News
Poll: 59 percent of Americans support marriage equality
Results find record-high support for gay nuptials amid growing trend
A Washington Post-ABC News poll has found 59 percent of Americans support marriage equality (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key).
The poll, which was conducted via phone among 1,002 random adults, discovered the highest recorded support ever for same-sex marriage nationwide amid the growth in favorability for gay nuptials across the country.
The results found that 59 percent of responders support same-sex marriage, 34 percent are in opposition and 7 percent have no opinion. Moreover, in the wake of numerous federal court decisions striking down state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, the poll found that 50 percent of responders believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to marriage equality.
According to a Washington Post article that details the results, there’s also majority support for marriage equality in the 33 states where same-sex marriage is illegal. Among residents polled in those states, 53 percent support allowing same-sex marriage, while 40 percent were opposed.
Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, said the poll demonstrates “bipartisan momentum” is on the side of supporters of same-sex marriage.
“A supermajority of Americans believe in freedom and fairness, and support is growing at an unprecedented speed,” Solomon said. “Overwhelmingly, Americans – no matter where they live, how old they are, or what party they belong to – believe in treating their gay and lesbian family members and friends with dignity and respect by supporting their freedom to marry.”
Additionally, the poll found 81 percent Americans rejects the idea of allowing businesses to discriminate against or refuse services to LGBT people. Numerous states, most recently Arizona, have considered legislation that would enable businesses and individuals to refuse services to LGBT people for religious reasons.
Prior to the publication of the Washington Post-ABC News findings, the poll that demonstrated the highest-recorded support for same-sex marriage was another Washington Post-ABC News poll that came out just prior to the start oral arguments at the Supreme Court on marriage. That poll found 58 percent of Americans support marriage equality.
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Rollback of health IT standards will harm LGBTQ patients
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
National LGBTQ Task Force brings Creating Change conference back to D.C.
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
Hundreds protest ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good in D.C.
PHOTOS: ‘ICE Out For Good’
A Shakespearean tragedy comes to life in exquisite ‘Hamnet’
Feminist fiction fans will love ‘Bog Queen’
