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Rose tint my world... LiLdEviLbOi
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| what it felt like to be equal |
[14 Nov 2008|11:36pm] |
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music |
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change -- taylor swift |
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November 13, 2008, 9:00 pm
What It Felt Like to Be Equal
by Judith Warner
I had barely finished sniffling over Barack Obama’s victory when I received an e-mail message from Amy Silverstein, the wife of my best friend from high school, Angela Padilla.
She had been glad to read last week’s piece on “the groundbreaking immensity of the election of our country’s first African-American president,” she said.
Up to a point.
“I wanted to make sure you knew and appreciated that despite this seeming like an amazing step forward for all who have suffered discrimination and/or who are deeply committed to eliminating it, this election was anything but that for G.L.B.T. people and our families,” she wrote. “Especially in California, but in three other states as well, the electorate convincingly voted to deny us basic civil rights and made clear that we are a long way from being seen and treated as equal. Protecting traditional marriage is simply code for discrimination. There is no ‘triumph’ for us, and the long period of pain, indignity and injustice continues.”
How strange, I’d thought, reading about how, on the day of progressive victories — Obama’s historic win, South Dakota voters’ rejection of a wide-ranging abortion ban, Californians voting down a ballot initiative that would have required parental notification for abortion — these states had passed such uniquely reactionary and discriminatory measures. How ugly. That’s really too bad.
And then I’d moved on. As most people who were not directly affected by the anti-gay rights measures did. There was just too much else to feel good about.
“I think the country was like, ‘Look, you get Obama, call it a day and go home,” is how Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state representative in Arizona, who’d opposed her state’s anti-gay ballot initiative, put it to The Times last week.
Ed Swanson couldn’t move on.
The day after the election, the San Francisco lawyer and his husband, Paul Herman, a stay-at-home dad, had had to face the fact that Proposition 8 could mean that their marriage would be invalidated. They’d also had to go to parent conferences and tell the teachers that their five-year-old daughter, Liza, might be struggling in school because she was scared that her family might fall apart.
“They can’t take yours away, right?” she’d asked her parents. “They can’t take yours away when you have children, can they?”
“It’s difficult to explain to a five-year-old why it is people don’t want your parents to be married,” he continued. “They’re young enough that there was a chance they could have grown up thinking all their lives that their family was equal and accepted. Now they’re not going to have that chance. They’ll have to spend at least part of their lives knowing that their family is something that people don’t feel is acceptable.”
Jeanne Rizzo, the C.E.O. of the Breast Cancer Fund, can’t quite move on either. She spent election night in a reception room at San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis Hotel. She and her long-term partner, Pali Cooper, were married in September, one of 18,000 California couples who managed to wed in the short space of time between the California Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage and the passage of Proposition 8.
In one room, Obama supporters were jubilant. In another, opponents of Proposition 4 — the parental notification initiative -– shouted their glee. In hers, the opponents of Proposition 8 saw their joy at Obama’s election turn quickly to “absolute disbelief and pain” as the results of the ballot initiative came in. “It was such a kick in the stomach. The whole hotel was just rocking with joy. We felt so disconnected from it,” Rizzo recalled when I talked to her on Wednesday.
It wasn’t that she begrudged Obama his victory. It was just that his historic triumph made the insult to her community all the more painful. An awful thought came to her that night: Now we’re the designated cultural outcasts. “It’s almost like we’re the last group you can be openly bigoted about,” she told me.
“You look around and you think more than half of the people in this state voted to take this away from us? At a time when we’re celebrating the election of an African American to the White House? I don’t know how you heal from it,” she said. “It’s hard to get it out of your bones.”
“I don’t think I had realized until then what it felt like to be equal,” Swanson told me. “Paul and I went on a honeymoon in Santa Fe. People would ask and we’d say we’re on our honeymoon; we just got married. We could say it not because it was a political statement but because it was a fact.
“I don’t feel equal anymore. It was a great feeling, while it lasted.”
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| fucking love this woman |
[07 Nov 2008|02:06pm] |
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music |
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giant -- melissa etheridge |
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kahil forwarded me this article, written by melissa etheridge: her thoughts on the gay marriage ban in CA.
"Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.
Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.
Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.
…Really?
When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?
I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.
I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.
Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.
Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too..."
article from the daily beast.com : http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-06/you-can-forget-my-taxes/
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[01 Nov 2008|11:01am] |
oh lord did i get drunk.
never again.
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| more prop 8 research |
[20 Oct 2008|01:28pm] |
this was posted by my friend chris on myspace:
Christin put together this research in response to the arguments made by the "yes on prop 8" campaign. Read it, and arm yourself to argue.
The polls for prop 8 are starting to scare me. Lets all DO SOMETHING to defeat it.
VOTE NO ON PROP 8!!!!!
1.“If proposition 8 passes, gay marriage will have to be taught in the public school system.”
This is the biggest claim that “Yes on 8” is making. This is taken from California school code 51890. Code 51890 includes grades k-12 in the public school system. It is for comprehensive health education programs. The section regarding marriage specifically applies to the legal and financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. This class does not exist for kindergartners… or even those of elementary school age. Somehow I don’t think they would understand the legal and financial aspects of a marriage. So this leaves us with the possibility that gay marriage will be taught in high school? Not quite. Again, this class only teaches the financial and legal aspects of marriage… not who to love and not why we love. Also, this class is only a requirement for school districts seeking state funds for health education, which not every school does. Furthermore, the “yes on 8” campaign left out code 51914. Code 51914 states, “No plan shall be approved by the State Board of Education unless it determines that the plan was developed with the active cooperation of parents, community, and teachers, in all stages of
planning, approval, and implementation of the plan.” In addition to this, California law also gives parents broad authority to remove their children from any health instruction if it conflicts with their personal beliefs. I’d also like to point out that you must be kidding yourself if you think teenagers know nothing about sexuality.
Also, in relation to the first claim, proponents of Prop 8 tend to point to the Massachusetts school system and what their children were being taught in public schools. I think everyone knows we live in California and not Massachusetts, right? We all know we have our own school codes? We do. See response to claim #1.
2.“Churches can lose their tax exemptions.”
There is no wording in Prop 8 that has anything to do with Churches or religious services. “No religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention to their religious beliefs.” (Official ruling by California State Supreme Court judges)
3.“Prop 8 is about preserving marriage, it’s not an attack on the gay lifestyle.”
Proposition 8 is not about preserving marriage. To “preserve marriage”, I recommend banning divorce. Proposition 8 is taking marriage rights away from everyday people. And by taking rights away from someone, I believe that is a direct attack on someone’s lifestyle.
4.“The best situation for a child is to be raised by a married mother and father.”
One of the areas that I’ve done extensive research on is the effects on children who are raised by homosexual parents. Each study has found the exact same thing. There is no difference. What the Psychological Association, The Pediatric Association, the American Anthropological Association, the Sociological Association, and countless others have concluded is this: a child is best situated when a committed couple is raising them. It has nothing to do with sexual preference, but it has everything to do with a strong commitment, such as marriage. Furthermore, it is found that homosexual couples have a much higher percentage rate of adopting mentally and physically disabled children.
Proposition 8 blatantly states that it eliminates the rights of same sex couples to marry. No one deserves to have rights taken away from them. No one’s marriage deserves to be voided.
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| no on prop 8 |
[20 Oct 2008|01:21am] |
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music |
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troubled times -- dar williams |
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took the following from a posting someone made in the forums on connexion.org:
You all might like reading what the CA Supreme Court Judges actually ruled in their decision to strike the "marriage is only between a man and a woman" statute. It is awesome to read and handy to reference if someone confronts you about it.
Here are a few important extracts (in quotes).
1. Calling same-sex relationships by another name than marriage impinges on right to marry:
"One of the core elements of the right to establish an officially recognized family that is embodied in the California constitutional right to marry is a couple’s right to have their family relationship accorded dignity and respect equal to that accorded other officially recognized families, and assigning a different designation for the family relationship of same-sex couples while reserving the historic designation of “marriage” exclusively for opposite-sex couples poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect. We therefore conclude that although the provisions of the current domestic partnership legislation afford same-sex couples most of the substantive elements embodied in the constitutional right to marry, the current California statutes nonetheless must be viewed as potentially impinging upon a same-sex couple’s constitutional right to marry under the California Constitution."
2. On finding that there is no compelling state interest in treating opposite-sex and same-sex couples differently:
"Under the strict scrutiny standard, unlike the rational basis standard, in order to demonstrate the constitutional validity of a challenged statutory classification the state must establish (1) that the state interest intended to be served by the differential treatment not only is a constitutionally legitimate interest, but is a compelling state interest, and (2) that the differential treatment not only is reasonably related to but is necessary to serve that compelling state interest. Applying this standard to the statutory classification here at issue, we conclude that the purpose underlying differential treatment of opposite-sex and same-sex couples embodied in California’s current marriage statutes — the interest in retaining the traditional and well-established definition of marriage — cannot properly be viewed as a compelling state interest for purposes of the equal protection clause, or as necessary to serve such an interest."
3. Their reasons were many, but the last seems most compelling:
"Finally, retaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite-sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise — now emphatically rejected by this state — that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects “second-class citizens” who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples. Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest. Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional."
In my humble opinion, these (along with the rest of the ruling) present clear legal moral reasons why Prop 8 needs to fail, and why civil unions are an insufficient substitute.
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| happy birthday, tori amos |
[22 Aug 2008|04:11pm] |
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music |
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playboy mommy -- tori amos |
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Don't judge me so harsh little girl,
You got a playboy mommy, come home,
But when you tell them soldiers my name,
Cross that bridge all on your own,
Little girl theyll do you no harm
They know your playboy mommy,
But I'll be home,
I'll be home,
to take you in my arms.
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| Go team!!!! |
[15 May 2008|04:26pm] |
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music |
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it's a melissa etheridge moment |
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just wanted to take this quick opportunity before i go to work to say:
WE WON!
gay marriage is now legal in the state of California!
so who wants to marry me and make me a happy man?
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| stake it, UK! |
[20 Apr 2008|04:30pm] |
i'm out! :)
here's to no starbucks (too expensive)
and no masturbating (no guaranteed privacy)
for ten days
i'mma explode like a terrorist when i get back.
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| avenue jew |
[28 Feb 2008|12:06am] |
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music |
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everyone's a little bit jewish.... |
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this is hysterical
and princeton is freakin cute!
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| tech support |
[19 Feb 2008|02:16pm] |
Dear Tech Support,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
What can I do?
Signed,
Desperate
DEAR DESPERATE,
First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Please enter the url: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta. Whatever you do, DO NOT attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. This is not a supported application and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.
Good Luck,
Tech Support
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| ATTENTION cleveland alumni! |
[16 Feb 2008|12:05pm] |
this is fucking hilarious. i am beaming with pride for my alma-mater. well. for journalism. not so much for the new principal. Apparently, last thursday's valentine's day issue of "le sabre" had a nice big diagram of a vagina on the front page. "to raise awareness about violence against women." make sure you read the end. it gets better.
School newspaper drops a V-bomb
Cleveland High is in an uproar after an issue discusses the 'Vagina Monologues,' with a front-page diagram.
By Susannah Rosenblatt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 16, 2008
Grover Cleveland High School Principal Bob Marks has his limits.
On Thursday, it was the labeled diagram of a vagina splashed across the front page of the student newspaper's Valentine's Day issue.
Flustered teachers rushed to confiscate the publication, but with some copies already in circulation and the Reseda campus in an uproar, it quickly became a hot read for the school's roughly 3,700 students.
And some of the contraband issues made their way home, getting a quick reaction from parents.
"My phone's been ringing off the hook," Marks said. Only one parent asked why the paper was taken away; the others called to say they were offended, he said.
The drawing in question ran under the hot-pink headline "Have a happy Vagina Day!" and the four-page edition included stories titled "Ending shame for nature's gift" and "Rejected!!!!!!!"
The paper's editor-in-chief, 15-year-old Richard Edmond, said he was trying to raise awareness of violence against women with a lead story about playwright Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues."
"I didn't think it was going to be that big a deal," Edmond said. "But they are really upset."
Edmond said administrators did not explain to his satisfaction why this copy of Le Sabre was unfit for distribution. He said he was told by administrators: "This is not in the taste of the school; this is a high school, not Hollywood Boulevard."
"As far as I was concerned," Edmond said, "they were wrongfully taking our papers away."
But Marks said he and other adults at the school thought the student journalists had clearly gone too far.
"To me, and to others, that was tasteless," Marks said. More significantly, he said, he believed that continued distribution of Thursday's edition "could be a potential disruption" to the school day.
California students are some of the only in the country with special state laws protecting their rights to free expression in school, said Mike Hiestand, attorney and legal consultant to the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. Six other states have similar laws, he said.
Typically, Hiestand said, students can publish whatever they like, as long as the speech is not unlawful or "seriously disruptive."
The bar for disruption, he said, is high: "It has to be more than just heated discussions or hurt feelings."
Hiestand, who said he was unfamiliar with what took place at Cleveland High, said he would have to learn more to determine if that bar had been met.
Normally, the monthly newspaper is delivered to administrators and teachers the day before it is handed out to students, Edmonds said. But a production glitch delayed its arrival, he said.
As soon as journalism students began delivering the issue to classrooms, teachers barraged Marks with angry phone calls, prompting school officials to quickly intercept the bulk of the 4,000 copies.
Edmond said some students reported that security guards snatched papers out of their hands. Marks said he had heard similar reports, but did not witness any such incidents.
Even so, the paper circulated widely, and some students brought copies home, which drew complaints from parents. Marks said he plans next week to send a letter to parents explaining what happened. He already has written to the faculty, he said.
Marks said he discussed the incident with journalism advisor and English teacher Coleen Bondy, who could not be reached for comment Friday. School administrators now plan to convene a committee of students and teachers to review questionable articles and other journalistic content before publication of future issues.
The committee, which is stipulated under policies of the Los Angeles Unified School District, "should have been in existence," Marks said.
L.A. Unified District 1 Supt. Jean Brown, whose district includes Cleveland High, said she believed Marks' action was appropriate.
But Brown said she thinks student journalism has educational value and called the situation "unusual."
"I've been superintendent for almost three years," she said. "This is the first time an experience like this has occurred."
But student editor Edmond wasn't about to let administrators have the last word: After a flurry of overnight MySpace bulletins, he and other students showed up at school Friday wearing homemade white, black and pink T-shirts reading "My vagina is obscene."
When Edmond and two other protesters refused to change their clothes, school officials sent them home.
susannah.rosenblatt
@latimes.com
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| wisdom |
[16 Feb 2008|12:40am] |
one of my favorite quotes, though i have no idea where it comes from:
After a while, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love dosn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security..And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises , and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open. with the grace of adult , not the grief of a child
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| *SCREAMS*! |
[20 Jan 2008|03:53pm] |
PAT BENATAR IS GONNA RECORD A NEW ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!
YESSSSSS!
it won't be out for a while. recording hasn't even begun yet, not till september. but YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
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| top five at the moment |
[19 Jan 2008|02:47am] |
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music |
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oh, what a night |
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disclaimer: this is not a real update. this is a blurb. real update to come tomorrow....er...later today.
jason's
top five songs at the moment
1. Oh What a Night -- the Dells
2. Come In From the Cold -- Joni Mitchell
3. Cigarettes -- The Wreckers
4. Why Haven't I Heard From You -- Reba McEntire
5. Man to Man -- Joni Mitchell
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