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USA: New Pew Poll Shows 47% Support Marriage Equality, 43% Oppose It

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

New York Gay Marriage PollA US poll has found that 47 percent of people are in favour of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally, with 43 percent opposed, adding to a growing body of evidence that the country is increasingly moving towards the direction of equality.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (PRC), which conducted the polling, tested three contentious issues, gun rights, equal marriage, and abortion, ahead of the presidential campaigns, and compared the results to those conducted by the same organisation in 2004 and 2008.

While in 2004, the support for equal marriage stood at 31% and the opposition at 60%, in 2008, the division stood at 39% in favour and 51% opposed. Now, it stands at 47% in support and 43% opposed, marking the first time an admittedly slim majority favoured what the survey terms as ‘gay marriage.’

Full Story from Pink News

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USA: Tax Tips for Gay/Lesbian Couples

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Taxes and LGBT CouplesTax season is here and now that multiple states recognize same-sex marriage, tax filing season has become a bit more complicated.

Due to passage in 1996 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government does not recognize the newer state laws regarding same-sex marriages or civil unions. Only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized under federal law. This means that a same-sex couple is prohibited from filing as “Married Filing Joint” or “Married Filing Separate” on their federal tax returns.

The IRS makes this exceedingly clear in the Form 1040 instructions which state: “For federal tax purposes, a marriage means only a legal union between a man and a woman as husband and wife and the word ‘spouse’ means a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

Full Story from The Washington Blade

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USA: Boehner Takes Heat From Both Sides on DOMA Defense

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

John Boehner, DOMA DefenseHouse speaker John Boehner is being criticized from both sides over his defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

On Monday, House sponsors of a bill which would repeal the 1996 law which defines marriage as a heterosexual union for federal agencies filed a third request with Boehner’s office asking for members to be briefed on the status of the defense.

“[W]e have long believed that DOMA is unconstitutional,” the letter states. “There simply is no legitimate federal interest served by denying married same-sex couples the federal responsibilities and rights that other married couples receive, and the harm caused to these families is unjustifiable. Two federal courts have agreed, and it is no longer credible to claim that the law is not constitutionally suspect.”

Full Story from On Top Magazine

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US Supreme Court Likely to Have the Final Word on Marriage Equality

Monday, March 19th, 2012

Supreme Court and Marriage EqualityIs a federal appeals court ruling that found California’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples unconstitutional a gamechanger in the movement for marriage equality?

On Feb. 7, the three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in San Francisco upheld now-retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s 2010 ruling. The judges dismissed Proposition 8 proponents’ arguments that Vaughn should have recused himself from the case because he was in a long-term relationship with another man. The court also found that the defendants had legal standing to challenge Vaughn’s ruling under California law, even though state officials declined to defend Prop 8.

“Today the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, as the courts have repeatedly throughout our nation’s history, that singling out a class of citizens for discriminatory treatment is unfair, unlawful and violates basic American values,” said Chad Griffin, president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights’ Board of Directors. “Like many other Americans, our plaintiffs want nothing more than to marry the person they love. Committed, loving couples and their families should not be denied this most fundamental freedom.”

Full Story from Edge on the Net

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New Poll Charts Marriage Equality Support in Australia, Canada, the UK, and The USA

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

New York Gay Marriage PollAustralia is leading Britain and the US in its support for the implementation of equal gay marriage rights, a poll released today suggests.

An equal right for gay couples to marry had 49 percent support in Australia, 43 percent support in Britain and 42 percent support in the US, the Angus Reid Public Opinion survey found.

The survey also found that in Canada, where gay couples have been allowed to marry since 2005, a higher proportion of the public, 59 percent, were in favour of keeping that right in place.

Full Story from Pink News

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US: NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll Shows 49% Support Marriage Equality, Only 40% Opposed

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

US Gay Marriage PollSupport for same-sex marriage is up sharply in a dramatic public opinion shift from as recently as three years ago, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Monday morning.

The national poll showed 49 percent of Americans favoring marriage equality with 40 percent opposed. Support among younger voters approaches 60 percent. Only two groups among those surveyed — voters over 65 and Tea Party supporters — werein opposition.

The figures are an almost precise flip on the issue from an NBC/Journal poll in October of 2009. At that time, 41 percent favored same-sex marriage while 49 percent were opposed.

Full Story from the Seattle PI

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US: 25 Big City Mayors Haven’t Signed Marriage Equality Pledge

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, a project of Evan Wolfson’s Freedom to Marry organization, asks city bosses to sign a pledge backing marriage equality. So far, 154 mayors have signed the pledge, with 25 coming from the top 50 most populous U.S. cities. But that means there are 25 big-city mayors who still haven’t signed.

Among them are Mike Rawlings of Dallas, who angered many with the following explanation: “I’m a bit pledge-phobic. I think America has got too many pledges out there and I think it’s simplistic and not substantive. I’m a mayor that wants to be substantive.”

Full Story from The Advocate

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US: Bill Reintroduced to Provide Domestic Partner Benefits to Federal Employees

Friday, November 18th, 2011

US Domestic Partner BenefitsToday, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2011, a bill that would provide Federal benefits to same sex domestic partners of Federal employees.

Under the measure, same-sex domestic partners of federal employees living together in a committed relationship “would be eligible for health benefits, long-term care, Family and Medical Leave, and federal retirement benefits, among others.”

The Act would help the more than 30,000 employees with same-sex partners, allow the Federal government to compete with the many private companies that already offer benefits, and increase costs by “only 0.4 percent of total health care expenditures, a tiny fraction that is consistent with the experience of thousands of private employers,” one study found.

Full Story from Think Progress

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The State of Marriage Equality in the US

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

US Marriage EqualityThe fight for gay rights won important victories in the past few months. In July, it became legal for same-sex couples to marry in New York State. September saw the official end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prevented gay people from serving openly in the military. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the law that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

If only this were the whole picture. But this remains a country where discrimination against gays is enshrined in most state constitutions. While all the Democrats on the Senate committee supported repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, the chances of repeal anytime soon are very slim. And even if Congress got rid of the act, the ban against same-sex marriage — a denial of equal rights to an entire group of Americans — would still be the law in most parts of the nation.

Twenty-nine states have enacted constitutional amendments blocking same-sex marriage. In 18 of those states, the amendments also ban domestic partnerships or civil unions. Twelve states bar same-sex marriage by statute, and in two, Minnesota and North Carolina, anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendments will go before voters next year. At this point, nearly 60 percent of Americans live in places that do not protect gay couples in any way.

Full Story from The New York Times

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New Pew Poll Shows More in US Support Than Oppose Marriage Equality

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Pew Marriage Equality PollPublic acceptance of same-sex marriage has grown at an accelerating pace, with approval jumping by nine percentage points in the past two years and the nation now evenly divided on the issue, according to a new Pew Research Center survey released Thursday.

The poll, conducted in late September and early October, showed 46% of Americans surveyed support legalizing same-sex marriage and 44% are opposed. The survey among 2,410 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

It is one of several released this year showing the public evenly divided or very narrowly favoring same-sex marriage rights.

Full Story from The Los Angeles Times

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