Equality supporters on the steps of the Rhode Island State Capitol
Providence was one of the more controversial stops on the NOM's "Summer for Marriage" tour, the scene of some tense confrontations: equality supporters shouting at Brown, two men praying in tongues, Brown spinning wildly regarding attendance, etc.
However, a new poll out this morning shows the issue being debated- marriage equality- isn't too controversial at all. The Rhode Island Marriage Coalition released a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showing that 59% of Rhode Island voters support the freedom to marry for same-sex couples- a 10% increase from the last poll conducted in 2008. When individuals are told it would not impinge on a church's right to marry who they chose- which is part of the recently enacted law here in DC- support increases to a remarkable 66%.
The new pro-equality majority is demographically diverse. It includes Catholics (57 percent), women over 50 (56 percent), independent voters (58 percent) and parents (64 percent).
Support increases further with First Amendment reassurance. When told that marriage equality would not infringe on a church's right to marry whom they choose, support increases to 66 percent overall and 63 percent among Catholics.
Politically, this is a net positive vote for state lawmakers. Asked about the impact of a vote for equality on their support for, 27 percent say they would be more inclined to support a candidate, 24 percent are less inclined, and nearly half (46 percent) say it would make no difference. Just 13 percent are much less likely to support a pro-equality candidate.
In Rhode Island, the LGBT community is the mainstream. Overall, 79 percent of voters here know a gay or lesbian person and 45 percent describe their feeling toward gay and lesbian people as favorable, while just 18 percent are critical. Seventy-five percent believe "homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society."
It's a big step forward.
On the politics of it, Gov. Carcieri, a horrible anti-LGBT elected official who even vetoed a bill to extend the right to make burial decisions of a loved one to same-sex couples, along with a bill to expand the definition of hate crimes to include gender identity/expression, is thankfully term-limited. Both leading contenders to replace him- State Treasurer Frank Caprio, a Democrat, and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, an Independent- have said they would sign a bill legalizing the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. The Rhode Island State House Speaker, Gordon Fox, is openly gay, and it's expected equality supporters are very likely to have the votes in the State Legislature.
That brings me to another issue, which is the importance of gubernatorial races this year. A lot of anger poured out after Hawaii Gov. Lingle's veto of a civil unions bill recently, including calls for a boycott. She is also leaving office, and now-former Rep. and Democratic candidate Neil Abercrombie is the only candidate who has said he will sign the bill and does not want to put the issue to the ballot. In Minnesota, where NOM just launched new radio ads attacking the Democratic and Independent candidates for governor over their support for the freedom to marry and lack of support for a constitutional amendment, we have another pivotal race, as the person who sits in the governor's chair could be the one to sign or veto a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The same could be true in Rhode Island.
The point is that while it is (thankfully) a year free of anti-equality ballot initiatives like Maine's Proposition 1 or California's Proposition 8, this is not a "bye week" for our movement out in the states. There are still key gubernatorial elections that could decide the fate of marriage equality and civil unions in states, and it's critical to keep an eye on them.
I've noticed that the first response to any kind of institution with which people have an economic relationship doing someone they don't like is to automatically call for a "boycott", "buycott", or something similar. Sometimes it works, many times it doesn't.
Karen Ocamb over at LGBTPOV spoke to Donald Bentz with Equality Hawaii, examining that question in the wake of Gov. Lingle's outrageous veto last night that would have legalized civil unions for same-sex partners:
As for a boycott of Hawaii, Bentz said he understands the inclination but it poses a "quandary" for a lot of businesses in the tourism industry. Last April, the right-wing-lead executive committee of a business roundtable sent a letter to the governor urging her to veto the civil unions bill. Bentz said the full membership didn't know the letter was being sent - and it forced them to take a stand, which many did, calling for full marriage equality. A boycott, Bentz said, would hurt those businesses - the airlines and hotels with progressive policies. Bentz said Equality Hawaii will have to discuss how to proceed with other LGBT groups and allies after they cool down and can "think logically." They may consider a "buycott" which directs LGBT spending to specific businesses with good LGBT policies, and an implicit "boycott" everything else.
"Right now we are all raw emotions," he said. "This is really difficult. There is a lot of anger. We know people on the mainland are already calling for a boycott. So do we get behind that? How do we want our friends and allies on the mainland to know where we want to be?"
This harkens back to the widely cited Colorado boycott after the passage of Amendment 2 in 1992, which banned state and local municipalities from enacting laws protecting "homosexual" individuals as a protected class (eventually overturned in the Romer v. Evans SCOTUS case). The resulting boycott, according to Director Terry Schleder, led to over 60 companies canceling conventions or meetings in the state, 20 U.S. municipalities severing ties, New York City divesting stock holding in Colorado-based companies, companies canceling their planned relocation of headquarters to the state, etc. There was a clear economic impact. On the other hand, there was also a significant increase in violence and a backlash against the LGBT community.
I think taking a minute and figuring out the best theory of change to achieve a smart response on this, as Donald suggests, is indeed the most important thing. Many of the companies which would be hurt by this, according to Don as he told Karen, stood up for the civil unions bill, as did many of their employees. In my view, the strongest amount of resources should be directed at electing Neil Abercrombie as governor. The problem here is a lack of support and veto by the governor, not by legislators or Hawaii residents (which, according to polling, support the bill at an 80% clip). The two situations with respect to Amendment 2 and this one, and what's the appropriate response, aren't parallel. The most immediate opportunity for change comes in November, here. Our side needs to elect a pro-equality governor and maintain support in the legislature to win on this next year, and those should be the first priorities- partly because they directly affect the problem, and partly because they are the most immediate opportunities to effect change. Efforts outside of that have to reward, or hurt as little as possible, supporters of the bill, while extracting a message and punishment for those who went the wrong way- as well as communicate the results of successful efforts to legislators.
Back in January, the Hawaii State House of Representatives killed a pro-LGBT civil union bill from coming to the floor. Numerous theories abound, including that House Speaker Say had the votes but didn't want to deal with the issue in an election year, Senate President and Congressional candidate Colleen Hanabusa (as kolea noted in the comments at the time) sprung this on the House to repair relationships with the LGBT community, the House didn't have the votes to override a potential Gov. Lingle veto threat that she never made, etc.
Equality Hawaii and its allies were finally able to push it through, as the House passed the bill on the very last day of the session, 31-20. The bill would also extend civil unions to unmarried opposite-sex partners. The passage also came under threat of a lawsuit from Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Hawaii, which issued such a threat following the the House move back in January. The bill had already been passed by the Senate and Gov. Lingle has 45 days to announce whether she will sign it, veto it, or allow it to become law without her signature. She has not announced a decision yet, but I am told she has allowed other LGBT bills to become law without her signature, and promised to sign such a bill when she ran for governor in 2002.
Hawaii was actually the original battleground on marriage equality back in 1993 when the state Supreme Court ruled that the statute limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples was unconstitutional unless the state could prove it justified a compelling state interest and did not abridge rights, before a 1998 voter referendum gave the legislature the power to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples, which it did. Same-sex couples have gone without these benefits since then, and it is good to see additional protections added. Kudos to all who pushed this through.
In what appears to be something of a surprise, the Hawaii House of Representatives killed a civil unions bill today. The Senate recently passed the bill 18-7 and it was expected to pass the House and go to Gov. Lingle's desk, but Speaker Say said his body may not take up the bill if the House did not have enough votes to override. On the other hand, according to Equality Hawaii, Gov. Lingle never actually made a veto threat. It makes you wonder if legislators simply weren't willing to stick their necks out in an election year if it weren't absolutely certain the bill would become law. The Speaker made a motion to postpone the bill indefinitely. What makes it all the more surprising is that the House passed a civil unions bill last year by a margin of 33-17 that only applied to same-sex couples, while this bill actually extended benefits to heterosexual couples as well.
There is likely some backstory on why this happened. Very, very disappointing, to say the least.
Hawaii, of course, is a state. And there's 600,000 Pacific Islanders on the mainland, along with 3.4 million Puerto Ricans, 1.2 million Cubans, 0.8 million Dominicans, and 1.7 million from the West Indies. So there's actually a large number of Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Americans who, if citizens, can vote in the United States federal elections and do have representation.
But Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are all United States Territories, and they do not have voting representatives in Washington DC, nor can they participate in the electoral college. (Additional US Territories have populations ranging from none to a handful.)
The California Legislature approved a bill last week to extend voter registration privileges to 17-year-old citizens. If signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill would help put California youth on the road to a lifetime of democratic participation.
The rising levels of voter participation among the nation's youth continue to be challenged by the current voter registration system, perpetuating the difficulty of fostering lifelong voters. Some states are proposing to take this challenge into their own hands by making voter registration accessible to citizens as young as 16. Already widely accessible at schools and departments of motor vehicles, the move would allow future voters in some states to automatically be enrolled on the voter rolls on their 18th birthdays, a change that advocates say could "close the registry gap between young voters and the rest of the population."
(In Japan, which has much lower crime rates, much less recidivism, there's an emphasis on doing whatever possible to reintegrate convicted criminals into society after incarceration. Depriving ex-cons of the right to vote is INTENTIONALLY taking the exact opposite approach, insisting that they are NOT part of society, and that they are right to feel alienated, hostile, and at war with society. Hopefully, this diary reports on continuing progress in changing these counter-productive practices. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
by Erin Ferns and Donald Wine II
For the past few years, there has been a push by voting rights advocates to expand and balance the electorate in the United States. Finally, measures to help enfranchise some of the nation's least represented Americans are moving forward in several states. This past week, five states advanced bills to restore the voting rights of citizens convicted of felonies, while four states moved bills designed to facilitate voter participation among young citizens. This trend in election reform is a step in the right direction, which more states should take notice of and consider in the near future.
A few weeks ago, we asked some of our favorite activist friends if they had any friends in West Virginia, and man, did they deliver. Now we just need one more favor from you - to let us know if you have any leftie buddies in Hawaii, North Dakota or Oklahoma who'd like to help liberals organize over a few drinks.
In late April, as we moved closer to Drinking Liberally's 5th anniversary this Thursday, May 29th, we noticed just how close we were to hitting all 50 states, with, until recently, only 4 states left: the Aloha State (HI), the Peace Garden State (ND), the Sooner State (OK) and the Mountain State (WV). With that in mind, we made it our May goal to create Living Liberally chapters in all 50 states by May 29th, and simultaneously celebrate our 5th anniversary and a truly 50-bar strategy. We started by asking you to help us out with West Virginia.
Today, we have not just one, but two new West Virginia chapters soon to officially enter into the network, that will both hold their first meetings in the next few weeks - one in the state capital of Charleston, and one in Martinsburg.
That only leaves three states left - and we're going to have to ask again - know any liberals in Hawaii, North Dakota or Oklahoma?
Please don't make Howard Dean take back his words:
I need a friend in West Virginia...somebody I could have a beer with.
It's been nearly five years since we started drinking liberally in a backyard in Hell's Kitchen. In May, 2003, a few weeks after Mission Accomplished, progressives weren't very hopeful...and we regularly heard the joke: "Guess liberals need a few beers to dull the pain."
Our response: "No, we need a few beers while we organize." From the start, our social club wasn't about sharing depression -- it was about sharing ideas, energy and commitment.
People are now Drinking Liberally all over the country, and it spreads because local liberals grab hold and make it happen....sometimes in the unlikeliest of areas.
Our fifth chapter, beating out such liberal hotbeds as Boston and Austin, was Boise, Idaho, leading Atrios to demand of his readership why Idaho had a chapter and Philadelphia didn't. (A Philadelphia group launched within 24 hours of that blog post; the Boise chapter still meets, and has been visited by their Mayor.)
Salt Lake City -- in a deep red state not known for liberals or drinks -- has a booming chapter. There are two clubs in South Dakota, and three in Mississippi. The Idaho Falls chapter (it always comes back to Idaho) has been involved in local anti-war activism, as have our Wyoming groups.
So...what's the matter with West Virginia?
Actually: West Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Hawaii. Those are the four hold-out states left as we reach our five-year mark, with no spots for liberals to congregate and organize over a few drinks. But not for long.
Drinking Liberally turns 5 on May 29th. We're kicking off our anniversary month with a Living Liberally fundraiser this Saturday, May 10th, in New York City, honoring CREDO / Working Assets and their political director Becky Bond (with Open Lefters Matt Stoller and Mike Lux on the host committee). During the course of the month, we'll be launching a new website and new tools.
And we're going to hit all 50 states for the first time. If I have to raise a pint in North Dakota myself, we're going to do it.
But I'm hoping I won't have to travel to North Dakota (at least not this month). The 240+ chapters that exist weren't started by me -- they were started by you -- liberals that wanted to gather, build community, share stories and a few pitchers. And now we need you to help realize the social parallel to Dean's 50-State Strategy: our own 50-Bar Strategy, promoting democracy one pint at a time.
Just in case you are still up, 20 pledged delegates are at stake out in an oasis in the Pacific. The voting begun at 1 a.m. eastern time, and might not finish until 4 a.m. There does not seem to be an entrance poll yet, but perhaps there will be one later. Also, it might be a while before results come in:
The voting in the caucuses will begin at 7 p.m. (11 p.m. CST) and continue as long as there is a consistent influx of participants, according to Stuart McKinley, party communications director.
Ooooo boy. This could take a while. There is no way I can stay up until 4 a.m. tonight. I will see you in the morning.
Update: Another huge victory for Obama in a caucus, 76%-24%. Delegate division will probably be 15-5.
STATE BLOGS
