Wow.
This from Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade:
Former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue on Tuesday announced that he and his wife have donated $100,000 to the campaign to defend Maryland’s same-sex marriage law.
“We had the privilege of raising our family in Maryland. We have the privilege of now living in the District of Columbia. We’ve lived in New York where they passed marriage equality. We spend time in the summer in Maine, where they are fighting it again. I think this is the time to view this not as an expense, but as a capital investment in our nation’s infrastructure,” he said during a Marylanders for Marriage Equality fundraiser that he and his wife Chan attended at gay Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf’s Logan Circle home.
The article notes Tagliabue has a gay son. It's still remarkable that he probably wouldn't have felt comfortable mentioning a gay son in public 30 years ago.
The NFL keeps oddly popping up in the marriage equality debate. Marylander for Marriage Equality benefits from the efforts of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo assuming an aggressive position of defense of the newly passed law in Maryland. Over in Minnesota Viking's Chris Kluwe has been drop-kicking equality opponents all over the field.
The future is looking pretty bright for the marriage equality efforts around the country.The Four 2012 campaign just released this composite of the some of the latest polls.
It's not a mirage. But it's not a done deal until polls close Nov. 6. (
Facebook).
If they're to be believed—and these numbers are consistent with what we've been seeing—Maine and Washington look pretty well set to be the first states to pass marriage equality on a ballot initiative. The twenty-one and eighteen point leads in Maine and Washington respectively are pretty formidable numbers for even the hate mongers to topple.
Even if one discounts the leads to some sort of "gay Bradley effect" the opposition numbers look like they've got a long way to go to 50% +1. It's also notable that the polling momentum, thus far, is in marriage equality movement's favor, consistently ticking upward with each release.
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling recently said "undecided" means "no equality for you" in marriage polling, and he's probably not wrong. On that account it'd be nice to see Maryland numbers eek up a bit higher providing a better cushion. A coalition of black clergy most specifically in Prince George’s County are currently engaged in outreach efforts in that critical area. In deep blue Maryland, bringing Democrats home would lock this up.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has lent his strong support to some pretty impressive fundraising efforts coming out of that state. But as Maryland's prime media market is among the most expensive in the nation, the campaign still estimates it needs to collect another $2M to remain competitive.
John and Kim, lifelong Republicans and Catholics, are featured in Minnesota's first ad.
This spot began airing on Sept. 18.
Polls in Minnesota not great thus far. (This initiative is to add a same-sex marriage ban to the state constitution.) Minnesota does have the advantage in a quirk of the Constitutional amendment process. The amendment must pass by a majority of every vote cast in the election. In other words, every voter who goes to the polls, votes only for the top of the ticket, say Romney or Obama, and for nothing else, unknowingly or not, votes against the amendment. This may give amendment opponents an effective edge, but hard to say how much. Typically, it might be in the five percent range, but polls are showing, not surprisingly, high interest in this amendment, and very high percentage of voters saying they definitely plan to vote on it. So it remains to be seen how decisive that is.
Daily Kos for Marriage Equality ActBlue account is here. Please, give $3 to each of those four campaigns. You can donate to one, two, three or all four campaigns there.
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