Project Right Side is Ken Mehlman’s newest endeavor to achieve LGBT equality. Launched in November, the project is a research and analysis nonprofit that hopes to further all aspects of the LGBT agenda politically in the coming years.
Ken Mehlman, who helped raise millions for the marriage equality efforts in this year’s election, wants to keep the fight going. This year saw huge successes in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, where marriage equality was approved for the first time by popular vote. We also saw an anti-gay Constitutional amendment in Minnesota shot down. But there’s still a long way to go before LGBT equality is achieved.
Current research and polls from Ken Mehlman’s Project Right Side have concluded the following:
- A majority of Americans favor civil marriage for same sex couples, a ratio of 49% to 46%
- These trends are growing quickly and across all demographics
- The marriage-equality issue is more important to supporters than to opponents
- A majority of independents (58%) favor marriage equality
- Republicans are increasingly supportive of legal protections for gay Americans. 73% support employment nondiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians, 61% agree that there should be safe-school protections, and 46% support joint tax returns by same-sex couples
- Voters under 45 strongly favor marriage equality (60%)
Keeping his focus on his fellow Republicans and Conservatives, Ken Mehlman appeals to the principals that drive them. “Conservatives don’t need to change core convictions to embrace the growing support for equal rights for gay Americans,” he writes. “It is sufficient to recognize the inherent conservatism in citizens’ desire to marry, to be judged on their work, and not to be singled out for higher taxes or bullying at school.”
This isn’t the first time Ken Mehlman has stressed that Republicans’ dearest principles fall in line with the lives that same-sex couples seek to create. He is influential in the Republican sphere and has worked tirelessly to find allies there.