Vermont Freedom to Marry says it spent more than $293,000 lobbying lawmakers and the public on the same-sex marriage bill that was approved by the Legislature, far outspending its opponents.
In lobbyist disclosure forms filed Monday with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office, the pro-gay marriage group reported spending about $65,000 between April 1 and June 30 — some of it in the week leading up to the Legislature’s April 7 vote.
Take It to The People, which opposed the measure, spent about $10,000 altogether but none in the reporting period.
See Pro-gay marriage group spent big in Vermont Boston Herald
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New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage on Wednesday (June 3) in part because faith leaders testified that the measure would not impinge on religious rights, according to V. Gene Robinson, the state’s openly gay Episcopal bishop.
When credible Christians, Muslims and Jews advocated for same-sex marriage, it “had a lot of sway with legislators in terms of giving them cover,” said Robinson. “Our message was loud and clear: religious organizations have nothing to fear from civil marriage for same-gendered folks.”
Robinson, who was elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, joined his longtime partner in a civil union last year. Under the New Hampshire law, their union will automatically be considered a marriage on Jan. 1, 2010.
“I’m still about 30 feet off the ground, hovering somewhere on high,” Robinson said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday.
The legislation signed by Gov. John Lynch on Wednesday contains explicit legal protections for religious groups that object to same-gender relationships and makes Rhode Island the only state in New England that does not allow gay marriage.
Robinson said separating the civil and religious aspects of marriage and making clear that religious groups would not be required to sanction same-gender weddings was key to the effort.
“We made sure that our … bill here stated and overstated and restated the fact that no religious liberties would be abridged in the embrace of civil marriage — that no religious institutions would be required to do anything against its own beliefs,” Robinson said. “It largely undercut the argument from the other side.”
Two separate studies released on Wednesday concluded that anti-gay marriage groups relied heavily on religious language to successfully push for ballot initiatives in Michigan in 2004 and California in 2008 that outlawed gay marriage.
“A religious opposition requires a religious response,” said the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and an author of one of the reports.
Robinson said, “I think it’s about emboldening legislators to see people like them who identify as Roman Catholic or American Baptist or Methodist or Lutheran (and) say `OK, this … is clearly a person of faith, so despite what the denomination says as a whole I’ve got a fairly firm piece of ground to stand on here.”
See Gay bishop says faith groups key to NH gay marriage vote
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SANTA MONICA, Calif. — MTV,
mtvU, LOGO and
MTV Tr3s, with subtitles in Spanish, will present the world
television premiere of Pedro, a movie based on the
remarkable life of The Real World’s
Pedro Zamora, on Wednesday,
April 1 at 8:00 PM ET/PT. BMP
Films, in association with MTV, produced this
biopic written by Academy Award-winner
Dustin Lance Black (”Milk”). For more information and to view the movie trailer, please visit
www.pedro.mtv.com.
In 1994, Zamora captured the hearts of millions as the first-ever openly
gay,
HIV-positive main character on TV — on MTV’s The Real World:
San Francisco. Zamora’s time in the house on
Lombard Street brought a
face to the
AIDS crisis.
President Bill Clinton has long credited Zamora with personalizing and humanizing the
epidemic, and he will introduce Pedro when it makes its world
television premiere
April 1st.
“To this day,
Pedro Zamora remains an extraordinary example of what a huge impact one
young person can make in our world,”
President Clinton said. “I’m glad to have known him, and I’m grateful his life has been able to inspire and enrich so many others.”
Told through the eyes of his
friends and family, the film Pedro celebrates the extraordinary life a
young man who found out he was
HIV positive at 17, then made the
courageous decision to dedicate his life to speaking out about the disease. Zamora testified before the
United States Congress to argue for more explicit
HIV/
AIDS educational programs aimed at youth of color before auditioning for The Real World in 1993.
Zamora’s
appearance on The Real World brought his story and message to a national
audience; and when his
health began to deteriorate in late 1994 (after he left the show), his condition quickly became
front page news nationwide. His death at age 22, following the final episode of “The Real World,” provoked a worldwide outpouring of grief.
“Our historic, simultaneous premiere of the film across multiple networks demonstrates the power of Pedro’s journey to reach a vast array of audiences, just as it did 15 years ago,” said Brian Graden,
President of
Entertainment, MTV Networks
Music Channels and
President of Logo. “His story originally ignited a national
dialogue, permanently impacted our consciousness around the
challenges of
HIV, and gave untold millions the
courage to open up about their
sexual orientation. For those of us who remember him as a treasured
television friend, and for a new generation coming to his story for the first time, we remain grateful for the gift of his story.”
“Pedro made us
promise to tell his story to his very last breath; this film delivers on that
promise by telling his entire life story in a scripted film - including his early life in Cuba, his teen years in Miami and the final months of his life as he fought to stay alive,” said BMP
Films President, Jon Murray. “For the first time viewers will see all the forces that made Pedro the man he was and gave him the
courage to take his message of
AIDS education to a
nationwide audience.”
Nearly 15 years since Pedro heightened national awareness of
HIV/
AIDS, the
epidemic in the U.S. remains a serious concern, especially among younger Americans (under 30) who account for a larger share of new infections than any other
age group. Other
sexually transmitted diseases (
STDs) - such as
chlamydia and gonorrhea - are even more common, with one in two sexually active Americans being infected by age 25 - and most not knowing it. Since 1997, MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation have partnered to inform millions of young
adults about
HIV, other
STDs and related sexual
health issues. Beginning in
April (STD Awareness Month), MTV and Kaiser will
partner with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its nearly 880 affiliate
health centers to make an aggressive push to inform America’s young
people about
STDs, as well as help normalize and drive increased testing. Full details on the rest of the campaign will be unveiled soon.
Pedro was Produced by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Chris Panizzon and Anne Clements (”Quinceanera”). Jon Murray, Gil Goldschein and Scott Freeman of Bunim-Murray Productions served as Executive
Producers along with Paris Barclay. Pedro was directed by
Nick Oceano and written by
Dustin Lance Black (”Milk”) with story by Paris Barclay and
Dustin Lance Black. Pedro stars
Alex Loynaz as Pedro, Justina Machado (”Six Feet Under”) as Pedro’s sister Mily, and Hale Appleman (”Teeth”) as Pedro’s roommate from The Real World, Judd. Maggie Malina is executive producer for MTV.
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If the Proposition 8 battle is replayed in 2010, demographic trends alone could eliminate the initiative’s winning margin, according to an analysis of polling and census data.
Gay rights groups have already vowed a 2010 repeal fight against the initiative, which took away a right for same-sex couples to marry that had been granted in a California Supreme in May. Given that conventional wisdom holds that it is easier to get a no vote than a yes vote, a repeal campaign could have a harder mission than the unsuccessful No on 8 campaign did this year.
“We have not determined, with our allies, exactly when that will be,” said Rick Jacobs, founder and director of the Courage Campaign, which has gathered over 300,000 names on an online petition calling for a repeal. “But we will be absolutely ready to put it on the ballot in 2010.”
If the repeal side does get on the ballot, they’ll be facing a very different electorate. According to the Field Poll, voters 65 and older made up 19 percent of the 13 million people who cast ballots in this election — about 2.5 million voters. According to polling by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), six in 10 voted for Prop. 8. The measure won by 4.6 percentage points, or 591,644 total votes.
According to death rate data provided by the California Department of Public Health, over a third of those over 65 die each year. If you applied these deaths rates to voters in this age group, over two years, deaths could eliminate 1.5 million voters over 65 — which would suggest 900,000 yes on Prop. 8 voters and only 600,000 no voters, for a net loss of 300,000 votes for the yes side.
However, it’s probably not quite this simple, according to PPIC demographer Hans Johnson, who noted that it was probably healthier older people with lots of years ahead of them who cast more of the ballots.
“If you’re really sick, you probably didn’t vote,” Johnson said. “If you‘re in a nursing home or suffer from dementia, you probably didn’t vote.” See Demographics suggest Prop. 8 may have a short life
Capitol Weekly, CA
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