No, I’m not an optimist, but this does look promising

Afterellen: Yesterday, The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan took a look at the 2010 edition of the General Social Survey, and wrote, “I’m proud to say [marriage equality] must represent one of the most successful political, social and cultural movements in history.” Encouraging words made even sweeter when you pair them with the graph constructed by sociologist Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois University.

Here’s the query: Same-sex couples should be allowed to get married. Do you agree or disagree?

General Social Survey has been asking the question since 1988 — longer that any other scientific survey group — and for the first time in history, Americans who support marriage equality outnumber Americans who do not. There has been a dramatic shift in public opinion in the last two decades, but the most encouraging thing of all is that support for marriage equality jumped seven points in only the last two years. (It’s even more striking when you consider that opposition to marriage equality also fell seven points.)

Cash in on the bet that this would happen

CTVNews: Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle are in love and want to tie the knot — but they don’t want to get married.

The 26-year-old Londoners think they should be allowed to have a civil partnership, a form of legal union available in Britain only to same-sex couples.

On Tuesday, after having their application to form a civil partnership rejected by officials at their local town hall in Islington, north London, they said they will go to court to win the right. They are being backed by gay rights activists, who hope a ruling that allows straight couples the right to a civil partnership would mean, in turn, that gay couples have the right to wed.

“The titles of husband and wife and all the things that pop into people’s heads when you say you’re getting married don’t appeal to us,” said Doyle, a student. “In our day-to-day life we feel like civil partners — we don’t feel like husband and wife, and we want the government to recognize that.”

Marriage and civil partnership are virtually identical in law, and activists argue both should be open to all couples.

“We think it’s time there was one law for everyone,” said activist Peter Tatchell, who is organizing the “Equal Love” campaign and has lined up eight couples — four gay, four straight — willing to take their cases to court.

“Denying heterosexual couples the right to have a civil partnership is heterophobic,” he said.

But Laura Bush Told George W. About All Their Gay Friends!

Queerty: Two of the most-buzzed-about parts of Laura Bush’s new memoir Spoken From The Heart have to do with her speaking about the 1963 car crash where she killed a classmate (something she’s never opened up about publicly before) and a decently startling revelation that during a trip to Germany, when she and President GWB fell ill, they believed they might have been poisoned. Oh, and then there’s the part where she plays Ultimate Marriage Defender to that husband of hers.

“In 2004 the social question that animated the campaign was gay marriage,” she writes. “Before the election season had unfolded, I had talked to George about not making gay marriage a significant issue. We have, I reminded him, a number of close friends who are gay or whose children are gay. But at that moment I could never have imagined what path this issue would take and where it would lead.”

That’s clearly not enough to gauge whether she acted to stop Bush from pursuing the constitutional amendment, or even whether she thought that was her responsibility. We hope she felt it was, the same way we hope Michelle Obama finds reason to confront her husband about his own LGBT issues.

The Daily Marriage Equality Letters Sent to Barack Obama (That He’ll Never Read)

Queerty:  Today, after a bit of a gap, is Briann Lambert’s seventh (daily-ish) letter to Barack Obama encouraging him to support gay marriage. Her first letter was sent while Barack was still on holiday with his two daughters and his wife Michelle, whose permission he didn’t have to request, from a court or a judge or the legislature, to marry. Briann’s seventh letter arrives with a note about the federal Prop 8 Perry trial. But Briann’s 24-hour letter cycle is not, in fact, unique.

Crystal Alburger, who married her wife in Iowa, has been sending Obama letters since August 6. Her last letter, from Sunday, quotes Dorothy Day: “No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to be done.” Her letter from Saturday read in part: “Writing to you often seems hopeless. You won’t get my letters–and, even if you do, you won’t be able to do anything for me. Gay rights aren’t a priority for you, so why should writing to you be a priority for me? Oh, wait, I invariably recall on my way out of doubt: that’s why. Our human dignity needs to be a priority for you.”

Obama Needs to Catch Up, Says Prop 8 Challenge Atty Boies

Towleroad: Maureen Dowd interviews Ted Olson and David Boies about the federal challenge to Proposition 8 in the NYT. Olson told her, “I think there’s something the matter with you if you don’t care enough to feel the suffering that they’ve been through and if you’re not emotionally upset about the fact that we’re doing an immense amount of harm to people,” he said. “We’re not treating them like Americans. We’re not treating them like citizens.” And Boies took Obama to task for his pace on the issue:

While Charles Cooper, the lawyer on the anti-gay-marriage side, cited President Obama’s declaration that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, Olson noted that Obama’s parents could not have married in Virginia before he was born.

I asked the lawyers if they were disappointed that the president who had once raised such hope in the gay community now seemed behind the curve.

“Damned right,” Boies snapped. “I hope my Democratic president will catch up to my conservative Republican co-counsel.”

Olson added: “I’m not talking about Obama, but that’s what’s so bad about politicians. They say, ‘I must hasten to follow them, for I am their leader.’”

Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes. But what he doesn’t realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it’s done, you can’t remember what all the fuss was about.