Via JMG: RHODE ISLAND: Gov. Lincoln Chafee Signs Civil Unions Bill Into Law

Against the vehement objections of some LGBT rights groups, today Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed his state's controversial civil unions bill into law.

The new law includes a section that says no religious organization -- including some hospitals, cemeteries, schools and community centers -- or its employees may be required to treat as valid any civil union, providing a religious exemption "of unparalleled and alarming scope," Chafee said in a statement. As a result, a civil union spouse could be denied the right to make medical decisions for his or her partner, access to health insurance benefits, property rights in adjoining burial plots or family memberships at some community centers. That could cause partners significant harm at critical moments in their lives, the governor said. "This extraordinary exemption eviscerates the important rights that enacting a civil union law was meant to guarantee for same sex couples in the first place," Chafee said.

Labels: civil unions, LGBT rights, Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Nate Silver: California Voters Would Overturn Proposition 8 In 2012

Elections prognosticator Nate Silver has published another super-complicated voting trends analysis. Even though there's no plan to place a repeal of Prop 8 on the 2012 California ballot, Silver predicts that voters would overturn the measure if given the chance.

Even the relatively cautious Linear Model predicts that 54 percent of Californians would vote against a measure like Proposition 8 if one were on the ballot next year, while 55 percent of Oregonians would vote against a ban on same-sex marriage like the one the state’s voters approved in 2004. Neither prediction seems too far out of line: Oregon’s marriage ban was rejected by 43 percent of voters seven years ago, and California’s by 48 percent two years ago, and public opinion has shifted meaningfully in favor of same-sex marriage since then.

Labels: California, marriage equality, Nate Silver, Proposition 8

reposted from Joe

Cory Monteith is Straight But Not Narrow

Via JMG: Matt Foreman: Celebrating Our Gains

Former NGLTF executive director Matt Foreman takes to the Huffington Post today for a thoughtful essay on why we continue to see hard-fought gains in the LGBT movement. An excerpt:

While opponents of LGBT rights have at least eight national advocacy organizations with budgets of more than $10 million, the LGBT movement has just one. In fact, the annual budget of just one of the biggest opponents of LGBT rights, Focus on the Family/CitizenLink, is greater than the budgets of the 39 largest LGBT advocacy, legal and research organizations, combined. So what explains the continued traction that the LGBT movement has enjoyed in the face of such adversity? There are a lot of related factors. For example, more LGBT people are coming out and more non-LGBT people are getting to know them and are themselves becoming advocates for equal rights. There is also the influence of popular culture and celebrities, the high profile of LGBT issues in the media, and the vibrant presence of LGBT bloggers in social media. But the legal and policy advances of the last decade did not spring miraculously from the results of a public opinion poll or a single heartfelt, pro-gay acceptance speech at the Oscars. Instead, they happened because LGBT organizations made them happen.

Read the full article.

Labels: activism, Haas Fund, LGBT rights, Matt Foreman

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Countdown - Michelle Bachmann's Anti-Gay Husband Exposed

Via JMG: Cher Rips Marcus Bachmann

(Via - Towleroad)

Labels: "ex-gay", 2012 elections, Cher, closet cases, GOP, Michele Bachmann, Twitter

reposted from Joe

Via AmericaBlogGay: Michele Bachmann's husband/strategist: Gays are "barbarians" who need education, discipline

Listen for yourself to the latest attack the LGBT community from the Bachmann family. This one comes from her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who like his wife, seems particularly obsessed with the LGBT community:

As first reported by the Think Progress blog, Marcus Bachmann, who in March was described by former Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey as part of Michele's "brain trust," was a guest on the Christian-based "Point of View" radio talk show on May 12, 2010, where he came out strongly against the LGBT community.

"We have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps," Marcus Bachmann said.

Dr. Bachmann sure sounds like an advocate for ex-gay therapy,which he has promoted that in the past, via Think Progress: Along with offering faith-based counseling at his clinic, Bachmann also gives presentations at various conferences. In November 2005, he and Rep. Bachmann both ran sessions at a “Minnesota Pastors’ Summit” in Eden Prairie, Minnesota: hers focused on the gay marriage amendment she was trying to push through the state legislature, and his was titled “The Truth About the Homosexual Agenda.”

One of the people present for Dr. Bachmann’s talk almost had to leave the room because “there was so much bile.” Curt Prins, a marketing executive who identifies as gay, reported that Bachmann believed homosexuality was a “choice” rather than due to genetics:

The climax of the presentation was when, according to Prins, Bachmann brought up “three ex-gays, like part of a PowerPoint presentation.” The trio, two white men and a black woman, all testified that they had renounced their homosexuality. “One of them said, ‘If I was born gay, then I’ll have to be born again,’” Prins recalls. “The crowd went crazy.”

Now, listen:



Got that? We "gay barbarians," need to be disciplined?!!? Okay.

Via AmericaBlogGay: It's inevitable

Leading Nevada Conservative: "gay marriage is coming. Nationwide. It's inevitable"

Via The Strip Podcast, an interesting development on marriage from a hard-core conservative -- just as the GOPers are planning their presidential debate:

As the New York State Legislature works into the night on a track to become the largest state to grant marriage equality to same-sex couples, the effort to make this happen in Nevada may have hit a turning point today as well.

Chuck Muth, the outspoken conservative activist whose wrath is feared by most Republican elected officials in Nevada, wrote this in his daily email blast that goes to GOPers and journalists:

Many, if not most of you won't like this but gay marriage is coming. Nationwide. It's inevitable. It's only a matter of time. It can and will be delayed, but not stopped. And eventually, it will be as acceptable as black/white marriages. The problem isn't letting gays into marriage, but having already let the government into marriage.

As an economy based almost solely on tourism and entertainment, Nevada -- and especially Las Vegas -- should accept reality, embrace the inevitable, repeal the state's ban on gay marriage, and scarf up on the tourism bonanza that would result rather than suck hind teat behind the likes of Hawaii and New York.

I suspect that Muth has uttered similar views before, but it's especially notable because this missive will be read more closely than most as it also announces that the GOP presidential debate he was helping organize has been postponed from July. And I know that Muth has never been all that interested in the Sharron Angle-Richard Ziser wing of the Nevada Republican universe because he doesn't think the guvmint belongs in personal lives any more than in anything else they're in.

It is inevitable.

Would be great to see top Democrats in Nevada, like Majority Leader Harry Reid, announce support for marriage, too.

Today's "Dude Could you please for once show Gay Folks as Normal in the Press Please!:

A touch of homophobia from the Economist

Was that photo really necessary? Choosing the most outrageous photo to symbolize their "gay" coverage is something the American press (other than Fox News) stopped doing a good decade ago. And in this case, the story is about marriage, not men who feel the need to walk half-naked in public.  It's hard to believe a magazine like the Economist (which I once wrote for as a stringer) would have the poor taste to publish that photo with this story.

As an aside, I think guy in the photo is a moron for dressing like that in public. It seriously doesn't help the cause of marriage, not to mention, who needs to see you in your thong anyway? But there's no excuse for the Economist choosing a sensational photo of a half-naked faux gay married couple to basically diminish the seriousness of its own story, and worse, our desire to be treated equally by the state.

UPDATE: A twitterer noted that the Economist has long supported gay marriage, and even did a cover story on it. And that's great. I'm not trying to say that they're a bunch of homophobes, but the choice of this photo for this story was homophobic. It's a problem we had to deal with all the time in the states during the 1990s, and before. It needs to never happen again.

Via boxturtlebulletin: LGBT EQUALITY in USA

Make the jump here to read the full article

Enviado por Luiz Fernando Veríssimo

Gays Enviado por Luiz Fernando Veríssimo -30.6.2011 -  9h02m O mais notável nessa campanha por casamentos homossexuais não é o avanço dos movimentos gays e o ocaso de barreiras e preconceitos antigos, mas o prestígio do casamento. Com tantos casais heterossexuais dispensando o ritual matrimonial para viverem juntos, a insistência dos gays em se casarem como seus pais deveria aquecer o coração dos mais radicais dos bispos. Eu sei que em muitos casos a oficialização do conúbio, se esta é a palavra, tem mais a ver com questões legais do que com romance, mas o que a maioria quer é o ritual. Quer as juras públicas de amor eterno e todo o simbolismo da cerimônia tradicional, mesmo sem véus e grinaldas. Era de se esperar que quem escolheu um relacionamento sexual, digamos, anticonvencional, muitas vezes tendo que enfrentar a incompreensão ou a ira dos conservadores, quisesse distância do que é, afinal, o mais "careta" dos ritos sociais. Mas não. Querem o tradicional. Este fenômeno deve ter a ver com outro de difícil compreensão. Ouvi dizer que as formaturas nas universidades brasileiras voltaram a ser paramentadas, com becas e tudo, não por insistência de pais tradicionalistas, mas dos próprios formandos, que, em vez da informalidade que se esperava deles num mundo cada vez mais prático e sem tempo para velhos costumes ou costumes de velhos, exigiram todas as formalidades. No fim as pessoas querem significado. Querem que o valor do que fazem seja enaltecido pela cerimônia, qualquer cerimônia. Mesmo careta. Seja como for, aposto que daqui a alguns anos, quando se puder fazer a estatística, menos gays dos que estão se casando agora terão se separado do que casais heteros. Se a instituição do casamento sobreviver aos tempos e aos modos, será em boa parte graças a eles e a elas. "O saber não basta, temos de ampliá-lo. A vontade não basta, temos de ATUAR!!!"

A Message of Hope from the United States Senate

Joad Cressbeckler Homosexuality A Necessity On Cold Mountaintops

Obama LGBT Pride Month

Via JMG: Feds Drop Deportation Case For Gay Man

In what the New York Times says may be a precedent-setting decision, the federal government has dropped its deportation case against a gay Venezuelan legally married to an American man.

The announcement comes as immigration officials put into effect new, more flexible guidelines governing the deferral and cancellation of deportations, particularly for immigrants with no serious criminal records. Immigration lawyers and gay rights advocates said the decision represented a significant shift in policy and could open the door to the cancellation of deportations for other immigrants in same-sex marriages. “This action shows that the government has not only the power but the inclination to do the right thing when it comes to protecting certain vulnerable populations from deportation,” said the couple’s lawyer, Lavi Soloway. The case has been closely watched across the country by lawyers and advocates who viewed it as a test of the federal government’s position on the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Labels: feds, immgration, Immigration Equality, LGBT rights

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Washington Post: Evolve Already

From the editorial board of the Washington Post:

With a presidential campaign that promises to be closer and more contentious than the one that got him elected four years ago, Mr. Obama and his team might be reluctant to embrace a controversial social issue when the economy and jobs are of paramount importance to voters. At some point, though, doing the right thing must trump politics. If Mr. Obama does come out in favor of gay marriage, his base would surely rally around him.

And all supporters of gay rights should be girding themselves for battle with those who would use the president’s position to deny him a second term. The first question at the news conference was about Republican recalcitrance on tax increases. “Hopefully leaders at a certain point rise to the occasion and do the right thing for the American people,” Mr. Obama said. Later, he would say, “If you know you have to do something, you just do it.” The same words apply to him on marriage equality. So just do it already.

Labels: 2012 elections, Barack Obama, LGBT rights, marriage equality, WaPo

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Dan Savage

"The mistake that straight people made was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitar­ian and fairsey. [Rather than granting women] the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed, we extended to men the confines women had always endured. And it’s been a disaster for marriage." - Dan Savage, quoted in an extensive NYT Magazine article on fidelity.

Labels: Dan Savage, marriage equality, monogamy, New York state

reposted from Joe

Via JMG; Rahm Emanuel Backs Gay Marriage

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has endorsed same-sex marriage, saying that he hopes Illinois soon follows the example of New York. Emanuel is Barack Obama's former White House chief of staff.

"I would hope that the state would move in that direction," Emanuel said in the interview that aired Wednesday. "Tremendous progress has been made across the country on a value statement and I think that's very important." Emanuel declined to comment on Obama's stance on the issue, but noted that the president has signed into law legislation that recognizes hate crimes based on sexual orientation and a repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevented gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

Labels: Chicago, Illinois, marriage equality, Rahm Emanuel

reposted from Joe

JustaBahai: Flexibility in Bahai Law in relation to homosexuality

"In my whole life I've never come across such hateful posts against gays made by Bahais"

Flexibility in Bahai Law in relation to homosexuality

May 19, 2010 
 
The following is a response to a thread on the Bahai Planet forum called “AIDS Faith conference” where the intitial poster was curious to know if there had been any Bahai statements on AIDS and the loss of life due to this. The discussion quickly turned to the rights and wrongs of homosexuality. I stepped later on in the discussion and the following is one of my posts.

make the jump here to read the full posting on justabahai