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Sex and Relationships
In Trying to Prevent Gay Marriage, Texas May Have Accidently Abolished it for Everyone
Posted by Liz Langley, Liz Langley's Blog on November 18, 2009 at 8:11 PM.
When I was a kid in Catholic school, probably around 6th grade, I remember reading a short story about a little girl who studied the violin. The details are hazy but someone, I think her teacher, told her that another student was getting the gift of a new violin and that there were two to choose from but he didn't know which to pick. He asked the student to help him out by trying both and telling him which one was better.
After playing both the girl knew that the first violin was far and away the superior intstrument, but knowing she would soon be in a competition with the other student she said the second, lower-quality violin was better and that that one should be the gift.
The gift turned out to be for her. She ended up getting the bum deal she was trying to give someone else.
The nuns didn't use the word "karma" but that's what the story was about. Do unto others. Etcetera. You seldom see morality plays as swiftly and compactly played out in real life but when you do it's delicious.
And there may such an instance in store for Texas where, in trying to deprive some people of marriage ... the state may have abolished it for everyone.
A Texas lawyer and candidate for attorney general, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, has found a little screw-up in the legal wording of some 2005 anti-equality legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the state. Here's the skinny from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
The amendment, approved by the Texas Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by Texas voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the trouble-making phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
Radnofsky says the wording "eliminates marriage in Texas."
It may be waved away as a piffling error made by lawyers who are too highly paid to make such mistakes but I hope it stirs up a hornets nest of problems and that the people who voted for such childish, no-I-won't-share end up with their "sacred" unions treat as null-and-void, exactly as they'd like to do unto others.
Maybe we can get the girl in the story to play them the world's tiniest violin.
Video: The Victimization of Carrie Prejean? How a Sex Tape and a Softball Question From Larry King = Christian Persecution
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 13, 2009 at 9:37 AM.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
The e-mail from the right-wing magazine, Human Events, bore this subject line: Liberal attacks on beautiful female conservative
The "beautiful female conservative" is Carrie Prejean, the Miss Universe pageant contestant who became famous by dint of her answer to a question posed to her by pageant judge Perez Hilton about same-sex marriage. And the attacks are presumably the distribution of a pornographic video featuring Prejean that surfaced earlier this week.
Now Prejean is hawking her book, Still Standing, at an inconveniently-timed moment: the pornographic video of Prejean surfaced just as the book was released, reportedly during her negotiations with pageant officials for the settlement of a counter-suit she filed against them after the pageant sued her for repayment of the cost of her breast implants.
It's all very Christian.
So Human Events is offering the Prejean book to you, free of cost, if only you'll take a trial subscription -- at no risk to you! -- of their anti-sex, anti-woman magazine. It's win-win for everybody. The bestseller list is gamed through the bulk buy of Still Standing by the magazine (progressive mags do this, too); Human Events gets new subscribers, and the Prejean-as-victim narrative is advanced.
Prejean herself has been the foremost saleswoman of the story of her martyrdom, but she may not be the best pitch-person for the job. On Wednesday's edition of CNN's Larry King Live, she proved her pitch to be less than perfect, when she called his softball question about the pageant settlement "inappropriate," removed her mic, but stayed in the guest chair. (Video at the end of this post.)
Carrie Prejean was just another beauty pageant contestant until, at the Miss Universe pageant, she was asked what she thought of same-sex marriage. Instead of giving a "world peace" answer, Prejean said she thought marriage was something that shold take place only between a man and a woman.
In the days that followed, Prejean was held up to ridicule for her statement, and another right-wing martyr was born. Proponents of same-sex marriage hardly helped their cause with the ferocity of their attacks. Some went after her family; Perez Hilton, the pageant judge who asked her the same-sex marriage question, called her a "dumb bitch" on his blog.
Prejean was lionized by the religious right, appearing as a keynoter at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit. There she recounted the attacks she endured after her pageant answer, but said she knew she had been chosen for that purpose. "As I saw my goals and aspirations flash by me, I knew God had a plan for me… God chose me for that moment," she told the audience of evangelical Christians. "He knew I was strong enough to get through all the junk that I have been through."
Since the surfacing of Prejean's sex video, she has cancelled appearances before conservative audiences, but that hasn't stopped Human Events from advancing the story of poor Carrie's victimization. After all, they still have that pile of books to get rid of.
VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Transgender Asylum-Seeker Caught in Immigration Detention Hell
Posted by Staff, RestoreFairness.org on November 12, 2009 at 3:18 PM.
Courage comes in many different forms. For Esmeralda a transgender asylum seeker from Mexico who faced horrific circumstances in immigration detention, it came in the form of seeking justice. Kept in a segregated cell with other transgender detainees, Esmeralda never realized that her experience in detention would match the trauma of discrimination she had faced back home. But her story is also one of hope for change.
Esmeralda: A Transgender Detainee Speaks Out from Breakthrough on Vimeo.
While the Obama administration has pledged to reform the detention system, its promises do not go far enough. Spread over a patchwork of more than 500 county jails, privately run prisons and federal facilities, immigration detention is a $1.8 billion business estimated to hold 442,941 detainees in custody in 2009 alone.
Transferred far away from their homes and families, stories are rife of how detainees are denied visitation, access to lawyers, medical care, and are subject to physical and verbal abuse. Many vulnerable people, including asylum seekers, pregnant women, children, lawful permanent residents and even U.S. citizens are among those detained.
Listen to Esmeralda’s voice of courage and take action now to fix a broken detention system.
Breast Flaunting for Jesus
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on November 11, 2009 at 7:41 PM.
A failed California beauty pageant contestant who loves Jesus and fake tits, and disapproves of homosexuals, at some point in her life made a film of herself masturbating, and according to an Internet Gossip Web Site, the existence of this film caused this woman to lose a lawsuit because the people she was suing found it and threatened her with it.
In the ping-pong ball brain of Ann Althouse, the reason the Internet Gossip Web Site reported on this is because Saul Alinsky told them to. Whee! For, as this idiot has it, "The lesson here is that if you have even the slightest tendency toward conservative thinking, you’re an obvious target for personal destruction by the vicious harpies of the left, especially if you’re an attractive woman."
Right. Sounds rather like these women with slight tendencies towards thought do a fine job of personally self destructing, mainly because publicly engaging in "conservative thinking" is an awfully comical thing to do.
Idaho Republican Blake Hall Fired for Throwing Used Condoms on the Lawn of a Woman He Was Stalking
Posted by Steven D., Booman Tribune on November 10, 2009 at 4:25 PM.
This story about prominent Idaho political figure and Republican National Committee member Blake Hall and his conviction for stalking his former girlfriend is pretty disturbing, nonetheless, especially from the "ewww!" factor alone:
Blake Hall, a leading figure in Idaho and national politics for 25 years, was fired Monday as a deputy prosecuting attorney in eastern Idaho and has resigned from the Republican National Committee. [...]Idaho Falls police reported that witnesses said Hall disposed of used condoms on the lawn of the woman's house. Nineteen condoms were turned over to police, collected on 10 different dates, according to a police report. Both Hall and his lawyer acknowledged the condoms belonged to him, according to a police report. [...]
"I was so tired of being victimized," the woman said. "It is unimaginable that a 56-year-old would be so deviant."
Well, at least he didn't try to choke her to death. And it's clear from his behavior he hasn't been seduced by the Gay Side, so far as we know. In Republican Political circles I guess that makes him a stand up guy. Which is why, even though he has to serve a six month 15 day jail term, resign from the RNC, and was fired from one of the government jobs he held, he still gets to keep his second government job as a civil attorney for Fremont County, Idaho:
But Hall, 56, will keep his $31,000-a-year job as the civil attorney in nearby Fremont County, according to Prosecutor Joette Lookabaugh, a Republican who hired Hall in January.Lookabaugh said she told Hall he would keep his job "unless or until his ability to do an outstanding job for Fremont County citizens is compromised." [...]
"I understand that political figures are held to a higher standard," she said. "What is disturbing is the fact that often people who have devoted their lives to public service are not given the same benefits, or are treated more harshly, than the public at large. There seems to be a certain amount of political glee in striking down the well-known for any real or perceived foible."
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
MSNBC's Brewer Adopts Anti-Gay Rhetoric
Posted by Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America on November 4, 2009 at 2:53 PM.
I have frequently noted that, in addition to the three hours a day in which MSNBC is hosted by a former Republican congressman, the cable channel's daytime news reporters often adopt conservative framing. Here's an example, from anchor Contessa Brewer's introduction of a segment about Maine's repeal of a law allowing same-sex marriage:
Contessa Brewer: "And today you can add Maine to a long line of states, about 30 so far, where voters have chosen to define marriage traditionally: The union between one man and one woman."
"Define marriage traditionally" is straight out of the anti-gay movement's talking points. They work the phrase (and variations of it) into everything they say about the subject.
And it isn't accurate or neutral language.
It is telling that the construction "Define marriage traditionally" is a relatively new one. If you go back a decade, you'll be hard-pressed to find many uses of it (or variations of it) in the media. A Nexis search for "marriage w/5 tradition! w/5 defin!" returns only 317 hits from prior to the past 10 years.
No, the phrase is new -- cooked-up by anti-gay activists, because they know "deny gay couples the right to marry" doesn't poll as well. So why is an MSNBC anchor adopting it?
It's not like it's accurate. It wasn't too long ago, after all, when laws in America defined marriage as the union of one white man and one white woman, or of one black man and one black woman. That was the "traditional" definition of marriage in America, until people saw the light. Now they want you to believe marriage has always been defined the same way, so they can claim tradition is on their side. It isn't true -- but MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer parrots their rhetoric
If Brewer had introduced the segment by saying that Maine voted to "discriminate against gays," you can be sure the Right would be apoplectic -- and other reporters would point to it as evidence that MSNBC is a left-wing channel.
But that isn't what happened. What actually happened was that Brewer adopted anti-gay talking points as though they were neutral descriptions.
And Howard Kurtz, Campbell Brown, Ruth Marcus, David Zurawick and the rest of the "MSNBC-is-the-liberal-Fox" crowd won't say a word about it.
Meet the 28 (Male) Anti-Choice Dems Who Are Stalling Health Reform
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on November 3, 2009 at 3:00 PM.
WaPo reports today that a number of anti-choice holdouts among Democrats are "threatening to oppose the measure over the issue of abortion to create a question about its passage."
"I will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until a clean vote against public funding for abortion is allowed," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday in a statement. He said last week that 40 Democrats could vote with him to oppose the legislation -- enough to derail the bill.
To be clear, Stupak and his colleagues are joining with Republicans in trying to prevent the bill from coming to the floor at all if their extreme anti-choice amendment is not allowed. Stupak wants to prohibit abortion coverage completely in the exchange, meaning that if a woman wanted reproductive health coverage that included abortion servcies, she'd have to purchase an additional insurance rider. That would mean that a young woman covered by her parent's plan would have to negotiate with her parents for the coverage. Or a woman in an abusive relationship would have to negotiate that with her partner. Women would have to plan in advance, think ahead to whether any circumstance in their future life might lead them to have an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy and buy that extra insurance, just in case.
It's a backdoor attempt by Stupak and his colleagues to get abortion coverage excluded from private insurance, as well as public--which has been in place since 1976 with the Hyde Amendment, a rider that has been attached to appropriations bills for the past 33 years. The proposed House bill already goes much further in restricting access to abortion services than pro-choice advocates like, and in many ways marks a significant step back for choice. One of the primary issues is that it would codify the Hyde Amendment, making it permanent law.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Sex for World Series Tickets?
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on October 28, 2009 at 6:46 PM.
Let’s say that you’re a woman, and you’re a die hard fan of the home team. And let’s further stipulate that you’re not a season ticket holder, and you don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy a pair of tickets for yourself and your spouse, even for the cheap seats at the local stadium. What to do, what to do? How about placing an advertisement on Craig’s List, and hope that a sympathetic person who has a couple of spare tickets will help you out?
So, you’re writing the ad. After all, you’re the assistant director of communications at a local medical facility, and like any good ad copy writer, you know one thing for sure: “sexy” sells, and gets attention (particularly on Craig’s List). You settle on the following, and hit the submit button:
DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX!
Diehard Phillies fan - gorgeous tall buxom blonde - in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable. I’m the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!
Flirtatious? Perhaps. Solicitation? Hardly. But that’s what a vice cop in Bensalem, Pa. apparently thought when he read Susan Finkelstein’s advertisement in the ticket section of Philadelphia Craig’s List.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Word to the Wise: Never Date a Guy Who Reads Details Magazine
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 28, 2009 at 3:19 PM.
Shorter Details: Tricky bitches will get themselves pregnant and then make you pay for it.
Imagine for a moment this perfectly plausible scenario: You’ve had a steady girlfriend for a year or so and everything’s going great. You still hold hands at the movies. Friends tell you you’re good together. You’re both around 30 years old and making plenty of money, maybe living together, but you’re nowhere near considering fatherhood. And though you occasionally get the feeling that her biological clock is set far ahead of yours, she tells you she’s “safe,” so you don’t worry. Why would you? It’s not as if you’d just picked her up on Dollar Margarita Night at Senor Frog’s. But one morning she tells you something has gone wrong. Unlikely as it sounds, she’s pregnant-and she wants to keep it. What she doesn’t tell you, though, is this: She wasn’t being safe all along. She wanted to have that baby— and the way she saw it, this was the only way to make it happen.
You know where this is going, right?
A few experts discuss the “trend” of women tricking men into impregnating them, without offering any hard information or statistics. A few odd people are interviewed, and they confirm that they’ve heard that other odd people are getting pregant accidently-on-purpose. And then we get to “Roe v. Wade for men”:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Conservative Doctor Valiantly Keeps Women From Becoming Sluts
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 4:59 PM.
Who says anti-choice extremists don't care about women? A USA Today article on conscience clauses -- legislation that lets health providers deny patients contraception -- quotes a doctor who obviously has only the best interests of women -- stupid, stupid women -- in mind:
Faced with a request to give an unmarried female patient a prescription for birth control pills, Dr. Michele Phillips looked to her conscience for the answer.
“I’m not going to give any kind of medication I see as harmful,” said Phillips of San Antonio. The drugs would not protect her patient from “emotional trauma from multiple partners,” Phillips reasoned, or sexually transmitted diseases. “I could not ethically give that type of medication to a single woman.”
Unwanted babies, of course, do heal STDs and emotional trauma.
Via Feminists for Choice (an Feministing)
"Freakonomics" Authors Tell You How to be a Good Prostitute
Posted by Sady Doyle, Comment Is Free on October 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM.
Good news, ladies. You, too, can make millions by charging for sex! And you'll just have a slam-bang, gee-golly splendiferous time doing it, too -- at least if you absolutely adore the sort of men who pay for it. Be warned, however: Disliking those men will consign you to the minimum-wage ranks of sex professionals, forever longing for the big bucks you could be earning, had you only an appropriately chipper attitude.
Such is the advice of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, of Freakonomics fame. They are back with a new book, Superfreakonomics, and recently they unveiled a bit of it in the form of an excerpt about how to succeed as a prostitute.
Freakonomics, of course, is the science of choosing an appropriately wacky or controversial subject (sumo wrestlers, abortion), applying a little economic analysis to it and coming up with a shocking conclusion that will make people blog about you. In that respect, the how-to-charge-for-sex piece was a no-brainer. Expressing any opinion about prostitution will bring on outrage (and attention) from one corner or another, no matter what your opinion turns out to be. Of course, if you are aiming for maximum impact, it helps to be -- as Levitt and Dubner are -- really, stunningly, remarkably wrong.
Levitt and Dubner build their piece around a comparison of two prostitutes: Allie, who works from her bedroom and makes between $350 and $500 an hour, depending on the client, and LaSheena, who works on the streets and probably makes about $350 a week, based on statistics (some information -- any information -- as to LaSheena's specific circumstances and earnings probably would have helped the comparison, but Levitt and Dubner seem, in this instance as in many others, not to have bothered learning about their subject).
LaSheena and Allie are the Goofus and Gallant of sex work, at least in the warped little scenario laid forth in the Superfreakonomics excerpt. Arising, as Levitt and Dubner seem to assume they do, from absolutely no context whatsoever (the fact that Allie is probably white, and that LaSheena is probably not, is never once addressed, for example; neither is the personal history of LaSheena explored in any detail, though we hear about Allie at excruciating length) they are not actual women so much as they are flattened-out, hollow caricatures of Success and Failure. Allie is a good prostitute; she has succeeded. LaSheena is a bad prostitute; she has failed.
What has LaSheena done wrong, you ask? Simple: She doesn't like being a prostitute. "I don't really like men," she is quoted as saying. This is an interesting statement, which the authors fail to follow up. Why doesn't LaSheena like men? Has she been beaten? Has she been raped? Is there a man taking a cut of her money? Was she forced into this job as a child by a man, by a boyfriend she loved, by sheer poverty? And has she seen the ugly side of men too often in this job to trust any?
Hey, here's an interesting thought: Maybe LaSheena doesn't like men because she's trapped in a cycle of poverty, and one of the only ways for her to stay alive is to have sex with men, whether or not she really wants to. Maybe that's enough to make LaSheena dislike men. We'll never know, however, because Dubner and Levitt don't ask. They don't care to humanise her. She's the Goofus in the scenario. Her poverty -- which is assumed to be entirely her fault -- is only there to provide a counterpoint to Allie's shining example.
Boy, oh, boy, does Allie ever love being a prostitute! Why, do you know that she just went ahead and did it on a whim, as a sexy adventure, and not because of any nasty old compelling factors like poverty or addiction or a man literally arranging for her to be raped over and over again and taking money from her rapists or anything like that? Well, it's true. The Freakonomics gentlemen said so!
They make a point of letting us know that Allie "liked men, and she liked sex." And do you know what men she especially likes? Why, her clients, of course. Allie "is the kind of person who sees something good in everyone". Isn't that nice? She credits this for the fact that she is so successful -- and so do Levitt and Dubner.
Say, here's another nicety that Levitt and Dubner genuinely thought was a sane and intelligent thing to write down and publish: Allie's clients "treat her, in many ways, as men are expected to treat their wives but often don't". And Allie, in return, is like the "ideal wife", who "is happy to see you every time you show up at her door. Your favorite music is already playing, and your favourite drink is on ice. She will never ask you to take out the rubbish."
How this qualifies as wifely behavior, outside of reruns of "Father Knows Best," is unclear. But Levitt and Dubner seem genuinely convinced that this one-sided scenario of happy subjugation and infantile, pampered narcissism is good for everyone involved. Allie gets a MacBook! Doesn't that prove that it's working?
Levitt and Dubner seem, at some point along the line, to have missed out on the fact that women have inner lives, lives which do not revolve entirely around servicing men and which may in fact require some servicing by men along the way. It's evident in the way they extol Allie for getting such unmitigated joy out of subjugating herself to her clients.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Should a Woman Change Her Name When She Marries? 70 Percent of Americans Think So
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 26, 2009 at 10:45 AM.
Apparently 70 percent of Americans believe that a woman should change her name when she marries, and 50 percent believe it should be required by law. While I would expect most Americans to favor name-changing, I didn't expect that it was that high, and I certainly didn't think that so many people believe it should be legally mandated. I was also suprised that only 5-10 percent of women keep their own names.
I'm not married and so I recognize that this is an easier calculus for me to make now, but I have never even considered changing my last name. I don't think I ever would consider it. My mom, like many women of her generation, took my father's name -- it's just what everyone did, and it was easier. My best friend, who was raised in a pretty religious home, took her husband's name when she got married -- I don't know that she really gave a lot of thought to the whole process. It was just what you did.
Where I actually felt the shock of the name-change was seeing a list of female names I didn't recognize on Facebook, then clicking through and realizing, oh, that’s someone I've known since the 5th grade. Except not really, because I always knew Jane Jones and now she’s Jane Brown. Or maybe she’s Jane “Jones” Brown with her former name in quotes -- because, I dunno, it's a joke? I suppose I'm sheltered, but I assumed that the majority of my female friends (and especially college friends and acquaintences) would keep their own names. I was stunned at how many women I knew changed their names when they married.
What throws me off even more is when I see feminist-minded or liberal women take their husband’s name, and then defend it with "Well it's my choice" or "My last name was my father's anyway" or "I don't care about my name." I can understand the name-change part, even if I don't like it -- it can almost be more of a hassle to keep your own name than to take your husband’s once you're married, especially if you have kids. People may criticize you for keeping your own name. In a lot of communities, it is what everyone does. Your husband may even be upset if you don't want to take his name (although I'd say that's a pretty good indicator that he's kind of self-centered and you probably shouldn't marry him).
What confuses me (and gets under my skin) is the justification -- or at least, the justification based on things other than the very real, tangible sexist reactions that married women face when they keep their own names. Things like, "Well, it was my father's name." Well, sure, but what does that mean? That no woman ever has her own name, unless she was born into a culture where naming is matrilineal? Or, "I like his name better." Ok, but do men regularly change their names just because their partner as a "better" name? I’ve come across maybe one man in my whole life who has done that -- I somehow doubt that it just so happens that 99 percent of people with the “better” name are male. Or, "I want our whole family to have the same name." Again, understandable, but how come he didn’t change his name? Or you can both change your names.
I wish we could have a more honest conversation about name-changing. Instead, women like me who find name changing really, really problematic are cast as simply mean and judgmental, and women who do change their names are just exercising their "choice." I'll cop to being judgmental here -- this isn't one of those situations where I think every choice is equally good and it's a simple matter of preference. That said, there are very real reasons why married women may change their names, and I can certainly understand and empathize with making certain compromises and just not having the desire or energy to fight every feminist battle. I don't think it calls your feminist creds into question if you change your name. But I admittedly do wish that more women would keep their names. I wish more women felt like it was a valid and accessible option.
Names and naming matters. It is bigger than just an individual, personal choice. While I certainly respect the rights of people to make their own choices when it comes to their names, and while I can’t fault women who decide that keeping their own name is not a battle they want to fight, let’s not pretend like these choices exist in a vaccum, or like they don’t have a wider impact when it comes to normalizing sexist cultural practices.
I've been to a couple of weddings in the past few months, some where the bride changed her name and some where she didn’t. I'll admit, on a very basic level, that I felt a little gut-punched when the name-changing couples were announced as "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith." The woman was totally erased; she entered into what I would like to think of as a partnership, and instead she was just absorbed into her partner.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
An 83-Year-Old Republican Vet Talks About the Need for Equal Rights for Gays
Posted by BarbinMD, Daily Kos on October 22, 2009 at 2:00 AM.
I anxiously await the rebuttal to this video from homophobes everywhere who are hell-bent on denying equal rights for the citizens of Maine (or anywhere else): [scroll down for video]
Good morning, Committee. My name is Phillip Spooner and I live at 5 Graham Street in Biddeford. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican and an active VFW chaplain. I still serve three hospitals and two nursing homes and I also serve Meals on Wheels for 28 years. My wife of 54 years, Jenny, died in 1997. Together we had four children, including the one gay son. All four of our boys were in the service. I was born on a potato farm north of Caribou and Perham, where I was raised to believe that all men are created equal and I've never forgotten that. I served in the U.S. Army, 1942-1945, in the First Army, as a medic and an ambulance driver. I worked with every outfit over there, including Patton's Third Army. I saw action in all five major battles in Europe, and including the Battle of the Bulge. My unit was awarded Presidential Citations for transporting more patients with fewer accidents than any other [inaudible] I was in the liberation of Paris. After the war I carried POW's back from Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, and also hauled hundreds of injured Germans back to Germany.
I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting. A woman at my polling place asked me, "Do you believe in equal, equality for gay and lesbian people?" I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, "What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?" I haven't seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.
I give talks to eighth grade teachers about World War II, and I don't tell them about the horror. Maybe [inaudible] ovens of Buchenwald and Dachau. I've seen with my own eyes the consequences of caste systems and it make some people less than others, or second class. Never again. We must have equal rights for everyone. It's what this country was started for. It takes all kinds of people to make a world war. It does make no sense that some people who love each other can marry and others can't just because of who they are. This is what we fought for in World War II. That idea that we can be different and still be equal.
My wife and I did not raise four sons with the idea that three of them would have a certain set of rights, but our gay child would be left out. We raised them all to be hard-working, proud, and loyal Americans and they all did good. I think it's too bad [inaudible] want to get married, they should be able to. Everybody's supposed to be equal in equality in this country. Let gay people have the right to marry. Thank you.
Current polling in Maine on Question 1:
... which would reject the state's law allowing same sex couples to marry, is knotted up two weeks before election day. 48% of voters in the state support it and 48% oppose it.
... which means that turnout will determine the outcome. Visit No On 1 - Protect Maine Equality today and do your part to make sure that hate doesn't win on November 3rd.
Schwarzenegger Creates Harvey Milk Day While Rejecting Trans Rights
Posted by Cara, Feministe on October 16, 2009 at 9:30 AM.
You may have heard that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law a bill that will create a Harvey Milk Day, honoring the slain gay politician and icon. It’s the first time that any LGBT person has been honored in such a way, so obviously people are excited about the symbolism.
What has been receiving some blog coverage but little mainstream media attention, however, is the fact that at the same time Schwarzenegger signed this bill, he vetoed a couple of others -- one which would have made it easier for transgender people born in California to correct their birth certificates to the proper gender and name, and another which would have helped to combat sexual violence against LGBT prisoners.
With regards to the former, a birth certificate is probably the most important piece of identification that any of us have. While it's not used on a daily basis, it's often the document on which our other pieces of identification are based, though most of us who are cis have the privilege and luxury of not thinking about it. When a trans person's identification does not match their identity, it sets them up for being outed against their will -- and subsequently creates a large risk of them being accused of fraud, harassed, denied basic services and care, and/or violently attacked. The bill would have made the difficult process of correcting the document just a tiny bit easier -- and by the way, wouldn’t have cost taxpayers anything.
The latter piece of vetoed legislation, Schwarzenegger called "unnecessary." But unnecessary to whom? It's really rather well known that LGBT prisoners face hugely disproportionate sexual violence in prisons, a place where rape already runs rampant. This is especially so for cis gay and bisexual men, who are regularly targeted for prison rape, and for trans women, who are often placed wrongly in men's prisons and thus put at extreme risk for sexual violence from cis inmates. The only way the governor does not know this is if he's willfully ignorant on matters over which he's supposed to be governing. And so to say that it's unnecessary for sexual orientation and gender identity to be taken into account when deciding how to safely house prisoners is outrageously callous, and a massive slap across the face to those LGBT inmates who have been or will be sexually assaulted by assailants targeting them for their identities.
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Bill O'Reilly Takes on Sexy Dancing High School Girls
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 14, 2009 at 2:19 PM.
Bill O'Reilly, who hasn't been sued for obscenely propositioning a coworker in over 5 years (5 years and a day), often bemoans our 'anything goes' sexual culture. On a recent show, O'Reilly and "culture warriors" Gretchen Carlson and Margaret Hoover took on the latest harbingers of America's moral decline: sexy dancing high school girls.
The segment singled out a song team from a Sacramento high school. "At Rio Americano High School in Sacramento California, a song team displayed their talent ... for the student body" says O'Reilly pointedly. That really clever double entendre is followed by an overly long segment of footage from the performance, ensuring Fox viewers have time to truly appreciate how gross the young, pretty girls really are.
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