President Obama’s announcement of support for same-sex marriage has changed public opinion on the issue, a new survey shows – but only in the most partisan of ways.

Democrats, and especially liberal Democrats, have become more supportive of same-sex couples marrying since the president made his famous pronouncement in May, according to poll results released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Latinos have also shifted slightly toward acceptance of same-same marriage.

Across almost all groups, the percentage of people with no opinion has gone down, suggesting that Obama may have prompted some people to make up their minds.

Among Democrats, support for same-sex marriage rose from 59% in April to 65% in the latest poll, conducted from June 28 to July 9. Among liberal Democrats, the increase was a notable 10 percentage points, from 73% to 83%.

Otherwise, opinions have scarcely budged. Neither Republicans nor political independents have significantly changed their views.

“Pretty much however we split it … the change is really focused among Democrats, and especially liberal Democrats,” said Besheer Mohamed, a research associate at Pew.

In its report, Pew noted the increase in Democratic support against the backdrop of recent news that the Democratic Party plans to add support for same-sex marriage to its party platform at the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

The issue will help Obama politically by increasing enthusiasm among his base of liberal Democrats, the poll numbers suggest. Otherwise, it appears to have been a wash, politically.

Viewed with a longer lens, opinions about gay marriage have shifted dramatically in recent years, with overall support rising from 31% in 2004 to 48% today. That is part of

This article originally appeared on: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-partisan-divide-growing-on-gay-marriage-survey-finds-20120731,0,3598019.story?track=rss

In response to the recent controversy surrounding gay marriage and Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, GSC Products is offering their support to gays with a 50% discount on all their Greensations products. This unprecedented move is designed to prove that not all corporations are homophobic, while publicly poking a little fun at the issue of gay marriage.

Albany, NY (PRWEB) August 01, 2012

In response to the recent controversy surrounding gay marriage and Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, GSC Products is offering their support to gays with a 50% discount on all their Greensations products. This unprecedented move is designed to prove that not all corporations are homophobic, while publicly poking a little fun at the issue of gay marriage.

“I think any corporate bigwig that has to publicly dismiss gay marriage might have some gay tendencies himself. Why would a CEO born into big family money even care to make a statement about gay marriage? It just doesn’t make any sense, but it seems to have sparked something new in corporate America. We figured there must be a way to show the corporate world just how ridiculous this whole thing is. So we decided to offer a 50% discount to anyone who’s willing to use our gay coupon code by proclaiming their support for gays,” says Wayne Perry, CEO of GSC Products.

The coupon code is (IMGAY) and so far it’s gotten mixed reviews while garnering big sales. Although many groups laugh at the notion of a gay discount, many others are concerned that it sends the wrong message. The Greensations IMGAY coupon code may have controversial implications, but the company’s founder says it’s only words and that’s the whole point.

“So you type the words (I’m Gay) into our shopping cart and that does what? In this case it gets you 50% off, but does it make you gay? And even if you are gay

This article originally appeared on: http://news.yahoo.com/greensations-offers-gay-discount-response-chick-fil-controversy-072403430.html

Throughout the presidential campaign, Fox News will be breaking down the key issues and giving viewers an in-depth look at the positions of President Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. This article in the AEHQ Issues series focuses on gay marriage.  

The Democratic National Committee made headlines this week with the announcement that for the first time, it is moving to include a plank supporting same-sex marriage in the party’s convention platform. 

It appeared to be a bit of an “in your face” to the host state, North Carolina, which just voted by 61 percent for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. 

The Democratic Party, though, has been emboldened since President Obama reversed course and came out in favor of same-sex marriage in May. 

In the 2012 presidential race, both candidates are trying to appeal to their base on the issue. While Obama is the first sitting Democratic — or Republican — president to endorse gay marriage and in turn use that in his re-election race, Republican Mitt Romney’s task may be to convince GOP voters he’s firmly in the opposite camp on the issue. As governor of Massachusetts, he opposed gay marriage, but briefly entertained the idea of civil unions when the state courts ordered same-sex marriages to go ahead. 

Either way, gay marriage is arguably a bigger wedge in this year’s presidential race than it ever has been thanks to the president’s endorsement. 

Obama has energized the LGBT lobby and Hollywood, raising millions of dollars off the announcement for his campaign. 

“When the president came out in support of freedom to marry, he was doing what we elect presidents to do,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry.  ”He was showing the moral leadership of standing up for the full protection and dignity of every American under the Constitution.” 

In embracing this wedge issue, though, Obama has not only contrasted himself with many conservatives, he has also managed to created deep divisions within his own party. On Tuesday, the Coalition of African-American Pastors launched a national campaign to withdraw support for Obama over same-sex marriage. Rev. William Owens, who is leading the campaign,

This article originally appeared on: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/31/aehq-issues-gay-marriage-rises-as-wedge-in-2012-race/

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — Part of a federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman and denies tax, health and other benefits to married gay couples is unconstitutional, a judge in Connecticut ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in Hartford issued a 104-page decision saying the provision in the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act violates the Fifth Amendment right to equal protection.

The provision “obligates the federal government to single out a certain category of marriages as excluded from federal recognition, thereby resulting in an inconsistent distribution of federal marital benefits,” Bryant wrote.

Bryant also noted that “many courts have concluded that homosexuals have suffered a long and significant history of purposeful discrimination.”

The ruling came in the case of six married same-sex couples and a widower from Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont who sued after being denied federal benefits, including recognition under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the federal tax code, Social Security death benefits and the New Hampshire Retirement System’s contribution to Medicare Insurance.

Several federal judges across the country have issued similar rulings. In late May, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston also ruled the law unconstitutional. And in early July, the Obama administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the legal fights over the Defense of Marriage Act.

Gay and lesbian advocates applauded Tuesday’s ruling, but they expected an appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

“I’m thrilled that the court ruled that our marriage commitment should be respected by the federal government just as it is in our home state of Connecticut,” Joanne Pedersen, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement after the ruling was released.

Pedersen and her spouse, Ann Meitzen, of Waterford, Conn., were married under Connecticut’s gay marriage law in December 2008. Pedersen, a retired civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, is enrolled in

This article originally appeared on: http://online.wsj.com/article/AP92de8122c3734d32bca74862c58706bd.html

By Dan Merica, CNN

Washington (CNN) – A group of conservative black pastors are responding to President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage with what they say will be a national campaign aimed at rallying black Americans to rethink their overwhelming support of the President, though the group’s leader is offering few specifics about the effort.

The Rev. Williams Owens, who is president and founder of the Coalition of African-Americans Pastors and the leader of the campaign, has highlighted opposition to same-sex marriage among African-Americans. He calls this campaign “an effort to save the family.”

“The time has come for a broad-based assault against the powers that be that want to change our culture to one of men marrying men and women marrying women,” said Owens, in an interview Tuesday after the launch event at the National Press Club. “I am ashamed that the first black president chose this road, a disgraceful road.”

At the press conference, Owens was joined by five other black regional pastors and said there were 3,742 African-American pastors on board for the anti-Obama campaign.

When asked at the press conference for specifics about the campaign – funding, planned events and goals – Owens said only that the group’s first fundraiser will be on August 16 in Memphis, Tennessee. But Owens insisted that “we are going to go nationwide with our agenda just like the president has gone to Hollywood.”

In May, Obama announced on ABC News that he thought “same sex couples should be able to get married.” The president had previously said that he opposed gay marriage, but said in May that his views were personal and did not represent a policy change.

In a fiery Tuesday press conference at the press club, Owens said Obama was taking the black vote for granted and decried the idea of similarities between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, an assertion made by the NAACP following Obama’s same-sex marriage support.

Owens has long been an opponent of gay marriage and consults with the National Organization for Marriage as a liaison to the black churches.

At the press conference,

This article originally appeared on: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/31/black-pastors-group-launches-anti-obama-campaign-around-gay-marriage/

NEW YORK –The partisan gap over same-sex marriage in the U.S. continues to widen, with 65 percent of Democrats now supporting it compared to 24 percent of Republicans, according to poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

The poll found an increase in support among Democrats since President Barack Obama announced in May that he favors same-sex marriage. In April, a Pew poll gauged support among Democrats at 59 percent.

The latest poll, conducted jointly by the Pew’s Forum on Religion and Public Life and its Center for the People and the Press, was released a day after Democratic Party leaders said they intended to add support for gay marriage to the party platform at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early September.

At the time of the last convention, in 2008, 50 percent of Democrats favored allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, while 42 percent were opposed. In the new poll, only 29 percent of Democrats were opposed.

According to Pew, support for gay marriage also has increased among independents. In the new poll, 51 percent of independents favor it, and 40 percent are opposed. In 2008, 44 percent of independents backed gay marriage, 45 percent were against it.

Advocates of gay marriage say the trends highlighted by Pew and other pollsters suggest that support for it by Obama and his party will be an asset in the Nov. 6 election. Foes of gay marriage disagree, noting that a majority of voters in several of the most hotly contested states have supported amendments banning gay marriage, including Ohio, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, where the ban prevailed in the May 8 primary.

“There are many Democratic members of Congress, and officeholders further down the ticket, who live in states and districts where it will be a serious disadvantage to be identified with ‘the gay marriage party,’” said Peter Sprigg of the conservative Family Research Council.

Gay marriage will be on the ballot in four states on Nov 6. Voters in Maryland, Washington state and Maine will have a chance to join six other states in legalizing same-sex marriage, while Minnesotans will

This article originally appeared on: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/07/31/20120731gay-marriage-poll-partisan-gap-widens.html

{WOMENSENEWS}–“The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be.”

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s famous no-nonsense words published by Daily Beast reporter Andrew Sullivan in July have been widely interpreted as the signpost of a new era of mainstream media acceptance.

It just wasn’t considered big news.

A few days later, in a similar non-event, singer and songwriter Frank Ocean revealed his first love was a man through a post on his Tumblr blog. Following the confession, his album, “Channel Orange,” still debuted at No. 2 on Billboard.

Many religious communities, however, are still far from extending anything like this sort of tolerance. If they were, Jennifer Knapp’s life would be very different today.

Knapp was a star Christian pop singer from 1994 to 2002, selling a million records between 1998 and 2002 and performing in churches across the country. Her music earned her four Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association and two Grammy nominations.

But all that changed when Knapp announced in 2010 that she was gay–she became an instant outcast. Christian radio stopped playing her songs and Christian bookstores stopped selling her music.

“No Christian, according to the Bible, can be simultaneously gay,” said Pastor DL Foster, founder of Witness Freedom Ministries in Atlanta, Ga., which runs programs to convert gay people into becoming straight. “So Christian singers should be holy, not homosexual.”

Knapp, 38, no longer considers herself a member of the Christian music world.

A Similar Rejection

She joins the ranks of Marsha Stevens, who suffered a similar rejection decades ago. After losing a lucrative career Stevens went on to exercise her faith in other ways.

Stevens, 59, once drew thousands of fans to her concerts. She came out in 1980 during what was known as the Jesus movement. Afterwards Maranatha Music, a Christian label, dropped her. Christian music publishers pulled her music from retail and promoters canceled her concert bookings.

“I was completely taken aback by the reaction,” said Stevens. “I spent about five years saying ‘I don’t need Jesus,’ but I absolutely do. I couldn’t make myself not be a Christian.”

In the mid-1980s Stevens visited the Metropolitan Community Church in southern

This article originally appeared on: http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2012/07/31/Gay-Christian-singers-find-themselves-outcasts/WEN-1661343769721/

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This article originally appeared on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obamas-gay-marriage-support-fails-to-sway-americans/2012/07/31/gJQA07WrMX_blog.html

A new poll out today from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life ratifies some of what we already know about public attitudes toward marriage equality. Democrats, Independents and white non-Hispanic Catholics are for it. Republicans, African Americans and white evangelical Protestants are not. It bursts the popular storyline (that I willfully engaged in) that President Obama’s public declaration of support for marriage-equality markedly changed hearts and minds among African Americans. But it also confirms an undeniable truth. Support for legal recognition of same-sex couples continues to rise.

The chart at right tells the story. In the four years since the 2008 survey, there has been a 15-percent jump in support among Democrats (65 percent), seven percent among Independents (51 percent) and five percent among Republicans (24 percent). Republicans are the most opposed to marriage equality (70 percent). Overall, 48 percent are in favor and 44 percent are not.

African Americans aren’t too keen on same-sex marriage either. The Pew poll reports that “the share of African Americans who support gay marriage is no higher today than it was before Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage.” That was in May. An April Pew poll put support at 39 percent. Today, it’s 40 percent. But according to this latest survey, “it is up substantially from 26 percent in 2008 and 21 percent in 2004.”

The one group that Pew says does appear to have been swayed by Obama’s pronouncement are liberal Democrats.

. . .Obama’s announcement may have rallied the Democratic base — particularly liberal Democrats — to the issue. Democrats supported gay marriage by a 59% to 31% margin in April — that stands at 65% to 29% today. Most of this shift has come among liberal Democrats, 83% of whom now support gay marriage, up from 73% earlier this year.

For all the opposition by leaders in the Catholic Church, their flock isn’t following. “Nearly six-in-ten white non- Hispanic Catholics (59%) favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry,” Pew reports, “as do 57% of Hispanic Catholics.” This shouldn’t come as

This article originally appeared on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/pew-poll-shows-rising-support-for-gay-marriage/2012/07/31/gJQAJsLSNX_blog.html

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES |
Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:08pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Gay marriage opponents asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to uphold a California ban on same-sex matrimony that was struck down by two lower courts as a violation of the Constitution.

The request from backers of Proposition 8, the voter-approved state constitutional amendment defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, comes a week after the high court was asked to review a Massachusetts case challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage the same way.

The two petitions move the politically charged issue of marriage rights for gay men and lesbians one step closer to a potential first-time review by the Supreme Court in the weeks before November’s U.S. presidential election.

President Barack Obama turned gay marriage into a 2012 campaign issue in May when he came out in support of the right of same-sex couples to wed. His Republican opponent, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, disagrees.

The Supreme Court could agree to hear the California and Massachusetts cases in its next session, which begins in October, putting the court on track to issue a ruling within a year.

Alternatively, the high court could decline to hear either or both cases.

Refusing to weigh in on the fight over California’s Prop 8 would keep intact lower-court rulings nullifying it but leave unresolved the broader question of whether similar gay marriage bans in other states would survive a constitutional challenge.

California, the most populous state, joined the vast majority of U.S. states in outlawing same-sex marriage in 2008 when voters passed Prop 8, overriding a state Supreme Court decision six months earlier that briefly legalized gay marriage.

The state high court, however, later ruled that 18,000 same-sex weddings officiated between May and November of 2008 would remain legal.

Gay rights advocates subsequently brought suit against Prop 8, and a San Francisco-based federal judge struck down the measure in a landmark

This article originally appeared on: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/01/us-usa-gaymarriage-california-idUSBRE86U1I420120801