Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

[Etoile]

Not to worry... I was about to start a "Two Steps Forward, One Step Back II - Without Inane Shit About the Fucking Death Penalty" thread. Kind of a catchy name dontcha think?

That way both of the "boys" can stay here and beat there chests and grunt at each other to their hearts content...

Now now, no need to start an extra thread!

 

[Wolfman1982]

Etoile, and Safe_Bet sorry to the both of you. I know I have behaved liked an ass. and yes, I wish gays and lesbians and bisexuals could get equal rights over there, and the fucked up religious right should understand bisexuality/homosexuality/etc is NOT a choice. But something that happens while we are in the womb of our mother and there is nothing we can or can´t do about it. I hope my apology is accepted.

 

[Safe_Bet]

Now now, no need to start an extra thread!

Well okay, but you have to promise to use your strap on "Sword of Protection" on me.

******************​

ummm, where were we... oh, yeah... we were talking about winning the hearts and minds of the silent majority. Here are a couple of offsetting things that have happened recently -


TWO STEPS FORWARD:

Some of the "Silent Majority" seems to be getting it, as is demonstrated by this Letter to the Editor in The Minot Daily News out of Minot, North Dakota. I don't agree with her on a woman's right to abortion, but I wish more people were like this.

It is a bittersweet time. While I have been emailing friends all over America of how proud I am to be living in Fargo the failure to pass the bill adding gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender as a protected status is a failure of justice for the proud people of North Dakota. If the flood taught us anything it was "Unity in Diversity." Thousands stood side-by-side throwing sandbags without questioning each other's religion, yearly income or sexual orientation. How could the same community who bent over backwards to help strangers deny basic human rights to anyone? As a straight, wife, mother, and pro-life Catholic who has held up a picket sign "choose life," I struggle to see how Christians fail to see this as blatant anti-life discrimination. This lack of defending dignity and love is what is flawed in "the right to abortion" as well as the religious' condemnation of those who don't "fit the mold." It is sad that the inclusiveness Jesus lived and died for has been reduced to exclusiveness and even worse that it is done in his name. It is easy to understand why so many who are excluded are cynical and secular. The black and white labels of conservative and liberal should be replaced by compassionate. This is not a matter of whether you believe it is moral or not, it is a matter of loving and not judging your neighbor. It is time to let God be the judge and for us to love our neighbors as Jesus commanded us.

ONE STEP BACK:

This is EXACTLY what we need to get mobilized against. Two million fundies emailing & calling people in political offices have a big impact. We need to have just as big of an impact or were will constantly be fighting for our rights in the courts.

Marriage Org Sets Goal of 2 Million Marriage Defenders
By Christian Post on April 10th, 2009

The National Organization for Marriage, which helped the campaign to pass Proposition 8, on Thursday announced an initiative to recruit two million traditional marriage activists across the country.

The goal of the campaign is to “form an online army of marriage activists willing to stand up for marriage on a moment’s notice, sending emails and making phone calls to legislators whenever marriage is threatened,” NOM stated in a e-mail to supporters.
Over the next two years, the group is aiming to rally two million marriage activists representing every state but is hopeful that “word-of-mouth” recommendations will help achieve that figure by the end of 2010.

P.S. So much for their bullshit about "The people of each state have a right to choose..."

 

[Etoile]

Anti-life? Is that what they're calling pro-choice now? Wow, that is SPIN TO THE MAX. And, quite frankly, it's blatantly wrong. But that's semi-off topic too.

 

[Wolfman1982]

As George Carlin said "Pro Life is anti woman"

this link is the part of the show where you can hear him saying it.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/80...-pro-life-is-antiwomen-from-classicstandupfan (at 2:53 but he says it ) and he meant it.

 

[Safe_Bet]

As George Carlin said "Pro Life is anti woman"

this link is the part of the show where you can hear him saying it.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/80...-pro-life-is-antiwomen-from-classicstandupfan (at 2:53 but he says it ) and he meant it.

Damn, dude! The topic of this thread is gay rights. Get it? Any questions? Got a problem with that or something? It's not about the death penalty; it's not about women's issues; it's not about abortion. It's about the progress and set backs that affect the lives of queer folk. 'Kay?

********************************​

I'll even go along with the George Carlin theme. George Carlin was a definite "Two Steps Forward". He was talking positively about "Gay Liberation" back in 1973 and played queer characters with sensitivity and open good will.

"Gay Lib. Now interestingly, here is an attempt by a hooked down and kind of persecuted minority to insist on their place rightfully, and their treatment rightfully, without it having anything to do with ethnic or religion or anything! It's really an exciting separate part of liberation. ...Sometimes we, if we're younger, we react to that in a way that we've been schooled. Then you kinda get your chops, and you get things okay and you understand and it's all right to be able to talk about that. Here's what I mean. The word "homosexual," many people who aren't in the position to having to decide this, they wonder:

"Is homosexuality... Is it normal? Is it natural? I ask you. Is it normal or natural? Is it unnatural and abnormal?"

Now those two words seem to revolve around it. Now let's look at those words for what they are...

"Natural." Hey. Means "according to nature." Is it according to nature? Well...probably not in the strictest sense because nature didn't presuppose it. Nature only gave us one set of sexual apparatus. A girl's got something for the guys, a guy's got something for the girls. [low laughter in the crowd] As it is now, a homosexual is forced to "share" the apparatus that the opposite sex is using on this person. Certainly if nature was in command there'd have two sets of goodies. So nature was not ready. We leaped past nature again in our sociological development, way down the road ahead of nature.

Is it normal? Normal? Well what's "normal?" Well, let's see.. if you're standing in a room, stripped, and it's dark, and you're hugging a person and loving them and rubbing them up and down, and they're rubbing you, and you're rubbing together and suddenly the light goes on and it's the same sex, you've been trained to go

"AAIIIAUUGGGAIIIAEAAHHHHHHHH!"

But it felt okayy.... So maybe it was normal without being natural.

 

[HarlotMinx]

Funny, this reminds me of when I took a trip back to my old highschool. Way back in the day I used to be president of our schools gay straight alliance. Well every year we had a day of silence where nobody who participated would speak as a protest against anti LGBT bullying in the school system. Well two years after I left, the christian athletes club founded "the day of truth" "which was established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective." I'm still fighting with the highschool to ban the day of truth but I was told that the school can not discriminate against opposing view points on the issue. Apparently they have trouble recognizing the distinct difference between a day dedicated to defending a person's right to live their life in a manner they without harassment and a day condemning someone for their sexual orientation. The thing that scares me is I'm having this problem with a school that's 20 minutes from the nation's capitol in the most liberal part of Virginia.

-poppet

 

[John Doe]

Funny, this reminds me of when I took a trip back to my old highschool. Way back in the day I used to be president of our schools gay straight alliance. Well every year we had a day of silence where nobody who participated would speak as a protest against anti LGBT bullying in the school system. Well two years after I left, the christian athletes club founded "the day of truth" "which was established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective." I'm still fighting with the highschool to ban the day of truth but I was told that the school can not discriminate against opposing view points on the issue. Apparently they have trouble recognizing the distinct difference between a day dedicated to defending a person's right to live their life in a manner they without harassment and a day condemning someone for their sexual orientation. The thing that scares me is I'm having this problem with a school that's 20 minutes from the nation's capitol in the most liberal part of Virginia.

-poppet

So freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble is okay but only as long as you agree with the opinions being expressed?

 

[HarlotMinx]

So freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble is okay but only as long as you agree with the opinions being expressed?

No, I have no issue with them promoting Christianity or even speaking out against the LGBT. What I have a issue with is them attacking the Day of Silence. The day of silence's purpose is to remind students of anyone who has been raped, assaulted, and harassed in the school system because of their identified sexual orientation. If they want to hold a day of truth to promote Christianity.... fine. But the site specifically says that it's purpose is to break the "homosexual propaganda" of the day of silence. I have a issue with students saying that what the day of silence represents is propaganda and diminishing what students have to experience.

I'm all for freedom of speech and religion but in a federally funded organization I don't think it's appropriate for students to push their religious beliefs on other students. I'd have the exact same reaction if the GSA were preaching the evils of Christianity. Realistically, if it were a group pushing for women to be kicked out of public schools and back to the house or if it were about the evils of Judaism, do you think the school would sit by?

There is a fundamental separation of religion and government built into our constitution and the public school system is an extension of that. If it were a private school, or if it weren't actively attacking students then yes I wouldn't care less.

EDIT: Also, freedom of speech is not guaranteed to students nor is the right to peaceably assemble. Congress enacted a special law to define the limits in which students may express themselves in public schools that take any money from the government.

 

[Safe_Bet]

TWO STEPS FORWARD:

Iowa orders clerks to comply with marriage ruling​

04.17.2009 4:28pm EDT
(Des Moines, Iowa) Iowa state officials have told county clerks they must comply with the state Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses.

Send / ShareAdd CommentIn an e-mail to all 99 county clerks, the Department of Public Health which registers marriages in Iowa said that clerks must “issue marriage licenses to same sex couples in the same manner as licenses issued to opposite gender applicants.”

A spokesperson for the department said that it had received an inquiry from at least one clerk asking if the ruling applied throughout the state or just in Polk County, where the original court challenge to the Iowa law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples was filed.

The Attorney General’s office also said it would monitor compliance.

Day of Silence observed​

​

04.17.2009 2:24pm EDT
(Washington) Hundreds of thousands of students at thousands of schools nationwide are taking part in the National Day of Silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment.

Send / ShareAdd CommentStudents from more than 8,000 middle schools, high schools and colleges registered as participants in last year’s Day of Silence. This year the number is expected to be higher.

Students typically participate by remaining silent throughout the school day, unless asked to participate in class.

The Day of Silence was created by University of Virginia students in 1996 and became a national event in 1997. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network became the national sponsor in 2001.

To bring attention to this problem of anti-LGBT bullying, many students will hand out speaking cards on the Day of Silence, which read: “Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.”

ONE STEP BACK:

Group wants Wa. partner law repeal put on ballot​

04.17.2009 3:36pm EDT
(Olympia, Washington) A socially conservative group said Friday it is preparing a referendum to repeal Washington state’s newly enacted domestic partner law, which is similar to civil union laws.

Send / ShareAdd CommentThe Washington Values Alliance said it hopes to collect enough signatures to have the question put to voters in November. President Larry Stickney said the legislation is a step toward legalizing gay marriage in Washington.

The legislation makes domestic partnerships equal to marriage in areas of community property, guardianship and powers of attorney. It allows partners the right to refuse to testify against partners in court. And it provides the same remedies as married couples in ending a relationship, including the division of property.

The legislation expands on previous domestic partnership laws by adding references to partnerships alongside all remaining areas of state law where currently only married couples are mentioned.

 

[Safe_Bet]

TWO STEPS FORWARD:

Lesbian law prof among potential Supreme Court nominees​

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​

Link​

By The Associated Press
05.04.2009 11:12am EDT

(Washington) Court watchers think President Barack Obama will choose a woman for his first nomination to the Supreme Court, where only one of nine seats is held by a female - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

With Justice David Souter expected to retire this year, here are the some of the people who are likely to get some consideration from the White House:

Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School.

Born in 1955 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1981. Openly gay. Worked as law professor at Harvard University from 1984-1993. Worked as law professor at Stanford University from 1993-1999. Served as dean of Stanford law school from 1999-2004. Works as law professor at Stanford University. Was involved in legal teams fighting for LGBT rights before the US Supreme Court including Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 where the court upheld Georgia’s criminal sodomy law and in 2003 Lawrence v. Texas where the court overturned sodomy laws.

Lesbian chosen as UK poet laureate
Link​

By The Associated Press
05.01.2009 12:36pm EDT

(London) Britain on Friday awarded the role of national poet laureate to Carol Ann Duffy - the first woman to hold a post that has been filled by William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes.

Duffy, who once said “no self-respecting poet” should have to write verses about the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest son, will be expected to produce poems for royal weddings, funerals and other state occasions.

A witty and popular writer whose work is widely taught in British schools, Duffy is also the first openly gay laureate.

ONE STEP BACK:

Search for new Justice may reignite GOP anti-gay agenda
Link ​

By The Associated Press
05.04.2009 9:07am EDT

(Washington) President Barack Obama has tried to hold off debate on contentious social issues such as abortion, immigration and gay rights as he focuses on the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Supreme Court vacancy will make that harder to do.

Political battles over new justices tend to center on those types of social issues far more than on economic and foreign affairs, which have dominated the opening months of Obama’s administration.

Some liberals have criticized Obama for postponing efforts to revamp immigration laws, protect access to abortion and allow gays to serve openly in the military. The president has taken the heat from his political base, hoping to avoid getting bogged down on a volatile issue early in his term, as President Bill Clinton did on the question of gays in the military...

...But the process to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter could pump new oxygen into national debates over abortion, immigration, minority rights, limits to privacy and other matters...

...A Supreme Court nomination process threatens to amplify criticisms of Obama from liberals. Relatively few have added their voices so far to critics from the right. But those who have spoken out are likely to get more attention, and perhaps more support...

Some gay rights groups, for example, are unhappy that the administration is moving at a snail’s pace on efforts to replace the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with one that lets gay people serve openly in the armed services.

Richard Socarides, a New York lawyer who advised Clinton on gay rights, wrote in Saturday’s Washington Post that Obama is erring by “waiting for some magical ‘right time’ to move boldly,” and now is “a uniquely opportune moment to act.”

Over a range of issues, Socarides wrote, “the Obama administration has shown a willingness to exploit this change moment to bring about dramatic reform. So why not on gay rights?”

P.S. Congrats to you both, Ms. E... 7 days and counting, is it???

 

[Etoile]

P.S. Congrats to you both, Ms. E... 7 days and counting, is it???

Something like that!

 

[Safe_Bet]

There was a giant step backwards yesterday, but reading this exchange of concurrent posts certainly counts as proof of several steps forward.

As far as I know, both of these chicks are pretty much straight and neither of them are East / West Coast "screaming, pinko liberals". They are simply two Americans who ''Get it" and are representative of why we DO have hope for the future.

Or the law. I can't for the life of me understand why anybody thinks they have the right to determine who may marry whoever they want and who may not. How does it adversely affect someone personally if gays marry each other? I keep asking this question and I never get a satisfactory answer from those who say, "The majority voted against, therefore the majority in this country doesn't want and you have to live with that."

Would somebody PLEASE answer that damn question?

They can't.

They are giving some of the same arguments against gay marriage that they used to give against having people of different races marry.

From this link - The History News Network.

http://hnn.us/articles/4708.html

. . . But it soon became apparent that Reconstruction would not survive long enough to become a turning point in the history of miscegenation law. As Reconstruction collapsed in the late 1870s, legislators, policymakers, and, above all, judges began to marshal the arguments they needed to justify the reinstatement--and subsequent expansion--of miscegenation law.

Here are four of the arguments they used:

1) First, judges claimed that marriage belonged under the control of the states rather than the federal government.

2) Second, they began to define and label all interracial relationships (even longstanding, deeply committed ones) as illicit sex rather than marriage.

3) Third, they insisted that interracial marriage was contrary to God's will, and

4) Fourth, they declared, over and over again, that interracial marriage was somehow "unnatural."

On this fourth point--the supposed "unnaturality" of interracial marriage--judges formed a virtual chorus. Here, for example, is the declaration that the Supreme Court of Virginia used to invalidate a marriage between a black man and a white woman in 1878:

The purity of public morals," the court declared, "the moral and physical development of both races….require that they should be kept distinct and separate… that connections and alliances so unnatural that God and nature seem to forbid them, should be prohibited by positive law, and be subject to no evasion.

The fifth, and final, argument judges would use to justify miscegenation law was undoubtedly the most important; it used these claims that interracial marriage was unnatural and immoral to find a way around the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection under the laws." How did judges do this? They insisted that because miscegenation laws punished both the black and white partners to an interracial marriage, they affected blacks and whites "equally." This argument, which is usually called the equal application claim, was hammered out in state supreme courts in the late 1870s, endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in 1882, and would be repeated by judges for the next 85 years. . . .


Here's another link to a PDF file with specific arguments.

http://vfm.typepad.com/vermont_free...t_Interracial_Marriage_and_Equal_Marriage.pdf

Here's just the first example.

ARGUMENTS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF “TRADITIONAL” MARRIAGE:
THEN AND NOW

Arguments against Same-Sex Marriage Arguments against Interracial Marriage
in 2000 from 1948 to 1967


Interracial marriage runs counter to God's plan:

Then:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he
placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his
arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he
separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
(Source: Virginia trial judge upholding conviction of Mildred and Richard
Loving for interracial marriage, quoted in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 3
(1967))

Now:
Same-sex marriage runs counter to God's plan:
“If God had intended for same-sex couples to marry,
he would have made Adam and Steve, not Adam and
Eve.”
(Source: Vermont House and Senate Judiciary
Committee Public Hearings, 1/25/00, 2/1/00)


it's ludicrous. And it will eventually be properly legislated. And the laws will have to be forced upon some, just as it was with desegregation.

Equal rights under the law. That's all they want.

P.S. The posting by sweetsubsarahh is one of the best reasoned and "proved" postings that I have ever read on the subject. It states her arguments perfectly and is exceptionally documented. I'd suggest that you'all send her a thank you PM if you agree.

 

[Netzach]

I think this is sort of good at the same time as it's bad. I think it's pushing us closer and closer to the inevitability of marriage for all (FFS, IOWA) and I think it's pointing out the impossibility of different laws for different classes of people. Or the idea of your civil rights being up for review every election year.

It's simply not sustainable.

Straights. Queers. Queers married in CA between certain dates and not others - what the hell? What else functions like this in this country?

The more this kind of patchworking emerges, the clearer the unconstitutionality of this is going to become impractical as well as wrong. That's strategically good, I think.

The whole idea of gay marriage being some kind of camels' nose under the tent that leads to motherfucking and tree marrying and dog menage a trois is disproven by the fact that Canada hasn't exactly degenerated into a sexual Gomorrah. Not one argument against holds the least bit of moral or logical high ground.

Not even "we've always done it like this" because we haven't. Polygamy was a norm in the Bible you're beating heavily. Your grandparents or great grandparents probably didn't know one another prior to being told who they were going to marry.

 

[Safe_Bet]

I think this is sort of good at the same time as it's bad. I think it's pushing us closer and closer to the inevitability of marriage for all (FFS, IOWA) and I think it's pointing out the impossibility of different laws for different classes of people. Or the idea of your civil rights being up for review every election year.

It's simply not sustainable.

Straights. Queers. Queers married in CA between certain dates and not others - what the hell? What else functions like this in this country?

The more this kind of patchworking emerges, the clearer the unconstitutionality of this is going to become impractical as well as wrong. That's strategically good, I think.

The whole idea of gay marriage being some kind of camels' nose under the tent that leads to motherfucking and tree marrying and dog menage a trois is disproven by the fact that Canada hasn't exactly degenerated into a sexual Gomorrah. Not one argument against holds the least bit of moral or logical high ground.

Not even "we've always done it like this" because we haven't. Polygamy was a norm in the Bible you're beating heavily. Your grandparents or great grandparents probably didn't know one another prior to being told who they were going to marry.

Huh????

 

[gloriann]

I get you, Netzach.

I'm just pissed off today about the whole thing, and I don't know if the bigotry is snowballing, or it's just the flavor of the minute for the media.

 

[Netzach]

Huh????

I'm talking about the CA ruling, there wasn't the thread for it the other day.