RNC Chairman Michael Steele is fighting for his job at today's debate, where every single candidate responded to NOM's question on marriage equality by invoking Jeebus, traditional values, and the sanctity of one man-one woman.
reposted from Joe
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.
We can't peer into President Obama's soul, but his statement last week that he is "struggling" with whether to endorse same-sex marriage is open to an unedifying interpretation. Given the president's support of gay rights in other contexts, his opposition to marriage equality raises the question of whether the struggle Obama referred to is between politics and principle. If so, we hope principle will prevail. [snip] When he ran for the presidency in 2008, it was the conventional wisdom that supporting gay marriage would be politically fatal. With shifts in public attitudes, that probably will not be the case in 2012. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 42% of adults now favor same-sex marriage, compared to 37% in 2009. The trend seems clear. We'd prefer to think that such considerations wouldn't be uppermost in Obama's mind. What should determine his position is logic and the fact that same-sex couples across America, not just those in his circle, yearn for recognition of their relationships. Enough agonizing, Mr. President. Support marriage equality.
Only one other of the country's 33 similar church councils has elected an openly gay leader. Only one other of the country's 33 similar church councils has elected an openly gay leader. In California, a lesbian was elected president in the late 1990s. That makes Kimer's presidency of the N.C. Council - a coalition of 17 Christian denominations and eight individual churches that work on social issues - historic in the South. It also signals an acceptance among member denominations - Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics - that even if they have theological differences about homosexuality, they are OK with a gay man at the helm. Or at least, they don't see it as an issue worth fighting. "A lot of our member denominations have internal battles about this," said the Rev. George Reed, the council's executive director. "But the governing board felt the fact that he is a gay man was not a disqualifying factor."A sample reader comment on the above-linked Charlotte Observer story: "Having him over the board of church's is like building a mosck on ground zero. Its obsurd!!!! If he is a true Christian and in fact reads the word of god then he should know how the lord feels about homosexuals. Sir you are an abomination and when you burn your smoke and ashes will ascend up to his nostrils like insence. Read it for yourself!!!"
“I think the country’s evolving,” he said. “And I think you’re going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so called DOMA [Defence of Marriage Act].” DOMA prohibits federal government from recognising gay marriage, meaning that even if states allow the practice, gay couples still cannot access federal benefits. Mr Biden added that attitudes had changed to openly gay soldiers and that consensus was beginning to turn in favour of gay marriage. He said that gay troops were now “widely accepted” and “the same thing is happening now in regard to the issue of marriage.”