Leaked footage of the Prop 8 trial sparked a legal tug of war this week, with anti-gay groups renewing efforts to keep their work out of public view. Delaware's on track to be the 8th state to offer marriage-ish protections, and activists gear up in New York.
This is our last episode of "This Week in Prop 8." Next week we're launching a brand new news show, with a more national focus and more hea...
Why did John Boehner sign up for a protracted legal fight over anti-gay laws without first finding out what it was going to cost taxpayers? Hope is on the way for gay couples facing homelessness due to discriminatory Medicaid policies. Civil unions advance in Delaware but marriage is on the rocks in Rhode Island. And will we see Prop 8 back on the ballot in 2012?
Last month House Speaker John Boe...
What's the connection between this anti-gay assault in New York and this anti-gay politician in California? We'll take a closer look at both this week, and analyze some new ads airing in Oregon. There's been significant movement around the country on civil unions, and Montana Republicans are backing an bill that could send any gay couple to prison for up to ten years. All that plus an interview wi...
Sex sells when it comes to marriage equality, with a male modeling agency lending its talents to a new fundraising campaign. A reprieve for a woman facing deportation proves just how important marriage can be. Meanwhile, more voters than ever support the freedom to marry, so why aren't politicians listening?
...
There's a bitter battle shaping up in Congress, and a nailbiting fight to the finish in Maryland. A new judge in the Prop 8 case, and a big surprise from Wyoming Republicans, thanks in part to one legislator's gay daughter.
Now that Obama has deci...
Can you even believe this week?
President Obama this week ordered an end to the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is huge. We'll check in with Marriage Equality USA's Molly McKay and Immigration Equality's Lavi Solloway to find out exactly wh...
Will a new law force California to defend Prop Eight? Marriage is coming to Maryland, but obstacles may drag it out for nine more months. We'll walk you through the next steps. And in New Hampshire, the anti-gay industry claims that gay marriage prevents straight people from caring for their kids.
Across the country, gay couples and their allies stepped up to marriage counters around the country to ask for...
The big news about Prop 8 this week ... is that there isn't any news about Prop 8 this week. Nothing happened!
At least, nothing happened in California. There was a ton of activity in other states, from New Hampshire to New York to Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, and Rhode Island.
Now, when I started Stop Eight, two and a half years ago, it was all about Proposition Eight. But now, there's so much hap...
Ted Olson, a lead attorney on the case against Prop 8, sent a letter to the California Supreme Court this week, explaining why, in his opinion, the court shouldn't intervene in the case.
His position boils down to "none of your business," ...
A busy week for marriage equality all around the country, with new cracks appearing in the Defense of Marriage Act. Meanwhile, a slew of bills appeared this week in various states, both for and against marriage.
We're starting to get a clearer picture of what marriage battles across the country are going to look like in ...
Obama's relationship with LGBTs: it's complicated. Things got rocky this week when the Justice Department continued protecting the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal ban that prevents gay couples from getting married.
But what's interesting is the reason they gave for doing so. According to Justice, DOMA's only necessary because laws differ from state to state, and the ban ensures some federal ...
Get ready for battles all over the country this year, as the fight over gay marriage heats up in New England, and some legal wrangling could put Prop 8 back up for a vote in 2012.
It's been a super-busy week for marriage equality news.
The big news this week was in California, where a piece of the lawsuit against Prop 8 got ...
As the Prop 8 case continues to percolate behind closed doors at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, activists aren't content to wait.
First, there was an excellent explanation this week of "The Best Argument Against Gay Marriage -- and why it fails." The short version is that the anti-gay side is...
It's showtime! Monday's the day for oral arguments in the next phase of Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, the legal challenge to Prop 8 that may one day reach the Supreme Court of the United States.
The arguments will be heard by three randomly-picked judges: ...
The election might've been rough for most of the Country, but the news in California (and beyond) actually isn't all that bad.
The biggest dodged bullet: Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman, Gavin Newsom beat Abel Maldonado, and Barbara Boxer beat Carly Fiorina. All three democrats favor marriage equality, and ...
It's been a quiet week on the Prop 8 front, but it's the calm before the storm: all eyes are on the fast-approaching election, when California's current pro-equality legislators may be replaced by anti-gay bigots.
Meg Whitman, Abel Maldonado, and Steve Cooley are the Republican candidates for Gover...
The folks behind the divisive and hurtful Yes on Proposition 8 T.V. ads
just couldn't help themselves -- The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM) is once again using children as political ...
Although there wasn't much movement on the Prop 8 case this week, there's been some drama around how Republicans could control the future of marriage equality in the upcoming election.
Conventional wisdom has it that although the GOP is behind the curve when it comes to civil rights, th...
It's just been one big terrible wave of suicide lately, with so many young LGBT kids killing themselves it's hard to keep track.
Who's to blame? That's hard to say, but surely some culpability lies with Mormon leaders like Elder Packer, who earlier this month called gays immoral and unnatural. He h...
What's this, a Mormon official apologizing for the pain caused by Prop 8? Well, so far it's just one man, but it's a start.
Jaws dropped this week when Elder Marlin K. Jensen told a group of LGBT leaders in Oakland, "I am sorry." He'd been invited to listen to local Mormon families talk about how Prop ...
A big huge thanks to all the folks who showed up Sunday to help us tape a message from San Francisco to LGBT youth who feel lonely and isolated wherever they are. As the video says: it gets better!
This was a busy week for Prop 8 proponents -- about two dozen pro-discrimination briefs were filed on Friday with the usual "defend tradition" and "gays can't have children" business. It'll take a while for LGBT groups to sift through them, so information about those anti-gay briefs will probably sif...
Have you seen Dan Savage's awesome new project, It Gets Better? It's all about reaching out to at-risk LGBT kids who are physically isolated in small towns and feel like they have no one to turn to. As adults, we know that life gets better once you're old enough to get out of those situations. So it's up to us to let those kids know that they just need to hang in there, to be strong, and that they...
They're at it again.
Anti-gay groups like The National Organization for Marriage don't have any facts to back up their crusade to ban marriage, so their ads all lean on innuendo, suggestions, and "weasel words." Nowhere is that more apparent than their new ad, which calls for the ousting of Iowa Supreme Court justices based on one single ruling that NOM happens not to like.
If NOM wants to waste...
How will the state respond to Judge Walker's Prop 8 ruling? If Arnold Schwarznegger and Jerry Brown have their way, the state will barely respond at all. Even though conservatives want them to defend the marriage ban, the Governor and Attorney General ...
It's a name you might not recognize if you're not a political wonk, but his anti-gay crusade could spell disaster for California's LGBTs.
Maldonado is California's current Lieutenant Governor. It's a relatively low-profile job: he basically just has to look busy in case anyone ...
Our smackdown of the National Organization for Marriage struck a chord this week, with over 30,000 views! Keep passing the word around, especially if you have any friends in the media -- it's important for reporters to understand that NOM isn't presenting "the other side of the argument," they're simply tellin...
The National Organization for Marriage put out a new video last week, and of course, it's full of lies about Prop 8. So let's go point-by-point through their claims, and explain why they're utterly wrong.
This was apparently a week for reflection, as we peeked behind the curtains of some cutting-edge research this week, examining the social and psychological science that formed the basis of Judge Walker's decision. Check out this article (written by Stop8.org founder Matt Baume, BTW) that explains ...
If elected, Meg Whitman says that she would defend Prop 8 -- but would she even be able to? No, says the Courage Campaign. Her inauguration would be in January, but the Ninth Circuit hearing is scheduled for December. ...
Whew, well, it's been quite a couple of days, hasn't it?
Prop 8 has been found unconstitutional based on "overwhelming evidence", but that doesn't mean it's going away. While the proponents appeal his ruling, Judge Walker may allow the ban to stay i...
Okay, conspiracy theorists, get this. The anti-gay NOM launched a bus tour awhile back, featuring rallies at various community areas. The rallies have been so sparsely attended that a lot of folks have wondered why NOM is doing this, and the HRC thinks they have an answer: they're trying to bait LGBTs into angrily counter-protesting, so the anti-gays can bolster their claims about being oppressed ...
We got some slightly-encouraging news this week in the form of a new survey showing that 51% of California voters support gay's freedom to marry. But don't get too worked up over it: for one thing, a study last month showed that surveys...
Impatience for the Perry v. Schwarzenegger ruling is reaching a fever pitch, with a rumor spreading on Thursday that drew a small crowd to the courthouse ... only to discover that Walker's chambers were closed.
The excitement was ...
There's still no word from Judge Walker on Perry v. Schwarzenegger -- those pins and needles we're all sitting on are starting to hurt! But that hasn't stopped folks from reflecting back on the case and making optimis...
It's a wrap: This week, we heard closing arguments in Perry vs Schwarzenegger, and now Judge Walker could rule at any moment.
There was only one last-minute surprise: the Prop 8 proponents asked the judge to ...
Hey folks! Netroots Nation is a giant national conference for progressive online leaders, and it's coming up next month in Las Vegas. Here's the exciting part: Freedom to Marry is holding a scholarship contest to send one lucky blogger to the conference. And Stop8.org founder Matt Baume is among the ten finalists!
Click here to give ...
This is it! Get ready for closing arguments in the Prop 8 case. We're counting down the last few seconds on the clock before everyone reunites in court to plead their final case.
One one side, there's the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which named two new...
Is David Blankenhorn a liar, forgetful, or both? It's been a bad week for the anti-gay witness who first claimed that he'd never heard of not-at-all-gay minister George Alan Rekers; and then later had to change his story and admit that he had, in fact, read some of Rekers' writing just before the Prop 8 trial. ...
This weekend wasn't just the very first official Harvey Milk Day: it was also a prime opportunity for canvassing, fundraising, and gearing up for the 2012 election. EQCA had a full slate of activities planned all around the state, with nearly 1,0...
A quiet week for Prop 8 news, the flashiest headlines came from the Courage Campaign, which launched its "Testimony: Equality on Trial" project.
It's a neat idea: they started with Hollywood celebrities (or in some cases, Hollywood-ish), and had them read trial transcripts from Perry vs. Schwarzenegger. It's an effort ...
David Boies sure is Mister Popular lately: normally too hard at work on the case against Prop 8 to give interviews, he popped up in multiple venues this week to do interviews.
I don't know if you could really use the word "gleeful" to describ...
Are you on the edge of your seat yet? The last few days have been all about suspense! Mystery! And secret documents!
The big news, of course, is that we finally have a date for closing arguments in the Prop 8 trial, Perry vs Schwarzenegger. (I will be very happy when the day comes that I do not have to remember how to s...
This week's Prop 8 news ranges from the funny to the mind-bending.
First, the funny news: The National Organization for Marriage likes to keep busy poking its nose into other peoples' lives. So busy, in fact, that they didn't have time to protect their blog against sneaky hackers, who configured the site to redirect traff...
Late breaking news: The campaign to repeal Prop 8 has officially fallen short of the required signatures. (Actually, that's probably not news at all to anyone who's been following their woefully accelerated campaign.) With 2010 ruled out for a repeal, all eyes turn in unison to 2012.
Meanwhile, Prop 8 characters have be...
Gubernatorial primaries are scooting towards us (June) and the general election isn't far behind (November), so Arnold Schwarzenegger and his successors are increasingly top-of-mind.
A couple of news articles gasped this week about Republican candidate Tom Campbell, who's ...
False alarm! Last week's noises about possibly broadcasting the closing arguments of the Prop 8 trial were effectivey squashed. Judges, it would seem, are just a really shy group of people.
But that hasn't...
The pins-and-needles of the Prop 8 trial continued this week with new signs that the closing arguments might be televised.
Although the dates for the closing arguments still haven't been announced, that hasn't stopped court-watchers from speculating about cameras covering the event. That speculation heated up this week when ...
