History in Jacksonville
History will be made tonight in Jacksonville. Six of HRC’s eight endorsed candidates are expected to win, including four of six in tonight’s runoffs are on course to win.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/jax?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Ireland Marriage Equality Referendum Round-Up: VIDEO
If Ireland passes the same-sex marriage referendum on Friday, it will be an emotional day for the country’s LGBT community and friends, perhaps especially for those who remember the fight for gay rights and the legalization of homosexuality in 1993. If the result on Saturday is a resounding Yes, it could become the gayest day in history if Ireland wins the Eurovision (but it’s a big ‘if’).
In an interview with GayStarNews, 2013 hopeful Ryan Dolan – who came out last year – talks about Eurovision and marriage equality.
***
YesEquality’s latest video features 90 year old great grandmother Madeline Connolly, who believes that God made us all equal and that everyone should have the opportunity to get married.
Read more, AFTER THE JUMP…
***
Straight couples in Ireland wishing to get married in a Catholic church are obliged to take a pre-marriage course. No, seriously!
Foil, Arms & Hog have produced this rather brilliant video of a gay couple on their pre-marriage course with a priest who is very interested in their sex lives.
***
The Union of Students in Ireland has launched the #VoterMotor campaign, an online transport initiative to get students out of bed and to polling stations.
The campaign encourages all students to carpool and provides alternative transport options for Friday’s vote.
Looking for anyone that can do some reasonable size vehicle text with #VoterMotor on it for Friday. Cavan/Meath area. #useyourvote #freebie
— James Martin (@jamesmartinirl) May 19, 2015
***
The children of same-sex headed families have spoken to YesEquality about their families and why they would like to see a Yes vote on Friday.
***
What a difference two decades makes. As a young man growing up in Ireland in the 1980s/1990s, the notion of SSM and civil partnerships never crossed my mind.
Ireland was still a grim, scary place for gay youth. Open homophobia was perfectly acceptable and without a doubt the majority of my friends were the victim of physical attacks on at least one occasion. Verbal abuse was just one of those things if you chose to be open about your sexuality.
Gay Byrne is one of the most recognizable faces in Irish broadcasting since the 1960s. In 1990, following an appearance by gay rights activist, Senator and scholar Davis Norris, Byrne received post from members of the public that reveals the virulent homophobia that has since become a thinly veiled “concern” from the likes of the Iona Institute.
As the Irish Independent points out, “all the letter writers imagined homosexuality to be about was sex. Not love, not a shared life, not happiness or self-acceptance. It was about the sex.”
***
Finally for today (although there’s a lot to choose from), the Lawyers for Yes group has released a video explaining clearly and simply the difference between Civil Partnership and Civil Marriage, and why surrogacy is not an issue in the Marriage Equality Referendum.
Jim Redmond
www.towleroad.com/2015/05/ireland-marriage-equality-referendum-round-up-video.html
Famous Irish Muralist Strikes Again With Massive Pro-Equality Work on Castle
Another mural has emerged from Ireland’s master of the art form, Joe Caslin — this time depicting to women in love days before Ireland’s marriage vote.
Thom Senzee
Bobby Jindal Vows To Enforce Religious Freedom Measure Through Executive Order
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said Tuesday he plans to issue an executive order “to accomplish the intent” of a religious freedom bill that died in the Louisiana House hours before.
The Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act (HB 707), introduced by Louisiana state Rep. Mike Johnson (R) earlier this year, would create protections for individuals who oppose same-sex marriage. Under the legislation, the state would be prohibited from taking “any adverse action against a person, wholly or partially, on the basis that such person acts in accordance with a religious belief or formal conviction about the institution of marriage.” The measure drew comparisons to controversial religious freedom bills advanced in states like Indiana, where Gov. Mike Pence (R) was pressured to amend the legislation after national criticism that the law would allow businesses to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
On Tuesday, the Louisiana House Civil Law and Procedure Committee voted 10-2 to return the Marriage and Conscience Act to the calendar, effectively killing the bill. But less than two hours later, Jindal announced his plan to resurrect the spirit of the legislation.
“We are disappointed by the committee’s action to return the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act to the calendar,” Jindal said in a statement. “We will be issuing an Executive Order shortly that will accomplish the intent of HB 707 to prevent the state from discriminating against persons or entities with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
The statement continued: “This Executive Order will prohibit the state from denying or revoking a tax exemption, tax deduction, contract, cooperative agreement, loan, professional license, certification, accreditation, or employment on the basis the person acts in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
Jindal, who is eyeing running for president in 2016, has maintained a hardline stance against gay marriage, and has thrown his full support behind the Louisiana bill. In a New York Times op-ed published last month, the governor said Republicans had been “bullied” into toning down similar legislation in Arkansas and Indiana.
“As the fight for religious liberty moves to Louisiana, I have a clear message for any corporation that contemplates bullying our state: Save your breath,” Jindal wrote.
“It is shameful that Gov. Jindal has decided that abusing his executive power to accomplish the goals of House Bill 707, even after it was tabled indefinitely by our legislature today, is worth more effort than fixing our disastrous state budget,” Equality Louisiana said in a Tuesday press release. “In his time in Iowa, he may have forgotten what everyday Louisianians value, but the testimony today against HB 707 should have reminded him. Discrimination is not a Louisiana value.”
JoDee Winterhof, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of policy and political affairs, also condemned Jindal’s plan in a Tuesday statement.
“Bobby Jindal showed today why he’s consistently named one of the nation’s least-popular governors: by ignoring his constituents, members of his own party, and business leaders who correctly understand that legislation that endorses discrimination is wrong and should be rejected,” the statement reads. “Gov. Jindal made it clear that he’s so desperate to advance his longshot presidential campaign that he’ll say or do almost anything, including enable discrimination in the name of religion.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Today: Another Desperate Cry for Attention From Governor Bobby Jindal
Today, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s efforts to pass one of his top priorities, anti-LGBT HB 707, were dealt a major setback.
HRC.org
NEWS: NYC Pride, Hilary Clinton, John Oliver's Fan Fiction, Secret Space Plane
Only portrait of William Shakespeare created during his lifetime shows the bard to be something of a hunk.
Check out the official Pride Guide to NYC Pride 2015 HERE.
Sen. Claire McCaskill was none too pleased with Sunday night’s Game of Thrones.
Chris Pratt covers GQ.
Apparently, the Cannes red carpet has a very strict dress code when it comes to shoes for women.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama shared a delightful bit of repartee over Twitter yesterday.
Others meanwhile took a different tone towards the President’s arrival in the Twitter-sphere.
Godmother of performance art Marina Abramović has some bad blood with Jay Z.
The New Kids on the Block are looking ripped.
Some questions about what the Billboard Music Awards may, er, resemble. Allegedly.
The Mad Max sequel to be titled, The Wasteland, according to George Miller.
Taylor Lautner’s BBC series Cuckoo gets renewed for season 3.
The sisters Kardashian and Jenner show support for father Bruce after docu-series on his transition airs.
Hillary Clinton visits one of the first gay couples to get married in Iowa.
John Oliver has a fan-fiction script for Sex and the City 3.
Jackie Kennedy passed away 21 years ago today.
Beau Biden, son to Vice President Joe Biden, has been hospitalized with an undisclosed illness.
Help support marriage equality in Ireland by joining the Yes Campaign’s Thunderclap.
Los Angeles, CA has voted to up its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Air Force’s “Secret Space Plane” headed into space again later this week: “The Air Force space plane is actually called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This is the fourth mission for the plane. It looks like a small space shuttle, but it doesn’t have a crew. It can stay in space for years at a time. The last mission ended in October 2014 after 674 days in orbit. The plane is controlled like a drone and lands like an airplane. The media nicknamed it the “secret space plane” because the Air Force won’t say much about what it does once it gets into space.”
Sean Mandell
After Louisiana Lawmakers Shelve, Gov. Bobby Jindal Promises to Resurrect 'Religious Freedom' Bill
A legislative committee tabled the antigay bill indefinitely, but Gov. Bobby Jindal says he’ll issue an executive order to accomplish its goals.
Trudy Ring
The Country's First Openly Bisexual Governor Bans Gay Conversion Therapy In Her State
Oregon became the third state in the country to prohibit the practice of conversion therapy for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth when Gov. Kate Brown (D) signed the ban into law on Monday.
Brown, the nation’s first openly bisexual governor, was widely expected to authorize the bill, which prohibits mental health professionals and social workers from performing therapy that tries to change the sexual orientation of children. The American Psychological Association highly opposes gay conversion therapy, and the practice is widely condemned because it can lead to anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicide among young LGBT people.
Earlier this month, Oregon’s state Senate voted 21-to-8 to pass the bill. The Oregon House also overwhelmingly passed the bill in March.
The bill did face some opposition among religious groups and parents, who argued that banning gay conversion therapy would infringe on religious freedom rights and parental choice, although the law only applies to state-licensed medical professionals.
Oregon joins California, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., which already have similar laws in the books. On the national level, President Barack Obama condemned gay conversion therapy in April, addressing a WhiteHouse.gov petition that called for a ban after Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen, committed suicide. Alcorn, who identified as female, had posted online that religious therapists tried to tell her she was a boy.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, 18 states, including Oregon, have introduced legislation targeting conversion therapy in the past year. In April, the New York State Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill banning gay conversion therapy, but the Republican-controlled state Senate is expected to vote against it. Bills in other states face similar political obstacles.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Officiates Same-Sex Wedding for Third Time
Ginsburg has been a staunch and vocal about her support for marriage equality in the past.
HRC.org