Today is International Day Against Homophobia

Connecticut. Maine. Iowa. California. Massachusetts. Vermont, Oh My!

I am a rabid believer in the separation of church and state – the way the Founding Fathers wanted it – and now that the horrors of the Bush Regime can be rolled back, I read this great news recently in The Washington Post (Jacqueline L. Salmon, April 10, 2009): “Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom. The lawsuits have resulted from states and communities that have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those laws have created a clash between the right to be free from discrimination and the right to freedom of religion, religious groups said, with faith losing.”

For example, “A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney's costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple's commitment ceremony.” This brings up a clash of freedom from persecution vs/ freedom of religion. I personally think religions that preach hatred and intolerance do not deserve to be protected, but luckily there is this thing called The Constitution in the USA. You remember The Constitution, don’t you? It’s that piece of paper Cheney used to wipe his ass. “But gay groups and liberal legal scholars say they are prevailing because an individual's religious views about homosexuality cannot be used to violate gays' right to equal treatment under the law.”

And in other news… Oh Horrors! Marriage has been re-defined and then the sky fell down! Oh wait, no it didn’t.

Webster’s Dictionary has modified its definition of marriage to include both same-sex and other-sex couples. So marriage has literally been re-defined – to the chagrin of all you homophobic shit-for-brains out there – and the world did not fall apart. My very happy heterosexual marriage was in NO WAY made less by this, in fact I think it elevates all marriages. Here is what Wesbter’s said about it:

"We often hear from people who believe that we are promoting – or perhaps failing to promote – a particular social or political agenda when we make choices about what words to include in the dictionary and how those words should be defined," associate editor Kory Stamper wrote in response. "We hear such criticism from all parts of the political spectrum. We're genuinely sorry when an entry in – or an omission from – one of our dictionaries is found to be offensive or upsetting, but we can't allow such considerations to deflect us from our primary job as lexicographers."

In other words, objective, educated people are seeing the reality of the modern world, and describing marriage as it IS, not as they think it OUGHT to be. Maybe we should tell Miss California…

Keith Olbermann is THE MAN!

Olbermann: Gay marriage is a question of love
Everyone deserves the same chance at permanence and happiness

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/
Nov. 10, 2008 MSNBC Keith Olbermann

"Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives. And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967. The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay. And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless? What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work. And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial. But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this: 'I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.'"

Two steps forward, one step back

While I am elated beyond measure about the presidential election, I am so disappointed that Proposition 8, and similar laws of hatred and intolerance, passed in California, Arizona and Florida. SHAME on those people -- so it seems we still do have a long way to go. Please visit this website that names all groups who donated 5000$ or more to Proposition 8; please considering banning, boycotting, protesting or writing letters to these organizations. 
http://californiansagainsthate.com/

DISHONOR ROLL
Below is a list of the Top 12 contributors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign that took away marriage equality in California.
- Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT $1,425,000
- Howard Ahmanson, Jr., Irvine, CA Fieldstead & Co. $1,395,000
- John Templeton, Bryn Mawr, PA John Templeton Foundation, Chairman/President $1,100,000
- National Organization for Marriage, Princeton, NJ $1,041,134.80
- Terry Caster & Family, San Diego, CA $693,000
- Robert Hurtt, Orange, CA $550,000
- Focus On the Family, Colorado Springs, CO $539,643.66
- American Family Association, Tupelo, MS $500,000
- Claire Reiss, La Jolla, CA Reisung Enterprises $500,000
- Elsa Prince, Holland, MI $450,000
- Concerned Women for America, Washington DC $409,000
- Hartford Holdings, LLC., Provo, UT $300,000

N.Y. governor seeks to recognize gay marriages

Here is a very recent article from the Associated Press about the NYS stance on gay marriage, this is fantastic!

- "SAN FRANCISCO - As California set a date for gay couples to begin getting married in the state, it was revealed Wednesday that New York's governor has ordered state agencies to begin recognizing gay marriages performed in states and countries where they're legal.

Same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere would be recognized in New York in response to a state court ruling this year, Gov. David Paterson's spokeswoman said Wednesday." from msnbc

- "The appellate judges determined that there is no legal impediment in New York to the recognition of a same-sex marriage. The state Legislature "may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad," the ruling said. "Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York." Massachusetts is currently the only U.S. state that recognizes same-sex marriage, but its residency requirements would bar New Yorkers from marrying there.

New York residents could instead flock to California, where gay couples will be able to wed beginning June 17 — unless that state's Supreme Court decides to stay its own ruling. Upon their return home, in the eyes of the state, their unions would be no different from those of their heterosexual neighbors. Gay couples could also travel outside the country to marry in Canada, for example." click here for article

gay marriage bans overturning, YAY!

First Massachusetts 2 years ago, then New York to follow, and now California?!? Damn, I left America just as things are getting better! Need any more proof that the Coasts are where it's at, and the Fly-over states suck it?

May 17 is International Day Against Homophobia, a world-wide rally. Please wear either red or rainbow in support of it. The recent court cases:

Martinez v. County of Monroe.
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 2008. The court ruled unanimously that because New York legally recognizes out-of-state marriages of opposite-sex couples, it must do the same for same-sex couples. The county is seeking leave to appeal the decision.

In re Marriage Cases
California Supreme Court, 2008. The court ruled 4-3 that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples is invalid under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution, and that full marriage rights, not merely domestic partnership, must be offered to same-sex couples.