If the public here in the south had been allowed to vote on the civil rights issues, African Americans would still be sitting at the back of the bus.
FunMe
· 9 months ago
And we would not have Obama as US President.
Enough is enough! We must DEMAND our rights now.
sullivan
· 9 months ago
I would like to think that this equality issue in on the fore- front for gays and our allies but the reality is right now we are concerned about jobs, health care, being able to buy food and pay our mortgages. Getting married? I don't think so........and this seems to be the consensus of many of my gay friends.
foxy
· 9 months ago
Wow, is this a new tactic by our religious right?
mirth
· 9 months ago
Not cool, foxy.
If you were around more often you would know that Sullivan is a valued member of this forum.
sullivan
· 9 months ago
Thank you mirth! I am a hard working retired teacher who is doing everything to stay afloat!
mirth
· 9 months ago
yw, sulllivan. The last thing we need is to eat our own. Good luck to you.
nicho, above, makes the very good point that without the guaranteed rights of marriage, Gays are harder hit in this economic mess. So the fight for equal rights for all of our citizens, even with our personal situations diverting our attention, must stay front and center.
foxy
· 9 months ago
My apologies...however I was polite and asked to question...it certainly was begging for one.
Gridlock
· 9 months ago
Well there will always be people who are used to not having any rights fight to keep it that way through apathy.
We call those traitors. It's called multitasking, fuckwads. Get off your ass. Your friends should be as ashamed of themselves as I am embarrassed for you.
mirth
· 9 months ago
I get what you are saying, Sullivan, and there is every reason to believe that in this economy many Gays may have concerns which could be more important to them than marriage rights.
However, all of us are capable of fighting on multiple fronts and the fight for equality must, and WILL, go on.
nicho
· 9 months ago
Actually, my ability to marry my partner does affect our jobs, health care, being able to buy food and paying our mortgages. The sooner so-called friends understand that, the better.
We're not just doing this for a lark -- or because we want to have a spiffy wedding. It's about equality. It's about 1,500 civil rights and benefits concerning tax credits, income, health care, survivor benefits, etc. that heterosexuals have that same-sex partners don't.
sullivan
· 9 months ago
Wow, I have certainly generated lots of email from my comment! Let me clarity, we don't want the fight for marriage rights to end - we believe in strong civil unions and the act of marriage should be left up to the churches. But that said, lots of us have lost jobs, have no health insurance, have had a car repossessed, cut way back on our food bills which leaves us finding it hard to take to the streets for marriage equality. Are any of you experiencing the the things I have just listed?
Wesinoregon
· 9 months ago
Many are, but gays are multi-taskers.
i420
· 9 months ago
I dropped the 'please' from, "Stop raiding our homes, stealing our property and ruining our lives with incarceration and or those crazy skewed plea bargain agreements!", a long ass time ago.
Be glad one of yours isn't arrested every 37 seconds. But yea...toss the 'please', insert "Hey, WTF!..."
foxy
· 9 months ago
I'll keep saying it again again and again....No more Mr. and Ms. Nice Gay!
j
· 9 months ago
help us fight to keep NC as a beacon of marriage equality hope in the south, even as the fundies spew hate from the pulpits. ENC.org
ndtovent
· 9 months ago
Good post, John. AbsoF***Gloutely right !! Civl rights, now!
slappymagoo
· 9 months ago
This irony is not lost on me: Some of the media loudmouths who fought to deny gays the rights to marry are the same loudmouths who often complain that gays, as a group, complain TOO MUCH. Bunch of whiners. Professional victims. Get off your soapbox...so we can get on it and condemn you. That sorta thing.
Older_Wiser
· 9 months ago
Using "please" is just another form of asking for a remedy, as in, "please pass the jelly" to a table mate when it's not in front of you. And since when did it become the norm to ask the public for relief from unequal treatment? We don't have mob rule in this country (yet), and we shouldn't confuse democracy with it.
blogette
· 9 months ago
I can't believe this story is not getting more attention but in North Dakota they are trying to pass a law that gives embryo’s ALL the rights of a person (so abortion would be murder and birth control attempted murder??) but yet these same crazy religious groups say two people can't marry!! How can an embryo have rights but homosexuals not?? I just don't understand.
wmforr
· 9 months ago
And yet neither the Catholic Church nor any other church that I know of has funeral services for miscarriages. Nor baptism of the unborn. By rights they should give the woman a holy-water douche the minute the pregnacy test comes back positive.
okojo
· 9 months ago
Being political force doesn't mean saying "please". However, when the "No on Prop.8" campaign got only 50% in LA County. They need to have much better campaign to the suburbs and the ethnic communities. They also need to do a better job with senior citizens. It doesn't mean saying "please" as much as "Kneel before Zod! because it is the right thing to do, thanks for your support"..
This is going to be an ongoing struggle, but equality will win. California is the easy part, getting equality in states like Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia will be the difficult part.
nicho
· 9 months ago
That's a common misconception -- that more outreach would help. Two things are important.
1. The vote in favor of Prop H8 tracked very closely to church attendance. The priests, ministers, and whatever Mormon have had their people in their churches for hours and hours every week. They spent that time lying to their flock.
When someone that a person trusts lies to them, there is no effective way to counter that. The clergy committed a great moral evil in abusing the trust of their members. But, there is no amount of "outreach" that is going to counter that.
In fact, one woman who was an outspoken protestor in favor of Prop H8 in our community said she had nothing against gay people getting married, but that if she didn't vote against it, her minister could be arrested for refusing to perform same-sex marriage. Almost everyone who supported Pro H8 and was interviewed, repeated a lie as the basis for their support.
It's very hard to convince someone that the minister they trust is a liar.
2. I live in Palm Springs, which is over 40 percent gay. It is almost impossible to live in Palm Springs, if you are heterosexual, and not know, work with, socialize with, party with, play golf with, live next door to, or otherwise interact with a gay person.
So, you would think that the "outreach" here would be incredible. You wold think that because so many people know and get along with gay people, that the measure would have failed. However, when you look at the Palm Springs results and remove the gay percentage from the mix -- assuming they all voted against Prop H8 -- 60 percent of the remaining voters voted in favor.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 9 months ago
of that 60 percent... how many do you think cruise the Warm Sands area after dark?
okojo
· 9 months ago
Are you talking Riverside County Results? or just Palm Springs?
Look, here is an example of how sophisticated the "Yes on Prop 8" campaign use for voter outreach. They got a obnoxious right wing Tele Novela star to do a commerical for "Yes on Prop. 8" in Spanish. Why?!? well there weren't aiming at the Latino community as a whole, there were aiming at young Hispanic women, who would be the most influence by the commercial, or were the group that were wavering in their support for Prop.8.
One doesn't try to get 100% of ethnic communities vote or an age group's vote, but one tries to aim at a percentage to either lessen the damage or negate the other's side effort.
Palm Springs is around 40,000 residents, I don't know how many are registered to vote there, or just have second homes there, LA County is some 10 million residents. I am talking about mass voter outreach, to one of the most culturally diverse places on the planet, LA County, not a town with a bunch of prune juice addicts, and waste millions of gallons of water and screw up the water table with fertilizer with the stupid golf courses, like Palm Springs.
I am also stressing the outreach to the bedroom communities, whether in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Sacramento,San Diego. I am stressing to shave off about ten percent support in other counties like Kern, Orange and Ventura.
The "Yes on Prop. 8" campaign said numerous lies during the campaign, they also minimize the impact of passing the proposition,just stating it is to help families and "traditional marriage". The last thing they wanted it to come across as a hate measure or spiteful, even though it was a hate measure. I give them kudos for wrapping pretty ribbons on the pile of manure that was their proposition.
The only thing I can agree with you,because there has been numerous polling on this. Many people who say they have no problem with the GLBT community, or support equality: Don't. For some reason, many Hets get very squeamish in crossing the rubicon when it gets to legalized marriage and equal rights for same sex partners. The main culprits in these polls are the elderly, and places they flock to like Palm Springs. In some ways, I think the GLBT community should put more money in fighting this misperception than another ballot measure, because it will help all GLBT communities in the US.
California will either throw out Prop 8 passage in the courts, or pass a ballot measure. I am not that worried about it, given if the courts upheld the ballot measure, many lower court judges are going to send plenty obscenities to the CA supreme court for backlogging their court with numerous cases of retroactive dissolve marriages.
BloggerDave
· 9 months ago
You are making okojo's point. You assumed that because 40% of the population is gay that pro-8 supporters would "get it". That's not outreach. Outreach is knocking on doors, setting up anti-8 tables at supermarkets with literature addressing the misinformation, engaging in respectful open debate with pro-8 supporters offering facts to counteract the BS while remaining focused and calm. Challenging the loud woman or her preacher to a public debate, setting up a public Q&A panel of gay and lesbian couples to share their stories of legal, medical, and financial hardships caused by the lack of protection of legal marriage, asking those preachers, priests, etc who "get it" to educate the gay community on how to counteract the claims of forced ceremonies and maybe asking one of them to be a part of a panel, and asking local, state and national media tp cover such events. FYI, many mormons in Utah were quite upset that their church elders funded prop 8. It seems they didn't know. Don't assume that religious people blindly follow and their minds can't be chnaged. While some do, most don't and you only needed some in Palm Springs.
Indigo
· 9 months ago
I don't recall saying please.
Chris From Maine
· 9 months ago
Let people who love each other get married, no matter what gender they are.
another memo to the dear leader: immediate unequivocal repeal of DADT and other discriminatory policies. enough is enough!
shell
· 9 months ago
The Mormons can't murder love. If they can, the love is very weak -- cheap. No, the Mormons can't murder love -- they can only play games.
If love is real, the Mormons can't kill it. If they can, it wasn't love in the first place.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 9 months ago
exactly how I feel about the whole 'weakening marriage' arguement the right seems to stick to.
if marriage is that weak that allowing GLBT people to partake would destroy it... maybe they should do something about divorce? or maybe offer heterosexuals the counceling they need to keep their weakened marriages together?
I just don't get how I'm a threat to any other couple... there's no logic behind homophobia at all. irrational fear, all of it.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 9 months ago
come to think of it, I wonder if that's why they're so against gay people as a whole... if nobody fears us, their use of hate as a control tactic fails...
that's where the problem lies... without fear, people would become more and more disillusioned with the religious leaders who use fear as a control tactic.
by legitimizing us and our relationships, how would they rally their members? eventually, the hate-mongers would die off.
so, I guess just by being us, we're threats to the survival of organized religion and the zealotry that motivates its members.
shell
· 9 months ago
FEAR is definitely a tactic used by the leaders of the Religious Right and GOP politicians. But why CAN they do this? Why does it work?
(And they do this with many other issues, too.)
It is scary to think of all the uneducated, illogical, STUPID Americans there are.
shell
· 9 months ago
I am a heterosexual woman. I have been married for over 30 years. But, I have been separated for 15 years. I have had the same boyfriend for 13 years. I didn't bother to get divorced. Why? I'm not having any more children.
I take marriage for granted. I can get married whenever I want, I can get un-married whenever I want. As such, it is sort of hard for me to realize WHY gays want it! haha Seriously, I can't for the life of me see why it is any kind of a big deal to let gays marry. If your marriage is good, you WANT others to experience that joy. (And if, like me, you don't think it is a big deal, let others experience it for themselves. Maybe theirs will work.)
Maybe it is because I am not religious?
okojo
· 9 months ago
Mormons aren't trying to murder love, they are trying to delegitimizing it, or put into law their version of love is the only way. They will fail.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 9 months ago
why do I have Frank Zappa singing "Give me, your mormon love" going through my head?
Cpeterka
· 9 months ago
'The time for 'Please' is over !" DAMN STRAIGHT !!!
Go Get'em!!! People Are Humans !!! Treat them Humainly !
PippaPasses
· 9 months ago
No More Mr. / Mrs. Nice Gay! Marriage for everyone!
Lola
· 9 months ago
For the life of me I don't understand why people are so against same-sex marriage. It has no impact on the next person, these people are just trying to live their lives and really, why shouldn't they have the opportunity to be as miserable as the rest of us married people?
postdamnit
· 9 months ago
Didn't you get the memo that God hates fags?
RitornaVincitor
· 9 months ago
I'm not so sure the Cal high court is going to rule in our favor. If it doesn't, then sure, angry protests will send a message, and I will certainly take part. But angry protests won't in themselves change anything. What will accomplish something is the ballot initiative to repeal Prop 8 next year. Repealing Prop 8 is not "saying please". It would restore gay marriage in California.
Hospiton
· 9 months ago
Thursday is the day!
Demos
· 9 months ago
celebrate or revolt!!!!!!!!!!
Carl Rose
· 9 months ago
When we vote in, any church's religious principal, there is much to fear.
Catholics would have a 9 year old girl die, to give birth to twins her father sired. Baptists do not want you to ever have a glass of wine. Mormans need marriage for some reason. The Taliban wants women without rights.
My point: religion and politics are real problems in the USA. Keep your belief in your church, please. Your rules are for your members, not me. I live in America.
blue
· 9 months ago
Mormon bigots? wow, I agree that this is a basic rights argument, and it shoudln't even be a question. Of course people should be allowed to marry whomever they want. But blaming one group and using nasty terminology, not very helpful, nor very accurate if you look at the numbers.
Jon
· 9 months ago
I say we get a proposal on the ballot to outlaw Mormonism in California.
Suddenly, putting rights up for a vote doesn't sound so good when it affects you, does it?
All Comments
Enough is enough!
We must DEMAND our rights now.
If you were around more often you would know that Sullivan is a valued member of this forum.
I am a hard working retired teacher who is doing everything to stay afloat!
nicho, above, makes the very good point that without the guaranteed rights of marriage, Gays are harder hit in this economic mess. So the fight for equal rights for all of our citizens, even with our personal situations diverting our attention, must stay front and center.
We call those traitors. It's called multitasking, fuckwads. Get off your ass. Your friends should be as ashamed of themselves as I am embarrassed for you.
However, all of us are capable of fighting on multiple fronts and the fight for equality must, and WILL, go on.
We're not just doing this for a lark -- or because we want to have a spiffy wedding. It's about equality. It's about 1,500 civil rights and benefits concerning tax credits, income, health care, survivor benefits, etc. that heterosexuals have that same-sex partners don't.
But that said, lots of us have lost jobs, have no health insurance, have had a car repossessed, cut way back on our food bills which leaves us finding it hard to take to the streets for marriage equality. Are any of you experiencing the the things I have just listed?
Be glad one of yours isn't arrested every 37 seconds. But yea...toss the 'please', insert "Hey, WTF!..."
This is going to be an ongoing struggle, but equality will win. California is the easy part, getting equality in states like Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia will be the difficult part.
1. The vote in favor of Prop H8 tracked very closely to church attendance. The priests, ministers, and whatever Mormon have had their people in their churches for hours and hours every week. They spent that time lying to their flock.
When someone that a person trusts lies to them, there is no effective way to counter that. The clergy committed a great moral evil in abusing the trust of their members. But, there is no amount of "outreach" that is going to counter that.
In fact, one woman who was an outspoken protestor in favor of Prop H8 in our community said she had nothing against gay people getting married, but that if she didn't vote against it, her minister could be arrested for refusing to perform same-sex marriage. Almost everyone who supported Pro H8 and was interviewed, repeated a lie as the basis for their support.
It's very hard to convince someone that the minister they trust is a liar.
2. I live in Palm Springs, which is over 40 percent gay. It is almost impossible to live in Palm Springs, if you are heterosexual, and not know, work with, socialize with, party with, play golf with, live next door to, or otherwise interact with a gay person.
So, you would think that the "outreach" here would be incredible. You wold think that because so many people know and get along with gay people, that the measure would have failed. However, when you look at the Palm Springs results and remove the gay percentage from the mix -- assuming they all voted against Prop H8 -- 60 percent of the remaining voters voted in favor.
Look, here is an example of how sophisticated the "Yes on Prop 8" campaign use for voter outreach. They got a obnoxious right wing Tele Novela star to do a commerical for "Yes on Prop. 8" in Spanish. Why?!? well there weren't aiming at the Latino community as a whole, there were aiming at young Hispanic women, who would be the most influence by the commercial, or were the group that were wavering in their support for Prop.8.
One doesn't try to get 100% of ethnic communities vote or an age group's vote, but one tries to aim at a percentage to either lessen the damage or negate the other's side effort.
Palm Springs is around 40,000 residents, I don't know how many are registered to vote there, or just have second homes there, LA County is some 10 million residents. I am talking about mass voter outreach, to one of the most culturally diverse places on the planet, LA County, not a town with a bunch of prune juice addicts, and waste millions of gallons of water and screw up the water table with fertilizer with the stupid golf courses, like Palm Springs.
I am also stressing the outreach to the bedroom communities, whether in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Sacramento,San Diego. I am stressing to shave off about ten percent support in other counties like Kern, Orange and Ventura.
The "Yes on Prop. 8" campaign said numerous lies during the campaign, they also minimize the impact of passing the proposition,just stating it is to help families and "traditional marriage". The last thing they wanted it to come across as a hate measure or spiteful, even though it was a hate measure. I give them kudos for wrapping pretty ribbons on the pile of manure that was their proposition.
The only thing I can agree with you,because there has been numerous polling on this. Many people who say they have no problem with the GLBT community, or support equality: Don't. For some reason, many Hets get very squeamish in crossing the rubicon when it gets to legalized marriage and equal rights for same sex partners. The main culprits in these polls are the elderly, and places they flock to like Palm Springs. In some ways, I think the GLBT community should put more money in fighting this misperception than another ballot measure, because it will help all GLBT communities in the US.
California will either throw out Prop 8 passage in the courts, or pass a ballot measure. I am not that worried about it, given if the courts upheld the ballot measure, many lower court judges are going to send plenty obscenities to the CA supreme court for backlogging their court with numerous cases of retroactive dissolve marriages.
It's that simple.
http://www.eveofjustice.com/?tr=y&auid=4567310
candlelight vigil... please show your support.
If love is real, the Mormons can't kill it. If they can, it wasn't love in the first place.
if marriage is that weak that allowing GLBT people to partake would destroy it... maybe they should do something about divorce? or maybe offer heterosexuals the counceling they need to keep their weakened marriages together?
I just don't get how I'm a threat to any other couple... there's no logic behind homophobia at all. irrational fear, all of it.
that's where the problem lies... without fear, people would become more and more disillusioned with the religious leaders who use fear as a control tactic.
by legitimizing us and our relationships, how would they rally their members? eventually, the hate-mongers would die off.
so, I guess just by being us, we're threats to the survival of organized religion and the zealotry that motivates its members.
(And they do this with many other issues, too.)
It is scary to think of all the uneducated, illogical, STUPID Americans there are.
I take marriage for granted. I can get married whenever I want, I can get un-married whenever I want. As such, it is sort of hard for me to realize WHY gays want it! haha Seriously, I can't for the life of me see why it is any kind of a big deal to let gays marry. If your marriage is good, you WANT others to experience that joy. (And if, like me, you don't think it is a big deal, let others experience it for themselves. Maybe theirs will work.)
Maybe it is because I am not religious?
DAMN STRAIGHT !!!
Go Get'em!!!
People Are Humans !!!
Treat them Humainly !
Catholics would have a 9 year old girl die, to give birth to twins her father sired. Baptists do not want you to ever have a glass of wine. Mormans need marriage for some reason. The Taliban wants women without rights.
My point: religion and politics are real problems in the USA. Keep your belief in your church, please. Your rules are for your members, not me. I live in America.
Suddenly, putting rights up for a vote doesn't sound so good when it affects you, does it?