Periodically we’ll feature one of our vendors here to let our readers know about some great people who can help you plan the perfect wedding.
You and your guests will enjoy a personalized and heartfelt event through a warm, welcoming style. Interdenominational, multicultural, traditional or non-traditional ceremonies throughout the Bay Area.
See Howard’s Expanded Listing on Purple Unions Here
Gay Friendly Wedding Vendors in the SF Bay Area
Periodically we’ll feature one of our vendors here to let our readers know about some great people who can help you plan the perfect wedding.
Hawaii Gay Weddings has been arranging weddings, commitment ceremonies, and civil unions for LGBT couples for 10 years. What better place to be married with your same-sex partner than in the “Rainbow State” of Hawaii? We offer a number of wedding venues to choose from as well as wedding & honeymoon packages at hotels, condominiums, and private villas.
See the Hawaii Gay Weddings Expanded Listing on Purple Unions Here
Periodically we’ll feature one of our vendors here to let our readers know about some great people who can help you plan the perfect wedding.
Gay Friendly Plainfield, New Jersey Wedding Officiant – I’m a registered and ordained nondenominational Wedding Officiant here to serve the LGBT community. I wholeheartedly support marriage equality and I am here to guide you through this life-affirming and exciting time!
See the Weddings by Aretha Expanded Listing on Purple Unions Here
Gay Friendly Wedding Vendors in Northern New Jersey
A couple interesting results out of the exit polling from Tuesday.
On Top Magazine reports:
According to a CNN poll, self-identified gay men, lesbians and bisexuals made up 3% of those casting votes in House races. Among that group, 31% said that they voted for a Republican candidate, a 4% increase from 2008… An NBC News national exit poll found midterm voters evenly divided at 48% on the issue of marriage equality. Two years ago, 49% said that they support such unions. However, support among voters under the age of 30 has increased from a bare majority (52%) in 2010 to a large majority (64%) in 2014. Respondents were asked whether gay couples should be allowed to marry in their state.
Those GOP numbers are surprising, given the party’s general hostility to LGBT rights and marriage equality, but could also reflect the low turnout and overall conservative nature of the voters.
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A new poll shows that a majority of Americans believe LGBT protections should cover all employers:
SDGLN reports:
Twenty years after its introduction, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is still being debated in Congress and across the United States. While most Americans continue to give the bill strong support, a new national survey shows that most Americans simply don’t believe that employer exemptions are justified when it comes to basic workplace safeguards for LGBT Americans. Slightly over half (55%) of all adults don’t believe that any employers should be exempt if federal law were expanded to include protection from job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. When asked specifically, some Americans do agree with certain exemptions. The latest survey shows 35% of all adults believe churches or other houses of worship should be exempt, and 30% believe privately held businesses with owners citing religious beliefs should be exempt. Also, 21% of adults believe publicly held businesses citing religious beliefs should be exempt, and 19% believe small businesses generally should be exempt.
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In the wake of a conservative Bishop revolt over even saying one nice thing about gays and lesbians, there’s a new poll out.
Pink News reports:
A poll has found that young Catholics in the US overwhelmingly approve of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, despite the Church’s teachings. The Pew Research Centre research, conducted earlier this year, found that 85 percent of Catholics aged 18-29 approve of homosexuality, while 75 percent support equal marriage. A majority of every single age group accepted homosexuality, with the lowest support among over-65s – 57 percent of whom still approve of it.
How long until some of these youth get into Church leadership and start changing minds?
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Life is full of unexpected ups and downs. Sometimes our greatest joys are followed by our deepest sorrows, and through the good times and the bad we turn to our loved ones to guide and comfort us. But for same-sex couples, all too often the best and worst of life’s moments become reminders of the second-class status that same-sex relationships are relegated to in many states.
For Midori Fujii and Kris Brittain, the magic of their marriage and wedding was followed by tragedy. In 2008, after 11 years together, Midori and Kris were married in California. Sadly, shortly after they returned to their home in Indiana to continue their life together as spouses, Kris learned that she had ovarian cancer. Through the surgeries, hospitalizations, treatments, and everything else, Midori stood by Kris’s side, and they found comfort in each other and their home.
In Kris’s final days, she was plagued with worry over what would happen to Midori after her death because they would be treated as legal strangers in their home state of Indiana. The trauma and sadness of being seen as “less than” consumed her as she and Midori prepared to say goodbye. The couple did what they could to protect themselves, drafting wills and other legal documents that would allow Midori to make medical and financial decisions for Kris. But nothing can stand in for the recognition of a marriage.
When Kris died in October 2011, Midori lost the love of her life. And in the most painful moments of grieving, she had to fight to be recognized as a part of Kris’s life. At first she was told that she could not authorize Kris’s cremation because she was not a spouse. Then, like Edie Windsor, who successfully challenged the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor, Midori was saddled with a $300,000 tax bill on the property that she and Kris shared. She would have owed nothing had they been an opposite-sex married couple.
Authored By Chase Strangio – See the Full Story at The Advocate
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Recently, various tech companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, have been releasing diversity reports for the first time in history. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these reports show that the majority of employees at these tech juggernauts are white and male. But perhaps the least progressive thing about these diversity reports is what they leave out: they do not report on sexuality at all, nor do they offer any gender options beside male and female.
These facts stand in contrast to tech’s huge presence in San Francisco’s pride two months ago. Reuters quoted Fred Sainz, Vice President of Communications and Marketing at the Human Rights Campaign, saying of participation in the parade: “It’s a dog whistle to their consumer base that these tech firms are cool, with it, and progressive.” A former employee of both Google and Apple said, “Tech companies need to be at Pride simply to be in the game.”
The reports from these companies have come with public statements that say they are working to change these numbers. Apple’s openly gay CEO, Tim Cook, said, “As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page. They’re not new to us, and we’ve been working hard for quite some time to improve them.”
Authored By Rebecca Ann Schuetz – See the Full Story at Dot429
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On July 15, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a statement that just over two percent of Americans over 18 identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This statistic–the outcome of polling 34,500 adults–muddies the already murky numbers attempting to quantify America’s homosexual population. (Other reports suggest as much as 20 percent of America is gay). Frankly, this new CDC stat feels as if it’s hanging on the underside of a reasonable margin of error, and with no accusation of bad motives by the CDC, I don’t buy it.
The degrees of separation between society-at-large and homosexuals are closing in as more people acknowledge being gay, thus bringing homosexuality into the fold of many who were previously unaware they were touched by it. While it’s dubious to say that a number has a feeling, the impact of gay America feels larger than two percent.
In fairness to the CDC, as a health-oriented organization it benefits from raw data produced from consistently controlled variables. Concrete numbers are plainly more effective when dealing with the health issues of any population. Perhaps the results are less indicative of the prevalence of homosexuality than of the reluctance homosexuals (or anyone anything other than 100% straight) feel to openly discuss their sexuality.
Authored By Charley Carroll – See the Full Story at Dot429
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I have a story in this new anthology, coming out on 6/26/16 - Marriage Equality Day!
Four Wedding Stories by Gay, Married Authors.
Op-ed: Why Are The Advocate’s Commenters So Transphobic?
Friday, November 7th, 2014Well, if you’re gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and you’re not transgender yourself, how much do you see yourself having in common with transgender people? A lot? Some? Nothing at all? According to a June 2013 Pew Research poll, 48 percent of gays, 53 percent of lesbians, 62 percent of bisexual women, and 76 percent of bisexual men see themselves as having nothing in common with transgender people. Nothing. Zippo. As in, “Why do we even have a T in LGBT?”
To a lot of LGBT people, trans people are “the other” — just too different from that small circle of “normal” so many of us have a habit of drawing around ourselves. Trans women are ugly; trans women aren’t women — that’s what we trans peeps hear from some of those who don’t see themselves as having anything to do with the T of LGBT.
Authored By Autumn Sandeen – See the Full Story at The Advocate
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Posted in Commentary, Transgender | 8 Responses »
Tags: advocate, comments, lgbt, transgender