LGBTQ Rights Activists on Victories for Marriage Equality in California and Washington

democracynow.org - Washington state is set to become the seventh state to legalize gay marriage following a vote in the State House. The vote came just a day after a U.S. appeals court ruled California's ban on same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8, is unconstitutional. The Prop. 8 ruling marked a major defeat for LGBTQ rights opponents who spent millions to defeat gay marriage, including the Mormon Church, which has received millions from GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. We discuss marriage equality with Josh Friedes of Equal Rights Washington; Rick Jacobs of Courage Campaign, a statewide progressive alliance which has played a leading role in informing and organizing around the Prop 8 trial; and Kalil Cohen, a transgender community organizer based in Los Angeles. Jacobs says the Prop. 8 fight "has supercharged the entire movement for full equality, and has, pushed people like me to be much more comfortable talking about transgender issues that I didn't really pay that much attention to before." Cohen, meanwhile, is critical of the LGBTQ community's emphasis on gay marriage, saying: "My biggest concern is how much resources in the LGBTQ have been funneled towards marriage equality alone, and away from basic survival [issues] that a lot of LGBTQ people still face such as lack of access to education, healthcare, housing, and criminal justice reform. These are issues that have really taken a backseat to marriage equality, and that has harmed the most vulnerable members of our community."

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