Our guest blogger is Ben Harris, intern for LGBT Progress.

A series of polls released over the past two months confirms that marriage equality is now a mainstream value. Public opinion polls by Gallup, ABC, NBC, and CNN have found support at 50, 53, 54, and 54 percent, respectively. This represents the highest support for marriage equality ever recorded. Historically, a majority of Americans have opposed marriage equality. These polls suggest that the public support has hit a tipping point, as polls over the past two years have shown that a clear majority favors the freedom to marry.

The Center for American Progress released an issue brief this week breaking down the numbers and looking forward to November as voters take to the polls to vote on marriage equality referenda in four states. The brief finds that the strong majority backing for equality is buttressed by strong, stable and increasing support from young voters, independents, and people of color – all crucial demographics in the upcoming elections. In fact, current polling suggests that marriage equality is poised to prevail in the four states with marriage on the ballot this fall.

In early May, President Obama became the first sitting president to endorse marriage equality. Polls since then suggest that his announcement strongly influenced African American voters. An ABC News poll found support among black voters at 59 percent after Obama’s announcement, whereas it hovered at about 40 percent beforehand. In the state of Maryland, support for the freedom to marry among black voters skyrocketed from 39 to 55 percent, a complete reversal from just three months ago. The President’s announcement has clearly made an impact in the African American community, one which could prove decisive at the ballot box.

These polls, however, continue to find a significant generational gap in support for marriage equality. While all age groups favor equality more today than a year ago, 73 percent of voters ages 18-34 back the freedom to marry, whereas only 35 percent of voters above the age of 64 do. With regard to political affiliation, recent polls find that about 60 percent of independents favor marriage equality. Both young voters and independents are potentially key voting blocks, and support for marriage equality among each demographic only continues to rise.

Gay couples eager to be married should be cautiously optimistic about the upcoming battles this November, with marriage equality on the ballot in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. In those states, polls find support at 55, 57, 49, and 54 percent, respectively. What’s even more telling is the gap between those who support and those who oppose equality. In Maine, Maryland, and Washington, that gap is a staggering 20 points. Furthermore, advocates for the freedom to marry have leapt over the so-called “enthusiasm gap.” Today the percentage of voters who strongly support marriage equality outnumbers those who strongly oppose equality by 7 points, indicating that staunch opposition to equality for gay couples is losing steam.

Based on these polls, President Obama’s position on marriage equality now falls squarely in line with the majority of the American public, while Republican lawmakers still lag far behind, including the presumptive Republican nominee for President, Mitt Romney. There are strong signs that the freedom to marry will become law in at least one state this fall. But regardless of what happens in November, support for marriage equality is trending upward, and will likely continue to do so with growing support among young generations and other key demographics.

Google has launched a new international initiative called Legalize Love to promote safer conditions for gay and lesbian people in countries with anti-gay laws on the books. Naturally, the American Family Association is now considering a boycott of Google products.

On their radio network, the AFA’s Buster Wilson decried Google’s gay rights campaign, which plans to start its focus in Poland and Singapore before expanding to other countries. Right Wing Watch has the video:

If the AFA thought boycotting Oreos was tough, wait until they start trying to avoid all Google products. As Wilson notes, anti-gay boycotters would need to ditch Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, their Android phones, and the search engine itself. “It’s going to be a hard one for a lot of us,” Wilson concedes, but it will “test the meat of our convictions.”

AFA will certainly need strong convictions because they are quickly running out of acceptable companies. If they plan to boycott Google, they would also have to add Microsoft, Nike, Time Warner Cable, Levi Strauss, CBS, and Xerox to their list — just a handful of pro-gay U.S. corporations. As more and more businesses realize the economic and social benefits of having inclusive pro-LGBT policies, the AFA’s feeble boycotting of Oreo cookies and Google products looks increasingly silly.

– Steven Perlberg

A new poll from Brigham Young University actually has good news for those advocating for legal rights for the LGBT community, since it finds that a full 71 percent of Utah voters support some kind of legal recognition for same-sex couples. However, the poll’s packaging in the Mormon-affiliated Deseret News — with a headline proclaiming that a “majority of Utahns oppose gay marriage” — puts a subtle anti-equality spin on the positive results.

Since President Obama first announced his public support for same-sex marriage, dozens of polls have attempted to quantify the shifts in opinions about same-sex marriage among the American public. However, any poll can be structured and framed in a way that lends bias to the results, just as a recent Fox News poll claimed that the majority of Americans opposed gay marriage despite other polling that suggested the opposite. That Fox poll and this BYU poll used the same framing to reach similar conclusions about widespread opposition to gay marriage, even though the characterization of those who support for civil unions as those who oppose marriage equality is misleading at best.

Both the Fox News and the BYU polls asked questions in the same way that a recent CBS/New York Times poll did, forcing a choice between same-sex marriage, legal unions not called marriage, or no legal recognition for same-sex couples. However, without giving respondents the option to communicate support for both marriage and civil unions — support which often overlaps, as demonstrated by polling in Colorado that found 53 of respondents were in favor of marriage as well as civil unions — polling results are left with an incomplete picture. Similarly, forcing a choice between same-sex marriage and no legal recognition, with no civil union compromise, also provides a fuller picture of where voters stand.

The Deseret News does do a good job of noting Utah voters’ strong support for civil unions, pointing out that the BYU poll suggests Utah voters support civil unions in greater numbers than the general population does. That being the case, it simply doesn’t make sense to frame Utah as anti-equality, claiming that “72 percent of Utah voters oppose gay marriage.” Reporting on poll questions in this way is misleading, and obscures the push toward greater support for the LGBT community — including within conservative communities such as BYU — that is evident across the United States.

At Mitt Romney’s town hall event in Colorado today, an audience member asked the presidential candidate where he stood on personal liberty — when it comes to sexuality, not finance.

The young man told Romney that this would be his first presidential election in which he could vote, and that he’s “paid a lot more attention to politics than I had in the past couple of years.”

What he wanted to know, he sad, was how Romney could fight so hard for financial liberty while failing to respect the liberty of LGBT people and women — especially considering Romney’s “religious affiliation and it being a minority”:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I see that you project yourself as somebody that is a champion of liberty, and I was really moved when you said that this country is propelled by free people. And one of the cornerstones is that we’re allowed to pursue our own happiness as we so choose to do it. And this is — it’s kind of personal and may be straying from the economic discussion here but I mean, just as I guess as an example, considering your religious affiliation and it being a minority [AUDIENCE BOOS] and I guess so my question is in terms of social equality and in terms of women’s rights or gay rights and liberty in that area, what is so wrong about exploring liberty and giving liberty to everyone in every field, not just in the economy?

Watch it:

Romney went on to mostly dodge the young man’s question, speaking only specifically about the issue of abortion, and not speaking to LGBT issues at all. He did say that “everyone in this country should have an opportunity to pursue their course in life as they choose.” However, he must mean only as long as you do not choose to marry a person of the same sex.

132 House members, led by Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD), filed an amicus brief today making a federal case against the Defense of Marriage Act’s constitutionality. The brief weighs in on the legal challenge that Karen Golinski made against DOMA when she filed a lawsuit seeking access to equal health benefits for her wife — a case that has reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal district court ruled in Golinski’s favor and declared DOMA unconstitutional.

The congress members offer a direct challenge to the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group’s (BLAG) Republican members, who hired lawyers to defend DOMA’s constitutionality against increasing attacks in court. A release from Pelosi’s office summarizes the brief’s major arguments, including the crucial facts that BLAG does not speak for the entire House of Representatives and that DOMA directly harms American families:

Unlike most Acts of Congress, DOMA cannot be viewed as the rational result of impartial lawmaking and should be treated with judicial skepticism. The brief makes it clear that the House is not united on DOMA’s validity, that the BLAG lawyers do not speak for the entire institution, and that there is no legitimate federal interest in denying married same-sex couples the legal security, rights and responsibilities that federal law provides to couples who are married under state law. …This law affirmatively harms married gay and lesbian couples and their children.

Nadler’s leadership and the coalition of House Democrats’ support are important examples of legislators standing up for the legal rights of the LGBT community. The House of Representatives has its fair share of champions for LGBT rights, and their work has the potential to make a difference in the lives of countless families in the LGBT community who are fighting for the same rights that heterosexual couples already enjoy.

Frank Ocean — who made headlines last week when he blogged about a relationship he had with a man — has a new album that is now available on iTunes. Understandably, the immediate reaction to Ocean’s sophomore album has been very much in the context of his “coming out.” The media, celebrity, and fan response to Ocean’s “announcement,” while indeed uplifting and transformative, signals an important last step for full and total equality: allowing everyone to self-identify.

The fact is, though, Frank Ocean didn’t necessarily “come out” as gay in his Tumblr post. Rather, he eloquently details how he fell in love with someone who happened to be a man. Ocean leaves his so-called “orientation” ambiguous. But in a fervor to immediately define sexuality, even those commending Ocean’s courage have narrowed his attempt to not label himself.

Aside from American professional athletics, nearly every sector of society has a prominent figure who self-identifies as not-straight. This kind of major societal progress means more LGBT youth and people across America become familiar with likable gay role models. Anderson Cooper even cited the mistaken impression that he is trying to hide something as part of the reason he felt it necessary to come out as gay. Importantly, Cooper actually did come out as “gay.” Allowing people to self-define is key, and so it’s equally necessary that we let Frank Ocean call himself — or not call himself — whatever he wants.

With so much progress comes new challenges. The old compulsion to assign people “gay” or “straight” has evolved into a similar compulsion to place people firmly into “L,” “G,” “B,” or “T” categories, and perhaps Ocean’s blog post suggests he doesn’t want a category at all. He just fell in love with someone, as we all have the right to do.

– Steven Perlberg

In a new report, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Task Force on Treatment of Gender Identity Disorder calls for specific guidelines to help determine the best course of treatment for transgender patients. The report notes that although the APA introduced the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) over thirty years ago, the organization has yet to recommend treatment or take an official position on the concerns of transgender persons. The task force’s report calls for a variety of measures that would greatly benefit the health of transgender patients:

1. The APA should help identify mental health service providers with expertise in gender discomfort and sex development disorders.

2. The APA should establish a separate method for evaluating the needs of people with sex development disorders.

3. Specific APA treatment guidelines are particularly important because they would likely positively impact the number of psychiatrists willing to help transgender patients.

4. The APA should create workshops for educating mental health care providers about transgender care.

5. The APA’s silence — coupled with its stigmatizing diagnosis of “Gender Identity Disorder” — is a failure to facilitate access to care for transgender people.

6. The transgender community has emerged as a recognizable political group with a claim to civil rights. Therefore, patient care must evolve beyond a mere “ability to conform to majority cultural expectations.”

7. Although research is limited, there is enough consensus to support the development of recommendations for all age groups: children, adolescents, and adults.

Last month, the The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry released similar suggestions for supporting children and adolescents who may be LGBT or gender-nonconforming. LGBT children and adults, like all people, are happier and healthier when their identities are affirmed. Under the APA’s new recommendations, clinicians must translate this information into informed and sensitive counseling and treatment.

– Steven Perlberg

The Episcopal Church, which is already well-known as one of the most LGBT-inclusive denominations — the church confirmed its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003 and has supported same-sex marriage since 2005 — is taking steps to codify LGBT equality into its liturgy at its General Convention this week.

The Episcopal Church’s triennial convention is meeting this week to discuss several resolutions to improve Episcopal doctrine and policy toward the LGBT community. Yesterday, both bodies of the church leadership overwhelmingly passed a resolution to add gender identity and expression to the church’s nondiscrimination clause. Additionally, a resolution to add same-sex marriage rites to the Episcopal liturgy passed the church’s Chamber of Bishops — the church’s more conservative body of leadership — and is expected to pass the House of Deputies later this week for final approval.

Episcopal clergy-member Susan Russell, a longtime advocate for LGBT equality, calls the resolution advancing same-sex rites a “profoundly important step” and explains that the implications of the nondiscrimination resolution are far-reaching:

Today the Episcopal Church “put the T in equality” by explicitly including transgender people in the work and witness of the Episcopal Church and as candidates to the ordained ministry…And it is not just a good day for transgender Episcopalians and their friends, families and allies. It is a good day for all of us who are part of a church willing to the risk to continue to draw the circle wider as we work to live out our call to make God’s inclusive love known to the whole human family.

As public support for marriage equality continues to increase, support for the LGBT community within religious bodies is also on the rise. In addition to Episcopalians, other Christian denominations that have embraced same-sex couples include Evangelical Lutherans, Presbyterians (U.S.A), members of the United Church of Christ, and Unitarian Universalists.

Two weeks ago, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (DFL) renamed the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. He changed it from “Recognition of marriage solely between one man and one woman” to “Limiting The Status Of Marriage To Opposite Sex Couples.” The Republican lawmakers who passed the amendment last year instead of passing a budget are outraged, and have joined with the anti-gay Minnesota for Marriage coalition to petition the state’s Supreme Court to have the Ritchie’s decision reversed. Ritchie, in turn has pointed out that the symbolic veto by Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) strips the amendment of its title, but more importantly, it’s simply his job to name the amendments, not the legislature’s:

RITCHIE: [Minnesota] statute requires the secretary of state to provide titles for constitutional amendments with the approval of the attorney general. The big things that we think about is are we being complete and accurate so that some voters will read that, and then that’ll be some of the important information they’ll receive and then there’ll be a ballot question that will be other important information that they receive.

Ritchie has since renamed another amendment calling for a voter identification law, and its proponents may file a similar suit.

In regards to the marriage amendment, the fact that there is now a legal battle over its title demonstrates what a petty venture it is. Its proponents believe that “recognition…solely” is positive-sounding language that voters will find appealing, despite the fact that “limiting” is a more precise of words. If a few words can make or break whether or not people might support it, that should demonstrate how incredibly lacking in merit the measure is. The law seems to stand behind Ritchie’s decision, which will hopefully make it harder for Minnesota conservatives to dupe voters into enshrining discrimination in their state constitution.