Becky Garrison: A Gallup poll released on May 20, 2011 states that for the first time a majority (53%) of Americans believes same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. Also, an April, 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center showed that for the first time there is as much strong support as strong opposition to gay marriage – 22 percent each.

On February 22, 2011, Jeffrey White, a Federal judge in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, ruled the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional when he found that Karen Golinski, an attorney and employee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, had her rights violated under the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution when she was denied spousal benefits that heterosexual employees receive. The full opinion can be found at Think Progress.

By Becky Garrison

Despite recent efforts to mainstream its image, Exodus International, a network of ministries formed over 30 years ago to “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality,” appears to be on the decline. As reported by Truth Wins Out, a non-profit organization that fights anti-gay religious extremism, attendance at Exodus International’s latest Love Won Out conference, drew at most 400 people, a far cry from the 1,000 in attendance during its heyday when Focus on the Family organized these quarterly ex-gay symposiums. This drop in attendance follows a meeting convened by Exodus International President Alan Chambers on November 16, 2011 to explore how to keep the organization from social and economic oblivion.

Becky Garrison:  In the battle for marriage equality, a federal appeals court and the Washington State legislature delivered both a love letter for same-sex couples and a Valentine’s Day massacre on society, depending on one’s interpretation of civil liberties and the institution of marriage.

On February 7, 2012, the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared California’s Proposition 8, a ban on same-sex marriage, to be unconstitutional. By a 2-1 decision, the three-judge panel affirmed the lower court judge’s 2010 ruling that Prop. 8 was indeed a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians. (This timeline charts the legal briefs and hearings that transpired since 2008 when Prop 8 went into effect.)

Cain, Sandusky, Catholic Priests. Sex has been in the headlines a lot lately. But some important distinctions are getting lost in the rush to categorize offenses, blurring the difference between crimes against marriage with those against women or minors, or the crimes of institutions with those of individuals.

So much commentary about the cover up of sexual abuse at Penn State has wrongly made comparisons of the University to the Catholic Church. While both are large, patriarchal institutions, both have kept the long-term abuse of children under wraps for the sake of those in leadership positions, and both have all the ritualistic trappings that inspire devoted followers and protect strict hierarchical structures, Penn State is not the Roman Catholic Church.

by Andy Kopsa

Every four years the national political eye shifts to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.  With the 2012 presidential election only 15 months away, the campaign frenzy in Iowa has already begun.  Local and national media are eagerly following Republican presidential hopefuls as they glad-hand farmers, eat local delicacies and stump, flanked by American flags, through soybean fields.

In February next year, Iowans will head to their local caucus to give a traditionally coveted victory to one Republican who could go on to face President Obama in the general election. That Republican – be it Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich – will need to secure the blessing of the radical religious-political group The Family Leader.

Bob Vander Plaats, the outspoken head of The Family Leader (TFL), is the man The Atlantic has called a Republican political “kingmaker” in Iowa – and the man who The Hill just ranked as having the ability to give one of the top 10 “endorsements the presidential candidates covet most.”

The media has documented his – and the TFL’s – statements about homosexuality (worse than second hand smoke) and women’s role in society (producing lots of babies). Last week TFL made national news again with its Marriage Pledge – already signed by Bachmann and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania – touting the benefits of slavery to African American families (after vocal push-back, TFL has since removed this from the pledge).  None of Vander Plaats’ work would be half as interesting a story if The Family Leader, a Focus on the Family affiliate, hadn’t been built with over $3 million in federal funds.

That New York state would eventually join the increasing number of those in the US to allow same-sex marriage was of little question.  We here at The Revealer have never been ones to uphold marriage as worthy of protection by the state because we’ll never be convinced that it’s the state’s business to regulate how we partner, love, have sex, or procreate.  But we love equal rights.  And we do like religious exemptions–for the most part–of which this bill has several.  These in particular protect religious institutions from legal address if they refuse to marry gays.  You can read the exemptions here, but it will be hard to do so without thinking about miscegenation laws that not so long ago regulated marriage between blacks and whites.  What makes these laws different from, say, exemptions for Anabaptists from military service or health care insurance?  We’ll have to get back to you with specifics on that but perhaps it has something to do with how a clergyman acts as a representative of the state when sanctioning marriage?

Amy Levin: Last Wednesday, June 15^th, something historic happened…for the fourth time. The New York assembly approved the same-sex marriage bill, known as The Marriage Equality Act, which spearheaded a hopeful telos to allow same-sex couples to enjoy benefits and protections of marriage under state law. The New York Senate currently has 31 backers of the bill, including two Republicans, and is waiting for one more to pass the bill. Publicity of the bill has awoken a slumber of supporters and opponents alike, as many realize that among the five states that allow same-sex marriage, New York is by far the most populated, and hence, the most consequential for social change.

As long as we’re making history, it can’t hurt to be cautious of what is at stake when we narrate our steps to marriage equality in America. While opponents of same-sex marriage often fall under the categories of religious, conservative, Christian, and/or Republican, we should be careful not to turn a potential victory of marriage equality into a victory of secular liberalism over religious conservativism. To help delineate why, the work of political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry is quite useful. Featured in last month’s essay by Peter Montgomery at Religion Disptaches, Harris-Perry believes that “LGBT Advocates Need Public Progressive Faith.”

States of Devotion, a publication of NYU’s Hemispheric Institute edited by Ann Pellegrini, has a new “dossier” of articles that address same-sex marriage in the U.S. Pellegrini’s introduction reads:

That same Christian Century article contrasts the rising support for gay marriage, especially among younger Americans, with public attitudes towards legalized abortion. The survey found that support for abortion held steady over the past five years, but so did opposition to it. More significantly, there was no demonstrable generation gap, as there is on the same-sex marriage issue. That is, both support for and opposition to legalized abortion held steady across age groups.