Overview

Marriage equality is law in Illinois, but questions remain over when marriages can actually start. Virginia voters could have a chance to overturn that state’s marriage ban, and polling is surprisingly strong. Lawsuits advance this week in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and there’s more bad news for the National Organization for Marriage.

Transcript

Marriage equality is law in Illinois, but questions remain over when marriages can actually start. Virginia voters could have a chance to overturn that state’s marriage ban, and polling is surprisingly strong. Lawsuits advance this week in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and there’s more bad news for the National Organization for Marriage.

For the American Foundation for Equal Rights, I’m Matt Baume, and welcome to Marriage News Watch for November 25, 2013.
Last week it was Hawaii, this week it was Illinois. Governor Pat Quinn signed the new marriage bill on Wednesday, with weddings scheduled to begin in June of 2014. And they could start even sooner: an amendment proposed by Senator Don Harmon would advance the start date to as soon as February.

Illinois has now moved from no recognition to civil unions in 2007 and now marriage just 6 years later.
And marriage is making strides in Virginia. Two Democratic lawmakers there have proposed bills to overturn the state’s constitutional marriage ban. The measures would have to pass the General Assembly two years in a row before going to voters, so the soonest we could see a vote would be November of 2016. For now, polling in Virginia is good, but not great — recent surveys show that so far public support has an advantage of just a few percentage points. But if support continues to grow at the rate is has for the past few years, we’d have a sizable majority by 2016.
We’re moving quickly towards a trial in Pennsylvania.  A federal judge there has denied motions to dismiss a lawsuit over the state’s marriage ban. Attorneys are now discussing a start date for a trial, so we could have a ruling in Pennsylvania quite soon.

A lawsuit in Tennessee is moving forward as well. Last week the National Center for Lesbian Rights asked the court to order the state to immediately recognize the plaintiffs’ marriages while the lawsuit is pending. According to NLCR, the couples can’t wait for a resolution before obtaining legal protections for their families.
A coalition of businesses in Portland has endorsed an effort to overturn Oregon’s marriage ban. A proposed constitutional amendment in Indiana may drop a ban on civil unions to focus just on banning marriage. That means it could be an extra two years before the measure can go before voters. A new study from the Williams Institute shows that legalizing marriage in New Mexico would bring in over 15 million dollars and benefit over 2,000 children. A lawsuit in Michigan will hear testimony from Mark Regnerus, author of a controversial study used by anti-gay activists. His testimony, scheduled for late February, should provide a unique opportunity to investigate the validity of his findings.
And finally, new tax filings from the National Organization for Marriage show that the organization ended last year with a deficit of one million dollars, which is a real shame.

Those are the headlines. Subscribe here on YouTube to stay up to date on all these stories. For the American Foundation for Equal Rights, I’m Matt Baume. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you next week.