“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality’s like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. The misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.” – Joss Whedon.
Advance Indiana comments on a recently announce lawsuit from the American Family Association — suing to block same-sex couples from receiving university health care benefits on the basis of Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriages.
I’m blogging this specifically for my mom and other family members — THIS IS THE REASON THESE BANS ARE SO DANGEROUS. Because they aren’t just after preventing same-sex marriages. They’re after outlawing ANY legal relationships between gay people, including health-care benefits.
And the law that Indiana is trying to pass (SJR7) is even more broad than Michigan’s: “Constitution or any other Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
Which means that regardless of a legal marriage, a whole host of legal rights that Stephanie and I have today because we own property together could suddenly be considered invalid, including some of our property rights if one of us dies.
Please recognize how dangerous this is, and help me fight this law. The best way that you can do this is by not putting the same bigotted Republican officials back in the state legislature. They have to vote on this law a second time (it’s already passed once) for it to be put on a state ballot.
B Tal captured this photo at the New England Holocaust Memorial.
Imagine a World
“Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend” — Gerda Weissman Klein, Holocaust Survivor
See the picture on Flickr.
“The steam that blew the whistle never turned the wheel.”
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“Believe me, I sympathize with you; it just comes out as laughter.” — my co-worker Beth.
Worth 1,000’s recent photoshop contest asked competitors to take key landmarks and relocated them. Some of them work well (Lincoln rowing a boat) and other’s don’t seem to quite get the concept.
Back in 1997 when I visited Germany to see my friend Cate, one the castles we visited was Burg Vichering, a small 16th century moated castle with a striking look that has been location for a couple of movies. The castle had it’s own “photoshop contest” of sorts — where people sent in their own artwork of the castle of Burg Vichering traveling around the world visiting other landmarks. Pretty entertaining.
This news article about a Jewish family being harassed “Jewish family flees Delaware school district’s aggressive Christianity” is a great example of why our first amendment is supposed to guarantee not just freedom of religion, but also freedom from it.
A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they’re suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from “state-sponsored religion.”
The behavior of the Indian River School District board suggests the families’ fears are hardly groundless.
The district spreads over a considerable portion of southern Delaware. The families’ complaint, filed in federal court in February 2005, alleges that the district had created an “environment of religious exclusion” and unconstitutional state-sponsored religion.
“Cross-dresser doused with gasoline” is a headline in today’s IndyStar. That’s the kind of headline that makes my heart stop. Fortunately, it didn’t have a tragic outcome. And the story itself seemed to have little to do with the person in question being a cross-dresser, so I wonder why it made a headline, other than the sensationalism of the idea of a person wearing the clothing of a different sex than their own.
I wonder if we’ll look back at news items like this with incredulousness 100 years from now — they way do today when reading news items from the recent past, regarding black people and women, that contained casually racist and sexist statements.