Greenland!

Marriage equality will come to Greenland on October 1st!

I mentioned a couple days ago that Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, won't let a vote on marriage equality happen on his watch, even though the country is very much (perhaps 70%) in favor of it. The Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has responded by submitting a bill to establish marriage equality. Whether that bill passes (if a vote is allowed) depends a lot on whether the various party leaders demand a party-line vote of their members or let members vote their conscience.

Here is a map of where we have marriage equality. In some countries the light green means there are civil unions, in other countries it means some locations have equality and other locations don't. It is easy to see there is no equality in Asia, Middle East, and Africa – with the exception of South Africa.

Angela Merkel of Germany said same-sex marriages "are not a goal of this government." It's not on the agenda. It appears that in Germany when parties form a governing coalition they work out an agenda to which all parties can agree. But if something new comes up that isn't on the agenda it is difficult to make it happen. I'll be kind – Germany was one of the first to enact civil unions.

And it Texas, which is reaching the end of its legislative season, their bill to defy the Supremes on marriage equality has died. A few wise voices said, hey guys, there are other things of higher priority. Another 20 some bills that would have made life rough for sexual minorities have also died.

Frank Bruni, in a New York Times opinion, has noted two things in common with what appears to be a diverse list of countries. Those countries are: Belgium, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Luxembourg and Ireland. Those common things are: (1) More people go to Roman Catholic Churches than any other religious denomination. (2) All of them have made same-sex marriage legal. Yes, over the Vatican's protests.

Even in America Catholics are defying their leadership. That means prez. candidates Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio, who have cited their Catholicism as a reason for opposing same-sex marriage, are in the minority of Catholics on this issue. But they take that stance for their Evangelical Protestant supporters.