Marriage equality news from all over (the US)
Remarkable stuff keeps happening in the world of marriage equality. Some tidbits from the past couple weeks:
- Washington state signed marriage equality into law. Sadly, before it can go into effect, there will most likely be a referendum in November to approve or reject it. (Possibly even two different referenda with opposite Yes/No phrasing.) (Washington United for Marriage will presumably work to defend the new law against the referenda, if you want to help out.)
- The New Jersey legislature passed a marriage equality bill. Gov. Christie vetoed it. The legislature now has two years to gather enough votes to override the veto. (I'm guessing that Garden State Equality is involved in that effort, but I'm not certain.)
- The Maryland legislature passed a marriage equality bill, and Gov. O'Malley is going to sign it soon. Here too there'll most likely be a referendum in November before it can go into effect. Still: Eight states! Plus Washington, DC! (If you want to help out, I'm guessing that Equality Maryland will be heavily involved in trying to defeat the referendum.)
- Maine passed an equality law in 2009, but a referendum that year rejected it. Now equality advocates have gathered enough signatures for a new referendum this year to bring it back. (Want to help pass the referendum? Donate to Equality Maine.)
- An equality bill has been introduced in Illinois, but it sounds pretty unlikely to pass.
- I already talked about the Prop 8 ruling a couple weeks ago. Now the Prop 8 proponents have filed a request to have that case re-heard by a larger panel of the appeals court. (This is not unexpected; it was one of their most likely options.) I've seen speculation that they're hoping for a less-narrow ruling in order to make it more likely that the US Supreme Court will agree to take the next appeal.
- A Federal judge in California has ruled DOMA unconstitutional. This is the second time that's happened, and I think there are a few other cases currently awaiting decisions too. The US-House-Republican-appointed legal committee assigned to defend DOMA (because the Obama administration has said that they're not going to) will presumably appeal all such decisions.
- A gay hairdresser in New Mexico has made clear that the reason he declined to cut the governor's hair a couple months ago (after having cut it two or three times some months earlier) was her opposition to marriage equality.
- A lesbian judge in Texas is refusing to marry opposite-sex couples until Texas has marriage equality. (On the one hand, I think that's kinda awesome—but on the other hand I worry that it's a little too close to those state officials in states that do have marriage equality who've declared that they won't marry same-sex couples. Haven't thought through this at all, just musing.)
- There are marriage-equality bans under consideration in legislatures in North Carolina and Minnesota, alas.
A lot going on, much of which won't be decided until November or later. Fingers crossed that everything goes well.