Monday, April 28, 2014

UCC files suit for marriage equality (Voices of Faith)

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Voices of Faith
From North Carolina's Charlotte Observer:
The General Synod of the United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit today in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, contending state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and woman restrict its ministers from performing their religious duties is unconstitutional.

North Carolina prohibits couples of the same gender from obtaining a marriage license and makes it a crime for ministers to officiate a marriage ceremony without determining whether a couple has a license. UCC attorneys say the law limits ministers’ choices, violates the principle of “free exercise of religion” and restricts the freedoms of religion and expressive association guaranteed in the First Amendment. The church seeks a preliminary injunction that would allow ministers the choice of performing a religious marriage.
Well done! See, the thing about religious freedom is, it's not meant to privilege one faith over the other.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

The Miracle of Denial (Video Sunday)

Fiore points out the back-pedaling of the Religious Right over Uganda. "Oh no, not us!"

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Jo Becker's new book

Reporter Jo Becker was embedded in the Prop8 campaign and has written a book about it.

The problem some commenters have is that her book gives all the credit for marriage equality to Chad Griffin and Ted Olson, with decidedly short shrift to other activists like Andrew Sullivan, Evan Wolfson, and Mary Bonauto.

Several prominent LGBT writers have scolded Becker for apparent hagiography.  I have to say, comparing Chad Griffin with Rosa Parks (as apparently she does on the first page) seems a bit much.  

The fact remains that Prop8 was overturned on a technicality, and the $6m effort of Boies and Olson to ride to the rescue on nationwide marriage equality didn't work.

Nathaniel Frank:
Ultimately, Becker implies that the righteous impatience—and even impetuousness—of Griffin and Olson were responsible for driving a “tectonic shift on the issue of marriage equality” and “bring[ing] marriage equality to the nation.” Note: This hasn’t happened yet—fewer than half the states have marriage equality—so this suggestion is absurd on its face. Becker simply assumes that her protagonists caused, rather than reflected, a shift already well under way....  
In reality, the Griffin-Olson team joined the cause at the 10-yard line, did terrific work in moving the national conversation forward, and tried a risky strategy to win nationwide marriage equality at the Supreme Court—which failed. They added (back) exactly one state, California, furthering the successful state-by-state strategy that was already winning because of the lifelong work of Evan Wolfson, Mary Bonauto, and countless other gay advocates. That work will be responsible for national marriage equality when it finally happens.
Chris Geidner
Forcing the Spring just doesn’t get it right. 
Emblematic of the problems that plague the book is Becker’s treatment of the speech that screenwriter, and eventual AFER board member, Dustin Lance Black gave at the OutGiving conference for LGBT donors held by Tim Gill’s Gill Foundation in March 2009. 
“If there was applause, Black didn’t remember any,” Becker writes. “Instead, he recalled an ocean of pursed lips and crossed arms, and that he was literally trembling as he walked off stage. … Tim Gill … denounced Black outright, telling the crowd he was naive and misguided.” 
Video from the event provided to BuzzFeed, though, shows that the speech was interrupted with applause five times. At the end, at least some members of the audience gave Black a standing ovation, the video shows....
So, she actually lies about the speech.  And this is reporting?  Geidner concludes,
The small universe of people who constitute Becker’s sourcing for the book — and her apparent unwillingness to explore alternative reasons for or views of the developments those sources discuss — make the book a dangerous draft of history.

 

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

QOTD: John Lewis on civil rights

Civil rights pioneer Rep John Lewis:
And today I think more than ever before, we have to speak up and speak out to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dr. King used to say when people talked about blacks and whites falling in love and getting married — you know one time in the state of Virginia, in my native state of Alabama, in Georgia and other parts of the South, blacks and whites could not fall in love and get married. And Dr. King took a simple argument and said races don’t fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married. It’s not the business of the federal government, it’s not the business of the state government to tell two individuals that they cannot fall in love and get married. And so I go back to what I said and wrote those lines a few years ago, that I fought too long and too hard against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up and fight and speak out against discrimination based on sexual orientation. 
And you hear people “defending marriage.” Gay marriage is not a threat to heterosexual marriage. It is time for us to put that argument behind us. 
You cannot separate the issue of civil rights. It is one of those absolute, immutable principles. You’ve got to have not just civil rights for some, but civil rights for all of us.
(H/T BoxTurtle Bulletin) 

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Honeymaid responds to the hate (Video Sunday)

Lots of people didn't like Honeymaid's ad that featured a same sex couple. Showing corporate backbone, Honeymaid did this: