Attorney Art Gardner of Marietta announced today he is running for the GOP nomination to replace outgoing Sen. Saxby Chambliss — and he is not afraid to say he supports same-sex marriage.
“81 percent of Americans under 30 believe in marriage equality. How can our party expect to win, if we exclude major segments of the population with divisive social policies?” Gardner said, citing a Washington Post/ABC poll, in a press release today announcing his candidacy.
Michelle Nunn, daughter of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, officially jumped into the race today as a Democrat to replace Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss — and she's already been tagged as being President Obama's "hand-picked liberal" by none other than gay-hating GOP candidate Karen Handel.
Nunn is CEO of Points of Light, a nonprofit with close ties to the Bush family.
In an interview with Jim Galloway, political reporter for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Nunn said she personally favors marriage equality.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today endorsed marriage equality in a letter posted to her official senate website. Murkowski became the third Republican senator to endorse same-sex marriages with her announcement.
Murkowski joined fellow GOP Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) with her endorsement for marriage equality.
“I am a life-long Republican because I believe in promoting freedom and limiting the reach of government. When government does act, I believe it should encourage family values,” Murkowski wrote. “I support the right of all Americans to marry the person they love and choose because I believe doing so promotes both values: it keeps politicians out of the most private and personal aspects of peoples’ lives – while also encouraging more families to form and more adults to make a lifetime commitment to one another.”
The Marietta Daily Journal published an article on Friday examining the reaction of Cobb residents in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court marriage arguments and the viral Facebook profile picture-swap of red equality symbols that was impossible to miss.
The article, written by Jon Gillooly, profiles several pro-gay rights OTP'ers and closes with an interview with current Georgia Republican Party Chairperson Sue Everhart, who makes a few outlandish statements in defense of “traditional” marriage.
The sixth annual State of Black Gay America Summit over Labor Day weekend covered a broad range of topics over the course of the day on Sept. 1 — from HIV prevention medicines and the need for volunteers in vaccine research to the specifics of the Affordable Care Act to how much money does it cost to run an effective campaign in Atlanta and Georgia.
Keynote speaker Je-Shawna Wholley, a recent Spelman graduate who now lives in Washington, D.C., and is a senior fellow at the National Black Justice Coalition, tackled the subject of this year's theme at the summit at the Melia Hotel. "Embracing Our Collective Power to Influence Change" must be made by building coalitions and being sincere in the work people do, Wholley said.
We're just a handful of days away from the kickoff of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., where attendees are expected to nominate former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney to represent the party in the upcoming fall presidential election.
Possible hurricanes aside, officials in Tampa are expecting more than 50,000 delegates, media and other convention visitors to descend on the city in the coming days, including representatives from gay conservative groups like Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud.
Gay groups will need to shake off an unwelcome feeling amid reports that this year's Republican Party platform remains as anti-gay as ever.