and who is going to be the first big national republican to come out for marriage? that i think is an interesting question. yes. and we will be watching. thanks, igor volski and wayne bessen. up next, it s no picnic in paradi paradise, or is it? despite those rounds of golf, we have a live report from honolulu on the president s working vacation. you know who had a merry christmas? the richest one percent, that s who. republicans in congress made sure of that protecting billions in taxpayer giveaways. and for those facing tough times? republicans stripped 1.3 million americans of jobless benefits folks who want to work, but cannot find a job kicking them to the curb during christmas. so to the 1.3 million americans losing benefits merry christmas - from the gop. it s wrong to leave more than a million americans behind. tell republicans: restore unemployment benefits now.
moving fast when you start seeing same-sex couples tie the knot in utah. that s right, the same state that put tea party favorite mike lee in the u.s. senate and the same state that hasn t voted for a democrat for president since 1964 in lyndon johnson. that same deeply red state is at least for the moment the 18th in which in the nation where gay marriage is happening now. joining us now from our chicago bureau is wayne bessen, founder of the lgbt rights group, and igor volski, think progress.org. so wayne, utah. did you ever think you would see the day when same-sex couples would get married in utah? yes, i did. but i thought i would be older than i am. this is amazing. and the symbolic value alone is going to go miles for us. the writing is on the wall. it s almost like one of those old new york subway train cars.
doma were skeptical about getting too far ahead of public opinion. right. now that you have this decision, the red state, it s really going to be the experiment in the backlash. right. what do what does comfort utah think? does it matter to conservative utah that gay people can now get married? and i think that some of that fear that if the court gets too ahead of the public, there s going to be backlash, and there s going to be problems, that s going to be, i think, overblown. and what the court is going to say is that most people really don t care. you know, wayne, i guess this i think this is such an important point. there is a lot of conversation over the summer about the strategy around enda and marriage equality, some likening it to what we saw around roe vs. wade in terms of this idea of the court getting ahead of people, and so it strikes me if we re talking about a state like utah, we re not talking just california, right? we re talking about a place like utah. t
whole ex-gay band wagon around 1998. polls started shoeg the whole fire and brimstone part of the ministry they were doing, gays are going to hell wasn t playing. so they had to do something more kind and gentle and jumped on this ex-gay bandwagon and launched a campaign in 1998. a million dollars campaign called truth in love to soften the message up. christine o donnell jumped on that as well. and she went along with this. of course the spokesperson for the truth in love campaign i photographed in a gay bar obviously hadn t changed very much. it s an incredible story and it is important i think we re going to be understanding a lot now. she is sort of a big national movement conservative movement superstar understanding where she came from. wayne bessen, executive director of truth wins out. i have a feeling we ll be talking to you about this again. so turns out this is the year of long-winded conservative manifestos and the candidates who love them. a romance told in multiple
attractions. he s also the co-founder of the family research council, which promotes the traditional family unit. and in 2008 here in florida george rekers served as an expert witness in a case to uphold the law in a case banning gays and lesbians from adopting. in his writings he called gays a deviant segment of society. the state of florida paid him $120,000 for his testimony. attorney general bill mccollum told us rekers was recommended after an exhaustive search and because he had exceptional credentials. wayne bessen is with truth wins out, a group that exposes what it sees as hypocrisy in the anti-gay movement. he has helped create anti-gay attitudes and justify discrimination across the country. it seems rekers doesn t think gay people should raise boys, he thinks they should rent boys. so i think he s quite the hypocrite there. reporter: lucien says rekers knew he was gay before the trip because he had told him about