Donations are being sought for the American airing of Australia’s famed It’s Time marriage equality clip, which went globally viral immediately upon its posting on YouTube. The new group’s founder writes us today with a list of what’s been accomplished so far.
Independent advocacy organisation, GetUp has launched a campaign ahead of the Labor party’s National Conference to put pressure on members to cast a united vote in favour of same sex marriage equality.
The ‘Marriage matters’ campaign is running in major newspapers and online. Print executions feature a formal letter from a Brisbane psychologist outlining the ill effects of denying same sex couples the right to get married.
The GetUp website features the story of organisation staffer Rosie Mackay and her female partner Indeana. Other GetUp members have also shared photos of their partners and families on the site.
A campaign to legalize gay marriage in Maine has gathered sufficient signatures to qualify for next year’s ballot.
Equality Maine, the state’s largest gay rights group, announced on Wednesday that it had collected the signatures of more than 35,000 registered voters on Election Day. The group had earlier announced plans to gather 75,000 signatures, about 18,000 more than needed to qualify. The buffer is a hedge against invalid signatures.
The campaign said it had surpassed its goal and now had almost 100,000 signatures.
Phillip Tartaglia, the Bishop of Paisley, is starting a campaign against legalising gay marriage in Scotland as the SNP led administration pushes ahead with plans to hold a public consultation on legalising such unions.
Despite the legalising of gay marriage enjoying public support in Scotland – a recent poll placed support for legalisation at 61% – senior religious figures in the country are continuing with their outspoken opposition. Senior members of the Catholic Church have already spoken out again gay marriage describing it as “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”.
Now Phillip Tartaglia, the Bishop of Paisley, is organising a campaign against gay marriage. The Bishop’s campaign will include letters and postcards to worshippers outlining the Churches opposition to gay marriage. According to the Herald Scotland the Bishop has already spoken with Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, about gay marriage describing t as “wrong in principal” and outlining his belief it is solely defined as being “between a man and a woman.”
Today Marriage Equality launches its Just Love? campaign with a ground-breaking report, Missing Pieces, which reveals 169 legal differences between civil marriage and civil partnership.
Described as “an abdication of legislative responsibility”, the report rebuts claims that civil partnership provides same-sex couples with equality in all but name. The Foreword to the Report states neatly that “through civil partnership the Irish State has created a separate and unequal institution on many levels. Most profoundly the relationship between children and their gay and lesbian parents is not part of the civil partnership package”.
Separately, RTE reported last night that the Department of Foreign Affairs have no plans to alter passport application forms to reflect the growing number of same-sex couples parenting children. Such steps have recently been taken in the UK.
A state-wide ‘Unions for Marriage Equality’ campaign will be launched at Darlinghurst’s Oxford Hotel tomorrow night, with unions joining forces to support the LGBT community.
Eleven unions in total have joined the campaign as they seek to put a message to the likes of Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) chief Joe de Bruyn and Prime Minister Julia Gillard that a large part of the workforce and Labor supporters also support same-sex marriage rights.
De Bruyn, as head of the country’s largest union, continues to suggest that the organisation’s membership – many of whom are young – back his stance of opposing marriage equality despite never polling them.
Defeated opponents of marriage equality ostensibly spent Friday evening avoiding New York City’s West Village, licking their wounds, and releasing statements on just how doomed the Empire State is following a historic victory for LGBT rights (“Passage of Same-Sex Marriag [sic] Bill is a Disaster for the Future,” one headline on the Conservative Party of New York State’s website reads).
The National Organization for Marriage went a step further in announcing a reported minimum $2 million campaign in the 2012 election cycle to “hold politicians accountable for their vote” in hopes of “overturning same-sex marriage in New York.” The Los Angeles Times had earlier reported the figure at “more than $1 million.”
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.
The Empire State Pride Agenda, the Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry and Marriage Equality New York — will form a single organization called New Yorkers United for Marriage which will shortly undertake a coordinated effort to sway three Democrats and 12 Republicans who voted against marriage equality last year in an effort to pass it by early summer, the NYT reports:
Under the supervision of the governor’s staff, the groups intend to raise more than $1 million for a media blitz, hire a powerful political consultant close to the Cuomo administration and deploy field organizers to the districts of more than a dozen key lawmakers to drum up support, according to interviews with those involved in the effort.
In contrast to their failed drive for a marriage bill two years ago, the advocates envision a short, disciplined and intense run-up to a vote in the State Legislature, raising the prospect that gay couples may be allowed to wed in New York by early summer.
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.
Today, Freedom to Marry announced the launch of “Why Marriage Matters,” the largest-ever national public education campaign aimed at increasing majority support for ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage.
Freedom to Marry will be running ads nationwide featuring gay, lesbian and straight couples talking about why marriage matters to them. The organization has pledged to raise and spend $10 million over the next three years on the Why Marriage Matters campaign, which will launch during Freedom to Marry Week on Valentine’s Day with an initial national cable buy on CNN. To preview the ad, click here.
“Across the country the thinking of many Americans, from the President to the people next door, continues to — as President Obama put it — ‘evolve’ toward support for same-sex couples joining in the freedom to marry. Freedom to Marry’s team has crunched over a decade’s worth of polling data and field experience to crack the code on moving the reachable but not yet reached,” said Evan Wolfson, Founder and President of Freedom to Marry. “By engaging friends, families, and neighbors in personal conversations about why marriage matters, each of us can help fair-minded people wrestling with a lack of information and uncertainty, and change hearts and minds.”
To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.
Donations are being sought for the American airing of Australia’s famed It’s Time marriage equality clip, which went globally viral immediately upon its posting on YouTube. The new group’s founder writes us today with a list of what’s been accomplished so far.
