Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph. D.: Prop 8, Judge Walker and the Biblical View of Marriage Equality

Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph. D.: Prop 8, Judge Walker and the Biblical View of Marriage Equality

housekeeping.

fascinating article. go read it.

Marriage Equality: Which Video Defines It Best? (via HuffPost, natch)

Marriage Equality: Which Video Defines It Best?









if i don't stop watching/reading these articles and don't stop getting myself all worked up over the "fierce advocate's" abdication of advocacy, i'm likely to have an aneurysm before our wedding on 9/30/10.

Barack Obama: Homophobe or Political Coward (another must read article)...

...either way, he's no friend of the GLBT community.

Obama's Choice: News Analysis: The president's relationship with the LGBT community has been rocky; upcoming decisions about same-sex marriage could be disastrous: News section: Metro Weekly magazine, Washington, DC newspaper

"I believe that marriage is between a man and woman and I am not in favor of gay marriage..." ~ barack obama in an interview with MTV in '08.

The Winds of Change Are Blowing: Marriage Equality/Nate Silver Edition

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage Appears to Shift at Accelerated Pace



"In April, 2009, when we last took a survey of gay marriage polls, we found that support for it had converged somewhere into the area of 41 or 42 percent of the country. Now, it appears to have risen by several points, and as I reported yesterday, it has become increasingly unclear whether opposition to gay marriage still outweighs support for it.

Here is a version of the graph we produced in 2009, but updated to include the dozen or so polls that have been conducted on it since that time, as listed by pollingreport.com. I have also included opinions on gay marriage from the General Social Survey, which asked about gay marriage as long ago as 1988."

people get ready, there's a change a-comin',
don't need no ticket, you just get on board.

A Gay-Rights Advocate on Marriage Ban, Celebrity Divorce - TIME

A Gay-Rights Advocate on Marriage Ban, Celebrity Divorce - TIME

I broke up Al and Tipper Gore. And Sandra Bullock and Jesse James. No, I am not a 50-something masseuse or a tattoo model with a thing for Nazi outfits. I'm just a gay man who's about to celebrate his second wedding anniversary. Apparently, my marriage is a menace. According to the Family Research Council, "Gay marriage threatens the institutions of marriage and the family."

For the past two years, I've tried to deny it. But faced with the prospect of even more finger-pointing in the wake of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's Aug. 4 ruling against California's Prop 8, I've decided to come out and come clean. I'm claiming the pinko-threat label and wearing it with pride, like the Miss California USA tiara that Carrie Prejean wore until someone leaked those eight videos of her touching her pro-opposite-marriage private parts. Yes, I am responsible for the sorry state marriage is in. The Gores' "shocking" split was no surprise to me. Blame me for breaking America's sweetest heart. (I'd like to take credit for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston's off-again engagement, but honestly, who except Bristol didn't see that coming?) Jenny and Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford, Mel and Robyn Gibson, Speidi — I put them all asunder. I'm here. I'm a home wrecker. Get used to it. (See a photographic history of the gay-rights movement.)

I'm an anti-nuclear-family activist. I think I was born this way. Just ask my divorced-after-four-decades parents. I'd been working on them for what seems like a lifetime. Since they unleashed me on state-sanctioned nuptials in 1966, the U.S. divorce rate has nearly doubled. Gay apologists may say the culprit is the rise of no-fault divorce. But this is America, damn it, and someone somewhere must be at fault. That someone is me.

Real Americans agree that I'm dangerous. In "Gathering Storm," an ad produced by the National Organization for Marriage, a paid actress — but no doubt still a real American — with Sue Sylvester's haircut says I want to change the way she lives. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig voted to amend the Constitution to save the nation from my unholy matrimony. The thrice-divorced Rush Limbaugh warned that "gay marriage would destroy the American family." And, of course, what about the children? I am incapable of "providing a safe and secure and emotionally stable environment" for them, said Family Research Council co-founder George "Rentboy.com" Rekers. (Is there hope for the American marriage?)

I must admit, though, that the thrill is fading. It's getting too easy. Larry King is on his eighth shot at wedded bliss, and I've had a pretty good record with the Best Actress Oscar winners. I want to move on to pre-emptive attacks. I should try getting a proposition passed to ban ugly marriages. Surely the state has a legitimate interest in keeping the hideous from going forth, not to mention multiplying, and I'm sure I could get at least 51% of voters to agree with me. Those who say California's gay-marriage ban should stand make a completely logical point: majority rule should always trump minority rights — activist judges and their equal-protection clause be damned. I mean, what the unattractive do behind closed doors is O.K., I guess, but I don't want to have to see it. And I certainly don't want my tax dollars to promote the homely lifestyle.

Or should I just let them be? If two repellent people want to wake up next to each other every morning for the rest of their lives, it might turn my stomach, but is it really any of my business? It must be hard enough for them to get through the day — there are reflective surfaces everywhere — without having the federal government against them. Allowing dog-faced marriage doesn't mean I love my husband any less, and banning unsightly unions wouldn't give me a better chance at till death do us part. So relax, ugly people; you're free to pursue happiness with the appearance-challenged person of your choice. Love is love, after all, and that's beautiful enough.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2009299,00.html?xid=rss-fullnation-yahoo#ixzz0w7pO5cyH

epic battles throughout history:

David vs. Goliath
Tezcatlipoca vs. Quetzalcoatl
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Ali vs. Foreman, Frazier, Liston, Holmes, Marciano...

and now, the epic to end all epics: BOIES vs. Perkins

shorter version:

please, call it "marriage equality" magazine...

...other than that, right on!

Equally Wed Magazine, The Nation's Premier Same-Sex Wedding Magazine, Gay Weddings, Lesbian Weddings, LGBT Weddings, Gay and Lesbian Honeymoons

barack obama: champion of "separate but equal"

from MoDo's washington post editorial, "the trials of gavin newsome"...
emphasis added:

“Oh, I can’t get in trouble here,” Newsom said with a playful wince. “I want him to succeed. But I am very upset by what he’s not done in terms of rights of gays and lesbians. I understand it tactically in a campaign, but at this point I don’t know. There is some belief that he actually doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage. But it’s fundamentally inexcusable for a member of the Democratic Party to stand on the principle that separate is now equal, but only on the basis of sexual orientation. We’ve always fought for the rights of minorities and against the whims of majorities.”

ironic, isn't it? the "change agent/fierce advocate" has embraced "separate but equal"...and the obamabots STILL proclaim he's a "progressive". ok, "progressive" compared to WHAT, exactly?

rachel maddow+(olson&boies*marriage equality) = MUST SEE TEE VEE:

presented without comment:

A Sad Night In New York...but there were bright spots...

...bright spots like this, from the very FAITHFUL Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson:

Why DOMA must be repealed:

thanks a lot to "fierce advocate's" doj.

In its written response to the lawsuit, filed in September, the Justice Department argued that there is no fundamental right to marriage-based federal benefits and says Congress is entitled to address issues of social reform on an "incremental" basis. "

Congress is therefore permitted to provide benefits only to those who have historically been permitted to marry, without extending the same benefit to those only recently permitted to do so," the government said.

full article here

Urvashi Vaid has a new fan...ME!

incredible address at the NEM where Ms. Vaid takes on O, the right wing, the religious right, et. al., and closes with "marching orders".

Organizers of the National Equality March Close the Day with Passion

good news...all from DavidMixner.com

...first, sorry to have been away for a couple of days. personal life has been, well, unmanageable at best and downright hellish at worst.

now for the good news:

-Didn't you just love the fact that during the funeral Mass of Senator Edward Kennedy part of the official religious rite included the words gay and straight? Right there in the Cathedral with the Cardinal reigning in his robes, Senator Kennedy, even in death, did not forget the LGBT community.

we've lost a champion for equality. Godspeed, Senator Kennedy...and TAKE THAT vatican city!

-In another historic first, Mayor Denise Simmons of Cambridge, Massachusetts (photograph) will marry her lesbian partner in an African-American church. Bravo to the Mayor and her partner and wishing them much happiness.

mad props to the AME church in mass! as one who attends a predominately AA Church, this is very encouraging!

-Famed political commentator Charlie Cook says that there are seven toss-up states in the 2010 United States Senate Races. The seven are Texas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Connecticut and New Hampshire. In addition Pennsylvania, California and Colorado are only 'leaning Democratic' which could spell a tough year for the Dems!

as a proud, LIBERAL texan, this is prolly the best news i've read in AGES! we're definitely moving towards the political promised land...about time, since i'm so OVER wandering in the desert!!!

...so, where ARE our leaders?

...we're ready to fight the good fight, but we lack a cohesive strategy that can only come from a leader of the glbt civil rights movement. this is the subject of a very good, albeit long, article in The Advocate.

buried in the 3rd page of the article, larry kramer speaks up and tells us what we need to hear: that we need to follow the strategy employed by Act Up that was so effective in the early days of the HIV/AIDS awareness fight.

from the article, emphasis added:

History offers an uncomfortable answer. At the start of the 1990s, when Bill Clinton had a vision for America and we were part of it, gay people were intoxicated with excitement and a sense of opportunity. By decade’s end, the president had signed DOMA and “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “The movement was not honest enough with itself about our own failures,” Guerriero says. “The president caved to Congress because we didn’t show up and provide the air cover he needed with smart, strategic, robust activism.”

That’s because, on the federal level, “we don’t have an organization that fights for us with sufficient teeth in their arsenal,” says novelist, playwright, and gay rights pioneer Larry Kramer. “I’m sick of saying it, and everyone thinks I’m nothing but a curmudgeon. But I am approaching closer and closer to death, to my death, without being able to marry my lover, without being able to leave my estate to my lover without it being taxed into oblivion.”

Kramer’s tone isn’t curmudgeonly. It’s weary, almost shell-shocked. Gay activists in Washington are feckless, he argues, because they are enchanted by a false idea of power. “We are not here to make friends,” he says. “We are here to get our rights. And these two statements do not join together to blend into one happy halo.”

The national gay rights movement is trapped between activism and politics, between anger and ambition. We are trapped between wanting equal rights and wanting to get invited to parties at the White House. Even Joe Solmonese, the president of HRC, who according to Kramer represents the movement at its most complacent, suggests that to become real players we are going to have to start acting a little more like heroes: “One of the things our movement does not give enough appreciation and reverence to is ACT UP. Their rage. Their anger. But always with an endgame, always with a strategic center,” he says.

Kramer, who cofounded ACT UP in 1987 to address the AIDS crisis, says the group worked on very simple principles. “We all, hundreds of us, got ourselves in a room, and we planned very specific points of attack, and we divided the various plans into segments, each of which was taken over by one or another of our committees and put into operation. You go after the things that you want. Marriage, inheritance, adoption, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ repeal of DOMA. And then you start doing public demonstrations about each of them. Passing out detailed literature explaining the action. Naming names of the people who are preventing progress on these actions. You are merciless in confronting [those people], day after day. Consistency is so important. You have to be an activist every day, seven days a week, until you reach your goal. It’s not rocket science, any of this. You want something that somebody won’t give you? You find out how to get it.”

The gay movement today, he contends, lacks leaders with the level of commitment that animated ACT UP -- people who are willing to employ the shaming techniques that ACT UP used, and people who are willing to identify as gay first and foremost.

Kramer’s right on both points. Yet the problem is intractable. Shy of another dozen equally well-publicized Matthew Shepards or a new plague, it’s hard to see how a critical mass of gay people might be moved to experience themselves as “gay first and foremost,” how we might be moved to choose the radically separatist identity that has been, in our own history, our best weapon. Is it possible that the enemy has changed? If so, is it possible that different techniques are called for?

“I do not see a different enemy,” Kramer says. “The enemy is the enemy. We are hated too much by too many. And we are afraid to acknowledge this and to look it in its face for what it really is, hate, and to stare it down and fight it back. And become, as we did in ACT UP, our own heroes."

Meghan McCain: Honorary "Miss Thang" for a day...

although i tend to find her, generally speaking, vacuous (see: abysmal meltdown on bill maher's program where she was beyotch slapped by paul bagala), there's "money" in her current interview with OUT.com:

(emphasis added)

Shortly before McCain sat for this interview, Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, gave an interview to Christianity Today in which he complained about “queers” and declared, “I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children.” Unprompted, McCain rails against the man her father’s presidential campaign touted as an American everyman and made a showpiece in the weeks before the election. “Joe the Plumber -- you can quote me -- is a dumbass. He should stick to plumbing.”

snip

“Homophobia is the last socially accepted prejudice,” McCain says, repeating it for emphasis. So it’s only natural that she also views the fight for gay equality as “my generation’s civil rights movement.” At a time when California can constitutionally ban gay marriage and the current presidential administration -- having vowed so much -- has yet to fulfill its promises, it’s hard not to be won over by this bubbly optimist. “In general, I don’t get a good response from the conservative movement,” she admits, unfazed. “But there are a lot of people who have said, ‘I’m Republican and I’m pro–gay marriage. Thank you for showing that you don’t have to be anti–gay marriage to be a Republican.’ ”

note: the entire article is very revealing. i don't think she's just paying "lip service" (are you listening, 'fierce advocate'?)

the AG of Mass. is BRILLIANT!

let's see...republiCONS support marriage equality as a state's rights issue.

the mass. AG sees DOMA as preventing the state from legally providing marriage equality.

methinks the republiCONS "state's rights" meme is about to bite them in their DOMA-supporting behinds!

from Care2:

What Does The DOMA Challenge Consist Of?


State Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed the lawsuit, called the Commonwealth v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, citing that, in order for Massachusetts to be able to define marriage as its sees fit, DOMA, which itself defines marriage as being solely between one man and one woman, must be repealed so that the state be allowed to exercise the very same rights as prescribed in DOMA's own legal wording when it gives states the right to make such autonomous decisions on the validity of same sex marriages.



The complaint contests that the DOMA legislation oversteps its bounds (contrary to the Full Faith and Credit Clause) as it prescribes that all states be subjected to the Federal perspective on what marriage is and that the law is the US Government directly interfering with a matter of state jurisdiction and determination when it comes to such things as benefit allocation, and that it does so by use of an overreaching and discriminatory law (violating the Equal Protections Clause).

john aravosis is my hero...and howard dean discovers a "scheduling conflict"

h/t Americablog

i am absolutely convinced if john hadn't been a bull in a china closet on steroids over this asinine, panderfest, it would have gone off without a hitch. this just goes to show us...ALL of US...that we have a voice. john has proven he can be a one-man wrecking crew.

here are some great examples of great blogger journalism/activism:

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/howard-dean-pulls-out-of-dnc-gay.html?dsq=11686656#comment-11686656

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/sldn-invited-lt-col-victor-fehrenbach.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/best-letter-to-obama-on-gay-issues.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/obama-wont-use-executive-power-to-end.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/former-riaa-head-hilary-rosen-wont.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/jennifer-chrisler-and-family-equality.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/white-house-gay-call-participant-what.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/while-white-house-holds-secret-gay.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/sldn-to-join-protesters-outside-dnc-gay.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/white-house-prepares-to-talk-to-gay.html

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/protest-at-second-dnc-gay-fundraiser.html




awesome. just awesome.

wow. the day before "teh big gay dnc fundraiser", former head of the dnc, howard dean, discovers a "conflict".

was it:
a.) time to have the prius serviced?
b.) laundry day?
c.) mow the lawn day?
d.) clean out the fridge day?
e.) pick up the dry cleaning day?
f.) shampoo day?

whatever the reason (and i think we all know the real reason), good for you dr. dean!!!

pam spaulding of pam's house blend and joe over at joe.my.god are also to be commended for keeping this issue in "prime real estate" on their blogs, as well.

kudos for a job well done.

thanks, chris...now would you please speak to "fierce advocate" for us?

h/t Joe.My.God via Pam's House Blend, where you can read a more substantial piece.
(emphasis added by me)

"Public officials aren’t supposed to change their minds. But I firmly believe that it’s important to keep learning. Last week, while I was in Connecticut meeting with members of the gay and lesbian community from across the state, I had the opportunity to tell them what I’ve learned about marriage, and about equality. While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

"The reason was simple: I was raised to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And as many other Americans have realized as they’ve struggled to reconcile the principle of fairness with the lessons they learned early in life, that’s not an easy thing to overcome. But the fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore. The Connecticut Supreme Court, of course, has ruled that such a distinction holds no merit under the law. And the Court is right." - Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), posting on his official site that he has reversed his position and now supports full marriage equality for LGBT Americans.

the undelivered speech seen through rose-colored glasses:

the "fierce advocate" in his own words:

"These issues affect not only the LGBT community, but also our entire Nation. As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

http://citizenchris.typepad.com/citizenchris/2009/06/obamas-major-speech-on-lgbt-rights.html

yeah, when monkeys fly out of my a$$.