“The Census Bureau's most recent estimates of same-sex couples reiterate the need to end marriage discrimination once and for all,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry. “The number of gay and lesbian couples in committed, loving relationships, raising families together, continues to grow, leaving more and more families without the critical safety-net of marriage.”
When Evan Wolfson founded Freedom to Marry in 2003, the pro-gay marriage group was a part of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and it had an budget that ranged from $1.2 million to $1.4 million annually for roughly the next seven years. The organization was an “internal movement strategy center” and a cheerleader for the marriage drive.
MERI and Ocean State Action have joined forces with national marriage equality campaign Freedom to Marry and online grassroots organizing platform Courage Campaign in an effort to “[reach] out to Rhode Islanders to make sure that Senator Reed hears from his constituents who want him to join in support of the Respect for Marriage Act,” according to Marc Solomon, National Campaign Director of Freedom to Marry.
A coalition of local and national advocates for same-sex marriage have launched a campaign urging Senator Jack Reed to join the other three members of the Rhode Island delegation in supporting a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday sharply revised downward its estimate of the number of same-sex households across the country, reflecting confusion over how to accurately count gay and lesbian couples that have gained varying degrees of legal recognition of their partnerships over the past decade.
The government of the United Kingdom announced September 17 that it would begin a “consultation”—a formal process of soliciting input—on how to implement civil marriage for same-sex couples.
In the wake of the British Conservative Party's endorsement of gay marriage, President Barack Obama is being urged to follow in the footsteps of Prime Minister David Cameron and endorse such unions.
Today, the Associated Press released polling that showed that a majority of Americans support "the government giv[ing] legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex." The 53 percent support the poll found was not surprising, as several polls over the past year have reached similar results.
A North Carolina congressman who opposes a state anti-gay marriage amendment will now cosponsor federal legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
The North Carolina Legislature gave its final approval on Tuesday to an amendment that would make a ban on same-sex marriage part of the state constitution — sending the measure to the ballot in May 2012.
A House bill to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act has now attracted 122 cosponsors—two more than the total number of sponsors from the previous congressional term, when the legislation was first introduced.
A new national report provides data to back up what many have sensed for a long time: that the positive shift in America’s attitudes toward equal rights for LGBT people has a lot to do with age.
The senior U.S. senator from Maryland has agreed to co-sponsor legislation that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act after LGBT rights supporters sent a petition of nearly 3,000 names to her office urging her to support the bill.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to directly respond Monday to a recent media report revealing that $2.2 million in federal money that had gone to an Iowa group aided in its efforts to undo marriage equality in the state.
More than 3,000 people have signed on to a petition urging Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski to co-sponsor a bill that would seek to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbids federal agencies from recognizing the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples.
A petition with more than 3,000 signatures is expected to be delivered today to the office of U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, urging her to sign on as a co-sponsor of a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
Evan Wolfson, founder and president of the national Freedom to Marry organization, said the dispute “Highlights how unfair marriage discrimination is, adding to tensions and bad actions even within families.” And DOMA, he says, “gives those who would tear families apart an extra weapon to use even if the weapon itself is not appropriate.”
The senior U.S. senator from Maryland is facing increasing pressure to sign on as a co-sponsor of legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act amid plans to win marriage equality in her state in 2012.
With the first marriages in New York, the attendant ocean of joy and sense of turning-point experienced by gay and non-gay people alike across the country, and the first-ever congressional hearing on the Respect for Marriage Act (the bill to repeal the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act) all in the past few weeks, the freedom to marry proved the one major topic to break through the gloomy and terrifying debt ceiling and get people talking.
“What is particularly unsatisfying is that the president is making these arguments at a time when we strongly suspect he knows otherwise,” Wolfson continued.” I do not think this president should be invoking states’ rights as a way to avoid saying that denying the freedom to marry is wrong. It rings inauthentic and untrue and is a jarring false note in his public posture, particularly in light of the recent actions of his administration.”