NYS Senator Diane Savino speaks on the Marriage Equality bill

Senator Savino speaks on Marriage Equality Albany, NY December 2, 2009

Neighbourhood comes together and kicks out religious haters

From Ggskelding's YouTube Channel: This is a group from a church at the end of a street. Apparently they have been grouping in front of a couple's house and reading their bible loudly for the past 7 years. They may have also driven another couple from the area as well by doing the same thing. Tonight most of our neighbours came out and were successful in getting them to leave. The people who go to that church don't even live in our area! Police came by shortly thereafter.



Awe-inspiring stuff.

Catholics don't get to define my marriage — even if I am heterosexual

Some Catholic site is giving advice on how to field questions from Leftists about homosexuality (CLICK HERE). After all, those danged lefties keep bringing up issues of equality and civil rights when gay marriage comes up, and it's awfully hard to talk about restricting gay rights without sounding like a bigot or homophobe, so you've got to have a different set of talking points you can switch to whenever talk about equality and fairness and those other non-Catholic doctrines are brought up. So they've come up with five different tactics Catholic bigots can use to divert attention from their bigotry. They hope. Mainly, though, it diverts attention to the fact that they use really, really bad arguments. Here are the five, reworded from their misleading rhetoric to a blunter description of what they propose.

1. Obfuscate about rights. Redefine rights any old way you want to, endorse equal rights for everyone, but then claim marriage isn't a right because there are restrictions (can't marry your sister, there's an age of consent, you have to pay a fee to get a marriage license), so it's OK to add one more restriction. Never mind that by this reasoning the old miscegenation laws are perfectly valid, and don't really deny anyone a right.
   
   
2. Point out that heterosexuals have damaged marriage. How this helps the Catholic case against gay marriage is a mystery, but they're welcome to make the argument — they're saying that contraception and divorce and artificial fertilization are all also crimes against nature. What a winning strategy!
   
   
3. Lie about how awful homosexual parents are. Kids need both a mother and father, because mothers are nurturing and fathers are brave and disciplined. Yes, right, arguing from sexual stereotypes is OK if you're Catholic, and it also means you get to ignore the fact that a third of all households are headed by single mothers.
   
   
4. Slippery slope! Some guy wanted to marry his horse, there are horrible awful polyamorous relationships, and even if you allow gays to marry, they don't all rush to the altar. This is a pointless argument: it's basically saying that we should only permit traditional 1 man:1 woman marriages because if we allow other possibilities, not all marriages will be between 1 man:1 woman. We also allow marriage between couples of different races, and a Catholic can even marry a Protestant — this has not led to a massive rush to marriages between a man, an oyster, a pelican, and a watermelon.
   
   
5. Lie with statistics. This one is my favorite argument here. Gay marriage will hurt people! Did you know that 31% of lesbian report physical violence with their partner in the last year? (Don't mention the fact that 39% of women in a heterosexual relationship report domestic violence.) Gay men are more likely to be killed by a partner than a stranger! (Don't mention that heterosexual women are five times more likely to be killed by their partner than a stranger.)

Oh, and they do cite sources: most of them seem to be something called the Witherspoon Institute, which made a report…funded by the Templeton Foundation. Don't be surprised. Those rich jerks are pouring money into all kinds of dubious, religiously-motivated projects.

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Judge Hands Victory to Proposition 8 Opponents, Gay-Marriage Ban Overturned

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled on Wednesday that the California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative denying marriage rights to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, in a case that will almost certainly go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Walker ruled that Proposition 8 is "unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses." The court, therefore, "orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement." Two key sentences from the ruling:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples.

That's what history sounds like.

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Church denounces gay priests after magazine revelations

An Italian Catholic diocese has denounced homosexual priests for their "double life" and said they should not be in the priesthood.

The Diocese of Rome was responding to a magazine article on three homosexual priests that gave details of alleged sexual encounters and trips to clubs.

The diocese said "the honour of all the others" was sullied by their behaviour.

The Church holds that all sexual activity outside marriage is sinful and regards homosexual acts as unnatural.

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Super Heroes vs. the Westboro Baptist Church

They've faced down humans time and time again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from the Westboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them today at Comic-Con. After all, who can win against a counter protest that includes robots, magical anime girls, Trekkies, Jedi and...kittens?



Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego's Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting "WHAT DO WE WANT" "GAY SEX" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT" "NOW!" while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom's finest stood and delivered.

As you can see below, the fantastic fanboys delivered the the church a humorous dose of sweet fan justice. ComicsAlliance was there to witness the spectacle in full, which you can indulge in yourself after the jump.

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Mormon Church to be fined by state political commission over Proposition 8

The state Fair Political Practices Commission is expected to fine the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for not properly reporting about $37,000 worth of contributions to pass California's ban on same-sex marriages.

The commission will fine the Salt Lake City-based church $5,538 for failing to report the numerous contributions. The fine comes in response to a complaint filed in November 2008 by Fred Karger, a gay-rights activist and co-founder of Californians Against Hate, who accused the Mormon Church of failing to report the value of the work it did to support Proposition 8.

"The investigation revealed that the church unintentionally failed to file daily reports detailing approximately $37,000 in non-monetary contributions," a statement on the church's website read. "The amount of contributions not reported represented the cost of staff time spent by church employees on activities to help the Yes on 8 committee during the final two weeks of the election."

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Christianism FAIL

An interesting Article from The Daily Dish about the acceptance of Homosexuals in modern society shows the decline in peoples faith in the Church to deliver a relevant message on what is right or wrong.

While public attitudes haven't moved consistently in gays' and lesbians' favor every year, the general trend is clearly in that direction. This year, the shift is apparent in a record-high level of the public seeing gay and lesbian relations as morally acceptable. Meanwhile, support for legalizing gay marriage, and for the legality of gay and lesbian relations more generally, is near record highs.

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Anti-gay laws in Africa are product of American religious exports

When he arrived at Kampala’s Hotel Triangle for a three-day conference, the Rev Kapya Kaoma knew that he would not like what he heard.

The clue was in the event’s title — “Exposing the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexual agenda” — and in the line-up of guest speakers arranged by Stephen Langa, head of the Ugandan-based Family Life Network (FLN), and an outspoken advocate for the criminalisation of homosexuality in Uganda.

Given top billing at the event hosted by the FLN was Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries, an American conservative Christian group from California, and a Holocaust revisionist whose controversial book The Pink Swastika names homosexuals as “the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities.”

Weeks after the Kampala conference in March last year — which followed a meeting between the speakers and members of the Ugandan Parliament — a clause appeared in the country’s draft Anti-Homosexuality Bill recommending life imprisonment for certain homosexual “crimes” or, for “serial offenders”, the death sentence.

To Mr Kaoma, an Anglican priest from Zambia who is project director of Political Research Associates — a Massachusetts-based progressive think-tank — it was further evidence of how America’s Christian Right has stoked intolerance to homosexuality in Africa.

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Legal doesn't always mean right

So in March 2006, Westboro protesters showed up at St. John's Catholic Church ("St. John's Kennel" in their formulation) in Westminster for Mr. Snyder's funeral, reportedly carrying signs depicting male anal sex and slogans like "Semper Fi Fags."

For the record, no one has claimed Matthew Snyder was gay. Not that that should matter. But the church's bizarre argument is that the death of "every" dead serviceperson should be celebrated as God's punishment of a gay-tolerant nation.

Cpl. Snyder's father, Albert, sued the "church" for disrupting his son's funeral. In October 2007, he won a $10.9 million verdict. Last September, an appeals court tossed that verdict out.

The worst of it is that the court recently ordered Mr. Snyder to help pay Westboro's legal bills. You heard me. Mr. Snyder, who makes $43,000 a year, must pay $16,500 to the people who made a circus of his son's funeral. "You can do the math," says his attorney, Sean Summers. Snyder has been forced to seek donations online (www.matthewsnyder.org).

Westboro says it will use the money to give the same treatment to another grieving family.

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8: The Mormon Proposition

Some interesting questions are raised in an up and coming documentary about the Gay Marriage Bill in California and how the people behind the Mormon faith was able to have it removed 6 months later.

Created by several disaffected members of the Mormon Church who are gay, it lays blame for the passage of California’s Proposition 8 squarely upon the Mormon Church. According to the makers of the film, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spent the last three decades engaged in a vendetta against gays, employing evil “secret combinations” among its members in LDS temples to effect the trashing of gay rights. This venomous film production employs every possible lie to portray the Mormon Church as an oppressive and evil money machine.

I honestly do not understand how people can see homosexual marriage as a threat to anything. They make it to this huge horrible debate, when we should be focusing on much more important things like world poverty and genocide. Its so pathetic.

Watch the Trailer