Looks Like Obama's Moment Of Truth Has Arrived... And It Isn't About Evolution

I have no idea if wine drinkers or beer drinkers-- or non-drinkers-- are more or less likely to favor marriage equality. But the new issue of Out has a cute survey by the World Wine Guys Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, "The Ethical Wine List," about which wine-producing countries' products should be served at same-sex weddings. They base their findings on which wine-producing countries legalized same-sex unions. Alas, Napa wine is still out-- although, gloriously, the fantastic wines from NY's Finger Lakes area and Suffolk County are now fine. Turns out France legalized the pacte civil de solidarité in 1999. Other wine-producing countries which legalized same-sex unions while President Obama was evolving include Canada, New Zealand and Spain, all in 2005, South Africa in 2006, and Argentina last year. (I might add that non-wine-producing countries that have recognized marriage equality include Belgium, Holland, Iceland, Sweden, Portugal, Norway, Mexico, Israel, Brazil, Ecuador, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Uruguay, England, Germany, Finland and... Nepal.)

I'm sad to say that my mistrust for our president has grown so rapidly that Tuesday, when he announced he would be supporting Dianne Feinstein's and Jerry Nadler's legislation to repeal DOMA, my first reaction was to look for shady motives. I mean, did he suddenly evolve in one leap and bound? The White House blog:

President Obama is proud to support the Respect for Marriage Act, which has been introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Jerrold Nadler. This legislation would uphold the principle that the federal government should not deny gay and lesbian couples the same rights and legal protections as straight couples.

The President has long called for a legislative repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which continues to have a real impact on the lives of real people-- our families, friends and neighbors.

Why the caution? Well, it just happened to be the day that the media reported that Obama was supporting the efforts of the Gang of Six's conservative consensus plan to redefine "shared sacrifice" as meaning more sacrifice from working families and more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

With the deadline for raising the nation’s debt ceiling just 14 days away, Mr. Warner and the other five senators-- three Republicans and three Democrats in all-- appear to have given new life to a grand bargain with President Obama that could reduce the nation’s deficit by about $4 trillion over the next decade.

In an early afternoon news briefing, Mr. Obama called the proposals unveiled by the senators on Tuesday morning “good news” and a “very significant step.”

Senators from both parties appeared optimistic as well. Forty-nine of them, from both parties, attended a briefing by Mr. Warner and his group’s members on Tuesday morning. Mr. Warner said the reaction had been positive.

“You could almost feel a sigh of relief as people said, ‘Oh my gosh, here’s something that we could be for,’” Mr. Warner said.

...Republicans in the House, who have stated their opposition to any tax increases, could continue to balk at the proposals, which raise nearly $1 trillion in new revenue by lowering rates while closing tax loopholes.

Republican members of the “gang” are trying to persuade House members to support the plan, he said. “There are a number of our Republican colleagues who are working hard on this,” Mr. Warner said.

Democrats, too, will need to be brought along to support the idea that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security can be modified without sacrificing their basic nature. A deal could be scuttled if Democratic opposition to some of those proposals develops.

My worry was that Obama would toss the idiotic same-sex marriage bone to hysterical and obsessed gays clamoring for the right to imitate unhappy heterosexuals while slipping in the long-cherished conservative dream to open the doors to the dismantling of Social Security and Medicare. Opposing marriage equality is horrifyingly reactionary and unreasonable. No one opposing marriage equality is fit for public office. But using it as a trade-off to wreck Social Security and Medicare is far worse... far, far, far worse.

Bernie Sanders, addressing Vermont wine growers (and others in the nation's most forward-thinking state) on Ed Schultz's show Tuesday night:



Can we trust Obama on the cuts? I'm not sure. Everyone I know says "no." A usually reliable source of mine in the administration asked me to hold my fire and swore that the president will never do anything to harm Social Security. We should know soon enough. Meanwhile, DeSimone and Jenssen have recommended Ruca Malen Kinien cabernet sauvignon 2007 (an Argentine red) that they describe as "Raspberry and dried-fig flavors with just a hint of spice." For a white, he suggests a South Africa Raats Family Wines Cabernet Franc, 2008, which they describe as "black cherry, plum, and earth tones... super with red meat or game." And for bubbly they're in France: Taittinger Brut La Française champagne-- "granny smith apple and brioche flavors," which they say is "ideal on its own or with caviar." If My White House source is correct and Bernie Sanders and Donna Edwards (and Ed Schultz) are wrong, we're all going to need something a lot stronger than the wines. Bernie-- if you need to read it and not just hear it:

In my view, this Gang of Six proposal is a disaster. iI lowers the tax rate very substantially for the wealthy, and it will make devastating-- this is not modification-- devastating cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition... you name the program that are struggling, working class in this country desperately needs, it is going to be cut. I would estimate if the Gang of Six proposal were ever to pass-- I will do my best to see that doesn't happen-- it would be absolutely devastating to working families. We have to do everything we can to rally the American people to prevent it. You're giving the Republicans about 90% of what they ever dreamed of.

90%. Is that hyperbole? Exaggeration? Bernie doesn't think so. Speaking about reactionary gang members Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), he maintained that “while I am sure that they did not get everything that they wanted, I think it’s fair to say they won about 80 percent to 90 percent of what they fought for. Despite President Obama’s campaign promise not to cut Social Security benefits, the Gang of Six plan, which he apparently embraced, calls for massive cuts in that vitally important program... Under the Social Security proposal, a new formula for calculating cost-of-living adjustments would cut a typical 75-year-old’s yearly benefits in 10 years by $560. The average 85-year-old would see a $1,000 a year cut in 20 years. Furthermore, the proposal demands that Social Security be solvent for a 75-year period, which could include additional cuts. The proposal also cuts Medicare by $298 billion over 10 years and makes massive cuts to Medicaid."

Sanders said that the president "apparently embraced" this. My source denies it-- 38-dimensional chess, I'm guessing-- and we'll be finding out pretty soon. I'm guessing Obama's reelection bid depends on it. If he doesn't stand up for working families this time, and takes the part of Wall Street and Big Business again, he's toast... one-termer, no matter what kind of walking freak show the GOP puts up against him.

Lawrence O'Donnell doesn't agree. It looks like my friend in the White House has been talking to him too. And he seems pretty sure it's for real. Listen carefully:

The National Catholic Reporter takes on "the crisis of leadership" among the Catholic bishops

"Archbishop [of New York] Timothy Dolan, he of the wide smile, ready handshake and outsized laugh, was to be the church’s antidote to the cool and distant manner of his predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan, who was a public relations nightmare from the start. But a love for beer and a hot dog from the cart outside the cathedral will only get you so far."


"The vote in New York sends a strong message to Catholic leadership. The danger is not in the vote itself. The danger they face is far deeper -- a crisis of leadership and authority for which they have only themselves to blame."

-- an editorial in the July 5 National Catholic Reporter

by Ken

The national discussion is being swamped by so much craziness that I take perhaps excessive pleasure in examples of public non-craziness, which apparently hasn't been outlawed after all. So even though I'm not making any great claims for the significance in the grand scheme of things of this editorial in the National Catholic Reporter, I still may be making too much of it.

Or it may be that the NCR has a better feel for the pulse of at least American Catholics than the whacked-out Church hierarchy.

Okay, the National Catholic Reporter doesn't attempt to present itself as an organ of Vatican-blessed doctrinal purity. In its "Mission and Values" statement, it describes itself as "the only significant alternative Catholic voice that provides avenues for expression of diverse perspectives, promoting tolerance and respect for differing ideas" for the 23 percent of the U.S. population that identifies itself as Catholic. The Catholic crazies speak with such inescapably loud, obstreperous voices that we may easily be fooled by their loudness and obstreperousness that they speak for American Catholics. Maybe so, maybe not.

In the July 5 issue, NCR has an editorial entitled which takes off from the Church's disastrous positioning in the recent New York State marriage-equality battle but really isn't about that. I think the opening establishes its concerns well:

Gay marriage, bishops and the crisis of leadership

July 5, 2011
An NCR editorial

The vote approving same-sex marriage in New York is the latest and most glaring confirmation of some gloomy news for the Catholic church in the United States, and it’s not that gays have achieved the right to marry.

Rather, affirmed in the recent vote is the disturbing reality that the Catholic hierarchy has lost most of its credibility with the wider culture on matters of sexuality and personal morality, just as it has lost its authority within the Catholic community on the same issues. There are reasons -- and they have little to do with secularism, relativism or lingering influences of the wild 1960s -- why people are no longer listening to the bishops.

While we don’t want to minimize the seriousness of the concern of some over a societal redefinition of marriage, there are reasons we think the bishops’ hyperbolic reaction to laws such as that enacted in New York are not only wrong-headed but counterproductive. . . .

Right away there's a thought here that you have to wonder if those bellowing voices of Catholic officialdom are even aware of: that Catholics "are no longer listening to the bishops." I speak as a total outsider, but I can't help wondering whether the Church satraps have their top-down authoritarian structure so ingrained in their heads that it doesn't even occur to them to wonder whether their sheep are listening.

And this is hardly a new problem. I remember in my very first job (and we're talking about some 45 years ago!) working with a young woman, happily married, who considered herself a devout Catholic while saying that she outright rejected the prohibition on birth control. She may once have agonized over it, but by this time there was no question in her mind that it made no sense in either her life or her faith, which again she took seriously, and therefore she considered it to have no validity. This is the very thing Church hierarchists always stress is absolutely forbidden; under no circumstances are Catholics supposed to be entitled to even an opinion about, let alone the option of disregarding, doctrine as dispensed by the Pope.

On the marriage-equality issue, NCR argues that the bishops simply aren't hearing their parishioners, or if they are, are deaf to their actual thinking.

According to Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, “On gay marriage, many of the people in the pews split with their bishops.”

That attitude does not spring so much from a stance of defiance, as some bishops would assert, but more from the experience of gays and lesbians themselves and their parents and siblings, extended family and friends who increasingly understand gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons as far more than the sum of their sexual orientation while also understanding that sexuality is at the core of a person’s identity.
To parents of a gay child, the idea that a group of men can claim to know the mind of God so perfectly that they can proclaim with unyielding certainty that God deems a significant portion of creation “disordered” is absurd. The label is not only demeaning but to contemporary Christians has no resonance with the heart of the Gospel.

A plainer way of putting it might be that in growing numbers Catholics have stopped listening to their bishops and are listening instead to Jesus.

The NCR editorial goes on to note how badly the Church's "lobbying apparatus . . . a fangless relic" was outmaneuvered in Albany -- "by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a divorced Catholic and parent; by the pro-gay-marriage lobby; and by both Democrats and Republicans." But, the editorial argues,

even if the bishops had a persuasive case to make and the legislative tools at their disposal, their public conduct in recent years -- wholesale excommunications, railing at politicians, denial of honorary degrees and speaking platforms at Catholic institutions, using the Eucharist as a political bludgeon, refusing to entertain any questions or dissenting opinions, and engaging in open warfare with the community’s thinkers as well as those, especially women, who have loyally served the church -- has resulted in a kind of episcopal caricature, the common scolds of the religion world, the caustic party of “no.”

"As if on cue," the editorial argues --

As if on cue, after the vote Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio declared by fiat that his diocese is “not to bestow or accept honors, nor to extend a platform of any kind to any state elected official, in all our parishes and churches for the foreseeable future.”

In their reaction to the vote, the Catholic bishops of New York wrote: “While our culture seems to have lost a basic understanding of marriage, we Catholics must not. We must be models of what is good, holy and sacred about authentic sacramental marriage.”

The statement might raise legitimate alarms if, indeed, the state law signaled that the Catholic ideals and sacramental life were actually under attack. They aren’t.

Again, the editorial is more polite than I would be. I would be asking if the bishops are too stupid or too dishonest to grasp that the law deals only with civil marriage, leaving total control of sacramental marriage to religious authorities. The editorial quotes from a piece in the same issue by Nicolas Cafardi, a civil and canon lawyer and professor at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh:

Jesus in the Gospels . . . besides telling us not to act on our fears, also told us to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Civil marriage is Caesar’s. If Caesar wants to say that you can only get married on Tuesdays, wearing a blue suit and a red tie, that is Caesar’s call. The sacrament of matrimony is God’s. It is valid only when invoked between a baptized man and a baptized woman, in the presence of two witnesses and the spouses’ proper ordinary or pastor or his delegate. Caesar has no say in this.

To me all of the foregoing is just a warmup to the editorial's real concerns. And what it says seems to me so cogent and so strong that it needs to be quoted in full, with maybe just the tiniest shade of gratuitous boldface highlighting:

The larger problem for the hierarchy, of course, is not persuading the secular culture of its point of view on sacramental marriage, but persuading its own adherents, and particularly young Catholics who now tend to drift off in scores before adulthood, that staying attached to the church is a compelling good, that the church is in fact relevant and will draw them closer to Christ and thus the freedom and fullness of a life of faith.

The bishops have little credibility in the wider culture and diminished authority within the church because in the case of sexual violence against young people by members of their clerical culture, they responded in ways that any reasonable and healthy segment of society would have considered disdainful.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, he of the wide smile, ready handshake and outsized laugh, was to be the church’s antidote to the cool and distant manner of his predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan, who was a public relations nightmare from the start. But a love for beer and a hot dog from the cart outside the cathedral will only get you so far.

Dolan’s rising star presumably carries with it a stamp of papal favor. The show “60 Minutes,” in its own hyperbolic burst, dubbed him the “American pope.” And senior NCR correspondent John Allen, who has conducted a book-length interview with Dolan, has written that in other circumstances the archbishop of New York “could easily have been a U.S. senator or a corporate CEO.”

That may or may not be the case, but as senator or CEO, Dolan would be held to standards of accountability that no bishop will ever face. Politicians, we know, can be run out of office and business leaders are held, however imperfectly, to standards of performance and ethics. Some of them land in jail.

In reaction to the marriage vote, Dolan stretched to call up the specter of what remains of the Red menace. On his blog he wrote that in China and North Korea “government presumes daily to ‘redefine’ rights, relationships, values and natural law.” In those countries, he says, government dictates the size of families, who can live and die, and what defines marriage. “Please, not here!” he begs. The comparison, of course, is absurd on its face, a kind of hysteria that demands that someone listen when so few are.

The vote in New York sends a strong message to Catholic leadership. The danger is not in the vote itself. The danger they face is far deeper -- a crisis of leadership and authority for which they have only themselves to blame.

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Really, isn't there SOME limit to what can be passed off as a "poll"?

New York State Sen. Mark Grisanti (R-North Buffalo) cast the 33rd and final "yes" vote for marriage equality in Friday's historic late-night Senate session.

by Ken

We all seem them everyday -- those ubiquitous online "polls" that go beyond being unscientific to being just plain silly. It's not hard to see how grossly uninformed the writer of the "poll" is about the issue(s) and person(s) involved, and usually you can see how the stacked questions reflect some combination of ignorance and/or pandering to perceived public prejudices and/or plain old propagandizing. (Any other AOL-ers out there?)

I tend to ignore these things, but silly as they may be, it can be dangerous to just dismiss them, as our friend Adam Bink, director of online programs at the Courage Campaign, points out in connection with a couple of real corkers he's passed along from radio station WBEN, "a popular radio station back home in Western New York," argues: "Poll results like these get reported on-air, mentioned by word-of-mouth, and noted by other news sources, which influences opinion." (Adam hails from the Buffalo area, so what happens in local politics remains on his radar.)

This first WBEN "poll" Adam flagged is bad enough:


At least this one seems actually to be soliciting the respondent's opinion. Note that you get a smorgasbord of choices to express bad feelings "about gay marriage," as against the unitary option of being "OK" with it.

But now, in the wake of the New York State Legislature's historic ratification of marriage equality, comes this truly preposterous . . . well, whatever it is. I don't see how it can be described as a "poll":


What???

As I wrote in a note to Adam, "This isn't a poll, it's a political hit job. Fucking unbelievable."

Here's what Adam had to say in his post on the subject:

This is really ridiculous. Again, I realize these things aren’t scientific, but they aren’t fair either. “What bothers you most” sets the tone from the start, implying that Grisanti acted incorrectly in some way, instead of something like “How would you rate Mark Grisanti’s handling of the same-sex marriage issue?” Any approval poll should have neutral language such as “How would you rate President Obama’s handling of x issue?”

Second, we again have two choices against one instead of a neutral scale. And third, since when did Mark Grisanti refuse to “discuss the issue prior to the vote?”

Here’s a piece from the Buffalo News quoting Grisanti on June 14th discussing his wrestling with the issue and his religious beliefs. Here’s another piece from June 19th where he mentions he will wait to see what changes are made in the bill with respect to religious exemptions. Here’s Sen. Grisanti’s chief of staff discussing his boss’ views. Here’s a piece even documenting how Grisanti sat down with gay and lesbian community leaders in March to discuss the issue. Perhaps WBEN is confusing “refused to state his position” with “refusing to discuss”, but the voting choice is just misleading at best, factually inaccurate at worst.

The reason this matters is because poll results like these get reported on-air, mentioned by word-of-mouth, and noted by other news sources, which influences opinion. As of this post, “they way he voted” is winning with 56% of the vote. The impression here is that Grisanti did something wrong. Let’s correct the record.

As I wrote Adam, "This is so bad, I find myself wondering whether it's rank stupidity or propagandistic cunning. (The line turns out to be surprisingly fine.)" He's suggesting that folks "drop station manager Tim Wenger a line. You might tell him to stop running (and fix) poorly worded, biased polls."

I don't know whether the person who wrote this "poll" was out to foment hysteria about marriage equality, or saw him/herself as point person for a crusade of political retribution against Senator Grisanti, or just is so stupid that he/she is incapable of even the lowest level of thought, let alone fairness, on the subject. Then again, I'm not sure it really matters. In the cacaphony of the great Right-Wing Noise Machine, even the loopiest noisemakers have a part to play.

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Who'd-a thunk it? Onetime right-wing crazy David Frum as the voice of reason

David Frum -- voice of reason on the Right?

"[T]he case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test."

"How would it even work that a 15-year-old girl in Van Nuys, California, becomes more likely to have a baby because two men in Des Moines, Iowa, can marry?
"Maybe somebody can believe the connection, but I cannot."

-- David Frum, in "I was wrong about same-sex marriage,"
on the CNNOpinion blog

by Ken

As I wrote the colleague who passed along this column by conservative commentator David Frum: "It still seems weird to encounter David Frum as the voice of reason, but when the Right has gone so off-the-edge-of-the-flat-earth crazy, it really does help to hear stuff like this from someone like him."

He pointed out in his reply that very likely Frum's old views underpin a lot of the rabid right-wing fulminations against marriage equality, and that there may be significant value in weeding them out.

This isn't the first time that Frum has emerged as a voice of reason on the Right. Not a lot of conservatives have had the courage to speak up against the leap into craziness that the modern-day Ultra Right has taken. It's not hard to see where and how the others have leapt into a galaxy far, far from reality, but it does take courage from an avowed right-winger to speak up for reality.

Frum mentions his online debate with Andrew Sullivan on the subject of same-sex marriage. This the the one link I've included below, and it's to an indeed-lengthy Slate post addressed to A.S. For the record, it's a a diatribe of hysterical craziness, and you have to give the man credit for doing the only thing that could get him beyond it: saying, "I was wrong." Here's how that post concluded:

[T]hose of us who oppose gay marriage, and we remain the majority at least for now, believe that these new values are not changing the family--they are destroying it, and harming those within it. As such beliefs become more widespread, so do divorce and illegitimacy. The proponents of gay marriage can only get what they want by weakening Americans' attachment to the traditional family even more than it has already been weakened. And as such, these proponents are hastening a process of social dissolution that has already brought misery to untold millions of people, with children suffering most grievously of all.

At a time when the Right, now evolved into a state of looniness that goes way beyond even this imbecility, is routinely spewing psychotic delusions that are taken as legitimate discussion points, it really is nice to have at least some right-wingers establishing contact with reality.

I was wrong about same-sex marriage

By David Frum, CNN Contributor
June 27, 2011 1:35 p.m. EDT

[Note: Additional links in the original onsite posting.]

Editor's note: David Frum writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, he is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," and is the editor of FrumForum.

Washington (CNN) -- I was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Fourteen years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I forcefully debated the issue at length online (at a time when online debate was a brand new thing).

Yet I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state's vote to authorize same-sex marriage -- a vote that probably signals that most of "blue" states will follow within the next 10 years.

I don't think I'm alone in my reaction either. Most conservatives have reacted with calm -- if not outright approval -- to New York's dramatic decision.

Why?

The short answer is that the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test.

Since 1997, same-sex marriage has evolved from talk to fact.

If people like me had been right, we should have seen the American family become radically more unstable over the subsequent decade and a half.

Instead -- while American family stability has continued to deteriorate -- it has deteriorated much more slowly than it did in the 1970s and 1980s before same-sex marriage was ever seriously thought of.

By the numbers, in fact, the 2000s were the least bad decade for American family stability since the fabled 1950s. And when you take a closer look at the American family, the facts have become even tougher for the anti-gay marriage position.

Middle-class families have become somewhat more stable than they used to be. For example: College-educated women who got married in the 1990s were much less likely to get divorced than equally educated women who got married in the 1970s.

What's new and different in the past 20 years is the collapse of the Hispanic immigrant family. First-generation Latino immigrants maintain traditional families: conservative values, low divorce rates, high fertility and -- despite low incomes -- mothers surprisingly often at home with the children.

But the second-generation Latino family looks very different. In the new country, old norms collapse. Nearly half of all children born to Hispanic mothers are now born out of wedlock.

Whatever is driving this negative trend, it seems more than implausible to connect it to same-sex marriage. How would it even work that a 15-year-old girl in Van Nuys, California, becomes more likely to have a baby because two men in Des Moines, Iowa, can marry?

Maybe somebody can believe the connection, but I cannot.

I remain as worried as ever about the decline in family stability among poorer Americans. But as for same-sex marriage, my attitude follows the trajectory described nearly 150 years ago by the English writer Anthony Trollope in his novel "Phineas Finn."

Two of his characters are discussing a proposed reform that has just been defeated in Parliament. The author of the reform is understandably dejected. His friend consoles him by pointing to the future:

"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; -- and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made."

By coincidence, I am writing these words on the morning of my own 23rd wedding anniversary. Of all the blessings life has to offer, none equals a happy marriage. If proportionally fewer Americans enjoy that blessing today than did 40 years ago, we're going to have to look for the explanation somewhere other than the Legislature in Albany.

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After NY, is there any prospect of pushing for nondiscrimination in basic rights like employment and housing?

by Ken

The other night we saw Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson talking about marriage equality in a segment with Anderson Cooper. In the wake of yesterday's historic enactment of marriage equality by the New York State legislature, Evan tackles the queston on HuffPost: "The Freedom To Marry: What's Next After New York?"

Buried a number of paragraphs down is this key fact:

Fifteen years ago, only 27 percent of Americans approved of ending discrimination in marriage. But as gays and lesbians have talked with family and friends about why marriage matters, hearts have opened and minds have changed. Today, that number has literally doubled. According to a recent Washington Post poll, and confirmed by five other national polls, more than 52 percent of the public supports the freedom to marry for same-sex couples.

The New York development, Evan argues, "is a turning point for the country." Now he foresees:

We will secure the freedom to marry in more states. American history teaches that human rights and social justice movements must make gains at the state level, with some states serving as engines to tug the conversation and country forward. In every state (and every country) that has ended the denial of marriage to same-sex couples, support for the freedom to marry has only increased. People see with their own eyes that gays and lesbians in their state who get married share the hope and joy of other couples, and the heartfelt desire to make and strengthen a lifelong commitment to the person they love.

With each state win, we will inspire other states to follow. Republican support -- from Ken Mehlman, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, to Barbara Bush, the daughter of President George W. Bush -- was critical to passing the law through New York's Republican-controlled state senate. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo was the indispensable champion of the marriage bill, speaking often of the need for New York to live up to history and once again lead the way for the nation. New York's bipartisan triumph for the freedom to marry signals a major shift in the national political calculus for both parties and points the way to more victories.

We will continue to grow the number of Americans who support the freedom to marry. Not only is there now majority support for ending discrimination in marriage, but the freedom to marry is riding a demographic wave. Roughly 60 percent of millennials -- voters under 30, who represent the largest generation ever -- overwhelmingly support marriage rights for loving, committed same-sex couples. Their support ranges across virtually every demographic, including Republicans and even evangelicals. Elected officials looking to the future, let alone history, see voters -- Democratic, independent, and increasingly, Republican -- who want them to stand for the freedom to marry.

And we will tackle and end federal marriage discrimination. Under the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" stampeded through Congress in 1996 -- before gay couples could marry anywhere in the world --tens of thousands of legally married couples are denied the 1138-plus federal protection and responsibilities triggered by marriage, including Social Security, immigration rights and fair tax treatment.

With court challenges mounting, the Department of Justice concluding that DOMA is indefensible under the Constitution, and the Respect for Marriage Act now pending in Congress to repeal DOMA, history's gaze now falls on our leaders in Washington, D.C. (where couples can legally marry, thanks to a legislative vote last year) to do their part in securing the freedom to marry.

I just have one reservation, which it really isn't fair to direct at Evan Wolfson, since he's president of Freedom to Marry, and that's his issue, after all. Still, what I was hoping to hear was that this breakthrough might lead to progress on other rights currently unavailable to an awful lot of LGBT folk: the begining of the end of discrimination in employment, housing, and other basic rights that other Americans take for granted. In an awful lot of states -- as a rule of thumb, check out the red states -- legislatures not only aren't moving to lessen discrimination, they're working actively to expand and codify it.

A lot of LGBT people have found themselves watching the marriage-equality struggle with a sense of disengagement. Many people who daily experience the reality, not theory, of being subject to being fired or denied housing for being who they are, with no legal recourse and no relief in sight, have understandably voiced serious reservations about the near-exclusive focus on the marriage battle. The answer usually has been that this is the currently visible issue, and it has momentum, as those numbers Evan Wolfson cites document. The theory is that success here will carry over to those areas of basic human dignity.

Again, it's not really fair to direct this at Evan, since his issue is marriage equality. Still, you'd think he might have mentioned it. Or somebody else might have.

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Marriage equality in New York State, signed into law by Governor Cuomo, takes effect in 30 days

Last night at 11:55, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill that had caused such furor in the closing week -- or should we say the post-closing week -- of the legislative session.

At 11:57 a report by Metro Weekly's Chris Geidner, "A Singular Sensation," was published online. Gay City News's Paul Schindler's account, "Victory So Sweet!," went up at 2:28am.

From The Telegraph (U.K.):

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Tony Soprano weighs in (sort of) on the NYS marriage-equality battle

On last night's show, Anderson Cooper talked to Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson and CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin.

"I don't give too much of a shit what people do behind closed doors with, uh, consentin' adults. Although [wagging finger at DR. MELFI] don't forget, I'm a strict Catholic. I agree with that Senator Sanatorium, says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we'll be fuckin' dogs. . . .

"What the fuck, I suppose somethin' inside me says, 'God bless, a salut', who gives a shit?'"

-- Tony Soprano, to Dr. Melfi, in Episode 6,
"Live Free or Die," from Season 6 of The Sopranos

by Ken

In case you were wondering, even though the New York State Legislature's session has officially been over for days, negotiations -- principally featuring the players who used to be known as Albany's "three men in a room," the governor, the Senate majority leader, and the Assembly speaker -- are continuing to hammer out agreements on rent-regulation renewal and a property-tax recap, and in there amidst the horse trading is the issue of whether Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos will allow the marriage-equality bill approved by the Assembly to come to the floor for a vote. (Unless he does, it appears that we'll never know whether the pro-equality forces have enough votes to pass it.)

In case you missed it, the lowest-life-form National Organization for Marriage, the direst enemy and sane and decent conception of marriage could ever imagine, pulled a stunt yesterday that seems outlandish even by its lower-than-low standards, putting out a press release claiming "victory" in the campaign against marriage equality, a claim that was an out-and-out fabrication. Oh, it could just be that they're morons, but it seems pretty clear that at a time when no actual news was emerging from behind those closed doors, the NOM morons were trying to manufacture a bogus reality-on-the-ground that might actually influence the real, or rather realish, reality in Albany. The bogus NOM story was gleefully picked up by National Review Online, which then had to pull it for revamping.

I want to get to some striking and unusually personal comments by that outstanding reporter Paul Schindler in a piece today for Gay City News (of which he's the editor in chief), but I've been sidetracked -- and I hope you'll see the connection -- by a dazzlng scene from
On its "On Demand" channel HBO has been rerunning Season 6 of The Sopranos, episodes I've probably seen less frequently than any of the earlier seasons' -- probably just once each. In fact, there was one early episode, in the arc of hallucinations as Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) fights for life from the gunshot wound inflicted by his Alzheimer's-afflicted Uncle Junior, from which I remembered hardly anything, though enough to know that I must have seen it.

To my delight I'm finding that these episodes look if anything even better than they did originally, with some distance in time and of course knowledge of how events play out. The precision of detail is kind of breathtaking -- as with the hilarious phone conversation between Tony and the road-construction worker who picks up the ringing cell phone that we realize is the very phone the flying-the-coop captain Vito Spatafore (Joseph R. Gannascoli) threw out his car window in his flight to New Hampshire, one of the series' most memorable subplots.

I expect I'll want to write more about the experience of re-viewing Season 6, but for now I'm stunned and delighted by this therapy session with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) in which Tony grapples with the reports that Vito is gay. The writing seems to me just amazing in its depiction of the detritus stored up in Tony's head, realted and not-so-related to the subject of homosexuality, and of course the way everything turns out to be about him personally. (The script for "Live Free or Die" is credited to series creator David Chase and three Sopranos stalwarts: executive producer Terence Winter, more recently the creator of HBO's terrific Boardwalk Empire, now in production on its second season, and the wife-and-husband writing team of Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, more recently creators of CBS's Blue Bloods, recently renewed for its second season.) I did this quick -- well, quickish -- transcript of the whole scene, which begins just as you read here.

DR. MELFI: You didn't know he was gay?
TONY: Actually, I had him pegged the whole time, but --
DR. MELFI: He a close friend?
TONY: Not only that, he's one of my most valuable guys. He's ambitious, he's focused. When I was in the hospital, he helped Carmela tremendously when we were strapped.
DR. MELFI: You've implied you have millions of dollars. Your hospital stay was actually that costly?
TONY: [Mutters bits of words, then -- ] Huh? [Pause] Is that the issue?
DR. MELFI: You tell me, what is the issue?
TONY: He's a fa-ag! [Holds hands out questioningly] Now what am I supposed to do?
DR. MELFI: About what?
TONY: I know what. [Sarcastically] They're born that way. It's not their fault. Well, frankly I think they go about in pity for themselves.
DR. MELFI: I don't think they see it as a fault.
TONY: In your circle I'm sure you've got all kinds of, uh, gays and, uh, trans-whatevers, of all stripes, but not where I come from.
DR. MELFI: You personally, how do you feel about homosexuality?
TONY: I find it disgustin'. Men kissin' men, holdin' hands in the street. Every fuckin' TV show now, they rub your nose in it. Although that . . . the lesbian thing with the, uh, Jennifer Beals -- it's not bad. She a dyke in real life? [DR. MELFI gesticulates that she has no answer.] I don't give too much of a shit what people do behind closed doors with, uh, consentin' adults. Although [wags finger] don't forget, I'm a strict Catholic. I agree with that Senator Sanatorium, says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we'll be fuckin' dogs.
DR. MELFI: I hear a lot of ambivalence.
TONY: This guy that got outed, look, the guys that work for me are askin' for head. His head. What the fuck? You know, him and me, we're in the construction business. Now some of these union old-timers, the contractors, they're not gonna wanna be seen with him, and I'm talkin' huge deals, major fuckin' dollars.
DR. MELFI: A lot of your circle must have done jail time. They can't be strangers to male-male sexual contact.
TONY: You get a pass for that.
DR. MELFI: Well, that's nice.
TONY: Well, Whaddaya gonna do? There's no women there. You're there, uh, five, ten years. [Pause] Just for the record, my incarceration was, uh, very short-term, so I never had any need for any anal, you know --
DR. MELFI: So this fellow who's been outed, what's he saying?
TONY: You think I'm lyin', don't you? About when I was in jail.
DR. MELFI: I've given you no indication I think you're lying.
TONY: [Long pause, as TONY shuffles in his chair] What the fuck, I suppose somethin' inside me says, "God bless, a salut', who gives a shit?" I mean, I had a second chance, why shouldn't he?
DR. MELFI: Part of your new outlook?
TONY: Maybe.
DR. MELFI: I salute it then.
TONY: Tall fuckin' order, I can tell you that.
DR. MELFI: How so?
TONY: You can talk about every day bein' a gift, and stop for the smell of the roses, but regular life's got a way of pickin' away at it. Your house, the shit you own, it drags you down. Your kids, what they want, one bad idea after another. Just workin' a cell-phone menu's enough to make you wanna scream.

NOW TO THAT PIECE OF PAUL SCHINDLER'S

Paul's Gay City News piece this morning, called "Anxiety, Great Expectations & Weariness, Too, begins like so:

For the past ten days, like many gay and lesbian New Yorkers, those of us here at Gay City News have watched the unfolding events in Albany with rapt attention and no small amount of anxiety.

June 13 and 14 were two of the most spellbinding days I have spent as a journalist covering gay politics. After a concerted six-month campaign by leading professional advocates, grassroots activists, and the governor of this state, we arrived at a moment where four of the remaining six State Senate votes we needed to enact marriage equality –– a deficit that had not budged since last November’s elections –– materialized in a single press conference.

The following day we picked up another vote.

We were just one short of our goal.

And we’ve stayed in that place for the eight days that followed. Each morning, we’ve wondered where the 32nd –– and winning –– vote would come from and whether the Republicans who run the Senate’s agenda and bill flow would allow a measure most of their members oppose to see the light of day.

It is clear, as of this writing, that we will not hear about any more Republican supporters of marriage equality until we learn whether the majority is willing to allow a vote. James Alesi of Rochester and Roy McDonald of Troy either bucked their party leadership in announcing their support before the conference considered the matter or they were allowed to go public because their votes alone would not put the issue over the top.

The GOP was unwilling to allow a marriage vote to move forward until they had extracted as much as they could in their negotiations with the Assembly Democrats and Governor Andrew Cuomo on other important issues, such as a property tax cap and renewal of the New York City rent stabilization law.

In and of itself, that strategy is hard to criticize. Politics is about negotiation, horse-trading, and compromise.

But in their protracted stalling on marriage, they gave credence to a grab-bag of wild fears, some half-truths at best, and other outright misrepresentations about the potential threat marriage equality poses for religious freedom: A clergy member could be sued for refusing to marry a gay or lesbian couple. Parishes and synagogues declining to rent out their halls for gay wedding receptions might lose their tax-exempt status. Catholic adoption agencies would have to abandon their mission ––that charge made in spite of the fact that adoption has nothing to do with the state’s marriage law.

Paul notes the difficult position of the Senate Republicans: under fierce pressure from the hard Right (including the implacably anti-marriage-equality state Conservative Party and the state's Catholic dioceses, who are in all-out war mode) to maintain an unyielding "no" position, on an issue where for a number of them a "no" vote too may spell political doom. Paul even allows for the possibility that a lot of the Senate Republcians' posturing may have to do with providing themselves political cover for a fight they know they're eventually going to lose.

After all, the Republicans could kill the bill outright simply by refusing to allow a floor vote. Apparently, the strong polling marriage equality enjoys statewide and the glare of so many TV lights have convinced them that denying us our vote is politically untenable.

Their dithering, it seems to me, is an acknowledgment they know they will lose. Otherwise, they would have grabbed their victory already.

And then, as I mentioned at the top, Paul gets personal.

In the meanwhile, I have to reflect on an emotion I’ve experienced separate from anxiety and anticipation. Namely, irritation.

Part of that stems, no doubt, from my great disappointment in coming out with our Gay Pride issue with this battle so close to conclusion, but not quite there.

But the larger measure of my frustration comes from the unpalatable experience of sitting and waiting day in and day out while a nearly opaque political dance unfolds that is, in fact, a referendum on my dignity as a citizen. The fact that my equality –– which according to core American values is God-given or, in more secular terms, mine by right of birth, should be in the hands of elected officials who show such cavalier disregard for basic notions of fair play and equal treatment is a truth I will never be able to accommodate myself to.

As I write these words, I remain confident that our goal is within reach. But at moments on the journey, there are bittersweet reminders of the injustice that has defined far too much of our lives.

This is an argument that would surely go over the head of Senator Sanatorium (I don't know about you, but I now find it possible to think of the Rickster as anything but Senator Sanatorium), but one that even that "strict Catholic" Tony ("Who gives a shit?") Soprano could grasp -- in his more lucid moments.


POSTSCRIPT: IN CASE YOU WERE THINKING THAT
THE NYS SENATE CAN'T GET ANYTHING DONE . . .

Our friend Phillip Anderson reports on The Albany Project that he's been "awfully busy lately with doctors and job interviews," but --

I am happy to say I am back. And just in time! The New York State Senate has FINALLY decided what our official state rock should be. WHEW!

NY State Senate passes bill naming Herkimer Diamond as official state mineral

The state Senate today passed a bill that would designate the Herkimer Diamond as the official state mineral.

Sponsored by Sen. James Seward, R-Milford, who represents Herkimer County, where the doubly-terminated quartz crystal is found, the legislation passed unanimously.

"The Empire State has a proud tradition of recognizing and trumpeting the features that make it unique. Certainly, the Herkimer Diamond is one of those rare treasures well deserving of 'official' statewide status," Seward said in a news release.

He noted that New York's Legislature has previously designated an official gemstone (garnet), fossil (sea scorpion), shell (bay scallop), bush (lilac), salt water fish (striped bass), and reptile (snapping turtle).

An identical version of the bill is pending in the Assembly.

So glad we FINALLY have a state rock! Awesome!

Marriage Equality, fracking, rent regulations...all that stuff...will just have to wait.

So you see? Our NYS Legislature at work.

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From sea to shining sea, it's end-of-session legislative madness

LGBT folk and people of a liberal persuasion are discovering that support for modest LGBT legislative progress is the cheapest bone right-of-center Dems can throw us while pursuing their "centrist" agenda. (Meet NYS Gov. Andrew Cuomo.)

by Ken

IN OUR NATION'S CAPITAL: IT'S
THE DEBT CEILING DEADLINE, STUPID

Some months back, smart people I know were downplaying the risk of a failure to increase the debt ceiling, which could be Armageddon for the People Who Matter, our economic lords and masters. They've been happy enough to cheer on the Teabagger hordes, and even bankroll them, but when we alert the financial markets to the real possibility of a U.S. default on its debt obligations, then those people find themselves sitting on mountains of paper that suddenly stand to plunge in value. And these are not people who take kindly to a plunge in value if its their value in danger of plunging.

The theory was that those folks, if it came to it, would crack the whip. Me, I haven't heard the sound of corporatist whip-cracking. Either those folks have discovered that they can profit enough from whatever the congressional extremists extract in exchange for going along with the debt ceiling increase, or else perhaps they've discovered that controlling your Teabagger stooges, once they've been unleashed, is kind of like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube -- not so easy.

Here's The American Prospect's "Balance Sheet" account"

AW, MAN, SUMMER SCHOOL?

Setting an early deadline can be a great way to ensure work gets done on time. That's what lawmakers did when they set an early July goal for a deal to lift the debt ceiling, which we aren’t projected to hit until August 2. The catch is that Congress goes into recess at the end of this week. As Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid has said, lawmakers might be forced to stay in town through the recess to hammer one out. Or as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested, lawmakers could come to a short-term agreement for the summer and push off the big stuff until the fall.

There have been a few signals a deal will emerge. House Republicans seem to have accepted the need for tax increases, with Majority Leader Eric Cantor yesterday confirming that "we are not opposed to revenues; we are just opposed to tax increases" (same diff, right?). Vice President Joe Biden and the "Gang of Five" (formerly six) senators say they’re getting close. The group has met with 31 Senators to discuss their tentative plan, which saves $4.7 trillion through spending cuts and revenue increases over 10 years. Meanwhile, Biden says his group is “down to the real hard stuff: I'll trade you my bicycle for your golf clubs." Of course, it's not sports equipment but Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, taxes -- and our economic future -- on the line.

I would just have to disagree with the notion that "setting an early deadline can be a great way to ensure work gets done on time." This is true if you actually have control of the deadline, but when it comes to most negotiations, you don't. Once the Treasury Dept. came up with its early August date by which the matter must be dealt with, that became the deadline, and you can set whatever make-believe deadline you like, if that's the deadline, that's the deadline.

Except of course in the case of congressional recess. Now that's a real deadline. Oh sure, on rare occasions things get so out of hand that Congress is actually forced to remain in session, but it doesn't look as if that's going to happen again anytime soon.


MEANWHILE IN ALBANY, THIS IS THE TIME
FOR THE LEGISLATIVE GREMLINS TO PLAY

In the interest of concision, I left a couple of points out of my post last Wednesday, "The NYS Senate's day of decision on same-sex marriage: It's a punt!." That, you'll recall, was a deadline that should have been a deadline but turned out not to be, really. 

The key issue I left out is that mostly this logjam isn't about marriage equality at all. It's about what the M.E. opponents and fence-sitters can extract in exchange for even allowing it to come to a vote in the State Senate. At the top of the list is renewal of the state's rent-regulation laws, which in fact have already expired. Again, you'd've thunk that the expiration would be a real deadline, but here in NYS we've played this game of chicken before. When the law slips out of commission, by the time you hammer out an agreement, you can just pound in a little "continuous coverage" clause.

Well, today is the last day of the legislative session, so you'd figure this, surely, is it. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Here's a Daily News blogpost from early this afternoon:

JUNE 21, 2011 12:34 PM

Breaking: Skelos Says Stalemate Easing In Albany

BY CELESTE KATZ

State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos says a "framework agreement" has been reached on all oustanding major issues except gay marriage.

Our Ken Lovett reports:

Skelos said he, Gov. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are on board with agreements to extend the rent regulation law, restore a 421-A property tax abatement for city housing developers, SUNY 2020, a local property tax cap, and a mandate-relief package for localities.

Gay marriage, he said, will be conferenced once there is agreed upon language concerning religious protections. "I think we're going to have a real good concluding package," Skelos said.

No details yet on any of the deals. Skelos said bill language is being worked on, "and hopefully we'll conclude by tomorrow."

Uh, tomorrow? But won't the session be over by then?

That's the thing. While we're all looking at calendars and public battles about same-sex marriage, the underground gremlins who hammer out these later-than-last-minute deals are hammering away. Goodness only knows what's going to slip through.


OH YES, ONE OTHER POINT ABOUT THE
MARRIAGE EQUALITY ISSUE IN NYS AND ELSEWHERE

Cynical observers are noting, and people of a liberal persuasion are beginning to grasp, that in areas with strong liberal constituencies, support for some movement toward legislating acceptance of basic rights for LGBT folks is a really cheap way of throwing the us -- both LGBT folk and people of a liberal persuasion -- a bone while pursuing their right-of-center agenda. (Have you met our governor, Andrew Cuomo?)

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Republican Billionaires Financing Marriage Equality In New York

Right-wing plutocrats switching sides

Friday the NY Times published an interesting story by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Barbaro on where some of the big Republican money is going this year. While the Kochs are busy bankrolling fascism in Midwestern states and underwriting the giant astroturf Tea Party, other Republican billionaires are sending in their checks to pay for a campaign to pass marriage equality in New York. In fact, most of the money going into the effort this year-- over a million dollars so far-- "is coming from an unexpected source: a group of conservative financiers and wealthy donors to the Republican Party, most of whom are known for bankrolling right-leaning candidates and causes." It puts Republican state senators in an awkward position. The bill will pass or fail in their hands.

And apart from some of the Daddy Warbucks characters behind the GOP's creeping fascism-- Paul Singer, Steven Cohen, Clifford Asness-- Mayor Bloomberg, a major financial backer of the state's Senate Republican caucus has given $100,000 to the marriage equality cause and is lobbying the lawmakers he's been so generous to.

The new donations represent roughly two-thirds of the same-sex marriage coalition’s fund-raising, making New York the rare state where a lobbying campaign in favor of legalizing gay unions is not being financed primarily by liberal donors and Democrats. The support is likely to jolt the traditional financial and political backers of gay rights causes, who now find themselves in the unfamiliar position of being outraised and outspent in New York.

The donations are financing an intensive campaign of television advertisements and grass-roots activism coordinated by New Yorkers United for Marriage, a group of same-sex marriage advocates. The campaign is aimed chiefly at persuading several members of the Senate Republican majority to join most Senate Democrats in backing same-sex marriage, which was defeated in the Senate in 2009. The State Assembly, controlled by Democrats, has repeatedly passed same-sex marriage bills.

The newly recruited donors argue that permitting same-sex marriage is consistent with conservative principles of personal liberty and small government.

“I’m a pretty straight-down-the-line small-government guy,” said Mr. Asness, who described himself as a libertarian who favored less government intrusion in both markets and personal affairs. Mr. Asness, a frequent Republican donor, has praised Tea Party activists on his blog and last year attended a conference of right-leaning donors held by Charles and David Koch, among the leading conservative philanthropists in the nation.

“This is an issue of basic freedom,” Mr. Asness said.

...The involvement of Mr. Singer is the most striking, given his devotion to conservative candidates and philanthropy: He is chairman of the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning research group, and one of the most generous Republican donors in the country. But he also has a personal stake in the issue: he has a gay son who married his partner in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal.

Mr. Singer is coordinating much of the Republican fund-raising for same-sex marriage in New York, according to people familiar with the matter, donating $425,000 of his own money and personally soliciting an additional $500,000 in donations. At the same time, he has hosted private meetings to make the case for legalizing gay weddings in New York to other conservatives.

Among the deepest pockets have been Paul Singer, who's given around a million and a half dollars to Republican state parties and national committees and to the leaders of the anti-gay jihad, thousands of dollars in multiple donations to right-wing fanatics like Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, Miss McConnell, Roy Blunt, Marco Rubio, George Allen, David Vitter, Richard Burr, John Boehner, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn, Rick Santorum and Jeff Flake. Similarly Daniel Loeb is ponying up big time for marriage equality but he's helped finance the careers of sworn enemies of any kind of equality from kooks like Allen West, Tim Griffin and Joe Miller to garden variety right-wing hacks like Roy Blunt and Steve Stivers. Ditto for Clifford Asness who's helped finance anti-gay fanatics Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt and dozens of other hate-mongers and misfits. It's good they're giving back after all the mischief they've caused with their money over the years.