Homosexuals are inferior to dogs and pigs, according to Iranian cleric Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, a conservative Iranian politician and Islamic scholar based in Iran’s holy city of Qom.
“Even animals … dogs and pigs don’t engage in this disgusting act, but yet they [western politicians] pass laws in favor of them in their parliaments. If a society commits a new sin, it will face a new punishment. Problems like AIDS did not exist before,” he said.
Men have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar – whether they’re straight or gay. Same-sex couples can begin applying for New York marriage licenses today, but don’t expect to see many gay grooms at City Hall on July 25, when they can actually start tying the knot.
That’s because in the states that have sanctioned same-sex nuptials to date, lesbians have been marrying in much greater numbers than gay men. In Connecticut, for example, 3,252 lesbian couples have wed since 2008, when same-sex marriage was legalized, compared with just 2,053 gay guys.
“This is the way men and women have been socialized from the time we’re born,” said Stephanie Coontz, who teaches family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. “‘Go out, don’t commit too early’ . . . It’s the message all men receive.”
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The vast majority of countries around the world have become more accepting of homosexuality, with the exception of Russia and other former socialist countries, a new study has found.
The report, compiled by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, examined general trends in over 30 countries regarding their attitudes towards homosexuality, and is based on five surveys conducted in different countries between 1988 and 2008.
Approval of homosexuality increased in 27 countries and decreased in only four: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Russia, the study noted. The growth in approval ratings was stronger than the decline.
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World, take note: you do not want to be on Kerri Carder-McCoy’s bad side, because she is not putting up with any of your shit.
You may remember, back in 2008, when Kerri and her wife Erin made headlines right before the vote on Prop 8. When they got married at San Francisco City Hall, Erin’s first-grade class greeted her at the door to throw rose petals. It was all done with parental permission, of course, but the anti-gays latched onto the event as proof that schools would “teach gay marriage.”
That touched off a nightmare for Kerri and Erin, as their faces and the faces of the kids were appropriated and re-used by anti-gay groups. Two and a half years later, it’s still going on: NOM’s anti-marriage ad in New York features a flash frame of Kerri and Erin.
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A lot of people have kicked up much dust on the controversial matter of gay rights. But much of that dust has produced a lot of heat, and no light. That’s why I must tell you what my crystal ball says.
Let me state the bottom line up-front – the Constitution protects gay rights. Period – plain and simple. This is both a statement of fact and law. But the Constitution goes even further. It does not prohibit same-sex marriages.
As any average first year law student knows, a liberty or freedom that is not prohibited is permitted. But more is at stake. Are we going to be ruled by fear and hatred, or love? I have said it before, and will do so yet again. Kenya is not a theocracy.
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.
Two days after Election Day 2010, for the last hour of the show, I asked those LGBT people who voted Republican to call in to the show and explain why. The phones lit up with people calling from all across the U.S.
Exit polling shows gay, lesbian, bisexual voters cast a ballot for Republicans in double the numbers from 2008: from 19% to 31%. True, the sample is small, and any such polling should be taken with a grain of salt. But it’s undeniable that many LGBT voters were disappointed with the White House and Democrats, and it’s plausable that many stayed home or voted for another party.
And yet, the Republican takeover of the House and many statehouses means there will be no votes expanding gay civil rights protections, in Congress and in most of the states that went GOP (and there likely will be antigay votes, such as in Minnesota where Republican pledge to push a marriage amendment), which begs the question of why gay people would vote Republican in this election. The phones were jammed with people who voted GOP who wanted to offer their explanations for casting votes for politicians like David Vitter in Louisiana, for Rand Paul in Kentucky, for Rick Scott in the governor’s race in Florida, and for various other, Senate, House and local races.
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.
The editor of a tabloid in Uganda who argues that homosexuality is more dangerous than smoking, has published a list of 10 gay and lesbian people in the African nation, urging readers to report them to the police. It’s the second time that Rolling Stone — no relation to the iconic U.S. music magazine — has published such a list.
Last time it listed 100 of what it called the country’s top gays and lesbians, with photos and addresses alongside a yellow banner reading “hang them.” Gay rights groups in Uganda say at least four people have been attacked since then.
And a bill that would make homosexuality potentially punishable by death is working its way through Uganda’s parliament. The new gay list includes addresses and alleged intimate details about the anatomy of people on it.
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.
Clerics of an unnamed Christian denomination informed attendees at a University of the South Pacific conference on climate change in Samoa that homosexuals are responsible for global warming.
Academics were apparently thrown off their consideration of “Arts in the Age of Global Warming” and “Ecology in Poetry / Poetry in Ecology” by reports of Church Ministers who maintained that climate change in Samoa are clearly attributable to to homosexuals.
The revelation prompted one attendee USP student, Shaiza Janif, to opine: “We need to educate our ministers and not turn this into an agenda.” Details of exactly how the ministers think homosexuals are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby trapping heat around the planet, driving up the average temperature and causing massive economic and environmental dislocation are scant.
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.
Germany’s highest court has ruled a law which makes homosexuals living in civil partnerships pay higher inheritance tax is unconstitutional. The Federal Constitutional Court said there were no legal grounds for taxing gay people who lost their partner differently from heterosexual married couples, and gave the government until 2011 to compensate those subject to the previous rules.
The Karlsruhe-based court said on Tuesday the fact that heterosexual marriage could produce children did not justify higher taxation for homosexuals over inheritance.
Germany has permitted civil unions for homosexuals since 2001. According to the law, surviving partners had to pay higher inheritance duties, and were also granted a lower tax exemption threshold than their heterosexual counterparts.
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.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the view that gays and lesbians are an identifiable class in the eyes of the law – a characterization that anti-gay-marriage forces have vigorously fought and that attorneys challenging California’s Proposition 8 see as a crucial element of their case.
In a Tuesday letter to U.S. district judge Vaughn R. Walker, Theodore J. Boutrous, who argued the high-profile case Perry v. Schwarzenegger alongside lead attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies, wrote that “sexual orientation is not merely behavioral,” and that, as the Supreme Court found Monday in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, “there is no distinction between gay and lesbian individuals and their conduct.”
In that case Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority in a 5-4 split that the court would “not distinguish between status and conduct” in regards to gays and lesbians, citing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s view in the landmark 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down sodomy laws. (For more information on the Christian Legal Society decision, click here for an analysis by Christopher F. Stoll and Shannon Price Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights).
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.
