Mehlman was RNC chairman from 2005 to 2007 after serving as Bush-Cheney campaign manager in 2004. He also served as White House political director during President Bush's first term.

Mehlman told Ambinder that he had recently come to the conclusion that he is gay and was looking to become an advocate for gay marriage. He went public in part because he expected to be asked about his sexuality when it became known he was participating in a fundraiser next month for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), which is supporting a legal challenge to California's Proposition 8 initiative banning gay marriage.

Mehlman said President Bush "is no homophobe" but acknowledged that the Bush administration used antigay initiatives for political gain. In private conversations with senior Republicans, he said, he fought back against attempts to demonize same-sex marriage.

Activist Mike Rogers, as Ambinder notes, has waged a years-long campaign to force Mehlman out of the closet, including confronting him with questions about his sexuality on video. (Mehlman regularly denied that he was gay.) Rogers responded to the news that Mehlman was coming out by awarding him a "Roy Cohn Award" for "managing the most anti-gay presidential campaigns in history."

"Ken Mehlman is horridly homophobic and no matter how orchestrated his coming out is, our community should hold him accountable for his past," Rogers wrote.

Mehlman told Ambinder he understands that some people in the gay community will be upset that he did not come out until he was out of government.

"I can't change the fact that I wasn't in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally," he said. He acknowledged that if he had come to terms with his sexual orientation earlier, "I could have worked against [the Federal Marriage Amendment]" and "reached out to the gay community in the way I reached out to African Americans."

For complete article click here 

Check out Ambinder's full report here.

Los Angeles Times, Posted: 8/24/2010, 1:17 PM

A lesbian minister, who officiated at more than a dozen same-sex weddings during the brief window gay marriage was legal in California, goes to trial Thursday before a Presbyterian court, charged with violating her  denomination's constitution. The case of Rev. Jane Adams Spahr has gained national attention because "what is being tested is the definition of marriage" in the Presbyterian faith, said the Rev. Carmen Fowler, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative organization that opposes same-sex marriage. Spahr's trial, which will be held in Napa, begins less than three weeks after a federal court judge ruled that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. And it underscores the awkward position in which changing civil law places many clergy members. Although the Presbyterian constitution does not explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage, it defines marriage as "a civil contract between a woman and a man." But same-sex marriage is legal in five states and the District of Columbia and is working its way through the courts in California. "More and more ministers are going to be put in a position where their church members are going to come to them asking for a wedding, and they're going to have to say yes," said the Rev. Beverly Brewster, Spahr's defense attorney. "Not to do so would violate many constitutional provisions about non-discrimination in pastoral care."

For complete article click here

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Equality California-sponsored resolution puts State of California on record supporting repeal of so-called “Defense of Marriage Act”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - August 23 - Today, the California State Senate approved a joint resolution, AJR 19, calling on the U.S. Congress and President Obama to immediately repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which explicitly forbids the federal government or any federal agency from recognizing state-sanctioned marriages between same-sex couples. Introduced by Assemblymember Julia Brownley (D - Santa Monica) and sponsored by Equality California, the joint resolution was passed by a bipartisan vote of 22-12. "The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from recognizing the relationships of loving same-sex couples, even when the states where they live recognize their relationships," said Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors. "We're proud of the California legislature for making the state's opposition to DOMA official state policy. Now we must overturn this discriminatory federal law and pave the way for the marriages of same-sex couples to be recognized at the federal level."

Under DOMA, which passed in 1996, married same-sex couples are refused the same federal rights and responsibilities as their heterosexual counterparts, resulting in inequitable and unfair implementation of federal laws governing a range of issues such as housing, immigration, tax and inheritance. A repeal of DOMA would result in the federal government recognizing legal marriages of same-sex couples, just as it currently recognizes legal marriages of heterosexual couples.

"President Obama has called this law abhorrent in the way it denies more than 1,000 federal rights to same-sex couples," Assemblymember Brownley said. "Congress must act now to overturn DOMA, which is rooted in irrational and unfounded prejudice. Married same-sex couples deserve equal access to these benefits."

Currently, there are eleven nations that recognize marriages between same-sex couples, including Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden. Five states in the U.S. grant same-sex couples the right to marry, including Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as Washington, D.C.  

For more information about Equality California-sponsored legislation, please visitwww.eqca.org/legislation.

August 19, 2010|6:17 p.m.

Institutions with stakes in the retail giant are demanding that the company revamp its donation process after a $150,000 contribution backed an anti-gay-rights candidate.

After weeks of public protest over its financial support of an organization that backed aGOP gubernatorial candidate opposed to gay rights, Target Corp. now faces a new form of pressure: demands from institutional shareholders that it revamp its donation process to avoid the chance of additional backfires.

For complete article click here