Celebrity Friday (bonus): Barney Frank Engaged To Marry

The longest serving openly LGBT member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who previously announced he would retire from Congress at the end of this term, has also announced he will be getting married to his longtime partner Jim Ready.

Marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since 2004, what took you so long,Barney? Congratulations!

Elizabeth Warren: "It Gets Better"

The Flyer Mitt Romney Doesn't Want SC Voters To See

This flyer is from Mitt Romney's 2002 campaign for Governor of Massachusetts. Back in those days, Romney was portraying himself as a typical Northeastern liberal Republican, i.e. pro-choice and pro-gay.

Now that Romney has won Iowa* and New Hampshire it should be interesting to see how South Carolina voters react to Romney when they learn more about his past positions.

(*The Iowa results were essentially a tie.)

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank Retirement Announcement

The longest-serving openly gay member of Congress, U.S. Representative Barney Frank (MA-05), announced today that he would not seek re-election to the U.S. House in 2012.

There are currently on.y four openly LGBT members of Congress, and Tammy Baldwin is giving up her seat to run for the United States Senate. David Ciccilline looks to have a tough-re-election bid. Jared Polis recently welcomed a newborn son to his household.

Joe.My.God has a collection of reactions from the national LGBT organizations on the news of Frank's retirement.

MA: Transgender Rights Bill Passes Legislature

The Massachusetts House passed the Transgender Civil Rights Bill 95-58 and the Senate passed it on a voice vote this week.

The Rainbow Times reports:

The measure, adopted by the House last night, passed the Senate by a voice vote this morning.  Governor Deval Patrick has indicated he will sign the bill into law. It would go into effect July 1, 2012. 

The transgender civil-rights bill would add protections based on “gender identity” to the statutes banning discrimination in employment, housing, education, and credit. It would also add gender identity to current hate-crimes laws. 

The measure, however, does not include protections for public accommodations, such as hotels and restaurants, restrooms, locker rooms, public buildings and transit, including subway and bus lines. 

That omission bothers a lead sponsor of the bill, Representative Carl M. Sciortino, Jr. (D-Medford). But he said, the bill is a step forward  “It makes sure that people who have faced violence and discrimination have legal remedy.”

Massachusetts will become the 16th state to include protections for transgender people from discrimination into law. Curious that this is happening more than 7 years after the state embraced marriage equality. Better late than never.

It's also a big deal that public accommodations are not included in the bill, but hopefully that will happen in the near future.

NYT Reports on Nationwide Marriage Equality Fight

The New York Times had an interesting editorial on the fight for nationwide marriage equality in light of the recent 10-8 vote in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. The above image indicates the current state-by-state recognition of same-sex relationships. The highlights are that only three states: Rhode Island, New Mexico and New Jersey have no laws banning marriage equality. In two of those three states (Rhode Island and New Jersey) civil union statutes have been enacted which purport to provide all the rights and responsibilities of marriage while reserving the name of "marriage" to opposite-sex couples only.

The editorial ("A Long, Winding Road to Marriage Equality") says:

Twenty-nine states have enacted constitutional amendments blocking same-sex marriage. In 18 of those states, the amendments also ban domestic partnerships or civil unions. Twelve states bar same-sex marriage by statute, and in two, Minnesota and North Carolina, anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendments will go before voters next year. At this point, nearly 60 percent of Americans live in places that do not protect gay couples in any way. 

With New York, same-sex marriage is still allowed in only six states and the District of Columbia. Only 13 states provide some recognition of gay relationships with broad domestic partnerships or more limited rights, for things like medical decisions and inheritance (this includes 11 states with constitutional amendments or statutes barring gay marriage).

In addition to the attempts to ban marriage equality in Minnesota and North Carolina via the ballot box in 2012, there will be attempts to legalize marriage equality by ballot measure in Maine. There will be no such attempt in California, however. (Thank Goodness!)  Also, in Washington, New Jersey and Maryland there are on-going efforts to legalize same-sex marriages in those states.

Of course at MadProfessah.com we will be covering all these political stories in 2012!

REPORT: Over 50,000 Legally Married Same-Sex Couples

The Williams Institute of UCLA Law School issued a report this week, Patterns of Relationship 
Recognition by Same-Sex Couples in the United States, which details that over 50,000 couples have legally married in the United States and over 140,000 have entered into some form of governmental recognition of their relationship at the state level.

From the press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA – Over 140,000 same-sex couples have formalized their
relationship under state law in the United States.  Nearly 50,000 same-sex couples have
married.  These findings from a new Williams Institute study, Patterns of Relationship
Recognition by Same-Sex Couples in the United States, are based on state administrative
data from those states where same-sex couples can marry, enter civil unions or domestic
partnerships, or enter other legal relationship statuses.  The study also finds that same-sex
couples prefer marriage over other non-marital legal relationship statuses.   

“We see a lot of evidence that same-sex couples strongly prefer marriage over civil
unions or domestic partnerships. Same-sex couples marry at higher rates in the first year
they have the option than we see in civil union states, for example,” M.V. Lee Badgett,
Research Director of The Williams Institute and professor of economics at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst.  “Our findings are consistent with other research showing that
couples value marriage more for its social meaning than for its practical benefits.”   

The new study also provides a snapshot of the couples who enter legally-recognized
relationship statuses.  These couples are predominantly female, tend to be younger than
currently married different-sex couples, and tend to be older than newly-married
different-sex couples. When a state allows marriage for same-sex couples, couples will
travel to that state to marry from other states in which they do not enjoy that same
opportunity.  

“When we look at the residency of same-sex couples who marry, around 60 percent live
outside of the state where they got married,” said Jody L. Herman, Peter J. Cooper Public
Policy Fellow at The Williams Institute.  “Couples are much less likely to travel out of
state to enter non-marital legal statuses.  This is further evidence that same-sex couples
prefer marriage.”

The graphic at the top illustrates the impact of same-sex marriage in Iowa on the surrounding states in the midwest of the country. Currently, New York, Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and the District of Columbia all allow legal same-sex marriage.

Which state will be next? Perhaps Maine or Maryland?

POLL: Marriage Equality Support in MA Hits 60%

Massachusetts was the first state to legalize marriage equality, back in 2004 and there were all sorts of predictions that disaster would strike the Bay State. There were multiple failed attempts to amend the state constitution, or allow the majority to impose their will on the minority through a ballot measure. None of that happened.

A recent poll by PPP shows that 60% of respondents in Massachusetts now support marriage equality!

Q: Do you think same-sex marriage should be legal or illegal?

Legal: 60
Illegal: 30
Not sure: 10

Q: Which of the following best describes your opinion on gay marriage: gay couples should be allowed to legally marry, or gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not legally marry, or there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship?

Gay couples should be allowed to legally marry: 56
Gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry: 30
There should be no recognition of a gay couple’s relationship: 12
Not sure: 2

Q: Has the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts had a positive or negative impact on your life, or has it not had any impact at all?

Positive impact: 18
Negative impact: 15
No impact at all: 67

My favorite number in this poll is that last one. 67% of respondents said that the legalization of gay marriage in their state has had no impact on their life. That has been the argument of marriage equality activists like myself all along. How does MY marriage (to a man) affect your marriage? If you are honest with yourself, you know that it simply doesn't, at all. The professional heterosexual supremacists at the National Organization for Marriage are simply lying about this fact, every single day.Happily, fewer and few people are believing their lies every day as well.

As former Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals Judith Kaye wrote in dissent in Hernandez v Robles (the unsuccessful marriage lawsuit ) "There are enough marriage licences to go around for everyone."

Celebrity Friday: Elizabeth Warren

Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren is a favorite of the progressive blogosphere for her championing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Dodd-Frank Act passed by the Democratic Congress of 2009 and signed into law by President Obama. Now comes word that she has decided to run for the United States Senate from Massachusetts, challenging freshman Republican Scott Brown.

She is today's Celebrity Friday. Hopefully we will be covering more of her as it gets closer to the election in 2012.