Alright, quick update before I head back into more writing for NaNoWriMo. First up, NYC will be hosting World Pride to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall:
Rand Paul recently said that gay people should stay in the closet if we want to work, that we don’t deserve employment protections. We don’t have nationwide or even statewide protection (in Pa.), but he still goes against the vast, vast majority of people in this country, but it’s a dangerous position that he holds.
The Mormon Church has decided that they will not baptize children who have gay parents….until they turn 18 and disown their parents. Because, honestly, I’m so exasperated that I can’t even come up with anything snarky. Fuck the Mormon church.
Speaking of, Fuck the city of Houston. They recently repealed their anti-discrimination ordinance (which also put protections in place for other groups such as veterans), because of a long series of lies. Dan Savage takes us through it, and how to fight and win in the future.
If you can believe it, this past month has been so crazy, I’m looking forward to NaNoWriMo so I get some extra time. Either way, here’s a quick update before I get started on my tenth (!) year of NaNoWriMo.
First up, in case you missed it, the poster for Episode VII:
And here’s a supercut of all the trailers put together:
I want to try this out next year for my jack-o-lantern (although this year I did Shy Guy from Nintendo, so it wouldn’t have really fit). Looks intense!
Remember, kids. The far right isn’t really “pro-life” (I mean, they’re really just anti-choice), they don’t want you to have sex. Except to make babies, but that’s it!
Check out a great column about the actual affects of the Ashley Madison hack. Not even discussed: the people put in jeopardy of being put to death: in some countries, “cheating” or being gay (AM ran a gay hook up site as well), is punishable by death, and now those people’s information are out as well.
Right after the Ashley Madison hack, the feds raided the offices of Rentboy. But should they have? Matt Baume explains:
Pennsylvania has introduced sweeping anti-LGBT discrimination legislation. You know, because even though I can get married, I can be denied being served at any business (job protections are covered under recent federal rulings, but they’re not permanent yet). Hopefully it can finally pass, Pa. is the only state in the northeast without these kinds of basic protections.
Somewhat related: a new survey finds that a third of young Americans don’t identify as completely straight. Which makes sense, for years, the conventional thinking was that women’s sexuality was more fluid, but recent studies have found that the same is true for men, but society pressured men to identify as straight.
Ignorant, hateful bakers in Oregon, who lost a lawsuit for refusing service to a gay couple and then smearing them (leading to death threats and harassment), have been raking in the money via crowdfudning (it’s the normal cycle: do something illegal against the queer community, get fined, cry about it online and rake in the money from other bigots across the country). Now, they’re sending cakes to LGBT organizations….with copies of a DVD about how horrible LGBT people and protections are. Fuckers.
For more information, let’s once again hand it over to Jon Oliver, because he nails it, this is required viewing:
Here is the latest list of the most homphobic colleges in the country, no surprise, Grove City tops the list, but I was surprised to see LeHigh and IUP on the list as well.
We joked while in Arizona about “the last cactus.” I think I found it:
All right, let’s see what we have today. First up, get the tissues. This makes a great point, we’ll never know what Matthew Sheperd would look like as an adult:
It’s not that Christians will have to perform gay weddings or have to get gay married. It’s not that their churches will be burned down or that they will be imprisoned. They won’t lose their jobs and they won’t be followed down the street or be harassed for what they believed. They simply will not be able to impose their beliefs on others nor restrict the secular rights that are conferred onto marriages by our government. It takes a powerfully twisted mind to translate that into the feelings of persecution so intense that it brings them to tears.
And for those who thought that Ohio Governor’s Kasich quote from the Republican debate was so wonderful, not so fast. We’re not begging for scraps. Basic dignity and acceptance should go without saying, any decent human can do that. We deserve the same rights as everyone else:
But let’s not confuse progress with praise until a candidate steps up to that podium and states, “Every citizen is created equal and, as President, I would make sure that everyone is treated equally.” We should not and must not cheer for anything less.
First up, pay attention because this is really important. Remember the anti-gay bakers that refused to bake a cake for a lesbian couple? They got sued because of they harassed the couple, drug their name through the mud and released their contact information, leading to even more harassment and death threats. They’ve been claiming that they’re the real victims and have raised over $450,000 dollars (the fine was $135,000). Likewise, a county clerk is Kentucky is refusing to do his job (by not issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples). The governor has personally talked to him to tell him to either resign or do his job. But he’s claiming religious freedom. Now we just wait to see how much money he’ll raise for himself once he gets fired. The cycle just keeps repeating.
I’ve been on my soapbox for years about the role institutionalized discrimination plays in the epidemic of youth LGBT suicides, and a Methodist pastor, fired for being gay, says the same thing.
The real price of being gay and belonging to an evangelical church. Long, but worth a read.
Now it turns out that evangelicals had a third condition for their pet gay celibates: They had to reject gay sex, gay relationships, and gay marriage not just for themselves but for all gays and lesbians.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that existing civil rights law bars sexual orientation-based employment discrimination—a groundbreaking decision to advance legal protections for gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers…. The independent commission addressed the question of whether the ban on sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars anti-LGB discrimination in a complaint brought by a Florida-based air traffic control specialist against Transportation Sec. Anthony Foxx. The ruling—approved by a 3-2 vote of the five-person commission—applies to federal employees’ claims directly, but it also applies to the entire EEOC, which includes its offices across the nation that take and investigate claims of discrimination in private employment.
Make no mistake, this will end up before the courts, but this is a huge deal, one that we’ve been fighting for for even longer than marriage and has failed in every single session of Congress. This is huge.
Alright, let’s see what we have today. First up, this is the reel from Comic Con about Episode VII:
Earlier today I posted an article about my bishop. Want to see some awesome drone footage of my church? Of course you do!
The truth about the lawsuit against the anti-gay bakers in Oregon. The payment is because they continuously harassed and then doxed the couple. And in reality, refusing your service to a group of people is discrimination. It is no different than a woman, African American or Irish American being denied to be served. It’s bigoted, and in Oregon, against the law.
Attention straight people, this is puppy play (also, I’m sure the picture accompanying this story is helping it’s popularity). This will take the straight world by storm in a few years. Also, appropriate since Anthrocon is in town (but they’re different!)
The Girl Scouts returned a donation of $100,000 after the donor specified it not go towards any trans* girls. They then got twice as much donated from the internet.
AirBnB has a great new ad about travel issues and Pride month. But it’s a great examination of straight privilege:
Men who have sex with men are still barred from donating blood. To protest this, an artist has created “Blood Mirror” a tank filled with the blood of gay and bi men:
Philea, the lander on the comet 67P, has woken up!
Quick post, but some good stuff. First up, with June starting tomorrow, it’s Pride month. Here’s Dan Savage’s guide to straight people enjoying pride festivals:
I think the message in Pride for straight people–and why I think straight people should go–is that there should be more than one way to be a straight person too. That there is a script written for straight people about how you’re supposed to live your life and who you’re supposed to be and that script is confining and stultifying and restricting and straight people to need to break out of that. I think what a lot of straight people leave with is ‘Wow, there’s so many ways to be queer maybe I can conceive of perhaps a different way to be straight.’
I saw this going around those close to me in age, and it sums us up perfectly: The Oregon Trail generation. Not Gen X’ers, not Millenials. Somewhere lost in between.
And finally, we celebrated Harvey Milk Day by volunteering here in Pittsburgh. To commemorate, one of my favorite quotes:
