tagged w/ Equal Rights
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My favorite quote from this article: "If anyone lives in a fantasy world, it is you, not us. ... It is not an illusion that people who are gay or transgender get fired from their jobs because they are gay or transgender," McCoy said. "The rest of us who live in the real world understand that these are real problems ... that affect real people, real families."
This debate is an important debate, but for someone who has been engaged in it for quite some time now, it is getting old dancing around with the religious right on these issues. How can we ever win their hearts and minds when they live in a fantasy land where they get to make up the rules? They debate form a place of mythology instead of reality. It's pure insanity! It's like trying to convince the schizophrenic that their toaster really isn't talking to them... And yet, we are forced to have these conversations if we will ever win the real battle, the battle for equal rights in this country. I just hope it happens sooner than later because this conversation is so damn old.My favorite quote from this article: "If anyone lives in a fantasy world, it is... more
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The story begins at the Democratic Convention in 2004 when Barack Obama, a little-known candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, stepped forward to tell his personal story and to call for a move beyond partisan politics.
“All around were people with tears in their eyes,” Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod tells FRONTLINE. “And I realized at that moment that his life would never be the same.”
FRONTLINE reviews the critical life experiences that made Obama uniquely suited to launch his successful campaign to become the country’s first African American president: his community organizing days in Chicago, his presidency of the Harvard Law Review, and his rise to the top of Illinois politics, in the course of which he learned how to navigate America’s complicated racial and political divides.The story begins at the Democratic Convention in 2004 when Barack Obama, a... more
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IN his first press conference after his re-election in 2004, President Bush memorably declared, "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." We all know how that turned out.
Barack Obama has little in common with George W. Bush, thank God, his obsessive workouts and message control notwithstanding. At a time when very few Americans feel very good about very much, Obama is generating huge hopes even before he takes office. So much so that his name and face, affixed to any product, may be the last commodity left in the marketplace that can still move Americans to shop.IN his first press conference after his re-election in 2004, President Bush memorably... more
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Cenk Uygur explains why everybody should be skeptical about any biblical argument, whether it is for good or bad.Cenk Uygur explains why everybody should be skeptical about any biblical argument,... more
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"The Iowa Supreme Court this week will hear a same-sex marriage case that could become a national victory for the gay rights movement or a chance to reinforce Iowa's decade-old gay marriage ban.
Oral arguments on Tuesday will pit six same-sex Iowa couples against Polk County and supporters of the state law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
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The case, Varnum vs. Brien, could make Iowa the first state in the Midwest to legalize same-sex marriage. Other high-court decisions that favor gay rights advocates have come from traditionally liberal coastal states, including California, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
"This is the heartland of America - a place where family values are revered," said University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig, who has signed a court brief supporting gay-marriage rights. "It would be an incredibly strong signal for the Iowa Supreme Court to find that same-sex marriages are legal.""The Iowa Supreme Court this week will hear a same-sex marriage case that could... more
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Sometimes it just takes a good ol’ song-and-dance routine to make sense of everything, like
Prop. 8—The Musical, which stars a lot of famous people strutting around onstage.
Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, Maya Rudolph and Margaret Cho are just some of the boldfaced folks who make an appearance, but we don’t want to name all of them—that takes away some of the spot-the-stars fun for you.
Created by two of the people behind Hairspray, composer Marc Shaiman and director Adam Shankman, the Funny or Die video highlights, through the power of music, a couple of reasons why the proposition that banned gay marriage is wack. Give it a play and then rave (or rant) in the comments section below!Sometimes it just takes a good ol’ song-and-dance routine to make sense of... more
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As a citizen of Massachusetts I can attest to this information. We have had marriage equality for years and this pie chart accurately reveals the TRUE consequences of allowing gay people to marry.As a citizen of Massachusetts I can attest to this information. We have had marriage... more
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A last minute ruiling by George Bush choses to grant sweeping new protection to health workers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious and moral grounds.
It has produced a string of objections amongst them a plea from the government agency which enforces job discriminations laws.
The proposed rule would prohibit discrimination against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform abortions or sterilization procedures because of their "religious beliefs or moral convictions."
But three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including its legal counsel, whom President George W. Bush appointed, said the proposal would overturn 40 years of civil rights law prohibiting job discrimination based on religion. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prohibits employment discrimination based on religion, Russell said, and the courts have defined "religion" broadly to include "moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong.
Many count this as just another blunder in Bush's final stumble out of The White House.A last minute ruiling by George Bush choses to grant sweeping new protection to health... more
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sallyf
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added this
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3 years ago
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A religious group trying to support proposition 8 in California found itself the target of outrage in San Francisco's Castro district this past friday night.
Members of the gay community said that almost every Friday night, a Christian group meets at the corner of Castro and 18th Streets, in the heart of the city's gayest neighborhood. They try to convert gays and lesbians into a straight lifestyle.
Members of the gay community insisted that their reaction to the Christian group was spontaneous. It was not an organized thing. We're tired of it. It's not religious. It's not a racial thing. It's about hate. We're trying to send a message across the world that we're standing up and we don't want this to go on anymore said Adam Quintero. Some demonstrators told KTVU (Fox channel 2) that they are planning on more than protests. They say they plan to break away and carry out acts of civil disobedience.
San Francisco Police officers in riot gear formed a line and escorted the religious group into a van to safely get them out of the area.
Is this action necessary for gays to have equal rights, or the same their opponents to suppress those same rights? If the religious radicals have won the temporary battle, for votes? Then why has this Discrimination not been met with harsher backlash? Why if this discrimination (against gays) is to legally to occur is it that gays are fiscally required to contribute yet civically remain a second class citizen?A religious group trying to support proposition 8 in California found itself the... more
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Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the vote that banned gay marriage in California and to urge supporters not to quit the fight for the right to wed.
Crowds gathered near public buildings in cities large and small, including Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo, to vent their frustrations, celebrate gay relationships and renew calls for change.
"Civil marriages are a civil right, and we're going to keep fighting until we get the rights we deserve as American citizens," Karen Amico said in Philadelphia, holding up a sign reading "Don't Spread H8".
"We are the American family, we live next door to you, we teach your children, we take care of your elderly," said Heather Baker a special education teacher from Boston who addressed the crowd at Boston's City Hall Plaza. "We need equal rights across the country."
Connecticut, which began same-sex weddings this past week, and Massachusetts are the only two states that allow gay marriage. The other 48 states do not, and 30 of them have taken the extra step of approving constitutional amendments. A few states allow civil unions or domestic partnerships that grant some rights of marriage.Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities... more
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Good on her for stepping up to the plate. Not that Wanda was completely "in" before but the more who speak up, the better. Thanks, Wanda! Love ya!Good on her for stepping up to the plate. Not that Wanda was completely "in"... more
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The pay gap between men and women working full-time has slightly risen, official figures revealed today.
However, women who chose to work part-time in an attempt to find the right life balance face even bleaker economic prospects.
The gender pay divide for part-time workers had increased from 35.8per cent to 36.6per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Although the pay divide for full-time workers rose by only 0.1per cent to 17.1per cent, campaigners immediately expressed alarm at what they described as 'progress in the wrong direction'.The pay gap between men and women working full-time has slightly risen, official... more
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Whatever you believe in the nature vs. nurture argument over homosexuality’s cause, the issue of marriage has been trivialized by many straight couples, while numerous same-sex couples are fighting for their chance to experience the happiness that the true, loving, lasting marriages have the opportunity to feel.Whatever you believe in the nature vs. nurture argument over homosexuality’s... more
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Hello all.
I put this video/audio/dialog together as a way to sum up my thoughts on the issue of gay rights. It's the civil rights movement all over again, just segregation of a different part of the population.
Please let me know what you think about it.
Please forward this on, especially to anyone you might know that is anti-equality.
Hello all.
I put this video/audio/dialog together as a way to sum up my thoughts... more
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"Michigan just legalized medical pot. Liddy Dole is gone. John Sununu is gone. The Dems picked up at least six Senate seats. North Carolina went blue for the first time in more than three decades. A teen girl in California, for the third time now, won't be forced to notify her parents if she wants an abortion.
South Dakota easily beat back, for the second time, the most repellent anti-choice legislation in the nation. Colorado was close behind, trouncing an insidious proposition that would've deemed a zygote a whole little person. California will get high-speed rail. The smart black dude actually won.
It's almost a grand sweep. It's almost the most forward-thinking, thoroughly stunning election in American history, so much dead wood and so many old evangelical poisons swept from the national dialogue, it's as though we just swallowed a grand emetic of possibility, and purged like never before.
Almost.
Amid the glory and the disbelief and the Obamapalooza, the thorn. The nail in the pudding. The kidney punch during the massage.
Some say the inglorious success of Prop. 8, the brutally regressive measure that removes the rights of very specific people who love very specific other people from ever marrying them, can be blamed on multiple factors.
Some say it was Gavin Newsom's smugness and political recklessness. Some blame Feinstein for daring to support Prop. 8's defeat. Some blame the black and Latino communities for their shocking and rather heartbreaking support of what essentially amounts to a civil rights abuse of the very kind they themselves fought so hard to overcome.
Or maybe it's all those sad, white, central portions of the state, the huge chunks of voters who live in places without much culture or perspective or major universities, who only hear certain strains of spiteful rhetoric and thin fearmongering, whose general lack of education means they apparently still believe certain flavors of love will poison everyone's soup and ruin the sanctity of the time-honored 50-percent heterosexual missionary position Christian divorce rate.
But I don't think it stops there. Because when you peel back all those surface factors, when you trace the line of quasi-reasoning back to its source, to the "real" reason many people voted for Prop. 8, I think the real blame lies with, well, the Almighty himself.
That's right, I blame God.
Wait, check that. Let me say it with the proper intonation and slant: Imagine my voice trembling, the very earth beneath my feet rumbling, the very letters you are about to read appearing in enormous gothic capitals, dripping with fire and smoke and Budweiser logos, all surrounded by scowling cherubim armed with poorly printed pamphlets and a severe dislike of throbbing techno: GOD.
Who stabbed marriage equality to death, again? The Mormon Church. Catholic groups. Evangelicals. Militant fundamentalists. Reclusive, sickly, notoriously right-wing billionaires like Howard Ahmanson, a guy who also funded a radical Christian theologian madman who himself endorses stoning gay people to death. The mother of Eric Prince, CEO of the notorious Blackwater thugs-for-hire company.
Behind it all, it's God. No, not the god you and I understand as a universal, non-gendered, asexual, love-drunk energy coursing through all things at all times everywhere without the slightest wisp of prejudice or geographical preference, but that famously small, myopic version, the one that encourages a literalist interpretation of very carefully selected Bible verse (to the complete disregard of myriad others) -- a version that, in short, has been drilled into the consciousness of far too many voters for far too long."
"Michigan just legalized medical pot. Liddy Dole is gone. John Sununu is gone.... more
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Gay couples and officials in Connecticut are making preparations for the arrival of same-sex marriage in the state next week, but the availability of gay nuptials is expected to be a more low-key affair than when same-sex marriage came to California.
Officials expect that the smaller population of Connecticut means the state is home to fewer gay couples who would opt to get married. Connecticut also will be competing with Massachusetts to draw out-of-state couples to get married.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Oct. 10 that the state must allow gay couples to marry. Such marriages can begin Nov. 12.
Connecticut is the third state, after Massachusetts and California, to legalize same-sex marriage. New York recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other states, but does not issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Same-sex marriage supporters were buoyed Tuesday when Connecticut voters decided to reject a measure that would have led to a state constitutional convention.
The convention could have stripped marriage rights from the state constitution or instituted a referendum process that would have allowed voters to eliminate gay nuptials.
The state’s public health department has redesigned the marriage applications to reflect the upcoming availability of gay nuptials. While the old licenses had a space for one name under “bride” and another under “groom,” the new licenses will have boxes where applicants can select “bride,” “groom” or “spouse.”
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Now let me ask ya...what's taking NY so damn long to follow suit?Gay couples and officials in Connecticut are making preparations for the arrival of... more
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And now, another page from the "gay agenda."
You know what I'm talking about: The homosexual conspiracy that will force priests to perform gay marriages against Biblical laws, insert gay teachings into public school curricula, farm out foster children to pedophiles, destroy traditional families, and lead to legal polygamy and bestiality, incest and child marriages.
That "gay agenda."
This was the sort of hate speech used by supporters of California's Proposition 8, the ballot measure that stated "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized." It passed on Tuesday with 52.5 per cent of the vote.
Nothing like hope and change and "Yes we can!" for some of the people some of the time.
As in "I do" – but gays don't.
Which made Wednesday night's demonstrations by thousands in Los Angeles – reminiscent of 1969's Greenwich Village Stonewall Riots – understandable.
Not only are some 18,000 marriages in California now technically in legal limbo, but gays and lesbians had, by majority vote, their minority rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness taken away from them.
As my friend Maggie Cassella, a Connecticut lawyer turned Toronto comic, puts it, given a choice between world peace and gay marriage, she'd opt for the former. That despite her own happy same-sex marriage.
But, she asks, aren't civil rights civil rights? Apparently not, at least in California, as well as Florida and Arizona, where similar bans were passed on Tuesday.
Another measure in Arkansas, which prevents unmarried couples from adopting children, was also passed, despite the thousands of children in state care.
I personally know of a half-dozen same-sex marriages, which are legal in Canada. I've seen the toddlers and the strollers at Gay Pride parades. I can't see how children in those families are any worse off than those in "normal" families. I can't see how their same-sex parents take anything away from Mr. and Mississauga.
But make no mistake, hate crimes against gays still happen, even in the Great Pink North. In September, one man was viciously attacked, his jaw broken, in a Vancouver park. Last month, the FBI reported that hate crimes against gays are up in the U.S.
Proposition 8, which was supported with tens of millions of dollars from Utah's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed because of the large turnout of African-Americans, 70 per cent of whom supported it.
Ironic, because a little more than a generation ago, unions between blacks and whites were illegal in most of the U.S. What's more, president-elect Barack Obama's parents were a mixed-race couple who married in Hawaii where "racial purity" was a non-issue.
You'd think the African-American voters of California would remember those ugly miscegenation laws which were not only relics of the slave era, but also said to be God's will.
In fact, the same people who would go on to rail against gays today used to preach against mixed marriages. Come on down Jerry Falwell, who predicted that such unions would "destroy our (white) race." He was also the guy who, two days after 9/11, went on Pat Robertson's 700 Club and blamed, among others, the "gays and the lesbians" for the terrorist attacks.
But today, the "white race" is still alive and well, and as powerful as ever.
As for the gay agenda's destruction of traditional marriage, just look around. Traditional marriage has been committing suicide without any help from anybody."And now, another page from the "gay agenda."
You know what I'm... more
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No matter what your personal beliefs are, if you want to protect the constitiutional rights of every american, sign this petition.No matter what your personal beliefs are, if you want to protect the constitiutional... more
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"It is hard to believe that John McCain has actually found someone more anti-choice, more extreme, and even more dangerous than he is for women, for health care, and for our country. But, he did. We are deeply concerned about what lies ahead if McCain and Palin are elected — disappearing reproductive health rights, dramatically decreased access to health care services for poor people, and a return to the dark ages when it comes to accurate and comprehensive sex education.
Our Open Letter to Sarah Palin states clearly why she is not your candidate. We need millions of people to sign our letter — people representing every walk of life, every part of the country, every political view. We want to show every voter — before Election Day — the sheer diversity and the enormous number of people who cannot and will not support McCain and Palin and why. It starts with you.
Tell me more Full Petition Text:
Dear Sarah Palin,
You are not our candidate.
You are not our candidate because you required women in Wasilla to pay for their own medical examinations after being raped.
You are not our candidate because you do not support a woman's right to choose, even in the case of rape or incest.
You are not our candidate because you've cut funding for teen moms, and for comprehensive sex education.
You are not our candidate because as vice president -- a heartbeat away from the presidency -- you would jeopardize health care for women everywhere.
We are teachers, doctors, athletes, programmers, artists, lawyers, secretaries, CEOs, students, designers, nurses, factory workers, mothers, and fathers. We are conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, country and city people. We are women and men. We are voters. We are the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
We believe in a woman's right to choose and the right of every person to have access to complete reproductive health care. We are hundreds of thousands strong, and we are doing everything we can to make sure you are not elected.
You are not our candidate.""It is hard to believe that John McCain has actually found someone more... more
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