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The New York Times Gay - Rights Groups Buoyed by Recent GainsBy AP from nytimes.com on the Web, June 19, 2007
Three more states --
Elsewhere, politicians who became
the first openly gay members of their state legislatures have had an impact,
helping pass gay-rights bills or thwarting measures they viewed as anti-gay.
In ''It makes a difference when it's personal,'' Webb said in a telephone interview. ''It's harder to ignore the evidence when it's a friend and colleague who's talking.'' In Dallas, openly gay city councilman Ed Oakley emerged from an 11-candidate field to reach Saturday's runoff election for mayor. Though he lost, activists were pleased by his 42 percent support in what traditionally has been considered a conservative city. Other trends have buoyed gay-rights leaders, including: -- Bright prospects for congressional passage of two gay-rights bills: a hate-crimes bill that would cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias, and a measure that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. -- Intensifying demands for repeal of the ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy that bars openly gay people from serving in the military. The Bush administration supports the policy; all the Democratic presidential candidates oppose it. -- The broad repudiation of anti-gay remarks by several national figures, notably TV actor Isaiah Washington, commentator Ann Coulter and the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace. Gay marriage, however, remains the highest-profile issue.
Activists have been elated by some
recent developments, including In response, some conservative groups hope to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2008 that would ban gay marriage. Such a campaign would trigger massive spending from both sides.
''The outcome of that race will
have a huge impact on how quickly we'll be able to move forward in other
states,'' said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force. ''If we lose in
A similar ban is expected to be on ''There's no question that's a challenge, but we're definitely up for it,'' said John Stemberger, president of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council. With Democrats controlling Congress, conservative leaders have scaled back their campaign for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and acknowledge that recent political momentum has, in many cases, not been with them.
''The homosexual lobby is receiving
some payback for putting their time and resources into electing liberals to
office,'' said Matt Barber, cultural issues policy director for Concerned Women
for
Looking ahead, both sides are aware
of opinion polls showing that that while a majority of older Americans oppose
same-sex marriage, half or more of young Americans support it. Barber
blames this on gay-rights ''propaganda'' in the public schools and on television
-- resulting what he called the ''Will and Grace-ification of
Evan Wolfson, who heads the
advocacy group Freedom to Marry, says public opinion is shifting inexorably
toward recognition of same-sex couples as Americans observe the experiences of ''When people push past the politics and look at the reality, they realize families were helped and no one was hurt,'' he said. ''The other side may continue to score a few points, but I think most of them now understand they are going to lose.''
The president of the largest
national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign,
attributed much of the momentum on his side to the results of the 2006 election
-- when liberal gains led directly to the passage of gay-rights
legislation in states such as ''Fear has given way to fairness in terms of how people view these issues,'' he said. |
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