Today, the D.C. Council sent a bill legalizing gay marriages in the District to the full council for a Dec. 1 vote. And during committee discussion today, there seemed to be little willingness to compromise on the ancillary issue of the day: whether the bill would cause the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to withdraw from social service programs.

The archdiocese's issue seems to come down to two issues: adoptions to same-sex couples (which are already legal, as it happens), and mandated employee benefits for same-sex spouses of archdiocese employees.

As WaPo's Tim Craig reports, neither of the bill main sponsors, Phil Mendelson or David Catania, are budging on the issue. Said Mendo: "The way this issue has been approached by the archdiocese in the past week was tantamount to drawing a line in the sand and it may be hard for them to show some flexibility." Catania went on to ask how the archdiocese could give employee benefits to "fornicators and adulterers" but not gay couples.

LL's quick thought: Isn't this yet another argument for abandoning the already problematic employer-based health insurance model? Why should the institutional policies of an employer, subject to religious/moral/political dealings, affect the well-being of employees and their families?

Discuss.

D.C. Wire just posted on this, but this document is just too good not to share more fully.

At-Large Councilmember David Catania today posted a letter to Robin Fretwell Wilson, law professor at Washington & Lee University, who has made it her job, as of late, to join the public debate in jurisdictions considering same-sex marriage, stumping for broad exemptions to discrimination laws for those who have religious objections to the practice.

Recently, she testified at a D.C. Council hearing on gay marriage and also wrote a Washington Post op-ed advocating for stronger protections against religious discrimination. In her council testimony, Wilson cited a flurry of federal case law to support her positions. Catania proceeded to actually look up the cases. If you come at Catania, you best come correct. Wilson, it seems, did not.

You can read the letter in full [PDF]. In fact, please do. Text is also pasted after the jump.

Read More "David Catania Smacks Down Anti-Gay-Marriage Law Prof" »

Today, the D.C. Archdiocese just handed Christopher Hitchens a chapter in his next anti-God book. The archdiocese continues to press for a more watered down version of the D.C. Council's gay-marriage bill. It's gone so far as to threaten to pull its Catholic Charities services from the District, WaPo is reporting:

Hours after the Committee on Public Safety and Judiciary approved the bill Tuesday, the Catholic Church sent a letter to Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) calling for additional changes to the legislation. If church officials are not successful, the letter states, "services will be impacted."

"The exemption language contained in the committee [bill] is far too narrow, and must be expanded to include appropriate safeguards to protect religious freedom to preserve the ability of Catholic Charities and other service providers to continue to serve the growing and unmet needs of the residents of the District of Columbia," wrote Jane G. Belford, the chancellor of the Archdiocese.

Apparently, the church is afraid of lawsuits if it denies healthcare to legally married same-sex couples. With the District's unemployment rate well past 10 percent and budget cuts to homeless services still on the table, this is an astonishing threat.

Read More "D.C. Archdiocese Threatens To Cut Services Over Same-Sex Marriage Bill" »

Today we introduce Hannah Neprash of districtlimerick.com, who will write regularly on D.C. news and politics—in limerick form.

Election week left some aghast
From last year, the difference was vast
A bell-weather? nope
Creigh Deeds had no hope
Before the first ballot was cast

The hearing for marriage rights raged
The witnesses—they got engaged
To make Council swoon
Could be a real boon
Who cares if it felt a bit staged

Read More "The Friday Limerick Review" »

Of all the romantic locales in the world, or in the District of Columbia even, the John A. Wilson Building does not approach the top of LL's personal list.

But it was good enough today for D.C. residents Andrew Hertzberg and Andy Rollman.

During this morning's D.C. Council hearing on the same-sex marriage bill, Hertzberg, 49, proposed to Rollman while before the dais at the close of his testimony. Rollman accepted.

Why pick the council chamber? Says Hertzberg: "This is such important legislation and such an important forum."

Rollman, 47, says the proposal didn't come as a complete surprise. "He told me he was going to do something as a surprise at the end," he says. "I was hoping this was it."

In testimony before the D.C. Council today, Bishop Harry Jackson namechecked Martin Luther King and his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in talking about his opposition to gay marriage. Jackson quoted King: "A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a people, that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, have no part in enacting or devising the law."

That, of course, was a reference to Jackson's quest to have a citywide vote on gay marriage. He said, "I believe the people of the District of Columbia have suffered an injustice by being ignored already, and you're about to do that again....There is an advisory referendum that you could endorse---why don't you do it?"

At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, author and lead introducer of the bill, was ready to pounce.

Read More "David Catania Gives Harry Jackson a History Lesson" »

Only two holdouts left.

Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. was a guest on NewsChannel 8's NewsTalk program this afternoon, and the gay marriage bill expected to pass through the council later this year was on the agenda. While he did not make a pledge on camera, anchor Bruce DePuyt reports that in a conversation afterward, Thomas told him that he will indeed vote for the bill, "despite grief he will get from some constituents, clergy in his ward."

The promise comes after months of sometimes agonizing fence-straddling on Thomas' part. With Thomas on board, only the two east-of-the-river ward councilmembers---Yvette Alexander and Marion Barry---have declined to come out for the bill.

In this week's column, LL spun a scenario whereby the D.C. Council might approve a same-sex-marriage referendum. That best-case hypothetical situation for gay-marriage opponents, LL wrote, would be if "Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., on the hot seat with an election a year off, convinces Chairman Vincent C. Gray and at-largers Michael Brown and Kwame Brown to join him, Yvette Alexander, and Marion Barry."

Not so fast! Gloria Murry Ford, a staffer for Michael Brown, called LL yesterday to protest mightily that her boss would never ever consider compromising on such a key civil-rights issue. Not even in some harebrained hypothetical scenario! Never!

Duly noted. And, it should be said that Kwame Brown is signed on as a co-sponsor of the marriage bill, and Gray is not only a co-sponsor, but offered strongly pro-marriage-equality comments in a Washington Times interview earlier this week.

So that leaves Alexander, Barry, and Thomas.

Read More "Michael Brown Stands for Gay Marriage; Yvette Alexander Does Not" »

In his column this week, LL makes a case for why supporters of gay marriage in the District should embrace the idea of a ballot initiative. Right now, the orthodoxy among marriage equality advocates is that such matters of civil rights should never be put up for a vote. That's a principle that's hard to dispute. LL, however, sees an exception where civil rights would win big, and where pounding the opposition into dust would not only feel really good but also advance other political objectives.

Still, you may ask: Why is LL so convinced that gay marriage would win big?

There's polls, you see: A July poll of registered Democrats in three wards conducted by leading business types showed 77 percent support for gay marriage. Then there's another, lesser known poll that's been whispered about for months among local same-sex-marriage advocates---a poll that the Human Rights Campaign, national advocacy group, had conducted in the spring showing upwards of 65 percent support citywide, LL is told by multiple sources. That's landslide territory.

Read More "D.C. Gay Marriage Polling: Some Thoughts" »

Tim Craig kinda buried the lede in his D.C. Wire report on the fresh effort to bring same-sex marriage to the ballot.

Yes, Bishop Harry Jackson and the usual suspects filed new papers to day to hold a vote on making "only marriage between a man and a woman...valid and recognized in the District of Columbia."

But then there's this: The Archdiocese of Washington "also submitted a letter to the elections board today calling for a referendum. Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl even sent a letter to 300 Catholic priests asking them to get behind the effort."

"It is ironic that at the same time the city is asking for voting representation in the U.S. Congress, its leaders are denying residents the opportunity to participate in the Democratic process for an issue with widespread implications for children and families," sais a statement from Wuerl from Ronald Jackson, executive director of the D.C. Catholic Conference, an organ of the archdiocese.

If you're a same-sex couple married legally in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, California (in the months it was permitted), or in other countries, congratulations: The District of Columbia now considers you to be married, too.

At this minute, a 30-day congressional review period has expired, and you're now free to enjoy all the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage in the District. (That includes divorce, incidentally.)

If you're looking to celebrate, the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club tonight is hosting a "Road to Equality Happy Hour" at Halo in Dupont Circle, 6 to 9 p.m.

Now look for the real fight to begin---over performing same-sex marriages in the District. At-Large Councilmember David Catania is all but certain to introduce a bill permitting that in the fall; opponents are likely to pursue a ballot initiative, which will end up being adjudicated by the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Expect to hear a lot about the "Amtrak argument"---if all couples have to do is take a train to Connecticut or Massachusetts to get married, why not just let them marry here?

The D.C. Council has passed a gay marriage recognition bill. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has signed it. The Board of Elections and Ethics has rejected a referendum effort aimed at overturning it. A Superior Court judge has upheld that decision.

So, barring intervention from the D.C. Court of Appeals---and, according to a court spokesperson, no appeal was filed by close of business today---gay marriages will very soon be legal in the District of Columbia.

Brian Flowers, the general counsel for the D.C. Council and the official counter of congressional review days, tells LL today that, by his count, the review period will end at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7.

Read More "Gay Marriage in Washington, D.C.: Coming Tuesday at 12:01 a.m." »

Judge Judith Retchin has ruled [PDF] that a referendum on recognizing out-of-state gay marriages may not proceed.

Retchin was widely expected to ignore the substance of the referendum proponents' argument---i.e., that the District's human rights law does not, in fact, prevent the measure from appearing on the ballot, as the Board of Elections and Ethics ruled earlier this month. Instead, she was expected to rule only on whether she could stop the marriage law from taking effect next week---an important question, since that would prevent a referendum and render any other legal arguments moot.

But her ruling is broad.

Read More "Superior Court Judge Denies Gay Marriage Referendum" »

Gay-marriage referendum backers have asked a Superior Court judge this morning to order the city elections board to allow a ballot measure.

The move comes two days after the Board of Elections and Ethics ruled that such a referendum, to overturn a recently passed District law recognizing out-of-state gay marriages, would violate the D.C. Human Right Act and thus would be ineligible to appear on the ballot.

The petition [PDF], filed by Bishop Harry Jackson and six other backers, says the BOEE decision "is erroneous because the determination directly contradicts the D.C. Court of Appeals' decision in Dean...holding that the current D.C. law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples does not violate the DC-HRA."

Read More "D.C. Gay Marriage Referendum Supporters Petition Court" »

The Board of Elections and Ethics has ruled that a referendum on recognizing gay marriages is not allowed.

Reads the order [PDF], signed by both board chair Errol Arthur and member Charles Lowery Jr.:

[I]t is clear that the Referendum’s Proposers would, in contravention of the [Human Rights Act], strip same-sex couples of the rights and responsibilities of marriage that they were afforded by virtue of entering into valid marriages elsewhere....Because the Referendum would authorize discrimination prohibited by the [Human Rights Act], it is not a proper subject for referendum, and may not be accepted by the Board.

More to come.

Read More "D.C. Gay Marriage Referendum Rejected by Elections Board" »