The pro-SSM glitterati of New York were too busy last Thursday evening fundraising for gay marriage for Maryland to notice the Republican flip-floppers they had paid off last summer were going down in electoral defeat in their own backyard:
Susan Sarandon attended Thursday's fundraiser to push gay marriage in MD
In one corner, comedian Sandra Bernhard, wearing a sparkly black skirt, chatted with a longtime fan. In another, Broadway producer Paul Boskind made a pitch to Susan Sarandon. Somebody shouted that Josh Charles had just arrived.
"This is a hip crowd, this is chic," said Richard Socarides, a lawyer and gay rights activist who did a stint in the Clinton White House. "This is a crowd for a movie premiere, not a ballot initiative in Maryland, of all places."
The occasion Thursday evening was a big-ticket fundraiser atop a SoHo hotel to support the campaign to uphold Maryland's same-sex marriage law, which goes to voters in November. About 200 guests paid between $250 and $25,000 to mingle for two hours with celebrities, munching on shrimp and caviar hors d'oeuvres.
Donors from across the country are expected to use their checkbooks to weigh in on Maryland's same-sex marriage referendum. Groups supporting same-sex marriage are making a concerted effort to raise more money nationally to help break a string of defeats at ballot boxes in other states. -- The Baltimore Sun
David Freedlander writes in the Daily Beast about false expectations -- and about what the real consequences of voting to redefine marriage are:
"... It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
When the four bucked their party leadership, renounced their longstanding opposition and voted to bring gay marriage to New York, they were hailed far and wide as the fearless four, touted for their courage and independence. Their votes came after marriage equality failed in the legislature in 2009, and Andrew Cuomo made it a major focus of his first term in office. Supporters of the bill launched a months-long, full-throated lobby campaign, complete with celebrity pitchmen like Lady Gaga and Larry King. After voting with the Democrats to legalize same-sex marriage, the four GOP senatorswere granted long, loving profiles in The New York Times Magazine and Time. Mayor Mike Bloomberg threw a pricey fundraiser for them in Manhattan. Gay marriage backers assured them that they would remember their vote for every Election Day hence—even if the candidates were running against Democrats.
“We are in it for the long haul with any supporter of gay marriage,” Brian Ellner, the lead lobbyist behind the effort, said in June 2011 as he was trying to convince the four to support the bill. “We have not lost a single supporter because of their support of marriage equality in an election and we are certainly not going to start now.”
But the results so far have left supporters of gay marriage fearful that the primary will dissuade other Republicans around the country from supporting same sex marriage.
... But anti-gay-marriage groups like the National Organization for Marriage used the little-noticed primary to send a message to Republicans around the country who are thinking of switching over. “The message we sent was pretty simple,” said Brian Brown, executive director of NOM. “If you are a Republican and you vote for [gay] marriage, you are going to lose.”
Republican primary voters in New York punished two incumbents last week who voted to legalize same-sex marriage, firing a potential warning shot nationwide toward GOP lawmakers who could soon face tough votes in their states.
Two of the four veteran — and long-secure — Republican senators in New York who voted for same-sex marriage a year ago await counts of absentee ballots as they sweat out the political fight of their lives. A third announced his retirement this year in the face of strong opposition to his gay marriage vote.
... In Maryland, the referendum is on a law passed this year after opponents submitted enough signatures to put the question on the ballot. Two Republicans in the House and one in the Senate voted for gay marriage and all face election in 2014.
"Any Republican legislator faced with this vote is going to think twice," said Robert Bellafiore, a political commentator and former top aide to Republican Gov. George Pataki of New York. "I don't think there is any question this going to have a chilling effect across the country."
In Minnesota, Steve Smith, who was one of the longest serving House Republicans, lost his GOP primary last month to a candidate with tea party supporters. His opposition to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was one of the reasons. -- AP
"...If some of the more conservative GOP voters turn against Grisanti and vote for Swanick over the same-sex marriage issue, Amodeo said, that could prove an unbeatable obstacle to the incumbent.
"Sen. Grisanti would have to make up the difference in Republicans that are voting for Chuck Swanick," said Amodeo, 32. "He's going to have to add Democrats, and then thousands more on top of that, because of the makeup of the district.
"Last time I checked, a lot of Democrats don't vote Republican."
"... LGBT rights advocates have criticised the announcement by the Socialist Party, saying that without “medically assisted procreation”, such as artificial insemination, the bill doesn’t have much clout."
... She argued that the process same-sex couples must go through already proves their commitment to parenting. “As a lesbian couple we can’t just wake up in the morning and say, we’re going to have a baby,”
“Without medially assisted procreation, procreation is near impossible. It would be terribly hypocritical for the Socialists to introduce an ‘equality’ bill without allowing us the same parenting rights as our heterosexual peers. Half-hearted equality is not equality.”
Last week the pro-SSM Empire State Pride Agenda offered the ridiculous consolation to Republican flip-floppers who lost (or are in danger of losing) their primaries that "the focus of the Pride Agenda has always been on November."
Apparently the Pride Agenda doesn't care that most Republican flop-floppers won't even be able to compete in November having lost their races well before then.
And what about Shirley Huntley, the Democrat who flip-flopped and lost her primary last week? What help will the Pride Agenda's November promise be to her, whose political career ended in September?
Future politicians tempted by the promise of support from state-level gay marriage groups like the Pride Agenda should take note.
North Carolina is a key swing state and the Obama campaign hoped holding their convention in Charlotte would boost the President's chances. But his endorsement of gay marriage and the sour economy is causing him real, persistent troubles, as this new poll shows:
Mitt Romney has cleared the 50% mark again in the battleground state of North Carolina despite the presence of the Democratic National Convention there little over a week ago.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely North Carolina Voters shows Romney with 51% support to President Obama’s 45%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Senator Stephen M. Saland, a lawyer from Poughkeepsie, has served in the New York State Legislature for 32 years. In 2010, he won re-election by 19 percentage points. And since then, he has raised $788,000 for his campaign war chest — more than 40 times what his challenger in the Republican primary raised.
Yet a day after the primary, Mr. Saland clung to a 42-vote lead on Friday over a little-known opponent, Neil A. Di Carlo, and faced the prospect that he could lose his seat after absentee ballots are counted. Mr. Di Carlo waged a shoestring campaign focused in large part on one issue: Mr. Saland’s decision to break with his party last year to provide one of the pivotal votes to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.
As the absentee ballots continued to trickle in to county election offices on Friday, Mr. Saland remained unsure of his political future. So did Senator Roy J. McDonald of the capital region, a Republican who also voted for same-sex marriage and who ended primary night in a contest that was too close to call against Kathleen A. Marchione, the Saratoga County clerk.
... Brian S. Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, said, “I think it’s the clearest example of the fact that if you are a Republican and you vote for gay marriage, this is a career-ending move.”
Mitt Romney sent this video message to the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC this weekend -- the largest gathering of social conservatives before November. In it he promises to "Defend marriage, not redefine it" and says America needs a President who will respect our traditional values:
A priest who helped found a gay ‘marriage’ advocacy group for Catholics has been suspended from distributing the sacraments or representing himself publicly as a cleric by his bishop.
The National Catholic Register reported Monday that Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles had spoken to Rev. Joseph Palacios, co-founder of “Catholics for Equality” (CFE), a small group created two years ago with strong connections to the Human Rights Campaign.
... Palacios told the National Catholic Register that he and his bishop “mutually agreed” that the priest would not minister publicly while promoting a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. “We agreed that I would stay on inactive status as long as I am politically active,” he said.
The priest, who is also on the Board of Governors of the Human Rights Campaign, appears as “Dr. Joseph Palacios” on the CFE website.
Tod Tamberg, director of media relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the Register that Palacios “is on inactive leave without faculties.”
“He should not be wearing a Roman collar, should not be celebrating Mass, nor may he present himself as a priest in public,” he said.
"...it is clear the National Organization for Marriage and other traditional-marriage groups drew some blood. One of the four Republicans, James Alesi, announced his retirement earlier this year rather than face a potential challenger. Senator Roy McDonald of Saratoga Springs has apparently lost, and Senator Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie had a 42-vote lead with 600 absentee ballots left to be counted."
... The only clear survivor among the pro-gay marriage senators who were targeted is Buffalo Republican Mark Grisanti. But 40 percent of Republicans in his district voted against him, and he faces a Conservative party challenger who could drain enough votes from him to cost him the general election against a Democrat this fall.
The results in New York’s primaries are only a warm-up act for battles over gay marriage this November in four left-leaning states that voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Voters in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington will all decide ballot initiatives on the issue."
Five of the six Rhode Island Senate candidates who support same-sex marriage lost during the state’s Democratic primaries Wednesday, despite massive backing from special-interest groups.
“The Rhode Island Senate looks like it will again be safe for defending marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” National Organization for Marriage Northeast Director Chris Plante told CitizenLink.
Incumbent Sen. Mike McCaffrey, who supports marriage and the right to life, beat Laura Pisaturo, who supports same-sex marriage.
In addition to Pisaturo, the other same-sex marriage supporters challenging incumbents or vying for open seats who lost Wednesday are David Gorman, Gene Dyszlewski, Lewis Pryeor, and Robert DaSilva. Adam Satchell scored a victory over Sen. Michael Pinga, making him the only state Senate candidate supporting same-sex marriage to win Wednesday night.
...“The sanctity of marriage is on a knife’s edge in Rhode Island, quite honestly,” Plante said. “Speaker of the House Gordon Fox has announced that he will have a vote on redefining marriage in January, and we are looking to the Rhode Island Senate to defend marriage as one man and one woman.”
Politico's Maggie Haberman on the results of the NY primaries:
"...The two Senators, Roy McDonald and Stephen Saland, both representing more conservative areas north of New York City, were within a few hundred votes of their primary challengers. McDonald had been watched closely, but Saland's close race came as a surprise."... the other two races are now likely to come down to absentee ballots. And they're a reminder that the GOP base remains in a different place on same-sex marriage than some of the party's prominent fundraisers and former officials, even in a blue state like New York."
This is the address given by the president of the National Civic Council, Peter Westmore, to the Australian National Marriage Day Rally outside federal parliament last month:
"...We often hear media commentators say that the push for same-sex marriage is inevitable. If we listen only to the chattering classes, we could believe this to be true.
But in fact, it is not true. There were over 200 countries competing in the Olympic Games, but same-sex marriage is performed in only 11 countries, most of which are in Western Europe, and in a small minority of states of the USA.
In other words, same-sex marriages are not performed in over 190 countries, including Australia, which cover around 95 per cent of the world’s population. We are in the majority.
Nor is this a religious issue. There is not one country in Asia which has adopted same-sex marriage; yet in general, they are not Christian, and their cultures go back thousands of years. Moreover, they are also more technologically advanced than we are. There is not one country in the Islamic world, there is only one in the whole of the African continent and one in South America where same-sex marriages are performed and recognised." -- NewsWeekly
"Two New York state senators who were instrumental in legalizing same-sex marriage in the state were in electoral limbo Friday after Republicans turned out in force for their opponents in a close primary that could hinge on the counting of paper ballots.
... National groups opposing gay marriage had targeted the senators, vowing to unseat them in Thursday's primary. Gay-rights advocates, in turn, poured more than $1 million into the races as they sought to make inroads among the GOP and provide evidence that Republicans can vote for gay rights and not be punished at the polls.
Sen. Saland
...All three GOP incumbents had the backing of party leaders and outspent their opponents by lopsided margins. They were praised by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised money for them.
But Messrs. McDonald and Saland now face the possibility of becoming the first Republican senators in New York to be defeated in their party's primary since 1992, when George Pataki seized a state Senate nomination on his path to governor.
... Mr. Saland said it was a "one-issue" campaign. "My bigger disappointment is with the thousands who didn't come out despite my record of service to the community," he said Friday.
"If he hadn't cast that vote, I don't think anybody would have challenged him. People are not happy with that vote," said Kieran Michael Lalor, a tea-party-backed Republican running for state assembly from Mr. Saland's district.
... But for 81-year-old Janet Stedman, who backed Mr. Di Carlo, Mr. Saland's gay-marriage vote was the deciding factor. "That's what did it for me," she said.
Republican primary voters in New York punished two incumbents last week who voted to legalize same-sex marriage, firing a potential warning shot nationwide toward GOP lawmakers who could soon face tough votes in their states.
North Carolina is a key swing state and the Obama campaign hoped holding their convention in Charlotte would boost the President's chances. But his endorsement of gay marriage and the sour economy is causing him real, persistent troubles, as this 
The National Catholic Register reported Monday that Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles had spoken to Rev. Joseph Palacios, co-founder of “Catholics for Equality” (CFE), a small group created two years ago with strong connections to the Human Rights Campaign.
Incumbent Sen. Mike McCaffrey, who supports marriage and the right to life, beat Laura Pisaturo, who supports same-sex marriage.
"...We often hear media commentators say that the push for same-sex marriage is inevitable. If we listen only to the chattering classes, we could believe this to be true.
