“Obama Backs Gay Marriage”

Taken from:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577394332545729926.html

May 10, 2012

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he supported gay marriage, reversing his position on a controversial social issue just six months before the November election and adopting a stance fraught with uncertain political implications.

Mr. Obama had been under intense pressure this week to lay out a clear stance on same-sex marriage after Vice President Joe Biden and other top advisers endorsed it. Mr. Obama said that after years of lengthy discussions with friends and family, including his wife and two young daughters, he now “personally” believes gays and lesbians should have the right to marry.

“I’ve been going through an evolution on this issue. I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” Mr. Obama said in a television interview with ABC. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Mr. Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support gay marriage. His endorsement is largely a symbolic moment for a country that is actively wrestling with the issue.

While the president opposes the federal Defense of Marriage law that defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman, he doesn’t plan to pursue new U.S. policy on gay marriage, aides said, because he believes states should decide the issue.

Mr. Obama was against same-sex marriage as a candidate in 2008 but supported civil unions. In the fall of 2010, he said his views on gay marriage were “evolving,” a stance widely interpreted as moving toward an endorsement. Asked numerous times afterward whether his position had changed, the president deflected the question and pointed to his record on other gay-rights issues.

On Wednesday, he explained, “I had hesitated on gay marriage, in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient… And I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word ‘marriage’ was something that invokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.” He said his position was influenced by gay members of the military and his staff who are raising children together in monogamous relationships.

Mr. Obama informed a handful of top aides earlier this year he had decided to publicly support gay marriage before the Democratic National Convention in September, senior administration officials said. Mr. Biden’s public support, in a TV interview Sunday, and the 72 hours of fallout that came afterward sped up the president’s timetable, these officials said.

President Obama spoke Wednesday with Robin Roberts of ABC’s Good Morning America in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

Mr. Obama’s position puts him squarely at odds with that of Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. Mr. Romney has said he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. He also opposes civil unions and has said he would back a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Asked Wednesday about Mr. Obama’s gay-marriage endorsement while campaigning in Oklahoma, Mr. Romney acknowledged that it is a “very tender and sensitive topic.” He said states are able to make decisions about domestic-partnership benefits, including hospital-visitation rights. “But my view is that marriage, itself, is a relationship between a man and a woman and that’s my own preference,” he said.

Polls show Americans’ views on gay marriage are shifting faster than for many other hot-button social issues, with 49% in favor, according to a March Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, up from 41% in 2009. Some 40% of Americans oppose gay marriage, according to the poll.

Other surveys show similar levels of backing for same sex-marriage, but some show opposition to have nearly equal support. In a recent Gallup survey, 50% approved of gay marriage, while 48% said they opposed it. But polls consistently show rising support in recent years.

Voters have enacted constitutional bans on gay marriage in a number of battleground states that will decide the 2012 election, among them Ohio and Florida. Mr. Obama’s Wednesday announcement came a day after residents in North Carolina, a state the president hopes to win in November, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. North Carolina is also hosting the Democratic National Convention, where Democrats were set to battle over whether to make gay marriage rights a plank of their party’s official platform.

The issue holds potential perils for conservative Democrats, and benefits for Mr. Romney.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney reacted to President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage Wednesday by doubling down on his own view that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a social conservative group, said Mr. Obama’s gay-marriage switch would fire up the GOP’s conservative base. “This is an unanticipated gift to the Romney campaign. It is certain to fuel a record turnout of voters of faith to the polls this November,” he said.

“Just before an election, you’re going to rile up the right-wing base, there’s no question about it,” said Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant. “It will hurt in rural areas and the West, and you may take some fallout in the black community.”

Wading into the gay-marriage issue now poses potential risks and rewards for Mr. Obama among different types of voters who helped him win the White House in 2008. The move could energize young voters, who support gay marriage by a wide margin—57% of 18- to 34-year-olds in the Journal poll were in favor.

But a major question is how his changed stance will be received by African-American voters, who are central to Mr. Obama’s re-election strategy. Support for same-sex marriage had been relatively low among blacks, but views have evolved: The Journal poll showed African-American support for gay marriage rose to 50% in March from 32% in 2009.

Senior administration officials said Wednesday they are unsure whether Mr. Obama’s new position would produce a net gain or loss in support, or whether the support and opposition for it would balance each other out.

The marriage issue is likely to resonate in future months, as White House aides said the president will continue to discuss the issue. At the same time, some Democrats are pushing for Mr. Obama to include support for gay marriage as a plank of the party platform when he accepts the nomination at the convention in September. That move has the potential to divide the party.

States that have adopted constitutional bans on gay marriage also include the presidential-election battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia and Colorado, as well as Florida and Ohio. But because public opinion is fluid, it is hard to determine how Mr. Obama’s view will affect his standing in those states.

Obama on Gay Marriage

• 1996, running for Illinois state Senate: “I favor legalizing same-sex marriage.”

• 2004, running for U.S. Senate: “Marriage is between a man and a woman.

• 2010, as president: “My feelings are constantly evolving” on gay marriage.

• 2012, as president: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

“Gay Marine kiss: Photo called both a beginning and ‘closure’”

Taken from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-gay-marine-kiss-20120302,0,2473199.story

March 2, 2012

In just under a week, a photo of a Marine sergeant kissing his boyfriend after returning from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan has been “liked” on Facebook more than 42,000 times and garnered more than 10,000 comments — most of them supportive.

Sgt. Brandon Morgan, a 25-year-old from Oakdale, Calif., returned to Marine Corps  Base Hawaii on Feb. 22 from his third deployment in four years and was met by his boyfriend, Dalan Wells.

A friend snapped the photo, which depicts Morgan with his legs wrapped around Wells, an American flag in the background. It was later posted on the “Gay Marines” Facebook page; from there, the photo went viral.

“It’s a homecoming picture — gay, straight, lesbian, no matter who you are, love is love,” Morgan toldHawaii TV station KHON. “We haven’t fought for more rights or better rights than others. We fought for equal rights, and now we have them.”

Homecoming photos of military members are common, but Morgan and Wells’ photo is among the first showing a gay couple expressing affection since the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy five months ago.

In December, two female sailors in Norfolk, Va., shared a homecoming kiss that landed on the front page of some U.S. newspapers, including the Seattle Times and the Virginian-Pilot. The two had been chosen by raffle for the Navy’s “first kiss” honor, and the ship’s commanding officer said at the time that the crew’s reaction was positive.

That media coverage led to a barrage of commentary — both positive and negative. But in Morgan’s case, the photo was circulated largely without the help of print media, with thousands of people sharing the photo and with blog posts calling attention to it.

Morgan told the Associated Press he didn’t intend the photograph to go viral and that he looks forward to such homecomings becoming commonplace. “We all know this will die down and become the norm. It is the norm — everyone is allowed, no matter who you are, to have a homecoming now,” he told the wire service.

The founder of the Facebook page, Brett Edward Stout, a former Marine, posted a video message after the photo began circulating. He explained that the page, created while the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was still in place, was intended to give gay military members a voice. ”What I didn’t expect was that the page did have one last role to play in the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ fight: closure,” Stout said. The photo of Morgan and Wells, he said struck “close to home” and gave gay military members “catharsis.”

Half the Sky

“The best way to fight poverty and extremism is to educate and empower women and girls.” – Half the Sky

Half the Sky lays out an agenda for the world’s women and three major abuses: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. We know there are many worthy causes competing for attention in the world. We focus on this one because this kind of oppression feels transcendent – and so does the opportunity. Outsiders can truly make a difference.

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You can buy the book, Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl Wudunn, at their website: http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

“Lesbian Unified teacher alleges discrimination”

Taken from: http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_645ad68a-f332-11e0-8129-001cc4c002e0.html

October 10, 2011

RACINE — A Racine Unified teacher has filed discrimination complaints against the district alleging mistreatment because she is a lesbian.

A state investigator found probable cause the discrimination occurred and Unified tried to reach a settlement with teacher Halli Stewart that included increasing the district’s sexual orientation-based anti-discrimination training and having Stewart sign a letter forbidding her from making any references about her sexual orientation to students. “That (request) is discriminatory in itself because they would never ask a straight person that,” Stewart said. She believed the letter represented more discrimination. She refused to sign it and no settlement agreement happened.

Treated differently

A student in Stewart’s class allegedly threatened to kill her in spring 2010. Stewart, a remedial reading teacher at Mitchell Middle School, had asked the student to pull up his pants; he responded with a threat on her life, she said. Stewart felt unsafe and asked the student be removed from her class. He wasn’t. But when a heterosexual teacher complained about the student, action was taken, Stewart said. It wasn’t the first time Stewart said she felt treated differently because of her sexual orientation. She noticed a pattern and filed a discrimination complaint against Racine Unified.

“In 2011 people should not be treated like this,” said Stewart, 34, a Racine native now of Brookfield.

Stewart claims Leslie Jensen, formerly a principal and assistant principal at Mitchell, 2701 Drexel Ave., knew she was a lesbian and because of that treated her differently than heterosexual staff. Besides not removing the threatening student from Stewart’s class, Jensen also allegedly took issue with Stewart using family medical leave for her domestic partner and punished Stewart for tardiness while late heterosexual teachers saw no consequences, according to Stewart’s complaint, filed Aug. 24, 2010, with the state Department of Workforce Development’s Equal Rights Division.

Jensen, now principal of Red Apple Elementary School, 914 St. Patrick St., did not return calls for comment but said through Unified spokeswoman Stacy Tapp that she feels she’s never discriminated against a staff member. In an Oct. 15, 2010, complaint response, Unified wrote Jensen did not know about Stewart’s sexual orientation during some of the alleged discrimination. Unified also said Jensen did not know the reason for Stewart’s medical leave and through student interviews determined the alleged student threat on Jensen’s life did not occur, among other points.

But a state equal rights officer determined there was “probable cause” that Unified violated state fair employment law by discriminating against Stewart because of her sexual orientation, a Feb. 9, 2011, state determination document shows. “It appears the Complainant’s internal complaints only trigger investigations of the Complainant, rather than attempts to eliminate anti-gay sentiment within the Respondent’s school,” the officer wrote.

Waiting for resolution

Stewart and Unified attempted to reach a settlement agreement with the help of a state mediator.

Settlement terms preliminarily agreed upon included Jensen attending anti-discrimination training and being ordered to refrain from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, according to settlement documents provided by Stewart.

Terms not agreed upon included possible monetary compensation for Stewart between $5,000 and $20,000, and Stewart signing a district-provided letter requiring she “refrain from making any references to your personal sexual orientation to students,” according to the settlement documents.

That language “was suggested to address a specific matter,” according to Unified’s Tapp. She would not disclose what the matter was but said “the district does not permit any staff to discuss their sexual conduct with students.”

Stewart said she would never discuss her “sexual conduct” with students but needs the freedom to discuss her sexual orientation when students inquire. “I had kids that came out and were kicked out of their houses and they needed to know that, one, somebody related and, two, that somebody wasn’t going to be judgmental and they were just going to help them find a safe place,” Stewart said. “I also had quite a few kids that struggled with suicide issues and depression and family acceptance.”

Stewart never signed the letter and no settlement has been reached. The next step is a hearing but one has not been scheduled yet. “People keep saying you could get money out of this. That’s not the problem. The problem is if anybody else is treated like this again,” Stewart said. “I can’t in good conscience walk away from this.”