Tag: anti-gay

Posted on

Michigan: Former Asst Atty General Andrew Shrivell loses in court BIG after cyber-bullying college student

Former assistant attorney general Andrew Shirvell found out Thursday that he must pay a whopping $4.5 million for the damage he caused to a gay University of Michigan student leader.

It’s doubtful he could have imagined such a punishment being issued by a jury of his peers when he decided to sit down with The Daily Show in November 2010 for what turned out to be perhaps the definitive takedown of his harassment.

Shirvell had been generating headlines for launching the “Chris Armstrong Watch” blog in April of that year, and he was placed on leave in October.

Shirvell was eventually fired that year for repeatedly harassing Armstrong, his alma mater’s student body president, via blog postings that claimed Armstrong pushed a “radical homosexual agenda,” called him a Nazi and a representative of Satan. The attorney general’s office reported it had received more than 20,000 outraged phone calls about Shirvell.

All of that led to Armstrong’s defamation lawsuit in 2011. And The Detroit Free Press reported on Thursday that a jury in U.S. District Court ordered Shirvell to pay $4.5 million in damages.

Check out the sadly out of touch Andrew Shirvell try to answer questions on camera.

(Source)

Posted on

Minnesota: New TV spot released supporting rights of gays to marry

Very sweet and viewer friendly TV spot released in Minnesota by Freedom To Marry. I think it’s terrific that it shows everyday people – straight people – see the logic and compassion in allowing gays to marry.

I also love that it’s pointed out the man is one of our nation’s veterans. He even mentions he fought for ALL Americans to share the same rights and freedoms. My father was a veteran of two wars and he felt the same way.

On November 6, Minnesota voters must decide on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would constitutionally ban same-sex couples from marrying. Same-sex couples are already excluded from marriage through a state statute passed in 1997.

More at FreedomTomMarry.org

Posted on

Anti-gay protester who set General Mills lawn on fire dies

TheStar Tribune reports that Michael L. Leisner, the man who famously staged a fiery protest outside General Mills headquarters, died days later while running errands with his family.

Leisner’s botched protest gained national television attention after he accidentally set fire to a box of Cheerios and the surrounding law of the company’s lawn. The video was posted online and became an internet sensation, as well as cable shows like The Daily Show and E! Entertainment’s Chelsea Lately.

According to his church pastor Dwight Denyes, Leisner died while waiting in his car for his sons to finish playing tennis.

The official cause of death is unknown.

[h/t Star Tribune]

Posted on

Anti-gay construction sign in Provo, UT

Utah Department of Transportation spokeswoman Mindy Nelson told Gay Salt Lake that signs are maintained by contractors who have the messages approved by UDOT.

“The sign was most likely changed by one of the contractor’s employees who thought he or she was playing a prank. A very bad prank that is obviously unacceptable,” she said.

Inquires to UDOT regarding the contractor responsible for the sign, and the department’s response and investigation were not returned as of press time.

Via Huffington Post

Posted on

Colbert on idiot gay hater who set fire to General Mills front lawn

Michael Leisner has really made it!

After his “protest gone wrong” video (where he set fire to the front lawn of pro-equality company General Mills) went viral, Michael Leisner has now found himself featured on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report.

p.s. his over-dramatic, ill-conceived and illegal action led to his being fired by his real estate office.

Via Towleroad

Posted on

New law thwarts Westboro Baptist Church funeral protests

President Obama has signed a law prohibiting protests during or near military funerals.

The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring For Camp Lejuene Families Act of 2012 also benefits military personnel and their families with improved healthcare, housing, education, and memorial services.

“We have a moral sacred duty to our men and women in uniform,” said Obama at the bill signing, according to a pool report. “The graves of our veterans are hallowed grounds.”

Protests are now limited to within 300 feet of a military funeral and for two hours before and after such a service.

The law is a none-too-subtle swipe at Westboro Baptist Church, a fringe “church” based in Topeka, Kan., and certified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church has made a practice of picketing military funerals with signs that comes close to bordering on hate speech. Westboro believes that God is killing American soldiers to punish the American people for increasingly embracing LGBT equality. The group’s brightly colored signs bear messages like “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “Semper Fag” and the ubiquitous “God Hates Fags,” which also functions as the group’s Web domain.

Posted on

Son disowned by father in simple letter for being gay

Click pic for larger view

Reddit user RegBarc posted this message with a photo of the heartbreaking letter he received from his dad five years ago:

In August of 2007, I finally built up the courage to tell my father I was gay. The moment I said it, the phone got quiet and he got off the phone after a few “Okay”s. I decided to give him time to process the news. About a week later, and not long before my birthday, I received the following letter:

“James: This is a difficult but necessary letter to write.

I hope your telephone call was not to receive my blessing for the degrading of your lifestyle. I have fond memories of our times together, but that is all in the past.

Don’t expect any further conversations with me. No communications at all. I will not come to visit, nor do I want you in my house.

You’ve made your choice though wrong it may be. God did not intend for this unnatural lifestyle.

If you choose not to attend my funeral, my friends and family will understand. Have a good birthday and good life. No present exchanges will be accepted. Goodbye, Dad.”

It’s important to know just what this zealotry from Bryan Fisher, Maggie Gallagher, Dan Cathy, et al., does to everyday people. I’ve never done drugs, was an excellent student, an obedient child (far less trouble than many of my classmates), didn’t drink until I was 22 because it terrified me, and have had just 1 speeding ticket in my life.

Yet I am still seemingly deserving of this terrible act of hate and cowardice that one person can place on another. 5 years on and I am still doing fine, though this letter saunters into my mind every once in a while. When it does, I say without hesitation: F**k you, Dad.

Posted on

Another Federal judge finds DOMA unconstitutional

The Advocate is reporting yet another court has found DOMA to be unconstitutional:

Judge Vanessa L. Bryant ruled in the case, Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management, that the 1996 law violates the Equal Protection Clause found in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The plaintiffs are being represented by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, while the House Republican-controlled Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has intervened to defend DOMA.

In the ruling that ran more than 100 pages, Judge Bryant, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that,  “having considered the purported rational bases proffered by both BLAG and Congress and concluded that such objectives bear no rational relationship to Section 3 of DOMA as a legislative scheme, the Court finds that no conceivable rational basis exists for the provision.  The provision therefore violates the equal protection principles incorporated in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

The ruling comes as the Supreme Court is facing requests in several cases to decide the question of DOMA’s constitutionality once and for all.

Paul Clement, a very expensive, big-deal lawyer, was hired by Speaker of the House Boehner to defend the anti-gay law.  Unsuccessfully.

Your tax dollars at work.

Posted on

US Supreme Court receives appeal on the overturn of Prop 8

The US Supreme Court today  received an appeal on the overturn of Prop 8. Chris Geidner reports:

Supporters of California’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying, Proposition 8, have asked the Supreme Court to hear the ongoing challenge to the law in order to reverse an appeals court decision from earlier this year that struck down the amendment as unconstitutional.

Specifically, they ask the court in a filing today to decide “Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”

Arguing that “[u]nique recognition of a unique relationship in no way disapproves or dishonors other relationships that the State has chosen to recognize differently,” the Proposition 8 proponents ask the court to take the case to correct the “manifest errors” of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and “to return to the People themselves this important and sensitive issue.”

AFER has 30 days to respond to the filing.

The Supreme Court is currently on summer recess and will not announce which cases it will review until this falls.

(h/t JoeMyGod)