There's an intriguing story in the Washington Blade this week focusing on Virginia, where the state's GOP-controlled legislature passed legislation that not only bans recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions, but also bans recognition of legal contracts between same-sex partners intended to confer marriage-like rights. Virginia's Democratic governor, Mark Warner, had sought to strip the contract-banning provisions from the anti-gay bill while supporting the civil union and marriage ban, but when the legislature added these back in he signed the bill into law anyway. Had he used his veto, chances are it would have been overridden, but he would at least have made a clear statement against bigotry and discrimination.
The Blade reports in "Lobbying Effort Faulted in Va. Fight" that Equality Virginia, the state's LGBT lobby, never asked Virginia's Democratic Party to help it work against this legislation:
"The thought of involving Virginia's Democratic Party, within walking distance from Equality Virginia, to lean on House and Senate Democrats, never occurred to [Equity Virginia's Dyana] Mason. 'I"ve contacted them in the past, but never followed up. We"ve always crossed in the night,' Mason said."
Given that Equality Virginia just about exclusively backs
Democrats and enthusiastically worked for Gov. Warner's election,
isn't some payback expected from the party machine? And no, I'm NOT
excusing the Republican homophobes, the prime movers in this drama.
But it's the Democrats that, overwhelmingly, get the gay vote and
collect gay dollars. What's the point if that's just considered a
freebie?
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