Role models


16
Sep 10

STARS FOR GAY MARRIAGE

celebrity chef Tom Colicchio

Tom Colicchio by David Shankbone

It can be annoying to think that the views of celebrities are somehow more important than ordinary folk … on the other hand, we don’t want them opposing gay marriage, do we?

And besides, you guys do seem to flock here when their photos go up.

So … it is my duty to inform you that a range of celebrities are lining up to support the introduction of gay marriage into New York state. The latest signatory is the celebrity chef Tom Colicchio will join the likes of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, actors  Julianne Moore and Kyra Sedgwick, and the omnipotent Al Sharpton in ads supporting same-sex marriage . As far as I can tell, they are all straight, so even better to have their support.


12
Sep 10

PUTTING OUR MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTHS ARE

Betty Londergan Interview with Chris Sweigart/ WXIA Channel 11 Alive from Betty Londergan on Vimeo.

One of my greatest (or most annoying) lectures is about how people who support equality need to do something about it – including to donate money.

Here, Betty Londergan is anything but annoying.  She is running a project to spend 365 days ‘putting her money where her mouth is’ – and today she is giving to Freedom to Marry. Read her touching story about why.

What a role model for us all!


16
Aug 10

MORE HARE, LESS TORTOISE

Us suffragettes at a rally for women's rights

It’s very hard to see when one is being knocked about on all sides, going two steps forward and one step back on a good day. In circles or backwards on a bad day.

But here is one of those boring but very important examples of just how well the marriage equality movement is doing …  like most suffragette (women’s voting rights) campaigns took decades to win.

In the case of the United States it took 70 years of organised campaigning …

“behind almost every great moment in history, there are heroic people doing really boring and frustrating things for a prolonged period of time.

That great suffragist and excellent counter, Carrie Chapman Catt, estimated that the struggle had involved 56 referendum campaigns directed at male voters, plus “480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters, 47 campaigns to get constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party campaigns to include woman suffrage planks in party platforms and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.”

Now that is what I call slow and painful.  What we are doing is a breeze, by comparison.


29
Jul 10

MY LORD! ALLI BACKS FULL EQUALITY

Lord Waheed Alli

Great news from Pink News … Lord Waheed Alli, the brilliant Labour (and Muslim) peer in the UK’s House of Lords is openly backing the growing calls for full equality in the UK.

This sounds like an obvious move given his strong role in creating the current civil partnership system, but it’s actually a big step for someone from a party that gets quite defensive about it’s (admirable) record on gay rights.  This is great news for creating a true consensus on this issue in British politics.


25
Jul 10

HERO: PFLAG MUM SHELLEY ARGENT

Watch or read the transcript of this great Australian TV programme about equality activist Shelley Argent, from Queensland, Australia.

I grew up in rural Australia myself – it takes guts to do what Shelley is doing. And she doesn’t step back fighting for full marriage equality either.

Continue reading →


29
Jun 10

NEVER TOO LATE TO SAY ‘I DO’

Iceland and the world got its first lesbian married first couple today.

Johanna Sigurdardottir, 67, married writer Jonina Leosdottir on the first day of marriage equality in Iceland.


26
Jun 10

GAVIN NEWSOM: WHY SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL

Here, one of my all-time favourite politicians – the mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom – explains why he just will not accept inequality.


10
May 10

OBAMA CALLS ON AMERICANS TO REFUSE TO BE DENIED THEIR RIGHTS

President Obama not standing by gays and lesbians on marriage equality

An example of how Obama's ambiguity on gay rights leads to his position being misused against gays

US President Barack Obama rightly says that young Americans should take inspiration from Dorothy Height, the civil and women’s rights icon who died in April 2010. Height was extraordinary in “Refusing to be denied her rights, refusing to be denied her dignity, refusing to be denied… her piece of America’s promise,” says Obama.

That is what every person standing up for marriage equality is doing – refusing to be pushed into a second-class for an arbitrary reason.  So we should take Obama’s message about Dorothy Height and push it back at him on marriage.

Obama is explicitly against marriage equality, as this video shows, but presuming that he does not support racial segragation, he really shouldn’t be supporting marriage segregation either.

Obama can’t credibly pursue the ridiculous idea that separate is equal for gays, but not for blacks. It’s one or the other – but you can’t hold both positions without being either a coward or a hypocrite.

Continue reading →


8
May 10

A HARVEY MILK DOSE OF HOPE


Get your daily dose of hope here!

Marriage equality is not just about the couples who want to marry – it’s not some luxury for rich Western countries. It’s fundamentally about hope for a better life for all gays and lesbians who don’t feel they fit in, who don’t want to live or, who can’t see the point in standing up for their human rights.


4
May 10

KEEPING THE FAITH: GAYS AND MONOGAMY

One really obnoxious argument against marriage equality is that gays don’t need marriage because they aren’t monogamous. As most research shows, and anyone who’s ever met more than a handful of lesbians knows: lesbians are the most faithful of all couples. Male-female couples are in the middle (with men the most likely cheaters), and gay men are the least faithful.

What does that tell us?  Being faithful is a man-problem, not a homosexual one. And across the board it’s essential to treat each couples as just that, a couple not a representative of millions of people.

Here is a great report from Australia – Not So Private Lives – about how more than 2,000 gays and lesbians, structure and define their relationships (and their preference for marriage).