The Rockefeller Center’s fifth annual New Hampshire State of the State Poll, released last week, finds that support for marriage equality has increased 13 percent from a year ago, with 55 percent of respondents endorsing the 2009 law:

The proportion of respondents in support of same-sex marriage in the state of New Hampshire increased from 41.5 percent in 2011 to 55.1 percent this year. The rate of opposition decreased from 42.2 percent last year to under one-third (30.9 percent) in this year’s survey. The majority of registered Democrats or Undeclared voters are in support of same-sex marriage (76 percent and 66 percent, respectively). Under one-third (29 percent) of Republicans surveyed support the measure. The majority of respondents who self-identified as “liberal” or “moderate” support same-sex marriage, while the majority of those who self-identified as “conservative” are in opposition. The following chart depicts support and opposition to same-sex marriage according to respondent demographic information.

Look:

Last month, Republicans in New Hampshire defeated a proposal to repeal marriage equality in the state and conservative lawmakers are showing little enthusiasm for revisiting the issue. Since the law went into effect, the state reports that 1,887 same-sex couples have married.

Evangelist Pat Robertson never seems to run out of questions to answer on The 700 Club, and today he took on the topic of anti-gay bullying. Surprisingly, he criticized Christians for bullying LGBT students and suggested that “schools shouldn’t permit that,” but mentioned that he still supports calling “homosexual practices” an “abomination”:

ROBERTSON: Well I think that’s terrible and Christians shouldn’t do that. I mean, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, blah, blah, blah. You know, Christians shouldn’t do that. They ought to act in love. You might disagree, you may think that these practices are an abomination, you can think all sorts of things, but you need to love. And you need to reach out to these kids in love.

Watch it:

Robertson’s response is arguably positive — at least relative to his usual anti-gay positions — and if he supports anti-bullying policies that specifically enumerate protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, then he should clarify that. But his caveat that holding anti-gay beliefs is still okay and his subtle suggestion that they should be shared (“in love”) is still problematic.

Conservatives often claim to oppose bullying, but insist that there still be room for condemning homosexuality as a matter of free speech and freedom of religion. Often, that stigma can be delivered in ways that don’t constitute the kind of violence, intimidation, or harassment that many qualify as “bullying,” but that still have severe consequences in terms of a student’s self-worth and overall mental health. If children’s safety and well-being is the primary concern, it’s impossible to truly protect them from the impact of bullying while still sentencing them to eternity in Hell.

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer took his crusade against Richard Grenell — an openly gay man who is now Mitt Romney’s chief spokesperson for foreign policy — to CNN this morning, denouncing the former spokesperson for U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as a “homosexual activist who is actively working on behalf of homosexual marriage” to undermine religious liberties.

“The real issue here is for Governor Romney and what he thinks about homosexual behavior,” Fischer insisted. “My complaint about Governor Romney all the way along is not that he’s Mormon, but he’s not Mormon enough….The Mormon Church believes homosexual behavior is sinful and that homosexual acts are offensive to God. So the question that needs to be asked of Governor Romney, do you agree with the teaching of your Church? If you do — that homosexual acts are offensive to God — then why have you made the face of your campaign someone who engages in conduct that your own Church says is offensive to God?”

But when CNN host Kyra Phillips pointed out that Grenell served at the pleasure of conservative Bolton, Fischer found himself in the awkward position of defending Bolton’s tenure while condemning his chief spokesperson:

PHILLIPS: Did you think John Bolton did a good job when he was U.S. ambassador to the U.N.? [...]

FISCHER: He did a great job.

PHILLIPS: Okay. Grenell was his spokesperson….Bryan, I just thought that was interesting, you thought Bolton did a great job, and Grenell was his spokesperson.

FISCHER: Well, the point here is that personnel is policy. Everybody in D.C. says that. Personnel is policy. When Governor Romney picks somebody who is an activist homosexual and puts him in a prominent position, he’s sending a shout out, it seems to me, to the homosexual lobby.

Watch it:

The Log Cabin Republicans’ R. Clarke Cooper, who appeared in the segment with Fischer, stressed that “Governor Romney didn’t hire Ric because he’s a Protestant. He hired him because he’s qualified as a national security, foreign policy technocrat….Ric’s orientation had nothing to do with the hiring process.” “Bryan, ya’ll gotta be careful, because you are starting to sounding like George Wallace, ‘segregation today, segregation tomorrow,’” Cooper warned. “Be careful because you’re going to be left in the dust bin of history, buddy.”

Thrice married GOP presidential candidate New Gingrich is calling on voters in North Carolina to support Amendment 1 when they go to the polls on May 8. The measure that would ban same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships in the state constitution, expanding North Carolina’s existing legislative ban against marriage equality.

“This is part of the same great process this year that’s involved with President Obama, and that’s involved with the whole danger of what’s happening to our basic beliefs,” Gingrich warned. “There’s an effort by radicals at every level to change who we are, to change what America is and to change for our children into a future that I think will be much worse.” Watch it:

While bipartisan opposition to the Amendment 1 continues to grow, a recent Public Policy Polling survey found that 45 percent of North Carolina voters believe that marriage equality will be legal within a generation, while 41 percent think it will continue to be illegal. Independents and Democrats predict the change, while more than half of all Republicans say the status quo will continue.

The Obama campaign has spoken out against Amendment 1, but it’s unlikely that the president will directly address the matter when he appears before students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill later today.

Rev. Kurt Nagel, a pastor of Holy Family Parish in Washington state, is responding to the growing number parishes who have opted out of a campaign to repeal marriage equality by doubling down on the Church’s opposition to gay people. “The Catholic Church does not believe that people with same sex attraction are inferior,” he argued. “It is sometimes said to support the charge of bigotry that the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual persons are ‘disordered’. That is not true”:

It is true that the sexual DESIRES for persons of the same sex are disordered. That is, such desires are not ORDERED, or aimed, at the right end or goal. But we all have disordered desires — in terms of sex, food, power, money, etc. That is because, although made in the image and likeness of God, we are also fallen creatures.” [...]

Nagel argued that “homosexual persons” already have “the legal benefits of marriage” — thanks to the Domestic Partnership law enacted when Washington voters approved Referendum 71 in 2009.

“So our opposition to redefining marriage is not now a matter of denying anyone legal rights,” Nagel told parishoners. He acknowledged that the Washington State Catholic Conference opposed the 2009 Domestic Partnership law, as “obviously” a step toward legalizing marriage and “in part because we don’t believe such sexual relationships encourage the best lives and greatest happiness for homosexual persons.”

“The Catholic Church believes that creating this new legal and social institution of domestic partnerships is, on balance, not wise,” Nagel said. “But it is doable. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, believes that Gay MARRIAGE is simply not possible.”

It’s unclear how Nagel would respond to the very real and possible marriages of the thousands of same-sex couples across the country, but while his comments echo the sentiment of the Washington Archbishop — who has called on churches to take part in an effort to undo Washington’s recently-enacted marriage equality law — they don’t represent the thinking of all Catholic leaders or congregations in the state.

At least six Catholic parishes are avoiding the recall, partly because it is “hurtful and seriously divisive in our community.” Last week, Seattle’s Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church gave the Rev. Tim Clark a standing ovation when he announced that the parish would not be participating in the anti-equality campaign.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that Catholics reject the Church’s opposition to marriage equality, with nearly three-quarter of Catholics favoring “either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.”

Our guest bloggers are Jeff Krehely and Crosby Burns, who work on the LGBT Research and Communications Project at American Progress.

Late yesterday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a comprehensive ruling giving transgender individuals sorely-needed federal protections against discrimination in the workplace. According to the ruling, employers who discriminate against employees or job applicants on the basis of gender identity can now be found in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, specifically its prohibition of sex discrimination in employment.

This ruling marks the first time that the EEOC has held that transgender people are protected from discrimination by federal law. Chris Geidner broke the story late last night in Metro Weekly:

“The opinion came in a decision delivered on Monday, April 23, to lawyers for Mia Macy, a transgender woman who claims she was denied employment with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency learned of her transition. It also comes on the heels of a growing number of federal appellate and trial courts deciding that gender-identity discrimination constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

The EEOC decision, issued without objection by the five-member, bipartisan commission, will apply to all EEOC enforcement and litigation activities at the commission and in its 53 field offices throughout the country. It also will be binding on all federal agencies and departments.”

The implications of this ruling are precedent setting. Prior to yesterday’s ruling, only 16 states and the District of Columbia prohibit employment discrimination based on gender identity. Going forth, this precedent-setting decision puts in place comprehensive protections for transgender workers that apply to both private and public employees across the entire United States.

Specifically, thanks to the ruling in this case (brought forward by the Transgender Law Center) transgender people are now protected by federal law and have legal recourse if they are denied a job or fired because they are transgender. Should a transgender person file a complaint with the EEOC and should the EEOC determine that case has merit, the EEOC now has the legal standing to sue the employer for discrimination under Title VII.

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