Tag: marriage equality

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Julian Bond: Gay rights are civil rights

CNN: Former chairman of the NAACP, Julian Bond reacts to efforts to drive a wedge between black people and same-sex marriage activists.

Thank you Julian Bond. Just because the phrase “civil rights” has been associated for a long time with the movement for equal rights for african-Americans in the 60s, doesn’t mean the fight now for gays and lesbians is not about civil rights. It is.

A marriage license issued by a civil government is a civil rights matter.

Any rights issued by a civil government are – by definition – civil rights. And every American should have the SAME civil rights.

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NOM’s Maggie Gallagher down-plays race baiting strategies

This morning on MSNBC, with a shrug of her shoulders, NOM’s former president Maggie Gallagher batted her eyes at the idea that her organization “has the power” to influence the black and latino communities on the issue of marriage equality.

And yet, they’ve spent $20 million doing just that…
(source)

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National Organization for Marriage boycott of Starbucks: FAIL

Click pic for larger view

Wow – that National Organization for Marriage boycott is really killing Starbucks, isn’t?  Check out how their stock price is doing.

NOM’s boycott, Dump Starbucks, urges customers across the world to stop supporting Starbucks.

A counter petition from SumOfUs.org aimed to thank Starbucks for standing up for marriage equality was launched shortly after. According to the SumOfUs petition: “Without support from companies like Starbucks, the gay marriage law might have failed.”

Today, the “Dump Starbucks” petition had less than 23,000 signatures — the other, to thank Starbucks for its support of LGBTQ rights, had more than 292,000.
(source)

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MSNBC continues to follow NOM scandal

MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts did a segment this morning on the damaging NOM document dump with Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen and NOM’s Maggie Gallagher, but Gallagher failed to show even though she confirmed an hour beforehand, so Roberts just showed an empty chair.

Roberts later tweeted that there was a booking mistake and apparently Maggie Gallagher went to the wrong studio.

However, I’m glad this story is getting the air time and attention it warrants. This is really an important story – to find out this anti-gay organization has spent time and resources pitting different minorities against each other.

Seriously, folks, this world needs less divisiveness and more unity. There’s no way to spin this that comes out good.

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Julian Bond on National Organization for Marriage’s “racial tensions” tactics

 

“NOM’s underhanded attempts to divide will not succeed if Black Americans remember their own history of discrimination. Pitting bigotry’s victims against other victims is reprehensible; the defenders of justice must stand together.” – Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus, NAACP

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NOM president Brian Brown admits to using race as a “wedge” against marriage equality

 

Responding to the growing controversy about the National Organization for Marriage’s plans to pit African Americans against gays to create tensions in order to achieve their goal of denying equal rights to gays, NOM president Brian Brown today acknowledged and admitted to using marriage equality as a “wedge” between the two communities:

Gay marriage advocates have attempted to portray same-sex marriage as a civil right, but the voices of these and many other leaders have provided powerful witness that this claim is patently false. Gay marriage is not a civil right, and we will continue to point this out in written materials such as those released in Maine. We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors to fight for our most fundamental institution: marriage.

Everything in this statement confirms the strategy of using people of color as spokespeople and using the language of “civil rights” as a catalyst for division.

Brown’s statement was issued in response to the revelation that NOM has based stategies against the LGBT community for years by attempting to “drive a wedge” between gays and the black community. From their own documents recently made available:

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…”

The freedom to marry is a civil right, crucial to same-sex families’ ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness just as all families do.

Read more on the growing controversy at the New York Times.

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Donate to defeat anti-gay Amendment One in North Carolina

On September 13th, the North Carolina Legislature proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would ban legal recognition for all unmarried couples, strip protections and benefits from families across our state, hurt our business climate and economic development and put our children in danger.

The Coalition to Protect North Carolina Families is a coalition of groups, individuals and families dedicated to defeating this amendment at the polls on May 8 and protecting North Carolina from the harms it represents.

The Heritage Foundation, NOM and other anti-gay groups who fund these kinds of harmful amendments around the country are coming in with millions of dollars to try and misinform all of North Carolina about this amendment.

Protect All Families has launched a “moneybomb” to raise funds to help raise awareness and spread the truth about writing hate into the North Carolina constitution.

Please donate what you can to help Protect All Families by going here.

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Finland to may adopt marriage equality

 

Marriage equality has been proposed in Finland by a group of local MPs. The suggested legislation would change the civil definition of marriage in the country while protecting religious groups that wish to remain homophobic.

Reports the Star Observer:

The Finnish Parliament have now sent the initiative to the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, where its passage is uncertain.

The draft amendment was signed by 76 of the 200 members of Parliament, with more lawmakers including Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen expected to vote for it, Reuters reports.

European Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Alexander Stubb, the first signatory of the initiative, spoke passionately for the amendment during debate.

“This initiative is aimed at dismantling a system that causes inequality, in which couple relationships are divided into A and B categories” he said.

Finland was one of the first countries to recognize the legal status of same-sex relationships by instituting a domestic partnership registry in 2002.