In case you somehow haven't heard by now: Supreme Court to Hear Two Challenges to Gay Marriage

“One of the cases, from California, could establish or reject a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. The justices could also rule on narrower grounds that would apply only to marriages in California.

The second case, from New York, challenges a federal law that requires the federal government to deny benefits to gay and lesbian couples married in states that allow such unions.

The court’s move against the backdrop of a rapid shift in public attitudes about same-sex marriage, with recent polls indicating that a majority of Americans support allowing such unions. After the elections last month, the number of states authorizing same-sex marriage increased by half to nine.”

David Blankenhorn’s evolution on marriage equality is emblematic of the paradigm shift we are experiencing as a country on this issue. Loving gay and lesbian couples should not be denied the ability to make the same lifelong commitment as everyone else and Blankenhorn’s agreement with that proposition puts him in the mainstream of American opinion.

Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin • Discussing David Blankenhorn, a once-star proponent for California’s controversial Proposition 8, and his shift towards supporting marriage equality, which he expressed in an op-ed in the New York Times, which you can read here.  Blankenhorn founded the Institute for American Values and testified in favor of Prop. 8 during the trial in California.  source (via • follow)


This asshat was a guest speaker in one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. Our professor, the lovely Jonathan Zimmerman of NYU, brought in two speakers, one for and one against gay marriage. It’s obvious which side he was on. His main argument circled around the idea that a family should contain the biological mother and father, and that any other familial union stems from tragedy. Because he so vehemently believes that all children would go looking for their biological parents (which is valid), a same-sex couple raising a child is denying said child of something so fundamental that their marriages should not be recognized. Not getting the leap in logic here? Neither did my class. We kept trying to get an answer to why it was so fundamentally important to have the biological father be around in a loving, fully functioning, lesbian family, and he just kept stonewalling us. The idea that kids who grow up in gay families fare, on average, no better or worse than those in straight families, made on difference to him. He claimed that even if that were true, gay marriages should not be recognized by the state. He was deaf to the dangers of not recognizing the custodial rights of the non-biological or non-adoptive gay parent. If his op-ed is to be believed he hasn’t changed his mind about any of this - he’s just accepting that his bigotry is slowly becoming less and less defensible. There’s a reason this guy crapped-out at the Prop 8 trial.

Radical, Not Moderate: The Republican Presidential Debate Revealed How Radically Far Right the Mainstream GOP Has Shifted

I couldn’t watch the debate as I was studying for that aforementioned midterm.

This article is more than a little scary.

And this is not ok. Sure, extreme candidates on the right make it more likely that the left will retain executive control until at least 2016. But I never want to see Obama or any other liberal go against people like Michele Bachman. The American electorate, in parts or as a whole, is never as predictable as you might think, especially since only about half of all eligible voters actually bother. And that’s in a presidential year.

There are apocalyptic scenarios running through my head where people think that an Obama win is a foregone conclusion and don’t bother to vote. Isn’t that how Prop 8 got passed and how Mike Bloomberg got re-elected?

I’ll take a moderate Republican who might take Obama out over a radicalized one any day. Maybe after Primary season people like Mitt Romney will come to their senses. Then again, we saw what happened when McCain got in the potential presidential spotlight so maybe not. I’ll never forgive him for pulling Sarah Palin out of obscurity.