Two new polls show continued momentum for marriage equality in the states of Michigan and Virginia.

According to results from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV Channel 4, 56.8 percent of Michigan voters now support the freedom to marry — up 12.5 percent from last year — while just 36.7 percent oppose it. At least 65 percent favor some form of civil unions, but those are also banned by the state’s constitutional amendment defining marriage. Apparently, 54 percent would be prepared to vote to repeal that ban. A November poll similarly found that 56 percent support equality, while a poll from last May found only 41 percent approval. These various results suggest a significant sea change in Michigan over the past year on this issue.

Virginia has also experienced significant progress. A new Washington Post poll shows that 56 percent support marriage equality —  up 10 points from two years ago — while 43 percent remain opposed. A series of recent posts have shown mixed results in Virginia, such as two polls last month that only found 45 percent for the freedom to marry, while an October poll found 49 percent support. Many of these polls found higher support for civil unions or other forms of relationship recognition for same-sex couples.

Dave Agema and his wife, Barb

Michigan-based Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema is offering no apologies for his Facebook posts claiming that homosexuality is rife with health consequences and “usually leads to early death.” Instead, he doubled down on them in a conversation with the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins during his radio show Wednesday. In addition to reiterating that homosexuality is a chosen “lifestyle” comparable to alcoholism, Agema went on to claim that schools are actually going to turn kids gay:

AGEMA: First of all, what will happen to your school kids when they are in school. It’s already being taught in a lot of places that it is an accepted lifestyle. Then the next thing that will occur is your kids will come home and say, “I think this is a good thing and I think I want to be one,” and if you as a parent stand up and say, “You know what, this is against my moral beliefs and my biblical beliefs,” then the next thing you’re going to get into is hate crimes because you’re speaking against something that’s been sanctioned by the state. If you look at Denmark and others then the state also tells the churches you have to marry homosexuals and if you don’t what may happen in the United States is you might lose your tax exempt status.

So this all blew up and so I made a web page here listing several other studies that show the harmful effects of the homosexual lifestyle. Just imagine this, if our kids are in school instead of being told that this is an acceptable and OK lifestyle we are actually briefed and taught the ramifications of this lifestyle, that you’re going to live twenty years less than the average person, you are going to die younger and here’s all the diseases you’re going to contract, there’d be a totally different philosophy here instead of basically telling the kids that this is good. So I think we got to go into this with our eyes wide open and what the 2 or 3 percent of homosexuals what they are doing in the United States today is trying to get the courts to do what they can’t get the individual states to do, and that’s dictate that all states will accept homosexual marriage.

Listen to it (via RightWingWatch):

Perkins agreed with all of Agema’s points — notably because the Family Research Council promotes the same ideas — calling them “documented facts” that a person should be able to share without being “a bigot or a hater.”

As Harvey Milk joked when he was fighting the Briggs Initiative in 1978, “If teachers are going to affect you as role models, there’d be a lot of nuns running around the streets today”:

The city of Royal Oak, Michigan was on track to become the 22nd city in the state to establish LGBT nondiscrimination protections, but that measure is now being challenged at the ballot through a citywide referendum. State House Rep. Tom McMillin (R) issued a news release explaining why he thinks the protections would “violate the privacy rights of women and children”:

MCMILLIN: Why the city would want to force places like schools, businesses and fitness centers to allow men to use a women’s restroom or locker room – and allow boys to access girl’s restrooms and locker rooms in schools, is beyond me.

It certainly violates the privacy rights of women and children. At the very least, the council should have also included a requirement for warning signs on women’s and girl’s public restroom and locker room doors saying that women and girls may be confronted there by men who think they are women.

Like Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh (R), McMillin seems to be afraid that women and children might see a transgender woman’s penis. But transgender women are not “men who think they are women,” they are women. They are not predators, nor does anybody need to be warned that they might be in the same space. Indeed, McMillin seems to have little concern for transgender people’s same right to privacy or for their basic dignity and safety to use a gender-appropriate facility.

McMillin’s statement also claimed that requiring Christians not to discriminate against LGBT people is tantamount to “bullying”:

MCMILLIN: The discrimination and coercion this ordinance supports — that a Christian photographer or baker must, if asked, offer their services to a so-called ‘gay wedding’ or face a $500 per day fine is wrong… Bullying Christians is wrong, too.

Tom McMillin has previously said that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” and a “choice” that people have “come out of.” In 2011, he proposed a bill to ban any Michigan municipality from extending LGBT nondiscrimination protections.

Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron

This weekend, two prominent Catholics in Detroit made public statements suggesting that Catholics who support marriage equality or a woman’s right to an abortion should not receive communion. Archbishop Allen Vigneron suggested taking communion while opposing the Church’s positions would “logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury.” Professor and Vatican legal adviser Edward Peters (father of National Organization for Marriage Communications Director Thomas Peters) said such Catholics “risk having holy Communion withheld from them… being rebuked and/or being sanctioned.”

On Monday, in an attempt at damage control, archdiocese spokesman Joe Kohn issued a statement confirming the validity of what Vigneron and Peters said:

KOHN: The archbishop’s focal point here is not “gay marriage”; it is a Catholic’s reception of Holy Communion. If a Catholic publicly opposes the church on a serious matter of the church’s teaching, any serious matter — for example, whether it be a rejection of the divinity of Christ, racist beliefs, support for abortion or support for redefining marriage — that would contradict the public affirmation they would make of the church’s beliefs by receiving Communion.

As the archbishop states, the pastors of the church are ready to assist Catholics to help them understand and avoid this conflict.

This approach of pressuring Catholics out of full participation in the Church for non-conforming positions would be a significant reversal of the Church’s tactics. There continues to be a massive disconnect between the hierarchy of bishops and the millions of people who identify as Catholic, with polls consistently showing, for example, that Catholics support same-sex marriage at rates higher than the national average — even by double digit margins. The bishops attempting to influence social policy derive their symbolic power from the parishioners they represent, even if the Church structure is not a democracy. If they actually attempt to limit participation (and arguably membership) to just those who subscribe to the Church’s beliefs, they would have to eliminate more than half of their membership.

It remains unclear what kind of “assistance” pastors are prepared to provide, but it seems like the Church is prepared to threaten parishioners that they must choose between receiving the Blessed Sacrament or supporting their LGBT loved ones — a new interpretation of “bully pulpit.”

Dave Agema and his wife, Barb

Dave Agema is a member of the Republican National Committee, but 21 Michigan Republicans are calling on him to step down after he posted some virulently anti-gay remarks on Facebook. His original post Wednesday was an excerpt from an anti-gay screed by Frank Joseph, M.D. that claims students are being “indoctrinated that homosexuality is just another normal alternative lifestyle.” After being called out, Agema stood firm, defending his posting of Joseph’s remarks in an email:

His findings and others confirm its an unhealthy lifestyle. The gay activists portray themselves as innocent victims ; however, we who believe in traditional, time tested values are being bullied. Because I disagree with their views, I have had threats to me and my family- thats hate! This is not about hate but a lifestyle that is against 230 years of American history and filled with medical, psychological, legal and costs reasons to oppose it. If you truly loved someone, you would want them to know their lifestyle usually leads to early death. It’s about common sense. It’s about maintaining the family and its importance to the well being of the children and this nation.

Agema added that, though he has deleted the original post, he has no intention of stepping down or backing down:

I will not back down. I will dig in and fight even harder to defend our conservative values from these attacks by liberals in the media, and even in our own party.

In 2011, Agema sponsored a bill to prohibit public employers from providing domestic partner benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. Faculty at the University of Michigan threatened to take their expertise to another state if it passed, but when Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed it into law, he promised that it would not impact higher education institutions.

Many of the Republicans who have rebuked Agema have maintained that the party opposes same-sex marriage, but they oppose his brand of condemnation of gay people. This is particularly ill-timed as the GOP is attempting to sugarcoat the public’s perception of its opposition to LGBT equality.

Marriage equality became law today for the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians in Michigan when Chairman Dennis McNamara signed a new marriage equality measure passed by the tribal council on March 3^rd. Not only did he sign the bill, but McNamara then presided over the wedding of two of his longtime friends who met three decades ago in the Navy.  The Chairman told the Associated Press:

MCNAMARA: There should not be a dividing line, and we should all be able to seek a good life.

Unfortunately, those who will now be able to marry through the Little Traverse system still face legal questions in the state of Michigan due to a constitutional ban on gay marriage in the state.  Though the Tribe has the sovereign authority to enact its own marriage laws, it is unlikely that the state will recognize them.

Bryan Fisher, Director of Issues Analysis for the right-wing American Family Association, not only derided the tribe’s decision, but went a step further to prescribe their cultural values to the tribe:

FISCHER: We think it would be a serious mistake for any sovereign nation to legalize same sex marriage…Homosexual behavior itself is immoral, it is unnatural and it is unhealthy, and it is a mistake for any culture to normalize that kind of behavior.

Two other Tribal nations have legalized same-sex marriage, the Coquille Tribe in Oregon, and the Suquamish Tribe in Washington.  And, the LGBT legal equality movement is growing with the launch of a new Tribal equality toolkit, now being shared with interested tribal leaders.

Our guest blogger is Erik Stegman, Manager for the Half in Ten campaign at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.