Greg Sanders

Osaka Human Rights Museum 2014-05-31

While my wife and mother were cooling their heels at the the closed Modern Transportation Museum, I was at a different station, searching for the Osaka Human Rights Museum. It was a bit of a walk from the station, made longer by my misreading of the map. I ultimately gave in and turned on data roaming to pull down some digital navigation assistance. Thankfully for you, dear reader, I'm not subjecting you to another post (primarily) about wars, past or present. This museum is primarily focused on the human rights situation in modern Japan and many of the displays, including AIDS quilts and rainbow flags, were instantly recognizable even though the displays were in Japanese.

The first zone of the single floor of exhibits was entitled Shining Light. This section could be a bit sign-heavy, but there were pictures to help and I got both an English audio guide and a printed notebook with translations to help. The displays were also rich in photographs and pictures taking on issues of gender discrimination, LGBTQ rights, the rights of the disabled, and even a significant section on children. My comprehension level wasn't quite high enough to grasp how some of the displays might have been different than their equivalent in the United States, although I know that the struggle for gender equality in Japan is very much ongoing.

I dwelled the longest in the second zone, Living Together/Creating Society which focused on ethnic minority groups within Japan as well as other communities facing human rights issues, often for health or environmental reasons. Displays included rich coverage of Korean and Chinese immigrants, the Ainu people, and native Okinawans. In the Korean section, I found particularly affecting a set of captioned home videos on the post-War Korean community in Japan including a celebration in Kyoto of the liberation of the peninsula on the first anniversary of Victory in Japan day. The section on the Ainu and the Okinawans both focused on their living culture, although of course in the latter case the U.S. military base adds a whole different set of issues to the discussion.

One piece that did particular catch my eyes was a flag that was both instantly recognizable and unfamiliar. To the left is a was the banner of a Christian group in Japan, a red crown of thorns on a black field. The museum really did do an admirable job getting at the history of a range of groups and the last section on Dreams/The Future as well as the staffers in the front office and bookstore all left me feeling good about the Japanese activist community.

I left a bit before closing, rushing back to the loop train to try to get a half hour in at the Modern Transportation Museum, which unbeknownst to me had been closed this whole time. I somehow managed to miss Kate and Mom on the platform and wandered around the building once before running into them. Happily, we did have one fond train story coming out of that particular excursion. At the transfer station on the way to meet up with Moti and Francis we spied the poster on the right, celebrating the 110th anniversary of Osaka's transit system. One of the booth attendants saw us doing that and rushed up, but gladly this was not a fusspot of the paranoid American-style. Instead, the gentleman had just recognized us as transit geeks and gave us three post card copies of the poster to send out as we wished. That encounter brightened our day and took some of the sting out of the missed connections at the museum.

Where to watch the Maryland Voter Initiative Results

The board of elections is reporting with regular updates.

I should have remember that myself, but I got the link from Maryland Juice.

[10:16 pm] Addendum, county status page, to tell who has reported so far and thus who has left to report. Numbers for Montgomery are 68 out of 238 which is good news as the marriage equity question is scarily down to 51%-49%.

[12:39 Maryland Juice is calling it a win as is Maryland for Marriage Equality! We're at 940,507 for and 895,573 against, probably a few hundred thousand more yet to be added.]

Marylanders, please vote for question 6

For those that are undecided, perhaps because of the warnings of pastors, I'd argue that it's key to realize that this measure is about going to the court house, not the chapel. It's explicit in the language of the bill. Whether churches choose to recognize the marriages is left to them.

Obviously, those provisions haven't completely allayed the concerns of some religious groups. However, I'd still ask you on a personal basis to support it.

My marriage was only possible because a gay friend introduced my wife and I. For that reason and many other reasons, he was my best man at my wedding. We both gladly attended his subsequent marriage and the stable, loving example he and his husband set a positive example for other couples. This should be no surprise, friends in loving stable relationship are regularly an inspiration. The reason this issue has gained public support so quickly is that same sex marriages succeed, and fail, just like any other marriages. When the match is right, they can bring a lot of good to two people and those around them, and more or more people have had a chance to witness this phenomenon. To know gays or lesbians that have been able to gain formal recognition for their relationship is to know that there's nothing to be afraid of. At the same time, denying these civil  rights makes the lives of such couples unnecessarily hard by blocking benefits, visitation rights, and all the other little things our society grants in recognition of a couple that have chosen to commit themselves to each other.

Please vote yes for 6.

[Update: Marriage Equality won't pass this year.]

The debate is on now. Maryland has a website with live proceedings (apparently you need real player for that). Maryland politics watch is live blogging the debate. [Wagner reported last night that the House was still a few votes shy of the 71 needed of passage.]

Theoretically they could end up working out a different compromise, but obviously this would be a huge blow to the momentum. If you want to call or email, here's the info. Here's a set of links to the Maryland Politics watch page on how people voted on amendments. At this point, any messages should probably have the dual purpose of encouraging voting on the final bill and not giving up if this one doesn't make it through. Setbacks can become defeats to easily.

[Update: The bill has been remanded to committee. I'll close off with an excerpt from Del. Heather Mizeur's speech as transcribed over at Maryland Politics Watch:

"425 rights and protections come with a marriage license." Discussing medical decisions in a hospital, riding in an ambulance and other very personal matters. That's all we're asking is to protect our relationships and our commitment."

"Even if this bill doesn't pass, my wife and I will still be married whether [or not] you choose to protect us from tragedy."

"You can't stop us from loving each other. You can't stop us from pledging our love in from of God and each other. All you can do is make it worse for us in challenging times when life throws you curve balls."

"What we're asking for is equal protection under the law."
"Choose love."]

John Wagner calls it for the year:

The Maryland House of Delegates has voted to effectively kill for this year a bill that would have allowed same-sex marriage in the state.

[Update: Trimmed gratuitous number of updates.]

Del. Arora (of Maryland's 19th district) will vote for marriage equality

[Update: Out of committee via a 12 to 10 vote!]

I saw the news over at Maryland Politics Watch, here's the statement as reported by John Wagner at the Post:

"As the vote drew nearer, I wrestled with this issue in a way I never had before, which led me to realize that I had some concerns about the bill," said Arora, who is a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Arora said that he personally prefers civil unions as an alternative to allowing gay couples to marry but decided voters should have "a direct say."

"On the floor, I will vote to send the bill to the governor so that Marylanders can ultimately decide this issue at the polls," he said. "I think that is appropriate."

In recent days, Arora had pledged to vote for the bill in committee but left open the possibility he would oppose it on the floor. That brought a torrent of criticism on his Facebook page and through other means.

Good work everyone. If you have contacted officials and they do the right thing, it's probably worth a quick note of thanks in follow-up if you feel it to be appropriate. For everyone else, the pressure is lightened a bit, but sending at least a quick email if you haven't already will probably help deter more surprises.

If we get this through, we totally need a party to celebrate. Although given current circumstances if I host it we may end up doing it a month or two late.  So until that moment comes, I'd like to thank everyone that contacted their delegates, alerted their friends, and did their part to move this civil rights issue forward. We haven't won yet, and even if the bill passes there will be a state-wide vote, but we've already come a long way and I appreciate everything that you all have done.

How to support the same sex marriage bill in Maryland

The news is a bit better than Tuesday, from what I've heard from informed sources, the Speaker of the House of Delegates is now fully engaged and the bill should be able to get out of committee. The Governor has similarly again said he will sign the bill and called on the House of Delegates to pass it. However, that there will also be a floor fight which means that getting additional support from anywhere in Maryland will be valuable. If you want to help get the bill passed, today (Friday) really is the day to call/email and even better to ecnourage others to do so.

How to contact (A repeat from my past post):

Equality Maryland has website that gives call in information for your Delegate (the email option is relevant to the civil marriage bill as well as an anti-discrimination act) they also have one that calls your phone, connects you directly, and gives you a script, but I tend to prefer old fashion calling.  If you don't want to call, the email option is pretty dang easy and gives you a pre-written one. If you prefer going through the Maryland ACLU they also have an email option setup  to allow for quick action.

What to expect when calling/emailing:

There's a big mobilization, so many of the delegates are just letting phone calls go to message. That doesn't man you aren't heard by any means. Doing both phone and email probably puts the most emphasis, but even email does help if you're more comfortable with that. Some Delegates are rather cool about being contacted: one of my own, Delegate James Malone gave a very supportive response and seemed very happy to hear from his constituents. He'll definitely have my support in the future and he has my thanks now, particularly as he'll also be supporting the anti-discrimination bill.

Advice for contacting:

It's best to be polite. People have been known to be switch sides because they don't like to be harassed. Also, specify where you live, as delegates care a lot about people in their own district. The email links above give you a starting email, some alteration at the top, saying why you personally care, results in a more effective argument. That said, I wouldn't agonize over it, these are probably going to be skim so individualize and then send is probably the best way to go.

High value targets:

Apparently Del. Arora will be voting to get the bill out of committee but may be voting no on the floor. So further contacts from District 19 in Montgomery (which goes from south of White Oak to North of Glenmont, check http://mdelect.net/ to be sure about your district. Del. Alston from Prince George's District 24 is probably another good target as she's now talking about only giving civil unions and to be frank this is Maryland, we're one of the more liberal states in the union, second class citizenship for gays and lesbians isn't good enough. [Update: Del. Alston said in an interview with Petula Dvorak that she'd support a switch to  civil unions for everyone, getting the state out of the marriage business. That's a fine compromise but we're rather late in the game for that. This was really a discussion for back when she was co-sponsoring the bill.]. If you've got any friends and family in these areas, or just in a district where you aren't certain of yes votes, convincing them to call in can multiply your leverage on this issue. The House of Delegates is one of the easier bodies for citizens to influence as there's a fair number of members and they don't hear as much from constituents on these kind of issues. Try passing on some of the contact links above to make it as easy as possible but if they prefer to not go through an advocacy group you can always get the info from the House of Delegates website.

Arguments to use:

Maryland politics watch  has a good number as does Equality Maryland. Personal experience carries a lot of wait, especially when convincing other people you know, although obviously you know parents, relative, and friends better than I do. This issue has such momentum as when people get to know gays and lesbians in committed relationships much of the fear mongering just falls away. If you want to make a straight pragmatic episode you can argue to Democrats (and only Democrats), that defying the Speaker and the Governor is probably not the best way to go when it comes to securing other services for their constituents. Similarly, we're already recognizing same sex marriages from other jurisdictions, so there's the economic argument of wanting the money from the marriage-industrial complex to stay in Maryland rather than hopping the border to D.C.

[Update: Saw in an interview that Del. Alston is up for supporting civil unions for everyone, which is just fine, but we're probably too late in the process to make that switch without losing all momentum. But I wanted to properly reflect her position.]

Progress in the battle for Marriage equality in Maryland

My go to source has been Equality Maryland and Maryland Politics Watch. I'm a bit late to the party, but the news on Thursday was excellent:

Sen. Jim Rosapepe became the latest senator to commit to vote for marriage equality when the issue comes before the Maryland Senate. Counting Sen. Rosapepe, the bill now has 24 or 25 votes in the Senate depending on how one counts Sen. Joan Carter Conway with only one senator not yet publicly committed. In short, it should now have the votes needed to pass the Maryland Senate.

Maryland has been on a roll on this issue since Attorney General Gansler ruled that the state would recognize same sex marriages from other states. He's continued to speak out on the issue and in the last election, despite threats to the contrary, he didn't even have a primary or general election challenger.

While we're hardly the first state to take this step, I am still quite proud of Maryland and am glad by the strong support from Montgomery County that includes a variety of Chevy Chase officials that I'm more used to disagreeing with on Purple Line issues.

Celebrating same-sex marriage victory in DC

While the news out of New York state is bad, the 11-2 vote for same-sex is quite gratifying.  I rather liked Ta-Nehisi Coates coverage on why the political leadership is more liberal than the population:

Part of this, I'd argue, comes from working, in close proximity, with people, of all stripes, who are concerned with equality. You start out thinking only about yourself--but you end up having to think about women of all colors, gays of all colors, poor and working people of all colors. Maybe I'm just projecting here, I don't know. Modern liberalism has taken its share of hits (many of them deserved) for trafficking in identity politics. But the flip-side is that you become better informed about the politics of other identities. Again this is true of people in "leadership" positions, not of the "rank and file."

That makes sense to me.  Now I’m hoping that some of that will carry over to Maryland’s Democratic leadership.  Montgomery County would totally pass such a law, but the entire state is a tougher question. I just hope we’re closer now.

Celebrating same-sex marriage victories

I’ve long thought that the spread of same-sex marriage in America was being furthered by demographics.  Aside from the more liberal attitudes among the young, each victory would bring same sex couples more into the spotlight and show how they were not a threat to society at all and would instead will help make up the bedrock.

Despite my optimism, I’ve been shocked by the speed of the recent string of victories.  A judicial decision in Iowa followed by legislative implementation in Vermont and Maine.  New Hampshire has passed a bill, although it is unclear whether the governor will sign it.  Meanwhile, despite all the hand-wringing over African-American voting in California, the DC council decisively voted to recognize marriages from other states.

Kevin Drum makes an interesting observation about all this:

But I wonder if this is an example of how gay marriage opponents are going to end up losing this battle entirely when they could have won at least a partial victory if they'd been less strident in their opposition.  If they had actively supported civil unions, that could have become the de facto standard across the country, accepted by courts and legislatures alike.  But the ferocity of their opposition to any form of marriage equality might have been instrumental in convincing a lot of people like Baldacci that half measures are impossible.  And if half measures are impossible, then full marriage rights are the only alternative.

Yglesias also rightly notes that this should be seen as a vindication for the judicial press for rights.  Lawsuits can’t be the only way of advancing the cause, but they can be a great way to get the ball rolling.

So what’s next?  The current pace is obviously unsustainable.   Even so, things are going well enough that we’ll be listing Equality Maryland as a charitable alternative to our  wedding registry.  I had been afraid that Maryland was far enough off that it would be better to target resources elsewhere given the snowball effect.  With this good news, I feel more confident in the local fight.  To end on a happy local note, a few weeks ago that crazy Topeka hate group staged a protest outside of Walt Whitman High School.  Apparently bigots aren’t Whitman fans.  Regardless, they didn’t know who they were messing with:

Obama starts to deliver on gay and lesbian rights

Alyssa Rosenberg over at the Plank breaks news regarding an important appointment:

President Obama has just made John Berry, the current director of the National Zoo, the highest-ranking openly gay appointee ever by tapping him to head the Office of Personnel Management (pending Congressional approval).

Berry has a record as an activist and will presumably reverse past OPM resistance to provide equal rights for federal employees.  Apparently Sen. Lieberman had been a key advocate for such rights but had been stymied by the Bush officials.  Good on the Senator.

I was ultimately unimpressed with the handling of the inaugural invocations.  However, that's ultimately a symbolic matter.  Changing federal policy has a direct impact on the lives of government employees nationwide.  This is no panacea but it does show that the President is starting to spend some political capital on this issue which bodes well for the future.

Is Bishop Gene Robinson enough to make up for Rick Warren?

I tend to think so.  Nancy Goldstein over at Salon’s Broadsheet disagrees.

So one can hardly say that Team Obama had never dealt with a similar situation before. I’m going to bet that whether we ever deal with it again depends largely on whether we give Obama a pass -- yet again -- for playing the “inclusivity” card, but only when it comes to LGBT people having to tolerate virulent homophobes, or give him hell. I vote for giving him hell.

Politics always makes strange bedfellows and involves tricky calculations. My beef with Obama isn’t that he’s involved in some interesting ménages, or that he does his math -- only that he seems to think the LGBT community is such an easy lay and comes so cheap.

I’m actually a mainline Protestant, so I’m more impressed by the Robinson pick as he was controversial enough to cause a schism and when he wasn’t invited to an Anglican leadership conference in England he proved no shrinking violet.  Similarly, while the kick-off is a lower profile event, there is a definite symbolism to doing it from the Lincoln memorial.  I think the ‘symbolism off’ will ultimately come down to the two speeches and what Obama says of course.  Obama’s victory speech explicitly had a shout out for sexual and gender equality, so I’m hopeful.

That said I’m linking to this because I’m open to disagreement.  I welcome comments on this one if you think one or both of us are wrong.

The inauguration just got a whole lot more inclusive

I hadn’t addressed it yet, but there was a fair amount of controversy regarding the Obama’s choice of mega-church Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration.  Warren had invited Obama to participate in one debate and is willing to work with progressives on some issues.  However, he is still a definite social conservative and actively worked to pass Prop 8 in California.  Particularly the disappointment after Prop 8’s passage, a lot of equality activist were really angry by this pick.  Other’s derided it as concern over a merely symbolic way to pick up political capital.  I’m with the activists, symbolism matters, particularly since during the first year Obama’s probably going to be focusing on the economy and health care and not social issues.

The complaining has paid dividends.  First off, in the hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue category, America Blog noticed that Warren’s website scrubbed some of the homophobic rhetoric (hat tip Eve Fairbanks).  Second, Nate Silver noticed that  back on the 26th, after the controversy over the Warren pick, the transition website got more upfront than the campaign website about equality issues:

In the area of 'Civil Rights', however, there is a significant difference between the campaign website and Change.gov, the transition website. Specifically, the transition website makes a much broader range of commitments to the gay and lesbian community.

Third, on Change.gov, on the ninth Kevin Drum noticed that Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs reaffirmed that the new administration was planning to get rid of Don’t ask Don’t Tell.

Finally, this morning, Mike Allen at Politico reported that openly gay Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of the Episcopal Church, will give the invocation at the Sunday kickoff event for the inauguration.  In a nice bit of synergy with existing symbolism, that kick off will be at the Lincoln Memorial, the location of the “I have a Dream” speech.

Ezra Klein notes the strategic implications of all this:

This is, incidentally, why it's useful for progressives to criticize the president. Politicians respond to incentives. To noise. To anger. Warren, on some level, was a response to the loud protestations of evangelicals who believed the Democratic Party had no place for them. It's hard to see Robinson is anything but a response to progressive activists who sense that Obama was more willing to risk cross those who supported him than those who opposed him... If it was the plan all along, the Obama administration sure did a good job keeping the secret. And if it wasn't, then equality activists have something to be proud of this morning. They changed the incentives.

Related: GQ's profile "Let God Love Gene Robinson." Will really help convey the symbolism of this choice.

Good work people.  Think I might try to make the kickoff now.  Also, bizarrely, I had a dream last night that involved driving and seeing the Saddleback church on a somewhat distant hill side.  It was actually shaped saddle-like, but I quick Google image search found that my imagination was wrong. 

Good (old) news on the gay marriage front

So from mid-July I see that apparently the constitutional referendum to ban gay marriage in California is now running 9% points against. Considering the initial polling was running weakly on the yes side, that’s a great turnaround that happened pretty fast.

Interestingly, Kevin Drum notes that the age demographics aren’t that strongly divided on this one. That might get to the specific make up of California’s electorate, but it’s still surprising.

Too soon to put this one in the bank, but not a bad position to be in at all.

Obama opposes the anti-gay marriage California amendment

Good news from the Advocate:

In a letter to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club read yesterday at the group’s annual Pride Breakfast, Senator Obama wrote, “I am proud to join with and support the LGBT community in an effort to set our nation on a course that recognizes LGBT Americans with full equality under the law … that is why I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states.”...

Obama also stated his support for “extending fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law,” and reiterated his desire to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and “don’t ask, don’t tell” as well pass legislation to protect LGBT American against hate crimes and employment discrimination. Obama closed the letter by congratulating those who have chosen to celebrate their love by getting married in the past several weeks.

The amendment vote may be close, so every little bit helps. More importantly, I think this is the best stand I’ve yet heard taken by the national Democratic leadership. I haven’t been as excited lately about the race as Obama dropped public financing, ran to the center on FISA among other issues, and didn’t back Gen. Clark. I could deal with that but it isn’t the kind of behavior that inspires me to make donations. This sort of statement does.

Also Reihan Salam at the American scene does a bit of analysis as to why Obama would stake this position if he personally opposes same sex marraige. I just assumed Obama was lying.

Via Sullivan passing on Kirchick’s post

Quick follow-up post

Probably my last post on this for a bit, just needed something quick to throw up.

Ezra Klein is a bit less optimistic about the chances of defeating the constitutional referendum in California (For the record, he’s responding to a different Greg). Essentially he’s a bit pessimistic because while attitudes regarding homosexuality have flipped, attitudes regarding gay marriage have remained roughly constant.

On the other hand, if those are charts, this might just be one of the better shots anyways in the near future. This is on the whole a Democratic year and one where in the primaries at least youth turnout has been extraordinary. Circumstances might not quite be so good come 2010. The one disadvantage is that you’d really want this decision coming down right after an election to maximize the time to allow people to adapt to the new status quo.

More on California

Okay, home sick, but still feeling a bit better than yesterday.

Kevin Drum analyzes the political situation in California. In short, I was probably a bit overly optimistic in thinking the situation was stable, although, particularly with the Governor backing the court, I do think this is a fight we can, and we must, win.

In 2000 Californians voted to ban same-sex marriage by a margin of 61%-39%. If attitudes toward gay marriage have followed their historical pattern, about 9% more Californians are in favor of it this year, which means they’d still vote to ban it, but by the smaller margin of 52%-48%.

In other words: this is likely to be very close. These numbers have fairly big error bars attached to them, and it’s also possible, especially in California, that attitudes toward gay marriage since 2000 have softened faster than in the past. Still, right now it looks to me like the odds are slightly stacked against those of us who favor same-sex marriage. This is going to be a very tough campaign.

Sullivan has a post up where he describes changing attitudes towards homosexuals as an empirical shift, not an ideological one. In essence people used to act out of ignorance but now you have people who grew up knowing gay people. Not a new idea, but well put.

Marty Lederman notes the legal implications of this case, namely that for the first time it applies the very stringent "strict scrutiny" standard to discrimination on the basis sexual orientation. Definitely worth reading the whole thing if you want a some readable details on the ruling. Kenji Yoshino seconds that analysis and notes that it will be applicable in other California rulings on sexual orientation issues.

Ian Ayres has a great post also at Balkinization on the fact the California ruling, unlike the one in Massachusetts, allows for people from out of state to be married(if not necessarily to get that marriage recognized back home). He ends the post with a challenge that’s directly applicable to me.

Proponents of marriage equality have long analogized the ban on gay marriage to a “whites only” water fountain from which only heterosexual couples could drink. Most white Americans would walk across the street to avoid drinking from a white’s only water fountain. Now heterosexuals must choose whether they will travel across a state line to marry in a jurisdiction that has taken down the “heterosexuals only” sign.

With a single stroke, the California Supreme Court has offered all Americans the right to marry without regard to sexual orientation or citizenship. The rest us of us are now challenged to construct an appropriate response.

Frankly, there’s no way I’d move my ceremony, but it is at least food for thought on the license. For now I’ll keep up the fight in Maryland, although for the moment, I think the battleground is California and I’ll be putting my resources there.

Good news and bad news

Bad news, my left leg decided it hated me at a conference I was helping run, with four hours of conference. Conference went off well, but it is still full of hate and pain. Boo!

Good, albeit old news. California’s Supreme Court overturned ban on gay marriage. Yay! Should be pretty stable.

The latter makes the former a bit better and is obviously a good deal more important. Nonetheless, my posting will be slack for a bit until my body recovers.

Quick note of celebration on ENDA

The Employment Non-Discrimination act, which protects against firing on the basis of sexuality, passed the House. Whoo! As is well known to anyone following this issue, there was a rather divisive fight over whether transgendered individuals would also be covered. Rep. Barney Frank, the measure’s sponsor, ended up excluding them because he didn’t think he could get enough votes were it included. The bill is likely to be vetoed if it gets by the Senate, although it would be a meaningful symbolic victory as if a Dem wins in ’08 he or she would likely sign it.

As for the inclusion of the transgendered, this is one of the issues I tend to stay out of because I think the political calculus is best left to members of the relevant communities. There’s both political and personal considerations here and the two can’t really be seperated. I can evaluate the political circumstances but my grasp of the personal calculus is a lot weaker. If I were in Congress I’d probably have a meeting with my relevant constituents on which stance to take. Be that as it may, the more limited bill ultimately won out and as the winner of that particular debate I’m glad it passed.

Old News

Sen. Craig is apparently going to stay in the Senate until a judge decides on his attempt to withdraw a guilty plea.  Good for him.  I think he almost certainly did what he was accused of doing, but it [shouldn't] be a crime.  I've got no problem with fining people having sex in public placing, but soliciting non-paying sex is a whole different matter.  (I'm also generally open to the idea of legalized heavily regulated prostitution, but that's a different issue).

What Craig did has only managed to stay illegal because its a way for the state of Minnesota to entrap and literally blackmail closet gay men.  No way would these charges hold up in court.  But by offering the out of a private guilty plea, they get the money and no lawyers are involved.  Hopefully this case will break that system for good.

[Update: Left out a not.]

State of the Maryland marriage rights fight

The Washington Post has a summary of the fight.  In short, uphill battle.  This would have been a lot easier if that 4-3 vote had gone the other way, but c'est la vie.

Maryland's House has three openly gay members and the Montgomery County delegation "would be supportive of gay marriage" according to House Majority leader Kumar P. Barve.  Go MC!

The problem is on the Senate side where the Senate President is not supportive. 

"People can introduce any bill they'd like," Miller (D-Calvert) said. "But at this juncture, I don't believe the votes are there to change the law. . . . The burden will be on the people who feel it's needed to explain the need for a change."

That's a burden we can meet.  Governor O'Malley appears to be supportive but won't be spending any political capital on the issue.  In fairness, he's out there stumping for a tax hike to deal with our budget problems, so he doesn't have lots to spare at the moment.  However, he hasn't indicated that he'll be more supportive in the future.  Ratcheting up the pressure on him once this current problem is past might be a productive venue.

In the past, Maryland has passed a "domestic partner registry" bill that would "giving them rights to property ownership, inheritance, health care, insurance coverage, hospital visitation, child custody and pension benefits."  The bill was vetoed by our previous Republican governor.

On the one hand, that's symbolically weak tea.  On the other, it would substantially improve the rights of committed homosexual couples.  Passing such a bill into law would relieve pressure to get better rights but there is a ratchet effect here.  Gay marriage has a terrific demonstration effect and even a domestic partner registry could substantially raise the visibility of this issue.  I'm not going to try to judge how much compromise is acceptable at this moment, that should really be left to those who will directly benefit from the changes.  Regardless, I think we should start ambitiously.

I'll work on getting more information this weekend and will try to get some details from my members of Congress.

Frak

Sadly, a lower court has been reversed and MD's law banning gay marriage has been upheld.  Come January the fight goes to the General Assembly. 

"We will be pushing for full, legal equality in the Maryland General Assembly," said Dan Furmansky,executive director of Equality Maryland. "This is a social justice struggle. Eventually, Maryland will have civil marriage equality for same-sex couples. It's inevitable."

Leading lawmakers said the gay rights advocates will likely face an uphill battle in Annapolis, particularly in the Senate, where a bill would be subject to a filibuster.

"It would be a tall order for the legislature to overturn existing law ... but it's not out of the realm of possibility," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery), chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.

I'll be doing some follow-up to try to figure out which organizations are best equipped to win this fight.  Might be Equality Maryland.  They've got to rallies in Baltimore and PG at 6:30 pm tonight.  Details after the cut:

Sweet story

After a guy at their high school was bullied for wearing pink, two seniors bring 75 pink tank tops for people to wear in solidarity. 

I'm tagging this for homosexuality not because the bullied kid was gay, it doesn't say either way, but because that was explicitly why he was bullied.  The two guys are cool, they should get their own Disney miniseries or something.  Although they may be too hip for that as seniors

I think this gets to the idea of what role models can be.  Not so much that everyone wants to be like them because they made the news.  But because they lay down an examples other can follow.  Even with changing attitudes, bullying of homosexuals, suspected homosexuals, and by accusing people of being homosexuals aren't going to completely go away.  But there should be a lot more people pushing back.

Via Sullivan who notes that Dan Savage is looking to organize some show of thanks towards these guys.