Gay Marriage Watch

Adam Bouska and Jeff Parshley are at the helm of something pretty spectacular in the LGBT community. Their thought-provoking silent protest against hate and Proposition 8 helped to create the widely-popular NO H8 Campaign that has transcended race, color, religion, sexuality and party lines (Cindy McCain just posed).

I recently joined “the boys” in their studio in Los Angeles to have my photograph taken and chat with Adam and Jeff about Proposition 8, the upcoming pool party at The Dinah in Palm Springs and how the whirlwind that is the NO H8 Campaign all began. Oh, and Rosie O’Donnell, if you’re listening – they want you to call them.

Sarah Toce: By now, I’m pretty confident that almost everyone has seen or at least heard of the NO H8 Campaign. For the few people who are unfamiliar with the NO H8 Campaign, can you describe what it is about and how it started?

Adam Bouska: The NO H8 Campaign is a silent photo protest we started in our living room in our apartment after the passage of Proposition 8 in California. It was never intended to be this big campaign. We just wanted to speak out to our social networks (our own friends and family). The first photo was actually of Jeff. We took his photo after seeing victim of hate logos online. People had posted those, but we wanted people to lend their face to the cause and not hide behind logos. So, we started with Jeff’s image and he posted it to his Facebook and then from there some of his friends saw it and it just grew and grew.

Full Story from Examiner.com
Click here for gay marriage resources.
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This week, 150 Christian religious leaders unveiled the Manhattan Declaration: A Call to Christian Conscience, named after our very own borough. It’s a manifesto signed by prominent Christian leaders that calls for staunch opposition to things like abortion, gay marriage, and other satatanic liberal agendas. Runnin’ Scared spoke with one of the signers, Dr. Ronald Sider, a Canadian-born professor of theology at a Pennsylvania seminary and founder of Evangelicals for Social Action.

Runnin’ Scared: The Manhattan Declaration. Why was it named after Manhattan?

I don’t really know. I wasn’t involved in the early drafting. It just happened the framers met in Manhattan.

RS: Is it an attempt to stick it to the gay rights movement, which was founded in this city?

I don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything about that. It certainly never crossed my mind.

Full Story from the Village Voice: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/11/chatting_with_a.php

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

College of the Sequoias speech instructor Robin McGehee sees herself as a product of the civil rights movement in her native South. So she was shocked and disturbed last year when officials at the Fresno Catholic school her son attends forced her to resign as president of the parent-teacher organization.

The reason, she says: her public stance against Proposition 8, which bars same-sex marriage and ultimately was passed by voters.

McGehee is the openly gay mother of two children, Sebastian, 6, and Jackson, 3, who share two mothers and two fathers. “The priest just called and said because of my public stance on Proposition 8 to resign and not volunteer at the school,” said the 36-year-old, a native of Jackson, Miss., who’s lived in California since the mid-’90s, teaching at COS since 1999.

Full Story from the Visalia Times-Delta: http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/article/20091123/NEWS01/911230320/1002/COS-instructor-Robin-McGehee-seeks-better-future-for-LGBT-community-as-organizer

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

New York Governor David Paterson has scheduled a special session of the state Senate for this Tuesday, November 10. Paterson has placed a marriage equality bill on the session’s agenda.

Yesterday, Corey Johnson and I sat down with Paterson for an exclusive interview with Paterson in his office in Harlem to discuss that bill and ask him whether or not he believes action will actually take place on Tuesday, and what conversations he’s had with Senate leadership that indicate it might be acted upon. We also ask him if he thinks Obama needs to take a stronger position on issues important to the gay and lesbian community like the ballot measure in Maine.

Says Paterson of the marriage equality bill: “People who’ve lived together for 10, 20, 30 years are waiting, hoping that this legislation will pass while they still have the breath to elicit an ‘I do’ on the altar, and I think it’s time that it happens, and if I have to see legislation fail so I can identify who voted against it to better persuade them, then I’ll take that chance.”

Full Story from Towleroad.com: http://www.towleroad.com/2009/11/paterson.html

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources in New York.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Anderson Cooper interviews former President Bill Clinton in a segment airing tonight (10pm ET) on AC360. Anderson asks Clinton about his recent statements about same-sex marriage, and why he changed his mind.

In Toronto in May, while on a speaking tour with George W. Bush, Clinton described his position on same-sex marriage as “evolving”. More recently, speaking at the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington, D.C., Clinton said, “I’m basically in support” of it.

In his most extensive remarks to date, Clinton now says he was “wrong” about same-sex marriage and was “hung up about the word.”

Full Story from Towleroad.com: http://www.towleroad.com/2009/09/bill-clinton-i-was-wrong-about-gay-marriage.html

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.