Gay marriage fight, `kiss-ins’ smack Mormon image
(Salt Lake City) The Mormon church’s vigorous, well-heeled support for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California last year, has turned the Utah-based faith into a lightning rod for gay rights activism, including a nationwide “kiss-in” Saturday.
The event comes after gay couples here and in San Antonio and El …
Tags: Faith, Gay Couples, Gay Kiss, Gay Marriage In California, Gay Rights Activism, Image, Ins, Lightning Rod, marriage, Mormon Church, Nationwide, Salt Lake City, San AntonioGreat Nationwide Kiss-in this Saturday
From Joe.My.God.:
The Great Nationwide Kiss-In, an event created in response to a spate of anti-gay incidents that arose out of gay men being publicly affectionate, takes place this Saturday, August 15th. Activists across the country have signed-on to take part, check out this Facebook action page for times and locations …
Tags: Action Page, Activists, gay men, God, Kiss, Nationwide, SpateLawsuit Challenges Wis. Domestic Partnership Law
Social conservatives asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday to strike down the state’s new domestic partnership law, saying it violates a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
The lawsuit, filed by three members of Wisconsin Family Action, acknowledges the court will not have time to act before the law goes into effect next month but says justices should halt registrations as soon as possible.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle signed the law in the state budget last month. Starting Aug. 3, same-sex couples can register with counties to receive dozens of the same legal protections as married couples, including the right to inherit assets, make hospital visits and take medical leave to care for an ill partner.
Wisconsin became the first Midwestern state to enact legal protections for same-sex couples through the Legislature. It also became the first nationwide to allow domestic partnerships despite having a ban on gay marriage and any “substantially similar” relationships. See Lawsuit Challenges Wis. Domestic Partnership Law WCCO
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/lawsuit-chall…
Hindu guru claims homosexuality can be ‘cured’ by yoga
The world’s most popular Hindu guru, Swami “Baba” Ramdev, has claimed homosexuality can be “cured” by yoga in a petition to India’s Supreme Court.
The television guru whose yoga programmes are watched by an estimated 85 million people throughout the world, made the claim in an appeal to the overturn a ruling last week which legalised homosexuality.
He has warned he will launch nationwide protests if the ruling is not struck down and said all of India’s main religions regarded homosexual acts as sins.
In his petition, he argued that homosexuality was a curable disease and that sufferers could seek a cure.
“It can be treated like any other congenital defect. Such tendencies can be treated by yoga, pranayam and other meditation techniques,” he said.
Pranayam are a series of breathing exercises which include hyperventilation, a slow release of breath while chanting “Om”.
His followers have said there are particular yoga positions which also help prevent sexual urges.
The overturning of India’s law criminalising homosexuality was welcomed by India’s gay community and by campaigners, including several leading designers and Bollywood stars.
See Hindu guru claims homosexuality can be ‘cured’ by yoga
Telegraph.co.uk -
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/hindu-guru-cl…
Angry Gay Democrats Pull Support For DNC
The Obama administration’s decision to file a controversial brief on behalf of the Defense Of Marriage Act appears to have been the last straw for many gay and lesbians who were once enthusiastic supporters of the administration as well as the Democratic party.
Politico reports that the National Stonewall Democrats is the latest group to pull out of a June 25 Democratic National Committee fundraiser because of the Obama administration’s defense of DOMA and lack of action on gay issues.
The group said is “incredibly disappointed” in the party for a variety of reasons, including a perceived lack of support.
“The DNC has traditionally provided materials for the many Pride parades and festivals around the country to help educate the LGBT community about why the Democratic Party is the Party for full LGBT equality,” National Stonewall wrote in an e-mail, according to Politico. “This year, we were informed that we would not be receiving any materials or support for producing materials for the various nationwide Pride activities. These decisions were very disappointing.” See Angry Gay Democrats Pull Support For DNC
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/angry-gay-dem…
Gay Dems complain DNC cut off funding, drop support for Biden event
Theboard of directors of the National Stonewall Democrats are dropping their support for a June 25 DNC fundraiser with Vice President Joe Biden over, they wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO, a combination of policy slights and the claim that they’ve been cut off from traditional party funding.
In the email to Tom Petrillo, who runs the party’s substantial gay fundraising operation, the board members write:
[W]e are incredibly disappointed that the DNC has made a decision to withhold any financial support to National Stonewall Democrats this year but is in turn asking us to help raise money for the DNC in a difficult financial environment. The DNC has historically supported National Stonewall through sponsorship of the annual Capitol Champions event. This year, we did not receive any support. The DNC has traditionally provided materials for the many Pride parades and festivals around the country to help educate the LGBT community about why the Democratic Party is the Party for full LGBT equality. This year we were informed that we would not be receiving any materials or support for producing materials for the various nationwide Pride activities. These decisions were very disappointing.
We’d be remiss to also not mention that the recent legal brief of the Obama Administration defending DOMA is incredibly hurtful. The members of the Board and our membership put our hopes, our dollars and our time into ensuring the election of Barack Obama because we believed that he supported us. To now have his Administration refer to our relationships in the same terms used by our long time enemies such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson hurts on so many levels. To have our committed and loving relationships referred to as the moral equivalent of incest and pedophilia is not something that any of us ever expected from this Administration considering how hard we worked to be seen and respected. For that reason alone, advocating for attendance at a fundraiser to support the Administration and the DNC, while they have not condemned this hurtful language, is not something our membership will receive positively.
The group says it’s not “boycotting” the June 25 fundraiser with Joe Biden; it just won’t encourage its members to attend.
Gay money is, historically, of outsized importance to the Democratic Party. Howard Dean, in particular, launched his presidential campaign in part on enthusiasm from gay donors about his support for civil unions, and maintained those relationships as chairman. For update see Gay Dems complain DNC cut off funding, drop support for Biden event
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/gay-dems-comp…
The cost of gay marriage – in dollars and cents
Provincetown, Mass. - Maghi Geary might have some peculiar advice for Californians: Gay marriage is good for business. The co-owner of Provincetown Florist has 20 to 30 weddings booked this summer, and the reason for that decent return is evident in the next customer who walks through the door – a lesbian couple from Kansas desperately in need of some carnations for their wedding.
Tuesday, the California Supreme Court made the most recent in a series of legislative and judicial decisions on gay marriage nationwide: It upheld Proposition 8, a measure that bans gay marriage in the state. But here in Massachusetts, gay marriage has been legal since 2003, and in Provincetown, more than 2,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot since then.
In some ways, this farthest fingernail of Cape Cod is emblematic of the economics of gay marriage: a big impact, but only at the margins.
Massachusetts estimates that gay marriage has added money to its coffers – but only about $37 million a year, or less than 1 percent of the annual state budget.
In the private sector, the wedding industry could grow by more than $16 billion if gay marriage were expanded to all 50 states, according to a 2004 study by Forbes magazine.
But Massachusetts’ experience suggests that money would be concentrated in cities with a significant gay population, like Provincetown. See The cost of gay marriage – in dollars and cents Christian Science Monitor
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/cost-of-gay-m…
Gay pride invitation goes sour Albany Times Union
ALBANY — A local woman whose vandalized Volkswagen launched her on a career as a gay activist welcomed nationwide as a speaker, often in conjunction with a documentary film she made about her experiences, will not be in the Capital Region for this weekend’s gay pride festival because of a dispute with event organizers.
The activist, Erin Davies, blames the Capital Pride Committee, a group of community volunteers and staffers of the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council, for scuttling an Albany showing of her award-winning documentary, “Fagbug.”
Accepted at dozens of film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, the movie will be shown tonight, the date originally planned. But the screening has been moved from a 250-seat theater at the State Museum to the Photography Center of the Capital District in Troy, where it will be shown in a room that seats approximately 20.
“They tried to bribe and threaten me, but I wouldn’t let them and just found another place,” said Davies, 31. She alleges that anonymous members of the committee thought her $10 suggested ticket price for the museum screening was too high and vowed to remove the showing from Capital Pride listings unless she lowered it. Davies makes her living with paid speaking engagements and film screenings; the admission price was meant to offset some of the difference between what she normally receives for appearances and the $500 fee she had agreed to for the museum event, she said.
Organizers and other people involved in discussions with Davies dispute her account of what happened and characterize Davies as having a martyr complex that led her to exaggerate routine, if frustrating, negotiations into antagonism and personal attacks.
“We absolutely support (the screening). It’s always been one of our events,” said Nora Yates, executive director of the community council. The screening was included in printed calendars and is mentioned, with its new Troy location, on the community council’s Web site. Founded in 1970, the CDGLCC, believed to be the oldest such continuously operating group in the country, is the prime force behind the 11-day, 34-event Capital Pride 2009 observance that culminates with Sunday’s pride parade and festival in Washington Park.
See Gay pride invitation goes sour
Albany Times Union
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/gay-pride-inv…
LOS ANGELES: All Saints, Pasadena, clergy opt out of civil marriages until gay couples can legally wed
Clergy at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, are opting out of performing civil marriages until gay couples can legally wed–and are encouraging other clergy to do likewise, according to the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector.
“At the heart of Jesus’s moral vision and All Saints’ historic mission is respecting the dignity of every human being,” Bacon said in a June 3 press release announcing the decision, which is effective immediately.
“The California Supreme Court in its recent opinion has ruled that those of same-gender affections are second-class citizens,” Bacon added. “Denying fundamental rights to a certain classification of humanity is blatant discrimination with which our governing board, the other clergy of All Saints, and I will not participate. We invite other clergy and congregations to join us in this stand for marriage equality.”
Bacon referred to the May 26 state Supreme Court ruling that upheld the controversial Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment providing that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in California.” Their decision sparked nationwide rallies by both advocates and opponents of the measure.
The Rev. Susan Russell, an associate at the Pasadena congregation known for its social activism and progressive politics, said on June 4 that clergy are meeting with couples whose nuptials were already planned “to explain the new policy and hold pastoral conversations about the impact on them.
“We only do member weddings, so folks married here at All Saints typically share our values of inclusion and would be on board, we think, with making arrangements to have the civil part of their marriage take place external to All Saints clergy,” said Russell, who is president of Integrity USA, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Episcopalians.
But she added that: “We will continue to serve and marry them civilly if that’s what the couple prefers for whatever reason because that was the contract going in.”
All Saints vestry, at its June 2 meeting, had unanimously passed a resolution declaring that “the sacramental right of marriage is available to all couples, but that the clergy of All Saints Church will not sign civil marriage certificates so long as the right to marry is denied to same-sex couples.”
The vestry’s decision acknowledged “our active participation in the discriminatory system of civil marriage is inconsistent with Jesus’s call to strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.” The resolution states “civil marriage in the State of California is, as a result of Proposition 8 and the Court’s decision, a constitutionally-mandated instrument of discrimination, which furthers injustice and denies same-sex couples the fundamental dignities to which each human being is entitled,” Bacon said. Russell said there was little discussion in the vestry meeting. “It was just a no-brainer that of course we want to take steps that keep us from being complicit in state-sponsored discrimination.
“I keep thinking I couldn’t be prouder to work at All Saints church than I already am and then our leadership keeps taking steps that make me even prouder,” Russell said. “It was it is such a part of the DNA of All Saints Church to stand with those in need of solidarity. This stand is so deeply rooted in our baptismal covenant, it gives us such a strong theological place to stand. It feels like very firm foundation, indeed.”
The Rev. Neil Thomas of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Los Angeles, a petitioner in the Proposition 8 case, said the 40-year-old 500-member congregation likewise is observing a moratorium on signing civil weddings.
“We will not sign the paperwork” for civil marriages, said Thomas, whose ministry is primarily, but not exclusively, to the LGBT community. He is also the president of California Faith for Equality, a progressive interfaith movement of about 6,000 clergy, which submitted an amicus brief advocating that the California Supreme Court overturn Proposition 8.
– The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/los-angeles-a…
Young, Queer and Reflecting on Organizing Around Marriage
I was in San Francisco last week when the California Supreme Court announced its decision upholding Prop 8 and I took the opportunity to interview some of my friends in the LGBT community about their thoughts on the efforts to organize for marriage.
Going into this project, I wasn’t sure what I’d hear. I knew from previous conversations that many in my community of young, queer activists had questioned whether LGBT organizations should continue to prioritize marriage recognition at the cost of other LGBT advocacy efforts.
While some folks were still questioning our community’s attention to marriage, I heard from other folks that their opinions on the significance of marriage had changed after they’d witnessed the nationwide mobilizations in the wake of Prop 8. One definite effect of the mobilizations and the prominence of marriage in the public discourse was that my friends seemed to have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they felt about marriage both personally and politically. As Jon, a grad student in public health at Berkley, said, marriage became something he “had to take more of an opinion on.”
I found the diversity of perspectives offered in these conversations insightful and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few clips in the following video @ Young, Queer and Reflecting on Organizing Around Marriage
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/young-queer-a…
