Supreme Court and Gay Rights

This is from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11033294:

An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join.

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.

The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" as being inconsistent with that faith.

But Hastings said no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group's First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college's decision.

In my waning days at Duke Divinity School, the administration forced this very same kind of legalism.

Would this stand in a court of law, even with a private institution? Can private, religious organizations discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation if they receive federal dollars in the future? They can today...but will they be able to discriminate in the future?

Click here for more.

Pace!

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Here Comes the Brides, All Dressed in...

Went to Southern Village's Outdoors concert series last weekend--almost all weekend--and we were treated (on Friday night) to a free concert by the NC Symphony, in which they played the bridal march.

Thought about this news item: the marriage of the Prime Minister to her partner:

Miss Sigurdardottir, 68, formally married Jonina Leosdottir, a writer, after the couple submitted a demand for their civil union to be transformed into a marriage, the RUV broadcaster said.

Iceland's parliament on June 12 unanimously adopted legislation allowing gay marriage, in a law that came into force on Sunday.

Homosexual couples could previously enter into a civil partnership and benefit from the same rights as heterosexual couples, but this had not been considered a formal marriage.

Miss Sigurdardottir, born in 1942, took power in February 2009. She has lived with Miss Ledsdottir, who is in her fifties, for several years and the couple entered a civil union in 2002.

She is the world's first openly gay head of government.

This is on towleroad.com, andrewsullivan.com...couldn't find it on NYT.com...only what Prince What's His Name was doing in NYC.

Give me a break.

Pace!

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Constance McMillen: A Prom Queen After All

From Salon.com, there was this marvelous story about the Mississippi young lesbian, Constance McMillen, whose hope of going to the prom was thwarted by a callous high school and town. She just wanted to go to the prom with her girlfriend. But that was more than a town could handle: honesty and truthfulness among high schoolers.

Many of my friends, including me, went to the prom with an opposite sex date, though we were flirtatious in dancing with our boyfriends at the same prom.

Well done, Constance!

Click here for more.

Pace!

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Bigotry at Duke: Continued

I faced an enormous force of bigotry against LGBTQ people when I taught at Duke Divinity School. Homophobia was omnipresent among senior administrators, senior faculty, junior faculty, adjunct faculty, staff, and students alike.

Some things simply don't change over time. Regardless of the inroads that Dr. Long has made at the LGBTQ Center, Duke University is rife with homophobic people.

Case in point? This story that was first reported in Duke's "The Chronicle," and UNC's "Daily Tarheel," and picked up today on towleroad.com, regarding the former head of the student Republican College Group, Mr. Robinette:

From Towleroad.com:

After being impeached in April from the Duke College Republicans due to shared information with my Executive Board as to my sexual orientation, officers who resigned immediately and me directly have received continued harassment and been intimidated by current members of the Duke College Republicans. Duke University's East Camus Bridge vandalism was preceded by many instances of intimidation and harassment of former DCR officers (threatening Facebook messages from DCR Chief of Staff Rachel Provost harassing my former officers with rumors as to their sexuality and any other "personal information" they may potentially uncover, simply for supporting me. Additionally, former Vice-Chairman Matthew Leonard's dormitory nametag was vandalized with the word "faggot"). The Bridge graffiti has been followed up with anonymous death threats to both me and student Bridget Gomez (who recently created a Facebook group ). Additionally, current DCR Executive Board officer Sabrina McCutchan sent me a threatening message dated today, as well. These have been forwarded to Duke Police and they say they are investigating presently.

By members of the DCR I have been called a “faggot,” “lying faggot,” a supporter of the “faggot center,” “ironic,” “disgusting," and Duke's anonymous gossip site has included these messages: “Justin Robinette: if you ever needed a reason to hate gay people,” “fags and fag-enablers need to step out of the way,” “no one cares about faggots or those who cry faggot,” “DCR = righteous, lying fag = Robinette.” The East Campus Bridge was recently vandalized with the words "Lying Fag Robinette, DCR= Righteous, Get AIDS in Hell." T

Change is not in the air at Duke. I left in 2003. This is 2010. Some things don't change easily over time.

Click here for more.

Pace!

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The Weak(ening) Link: Marriage and Child Raising

There is a weakening link between the argument of getting married with the primary purpose of having children. More married (heterosexual) couples are opting not to have/bear children. From the NYT.com and andrewsullivan.com:

But what about children? As an ingredient to a happy marriage, kids were far from essential, ranking eighth behind good sex, sharing chores, adequate income and a nice house, among other things. Only 41 percent of respondents said children were important to a happy marriage, down from 65 percent in 1990. The only thing less important to a happy marriage than children, the survey found, was whether a couple agreed on politics.

So why do kids rank so low on the list? The fact is, marriages today are increasingly adult-centered, rather than child-centered, an issue identified in a sweeping 2008 report from Rutgers marriage researcher Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. In the report, called “Life Without Children: The Social Retreat From Children and How It’s Changing America,” Dr. Whitehead notes that the percentage of our lives that we devote to parenting is shrinking. Because married couples are delaying children and having fewer kids, they start parenting later and finish parenting sooner than couples of earlier generations.

This is an important point in the argument against marriage equality. It weakens the argument that the primary purpose of marriage is raising children, an argument made by many in the Church Universal.

Interesting...

Pace!

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Gay Fathers Vs. Straight Fathers: A Weird Study

This from advocate.com about how gay dads give "in" a little more to caring for kids than "straight dads":

The findings, published in the latest issue of the Journal of GLBT Family Studies, showed that gay fathers were more likely to scale back their careers in order to care for their children. Another difference was that gay fathers also saw their self-esteem and relationships with their extended families greatly improve when they had children.

Other issues like relations with coworkers, a transition toward friendships with other couples, and less time for sleep, exercise, and hobbies were similar to heterosexual fathers.

The average age of the gay men in the study was 41, and most couples were affluent, with the average annual household income listed as $270,000.

Besides the income, which would be delightful for us, what is weird about the study is that a lot of this would seem to be almost "natural," given the circumstances: in a so-called "traditional" family, it is likely that a mom would be given the responsibilities of raising the child versus in a same sex partnership, one of the partners--one of the dads--would give more time than the other. Seems natural to me.

However, in my home, when married, I spent more time with my daughter because of our schedules (she worked while I wrote a dissertation), while my son's mom spent more time in the early years of life with him because of our schedule (I worked).

Not so sure this study breaks any new grounds.

Pace!

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Abraham Joshua Heschel on Living

Quote of the day by Abraham Joshua Heschel:

Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.

Let's live amazing lives today!

Pace!

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Gay Days at Disney World and Disgruntled People

This from time.com, about the people who get their money back if they are disgruntled about being around a lot of LGBTQ people during Gay Days (unoffical though it is):

A former Disney employee who was at the park on June 5 told me that every year, Disney issues refunds or free next-day tickets to angry moms and dads who don't want their kids exposed to gay couples or gay-themed shirts. Some families don't get past Main Street U.S.A. before turning around and taking the monorail back to the parking lots.

But they are a vanishing minority. Gay Days may be an occasion for gays to overindulge and conservatives to squirm, but Evan, Alix and Jamie are the future: kids with their parents who want the great American vacation, no politics required.

Really?

Why?

Do LGBTQ people get money back if they are disgruntled about being among heterosexual people on other days?

Just asking...

Brett

Frank Rich: Calling for Marriage Equality...Again

Frank Rich (nyt.com) posts this statement by David Boies, who is arguing for marriage equality with Mr. Olson in CA, makes this cogent point about marriage equality, or lack thereof:

As long as gay Americans are denied the same right to marry as everyone else, they are branded as sub-citizens, less equal and less deserving than everyone else. That government-sanctioned stigma inevitably leaves them vulnerable to other slights and discrimination, both subtle and explicit. The damage is particularly acute for children, who must not only wonder why their parents are regarded as defective by the law but must also bear this scarlet letter of inferiority when among their peers.

Time-to-change!

Pace!

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So Goes Iceland, So Goes the World...Or So I Wish

News from Iceland: their federal government gave the ok to LGBTQ equal rights to marriage:

(Reuters) - Iceland, the only country in the world to have an openly gay head of state, passed a law on Friday allowing same-sex partners to get married in a vote which met with no political resistance.

World

The Althingi parliament voted 49 to zero to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between "man and man, woman and woman," in addition to unions between men and women.

Iceland, a socially tolerant island nation of about 320,000 people, became the first country to elect an openly gay head of state in 2009 when Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir became prime minister after being nominated by her party.

"The attitude in Iceland is fairly pragmatic," said Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, a political scientist at the University of Iceland. "It (gay marriage) has not been a big issue in national politics -- it's not been controversial."

The prime minister's sexual orientation garnered far more interest among foreign media than in Iceland, where the attitude toward homosexuality has grown increasingly relaxed in the past two or three decades, Kristinsson added.

Iceland's protestant church has yet to decide whether to allow same-sex marriages in church, although the law says "ministers will always be free to perform (gay) marriage ceremonies, but never obliged to."

One more country, not state, for equal rights for all to wed.

Momentum is on our side...

Pace!

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Michael Pakulak: Obscene

The columnist/essayist Michael Pakulak lives in a closet of fear, in which his latest writings shows how deep and dark his closet of homophobia really is. This is why children whose parents are LGBTQ should not be allowed into Catholic schools:

First:
It was inevitable that either the teacher, or some parent, would deal with the two men in such a way as implicitly to teach my son, or other children in the class, that there is nothing wrong with same-sex relationships. But this is scandal: that is, leading a “little one” astray in some serious matter by the example you set.

Second:
The second reason is that parents are rightly given access to a child’s classroom, and yet I could not trust the designs of the same-sex couple. A mother or father may volunteer to read to the class or chaperone for a class trip. If the homosexual parent does so, what guarantee would I have that he would not be an advocate for his lifestyle, implicitly if not explicitly?

Third:
The third reason is that it seemed a real danger that the boy being raised by the same-sex couple would bring to school something obscene or pornographic, or refer to such things in conversation, as they go along with the same-sex lifestyle, which–as not being related to procreation– is inherently eroticized and pornographic.

Please.

IT is ecause of such ignorance that I write this blog: to counter this prejudice and is against those of us who are created by God and happen to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, intersex, queer expressing, or questioning.

I will come back with a response in the coming week.

Pace!
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NYT: Prop. 8 in CA Was Just Weird

This from the Opinion page of the NYT:

The testimony made abundantly clear that excluding same-sex couples from marriage exacts a grievous toll on gay people and their families. Domestic partnerships are a woefully inadequate substitute.

On the witness stand, the plaintiffs described the pain and stigma of having their relationships relegated by the state to a lesser category that fails to convey the love and commitment inherent in marriage. “My state is supposed to protect me. It’s not supposed to discriminate against me,” said Paul Katami, one of the plaintiffs.

Defenders of Proposition 8 produced no evidence to back up their claim that marriage between same-sex couples would hurt heterosexual marriage. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” the defense attorney, Charles Cooper, said when asked for an explanation by the judge at a pretrial hearing.

The defense called only two witnesses. The first, Kenneth Miller, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, argued that gay people are a powerful political force, which was meant to support the claim that there is no need for enhanced judicial protection. He ended up admitting that gay men and lesbians suffer discrimination.

The other witness, David Blankenhorn, the president of the Institute for American Values, argued that marriage is being weakened by rising divorce rates and more unmarried people having children, but he could not convincingly explain what the genders of married couples had to do with that.

Justice takes a lot of work, smart minds, perseverance, wisdom and patience. We witness that with the overturning/repeal of DADT, the welcoming of marriage for all, and the ordination of those called by the Holy One into religious leadership. It will take years to overturn all the constitutional amendments that banned "gay marriage," brought to us by the people of the Bush (GW) administration as a cheap political ploy to "get out the vote."

It is time to change.

Peace!

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King and Queen at the Prom

In my high school--Beaverton High School--in the 1970s, this would never had happened...though most of us Thespians should've gone with another guy or gal, and not with our opposite-sex dates.

I admire these young people who are bringing their daates who happen to be of the same sex. Kudos!

Brave and courageous!

Go to this link to find out about the latest from advocate.com by clicking here.

Pace!

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Rep. Ike Skelton: A Voice of the Past

I've heard Judy Shepherd say this quite a bit: she cannot wait until some of the older white and gray headed usually men (but there are some women to be included in this mix) are gone from positions of power, primarily in the U.S. Senate and Congress, where laws are made. I'd include faith communities.

This quote from towleroad.com from the mouth of Rep. Ike Skelton is a case in point. He said:

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would put families "in a difficult position" because then children would be asking about homosexuality:

Said Skelton: "What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?"

My response? They tell the truth: these are two people who love each other.

Period.

That was easy.

I also was asked by a military man on the plane from DFW to RDU what I thought about the repeal of DADT, to wit I said, "It's a little late, but better late than never!" He was taken aback. "You know you have been working with gay men and lesbian women, yes?" He didn't know. Out of all the years he had been serving, he did not know. I told him, without question, he had.

It is time to repeal DADT.

Pace!

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Let's Hear It for Laura and Caryn!

Laura Cuzzillo, Caryn Berman

Laura Cuzzillo and Caryn Berman were married Saturday in Des Moines. Judge Robert B. Hanson of Iowa’s Fifth Judicial District officiated at the Pappajohn Sculpture Garden in Western Gateway Park.

Peter Thompson

Ms. Cuzzillo (left), 56, is the business systems analyst in the bursar’s office at the University of Chicago, where she specializes in electronic transactions. She graduated and received an M.B.A. from the university. She is the daughter of the late Marie Becker of Cape Charles, Va., and the late Salvatore Cuzzillo of Chapel Hill, N.C.

Ms. Berman, 57, is a senior manager in Chicago for the tax arm of Deloitte. She oversees programs that integrate its tax professionals in the United States with those in Hyderabad, India. She graduated from the State University at Stony Brook and received a master’s in social work from the University of Chicago. She is a daughter of Rachel Berman of North Bethesda, Md., and the late Paul Berman.

The couple met in 1977 when both attended a workshop that was part of Chicago’s Gay Pride Week.

New McDonald's Ad

Almost there!

Saw the ad today and was amazed at the son's statements in a McDonald's ad, and wanted to see what the father's next reaction would be were the young man out to his dad.

Sigh...

So close...

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