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Watercooler: New York fights back
Keeping track of gay marriage legislation is a complicated endeavor. While Wikipedia and Freedom to Marry have great maps, a new site just launched that keeps track not only of
the current legislation, but also the views of the state’s lawmakers. Statesthatallowgaymarriage.com launched recently and has information on all 50 governors, 100 United
States senators, and 435 United States representatives and their
positions on gay marriage.
The
site’s founder Michael Zuyus said, “We want to make it easy for people
to get the information they need in order to support candidates who will
vote for marriage rights in their state.”
New York state senator and Pentecostal minister Ruben Díaz is running for reelection, but Fight Back NY is trying its hardest to ensure that Diaz does not succeed. Fight Back
called Díaz “New York’s most notoriously anti-gay state senator.”
To
campaign against Díaz, Fight Back is looking to hire political
researchers to search through Ruben’s “murky past,” in an effort
discover information about the senator that would discourage voters from
selecting his name on the ballot.
Two of Díaz’s brothers are gay, as is his granddaughter . Díaz was one of the 38 senators who voted against same-sex marriage in NY, and is adamantly opposed to homosexuality, but he says he still loves his gay family members.
Díaz
was forced to resign from the Civilian Complaint Review Board when he
suggested that the Gay Games would spread HIV; in 2003 he tried to shut
down Harvey Milk High School, a NY public school safe haven for LGBT
students.
CBS, embarrassed by its low score on the GLAAD ratings , is adding more gay characters to its shows.
“We’re
not happy with ourselves,” said CBS president Nina Tassler. “We’re
adding a few characters this season because we’re very disappointed in
our track record so far.”
GLAAD gave CBS a failing grade for two consequtive, with 7 percent LGBT-inclusive hours of primetime programming.
Tassler announced gay characters will be added to The Good Wife , S*** My Dad Says and Rules of Engagement .
CBS is also starting a new talk show hosted by celebrity moms, including lesbian Sara Gilbert .
A thousand people in Enid, Okla. celebrated Pride earlier this month. Enid Pride started in 2009 with a turnout of 300 people, the largest first-time
turnout for a Pride in Oklahoma. Approximately 48,000 people reside in
Enid, but the Pride events were targeted to all of northeast Oklahoma.
Photo credit: Michelle Posey
The second Enid event had over three times the number of festival-goers as it did last year.
The
week of celebrating included a vigil, forums and discussions, film
screenings, an interfaith service, and of course, the festival. While
the gay community in Enid used to rely on small-town gay bars, the
community now flocks to its new community center. Parents and Friends of
Lesbians and Gays hosted the event.
Oklahoma has a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but Tulsa recently adopted an anti-discrimination policy for city employees, and a transgender woman is running for a state senate seat.
Only 10% of the 400,000 surveys distributed by the Defense Department were returned. The surveys ask
servicemembers their opinions on permitting gays and lesbians to serve
openly in the military, in an effort to explore troops’ views on
repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The deadline for the return of the
surveys is August 15
Transgender supermodels and Catholic disconnect
• Breaking the glass ceiling. The fashion house of Givenchy recently featured a transgender female supermodel in its Haute Couture show and newest print campaign. Meet Lea T , the former male model bloomed into one of the worlds most beautiful
Brazilian beauties and gives the biological supermodels from her native
country serious competition. She began her ascent to the top of high
fashion as the personal assistant to Givenchy’s creative director, Riccardo Tisci , and quickly became his muse. Tisci noted, “Lea has innate elegance –
she’s a true goddess! She’s always been very feminine – super-fragile,
very aristocratic.” This Brazilian goddess is on fire recently appearing
in Italian Vogue nude. Keep breaking the glass ceiling ladies!
• Catholics 1-Catholic Church 0. A recent survey found that Catholics strongly support gay marriage . Granted the poll was of 3,000 California Catholics, but still. The
Public Religion Research Institute conducted the survey in June and
found some interesting numbers. Only 22% of white Catholics and 23% of
Latino Catholics oppose gay marriage. 37% of white Catholics and 44% of
Latino Catholics support gay marriage and an additional 43% of white
Catholics and 28% of Latino Catholics support civil unions. Now that’s
great news, considering that yet another top Catholic official just
compared being gay to an affliction. Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez’s reaction to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Argentina was that
gayactivity is immoral but gay tendencies are a defect, as if one
lacked an eye, a hand, a foot.” I guess the Catholic laypeople (at least
in California) didn’t get the official Church word from 2003 that
giving gay unions the same stature as straight marriage “would mean not
only the approval of deviant behavior, with the consequence of making it
a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values
which belong to the common inheritance of humanity.” It’s time for new
leadership at the Vatican.
• Go Mom! The Target corporation gave $150,000 to the Republican candidate for governor, Tom Emmer . Emmer has tons of “fun” ideas, like lets reduce the hourly wages of
waiters and bartenders because they make too much money…oh and he’s anti
gay. And that ticked off mother and grandmother, Randi Reitan .
Ms. Reitan is the mother of a gay man and cannot rap her head around how
a seemingly gay affirming company like Target could give money to elect
an anti-gay governor. She decided to boycott Target and make a
statement. In a video Ms. Reitan purchases over $200 dollars of goods
and then proceeds to return them with an explanation of why she is
returning her purchase and will no longer shop there. Make a video, make
a statement and let the CEO of Target know that his actions have
consequences.
• Do Something. I haven’t written about the calamity in the Gulf because…well it’s too
heartbreaking for me to even think about. Yesterday I ran across a video
that uses humor and righteous anger to make the point…and to raise
money for the clean up, UnF–kTheGulf.comLuke Montgomery and Nate Guidas are the gay couple behind the video campaign are are no strangers to activism with their charity Good Ideas for Good Causes . Montgomery is the long time gay activist who interrupted President Clinton’s 1993 World AIDS Day speech at the tender age of 19. Besides their current campaign the
couple have been delivering supplies to Haiti and working in the Haitian
AIDS orphanage Montgomeryfounded. The point of the video is to get
those of us muted by the horror in the gulf to purchase a t-shirt for
$13. For every t-shirt $5 is donated to environmental organizations
working in the Gulf (with the rest going to t-shirt production and to
pay for the campaign). I am buying one today…so should you. Instead of
screaming F@#K at the television, I can wear it on my chest and maybe
keep from crying…today. .
