Thursday, March 19, 2009

"Don't Say Gay!" Really?

TN State Rep. Stacey Campfield is at it again: denying people of TN to say anything "gay" in the public schools of TN. "Don't Say Gay" is the name of the bill. I saw it blogged on queerty.com, and towleroad.com.

So let's suggest the following: offer the opposite in a bill to show how silly all this is. For example, with Prop. 8 passage, the idea of a bill amending the CA Constitution of divorce sounds about right. "Don't Say Gay": how about a bill of "Don't Say Straight"?

Click here for more.

Silly.

Pace!

B

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

As Goes Vermont...or is that New Hampshire?

NYT.com had a clip on the legislative battle going on in the state of VT in re: to equal marriage rights. While you can have a civil union, the state legislature is debating whether or not marriage equality is now the call of the day. The Governor could veto the measure, and there is a question as to if the votes are there to over-ride a veto.

Click here.

Meanwhile, NH is also debating the issue.

Boy oh boy! This is not boring stuff!

Meanwhile, the Pope has made it known in Africa that condoms are not a solution per se to HIV/AIDS.

Really!?

I say this, as a brother in Christ: you are wrong, Pope Benedict. Very, very, wrong.

Pace!

B

Q-Notes Calls!

Oh!

One more thing: Q-Notes--the LGBTQ magazine of the Carolinas--and I are working on a new monthly column on gay parenting.

Stay tuned!

Pace!

B

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world!

Loved the movie.

Now this: in Maine, the CLERGY are inviting the legislators out for breakfast to push for marriage equality.

That's right: the CLERGY are pushing it.

I got the link from towleroad, which took me to the Seattle Times (don't ask), and the article only cited a Unitarian Universalist pastor, but no other denominations.

Any PCUSA, UMC, UCC, ELCA, etc. clergy involved as well?

Click here for more.

Pace!
B

Knights Out!

I caught this story on towleroad.com re: Knights Out (KnightsOut.org), a group of LGBT people who are former cadets from West Point who are now graduates of this military institution. They "officially" came out yesterday, showing up in the Navy Times, with a link to their website: www.knightsout.org.

Click here for more.

So this got me to thinking: an LGBT website of clergy who are out in the PCUSA, or in all our various denominations. While we have our various groups that support LGBT folks in the denomination, we don't have a group of out LGBT pastors, Christian educators, counselors, administrators, etc.

Times are changing.

Pace!

B

Sunday, March 15, 2009

WE TV "Surprise Wedding"? Are you kidding me?

On WE T.V., there is a show that blew me away: "Surprise Wedding." Women, dressed in wedding gowns, propose to their boyfriends. The boyfriends then are put in a room and can call people to find out if they should or shouldn't get married. At the conclusion of the show, the girlfriend is in a wedding dress, flowers in hand, and the boyfriend, in tux, either asks for the girl's hand in marriage or not.

IF they say "I will," then there is a minister who appears out of nowhere and they are married right there, on the spot.

Really?

And we who are LGBTQ who want to get married, who take marriage seriously that we are doing all kinds of things to get married, cannot get married?

On this show there is no counseling, no other family members present, none of the discussions that go into marriages. It is simply "Slam bam thank you mam!?"

Amazing!

Again: why can't we get married? Weddings/marriages on this show are a sham.

Click here for more.

Pace!

B

Friday, March 13, 2009

Gay Marriage: Healthy For Children

A study in VT has confirmed what many of us already know through anecdotal evidence (a.k.a., living it): gay marriage is good for the health of kids! And it is probably pretty darn good for the couples as well.

Sigh..

Here's the story below:

On Monday, Vermont mental health organizations and human service groups banded together to release a statement in favor of gay marriages, saying that, far from being detrimental, allowing an LGBT couple to marry could be the very best thing for children in their care, turning the argument against gay marriage on its head by effectively suggesting that it is gay marriage opponents who are creating unstable families by keeping gay parents apart.

Opponents to gay marriage often cry "Think of the children", but Jackie Weinstein of the University of Vermont's Human Development and Family Studies program said that, "We [the coalition group] felt it was important for us to set the record straight about the scholarly literature in our field, and we have lots of different families and the best thing to do for all children is to support parents the best way we can," which was why she and other representatives would be recommending same-sex marriage be allowed when a gay marriage bill, HB 178, is debated in the Vermont senate next week.

The group's consensus, which also includes the Vermont sector of the National Association of Social Workers, also drew a distinction between civil partnerships for LGBT couples and marriage, saying that the latter would validate a same-sex couple in the eyes of society in a way that a civil partnership could not.

Click here for more.

What most of us who have any background in social scientific research know is that what many of these studies do is confirm what we already knew in our gut. The studies do give a kind of legitimacy to what many of us already deduced.

Pace!

B