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Conservative Landslide in Spanish Elections Triggers Fears for Marriage Equality Law

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

The election of a conservative, Mariano Rajoy, as Spain’s prime minister has some LGBT activists worried he will try to repeal the nation’s marriage equality law.

Rajoy’s Popular Party has filed a suit challenging the law, and he has said he believes it is unconstitutional and that he prefers civil unions to marriage for same-sex couples. However, during the campaign he softened his rhetoric, and his platform did not include repeal of the law, the Bloomberg news service reports.

He told Spanish newspaper El Pais that the Constitutional Court would have the final word on the law, enacted in 2005 under Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Full Story from The Advocate

Click here for gay wedding resources in Spain.

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Tags: conservatives, election, marriage equality, spain

Spain: Gay Community Fearful Conservatives Will Repeal Marriage Equality After Election

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Isabel Descals and her girlfriend raced to get hitched before Sunday’s general elections in Spain almost sure to be won by the anti-gay marriage conservative opposition.

The Popular Party (PP) has appealed to the Constitutional Court against Spain’s gay marriage law, which has allowed over 20,000 gay couples to wed since it was passed by the Socialist government in 2005.

Opposition leader Mariano Rajoy has repeatedly said he prefers the term “civil union” to “marriage” for same-sex unions. “We listened to what the PP says and they are going to take a step backwards, at least when it comes to marriage because Rajoy has said he prefers civil unions,” said Descals, a 40-year-old manager from Valencia.

Full Story from Expatica

Click here for gay wedding resources in Spain.

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Tags: conservatives, election, marriage equality, repeal, spain

France: Gay Wedding Re-Opens Marriage Equality Debate

Saturday, November 12th, 2011

The mayor of a small French town challenged the country’s ban on same-sex marriage by presiding over the wedding of two men on Saturday, reviving the debate on gay marriage as France’s presidential election campaign heats up.

The move drew a swift rebuke from a junior minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government who described it as an “electoral provocation.” Jean Vila, the mayor of the town of Cabestany, wore his tricolore sash as he presided over the wedding of Patrick, 48 and Guillaume, 37, and said afterward that he did so as a “militant act.”

“To outlaw homosexual marriage is to deny the reality of thousands of homosexual couples,” he said after the ceremony in the city hall of the town about 40 km (25 miles) from the Spanish border.

Full Story from Reuters

Click here for gay wedding resources in France.

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Tags: election, france, Gay Marriage, gay wedding, marriage equality

NY: Anti Marriage Equality Town Clerk Draws Election Challange

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

A town clerk’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples has one man vying to bounce her from office.

Ed Easter, a married father who has never held elected office, announced his write-in candidacy to challenge Ledyard town clerk Rose Marie Belforti in New York. Easter made his announcement Tuesday in a letter to the editors of local newspapers, at least one of which has already opposed Belforti’s stance.

Last month, the clerk declared she would not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of her Christian religious beliefs, which resulted in a controversial compromise in which a deputy was selected to issue marriage licenses for all couples. Limited availability of a subordinate means that couples need to make an appointment, an inconvenience that may also be illegal.

Full Story fromThe Advocate

Click here for gay wedding resources in New York.

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Tags: election, ledyard, new york, town clerk

NY: Will Anti Gay Marriage Fervor Swing Weiner’s Seat to the GOP?

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

So, the Ninth District election in September could come down to gay marriage? The candidates in the increasingly tight special election for Anthony Weiner’s likely-lame duck seat have been racking up unsurprising endorsements (Giuliani for Bob Turner! Schumer for David Weprin!), and that is all well and good. However it seems that the Orthodox Jews in the area are grinding their teeth over the logic Weprin used when he voted to support marriage equality in the state Assembly earlier this year.

“David Weprin as a candidate for Congress is an affront to the Almighty, as well as a threat to the individual liberties, religious and otherwise, of American citizens,” Queens Rabbi Noson Leiter of Torah Jews for Decency said last month. At issue is a quote Weprin, an Orthodox Jew himself, made on June 15 regarding the vote: “My religion is very important to me personally, but this is not a religious issue,” he said. “I think everyone here would agree that we should not be outlawing marriages between Jews and non-Jews or interracial marriages.”

And that view has not sat well in the community, reportedly. “What he said in the Assembly has been played over-and-over on YouTube,” a source told City Hall News (though we haven’t actually found said clip–have you?). “People were really offended that he said he was an Orthodox who was supporting gay marriage.”

Full Story from The Gothamist

Click here for gay wedding resources in New York.

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Tags: anthony weiner, election, Gay Marriage, new york

Australia: Election Night a Setback for Marriage Equality

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

by Bruce Notley-Smith

As the election count continues it seems unlikely the Greens can seize the balance of power in the Legislative Council, with that falling instead to the Shooters and Fishers Party and the Christian Democrats.

On the surface it looks grim — Greens with the balance would have forced serious debate on reforming the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act. That debate is now unlikely to begin for another three years, while actual reform could be a decade away. A better outcome for our community would have been a Coalition majority in both houses and no need to deal with Fred Nile.

But in terms of public support for the Christian Democrats, this has not been a victory election. All Nile has succeeded in doing is winning back the seat he lost when Gordon Moyes defected to form Family First NSW, and his party’s high-profile campaign against our community in Sydney seems to have backfired.

Full Story from the Star Observer

Click here for gay marriage resources in Australia.

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Tags: australia, election, marriage equality

CA: Harris Wins AG, State Will Not Fight Prop 8 Lawsuit

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will be California’s next attorney general, after her Republican opponent conceded today – a full three weeks after the Nov. 2 election.

Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley had declared victory on election night, only to see the race flip-flop between the two candidates in the coming days as counties around the state continued to tally mail-in and provisional ballots. This morning, Cooley called Harris – who is now leading by 50,000 votes – to concede and congratulate her.

She will become the state’s first female attorney general. In a written statement, Cooley said his campaign “believes that we cannot make up the current gap in the vote count.”

Full Story from SF Gate

Click here for gay marriage resources in California.

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Tags: ag, attorney general, california, election, kamala harris, prop 8, proposition 8

CA: Gay Marriage Supporter Harris Back in Lead for AG Post

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

In one of the closest races in state history, the Democrat has clawed back into the lead for California Attorney General.

Kamala D. Harris has 4,044,927 votes as of 4:19 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, with 100 percent of the precincts partially or fully reporting, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

…

While the Democrats swept all the other state offices, this race in particular is meaningful for advocates of equal rights. Harris supports marriage equality, while Cooley does not. Harris says she will not defend Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage in California, in the courts, while Cooley says he would try to intervene in the court case.

Full Story from SDGLN

Click here for gay marriage resources in California.

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Tags: ag, attorney general, ca, california, election, Gay Marriage, kamala harris, lead, marriage equality, same sex marriage, steve cooley

Gay Post-Election Recap

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

After the midterm elections on Tuesday, the National LGBT Bar Association held a press conference with guest speakers Shannon Minter and Tobias Bearing Wolfe. Shannon Minter, a transgender man, is a graduate of Cornell law school, a civil rights lawyer and legal director for the National Center for Lesbian rights. Wolff is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and has contributed on CNN as a political/legal expert.

“There were some surprises,” says Minter about the victories in the midterms. “Usually in midterms there is a turn of both houses but the Democrats held the Senate. We will be able to stop the far right and anti-gay congresspersons from enacting measures that are affirmatively harmful or punitive and the Senate should be able to prevent any turn back from the progressive gains that we have made.”

“I was also really impressed that among the many LGBT candidates who won their election,” Minter said, “we saw the first openly transgender judge elected to the bench anywhere in the country.” He is speaking of Victoria Kolakowski, the San Francisco Chronicle’s pick for Superior Court Judge in Alameda County. “And despite being targeted, our openly gay congresspersons like Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin are back in their seats along with a new gay congressman from Rhode Island.”

Full Story from SFGN

Click here for gay marriage resources.

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Tags: election, gay, lesbian, recap, round up

Michael Signorile Asks Why Some Gays Voted Republican – Video

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

Two days after Election Day 2010, for the last hour of the show, I asked those LGBT people who voted Republican to call in to the show and explain why. The phones lit up with people calling from all across the U.S.

Exit polling shows gay, lesbian, bisexual voters cast a ballot for Republicans in double the numbers from 2008: from 19% to 31%. True, the sample is small, and any such polling should be taken with a grain of salt. But it’s undeniable that many LGBT voters were disappointed with the White House and Democrats, and it’s plausable that many stayed home or voted for another party.

And yet, the Republican takeover of the House and many statehouses means there will be no votes expanding gay civil rights protections, in Congress and in most of the states that went GOP (and there likely will be antigay votes, such as in Minnesota where Republican pledge to push a marriage amendment), which begs the question of why gay people would vote Republican in this election. The phones were jammed with people who voted GOP who wanted to offer their explanations for casting votes for politicians like David Vitter in Louisiana, for Rand Paul in Kentucky, for Rick Scott in the governor’s race in Florida, and for various other, Senate, House and local races.