LGBTQ news and entertainment
News about same-sex marriage this week from the American Foundation for Equal Rights:
Marriage may return to Pennsylvania, despite a ruling two weeks ago that put licenses on hold.
Organizers in North Carolina are mounting a challenge to the state’s marriage ban, but first they need to find a clerk willing to challenge the law.
New guidance from the Labor Department means benefit plans must recognize marriages in every single state.
Although Finland legalized domestic partnerships in 2002, the country has not gotten around to sealing the deal with full marriage equality.
That may change now that a petition has been submitted with three times the necessary number of signatures to bring the issue to Finland’s Parliament:
Supporters gathered 162,000 signatures in favor of it in the Scandinavian nation of 5.4 million people. The figure represents the largest number of signatures collected in favor of a citizen’s initiative in Finland and only 50,000 signatures, or less than a third of 162,000, were needed for the Parliament to have to consider the initiative. The Finnish Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee voted narrowly not to consider a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in February but thanks to the up-swell of public support lawmakers will have to look at the issue again.
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| Rep. John Becker |
Ohio Rep. John Becker wants to impeach Judge Timothy S. Black, who in July ordered the state to recognize the marriage of John Arthur and Jim Obergefell.
Back in July, I wrote about Arthur and Obergefell’s journey to Maryland with the help of friends, family, and social media, so that they could marry because Arthur is terminally-ill with ALS, and married on the airport tarmac. They also filed a lawsuit challenging Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage. Judge Black ordered the marriage recognized so that the couple could be buried together.
Now, Becker wants Black impeached for “malfeasance and abuse of power,” and is calling on Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) to start the proceedings, Cincinatti.com reports:
“I am writing you today to express my concerns about the federal government’s ever growing propensity to violate state sovereignty,” Becker wrote Friday in a letter to Wenstrup, a Columbia-Tusculum Republican.
Federal judges are appointed for life. The only way to remove a federal judge is for the House of Representatives to impeach the judge and the Senate to vote to remove the judge from office.
“Judge Black has demonstrated his incompetence by allowing his personal political bias to supersede jurisprudence,” Becker wrote. “This will begin the process of restoring state sovereignty back to the original intent of the US Constitution.”
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| John Arthur and Jim Obergefell traveling to Maryland to marry in July |
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John Hawkins, a former state senator for the 12th district, spearheaded the campaign to pass a constitutional ban on marriage equality in South Carolina in 2005. The ban in still on the books in the state keeping gays and lesbians from the same marriage rights straight couples celebrate in the state.
Today, however, Hawkins has had a change of heart on the issue. From Live5News in Charleston:
“I was wrong about pursuing the marriage amendment,” Hawkins said. “I wish I hadn’t been so strident against it.”
Hawkins said his opinion changed over the past eight years because of “enlightenment, empathy and understanding.”
“Alliance for Full Acceptance” Executive Director Warren Redman-Gress said he invited Hawkins to speak before the group’s bi-monthly meeting after reading a Facebook post from the former lawmaker, which detailed his changed opinion.
“I’m really hoping that people are going to walk away from this with a little bit of healing,” he said. “It would be great if everyone who stood against us in the Senate said, ‘We were wrong; In fact, you really do deserve equal rights.'”
Hawkins served in the state Senate from 2001 until 2009 and currently works as a lawyer in Greenville. He says he has no plans to run for public office again.
“People can change,” “There is hope for change for people in all stripes for acceptance of our fellow human beings and their right to marry.”
Robb and Steve had been together since Christmas Day 2011 and entered into a civil union in Illinois in January 2013. While 13 other states enacted marriage equality but Illinois did not, Steve developed Stage 3 Melanoma and grew seriously ill. By the time it became clear how sick Steve was, it was too late for the couple even to travel out-of-state to get married. Steve died last week – on September 10th, 2013. He was 32.
Says Robert:
“He wanted one thing in his whole life and that was to get married and he didn’t get it. And he will never get it now. And I don’t think they realize that we’re real people. Thousands of us have probably missed out just in Illinois. I don’t understand the problem. People are dying without being equal. Civil unions are not marriage. A different title does not mean it’s the same thing. You have a group of people that you call something different and yes, everybody’s gonna think they’re different. And we’re not, really.”
Just one among many reasons why marriage equality is important and cannot wait any longer.
• The lawsuits are piling up in Pennsylvania, where a judge has put marriages on an indefinite hold.
• It’ll be at least a month and a half before the New Mexico Supreme Court will decide whether the state can issue marriage licenses.
• And the New Mexico clerk who first issued licenses has started a fundraising campaign — he now needs tens of thousands of dollars to defend against an anti-gay lawsuit.
Michael Steele, former RNC chairman, said during the “after broadcast” online segment of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher talk show that the 2016 GOP Presidential nominee could “likely – probably” support marriage equality:
Maher: ‘Do you think the Republican candidate in 2016 will support same-sex marriage?’
Steele: ‘Good political question. It’s a very good political question and I think likely … probably.’
Maher: ‘I’ll say this, if he does … he won’t in the primaries. You cannot do it in the primaries.’
Steele: ‘He won’t in the primaries … that’s where it’s going.’
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Brian Brown, of the ironically named National Organization for Marriage, couldn’t help himself this week as he took to the NOM blog to spread lies and propaganda about possible marriage equality in Hawaii:
“The Governor claims that there have been no complaints or lawsuits in Hawaii — yet. But that’s because marriage has not yet been redefined! Just look around elsewhere. In Vermont, Christian inn-keepers were fined for declining to host a same-sex wedding AND ordered to cease hosting weddings altogether.
Recently, the New Mexico state Supreme Court ruled that Christian photographers must compromise their beliefs and offer their services against their will by photographing same-sex ceremonies. Never mind that same-sex couples can easily find other photographers who are happy to participate in these ceremonies.
“Instead the court said the price of citizenship is having to compromise your faith. Most recently in Washington State, the Attorney General is suing a Christian florist for declining to use their talents to arrange flowers for a same-sex ‘marriage’ ceremony, while a baker in Oregon was driven out of business for declining to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because it violated their deeply held religious beliefs. This is what the future looks like in Hawaii if marriage is redefined.”
What Mr. Brown leaves out of his icky little missive is that that Hawaii already has the same public accommodation law cited in the above cases.
The issues in New Mexico and Washington state are violations of public accommodation – NOT same-sex marriage.
You all do realize that this man is paid to spew this stuff. This is his job. When marriage equality is the law of the land across all of the US, he will be unemployed.
Sweet story.
Together 20 years, WWII vet John Banvard, 95, and 67-year-old Vietnam vet Gerard Nadeau, said they wanted to have their ceremony among friends, so they chose to have it at the Veteran’s Home, where they’ve lived for the last three years.
“We were waiting on the Supreme Court to make that decision,” said Banvard.
Many of the couple’s friends who live at the veteran’s home attended the small and simple ceremony.
“The world is changing, we have to go along with it,” said one guest.
Facility director Neal Asper said news of two men getting married at the VA home wasn’t well received by everyone. A town hall meeting was held at the VA home to address concerns from other residents.
“It’s been somewhat controversial,” said Asper. “I told them, they have the right to get married here just like everybody else.”
Video had auto-play, which I hate. You can view the video at this link.
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On Tony Perkins’ daily “Christian” radio show, hate group leader Tony Perkins urged his listeners to join NOM’s sadly misguided failure of a boycott of General Mills.
Why, you ask?
Because Betty Crocker has the nerve to donate wedding cakes to same-sex weddings:
At Betty Crocker, the only thing they’re mixing up is their priorities.
Hi, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
If you ask conservatives, Betty Crocker’s latest promotion is a recipe for disaster. This summer, the famous dessert line decided to jump on the same-sex “marriage” bandwagon-and bring cakes to celebrate.
In Minnesota, where parent company General Mills is headquartered, Betty Crocker decided to donate wedding cakes to the first homosexual couples who exchanged vows on the first day that counterfeit marriage was legal. “Betty celebrates all families,” said manager Laura Forero. “We don’t want to be old fashioned,” the company explained.
Unfortunately for General Mills, the majority of Americans think natural marriage is anything but old fashioned. And they’ve made it tough on companies like Target, Starbucks, and JC Penney who disagree. Know where your money is going.
When you’re at the store, think outside the Betty Crocker box! For a full list of products that are undermining marriage, check out DumpGeneralMills.com.
First of all – when it comes to a majority of Americans, multiple recent pools show Americans support marriage equality:
• an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 55 percent of Americans say they support the right of same-sex couples to legally tie the knot
• An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released in April found that 53 percent of Americans favored allowing same-sex marriages
• 52 percent of respondents in a new Gallup Politics poll would support a law that would legalize same-sex marriage across all 50 U.S. states
You know, the anti-gay Christian groups love to start these boycotts over things they don’t like or find “icky.” And when they do it’s “good and true” in the name of morality, marriage and protecting the children.
BUT – when LGBT groups boycott over bigotry, suddenly the use of a boycott is “intolerant,” “bullying,” and “intimidation” as we are clearly trying to shut down someone’s First Amendment rights.
Got that? When we do it – we’re the bad guys. When they do it, they’re the good guys.
Riiiight….