Why Prop 8's Days are Numbered [Examiner]

One year ago Thursday, a federal court in California ruled that Proposition 8, a 2008 voter approved initiative which denies gay and lesbian couples the right to marry in California, is unconstitutional. Although the case is now up against the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, there are a few reasons to believe that the days of this discriminatory law are numbered.

FULL ARTICLE

NY Senate Backs Same Sex Marriage [Reuters]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Waves of gay couples rushed on Saturday to make wedding plans that had been dreams for decades, as euphoria over New York's legalization of same-sex marriage promised to turn a traditional pride parade into an enormous roving engagement party.

In the minutes and hours after the law was passed and signed by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo late on Friday, sparkling rings were offered and accepted and champagne corks flew to kick off wedding plans likely to add an estimated $284 million to the state's economy, according to a report by the Independent Democratic Conference.

FULL ARTICLE

By the numbers: Gay marriage around the world [GA Voice]

By the Numbers is a series done by the GA Voice.

26

Countries — not including the United States — that recognize same-sex unions (through marriage, civil unions or other status).

53

Countries — again not including the United States — with anti-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation.

76

Countries that prosecute people based on sexual orientation.

7

Countries where being gay is punishable by death.

Brownie Points: Rep. John Kriesel (R)

Freedom To Marry Letter to the President

via freedomtomarry.org:

The President

The White House

Washington, DC 20500 

Dear Mr. President: 

In February, you made a powerful statement about the law. 

Invoking guarantees enshrined in the Constitution, you and the Attorney General determined that federal discrimination against gay and lesbian couples in marriage is unconstitutional. Thank you for taking a principled stance and an important step toward equal protection under the law for all Americans. 

Today we ask you to take the next step and join the majority of Americans who support allowing loving and committed gay and lesbian couples to legally marry.

Mr. President, marriage matters. In law, in love, in life, marriage says "we are family" in a way that nothing else does. Marriage is the coming together of two lives, marked by a public promise of love and responsibility in front of friends and family. And marriage brings not only public respect and personal significance, but also a safety net of legal protections, rights, and responsibilities for which there is no substitute.

Like so many Americans, you have spoken of your personal journey toward support for the freedom to marry. You have talked about the gay and lesbian people in your life, their commitment to each other and care for their kids, and their families that aren't so different from any other family. 

We ask you now for your leadership on ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, an exclusion that harms millions of Americans each day. Whether to end discrimination in marriage is a question America has faced before, and faces again today. With so many Americans talking it through in heartfelt conversations, it is a question that calls for clarity from the President. 

You can offer hope to millions of young gay and lesbian Americans who are facing discrimination. You can tell them that their future is bright, that they, too, will be able to grow up and marry the person that they love, that the pursuit of happiness truly belongs to all of us. You can put government on the side of those seeking to care for their loved ones, instead of those standing in their way. You can affirm that for all of us, gay or non-gay, love is love and commitment counts— and that we Americans should treat others as we all want to be treated. 

Mr. President, the time to end exclusion from marriage is now. We ask you to complete your journey and join us and the majority of Americans who support the freedom to marry.

Sincerely,

Brendon Ayanbadejo	Lance Bass	Sara Bareilles
Dustin Lance Black	Julian Bond	Helen Fabela Chavez
Andy Cohen	Ellen & Portia DeGeneres	Jack Dorsey
Melissa Etheridge	Scott Fujita	David Geffen
Anne Hathaway	Chris Hughes & Sean     Eldridge	Tony Kushner & Mark Harris
Caroline Kennedy	Cyndi Lauper	Jane Lynch & Lara Embry
Eric McCormack	Rev. Peter Morales	Mya
Sean Parker	Mark Pincus	LeAnn Rimes
Frank Selvaggi & Bill Shea	Martin Sheen	Rev. William Sinkford
Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner	Verne Troyer	Zach Wahls
Rufus Wainwright	Evan Wolfson	Bob Wright & Suzanne Wright

What's Happening with DOMA

Same-Sex Families Get A New Boost From Tax Rules

via NPR

by Phyllis Fletcher

Some same-sex couples have to file their federal income taxes in a new way this year. For some of those couples, it means they'll save a lot of money.

The gay couples who have new filing rules are same-sex spouses and registered domestic partners in "community property" states — that means they both own all of their income, no matter who earns what.

Three states extend their community property laws to same-sex couples: California, Nevada and Washington.

FULL ARTICLE

lolz

Brownie Points: NOM's Strategist Louis J. Marinelli

FULL ARTICLE

The Bible, and Gay Sex and Marriage

Tiny Brownie Points (and I mean TINY): Facebook

via The Daily Helmsman

by Erica Horton

Usually, when Facebook makes a major change to its site, the social media giant's 500 million users first complain and then adjust.

Recent changes to Facebook's relationship options may not be as noticeable as a change to profile layout, but they've left many members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community feeling appreciative and included.

Facebook recently added "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership" to its relationship status choices.

Full article

Obama: DOMA Unconstitutional, DOJ Should Stop Defending In Court [Huffington Post]

via The Huffington Post

President Obama has determined that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, and that the Department of Justice should no longer defend the measure, which severely limits the potential of states to honor or carry out same-sex marriages, the administration announced Wednesday.

"The President believes that DOMA is unconstitutional. They are no longer going to be defending the cases in the 1st and 2nd circuits," a person briefed on the decision said, according to the National Journal.

More to come... 

Read the letter from the Department of Justice to Speaker Boehner here.

Australia's First Openly Lesbian Senator Finally Stepping Up

The Australian

Senator Penny Wong, Australia's first openly lesbian and Asia-born cabinet member, today backed a motion passed at the ALP conference in South Australia for a federal policy change in favour of gay marriage. The openly gay senator from South Australia seconded an amended motion by the Florey sub-branch at today's conference. In doing so, she broke her silence over the national debate on equal marriage rights with a deeply personal speech about the need for the Labor Party to respect the principles of equality. [...]

Senator Wong, a Left factional ally of the Prime Minister, shifted her public position by announcing she would advocate at national conference for a policy change "to support equality including in relation to marriage for same sex couples."

"Like many in this room, I do know what it is like to be a subject of prejudice," Senator Wong said, noting she joined the ALP because it stood for equality and had historically worked against discrimination. "There has been some commentary which has confused my position of not commenting publicly on this issue with my position on the actual issue itself. I have been privileged and honoured, not only of being a member of our party, but an elected member of the federal parliament and of the federal Labor cabinet. I have had the opportunity to advocate for equality at the highest levels of our party and within our party processes, as I do today. And I will do so again at the next national conference. Talking about change is not the same as delivering it," Senator Wong said. "This state was the first state in this nation to decriminalise homosexuality, why should we now resile from expressing our views, our support for the principles of equality here today?"

Andrew Sullivan Making Sense

Andrew Sullivan is a conservative political gay blogger who's been around the blogging sphere for 10 years. And right now, he's making a lot of sense. I have yet to watch the full interview (given by Big Think), but here's a snippet for you...

Wrong in All the Right Ways: God, I Love P!nk

In the back of your mind, you know you were subconsciously waiting for Pink to sing something regarding the gays and our endless plight. And it has finally arrived!

P!nk - New Music - More Music Videos

The song: not my favorite. The video: pretty awesome! Pink: still uncompromising and supporting the underdogs of society. I should note that this video is laced with gay... not just that wedding part. God, I love P!nk.

“I threw my best friend’s wedding in my backyard. She is gay and it was a beautiful ceremony. At the end of it, her mom said, ‘Why can’t that be legal?’ and started crying. It was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen and that’s why I’m doing it in my video.” -P!nk

Oh Hey, Essence!

Despite the whole hiring-a-white-fashion-director drama, pride filled my heart when I heard that Essence.com featured a lesbian wedding! Aisha Mills and Danielle Moodie are D.C. residents and one of the first same-sex couples to apply for a marraige license. They tied the knot this past summer and I do believe congrats are in order for Aisha and Danielle, and for ESSENCE!

Most black ministers, leaders, and celebrities fully embrace a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude concerning homosexuality. As a result, black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people remain virtually invisible within the media and our community. This void perpetuates hopelessness and despair that can lead to tragedy like the recent rash of teen suicides resulting from anti-gay bullying. So when the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) teamed up with Essence.com and invited us to share our wedding story, we seized the opportunity to present at least one image of black LGBT love. We hoped that our love story and wedding photos would affirm other black lesbians and give hope to those struggling to see a future for themselves.

Dear HRC / liberal gay agenda / Courage Campaign:

Brought to you by Queer Insurrection.

I thought this was interesting.

"Fuck you.

As a gay and lesbian movement, we are portrayed as depoliticized, harmless homosexuals who want the American dream of a fucking white picket fence and a white baby (maybe an exotic one) nestled between our gay (monogamous) love for one another.  We are seen exiting a church throwing rice and flowers in the air, laughing and having a jolly good time basking in our newfound privilege.

Fuck you.

As a gay and lesbian movement, we are seen as wanting to die for the country that has so violently murdered our brothers and sisters.  We are seen begging (straight) people to allow us to serve them in the military, seen sucking their cocks at the chance to be part of the imperialist machine that has fucked every non-“first” world country there is.  We are seen as people who want tolerance and acceptance by our fellow straights, we want to live next to them in our big fucking houses with our big fucking backyards aiming the same fucking gun at the same person of color because a big government and corporation say to do so.

Fuck you.

What does the demand for tolerance even imply?  The gay and lesbian movement is implicitly saying that straight people are superior to gays because they have the right to judge our lifestyles and our bodies—we want to be just like them because they represent everything that is happy, wonderful, and fucking fantastic.

Fuck.  You.

We don’t want tolerance, acceptance, and acknowledgement from straight people.  We want real, systemic change because we, as queers, understand that the systemic crises of normativity, capitalism, and imperialism are linked to all forms of oppression.  Sexism, racism, classism, able-ism, ageism, nationalism, homophobia—these are all interlinked and intertwined with each other because of our racist and classist education system, unequal access to jobs, recruitment of poor people of color in to the military, religious fundamentalism as a profit motive, corporate tyranny, the napoleon complex (police brutality), violence, threats of violence, and most of all, straight white males dominating the world economy through exploitation, lies, deceit, and an iron fist.

Don’t believe me?  Ever been to a low-income neighborhood?  Is it just a coincidence that the demographic is dominantly people of color?  Are they lazy?  Can you work 3 jobs and over 80 hours a week at minimum wage to feed a family of 4 and be lazy?  Have you wondered why a majority of the top 100 richest people in the world are white males?  Are all white males just hard working people, miles ahead of the rest?  Have you wondered why a CEO makes a $4,000,000,000 bonus even when they fire 30% of their company and their stocks fail?  Ever wonder why our prisons are filled with people of color who are then used for slave labor for companies like Dell computers?  Ever wonder why women are raped and then blamed for their own raping because they were “promiscuous” or “asking for it”?

Of course the gay and lesbian movement doesn’t.  We just want acceptance.  Tolerance.  We just want straight people to like us so we can ignore the issues facing people below us on the social totem pole, even if it is within our own community (the sexually deviant).  We just want to get married, serve in the military, and have a (white) family.

The gay and lesbian movement is run by the rich, white, gay (and sometimes lesbian) community who are ignorant (and insensitive) to issues facing the majority of the marginalized communities, especially their own.  Or maybe they’re just selfish, greedy assholes who don’t really care about the entire community but a tiny, elitist sliver of it.  A queer teenager is four times likelier to commit suicide.  In New York, 20-40% of homeless youth are LGBT identified who were kicked out of their homes after coming out (that’s over 150,000 high school kids and younger in New York alone).  Lack of healthcare makes transitioning almost impossible for lower-income transgender individuals (it’s still legal to discriminate against transgender or gender variant people in the workplace, how are you supposed to obtain a high income job?).  Oh but the gay and lesbian movement doesn’t fucking care, they just want a property tax cut so they can make even more absurd amounts of money for themselves and gain some sort of façade of legitimacy in the court of law.  They want to see their loved ones in the hospital when thousands of queers and people of color are dying because of lack of health care and basic resources needed to survive.  They want to increase hate crime legislation to lock up more people of color in to the prison industrial complex to increase their property values and “clean up the streets.”  And we are all standing by, cheering these people on and celebrating victories of prop 8 and DADT at the expense of people of color, youth, working class people, sex workers, and transgender people (which HRC decides to blatantly exclude from most of their politics)?!  What the fuck?

The gay and lesbian movement are the same people who are running the mainstream magazines, the ones who have sold your identity off to big corporations to exploit you in to a niche (profitable) market (oh the gays love their designer bags oh and loafers are so chic now, all the gays wear them), the ones who make you feel ashamed about your gender non-conformity by blasting you with images of what a male and female body should look like, the same people who make you feel uncomfortable and insecure in “queer-friendly” spaces because they are racist, classist, or non body-positive.

Queers are beautiful because they don’t need validation, they don’t need straight people cheering them on from the sidelines as you run towards normativity.  Queers define themselves in the margins because they are strong, they understand that anti-normativity is an internal insurrection.  Queers unite with people of color, working class people, sex workers, and others in the margins because they understand the collective struggle against a system that values the few and fucks the rest.  Queers understand that the right to marry and the right to serve openly in the military are inherently racist, classist, and able-ist issues that have little importance to the overall struggle towards a more fair and just world.

What happened to our community?  Have we forgotten our radical history?  Have we forgotten about the leather community, the radical fairy community, Stonewall, the Marxists, anarchists, social justice movements, the Black Panthers, and the AIDS epidemic?  Have we really sold out that easily?

I write this as a call to action, a call to destabilize the notion that the gays want to assimilate in to heterosexual culture.  That gays are no longer political.  That gays want to fly their rainbow flags next to their American flags.

So?  Fuck you HRC, Courage Campaign, and the liberal gay agenda that they serve.  Fuck your ignorance, your elitism, and your exploitation of the system that fucks everyone who is not rich, white, and gay.

Our queer history and our queer sex is one in the same: radical, messy, sexy, beautiful, and dangerous—we were built to fuck, and fuck we will.

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

A pissed off queer."

 I feel like we should circle up...

Steps toward Equality: the NOH8 Campaign

Clockwise from top-left: NOH8 logo, cast members from The LNF Show,
Cherry Bomb, Charlene from Gimme Sugar (2nd from right)

NOH8 (no hate) is a silent campaign against Prop 8 started by celebrity photographer Adam Bouska. Bouska photographs his subjects with duct tape over their mouths to represent silencing legislation, in particular Proposition 8. In protest, his subjects have “NO H8” written on their cheeks. One of the most beautiful aspects of the NOH8 Campaign is that Bouska, equipped with invaluable resources, has taken on the responsibility of working at a grassroots level, photographing everyday people. But that’s not to say there aren’t celebrities in the campaign. From Meghan McCain to Jane Lynch, Isaiah Washington to Dr. Drew, big names, little names, straight names and gay names, the winds of change seems to have infected people from all walks of life.

Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker is no exception. In the case Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, CNN reported that Judge Walker ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional and in violation of the protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And though Walker’s ruling is a momentous victory for the United States, the war has yet to begin. Prop 8 supporters are anticipated to file a merits appeal to the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Even if both sides asked the court to fast-track the case, there’s no telling when a verdict will be reached, as there are no time constraints on the court to make a decision. Regardless, once a decision is finally reached, it is expected that lawyers of the losing side will ask the US Supreme Court to intervene. It could take a year or two before the case even reaches the Supreme Court’s doorsteps.

The road to equality is a long one. It always has been. It always will be. There’s only one thing to do: keep on fighting. To see if the NOH8 Campaign is coming to an area near you, check out their events calendar at http://www.noh8campaign.com/events/category/open-photo-shoots. And if you’re interested in reading more about Chief Judge Walker’s ruling, visit https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/.