because it involves a state that I don’t live in. There are reasons that I tend to be a New England boy and not a Southern Bell (haha). It makes little sense, ESPECIALLY at public and secular institutions for discrimination to exist on any level. Academia is the only bastion for thinking people left in this country and it just pisses me off to no end when mis-informed fools turn back the clock on progress. What happened Virginia? You voted a BLACK man into the White House and then elected the Klan to run your state. Believe it or not, the analogy works.
I’m linking below to a 45 minute Bill Moyers Journal TV show on PBS that is a must see for those of you who may not know the background, details, and importance of the recent Poposition 8 trial that took place in California last month. Closing arguments have not been scheduled however they will be very soon. In the video, Olson and Boyes lay out the case, why it matters, what the legal issues actually are and they provide detailed information on why this case is so strong. They are also presented with some tough questions that many supporters of discrimination ask, you can see them defend the position of equality and make the case that this issue has everything to do with the Constitution and has nothing to do with religious beliefs. It’s a long discussion but it’s worth watching.
Click THIS link to go to the Bill Moyers Journal web site to view the video.
The reason that equality for the GLBT community is visible in my life time:
“I have described myself as being ‘gently eccentric’ and slightly different as a person just because I’ve had a very different set of influences growing up than anybody else in my peer group did. I think it’s important for somebody from a big, commercial movie series like Harry Potter and particularly because I am not gay or bisexual or transgendered. The fact that I am straight makes not a difference, but it shows that straight people are incredibly interested and care a lot about this as well.” - Daniel Radcliffe, speaking from the NYC headquarters of the LGBT teen suicide prevention hot-line The Trevor Project, for whom he has just made a promotional film.
15 years ago when I was in high school, there were no major Hollywood celebrities willing to step up to the plate and go to bat for me. Those who did were on the fringes. For me personally, I’m not sure it would had much of an influence in my life, I was never a big celebrity follower but here we have Harry Potter, entirely straight with a HUGE following, and willing to put his money where his mouth is. The Trevor Project was founded not long after I got out of high school and there is a link to it on my sidebar here on this blog. It’s one of the few charities that I’d consider making a donation to. Perhaps you might as well.
Four Christians on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the recently enacted Hate Crimes Prevention Act, arguing that it seeks to criminalize deeply held religious beliefs that are in opposition to homosexuality.
Read Box Turtle Bulletin’s take on this story here. Find out exactly the only thing these Christians must want.
This shit get’s old, luckily so are the people espousing this bile.
“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said it was his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”
Now, I’m no army boy. I have about as much interest in fighting a war as I do eating glass. That said, with all my pacifist tendencies, I still will typically go out of my way to support those who are willing to risk their lives to defend the ideals of this country. Granted, there are “just” wars and “unjust” wars but that is a political distinction not a practical one. Regardless of the justification for wars in general, millions of individuals are called on by our government and by a deep sense of personal commitment to the ideals of this country to serve and protect that which we all cherish. Freedom. One of the great travesties of Bill Clinton’s time in office was the passage of “Don’t ask Don’t Tell”. This, in effect, allowed openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces as long as they were not “out” and did nothing to suggest that they were gay. If it was discovered they were gay or if they were forced out of the closet by a third party, no matter the reason, they could be discharged…. dishonorably. Since it’s implementation nearly 17 years ago, between 12,000 and 20,000 GLBT soldiers have been discharged at a cost to tax payers well into the 10’s of millions, many of those kicked out were critical players in the wars this country is fighting, NONE of whom did anything wrong…except be gay.
The implementation of this policy was a big deal. I was a senior in high school and it was a campaign issue for Bill Clinton. He would be the first president I actually got to vote for and this “compromise” was, in retrospect, forced on him by bigoted homophobes within the ranks of the military. It has always been a bad policy, even other major military countries have proven over and over again that allowing gays to serve openly is not an issue.
Finally we are seeing some progress towards repealing this law with hearings that started today. The big thing out of this is that Joint Chief’s are on board with a repeal. The question is not IF the policy will be repealed, it is simply a question of HOW it will be repealed. That’s huge because it means that a repeal is a fact, not a pipe dream. That they are debating only HOW to repeal the law and not WHY is important. Stay tuned over the next several months for updates.
Every year the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) publishes an index of the best and worst companies to work for in the United States based on their level of of equity towards the GLBT population. Factors included in the ranking include whether or not the company has any anti-discrimination policies protecting GLBT employees, whether or not said companies offer health benefits to partners of GLBT employees, Corporate structure and political activism by said companies (what they support politically through monetary donations etc.) and the overall perception of GLBT employees of their employers. There are many other items that go into the rank, you can find them all here. I thought you might be interested in seeing how my company ranks as well as a visual of the worst employers in the country for GLBT people.
Keep in mind the rank is on a scale of 1 -100. 1 being the worst, 100 being the best.
In 2008 (the most recent year published) Menards Ranked 43 – From my perspective this is pretty accurate. Menards is a pretty quiet company when it comes to politics. Their primary objective is to make money, end of discussion. That said, they do have anti-discrimination policies and anti-harassment policies that well exceed other companies I’ve worked for in my lifetime. It is nearly impossible to have a successful retail business and not be somewhat tolerant and supportive of diversity. Menards does not go out of it’s way but they do not actively contribute to a hostile climate for it’s GLBT employees.
Below is a list of the bottom of the barrel. You’ll notice that Meijer (a company that I worked for several years ago and the company that Jirar worked for) received only a score of 20. 2 of the worst 10 companies in the country are Michigan based. Michigan isn’t all bad, in the top 20 where companies such as the big automakers (GM, Ford), and Dow Chemical ranked with in impressive 100 score. You can say what you like about HRC (they are a politically movtied and very active group) however their rankings do have significant importance, particularly to those companies that value the contributions of their GLBT employees. Most of the Fortune 500 companies in this country far exceed private companies when it comes to fairness, all Fortune 500 companies exceed our Federal government when it comes to fairness and equality.
Today, we saw the introduction of the Prop 8 backers first witnesses (of only 2 that have not dropped out of the case). Prior to that, our side rested after introducing into evidence thousands of documents and other related materials that without any doubt strengthens this case in fundamental ways.
“This evidence is not just a smoking gun. It was an arsenal of incendiary devices directed at the LGBT community and voters. This is how the Prop 8 side won — through fear and lies.”
I wish I had the where-with-all to take all the testimony I’ve read over the past 2 weeks and condense it down to a few paragraphs. Alas, I’ll let others do that for me. The next few days will be quite interesting ans Prop 8 proponents put their witnesses up on the stand to testify. I wish this trial could have been televised. It is so important that what happened in California be made known to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. I still can’t say if things will go our way when this reaches the Supreme Court but I can say that this trial is doing mountains of good for highlighting the discrimination we have faced in this country for decades. It’s very hard to ignore, this trial changes everything.
For Me. According to my little Google analytics software for this web site, readership has spiked fairly significantly over the past 2 weeks. Never mind that I can’t type a sentence after consuming several cocktails. Not sure of the reason, perhaps you are all just interested in my posts or my reactions to politics as of late…whatever. I appreciate it. I was going to spend some time tonight re-posting some of the highlights from the Prop 8 trial that wrapped up it’s first week in California but there is just too much to rehash here. There are so many other writers and bloggers out there who are better than me at being succinct. If you want to follow this trial you can visit some of these web sites for daily and informative commentary.
Prop 8 Trial Tracker – the most informative site. Featuring twitter feeds from bloggers, commentary, and legal analysis.
LGBT POV – daily updates, commentary, and analysis
American Foundation for Equal Rights – this is the home page for the organization representing marriage equality in court. See who the players are here.
Each of the links in my Favorites list on the left also provides a great deal of information and commentary.
We are obviously off for the weekend and the trial will resume again on Tuesday, January 19. It is interesting to note that those defending Prop 8 continue to face some serious set backs. 2 more of their “expert” witnesses have withdrawn with their lawyers claiming fear of intimidation and harassment from the GLBT community. What’s relevant here is that their testimony could never withstand cross examination. The Marriage Equality legal team is so strong and their arguments so well supported by everything from science to sociology, that witnesses are being withdrawn because their arguments amount to nothing more than discredited science and pure bigotry towards gays and lesbians. They’ve got about 2 “experts” left who have not withdrawn and their case is getting weaker and weaker by the day. Going into week 2 things will likely warp up for our side and we will then get into the Prop 8 side where they will call witnesses and go through the same thing we just did this past week. The commentary will be far more interesting in the coming days because it will expose just how out of touch the opposition is to reality. They are going to have a very difficult time proving their side of this case.
I will insert here that it is WAY to early to claim any sort of victory in this case. It is exceptionally complicated, filled with social science and psychology that the general public has a hard time understanding to begin with. It is quite unlikely that any sort of finality will come from this trial. It will be appealed to a higher court regardless of the outcome and it will eventually come to SCOTUS for a decision. As I’ve said in previous posts, that could be later this year, it could be several years from now. The point is, this is just the start.
Because I’m following this so closely, that means I’m spending a bit more time on the computer than usual. That also means that I’ll be posting more on this blog. Don’t get used to it. haha. I’m sure that once summer rolls around again, I’ll find better things to do with my time than sit around on the computer on my days off re-hashing what other writers can say so much better than me. But, for now, enjoy.
A joint resolution sponsored by 18 Senate Republicans was introduced Thursday proposing a constitutional amendment specifying marriage between one man and one woman as the only legal union that is valid or recognized in the state.
“This starts the ball rolling. It’s imperative that the citizens of the state of Iowa have something that they can point to as a mechanism to start the ball rolling,” said Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton.
“Now that we’ve had this introduced in the Senate, they’ll have the opportunity to contact their legislators and ask them to support the Senate joint resolution,” he added.
However, Bartz conceded Senate Joint Resolution 2001 faces nearly insurmountable odds in being debated during the 2010 session — given the steadfast opposition from Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs.
A crowd gathered to express their rage towards homosexuals having been given the right to get married in their state. This group is seeking a ballot measure to repeal marriage equality by popular vote in 2014, the soonest they could possibly get it on the ballot. Thank God those Iowans have their shit together in the state house and understand that equality should never be subject to the whims of the majority.
Watching this, I kept waiting for them to haul out the pitchforks!
