What gay activists say when they hope no one's listening: Winning same-sex marriage rights is just a matter of waiting for old people to die. Here's a map of which states will go gay next.
Hey, here is an ad that will make you furious. Furious! It is about how the gay marriage will hurt these people. You've never seen so many infuriating lies in 60 seconds.
Man, those activist judges, out in Iowa, Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut. Those damn liberals keep making us get gay married, all the time! Thanks a lot, Republicans.
State Senator Malcolm Smith is giving up on negotiating with Senators Pedro Espada Jr., Carl Kruger, and Ruben Diaz Sr. So no one knows who will run the New York state senate and what will happen to gay marriage and whether those three assholes will remain Democrats or what. Smith's is a frustrating but morally correct decision, and only one of those modifiers usually describes doings in Albany. Diaz was typically incoherently dickish in a message to a reporter:
Here's a nice thing. Shepard Fairey, that skateboarding RISD-trained artist who created that now-iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster (plus that whole "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" thing), has lent his talents to the marriage equality movement in California. In poster form! It says "Defend Equality" and shows a fist and is powerful and butch about the whole thing. We like it! [via Queerty] Click thru for larger.
Hurry up and get gay married in Connecticut right now before the voters ban it. Because today it's totally legal! Eight couples sued the state to allow the gay marriages, because Connecticut's civil union law was kinda-sorta unconstitutional, and they won! And today one of those couples, Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman, filled out the gay marriage paperwork that will destroy forever your traditional marriage paperwork. So hey, you lose some, you win some, right? You still got Massachusetts too! What lovely places for gay marriages! California can go to hell. New England's like Lesbian Vegas right now. [NYT]
We mentioned it before, but it was sad when, on Election Night, America once again said thanks, but no thanks, to recognizing the rights of gay people. Specifically, California's Proposition 8, which banned the state's previously legal gay marriages, passed. Now, hey, everyone's going nuts. The gays are currently blaming Black People, Mormons, the governor, Barack Obama, and others, and they're protesting and demonstrating and doing all the other things everyone forgot to do before the vote happened. We know everyone was totally distracted by Barack Obama and his magical election, but guys, even we out here in New York knew you faced a well-funded, well-organized, media-savvy campaign of lies and misinformation, and the pro-gay marriage response was abysmal. Now—now!—Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says it's a shame gay marriage was banned, oh boo hoo. He didn't lift a finger to campaign against Prop 8 before! Now David Geffen is quoted in The Daily Beast babbling about the lack of outreach to black voters. Where was his money, before? [Update: Geffen gave $200k, out of his billions.] Did he get his rich liberal friends to contribute as much as the Mormon Church did? Did they use the money to build a grassroots movement as well-organized as the pro-Prop 8 guys did? Check out the list of Hollywood's non-donors as of September 10—many of them did eventually donate, but see how they didn't feel the need to until the last second? Blaming the blacks is ridiculous and unhelpful and stupid. There aren't enough black people in California to have make the ultimate difference, even with bigger turnout, unless you consider these black voters a subset of religious voters, a giant group everyone should've known they'd have to contend with months ago. Black people certainly posed less of an electoral threat than Catholics did in the California polls. It seems like everyone just assumed Prop 8 would fail, magically, even when the polls tightened significantly. And now—now!—the protests are ramping up. Now—now!—Keith Olbermann delivers his heartfelt Special Comment. Hey, let's all boycott Sundance! That'll show the Mormons! They won't meddle in our affairs ever again! Of course the anger and resentment is already hardening. But yes, outreach and education and organization and money (and maybe some genuine help from Barack Obama, who was against Prop 8, though you'd never know it) might've won the battle. Garnering support for gay rights in Arizona, in Arkansas, even in Florida, are difficult challenges that will still probably take years of work, but to get a gay marriage ban passed in California smacks of enlightened rich liberals not trying hard enough.
I love Dave Winer's blog. He's even crazier than me, but he's pathologically unable to lie. Winer's latest post admits something most Californians would deny: The first time he learned a friend was married to another guy instead of a gal, he blurted out, "I find this shocking and it makes me a bit uncomfortable." He got over it, but he remembers that feeling. Dave, don't ever change. Remember when you found out I was working for Denton? That was hilarious. (Photo by tobiashm)
Oh, wonderful. Democrats took control of the New York State Senate yesterday, by the way, which is great news, if you like the Gay Marriage and repealing the heinous Rockefeller Drug Laws, two things the Dems are set to address now that they control both legislative bodies in Albany. Or, uh, two things Dems were set to do, until this they decided to immediately separate into splinter groups and begin a war for the Senate leadership, with a group of anti-gay marriage conservative Dems leading the charge. Ha ha ha, Albany will always suck, forever, and the gays just can't catch a break. [NYT]
We know it's too soon to bring you all down, because last night was indeed an inspiring and amazing night and John Lewis was so so so great to see and wow, it was just, man. But! Other things went down in the great nation of ours too! We began looking at the Ballot Initiative fights, last night. But then we got drunk and went to bed. So let's check in on how the gays are doing, this morning, in Barack Obama's hopeful New America. Out in California, Proposition 8, the ballot initiative to ban all the wonderful, tear-jerking gay marriages that ruined all the straight marriages out there, is narrowly ahead in the polls. With 95% of precincts reporting, the ban is holding up 52% to 48%. :( California's Proposition 5, the one that would mandate lax penalities for all non-violent drug-related crimes, lost 59.8% to 40.2%. The only good news out of California is that Prop 4, the abortion notification initiative, looks to be failing. Arizona's Proposition 102, the gay marriage amendment, passed handily. Fuck Arizona. Florida's terribly worded gay marriage ban passed too! With the necessary 60% and everything! This amendment also fucks over every non-married cohabitatng couple as well, and seems to even outlaw civil unions. Sorry, gays, no hospital visits for you! Similar great news for bigoted morons in Arkansas, where the measure forbidding gays and ummarried people from adopting or fostering children passed with flying colors. They did also vote to remove the outdated language in their constitution banning "idiots and insane persons" from voting, though they didn't replace it with language banning Arkansas from voting. (J/k, democracy's a wonderful thing, whatever.) Michigan legalized medical marijuana, Colorado and South Dakota's abortion bans failed, and Massachusetts' marijuana decriminalization passed.
Will the Democrats get 60 seats in the Senate? Will Obama win in a landslide and have a MANDATE? Ugh. No, and yes, respectively. Dems are looking good in the Senate but not 60 seats good. Obama will get over 50% of the popular vote, the first time any Democrat's managed that in a generation. That sounds like enough of a mandate to us. What else? Coleman/Franken The Minnesota Senate race will be down to the wire. Franken is ahead at the moment but it's close. Exit polls look decent for him, but that third-party guy might hurt him. Michelle Bachmann The insane Minnesota congresswoman might pull this off—she's ahead at the moment but the write-in Repub challenger might kill her hopes. Ted Stevens The Alaska Senator and convicted felon faces a tough fight but, you know, Alaska loves that corrupt asshole. Alaska polls close late. Proposition 8 Lord knows what's going on with California's gay marriage initiative. Whites want the gay marriage, blacks and latinos are divided. Cautious optimism?
Let's check in on ballot initiatives! Florida's shitty marriage amendment will probably pass. We can't find any other news about any of the rest of them. But we will! Check back in! Update: Colorado's "Definition of Person Initiative," which would've banned abortion and also forms of birth control, has failed. As has South Dakota's abortion ban, which was just play at a Supreme Court case anyway. Massachusetts residents can possess an ounce of weed! Arkansas' "unmarried couples adoption ban" thing looks like it might pass. Medical marijuana passed in Michigan!
A hearty mazel tov goes out to Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick and new husband Erik Hyman, who married in a traditional Jewish ceremony over the weekend that also incorporated the naming of their month-old baby daughters. While every step of the weekend was carefully planned, no one could have foreseen the soul of Sean Hayes enveloping both bridegrooms during the simchat bat ritual, leading to a last-minute decision to ditch the settled-upon Rose and Evan in favor of two more residuals-friendly monikers that scored higher in key demos. View the slideshow here.
Tomorrow, America Votes. Most people are fixated on "who will be the next President" and "how many Senate seats will Democrats pick up" but you know what? Real Democracy happens in the insane initiatives that clog local ballots every year. But many of these initiatives are about "taxes" and "redistricting" and other boring things like that. So we've put together a voters guide highlighting only ballot initiatives of interest to drinking, drugging, and whoring Gawker readers. We'll focus on statewide ballot initiatives, which sadly leaves out awesome things like San Francisco's prostitution-legalizing Proposition K but honestly we didn't have time to comb through every damn city in the country's crazy notions. Click through and learn how to vote, oh citizens of this grand experiment! Lady Issues
As the election approaches, more bloggers are noticing ads from backers of Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban appearing on Californians' ballots, courtesy of Google. The search engine's algorithm is mindlessly matching them to phrases like "gay marriage," regardless of whether the blog in question is for or against. Scott Beale, who blogs about Internet culture at Laughing Squid, has blocked the yes-on-8 ads, and, for good measure, taken Google's ads off his site altogether until after the election. He's not alone; one fashion website adminitrator tells Valleywag she's taken similar measures.I haven't heard of any cases of the opposite happening, but I wouldn't be shocked if some socially conservative bloggers were similarly offended by no-on-8 ads placed on their blog by Google. Which returns me to my original question about these ads: If Google's algorithms are so good at placing ads, why aren't they able to gather whether a blog's audience generally supports or opposes gay marriage, and target ads where they'll do the most good? (Screenshot by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)
BoomTown reporter Kara Swisher rappelled from a skylight at Jerry Yang's secret hideout to score this draft copy of an ad, in which a bunch of tech bigwigs come out in favor of gay marriage — or at least in opposition to Proposition 8, a California state ballot initiative which would ban it. No Valley company in its right mind would be seen opposing gay marriage, so why bother?Right: Because it's an awesome branding opportunity. The draft is a self-parody of corner office drama, full of Honorary Co-Chairs, Leaders, and Former CEOs. But the real story is: Who's missing? Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt are here, but not Larry Page. Twitter's Ev Williams is here, but not Digg's Kevin Rose. Federated Media: Present. TechCrunch: Absent. Mark Zuckerberg is not here, but Sheryl Sandberg pulled a John Hancock: She's right up top, where Owen can't miss her. Oh, look, she's trying to make nice! She's going to be sorry.
Yesterday, Connecticut joined Massachusetts and California in declaring that consenting adults can marry each other—even if they're gay! The Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the state's civil union law and declared that same sex couples have a constitutional right to wed. Oh, and litigious, wing-nut "Family Values" groups take note: The ruling cannot be appealed, dicks! The new law goes into effect on October 28th—just in time for a wave of awesome gay and lesbian Halloween theme weddings!
