Coming out for Christmas (video Sunday)

From the London Gay Men's Chorus

Have a merry Christmas

Where are the gay couples?

The Economist tells us where the gays are.

Those states where gay marriage is legal or where same-sex partnerships are recognised have a higher proportion of same-sex couples than the national average of 4.7. The District of Columbia is home to most gay households with over 14 for every 1,000.

(Click on the image for a larger view).

Athletes get it

Can the NFL Tackle Homophobia?

[A]s a direct result of the movement for marriage equality, there are green shoots for social justice becoming visible in the locker room.

Baltimore Ravens three-time Pro Bowl linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo came out for full marriage equality, writing in the Huffington Post:

Looking at the former restrictions on human rights in our country starting with slavery, women not being able to vote, blacks being counted as two thirds of a human, segregation, no gays in the military (to list a few) all have gone by the wayside. But now here in 2009 same sex marriages are prohibited. I think we will look back in 10, 20, 30 years and be amazed that gays and lesbians did not have the same rights as every one else. How did this ever happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Are we really free?

Scott Fujita, defensive captain of the New Orleans Saints, supports Ayanbadejo's stance. "I hope he's right in his prediction, and I hope even more that it doesn't take that long. People could look at this issue without blinders on...the blinders imposed by their church, their parents, their friends or, in our case, their coaches and locker rooms. Fujita continued, "I wish they would realize that it's not a religion issue. It's not a government issue. It's not even a gay/straight issue or a question of your manhood. It's a human issue. And until more people see that, we're stuck arguing with people who don't have an argument." Fujita ... also endorsed the October 11 National Equality March in Washington.

The last loathed class

From my friend Counterlight, an artist, who writes

Gays appear to be in the global gun sights once again; the favorite target of mad mullahs, evangelical demagogues, Catholic hierarchs, Orthodox hierarchs, Anglican bishops, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu fundamentalists, Scientology, Gangsta rappers, rednecks, metalheads, skinheads, die hard Maoists and Stalinists, racists, antisemites, NeoNazis, every son of a bitch with a grudge, a chip on their shoulder, and a spike up their ass.

Gays represent the same thing to every last one of them from mitred bishop to bearded fanatic to tattooed thug. They represent liberal cosmopolitanism and the end of male privilege. These folks may all differ on many things, but they all believe in the Holy Penis. God definitely has one, in their eyes. In fact, they believe in that All Holy Penis before they believe in God. Gays and lesbians are a living breathing rebuke to that faith. Transgenders show us all the transgressive knowledge that while male and female may be biologically determined, masculine and feminine are cultural constructs.

He goes on,

Gays have one thing in common with artists, their capacity to spring up like dandelions through concrete.

I hope!

NY State Senator Diane Savino (video Sunday)

This video, from the debate about marriage equality in New York State, sums it up. How they could vote against it? After speeches like this?

Minnesota Quakers stop marriages

A Quaker Group in Minnesota will no longer marry straight people.

A group of Twin Cities Quakers has decided to stop signing marriage certificates for opposite-sex couples until the state legalizes gay marriage.

"We're simply trying to be consistent with the will of God as we perceive it," said Paul Landskroener, clerk of the Twin Cities Friends Meeting, in an interview with MPR's All Things Considered on Monday.

The congregation will continue to hold both opposite-sex and same-sex weddings at its meeting house, but will no longer sign the legal marriage certificate for opposite-sex couples. Instead, couples will need to have the certificate signed by a justice of the peace.

Donors, boycotts, and mercenaries

Have you ever noticed that those opposed to GLBT rights employ boycotts regularly? They seem to have annual boycotts of Disney and its gay family days. There have been boycotts of Ford , Pepsi, Apple Computer, and Wells Fargo Bank, for daring to be at all friendly to GLBT people.

Of course, like bullies everywhere, they shriek "unfair!" when the same tactics are applied to them. But what's good for the goose, as they say, is good for the gander.

After Prop8, the GLBT community also resorted to boycotts. The targets were mostly businesses whose owners gave donations to Prop8. This prompted a complaint from the Forces of Evil that we shouldn't know who was donating money against us, that we should do business with them anyway. They raised the specter of marauding gangs of homosexuals vandalizing their property to justify keeping donations secret. (There seems to be a lack of evidence of this ever happening, but when did the truth stop them?) Please, what do they think we're going to do, paint their houses tastefully pink in the middle of the night?

Still, our community was divided over the boycotts and the collateral damage. Free speech means we absolutely must respect the rights of people to disagree with us. But do we have to do business with them?

For example, a theatre director in Sacramento resigned, because GLBT and gay-friendly playwrights refused to allow his theatre to use their work any longer. Gay and gay-friendly actors and staff were also very uncomfortable discovering that their co-worker actively opposed their rights. A woman who co-owned a restaurant in LA that was very popular with the GLBT community was boycotted. Both of these donated money to pro-Prop8 because they are Mormon, using religion as a justification for actively hurting other people. They were both understandably upset at the reaction, with the equivalent of, "but it's not personal, some of my best friends are gay!" (Not any longer, I bet.)

I feel sorry for them at some level; but they are effectively using my money to take away my rights. You know what, this isn't a disagreement about health care reform or how to fight a war, something that is external to who we are. This is denying the fundamental equality of another human being --and that human being is supposed to smile sweetly and work with you closely? So while they are perfectly entitled to have their view, and to choose to donate money to that cause, I'm just as entitled not to do work with them. Just like Jim Dobson and Focus on the Family are entitled to boycott the LIttle Mermaid every year.

Then there's the larger order of magnitude of donors like Doug Manchester, owner of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. A conservative Catholic, he felt that marriage needed defending from the awful gay people so he gave $125,000 to the bad guys. (Now that he and his wife are engaged in a very nasty divorce with accusations of theft and draining bank accounts, I wonder who will defend marriage from him?) Manchester tried to "make nice" with the GLBT community after the election, claiming that he'd made an equal donation to our side. Actually, he made this "donation" by offering discounts if the GLBT community used his hotel, which doesn't in any way equal, or undo the damage he's done. (I wouldn't go in his hotel if he paid me, personally.)

At least those people actually believed at some level in what they were doing. But surely there is a special circle of boycott hell for the mercenaries who are attacking our rights merely for money. An article in the NY Times last weekend pointed out the industry that has grown up in California, businesses taking Maggie Gallagher's money as consultants for bigotry.

As the political battle over same-sex marriage plays out in state capitals across the country, several California companies have emerged as the go-to players for opponents of the marriages.....

Of the $2.7 million spent to pass the Maine measure, about 75 percent flowed to companies in California, according to campaign disclosure documents. And while large chunks of that money were subsequently paid out to television and radio stations in Maine, California companies billed hundreds of thousands of dollars for consulting work, phone lists, printing and other services.

Frank Schubert, the public face of the campaign with his firm Schubert Flint Public Affairs has even received an award for his vicious "contributions", much to the dismay of many of his colleagues. Schubert claims his campaigns represent Christians, which is a surprise and an afront to many gay Christians, let alone the Unitarians, the Episcopalians, and the Quakers.

Schubert uses a firm called Mar/Com, which the NY Times investigation found only reachable with a PO Box, but is apparently owned by Bill Criswell, of Criswell Associates. This is an advertising agency in San Francisco. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't hire any of them, and I think that anyone who does, should be well aware of the attacks they have authored and the bias that they enable.

These mercenaries fighting marriage equality are perfectly entitled to take anyone's money and conduct their business. But I have an equal freedom to choose the firms to whom I give my money. Just as I may choose to put my investments into socially responsible corporations or green energy, just as many organizations refused to do business with South Africa in the era of apartheid, and, yes, just as Christian Conservatives are currently boycotting Pepsi for being "pro-gay", so do we all have a right (if not a responsibility) to choose with whom we do business, and to choose to do business with those who share our ethical and political values.

Schubert Flint Public Affiars, Mar/Com, and Criswell Associates are actively working against my equal rights. They have told lies, fomented hysteria and attacked our families, because they were paid to do it. And they are very good at it. Those who value equality and social justice should know just who is working against us, and should consider hiring firms with more progressive values rather than lining Frank Schubert's and Bill Criswell's pockets.

And as for boycotts, if you lie down with dogs, don't be surprised if you wake up with fleas.

Is gay marriage inevitable?

From Politico:

“It’s only a matter of time,” said a prominent Republican pollster, who declined to be named for stating a view that runs contrary to those of many of his clients. “Once the dam bursts, which is going to happen, it’s a process that won’t be stopped.”

And that sense of a building flood is part of the reason that the recent setbacks have prompted no serious evaluation of the goals of the gay rights movement and no discussion of backing off a totemic issue — though it’s one that some gay leaders, like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), have long argued should be postponed for more practical fights. If anything, the energy and money of the gay rights movement are directed toward more energetic, more confrontational tactics; civil disobedience, Mixner suggested, will become more common in 2010.

“The fact of the matter is that in little more than a year, we have multiplied the number of states with freedom to marry by six,” said Evan Wolfson, founder of the group Freedom to Marry, referring to the District and five states. “That’s a good year,” he said.

Marriage Equality in DC

passes by 11-2.

Expect the Catholic Church to withdraw from charitable actions. Of course, they don't have to, but why let the facts interfere with moral blackmail:

Churches are permitted to “opt out” of ERISA. If they do so, they are subject to local law. I do not know whether Catholic Charities of D.C. has opted out, but if it has, it can opt right back in. That’s what Catholic Charities of Maine did. ....Private employers can choose whether to grant employee benefits to same-sex couples. That’s the law, and it means that Catholic Charities has no basis for demanding a special religious exemption.

Given the ease with which Catholic Charities can achieve its stated goals — maintaining its city contracts and extending benefits only to different-sex spouses — I have to wonder why it insists that there is an irreconcilable conflict. Two explanations seem plausible. The church may want the most prominent platform possible for both opposing same-sex marriage and urging an overbroad religious exemption; it gets this by threatening to cut social services. Alternatively, Catholic Charities might be planning to cut its programs anyway because they cost the archdiocese so much money, in which case the same-sex marriage bill provides a convenient scapegoat.....

Now it’s time for widespread acknowledgment that marriage equality in the District creates no justification for Catholic Charities to sever its contractual relationship with the city. Just look at Portland.