Freeing the Heart
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A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
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The White House endorsed legislation Tuesday that would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, plunging into the next front in the national battle over LGBT rights. Speaking to reporters, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration “has been reviewing for several weeks” the bill. “It is now clear that the administration strongly supports the equality act,” he said, adding it would advance the civil rights of “millions of Americans.”
Earnest added the White House would “work to ensure that the legislative process produces something that balances “the bedrock principles of civil rights with the religious liberty that we hold dear in this country.” Although there is little chance that this Congress will approve the legislation — which was introduced in July by Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Cory Booker (N.J.) — President Obama’s support elevates to greater prominence the question of whether lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans need greater legal safeguards.The Human Rights Campaign reacts:
The unfortunate reality is that, while LGBT Americans can legally get married, millions remain at risk of being fired or denied services for who they are or who they love because the majority of states still lack explicit, comprehensive non-discrimination protections,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “By endorsing the Equality Act, the White House sent a strong message that it’s time to put the politics of discrimination behind us once and for all. Now it’s time for Congress to act. Everyone should be able to live free from fear of discrimination and have a fair chance to earn a living and provide for their families, including people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.”Note that today’s move comes on the same day that President Obama’s Out Magazine “Ally Of The Year” cover story was issued.
The 44th President of the United States is our Ally of the Year—a president who came to office on a wave of euphoria, appeared to lose momentum halfway through, and has since rallied, helping us secure marriage equality, among other landmark initiatives that are transforming our place in America.
This is the first time a sitting president has been photographed for the cover of an LGBT title, a historic moment in itself, and a statement on how much his administration has done to advance a singularly volatile issue that tarnished the reputations of both President Clinton and President Bush. It might have tarnished this president, too, but for his late-hour conversion in 2012, which set the stage for the extraordinary succession of events that led to this year’s Supreme Court ruling, on June 26, making it unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to wed.
Many things led up to that decision—“decades of our brothers and sisters fighting for recognition and equality” as the president notes—but once his administration decided to join that fight it created what people like to call a “transformative” moment. It helped tip the balance, and it put our elected leader on the right side of justice.A slideshow of this year’s Out 100 honorees is here.
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The practical legal impact of the Obergefell decision was to invalidate laws in 13 states that did not recognize same-sex marriages. Since then, the percentage of same-sex married couples increased from 26% to 31% in those states. Prior to Obergefell, states that did not recognize or conduct marriages of same-sex couples still had same-sex married couples residing there. But those couples either married elsewhere or considered themselves married even if the state did not. Those spouses’ rights were enhanced by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in U.S. v. Windsor that ensured the federal government would recognize marriages of same-sex couples even in states where such marriages were not recognized by the state.
But states whose laws were not affected by the Obergefell ruling have also seen a notable increase in same-sex marriages over the last four months. Currently, 49% of same-sex couples living together in states where same-sex marriages were already legal report being married, compared with 42% prior to the decision. That means same-sex couples living together in these states are now as likely to be married as not married.
Overall, 3.9% of all Americans identify as LGBT, and 0.4% of all Americans are in a same-sex marriage. The latter figure is up from 0.3% before the ruling. Those figures can be used to estimate that there are now approximately 972,000 Americans in a same-sex marriage, up from approximately 780,000 before the ruling. Put differently, there are now approximately 486,000 same-sex marriages in the U.S., compared with approximately 390,000 four months ago.Incredible.
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