News and Commentary About My Gay World
Hi Alvin--saw your blog post on the rewriting of an AP article. The rewrite is surely a copyright violation, and a double violation if they are posting the article without permission from AP in the first place. The same article is on the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-laws-target-abortion-illegal-immigration-texting-add-regulations-to-schoolkids-lives/2011/12/28/gIQABLubMP_story_1.html
Note at the end "Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed." Note also that One News Now used the author's byline (Andrew Welsh-Huggins); the Washington Post article provides his twitter address so I would suggest contacting him directly and pointing out their rewrite. He may not be happy to see how his article has been rewritten. Welsh's email address is awelsh@ap.org. He's also on Facebook.
Girls seeking abortions in New Hampshire must first tell their parents or a judge, some employers in Alabama must verify new workers' U.S. residency, and California students will be the first in the country to receive mandatory lessons about the contributions of gays and lesbians under state laws set to take effect at the start of 2012.
Girls seeking abortions in New Hampshire must first tell their parents or a judge, employers in Alabama must verify new workers' U.S. residency, and California students will be the first in the country to receive mandatory pro-homosexual indoctrination under state laws set to take effect at the start of 2012.
Now, the New York Times has a story on the nation's Roman Catholic bishops' deliberate, misleading lies that depict the furtherance of gay rights as a threat to the Catholic Church's religious freedom. 
Things happen and people find that their marriages just aren't working. But I also try not to make assumptions or judgments about what these people do in their personal lives or how they end up in the situations in which they find themselves.
“Do we (the LGBT community) get hosed down and dogs sicced on us? No,” Lettman-Hicks said. “But we’re comparing how our community is treated, from a so-called civil society—the overt discrimination and bigotry. No one should be able to understand that better than black people in this country, and that is the root of the comparison. But you can’t compare the plight of the movement, the centuries of oppression that black people in this country had to face.”
Preston Mitchum, a student at American University’s Washington College of Law, said he doesn’t believe the two movements can really be compared either.
“My role is dual, because it comes from being gay and black,” he said. “I can see both sides of the story, and people need to recognize that the struggles are different. It almost trivializes black civil rights in a way.”
"This week Rick Perry told a 14-year-old openly bisexual girl who questioned him after a town hall in Decorah, Iowa, that he doesn't believe gays should serve openly in the military because 'homosexuality is a sin.' I sure hope young Rebecca Green saw the iconic image days later of two female Navy petty officers, Marissa Gaeta and Citlalic Snell, sharing the first same-sex kiss at ship's return. Because that sweet and wonderful photo is the future. And Rick Perry is the ugly and wretched past that we can hopefully move on from after this hideous GOP primary campaign." - Michelangelo Signorile, writing for Huffington Post."How can anyone believe we have access to an infinitely loving God if we, as Christians, do not appear any more capable than the rest of our broken society of restraining and uplifting our sexual selves -- of loving our families and keeping them together, until death to us part?"Is she referring to Newt Gingrich? Other prominent public figures? Something more personal? Or is Maggie simply speaking in the abstract?
-Maggie in her syndicated column
"Do we really want to send our children into the Macy’s dressing rooms to try on a Christmas dress or suit, knowing that the store promotes the lifestyles of sexual deviancy IN THE DRESSING ROOM at the expense of the safety of our kids and, indeed, the decency of Americans as a whole? I, for one, am sick and tired of the false compassion being shown to special sexual interest groups at the cost of the rest of us. It is a dangerous and slippery slope America is sliding down if we let this continue. There are groups actively pursuing breaking down the final moral protection of society by normalizing pedophilia. Is Macy’s part of this agenda? I hope not, but, until I hear otherwise, I will have to assume so and shop elsewhere." - Janne Myrdal, state director for Concerned Women of North Dakota.The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that the Red Hill Lutheran Church in Tustin had the right to fire a preschool director for living with her boyfriend while she is unmarried. In upholding a lower-court ruling, the court said the church's decision to fire teacher Sara Henry was acceptable because she violated a church ordinance. The preschool director continued to live with her boyfriend following a failed marriage and had a child out of wedlock. Henry filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the church in 2009.Religious institutions are generally held to be exempt from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The court ruled that the exemption applied in this case because the woman was fired for religious reasons.
Continuing his crusade against the courts, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich railed against judges “imposing secularism” on the country on this morning’s Face The Nation. Arguing that “activist judges” who make disagreeable decisions should be held accountable before Congress, he told Bob Schieffer that he would send a U.S. Marshal or Capitol Police officer to arrest judges if that’s what it took to reign them in, and then encourage impeachment.We are a secular nation dumb ass and who is to judge what is a disagreeable decision? You?
Let the Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper embrace your holiday with His noodly appendages. Only $8.50. Includes adjustable eyes so that He may watch over you. (Via - Friendly Atheist) 
We meet five Christian families, each with a gay or lesbian child. Parents talk about their marriages and church-going, their children’s childhood and coming out, their reactions, and changes over time.
A manager called Johnson in the next day to explain that Macy's policy permits individuals to go into the changing room of whatever gender they identify with.Oh spare me. What's next? Do we not let Muslims into changing rooms? How about Jews (I hear they killed Christ, you know)? How about socialists? Or Republicans?
"I refuse to comply with this policy," Johnson says she replied. She was then fired.
"I had to either comply with Macy's or comply with God," Johnson told The San Antonio Express-News.
In November 2010, the Family Research Council (FRC) was added to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) list of anti-gay hate groups due to its “propagation of known falsehoods” about gays and lesbians. According to an Equality Matters analysis, FRC spokespersons – including Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, and Ken Blackwell – have been invited to appear on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News a total of 54 times in the twelve months since Perkins first appeared on MSNBC to discuss being labeled as a hate group. 24 of those appearances were on Fox News, 19 were on MSNBC, and 11 were on CNN:FRC head Tony Perkins alone constituted 32 of the above appearances. Check out the below Equality Matters recap of just a few of the many, many vicious anti-gay lies spewed by Tony Perkins.
RELATED: I'd also like to know why every single network ignores the scandal that sank Perkins' political career, namely his exposure as having paid KKK Grand Wizard David Duke a whopping $82,500 for access to his mailing list of racists. There's also this: "On May 17th, 2001, Perkins gave a speech to the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group that has described black people as a 'retrograde species of humanity.'" Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster today announced that their client, Petty Officer 2nd Class Jase Daniels, discharged in April 2005 and again in March 2007 under the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) law, has been reinstated in the U.S. Navy and will return to active duty as a linguist. He was sworn in on Monday, December 12, 2011. "Today, I took an oath and affirmed to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. I am humbled as I am reinstated to the job I love and by the enormous support I have received on this momentous day. I look forward to returning to the Defense Language Institute and ultimately, my career in the military,” said Daniels.
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out announced today that it would place a groundbreaking full-page ad (see below) in the Ithaca Journal on Saturday that debunks the Religious Right’s latest strategy of claiming they are victims of religious discrimination when asked to follow the same laws as other citizens. TWO’s hard-hitting ad is headlined “Special Rights Masquerading as Religious Freedom” and signals that this fraudulent argument, increasingly used by anti-gay activists, will be vigorously challenged and exposed as a lie.“The private religious beliefs of public workers should be respected,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “However, agents of the state are not entitled to pick and choose which members of the public they serve or which laws they obey. Refusing to serve entire classes of people based on religious objections will lead to chaos. It creates a slippery slope where self-appointed moral scolds serve as the gatekeepers to our freedom.”Until recently, anti-gay activists argued that LGBT people were not entitled to equality because it was contrary to the will of the people. As recent polls show a sea change in support for marriage equality, particularly among younger demographics, the extreme right has switched its strategy. They now try to pose as martyrs whose beliefs give them the special right to discriminate and ignore the law.
“Belforti’s twisted version of ‘religious freedom’ comes at the expense of liberty for everyone else,” said TWO Communications Director John Becker. “It creates a balkanized nation that divides people based on sectarian differences. We must reject the unfair notion that some people have a special right to discriminate based on religious beliefs.”TWO’s ad points out that allowing fundamentalists to follow their own rules would create chaos and undermine societal cohesion. The ad gives several examples of where this false notion of “religious freedom” might lead:
Conservative groups are upset over a proposed change in the defense bill that would eliminate Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The code states that any person who engages in "unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy." Those found guilty of sodomy would be subject to court martial. The Pentagon said in a statement Friday that all animal abuse, including bestiality, would be considered "prejudicial to good order and discipline" and covered by another section of the military code. Court martial would still be in order.We'll stand by for retractions from Family Research Council, PETA, Liberty Counsel, etc. Checks watch....
