But, wait! There are more bills in the air: Michigan has one seeking to repeal its constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and New Hampshire has one seeking to repeal its newly approved-but-not-yet-enacted marriage equality law.

And, of course, there is still Maine, a dropped ball.

Ever since last Tuesday, when voters in Maine voted to repeal the state’s newly approved-but-not-yet-enacted marriage equality law, opponents of same-sex marriage have touted the vote as a decisive renunciation of equal rights for gay couples.

They claim Maine was a “liberal New England state” where they were “grossly outspent.” Supporters of equal rights, who did eventually concede the defeat, the struggle is “about love and family and that will always be something worth fighting for.”

Both sides of the same-sex marriage issue have re-positioned their resources from Maine to these five other states.

New York

In New York State on Tuesday, the Senate was slated to take up a marriage equality bill. The bill  already passed the state Assembly, but the volatile Senate –where Democrats cling to a 32 to 30 majority—has been reluctant to take it up.

That reluctance continued: The Senate did not take up the bill Tuesday. Instead, Senate leaders huddled with Gov. David Paterson and, according to the New York Times, came up with yet another “vague agreement” to vote on the bill “before the end of the year.”

That may be as soon as Monday of next week, but many observers say they doubt the Senate will put the bill on the floor unless the Democratic leadership knows the bill has 32 votes.  Two Democrats have already said they would not vote for the measure, and the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage sent out a statement this week, saying it would “build a $500,000 war chest to fund a primary challenge to any Republican senator who votes for gay marriage –regardless of the outcome” of the Senate vote.

Washington, D.C.

 Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., counting votes is not an issue. A D.C. council committee voted 4 to 1 on Tuesday to approve a marriage equality bill there. The full Council will vote on Dec. 1; 10 of the 13 Councilmembers are sponsors of the legislation.

But inevitability is not translating into a smooth victory. The Council Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary heard more than 160 witnesses over two days of hearings testify for and against a bill that will provide for gay couples to be able to obtain marriage licenses. Simultaneously, the D.C. elections board heard testimony for and against a proposal to let D.C. voters decide by initiative whether to ban same-sex marriage.

Wait! Wasn’t it just last month that the elections board said there could be no ballot battle over same-sex marriage? Yes, but that was only in regard to D.C.’s just recently passed law recognizing marriage licenses same-sex couples obtain elsewhere, like in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, or Iowa. (New Hampshire’s law doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1.)

Now, opponents are before the elections board seeking an initiative to establish a statute limiting the definition of marriage to straight couples. The board is expected to rule on that request in the next two weeks, says Human Rights Campaign regional field director Sultan Shakir.  Those opponents are being aided by the aid of the National Organization of Marriage and have the legal aid of another staunch conservative anti-gay group, the Alliance Defense Fund.

Perhaps trying to head off some of the controversy, the Council Committee on Tuesday agreed to amend the marriage equality bill by giving religious institutions more leeway to discriminate against same-sex couples. The original bill allowed religious institutions to refuse to accommodate same-sex weddings through such services as rental of space as long as they did not accommodate straight couples.

 But the Committee agreed to allow religious institutions to refuse only gay couples in spaces owned by the institution. One committee member tried to expand that even further to non-religious institutions, but the Committee said no.

The Committee also amended the legislation to continue providing a domestic partnership option for both straight and gay couples.

 New Jersey

Gay marriage supporters are considering a hurried run at the New Jersey legislature –a hurry necessitated by the defeat of incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in the Nov. 3 election. Corzine has said he would support of equal rights for gay couples, but his successor, Chris Christie (R), has promised to veto any such legislation.

 The New Jersey legislature passed a civil unions law after the state supreme court ruled that the state constitution required gay couples be able to obtain the same benefits of marriage as straight couples can obtain. Momentum has been growing, however, for full marriage equality.

But New Jersey is also the original home-base for the National Organization for Marriage and that group is already playing its “save the children” radio ads warning that allowing gay couples to marry will lead to homosexuality being “forced” on school children.

The Star-Ledger in Newark reported that NOM funded robo-calls to “every household in selected legislative districts” and that the Catholic church has been distributing letters statewide to rally opposition to any marriage equality bill.

Like New York, passage of a marriage equality bill in New Jersey will require some Republican votes.

Oregon, Michigan, New Hampshire

Meanwhile, efforts are underway in a couple of states to untie the constitutional binds that currently prevent states from treating same-sex couples the same as straight couples when it comes to marriage licensing.

In Oregon, the statewide gay group Basic Rights Oregon announced last week that it is launching a petition drive to put on the ballot in 2012 an initiative to repeal the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage there. Voters approved the ban by initiative in 2004, but in 2007, the state legislature approved a law to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and another law to allow same-sex couples to register as domestic partners.

In Michigan, the House speaker pro tem, State Rep. Pam Byrnes, made good on a promise she announced in June: She introduced a measure seeking repeal of the constitutional ban approved by voters there in 2004. If the bill receives two-thirds approval in the House and Senate, it will then go to voters in 2010.

But in New Hampshire, there is an attempt to repeal a marriage equality law approved earlier this year. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1.

The idea for the bill emerged long before the vote in Maine, but the conservative Union Leader newspaper got the ball rolling last week with a blistering editorial, claiming that the repeal vote in Maine jostles the neighboring domino.

The paper said at least two bills are already being drafted to undo the marriage equality law –one by legislative repeal, one by voter repeal.

Openly gay State Rep. Jim Splaine, who sponsored the marriage equality bill earlier this year, said he expects opponents to file the repeal bill in January. Because the marriage equality bill passed on very close votes last spring, said Splaine, “we shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

© 2009 Keen News Service

1. Why does  anyone care what former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair thinks?

2. Should  lame duck governor Jon Corzine sign a gay marriage bill?  At first blush, I say no.

3. Why do people always include the word “hot” when they use the term Latin band.

4. Will pushing for gay marriage save New York’s David Paterson?

5. This story about  premature aging for some who are on HIV medications, proves again why safe sex is important. Wear a condom peoples.

6. Congratulations to Charles Pugh and Sandra Kurt. Local elections are just as critical as the national ones.

7. No work for me today. Levi Johnston is apparently in New York for his Playgirl photo shoot.

8. Anyone have any Palm Springs Pride stories? Please if you want to moan about how ashamed you are about Dykes on Bikes or some other “freaks”, keep the diatribe to a minimum. We all know gay marriage would be the law of the land if gays and lesbians just wore J. Crew and acted right.

9. Discovered Hill Street Blues on Hulu. I’m screwed.

10. Too many books. Not enough time.

And – surprise! – MSNBC took back it’s call for Mike Bloomberg for Mayor of NYC. With almost half the precints reporting, he’s tied with Bill Thompson.

“Like the singer Bill, right,” she asked.

“Yes! Thank you. Not many people get thst.”

She then gave a few bars of “Lovely Day.”

I proposed marriage but she was too busy taking care of other votes.

Drop by tonight. Leave comments. I’ll do my best to inform and entertain.  New Jersey polls about to close. Virgina polls have closed. I understand turnout in Maine was high. No news about Washington yet.

Plus, Lisa Keen is on the ground in Maine. Look for her story late tonight.

It’s been a tough few years for the GOP. The party lost control of Congress in 2006 and then lost the White House in 2008 with three traditional Republican states – Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia – abandoning the party.

So even if political winds start blowing harder behind them and even if they can capitalize on Democratic missteps, Republicans still will have a long way to go over the next year because of their party’s own fundamental problems – divisions over the path forward, the lack of a national leader and a shrinking base in a changing nation.

The GOP would overcome none of those hurdles should Republican Bob McDonnell win the Virginia governor’s race, Chris Christie emerge victorious in the New Jersey governor’s contest, or conservative Doug Hoffman triumph in a hotly contested special congressional election in upstate New York.

In fact, 2009 seems to have underscored what may be the biggest impediment for Republicans – the war within their base.

Not that the GOP would casually brush off even a small stack of victories on Tuesday.

One or more wins would give the Republicans a jolt, and a reason to rally in the coming months. Victories certainly would help with grass-roots fundraising and candidate recruiting. And they might just be enough to reinvigorate a party that controlled the White House and Congress through much of this decade, only to lose power in back-to-back national elections.

Viewed from the other side, a GOP sweep would be a setback for Democrats. It could be seen as a negative measure of President Barack Obama’s standing and could signal trouble ahead as he seeks to get moderate Democratic lawmakers behind his legislative agenda and protect Democratic majorities in Congress next fall.

Still, with Democrats in control, the onus is on the GOP to get its act together. George W. Bush, the president many Republicans came to see as an election-day albatross, is gone, but the party troubles born under him linger.

Republican leaders in Washington certainly are mindful of the challenges.

“It’s going to be a difficult road to walk, to work with relatively new entrants into the political system and to work with them to show them that, by and large, we are the party who represents their interests,” House Republican leader John Boehner told CNN on Sunday, arguing that there’s “a political rebellion” taking place in the country.

Others are more blunt.

“Right now there’s no central Republican leader to turn to, and there’s no central Republican message,” conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh told Fox News on Sunday. “The Republican message is sort of muddied. What do they stand for? Right now it’s opposition to Obama.”

A debate is waging over whether that’s enough – or whether the party has to be for something, anything really, to be able to claw its way back to the top. Similar hand-wringing happened in the GOP ahead of the 1994 midterms. Just weeks before those elections, Republicans came up with the Contract with America – and ended up taking control of Congress.

Heading into the 2010 elections, the GOP also faces a very real split between conservatives who want to focus on social issues – which tend to work best during peaceful, prosperous times – and the rest of the party, which generally wants a broader vision, particularly given recession.

Proof of a divide is in the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Potential 2012 presidential hopefuls trying to solidify their conservative credentials, Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, endorsed Hoffman, a conservative third-party upstart, over the GOP-chosen candidate, moderate Dierdre Scozzafava. Badly trailing in polls, she ended up dropping out and – in a slap at the GOP – endorsing Democrat Bill Owens.

The White House is suggesting that those developments show that hard-liners are taking over the GOP and the trend will affect the 2010 elections. Predicted presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs on Monday: “This is a model for what you’ll see throughout the country.”

Indeed, there are similar tensions in Senate primaries in Florida, California and elsewhere, where conservatives are challenging establishment-backed candidates.

Adding to the party’s woes: No one – or rather everyone – is speaking for the GOP.

Fiery talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have become the angry white face of the party, filling a vacuum created by Bush’s departure as the its standard-bearer and the lack of one single person to emerge as its next generation leader.

The 2008 presidential nominee, John McCain, has all but disappeared from the Republican power structure. His running mate, Palin, refuses to disappear – much to the delight of tabloids and to the chagrin of elder party statesmen. And one of the most unpopular politicians in recent times, former Vice President Dick Cheney, keeps popping up to attack Obama – a reminder of the country’s and the party’s problems under Bush.

What’s more, the GOP’s ranks are thinning: Only 32 percent of respondents called themselves Republicans in a recent AP-GfK survey compared with 43 percent who called themselves Democrats.

Also, the party’s power center is mostly limited to the South, the one region McCain dominated last fall; Obama won almost everywhere else – including making inroads in emerging powerhouse regions like the West, although Republicans still solidly control several lightly populated states in the area.

And demographic, cultural and, perhaps, economic changes in America tilt in the Democrats’ favor. Consider that Hispanics, a part of the Democratic base, are the nation’s fastest growing minority group. Consider that more states than ever are permitting same-sex unions; Maine will vote Tuesday on whether to allow gay marriage. Consider that the emerging new industry – so-called “green jobs” – is focused on the environment, a core Democratic issue.

Still, Republicans sense opportunity – at least in the short term.

The bloom is off the Obama rose, and the public is giving the Democratic-controlled Congress low ratings.

Economists say the recession is over but jobs aren’t reappearing and unemployment is still expected to hit 10 percent. The war in Afghanistan continues, and the public is deeply divided over it. Obama’s expansion of government and budget-busting spending isn’t sitting well with most Americans. And independents are tilting away from Democrats.

All that raises this question: Can the GOP take advantage of such conditions – or are the problems the party faces too great? Stay tuned to 2010 for the answer.

The Catholic Church in New Jersey is gearing up for a fight against same-sex marriage. By gearing up I mean writing to 2300 supporters the following:

“The Catholic Church teaches today and has always and everywhere taught for 2,000 years that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. …This great truth about marriage is not some obscure doctrinal fine point but a fact of human nature, recognized from time immemorial by people of virtually every faith and culture.”

It amazes me that the opposition continues to make these ridiculous claims. It amazes me that they continue to resonate with people.

The only conclusion I can come to – assuming that we agree for a moment that the union between one man and one woman has not been practiced for very long nor has it been very common around the world in other religions and cultures – is that once an individual or group of individual engages in a practice, they automatically assume that their practice is rooted in history and fundamentally correct to the exclusion of all others.

It makes sense. Though we claim to be innovators, we really don’t want to be doing anything that isn’t backed by the guarantee of history and moral approval. Just because the people receiving this letter happen to be in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, they nod with approval when the church makes grossly overstated and patently untrue claims.

Sigh.

It’s nothing new. But as the Catholic Church gears up to attempt a defeat of same-sex marriage in New Jersey. I can’t help but get a little frustrated with decent men and women of that State who read these ridiculous letters and believe every word.

Robert Colle, now of Egg Harbor Township, settled his lawsuit for $415,000. Colle says he was harassed by the other officers because he is gay, and received further harassment when he threatened to expose an on-duty romantic tryst involving a superior.

According to the Press of Atlantic City, Colle also accused, “police officers refused to back him up on a call involving a disorderly woman,” who, according to the lawsuit, “bit his finger to the bone.”

The Municipal Excess Liability Joint Insurance Fund paid $400,000 to Colle, while workers’ compensation for psychiatric, psychological or other bodily injury paid for the remaining amount.

Six officers were originally named in the suit, though two were later dropped. The Press of Atlantic City said the city has not disclosed whether any of the remaining officers had been disciplined for the ordeal, though they all are still employed by the police department. Three of the officers have also received promotions since the law suit was filed.

Read the full Press of Atlantic City story here.

“We believe that government should allow people the freedom to marry whomever they love,” Corzine said in his general-election kickoff speech June 2.

Corzine has made his comments in an effort to differentiate himself from his Republican opponent, Christopher J. Christie, who said he would veto a bill allowing same-sex marriage.

“New Jersey is undergoing a sea change in how politicians are looking at marriage equality,” said Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when a candidate campaigns on an issue, it’s not only because he or she believes in the issue, but also because the candidate believes it’s a political plus.”

In 2005, Corzine said in his campaign that “the fundamental and traditional view of marriage is between a man and a woman.” In 2006, he signed a civil-unions bill that granted equal rights to gay and lesbian couples.

Read the full Philly.com story here.

The call came as Maine became the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage and a similar bill in New Hampshire passed the legislature.

New Jersey lawmakers would have to approve a constitutional amendment in each of two consecutive years in order to put the question to voters. So far, the Democratically-controlled legislature has rebuffed calls to advance the proposed amendment.

But the legislature also has stalled on taking up a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry.

In 2006, the state Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples must have all the rights of marriage. 

The Court gave the New Jersey State Legislature 180 days to act on the decision to grant same-sex couples the rights and benefits enjoyed by different-sex married couples, but left it up to the legislators to decide whether to call it marriage or civil unions. 

The legislature opted for civil unions. But that, said civil rights groups, amounted to separate but equal.

A commission established by the state to study same-sex civil unions in New Jersey agreed with that assessment.

The commission held three public hearings last year where people who were in civil unions testified that they were still not being treated the way married couples are by government agencies, employers and others.

For instance, the commission found that many companies in the state that are self-insured – and therefore are regulated by federal, rather than state, law – refuse to provide health insurance to the partners of their employees.

A marriage equality bill was filed in the last session of the New Jersey legislature, but gained little support in an election year from either House or Senate leaders. Garden State Equality believes this year the bill has a stronger chance to pass.

Gov. Jon Corzine has said he would sign a marriage bill if it were passed.

In February, a poll of registered voters in New Jersey found there is a 10 point spread in favor of same-sex marriage. The survey, by Monmouth University for Gannett newspapers, found 50 percent of voters supporting marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, while 40 percent said they were opposed.

In addition, the poll found a similar result when it came to amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage – 50 percent opposing an amendment and 41 percent in favor.