Equal Marriage Supporters

[Uncle Remus]

254,262 as of 9:00 AM EST.

Update:

10:00P CST

280,892 people have signed this letter*

 

[Goofyluver]

Update:

10:00P CST

280,892 people have signed this letter*

More dancin'....

 

[Uncle Remus]

More dancin'....

The Right to Marry: Yes We Should!

What a great testimonial.

 

[PeterPan09]

Amendment 2 is so poorly written that it is wide open to interpretation. Mayor Buddy Dyer has said that he'll defend the city's position.

We'll have to see. What most people don't realize is that the amendment is as damaging to heterosexual couples as any gay couple, particularly the elderly who tend to form domestic partnerships as a means to protect their benefits without giving up the person they love. They are at risk now too, for all the same things as gay couples. When you look at elderly couples as realie that they have just had their ability to speak for one another in health care settings in particular, the whole situation becomes quite grim.

I couldn't believe the ignorance that surrounded that legislation. It was written without regard for all the consequences and people voted for it who didn't understand it either. I really hope a court challenge comes up soon so it can be sent to the dustheap where it belongs.

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

Did you see the wording on the ballot? How freaking inflammatory was THAT?! It was almost impossible to keep my mouth shut at the polls. I did do an excellent snort though.

I haven't heard about any challenge yet, but surely there will be. It's just too badly written for it to stand up. But then, this is Florida.

 

[PeterPan09]

Did you see the wording on the ballot? How freaking inflammatory was THAT?! It was almost impossible to keep my mouth shut at the polls. I did do an excellent snort though.

I haven't heard about any challenge yet, but surely there will be. It's just too badly written for it to stand up. But then, this is Florida.

Oh yeah. When I got my sample ballot I called my Mom and read it to her. I said "are you KIDDING ME???" She said: "welcome to the South, dear" She and Dad both voted against it, as did most of our family.

I think it will take a case of a hetero domestic partner couple to get it overturned here. Sadly, I don't think a gay couple is going to garner much sympathy.

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

welcome to the South, dear"

Yeah, huh? S'up with THAT?

 

[PeterPan09]

Yeah, huh? S'up with THAT?

I lived all my life in NJ, and Lord knows we have our fair share of ignorance, but ours tends more to continually voting for corrupt politicians and then wondering why things never change.

 

[Uncle Remus]

Update:

10:00P CST

280,892 people have signed this letter*

Update:

10:00A CST

303,893 people have signed this letter*
NEW GOAL: 350,000 signers by March 2.


Here's more hope:

(North Miami, Florida) North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns has announced his candidacy for the US Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Mel Martinez.

Gay Mayor Seeks US Senate Seat

Course, I'm sure equal marriage, ENDA, and DADT will be big issues, I hope Burns is prepared for the propoganda.

 

[PeterPan09]

I'm not sure if this really belongs here-but the trial just started this week and I had not even heard about it before this. It's a reminder that we have a LONG way to go.

WINTER HAVEN -- Ryan Skipper's mother used to tell him not to advertise that he was gay.

Polk County, she warned, was not as accepting as some other places.

"I said, 'Ryan, honey. It's not that I'm ashamed of who you are,'"" Patricia Mulder recalled, "'but people will hurt you for that.'"

Skipper, too, feared that people would hurt him for being gay, his mother said.

On March 14, 25-year-old Skipper was fatally stabbed in what authorities believe was a hate crime combined with a robbery.

Two men have been arrested -- William D. Brown Jr., 20, and Joseph Bearden, 21. Brown told a witness he killed Skipper because Skipper was "messing" with him and making sexual advances, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

By any standards, Skipper's murder was vicious. He was stabbed 20 times inside his car. His throat was slit, his face pummeled. The attackers took his jewelry, his laptop and his new car, and dropped his body by the side of the road in Wahneta, a small town outside Winter Haven.

The killing has sparked an outcry from gay rights groups and gay-oriented Web sites. Vigils for Skipper will be held today in 13 cities around the state as well as in Washington, D.C.

But Skipper's death has received little mainstream attention compared with the 1998 slaying of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay college student whose savage murder in Laramie, Wyo., drew national headlines and spawned a play and a movie.

Family and friends say that's in large part because Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told local media that Skipper was cruising for sex when he met his attackers and that earlier in the night he had been smoking pot with one of his attackers and talking about an illegal check copying scheme.

"They've characterized Ryan as a pervert, a drug addict and a felon," said Brian Winfield, a spokesman for Equality Florida, the group organizing the vigils. "In the eyes of the media, it didn't carry the human interest that it should have."

- - -

The time line of Skipper's last hours is still unclear.

At 9 p.m. that Tuesday, he closed down the Sunglass Hut in Winter Haven, where he worked. He met his friend Karl von Hahmann for dinner, and the two parted ways at 10:30 p.m.

Von Hahmann called Skipper at 11:10 p.m. to remind him to give a key to one of his co-workers the next morning. Skipper was at home when he answered the phone.

Roommate Kelly Evans said Skipper put some leftovers in the refrigerator and went into his bedroom. Evans didn't know when Skipper left the home.

Some time around midnight, the Sheriff's Office said, Skipper met Bearden and offered him a ride. They came back to Skipper's house, authorities say, where they smoked marijuana and talked about a scheme to copy checks on Skipper's laptop.

Then they went to Brown's house.

The three men left Brown's home in Skipper's car and, 15 minutes later, Brown and Bearden returned without Skipper, the Sheriff's Office said. His body was dumped a few miles away.

How Skipper met up with his attackers remains contentious.

Skipper's friends and family say he would have never cruised the streets for sex.

"He didn't need to do that. He didn't want to do that," his stepfather, Lynn Mulder, said. "He would have been afraid to do that."

Joyce Fraley, another roommate, said she had seen Brown come by the house a couple of times asking for Skipper. One time he came up to the door. Fraley wouldn't let him in, but when Skipper saw Brown they went out in the yard and talked.

The attackers abandoned the car near a boat ramp at Lake Pansy, outside Winter Haven. They tried unsuccessfully to set it on fire. Authorities found Brown's fingerprints in the car.

According to state records, Bearden spent six months in state prison for car theft and was released in September. He also pleaded no contest to a battery charge in 2004.

- - -

Skipper had a hard time growing up in Winter Haven.

"In high school, people would call him a girlie man, gay boy, just names that kids in school call gay guys," said Stephanie Schiff, his best friend. People would push him in the halls and throw rocks at his car, she remembers. He never wanted to fight back.

Skipper was careful in public and didn't outwardly identify himself as gay. He didn't place a gay pride insignia on his new car, despite Schiff's encouragement, because he feared vandalism.

Despite the tough atmosphere, Skipper felt recently that he was coming into his own in Polk County.

He told von Hahmann that he had never been happier. He had moved out of his parents' home and was doing well at vocational school, learning computer repair skills.

Since the murder, Patricia Mulder has been in a state of shock. She wakes up in the morning and expects to hear from her youngest son.

"I started calling his house because the answering machine was still on and I could hear his voice," she said. That tape and a brief video clip are the only scraps she has of his voice.

She wonders how deep the stab wounds were and whether he suffered.

- - -

Outside Skipper's family and friends, the news of his murder has echoed through the gay community in Polk County.

At the Pulse, a gay bar Skipper went to in Lakeland, the killing hit hard.

In the 1980s, the bar used to get pelted by smoke bombs and have its patrons harassed, said Terry Thompson, the partner of the bar's owner. But the city of Lakeland has become relatively accepting in recent years, he said.

Skipper's murder was an ugly reminder of the hatred beneath the surface.

"Ryan was too trusting," Thompson said. "He was too young to remember the days when we were smoke-bombed."

People in the community are being careful, but they're not hiding. The bar had two dozen customers on a recent Thursday night.

And the supportive response from the community has been a consolation to Skipper's family.

"I think the area has responded better than I expected," said Mulder, Ryan's stepfather. "Ryan's death has made an impact more than I would have thought."

Times researchers Caryn Baird and Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com

 

[Uncle Remus]

Yes, there's a documentary:

This not-for-profit documentary, Accessory to Murder: Our Culture's Complicity in the Death of Ryan Skipper, explores the rampant homophobia which is present in our culture's institutions, from religion, education, law enforcement to politics. Our society and its leaders must bear responsibility for the murder of Ryan Skipper who lived in a culture that devalued and demeaned him, and ultimately targeted him for violence and death.

While gays are often targetted for crime, I'm sure it's difficult to separate motives
in crimes when the blatant evidence is overwhelming in one area over another.

Hopefully, the prosecution will win this case, this animal needs to be removed from society to protect all of us.

 

[Uncle Remus]

And more good news:

Feb 18, 2009 (Sacramento, California) Two weeks before the California Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Proposition 8, the legislature is moving to condemn the voter- approved measure which bans same-sex marriage in the state.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 7-3 to put the legislature on record as opposing Prop 8. The resolution goes next to the full Assembly.

The vote came as about 1000 members of the state’s LGBT communities converged on the legislature to lobby lawmakers.

The group ignored heavy rain, but many members of the Senate were unavailable - tied up in meetings trying to resolve California’s financial crisis. Nevertheless, the gay volunteers pressed on, buttonholing lawmakers to press the case that Prop 8 enshrined discrimination in the state Constitution.

Voters approved Prop 8 in November with a slim 52 percent majority.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the vote. They were joined by additional suits by the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 5.

The lawsuits charge that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone, by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians.

They also say that Proposition 8 improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. The suits say that under the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works, the groups said in a written brief to the court.

Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn’t happen with Proposition 8, and that’s why it’s invalid, the petitioners said.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown is also asking the Court to invalidate Proposition 8 on the ground that certain fundamental rights, including the right to marry, are inalienable and can not be put up for a popular vote.

In a brief submitted to the court, Brown’s office said the measure should be invalidated because it deprives people of the right to marry—an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution.

On the other side, Protect Marriage Coalition, the umbrella group that put Prop 8 on the ballot, argues in its brief to the court that the will of the people must be respected by the court and that the measure also invalidated those marriages performed prior to the vote.

The coalition has hired Ken Starr, who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica L. Lewinsky, to argue its case before the high court.

The Supreme Court justices will have to determine three main issues: Is Prop 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution; Does it violate the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution; and if it is legal what is the status of the 18,000 marriages that were performed last year.

After the court hears the legal arguments, it will be several months before a decision is issued.

Link

 

[NYPDwife]

Just signed. I think Prop 8 was ridiculous.

 

[Goofyluver]

And more good news:



Link

From the article...

California Attorney General Jerry Brown is also asking the Court to invalidate Proposition 8 on the ground that certain fundamental rights, including the right to marry, are inalienable and can not be put up for a popular vote.

 

[PeterPan09]

Some good news, some bad news....at least it's a step.

Lutherans weigh allowing gay clergy while giving conservative congregations option to say no

By ERIC GORSKI

AP Religion Writer

2:20 PM EST, February 19, 2009

The nation's largest Lutheran denomination will consider allowing individual congregations to choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, an attempt to avoid the sort of infighting that has threatened to tear other churches apart.

A task force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recommended that course Thursday in a long-awaited report on ministry standards. The panel, however, said the church needs to clarify a number of questions before overhauling its gay clergy policy.

The report, issued at the same time as a broader church social statement on human sexuality, seeks balance on an issue dividing many Protestant churches. Both documents will be considered in August in Minneapolis at the biannual convention of the 4.7-million member denomination.

"At this point, there is no consensus in the church," said the Rev. Peter Strommen of Prior Lake, Minn., chairman of the 15-member task force on sexuality. "The question ends up being, 'How are we going to live together in that absence of consensus?'

"This ought not to be church-dividing, even if there are strong differences."

Church members on both sides of the issue, however, were dissatisfied with the proposal. Conservatives called it a rejection of Scripture and an advocate for gay clergy said some of the elements take "a step backward."

Gays and lesbians can now serve as clergy in the ELCA if they remain celibate, although some congregations have challenged the system and hired pastors in gay relationships. Heterosexual clergy and professional lay workers are to abstain from sex outside marriage.

The proposed change would cover those in "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships."

The task force recommended a deliberate four-step process toward a new policy — starting with asking the church whether it is committed in principle "to finding ways to allow congregations and synods that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable" those relationships.

The task force is not urging a liturgical rite for same-sex couples, said the Rev. Stanley Olson, executive director of vocation and education for the Chicago-based denomination.

The desire is to hold gay people accountable to their relationships much like heterosexual couples are bound by marriage, he said. The report doesn't propose ways to accomplish that.

Next, the church would consider whether it wants to find a way to allow gay clergy while agreeing to "respect the bound consciences of all." If the assembly can agree on those things, then it would weigh the recommendation essentially granting a local option on gay clergy in committed relationships.

The proposal is an effort to avoid the sort of splintering that the 77 million-member Anglican Communion has suffered since 2003, when the Episcopal Church — the Anglican body in the U.S. — consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. His election intensified a long-running debate over what Anglicans should believe about salvation, sexuality and other issues.

The ELCA report calls for "structured flexibility" giving congregations, regional church bodies called synods and candidacy committees freedom to "act according to their convictions."

"The task force believes the church will be better at respecting the consciences of people who disagree if we allow room for different practice," Olson said. "That goes hand in hand with our conviction that our Christian unity doesn't depend on agreement about ethical questions."

The report identifies fault lines in the church on the gay clergy question, including disagreement over the nature of sin, biblical interpretation, what's best for people with same-sex orientation and the role of social sciences and biology in forming judgments.

Leaders of the conservative group Lutheran CORE said they would work to defeat the proposals, describing them as a rejection of Scripture and contrary to the wishes of most church members.

"When any church finds itself accommodating its teachings to the ways of the culture, that church is in trouble," the Rev. Erma Wolf of Brandon, S.D., vice chair of the group's steering committee, said in a statement. "No church has the authority to overturn the Word of God."

Emily Eastwood, executive director of Lutherans Concerned/North America, which advocates full inclusion for gays and lesbians in the church, called the recommendations a "net gain."

But she criticized the local option, saying it would prevent congregations from hiring gay clergy if their synods prohibit it. As it stands, many congregations have hired gay clergy without fear of reprimand since bishops were directed in 2007 to show restraint in disciplining the practice, she said.

"This is actually a step backward rather than a step forward from where we are now," she said. "It's going to create, in effect, a regional discrimination."

The clergy recommendations echo themes in the social statement, "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust." That document, released in draft form last year, underscores the importance of trust, faithfulness and commitment in all human relationships and upholds the definition of marriage as a covenant between a man and woman.

 

[Goofyluver]

I was pokin' around and found a new site...

13LoveStories.com is a unique multimedia advocacy project that profiles the moving stories of thirteen couples whose lives were profoundly affected by Proposition 8 - the recent California ballot initiative that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Link

Check out Byron and Raymond HERE. And pay careful attention to those two li'l darlings in their Minnie costumes.

It's so important to share real stories of real families and how legislation such as this affects them.

 

[jenn&nelsonrego]

Thank you Uncle Remus. This is an excellent application of the Freedom to Marry Week.

I would like to add to this discussion, before someone hops in here and brings it up, that we'd prefer you not use the silliness of "then churches will be forced to marry gays which is against the religious tenets of the church."

That is a bald faced lie. There is no provision in the legislative system that would support or uphold that. Christian churches, Jewish Synagogues, Muslim Mosques, and any other religious or spiritual organization will remain free to define who they marry and under what circumstances. Let's be clear about that. No, "yeah buts," no, "sure, but what ifs," none of that propaganda that is so patently false.

This is not about anything other than civil liberties. Read that again. CIVIL liberties. This is not about religious freedom. This is about having the right to go before a civil entity and be entered into a biding agreement that goes by the definition of marriage, regardless of the gender of the person you are marrying. Period. That is all it is about.

It's not about educating children to be homosexual. It's not about promoting acceptance of being gay in elementary, junior, or high schools. Bigoted parents do a fine job right now of keeping their little darlings brainwashed. That's why racism is still so prevalent.

This is solely (as in ONLY) about two people marrying in a civil ceremony regardless of gender or religious belief/non-belief.

If you can't get your mind around that, then don't. Don't marry someone of your own gender. Don't join a group to promote marriage of same gendered couples. Don't attend the ceremonies of your friends, neighbors and perhaps one day, your child when they join together with a someone of the same gender.

Do stop lying about it. Do stop pretending that it's the imminent downfall of religion as you know it. Do stop pretending that what two people other than you and your opposite gendered spouse do is going to affect your union.

Civil liberty to marry in a civil ceremony or religious based ceremony where the church is accepting of the union. That is what same gendered marriage is all about.

Jumping in a little late here, but I wanted to add my amen to the above statement.

 

[dwheatl]

I was pokin' around and found a new site...



Link

Check out Byron and Raymond HERE. And pay careful attention to those two li'l darlings in their Minnie costumes.

It's so important to share real stories of real families and how legislation such as this affects them.

So touching.

 

[dwheatl]

DD just sent me this link. A touch of humor to bring the point home. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T5EwFoOgUI

 

[Uncle Remus]

Just signed. I think Prop 8 was ridiculous.

Thank you.



I'm really likin' these 2 videos right now:

Got Hope? Harvey Milk

Thank You