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 (No Ratings Yet) From a FaceBook friend of Act On Principles: Massachusetts became the 1st state to sue the U.S. government on July 8, 2009 over the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies married same-sex couples all 1,138 federal marriage benefits. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley contends in the lawsuit that DOMA “constitutes an overreaching and discriminatory federal law.” You can view the full complaint here: http://www.mass.gov/Cago/docs/press/2009_07_08_doma_complaint.pdf Marriage Equality has also been the law of the land in Connecticut since November 12, 2008. We ran a campaign in August of 2009 urging then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to defend state law — marriage equality. AG Blumenthal promptly responded to our campaign, “We are monitoring Massachusetts’ action and listening to views and opinions expressed by advocates on all sides of the issue.” However, before AG Blumenthal could make a final decision he has decided to not run for reelection and is instead running for Senate. Thus far, there are 3 Democrats and 3 Republican who have announced their candidacies for Attorney General. Since marriage equality is indeed the law in Connecticut, we are asking those 6 Attorney General candidates if they will follow Massachusetts’ lead and stand up for the citizens and laws of their state by filing a lawsuit against the federal Defense of Marriage Act. FYI, in addition to the Attorney General having a duty to defend state law, defending marriage equality just so happens to be the politically expedient action to take. The majority of Connecticut citizens support marriage equality and those numbers continue to grow. http://www.columbia.edu/~jrl2124/Lax_Phillips_Gay_Policy_Responsiveness_2009.pdf So let’s ask all 6 Attorney General candidates if elected, they would defend state law, marriage equality, and file a lawsuit against DOMA! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=355072194694
Caifornia, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin
 In an Act On Principles blog post, I made the case that both LGBT AND immigrant rights are civil rights and that we ought to support both the UAFA (HR.1024) and RFA (HR.2709) immigration bills. At last count, there are 116 co-sponsors of the LGBT immigration bill UAFA. Slightly less than half of them have signed on to co-sponsor the broader family immigration bill RFA, which includes all the provisions of UAFA. We should thank all the co- sponsors of UAFA and now ask them to also co-sponsor RFA. I have used the AOP Whip Count data to generate the list below of the UAFA co-sponsors who have yet to co-sponsor RFA. The list also includes the phone number of each member and a link to their website.
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