Gay gals marry at West Point chapel – but what’s with the pogo stick? 2
West Point chapel held its first same-sex wedding this weekend. Lovely.
Across the Country
Jim Henson Co. drops Chick-fil-A like a hot chicken tender 0
Cross-posted from lgbtSr.org:
I don’t know if Chick-fil-A even sells chicken tenders, but I was delighted by this news. I worked at Sesame Street for seven years, and while it’s not the Jim Henson Company, the connection is unavoidable and very, very welcome.
The Muppets have decided to boycott Chick-fil-A over its owner’s public stance against gay marriage. In an announcement on Facebook, Jim Henson Company CEO Lisa Henson said her company will no longer supply toys or other merchandise to the fast-food chain.
“The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors,” the post reads. “Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-fil-A to GLAAD.”
Since the announcement was posted to Facebook on Friday, it has received more than 6,000 “likes” from readers and been shared across the social network thousands of times.
Coincidentally, Jim Henson Studios is located less than two blocks from Chick-fil-A’s Hollywood franchise. Does this mean that Henson employees are going to have to find a new lunch venue?
LA 20 years later 0
Not a happy anniversary but I was there 20 years ago, watching the city I had called home for 12 years erupt in flames. I was working in Glendale when the verdict came down, and shortly after the company sent everyone home. What was normally a 15 minute drive to my apartment in Hollywood took two hours.
The next day a friend and I flew to Hawaii to spread my partner Jim’s ashes. The road has indeed been long and winding. To have been living in Los Angeles for the AIDS plague and the riots and New York for 9/11 is more than anyone should have in their store of memories, but there are many of us. Now if I can just get through my life without another monumental catastrophe I’ll be pleased.
Indiana in my no-fly zone 0
View from an airplane I’ll never have to see again.
After my father died in South Bend, Indiana, in late 2009, it was a relief in a way to know I would never have to go back.
From the South Bend Tribune:
SOUTH BEND – Two years ago Friday, President Obama signed the controversial Affordable Health Care Act. On that anniversary, protesters hit the streets in cities across the country.
More than 100 people gathered in front of the Morris Performing Arts Center in Downtown South Bend to protest the plan to make all employers supply health insurance that provides contraception, even if those employers disagree for religious reasons.
“We want the administration and their appointees to realize that there is major opposition to this,” said Tom Uebbing, rally organizer.
In opposition to the crowd was a small contingent of counter protesters.
“I’m here is peaceful silent counter protest for people trying to deny a woman’s right to birth control,” said Aleta Maria Barajas.
But the protest here also touched on a local issue of a different kind: A bill in the South Bend Common Council that would give gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered people protection against discrimination in the workplace. A bill that was voted down by the Common Council just last year. A bill Uebbing said, in front of the crowd, is a part of the “military homosexual movement.”
“This issue has some major moral concerns and so it’s not a hostile position, you just can’t address this in a law. It has bad consequences.” Uebbing said.
To speak on that issue in front of the crowd was Patrick Mangan, executive director of the Citizens for Community Values of Indiana.
“They (LGBT community) don’t qualify (as a protected class) because it is a behavior based identity, it is not an intrinsic identity.” Mangan said.
Today in evil queenery: Archbishop John Nienstedt 0
In an effort to promote the passage of the marriage amendment to the state’s constituion, Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt wants Catholics to recite a special prayer during mass.
He’s also urging area Catholics “to embrace Fridays as a particular day of prayer and sacrifice for the success of this most current struggle to defend marriage with our civil constitution. Without such deliberate prayers and sacrifices, our efforts will be in vain. But with God, all things are possible.”
[SNIP]The prayer:
Heavenly Father,
Through the powerful intercession of the Holy Family, grant to this local Church the many graces we need to foster, strengthen, and support faith-filled, holy marriages and holy families.
May the vocation of married life, a true calling to share in your own divine and creative life, be recognized by all believers as a source of blessing and joy, and a revelation of your own divine goodness.
Grant to us all the gift of courage to proclaim and defend your plan for marriage, which is the union of one man and one woman in a lifelong, exclusive relationship of loving trust, compassion, and generosity, open to the conception of children.
We make our prayer through Jesus Christ, who is Lord forever and ever. Amen.
U.N. High Commissioner Moms Mabley tells countries to end LGBT discrimination 0
From the AP (via Washington Post):
GENEVA — The U.N.’s top human rights official urged countries Thursday to abolish legal discrimination against gays, including the death penalty for consensual sex, days after the U.S. government said it would use foreign aid and diplomacy to promote gay equal rights.
The U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said governments should also outlaw all forms of abuse based on sexual orientation and set the same age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual activity.
Navi Pillay’s appeal came in a report released Thursday to the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, which in June passed the global body’s first resolution condemning anti-gay discrimination. That vote was hailed as historic by the United States, European countries and others, but decried by some African and Muslim nations.
Scott Walker-appointed commissioner says no workplace protection for the gays 1
They sure do hate gay people, don’t they? The ‘they’ being nearly all of the Republican Party as it now presents itself: a wholly owned subsidiary of the Christian extremists.
Poor Wisconsin, a state I’d once liked so much. At this rate it’s going to be a place I never go again. Scott Walker and his reactionary GOP are showing the way to a terrible future.
A commissioner on the board that makes final decisions in cases involving workplace discrimination says Wisconsin law does not prohibit anti-gay harassment on the job.
Her two fellow commissioners strongly disagree.
Laurie McCallum, who was recently appointed by Gov. Scott Walker to a six-year term on the state’s Labor and Industry Review Commission, wrote that the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act applies only to sexual harassment. That contention was the basis for her dissenting opinion in a case involving Milwaukeean Chris Bowen, a machine operator who was subjected to years of anti-gay harassment as an employee of Stroh Precision Die Casting.
In a 2-1 decision, commissioners Robert Glaser and Ann L. Crump found that Stroh was responsible for fostering a workplace environment hostile to Bowen because of his sexual orientation. Stroh did not deny that the harassment occurred; nor did the company argue that anti-gay harassment is allowed under state law during the eight years that the case bounced around the court system.
But McCallum, the politically connected wife of former GOP Gov. Scott McCallum, defied nearly 30 years of precedent in state law by asserting that sexual “preference,” as she put it, is not a protected category in workplace discrimination cases.
[SNIP]The court record showed that a group of Bowen’s co-workers repeatedly called him “fag,” “maricon” and “my little bitch,” among other slurs, over a period of years. Bowen once found a bulls-eye hunting target over which the word “gay” was written stuck to his toolbox. Someone put a sign that said, “queer” or “queen” on his locker. A sticker was put in his workplace that said, “Honk if you’re gay.” [emphasis mine]
Mercedes exec arrested in Alabama under anti-immigrant law 0
Where’s Neil Young when you need him? A Mercedes exec (the company has brought many jobs to Alabama) made the mistake of driving a rental car with only his German ID on him. Result: he was busted under their new hate-them-illegals law. Hopefully Mercedes will now consider moving their operation to Mexico.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver’s license with him under Alabama’s new law targeting illegal immigrants, authorities said Friday, in an otherwise routine case that drew the attention of Gov. Robert Bentley.
Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.
The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver’s license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.
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