NH Teabaggers Shrug Over Gay Marriage

At yesterday's tax day protest in New Hampshire, Wonk Room's Igor Volsky couldn't find a single Tea Party activist who cares about gay marriage.

VIDEO: House DOMA Hearing

Over at Wonk Room, our pal Zack Ford has compiled some of the testimony from last week's House DOMA hearing. Ford quotes Maggie Gallagher's usual nonsense:

If, in fact, marriage, as a public and legal institution…is oriented towards protecting children by increasing the likelihood they have a mother and father, then same-sex couples do not fit, and conversely, if same-sex couples fit the definition of marriage, then marriage really is no longer about responsible procreation in the sense.

AUDIO: Christianist Haters Spew Bile At Colorado's Civil Unions House Debate

Igor Volsky reports at Wonk Room:

Douglas Napier of the Alliance Defense Fund led the formal opposition against the bill and maintained that civil unions would likely lead to same-sex marriage, despite a 2006 voter-approved constitutional amendment that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The debate quickly disintegrated from there, as witnesses began quoting the Bible, regurgitating thoroughly debunked claims about ex-gay therapy and even predicting the end of times. The Family Research Institute’s Dr. Paul Cameron — whose so-called ‘research’ on homosexuality has been condemned and refuted by most major medical organizations in the United States and Canada — provided the most colorful testimony.

Listen to the clip.

Lieberman : We Have The DADT Votes

This afternoon Sen. Joe Lieberman said that there are more than enough votes to repeal DADT in the Senate. Via Wonk Room:

“I am confident that we have more than 60 votes prepared to take up the Defense authorization with the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ if only there will be a guarantee of a fair and open amendment process, in other words, whether we’ll take enough time to do it,’ Lieberman said, naming GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Richard Lugar as ‘Yes’ votes. “Time is an inexcusable reason not to get this done.”

Also from Wonk Room comes word that Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a local Alaska news station that she would support the repeal. Reporters are awaiting confirmation of that from Murkowski's office.

Obama To End Abstinence-Based AIDS Education And Family Planning

Some excellent early news on the Obama administration comes via Wonk Room:

Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama are indicating that “Obama will reverse U.S. family planning and AIDS prevention strategies that have long linked global funding to anti-abortion and abstinence education.” The Obama reversal is a return to an approach that is based on solid evidence and public health rather than ideology, and a recognition of needs on the ground rather than the need to please domestic political constituencies.

On January 21 2001, President Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy (the global gag rule), requiring NGOs receiving federal funding to refrain from using their own money to perform or promote abortion services in other countries. While the policy was “purportedly designed to reduce abortion by limiting a woman’s access to abortion services, and to ensure that U.S. funding for family planning services overseas is completely separate from abortion activities,” in actuality the rule has denied “many NGOs access to in-kind donations of the very contraceptives that can prevent recourse to abortions“

Countless lives will likely be saved by this move.