Steve Bing, a philanthropist and film producer, has issued a challenge grant of $1 Million. He will match all donations made before Sunday, October 19th.
Californians, make sure that you get out and vote this November. Besides the presidential election, there are some really important measures and propositions, on things like abortion, public housing, and yes, gay marriage.
Voting "yes" on proposition 8 would put a constitutional ban on gay civil marriage. Voting "no" would allow the unions to continue as they have since the CA supreme court voted to legalize them.
There are more and more ads on TV about this one, and the pro-marriage ban ones are very troubling to me. Not only because of their stance, but also because they do not tell the truth. Just about everything in the adverts that I've seen has been false. I don't understand why there are truth in advertising laws for products, but political campaigns can lie all they want. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Let's be absolutely clear:
1. Keeping gay marriage legal would not in any way change the laws on the tax-exempt status of churches.
2. Keeping gay marriage legal would not force churches to perform same-sex ceremonies. We're talking about civil marriage. You know, court house, justice of the peace, being treated equally before the law.
3. Schools would not in any way change their sex-ed curricula or somehow start teaching the "gay lifestyle" as some ads are claiming.
None of these things is true. They are lies. If you want to know what the Supreme Court actually said, Lamda Legal has it here.
The pro proposition 8 ads are trying to scare people. They're lying to California's citizens and twisting the dialog so that it becomes about religion.
THIS IS NOT A RELIGIOUS ISSUE!!!!!!!
Those of us who oppose proposition 8 are striving for civil rights and equality. We are striving to protect everyone equally before the law. Proponents of proposition 8 are somehow threatened by the civil rights of others. They somehow feel that if other groups get rights, they will no longer be all powerful or they will feel threatened.
We've heard that kind of rhetoric before. On racial equality, on inter-racial marriage, on women's rights. There have always been some who fight and drag their feet because they can only see themselves and the privilege, or sense of superiority, that they might lose.
That's not valid. We CANNOT keep discriminating because someone might lose his sense of superiority. That's ridiculous. If you honestly feel threatened by the rights of some couple somewhere else in the state to live their lives together, you have a problem. Your problem is your insecurity with yourself and your own relationships. They will not change in the slightest, I assure you.
I can't stress enough that this measure needs to be defeated. I'm appalled that a constitutional amendment can be written in based on a simple majority. If something passes with 50.5%, it will become a constitutional amendment, even though half of the state disagrees or is harmed by the measure.......
Again, say it with me: This measure must be defeated!!!!!
Here are some things that you can do to help. And please, please, please help:
1. Phone bank to get people out to vote no. Thursday, October 16th (and the two following Thursdays), 6:30-9:30 in the Fireside room at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. 2727 College Ave, Berkeley 94705. They will provide training, but bring your cell phone and charger.
2. Give money (if you can). The pro-prop. 8 crowd has vastly more money than the opposition, much of it coming from churches, much of it coming from out of state. Even though our finances all suck right now, we need to give what we can. Here's some info sent to me by my neighbor:
Right now in California:
If this initiative were to pass, 1 and 2 are no longer true and 3 is in extreme jeopardy.
While the words of Prop 8 are limited to marriage ("Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California"), it intends to undermine the broad protections recently given to all LGBT Californians.
This week, we found out that Prop 8 is ahead in the Polls 47% to 42%. That's probably a direct result of the fact that last week, 60,000 people donated more than $25 million to the opposition. With all that money, they're trying to "swift boat" and smear us with television ads that tell lies -- that we are attacking children and churches. We can win. But we must match them ad for ad and dollar for dollar.
If ever there were a time to give all we've got to a fight, this is it!
So, if you're ready to stand with me to defeat Prop 8, I need you to make a donation today. If you can't give a lot, please give whatever you can. Please also forward this email for me to other people in your address book. You can donate at the No on Prop 8 website (https://secure.ga4.org/01/stopthelies?qp_source=nclr) or follow in the footsteps of Ann Rostow (a local lesbian journalist) see below:
| By Ann Rostow |
| I've been exhorting readers to send money to the California campaign against Proposition 8 for weeks and weeks, but to be honest, I haven't gotten around to contributing myself because I've been too "busy" and I've been on vacation. It is now Aug. 13, and I swore to myself I would put my money where my fingers were before I wrote another column. Yet here I am, about to start this week's GLBT news update, and still I have not pulled the trigger on this donation. So here goes! I'll go first and any of you who have procrastinated along with me can take inspiration in my bold action. Step one. How much? I've gone back and forth between "painfully high donation" and "enough to clear my conscience donation." In fact, this has been one of my stumbling blocks. Late at night after a couple glasses of wine, I'm ready to mortgage the house for The Cause. Sifting through a pile of bills at three in the afternoon, a modest sum seems more than generous. This morning, I am going for painful. How painful? Worse than a blood donation, but short of major surgery. I am aiming for the mild sprained ankle level. Hey, I'm not talking about the "almost sprained ankle" where you just miss turning it over, hop around for a few minutes and recover in 15. I'm talking about something you have to ice down for a day and a half. Step two. Where to donate? I am going to donate through the NCLR's political action fund. Every dime ends up in the coffers of the campaign against 8, but I take symbolic pleasure in routing money through the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a terrific organization and the leaders of the legal fight for marriage in California. In fact, I just read that NCLR legal director Shannon Minter won a big national gay legal award, as did San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, his partner in the successful litigation. Just checked. It was the 2008 Dan Bradley Award, to be presented next month by the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association at the annual gay legal convention. Step three. Remove credit card from wallet. Small twinge accompanies this gesture. Step four. Access nclrights.org web site. Click on "No on 8." Go down and click on "donate." Step five. Fill out information. A simple process except for the incessant demand to name an "honoree." I solved that by typing "no honoree," but only after I was repeatedly rapped on my cyber knuckles. Done. Goodbye, sweet cash. Hello even sweeter feeling of joining the swelling ranks of my GLBT brothers and sisters and our straight allies who are taking some kind of action to win what is surely the most critical battle in our history as a civil rights movement. Your turn. |
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon got married last evening at San Francisco City Hall. Gavin Newsom himself officiated. These women have been waiting since 1953 to have their relationship validated.
Congratulations!!
Maggie has a very detailed history of their lives and activism up. These women are really inspirational. And to those gender essentialists who think that women are calm and nurturing and never aggressive, here's a little nugget:
"Del would leave her shoes in the middle of the room, and I'd throw them out the window."
hee.
Last night, my mom pointed out that when Gavin Newsom was elected, I really didn't like the idea of him as mayor. He was too much of a rich white boy to really get what San Francisco needed. He seemed like he was pandering to yuppies, and he was voting for incredibly unpopular legislation that San Franciscans hated ("Care not Cash" anyone??).
Then he seemed to get it together and try his hardest to work for the City and for human beings in general. He managed to change my mind very quickly. No, he's not perfect, and there are still major issues in SF. It was really heartening, though, to see the new mayor not only work towards equal rights for all Americans, but also really investigate the issues of violence and poverty that, despite being less visible and sound-bite-y than marriage equality, are just as prescient.
Changing my mind is hard, so good job Gavin.
I can't even claim that I've been busy, because in the grand scheme of my life, this is not a terribly busy period! Sigh.....I now have the pressure of trying to write a really extra excellent post, to make up for not writing for so long.
I haven't worked at all this week. That really frustrates me, since this is really the last chance for a decent paycheck before summer. The result is that I've been sitting around the house all week without much to do. I don't really do well with free time. I could have been practicing, or cleaning (lord knows the apartment needs it), or writing, or reading. I've done next to nothing. I have no energy nor enthusiasm for anything, and that sucks. I often find that time off does this to me. After about a week I start planning projects for myself. The trouble is that those projects usually involve money, which is going to be incredibly tight for the next few months. When I sit around the house, I start wanting to improve said house. I get the urge to decorate, replace things, engage in DIY projects...
The current urge is to replace the couch. Our futon has its function (giving friends a place to crash when they come to stay), but it also has the problem of being insanely uncomfortable. When you sit on our futon, you can feel the metal bars underneath poking you in the ass....no fun. We've looked at Ikea couches, which are pretty affordable, but not as cushy as we'd like. The thing with me and Boyfriend is that we tend to lounge on the couch, rather than just sit, so a high degree of cushiness is necessary. Real live furniture/department stores are way too expensive. Ideas?
Best Friend (We shall call her Molly. Another of her friends calls her that on his blog, so I'll keep the pseudonym) swears by consignment stores, but then again, she lives in Santa Barbara where such places contain the cast-offs from wealthy SB/Montecito people. I'm not sure that Oakland/Berkeley consignment places will be as promising. Thoughts? Or is anyone in possession of a really cushy couch they need to get rid of?
My next request is for ideas. What should I do to earn some money this summer? I've got my couple of piano students, and hopefully some tutoring, but that's not going to cut it. I plan to put a flyer up at work, advertising my tutoring services. I think that going and getting some dumb retail job is not logical. I'm only available for 1 month and a half, so training in a job that I'd leave immediately doesn't seem reasonable. What do you think readers? (or reader, as the case may be...)
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Now, on to the issues that I've been reading about and thinking about but not writing about:
1) First up, a continuation of my Gay Marriage post: It might confuse some of you that I rant and rave about marriage and "wife-dom" and how it freaks me out, but then cheer over the CA ruling. Let me explain:
The gay marriage debate is only nominally about marriage. It's about equal representation under the law. It's about separating civic life from religion (which we should be doing anyway) and granting all people equal rights. Just like with feminism, what gets really twisted and misunderstood is the concept that granting rights to all does not take them away from anyone. That's the whole EQUAL part.
When the conservatives start going off about "legislating from the bench" I get really mad. Sometimes the court needs to assert what's right, because voters often won't.
The courts had to order desegregation. Courts had to order states to allow mixed-race couples to marry. The whole point of the judicial branch is to keep the other two branches in check. Voters will not always do what's right, and frequently "the will of the voters" is hateful, misogynist, and unaccepting. Now, with the clowns that Bush appointed to the Supreme Court, the judiciary is acting on those same 3 principles. Gah.....so infuriating....
Ellen DeGeneres had John McCain on her show just after the CA ruling. It was also just after she announced that she plans to marry her partner, Portia de Rossi. John McCain essentially told Ellen that she's less than he is and we should respect his bigotry. I stole that wording from Sarah at Shakesville. Her analysis of that interview, and loads of other really important issues to consider in the GLBT marriage debate, is right here. For more analysis, Pandagon has been great, and has worded things much better than I could. These three articles are especially good.
2) Feminism getting a bad name. Which it does. Nearly always. One way that it gets trivialized is to paint feminists as "angry." Anger, of course, is nearly always linked to female hysteria and being irrational. It's used as a way to condescendingly pat someone on the head, as one might do to a kitten trying to eat imaginary bugs: "Oh, you silly little thing, you. Don't you know that's useless?" For a useful dissection of anger and how it's perceived, read Melissa McEwan's Feminism 101 post
Next, who better to badmouth feminism that the daughter of one of the 20Th Century's foremost writers and feminists? I think that the world has known about Alice Walker's strained relationship with her daughter for some time. As far as I know, that's not news. This is partially why I found it so weird that there was a huge article in the Daily Mail in which Rebecca Walker (Alice's daughter) blasts everything that her mother has ever done. Again. Now, the Daily Mail is fairly conservative, so that may impact its desire to tear down feminism, but it seems like such a tired subject.
There's so much nonsensical, illogical anger and defiance in Walker's article that it's really hard to figure out where to begin. I really get the feeling that this woman should be dealing with her issues in therapy rather than an internationally read paper. I'm especially bothered by her reaction to divorce:
As the child of divorced parents, I know only too well the painful consequences of being brought up in those circumstances. Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.
Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: 'I'd like a child. If it happens, it happens.' I tell them: 'Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.' As I know only too well.
I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.
He's in the center with the white hair and crazy beard. Here's his wife Elizabeth. I kind of think that of all my relatives, I look most like her. Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.
So, that's the stuff that's on my mind lately.
