Gay Marriage/Civil Unions in 10 years

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Really? He's always been a weasel. Actually, I think this gives the Vermont House more incentive to veto-proof it.

Democrats+VT Progressives have a veto-proof majority (barely, 96+5 of 150). Not sure on which Democrats will vote against/which Republicans will vote for, though. I would assume the 5 VT Progressives are a lock. There are also two independents whose ideology I don't know.

Frankly, it says volumes about Vermont that a majority of the Senate Republican caucus voted for gay marriage.

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The bill just passed the VT House committee: 7 Democrats and one Republican for, two Republicans against. (A fourth Republican was not present but has said she was in favor.)

The pressure is really building on this; Douglas is likely to face a veto-proof majority at this point, I think, and there has been a strong backlash from Vermont's traditional liberal Republicans, not all of whom had left the party yet. He may lose his nerve and not veto after all, especially if the legislature looks likely to just override the veto. Douglas is not known for his bold decisions.

(By the committee vote, that's at least two Republicans for, probably more than that, and, by the Senate vote, there will be a lot more pro-gay marriage Republicans than anti-gay marriage Democrats, supported by the committee vote.)

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Yeah, but:

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Not sure why they would vote against the bill itself but vote for an override, but I'll take it all the same.

They are apparently annoyed at Douglas for announcing his veto intent before the vote and want to punish him politically. At least, that was what the two nay-override Democrats said who were quoted in the Burlington Free Press.

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What be it based on?

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/will-iowans-uphold-gay-marriage.html

Not the greatest methodology.  Too little consideration for socially progressive Protestants, and excessively high ranking for less-religious but still bedrock-conservative states.  Wyoming before Illinois?  Utah up so high?  Please.

The gist is right, though:  New England, the Pacific Northwest, minoritied Democratic states, the Midwest and Southwest, the Rocky Mountain states (which I'm moving for them), the Plains States, the peripheral South, the Deep South.

A big part of the problem is that he considered evangelical Christians but not Mormons as a factor against gay marriage. Obviously, Utah would be one of the last states willing to support it, same with Idaho. Wyoming I'm not so sure about; it doesn't have many Mormons, either.

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Most interesting because it was the first legislative legalization. And probably paves the way for a similar vote in New Hampshire soon, and maybe also in Rhode Island once Chafee is governor. No idea about Maine, but the push to legalize same-sex marriage throughout New England seems to be proceeding rapidly ahead of schedule.

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I bet there is going to be an initiative to get it on the ballot? Or is that not possible?

Why bother? Vermont would just vote 60% against the referendum anyway.

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DC just voted today to recognize foreign and domestic same-sex marriages. (DC can't actually legalize same-sex marriage without the permission of Congress. Where they have no representation. Yay, democracy!)

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WAIT Are those the new ads in NJ/NY/RI/IA/etc? I find it stupid that they're targetting states that mostly already wouldn't mind having marriage equality. Then again, money talks.

The ads are kind of strange. I get the impression that they'll just make people around here think the anti-gay marriage movement is crazy (more than they already do), but perhaps not. The ads just seem to play to the sorts of fears you're not going to find in these states (except maybe Iowa). People just aren't that religious.

There are a lot of people (read: Catholics, although Orthodox Christians, too) around here who rarely if ever go to church but who oppose gay marriage, but they don't oppose it because the scary gay people are going to persecute Christians, they oppose it because it's different.

But what do I know? My family's too WASPy for me to be all that tuned in to what the Italians and Hispanics and Russians are thinking. I may be underestimating the strength of the ads.

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"My freedom will be taken away [by the gays]"

Her liberty of what?

Don't you understand? Gay people are just anti-liberty by nature. You allow them in a society and give them equal rights, and the next minute all of your freedoms are being sucked away in a vortex of homosexuality to be replaced by gay world domination and ritual sodomy of Christian-born babies.

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Actually... if you want a sin, you could look at how voters rejected an amendment in Arizona in 2006 cause it could've possibly affected straight couples, but when it only targeted gay couples, they passed it.

Well, it was the polygamous Mormon splinter groups who opposed it the first time, IIRC. They objected to the "one" part rather than the "man and woman" part.

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Ah, even in states like Arizona, their money goes far.

There are a lot more Mormons in Arizona than in California (11%, IIRC). And Arizona tends to be where the splinter-group ultra-crazy Mormons live since the mainline Mormons mostly kicked them out of Utah (or at least out of the populated areas in north-central Utah) decades ago.

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11%! Do you have a link or source for that? I mean, Colorado is only 2% and it's right beside it.

Can't find it right now, but the mainline LDS church has about 375,000 members in Arizona, or around 6% of the population, plus the splinter groups. The reason Apache, Navajo and Coconino counties are not overwhelmingly Democratic despite containing the Navajo and Hopi reservations is because much of the rest of the population of those counties is Mormon.

Arizona is also considerably less Mormon than Nevada (around 15%) and Idaho (around 25%).

The Pew survey is definitely an underestimate; they've estimated it much higher in past years (Note the large margin of error). I found the survey that had Mormons at 11%, which may admittedly be an overestimate. It was only of "active adherents", which were less than half of the population:

http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/state/04_2000.asp

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     Didn't Governor Lynch of NH threaten to veto a bill that allowed gay marriage though? I might be remembering incorrectly.

No. You're either remembering his threat to veto a bill abolishing the death penalty, or Jim Douglas's threat to veto gay marriage.

Jeanne Shaheen also vetoed an attempt to abolish the death penalty around 2002, and then the abolition was passed by a Republican legislature (!).

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There are always guns and illegals to recycle, as well as pointing out the creeping Godlessness which stalks the Fruited Plain. Maybe the Dems will stub their toe on the death penalty.

Moving right along, what is a real wedge issue?  You guessed it: card check!  It's war baby.

It's only a wedge issue if people care about it. The really hilarious thing about the EFCA debate is that it's blatantly obvious almost no one cares one way or another. That's why one wording of a poll on the subject found 76% in support while another wording found 74% opposed.

It also makes all the politicians "changing their minds" a bit silly. It's not like they're actually going to receive any political punishment for voting for (or against) a bill that no one cares about. Just vote your conscience.

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There, fixed it.

Oh, I know. I didn't say it wasn't important, just that the public has absolutely no interest whatsoever.

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Moreover why didn't they do the axis at a regular interval and then interpolate?  That makes the pattern look a lot more linear than it obviously was

Actually, it looks even more linear if you plot the data by year:

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It's worth noting that Democrats have a veto-proof majority in the Maine House (96-54-1), but not in the Senate (20-15). I'm not sure how many, if any, Republican crossover votes might be expected.

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Well, I don't think [well, I hope] Baldacci would pull a Douglas.  Why tank his popularity as he's retiring?  Just because he's opposed to something doesn't mean he has to veto it.

Maine might get gay marriage before New York.

Baldacci is already unpopular. He only won reelection in 2006 because his opponent was a fundy kook (and then only barely because the moderates voted for Barbara Merrill). But he did probably oppose gay marriage strictly for electoral purposes; Baldacci is that kind of politician, just a hack who only supports things which will get him elected.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2006&fips=23&f=0&off=5&elect=0

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Oh, David. You can't do anything right, can you?

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stgay2312683138apr22,0,7338900.story

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The same-sex marriage bill was voted down in NH committee, with Democrat Deborah Reynolds voting against. That doesn't necessarily mean the bill will fail, since bills don't have to go through committee to be approved in NH, but it probably means the Senate will not take up the bill.

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Reynolds is interesting because she represents the part of NH I would expect to be most strongly in favor of same-sex marriage. Basically, the Vermont part of NH. No idea about the other two.

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The NH Senate vote is today, if you want some bad news to calm your optimism.

Although UNH says same-sex marriage enjoys 55% support to 39% opposed in the state:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090429/FRONTPAGE/904290337

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Let's just say that I am shocked...

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090429/BREAK/904290299/1030

Back to the House for the amendment, though. I have no objection to the amendment, although I think it's frivolous. (Basically, saying that the state won't force churches to conduct marriages--which is implicit anyway.) I can't see the House rejecting this version after passing the earlier version.

No news on who switched their intentions. On BlueHampshire's count, all of the waverers must have voted yes, plus either a Republican, Reynolds or DeVries.

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No. He's been silent on the issue. I don't think he expected the Senate to pass the bill. There are some indications that the Democratic Senators (in the end, just one or two) who voted against the bill did so to spare Lynch a "tough" political decision. That is, he might only get 65% of the vote in 2010 if he doesn't veto it

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he'll probably just not sign it and let it become law...

Probably. At the beginning of the session, when all bills were introduced and being debated, Lynch said he would only veto three bills: the death penalty repeal, income tax and sales tax. So, those bills never passed and won't end up on his desk.

He has said that he will, at least, veto the medical marijuana bill the Senate passed at the same time as the gay marriage bill.