Jan 30 2009
An Equality Movement Beyond Marriage?
In Seattle, Washington community members gathered on Wednesday as lawmakers announced hopes to expand the state’s domestic partnership law. The 110 page bill would extend state laws that currently only apply to married couples to same-sex unions. Meanwhile, in New England, marriage equality is being actively pursued. In New Haven Connecticut, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders or GLAD, already has two gay marriage victories in Connecticut and in Massachusetts: now the only two states where same-sex marriage is legal. However, GLAD is also hoping to win equal marriage rights for the LGBTQ community in all 6 New England states by 2012 as part of its new initiative called the “6 by 12” strategy. GLAD’s director of public affairs Carissa Cunningham, believes that this strategy could also help win the fight for marriage equality in California which is anything but over. In Los Angeles, more than 400 gay and lesbian activists gathered at the convention center last weekend for an Equality Summit – the goal of which was to organize a way to win back gay marriage rights. Activists also took time to review the mistakes of the past, such as the decision to hire political experts to lobby for gay rights instead of having the community personally move forward on the issue.
GUESTS: Nancy Polikoff, Professor of Law at American University and an advocate for LGBT families for over 35 years, author of “Beyond (Straight & Gay) Marriage,” Eileen Ma, Korean Immigrant Workers Alliance, Ned, Q-Team which is a Queer & Trans Youth of Color Organizing collective.
3 Responses to “An Equality Movement Beyond Marriage?”
Why do LGBT folk equate “marriage equality” with “marriage?” MA & Conn have marriage but, without the 1,138 federal rights, they absolutely do NOT have marriage equality. Why the big lie? President Obama supports federal rights for all “legally-recognized unions.” This means that anyone in the 11 states & D.C. that have same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnership could have full federal marital rights. If Congress words the legislation correctly, this may also mean that if you live in one of the other 39 states you could travel to Massachusetts and get married or to Vermont to get a civil union or to California, Washington or Oregon and sign up as registered domestic partners and have all the federal marital rights even if your home state does not grant you state marital rights. To accomplish this we need to lobby Congress to supports the President’s plan. That is a lot more than MA’s or Conn’s marriage without rights.
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