[1]
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is on the war path. In a not-so-subtle way, she is marginalizing and discriminating against nearly every minority group in her state.
To start the week off, Brewer cut domestic partner benefits for state employees [2] and their dependents – on the pretense of saving a few bucks. She saves $3 million by cutting the benefits of roughly 800 affected employees. How much does she spend on benefits for everyone else? About $625 million. Looking at it that way, $3 million is merely a drop in the budgetary bucket.
The Arizona Daily Star reported: “Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that she believes ‘God has placed me in this powerful position as Arizona’s governor’ to help the state weather its troubles.”
Somebody please remind Brewer and her ilk of the phrase “separation of church and state.” It’s in the Constitution.
The move, of course, follows on the footsteps of the legislation she signed on Friday that makes racial profiling legal. If someone is suspected of being illegally in the United States – and a description of that is quite fuzzy – a police officer is legally required to ask for paperwork proving citizenship. The law is not only detestable, it is likely illegal [3].
San Francisco officials have called for a boycott [4] of Arizona. And flights from Mexico to Phoenix are being canceled by Aeromexico airlines. But that’s just the beginning. If Brewer wants to create her own Aryan-zona, her state will suffer the economic consequences. It’s just a matter of time.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news [5], world news [6], and news about the economy [7]
***
[8]
Speaking of unnecessary laws, California finally addressed a decades-old piece of legislation [9] that compared homosexuality to child molestation – both were in need of a “cure.”
Unlike Arizona, California is moving in the right direction as the House of Representatives adopted a measure that directs the Department of Mental Health to remove statements that dictate the agency research “causes and cures of homosexuality.” The measure is now headed to the Senate.
I can almost hear the California Legislature saying, “Cures, we don’t need no stinkin’ cures.”
***
[10]
In more good news from California, a leader in the state’s nurses’ union, Mary Kay Henry [11], was picked to head the Service Employees International Union. Henry, an out lesbian, will represent more than 2 million workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
She becomes both the first woman and the first person in the LGBT community to head the union.
***
[12]
And, finally, something that has nothing to do with politics or immigration or any anti-gay sentiments, I found this little nugget of, well, sparkle power: Canned unicorn meat [13].
ThinkGeek, for the low, low price of $9.99, is offering Spam-inspired containers of precious unicorn meat, which is noted as “an excellent source of sparkle.”
In a moving tale of selflessness, we learn about the Sisters at Radiant Farms, who “have dedicated their lives to nursing these elegant creatures through their final days.”
Then they chop the unicorns up and process them for a profit. Mmm, mmm good.
[1] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-jan-brewer-top.jpg
[2] http://www.towleroad.com/2009/09/arizona-governor-takes-away-state-domestic-partner-benefits-says-god-has-placed-me-in-this-powerful-.html
[3] http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_e282eddf-7b50-514f-9716-3829a65d9df5.html
[4] http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14961851?source=most_emailed&nclick_check=1
[5] http://www.msnbc.msn.com
[6] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032507
[7] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072
[8] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-cure-medicine-top.jpg
[9] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=62158
[10] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-mary-kay-henry-top.jpg
[11] http://www.edgeonthenet.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=&sc3=&id=105018
[12] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-unicorn-meat-top.jpg
[13] http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/unicorn-meat.shtml
Originally published on June 18, 2009 by Yo Mama For Obama
This post will be a continuation of my last one, dealing with the people’s insurgency in Iran and the fight for equal rights here in America.
No surprise: it is being reported that Ayatollah Khamenei’s rival Mullah, Rafsanjani, will be supporting the massive protest in Iran today. Quite frankly, this election dispute is a contest, a personal power struggle, between the two Ayatollahs. Whether we have Ahmadinejad or Mousavi as figurehead Presidents is almost immaterial. Their ideology and politics are essentially the same, although Ahmadinejad’s incendiary fervor is definitely off the deep end. Their underlying beliefs, both national and international, are identical. It is the Mullahs who rule Iran. The people’s protests must move from election fraud to throwing out the corrupt clerics who rule Iran.
Dan Rather was on MSNBC yesterday, and he was not very optimistic about the outcome of this Iran uprising. He said that similar to this uprising, the Czech revolt of 1956, the Chinese attempt at protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the attempted battle for freedom in Burma in 2007 were all crushed by their respective governments. Included in these assaults on the protesters were serious, and successful, attempts to quash any media reports of the protests plus the government’s retaliatory responses. True: in 1956, we did not have the internet, cell phones or Twitter. Basically the same holds true for 1989. Nonetheless, the media were thrown out of those countries and thus any reports of the events were not forthcoming. So is Iran trying to play that same game today. Not only have reporters been warned off covering the disputed elections, but Iran has cut off most access to the internet and cell phones. But long live Twitter: they can not shut off that service. Not yet. Our very own State Department has requested, and been granted, that Twitter defer their shutdown for maintenance scheduled for this week so that the world can have some access to the events in Iran. As Hillary Clinton said recently, and I paraphrase, “I don’t know a Twitter from a Tweeter, but Twitter has been a window to the world as to what is going on in Iran.” In the New York Times today, Op-Ed contributor, Nicholas Kristof equates “tweets” as the bullets of modern warfare.
See Cracks in the System: Iran There and Gay Rights Here
Daily Kos
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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MSNBC anchors David Shuster, Contessa Brewer, and Tamron Hall erupted in what the network characterized as a “feisty” discussion over Miss California Carrie Prejean Tuesday morning.
Shortly after pageant owner Donald Trump announced that Prejean would keep her crown despite the recent topless photos of her that have circulated around the internet, Shuster went off on the beauty queen.
“Can I vomit right now?” he asked. “Doesn’t this represent everything that is wrong with the superficial nature of these pageants?”
See MSNBC Anchors Erupt Over Miss California Press Conference: “Can I Vomit Right Now?” (VIDEO)* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/msnbc-anchors…
During his campaign for the White House, President Obama pledged that he would push to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) — the military’s policy that bars gay men and women from serving openly. Since taking office, however, Obama and other officials serving in his administration have pushed the issue to the back burner. When asked about addressing DADT in March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.” Ret. Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, told the President recently “not to add another controversy to his already-full plate.” On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopolous asked Jones if the policy would be overturned. “I don’t know,” he replied. In fact, the White House website recently watered down language on repealing the policy, replacing the administration’s commitment to “repealing” DADT with a commitment to simply “changing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way.” (The more definitive “repeal” language has since been reinserted.) At the same time, Obama has indicated that he remains committed to repealing the policy. Sandy Tsao, an Army officer who told her superiors last January that she is gay, wrote to Obama urging him to act on repealing DADT. Last week, Obama personally responded to Tsao, writing, “I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete. … I intend to fulfill my commitment!”
DADT STILL CLAIMING CASUALTIES: DADT continues to weaken our nation’s military. Last week, the Army sent National Guard Lt. Daniel Choi — a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and is fluent in Arabic — a letter informing him that he is no longer welcome in the U.S. military because he is gay. The Army said it was dismissing Choi for “moral or professional dereliction,” specifically for admitting “publicly that you are a homosexual, which constitutes homosexual conduct. Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.” Choi is one of more than 13,000 U.S. military personnel to be discharged because of DADT. This number includes those with special skills deemed “mission critical,” such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists like Choi. The Government Accountability Office found in 2005 that the cost of discharging and replacing servicemembers fired because of their sexual orientation during the policy’s first 10 years totaled at least $190.5 million — roughly $20,000 per discharged service member. While DADT cannot be repealed without congressional action, University of California associate professor Aaron Belkin notes that as president, Obama has the authority to suspend enforcement of the policy. Though it is unclear whether Obama will take this route (especially based on Jones’s advice), Choi said on MSNBC last week that he plans to “fully fight” his dismissal “tooth and nail.” “I believe that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is wrong, and what we really need to be encouraging soldiers to do is to don’t lie, don’t hide, don’t discriminate, and don’t weaken the military. That’s what we need to be promoting,” he said.
REPEAL DADT: Supporters of the discriminatory DADT often argue that repealing it would weaken the military (despite the fact that Arabic-linguists who are in short supply have been discharged because of it) and fragment unit cohesion. However, a bipartisan study commissioned by the Palm Center at the University of California last year found that “the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win.” Choi said that “the biggest thing” he is “angry about” is that the Army claims that his unit suffered “good order and discipline” because he is gay. “That’s a big insult to my unit,” he said. After he came out as gay and before he was discharged, Choi said that “so many people came up to me, my peers, my subordinates, people that outranked me, folks that have been in the Army — and this is an infantry unit, infantry men that — coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, sir, hey, Lieutenant Choi, we know, and we don’t care. What we care about is that you can contribute to the team.’” Indeed, a December 2006 survey of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found that 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.” Moreover, the American public doesn’t care either. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, nearly two-thirds disagreed with the argument that “allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military would be divisive for the troops and hurt their ability to fight effectively.” Ret. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Hugh Aitken, who participated in the Palm Center’s study, has criticized Obama’s plans to allow the Pentagon to review the policy before deciding to act on any repeal. “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” he said. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.”
RIGHT WING STILL OPPOSES A REPEAL: The ultra-conservative Center for Military Readiness (CMR), a group that opposes women and gays serving in combat, is leading an effort against repealing DADT and even trying to block gays from serving in the military altogether. The group’s president, Elaine Donnelly, told Congress last year that having gays serve in the military “sexualizes the atmosphere” because they “engage in passive aggressive behavior.” CMR also tries to muddy the waters with “gay horror stories” from the military, despite having acknowledged that such stories are “very difficult to find.” Prominent members of Congress continue to obstruct as well. When asked about DADT last Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered his support for it. “Right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions,” he said, adding that “the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.” Other members of Congress, such as Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), disagree. Sestak, himself a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, said of DADT recently on MSNBC, “We have to correct this. It’s just not right.” “I can remember being out there in command, and someone would come up to you and start to tell you — and you just want to say, no, I don’t want to lose you, you’re too good,” Sestak said.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/time-to-repea…
MSNBC anchors David Shuster, Contessa Brewer, and Tamron Hall erupted in what the network characterized as a “feisty” discussion over Miss California Carrie Prejean Tuesday morning.
Shortly after pageant owner Donald Trump announced that Prejean would keep her crown despite the recent topless photos of her that have circulated around the internet, Shuster went off on the beauty queen.
“Can I vomit right now?” he asked. “Doesn’t this represent everything that is wrong with the superficial nature of these pageants?”
Shuster continued, taking Miss California runner-up Tami Farrell to task for her poor grammar in her appearance on the “Today” show Tuesday morning, where she said that Prejean was “binded,” and not “bound,” by her contract.
“This entire thing is a sham! It’s ridiculous!” he said.
See
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/msnbc-anchors…
KIRBY DICK’S documentary “Outrage“, which opened nationally last week, has turned gay activists’ controversial tactic of exposing closeted public figures—in this case, closeted Republicans perceived as advancing anti-gay policies in their public lives—into a feature-length film. The movie targets an array of elected officials and prominent GOP operators, but of particular interest is its focus on Charlie Crist (pictured with wife), the governor of Florida, who has thrown his hat into the 2010 race for the US Senate, with the support of much of the party establishment.
As if to confirm the film’s thesis that the press go out of their way to help preserve this sort of charade, National Public Radio opted to edit their reviewer’s piece on the movie to remove the names of politicos identified as closeted. At this point, as several others note, this seems rather quaint—and indeed, like an endorsement of the notion that there’s something especially awful about being accused of being gay. Nor do the network’s protestations that they simply avoid traffic in gossip and rumour hold up: They are only too happy to pass along unconfirmed reports about the sex lives of entertainers.
Which is odd, when you think about it, since while the public is clearly interested in the romances of musicians and movie stars, it’s hard to claim there’s a genuine public interest served by poking into their private lives. When it comes to public servants, however, we generally accept that it’s perfectly legitimate to scrutinise their private conduct to the extent it’s relevant to assessing the sincerity of their professed beliefs or the veracity of their public personas. Usually the controversy over “outing” has to do not with elected officials, but with high-level staffers, who have not volunteered themselves for scrutiny in the same way as political candidates. In practice legislative directors and analysts too yield significant public power—legislators are important people, and can’t be bothered with writing and reading bills themselves—but “Outrage” limits itself to indisputable public figures. If the claims about them are so poorly sourced as to constitute plain slander, the film shouldn’t be rewarded with any kind of attention; if they’re at least credible, one may as well save the listeners a Google search and say what they are.
See Economist: Is Outing Of Closeted Political Figures A Useful Tactic?
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/economist-is-…
Rachel Maddow talks to Lt. Dan Choi, who was dismissed from the U.S. Army National Guard after declaring on the show that he is gay. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-PA, also joins to discuss when President Obama can be expected to keep his promise to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/lt-dan-choi-r…
BAGHDAD – Widespread violence is down across Baghdad, but not for one minority group.
Iraq’s gay population is being targeted by militia groups in a wave of killings that has claimed the lives of up to 25 young men and boys in the past month.
“They know I am gay. I don’t know if I am going to be killed, this is up to God,” said Moyad, a 38-year-old Baghdad resident who would not give his last name out of fear for his safety.
Visibly frightened, he said that he has many friends who have been sadistically tortured, some even murdered. “They are sticking glue up their anuses; some hospitals refuse to treat them. Is it a war waged against homosexuals?” he asked.
International outrage
Most of the attacks have happened in Baghdad’s Shia neighborhoods, and many believe that religious leaders have used Friday sermons in Sadr City as a platform to incite hatred and violence toward homosexuals. The bodies of three gay men were reported to have been found in Sadr City in April with pieces of paper bearing the word for “pervert” attached to them.
Posters and leaflets have been distributed in the Baghdad neighborhoods of al-Shola, al-Hurya and Sadr City with orders to, “Cleanse Iraq from the crime of homosexuality.”
Baghdad police didn’t respond to inquiries from NBC News about the attacks, but the surge in violence has gained attention by the international media.
msnbc.com* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/they-kill-peo…
Those pseudo-Christians at the “American Family Association” and “One Million Moms” are at it again.
Now they are targeting “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus for not being a big enough bigot, Read what these “Moms” had to say”
I kid you not:
Miley Cyrus said what?
“Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus recently made statements supporting gay marriage.
Her comments were in response to a question posed to Miss California Carrie Prejean in the April 19 Miss USA Pageant. Homosexual celeblogger Perez Hilton was the pageant judge who asked Prejean her opinion of same-sex marriage, to which she responded that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Outraged by her response, Hilton began blasting the beauty queen and asked for celebrities to share their thoughts on gay marriage.
Miley Cyrus responded to Hilton through her Twitter.com account with the following comments:
• “Everyone deserves to love and be loved and most importantly smile.”
• “Jesus loves you and your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! That’s like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz he’s gay and that is wrong and very sad!
• “Like I said everyone deserves to be happy.”
• “God’s greatest commandment is to love. And judging is not loving.”
• “I am a Christian and I love you – gay or not – because you are no different than anyone else! We are all God’s children.”
Rachel Maddow had a great response here.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/pseudo-christ…
Rachel Maddow had a moving interview with Judy Shepard, Matt’s Mom, today talking about Rep. Foxx’s “h0ax” remark and more. See it here. * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/rachel-maddow…
