As Edgars Rkēvičs be the first openly gay print Latvia’s history, here’s a glimpse at other openly gay heads of state om around the world.
Contents:
- GAY MARRIAGE CLARED LEGAL ACROSS THE US HISTORIC SUPREME URT LG
- GAY MARRIAGE POLL 2015: US SUPPORT FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AT ALL-TIME HIGH, SURVEY FDS
- LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE
- CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
- THE VIEW STAR REVEALS WHY SHE AGRE WH SUPREME COURT LG FOR SIGNER WHO OPPOS GAY MARRIAGE
- GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
GAY MARRIAGE CLARED LEGAL ACROSS THE US HISTORIC SUPREME URT LG
Public support for allowg gays and lbians to marry legally ntu s rapid rise: A 57% majory of Amerins now favor allowg same-sex marriage, up om 42% jt five years ago. * gay marriage support 2015 *
As the Supreme Court prepar to ci a key se volvg stat’ requirements to regnize same-sex marriage, public support for allowg gays and lbians to marry legally ntu s rapid rise: A 57% majory of Amerins now favor allowg same-sex marriage and 39% oppose. Yet even as support for same-sex marriage has creased among nearly all segments the public, some groups rema broadly opposed to gay marriage. The Pew Rearch Center survey, nducted May 12-18 among 2, 002 adults, fds that partisans are as divid on this issue as ever: Today, 65% of Democrats and an intil percentage of pennts favor gay marriage; only about one third (34%) of Republins do so.
Younger generatns have long been more acceptg of homosexualy and of same-sex marriage than olr generatns, and as Millennials (who are currently ag 18-34) have entered adulthood, those views have fluenced overall public opn. One of the strongt factors unrlyg views of same-sex marriage is relign, and the sense that homosexualy is nflict wh one’s relig beliefs. Whe evangelil Prottants stand out for their ep opposn to same-sex marriage: Jt 27% favor allowg gays and lbians to marry, while 70% oppose (43% strongly oppose); by ntrast, majori of both Catholics (56%) and whe male Prottants (62%) support same-sex marriage, along wh an overwhelmg majory (85%) of the religly unaffiliated.
GAY MARRIAGE POLL 2015: US SUPPORT FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AT ALL-TIME HIGH, SURVEY FDS
* gay marriage support 2015 *
And among the one-third (33%) of Amerins who feel there is a lot of nflict between their relig beliefs and homosexualy, opposn to same-sex marriage outweighs support by more than two-to-one (70% oppose, 27% favor); fully 76% of those who see no such nflict favor allowg gays and lbians to marry legally. But jt as relig objectns unrgird much of the opposn to same-sex marriage, personally knowg people who are gay or lbian is strongly lked to support for the legal regnn of same-sex marriag, as many people who have changed their mds on this issue stated a 2013 Pew Rearch Center survey.
LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE
The new survey fds that nearly ne--ten Amerins (88%) know someone who is gay or lbian, wh 28% sayg they know “a lot” of gays or lbians. And while 45% of those wh a lot of gay and lbian acquatanc rate this issue as highly important, only about quarter of those wh fewer gay acquatanc say the same. ’ Nearly half of the public (47%) says that people are born gay or lbian, while 40% thk beg gay is a way people choose to live; 7% say is a rult of someone’s upbrgg.
It immediately led to scen of jubilatn om ast to ast, as mpaigners, policians and everyday people – gay, straight and -between – hailed “a victory of love” lg, which Jtice Anthony Kennedy st the cidg vote, means the number of stat where gay marriage is legal will rise – albe after some stallg – om 37 to 50.
Photograph: Evan Golub/Demotix/CorbisThe crowd outsi the urt – ed, across the untry – epted joy after the lg was hand down, wh many longtime mpaigners cryg tears of joy and embracg their of “Love has won” reverberated among the hundreds gathered below the urt steps and across the street outsi the US Capol, as rabow flags tertwed wh the Amerin the crowd was California reprentative Mark Takano, an openly gay member of Congrs who scribed beg at the scene as both “profound and poted”.
CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
“The arc of history is que clear that the stggle for LGBT equaly is part of our civil rights, ” Takano sex marriage discrimatnJudd Proctor, a 65-year-old rint of Silver Sprg, Maryland, said he never thought he would live to see the day that gay marriage would be a nstutnal right.
Photograph: Eric Gay/APRandy Johnson, a platiff one of the ncurrent s brought om Kentucky before the urt wh his partner Pl Campn, said he still had goosebumps, hours after their 20-year-old son had texted them two words: “We won. Kathie DeNobriga, the mayor of Atlanta suburb Pe Lake who married her long-term partner out of state last year as one of the few openly gay policians the Amerin south, lled the urt lg “a victory of love opposn to fear”.
THE VIEW STAR REVEALS WHY SHE AGRE WH SUPREME COURT LG FOR SIGNER WHO OPPOS GAY MARRIAGE
”Legal same-sex weddgs were takg place for the first time on Friday across Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Tennsee, even as the attorneys general Texas and Mississippi said marriag uld not take place attorney general Ken Paxton issued a long statement suggtg he would attempt to fight the legalisatn of gay marriage by assertg the “relig liberti” of clerks and officials.
He subsequently clarified that his office “is certaly not standg the way of the supreme urt’s cisn” gay upl waed at the state val rerds office New Orleans to get their marriage licens.
”The natn’s hight tribunal last weighed marriage equaly 2012, wh challeng to California’s effective ban on same-sex marriag, known as Proposn 8, and a key provisn of the feral Defense of Marriage Act (Doma) jtic then led favor of marriage equaly proponents, but ducked the qutn of whether gay marriage was a nstutnal right. “It is hard for me to see now that any urt, anywhere, state or feral, uld possibly tolerate discrimatn agast gay people on any basis.
GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Risg natnal support for legal same-sex marriage reflects steady creas among most subgroups of the populatn, even those who have tradnally been the most ristant to gay marriage. Amerins who report that they attend church weekly rema the primary mographic holdout agast gay marriage, wh 40% favor and 58% opposed. A study nducted by Public Health England has revealed that the number of s of sexually transmted fectns diagnosed yearly is on the rise gay and bisexual men.
About 6 10 Amerins favor gay marriage, the poll found -- an all-time high and almost twice the support of the 30 percent of Amerins who said they felt that way 2004. Only 27 percent of Republins favored same-sex marriage 2013, acrdg to the Wall Street groups whose support for gay marriage is on the uptick are Hispanics and people whout llege gre, acrdg to the poll. Conservative support for same-sex marriage has creased by 9 percent sce 2013, om 26 percent back then to 35 percent 80 percent of rponnts said they eher personally know or work wh someone who is gay or lbian -- a 15 percent crease om the 62 percent who said so poll of 1, 000 adults, which was nducted March 1-5 and has a marg of error of pl-or-m 3.
Latvia swore the first openly gay print of a Baltic natn Rkēvičs, who sce 2011 was the untry’s foreign mister, was elected by Parliament May after Print Egils Levs did not seek re-electn. ”Rkēvičs “proudly” announced he is gay on Twter November 2014, though the untry, a former Soviet republic, is not pecially LGBTQ-clive. She is thought to be the first openly gay prime mister the was an active unnist her nearly 10 years workg as a flight attendant, acrdg to the Council of Women World Lears, a work of female heads of state.