While issues like marriage equality and nondiscrimination protections were certainly on the agenda at this weekend’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, keynote speakers highlighted conservatives’ efforts to obstruct the right to vote as one of the most pressing concerns for the LGBT community and its allies. In his address at the conference’s opening session Thursday night, NAACP president Ben Jealous emphasized that “our nation is in the midst of the greatest wave of voter suppression legislation since before the creation of the NAACP”:

JEALOUS: Supporters of voter suppression are responding to the growing diversity in this country, and the political power of this new population. They are afraid of the more inclusive America that the future holds.

And they know that coming after your right to vote is the first step to coming after so many of your other rights. That includes the right of workers to organize; the right of a woman to make decisions about her body; the right to walk down the street without fear of being harassed for papers; the right to stand alongside your loved one in his hospital room; the right to be yourself at work.

On Friday, Rea Carey, president of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, used her annual “State of the Movement” address to rally the LGBT community toward fighting the voter suppression efforts sweeping the nation. Calling voting an act of “resistance and insistence,” she urged the conference and movement at large to “occupy the vote”:

CAREY: Our opposition — those who do not believe in our full humanity or equality are on the attack. But, mobilizing the right-wing base to come out and vote on marriage isn’t actually their trump card anymore — it’s much deeper than that.

It’s the very ability to cast a vote. [...]

Having lost ground on LGBT and racial justice and equality over the last 40 years, and not having enough respect for our democracy to accept it, the right is now doing all it can to complicate the rules to register, get a ballot, vote early — you name it, they’ll do it, if it disenfranchises certain types of voters.

And so we are called to lead and to protect access to voting. This is in our self-interest and in the interest of our allies! We are people of color, we are students, we are transgender.

In 2012, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Maine are already preparing for referendums on the issue of same-sex marriage, and Washington and New Jersey could join them. Conservatives are also attempting to use ballot initiatives to attack California’s law mandating that school curricula be LGBT-inclusive. The right of LGBT citizens and their allies to vote is crucial to advancing equality, and voter ID laws present a serious threat to that goal.

The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) issued a statement last week on “Sexual Orientation Change” that attempts to downplay the poor success rates and negative PR surrounding ex-gay therapy — not to mention the harmful impact it has on clients. Without any empirical research to support its conclusions, NARTH advocates redefining the very standard of “change” from an absolute category to a client-defined goalpost on a supposed continuum of change:

NARTH affirms that some individuals who seek care for unwanted same-sex attractions do report categorical change of sexual orientation. Moreover, NARTH acknowledges that others have reported no change. However, the experience of NARTH clinicians suggests that the majority of individuals who report unwanted same-sex attractions and pursue psychological care will be best served by conceptualizing change as occurring on a continuum, with many being able to achieve sustained shifts in the direction and intensity of their sexual attractions, fantasy, and arousal that they consider to be satisfying and meaningful. NARTH believes that a profound disservice is done to those with unwanted same-sex attractions by characterizing such shifts in sexual attractions as a denial of their authentic (and gay) personhood or a change in identity labeling alone.

In other words, NARTH wants to claim that clients have successfully changed their sexual orientation so long as they believe that they are actually changing. NARTH tries to distinguish itself as a psychological organization that stands apart from religious ex-gay ministries, but here it is literally admitting that it should be applauded for creating a placebo effect — that clients should be encouraged to pursue ex-gay therapy in spite of the expected lack of results.

The language of “change” is at the heart of NARTH’s work and messaging. Its mission statement acknowledges a “right of all individuals to choose their own destiny.” In position statements, NARTH suggests “the right to seek therapy to change one’s sexual adaptation should be considered self-evident and inalienable,” encourages schools to allow “discussion about those who have chosen to change their orientation,” and boasts that there are “numerous examples exist of people who have successfully modified their sexual behavior, identity, and arousal or fantasies.” NARTH also offers that change is a “worthy” goal and that “significant numbers” have experienced “substantial healing.” In 2004, Robert Perloff, a former president of the American Psychological Association, addressed the annual NARTH conference, proclaiming, “The individual has the right to choose whether he or she wishes to become straight. It is his or her choice, not that of an ideologically driven interest group.” The implied standard has always been that a person can change from one sexual orientation to another.

Like all proponents of ex-gay therapy, NARTH thinks it’s more important to defend those who have unwanted same-sex attractions than to challenge the internalized homophobia that troubles its members’ potential clients. And like almost all proponents of ex-gay therapy, NARTH continues to profit so long as individuals are susceptible to anti-gay stigma and the hope of changing their sexual orientation. By lowering its standard of “change” to whatever clients are willing to believe is “change,” this group of “psychologists” has admitted that the service they offer produces no results whatsoever.

Chris Christie responded to the growing outrage over his claims last week that New Jersey residents should decide whether gay and lesbian people should be allowed to marry by admitting that public opinion may not be receptive to extending civil liberties to minorities. Christie took particular umbrage at African American leaders who condemned his suggestion that “people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.” Here are his comments from this morning via Andy Towle:

“Political members of the state legislature comparing me to Lester Maddox and George Wallace shows how desperate the Democrats are,” Christie said…. “The question was raised to me by the mayor of Asbury Park,” Christie recalled. “I think afterwards they all understood and affirmed to me that I was not being critical of the Civil Rights movement. They knew exactly what I meant, which is that the political climate didn’t give them a chance for a referendum.” [...]

Christie said “numnuts like (Assemblyman) Reed Gusciora should be ashamed of themselves” for comparing him to Maddox and Wallace.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) decision to place same-sex marriage on the ballot has drawn some sharp criticism from many in his state. Christie tried to defend the move by arguing that “people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South” – a comparison Newark Mayor Cory Booker and other African American leaders condemned.

Now, New Jerseyans and the tri-state media are pushing back against the proposed referendum, claiming that an issue of equal rights should not be decided at the ballot box:

– NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: To turn what is a matter of civil rights over to voters would be an abdication of lawmakers’ duty. It would also be a sharp break with New Jersey tradition. The last time the state held a referendum on civil rights was 1915, when a majority voted “no” on granting women the right to vote.

– STAR-LEDGER EDITORIAL: Take race relations. If Southern states could have held a referendum on free speech rights for Martin Luther King Jr., can anyone doubt how it would have turned out? How long would it have taken for voters in Mississippi to integrate its public schools? Gallup has traced attitudes toward interracial marriage for decades. Note that when the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s ban in 1967, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans supported the court’s position. If Christie’s philosophy had carried the day, the ban would have remained in place until the late 1990s. The point is that minority rights should not be subjected to majority vote. That misses the gist of constitutional rights.

– MYCENTRALJERSEY.COM EDITORIAL: There is, however, a reason we elect representatives, to conduct the business that cannot be done by the masses at every turn. And sometimes, that means transcending public opinion to do what’s right, to overcome prejudice and ignorance that can die hard.

– BERGEN RECORD COLUMNIST ALFRED DOBLIN: Civil rights should not be determined by popular vote. Our nation has failed at that task almost every time. The public is swayed by emotion. Today it is manipulated by slick, expensive advertising campaigns. California’s Proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage was all about politics and money. I marvel how the governor kept a straight – pun intended – face when he said putting marriage equality on the ballot in a presidential election year would make the issue non-political.

– PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER COLUMNIST KEVIN RIORDAN: In calling for an American Idol-style yea-nay about the private lives of thousands of New Jerseyans, Christie seems to have forgotten something. “We are debating about the lives of real people,” the bill cosponsor, Sen. Loretta Weinberg, told the hearing. Marriage equality, the Bergen County Democrat added, is about “people we all know, love and respect.”

-Zachary Bernstein

The Romney campaign has released a letter from Christian conservatives touting the former Massachusetts governor’s “solid social conservative credentials,” “leadership on the marriage issue,” and opposition to abortion rights. Romney “helped prevent our nation from being plunged into even worse legal turmoil following the court decision that forced ‘gay marriage’ upon our Commonwealth,” the broad coalition of anti-abortion and anti-gay groups write, dismissing his past support for a woman’s right to choose and gay and lesbian equality:

Governor Romney immediately and strongly condemned the November 18, 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision that legalized “same-sex marriage” in our state. More importantly, he followed up on that denunciation with action – action that saved our nation from a constitutional crisis over the definition of marriage. He and his staff identified and enforced a little-known 1913 law that allowed them to order local clerks not to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state couples. Absent this action, homosexual couples would surely have flooded into Massachusetts from other states to get “married” and then demanded that their home states recognize the “marriages,” putting the nation only one court decision away from nationalizing “same-sex marriage.”

Twenty-one religious leaders endorsed the letter, including the Massachusetts Family Institute’s Kristian Mineau, whose organization received donations from Romney’s charitable foundation and promotes discredited ex-gay therapy.

Another signatory, Dr. Roberto Miranda of the COPAHNI Fellowship of Hispanic Pastors of New England, sees marriage equality as the work of the Devil and has drawn a “direct correlation between marriage equality and the September 11th terrorist attacks.” “Is it exaggerated to see prophetic significance in the fact that on September 11, 2001 Boston served as the point of departure for the deadly forces that spread so much destruction and havoc in this nation and all over the world,” he asked. “What took place at the material level is now being carried out at the moral and spiritual level, as the virus of homosexuality and gay marriage begins to spread dramatically all over this nation and perhaps the world.”

Romney echoed a similar message ahead of the South Carolina primary, releasing a commercial in which conservative supporters described him as a candidate who believes in “the sanctity of life, the sacredness of marriage, and the importance of the family.” (HT: Jeremy Hooper)

In a speech to 30 African heads of state yesterday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the leaders to do more to support LGBT rights:

KI-MOON: Let me mention one form of discrimination that has been ignored or even sanctioned by many states for far too long, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.  This has prompted some governments to treat people as second-class citizens, or even criminals. Confronting this discrimination is a challenge.  But we must live up to the ideals of the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights].

Ki-Moon’s remarks reflect last month’s report from the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission about the importance of decriminalizing homosexuality and protecting LGBT people from discrimination. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recently called on nations to treat “gay rights as human rights” and end all forms of persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Many African countries with anti-gay laws have rebuffed efforts by the U.S. and Britain to improve their policies, defending the role of religion in their societies and decrying gay rights as a “Western invention.”

As the New Hampshire legislature prepares to vote on legislation to repeal the state’s same-sex marriage law in the coming days, some Republican lawmakers are hinting that they may not have the votes to override Gov. John Lynch’s (D) expected veto of the measure. Republicans — who hold veto-proof majorities in the both the House and Senate — remain split on whether the government should limit residents’ personal freedoms, the Concord Monitor reports, and the party leadership is hoping to avoid a prolonged debate on the issue:

Rep. Seth Cohn, a Canterbury Republican who moved here as part of the Free State project, a libertarian movement to relocate to New Hampshire, is also against repeal. Cohn and others believe the bill may pass the House but does not have the two-thirds majority to override a potential veto by Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who signed the bill three years ago legalizing same-sex marriage.

“I know for a fact, based on people I’ve talked to, that if Gov. Lynch vetoes it, that veto is not override-able,” Cohn said.

Cohn said he plans to introduce an amendment on the House floor that would take government entirely out of marriage, instead giving all couples a civil union and leaving marriage up to churches and other religious institutions. That same approach is supported by the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, a libertarian-leaning group that endorsed 107 House members elected in 2010.

“[T]hey don’t want to get dragged into it,” Gene Chandler, a former Republican House speaker explained. “It’s kind of one of those issues we’re going to have to deal with but wish we didn’t have to, in my opinion,” he added. Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley (R) — who voted against marriage equality — has also pledged that party members can vote their consciences on marriage. “These are deeply personal issues,” Bradley said. “Leadership in the Senate is not going to push people one way or the other.”

Over 1,800 gay and lesbian couples have married in New Hampshire and voters overwhelmingly support the existing same-sex marriage law.