I'm surprised, I was aware that for a period after Musk bought Twitter/X, if you didn't have an account, you couldn't see posts. I was not aware that the policy had been relaxed. I haven't clicked on a twitter post since the short time they had this policy in July. So, now I know better; thank you!

Thanks for the links, and to Ianbirmingham also for his.

Is LGBT Marriage News available elsewhere besides Twitter/X? I have never had a twitter account. I've tried some google searches, but have not been certain of the links in question.

Thanks.

It's sad to see this site go. I've been visiting it every week, and often every day, since the Prop 8 trial. I'm not sure where I'm going to go next. Yet.

I know you're right about damage to their brand. I hope you're right about the official stance they will - or won't - take.

I don’t believe the Mormon church will back us this time. This is the first sentence in the church’s statement on the RfMA: “The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to marriage between a man and a woman is well known and will remain unchanged.” It then goes on to speak of religious protections – before it mentions our rights.

Back in the early days of the court fights for marriage equality (see Baehr v. Lewin/Baehr v Miike in HI), the church produced “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” (PoF) which was subsequently used as an appendix in an amicus curiae in Baehr v. Lewin/Miike. It's my understanding that a written position statement could be included in an amicus brief, but the church did not have one until they released the PoF on Sept 23, 1995. Did they write one, just so they could be involved in the fight?

It’s my opinion – and the opinion of at least a few others who watched the RfMA go through – that the church backed it not because of the rights granted to the LGBTQ+, but only for the religious protections codified into law. We saw the same mechanism with the 2015 UT law for LGBTQ+ protections, which some say also weakened existing protections for other classes. I remember reading the law, and if memory serves correctly, the law struck out all existing versions of "shall" and replaced them with "may." With the church's blessing - otherwise the law had no chance of passing.

The RfMA repealed DOMA but replaced it with “DOMA-lite” (my personal opinion) due to the unnecessary addition of all the religious protections. So I personally believe that church support for the RfMA was a political calculation on their part. This is coming from a church that, at least in my youth, styled itself (internally) as being above politics. At least that’s what I remember their rhetoric being like back in the day - almost ten years before the PoF and their later intense involvement in the passing of Prop H8.

Because the church was clear in its statement that it still believes that marriage is between one man and one woman, I think for the purposes of this constitutional amendment, they’ll oppose it. Why?

There’s nothing in it for them.

But will they oppose it at all, much less with the same vigor as they supported prop H8? I truly don’t know – but I suspect not, due to the Obergefell ruling in 2015. Then again, now we have Dobbs instead of Roe, with Thomas calling for review of cases like Obergefell, in light of Dobbs.

I definitely think the church is still – so to speak – old school. I don’t see them giving up their “one man one woman” position any time soon. Simply put: The Mormon church is no friend to the LGBTQ+ community.

- someone who was raised Mormon.

PS, don’t forget that after being involved with Boy Scouts of America (BSA) for decades, the first noises I ever heard about the church leaving BSA behind was after BSA decided to first admit gay children (2013), then later, gay leaders (2015), then later still, transgender boys (2017). The writing was already on the wall when BSA began to admit girls (2017-2019). And suddenly there were reasons for the Mormon church to quit BSA – because of internal reasons that had never mattered enough to do anything about until BSA allowed gay children. When they quit in 2019, BSA lost almost a million scouts and leaders. I think I’ve heard that the church chartered about 1/3 of the overall BSA membership.
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/... https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general...

CA-13 Update:
Duarte (R)...…66,808……50.2%
Gray (D)……..66,215……49.8%
Difference…...593 https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/results/califor...

County………..Remain……Last Update
Fresno………..2,600………11/18/22 03:58:50 PM
Madera………….....0……...11/23/22 09:36:26 AM
Merced………..…...0………COMPLETED 11/23/22
San Joaquin….3,770………11/22/22 08:57:17 AM
Stanislaus………....0………11/22/22 08:43:17 AM https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-electi...

In the D-R spread on Madera County, there's supposed to be a negative sign - it's supposed to be -12.60%. It didn't line up, and I had to go in and put in all periods to get it to line up properly. The negative sign must have been accidentally deleted at that time, and I didn't notice it until just now. Sorry for the error.

2/2
Unless otherwise noted, all cities listed are entirely within the district, as far as I can tell.
From https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ror/ror-odd-year...

Fresno............Registered......Dem..........Rep...........NPP...........Other
Coalinga................5,998......35.10%......32.48%......25.26%......7.17%
Firebaugh..............3,066......51.50%......16.34%......26.39%......5.77%
Huron.....................1,271......57.20%......11.01%......26.59%......5.19%
Kerman..................6,844......43.67%......25.07%......24.20%......7.06%
Mendota.................2,941......61.07%......12.68%......22.27%......3.98%
San Joaquin...........1,022......61.15%........8.51%......24.56%......5.77%
Unincorp..............89,803......32.15%.......42.76%......18.81%......6.28%

Madera...........Registered......Dem..........Rep...........NPP...........Other
Chowchilla..............5,787......29.69%......41.01%......22.29%......7.02%
Madera.................23,043......42.59%......25.63%......24.92%......6.85%
Unincorp...............40,570......27.71%......46.80%......18.44%......7.04%

Merced...........Registered......Dem..........Rep...........NPP............Other
Atwater.................14,576......39.21%......30.58%......23.50%........6.71%
Dos Palos...............2,338......40.76%......27.80%......25.15%........6.29%
Gustine...................2,623......40.87%......30.84%......21.39%........6.90%
Livingston...............5,829......55.43%......12.85%......27.64%........4.08%
Los Banos............18,994......49.53%......22.37%......21.76%........6.34%
Merced..................38,604......46.17%......24.73%......22.76%........6.35%
Unincorp................38,044......35.89%......36.89%......21.58%........5.64%

San Joaquin....Registered......Dem..........Rep...........NPP.............Other
Lathrop..................13,395......47.29%......20.13%......25.79%........6.79%
Unincorp................76,610......35.69%......37.55%......20.19%........6.58%

Stanislaus........Registered......Dem..........Rep...........NPP...........Other
Ceres.....................23,065......47.26%......26.75%......19.76%......6.24%
*Modesto..............115,093......40.90%......32.81%......19.25%......7.03%
Newman...................5,388......43.76%......26.73%......22.05%......7.46%
Patterson................11,077......51.59%......20.53%......21.16%......6.72%
**Turlock.................38,673......35.32%......37.54%......20.38%......6.76%
Unincorp.................54,708......33.16%......42.12%......18.01%......6.71%

* Less than half the city?
** Some of the city?
https://www.co.fresno.ca.us/departments/county-cl... https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Mader... https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Merce... https://www.livevoterturnout.com/ENR/sanjoaquinca... https://www.sjgov.org/department/rov/results “The Registrar of Voters Office will publish results each Tuesday by 9 pm until the official canvass is complete.” https://stanvote.com/past-results/results.htm

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Scream, the district was drawn to be competitive. I went on a deep dive over the weekend, because your question intrigued me, particularly as I was born and raised in SJ county, though not in the part of SJ county that is in CA-13.

I’m afraid you’ll have to draw your own conclusions based on this information. I already know I can’t draw any. I’ll give you the data I came up with, but I’ll lead with this: I truly hope Ianbirmingham is right, and we just have to wait for SJ County to finish. I really hope I just “wasted my time,” so to speak.

I hope this all lines up correctly after posting...

The “Unprocessed Ballot Report” as of 11/21/22 5:48 PM PT, per https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-electi...
County............Estimate......Last Reported
Fresno.................2,600......11/18/2022 3:58
Madera:..................200......11/18/2022 2:06
Merced:...............1,313......11/14/2022 6:11
*San Joaquin:....28,830......11/15/2022 6:33
Stanislaus.........:31,809......11/17/2022 5:43

* SJ county’s site explicitly states they update on Tuesdays.
Each county site reflects the same report time, almost down to the minute.

How each county voted in the 2020 presidential election, per https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/c...
County................Biden.......Trump.......D–R spread
Fresno.............52.90%......45.10%........7.80%
Madera............42.10%......54.70%......12.60%
Merced............54.10%......43.50%......10.60%
San Joaquin....55.90%......42.00%......13.90%
Stanislaus........49.20%......48.40%........0.80%

How much of each county is in CA-13, and how much CA-13 is in each county:
....................Sq Mi......Sq Mi........Percent..........Percent
County........CA-13......County......of CA-13**.....of County
Fresno..........2617......6011..........41%................44%
Madera...........676......2153..........11%................31%
Merced..........1979.....1979..........31%..............100%
San Joaquin....229.....1426............4%................16%
Stanislaus........846.....1515..........13%............... 56%

* County square mileage comes from the respective Wikipedia articles for each county.
** The shape file shows the square mileage of the district to be 6,347 square miles. https://www.wedrawthelinesca.org/final_maps

Rick, I don't know how I missed that before. Now following you. And thanks for the info, I do appreciate it!

When the site went down for several days and attempts to link to it would give me a DNS error, I went a‘googlin’ for site information, specifically the WHOIS info. It revealed that the site’s registration was to end in about a month. During or immediately after the site outage, I checked again and the site registration had been updated for another two years, now expiring in April 2022.

I even tried to see if I could find some information about EOT at Courage Campaign, but was unsuccessful, primarily because I was having difficulty figuring what to look for. I think in part I was trying to find out if there was anyone I could contact, as the FB page for EOT has been dormant for years also. I even tried to figure out how to contact you via IntenseDebate, but it seemed I couldn’t do that unless I was following you, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that.

But you’re right. Actual activity has dropped, and people like me who lurk, regardless of reason, are not helping. I used to post more often back in the Prop8Trial Tracker days, but my activity went way down after we had to convert to using IntenseDebate to login.

And the number of comments per post disappearing some time ago (on the main page), then the Recent Comments column going blank, does scream “Move along.” Which is what I was wondering when I checked the WHOIS to find out if the site was going to disappear permanently. The (formerly) impending expiration did not help to disabuse me of that notion.