Democracy for America (DFA) has launched an exciting new project to help activists and organizers achieve their goals with a far more powerful set of tools than they would have otherwise. It’s called YouPower and it’s revolutionary.
Click through for details and to sign one of the first petitions started with YouPower.
This video is five years old but it just came to my attention and I think it’s got a lot to teach us about communicating with straight people about being gay. It’s important because too many people are against equality for LGBTQ people because the very honestly believe it’s a lifestyle choice, not a characteristic you are born with. While this is absurdly irrational — who would choose a lifestyle where you are shunned, often in physical danger and where your rights are severely limited? — it does inform these people’s opinions on the expansion of rights for the LGBTQ community on things like marriage equality.
Travis Nuckolls and Chris Baker from Colorado Springs went around asking straight people if they thought being gay was a choice. If the person said yes or they weren’t sure, they then asked them very casually, “When did you choose to be straight?” and “Do you think it’s the same for gay people?” As Nuckolls and Baker say on the YouTube page for the video, these interviews “prove that asking the right question can be more important than anything you can tell someone.”
It’s brilliant.
Watch after the jump.
Last Saturday, the band Garbage had a concert in Detroit. Two of the concert goers were Scott Sauter and Domenick Viviano. The two had flown to California in the past to a benefit show for a friend of the band named Wally who was very sick, something that clearly impressed lead singer Shirley Mason. How impressed?
Click through to find out. (Do it. You won’t be sorry.)
Radio hate-monger Mike Huckabee told Newsmax TV that if Republicans compromise on marriage equality, “evangelicals will walk”. He then went on to describe how their homophobic political agenda doesn’t mean they’re homophobic and says that lawmakers shouldn’t allow their life experiences to guide their opinions on things like marriage equality and civil rights for the LGBT community. He finished up by comparing shifts in attitudes about same-sex marriage to bad basketball players.
I’m not kidding. Video proof after the jump.
This past week, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann attempted to solidify her position as the “Craziest Person in Congress” with not one, not two, but THREE different comments. First, she was chased down a hallway by a CNN reporter trying to get her to explain her comment that the Obama’s live a lavish lifestyle that includes someone paid with taxpayer money to walk the First Dog Bo. It is, of course, not true.
Then she made the statement that Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, juvenile diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease would all be cured by now if the federal government (of which she is a powerful member) hadn’t “created a cadre of overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators” that has prevented it.…
It’s hard for me to put into words how profoundly saddened I was to find out that Michelle Shocked had gone completely off the rails and launched into an anti-gay tirade at a recent show at Yoshi’s in San Francisco. Saying, “God hates fags and you can tweet that I said so” and “When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the downfall of civilisation, and Jesus will come back” and “I live in fear that the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry”, Yoshi staff cut her microphone and turned off the lights and most of the patrons promptly left the venue in disgust.
Click through for more.
The Michigan Republicans are trotting out a “new” bill to further their War on Women and those who don’t share their narrow worldview. I say it’s “new” because it was a bill that died in the last legislative session. They call their bill the “Religious Liberty and Conscience Protection Act” but it’s nothing more than a backdoor way to limit Michigan women’s access to safe and legal abortion services across the state. What makes this legislation so insidious is that it may also restrict all Michigander’s access to things like birth control, vaccines, counseling and even HIV/AIDS treatment.
Details and actions you can take after the jump.
Last week, Lauren Jasenak from Brighton, Michigan was fired by the Boy Scouts of America from her job at a Michigan BSA ranch for being a lesbian. Because of Michigan’s bigoted laws, the firing was legal and Jasenak has little to no recourse in what should, by all accounts, be a violation of her civil rights.
Details after the jump.
I leave Michigan for a few days and then THIS happens? Turns out a Michigan judge has invited a Michigan lesbian couple who filed a complaint about not being allowed to adopt each others children to take it a step further and challenge our state’s odious and discriminatory ban on same-sex marriage.
Click through for details on this amazing turn of events.
The Michigan Court of Appeals smacked down a lawsuit by Michigan Tea Party Attorney General Bill Schuette that attacked a union-negotiated contract that allowed for healthcare benefits for the domestic partners unionized state employees.
The contract does not specifically reference same-sex couples but they ARE covered by it so, of course, our AG felt the need to attack it. After all, anything that benefits both teh gayz and union members is not to be tolerated.
More after the jump.
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