5 Reasons NOM Will Need Much More Than A Prayer At The March For Marriage 2015

The National Organization for Marriage hits the streets this weekend, just a few days before the Supreme Court hears oral argument in marriage equality cases. They’ll rally and march Saturday afternoon, starting on the mall in front of the Capitol and then proceeding down the street near the U.S. Supreme Court building.

(The Justices don’t come into work on Saturday, so it’s unlikely they’ll actually witness the hubbub first-hand. Oh well, nice try anyway, NOM!)

So what is NOM trying to prove here? That there’s widespread support for marriage bans? Haha, no. This whole event is going to backfire in their faces, just like its last fabulous disaster of a rally, and we’d like to list the reasons why, accompanied by shirtless hunky pics rather than bleak images of angry homophobes:

1. Attendance is getting weaker every year

In 2013, when they held a similar rally, NOM estimated their attendance at 15,000 — but the truth was closer to somewhere around 2,000. Then in 2014, they tried again, and could only get a few hundred folks to show up.

What’s going on here? Well, fewer and fewer people are willing to trek down to D.C. to stand around at a rally for a cause that they know is losing. Especially if that means taking a day or two off of work. Maybe that’s why this year NOM is holding their rally on the weekend — and odd choice, given that the Supreme Court hears oral argument on Tuesday. That means that NOM thinks that attendance is going to be so light that they’re better off holding the event on the wrong day than risking a small crowd due to everyone being at work and not wanting to waste a day off.

As before, NOM will try to get religious groups to bus people in from far away, to bolster the numbers. That may help raise attendance somewhat, but paying for the buses has proven a challenge.

2. They’re running out of money

Times have been tight at the National Organization for Marriage. Recent tax filings show mounting debt, as donors to their lost cause dry up. 

And when they do launch fundraising campaigns, they struggle to meet their target. Their last end-of-year fundraiser couldn’t quite stagger over the finish line, falling around $60,000 short after January 1.

They tried to do a GoFundMe to pay for buses to bring people to this weekend’s rally. They almost-but-not-quite made their target, but that’s thanks to only a few major donors who chipped in the bulk of the $40,000. Only a few hundred regular donors trickled in at the $25 to $100 level. That’s pretty weak, considering this is the biggest moment in the organization’s history.

Maybe that’s why the group has depended on illegal fundraising and financing schemes, resulting in record fines from campaign finance regulators. NOM is wasting a ton of cash to pay those fines, which isn’t helping their financial situation much.

3. Public opinion keeps turning against them

In what must’ve felt like a bit of a twist of the knife, a new survey just came out showing that NOM’s public support continues to drop. Around 60% of Americans favor the freedom to marry, with only about 30% taking NOM’s side of the debate. Remember this staggering turnaround has happened in, like five years, the very time NOM has been campaigning in the other direction. It’s a direct rebuke of its cause.

Well, now we know why they can’t count on donations from the public like they once could.

We’ve never had great things to say about Maggie Gallagher, but we’ll give her this: she saw the writing on the wall long before most of her colleagues. She got out of NOM post-haste, distancing herself from the group several years ago. Now, NOM President Brian Brown is stuck there, with his job prospects and income likely to disappear within the next year or two. What’s next for him? Moving to Russia, where the government still beats and tortures gays?

4. They fail at everything

Poor NOM is the Britta of the group. Everything they touch lately turns to failure.

The latest example: The Supreme Court just told them that they can’t intervene in an Oregon case (that was resolved about a year ago). But that’s not the only loss! Since 2012, they really haven’t been able to chalk up any victories at all. States have started approving marriage equality at the ballot box; federal courts from one side of the country to the other have ruled in favor of gay couples; and NOM’s boycotts are a big joke. (When’s the last time you heard anything about Starbucks worrying about their bottom line?)

NOM also wasted a ton of cash on a failed attempt to wring some money out of the IRS. They insisted that government officials conspired to leak their tax documents, but they couldn’t prove anything. In the end, the paltry sum they got for the accidental leak was far less than they were asking for — and less than they probably spent on the litigation.

5. Nobody’s paying attention anymore

There was a time when Maggie Gallagher was constantly on the news, cable shows kept booking Brian Brown, and even turnip-lookalike John Eastman would appear in news articles. No more! The media has pretty much written NOM off, barely even acknowledging their existence for the last year or two. And when NOM does make the headlines on occasion, it’s usually just to report on some new way that they’ve discovered to fail.

Politicians aren’t giving them as much attention, either. Four years ago, NOM managed to get all of the major Republican presidential candidates to sign a pledge to oppose marriage. That’s less likely to work this time around. Sure, the candidates who’ve jumped into the race so far will be more than happy to sign their dumb pledge. But the smarter, more moderate candidates won’t want to waste their time on an issue that they know will only fragment their base and alienate most young people.

And how about those NOM boycotts? Homophobes are supposed to be avoiding Chase, Target, Starbucks, and Angie’s List. But they’ve been having trouble getting anyone to join them, and those companies are thriving like never before. NOM used to have a little meter on their website to show the number of people who’ve taken the pledge to boycott, but the numbers were so low they seem to have removed it.

Not unlike their power in American politics.

matt baume

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Bruce Jenner Comes Out as Transgender: VIDEO

Kyler Geoffroy

www.towleroad.com/2015/04/brucejennertrans.html

Ted Cruz/OUT NYC Fallout: Broadway Cares Cancels Benefit at Hotel

Broadway Bares: Solo Strips was to be held at a venue owned by the gay men who hosted an event for the antigay Republican.

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Trudy Ring

www.advocate.com/politics/politicians/2015/04/24/ted-cruzout-nyc-fallout-broadway-cares-cancels-benefit-hotel

In Brazil's Macho Culture, Homophobia and Misogyny Are Intertwined
By Marina Braga

“Patriarchy, we are not passing by or for just here for a quick stay. We will resist, day after day, your looks of repulsion and your desire to exclude all lesbian and bisexual women….”
–Jéssica Ipólito, “01 desejo: o jazido patriarcal”

In our society, lesbians and bisexual women are rarely taken seriously by the mainstream — and the same thing happens in the LGBT community. “They just need some good dick.” “They are only confused — after all, they’re women.” We live in a phallocentric world that doesn’t accept women’s choices and desires. It’s very easy to get called a “slut” nowadays; all it takes is for a woman to say that she doesn’t need a man to be happy.

The homophobia that lesbians and bisexual women endure is especially intense: Machismo and misogyny frequently accompany it. Cases of “corrective rape” and a lack of protective public policies make the lives of these women miserable. And neither the LGBT community nor feminist groups offer much support.

Of all the kinds of violence against women that exist, perhaps the most severe is being pressed into silence and invisibility.

Mankind has created a political plan that requires us to live in a deep desolation, in a huge and profound abyss. The plan is called heteronormativity. The old name for this was “compulsory heterosexuality,” during a time when homosexuality was considered a disease. Not long ago, non-heterosexual people were considered anomalies, or curiosities at best. And many people still believe that sexuality is inextricably attached to gender. Lesbian or bisexual identity is unintelligible because it resists that old correspondence. For example, a man can be homosexual, but he can’t identify himself with the feminine. The same thing happens to women: A lesbian woman can’t identify herself with the masculine.

The app Grindr, which has replaced online chat rooms, offers great examples of how deeply heteronormativity and patriarchal ideals permeate our society. In many profiles you can read, “Not into fems.”

In the gay universe, being effeminate is a flaw, and if you identify yourself as “fem,” you can be quickly rejected. The guy you are trying to reach will say, “I’m masc, and I don’t like fems.” Many times, in order not to miss out on opportunities, feminine gay men pretend they are deeply masculine, assuming a gender expression that doesn’t fit them. That happens because they want to feel accepted and respected in the gay community.

The feminine, and everything related to it, seems to be a big taboo for many gay people. That’s where the sexist, misogynist and transphobic view that says that a trans woman is no more than a man dressed as a woman comes from.

The hidden sexism in jokes and conversation might acknowledge that an individual can be gay, while asking, “Why must they be effeminate?” For some, those who embrace a feminine identity are damaging the reputation of the gay community.

I was on Facebook the other day when I read something that exemplifies my thoughts: “Homophobia is sexist.” And it’s true. Both homophobia and sexism are part of the structure of the patriarchy. They are the most enduring building blocks in the construction of prejudice. And when those ideas come from within the gay community, we have a paradoxical situation. In an attempt to become free of bigotry, some gay people end up practicing other kinds of bigotry. In an attempt to fight exclusion, they end up excluding part of their own group.

Paulo Freire, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), says that the oppressed, when given the chance, can become the oppressor, as a means of transcending their own history of oppression. That’s why it is so common to see homophobic gays and sexist women.

An example of this can be found in the way some gay people criticize congressman Marco Feliciano, an evangelical pastor from the Brazilian Christian Social Party (PSC), accused many times of homophobia and racism. Some criticism of Feliciano from the gay community is itself homophobic. In an attempt to condemn his speeches, they call him a “gay bottom” and ask him to “come out of the closet.”

In cases like that, when you pay attention to the use of Brazilian Portuguese, where nouns and adjectives are either masculine or feminine, you notice the use of feminine-gendered words to diminish the target.

In our society, which makes assumptions about gender based on genitalia alone, the vagina is used to delegitimize women and transgender people.

It doesn’t matter if a woman is a lesbian, transgender, bisexual or heterosexual; she can still be called a “racha,” a slur meaning “hatchet wound,” referring to what all women supposedly have between their legs. A common defense is that these comments are only joking, that those who take offense lack a sense of humor, that we should accept it and avoid being those politically correct, boring people. Yet with this very humor we obscure the bias within our groups.

When we take a look at the true nature of the patriarchal system, it’s easier to understand the question of how people who suffer from bias on a daily basis are able to become oppressors: They are simply enacting the modus operandi of the society around them. We need to understand and fight against the system. When we absorb bias, we end up repeating the oppressor’s discourse over and over again, even unconsciously. And with that we only keep the status quo intact.

This post originally appeared on HuffPost Brazil and was translated into English.

— 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.

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It’s Barbra Streisand’s Birthday So Celebrate Watching Some Of Her Lesser-Known Performances

There’s not much left to say about Barbra Streisand that hasn’t been printed thousands of times since she rose to prominence in the early 1960s. The beloved multi-hyphenate entertainer turns 73 years old today (also the start of White Party, coincidence?) and besides being renowned as an outspoken and tireless advocate for LGBT equality and women’s health and all-around mensch, she’s also won every award known to humankind for her acting and singing, collaborated with virtually every other entertainer of note, and forever changed the way society defines feminine beauty. At this point in her career, you either love her, really, really love her or are too obsessed with Britney to be bothered. Regardless, let’s take a troll down her memory lane for a quartet of lesser-known but still choice Streisand moments from her storied half-century career.

In 1963, before she received her big Hollywood makeover and when she was still frequently referred to as “bohemian” or “kooky,” Barbra sang a bewitching rendition of her hit “Gotta Move” on a Bob Hope comedy special.

After she won an Oscar for her film debut in 1968’s Funny Girl, Barbra was now the biggest female star in the entertainment galaxy and rarely performed in public, due to stage fright after forgetting lyrics during a 1967 concert. In 1972, she faced her fears head-on (with the help of a joint she *allegedly* smoked onstage — hey, it was the ’70s) to raise funds for Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. Listen to her monologue below.

In 1975, Barbra appeared in Funny Girl to Funny Lady (a nod to her film debut and its its sequel), a television special taped live in Washington, D.C. that benefited the Special Olympics and it was so rare to experience her singing live that even President Gerald Ford attended. Barbra took the stage to rapturous applause to sing one of her biggest hits, “The Way We Were.”

Here’s a rarely-heard long remix of her hit theme to the 1979 rom-com The Main Event, which provided her initial foray into disco. Later that year at her son Jason’s urging, she’d duet with Donna Summer on another massive dance hit “No More Tears (Enough is Enough).”

So join us in wishing Barbra a very happy 73rd birthday and if you want to delve deeper into the superstar’s fascinating life and career, go here.

Jeremy Kinser

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Linda Harvey Concerned Satan Is Deceiving the Supreme Court on Gay Marriage: LISTEN

Jim Redmond

www.towleroad.com/2015/04/linda-harvey-concerned-satanic-homosexuality-is-destroying-america-listen.html

Op-ed: The White Party and Gay Culture Need More Color

This weekend’s White Party circuit event symbolizes more than hedonism, according to this writer.

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DK

www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/04/24/op-ed-white-party-and-gay-culture-need-more-color

This Woman Loves Flash Mob Proposals, But What Her Girlfriend Planned Was Even Better
Adelia Dunbar has always loved flash mob proposals. So when Dunbar’s girlfriend of two years, Amber Baysinger, was planning to propose, she knew she wanted to do something similar — but with less fanfare.

“I thought of doing a flash mob video, but honestly Adelia and I are both pretty introverted, so thinking of orchestrating a giant dance party in front of everybody scared me a little,” Baysinger, who lives with her now-fiancée in Hamden, Connecticut, told The Huffington Post.

Instead, Baysinger reached out to the couple’s parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, pets and friends, asking them to record video of themselves dancing and encouraging Dunbar to say “yes.” Baysinger then pieced it all together and set the adorable video montage to the song “I Do” by Colbie Caillat.

Courtesy of the couple/YouTube

On April 18, during a hike in New Haven, Connecticut, Baysinger led Dunbar to an area in the woods where a small table, chair and laptop were set up. After Dunbar watched the video, Baysinger got down on one knee, popped the question and then asked Dunbar to do the same for her.

Courtesy of the couple/YouTube

“I felt so happy that she said ‘yes!'” Baysinger told HuffPost. “I didn’t really fear that she would say ‘no,’ but it still made my heart jump a little to hear her say ‘yes.’ As I said in the video, I want to spend every day with her until we are old and wrinkly together. I mean it!”

Courtesy of the couple

Later that day, Dunbar shared the happy news on Facebook, writing:

Today has been the best day of my life to date. What I thought was a routine hike turned out to be the most beautifully planned surprise I’ve ever experienced! The love of my life proposed and I said yes! I can’t even begin to express the gratitude I have for everything you do for me and for the bond that we share. You are my one and only penguin for life. I love you, Amber Baysinger. May we have many more days as magical as this one.

The couple met on OKCupid and had their first date in January 2013.

“I remember when I was driving to meet her at the Thai restaurant, thinking, ‘This might be the girl I am going to marry!’ before I ever even met her in person,” Baysinger said.

Courtesy of the couple

Baysinger told HuffPost Weddings that she posted on the video on YouTube in order to share the couple’s love story with others.

“I want other people to be able to feel as much joy and hope when watching this video because that’s how much joy and hope I feel when I think about spending the rest of my life with Adelia,” she said. “I think it’s important to show the world that all love is good love, and that love is equal, whether it is between a man and a woman, two men, or two women.”

Courtesy of the couple

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— 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.

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Honey Boo Boo's mom and older sister Pumpkin both come out as bisexual

Mama June: ‘It’s open season. I will keep ALL my options open’

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gregh

www.gaystarnews.com/article/honey-boo-boos-mom-and-older-sister-pumpkin-both-come-out-bisexual240415

Speculation and Support: A Note on Transitioning

While visibility for transgender people seems to be at all an all-time high, so too does speculation about who is or isn’t transitioning.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/speculation-and-support-a-note-on-transitioning?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed