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Anti-Gay Blogger Opens Up On RadioEDGE Boston… describe his blog as "pro-family," although he described Americans for Truth as being in opposition to marriage equality for gay and lesbian families. …
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Setback for multinational couples as bill is introduced; hope for inclusion remains.
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Setback for multinational couples as bill is introduced; hope for inclusion remains.
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Half of gay families prefer gay vacations
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Half of gay families prefer gay vacations
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Half of gay families prefer gay vacations
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Updated: 05/29/2009 09:09:52 PM MDT
There is no denying that the decision of the California Supreme Court to uphold Proposition 8 is a setback for gay families and anyone who supports marriage equality. But the reversal is temporary.
One day in the not-too-distant future — years maybe, but not decades — Prop. 8 will be seen as the swan song of the old order. California’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage garnered 52 percent of the vote in November, but it was the last gasp of an atavistic and deeply negative conception of homosexuality whose grip on the American psyche will soon be broken for good (and good riddance).
Gay marriage is coming to America.
The speed at which gay marriage went from a wedge issue that Republicans used during the 2004 election to roust religiously conservative voters to the polls, to its wide acceptance today, is nothing short of a political tsunami. Five states have now legalized same-sex marriage either by statute or court order: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Maine. The last three did so in the few months since California’s Prop. 8 case was argued. With the momentum building throughout the Northeast, measures legalizing gay marriage are considered viable in New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire.
The polls are reflecting this rapid shift in the cultural landscape.
See Blumner: Gay marriage will come Salt Lake Tribune
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
June 3rd Judiciary Hearing Will Debate Uniting American Families Act
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its first-ever hearing on The Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), a bill to end discrimination against lesbian and gay Americans in U.S. immigration law and allow lesbian and gay citizens to sponsor their partners for residency in the United States.
The hearing was scheduled by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the lead Senate sponsor of UAFA. Witnesses will include binational couples who have been separated, or face separation, because of discriminatory U.S. immigration law.
An estimated 36,000 binational couples are affected by U.S. laws prohibiting gay and lesbian Americans from sponsoring their partners for residency. Countless lesbian and gay families, including many with children, are torn apart by U.S. immigration law, or are forced to leave the United States to remain together. While 19 other nations allow lesbian and gay citizens to sponsor their partners, the United States continues to discriminate against tens of thousands of families. As the nation prepares to consider immigration reform, the Judiciary Committee hearing will provide an important opportunity for lawmakers to hear from some of those families.
The session is set for Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 – Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
A HOT TOPIC AROUND TOWN the last several months has been Alameda Unified School District’s proposed anti-bullying curriculum, which has been discussed with increasing fervor, and has turned into a referendum on gay rights. I admit I’d only been paying half attention to the debate (though my husband has been actively advocating for the curriculum’s adoption), until Tuesday night when I watched hours of testimony at the school board meeting, my heart dropping as a long line of speakers voiced their opposition to a few short lessons acknowledging the existence of gay and lesbian families.
“It’s about sex!” the opponents claimed. But teaching about same-gender families is no more about sex than the words “marriage” and “husband” and “wife” and “wedding” are about sex. Yes, marriage is based in part on a sexual commitment, but we speak about husbands and wives all the time in a way in which sexuality is not the focus. To children, the word lesbian is no more about sex than the word marriage is.
“But I want to teach my child about these things,” parents said. “I want to teach my beliefs to my child.” I have strong empathy for parents who want to impart their values to their children. But I do not have empathy when that “value” is that someone else is a lesser person. Imagine if the “value” in question were that women should not own property or that people could be owned by other people or that people with certain skin color should not be allowed to vote. These are not “values,” these are discriminatory prejudices.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the technique of the well-organized and coordinated curriculum opponents was to attack the series of lessons — designed to complement an already-established anti-bullying curriculum — on a number of technical grounds. “It’s not legal,” they said. “It doesn’t go far enough” or “It privileges one group over another.”
But these attacks were contrived and disingenuous. Most curriculum opponents operated from what only few more frankly admitted: They don’t think gay families are the moral equivalent of their own straight families. They don’t think gay families are “OK” and they don’t want their kids being taught that they are.
As many in this debate have done, all you have to do is switch the opponents’ arguments to another social group to see how undemocratic their viewpoints are. Would the district allow a student to opt out of a Black history lesson? A celebration of Chinese New Year? To leave the room any time divorce is discussed?
Of course not.
Religion has been used to support all sorts of atrocities past and present (as well as all sorts of good things). Because an argument is religion-based doesn’t mean that it is more right, more valid or more just. In this country, in this democracy, in this friendly city of 70,000, it is our shared value that all people are created equal — and to those parents who want to teach otherwise, well, this is not a “value.” It is bigotry. And it has no place in our community’s schools.
It has surprised me that in this day and age, in the Bay Area, that some are so hostile to difference and so obsessed with other people’s sex lives. The aim of the Alameda school district curriculum is simple: to teach about reality in order to help children skillfully and respectfully navigate their diverse community. All families (the majority of families, in fact) don’t look like the Cleavers. Families have all sorts of configurations, incorporating grandparents and cousins, step-siblings and stepfathers, same gender couples and opposite gender couples. That is reality. Children should be taught what’s real.
See Eve Pearlman: Curriculum battle lines drawn over values vs. bigotry
Alameda Times-Star
(Washington) Legislation that would require most employers to provide at least seven days of paid sick leave a year for most employees could be a major boon to same-sex families.
The Healthy Families Act, introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D), would include all companies with 15 or more workers and guarantee employees …
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