Chelsea Manning writes op-ed for the New York Times
‘In contrast to the solid, nuanced briefings we created on the ground, the news available to the public was flooded with foggy speculation and simplifications’
Jamesw
www.gaystarnews.com/article/chelsea-manning-writes-op-ed-new-york-times150614
New Marriage Lawsuits Filed This Week in Michigan, North Dakota
Two new marriage lawsuits were filed this week, in Michigan and North Dakota, making a total of 74 cases in 32 states around the country.
The attorney for Bruce Morgan and Brian Merucci filed the suit Wednesday in Federal court.
The couple had been married in New York and since their marriage is recognized on the federal level, they contend it should be recognized in Michigan as well.
Morgan and Merucci have been a committed relationship for seven years. In 2011, Morgan was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. He released a statement through his attorney Stephanie Myott from the law firm Rhoades McKee: “If I am in the hospital, I want to know that Brian can be there at my bedside as my spouse and that the hospital will recognize the decisions he makes regarding my care.”
Myott contends when federal Judge Friedman struck down Michigan’s ban on gay marriage in March, Morgan and Merucci’s marriage became valid.
Here’s the full press release on the Michigan case.
And North Dakota got its second lawsuit, from Lambda Legal:
The 33-page complaint filed by Janet Jorgensen and Cynthia Phillips, who were legally married in Minnesota, says the couple is treated as “legal strangers” in their home state. It says North Dakota’s law violates the equal protection and due process clause in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Andy Towle
www.towleroad.com/2014/06/new-marriage-lawsuits-filed-this-week-in-michigan-north-dakota.html
what hard core is and respect woman lgbt
Obama Gives Shout-Out to Gay Dads
The president’s Father’s Day proclamation includes a direct reference to gay dads.
Neal Broverman
www.advocate.com/parenting/2014/06/15/obama-gives-shout-out-gay-dads
Losing Streak Lengthens For Foes Of Gay Marriage
For foes of same-sex marriage, their losing streak keeps growing. Some sense a lost cause, others vow to fight on.
On Election Day in 2012, they went 0-for-4 on state ballot measures. A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages. And over the past seven months, more than a dozen federal and state judges have struck down part or all of state-level bans on gay marriage, with no rulings going the other way. Faced with these developments, some longtime opponents of gay marriage now say that its nationwide legalization via a Supreme Court ruling is inevitable. Others refuse to concede, and some leaders of that cohort will be rallying Thursday at a March for Marriage in Washington that they hope will draw many thousands.
The event’s main sponsor is the National Organization for Marriage, which engaged in several successful state campaigns against gay marriage prior to the 2012 votes in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state that reversed the tide.
NOM is promoting the march with a website that evokes a “road to victory” and a video featuring dramatic background music.
“A competition is won by those who take the field, not by those who sit on the sidelines,” NOM’s president, Brian Brown, exhorts his supporters. “Friends, we need to take the field for marriage — and fight to win.”
Brown, in a telephone interview, said his best-case scenario hinged on a future ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the right of states to set their own marriage laws, rather than imposing same-sex marriage nationwide. Such a ruling would strengthen the position of the 31 states that currently ban gay marriage and might encourage grass-roots efforts in some of the other states to reimpose bans, Brown said.
“We’d put this back in the hands of the democratic process,” Brown said. “We would have the people deciding for themselves.”
If the Supreme Court ruled the other way, legalizing gay marriage nationwide, “We won’t go away,” Brown said.
He envisioned a resistance campaign comparable to that waged by the anti-abortion movement since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a nationwide right to abortion.
“In the next year or so, we’ll either have a massive victory at the Supreme Court, or we’ll need to fight for 10, 20 years to undo the damage that the court has done,” Brown said.
Among the scheduled speakers at the march is Austin Nimocks, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that has fought in court on behalf of laws banning gay marriage.
Nimocks argues that America would be better off if the Supreme Court allowed the current split among the states to continue, along with the public debate over the repercussions of gay marriage.
“America has not fallen apart because some states have same-sex marriage and others do not,” he said. “We’ve been managing that for 10 years.”
While Nimocks and Brown are optimistic that the Supreme Court won’t impose same-sex marriage, other veterans of the fight against it think differently.
“Let’s face it: Anybody who does not believe that gay marriage is going to be the law of the land just hasn’t been observing what’s going on,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, a seven-term conservative Republican from Utah, told a radio interviewer last month.
Maggie Gallagher, a former president of the National Organization for Marriage, also expects that outcome. In a recent blog post, she said gay-marriage opponents needed to regroup and recognize that they have become “a subculture facing a dominant culture.”
“The way you keep a movement going is to define achievable victories,” she said in an interview. “The marriage movement is in the process of trying to figure out what that is.”
A leading advocate of same-sex marriage, Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, said his adversaries have been placed in an ever-weakening position by trends in public opinion polls and by the recent court rulings. One after another, the judges have said they heard no convincing argument why gay couples should be denied the marriage rights afforded to opposite-sex couples.
“All the defenses of discrimination conjured up by the dwindling hard-core of opponents have been exposed as indefensible, insufficient, or untrue,” said Wolfson.
In the political realm, Democrats increasingly see advocacy of gay marriage as a winning position, while the Republican Party — whose 2012 national platform opposes gay marriage — is now experiencing some divisions.
In several states, some GOP leaders have objected to planks in the state party platform that oppose same-sex marriage. Also, several of the GOP governors whose states are among those allowing gay marriage have accepted the new reality rather than continue railing against it.
In Congress, conservative Republicans have introduced two bills opposing same-sex marriage, but neither has drawn strong support even within GOP ranks. One would require the federal government to defer to state marriage laws, including those banning gay marriage; the other would amend the U.S. Constitution to limit marriage to the union of one man and one woman.
Amid the string of defeats in court, many opponents of gay marriage have focused their wrath on the judges making those decisions.
Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, depicted the rulings as “judicial tyranny.” Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — who’ll be a featured speaker at Thursday’s march — called for the impeachment of the judge who struck down his state’s gay-marriage ban.
“When members of the judiciary act as if they were entitled to the power of all three branches of government, it creates a disturbing abuse of power,” Huckabee said in an email to The Associated Press.
Some conservative groups have launched fundraising appeals decrying recent cases where prominent people lost jobs or business opportunities because of their opposition to same-sex marriage. The Family Research Council, for example, depicted as “thuggery” the pressure that led to the resignation of Mozzilla CEO Brendan Eich, who had supported a 2008 campaign against gay marriage in California.
“Our ability to express ourselves in the public sphere must never be repressed by the tyranny of political correctness,” wrote the council’s president, Tony Perkins, in a letter to supporters. “We must never submit to the radical leftist redefinition of human sexuality.”
Perkins’ group is a co-sponsor of Thursday’s march, as is the Coalition of African-American Pastors. The coalition’s leader, the Rev. Bill Owens, says he will intensify his advocacy work in black churches, seeking to make the case that same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue.
Another co-sponsor is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which is organizing a bus fleet to carry parishioners to the march.
One of the scheduled speakers is the Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ subcommittee on the promotion and defense of marriage.
A coalition of liberal politicians and gay-rights leaders in California has issued an open letter to Cordileone, urging him to skip the march. Many of the other scheduled speakers “have repeatedly denigrated lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” said the letter, suggesting the archbishop shouldn’t align with such viewpoints.
Along with the Catholic Church, several other major denominations remain adamant in opposing same-sex marriage.
“We stand strong on what the Scripture says about marriage between a man and a woman,” said the Rev. Ronnie Floyd after his recent election as new president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
A top Mormon leader reiterated opposition to gay marriage during the biannual general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April.
“While many governments and well-meaning individuals have redefined marriage, the Lord has not,” said Neil Andersen.
___
Follow David Crary on Twitter at twitter.com/CraryAP
Colby Keller Announces Plan To Film Gay Porn With Artists In Every State
Two months after the gentrification of his Baltimore neighborhood forced him out on the street, celebrated gay porn star, artist, writer, and intellectual Colby Keller has decided where life will take him next.
As you recall, Colby turned his unceremonious eviction into a celebration of art. In April, he held a “POT-latch” at which he literally gave away everything he owned, including his clothes, his cell phone, and his wallet. He justified the massive lifestyle change by turning his possessions into art — everyone who took a piece of Colby Keller was awarded an official note and a photo with Colby himself.
On Friday, Colby announced his next venture. Free from the weight of material possessions, he wants to buy a van, a mattress, a few cameras, and film gay porn with the good people of North America. He plans to shoot in every U.S. state, as well as each Canadian province.
“I like to fuck. No secret there,” he says, “and I’d like to fuck this great nation of ours, and Canada too. Since I’ll be starting from scratch, I’ll need a lot of help along the way.”
Colby has valued his Eat Pray Bang year at $35,000. According to the Indiegogo campaign he launched this week, here’s how he’ll spend it:
My plan is to buy a van, a mattress and a camera and travel across the country. I’ll meet all my amazing fans, blog my adventures, collaborate with other artists and make videos in every state. Remember when Sufjan Stevens said he wanted to make an album for every state? Well, I plan to make a porn in every state (and whatever they call states in Canada-jk! jk!). . . and I’ll do it in less than a year.
So I need:
- A van. Used but in good condition for some heavy mileage.
- A mattress for the back of the van to serve as my bed and indoor studio.
- A fancy camera, so you can see all the gritty details as clearly as possible.
- Gas, food, mobile bandwidth so I can stay fueled and keep the transmissions cumming (oops, I meant coming!!!).
- A hotel room in each state so I can take a shower and vary the up the filming locales.
Colby is a true giver, so he’s offering some very up-close-and-personal rewards for big contributors. Small donations up to $500 will get you a postcard, original illustrations, and t-shirts, while donations over $1,000 will get you a personal visit and spanking.
Contributors willing to shell out $10,000 can make their dreams come true by directing a Colby Keller porno of their own. Colby doesn’t specify whether a potential $10,000 donor would have the honor of joining the porno they direct, but everything’s negotiable when you’re locked in the back of a van on a mattress with Colby Keller and a camera, right?
With 29 days left, the Indiegogo campaign had reached nearly $5,000 of its $35,000 goal. Check out Colby’s plea below, and head over to Indiegogo to help support his dream.
Matthew Tharrett
New Senate Bill Would Create Special Diplomatic LGBT Envoy, Promote Equality Abroad
A bill introduced to the Senate on Thursday by Massachusetts senator Ed Markey (D, right) aims to create an LGBT envoy to promote equal rights abroad. The bill is backed by over twenty other democrats, and although it faces a difficult approval process, it is an exciting step toward LGBT-related diplomacy, particularly given the recent upswing in anti-gay violence in countries ranging from France to Uganda. The official title of the bill is “The International Human Rights Defense Act.”
Buzzfeed reports:
“For the United States to hold true to our commitment to defending the human rights of all people around the world, we must stand with the LGBT community in their struggle for recognition and equality everywhere,” Markey said in a statement to BuzzFeed. “By fostering a coordinated effort across the federal government and relevant agencies, we can meet the enormous challenge before us and work to ensure equality for all people around the globe.”
In addition to creating the envoy’s office, the bill would direct the State Department to “devise a global strategy” to prevent discrimination and violence against LGBT people and coordinate with LGBT-rights advocates in other countries and in international organizations.
If the bill were to pass, it would be a firm indication of a shift in American diplomacy, away from the George W. Bush era, when the U.S. blocked prioritization of LGBT rights in the UN. Though President Obama does not have the best track record with the LGBT community, including a continued refusal to sign the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, he could have the chance to create the envoy post without a congressional vote.
Currently, twelve human rights organizations are endorsing the bill, including the American Jewish World Service and the Council for Global Equality.
We will keep Towleroad readers posted as the bill is discussed in Senate.
Joseph Ehrman-Dupre
Pride festival turns Hong Kong pink
Pink Dot Hong Kong celebrated LGBTI equality in a family-themed event which turned a whole park pink
liamj
www.gaystarnews.com/article/pride-festival-turns-hong-kong-pink150614
