Yesterday, Minnesota became the latest US state to begin performing gay marriages. Good for them!
I’m looking at A map of marriage laws in the US, and I was wondering which state(s) will be next. New Mexico has no laws one way or the other, and it’s pretty liberal (despite being sandwiched between Texas and Arizona), so they’re a possible next one. Hawaii and Illinois are pretty liberal and already allow civil unions, but then they enacted their civil union laws in 2012 and 2011, so they may not be ready for another fight on that issue so soon.
Oregon, Colorado, and Nevada are decently liberal and have unions, but they would need a change to their constitution, which would likely also be a fight they may not want to have.
Then again, with the recent DOMA ruling by SCOTUS, there might be a move in those states to grant marriage instead of civil unions for the federal benefits.
About every six weeks our legislature passes a new referendum just reminding the populace that in no way shape or form will we ever recognize a union that is anything but one man and one woman. Virginia is so overtly homophobic, that it secretely likes the way Maryland’s ass looks in those jeans and can’t figure out why.
I somewhat wonder if that’s the rural areas of virginia trying to rally their base. After all, I can’t see NoVa being all that opposed. I think Virginia is more likely to change than, say, Alabama.
My two cents: Although NoVA is a lot more liberal generally, it is populated by a large proportion of fiscal conservatives… who care a hell of a lot more about Metro’s new silver line then they do about gay marriage. Abortion is probably the only social issue powerful enough to rally the liberals up here. McDonnell got smacked down pretty hard with his wand-rape of abortion seekers.
Illinois, which would have it already if the state Senate had brought the House-passed and Governor-endorsed bill up. Faced with the likelihood of losing a court fight about constitutionality, now that SCOTUS has ruled, betcha they decide to face reality instead.
Then maybe Nevada, to help stimulate Reno’s divorce industry.
Oregon or New Jersey. Pennsylvania’s DOMA is being challenged in court and our AG isn’t defending it, but the Governor is. Even if things work out in court it’ll still take a few yrs.
Illinois - The bill that was introduced this session just couldn’t gather the votes. But apparently they will have a fall session. And the bills supporters say they now have swung enough legislators they expect to pass in the fall session.
New Jersey - They are still trying to decide whether to attempt to override Christie’s veto. They probably have enough votes to do it. If that doesn’t work there is still time to get a referendum on the ballot this year. And it looks like that would pass.
Outside of those two generally we are likely looking at 2014 or later.
Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, and Oregon all have to have referendums. These may be on the 2014 ballots. But it is also possible that supporters may wait till 2016 for a bigger election cycle. And to give themselves time to shore up support.
Nevada also has to have a referendum. But their process is slow. The absolutely earliest this could happen is 2016.
New Mexico simply isn’t going anywhere. Bills both to support and oppose SSM have been quashed regularly for years in the legislature. And governor Martinez is against it. There also isn’t enough public support for a referendum yet. There is no likely movement there.
Of course with all the above (and most other states) there are pending court cases. You never know when a state supreme court will pull an Iowa and just legalize SSM. So there is always that wild card.
I’m actually surprised Nevada isn’t already legal, given their reputation as a quickie marriage destination. Surely they want some of those wedding dollars?
It will not be Oregon. You could maybe get such a law through our legislature, or just possibly be able to get a referendum to show a plurality in November of a presidential election year, but we’ve got a constitutional amendment and we require a supermajority (60%, or maybe even higher) to change the constitution. Oregon as a whole is not anywhere near as liberal as Portlandia would lead you to believe; Portland actually is, but Portland is less than a quarter of the state’s population and a lot of the rest of the state is extremely rural.
No supermajority is needed, just approval by the Legislature (or 8% voter petition) and a simply majority in a referendum. Measure 36 (which enshrined the SSM ban in the state constitution) only passed with 57% of the vote, not 60%.
I expect Illinois will be the next. If it wasn’t for the black churches, it would have passed in the last general assembly. Now they have the cover of the Supreme Court decision, so I imagine a few black Democrats will vote in favor. The governor will sign it as soon as it passes.
Not rationality, greed. My impression was that Vegas and Reno were the majority of the population in Nevada, and if those two cities aren’t major epicentres of greed, I don’t know where is.
I see that now. I’d just have thought the process would already be far underway (it might be, don’t know…)
