Posts tagged gay rights
Transcend Dualism
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Peter, Paul & Mary’s cease-and-desist to NOM: Stop playing “This Land Is Your Land”
From the Courage Campaign Blog:
“When I first heard this recording played in Albany, NY, I was stunned and deeply offended. Woody Guthrie and Peter, Paul & Mary are artists who have always unequivocally supported justice and equality for all.
I felt certain the surviving members of Peter, Paul & Mary would want to know of this grievous misuse of their recording, so I wrote to Peter Yarrow. In my correspondence, I provided a link to a video of the Albany rally and explained that their recording had been used at high volume to drown out the chants of “Equality” from the counter-demonstrators.
Mr. Yarrow responded, saying use of the song by NOM was “heartbreaking” and indicated he would be contacting NOM. Here is the letter to Brian Brown from Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey, surviving members of the group who performed as Peter, Paul & Mary (reproduced with permission).”
Thank Peter, Paul & Mary on their Facebook page for taking a public stand for equality and striking back at NOM.
A PRIVATE MORAL VIEW THAT SAME-SEX COUPLES ARE INFERIOR TO OPPOSITE-SEX COUPLES IS NOT A PROPER BASIS FOR LEGISLATION.
Federal judge VAUGHN R. WALKER, writing - in caps - in his ruling overturning California’s Proposition 8. (via USA Today) (via inothernews) (via notnadia) (via miraculous) (via neonloneliness)
Zing.
(via bitterbuffalo)
(via picklejuice)
I was glad to see that they had at least one that wasn’t female/male. I was getting worried that they were being heteronormative. I would have been angry. Anyways, here’s what they do and where you can find them, the picture is blurry I know :)
Men Can Stop Rape mobilizes male youth to prevent men’s violence against women. We build young men’s capacity to challenge harmful aspects of traditional masculinity, to value alternative visions of male strength, and to embrace their vital role as allies with women and girls in fostering healthy relationships and gender equity.Okay, I promise this is the last one today, but I absolutely died when he said,
“gays don’t parent by mistake, gay people don’t get drunk one night and accidentally adopt.”
My mother wasn’t adopted until she was in her early teens and it really bugs me that these crazies would try to keep her out of a loving home because they weren’t straight. Hurts my brain.
i like that he talks about florida so much here, because florida sucks at a lot of things, but especially at this in particular. my best friend is a social worker in central florida specializing in children’s cases and the stories she’s told me - which are just a fraction of things she’s seen - are so upsetting to me. this guy is spot on.
“there are children in foster care and why are they in foster case? because their gay parents abandoned, neglected and abused them? no. because their straight parents abandoned, neglected and abused them! most kids in foster care were failed by heterosexual couples. and then to turn around - how insulting, to turn around and say to the fags, ‘we’d give them to you, but you’re fags.’”
I really like how at the very end, gay couples are like spare parents :)
PinkPaper: Sweden most pro-gay country in Europe
And if they top Europe, we can assume they top the world too, since I’d vouch for (most of) Europe and say we’re the most pro-gay continent/group of countries.
Like I said, Sweden is badass :) I swear I’m not trying to make a Sweden obbsessed blog, but I can’t help it. lol
My focal vocabulary.: I have an issue with the homophobia as a choice concept
I’ve been seeing various things lately reaffirming that homosexuality is not a choice, but then going on to say that homophobia is. Come on, seriously?
Homophobia is not a choice, and honestly I think that saying that is damaging to the community. We need to realize that this, our culture, is…
Thank you Pat Robertson (never thought I’d say that) for inspiring this video. Because who wouldn’t want to have sex with a duck?
This is awesome! Can’t stop laughing.
Free to be Me
I want to start a movement. A revolution. This is my time to change the world. I don’t want to sit and complain anymore. We need to start demanding an interest in our cause. I need to start making a difference. I am tired of never speaking up - swallowing my pride is starting to choke me. Why are others allowed to hate me, prosecute and deny me - yet I have to feel grateful for not fearing for my life like those in the countless countries who could be executed and refused burial. How come I’m not allowed to love? What is perverse about my love? I’m not seeking to hurt anybody or control them. I don’t desire attention. I just want to feel free to be me, you to be you - us to be we.
I am well aware that I talk about myself a lot. All about my feelings, and in the same sentence I include you, which you may or may not appreciate. It’s necessary for me to believe that I’m not the only one out here that feels this way. I don’t wish to be alone and obsolete. Being part of my community is important both to my spiritual and physical health. Being accepted is a strong support system to my life. It’s one of the foundations of my life. Despite trying to say that I’m aloof to others opinions, I am in reality coldly turned away from my very being. So in effect, I feel it’s very powerful to put down in ink and paper, that This is how I feel, and though I might feel differently in even a couple of hours, this proof of my evolving changing self exists. And maybe somebody else will have once felt the same way, and be able to reach out for me, and we’ll have a cosmic embrace of souls.
I love my city, my country and my world. But forgive me for a second while I scream. Give me a moment to rage and cry. To let out my soul and give freedom to my fears. Because they are refusing to be contained. Give me freedom to express - my… life.
While our people are being called names, while we are being snubbed, ignored and quietly wished away, we are dying one by one. Our deaths are being mobbed over, screamed and chanted about while we - - - watch. Like the movies that ‘just aren’t real’ our lives and pride are being stripped away by they masses. It’s ‘gay’ to be gay. Painful and never ending. My moments of happiness are rooted in misery and doubt. I don’t want my soil anything other than loving and nutritious. There has to be something I can do? I can listen to people scream, I can monitor the flowing blood. Can I stop it? Can we? Do we have the courage, the strength. . . the right to demand our lives to be free and full?
I’ll be the first to admit that my self esteem is lacking. I can sit here and notice my crappy handwriting, my thighs, my arms, fingers and body posture. I know I rub my eyes too much and they become smeared and tired looking. My hair doesn’t stay in that controlled inoffensive style it was in this morning. These are things that bug me, and I hate to pass them off as unimportant. I’m not hurting anybody and shouldn’t I care more about That than the way I look? I don’t want to hurt anybody so I can’t help thinking about all the people in this world who violently oppose my life. Am I hurting them? What do they suffer, and what is important to them and how does that apply to me? Everybody is important and have a right to be held accountable for what they believe. I don’t know if anybody who acts extremely can be ignorant. Surely you know that if you hit somebody, that the pain, fear and anger that results is in direct compliance with your assault. Yet the proof exists that some don’t understand why they feel the right to violence, and experience life changes after having been taught a different outlook on life. And surely there are people who can be hit, and cruelly subjugated without experiencing any direct fear or hurt, or at least being able to separate themselves sufficiently enough to keep from recreating a pattern of dominance and submission.
By refusing to back down, a new conversation arises. I refuse to scream to demand cooperation. Yet how can I make my voice heard in a horde of crying souls? Do I have a voice? Where do I make my stand?
Worst Sex Ed Book Ever ...
-Just take a look at the reviews down at the bottom of the link. Most everybody agrees that this book is total bullshit.
So here we are, my coworker and I, laughing up a storm about the crap he’s claiming. I know it’s a legit book, and the man is psychiatrist with a MD, yet I can’t seem to believe that he didn’t just make most of the shit up and was just being severely sarcastic.
I usually refrain from talking about hot topics with customers, especially gay rights, but the lady asked what we were reading so we told her. Of course we had to explain why we were laughing so that we didn’t appear to be immature kids laughing at the idea of sex.
“Oh, yeah! I used to use that book in my 8th grade health class.” -Customer Lady
I don’t think either of us could believe it for a few seconds, and then we just had to ask for confirmation stating that she couldn’t have possibly let little impressionable eighth graders read such blatant sexist racist homophobic crap, and his facts weren’t very… factual. Mostly one-sided… Yet our customer insisted that everything was very true, and we were reduced to ‘uuuhh’.
I decided to point out that his portrayal of the homosexual man as transgendered was a false representation, and his list of words that gay men use was simply inaccurate (even though I don’t know the language used in the 70’s, I somehow doubt 99% of his list, and I personally only recognized one that had a somewhat decent definition). Both my coworker and I agreed that the lady customer didn’t know what I was talking about when I differentiated gay and trans. She then proceeded to let me know that as far as their ‘practices’ it was accurate. I’m not honestly sure what she was referring to. She could have been thinking about when he answered the question ‘so the man on bottom plays the role of the female?’ or about how he discusses gays as dressing up like women.
I do know for sure though that she said “ends them up in the hospital.” At which point I felt it necessary to point out that heterosexual couples don’t exactly always practice safe sex either, not to mention that the author never mentions diseases that I know of, and of course the fact that AIDS is hardly exclusive to gay men.
I want to point out that ‘Male Homosexuality’ had its own chapter as did ‘Sexual Perversion’ and it was in the ‘perversion’ chapter that he included transsexuals… and since the author obviously didn’t/doesn’t know the difference between anything remotely queer he basically had these separate subjects in separate places yet described practically the same. I don’t have the book in front of me at the moment because my coworker took it with her, because it’s a hard book to tear yourself away from. But I will go back through this post when I have it again and make corrections and add direct quotes and all that fun stuff.
“Those Gays…”-Customer
label, label, label… obbession!
“We are a community of and welcome LGBTIQQTSA* persons of all ages. LGBTIQQTSA* = lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, two spirit, and ally. “
oh, jeez. lol I wonder if they missed anything? I appreciate all the trouble we all go through to make sure we don’t offend or miss anybody, but really in the end couldn’t we just do away with the labels?
