Vice President Joe Biden Is For Marriage Equality: VIDEO

This morning on Meet The Press, in an interview with David Gregory, Vice President Joe Biden announced his support of marriage equality.

Watch Joe Biden on Meet The Press AFTER THE JUMP...

Here's a transcript of the relevant part of the interview:

Gregory: You write social policy. I'm curious. You know, the president has said that his views on gay marriage, on same sex marriage, have evolved. But he's opposed to it. You are opposed to it. Have your views evolved?

Biden: Look -- I just think that, uh, the good news is that as more and more Americans come to understand what this is about, it's a simple proposition. Who do you love? Who do you love? And will you be loyal to the person you love? And that's what people are finding out. It's what all marriages, at their root, are about. Whether they're marriages of lesbians, or gay men, or heterosexuals.

That's what you believe now?

That's what I believe!

And you're comfortable with same sex marriage now?

Look. I'm Vice President of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual -- men and women marrying – are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.

In a second term, will this administration come out behind same sex marriage? The institution of marriage?

Well, I, I can't speak to that. Uh, I, I, I, I don't know the answer to that. But I can tell you --

Sounds like you'd like to see it happen. If that's where the president ...

Well, the president continues to fight. Whether it's Don't Ask Don't Tell, or whether it is making sure, across the board, that you can't discriminate -- look at the executive orders he's put in place. Any hospital that gets federal funding, which is almost all of them, they can't deny a partner from being able to have access to their partner [who's] ill, or making the call on whether or not they, you know ... it's just, this is evolving. And by the way, my measure, David -- and I take a look at when things really began to change, is when the social culture changes. I think Will and Grace probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far.

And I think people fear that which is different. Now they're beginning to understand, they're beginning to understand that this -- as a base! -- I, uh, was speaking to a group of gay leaders in Los Angeles last, two weeks ago. And one gentleman looked at me in the question period and said, let me ask you, how do you feel about us? And I had just walked in to the backdoor of this gay couple and their, their two adopted -- and I turned to the man who owned the house, and said: What did I do when I walked in? He said: You walked right to my children. They were seven and five, and giving you flowers. And I said, I wish every American could see the look of love those children have in their eyes for you guys, and they wouldn't have any doubt what this is about. 

This is the kind of off-the-script vice-presidential headline-making that any administration can either hurry to embrace or else attempt to slink away from. Interestingly, the Obama administration seems to be doing both. 

According to the Washington Post, a "Biden spokesperson" clarifies:

[The Vice President] was saying what the President has said previously -- that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights.

On Twitter, President Obama's Communications Director, David Axelrod, is more succinct:

What VP said-that all married couples should have exactly the same legal rights-is precisely POTUS's position.

Good to know.

Watch Joe Biden on Meet The Press AFTER THE JUMP...

Zach Wahls Talks With Piers Morgan About The Sanctity of Marriage: VIDEO

Wow. Suddenly Zach Wahls is everywhere. I mean -- everywhere! He's everywhere! And his book's not even out yet.

Friday he was on the Piers Morgan Show, talking about the real threat to the sanctity of marriage in America. As always, young Mr. Wahls is very erudite and very right. Watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

New Hampshire Lawmaker Tries To Explain Why Marriage Equality Is Bad

The New Hampshire House will vote on HB 437 this week; an ugly little piece of legislation which could repeal the state's 2009 marriage equality law. As Andy reported Wednesday, the House will also vote on something known as the "Bates House Amendment," which will put the following question on the November ballot:

Shall New Hampshire law allow civil unions for same-sex couples and define marriage as the union of one man and one woman?

Note how, at a glance, the question appears to be pro-gay rights. It's tricksy that way precisely because Rep. David Bates, the Wyndham Republican who spoke grandly last week about the importance of New Hampshirites having their say, knows that heavy majorities in his state don't want to roll back extant marriage equality laws.

Well -- HB 437 has at least one staunch ally in the New Hampshire State legislature who feels no need for that kind of lingual pussyfooting. That's Rep. Gary Hopper, a Republican from Weare. He's taken to his Facebook page to explain the importance of HB 437, and here's what he says:

HB437 The Repeal of Same Sex Marriage is going to be voted on this week.

I will be voting for it.

NH Constitution Part First “[Art.] 6. [Morality and Piety.] As morality and piety, rightly grounded on high principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection;” 

Piety (reverence for God and Family)


The idea is simple, if people are self regulated by their own moral compass less government is needed to keep the peace.

Traditional marriage has provided the best environment to raise children but it was severely diminished in the 1970s by no-fault divorce.
That change made the focus of marriage on the individual and not the family. Since that change teen suicides have gone up 10x, the social cost has been mind boggling. In fact over 90% of the children in the care of the Department of Child Youth Services are from single parent or broken homes not to mention how many young people who have ended up in prison as a result.

The traditional family is the best place to raise children and any further erosion of that standard only destroys our country more and increases the size and scope of government.

http://family-men.com/WEB%20DOCUMENTS/EFFECTSOFDIVORCEHeritage.pdf

Rep Gary S Hopper
Weare NH

Strong families= Small government

"If we want less government, we must have stronger families, for government steps in by necessity when families have failed."
-- Jimmy Carter. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, ASTATEMENT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, AUG.3, 1976in I THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

That's what New Hampshirites are up against. It doesn't for a moment occur to Hopper that the "morality and piety" mentioned in the NH Constitution might mean something very different to (say) a Unitarian than it does to him. And he doesn't understand that his own words --

...if people are self regulated by their own moral compass less government is needed...

-- undermine both his own position and New Hampshire's famously individualist spirit. "Self-regulated," "their own moral compass" -- gays have selves, too, and moral compasses. Hopper doesn't know this. Someone should tell him. 

The paper he cites as evidence of his position, by the way, isn't about marriage equality. It's a Heritage Foundation paper from the year 2000, discussing the evils of no-fault divorce. In general, its message seems to be that more marriage is good, less marriage is bad. Noted.

UPDATE: Previous typo misidentified Gary Hopper as "Gay Hopper." Corrected, gigglingly.

Contrary To Previous Reports, The President Has No Opinion On NC Marriage Amendment

On Friday, Barack Obama quietly involved himself in the fight over the North Carolina anti-marriage amendment. Or he instructed his campaign to get involved. Or maybe his campaign just got involved and Obama knows nothing about it. Anyway -- his campaign in NC, at least, has very strong feelings about the North Carolina anti-marriage amendment, as Andy's already reported. Meanwhile, the press acts like Barack Obama just officiated a gay wedding at the Capitol Building in Raleigh.

A representative text, from the Boston Herald:

With North Carolina a key battleground state, Obama decided to take the potentially risky step of wading into a divisive social issue.

"While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the president has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples," said Cameron French, his North Carolina campaign spokesman.

So it goes at ABC, WashPo, HuffPo, just about every place. But nobody's got a comment from the president, and the actual words of spokesman Cameron French suggest that French has never spoken to the president about the anti-marriage amendment at all -- "the record is clear that the president has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples" makes it sound as though French has taken a good look at Obama's record and deduced what the president's position would be, if only someone asked his opinion.

Of course, Cameron French probably wasn't saying anything he wasn't authorized to say. But the way he said it, as though trying to provide a sprig of political cover in case Obama should need to court a homophobe's vote between now and November, is inescapably weasely. And unnecessarily so, since the news media can't tell the difference between Cameron French and the POTUS anyway. 

Win/Win: DOMA Found Unconstitutional In District Court

 

A U.S. district judge ruled today in two cases that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services was brought by the attorney general of the state of Massachusetts (much-maligned failed Senate candidate A.G. Martha Coakley). Judge Joseph Tauro (a Nixon appointee!) ruled DOMA to be in violation of the 10th Amendment, the amendment guaranteeing states' rights.

Gill v. Office of Personnel Management led to a decision that DOMA is in violation of the 5th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law.

From the former case:

"This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the Commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status. The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and, in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statue is invalid."

Full decisions are here. Do you think President Obama will appeal these cases because he "has to"? Or will he take this opportunity to be on the right side of history? I'm curious to know what his actual options are.

A note on what this means from Talking Points Memo:

"...this is a federal district court decision. To become law it would have to survive the inevitable appeal to the federal circuit court level and then, if it made it there, get through the Supreme Court, which under present management seems hard to imagine." 

Freedom to Marry sends this statement:

"Today's historic ruling strikes down federal marriage discrimination enacted under the so-called 'Defense of Marriage Act' in 1996...Today's ruling affirms what we have long known: federal discrimination enacted under DOMA is unconstitutional. The decision will be appealed and litigation will continue. But what we witnessed in the courtroom cannot be erased: federal marriage discrimination harms committed same-sex couples and their families for no good reason."

Linda Lingle must be the saddest person ever.

This news was first broken by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders legal organization via Twitter—you may want to follow them here.

In even more potentially good news, Judge Vaughn R. Walker's calendar for July is clear—his ruling on Perry v. Schwarzenegger could come at any time—and it's expected to be another cause for celebration.

 

News: LeBron James Sucks What?, Glenn Beck U, Calamari Calamity, GLAAD Unhappy With The View

 Gay (but celibate) nominee Rev. Jeffrey John is probably out of the running to become Bishop of Southwark in South London.

 Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council is praising Gov. Linda Lingle of Hawaii for vetoing civil unions. BTW, he's on the record calling for homosexuality to be criminalized and for gays to be deported from the United States.

 LeBron James branded a "cocksucker"—in a bad way—by Gawker.

 The psychic octopus (no sentence should ever begin this way, but there it is) who successfully predicted the outcome of all the German World Cup matches has received death threats.

 Jon Kortajarena, Andrés Velencoso and more of the world's top male models get naked (NSFW) for V Magazine.

 What it's like to enroll in Glenn Beck's Beck University. First course: Faith 101.

 The Outrate Online Short Film Festival 2010 is under way. (NSFW ads.)

 Homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist...now Mel Gibson can add "wifebeater" to his résumé. Allegedly.

 The video for "Crossfire"—Brandon Flowers's first-ever solo single—premieres in the U.K. today.

 GLAAD is after The View, specifically appealing to Barbara Walters over Sherri Shepherd and guest host D.L. Hughley's misinformed remarks that HIV is more prevalent in black women due to the number of gay and bisexual black men on the downlow.

 Gay men seeking asylum in the U.K. should be "free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts and drinking exotically coloured cocktails." Nice thought, but probably not the main reason they fear returning to their home countries.

 The Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor gay-themed film I Love You, Phillip Morris was screened at The Budapest Gay Pride Festival on July 4. (Anyone see it?)

 Republican Rep. Aaron Schock—who is absolutely not gay—is once again celebrated for his good looks. As a legislator, he makes a great fitness model.

 The California governor race is all tied up. Which is good news and bad news for both Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman.

 Gay activist Peter Rosenstein endorses D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray in the Washington, D.C., mayoral race. He'd previously worked as an advisor to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, but "it's another sign that many longtime local Democratic and civic activists are coalescing around Gray because of concerns about Fenty's personality and governing style."

 A supplements supplement.