Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Via JMG: BREAKING: Hate Groups FAIL To Collect Enough Petitions To Overturn SB 48
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! From a Stop SB 48 email blast:
"The News is Not Good ... it is doubtful we will get the number of signatures we need to qualify. Unfortunately the last several deliveries of mail have not been what was expected and a large number of petitions have been pulled out because of errors. From all appearances, we would need a miracle to qualify this referendum."We chortle in our joy. We chortle the fuck outta this.
UPDATE: Equality California celebrates.
“The FAIR Education Act will simply ensure that California’s students learn an honest, accurate, and inclusive account of history, but opponents of equality have grossly distorted the intent and the effect of the FAIR Education act in their quest to secure signatures for this referendum. Today's victory shows that their lies cannot stand up to our truth,” said Roland Palencia, Equality California Executive Director and Interim Executive Committee Co-Chair of the coalition to protect the FAIR Education Act. “But we know that opponents of equality won't stop here. We remain vigilant, not only to make sure that people know the facts about the FAIR Education Act, but also to continue preparing for new attacks on the FAIR Education Act at the ballot box, in the legislature and in courts of law.”
Vai AmericaBlog Gay: A rocking pro-lgbt legislative year in California
Governor Signs Ten of Twelve Pro-LGBT Equality Bills Sponsored by EQCA in 2011 Legislative Session
Sacramento – Ten of twelve bills sponsored by Equality California and passed by the California legislature this year are now the law of the land. Three of these bills had been signed into law earlier this year, the remaining seven received the Governor's signature over the past weekend. One of the two bills vetoed by the Governor, Senate Bill 747 (Kehoe), which would have required professionals to complete continuing education on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender cultural competency in health care was vetoed by the Governor, who said he believed “licensing boards are better suited that the Legislature or the Governor to decide these matters.”
"This has been a watershed year in the California legislature for advancing the rights and protections of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Californians," said Senator Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego), speaking as Chair of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus. "Because of the leadership of so many lawmakers and the hard work of organizations like Equality California, we have closed inequality gaps, made schools safer for LGBT students, ensured that LGBT people are counted and better represented in government and government services and made our state safer and more inclusive for transgender individuals. These changes in the law positively impact the lives of millions of Californians and go a long way toward making California a more fair and equal state."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Via JMG: Britain To Cut Aid To Anti-Gay Nations
In a move many would like to see the United States make, the British government has announced that it will reduce financial aid to nations that persecute their LGBT citizens.
Poor African countries which persecute homosexuals will have their aid slashed by the Government in a bid by David Cameron to take his gay rights crusade to the Third World. International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has already cut aid to Malawi by £19 million after two gay men were sentenced to 14 years hard labour. And he has warned the country's leaders to scrap plans to introduce draconian new anti-lesbian laws. Mr Mitchell, one of Mr Cameron's closest allies, is also threatening to impose further aid 'fines' against Uganda and Ghana for hardline anti-gay and lesbian measures. The policy was disclosed after Mr Cameron defended his decision to legalise gay weddings when he addressed last week's Conservative Party conference.The Daily Mail accompanied their above-linked story with a graphic noting that countries who commit other (non-gay) human rights abuses will continue to receive British assistance.
Via JMG: Frothy: Gay Rights Are Not Civil Rights
RELATED: Frothy Mix unexpectedly finished a relatively strong third in yesterday's Values Voters Summit straw poll, a survey you won't hear much about because Tony Perkins is super-pissed that 600 Ron Paulians beamed down from their flying saucers to vote on Saturday morning and then immediately left the convention center.
reposted from Joe
Via AmericaBlogGay: Santorum: Studies show gays aren’t like blacks (uh, no they don’t)
Actually, there's no such thing as a study showing that gays aren't like blacks. Santorum, as usual, can't string together a coherent thought.
As for his assertion that banning gays in the military is somehow different than banning blacks, again, Santorum's argument succumbs to his weak intellect. The issue isn't whether being gay is genetic just like race is genetic (though the prevailing science is that genes play a role in sexual orientation), the issue is whether prejudice hurts morale and cohesion in the armed forces, and if it does, then why is Santorum in favor of racially integrating the military?
And Santorum's argument, namely that prejudice does hurt morale and cohesion, is justification for excluding minorities from the military as well. Was it no less a "social experiment" when Truman integrated the armed forces? Does anyone honestly believe that white racists experienced immediatelyl improved unit cohesion when a minority was included in their unit? Doubtful. They were probably pretty ticked off and didn't want to work with the new guy in their unit (the very definition of "harm to morale and cohesion"). But over time everyone learned to live and work together, and they realized their prejudices were wrong.
Finally, as for Rick Santorum's explanation as to why you can't compare racial prejudice and bigotry against gays, Coretta Scott King said you can and should compare the two. And I think she knew a little more about civil rights than a guy whose name means something not safe for work.
Via AmericaBlogGay:
Joe.My.God smelled trouble from the beginning, and it's looking like he was right. A gay Republican, who is a star of an upcoming Logo TV show, claimed that liberal gay activists threw a brick through his window in response to his having lunch with Ann Coulter. Now all of a sudden, he's deleted any reference to this claim. The new Huffington Post gay-oriented vertical sadly published this story, but to their credit they did publish an update informing people that the story now looks to be a fake. Unfortunately, their update is at the bottom of the story so everyone reading the story in the future will still think it's true unless they make their way all the way to the end.
I'm more concerned about Logo. It's not terribly clear how Logo avoids the appearance of treating hate crimes as a joke if they go ahead with this show. It's a rather serious situation making a false allegation of a crime. But it's especially serious when we're talking about hate crimes. The anti-gay bigots would like nothing better than to undermine the validity of real hate crimes by pointing to Logo's pretend hate crime.
And it gets worse. Joe Jervis also reports that an executive producer at Logo helped promote the possibly-now-faked hate crime charge, and even congratulated the guy who made the charge. So Logo owns this 100%.
Logo, however, is refusing to respond to Joe's questions about what the heck is going on over there.
Not smart.
If this guy lied, and Logo goes ahead with making him a star, then we may have our first boycott of a gay TV network by gays themselves. You don't freaking joke about hate crimes against gay people, and you don't reward people who do.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Via JMG: Oppression Spawns Gay Marriage?
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni points to an interesting theory on why same-sex marriage has become legal in some rather unexpected places.
It was only a little more than a decade ago that a country first legalized same-sex marriage, and that happened in precisely the kind of forward-thinking, bohemian place you’d expect: the Netherlands. About two years later, Belgium followed suit. Then things got really interesting. The eight countries that later joined the club were a mix of largely foreseeable and less predictable additions. In the first category I’d put Canada, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. In the second: South Africa, Spain, Portugal and Argentina.
Why those four countries? People who have studied the issue note that that they have something interesting and relevant in common: each spent a significant period of the late 20th century governed by a dictatorship or brutally discriminatory government, and each emerged from that determined to exhibit a modernity and concern for human rights that put the past to rest. “They’re countries where the commitment to democracy and equal protection under the law was denied, flouted and oppressed, and the societies have struggled to restore that,” said Evan Wolfson, the president of Freedom to Marry, a New York-based advocacy group, in a recent interview.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)