Corbin: Now we know our ABC’s… Can letters kill a movement?

Will Utah get rid of its gay marriage ban by 2013?

Utah might be ready to overturn its ban against gay marriage within the next 4 years.This is the conclusion of a recent study predicting the future of same sex unions in America.It has long been speculated Utah might be the last state to allow gay marriage, but this new study looked at the way ballots were cast in states voting on same sex marriage bans.And it concludes Utah won’t be last or, perhaps, even that much longer.The study was done by a well regarded website, FiveThirtyEight.com, the same website which accurately predicted many Obama victories in 2008.In its gay marriage study, FiveThirtyEight.com crunched Utah’s population numbers – things like how many young people there are and how religious. See Will Utah get rid of its gay marriage ban by 2013?
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‘Happy and Gay’ in Pakistan? ABC News

It wasn’t until she was 16 years old, when she’d left her Pashtun family in Peshawar for an elite school where the teachers were nuns, that Minot realized she was gay.

“I found out when I dated my literature teacher [a nun],” she said. “I got an A.”

It is virtually unheard of in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for a lesbian to be willing to discuss her sexuality openly, especially a lesbian who is also Pashtun. The Taliban, who are overwhelmingly Pashtun and were born in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas near Peshawar, have pushed walls of bricks on top of gay Afghans.

But Minot, now 42, who asked that only her nickname be used because of societal stigma, sat recently in jeans and a T-shirt in the Pakistani city of Lahore, confidently talking about her sexuality, her girlfriends and her attempts to be with men.

“I have been with men, two men,” she said. “But that was to get the confusion out of my mind. Since then,” she said, pausing, “happy and gay.”

See ‘Happy and Gay‘ in Pakistan?

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Gay marriage a minefield for candidates for California governor

From the start of his run for governor, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has tried to show there is more to his career than the gesture that won him worldwide fame: his 2004 decree legalizing same-sex marriage.

Yet there he was Tuesday on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” speaking out for gay rights after the state Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban that Californians passed in November.

For Newsom and five major-party rivals, the resurgence of the same-sex marriage issue has added a new complication to the race for governor.

If gay rights groups get their way, the nominees to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will share the November 2010 ballot with a measure to repeal Proposition 8, turning an emotionally charged cultural issue into a central focus of the campaign.

Across the nation, the subject has grown more challenging for candidates of all kinds as the mere concept has given way to the reality of tens of thousands of married gay couples. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine and Iowa have legalized same-sex marriage.

Voters have also shifted their views. In April, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 49% of Americans said gay marriage should be legal, and 46% said it should be illegal. Three years earlier, 36% had said it should be legal, and 58% had said it should not.

“The trajectory of public opinion on this issue has been dramatic,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman.

In California, where Newsom’s rebel edict in 2004 touched off the court battles that spawned some 18,000 marriages that were declared valid Tuesday, candidates for governor face multiple dangers on the issue. Although support for gay marriage has risen over the last decade — the 52% yes vote on Proposition 8 was down from 61% on a similar measure in 2000 — the issue still sharply divides Californians.

“People care about this one — a lot — on both sides,” said Steve Smith, a Democratic strategist who worked on the campaign to defeat Proposition 8.

A Field Poll taken three months ago affirmed stark generational and ideological splits on same-sex marriage.

Younger voters were far more likely to approve of it than older voters. And Democrats overwhelmingly favored it, while Republicans were strongly opposed.

In that environment, candidates for governor are juggling wildly different needs for the primaries and the general election. See Gay marriage a minefield for candidates for California governor Los Angeles Times * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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Clinton Says His View On Gay Marriage Is “Evolving”

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: This afternoon in Toronto, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush shared a stage for a “conversation with presidents” at Toronto’s Convention Centre, in a ticketed event (with a hefty payday for both ex-presidents) that was open to the general public.

It was a fascinating discussion — these two 62-year-old men with a combined 16 years in the presidency, talking about current and past events as probably no one else alive can, for the first time in a public forum.

While President Bush mostly kept to his promise not to criticize his successor, he bristled at the suggestion — advanced by President Obama, among others — that Iraq distracted the nation from the war in Afghanistan.

“I don’t buy the premise that our attention was diverted” by Iraq, Bush said. “I think it’s false. Matter of fact, I know it’s false. I was there.”

And while President Clinton mostly kept to his promise to “thwart” efforts to get 42 and 43 to tangle with each other, he offered an interesting insight into his thinking on gay rights.

On the issue of gay marriage — which Clinton, like President Obama, personally opposes — Clinton said of his position: “Frankly, it’s evolving” as he sees more committed gay couples raising kids.

As ABC political director David Chalian has pointed out, Clinton isn’t the only Democrat whose position on gay marriage is moving.

Clinton also expressed optimism that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” — which he helped enact — will eventually come off the books, allowing gay members of the armed services to serve openly.

“I think that time will lead to a repeal of this ban,” Clinton said.

That’s one of many areas where the former presidents disagree. But mostly, this event was a lovefest.

Clinton heaped praise on Bush for his AIDS initiative and the diversity of his Cabinet. Bush urged Clinton not to be so hard on himself over Rwanda.

Bush welcomed the audience to “the Bill and George show.” Clinton teased that while the pair was facing expectations that they would “devour each other,” “we’ll do our best to thwart them.”

See Clinton Says His View On Gay Marriage Is “Evolving”

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Straight Teens: Oral Sex and Casual Prostitution No Biggie

They don’t give their names, but viewers can see their faces plainly and what these teens are saying is shocking parents. “I ended up having sex with more than one person that night and then in the morning I was trying to get morning-after pills,” one of the girls said. “I was, like, 14 at the time.”
It’s just one of dozens of stories from teenage girls in a new documentary by Canadian filmmaker Sharlene Azam that aims to shed light on the secret, extremely sexual lives of today’s teens.
After four years researching for the documentary, Azam told “Good Morning America” that oral sex is as common as kissing for teens and that casual prostitution — being paid at parties to strip, give sexual favors or have sex — is far more commonplace than once believed.
“If you talk to teens [about oral sex] they’ll tell you it’s not a big deal,” Azam said. “In fact, they don’t consider it sex. They don’t consider a lot of things sex.” See Teens: Oral Sex and Casual Prostitution No Biggie * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual

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California court upholds marriage ban; existing unions still legal

The California Supreme Court today upheld a ballot measure that amended the state Constitution to deny marriage rights to lesbians and gays. But the ruling did confirm the legality of 18,000 California marriages that were conducted between the time of a previous judicial order and the November election. Los Angeles Times (5/26) , ABC News (5/26) , San Jose Mercury News (Calif.)

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Time To Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

During his campaign for the White House, President Obama pledged that he would push to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) — the military’s policy that bars gay men and women from serving openly. Since taking office, however, Obama and other officials serving in his administration have pushed the issue to the back burner. When asked about addressing DADT in March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.” Ret. Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, told the President recently “not to add another controversy to his already-full plate.” On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopolous asked Jones if the policy would be overturned. “I don’t know,” he replied. In fact, the White House website recently watered down language on repealing the policy, replacing the administration’s commitment to “repealing” DADT with a commitment to simply “changing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way.” (The more definitive “repeal” language has since been reinserted.) At the same time, Obama has indicated that he remains committed to repealing the policy. Sandy Tsao, an Army officer who told her superiors last January that she is gay, wrote to Obama urging him to act on repealing DADT. Last week, Obama personally responded to Tsao, writing, “I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete. … I intend to fulfill my commitment!”

DADT STILL CLAIMING CASUALTIES: DADT continues to weaken our nation’s military. Last week, the Army sent National Guard Lt. Daniel Choi — a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and is fluent in Arabic — a letter informing him that he is no longer welcome in the U.S. military because he is gay. The Army said it was dismissing Choi for “moral or professional dereliction,” specifically for admitting “publicly that you are a homosexual, which constitutes homosexual conduct. Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.” Choi is one of more than 13,000 U.S. military personnel to be discharged because of DADT. This number includes those with special skills deemed “mission critical,” such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists like Choi. The Government Accountability Office found in 2005 that the cost of discharging and replacing servicemembers fired because of their sexual orientation during the policy’s first 10 years totaled at least $190.5 million — roughly $20,000 per discharged service member. While DADT cannot be repealed without congressional action, University of California associate professor Aaron Belkin notes that as president, Obama has the authority to suspend enforcement of the policy. Though it is unclear whether Obama will take this route (especially based on Jones’s advice), Choi said on MSNBC last week that he plans to “fully fight” his dismissal “tooth and nail.” “I believe that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is wrong, and what we really need to be encouraging soldiers to do is to don’t lie, don’t hide, don’t discriminate, and don’t weaken the military. That’s what we need to be promoting,” he said.

REPEAL DADT: Supporters of the discriminatory DADT often argue that repealing it would weaken the military (despite the fact that Arabic-linguists who are in short supply have been discharged because of it) and fragment unit cohesion. However, a bipartisan study commissioned by the Palm Center at the University of California last year found that “the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win.” Choi said that “the biggest thing” he is “angry about” is that the Army claims that his unit suffered “good order and discipline” because he is gay. “That’s a big insult to my unit,” he said. After he came out as gay and before he was discharged, Choi said that “so many people came up to me, my peers, my subordinates, people that outranked me, folks that have been in the Army — and this is an infantry unit, infantry men that — coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, sir, hey, Lieutenant Choi, we know, and we don’t care. What we care about is that you can contribute to the team.’” Indeed, a December 2006 survey of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found that 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.” Moreover, the American public doesn’t care either. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, nearly two-thirds disagreed with the argument that “allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military would be divisive for the troops and hurt their ability to fight effectively.” Ret. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Hugh Aitken, who participated in the Palm Center’s study, has criticized Obama’s plans to allow the Pentagon to review the policy before deciding to act on any repeal. “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” he said. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.”

RIGHT WING STILL OPPOSES A REPEAL: The ultra-conservative Center for Military Readiness (CMR), a group that opposes women and gays serving in combat, is leading an effort against repealing DADT and even trying to block gays from serving in the military altogether. The group’s president, Elaine Donnelly, told Congress last year that having gays serve in the military “sexualizes the atmosphere” because they “engage in passive aggressive behavior.” CMR also tries to muddy the waters with “gay horror stories” from the military, despite having acknowledged that such stories are “very difficult to find.” Prominent members of Congress continue to obstruct as well. When asked about DADT last Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered his support for it. “Right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions,” he said, adding that “the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.” Other members of Congress, such as Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), disagree. Sestak, himself a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, said of DADT recently on MSNBC, “We have to correct this. It’s just not right.” “I can remember being out there in command, and someone would come up to you and start to tell you — and you just want to say, no, I don’t want to lose you, you’re too good,” Sestak said.

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Prop. 8 hoax flies through the Net

It came out of the blue on a Facebook feed, a link from ABC’s web site saying that gay marriage had been affirmed by the California Supreme Court. Within minutes everyone remotely concerned with the issue was cross posting it across Facebook. We were about to post it to the site when suddenly we realized it was either a hoax or the product of over enthusiasm.

Common sense, not fact checking, revealed that the link was to the second page of an ABC Report from 5/15/08, exactly one year old. Since the year was left off on the second page of the article and the url everyone blindly assumed it was new. Without that critical bit of information, social networks lit up and passed the information along without digging any further. The story reached a fever peak around 11:37 this morning when Perez Hilton posted it.

See Prop. 8 hoax flies through the Net

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A Gay Justice?

Former Stanford Law School dean Kathleen Sullivan is, according to the National Law Journal, one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. She’s a nationally prominent scholar and teacher of constitutional law, and author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law.
Stanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, is founding director of Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, and is a leading expert on voting and the political process.
Sullivan and Karlan are both frequently mentioned as possible Supreme Court nominees for President Obama.
Both women also happen to be openly lesbian. … Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the conservative Family Research Council, says that “the real issue would not be the person’s private life but the issue would be would they be imposing their personal ideology upon the court. In this case would they be imposing a pro homosexual ideology, a pro-same sex marriage ideology.”
Sullivan, for instance, joined a friend of the court brief arguing that same sex marriage should be legal even if the “equal protection” clause “would not always have been interpreted by the courts to forbid discrimination against gay people.” Not allowing same sex marriage is a violation of “both due process and equal protection; the former because the right to marry is a form of liberty and the latter because the restriction treats lesbians and gay men differently from straight individuals.”
That she believes that because she’s lesbian, and not because she believes the refusal to allow same sex marriage constitutes unconstitutional discrimination, is another matter.
Either way, discussion about a Justice Sullivan or a Justice Karlan comes at a time when the Obama administration is hearing some impatience voiced by gay and lesbian activists on other issues.
“I think there is some disappointment in the gay community that (President Obama) hasn’t in this initial period spoken more directly and more forcefully about some of the issues he spoke about on the campaign,” Richard Socarides, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay and lesbian issues, told us for Good Morning America today. “Specifically the ‘Don’t ask/Don’t tell’ policy in the military.” See Gay Justice?
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