Thursday, January 24, 2008

Gore Supports Gay Mariage

Al Gore Voices Support For Gay Marriage
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: January 23, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(New York City) Former Vice President Al Gore has come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

"I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage to allow it by gays and lesbians," Gore said in a posting on his person blog in the Current.com website.

"Shouldn’t we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to one’s partner regardless of sexual orientation?"

Current is the news network founded by Gore.

"[T]he loyalty and love that two people feel for one another when they fall in love ought to be celebrated and encouraged and shouldn’t be prevented by any form of discrimination in the law," Gore said in the video posting.

In 2000 when he ran for president Gore said he supported civil unions or contracts but not marriage.

His turnaround was hailed by gay Democrats.

"We applaud Vice President Gore for firmly stating his support for allowing same-sex couples the freedom to marry. It is a position which some would still call courageous, but which a new generation of Americans would call common sense," said Jon Hoadley, Executive Director of National Stonewall Democrats.

"Vice President Gore has demonstrated leadership on this subject, and we encourage all Democratic leaders who restrain their consciences out of political expediency to demonstrate their leadership as well."

None of the frontrunners seeking the Democratic nomination for president supports same-sex marriage.

"Clearly, the environment is not the only thing that Al Gore is right about," said Sean Kosofsky a spokesperson for Triangle Foundation, Michigan's largest LGBT rights group.

In New Jersey, where gays are pressing the legislature for same-sex marriage, Garden State Equality said Gore's remarks made him the highest-ranking public figure in the United States to endorse marriage equality for same-sex couples.

New Jersey allows civil unions but Garden State Equality says it has received complaints from 512 couples since the law took effect on February 19, 2007 that employers are not respecting their civil unions because civil unions are not marriage.

Nearly 100 civil-unioned couples and other witnesses recently testified about the failure of the civil union law over eight hours of hearings of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, which will release its first interim report on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, the one-year anniversary of the law.

"Al Gore gets it in a way that the others don't," said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality.

"In the real world, civil unions don't give same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage, because employers view civil unions as inferior. In New Jersey, the failure of employers to recognize civil unions like marriage has resulted in a failure rate of our civil union law of at least 1 in every 5."

Legislation to allow gays and lesbians to marry in Maryland will be introduced on Friday.

The issue of same-sex marriage will be argued in the California Supreme Court later this year, and in Vermont, the first state to allow civil unions, a committee set up by lawmakers will deliver its report on whether to convert civil unions to marriage sometime this spring.

Massachusetts is the only state where same-sex marriage is legal.

No comments: