Cute Leopards

We won a rare legislative victory in Vermont. Though the issue is on the agenda in many state legislatures, I expect most victories to follow the Iowa model of court action. To sum up the last couple days in civil rights history, some pictures:





"Zhang Jie and Zhongni, two of only 100 endangered North China leopards in capitvity" via the BBC =). More pictures of them at http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/E7fdpa-H1OL/Animals+Of+Hamburg+Zoo/MZ_5mXw4UXO .

Awwwwww!

Is gay marriage here to stay in Iowa?

Over at Fivethirtyeight.com, everyone's favorite nerd Nate Silver has a fantastic article up on the future of gay marriage. Using his fantastic regression model based off of electoral history of anti gay marriage citizen initiatives and the population of evangelical Christians in each state, Silver projects the year in which puplic opinion will shift enough that each state will vote down a ban on gay marriage. By his theory, such a ban would fail in 2010 in California and fail in 2013 in Iowa barring any major public opinion shifts. If the Iowa state legislature moves against the ruling right away, it could be on the ballot potentially by 2012, in which Silver predicts that it would pass. The sunny side of this though is that the Iowa state legislature isn't exactly raring to go on this one. One possible reason? Having gay marriage on the table in an election would dramatically shift Iowa's caucus landscape for the 2012 elections to the right, something the Democratic controlled legislature would love to avoid. With any luck, the legislature won't move against the court's ruling, and the marriage rights of Iowa's LGBT population will be there for good.

Iowa and Gay Marriage

As most of you probably know already, On April 3, 2009, in Varnum v. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, overturning a statewide "Defense of Marriage Act" in 1998. This ruling is a momentous occasion and a great victory for the LGBT rights movement. Additonally though, this terriffic ruling is a reminder of the clout of the courts. While LGBT rights have been undermined again and again in state legislatures and in citizen initiatives/propositions, the courts remain our staunchest ally within the government. Though it may take more than a decade, with a strong grassroots movement we can shift public opinion and bring about equality for all.