Marriage Equality Now Seattle

United for a Healthy Washington, a group started by the Hate to Hope Coalition, is urging people in Washington State to decline to sign intiative I-946. The initiative, if put in the ballot and approved, would make it illegal to provide basic human and health services to people that cannot show proof of legal immigration status. It is part of the blatant right-wing Republican attempt to criminalize and denigrate immigrants –regardless, really, of their immigration status– that is sweeping the country.

Immigration is an issue that is closely tied to the fight for LGBTQ equality — and not only because many immigrants are LGBTQ people, sometimes forced to stay in the US illegally because they cannot marry their partner. This is also an issue where the right-wing is trying to persecute and remove rights from a minority — immigrants, especially of Hispanic origin –, the same way they are trying to persecute and remove right from LGBTQ people.

For more on the link between immigration rights and LGBTQ rights, you can read this press release from The Task Force.

Some good news from Georgia and Oklahoma… From an AP article, via Feministe: In Georgia, a Superior Court Judge struck down the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage based mostly on a technicality (the ballot included multiple subjects instead of just one as is allowed). While this is good news, it won’t really do much to change the public perception (76% voted for the amendment), and will probably fan the flames of those who like accusing “activist judges” of daring to do one of their main jobs, mainly protecting the minority from tyrannical laws by the majority.

On other news another judge in Oklahoma struck down the state’s anti-gay-adoption law, and this time it wasn’t due to a technicality at all:

U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron ruled Friday the measure violated due process rights under the U.S. Constitution because it attempted to break up families without considering the parents’ fitness or the children’s best interests.

Again, as you can read in the article, the Republicans complain about pesky judges getting in the way of their unconstituional discriminatory laws. Both of these separate lawsuits, by the way, were initiated by Lambda Legal.

From Reuters, via the Washington Post: Arlen Specter and other Republicans in the Senate judiciary committee agreed to bring the federal marriage amendment up for a vote in the Senate. Specter said he doesn’t support it but thinks it should be voted on anyway. The interesting thing is that Sen. Russ Feingold, who has already said he supported full marriage equality, ended up walking out of the meeting in frustration.

“If you want to leave, good riddance,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter told Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold, who refused to participate because, he said, the meeting was not sufficiently open to the public. “I’ve enjoyed your lecture too. See you later, Mr. Chairman,” Feingold told the Pennsylvania Republican before storming out.

Right, don’t worry about the NSA surveillance scandals, the war in Iraq, gas prices, global warming… Let’s discuss “real problems” like how the world will end once same-sex couples can marry!

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee’s top Democrat, said the gay marriage ban was a waste of time for a committee that needs to tackle a wide range of other pressing issues, from judicial nominations to oversight of the National Security Administration’s domestic-spying program.

If you haven’t done so yet, remember to contact your Senators and tell them you strongly oppose the federal marriage amendment!

Today’s PI local section has an article about the WA State Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the so-called Defense Of Marriage Act. Nothing new or that wasn’t known already, but they mention how the anti-gay people are expecting a decision supporting same-sex marriage, and the speculations that the court may be waiting till after the election to rule on what they likely see as a very controversial topic.

It’s pretty strange how in the state the Supreme Court justices are actually elected; it just seems they can’t do their job very well on these kind of topics if they are worrying about their next election campaign as well.

After it failed to pass in 2004, Rick Santorum has asked for a new vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, that would write discrimination into the US Constitution by explicitly prohibiting same-sex marriage.

Even though most or all Democratic Senators are expected to vote against the FMA if it ever comes to a floor vote, it’s important to call or email them anyway and let them know that you strongly oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment and support marriage equality for LGBT people. This is even more important if you live in a state with Republican Senators!

You can use the handy ERW Action Alert to send an email, or you can look up your Senator’s phone numbers here. In Washington State, you can contact Senator Murray at 206-553-5545 and Senator Cantwell at 206-220-6400. Make your voice heard!

From the Washington Post:

On Thursday, the state Supreme Judicial Court — the same court that legalized gay marriage in its landmark 2003 ruling — was set to take up a challenge about whether the ballot question can go forward.

It’s interesting to see that even when the marriage equality issue may appear settled, we still need to work hard to change people minds and convince them that not letting same-sex couples marry is simply discriminatory and wrong; it’s not all over once a Supreme Court ruling comes down.

Marriage Equality Now members will be participating in today’s May Day march for immigrant rights in Seattle. We will also be passing out bilingual flyers in support of marriage equality. If you’d like to make your own copies to distribute, or just see how the flyer looks like, you can get the PDF here.

Hope to see you at the march!

Update:
A few of us went to the march, and it was great! It was huge, probably larger than the April 10th march, and we handed out almost all our flyers. It was great to see all the people and flags, the banners from Northwest Immigrants Rights Project and Jobs with Justice, and even a large rainbow flag among the sea of people. We’ll try to put some pictures up soon; for now, you can take a look at other photographer’s photos on flickr here and here.

Welcome to the new website for Marriage Equality Now! With this website we hope to keep you up-to-date on the group’s happenings, as well as general marriage equality information. You can subscribe to the latest news via RSS feeds (what’s this?), and to our event calendar via the Ical link on the left-hand side (you can add our event calendar to your Yahoo or Google calendar, or your Mac calendar if you use a Mac).