After Parkland, Many More Millennials Are Registering to Vote

In the wake of one mass shooting after another the Republicans in Congress have blocked any meaningful effort to pass common sense gun control measures - an even better move would to remove gun manufacturer immunity from lawsuits by those harmed by their deadly products - many Millennials seemingly are waking to the reality that the only way to create change is to register to vote and "vote the bastards out."  Data reveals that the young are registering at an accelerated rate and, if they actually get to the polls, could achieve the goal of sending politicians bought and paid for the gun lobby into forced retirement.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

The pace of new voter registrations among young people in crucial states is accelerating, a signal that school shootings this year — and the anger and political organizing in their wake — may prove to be more than ephemeral displays of activism.

They could even help shape the outcome of the midterm elections. If voters in their teens and 20s vote in greater numbers than usual, as many promised during nationwide marches for gun control this spring, the groundswell could affect close races in key states like Arizona and Florida, where there will be competitive races for governor, the Senate and a number of House districts in November.

The deadly shooting on Friday at Santa Fe High School in Texas will probably add urgency to the efforts. Hours after the carnage, young organizers mobilized by the February mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., were vowing a political response.

“Santa Fe High, you didn’t deserve this,” Emma González, an organizer from Parkland, posted on Twitter. “You deserve peace all your lives, not just after a tombstone saying that is put over you. You deserve more than Thoughts and Prayers, and after supporting us by walking out we will be there to support you by raising up your voices.”

The question is whether they will vote. Even some Republicans are beginning to believe they will.

“The shooting at Parkland high school was the tipping point for these kids,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster. “The bravery and activism of the Parkland kids ignited their peers across the country, and these newly minted 18-year-old voters are already motivated. The school shooting in Texas surely adds to their resolve but, honestly, they didn’t need any more motivation.”

Voter data for March and April show that young registrants represented a higher portion of new voters in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, among other states. In Florida, voters under 26 jumped from less than 20 percent of new registrants in January and February to nearly 30 percent by March, the month of the gun control rallies.

In North Carolina, voters under 25 represented around 30 percent of new registrations in January and February; in March and April, they were around 40 percent.

In Pennsylvania, voter registrations across age groups increased sharply in March and April before the primary last week, but registrations of young voters increased the fastest, jumping to 45 percent in March and more than half in April, from fewer than 40 percent of voters in January and February.

And those new registrants lean Democratic. Of the new voters ages 25 and under in the state, a third registered as Democrats; 21 percent signed up as Republicans; and 46 percent registered as either unaffiliated or with another political party.

In addition to the registration figures, new polling of younger voters from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics found a significant jump from two years ago in those who say their involvement will make a difference. Such optimism indicates a voter is more likely to actually turn out.

“What I have seen is what I am calling a once in a generation attitudinal shift about the efficacy of participating in the political process,” said John Della Volpe, the director of the institute, who has specialized in polling younger voters for nearly two decades. “I am optimistic that the increasing interest we have tracked in politics will likely lead to increased participation in the midterms.”

So far, the Harvard polling indicates that Democrats are the more likely beneficiary of the increased commitment to voting, with half of voters 18 to 29 saying they will vote Democratic. The remainder are divided between Republicans and independents.

“Also, just the sheer number of individuals who say they will definitely vote, 37 percent, is as high as it’s ever been,” Mr. Della Volpe said. “That’s likely to only grow stronger. The number among Democrats is 51 percent saying they will definitely vote.”

Younger voters were not moved by either President Trump or Hillary Clinton, but Mr. Trump’s election reawakened them “only to be brought to life in more powerful ways in the last two months, post-Parkland shooting,” Mr. Della Volpe said. “This now has the potential to turbocharge that.”

The deaths in Texas may only add more fuel.

Several groups are working to help that happen. NextGen America, a group funded by the activist billionaire Tom Steyer, is targeting voters ages 18 to 35 in 10 traditional battleground states, in addition to Arizona. The group reported on Monday that it had registered 36,789 voters, including 8,459 in Florida, its top state.

Another group, Inspire U.S., has been concentrating on registering high school students in their classrooms. They have registration drives in 10 states and more than 200 high schools and have registered more than 41,000 students since the group started three years ago. Inspire also uses a texting app to remind users to vote.

Many governors are promoting voter registration drives in their state’s high schools, including Virginia in recent weeks.

Let's hope the registrations continue, that these newly registered voters actually vote, and that the midterms turn out to be a bloodbath for Republicans.

How Republican Obstructionism Could Hand Congress To Democrats

In general there is little if anything positive I can say about today's Republican Party.  And I say this as a former Republican who held a city committee seat and was a precinct chair for 8 years.  The party's embrace of ignorance and insanity is near complete and those few sane Republicans who remain (they should be on the endangered species list)  appear unable to stop the run away freight train comprised of the Christofascists and their close cousins in the Tea Party.  With luck, the extremism of the GOP will help the Democrats to not only hold control of the Senate, but also allow them to recapture the House of Representatives.  A piece in Think Progress looks at this premise.  Here are excerpts:

Why are Republicans so freaked out?  . . . .  Politico suggests the reason for the glumness is fear about the political fallout from the GOP’s unyielding, nihilistic approach to governance on issues like Obamacare and the debt ceiling. That problem may be far worse than they imagine. A close scrutiny of the data reveals several demographic weak points that the current wave of Republican crazy could activate, leading to the outcome they dread the most: Democratic control of both houses of Congress.

Start with minorities. It’s not well-known, but Republicans in 2010 benefited not only from relatively low minority turnout (standard for an off-year election) but also from relatively low minority support for Democratic candidates.
If minorities snap back to 77-22 Democratic support as a consequence of Republican misbehavior, and the expected 2 percentage point increase in the share of minority voters from population trends emerges, then the Republican 6.8 percentage point margin in 2010 will be immediately sliced in half. And if the minority vote goes even stronger for the Democrats, reaching 2012 levels, that would eliminate about three-quarters of the Republicans’ 2010 advantage all on its own.

Another demographic problem for the GOP comes from a more surprising quarter: seniors. As Erica Seifert of Democracy Corps noted in a recent memo:

There’s something going on with seniors: It is now strikingly clear that they have turned sharply against the GOP.

We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare.

We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens.

It is therefore quite plausible that the GOP will benefit far less from senior support in 2014 than in 2010. If the senior share of voters returns to normal levels (19 percent) and the Republican margin among this group drops to its post-2000 average (6 points, about where it is right now in the Democracy Corps polls) that would take care of the rest of the GOP margin from 2010, getting the Democrats slightly past the break-even point in the popular vote. 

[T]here are certainly potential avenues to shift the 2014 House vote even farther in Democrats’ direction. There is the youth vote, for example  . . . If relative minority turnout is better in 2014 than 2010, then there will be an even larger increase in minority vote share over 2010, pushing the Democrats’ margin farther toward what they need to take the House.

The conjecture may be off base but one thing is certain: striving to disenfranchise minorities and leave senior citizens to live on dry dog food as they face staggering medical bills is not the way to win votes.  And with younger voters strongly pro-gay, the GOP's blind allegiance to the Christofascist anti-gay jihad isn't helpful either.

National Organization For Marriage Warns Against Allowing Students to Have Gay Friends.

Sometines I really believe that the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") is working desperately to garner a hate group designation.  Originally, NOM's fat cow spokeswoman, Maggie Gallagher (who is married to a Hindu, by the way) bloviated incessantly about how NOM's sole agenda was to "protect marriage."  But then a funny thing happened.  Nom's deep seated loathing for gays started to seep out as it advocated in support of fraudulent "ex-gay" therapy, declared gays to be a threat to religious freedom, and now is advocating that parents discourage their children from having gay friends.  God forbid the little darlings learn that we are normal humans and not some sort of vermin to be eradicated.  Is it a coincidence that (1) the tactics being used by NOM - a Catholic Church front group in my assessment - look to be increasing  modeled on the Nazi propaganda plan against the Jews and (2) the Catholic Church is headed by a Pope who is a former Nazi youth member?   I think not, although readers are free to draw their own conclusions.  A piece in Think Progress looks at NOM's latest hate initiative.  Here are excerpts:

The National Organization for Marriage has sunk to a new low of intolerance. In a “Thanksgiving Message” from Jennifer Roback Morse of NOM’s Ruth Institute, she warns that young people are being “pressured” to support LGBT equality because they have gay friends and peers.  Morse relates a story of a Catholic resident assistant (RA) at a college who didn’t want to participate in the “drag party” being organized by her gay supervisor.

MORSE: I think a lot of our students are encountering this type of situation in their dorms and on their college campuses… What I want to say to you, is that the other side has RAs in the dorm where your young people are going to school. There’s no TV message that is going to do the job of countering that type of influence. Somebody’s got to be there talking to young people one at a time in the places where they’re hanging out and doing the things that they’re doing. There’s no mass media strategy by itself that will solve this problem. [...]

And this holiday season, when your young people come home from college, ask them about this. Ask them if they have a gay RA in their dorms… So please, talk to your young people about this and see what kind of pressure they may be under that maybe even they don’t realize how much it’s having an impact upon them.

Apparently, simply knowing a gay person now constitutes “pressure” that conservative Christians are unfairly subjected to. Morse’s inherent solution seems to be that young people should ostracize (or disobey, in the case of someone in a supervisory position like an RA) anybody who might be openly gay and to only talk to other equally anti-gay people, like those provided by NOM.

NOM is surely right to be concerned about the growing generation gap on marriage equality and overall LGBT acceptance. Encouraging a culture of exclusion, however, will not likely endear many young people to the group’s cause.

Top Tier Republican Fundraiser Launches Pro-Gay Marriage PAC

Heads must be exploding amongst the gay-hating Christianists who have heretofore pulled the puppet strings for much of the Republican Party.  Paul E. Singer (pictured at right), 67, a billionaire hedge fund manager who is among the most important Republican donors nationwide, has launched a pro-gay marriage PAC.  Although straight himself, Singer has a gay son who has married his partner.  Can you imagine the batshit crazy ravings that will be issuing from the lips of Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer and the bovine Maggie Gallagher?  One will need full foul weather gear to be protected from the eruptions of spittle that must be flying in the Kool-Aid drinking Christianist circles.  Personally, I LOVE it.  And as more gays come out, more deep pocket political contributors are likely to be siding with their children and across the board civil equality.  I hope Mitt Romney is paying attention.  Here are highlights from a column in the New York Times that looks at the development: 

OVER the past year, the main story line in the push for marriage equality has been the ardor and success with which leading Democratic politicians have taken up the fight. The Democratic governors of New York, Maryland and Washington all promoted and signed same-sex marriage laws, for which President Obama expressed his support last month. 

But the progress within Republican ranks has also been pivotal, not to mention fascinating. And a compelling character in that subplot just added a new twist to the narrative, one that suggests the rapidly changing political dynamics of this issue and its potential import to a party dogged by an image of being culturally out of touch. 

That character is Paul E. Singer, 67, a billionaire hedge fund manager who is among the most important Republican donors nationwide. In just one Manhattan fund-raiser last month, he helped to collect more than $5 million for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. 

He steadfastly supports conservative candidates. He also steadfastly supports gay rights in general and marriage equality in particular. Along with a few other leading Wall Street financiers, he contributed and helped drum up the majority of the money — more than $1 million — that fueled the campaign for same-sex marriage in New York. 

He has given nearly $10 million of his own money to gay-rights initiatives, including the same-sex marriage efforts not only in New York but also in New Hampshire and New Jersey. And that figure doesn’t include his assistance in tapping a broad network of donors for individual candidates. He was pivotal in rounding up about $250,000 apiece for the Republican state senators in New York whose votes for same-sex marriage provided its margin of victory in the Legislature. 

Now, Singer says, he’s providing $1 million to start a new “super PAC” with several Republican compatriots. Named American Unity PAC, its sole mission will be to encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage, in part by helping them to feel financially shielded from any blowback from well-funded groups that oppose it. 

In an interview on Tuesday, he told me that he’s confident that in Congressional races, which would most likely be the super PAC’s initial focus, there are more than a few Republicans “who could be on the verge of support” or are “harboring and hiding their views.”  “And this kind of effort could be catalytic in generating some more movement,” he said.

Although he is straight, he has a gay son and son-in-law who were married in Massachusetts, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2004.  

Our conversation also reflected a growing awareness among prominent Republicans that embracing marriage equality could broaden the party’s base and soften the party’s image in crucial ways.  .  .   .  .  “There’s a feeling among some people that the Republican party is harsh on some things,” acknowledged Singer, whose extended comments can be found in a blog post supplementing this column.

In a CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday, a whopping 73 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 said they favored marriage equality. That’s the clear future of this issue, and Republicans are keenly aware that while the party’s formal opposition to abortion rights, for example, doesn’t contradict the prevailing sentiments of a majority of Americans or buck voter trends, opposition to same-sex marriage does. 

Singer said that it [same sex marriage] “very well fits within my framework of freedom,” adding that it promotes “family stability” and is a tribute to an institution in need of one. “Obviously, the institution of marriage in America has utterly collapsed,” he said. That gay and lesbian couples nonetheless want to wed “is kind of a lovely thing and a cool thing and a wonderful thing,” he added.

Singer’s super PAC, which, according to Singer, will soon have a budget “of a few million dollars,” factoring in expected support from collaborators and friends. .  .  .  .  he said, adding that with continued work on marriage equality, he expects to persuade more Republicans of its rightness, too. 

Again, the Christofascists will be beside themselves.  But money talks and the strong support for gay marriage among younger voters who will be replacing reactionary elderly voters as they die off makes the hand writing pretty clear for anyone who isn't a Kool-Aid drinker: change or die.

Conservative Wants to Disenfranchise Yonger Voters

Demonstrating that conservative professions of a love for democracy is lip service at best, the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg has admitted that he wants the voting age increased to disenfranchise younger voters.  While he won't say what age he wants the minimum voting age increased to, he confesses that in his view it should be "much higher."   In short he wants to be able to send young soldiers to their needless deaths in fool's errand wars like the Iraq War, but these individuals who represent cannon fodder for old white men should have no vote concerning the nation's course.  One could argue that given the current state of the country, one might better argue that its the elderly who ought to be disenfranchised. Think Progress looks at this latest far right batshitery.  Here are highlights:

The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg is claiming that 18-year-olds should be denied the right to vote because they are “so frickin’ stupid about so many things.” In a video first posted by the Daily Caller, Goldberg laments the culture’s obsession with youth and argues that conservatives should “beat out” young people’s belief that “socialism is better than capitalism.” Goldberg is the third National Review writer in two months to face controversy:

GOLDBERG: Personally, I think the voting age should be much, higher, not lower. I think it was a mistake to lower it to 18, to be brutally honest….[I]t is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates more with ignorance and stupidity than youth. We’re all born idiots, and we only get over that condition as we get less young. And yet there’s this thing in this culture where, ‘Oh, young people are for it so it must be special.’ No, the reason young people are for it because they don’t know better. That’s why we call them young people. [...]
The fact that young people think socialism is better than capitalism. That’s proof of what social scientists call their stupidity and their ignorance. And that’s something that conservatives have to beat out of them. Either literally or figuratively as far as I’m concerned.

Are the GOP and the Right Wing Media Beginning to Regret Their Racism?

I have maintained for a long time that just barely under the surface of the Christianist organizations, the Tea Party crowd, and Right Wing news outlets such as Fox News lurks a very strong streak of racism.  Not to mention, homophobia as well.  But with the changing demographics of the USA and the rapid shift occurring the acceptance of gay Americans, the deliberate pandering by the GOP and its media allies to the nastiest elements in American society may be poised to bite them in the ass big time.  That, of course, would strike me as Divine justice.   An article in The Nation looks at conservative efforts to pretend that the GOP and Fox News, et al, are not the equivalent of modern day segregationists.  Here are some highlights:

Conservatives must be feeling regretful. After nearly fifty years of using appeals to white racial resentment to take over the South, win presidential elections and control of Congress, conservatives are realizing this might come back to bite them in the ass. As the right wing has become xenophobic and anti-Latino, conservatives have watched young Latinos and young Asian Americans join young African-Americans in being overwhelmingly Democratic. The greater diversity of this younger generation has in turn meant that Democrats, especially Barack Obama, have won handily among young voters in recent elections. All of a sudden, conservatives see being the party of angry white males as a potential liability, and they want to change their image. 

You can see this concern in Mitt Romney’s recent campaign events touting his substantively thin but rhetorically compassionate education reform agenda. As the Washington Post reported on Romney’s visit to a school in West Philadelphia on Thursday, his first campaign event in a majority black neighborhood: “Mitt Romney’s campaign team has been quietly laying plans . . . . o reassure independent swing voters that Romney can be inclusive and tolerant in his thinking and approach.” Romney’s campaign insists they are sincere, but they never made any such outreach during the primaries, . . . . 

The conservative media are happy to help burnish both white racial anxieties and the official story line that Republicans are the friends of minorities by trying to tell an oddly inverted story of race relations in America. According to National Review’s current cover story by Kevin Williamson, it is the Republican Party which has consistently supported civil rights and Democrats who have opposed it.  Meanwhile, conservative blogs, talk radio and Fox News hype random stories of anti-white violence, creating the false impression that whites are more often the victims of hate crimes by blacks than the reverse. 

The National Review argument has been thoroughly debunked in many outlets.  .  .  .  .  Critics of Williamson’s piece were generous enough not to mention that National Review’s tendencies towards racism and opposition to civil rights continue today.  National Review recently let go of longtime contributor John Derbyshire for penning a shockingly bigoted rant in another publication, . . . . NR also had to drop another contributor, Robert Weissberg, shortly thereafter for having, in Lowry’s words, “delivered a noxious talk about the future of white nationalism.” Meanwhile NR defends voting laws that would disenfranchise minorities through onerous requirements such as presenting government-issued photo identification. And it argues that the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary. 

There is a corollary to this logic holding that it is blacks that oppress whites, rather than the reverse. This is, of course, a regular feature in arguments against affirmative action.  

Conservative media have been especially eager to smear Trayon Martin, the young black victim of a shooting for which the perpetrator was initially not arrested. They are also getting on the wrong side of modern civil rights struggles, by opposing gay rights and fanning the flames of Islamophobia.

Tell Gov. Bob McDonnell to Veto the Voter Suppression Bill

I've noted before that the Republican Party around the country is systematically seeking to bar young people, seniors and low-income citizens from voter under the guise of voter ID laws that claim to have a purpose of stopping voter fraud.  The truth, however, is that there is no big problem of voter fraud to be addressed in the first place.  Instead, it is all about seeking to bar likely Democrat voters from voting. Sadly, the Virginia GOP is operating off of the same national game plan.  Please sign the petition telling Bob "Taliban Bob" "Governor Ultrasound to veto the insidious SB 1 that would implement this sick agenda here in Virginia.  Sign the petition HERE.  Make it clear to Taliban Bob that he's being watched and will be held accountable.

The GOP VP Hunt - Has McDonnell Disqualified

One has to suspect that Bob "Taliban Bob" "Governor Ultrasound" McDonnell may be regretting some of the extremist batshittery he's knowingly embraced in the past since it may be what thwarts his ambition to be Mitt Romney's VP nominee.  In a piece that weighs the pros and cons of various possible VP nominees, the Richmond Times-Dispatch describes McDonnell as follows: 

Bob McDonnell Governor of Virginia Pros: Leads key swing state with 13 electoral votes. State’s 5.6 percent jobless rate could bolster economic argument. Cons: Law requiring an ultrasound before an abortion could be a distraction; questions about graduate school thesis could resurface.

McDonnell's other dilemma is what to do with the anti-minority voter ID law that was passed by the GOP controlled General Assembly.  The Washington Post looks at McDonnell's quandary: sign the bill and please the Tea Party crowd and Christofascists or veto it and avoid looking even more extreme to general election voters:

FACED WITH VOTER ID legislation that would disenfranchise thousands of Virginians, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is in a quandary. He can veto the bill and incur the wrath of fellow Republicans, or sign it and reinforce the GOP’s image of hostility toward young, poor and black voters.

Mr. McDonnell is all too aware that the bill, passed by Republican lawmakers despite his warning about legislative overreach, is gratuitous at best. That’s why he sent it back to the General Assembly with amendments that would eliminate its most obnoxious feature: a requirement that ballots cast by voters who lack identification be thrown out unless the voters make a separate trek to local electoral offices to prove their identity.

But the General Assembly restored that provision and sent the bill back to Mr. McDonnell, who now faces a decision: Does he want to be known as a partisan street brawler, or as a grown-up who governs with restraint?

[M]ost responsible Virginia Republican leaders acknowledge there is no evidence of systematic voting fraud in the commonwealth. The unavoidable conclusion is that the voter ID bill is a solution in search of a problem — the sort of government meddling that the GOP usually hates.

The real reason Republicans have pushed to change the system is that they hope to inconvenience, and thereby disenfranchise, the 12,000 or so Virginians who lacked IDs when they voted in 2008 — a group, comprised disproportionately of blacks, the poor and young voters, who tilted to the Democrats. 

Do I feel any sympathy for McDonnell?  Nope, none whatsoever.  He made this problem for himself.

Demographics Favor Obama Over Romney

Besides lamenting the dramatic lurch of the Republican Party to far right/Christianist insanity, I continue to be dumbfounded that the GOP is placing all of its eggs in a shrinking demographic - i.e., aging white far right Christians and the ignorance worshiping loons in the Tea Party - and possibly throwing away the future.  Just about every report on the nation's changing demographics ought to be a loudly ringing alarm bell for the GOP, yet in its quest to be the party of political whores to the far right, the party embraces policies that alienate future generations of younger voters be it on issues of immigration to same sex marriage.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at how the nation's changing demographics will favor Obama, not Romney, in November.  Here are highlights: 

It was no fluke four years ago that America elected its first black president, and the trends that helped Barack Obama make history are evident today in demographics that favor his reelection. Millennials, the most liberal generation, are increasing at the rate of 4 million a year; there were 48 million in ’08, there are 64 million today, and Obama won them by 66 percent. Minorities too are growing as a share of the electorate, and Obama won them last time by 80 percent.

After the disappointments of the last four years, it’s unlikely that Obama will match his ’08 margins with these demographics. But to win, he has to do well enough among millennials and minorities to compensate for his weakness among white working-class voters, who were once the core of the Democratic base and now are the GOP’s bread and butter. “A real wild card is how many of them are going to show up,” 

 More single people, secular people, and people with college degrees are all part of what Teixeira calls a “warming trend” toward Democrats. White working-class voters, the group most resistant to Obama, were 28 percent of the electorate in ’08, and they’re down another 3 percent this year. But that’s a national number; in Ohio, a battleground state, they are 54 percent of the electorate. 

The white working class is “plummeting” as a share of voters, said Teixeira, replaced by white college graduates and minorities.   .   .   .    “Even if Obama lost working-class whites by 23 points, he could still win the election because the country has changed so much,” said Teixeira. 

The history of political parties is that over the long term they adjust to changing demographics and evolving attitudes. Trende predicts that by the time his young children are in college, the GOP will embrace gay marriage. And Teixeira said the Democratic Party, if it wants to retain the loyalty of Hispanics and young people, will have to deliver for them on economic growth and opportunity. “They can’t just rely on protecting Medicare and Social Security,” he said.

In the short term, though, there is a less harmonious scenario, a “racialized” politics that will play out over the coming months as the GOP doubles down on the share of the electorate it must carry by a big margin, those white working-class voters.  .   .   .   .  Evidence of this racialization is evident in Arizona, said Trende, where Gov. Jan Brewer “did everything she possibly could to alienate Latinos.” Running for reelection in 2010, Brewer ran behind McCain with Hispanics, but ahead of him by six or seven points among whites as he won reelection to the U.S. Senate.

Obama's Disinterested Approach to Gay Rights

One can feel as if they are going to experience whiplash at times from Barack Obama's approach to LGBT rights and ending legalized anti-gay discrimination.  Sadly, it often seems that only when the LGBT community becomes truly pissed off and inclined to stop writing checks for Obama and/or other Democrats that Obama will have a brief epiphany and take a step to advance equality.  But more often, he seems most inclined to either throw gays under the bus - as with his refusal to sign an ENDA like executive order despite polling that shows the vast majority of Americans support employment protections  - or to close his eyes and pretend he's unaware of issues that have monumental impact on gays.   While I applaud his belated efforts for the repeal of DAD and his refusal to defend DOMA, there's so much more to be done, especially in states like Virginia where LGBT citizens barely rate as 4th class citizens.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Obama's continued ability to frustrate LGBT Americans while assuming that we have no viable option but to vote for him in November.  Here are highlights:

Two weeks from now, North Carolina will hold a public referendum on what could become one of the toughest anti-gay measures in the country: a far-reaching proposal to amend the state constitution to ban civil unions and domestic partnerships. But President Obama is not expected to touch the subject when he appears in Chapel Hill on Tuesday — even though it is roiling the electorate there.

Instead, Obama will talk about college loans, his aides said, kicking off a two-day, three-state tour designed to energize the youth vote. His delicate sidestep of Amendment One, a ballot initiative to be decided May 8 that would recognize marriage between a man and a woman as the only legal domestic partnership in North Carolina, is seen by some as another sign that he is not fully committed to gay rights — an interpretation that could dampen the enthusiasm of the young voters he is trying to court.

“It’s a little bit of a missed opportunity,” said Josh Orol, 20, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a leader of a campus movement to defeat Amendment One. “I didn’t expect him to talk at length about it. I know he has come out publicly against it. But I sort of hoped he would at least name-drop a little bit. It’s disappointing.”

 The issue is particularly complicated in historically conservative North Carolina. .   .   .   North Carolina is widely seen as a bigger challenge this year for Obama than it was in 2008, when he won with a margin of roughly 14,000 votes. Not only does the state’s unemployment rate continue to hover near 10 percent, but its Democratic Party is in disarray and is expected to be of little help to president  .  .  

It will also be up to Obama to navigate the political crosscurrents of a complicated state in which he must court multiple constituencies that do not all agree on all the same issues.  The fate of Amendment One, for instance, is uncertain, with one public poll predicting that it will pass easily and another projecting a loss. Quietly opposing Amendment One, but keeping his distance from on-the-ground efforts to defeat it, could be an essential strategy for Obama to pull back together the diverse coalition that elected him last time.

Nonetheless, that approach is frustrating younger activists, many of whom have come to view marriage equality as the defining civil rights cause of their generation. They are impatient with Obama’s self-described “evolving” position on gay marriage — he supports civil unions but stops short of endorsing legal protections for marriage — and they are looking for signs that he is ready to embrace their cause more fully.

Campaign officials also drew a stark contrast between Obama’s positions on marriage issues and those of the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, whose opposition to legal protections for gay couples drew an endorsement last week from the National Organization for Marriage.

Particularly frustrating to DeLuca and others is the prospect of Amendment One passing despite growing opposition. Corporate leaders, advocates for victims of domestic violence and even moderate Republicans, faith leaders and the NAACP have joined forces in an attempt to defeat it 

Whatever Obama does or does not say about Amendment One in the coming two weeks, he could benefit, at least somewhat, from the push to defeat it. Across the state, particularly on college campuses, diverse coalitions of students, gay rights activists, libertarians and others have been collecting e-mail addresses and registering voters in advance of the May 8 referendum.  

I often am left with the feeling that the issue of gay rights is just a matter of political gamesmanship with Obama.  He constantly forgets that there are real lives involved and real LGBT headed families that face discrimination.  It is soul killing to always find oneself hoping and waiting for the day when one will be a full, equal citizen.  I often feel I will not live to see that day arrive.  At least not if we rely on Obama to set the timetable.

More Bad News for the GOP: 59% of Latinos Support Gay Marriage

This blog often notes to apparent long term suicide plan of the Republican Party. Why else would the GOP go out of its way to embrace policies that drive away younger voters, Hispanic voters, women voters and pretty much every minority group that cannot be described as elder, white and far right Christian? Politico is reporting on a new poll of Hispanic voters that holds no good news for the GOP or the folks at the National Organization for Marriage which wants to dupe Hispanics - who the lily white leadership at NOM despises - into carrying NOM's anti-gay message. Its refreshing that Hispanic voters seem to understand that NOM and its allies make tawdry prostitutes look virtuous. Here are some story highlights:

Latinos are more likely than other Americans to say they’re liberal, according to a poll out Wednesday. Three out of 10 Latino adults say they consider themselves liberal compared to 21 percent of the general U.S. public, the Pew Hispanic Center’s 2011 National Survey of Latinos poll found. And more native-born Hispanics than immigrant Hispanics say they are “very liberal” or “liberal,” 34 percent to 27 percent.

On social issues, Hispanics hold more conservative views on abortion than does the general U.S. public, but they share similar opinions on accepting homosexuality in society.

On the issue of whether homosexuality should be accepted by society, a majority — 59 percent — say that it should. Just 30 percent told pollsters it should be discouraged. Those numbers line up with the general U.S. public, with 58 percent saying homosexuality should be accepted, and 33 percent saying it should be discouraged. Again, there is a slight difference by immigrant generation: 53 percent of immigrant Hispanics say it should be accepted, and it jumps to 68 percent among second-generation Hispanics. Like the general public, more Hispanics who are younger say homosexuality should be accepted, with 69 percent of 18- to-29-year-olds and 60 percent of 30- to-49-year-olds telling pollsters that society should not discourage it.

Somehow, I cannot find it in my heart to shed any tears over the long term suicide plan of the GOP. One can only hope that as the GOP dies the foul political influence of the Christianists will die with it. With luck, the death rattles will start with the 2012 elections.

Is The GOP Beginning to Retreat on Gay Marriage?

A piece at Politico suggests that the GOP is retreating from its jihad against same sex marriage. Living in Virginia where gays continue to be third or fourth class citizens - or in North Carolina just to the south where the Christianist elements aligned with the GOP are striving to pass Amendment 1 - one would not see any visible signs of this alleged shift in policy. Long term, such a retreat makes sense given the high percentage of younger voters who support LGBT equality. But, I believe Politico may be premature in trumpeting the retreat. What do readers think? Here are highlights from Politico's piece:

Just a few years ago, House Republicans were trying to etch their opposition of gay marriage into the Constitution. Now? They’re almost silent.

It’s been one of the swiftest shifts in ideology and strategy for Republicans, as they’ve come nearly full circle on same-sex politics. What was once a front-and-center issue for rank-and-file Republicans — the subject of many hotly worded House and Senate floor speeches — is virtually a dead issue, as Republicans in Congress don’t care to have gay marriage litigated in the Capitol.

Even more than that, Republican leadership has evolved, too. It has quietly worked behind the scenes to kill amendments that reaffirm opposition to same-sex unions, several sources told POLITICO.

It’s not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach — and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country. Same-sex relationships are more prominent and accepted. There are more gay public figures — including politicians — and it’s likely that many Washington Republicans have gay friends and coworkers. Just as important — there’s also a libertarian streak of acceptance on people’s sexuality coursing through the House Republican Conference.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released earlier this month showed a 9 percent increase in support for gay marriage among Republicans to 31 percent. Support among 18-to-34-year-olds was nearly 70 percent, according to a 2011 Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Even liberal champions of gay rights — like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) see the political evolution. “Republicans see an issue that was a good wedge issue no longer is and will be a losing issue in the future,” Nadler told POLITICO. “They can’t just walk away from it; their base will get mad at them. They’re slowly walking away from it because it’s an increasingly losing issue.”

It’s not that Republicans have completely given up on the issue. Human Rights Campaign’s Michael Cole-Schwartz said that while there has been a shift, “the House Republican leadership has not been friendly to the [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community.”

“Substantively there has not been a lot of progress getting made even if the rhetoric has toned down a bit,” Cole-Schwartz said. Much to the chagrin of many Democrats, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is spending millions of dollars on defending DOMA. But gay-rights activists said the decision to keep it in the court and not force a floor vote was illustrative of GOP leadership’s feelings on the issue.

Then there are those Republicans who have been fighting for gay rights for decades — people like Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Ros-Lehtinen, who has a transgender son named Rodrigo, was the first Republican to co-sponsor the repeal of DOMA. “Also,” she wrote in an email to POLITICO, “the younger generation is not as fixated on many social issues, as important as they are to other folks. Marriage equality is an issue that is evolving in people’s minds and hearts. As with many controversial issues, the passage of time makes us more comfortable with change.”

I would be happy if the claimed retreat were true, but I think Politico is premature in its conclusions. At least in gay hating states like Virginia.

British Conservatives Lead Charge for Gay Marriage

Marriage and the stability, commitment increased security it brings for children that it underscores are conservative values - at least if these social goods are separated from religious extremism driven by chosen ignorance, self-enriching demagogues and whore like politicians who are only too happy to subvert such true conservative values for perceived short term political gain. Indeed, in my view, the far right of America's professional Christian class and far too many Republican politicians make the nastiest of whores look virtuous. In contrast, conservatives in the United Kingdom - outside of the hate and ignorance peddling Catholic bishops and some of their counterparts in the Church of England - seem to understand that affording marriage rights for all committed couples upholds social stability and what are true conservative values. The Washington Post looks at the night and day difference between true conservatives and the modern day witch trial like elements that have taken over conservatism in America. Here are highlights:

Americans watching the latest push for social change in Britain might feel as if they had stepped into an alternate political universe: Here, the Conservatives are leading the charge for same-sex marriage.

Gay couples in Britain won the right to civil partnerships in 2004, which granted them nearly the same legal status as married heterosexual couples while avoiding the controversial use of the word “marriage.” But Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative-led coalition have launched a historic drive to grant gay men and lesbians the option of also entering into civil marriages, touching off a surprisingly fierce uproar in largely progressive Britain and fueling a rebellion on the right as the party comes under heavy fire from traditional allies in the British clergy.

Yet challenging tradition appears to be exactly Cameron’s point. The proposal, put forward this month despite the lack of a strong clamor for marriage within Britain’s gay community, is nevertheless emerging as the cornerstone of a bid by the 45-year-old prime minister and other young leaders on the right here to redefine what it means to be a modern Conservative.

“I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative,” Cameron said in a recent landmark speech on the issue. “I support gay marriage because I am a Conservative.”

[S]trategists see Cameron’s decision to champion the gay marriage cause as an attempt to seize the mantle of progressive change from the left and broaden the Conservative Party’s appeal among an increasingly key voting group: young urbanites.

There are at least 12 openly gay members of Parliament from the Conservative Party, more than all other British political parties combined.

What prompted the shift? “We lost three elections, in 1997, 2001 and 2005,” said Margot James, former vice chairman of the Conservative Party and an openly gay member of Parliament.

“The electorate was not seeing us as a viable alternative in a modern world. But David Cameron came along and changed all that. This is a different Conservative Party now, one that is fully in favor of equal rights. I think the Republicans could learn a lot from us in how to appeal to the center, without whose votes a party cannot hope to win.”

Cameron, a Christian and married father of three whose position on same-sex marriage gradually evolved since winning the party’s leadership in 2005, is calling gay marriage a matter of basic human rights. He is also making a pitch to uneasy religious conservatives, suggesting that the institution of marriage will reinforce traditional values of commitment and monogamy within the gay community.

The terms of political debate here remain different than in the United States, where the Republican Party base contains a highly influential religious right whose views on social issues are considered extreme even among many British Conservatives.

By offering the proposal, Cameron has put his party out in front of even many gay advocates here who had seen other issues, such as stiffer penalties for hate crimes, as higher priorities. . . . “This is more of David Cameron trying to drag the Conservatives kicking and screaming into the modern world,” said Ben Bradshaw, a ranking Labor lawmaker who in 1997 became one of Britain’s first openly gay members of Parliament. “Of course, we’ll support it, but this is pure politics on their part.

[S]aid Ewan Watson, 37, a London-based lawyer who is in a same-sex relationship. “For some of us, having marriage is huge. It’s a statement that we really are equal, and we won’t be as long as they segregate us from the word ‘marriage.’ ”

So while David Cameron works to drag the British conservatives into the modern world, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and a plethora of members of the GOP strive to drag America back into the Dark Ages. One can only hope that as the aging bigots and Christofascists in the GOP base die off, the GOP is setting itself up for a harsh day of reckoning with younger voters.

Why the Youth Vote Will Make or Break Obama

One of my long time frustrations during the now two decades that I've been actively involved in politics is the hit or miss nature of securing the youth vote. Even though young voters face the biggest long term consequences of failed political/government policies, the youth vote often cannot be relied upon to get to the polls. Fortunately, my children do not suffer from the apathy that plagues many of their compatriots, but overall the inconsistency of the youth vote is disappointing. One can only hope that 2012 will not be a repeat of 2010 when many youth voters stayed home and the consequence was the current GOP lunatics who were elected to the U, S. House of Representatives. I sincerely hope that Lady Gaga or someone can wake them up to the absolute importance of going to the polls and voting in 2012. A piece in The New Republic looks at why the youth vote could make or break Obama's reelection chances. Here are some highlights:

Americans are polarized like never before as we head into the 2012 presidential campaign, and the greatest dividing line of all seems to be age. Indeed, President Obama has astoundingly consistent support from Americans less than 30 years old, the so-called Millennial generation. In a recent Pew survey, this cohort favored Obama over Romney by 24 points, 61-37. The generation least likely to support Obama, on the other hand, is the "Silent generation"—the generational group slighter older than Baby Boomers, and the group now dominant among the ranks of seniors. He trails Mitt Romney in this generation by 13 points, 41-54. This is the same generation that moved so sharply against Democrats in the 2010 election, contributing heavily to the GOP wave that swept the country.

Those polling numbers clearly dictate an electoral strategy: What Obama needs to do is perform a kind of generational pincer movement on the GOP, driving up support and turnout among the Millennial generation while breaking into GOP support among the Silent generation. There’s also a straightforward way for him to accomplish both goals.

Millennials are exceptionally sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement and its goals. Obama’s attack on inequality and the way that an unfair economy thwarts economic mobility strikes a very responsive chord among these voters.

In addition, Obama’s argument that government must play a strong role in reestablishing healthy economic growth also plays well among this group. In the same Pew poll, Millennials are most likely to select jobs as their top election issue. And, in distinction to older generations, they still believe government spending helps the economy recover—indeed, they believe spending should be a higher priority for the federal government than deficit reduction.. . . Finally, a whopping two-thirds of this generation believes the Affordable Care Act should either be expanded or left as is, rather than repealed.

[T]he other side of Obama’s pincer movement[:] He needs to draw a very strong contrast between his approach and that of the GOP, which proposes to replace the current Medicare system with underfunded vouchers. Silents, more than any other generation, believe it is more important to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are (64 percent) than reduce the budget deficit (27 percent).

Nationally, he [Obama] could break-even or a bit worse among middling age groups (30-64) but still win if he carries 18 to 29-year-olds by significantly more than he loses seniors, as he did in 2008, . . . But if he carries 18 to 29-year-olds by significantly less than he loses seniors, as congressional Democrats did in 2010, he will lose.

in contrast to 2008 where the youth vote put Obama over the top in only two states, North Carolina and Indiana, there could be many instances where the youth vote makes the difference in 2012. Consider Ohio. . . . Virginia and Nevada follow the same pattern. Obama carried 18 to 29-year-olds by 60-39 while losing seniors 46-53 in Virginia. Keep that relative relationship, fight the GOP candidate to a draw among middling age groups, and the state is his.

All over the country, in other words, from the Midwest to the New South to the new swing states of the Southwest, Obama’s generational pincer movement could be key to his electoral prospects. Motivate and inspire youth while giving seniors second and third thoughts about the GOP. It’s a good game plan and Obama’s already made an excellent start at implementing it.

The False Myth of Voter Fraud

In a number of states - particularly states where Republicans hold a majority - there has been a movement to pass legislation that makes it a requirement to vote that would be voters have government issued photo ID with them when they go to the polls. The ostensible reason put forth by the GOP proponents for the requirement is to stop "voter fraud." In truth, as the chart above from the DNC explains, the real reason for the requirement is to depress the minority vote since most minorities with good reason do not vote Republican. To a lesser extent, the requirement is also aimed at suppressing the youth vote because as with minorities the younger voters do not vote for the Christianist dominated GOP.

Can you imagine what these disingenuous bastards will do when some day the tables are turned and they and the Christianist/Tea Party base of the GOP are in the minority? These fools and bigots are truly setting a bad precedent that hopefully will come home to bight them in the ass big time preferably sooner as opposed to later.

Will Changing Demographis Pull 2012 Out of the Fire for Obama?

On this blog I look frequently at the changing demographics of the USA and the ways in which the Republican Party seems Hell bent to alienate the growing demographic sectors while kissing the vile, bigoted asses of declining sectors of the overall population. Two of the segments of the population most turned off by the GOP rhetoric are younger voters - 30% of whom identify with no religious denomination - and Hispanics who get treated by Republicans as if the were the new equivalent of the Communist threat of the 1050's and 1960's. So how will all of this play out in the 2012 elections? A new study paper entitled “The Path to 270: Demographics Versus Economics in the 2012 Election” by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin of the Center for American Progress, suggests that with effort, Obama can make these demographic changes work for his re-election. Not surprisingly, Michael Medved, who is always blinded by his own religious extremism disagrees. Here are highlights from a piece in The Daily Beast that looks at the pro-Obama argument:.

The recent debate among pundits has been over the question of whether the path to 270 for Obama runs through Virginia and North Carolina and Colorado (and appeals to “new-economy voters”) or through Ohio and the Rust Belt (and more class-based appeals). It’s a silly debate. The answer is both. An important new paper by two leading electoral demographers on the progressive side of the fence makes the case and is well worth your time (it’s 68 pages), as it’s chockablock with fascinating information about changes in the electorate, both nationwide and in several key states—changes that may well decide the outcome next November.

The paper is “The Path to 270: Demographics Versus Economics in the 2012 Election” by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin of the Center for American Progress. You can probably figure out from the subtitle that the basic story is that demography favors Obama, while the likely underlying economic picture (i.e., still bleak) favors whoever is running against him.

Demographically, everything is moving Obama’s way. . . . .
The minority share of the electorate was 26 percent in 2008. It’s likely to be 28 percent in 2012. The white working class will continue to shrink. It will make up 3 percent less of the electorate than it did in 2008, dropping from 39 percent to 36 percent. White college graduates will gain 1 percent, from 35 to 36.

These changes obviously favor the incumbent. So now let’s get to vote margins. Obama took 80 percent of the minority population (26 percent of the country) in 2008. Teixeira and Halpin “conservatively” estimate that his share of the minority vote will go down to 75—basically from less enthusiasm, especially from nonblack minority-group voters. But that decline still translates into an ever-so-slightly-higher percentage of the overall vote (21 percent to 20.8 percent), because the voting pool has expanded. So Obama can suffer some decline in margins among minority groups without it being remotely fatal.

So let’s move on to geography. The authors say that Obama’s core states add up to 186 EVs, and the GOP’s, 191. They identify 12 states that are going to decide the winner, in three regions. Obama won all 12 last time, but that seems completely impossible for 2012. The Rust Belt/Midwest states are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The Southwest states are Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. The “new South” states are Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Throw it all in the wash and what does it mean? It means first of all that if the economy stinks, none of this demography will matter and Obama will lose. But it also means that he is going to have to assemble different coalitions from battleground state to battleground state around a message that can rally segments of all three groups. For all their differences, there is one thing almost all members of those three groups have in common. They’re part of the 99 percent. The authors want to see “a sustained posture of defending the middle class, supporting popular government programs, and calling for a more equitable tax distribution.”

To see Medved's piece, click here.

What Failed GOP Policies Have Wrought for Generation Y

All three of my children fall within what is often referred to as "Generation ," namely young adults between the ages of 18 and 28. What this younger generation is experiencing as a result of the failings of my baby boomer generation and in particular the failed policies of the Bush/Cheney years is disheartening. Despite the harsh reality of what has been done to the nation's economy, the majority of the would be GOP presidential candidates want to implement even more of the same policies that have wrought the economic current debacle. A story in American Prospect looks at what this reality is meaning for Generation Y. Here are some highlights:

Young adults entering the workforce today think they'll be worse off than their parents—they're not wrong.

The recession officially ended nearly two and a half years ago, in June 2009, but for the generation of young adults who’ve been trying to take their first steps into adulthood, its effects could shape the future for decades to come.

Why is this recession different from other sharp downturns? The standard economic indicators fail to tell the whole story. Yes, unemployment rates for young people remain at the record-high levels they hit at the Great Recession’s peak in 2007, but this is typical for young workers, who tend to be the last group that recovers after a recession—and tend to feel its effects far after the economy has rebounded.

For youth entering the workforce today, not has the sour economy delayed their careers; they are entering a workforce that offers historically low wages and, unlike their parents, they're coming in with massive amounts of student-loan debt.

A poll we commissioned of young people ages 18 to 34 shows that 32 percent of employed college graduates—and a shocking 53 percent of young workers with only a high school diploma—are working jobs that do not advance their careers. Given that the Federal Reserve, in its most recent projection, predicts unemployment will remain at about 8 percent until the end of 2013, and 7 percent until the end of 2014, that means many young workers will not get their first career-track job for another two or three years.

Millennials’ soaring debt burden is largely due to crushing college tuition rates that have risen far faster than inflation. In 1968, when the first boomers entered college, a student could have paid for tuition and fees at a public university by working just 6.2 hours a week at minimum wage; today, they’d have to work full-time just to cover tuition costs.

ising debt, un- and underemployment, and dim job prospects have forced many Millennials to postpone the key decisions that historically marked entry into adulthood. Nearly half of the 25- to 34-year-olds surveyed said they’ve put off purchasing a home; 29 percent say they’ve delayed starting a family; and 26 percent still live with their parents. These decisions have long-lasting effects.

The lower wages, skimpy benefits, debt burdens, and persistent unemployment that young workers face today are not simply the result of random economic fluctuations or forces beyond our control: They're the direct consequence of decades of bad government policy and inaction. The assault on collective-bargaining rights, the loosening of corporate oversight, the deregulation of the financial sector, and the repeated reductions in taxes—particularly for corporations—have all combined to create a bleak economic landscape.

But there are many ways policymakers could help Millennials start their lives with a greater chance of economic security and prosperity. Increasing the minimum wage, for instance, would raise the wage floor and help combat a decades-long slump. . . . . policymakers need to take action right now to prevent a lost generation of youth whose parents simply did not pay forward the social benefits they inherited.

Do John Boehner, Eric Cantor or the Koch brothers give a damn about this dismal picture? Of course not. They are focused solely on aiding the wealthy and pushing the rest of us towards quasi-serfdom. Would that the idiots in the Tea Party would wake up to the fact that they are backing the very people and policies that have screwed them over.

Pollsters For Both Parties See "Dramatic" Shift Toward Same-Sex Marriage

More bad news for the Christofascist and professional Christian set: pollsters for both the Republicans and the Democrats find that the shift towards acceptance of same sex marriage is increasing and that the speed in the changing attitudes is accelerating. Hence, self-enriching cows like Maggie Gallagher and professional Christians like Tony Perkins are increasingly fighting a losing rear guard action. Politico looks at this likely good news for the LGBT community which translates into bad news for homophobes and their political whores in the GOP. Here are some highlights:

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In a new polling memo intended to shape politicians' decisions on the question of same-sex marriage, the top pollsters for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama jointly argue that support for same-sex marriage is increasingly safe political ground and will in future years begin to "dominate" the political landscape.
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The pollsters, Republican Jan van Lohuizen and Democrat Joel Benenson, argue in their memo, which can be read in full here, that support for same-sex marriage is increasing at an accelerating rate and that the shift is driven by a politically crucial group, independents. They are expected to unveil the memo, which was commissioned by the group Freedom to Marry and shared exclusively with POLITICO, at a press conference at the National Press Club today.
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The new memo, based on public polling, makes the case that support for same-sex marriage has "accelerated dramatically in the last 2 years" and that the future almost surely belongs to supporters of same-sex marriage.
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The pollsters conclude that the issue is changing fast: "It is clear that the public is in the process of rethinking its position on the issue, with all political groups — Democrats, Independents as well as Republicans — and all age groups more likely to support marriage for same-sex couples," they write.
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They also note a factor that has been increasingly clear to observers of state legislative fights on the subject: Momentum and public interest appear to be shifting in the direction of supporters of same-sex marriage.
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And they make the case for a kind of demographic inevitability that's at the core of the argument gay rights activists have been making with increasing conviction to political leaders. "Support strongly correlates with age," Benenson and van Lohuizen write. "As Americans currently under the age of 40 make up a greater percentage of the electorate, their views will come to dominate."

The GOP's Quest to Limit the Right to Vote

Besides supporting an economic system that would hearken back to the so-called Gilded Age and its robber barons, the GOP is also striving to bring back an era when many - especially blacks and minorities - were effectively disenfranchised through laws that put hurdles in front of would be voters. The goal, of course, is to suppress the vote of those who do not support the GOP's poisonous economic and social polices. This true agenda, naturally, is disguised under the rubric of preventing "voter fraud." The real fraud, of course, is what the GOP is doing, not any real world problem with fraudulent voting. Next the GOP will want some kind of poll tax or property requirement for one to vote. E.J. Dionne has a column in the Washington Post that looks at this insidious agenda. Here are highlights:
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An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.
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The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place.
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These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young. It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.
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[T]hink of what this would look like to a dispassionate observer. A party wins an election, as the GOP did in 2010. Then it changes the election laws in ways that benefit itself. In a democracy, the electorate is supposed to pick the politicians. With these laws, politicians are shaping their electorates.
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Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up. In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs. And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points. Besides Texas, states that enacted voter ID laws this year include Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Tennessee. Indiana and Georgia already had such requirements.
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[T]he Justice Department should vigorously challenge these laws, particularly in states covered by the Voting Rights Act. And the court should be asked to review the issue again in light of new evidence that these laws have a real impact in restricting the rights of particular voter groups.
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“This requirement is just a poll tax by another name,” state Sen. Wendy Davis declared when Texas was debating its ID law early this year. In the bad old days, poll taxes, now outlawed by the 24th Amendment, were used to keep African Americans from voting.
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Whether or not these laws can be rolled back, their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years. The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012.