Couples waited in line to apply for their marriage license today outside the DC courthouse. Not a big deal usually except these couples were same sex couples.
No one was married today, there is a three day waiting period, but next week there will be an awful lot of newlyweds.
The day of celebration was not without disruption. Fred Phelps‘ Westboro Baptist Church was there to protest, name call, and be generally offensive. Fred Phelps and his minions are the people who protest at funerals for service men and women, they hate jews, they hate fags. They run around holding signs that say “God Hates Fagsthey are basically the scum in my opinion.
That’s them holding their “God Hates Fags” sign and this picture was taken at a protest last year. Sorry I can’t remember which one it was, nor who took the picture. I had permission last year but don’t know how long that is good for. If you took this picture and want credit please leave a comment and I will update.
Pennies in Protest Raises Money for Local Jewish and LGBT Organizations
Richmond, VA (February 26, 2010) In response to the upcoming protests by the Westboro Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia, a local group called Pennies in Protest is calling all Richmonders to donate money to the targets of the anti-gay and anti-Jew protests.
Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), based in Topeka, Kansas, is an anti-gay church known for picketing funerals of AIDS victims, stomping on American flags, and protesting gay and Jewish organizations around the country.
On its website, WBC has announced its plans to protest at four locations in Richmond: The Virginia Holocaust Museum, the University of Richmond Hillel organization at the Jewish Community Center, the Jerusalem Connection, and Hermitage High School because the school allowed the creation of a gay student group.
A local group called Pennies In Protest has started collecting money for every minute that WBC is protesting Richmond organizations. Founded by Richmonders Patience Salgado (aka www.kindnessgirl.com), Jessica Lucia, Sara Heifetz, and Sarah Allen-Short, the group hopes to turn the WBC protests into something beneficial for the targets of the hate attacks. The Richmond group got the idea from a synagogue in Manhattan that raised more than $10,000 for charity during a recent visit from WBC.
You can read more about Pennies in Protest on the website. You do not have to be from Virginia to support this cause. You can donate on the site for as little as 1 cent a minute, you just have to do the math.
This is an incredibly worthy cause and I encourage all of you to stop by and have a look. As you know I have all kinds of issues with Westboro Baptist Church. I can hardly contain my contempt for the lower than life forms that make up the membership.
Last night I flipped on Larry King and saw him interviewing Dominic Friesen, the spokesman for Man Crunch.com. Apparently this ad had been rejected by CBS to run during the Super Bowl.
There were a couple of other guests who were weighing in with their opinion about the rejection. I can’t remember their names. There was the sitting-on-the-fence guy who thought showing the ad was just a slippery slope and the Republican who thought the ad was wrong.
Full disclosure here, I am a Republican. I believe the government should stay out of our lives as much as possible and that they should be fiscally conservative. On social issues such as this however I completely disagree. I also recycle and drink green tea.
The argument for rejecting the ad went something like this:
No one wants to have to explain to their kids why two men are kissing. That’s a discussion for another time, not during football. However discussing abortion during the Super Bowl is perfectly acceptable.
Man Crunch was accused never having the funding in place to actually air the ad. Everyone agreed it was a great PR stunt, to get rejected by CBS and the Super Bowl. At one point one of the commentators asked if Man Crunch really thought the Super Bowl was the best way to spend that kind of money. The target audience was hardly a bunch of gay men looking for love.
I completely disagree with that assertion and Dominic Friesen should have too. Many gays love Football, as do lesbians. But even more gays love the commercials during the Super Bowl. My father never watched football, he much preferred to listen to the opera but when the Super Bowl aired he was all about watching the ads, just like everyone else. Some of the best Super Bowl parties I have been to have been hosted by gays. In fact, does anyone really watch the game? Having a Man Crunch ad air during the Super Bowl would be a great ROI. To suggest less is offensive.
As for my kids watching two men kiss on TV and the discussion that would supposedly follow? First, I don’t think they’d even notice it but if they did I’d be happy to0 talk to them, again, about two men kissing. I’d much rather they watch two football fans making out then Paris Hilton have her hamburger orgasm.
And I certainly don’t want to discuss abortion with them during the game, but now it looks like we will be doing just that.
And what of the kids who are sitting and watching the game with their two dads or two moms? Wouldn’t a commercial like the Man Crunch one just normalize their life a little more? As in their lifestyle is not longer a “lifestyle” but just like everyone else?
I’d like to see the commercial aired.
As for CBS, it’s their network, they can air any commercial they see fit. And if gays choose not to watch CBS that’s okay too.
What do you think? Is it okay to air these kinds of commercials. Do you want to see two men kissing or would you rather get a 30 second spot about the horrors of abortion?
Cindy McCain, wife to GOP presidential candidate John McCain has come out in support of gay marriage. She is lending her image to an ad campaign to support the fight against California’s Prop. 8.
She is photographed with duct tape on her mouth and NOH8 written on her cheek.
Adam Bouska/noh8campaign.com
NOH8 is a gay rights group that has been challenging the Proposition 8, the law banning same sex marriage which was passed by California voters in 2008.
In the year since we’ve started the NOH8 Campaign, we’ve often been surprised at some of the different individuals who have approached us showing their support. Few, though, have surprised us more than Cindy McCain – the wife of Senator John McCain and mother to vocal marriage equality advocate Meghan McCain. The McCains are one of the most well-known Republican families in recent history, and for Mrs. McCain to have reached out to us to offer her support truly means a lot. Although we had worked with Meghan McCain before and were aware of her own position, we’d never really thought the cause might be something her mother would get behind. We have a huge amount of respect for both of these women for being brave enough to make it known they support equal marriage rights for all Americans.
Of course daughter Meghan McCain has long been an active supporter of gay right and marriage equality. She is scheduled to speak at George Washington University’s “Marriage Equality Week,” on February 9th unless a student Republican group makes a big enough stink. The organization feels as if they have been duped by Miss McCain who was coming to speak about the changing face of the Republican party. Which is exactly what she is talking about.
Senator John McCain has released a statement saying he respects the views of his family but still “believes the sanctity of marriage is only defined as between one man and one woman.”
Whatever John.
In addition to Cindy and Meghan McCain there is another Republican, who thinks for himself, by the name of Ted Olson. Mr. Olson is a lifelong Republican and conservative lawyer who was head of the legal counsel for Ronald Reagan and advised Republicans in their efforts to impeach Bill Clinton. In 2000 he argued Bush v. Gore and won, giving the presidency to George W. Bush.
Ted Olson is the attorney who is arguing on the behalf of two gay couples in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a federal case challenging Proposition 8.
Olson says he believes in individual liberty and freedom from government interference in the private lives of citizens. Discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation is a violation of both.
Mr. Olson has gotten a lot of flack from his Republican colleagues as well as from some gay activist groups who believe gay rights should be taken in baby steps rather than going straight to the Supreme Court.
Ted Olson also might be remembered as the husband of Barbara Olson, the CNN commentator and attorney, who was a passenger on American Airlines flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.
Today I had a smidgen of what it feels like to be discriminated against like gay people.
My boss came in my office and asked me to complete a project for him. He is trying to land an account and one of the requirements they have when doing business with other companies is that the company have health care offered for domestic partnerships. We didn’t prior to this. It was my job to update the documents to reflect this addition in coverage.
It’s a small office and I am the only one who isn’t currently married. If you have been reading this blog you know I attempt it every few year thus the use of the word ‘currently’. Anyway, I told my boss I thought it was great that we were now offering this, though it won’t be utilized unless we hire other people. I then asked if it was difficult to obtain. He told me that indeed it was very easy to get and it didn’t cost any more to offer it. Obviously if we were insuring more people it would raise the premiums.
I noticed he wasn’t nearly as happy about this as I was and asked why.
“It’s wrong” he said.
I asked him why he thought it was wrong and he just said it was wrong. That was what he believed. He then went on to say that it didn’t really matter what he believed. His tone was rather philosophical. Basically he was saying that sometimes in life there are things he doesn’t like and there isn’t anything he can do about it but roll with it.
I like my boss. I like my job. I like the company and what it does. I like the other people I work with. But suddenly it felt like a wall had been put between me and the job. My boss knows that I blog, he knows about my other blog but not this one. You can get from my other blog to here but it isn’t easy. However before I knew how he felt about this issue I mentioned that I blogged about issues just like this. I said it in a rather upbeat and proud tone. I don’t know if he heard me however. It doesn’t matter really.
He left my office and I worked on the new assignment. And I kept replaying our conversation and what it meant in my head. I was not happy about this. I didn’t like that he was against providing insurance to domestic partners. To be fair he didn’t say he was against gay people, though that is the implication, he just said he was against offering health coverage to people who weren’t married.
Of course the problem is that in all but two states gay people can’t get married. So the government has offered this consolation prize of ‘domestic partnership’. I didn’t bother to mention this to my boss. I was already disappointed and wanted the conversation to end before I said or did something stupid.
I have a real problem with this. It isn’t just that we disagree about the Twins and the Red Sox. This is a basic human right as far as I am concerned and he believes that it is okay to discriminate against gays.
If I’m not mistaken we have this little thing called the Declaration if Independence which states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Except of course for gay people.
The argument that its “just wrong” doesn’t really fly with me. Tell me why it’s wrong, and because the bible says so doesn’t count. The bible says a lot of stupid things that we no longer practice or consider legal. There also seems to be some conflicting statements in the bible regarding homosexuality and there is the problem of translation. Too many fuzzy justifications. Lets leave it out of the argument.
My issue isn’t about the laws or rights of our country, not in this post anyway. My problem is that I don’t agree with my boss on a very big issue. If he and I disagreed on abortion I could still work with him with peace of mind. If he and I were supporting different presidential candidates I could still respect him. This is about denying one group of people that which every other person is guaranteed.
Ah, you say, but gay people have the right to get married just so long as they marry the opposite sex. This is true but hardly conducive to personal happiness and fulfillment. Gay people can get married as long as they don’t marry the person they love. (Dripping sarcasm) And the Christian groups talk about the mockery of marriage that would happen if gays could marry each other. Of course we already have people like Elizabeth Taylor and Larry King who have made a mockery out of marriage. I just don’t understand why Jm J. Bullock doesn’t have that same right.
Of course the marriage debate was not what I meant to blog about either. I meant to talk about the fact that I was nervous that my job might be on the line for a belief that I have. And I didn’t like it.
Even if I don’t get fired, which I don’t think I will, I am still faced with working for a person with whom I don’t agree. In all fairness he instituted the policy to cover domestic partnerships so he hasn’t done anything wrong. He merely expressed his opinion. And he has every right to believe what he believes, just as I do.
But I got a taste of what it must be like to have someone else in charge of your pursuit of happiness and that really sucked.
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