After a pledge from New York Democratic leaders that their party would legalize same-sex marriage if they won control of the State Senate this year, money from gay rights supporters poured in from across the country, helping cinch a Democratic victory.
But now, party leaders have sent strong signals that they may not take up the issue during the 2009 legislative session. Some of them suggest it may be wise to wait until 2011 before considering it, in hopes that Democrats can pick up more Senate seats and Gov. David A. Paterson, a strong backer of gay rights, would then be safely into a second term.
The question of how aggressively to proceed has touched off an intense debate among legislators and gay rights supporters about how ready the broader electorate is to embrace same-sex marriage, both in New York and across the country.
Many are still stung by California voters’ approval this month of a measure that reversed a court decision that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Heavy spending by church groups and others opposed to same-sex marriage helped the proposal win.
“We want to get there, but we want to get there the right way or else we risk setting ourselves back another decade,” said Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who represents the Upper East Side. “I think the California proposition and the recognition that entities with large amounts of money who oppose same-sex marriage have decided to be large players in this have a lot of people going back to the drawing board.”
In addition, shoring up the state’s depleted treasury and repairing the economy have become the most pressing issues for Albany lawmakers, who return to the capital in January to face a reconfigured landscape. Democrats hold a majority of seats in both chambers of the Legislature, along with the governor’s office, for the first time since the 1930s.
Some Democrats are not even confident they have the 32 votes necessary to pass a same-sex marriage bill in the Senate.
Gay rights supporters scored another major victory in court Tuesday, when a state judge in Miami tossed out a statute that had for more than 30 years barred gay people in Florida from adopting children. The decision came after a week packed full of dueling expert testimony over whether any evidence supports the state's contention that children are put at risk when raised by gay parents. The answer, said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy S. Lederman, is not at all: "The Department's position is that homosexuality is immoral. Yet, homosexuals may be lawful foster parents in Florida and care for our most fragile children who have been abused, neglected and abandoned. As such, the exclusion forbidding homosexuals to adopt children does not further the public morality interest it seeks to combat."
Yet, despite the good news for gays contained in the ruling, the decision is hardly the last word on the issue. The state has vowed to appeal, and the issue is likely to end up before the Florida Supreme Court, which upheld the ban once before in 1995. On the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court has already let stand lower court rulings that upheld Florida's law, the nation's strictest ban on gay adoption.
Meanwhile, conservative activists across the country are working hard to make sure that no court, at any level, has the final word on gay adoption. Like gay marriage before it, conservatives are looking at the issue of who can raise children as one best decided at the ballot box, not in the courthouse. Those efforts received a boost on election day in Arkansas, where voters easily passed a law that restricts any unmarried couple living together from adopting children. Arkansas joined Florida, Nebraska, Utah and Mississippi as the only states with laws that either directly or indirectly ban adoption by gays.
Similar statehouse fights are pending in South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, says gay adoption expert and advocate Jennifer Chrisler, and more are likely to follow, as conservatives try to duplicate their successful strategy to ban gay marriage state by state. "The other side was very strategic about their efforts to ban gay marriage," Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Center in Boston, told TIME. "They were able to bring that issue to the attention of the American people well before Americans were ready to have that conversation. They are likely to use a similar strategy when it comes to parenting issues."
If you haven't seen this video of Wanda Sykes speaking at a rally in Las Vegas, please watch it now! Not only is she intelligent and hysterically funny, but she is also an advocate for equal rights. Her determination to fight for what she believes in should be an inspiration to us all. She truly could not articulate the purpose of this movement any better. Watch below:
I received the message below from Jamie McGonnigal who administers the "US Gay Secession 2009" group on Facebook. Please join his group here, and read his demand to speak up about equality at your Thanksgiving table, which is something we ALL should do regardless of our sexuality.
"Dear Friends,
Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a 'Town Hall' meeting at the LGBT Community Center here in New York. While there was a great deal of frustration in the voices of those attending, in addition to those on the panel, one thing was clear -- we are just at the beginning of the most important Civil Rights battle of our generation.
Friends, I am so proud and motivated and excited about what we have within us. There is a passion, an anger and a new inability to take "NO" for an answer. It is now, this very moment that is one of the most crucial moments in our movement. Now is the time that we cannot afford to lie back, get tired or expect someone else to do this work for us. If we do, we will never have the Equality we deserve. Talk About Equality.
The next step may be one of the most difficult, but it is with great hope and support that I ask it of you.
Thanksgiving Day is just 2 days away. For many, it is the only day of the year where your whole family is sitting around the same table and more importantly, it is a day of giving thanks. I ask of each of you to raise the topic of Equal Rights with your family. I urge those of you who are not out to your family, to tell them who you are. I cannot tell you how important this is. Talk About Equality.
For some, there will be screaming, yelling, crying and hopefully a bit of understanding. For others, we find ourselves in families, already supportive of who we are and our struggle for Equality. For those families, your work is not done. You MUST ask your families to speak for you. To bring up Marriage Equality with their friends and loved ones, their colleagues, their classmates. This conversation cannot end just one or two degrees away from us. This is about everyone, not just us. Talk About Equality.
To prepare for your conversations with your families and friends, please study up. Go read about Proposition 8 and what happened in California. Go visit www.prideagenda.org, there's some great information there. Please do your best to keep people's religious beliefs out of the discussion. If someone brings up their religious text, let them know that we do not want religious rights, we want Civil Rights. For far too long, people have stopped this conversation by saying "I don't believe in homosexuality." That time has come to an end. This is about Equal Rights as Human beings under the laws of our Constitution. Talk About Equality.
There is a lot of work which must happen between now and the day we will all be Equal, but please join me in having this conversation with your friends and loved ones.
We have several actions, rallies, protests, etc which are being planned. Our website will be up and running in a few weeks, but in the meantime, please visit www.civilrightsfront.com or www.jointheimpact.com for more information.
This Thanksgiving, I am truly thankful for the opportunity to stand with all of you, my friends of all colors, sexualities and nationalities to demand our Equal Rights.
So I should give thanks (again) to all of the people who have written me such beautiful emails and have donated to my project, I can't thank you enough.
By Rachel Abramowitz and Tina Daunt November 23, 2008
After the passage of Proposition 8, some are calling for boycotts and firings. Others worry about free speech rights being trampled.
Should there be boycotts, blacklists, firings or de facto shunning of those who supported Proposition 8?
That's the issue consuming many in liberal Hollywood who fought to defeat the initiative banning same-sex marriage and are now reeling with recrimination and dismay. Meanwhile, activists continue to comb donor lists and employ the Internet to expose those who donated money to support the ban.
Already out is Scott Eckern, director of the nonprofit California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, who resigned after a flurry of complaints from prominent theater artists, including "Hairspray" composer Marc Shaiman, when word of his contribution to the Yes on 8 campaign surfaced.
I have to say that I am feeling so energized and excited about the documentary I am about to embark on. The responses I have received in the past 24 hours have been absolutely amazing. I never imagined I would receive such loving support from people I haven't been in touch with for a long time, and in such a short amount of time. Every time I opened my email, I saw another message of encouragement, and it honestly brought tears to my eyes. It is humbling and completely overwhelming. I really can't articulate the feelings I have right now, just that I am so overjoyed, excited, and above all, grateful.
I am so proud to take on this project that is affecting so many people. I am feeling so confident right now, though I know the making of this film will be not without its hardships. Thanks to all of you who have donated and have sent words of encouragement and support. It means the world to me. My heart is so full right now. I wish I could express more of what I'm feeling, but I really can't.
Again, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart and am so looking forward to making this film, and my dream, a reality!
Read the article below from the New York Times and watch the trailer at the end of the post.
Is it a good idea to use the upcoming Sean Penn film, "Milk," to help drive the campaign for gay marriage and equal rights? Comment please!
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: November 21, 2008, New York Times Movies Section
LOS ANGELES — When the movie "Milk"comes next month to Claremont, a college town about 30 miles from here, Patrick Milliner intends to greet it with a candlelight vigil protesting the newly passed state prohibition of gay marriage.
Patrick Milliner, a gay-rights advocate addressing a crowd last week, hopes to align “Milk” with a ‘Shame on 8’ campaign.
Before this month’s election, Mr. Milliner organized unsuccessful opposition to California’s same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8. Now he expects the movie, about Harvey Milk, the murdered gay-rights crusader and San Francisco supervisor, to ignite his “Shame on 8” campaign.
“It fits perfectly with the plan,” Mr. Milliner said.
That may be good for the movement. Whether it is also good for the movie is less clear.
The convergence of “Milk,” which portrays gay-rights battles of 30 years ago, and a looming new culture war over homosexual marriage and other issues, has raised unusual expectations around Focus Features’ plan to release the film. It will be shown in a widening group of theaters, beginning with some in New York, Los Angeles and about a dozen other cities on Wednesday.
Proposition 8-related vigils have already occurred outside prerelease screenings in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Amy Balliett, a founder of jointheimpact.com, a clearing house for gay rights information, said on Friday that her site would urge its network of supporters to see the film on Dec. 5 at one of a list of “gay-friendly” theaters.
“Our goal is to make this movie one of the top three-grossing movies of the weekend,” Ms. Balliett said in an e-mail message.
Yet the unforeseen alignment between “Milk” and the gay-marriage ban — there was no Proposition 8 on any ballot when the director Gus Van Sant began shooting the film in January — also creates a conundrum for those Focus executives. How do they honor their movie hero’s feisty brand of confrontational politics without being consumed by them?
To join the fight could turn off some of the viewers Focus needs to make “Milk” a broad-based hit. But to sidestep it might disappoint a core audience that has begun to see the film as a rallying point.
Mr. Milk, played in the movie by Sean Penn, was not one to pull punches. “If this thing passes, fight the hell back!” Mr. Penn says at a pivotal point in the film, as his allies ponder the likely passage of Proposition 6, a 1978 ballot initiative aimed at curbing gay rights in California. (It failed.)
But Focus has been stepping carefully of late.
In a particularly ticklish exercise, the studio continues to plan showings of “Milk” in theaters owned by the Cinemark chain, whose chief executive, Alan Stock, donated to the campaign for Proposition 8.
Taking a cue from Milk — who made his political breakthrough by supporting a union boycott of Coors beer — opponents of the marriage ban have begun their own boycott through a Web site, NoMilkforCinemark.com.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Cinemark, one of the country’s largest theater chains, said its decision to proceed with plans to show the movie also reflected a principle: “It would be inappropriate to influence our employees’ position on personal issues outside the work environment, especially on political, social or religious activities.”
On Thursday James Schamus, the chief executive of Focus, struck a diplomatic note. “I know there’s a lot of anger out there,” said Mr. Schamus, who noted that Cinemark three years ago was among the first chains to embrace the studio’s gay-themed “Brokeback Mountain.”
“I hope that gets settled,” he said of the boycott call.
With similar delicacy, Dustin Lance Black, the film’s writer, and Cleve Jones — a Milk associate who is portrayed by Emile Hirsch in the movie, and served as its historical consultant — published a manifesto in The San Francisco Chronicle last week calling on President-elect Barack Obama, who has opposed same-sex marriage, to support comprehensive federal legislation guaranteeing gay rights, including the right to marry.
But the pair did not identify the manifesto with “Milk,” despite the film’s strong call for exactly such equality.
“I don’t know that it would be appropriate,” Mr. Jones said of any effort to align the movie with the campaign against marriage bans in California and other states. The danger, he said, was that conscious campaigning might seem to exploit, rather than support, Mr. Milk and his legacy.
Even so, Mr. Jones, over the last few weeks, has conducted politically robust discussions keyed to Focus-sponsored college screenings of “Milk” in a number of cities, including Boston and Washington.
Speaking separately, Mr. Black said he viewed the movie itself as a contribution to the movement it portrays. And the manifesto, with its call for broad federal action, he added, was directly inspired by Mr. Milk’s critical stance toward gay contemporaries who demanded too little.
“They weren’t asking for what they wanted,” said Mr. Black, who spoke from Salt Lake City, where he was planning to screen the film on Friday. “They were asking for crumbs.”
In the same spirit, Daniel Nicoletta — another Milk associate, who is portrayed in the film by Lucas Grabeel of “High School Musical”— said last week that he believed the opposition to Proposition 8 would inevitably fade, but that he hoped for a boost from the movie’s release. “We need that excitement,” he said, speaking of actions like the one planned by Mr. Milliner.
In Mr. Schamus’s view, the filmmakers and others are free to politick as they please.
But, he said, to identify “Milk” directly with a position — even one popular enough among Oscar voters to enhance the film’s prospects in a heated awards race — is to misunderstand how the cinema really effects change.
“The way movies work is not by pushing toward or appealing to a specific electoral position, but by changing the climate of opinion,” Mr. Schamus said.
And to push too hard, he cautioned, risks losing sight of what he sees as the main point of “Milk”: “There is actually a great, old-fashioned American narrative movie here.”
This is exciting news! Please read the article from Reuters below:
By Peter Henderson
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a legal challenge against the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage and let the ban stand in the meantime.
A decision by the same court in May opened marriage to same-sex couples in America's most populous state, one of a handful of states, provinces and mostly European countries where such unions are recognized.
When state voters passed the ban on November 4, social conservatives celebrated, but nationwide protests by gays and other ban opponents since then have given the debate new life.
The court case also pits two fundamental concepts of U.S. democracy against one another, with gay marriage advocates saying the proposition would open the doors to systematic repression of minorities and opponents saying courts must recognize the will of the people under separation of powers doctrine.
"I am optimistic that the Supreme Court will affirm that separate is not equal," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. He has compared the fight for gay marriage to the 1960s civil rights battle against majority-tolerated segregation.
Some 52 percent of voters agreed to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
"This is a great day for the rule of law and the voters of California," said Andrew Pugno, counsel for the gay marriage ban proponents, who also wanted the matter settled in court.
Trend-setting California is divided over the issue, with cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles more open to gay marriage, and inland valleys, often compared to the socially conservative Midwest, against it.
About 20,000 same-sex marriages may hang in the balance, since the court asked for arguments on whether the ban, Proposition 8, would affect unions between the May court ruling and the November election.
LEGAL LIMBO
Those marriages have been seen as being in legal limbo, despite state officials including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saying they should stand.
Gay advocates argued that Californians could not strip a right from a minority with only a majority vote -- the constitutional amendment process followed for Proposition 8. A more rigorous process called a constitutional revision was required, they argued.
National Center for Lesbian Rights' legal director Shannon Minter said defeat for his side would open the door to measures targeting other minorities.
"It mandates discrimination," he said of Proposition 8. "I really can't imagine a more serious issue before the court, or a more frightening one."
Ban supporters said the single-sentence change was a relatively small measure and that the state constitution gave wide latitude to the people through the amendment process.
"It would be a radical departure from 150 years of precedent (to overturn Proposition 8)," said Pugno, calling the challenge a "long shot."
"I think the larger question is going to be what is the status of the marriages that were created prior to the election," he said, adding that he had not taken a legal stand on the issue.
The court said it would hear arguments on the amendment process, the effect of Proposition 8 on same-sex marriages before the election, and on whether the amendment violated the state's separation-of-powers doctrine.
The court in a 6-1 decision asked all sides to work quickly and said oral arguments could be held as early as March 2009.
As most of you know, film is an enormous part of my life. I love the way film makes me feel, but more importantly I love the way that film can inspire people to take action and address social issues.
At this pivotal moment in America's history, we have made enormous strides. However, when PROPOSITION 8 passed in California a couple of weeks ago, denying same-sex couples the right to marry, and with similar propositions passing in Florida, Arkansas, and Arizona, we know that the fight for equal rights is far from over. Sadly, there are still people in our communities who believe that they deserve freedoms that others should not be able to enjoy. It is not fair, and it is not right.
The gay marriage bans have ignited what has become what I believe to be the civil rights movement of our generation. I feel strongly about this campaign and have decided to embark on a film project that will document the LGBT civil rights crusade from California to New York. I plan to conduct interviews, attend rallies and events, and document this movement as it progresses. I have put off personal projects for a while, and now is the time to make this one real.
I NEED TO ASK FOR YOUR HELP! My goal is to raise at least $2000 to purchase (some of) the film equipment I will need to make this film possible. All I am asking for is $10, but if you're feeling extra generous, of course I will appreciate anything. If everyone gives $10, I will reach this goal easily. Also, everyone who donates will receive a screen credit at the end of the final film. Again, $10 is not a great deal of money, and if you're thinking about getting me a Hanukkah present, support me in this project instead! The same goes for birthday presents... :)
I hope you will help me with this project that is so close to my heart. Thank you.
Below are some photos from the Prop 8 Rally in New York City at City Hall Park. It was amazing to be there and feel a part of something really important and special. All of the speakers were passionate, positive, and inspiring. The thousands of people who came out for the protest definitely gave me hope.
Kudos to the organizers: Evan Terry Carrie Harrington Dani Ryan Shalini Shah Heath Tucker Marriage Equality New York
I know that many people have been talking about Keith Olbermann's special comment on the gay marriage issue. For those of you who have not yet seen it, I recommend that you do. Go Keith!
As most of you know, film is an enormous part of my life. I love the way film makes me feel, but more importantly I love the way that film can inspire people to take action and address social issues.
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