The struggle is worldwide

Ricky Santorum has a big lead on Mitt Romney in Michigan (primary in about 10 days) even though this is Romney's home state (his dad was Gov. here for a while). That story has been in the news lately. But they may not mention why. The answer, according to Terrence Heath is simple. Romney continues to say the GM and Chrysler bailouts were a bad idea. That's even after both companies are profitable (highly so in GM's case) and Michigan's economy is beginning to revive.



A few GOP senators are talking about a series of bills to help boost the economy. Yeah, we all know which part of the economy they want to boost. Heath explains a few things. These senators quickly abandon talk of "job creation" and move on to "capital formation." Give small businesses more money (or easier access to money), say the senators, and they'll create jobs.

Small business owners are getting tired of the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business of putting words in their mouths. They say there is one thing that will get them to hire more people: more customers. Give owners a tax break and all they'll do is go to the Bahamas. Besides, all those tax breaks aren't going to end up in the hands of small business owners.



Yup, NJ Gov. Chris Christie was "swift" in his veto of marriage equality in his state. It passed the Senate only yesterday. Garden State Equality accuses him of having his eye on the 2016 South Carolina GOP primary.

Also today the Maryland state House approved a marriage equality bill in a 71-67 vote. It now goes before the state senate. There are predictions that if it passes it will be challenged and have to go before voters. That makes three states (Washington, Maine, Maryland) likely to have marriage equality on the ballot in November (and Minnesota already has a marriage protection amendment on the ballot). If we don't win at least one of them it may be a while before another state legislature tries a marriage equality bill.



The Global Post has series of articles on the web about the struggle of gay people around the world. The series is The Rainbow Struggle. I've read about the extreme homophobia in Serbia, the plight of gay refugees from Uganda now in Kenya, the gay-friendly tourist town in Cambodia, and the attempts to get sexual minority protections in the new Nepal constitution.

The opening page says there are 600 million gay people around the world. In a population of 7 billion that is about 9%. But the best estimates of the number of gays in a population is more like 3-4% or about 250 million.