I know who gets my vote for man of 2009. Will Phillips.

Phillips is ten years old and hopes to be a lawyer in the future (Will,  if I’m still around I’ll be your first client). He’s a smart boy, skipping grades and such, and is comfortable talking about Teddy Roosevelt. He recently decided not to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance when it was recited in his Arkansas elementary school. Why? Because there is a chasm between the words and the rhetoric, especially when gays and lesbians are involved.

“I’ve always tried to analyze things because I want to be  a lawyer,” Phillips said. “I really don’t feel that there’s currently liberty and justice for all.”

He didn’t come to the decision compulsively off the cuff. Asked his parents, who have many gay friends, if it was against the law not to stand for the pledge. When he got the legal, and parental, okay, in early October he stayed seated as his class stood up. The teacher, a substitute, and Phillips didn’t see eye to eye on this type of civil disobedience and eventually the young Henry David Thoreau was sent to the principal’s office.

So a ten year old boy has decided it’s time to show little solidarity with gays and lesbians. Typically some of his peers are giving him grief, but Phillips  notes many of his classmates have no problem with what he’s doing. And at least for now, he’s not standing up until gays and lesbians are treated as full, and equal, citizens.

Ten years old. What a wonder.

Whenever I get up in arms about religious organizations, my friends remind me of all the good work they do. Homeless shelters, feed the hungry, social outreach, community building, these are all part of the church/shule/mosque environment. So I nod and feel a little guilty for being so judgmental.

But then the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington goes and does something so silly and weird, I get all incensed all over again.

Today, they announced that they would be pulling their social services in Washington D.C. if the gay rights measure is approved. Their argument: they might be forced to extend employment benefits to same-sex spouses if they choose to keep working with the city.

First, Catholic charities gets huge amounts of money from D.C. in order to perform their good works. As in, they are being paid to help people, they are not necessarily doing it out of the goodness of their heart. If they don’t want to provide these services, the city can hire some other group to perform their functions.

Second, extending employment benefits to the few individuals who work for you who don’t already get those benefits is really so costly that you have to stop serving the 68,000 people in need in D.C.? Really? Ok then, why is it that we want you involved in social services again?’

Third, if we do make politics secular – as in no religious involvement at all – wouldn’t we be making things easier for gay, Jewish, Muslim and athiest homeless people in D.C.?

I know it’s a knee jerk reaction, but my response to the Catholic threat is “good riddance!”

The Utah-based church’s support ahead of Tuesday night’s vote came despite its steadfast opposition to gay marriage, reflected in the high-profile role it played last year in California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure that barred such unions.

“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.

Passage made Salt Lake City the first Utah community to prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under the two new ordinances, it is illegal to fire someone from their job or evict someone from their residence because they are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.

Utah lawmakers tend to quickly fall in line when the influential church makes a rare foray into legislative politics. So Tuesday’s action could have broad reaching effects in this highly conservative state where more than 80 percent of lawmakers and the governor are church members.

“What happened here tonight I do believe is a historic event,” said Brandie Balken, director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah. “I think it establishes that we can stand together on common ground that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are lot of things that we can work on and be allies.”

But the church has pointed out an inherent dispute it has with the gay lifestyle. Mormonism considers traditional marriages central to God’s plan. Gays are welcome in church, but must remain celibate to retain church callings and full membership.

It’s strong support for Proposition 8 in California last year drew a sharp reaction from gay rights supporters nationwide, with many protesting outside temples that singled out Mormons as the key culprits in restricting the rights of gay couples.

Since then, however, Utah’s gay community has sought to engage church leaders in quiet conversations to help foster better understanding, said Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Utah Pride Center.

“I thought this conversation would never come to be while I was here in Salt Lake City,” said Larabee, adding that the discussions have “shifted her perspective of what’s possible” and could foreshadow a different relationship between the two sides.

But addressing the council on Tuesday, Otterson said the endorsement is not a shift in the church’s position on gay rights and stressed it “remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Church support for the ordinances is due in part to the way the legislation was drafted to protect those rights. Exceptions in the legislation allow churches to maintain, without penalty, religious principles and religion-based codes of conduct or rules.

“In drafting these ordinances, the city has granted common-sense rights that should be available to everyone, while safeguarding the crucial rights of religious organizations,” Otterson said Tuesday .

Previous Utah legislation that sought statewide protections for the gay community did not contain those exceptions.

And although this was the church’s first public endorsement of specific legislation, it is not the first time the church has voiced support for some gay rights. In August 2008 the church issued a statement saying it supports gay rights related to hospitalization, medical care, employment, housing or probate as long as they “do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.”

Last year, church leaders were silent on a package of gay rights bills known as the Common Ground Initiative, dooming them from the start.

But how do you think yesterday’s election results will influence gay travel patterns? Will queer innkeepers in the very LGBT-friendly and gay-welcoming town of Ogunquit, Maine suffer thanks to the same-sex marriage defeat? Will you change your Ogunquit travel plans and head to Provincetown instead, since Massachusetts has legal gay marriage? Does that even make sense when planning your vacation?

Ben Finzel is senior vice president and head of the public affairs practice at Widmeyer Communications, and has specialized in LGBT communications practice and travel, working with tourism bureaus and following travel trends. “Travel is a personal decision, particularly for our community,” offers Finzel. “Maine is a naturally beautiful state with many wonderful attractions and lots of great people – many of whom are LGBT. I think gay travelers need to make up their own minds to either choose to travel to Maine to demonstrate the positive power of our travel or choose to stay away to demonstrate the negative financial impact we can have on destinations that oppose LGBT equality. You can make a strong case for either position.”

Finzel continues: “Whether or not gay travelers choose to visit Maine in the future, I think we should all make a point of being out, visible and vocal in our travel decisions. Choose service providers that engage with our community and tell them that’s why we chose them. Consider whether or not we feel comfortable visiting specific destinations and engage people in those destinations as we’re considering where to go.”

Need some new possible places to consider as a result of Tuesday’s elections? Quite a few cities saw some gay victories. Chapel Hill, North Carolina will have a gay mayor as the newly elected Mark Kleinschmidt takes office. And Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, could have an openly lesbian mayor; Annise Parker scored the most votes in her race against her opponent; she now faces a heated run-off come December. These are good steps.

Meanwhile, other gays candidates won never-before-held city offices in Detroit, Akron, Ohio and St. Petersburg, Florida. And bless Kalamazoo, Michigan for passing a highly debated ordinance protecting LGBT rights. Now in Kalamazoo it will be illegal to discriminate against gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals in the areas of hiring, housing and public accommodation in the Michigan city. And Washington State saw its domestic partnership laws upheld, too.

But what does this mean for LGBT travel. Do election results influence where you go?

Certainly, the LGBT community always pays attention to how gay-friendly a destination is, legislatively or culturally. And we’ve gotten quite good at picking out which companies we travel with based on their queer-friendly practices. That needn’t change.

“Increasingly, gay travelers are thinking much more strategically about where we spend our travel dollars,” says Finzel. “We look at the level of engagement that airlines and car rental companies have with our community, we consider the role of hoteliers in anti-gay ballot initiatives and we consider how gay-friendly a destination might be based on factors such as safety, role of pro-gay companies in their communities, etc. With so many travel providers and destinations taking an active role in proactively and positively seeking our business, we are realizing we have choices and can choose not to support anti-gay companies or destinations with our travel dollars.”

“I think the next big trend is going to be our community looking for, and demanding, that companies and destinations that want our business earn it with active involvement in opposing anti-gay ballot initiatives and related efforts,” Finzel says. “It won’t be enough for travel industry leaders (or other corporate leaders, for that matter) to say they are gay-friendly: they’ll have to demonstrate they mean it by actively supporting a No On 1 effort (Maine) or a Yes on 71 effort (Washington) and speaking out against attempts to legislate hate.”

Hear that gay-positive travel companies? We commend you on your great LGBT-supportive business practices. But, it’s time to take your gay investment up a notch. It’s getting personal.

So… See you in Maine next summer! Maybe.

Conservatives, in contrast, celebrated Maine voters’ rejection of a law that would have allowed gay couples to wed, depicting it as a warning shot that should deter politicians in other states from pushing for same-sex marriage.

“Every time the citizens have voted on marriage, they have always sided with natural marriage,” said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian legal group. “Maine dramatically illustrates the will of the people, and politicians should wake up and listen.”

Gay activists were frustrated that Obama, who insists he staunchly supports their overall civil rights agenda, didn’t speak out forcefully in defense of Maine’s marriage law before Tuesday’s referendum. The law was repealed in a vote of 53 percent to 47 percent.

“President Obama missed an opportunity to state his position against these discriminatory attacks with the clarity and moral imperative that would have helped in this close fight,” said Evan Wolfson of the national advocacy group Freedom to Marry. “The anti-gay forces are throwing millions of dollars into various unsubtle ads aimed at scaring people, so subtle statements from the White House are not enough.”

The White House, asked about the criticism, had no immediate comment.

The marriage debate is simmering in at least a half-dozen states where a same-sex marriage bill is pending or where a court ruling or existing law is being eyed by conservatives for possible challenge.

Had Maine’s law been upheld by voters, it would have become the sixth state to legalize gay marriage – and the first to affirm it by popular vote. In Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Iowa, gay marriage resulted from court decisions or legislation.

California is sure to be a major battleground over the next several years. Last year, conservatives succeeded in winning public approval of Proposition 8, which overturned a state court ruling allowing gay marriage. Gay rights groups want to take the issue back to the voters but are divided on a timetable.

In the aftermath of the Maine vote, some California activists appealed to their supporters for money to help them put a measure on the 2010 ballot. Other activist leaders want to wait until 2012.

“It’s never too early to go back to right a fundamental wrong,” said Chaz Lowe of Yes! on Equality, who favors shooting for 2010. “A lot of people are angry, a lot of people are upset. It at least has the potential to be a mobilization for the grass roots.”

Some California activists said the outcome in Maine strengthened their belief that it will fall to the U.S. Supreme Court – not the voters – to make gay marriage legal. A federal lawsuit challenging Prop. 8 is scheduled to go to trial in January, the first step in a legal journey that is expected to reach the high court in a few years.

“The results in Maine underscore exactly why we are challenging California’s same-sex marriage ban,” said Chad Griffin, president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the Los Angeles group spearheading the lawsuit. “The U.S. Constitution guarantees equal rights to every American, and when those rights are violated, it is the role of our courts to protect us, regardless of what the polls say.”

The situation elsewhere:

- In New Jersey, the election Tuesday of Republican Chris Christie as governor puts extra pressure on gay rights supporters to win passage of a pending same-sex marriage bill before the legislative session ends in January. Christie says he would veto such a bill, while lame-duck Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, says he would sign it.

- In Iowa, where the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage last April, conservatives have no quick way to overturn the ruling. Their only option would be to amend the state constitution through a ballot measure – in 2014 at the earliest – and that effort would need approval from a legislature whose current Democratic leaders don’t even want to debate the issue.

- In New Hampshire, conservatives have filed legislation to repeal the state’s new gay-marriage law and amend the constitution to ban such unions. Kevin Smith, executive director of the conservative Cornerstone Policy Research, said he doubts the measures will pass, but hopes the vote in Maine will give gay-marriage opponents ammunition for the 2010 elections.

“It gives us more fodder to go back to people and say, ‘Look, they aren’t letting you vote on it,’” Smith said.

- In Washington, D.C., conservatives are trying to force a popular vote on a bill headed toward City Council approval that would legalize gay marriage. Michael Crawford, one of the leaders of the local pro-gay marriage campaign, said the result in Maine increased his determination to avoid a ballot measure.

“The same cabal of anti-gay groups who stripped away marriage equality from our families in California and Maine now have their sights on D.C.,” he said.

Crawford was among numerous gay rights leaders complaining about the campaign tactics of the groups that opposed same-sex marriage in Maine and California.

In both states, California-based political strategist Frank Schubert oversaw an advertising campaign warning that “homosexual marriage” would be taught in public schools.

The campaign to defend gay marriage countered that Maine’s state curriculum guidelines contain no reference to marriage, and the state’s Democratic attorney general, Janet Mills, issued an opinion backing that up. But the ads continued.

“It is infuriating to see that the same fear-mongering ads that were used to pass Prop. 8 a year ago have triumphed again at the expense of so many,” said Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay rights group.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, came away with a different message.

“Over and over again, the American people have affirmed marriage at the ballot box and turned aside the demands of a movement that remains largely driven by Hollywood, some extreme activists and a few activist judges,” he said. “We hope the message sent by Maine’s voters will be heard in Washington and state capitals around the nation.”

Kennedy’s ruling Monday temporarily blocks a federal appeals court ruling last week that ordered the release of the names. Kennedy said his order would remain in effect while he considers a request by a group, Protect Marriage Washington, to reverse the appeals court ruling.

The case involves Referendum 71, a ballot initiative that asks Washington voters to approve or reject the state’s “everything but marriage” law, which grants registered domestic partners the same legal rights as married heterosexuals.

Protect Marriage Washington circulated a petition to put the domestic partnership law before the voters. Under the Washington state constitution, voters have the power to reject any law through the referendum process.

In September, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle temporarily barred state officials from releasing the identities of those who signed the referendum petitions. Settle held that releasing the names could chill the First Amendment rights of petition signers.

Gay rights supporters and open-government groups sought to disclose the names, saying that signers should be identified so the public knows who is behind Referendum 71.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Settle’s decision last week. The appeals court said Thursday that Washington’s secretary of state can release the names and addresses of people who signed petitions calling for a public vote.

Despite the appeals court ruling, the names weren’t immediately released because a state court order remained in effect. A Superior Court judge in Olympia, Wash., is set to hear arguments Tuesday on how to respond to the appeals court decision.

In appealing to Kennedy to intervene, Protect Marriage Washington argued that state officials had suddenly changed a long-standing practice of keeping confidential the identities of those who signed referendum petitions. The group said signers of the petition fear hostile confrontations from gay rights supporters and noted that their campaign manager had received death threats.

James Bopp Jr., a lawyer who represents the group, said releasing the names of those who signed the petition would make the group’s appeal of the 9th Circuit ruling moot.

Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, said state officials were merely defending the state’s public records law.

The attorney general’s office argued in court that there’s little evidence of threats or harassment amounting to more than a few rude phone calls.

State officials filed a 39-page response with the Supreme Court on Monday, arguing there is no basis to overturn the appeals court decision.

She is a board member for the Equal Justice Society and the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

NCLR is an organization that advocates civil rights for the LGBT community through public policy and public education.

Kendall received her law degree from the University of Utah College of Law in 1988.

She began practicing corporate law but diverted to civil rights advocacy.

Kate and her partner live in San Franciso, CA.

Brent Childers used to call himself a “Jesse Helms Republican” who justified his homophobic beliefs through biblical interpretation. But last weekend, as he marched in the Equality March in Washington, D.C., he stood alongside his lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender friends in support of their full human rights.

As executive director of Faith in America, Childers works full time to incorporate an inclusive message of LGBT human equality into the Christian dialogue. His organization’s mission is to educate the public about the emotional and physical harm cased by “religion-based bigotry.”

Childers’s change of heart isn’t unique, either.

 It represents a growing shift in support of LGBT rights among evangelicals in the United States. The work of Faith in America also shows that progressive people of faith are developing LGBT supportive organizations to question and ultimately undermine the Religious Right’s ideological monopoly on biblical interpretation.

In the most recent national survey done by the Pew Research Center, more Americans than ever recorded (57 percent) support civil unions.

Thirty-nine percent of this support comes from white evangelicals, and even though that’s not a majority, it shows there are definite inroads being made into that community. Given increasingly divergent opinions in the white evangelical community, a “biblical” opposition to gay marriage is becoming less tenable among them and simply a matter of their interpretation and personal opinion.

There is additional hopeful news. Young evangelicals are measurably diverging from the condemning views of their church elders on LGBT rights.

In a recent survey during the 2008 presidential election cycle, 58 percent of young white evangelicals supported some form of legal recognition of gay partnerships, whether in the form of civil unions or marriage. Twenty-six percent supported full marriage rights.

The promise of this rising evangelical support of LGBT human rights cannot be overstated. If trends continue, evangelicals can no longer be counted on as a solid unwavering base of the Religious Right. And without the support of young evangelicals the Religious Right will become even more of a reservoir of aging bigots than a dynamic and growing grassroots movement.

But LGBT supporters should engage evangelicals and seek to expand their numbers instead of patiently waiting for the younger generation to outnumber the old. It is critical to work with young evangelicals, who can serve as effective messengers within their faith communities and age groups—and can broaden the language of LGBT advocacy to include faith messages that resonate with evangelical congregations.

Faith in America is one organization dedicated to working with faith communities, but there are others. For instance, Evangelicals Concerned and the Global Alliance of Affirming Apostolic Pentecostals are developing in once predominately socially conservative evangelical and charismatic denominations.

Organizations like these know the spiritual motivation and language needed to mobilize younger evangelicals who may feel unsure or even guilty about their belief that all people should have the right to marry.

“Every person coming to Washington—whether they are religious or not,” Childers wrote in a Newsweek article, “does share one faith, and that is faith in America.”

With his organization and personal leadership, Childers is helping to create a public space that more and more evangelicals can inhabit in good conscience and in good faith

. And along with many others he is demonstrating to the larger LGBT movement that there is indeed a commonality among LGBT rights advocates and the large evangelical population in America—a commonality that may even form the foundation for a broad-based winning coalition.