Friday Gay Blogging

Marriage Notes:

An update/survey of what's been going on the past week or so.

New Hampshire and Maine seem to be in a race to become the fifth state to legalize SSM. From DSW at Lawyers, Guns & Money, a fairly good report. I love this:

Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which was established to fight same-sex marriage around the country, said the group would intensively lobby Mr. Lynch to veto it. "This vote is in no way representative of what folks in New Hampshire want," Mr. Brown said, adding that the Senate leadership had used "arm-twisting" to change the votes of a few crucial Democrats. "If the governor is going to stand by his words and his stated position, he will veto this bill."

The only problem with that is that, according to the latest poll, New Hampshire voters favor SSM 55-39 percent. Can't trust those undemocratic, elitist elected representatives now, can we?

The bill has to go back to the House because it was amended in the Senate.

However, it looks as though Maine may win: yesterday, the Senate passed the SSM bill, which was to go to the House. This may be a done deal by next week, and it looks as though Gov. John Baldacci will sign it.

And New York is now on the bandwagon -- Gov. David Paterson introduced a bill legalizing SSM. Chances are ???.

So the tally now stands at: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont (as of Sept. 1). New Hampshire, Maine, New York are in the running, and I'll bet that a bill is passed in New Jersey by this time next yer. Looks like NOM has lost the Northeast.

Can I make a prediction? The Upper Midwest -- Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota -- will be the next battleground.

A Tangential Note:

To those of us in the science-fiction/fantasy community, this is old news:

In response to the launch of the Carrie Prejean ad campaign against marriage equality, People For the American Way president Michael Keegan issued the following statement:

“If the National Organization for Marriage wants to make the comments of a gossip columnist and a beauty queen the subject of a national debate, then it should answer for the bizarre and troubling remarks of its most prominent board member – best-selling science fiction writer Orson Scott Card.

“The NOM has argued that it is not a homophobic organization, but Card’s remarks suggest otherwise. Card, who represents the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the board and received an effusive welcome last week from NOM president Maggie Gallagher, supports criminalizing sex between same-sex adults."

The article quotes extensively from an OpEd that Card wrote some time ago for the Mormon Times a wholly-owned subsidiary of the LDS Church. It's completely unhinged -- I mean, serious intervention is required here.

Way back when, Card was a decent if somewhat talky writer -- I read a lot of his books back then. The Alvin Maker series started off very strong, as did the Ender series. Both lost focus and direction as they went on. I'm not sure if that correlates with Card losing his mind (or maybe he was always like that), but I can't read his stuff any longer -- it just goes on and on and on and never seems to get anywhere. Even Speaker for the Dead was a bit of a trial to get through.) I should have realized when I reviewed Posing as People that something was up: the adaptations were better than the original stories. (I have to admit, though, Magic Street was excellent.)

Is this politics talking? I don't really think so -- I enjoy Wagner, although his politics repulse me. It really is, I think, that Card's ability as a writer has degenerated to the point where I'm not all that inclined to pursue his work. (It may be, though, to be as objective as possible, that the politics proved the tipping point, although he hasn't been high on my list of favorite authors for quite a while.)

Anyway, this is the new board member at NOM. Tell you anything?

An Even More Tangential Note:

NOM continues to make problems for itself: how far gone is an extremist, militantly "Christian" group that has to rely on a beauty queen with breast implants as a spokesperson?

Can I point out one thing? The Miss USA pageant, like all such pageants, is as much a popularity contest as anything else. Her opinion on same-sex marriage is increasingly unpopular. Can you connect the dots?

Dessert this morning is courtesy of Queerty: