Tag: citizenlink

Faced with the prospect that New York lawmakers will make gay marriage the law there this week, Christian organizations are touting new polling data that runs counter to data brought out in waves by major nationally respected firms such as Gallup over the last two years showing fast-expanding support among the U.S. population in favor of extending marriage rights to the millions of gay Americans.

The latest ruling in the legal battle over California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, like all other rulings and semi-rulings and arguments and positions in the battle, has poked up a hornet's nest of cheers and complaints from supporters and opponents of gay marriage. Yet momentum in general seems to be turning fast against the anti-gay marriage forces and it is the same in the latest clash.

Under pressure from gay rights groups, Atlanta-based international law firm King & Spaulding announced it was pulling out of a deal struck with Republican leaders to defend the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of the House of Representatives. Paul Clement, the high-powered attorney who spearheaded the arrangement for the firm, has resigned and announced he will now take up the case as a member of conservative-politics-associated firm Bancroft PLLC.

Teenagers who live in politically conservative parts of the country are more depressed and suicidal than teens who live in politically progressive parts of the country, according to a study by Columbia University psychologist Mark Hatzenbuehler published this week. The study comes as the nation, spurred by media coverage of recent tragic youth deaths, reckons with the fact that school harassment drives gay young people in particular to depression and suicide. It also comes in the wake of competing days dedicated to drawing attention to school bullying, the Day of Silence organized by gay rights groups and the Day of Dialogue organized by Colorado Springs-based Christian group Focus on the Family.

DENVER-- In the week since state Senator Pat Steadman introduced his civil unions bill here, gay rights group OneColorado and Colorado Springs-based hristian-right organization Focus on the Family have rallied supporters with press releases and calls to action. OneColorado argues in favor of the bill, saying it's a matter of equality and of economic fairness. Focus on the Family argues against the bill, but not because it opposes civil unions, which it concedes most fair-minded people will support, but rather because it believes civil unions lead to legally recognized same-sex marriage.