Springfield, IL Reinstates Civil Union Benefits After Public Outcry

Found at Bilerico.com.

After raising a firestorm of anger and disbelief, the Springfield, Illinois Joint Labor/Management Insurance Committee voted to unanimously reinstate health benefits for the civil union-ed partners of city employees. This was a complete reversal from the December decision that shocked and angered LGBT activists and civil rights organizations. The committee had voted to keep its current eligibility standards for insurance for the next fiscal year and not extend benefits to same-sex spouses, despite the new civil union law which extended the same legal rights as marriage to same-sex partners. The move left partners of city employees in civil unions out in the cold for benefits.
The committee said their decision was purely fiscal, initially claiming costs for the benefits would be nearly $750,000. Committee co-chair Melina Tomaras-Collins, who is also the city's director of human resources, called the move strictly a "cost saving measure" and went on to explain equality vs fiscal concerns:

"It's not an issue of what's right or wrong. It becomes a matter of what you can do with resources you have."

Yet a revised estimate for the six affected couples was only $66,000. More importantly than that, saying that civil rights can be trampled on and disregarded to save a few bucks is a ridiculous and dangerous argument to make in the first place.
Beyond the weak and horrendously offensive fiscal argument, the decision itself was contrary to the state's civil union law, which plainly stated that civil unions be treated equally as marriages in the state:

"This Act shall be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes, which are to provide adequate procedures for the certification and registration of a civil union and provide persons entering into a civil union with the obligations, responsibilities, protections, and benefits afforded or recognized by the law of Illinois to spouses."

The committee used the confusion of the different relationship status of same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples to carve out the exemption to civil union spouses. They cited the benefits for same-sex couples being too costly, which is an argument that would never be accepted when applied to a more universally understood institution like full marriage.
It is good that public outrage eventually made them change their decision and cover all couples equally. It shows the power of a community and its allies coming together in a spirit of equality, activism, and determination. Yet that this was a battle to be fought at all continues to show the very separate and unequal status that civil unions give to same-sex couples.

I wish the whole state of Michigan would cry out for the lose of state employee partner benefits that were just pulled. There are families that counted on the health coverage they were granted and now have nothing.
What I do not understand is how and why any state can give benefits to help their families and make a stronger state then just strip them away because they changed their minds about how they feel about LGBT people.
It is damaging people and families for no good reason.
Hate is not a family value.

Why God Did Not Write the Bible - A Good Read

Why God Did Not Write the Bible

Filed By Michael Hamar | January 11, 2012 12:00 PM | 0 comments

I found this at Bilerico.com and it is an interesting and insightful look at who and why the Bible was written.

Slavery Questions Placed In 3rd Grade Homework

Found at Buzzfeed.com

Several parents were helping their kids with math homework when they came across slavery references completely out of context with the assignment. School officials at Beaver Ridge Elementary in Norcross, Georgia, said in the future they will work with teachers to come up with more appropriate questions. However, no word on the teacher who created the exam.

"Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?"

Focus on the Family distorts ANOTHER study to denigrate same-sex families

Alvin McEwen, owner of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, keeps up on many topics that affect the LGBT population. He often reports on how scientific reports are twisted to meet the needs of the Right and the authors of those studies speaking out against this practice.
I do believe this is #14 on the list of those who have worked hard on factual studies to have them bent and twisted to back up lies about us and our families.

Glenn T. Stanton can't stop lying about same-sex families

I wish more attention was focused on how religious right groups and talking heads distort science to denigrate the lgbtq community.

There is a Pulitzer just waiting for the intrepid reporter who can break down this decades old story. At any rate, until that happens, it's up to us bloggers to make these facts known.

And Think Progress just did:

Focus on the Family’s duplicity is not always obvious, but execution of their anti-gay rhetoric is becoming more transparent. In a post yesterday, FOTF’s director of Global Family Formation Studies Glenn T. Stanton boasted that a new study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business proves that boys benefit behaviorally from having “a home with a mom and a dad”:

STANTON: This supports over three decades of consistent research showing that kids who grow up in a home with their married parents tend to do better in all measures of educational attainment than their peers being raised in single, divorced and cohabiting-parent homes. This is true from everything from grade-point average, behavioral issues, high school graduation and going on to graduate from college. Moms and dads both matter here, as well as the type of relationship between them.

But though FOTF is clearly trying to use this as evidence against same-sex marriage, the study did not prove anything “against” same-sex parents. The study in question (PDF here) did not, in fact, address same-sex parenting whatsoever, but instead compared children raised by married heterosexual parents to children raised by a single mother. It is one of many “fatherless” studies that conservative groups use to conflate not having a father/having one mother with having two mothers. Recall when Sen. Al Franken eviscerated FOTF’s Tom Minnery at a July Senate hearing for attempting to do the very same thing.

If anything, the Booth study supports arguments in favor of marriage equality, because it found that it was neither family structure nor biology that were the direct cause of differences in boys’ behavior, but environmental factors determined by levels of parental input. Stanton’s conclusions reflect nothing found in the actual research data — merely his discriminating ideology.

It should be known that scientific distortions is old hat for Stanton. In March 2008, he claimed that there’s a “clear consensus” among anthropologists that “A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female.”

However, those with expertise in such matters vehemently disagreed with this claim.


The American Anthropological Association in particular wrote a letter to Focus on the Family calling out Stanton for his error, calling it a gross misrepresentation of the position of the anthropological community on gay marriage:

My name is Damon Dozier, and I am the American Anthropological Association (AAA) Director of Public Affairs. In this capacity, I am responsible for the Association’s full range of government relations, media relations, and international affairs programs. Founded in 1902, the AAA—11,000 members strong—is the world’s largest organization of men and women interested in anthropology. Its purposes are to encourage research, promote the public understanding of anthropology, and foster the use of anthropological information in addressing human problems.

I write to address the gross misrepresentation of the position of the anthropological community on gay marriage in your March 3, 2008 Citizen Link press release, “Anthropologists Agree on Traditional Definition of Marriage.” In the release, Glenn Stanton, an employee of your organization who does not identify himself as an anthropologist, asserts that “a family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female.”

In point of fact, the AAA Executive Board issued in 2004, the following statement in response to President Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage:

The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.

I am alarmed and dismayed at this example of irresponsible journalism and deliberate misrepresentation of the anthropological community. In the future it is my hope that your organization will accurately and honestly convey and communicate the views and interests of the AAA, its 11,000 members, and the social science community at large.

Damon Dozier
Director of Public Affairs
American Anthropological Association
2200 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 600
Arlington, VA 22201
703.528.1902
ddozier@aaanet.org

Hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin for this letter.
 

Awesome Lecture on the Brain and Art

I often go to Mental Floss.com for info and daily mind games. They cover a ton of subjects from science to the weird.  I would have loved to have this guy as my professor.

This is  Lectures for a New Year: The Brain, Art, and Neurology
V.S. Ramachandran is a neuroscientist of the peculiar. Rama investigates unusual cases, and through his research he often helps people tremendously — for example, he invented the mirror box, which is used to treat phantom limb pain in amputees. He also actively studies and seeks to understand topics like synesthesia, rather than simply dismissing them as odd or quirky phenomena.
In this riveting lecture, Rama walks through a variety of curious neurological topics, building a case for how the brain perceives everything — and ultimately how it perceives art. While this lecture has more to do with neurology than art, it’s still of interest to those who dig art, and there is indeed a lot of discussion in the latter half of what art might be, whether art can be considered universal, and how art might function in the brain.
Topics: Capgras Delusion (aka “my mother is an imposter!”), synesthesia (aka “C Major is green!”), what a metaphor really is (schizophrenics don’t understand metaphor!), “bite you!”, a series of interesting visual illusions, how the brain responds to art, bird beaks, art, art, and artists.
For: fans of science, anyone who’s curious how the brain really works, fans of art, and anyone who loves a good lecture (can you imagine having this man as your professor? Fantastic!).
Viewing note: Skip to 3:13 to get to the lecture; the intro isn’t necessary.

Oh God! Another Pile of Crap from the Catholic Church

In the last few days there have been an assortment of announcements from the Catholic Church.

First was this piece of work;

"The Hartford Archdiocese wants gays and lesbians to practice abstinence in the new year. On Tuesday, the archdiocese announced it was launching a local chapter of a national ministry called Courage "to support men and women who struggle with homosexual tendencies and to motivate them to live chaste and fruitful lives in accordance with Catholic Church teachings." In a press release, the archdiocese stated that its Office of Diaconate director, Robert Pallotti, had been working to establish an area program for more than four years. The Courage ministry is based in Norwalk, led by the Rev. Paul Check of the Bridgeport Diocese, and claims to have more than 100 chapters around the country. Gay attraction is not the sin, the ministry preaches — only when one acts on those feelings is it immoral."

I am supposed to ignore my feelings, live a lonely life, no family or children. That is asking a lot of a person. And for what? Because of what they interpret from a book I don't follow?
Besides, that does not seem to be working very well for quite a few members of their cult.

Then came this announcement;

"An assistant bishop of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has resigned because he has a secret family, including two teenage children. The Vatican said on Wednesday that Pope Benedict had accepted the resignation of Gabino Zavala, an auxiliary bishop of the diocese which has been plagued by sexual scandals. A brief Vatican announcement did not give the reason for Zavala's resignation, saying only that the pope had accepted it under the norm in canon (Church law) that says a bishop who is ill or otherwise unfit to carry out his duties should resign."

Here is a guy acting on his natural urge to love and procreate with a woman. He has been in a long term relationship, raised 2 children and continued to do his job. What I find to be laughable is he has had to hide like us queer folks. He lost his job . He was not abusing alter boys.

The Catholic Church will hide and move around known child molesters and dump a ton of money on the National Org. for Marriage to fight everything LGBT, but fires a man for practicing what he preaches.

Why anyone supports this religion is beyond me. Do what I say and not as I do?

Beautiful Landscapes carved from books and Stickers!

Art

Breathtaking Natural Landscapes Carved into Vintage Books

by Judy Berman. Posted on 3:30 pm Wednesday Jan 4, 2012

What Happens When You Give Kids Thousands Of Stickers

They ruin a perfectly nice white room, is what happens. These pictures are from a beautiful interactive piece called The Obliteration Room by Yakoi Kusama at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. (From poppytalk, via @ZeFrank)

Michelle Bachmann vs Julia Sugarbaker

This is great!
Filed By Bil Browning at Bilerico.com

Another Classy Guy From Ohio

I need to let you fine folks know I do NOT go looking for all the nutjobs I report on from Ohio.
Not a week goes by that an Ohio nutjob turns up in the news and I stumble on them. They are hard to avoid.

This Guy Stabbed Someone For Not Knowing Jay-Z Was Married To Beyonce


Det. Marty Compton of the Parma, Ohio Police Department tells Fox 8 News that Ronald Deaver, 31, of Parma, was arrested and charged with felonious assault for allegedly stabbing a 48-year-old Garfield Heights man following an argument.
The argument began because he didn't know who Beyonce's husband was

Harrison Ford Watches “Indiana Jones” Trilogy For The First Time

Found at Buzzfeed.com
Can you believe that Harrison hasn't seen the Indy movies until now?

My Open letter to Rick Santorum

Start watching at the 56.00 mark and listen to what this man thinks of equal marriage. He goes on and on about how it affects him and society without any real affects to site. Never once does he seem concerned with the welfare of our population and our families.
Below is the letter I am sending to Santorum.


Rick Santorum speaks to the Concord (NH) Monitor editorial board from Concord Monitor on Vimeo.

Dear Mr. Santorum,
   I just finished watching the video of your interview with the Concord Monitor. At the 56.00 mark, you began to speak about equal marriage and I need to understand something.
  The way you made it sound is that equal marriage of one person to one person would somehow cause you and others damage but you never gave a concrete example. You also made it sound like my marriage would cause men and women to stop getting married and having families. Do you really believe that?
  You gave some great examples of what marriage is and does for the family and community. Why don't you understand that we want the same things?
  There has ALWAYS been same-sex couples raising children.  That is going to continue with or without equal marriage. The real issue is having the same support for our families and kids.
  You are not being asked to pay more in taxes because your long term and legally married relationship
is not seen the same as yours.
  Your spouse is not being denied health insurance or had it taken away even though you have been together for years and have a house and kids.
  Children do better when their parents are married. I agree. The problem is only 7% of families fit your idea of a family. That leaves out a great deal of families including ours.
  With 50% of marriages ending in divorce, there are a lot of kids being raised by single people.
  Of all the things that can break up someones marriage, having a gay married couple down the street is the least of their worries.
  We don't want to change the meaning of marriage. We want to celebrate marriage. We want the same things. 
I want the 7 years I have spent and vows I took to have the same meaning as yours. I want my kids to know how important marriage is and have the security that comes with it.
I want to know  I will not lose my home because of taxes I would not normally have to pay as a widow.
I want to know our kids will receive Social Security if one of us dies.
I want to know I will receive Social Security benefits if my wife dies before me.
I am a taxpayer.
I am a parent.
I am community minded.
I am an American.
I am the Same as you. I want the Same things out of life and love as you.
Just because I was attracted to and fell in love with a person of the same gender is not much of a reason to deny me and my family the right to the same benefits.
We have always been here. The difference is we are no longer going to take a back seat and be quiet.
We have contributed to the history and shaping of our country behind the scenes and now is the time for others to know about our contributions.
You may try to invalidate my marriage but you will never ever invalidate my love and vows.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Barbara Jane Jackson Lincoln


 

HomoQuotable - Dan Savage

Found at joemygod.com.

"Political reporters? When Elizabeth Santorum says, 'I have gay friends and they support my dad because they agree with him about family issues,' i.e. her dad's opposition to gay people having a families of their own, your immediate response should be a request for the names and phone numbers of some of these gay friends. Because that claim requires checking out before you put it in print or pixels. Reassure Elizabeth you'll quote her friends anonymously to protect them from potty-mouthed gay bloggers, they can talk to you on background or whatever, but tell her that you're going to need to verify the existence of these gay friends.

"Because you're a journalist, not a stenographer. You'll either catch Elizabeth Santorum in a revealing lie—what does it tell us about this moment in the struggle for LGBT equality that even homophobes like Elizabeth and her dad perceive a political risk in being perceived as homophobic?—or you'll land a fascinating interview." - Dan Savage, saying that the media should stop accepting homophobes' claims of having gay friends.

Labels: Dan Savage, HomoQuotable, Rick Santorum

Dan has made a great point. This is a person who goes around saying that gay love is like man-dog love/sex and wants to not only put discrimination in our constitution by banning equal marriage but he want to invalidate my marriage and all other legal same-sex marriages.

It is VERY hard to believe Santorum has any gay friends.

It is as hard to believe as a KKK member saying they have African-American friends.

Nicotine Test For Hospital Employees and My Thoughts

Found at joemygod.com

If you want to get a job at Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, you'll have to submit to a test for nicotine use. If you test positive, you don't get the job.

"This is just the next step in creating a tobacco-free environment and it's just an effort to focus on the well-being of our employees," said Geisinger spokeswoman Marcy Marshall. All Geisinger facilities have been tobacco-free since 2007. Ms. Marshall said Geisinger's new policy was a year in the making, and is modeled after one established at The Cleveland Clinic. She said some of the staff understand why Geisinger is taking a more aggressive stance on tobacco use, and some even welcome the new policy. There are others, though, who are worried. "I'm sure what's going through their minds is, 'How is this going to affect me down the line?'" Ms. Marshall said.

Next up: a test for evidence of french fries.

I have a huge problem with this for several reasons.
I am a smoker. I have been smoking for over half my life. When I started there were not any warnings on anything. Smoking was encouraged by the media. My Mom smoked in the pediatricians waiting room. I have smoked on airplanes, in theatres, grocery stores.. you name it.

Yes it is a gross, costly, and filthy habit I wish I had never taken up but.....
It is not illegal to smoke in your own home. It is not a control substance that needs to be outlawed.

When urine tests started for drugs I opposed it. Pot should not be lumped in with cocaine, heroin, and meth. No one else opposed it and now it is a standard practice. I REFUSE to take a piss test to get a job.

I have worked hard and built up a wonderful resume. I have had prospective employers drool at the idea of hiring me based on my credentials. When it comes time for me to sign a paper stating I agree to random drug testing, I have to pass. I have watched many jaws hit the floor when I slide the paper back unsigned, get up, and shake their hand saying I am sorry for taking up their time.
It is obvious that I am a good worker and have staying power so what I do in the privacy of my home is none of their business.

I am not saying I smoke pot or not. I am just saying it is not their business. 

I am all for not smoking in public places. I am all for not smoking in front of the doors that lead to public places. It is nasty for non-smokers. 

Now, some places want to see if I am smoking cigarettes in my free time and that is just wrong.
Again, what I do in my free time, in my home is none of your business.
At this point in my life most of the damage can not be repaired and I may very well suffer from diseases caused by smoking whether I quit or not.
I do have issue with doctors telling people like my Mom, who quit 20 years ago, that her problems are caused by smoking.  (Western medicine is called a practice for a reason)

I do believe it is unconstitutional to insist that a person stop doing something that is legal to get or keep their job. If we allow this to continue, who knows what is next.

You can be damn sure that if they start testing for one of the more dangerous drugs out there, alcohol, there would be an uprising of news worthy proportions.

Matt Baume with this weeks Marriage News Watch

VIRGINIA: GOP Candidates Sue Over Ballot and My Comments

Found at joemygod.com

The GOP candidates who didn't make Virginia's primary ballot are suing. Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul submitted the necessary 10,000 petition signatures in time.

Four candidates left off the Virginia Republican primary ballot joined Rick Perry Saturday in suing the state's board of elections over laws they say are "unconstitutional." Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum joined the lawsuit, originally filed Tuesday, challenging provisions that determine who can appear on the primary ballot. On Wednesday, Gingrich cited fraud as the reason he didn’t make it onto the ballot, laying the blame on one of his campaign's paid volunteers. "We hired somebody who turned in false signatures. We turned in 11,100 – we needed 10,000 – 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud,” Gingrich said.

VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli initially appeared receptive to changing the rules so that all the candidates would appear on the ballot, but yesterday he retreated.

"After working through different scenarios with Republican and Democratic leaders to attempt to make changes in time for the 2012 Presidential election, my concern grows that we cannot find a way to make such changes fair to the Romney and Paul campaigns that qualified even with Virginia's burdensome system."

Cuccinelli, incidentally, is running for governor but has refused to resign ahead of the election as is traditionally done.

This was funny when I first heard that Gingrich was not on the ballot and it is even more funny that 4 of the candidates missed their shot.
What is NOT funny is that because they did not play by the rules, they think they can change or gain exception to them.
They all had the same amount of time and a clear understanding of the rules. Because they did not make it in time or with enough signatures is their fault and they should NOT be allowed to tie up the courts with frivolous lawsuits when it was clearly their fault.
Not one of the 4 will make it to the finish line anyway but now we have to listen to them bitch and moan about how unfair it all is.
Do you really want a President that thinks he/she is above the same laws that govern the rest of us?