.
schrodinger's cat
@Litlebritdiftrnt: They have a rather unseemly crush on Putin.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
Not surprisingly, I would say that religions claim to support it because it’s the old-fashioned version — remember, Vermont was crazy and ultra-liberal for introducing civil unions back in 2000. We’ve moved so fast since then that I’m not surprised some organizations that are already stuck in the past are still stuck in the past. (ETA: I checked, and Vermont graduated from civil unions to full marriage in 2009.)
Also, keep in mind that, technically, all marriages are civil unions. That’s what the license from the state is — it allows you to form a contract called “marriage” that you can solemnize any way you want, from having the clerk at the courthouse do it to having an Elvis impersonator do it. I think that’s an important thing to keep emphasizing when groups come back with “well, civil unions would be okay,” because that means they’re still trying to come up with something different than the civil, state-sponsored contract of marriage. The state doesn’t get authorization from religious representatives to perform marriages — religious representatives have to get authorization from the state. You can “marry” in a ceremony at your church, but unless you have that certificate from the state saying you can go ahead, it ain’t marriage. The Catholic Church has no more right to tell a gay couple they can’t get married than they can tell a Jewish couple they can’t get married and have to settle for a civil union because they’re not the “right” religion.
Mnemosyne
@Litlebritdiftrnt:
Yeah, what kind of wimp would wear a bicycle helmet when he rides a bike?
Burt Hutt
@Roger Moore: I don’t doubt that. I do wonder who comprises that 14% difference that wakes up eventually to a more rational position.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I think what they really mean when they propose civil unions instead of marriage is that they want to keep the name “marriage” for straight couples. IOW, separate but equal, because we all remember how well that worked out.
Rafer Janders
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think gay men want to marry lesbians, or vice versa. Haven’t we moved past these sad charades….?
LeftCoastTom
@Dolly Llama:
Sunnyvale, CA’s blue of course, but maybe this is a useful strategy for purple states whose constitutions have a workable initiative process.
Same-sex marriage seems to be a different issue – if the courts are finally reading the 5th and 14th amendments, and realizing that gay people are people, then the bigots don’t simply have to block action, they have to take rather dramatic action. And they can’t.
mclaren
Meanwhile, 60% of American approve of torture of accused terrorists. So all the U.S. government has to do is call you a terrorist without a shred of proof, and they can get out the power drill and hacksaw and the blowtorch and go to work on you.
Peachy.
You guys are worried about the wrong issues.
mclaren
@Rafer Janders:
Haven’t you heard? Marriage is between a gay man and a lesbian — not between two men or two women!
Dolly Llama
@LeftCoastTom: Yeah, but sometimes it takes more than a couple of rounds for the good guys to get the bad guys. Didn’t you see the last episode of “Breaking Bad?” Duh.
LeftCoastTom
@Dolly Llama: Well, per the article the NRA says the average is 2.1-2.2 shots. Which seems to be what convinced the Republican-appointed Ron Whyte.
I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be neighbors with anyone who thinks they need high-capacity magazines for fire-fights in their living room, as the gun folks paid some idiot to claim before Congress last year.
Roger Moore
@Burt Hutt:
I suspect they’re people who don’t have anything much against gays but are just having trouble getting their heads around the idea of gays wanting to get married and have families. I would guess that there’s also some sticking around the word “marriage”, as Mnemosyne mentions above; they somehow can’t accept the idea of the word marriage being applied to couples that don’t look like the married couples they’re used to thinking about.
ETA: Are you a relative of Jabba?
Dolly Llama
@LeftCoastTom: The NRA may indeed say that, but they of course want to make sure that they allow for all the “outlier” incidents. If you ever want to know how the NRA is going to approach any given gun-related question, ask yourself “OK, what position on this would allow for the maximum possible consumption of guns, bullets and other related gun materiel?” Then you know what side they’ll come down on. Mentally disadvantaged people? Violent convicted felons? Past offenders? Doesn’t matter. They’re squarely behind whatever constituencies will purchase the most guns, bullets and paraphernalia, it doesn’t make a God damn how much sense it makes. They are the gun and bullet manufacturers’ lobby, and they’re damn good at it. They’ve mangled a whole fucking Constitutional amendment to their ends, and every dumbass in the country has seemingly bought it hook, line and sinker. It’s evilly brilliant, really, but evilly transparent. Any time you look at any gun-related issue, ask yourself “What will help the makers of this shit sell more of it,” and you’ll know how the NRA will come down on it.
Belafon
@Marc: You could run on it, but very few people are going to make their vote on it. Those that will are pretty much already voting for their side.
Roger Moore
@Dolly Llama:
I suspect they support making it as easy as possible for the most dangerous people in society to be heavily armed because it scares everyone else into wanting more and more powerful guns.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
I think at least part of the wobbly 14% can be swayed with a question like, Should gay couples be allowed to go down to the courthouse and get a marriage license? Because often what’s in their heads is that somehow the government is going to batter down the door of the church they attend and force their pastor to perform gay marriages, when it really is a simple question of government paperwork.
(Well, okay, not “simple” since there’s so much contentiousness over it, but you know what I mean. It’s the people who are even against a county clerk signing a piece of paper that are the real assholes in the equation.)
LeftCoastTom
@Dolly Llama:
Oh, I completely agree here. Hell, they strongly object to doing anything about ivory poaching just because somebody might want to sell a gun with an ivory handle.
Just pointing out that, in purple areas, the initiative process might be a good way around the ‘gun clutching’ they inspire amongst their fans, not all of whom are Republicans.
Dolly Llama
@Roger Moore: I had never thought about it that way, but that makes a hell of a lot of sense. A gun-manufacturers’ “positive feedback loop.”
Dolly Llama
@LeftCoastTom:
I don’t think it’s even that. You need a bullet and a gun to shoot an elephant, don’t you?
LeftCoastTom
@Dolly Llama: Good question for the NRA, assuming we had any creative reporters…why do you have a recently twice-convicted poacher on your Board of Directors? Do you believe Responsible Gun Use includes poaching?
Since we seem to lack creative reporters, maybe Harry Reid could bring this up in one of his periodic rants on the Senate floor. He’s been on fire over the last couple weeks.
StringOnAStick
@Villago Delenda Est: Mormon libel! Those tablets were gold, not stone! Mitt would have made sure we got that right.
Jay C
@Mnemosyne:
Well, in fact, they CAN – they can marry whoever they feel meets their criteria – in their Church. The Catholic Church doesn’t want to marry gays? Jews? Muslims? Atheists? Fine: it may be prejudiced, but It’s their right under our “freedom of religion” laws: and no one who really cares about freedom (on the particular or the abstract) should think otherwise.
The point where they are wrong, though is the insistence on trying to make those rules apply to the whole of society – the “law of the land”: which is where the whole “religious freedom” argument falls apart. No one is trying to impose an official doctrine on churches (quite the opposite: but that’s what gets the bigots so riled up) –
Mnemosyne
@Jay C:
Sorry, I should have been more specific: when influencing public policy, the Catholic Church has no more right to deny civil marriage to gay couples than they do denying civil marriage to Jewish couples.
The church can refuse to marry anyone they want inside the walls of their church, but they have no business deciding who’s allowed to get a marriage license at the courthouse downtown.
gorram
@Mnemosyne: Or, as long as we’re discussing religious freedom, what ceremonies will be recognized as legally binding by that courthouse in other places of worship that don’t have some Catholic standards for who can marry (like, being straight).
brantl
There should be a comma in that title, unless you are having a game over bigots.
brantl
There should be a comma in that title, unless you are having a game over bigots.