Marriage Equality 101 For de Straights

For those who have not been following Marriage Equality all these years and who may believe that this somehow infringes on you let me explain it all in as a short and concise way as I can.

It goes far beyond marrying the one of your loving and for the "sake of" Equality. Prior to Friday not being able to get married brings a host of problems for gays and lesbians. Tax benefits (both filing and receiving) .. in some cases not be able to visit or making decisions on behalf of an ill partner .. are just a couple of things. You who are straight look at all things your marriage affords you, that's all gays and lesbians are looking for with Marriage Equality.

Despite what the anti-gay muck rakers have and will say it's not about forcing a particular church or synagogue or mosque to perform a ceremony of joining two people which goes against the "spiritual" beliefs of the "host" of a particular place of worship. There will be more willing than unwilling to perform the ceremony.

This will not make your marriage any less valuable than it was on Thursday nor will it make it more superior. It will however afford many who until Friday could not have the same "spiritial", legal and economics rights as you have had for so long. More importantly with Marriage Equality those rights which you so enjoy and probably don't even give a second thought to will now no longer end at the "state-line".

This isn't the second coming of Black Rights, the defeat of miscegenation nor Rowe v Wade. This is a wholly seperate circumstance of rights for citizens of the United States to be equal not only in the eyes of God but by the very Country they live in where now no one individual nor state can say otherwise.

June 26 2015 Marriage Equality For All

GLAAD To Honor Bill Clinton WTF !

To show yet again just how screwed up and cliquish GLAAD is, it has been announced the Elite org will give former POTUS William Jefferson Clinton the group's newly created "Advocate For Change" award at ceremonies in Los Angeles later this month.

"President Clinton's support of the LGBT community and recognition that DOMA, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional and should be struck down shows that the political landscape continues to change in favor of LGBT equality," GLAAD's Wilson Cruz said in a statement on the group's website. "Leaders and allies like President Clinton are critical to moving our march for equality forward."

That according to a presser from GLAAD as posted at Huff Post.

This the same man who gave us DOMA and DADT under his watch.

This the same org which honored Anderson Cooper but only after he came out as gay.

GLAAD the favorite organization of proctologists.

Anderson Cooper Has Tied The Knot

Unknown to many Anderson Cooper and I have been friends for several years.

I received a call last evening from AC that he had traveled to upstate New York near Lake George on Saturday with the love of his life and the two got hitched in a very private ceremony before a justice of the peace.

Just a handful of family and friends were present as not to create a blitzkrieg of media and paparazzi as the pair said their "I Do's".

AC will be on "vacation" this week.

I won't mention where they will be spending their honeymoon.

Congrats to the newlyweds as they spend their first April Fool's Day together.

#SCOTUS #Prop8 #DOMA #Equality

This almost 60 year-old man decided a very long time ago I would never marry after almost having done so half a lifetime ago.

To be honest I have no dog in this fight.

As a bisexual man I can marry a woman if I choose.

As a bisexual man I can marry a man if I choose because of the state I live in.

However as a bisexual man I would not have the same legal rights when it comes to federal benefits, tax breaks and a multitude of other issues were I married to a man rather than a woman, nor would my spouse.

People get turned off when they hear the word "rights".

Then let's change that to, "I can too".

I'm never overly thrilled when federal, state and local governments stick their nose in my business. That's not a political stand on my part but a long time personal belief and observation.

However I also don't believe in others sticking their nose in my business, telling me what I can or can't do because of their personal or religious beliefs.

We have a great irony in our Country at this time.

We have more people in support of allowing people to own guns which can kill a great many people in one incident than we do supporting those who would like to marry those they love.

We have more people worried about their Social Security checks, Medicare and unfair taxing than we do supporting those who face unfair and unequal taxation and disallowance of benefits because of who/what they are.

Another word people don't like to hear is "equality".

Then let's change that to, "I can too".

There is more to the arguments presented before SCOTUS than two people of the same sex being allowed to marry.

There is a litany of issues afforded to those who can marry and what the Federal government defines as what is and what isn't a marriage.

Rights, no.

Equality, no.

I can too, yes.

It really is just that simple.

Sam Champion Out And Is Engaged

Okay so you've read or heard about this all day on Friday but it's still nice to add this bit of news to the archives of this blog of those in the media who have officially come out as proud for all to see.

And another of de gay media folks who will be having nuptials in New York City as the state of New York became one of the few places in the US where gays and lesbians can wed.

So it is Sam Champion of ABC News/Good Morning America fame will tie the knot with longtime companion Rubem Robierb this New Year's Eve.

Champion and Robierb were among the guests of MSNBC's Thomas Roberts' wedding a week ago today and apparently seeing the wedding cake or drinking some of the fine libations brought about the decision to announce they would be getting hitched and of course in doing so he "officially" came out for more than his friends and colleagues to see. Let's hope Robin Roberts will be well enough to attend and catch the bouquet.

All we need now for a trifecta is for Anderson Cooper to announce he's getting hitched but we know how that was going this summer. But there's always hope for our beloved AC.

So as I say to all I write about who come out, Welcome Home Sam, Welcome Home.

KD Lang Splits Up With Jamie Price

While it's a happy day for Thomas Roberts and his longtime companion Patrick Abner as they wed today, not so the news for out and proud Country-Western singer KD Lang as word has come that her and longtime companion Jamie Price's domestic partnership has come to a final close after they separated back in 2011.

The two met back in 2003 several years after Lang officially came out back in 1992 in an article in The Advocate .

In an interview with a Canadian LGBT news website Lang said,"Coming out as a lesbian was important," she said. "When you’re holding in things or not being honest, all these things affect your voice. My voice is definitely designated to who I am as a person.

If nothing else these two events show that LGBTs are just like everyone else, happiness, trials, tribulations and sometimes separation. And again the collective we ask those opposed to same-sex marriage and LGBTs in general, how does what we do affect you ?

Short answer ... it doesn't.

Anderson Cooper's Wedding

Well it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that once our beloved Anderson Cooper came out he would be foder for all kinds of speculation on his this and that. May have been a good reason to "quietly stay in the closet".

So it is that today rumors are flying that Coop is getting married to his BF possibly as early as Labor Day weekend.

This according to (as well as others) The Daily Mail in the UK.

Cooper, 45, is now planning to marry his boyfriend Ben Maisani, whom he has been dating since at least 2009, in New York City later this year, the National Enquirer reported.

'He'd been considering breaking the news [about being gay] since same-sex marriage became legal in the state of New York last summer,' a source told the Enquirer.

Oh the National Enquirer ... well then it must be true ... NUTZ !

Now for all you miscreants who have been yelling for years for Coop to come out can you blame him for not wanting to ?

No ya'll don't give a rat's boo-de-aye for Coop or any other media person or celeb just as long as you get your way in having another poster boy or gal.

Whether he will or won't is up to him to announce not rags like the Enquirer.

But then the fat ladies waiting to check out in grocery lines do need something to read while waiting to ring up their twinkies and other assorted fat producing foods purchasing them of course with food stamps.

Hopefully all this will just be another footnote in The Ridiculist.

BTW I have great sympathy for Coop and others who "lose it" and get the giggles while on the air. It happened to me more than a couple of times while in radio.

The worst was one day while I was doing the morning sports report our news director went into the next studio and "mooned" me.

Well that's all it took and the bastard in the control room wouldn't go to commercial as I kept indicating with my finger and of course he wouldn't kill the mic so for almost 5 minutes just like Coop I giggled like a 13 year old girl trying to read the sports .. NUTZ !!

This was all a setup because they knew it didn't take much to get me to laugh and in fact they had taken the "cough button" out of the booth which I didn't notice until I went to use it to kill the mic. The phone lines lite up like a Christmas tree.

Took me awhile to live that little episode of tomfoolery down. In fact if the truth be known all these many years later when I happen across someone here in Danbury who remembers me from my radio days do they bring up me winning an award from the Associated Press ?

No they talk about the day I giggled like a girl ... sigh.

The joy of being a "celeb" in local radio.

Barney Frank Batalore No Mo

And so it is boys and girls Barney Frank has finally made an honest man of his longtime companion Jim Ready.

Question is what the heck took him so long ?

The ceremony was held in Newton, MA yesterday (July 7) with 300 guests attending to offer Mazel Tov to the newlyweds.

Mr. Frank 30 years the senior of Mr. Ready is retiring from Congress this year.

MA Governor Deval Patrick bestowed the vows to the couple.

No word if Mr. Frank will now be working in tandem with Mr. Ready in his business of doing custom awnings, carpentry, painting, welding and other general handyman services.

Nor where the new couple will be setting up house or where they celebrated their long over due evening of bliss for a honeymoon.

If you have 15 minutes to kill, about the same time it takes to save money with Gieco, here's Mr. Franks at his best blowing (oh perish the thought) away ass wipe anti-gay idiot Tony Perkins on the Chris Matthews show.

Much happiness to the latest to engage in same-sex marriage, Frank and Ready.

Has a certain ring to it don't it folks ?

The NOM Debacle Overkill

On Monday, March 26, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released a bombshell against the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) group when HRC obtained internal NOM documents showing NOM's strategy back in 2009 for winning its war against same-sex marriage.

Since then just about every LGBT blog and website, both credible and of the Elite type has reported on this story at least once, once being the optimum word.

But just as the mainstream press often does the LGBT Elite know when they have a "good thing" to browbeat to death for their readers even when there is no to little new news to add except offering opining or dissecting the dissected.

Big story, of course, worth days of examination and re-examination, no.

Of course that won't stop the Elite who will no doubt carry this story on into next week and possibly beyond as if there is no other news to re-report from actual LGBT news websites.

What will not help in this continuation was the unfortunate screw up on Wednesday when MSNBC's Thomas Roberts was to interview former NOMer Maggie Gallagher and she was a "no show" because someone put her in the wrong studio. According to Roberts' tweets she is re-scheduled to appear tomorrow (Friday - TAKE 2) provided MSNBC links to the correct studio this time and this will prolong the browbeating through the weekend and most likely into next week for the Elite.

Let me make it perfectly clear as one infamous President once said this is an important story. What has been brought to light is both vile and contemptible but at the same time should be of no surprise and is par for the course for an organization like NOM.

But, and what the Elite and others fail to see, is this now beyond the initial story coverage does nothing to hurt NOM but gives instead free publicity and a continuing platform of defense in regards to their cause of stopping same-sex marriage.

Publicity when turned into an attack on NOM becomes priceless, both in the cost of advertising what NOM believes and gives them the chance to play the victim of homosexuals who challenge NOM's effort to save and protect marriage deemed to be for heterosexuals only.

NOM at this point will not only be playing the victim but be playing the LGBT press and Elite because NOM knows the story will not easily die down for the aforementioned. Just as high priced prositutes or con men play their clients and victims.

And that is something anti-gay organizations and groups are pros at.

NOM's Helter Skelter Plot

Much ado in LGBT blogdum over the past almost 24 hours now over the released and unsealed court NOM documents obtained by HRC which showed NOM in its effort to thwart same-sex marriage had a plan akin to Charles Manson's delusional Helter Skelter idea in regards to dividing the races except this time it's race against gays.

You can find details here.

“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…”

Also according to the documents NOM had a strategy to use the Latino community and also to present President Barack Obama as a social radical.

The documents from the years 2008-2009 also shows NOM's multi-million dollar budget to fight same-sex marriage not just here in the United States but worldwide.

Thomas Roberts had a brief segment about the documents on his MSNBC show today.

China And Tong Xing Marriage

While being gay and lesbian has been legal in China (and Hong Kong but not Macau) since 1997 there are no anti-discrimination laws on the books, although in Hong Kong transgenders can have their gender changed on most official documents, and gays and lesbians can neither adopt nor get married.

However there is a movement underway according to Derek Yiu as he has written in an article at GayStarNews to allow same-sex marriage.

Li Yinhe a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is asking backing from members of the National People's Congress (China's parliament) who are having an annual meeting in Beijing, to support a same-sex marriage bill. This would be the fourth time Yinhe has undergone the task of bringing same-sex marriage to China.

Trying to persuade her Chinese comrades by using one-upmanship over the United States, Trying to show officials the benefits, she said Beijing can use the approval of same-sex marriage as a proof to the world its effort in protecting human rights, ‘gaining the upper hand’ against the United States, which has just allowed gays to serve openly in the army.

Unlike in Catholic countries, she argued homosexuality has never been really frowned upon in traditional Chinese culture, making it easier to protect the gay community.

From a practical point of view, Li also said the ratio of men involved in gay sex and contracted with HIV/AIDS is over 5% and rapidly rising. She believes a nod to same-sex marriage will allow quite a number of gays to establish stable relationships.

There are estimated to be between 39 to 52 million gays and lesbians in China.

Li believes same-sex marriage could help deal with and lessen over population which has faced the Asian country of over a billion people. Homosexuality has been documented and written about in Chinese literature and part of Chinese art since ancient times.

Dustin Lance Black's Play "8"

Sometimes I wonder exactly which orifice the LGBT Elite bloggers stick their collective heads and what makes for important news and information to pass along to their readers.

Not one of the usual suspects which I check daily have mentioned that last night (Saturday March 3) a live performance of the play "8" written by Dustin Lance Black and covers the Prop 8 appeal would be performed and would be available to watch live on YouTube.

If you did not get a chance to watch the event live, below is the video. It starts at the 18 minute mark with a "history foreword". I hope the video will stay available indefinitely for all to see and not "deleted" in the future. Enjoy.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s documentary play about the federal case for marriage equality will be staged in more than 17 states through November with 40 readings. The title refers to California’s Proposition 8, a successful 2008 ballot initiative which established that only marriage between a man and a woman would be recognized in the state. The proposition was later ruled unconstitutional.

Featuring an all-star cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Lynch, Kevin Bacon and others, "8" is a play written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and directed by acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner.

It is a powerful account of the case filed by the American Federation for Equal Rights (AFER ) in the U.S. District Court in 2010 to overturn Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that eliminated the rights of same-sex couples to marry in the state of California. Framed around the trial's historic closing arguments in June 2010, 8 provides an intimate look what unfolded when the issue of same-sex marriage was on trial.

Judge Won't Marry de Straights

You know one of the unfortunate things about former Presidential hopeful Rick Perry is people paint a broad picture about what the folks in the great state of Texas are like.

Not everyone who lives there are homophobes any more than in any other state. In fact most likely many don't think about those who are pro-LGBT but the LGBTs themselves who live there.

Case in point as reported by The Dallas Voice, Dallas County Judge Tonya Parker who not only rules the bench but does so as an out and proud lesbian.

Tuesday evening she spoke before the group Stonewall Democrats of Dallas during its monthly meeting. Parker herself is a member of the group.

In her remarks as quoted by DV she said, “I have the power, of course, to perform marriage ceremonies,” Parker said. “I don’t.”

She followed up that remark with, “I use it as my opportunity to give them a lesson about marriage inequality in this state because I feel like I have to tell them why I’m turning them away,” Parker said. “So I usually will offer them something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry. I don’t perform marriage ceremonies because we are in a state that does not have marriage equality, and until it does, I am not going to partially apply the law to one group of people that doesn’t apply to another group of people.’ And it’s kind of oxymoronic for me to perform ceremonies that can’t be performed for me, so I’m not going to do it.”

So before you put down Texas because of Perry, the Bush's or even JR Ewing, remember there are a lot of great folks deep in the heart of Texas like Judge Parker.