Ask the Expert: ‘I bought the wedding party clothes; do I need to get gifts, too?’
Stumped on when to send out your STDs (save-the-date announcements)? Don’t know who should be invited to your rehearsal dinner? Get the answers to all your wedding etiquette questions by submitting your dilemma to etiquette@equallywed.com
My fiancé and I are getting married in a few weeks. I’m Indian, and we wanted Indian clothes for the ceremony. I went to India with my mom this past winter, and we purchased clothes for all our attendants for the ceremony. Do we still need to get our wedding party gifts, especially those who haven’t really been involved much?
I think it’s both beautiful and meaningful that you and your mother traveled to India together and purchased your wedding party’s attire there. What a personal touch to the day. I’m certain your attendants will be very touched that they don’t have to pay for the clothing, too.
However, it doesn’t save you from giving them a small token of your appreciation, because you are giving them something they are required to wear, albeit gorgeous handmade clothes from India.
You don’t have to spend a lot on the wedding party gifts—especially for the people who haven’t been very involved. But these friends and family members are sacrificing their time for you, and etiquette dictates that you give them a thank you gift that doesn’t have anything to do with the wedding (which is why the clothing isn’t enough).
That gift doesn’t have to cost much, if anything. It could be a framed photo of you and/or your fiancé with each person or something you’ve made, such as a small painting, a poem about friendship in your own handwriting on nice paper or a potted plant. The message of the gift is more important than the dollar value, and it should say, “I appreciate you in my life and for standing up for me on my wedding day.”
Kirsten Palladino is the editor in chief of Equally Wed, the nation’s premier same-sex wedding magazine, online at www.equallywed.com. Equally Wed offers gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer couples an extensive, trustworthy and fashionable guide of inspiration, ideas and trends for planning their engagements, weddings and honeymoons, as well as their happily ever after. The photo-rich site is home to Equally Wed’s Local Resources, a veritable marketplace of vetted LGBT-friendly wedding vendors across the United States and abroad. It also offers an interactive social community to talk to other readers about all things wedding, as well as the latest news from the frontlines of the fight for marriage equality. Follow Equally Wed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/equallywed.
Christian conservatives target San Diego judges
(San Diego) A group of conservative attorneys say they are on a mission from God to unseat four California judges in a rare challenge that is turning a traditionally snooze-button election into what both sides call a battle for the integrity of U.S. courts.
Vowing to be God’s ambassadors on the bench, the four San Diego Superior Court candidates are backed by pastors, gun enthusiasts, and opponents of abortion and same-sex marriages.
“We believe our country is under assault and needs Christian values,” said Craig Candelore, a family law attorney who is one of the group’s candidates. “Unfortunately, God has called upon us to do this only with the judiciary.”
The challenge is unheard of in California, one of 33 states to directly elect judges. Critics say the campaign is aimed at packing the courts with judges who adhere to the religious right’s moral agenda and threatens both the impartiality of the court system and the separation of church and state.
Opponents fear the June 8 race is a strategy that could transform courtroom benches just like some school boards, which have seen an increasing number of Christian conservatives win seats in cities across the country and push for such issues as prayer in classrooms.
“Any organization that wants judges to subscribe to a certain political party or certain value system or certain way of ruling to me threatens the independence of the judiciary,” San Diego County’s District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said.
“Judges should be evaluated based on their qualifications and their duty to follow the law.”
The campaign by California’s social conservatives comes at a time when judges and scholars in many states are debating whether judges should be elected or appointed, citing the danger that campaign contributions could influence their rulings. Other states have lifted restrictions allowing judges to express their opinions publicly so people know what their biases are.
Special interest groups, including those representing gay marriage opponents, have ramped up donations for judicial races in recent years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s school of law.
In Iowa’s June 8 primary, two Republican gubernatorial candidates have announced they favor ousting Supreme Court judges whose unanimous decision last year legalized same-sex marriage.
“An effective way in driving policy is to try to influence who is on the courts in a state, particularly the highest court, the supreme court,” said Adam Skaggs, counsel for the Brennan Center. “It’s cause for concern because Americans expect courts to be places where people get a fair trial.”
Most of those efforts have been aimed at state supreme courts, not courts like San Diego Superior Court that rules on custody battles and crime cases.
Called “Better Courts Now,” the movement was the brainchild of Don Hamer, San Diego County’s late Zion Christian Fellowship pastor who campaigned locally for California’s ban on gay marriage, Proposition 8, and vetted the candidates before he died of a heart attack in March.
His fellow Pastor Brian Hendry and other supporters have carried on his legacy, launching the mostly online campaign to replace the incumbent judges – all Democrats – with Christian conservatives.
Backers include El Cajon Gun Exchange, a store that encourages customers to fight for California’s gun owners and visit the “Better Courts Now” website before voting. Pastors have vowed to spread the word. Hendry said the group had raised about $2,000 last month.
Some say it would not take much to win the traditionally low turnout race. The election usually draws fellow judges, attorneys, prosecutors and others closely following the legal community.
Lantz Lewis, who has been a judge for 20 years, said his opponent’s campaign is taking judicial elections in the wrong direction.
“I have no problem with elections, but I think it really should focus on a judge’s qualifications, and it’s very difficult to think something good could come out of a partisan judicial election,” he said.
“Better Courts Now” says it wants courts to be more accountable to the public.
At a debate the group organized at the Rancho del Rey church in San Marcos, a sprawling city of strip malls and suburban earth-tone homes perched atop green canyons, candidate Harold J. Coleman Jr. told supporters it’s fair for voters to know a judge’s values.
“That doesn’t mean he won’t follow the law,” Coleman said as his supporters faced a wall with the words, “Live Jesus.”
About 25 attendees broke into prayer at the church, which was in an office complex shared by an Irish dance studio and gymnasium.
Organizers invited the incumbents but none came.
Lewis said “Better Courts Now” appears to be seeking allegiance to its views – not accountability.
“That’s one of the reasons, we declined the invitation to go to that forum,” he said. “I just don’t think judges should be in a situation, where they are asked, ‘Do you believe in God, abortion, gay marriage?’”
If judges proclaim to be either liberals or conservatives, people will feel the decks are either stacked against them or in their favor. If only one parent goes to church and the other does not in a child custody battle, a judge proclaimed to be a conservative Christian may favor the churchgoer, he said.
The district attorney and nearly every judge on the bench are endorsing incumbents Lewis, Robert Longstreth and Joel Wohlfeil, rated by the San Diego County Bar Association as “well qualified,” its highest grade.
The bar rated Candelore and his running mates Bill Trask and Larry “Jake” Kincaid as “lacking some or all of the qualities of professional ability, experience, competence, integrity and temperament indicative of fitness to perform the judicial function in a satisfactory mode.”
Trask is a lawyer for a mortgage firm and Kincaid is a family law attorney.
The bar said it did not have enough information to rate Coleman, an arbitrator for business disputes. He faces Judge DeAnn Salcido, who also received the bar’s lowest mark of “lacking qualifications.”
The Better Courts Now candidates accused the bar of being swayed by politics.
Candelore said a victory would mark only the beginning: “If we can take our judiciary, we can take our legislature and our executive branch.”
Strict policing, no arrests at Moscow gay parades
(Moscow) Two Gay Pride parades were held without arrests in Moscow on Saturday, the first time the notoriously intolerant Russian authorities have not intervened since the inaugural attempt to hold the event in the capital in 2006.
The activists’ spokesman claimed that the absence of harrasment, beatings and detentions was due to their “military planning” rather than any kind of warming toward non-traditional orientation among officials.
Moscow riot police typically disperse such gatherings with brute force, emboldened by declarations from city Mayor Yury Luzhkov equating homosexuals with the devil.
The activists also blame Russia’s resurgent Orthodox Church, which publicly and sternly denounces gay culture, for fomenting homophobia.
About 25 activists held a short demonstration on The Arbat, a pedestrian street lined with shops and cafes that is one of Moscow’s main tourist draws.
They marched for about 10 minutes, holding banners and shouting slogans such as “No discrimination on the grounds of orientation.” Some observers waved and laughed, and there were no signs of hostility.
Police did not try to disperse the march, but when the demonstrators saw a line of uniformed officers blocking the street ahead of them, they scattered.
A few hours later in northwestern Moscow a smaller, international group including British activist Peter Tatchell unveiled a long rainbow flag and chanted “Russia without homophobes!” and “Equal rights, no compromise!”
“Today it’s like the Soviet era in Russia: Those who seek to hold a peaceful protest are being hunted by the police and the FSB security, like we were some kind of criminals or terrorists.” Tatchell, a member of the U.K. rights group OutRage, told Associated Press Television News.
The last gay parade was in May and coincided with the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. That ended with dozens of arrests. Foreign politicians and pop stars as well as dozens of Russians have been roughed up by police and attacked for participating in the protests.
Asked whether he felt a thaw in official attitudes toward gays, parade organizer Nikolai Alexeyev told The AP after the protests Saturday that there had been no change, and no detentions had been made because the activists had simply given the cops the slip.
“Our military planning was why there were no arrests. We had to organize these parades under strict secrecy, we turned away anyone we didn’t know,” he said, claiming the authorities were attempting to infiltrate the organizers.
Malawi couple keep low profile after pardon
(Blantyre, Malawi) A couple from Malawi have kept out of the public eye after being pardoned and freed from prison, in what a relative said Sunday was a deliberate decision prompted by the conservative view of homosexuality in the southern African country.
Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were released late Saturday, hours after President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them without condition. But in giving his pardon, which he said was on “humanitarian grounds only,” Mutharika warned that homosexuality remains illegal in the conservative southern African country.
Activists said late Saturday that they were searching for a safe house for the couple, fearing they could be attacked upon release.
The couple’s lawyer, Mauya Msuku, said he had not seen either of them since their release.
Maxwell Manda also said he had not seen Chimbalanga, who identifies as female and is related to Manda, on Sunday. He told The Associated Press days earlier that Chimbalanga wanted to leave Malawi upon her release.
“We heard that they were released but we don’t know where they are,” he told The AP on Sunday. “They are neither at their home in (a Blantyre suburb) or their villages. But I know they are keeping a low profile deliberately because of the sensitivity of their case.”
The two were not at their Blantyre home when an Associated Press reporter visited Sunday morning.
Malawi had faced international condemnation for the conviction and harsh sentence given to the couple, who were arrested in December, a day after celebrating their engagement.
Malawi is among 37 African countries with anti-gay laws, and strong attitudes against homosexuality.
A judge convicted and sentenced Chimbalanga and Monjeza earlier this month on charges of unnatural acts and gross indecency under colonial-era laws. Crowds of Malawians had heckled the two during court hearings, with some saying that 14 years at hard labor – the harshest possible sentence – was not long enough.
Their release was welcomed by the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, international rights groups and the White House.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs praised the move, urging an end to “the persecution and criminalization” of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Malawi couple keep low profile after pardon
(Blantyre, Malawi) A couple from Malawi have kept out of the public eye after being pardoned and freed from prison, in what a relative said Sunday was a deliberate decision prompted by the conservative view of homosexuality in the southern African country.
Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were released late Saturday, hours after President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them without condition. But in giving his pardon, which he said was on “humanitarian grounds only,” Mutharika warned that homosexuality remains illegal in the conservative southern African country.
Activists said late Saturday that they were searching for a safe house for the couple, fearing they could be attacked upon release.
The couple’s lawyer, Mauya Msuku, said he had not seen either of them since their release.
Maxwell Manda also said he had not seen Chimbalanga, who identifies as female and is related to Manda, on Sunday. He told The Associated Press days earlier that Chimbalanga wanted to leave Malawi upon her release.
“We heard that they were released but we don’t know where they are,” he told The AP on Sunday. “They are neither at their home in (a Blantyre suburb) or their villages. But I know they are keeping a low profile deliberately because of the sensitivity of their case.”
The two were not at their Blantyre home when an Associated Press reporter visited Sunday morning.
Malawi had faced international condemnation for the conviction and harsh sentence given to the couple, who were arrested in December, a day after celebrating their engagement.
Malawi is among 37 African countries with anti-gay laws, and strong attitudes against homosexuality.
A judge convicted and sentenced Chimbalanga and Monjeza earlier this month on charges of unnatural acts and gross indecency under colonial-era laws. Crowds of Malawians had heckled the two during court hearings, with some saying that 14 years at hard labor – the harshest possible sentence – was not long enough.
Their release was welcomed by the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, international rights groups and the White House.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs praised the move, urging an end to “the persecution and criminalization” of sexual orientation and gender identity.
