See also 10 Gay Documentaries Everyone Should See.

A domestic partnership law is the wrong place to start the discussion. Those who object to the state applying family law norms to same-sex relationships see it as a way to sneak gay marriage into the law books.

Those who support same-sex marriage view it as a less-than-equal legal status that does not carry one of the most important benefits of marriage – its universal recognition.

In a school, hospital or courthouse, everyone understands the family relationship of marriage and the rights that go with it. A new institution with an unfamiliar name would not have the same weight.

We support full marriage rights for same-sex couples because we believe they are entitled to equal protection under the law. Marriage is the best building block for stable, supportive families, and families led by same-sex couples should have same legal rights and obligations as those led by heterosexual couples.

That editorial appeared on January 25, 2009 two weeks after Equality Maine and its partners in the Maine Freedom to Marry Coalition unveiled a bill that would extend civil marriage rights to same-sex couples in Maine. To counteract efforts to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, Republican State Rep. Les Fossel has proposed a domestic partnership bill that he is holding up as a “compromise.”

As we have learned again and again in places like California, Connecticut (before marriage was legalized) and New Jersey, creating separate structures like domestic partnerships and civil unions for the recognition of same-sex relationships does not work. By virtue of their being separate categories, they are inherently unequal. And, in their daily lives same-sex couples have experienced the shortcomings of being relegated to separate and unequal legal structures.

Pursuing domestic partnerships legislation is only a pragmatic tactic in places where it clear that marriage will not become a reality anytime soon and only as part of a pragmatic and multi-pronged strategy to provide real benefits for LGBT families while moving towards the goal of marriage equality.

Maine is one of the few places in the country where we can win and keep marriage equality. It is in no way going to be easy and our brothers and sisters in Maine will need the help of all of us in this fight.

This is a fight that can be won. Make a contribution to support the marriage work of Equality Maine now.

We too often hear religious leaders denigrating LGBT and attempting to scapegoat us for everything they see wrong with the world.

To have these men state clearly and unequivocally that being gay is a gift from God is something that gay and straight people need to hear again and again.

Equality Matters is using the power of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to spread the message about the importance of equal rights for LGBT people. The group is asking people to change their profile pics to one of several Equal Matters created graphics, post links for the event to their profiles and status to with a message promoting equal rights for LGBT Americans.

From the Equality Matters press release:

“If the gay community is going to achieve equality, we need to find new ways to educate the American public and reach them where they spend their time. We felt the best way to achieve that was to take advantage of the web and sites like Facebook,” said Bruce Namerow, founder of Equality Matters.

Since its launch just over one week ago, the Facebook event has attracted more than 135,000 invited guests with more than 40,000 registering their intent to “attend” this virtual event. The numbers continue to grow rapidly and organizers are hopeful that numbers will exceed 100,000 before the event begins on January 18.

There has been a lot of discussion in the LGBT community about the efficacy of online actions for equal rights vs actions that happen in the bricks and mortar world. I think that looking at activism in this kind of black and white way ignores the fact that we need more people working in a multiplicity of ways to build the LGBT movement and advance equal rights.

Online actions like the Online March for LGBT Equality, the actions organized by Join the Impact etc should not be seen in a vacuum. Activists who are developing innovative organizing tactics online should be working closely with traditional lobbying and grassroots organizations on unifying strategies that can take advantage of the strengths of both kinds of organizing.

The power of the Online March for LGBT Equality lies in its use of Facebook as an organizing and communications tool.

When any member of Facebook updates their status with an equality message, RSVPs for the march or changes their profile pic to one of the Equality Matters graphics, that information will show up in the newsfeeds of all of their friends. That viral quality will help to spread the message and garner new supporters who will themselves increase the viral nature of the action.

For me as someone who has been organizing at the national level for nearly ten years, the question is how do we combine the online and the offline in innovative and more effective strategies that have real world impact and build the movement for LGBT equality.

For more information, visit Equality Matters.
RSVP for the Online March for LGBT Equality on Facebook

The question was asked on Open for Questions. The section of www.change.gov where Americans can ask questions of the new administration and vote on the questions that should be answered.

Repeal of DADT will allow the thousands of gay and lesbians service members to serve openly and honestly.

In this excerpt from a DC community forum on marriage organized by DC for Marriage last month, I outline the challenges and opportunities we face in winning marriage in the District.

Members of the DC City Council including openly gay members David Catania and Jim Graham are working on strategy for a marriage bill’s introduction. In DC we are in the enviable position of having the overwhelmingly majority of our elected officials on record as supporting a bill to end marriage discrimination against same-sex couples.

We are also unique in that Congress has oversight over laws passed in the District. That means that Congress can prevent or delay a marriage law from going into effect.

There is also the possibility that we would face an initiative or referendum to block marriage for same-sex couples similar to anti-gay campaigns that stripped marriage from same-sex couples in California and that prohibit marriages in Arizona, Florida and numerous other states.

In preparation for a marriage fight, DC for Marriage, a project of the DC LGBT Community Center, is working with local and national organizations to create a campaign to win and retain marriage equality. As we move forward, we are going to need the help of everyone LGBT and allied who believes in equal marriage rights.

A fundraiser for DC for Marriage will be held on Sunday, January 11 at Be Bar located at 1318 9th Street NW. The event will be be from 5-8pm with the $5 admission and 10% of the proceeds going to DC for Marriage.

Disclosure: I am chair of DC for Marriage and member of the board of directors of the DC Center.

To get involved, email me at michael@dcformarriage.org.

Rather than acknowledge that voters wanted something more than stunt casting out of a vice-presidential candidate, Palin goes on the attack against the “liberal media elites and anonymous bloggers” and blames them for the disastrous campaign that she and John McCain ran.

Democrats everywhere have to be celebrating that Sarah Palin is now unleashed.

Rather than acknowledge that voters wanted something more than stunt casting out of a vice-presidential candidate, Palin continues her meme that it was media bias particularly Katie Couric and Tina Fey that doomed her candidacy for the vice-presidency.

When asked about her incoherent interview with Couric Palin says “Couric is not the center of the universe.”

Palin even claims that if she had run as a “reformer” on the “Democrat ticket,” we would have a seen a different and “prettier profile of Sarah Palin and the Palin family.”

Sorry Sarah, but unlike the McCain and the Republican Party, Barack Obama and the Democrats would never have made the embarrassingly cynical choice of having you on a presidential ticket.

Bond, a political veteran who has headed the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and held several positions at the Democratic National Committee, will have managerial and strategic responsibilities for the entire Public Liaison office as well as function as the point person on LGBT issues. The liaison office is tasked with communicating and promoting presidential policies to individual constituency groups and serving as a sounding board for the president on policies that affect certain interest groups.

Bond served as Director of Constituency Outreach for the Obama-Biden campaign.

This appointment follows the appointments of two other openly gay people to the Obama administration including Brad Kiley as Director of the Office of Management and Administration and Nancy Sutley to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

While Frank has become the congressional go to gay and all issues LGBT, his status as one of three openly gay members of Congress has taken a back seat to the credibility and influence that he has built over the years specifically on financial and economic issues. As chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, Frank has had a key role in the federal responses to the banking and auto industry crises.

There’s nothing like a gay with real political power.

In the article Frank talks about a wide range of issues including the prospects for passing pro-LGBT legislation:

Frank is uncharacteristically hopeful about the future, including gay rights. “We’re going to do three things in Congress,” he told me. “First, a hate-crimes bill–that shouldn’t be too hard. Next, employment discrimination. We almost got that through before, but now we can win even if we add transgender protections, which we are going to do. And finally, after the troops get home from Iraq, gays in the military. The time has come.”

Frank is controversial among some in the LGBT community for his past willingness to support a version of ENDA that did not include gender identity and expression and liberal pragmatism. Whatever your opinion of Frank, you cannot deny that he knows how the game is played and his message has been clear: if we are to win LGBT equal rights then we had better get off the sidelines and get on the field prepared to fight.

Regarding ENDA Frank says “we can win even if we add transgender protections, which we are going to do.” We need to hold him and the Democrats to that.

And, we need to be prepared to do the work necessary to ensure that an inclusive bill reaches Obama’s desk.

In the Huffington Post Nancy Goldstein says:

Was Van Sant afraid that audiences wouldn’t be sympathetic if 70s-era gay activists were people who suffered, swore, fought back, and fucked like they meant it? If the street kids actually looked like dirty, starving, broke-ass teen hustlers?

Gay history — unedited — is ugly, angry, and violent. It’s police dragging us out of cellar bars and down to the station to gang fuck the femmes and face-rape the butches, queens, and trannies. It’s military witch hunts; suicides and “experimental therapies,” from lobotomies and electro-shock to Christian boot camps. It’s Stonewall, where we showered raiding police with bottles, locked them in the bar, and set it afire. It’s ACT UP and chaining ourselves to pharmaceutical companies’ fences to protest AIDS drugs price gouging.

Of course, Milk offers a sanitized version of Harvey’s life and that particular moment in gay movement history. It is a film produced and distributed by Hollywood that stars mainstream actors like Sean Penn, Diego Luna and James Franco. But, that doesn’t make it any less an important film.

I say that not because the film is likely one of the first film’s about a hero of the gay movement that straight people will see. Or, even that it is the first film about a gay movement hero that a lot of gay people will see.

The importance of Milk is that it will open the eyes of young people, both gay and straight, to a key figure in the movement for gay rights and ideally will whet their appetites to learn more.

Along with telling stories about how they walked 12 miles to get to the lone gay bar in the next town over across unpaved roads wearing homemade outfits cobbled together with pluck and a Bedazzler, older gays love to point fingers at young gays and accuse them of being ignorant of gay history and the gay movement. This may be true, but ignores the reality that the straight majority has colluded to render us and our history invisible. And, it ignores the fact that older gays have a responsibility to do more than pass judgment about what younger gays may or may not know.

We have a responsibility to share that knowledge and to create opportunities for gay and straight, young and old to learn about the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender and the straight allies who have stood with us in our fight for equal rights.