Delaware House passed civil unions bill, now over to Governor

Progress in Delaware:

The Delaware House of Representatives gave final approval Thursday evening to a civil unions bill that will provide same-sex couples with all of the rights and benefits of marriage under state law.

The House voted 26-15 in favor of the measure. The Delaware Senate voted 13-6 to approve the bill on April 7, and the state’s governor, Democrat Jack A. Markell, has said he plans to sign it

Congrats to all involved. Read the rest of this post...

Fred Karger challenges Romney to stand up to the Mormon's homophobia

Joe posted the video earlier of gay GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger's appearance on MSNBC. Well, the boys over at AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field got more from Karger's campaign:

I followed up with Karger's campaign about this appearance to get a better understanding of how he thinks he can pressure Romney and the Mormon Church. I was provided with this statement from Fred Karger:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon Church) is extremely sensitive about it's image. Polls showed it plummeted because of all their activities - some found to have been illegal - to pass Prop 8. As the leading candidate for President, Mitt Romney could easily use his vast influence with Mormon Church leadership to get them to back away from their continuing campaign to stop gay marriage throughout this country."

Read the rest of this post...

Leading Homophobe Maggie Gallagher to testify at House marriage hearing tomorrow

The leading homophobe in the nation, Maggie Gallagher, will be testifying at the House hearing on marriage tomorrow. She's been barnstorming the country these past few months, to testify in opposition to marriage equality legislation. In Maryland, her hateful anti-gay testimony secured us a new supporter in the State Senate.

Now, Maggie craves the spotlight. And, she loves to testify about same-sex marriage. But, when it really mattered -- at the Prop. 8 trial -- she didn't take the stand. See, in federal court, witnesses have to swear to tell the truth and can be cross-examined. Lying in court is a crime. David Boies explained this eloquently on Face the Nation in the wake of the Prop. 8 ruling:

"In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions, you've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination," Boies said. "And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens of the right to vote [sic] to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature, or in debates where they can't be cross-examined.

"But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that's what happened here. There simply wasn't any evidence, there weren't any of those studies. There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science. It's easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court you can't do that.

"That's what we proved: We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost," Boies said.

Now, this hearing has been organized by some of the leading homopbobes in the U.S. House. They want to instill fear and incite prejudice against LGBT Americans.

So, we should monitor Maggie's testimony very closely. She probably won't be under oath, but should be. Either way, lying to Congress is still a crime.

Let's hope the members of the Committee on our side, Reps. Nadler, Quigley, Conyers and Scott, really grill her. Read the rest of this post...

Prop. 8 lawyer wants Ninth Circuit to retrieve all copies of trial videos

Prop. 8 lawyers really, really, really don't want anyone to see videos from the trial. They've asked the Ninth Circuit to retrieve all copies. Judge Walker showed excerpts of the trial video during a speech a couple months ago. And, the homophobes are apoplectic:

Although Walker retired from the bench 10 days later and is no longer subject to judicial discipline, "he can be ordered to cease further unlawful and improper disclosures," said Charles Cooper, the sponsors' lawyer.

He asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to retrieve all copies of the video from Walker and the plaintiffs who challenged Prop. 8 and seal them from public view. The same court is reviewing the sponsors' appeal of Walker's ruling in August overturning the measure.

Now, if I was a reporter, this would set off all kinds of alarm bells. I'd do everything possible to get my hands on these videos. The over-the-top reaction really shows the fear the pro-Prop. 8 team has about people seeing these videos:

A lawyer for the same-sex couples who challenged Prop. 8 said its sponsor, a conservative religious coalition called Protect Marriage, were continuing efforts to hide the proceedings.

"Why should the public be denied the opportunity to see and hear what happened in a public trial in a public courtroom in a case involving the constitutional rights of millions of people?" asked attorney Theodore Boutrous.

Good question.

The anti-Prop. 8 lawyers should ask the court to remove the seal. Let the world see what happened at trial. It's the least they could. Read the rest of this post...

UAFA introduction today in House and Senate

The Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) will be introduced today. There's a press conference on the House side early this afternoon. Via press release from Rep. Nadler:

Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, and Representatives John Conyers (D-MI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), Mike Honda (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Jackie Speier (D-CA), and others will announce the re-introduction of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). This overdue legislation would allow gay and lesbian Americans to sponsor their permanent partners for legal residency in the United States, a right currently enjoyed only by married heterosexuals under immigration law. Because the U.S. does not legally recognize gay and lesbian couples and their children as families, many same-sex binational couples are torn apart. The announcement will take place at 1:00pm on Thursday, April 14th at the House Triangle in Washington D.C.

Joining the Members will be national LGBT advocates and leaders on LGBT immigration issues, as well as Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado, a same-sex California couple, and their children Joriene and Jashley. The recent immigration plight of the Tan/Mercado family drew national attention and dramatically highlighted the urgency to pass UAFA.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will be introducing UAFA in the Senate.

Last year, Immigration Equality produced a video about Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado:


President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano could stop the deportations.

Getting rid of DOMA will help these families, too. Read the rest of this post...

Ex-NOM strategist Marinelli drops a bomb about NOM's propaganda operation

Our newest same-sex marriage supporter and ex-NOM strategist, Louis Marinelli, drops a bombshell accusation that certainly isn't hard to believe, but it most certainly points out how depraved NOM is when it comes to their tactics. We always knew they were cowards but get this:

Louis Marinelli, the NOM staffer who shut down the National Organization for Marriage FaceBook page, which hosted 290,000 ant- marriage equality members, and defected via a changed heart – to side with a pro marriage equality – says NOM offers incentives to members of a secret online propaganda team which handles stories and tasks the group does not want to engage in officially.

“As part of my job with NOM, I was instructed to create a point system to reward the propagandists. Everything they do will be tracked and NOM plans to reward them,” he writes. “In the future, when this team gets off the ground, NOM intends to use the technology behind Mr. [Brian] Brown’s ActRight conservative activism website to facilitate tracking, create a competitive atmosphere between the propagandists and allow them to redeem the points they earn in a variety of ways, including lunch with Mr. Brown himself.”

Marinelli adds as a prime example of this secretive, disturbing and cowardly systematic behavior by NOM:

A case in point is a woman whom I will identify only by her initials S.N. Most people involved with the social media network I grew for NOM know there is a particularly hateful NOM supporter who for a time helped me with moderating the page’s wall. She spends hours upon hours attacking gays and lesbians on a smaller scale but not much different from the way I used to.

However, when it came to showing up personally at our Summer for Marriage rally in Trenton, New Jersey (near her home), she was nowhere to be found.

Can you imagine if our side had a propaganda team in place to spread lies about the extremists involved in the battle to deny us equal rights? If it were those of us exhibiting this behavior on our side, I can just imagine the wailing, stirring of ashes and tearing of clothes to express how utterly unfair and decidedly un-Christian we were to covertly spread outright lies about them if we had been accused by one of our own of doing what Marinelli says they do in order to unfairly smear us.

And, one more time, thank you Jeremy Hooper for breaking this story. Last night, Jeremy posted Lawrence O'Donnell's commentary on Marinelli and the Courage Campaign:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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