Equality On Trial

Recapping the week of May 7-13 at Prop8TrialTracker.com

May 13, 2012

Weekly roundup

By Adam Bink

What you may have missed over the past week at Prop8TrialTracker.com…

On Monday, May 7th, Jacob Combs gave the final updates before Election Day in North Carolina on anti-gay Amendment 1, and recapped the broad points of how the campaign went. Later in the day, Scottie Thomaston broke the news to us that Alliance Defense Fund (surprise!) was largely responsible for writing the language of Amendment 1 in the first place. Scottie also reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came out for same-sex marriage, just two days after VP Biden did the same (and we know what happened from there). Later that day, Matt Baume did his usual video round-up of news on marriage equality, civil unions and all else.

In the evening, Scottie reported on the status of the Colorado civil unions bill (which is expected to be considered in a special session called by Gov. Hickenlooper starting tomorrow). Finally, to cap off a busy day, Scottie gave us the final pre-Election Day updates in North Carolina, including new endorsements released by the campaign.

On Tuesday, Jacob opened the morning with an overview of Election Day in NC as well as updates on twists and turns of the civil union bill in Colorado. Starting at 7 PM EST that evening, Scottie live-blogged election results from NC while I gave some updates on the ground in the campaign war room. Traffic here on P8TT went through the roof as folks from all over the web came to find updates. Unfortunately, we did not get the result we wanted, but kudos to all of you in the comments, Scottie and Jacob for intrepid updates and reporting.

On Wednesday, Jacob reported the decision of the Colorado House Republican leadership to obstruct floor consideration of the civil union bill and over 30 other bills (which led to the special session beginning tomorrow). Scottie reported on “what now” that Amendment 1 had passed, including the involuntary annulment of domestic partnerships in the state, and what it’s like to live in another Southern state (Scottie is an Alabama resident) while this was happening.

Then, boom: President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage as Jacob, Scottie and all of you in the comments covered the twists and turns. It was an exciting post to read for all the reaction and coverage. Later that day, Scottie reported that Sen. Reed (D-RI) also endorsed marriage equality as well as the Respect for Marriage Act to repeal DOMA, and that Sen. Reid announced his somewhat lukewarm support for the idea that “people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married.” Not exactly a ringing an endorsement, but good of him to do so anyway.

On Thursday, Jacob rounded up the reaction to President Obama’s announcement and other equality headlines of the morning. Scottie reported the spilling over of good tidings on marriage when it comes to the news that the Senate HELP Committee would consider a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act in hearings on June 12th. Later that day, Scottie also rounded up some news including implications of Pres. Obama’s decision, what was happening in North Carolina post-Amendment 1, and other news.

On Friday, I wrote an essay reflecting on Amendment 1 (cross-posted at The Huffington Post), what was accomplished, why the results ended up falling short of expectations, and other notes from my trip down there and work on the issue. A robust discussion followed in the comments, as it did when Jacob wrote a post later that day, making the case for keeping the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte despite the results in North Carolina. Scottie reported on more legislators coming out for marriage equality, including Illinois’ Gov. Quinn, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the Democratic members of the congressional delegation of Washington becoming united in their support for repealing DOMA. Late in the day, Scottie reported on the decision of many same-sex couples to apply for marriage licenses throughout North Carolina and the reaction to that.

Lastly, on Saturday, Scottie rounded up the news on DOMA cases, DOMA repeal, commentary after Pres. Obama’s decision from Ted Olson and others, and Mitt Romney’s socially conservative views. Quite a week!

As always, remember that Quick Hits can always be found to the right of the main blog posts (and if someone’s interested in rounding up Quick Hits for the week like this, drop us a line!). And don’t forget to follow Equality on Trial on Facebook and on Twitter for more coverage and updates! All P8TT posts are published on Twitter immediately after they go up, so you can get word that way too. We’re tweaking the e-mail subscriptions tool, so that’ll be in better shape this week as well. And of course, if you like the coverage we do here and the work we’re doing to bring you all this news, it ain’t free. Please consider tossing a few bucks in the hat to help us do it — or better yet, become a small monthly donor like the 60+ people you see at top right who have since Amendment 1 passed on Tuesday night. We’re working hard to cover these issues and we appreciate your support so we can keep doing so.

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