LGBT history making in DC: Inspirational, evocational, provocational

This twitpic from an inter-racial couple was massively retweeted

Sunday's march for LGBT equality in Washington DC was a non-stop fest of speech making. From the fantabulous youth to the glorious head of the NAACP to 'Let the sunshine in' (and virtually all stops in-between). It was a Call To Action and then some. It made me teary, it would make anyone who believes in civil rights, human rights, teary.

Here are my tweets (back to front):

• pauloCanning #NEM 'Let the sunshine in' frm Hair perfect finish
  
• pauloCanning: RT @ChefMark 'A free and Equal people do not tolerate prioritization of their rights. They do not accept compromises' Cleve Jones #NEM
• pauloCanning: #nem Cleve Jones IS the mountaintop!
  
• pauloCanning: RT @MEGAFamily Urvashi Vaid: 'Battle for the direction of this country' #NEM < she's talkin revolution baby!
  
• pauloCanning: RT @jdillman http://twitpic.com/l5wjw - @jdillman, @jtrybus #"Homomentum!" #NEM < :}}}
  
• pauloCanning: #NEM very moved by Julian Bond citing LG he worked alongside in 60s as reason for his solidairty now 

• pauloCanning: @SunnyStokes I'm right with you! #NEM She was inspirational
  
• pauloCanning: Who is Staceyann Chin? #NEM Jamaican superstar http://bit.ly/4xatwu (expand) It takes a poet
  
• pauloCanning: Michelle Clunie quoting Coretta Scott King #NEM If she were alive she would be there but NAACP head still to come
  
• pauloCanning: RT @teebalicious I'm old enough to remember the Silence = Death days + I am in love with this beautiful sea of #LGBT people #NEM < say it!
  
• pauloCanning: #NEM severe drought of older white men on this platform. This is why it's making such an impact 
• pauloCanning @Becky_R My pleasure! I'm from UK like Billie Myers, watching on C-Span and so moved by #NEM 

• pauloCanning: @Frannyo nope! http://bit.ly/PqY7X (expand) #NEM 
• pauloCanning: Katharine Lee Bates, the lesbian who wrote America The Beautiful http://bit.ly/1fzxOs (expand) #NEM 
• pauloCanning: RT @AngryQueer America the Beautiful was written by a lesbian - #nem 
• pauloCanning: Hah! Billie Myers just said ficking on C-Span! #NEM 
• pauloCanning: Lady GaGa 'Obama: ARE YOU LISTENING!!!!' #NEM 
• pauloCanning: As LadyGaGa takes stage remember was 11 years ago today, Judy Shepard was watching as Matthew lay in a coma in Fort Collins, Colo. #nem 

• pauloCanning: #NEM the announcer reminds me of a character from Best in Show 
• pauloCanning: RT @unitethefight Kim Coco Iwamoto, 'Our children are learning to discriminate. Our children are learning how to hate themselves' #NEM 
• pauloCanning: @toastedgrrl #NEM I related when he spoke about AIDS and what it was like - many there would be remembering (and honouring) 
• pauloCanning BBC reporting already on #NEM http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8301791.stm 
• pauloCanning RT @malik_photog dan choi is a powerful speaker. and WORK for quoting kahlil gibran! #NEM 
• pauloCanning: #NEM Dan Choi just read a poem in Arabic. Incredible  
• pauloCanning: #NEM loudest cheer yet for Judy Sheppard. She is a f*cking saint. 'Evrybody smile. You should be so proud of yrself''
  
• pauloCanning: Go Cynthia Nixon! #nem

• pauloCanning: RT @unitethefight: More pics of hundreds of thousands on Washington Mall! http://bit.ly/Zlb40 (expand) #NEM < + Lt. Dan Choi
• pauloCanning: #NEM Sam Sussman young straight #equality champion speaking is making me tear up! Wow! 'In our America we will not tolerate prejudice'
  
• pauloCanning: RT @hardcorps80204 "How many more tears must be shed" David Mixner #NEM
  
• pauloCanning: @toastedgrrl David Mixner now speaking #nem about the reality of AIDS in the 90s. Incredibly moving
  
• pauloCanning: RT @rodmccullom #NEM #Latino #gay youth activist Richard Aviles http://twitpic.com/l5bpx //very inspirational < totally!
  
• pauloCanning: #socitm09 @liz_azyan sorry Liz no follow :' #NEM LGBT Washington march is history, wonderful, amazing speakers

• pauloCanning: #NEM C-span not showing speakers names, find them here > http://bit.ly/49sMT5 (expand) #NEMrally
  
• pauloCanning: RT @LauraAndRudy WOW, Aiyi'nah Ford (co-host ListenUp internet radio program) is giving one HELL of a speech at #NEM right now!! < she's FAB
  
• pauloCanning RT @Ameriqueer Just took a pic w/ Cynthia Nixon! http://twitpic.com/l4i4h #NEM #NEMrally 
• pauloCanning: RT @jacobbrwr Either the gays are in control of Twitter or the #NEM is actually a big deal. Either way, it's an exciting day < both :]
•  pauloCanning: RT @ahideg RT @dcconcierge Now I'm marching at #NEM with Lady GaGa (and her bodyguards)!!! http://twitpic.com/l4yl3
  
• pauloCanning: So many young people on stage @ #NEM This is wonderful
  
• pauloCanning: RT @elideep 'I say to Barney Frank, you are out of touch from the seat of power you hold.Does this march matter?' >earth-shaking cheers #NEM

• pauloCanning: RT @just_someguy RT @toastedgrrl: They just called out Barney Frank. #nem - YES THEY SURE AS HELL DID! < Good!
  
• pauloCanning: #nem #NATIONAL #EQUALITY #DC live now on C-Span http://c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx
  
• pauloCanning: RT @bethannon RT @LAmaleCA: Fox News just estimated the #NEM crowd at 2.5 million people. Congrats, guys! / SRSLY? FOX??
  
• pauloCanning: RT @veganindigo beautiful RT @dsrbroadway http://twitpic.com/l4oad - There is an actual rainbow above us @broadwayimpact AMAZING!!! #NEM
  
• pauloCanning: RT @LAmaleCA http://twitpic.com/l55c1 - in my lifetime our marriage was illegal too. #nem #NATIONAL #EQUALITY 

You can watch the whole thing here and I will add video highlights as I find them.

Andrew Sullivan explains about this sign: 'It was made in 1965, four years before Stonewall, and the Mattachine heroes held it up in front of the White House on October 23 forty four years ago. Charles Francis brought it, and allowed me to hold it for a while. I am so proud to have been part of this movement, and so honored to touch one its sacred artefacts.'

UPDATE

Video from the day.

Agree with Andrew Sullivan that this over-view of the day is "a little cheesy" but the visuals are great.



Cynthia Nixon asked 'What is the most important issue?'



The wonderful BRIT Billie Myers - "bisexual and fucking proud of it" - performs 'America the beautiful' with Dave Koz.



March organiser, Harvey Milk's friend, AIDS Quilt creator, Cleve Jones: "If you believe that you are equal then it is time to act like it."



The INCREDIBLE Jamaican-American poet Staceyann Chin: "We have to be willing to fight for more than what makes us comfortable because what makes us human is the acknowledgment of a universal humanity,"



Julian Bond leader of the NAACP, American Civil Rights Movement: "When I am asked 'are gay rights civil rights' my answer is always 'of course they are'."




Andrew Sullivan at the previous evening's HIV/AIDS MEMORIAL Ceremony at The National Equality March: "Seems that gay men are more interested in getting a glimpse of Lady GaGa than remembering 300,000 gay men who died. That makes me very sad."



Urvashi Vaid, long time activist: "We must be prepared to engage in a more profound battle, for the direction of this country."



Straight 18 yo young man Sam Sussman also spoke. He'd won the 'Equality Idol' contest by submitting a YouTube video stating the importance of equal rights for everyone.

The Right Side of History Campaign is a movement of young, inspired Americans who have joined together to heed Sam's call.



A big section of young, some very young, speakers opened the Rally. What an inspiring bunch they were.

Obama derangement syndrome

As always, perfect sense from Rachel Maddow on Obama's Nobel - it echoes my feelings about the shock announcement.

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Michael Moore has more to say on exactly why Obama deserves the Nobel.

"Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom"

During the campaign for the Democratic nomination Obama gave one interview to an LGBT publication in which he said the following:

Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, "Wait your turn." I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” where he says to the white clergy, "Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom."

He repeated this point, as President, in his speech tonight to the Human Rights Campaign.

Here's my tweets as I listened to his speech.

pauloCanning: #hrc dinner "I love you Barack" "I love you back"
pauloCanning:#hrc dinner Obama: "It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady GaGa"
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner He's referencing Stonewall as 'inspiring'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner simple message "here with you in that fight"
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'it's not for me to tell you to be patient' - as with civil rights - now I'm teary
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'you know - and I know - we don't want to be defined by one part of us that makes us whole'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'Do not doubt the direction we're heading +the destination we will reach'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'we will put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'we're pushing for a employee non-discrimination bill. we're ging to put a stop to it.'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'we are rescinding the ban on entering US based on HIV status'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'I will end DADT, that's my commitment to you'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'I've called on Congress to repeal DOMA'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'It's about our common humanity, our ability to walk in someone else's shoes'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner now he's talking about PFLAG 'that's the story of America'
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner 'tonight somewhere in America a young person ... ' THAT'S leadership
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner brilliant rhetoric, worried by the look on his face

The speech was amazing. Historic.

Like the audience, who spent most of their time on their feet, I was really moved to hear a US President say what he said. His last flourish, which stuck progress of LGBT equality firmly into the mainstream of the 'American dream', I couldn't capture quickly enough. It was his classic rhetorical end flourish and he stuck it firmly onto the LGBT cause.

My friend Tobias Grace, who edits New Jersey's LGBT newspaper, said: "Paul: I cried - not so much on my own behalf but thinking of all the young people who will grow up in a world shaped by this man's words and leadership."

But, but ... perhaps that's why I noticed the look. He wasn't smiling. He knew that outside the cheering crowd he faced weren't just pissed LGBT at the lack of actual progress on issue after issue but a mountain of opposition to everything he'd pledged.

Remember, this was the day on which he'd been awarded the Nobel. On what he represents he'd got that acknowledgment and that's a f*cking heavy burden.

I wish I'd captured that exact look as he walked off the stage because it seemed to me one of a man who believed what he'd said, every word, but understood fully what 'change' actually means.

A bitter, bitter fight lies behind "don’t tell me to wait for my freedom". As always, it's accompanied by the background/backroom faint (to some) buzz accompanying it in the LGBT movement between those who would be inside and those who'd be outside, demanding.

Tomorrow's LGBT march on the Capitol is for the demanders and something tells me Obama is with them.

Here's the speech.

Why they are screaming 'socialism'

A commentator to Andrew Sullivan's blog gives some background on the right-wing American 'tea baggers' which is essential information for anyone wanting to understand WTF is going on.

It's worth quoting in full:

Of course they are screaming 'socialism'. They've been doing that since the 50s at least. They're not talking about economic redistribution of wealth - they never have been. They've been talking about redistribution of privilege this whole time. They called MLK a communist because he wanted blacks to have the same rights as whites, and to them that was a redistribution of the privilege that whites had 'earned'.

In their view, white, Christian, heterosexuals have earned something that gays, non-Christians, and non-heteros have failed to work hard enough at. It's been a class war from the outset, just not one based around income or net worth - mostly because the whites in the south were economically pretty bad off and blacks in the north were catching up to them.

This picture shows they were pushing the same buttons half a century ago that they are today. Anti-christ, communism - it's all the same as it is today and is well known code. It's why the protesters will decry socialism today but wouldn't have under Bush - it's all tied to race and other social objectives and has nothing really to do with taxation, deficits, and big government. You probably missed it when you came to the US, but this is pretty old game - particularly to guys like Carter that grew up around it.

Past posts: 

• US health 'debate': the dangers of rhetoric and the need for responsibility 
• Daily Mail has joined the American lunatic fringe

 

Daily Mail has joined the American lunatic fringe

It's Wednesday and the Daily Mail is still carrying a factually inaccurate story published the previous Sunday morning.

And it's not like they haven't been told it's inaccurate, comment after comment in the 279 thus far point out exactly why they are wrong.

What's interesting is exactly how come they are wrong.

Inaccuracies often come about because one newspaper is mugged or fed a line, believes it and then, like lemmings, everyone else falls off the cliff. This is often the case with crowd numbers, someone will carry an organisers claim and that gets reproduced.

Respected statistician Nate Silver (the one who got the US presidential election most right) found this out when he tried to estimate the numbers at the US right's 'tea-bagger' parties in April from mainstream media reports.

Often they were wrong, sometimes laughably so - but there are limits. Silver found that "exaggerations were contained within some reasonable bounds". Doubling for example.

The Mail's headline is out by a factor of 33.

Media Matters has been tracking the circulation of this meme. Here's the origins:

Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, took to the rally stage and unfurled a massive lie. He told the crowd ABC News had reported that between 1 million to 1.5 million people had gathered to protest Obama's policies.

[FreedomWorks, by the way, are the healthcare industry funding lobbyists 'astroturfing' the protests.]

This flat-out lie was then tweeted, exaggerated upwards to 'two million' and then carried by prominent right-wing blogs who, much later, published a correction as ABC hadn't said it and the actual 'official' estimate by the DC Fire Department was 70,000. It was also very obviously wrong because two million was the official estimate for the numbers at the Obama inauguration and that shut down the city for several days. Saturday's 'tea bagger' rally had no associated reports of a DC shutdown.

As Media Matters notes, despite the corrections, on the lunatic fringe the meme continues to circulate.



What this leads me to ask with the Mail's story is exactly where was it sourced from? The story itself gives no source but, as has been tracked, it could only have come from a right-wing blog, most likely Michelle Malkin. Not even Fox News mentioned 'two million'.

So why is the Daily Mail reproducing stories hot from the American right-wing blogosphere?

Surely the reason why is money? Specifically, the American traffic to which they can sell ads that such stories generate is huge. Plus there's reason to think it's money because they have form.

In January another unsourced Mail story which said that Obama's inauguration had cost $110m was linked to from the King of the right-wing online, Matt Drudge. That story is also still live and still inaccurate.

The Daily Mail is seen by Americans not as we see it but as a British newspaper which behaves like a normal, mainstream newspaper. It may slant stories or omit facts but make them up? Source them from a blog? Fail to correct inaccuracy? Not do a basic fact-check? 'Respectable' newspapers don't do that.

Referring to a story in the Mail on the right in America is back-up for lies: if they're saying it there must be some truth to it?

As they make their money from joining the US right-wing blogosphere what is the Mail buying into?



Many commentators have noticed that the anger of the far-right has a strongly racist streak, which is almost daily becoming less 'readable' and more self-evident.

A couple of days ago there was one of those made-for-repetition-on-cable-TV stories generated from CCTV footage, this time of a bullying incident on a school bus in Illinois.

Yesterday the leader of the far-right lunatic fringe, radio host Rush Limbaugh said of the incident:

In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on.

I wonder if Obama's going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.

Somehow I doubt it.

This is classic race-baiting and goes further than even he has gone so far.

Andrew Sullivan said of Limbaugh's comments in a post titled 'They Don't Even Disguise The Race-Baiting Any More':

I'm sorry but this is outrageous. The story was a classic schoolbus bully incident; it could happen anywhere any time and has happened everywhere at all times with kids of all races, backgrounds and religions. To infer both that it was racially motivated and that this is somehow connected to having a black president is repulsive. I know that is almost de trop with Limbaugh, but sometimes you have to regain a little shock. This man is spewing incendiary racial hatred. He is conjuring up images of lonely whites being besieged by angry violent blacks ... based on an incident that had nothing to do with race at all. And why, by the way, does someone immediately go to the racial angle when looking at such a tape?

These people are going off the deep end entirely: open panic at a black president is morphing into the conscious fanning of racial polarization, via Gates or ACORN or Van Jones or a schoolbus in Saint Louis. What we're seeing is the Jeremiah Wright moment repeated and repeated. The far right is seizing any racial story to fan white fears of black power in order to destroy Obama. And the far right now controls the entire right.

Do they understand how irresponsible this is? How recklessly dangerous to a society's cohesion and calm? Or is that what they need and thrive on?

Since I first published this post the comments by President Jimmy Carter have put the issue of race at the centre of debate about the protests. This is how the Mail covered Carter - and again it repeats 'up to a million'.

Which beggars the question: does the Daily Mail have any conscience about the monster it is feeding on - and off?

What's the connection between asylum/migration and LGBT people?

Left Outside has a great post (following one by Carl Packman) which dissects the age-old anti-migration arguments :

Our modern debate on migration has not developed out of a vacuum. In fact, we are forced to watch tedious reruns of discussions concerning Huguenots in the 1680s, Irish migrants in the early 19th Century and Eastern Europeans in the late, Jews in the 1930s and West Indians and South Asians in the 1960 and 70s.

He says that any anti-migration media piece will always contain one of the following: The Disloyal Immigrant; Soft Touch Britain™; Diseased and sex obsessed migrants; Criminal immigrants; Lump of Labour/Housing/Hospitals/Women Fallacy; or Swamped.

He uses these memes to play 'Immigrant Bingo'.



There's actually another thread of migration stories in papers like The Daily Hate (much more often in local newspapers) and that's pro ones.

Stories about someone in Shetland being defended by the locals, for example.

You don't see them very often but they do exist, these 'genuine asylum seekers' say these stories, and when talked about these cases usually elicit majority sympathy from, yes, even Daily Hate (etc) readers. I saw this with the 19yo gay Iranian Mehdi Kazemi. Even in comments on The Sun's website most people wanted him granted asylum.

What strikes me, as someone who works to defend LGBT asylum seekers, is the parallels with attitudes to LGBT people.

It is well-established that once people have a LGBT person in the family, or have a LGBT friend or work colleague, they are far less likely to support anti-gay law and be prejudiced. I'd suggest this holds true for migrants and asylum seekers too, if you know one you are less likely to want them deported. If you don't know one migrants and asylum seekers are just numbers, a homogeneous mass.

This is why groups like Amnesty, UNHCR and the Refugee Council run campaigns which aim to put a human face on those who are defamed in the media on a daily basis. These, along with those occasional news stories, show that it is possible to get people to show some basic humanity.

BBC making a big gay effort on 40 years since Stonewall

It makes a nice change to be praising the BBC on LGBT content but this week they are carrying some excellent programming.

This is an interview with Martin Boyce, about his memories of the night it all kicked off, 40 years ago on Sunday.



BBC Radio 2 has Stonewall: The Riots That Triggered the Gay Revolution on Tuesday, with legend Tom Robinson.

The BBC News website has an excellent feature, 'Stonewall gave me new gay role models', by David Carter, author of Stonewall: the riots that sparked the gay revolution.

Justin Wells had Armistead Maupin on his 'Americana' Radio 4 show yesterday, reflecting on 40 years of 'Gay Power'.

Today on Thursday had on Jim Fouratt, who was there in 1969.

Let's just hope it isn't another several years before we get such a feast.

A SocMed history moment

This has caused quite a stir. The White House press corps seem mightily upset that some blogger upset 'protocol' and got in a question to Obama.

Only it wasn't just some question, or just some blogger.

Huffington Post's Nico Pitney, who's been doing near 24/7 stellar work aggregating and blogging news from Iran, got a question at the press conference, delivering a query from an Iranian reader about whether Obama would ever now recognize an Ahmadinejad government

As Arianna noted, the press pack hated it. Here's the moment.



Pitney talked first about the live-blog he's been running to Rachel Maddow.

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Here he speaks to C-SPAN's Washington Journal explaining the question and how he got it, and how he 'orchestrated' its delivery with the White House.



This is a historical moment. A question from Iranians, via social media, gets asked of the US President. Mark this one down ...

Obama: Nerd in chief

John Hodgman speaks after Barack Obama at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in DC and discusses the central question of our age: "how we can heal the great and shameful division that has plagued our nation for so long — the age old conflict between jocks and nerds" and ask Obama: 'Are you now, or have you ever been, a nerd?'"

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Olbermann picks at the scab:

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Betty Bowers Explains Traditional Marriage to Everyone Else

Come out, come out - because that what's changes the world

"I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects ... I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help." Harvey Milk, 1978

HT: Andy Sullivan

Another Prop 8 postscript

On his blog, the Guardian's Michael Tomasky asks 'Does Barack Obama believe in gay marriage?'

I know he's officially against it. But I'm asking you -- as a matter of personal belief, like if he were just a highly successful lawyer in Chicago rather than the president of the Yew-nited States -- do you think he'd be for, or on some personal level he won't discuss currently is in fact, a gay marriage supporter?

Here's what I think.

There are some rumours that he'll make a major statement around the Stonewall 40th anniversary. There's a real head of steam grassroots movement getting going and it's only going to get angrier - including with those telling them to be quiet and patient such as the Washington gay lobbyist types who many blame for the Prop 8 loss. He will throw out a bone.

I doubt there's not quiet pressure as well as the Democrats have high profile gay supporters - think what happened when entertainment mogul and major fundraiser David Geffen was snubbed by Bill Clinton and early and very publicly supported Obama - but it would be on gays-in-the-military, Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), not gay marriage.

As Nate Silver points out, the latter will steadily make its way across the country (see this post on the metrics of that). The former has overwhelming support in the country with only some of the military bureaucrats and top brass are, I think, seriously able to delay it for that much longer through keeping Obama's ear, as appears to be the case at the moment.

A more serious issue is the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA, a Bill Clinton legacy), as I'd bet repeal might not even get through the Senate at the moment - remember, Hillary fudged it during the campaign and it's the bluedogs (right leaning democrats) who have the balance of power - and in reality a lot of practical change flows from getting rid of that.

On where his true belief is, who knows. But I do believe that when he first stood for election in Illinois he said he supported gay marriage, so the change of stance tells you a lot. It's all politics.

Why gay marriage will (eventually) pass in all US states (even Mississippi)

The decision of California's Supreme Court to reject the challenge to the ban on gay marriage – Proposition 8 – voted on by the people in November 2008, seems to have excited much 'woe is us' comment (as well as rallies in 104 American cities and towns last night).

Alistair Campbell even blogged that:

It left millions across the state and across America in despair wondering when they will get the opportunity to be treated equally in the eyes of the law and of society.

Yesterday’s decision cancelled out much of what San Francisco gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, the subject of a brilliant recent film – and many others – worked for. It may be years until gay Californians again have the rights already enjoyed by the people of Iowa, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Actually, I suspect Milk would have had more of a sense of proportion and definitely more of a sense of history.

Prop 8 - gay marriage remember, not civil partnerships (that weird 'seperate-but-equal' status which gave Tony Blair a nice liberal shiver) - came within a couple of points of being defeated.

Already activists have vowed to try again ASAP. And they'll get what they want - something Milk probably didn't even dream of - real equality.

It's inevitable because the culture is only going in one direction - pro-equality.

The stats whiz Nate Silver, THE 'go-to' guy when it comes to reading poll results (and other predictive factors), who best predicted the 2008 Presidential race (and who I referenced a lot in my posts about that) says so.

Following the passage of gay marriage in Iowa he built a predictive model whose outcome is that gay marriage will come in every US state by 2024, with half getting there by 2012. He discovered that you can build it on only three variables.

1. The year in which the amendment was voted upon;
2. The percentage of adults in 2008 Gallup tracking surveys who said that religion was an important part of their daily lives;
3. The percentage of white evangelicals in the state.

Its accuracy is such that:

The model predicts, for example, that a marriage ban in California in 2008 would have passed with 52.1 percent of the vote, almost exactly the fraction actually received by Proposition 8.

Because of changes in US society:

Marriage bans are losing ground at a rate of slightly less than 2 points per year.

Below are the dates when the model predicts that each of the 50 states would vote against a marriage ban. Asterisks indicate states which had previously passed amendments to ban gay marriage.

2009 (now)
Vermont
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Maine
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Nevada*
Washington
Alaska*
New York
Oregon*

2010
California*
Hawaii
Montana*
New Jersey
Colorado*

2011
Wyoming
Delaware
Idaho*
Arizona*

2012
Wisconsin*
Pennsylvania
Maryland
Illinois

2013
Michigan*
Minnesota
Iowa
Ohio*
Utah*
Florida*

2014
New Mexico
North Dakota*
Nebraska*
South Dakota*

2015
Indiana
Virginia*
West Virginia
Kansas*

2016
Missouri*

2018
Texas*

2019
North Carolina
Louisiana*
Georgia*

2020
Kentucky*

2021
South Carolina*
Oklahoma*

2022
Tennessee*
Arkansas*

2023
Alabama*

2024
Mississippi*

So don't worry, be happy! :]

Postscript: The ruling, as with the original vote, has stirred up a massive grass-roots movement for LGBT civil rights in the United States. Protests happened in 104 American cities the night of the decision and are notable for the engagement of a new generation many thought too interested in partying.

Last night protesters came out in force when Obama came to LA for a Democratic Party fundraiser - led by Lt. Dan Choi, the West Point graduate and Arabic linguist fired for being gay. They see Obama putting off repealing 'don't ask, don't tell'.

One of the things which Obama repeatedly said during the campaign was that in order for him to help make change happen he needed to see a grass-roots movement piling on the pressure.

Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, "Wait your turn." I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” where he says to the white clergy, "Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom."

Well, it's happening.

• Another Prop 8 postscript

Climate change in the abstract

This chart is adopted from a survey, conducted by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication. It reveals that Americans are concerned about global warming in the abstract.

The further we get out from the individual, the more impactful people think climate change will tend to be.

These beliefs are not necessarily irrational - climate change probably will have more impact on the developing world than the developed one, and it almost certainly will have more impact on our children than it does on ourselves.

Conclusion? Climate change advocates need to find ways to personalise the terms of the debate.

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.


HT: FiveThirtyEight

Postscript: 'It's the economy faggot' - Dan Savage on Obama and LGBT rights

Savage also points out in his column how Obama made a joke of the progress on gay marriage at the White House Correspondents Dinner last Saturday.

The more I think about the joke Obama told at the WHCD the more ticked off I get. We're witnessing rapid and historic progress in the fight for gay equality and Barack Obama, who campaigned on our issues and described himself as a "fierce advocate" of gay and lesbian equality, hasn't acknowledged the breakthroughs in Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in a setting or a with comments that are in any way equal to the significance of this historic moment. The best he can do—all he's willing to do—is toss off an Adam-Sandler-level joke.