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Loading ...Gay marriage throughout New England by 2012?
11.18.2008 5:15pm EST
(Boston, Massachusetts) The Boston-based group that won equal marriage rights in Massachusetts and Connecticut said Tuesday it intends to fight for gay marriage rights in the other four New England states and predicted success by 2012.
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders announced the campaign on the fifth anniversary of the Massachusetts court ruling that opened up marriage to gays and lesbians. GLAD dubbed the campaign “Six by Twelve.”“We can make New England a marriage equality zone by strategically combining existing legal, electoral, and on-the-ground know-how to fast-track marriage in every New England state,” said GLAD Executive Director Lee Swislow.
“By 2012, we not only can have marriage equality throughout New England, we can have a road map for the rest of the country.”
GLAD said it would achieve this goal through litigation and by working with statewide equality groups and with MassEquality, which lobbied politicians and led the fight against two bids over three years to void gay marriage through constitutional amendment.
“The route to marriage equality looks different in each state—not every state is ripe for a marriage lawsuit like Massachusetts and Connecticut,” said Swislow.
“Through our collaboration with MassEquality, we can add value to the state equality groups. To the state groups’ local knowledge, grassroots experience and organizing strength, GLAD brings legal and communications expertise and MassEquality brings proven experience in legislative, political, and electoral strategy. This combination will accelerate the pace to marriage equality.” Swislow said.
In Connecticut ,GLAD teamed up with Love Makes A Family to achieve marriage equality.
In the remaining four states, GLAD said it would work with Equality Maine, Marriage Equality Rhode Island, Vermont Freedom to Marry and a variety of allies in New Hampshire.
GLAD’s announcement comes on the heels of Proposition 8 in California, a voter-led initiative that amended that state’s constitution to end same-sex marriage there.
I’m from Mass. Congratulations to Conn.!
I would love to see all of New England come together and fight for equality,everywhere! I am so sorry for the
people in Cal.and prop 8.
Trust me,I cried right along with you.
I came out in the ’70s and it still
amazes me just for far we have come.
It may have taken 30 years to get here,
but we did get here!
Prop 8 is going down.Equality will be ours!
Keep emphasizing full CIVIL Marriage Rights, CU’s an DP’s not the same and can be ignored by homophobes…Marriages cannot be ignored!
I can only hope that New Hampshire gets marriage equality, we passed a civil union law with very little backlash or even attention, I’m not sure how well gay marriage will go over seeing our state is still somewhat considered a swing state. I think Vermont and New Jersey will pass gay marriage because their civil union laws have been found to be inadequate by many studies. I think that if New England came come together to fight inequality the rest of the country will start to follow, but we must also not let any more gay marriage bans pass like they want to do in Illinois and New York.
You’re absolutely right Jason. This is how I’ve felt and written Facebook Notes about this strategy to friends. California was looked upon as a great anchor for the same-sex marriage campaign, and then that was pulled out of the water and we were afloat again. So I hope New England will gain momentum for it and New York will eventually be our great anchor. Let’s hope and press for those trying to take that potential away from us in New York- and further Illinois like you said- to not be successful. Thanks Jason.
Contact state politicans in Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine urging them to pass marriage equality. Do it NOW, it’s very important to get them on your side while you can.
We need to have a strategic plan. Egos should be excluded. It is quite clear that the marketing and advertising campaign for prop 8 failed. We need to get the best of our best to work on the next one(s). We should start working on it now and it must include focus groups inclusive of fence sitters, staunch opposers, and supporters. We need to be smart about this.
>Contact state politicans in Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine urging them to pass marriage equality. Do it NOW, it’s very important to get them on your side while you can.
The intention here is very good, but the tactic is way too limited. I think that people would get more accomplished by contacting the local pro-gay-marriage group (or contact Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or MASS Equality in MA, and maybe they can point you to the local group in your state). As the people know who orchestrated the victories in MA and CT, victory really depends upon a multi-faceted and coordinated effort. Writing letters is too individualistic (actually, the local organizations could assist by telling you when the *timing* of the letter writing becomes important, usually before a vote). There are a lot of other things that went on that were a part of the winning efforts in these two states: house parties that raised money/awareness, letters to the editor of your local papers, coming out and making your LGBT families more visible, working on the election bids of local politicians to get pro-gay-marriage candidates elected (and targeting and defeating anti-gay-marriage local candidates), bringing your family to the state house on “meet our families” day, and more.
I strongly urge you to hook up with the organizations that are doing the coordinating. Make your individual effort part of a larger, effective system.
One of the most effective things that happened in MA was that, right after the first threat of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, our opponents predicted that they would be able to unseat all politicians who supported gay marriage. Later that year and for the year or two afterward, due to a ton of hard work and strategy, NONE of the pro-marriage state legislators got defeated, and we were able to replace a handful of anti-gay legislators with pro-gay-marriage newbies. This “made it OK” for more moderate legislators to move over to our side, because there were no clear, negative ramifications for supporting gay marriage. (The opposite was true, in fact: you’d get new money and ground troops from the gay community helping you to get re-elected.) This is an example of the kind of work that goes wayyyy beyond writing a letter.
Write the letters. But hook up with your local pro-gay-marriage organization and get involved in some of these critical, local activities.
New England shines again! What a great place. Please, come all of you to visit us and get married. We need the tourism dollars and as Romney said Mass will become the Las Vegas of gay marriage. Let’s prove him right.
I would love to see the movie and tv biz move here from California over prop 8. I know it won’t, but it would be great to show all those bigots how valuable our dollars are.
My husband and I have always vacationed in California…skiing and wine…and we have planned to spend January there each year once we retire. Now I’m not so sure..but that’s a long way off (20 years) so hopefully we won’t have any reason to withold our dollars from other states.
Who knows, maybe we’ll winter in Alabama! ha..I doubt it.
Go New England. My dollars are behind this effort.