Gay marriage and the date debate
Nearly nine months after California voters banned same-sex marriage in the state, gay marriage supporters are ready to ask them to overturn Proposition 8. They’re just not sure when to ask: In November 2010 or November 2012. Choosing a date involves more than sifting through the polling, community meetings and consultants’ reports that have filled the time since last fall’s election with soul-searching and finger-pointing among supporters, culminating in a meeting of the movement’s leaders Saturday in San Bernardino. Generating enthusiasm for a grassroots campaign will also be a heart-based decision, one that has split same-sex couples even in Kern County, where 75 percent of voters backed Prop. 8. Bakersfield resident Jade Haley wants an initiative in 2010. Her partner Alee Gamino thinks that’s too soon. Gamino’s Catholic mother still refers to Haley as “she” and has no contact with them as a couple, who are raising Gamino’s teenage daughter from a previous relationship. On Sundays, Gamino, 34, goes to church twice. She attends a Catholic service solo with her mom in the morning and goes to a Metropolitan Community Church with her partner in the evening. “The churches have thousands and thousands of people ready to go against us,” said Gamino. She looked at 70 people who came to a Unitarian Universalist Church on Thursday to talk about the movement’s next step. “All we have is what’s in this room.” Still, Gamino was among only a dozen people at the Bakersfield meeting called by Marriage Equality USA who supported waiting until 2012. The sentiment for a vote next year echoed one at a similar gathering in San Francisco, while gatherings in liberal bastions such as Oakland and Berkeley leaned toward 2012. “The reaction was really mixed,” said Pam Brown, Marriage Equality USA’s political director, who compiled information from the organization’s “Get Engaged” tour of 40 California cities over the past several weeks. “A lot of people who wanted to wait until 2012 wanted to see what the plan was first before they committed.” A nonbinding straw poll of leaders gathered Saturday in San Bernardino to plan the movement’s next step found that 93 people voted to go in 2010, 49 in 2012 and 20 were undecided. Organizers expect to officially decide when to return to the ballot in a couple of weeks. If they decide on November 2010, the deadline to have ballot language submitted to the attorney general is Sept. 25. This month, several groups of same-sex marriage supporters said not enough has been done to address the faults of last year’s campaign in time to mount a winning drive next year.Churches’ influence
Faults not addressed
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/gay-marriage-…
Gay partners celebrate rite to bless relationships
Denise Chustz held on to her partner, Wendy Suchowski, tightly as they stared at one another Saturday afternoon.
As the sun beamed down on the Pointe Coupee couple, they began to smile broadly after the Rev. Keith Mozingo, announced, “You may now kiss your partner.”
Next to them, their friends, Adam White and Bolton Morris, of Plaquemine, did the same. The two couples were among the approximately 30 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples who took part in a blessing of relationships ceremony during the third annual Baton Rouge Pride Fest.
Mozingo, pastor of Metropolitan Community Church, officiated over the blessing of relationships at Magnolia Mound Plantation. The church is part of a national denomination that recognizes and supports gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lifestyles and relationships.
Mozingo said the blessings performed Saturday do not constitute legally recognized unions.
“It’s finally saying to those couples that (they’re) in a valid relationship,” Mozingo said.
White said he and Morris will wait to get married until it is legal in Louisiana.
See
Gay partners celebrate rite to bless relationships
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/gay-partners-…
