An appeals court on Tuesday upheld the state's campaign disclosure law that requires a national anti-gay-marriage group to release its donor list, but the group plans to take the fight to shield the list to the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision pertains to ballot question committees in Maine and represents a second defeat for the National Organization for Marriage, which previously lost a challenge to the state's political action committee laws and laws governing independent expenditures and advertising attribution and disclaimers. The latest appeal focused on part of the law that says groups that raise or spend more than $5,000 to influence elections must register and disclose their donors.And while we await that Supreme Court decision, NOM will barrel ahead and pour millions into Maine's November marriage equality ballot measure. If you've got the dough and you've got the lawyers, court rulings don't mean shit.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
NOM Loses In Maine AGAIN
NOM has lost yet another court battle to hide its donor list from the state of Maine.
Florida Mittslide
An easy double-digit win for Romney. The only surprise is the size of the margin. Tomorrow's screaming from the Not-Romneys will be delish.
ARIZONA: Openly Gay State Rep Declares Candidacy For Giffords' U.S. House Seat
"Moving forward I believe the best thing that we can do is to honor her strength, and conviction, and her leadership, by getting somebody, quickly, because we don’t have much time, into that seat who is going to carry forward in the tradition of moderate, bipartisan, common sense governance that she did so well for Southern Arizona." - Openly gay Arizona state Rep. Matt Heinz, declaring his intent to run in the special election to replace Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.If elected, Heinz would become the fifth openly gay member of the U.S. House. That number will change this fall with the retirement of Barney Frank and with Tammy Baldwin's run for the Senate. Heinz says if Giffords' district director wants to assume the remaining months of the current term, he'll suspend his own campaign until November.
Shameful Surrender
No more Komen-funded breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood. If Jesus wants you to get cancer, don't get in his way. Praise! Glory! Hate groups are doing backflips all across Twitter. 
All Former NJ Govs Support Marriage
All six of the living former governors of New Jersey support marriage equality.
Democrats Brendan Byrne and James Florio told NBC New York Monday they endorsed efforts in the Legislature to pass it. "I think the climate is right on a basis of civil rights," said Byrne, the oldest of the former Garden State governors. "I would ask that the Legislature pass it." Florio told NBC New York, "I have no difficulties with it." "There are already people living together, as good neighbors and good people and contributing to the economy of this state, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to continue with the blessing of marriage," Kean said. Former Govs. Jon Corzine and Jim McGreevey are both on record as supporting gay marriage.Current Gov. Chris Christie has vowed to veto same-sex marriage should it reach his desk.
FRC Asks Siri Iris About Abortion
Is that the usual answer? Or did they rig it?
UPDATE: I didn't even notice that the robot's name is "Iris," which is Siri backwards. Which I guess was the plan. D'oh!
UPDATE: I didn't even notice that the robot's name is "Iris," which is Siri backwards. Which I guess was the plan. D'oh!
Anti-Gay Hate Group Pushes Bill To Force Religious Services In NYC Public Schools
In a move some are calling an "end-run around the separation of church and state," the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund has authored a bill that would force New York City public schools to allow religious services on their premises. Sock-puppeting for the ADF is GOP Sen. Martin Golden.Legislation pending in the Senate and Assembly would overturn the city’s policy banning churches and other religious groups from using school buildings for worship services and would allow them whenever they’re “deemed not disruptive of normal school operations.” “It is an end around,” City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott told the Daily News yesterday. Walcott also raised alarms about the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based religious organization that fought unsuccessfully in court to overturn the city’s ban and has worked with lawmakers on the legislation.As I reported here two week ago, also in this fight is the Family Research Council, who says that New York City is oppressing religious liberty by adhering to a recent federal appeals court ruling that bans churches from renting or having free access to public school property. That decision was refused review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ADF, according to its website, opposes legalized abortion and has fought against the spread of gay marriage and what it deemed the “homosexual agenda.” Walcott said the group’s history is “not what we're about as far as equal rights and equal opportunity.” Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn), a sponsor of the bill, defended the legislation and downplayed the ADF’s role, saying they were one of many groups that had pushed for its passage. Golden conceded, though, that a lawyer for the group did help his staff craft portions of the bill. The legislation could be approved as early as next week, he added.
On The Death Of Camp
With the new Broadway-themed show Smash as a jumping off point, Daniel D'Addario writes in the New York Observer:
Sontag’s contention that “Camp is esoteric—something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques” suggests one culprit for the death of camp: The mainstream acceptance of gays—a welcome development, to say the least—seems to have come with an ancillary cost. If camp is by definition a sort of in-joke, a winking language of signs and semaphores understood by a discerning few, it melts away when a show about battling Broadway ingenues is targeted at the many. The aesthetic sensibility that converted TV’s Batman into a gay icon and “No wire hangers!” into a rallying cry has crossed irrevocably into mainstream culture. It’s available to all and therefore drained of its power. It’s an tasty irony, but not a campy one.I'm afraid I must agree. What little "camp" I hear these days are lines lifted from Paris Is Burning and restated on RuPaul's Drag Race. Which is broadcast on a national network and therefore not much of an in-joke anymore.
Jingoistic Pandering For $100, Alex
If I have to hear Mitt Romney sing one more time, I just might hurl up bloody chunks of red, white and bleueeeegh.
Artwork For Madonna's New Album
I wonder how many queens have programmed their DVR just for Sunday's halftime show? (Guilty!)
NH Gov. Lynch: I Will Veto Marriage Repeal
The vote may be tomorrow. The Concord Monitor has posted a lengthy dissection of the bill's chance of passage.
(Via - Think Progress)
(Via - Think Progress)
Quote Of The Day - Stacey Campfield
"As you may have read I was asked to leave a restaurant in Knoxville because my beliefs did not support the owners beliefs on homosexuality. I had not said anything. I was just standing there waiting for a table when the owner came up and started yelling at me calling me names and telling me they were not going to serve me because of my alleged beliefs saying I hate gays. I said in as calm a way as I could that I don't hate gays and the things I have said were backed up by the CDC. I offered to send her the links."I have been quite open and clear on my beliefs and have backed them up with facts from the CDC and others. Unfortunately some people do not let facts get in the way of their prejudice. [snip] The cries of 'Ha ha. we showed him!' fall flat to me. It is not I who lost out. My friends and I still had a good meal. We just gave our money to a more gracious host. What was showed was a lack of professionalism." - Tennessee state Rep. Stacey Campfield, the author of his state's "Don't Say Gay" bill. Last week Campfield appeared on the Michelangelo Signorile Show to declare that straight people don't get AIDS.
RELATED: The best comment from Campfield's blog.
Except, as the owner said, members of your state have multiple places to eat. They do not, however, have multiple legislatures to protect their rights. By refusing rights to gays, you are just demonstrating that you are a homophobic bible-thumper stuck in the past. "They claim tolerances for divergent points of view.....Until someone actually has one."ALSO RELATED: Signorile interviewed the owner of the restaurant.
Christians Should Boycott Starbucks Because Homosexuals Only Live To 42
Pastor Andrew invites your $10,000 donation which can be made by Paypal or by a posthumous direction of stocks in your will. Or you can CALL HIM at 877-537-8734.UPDATE: Readers point out this clip from the VERY masculine Pastor Steven Andrew. GURL! Where's that hissing radiator? Kind of explains everything, doesn't it?
In Memory Of Slain Activist David Kato
No More Down Low reports on the anniversary of slain Ugandan activist David Kato, whose memorial vigil I attended and reported upon last year.
"Prayerful And Devout" Employee Rips Off NY Archdiocese For More Than $1 Million
But she prayed and went to Mass every day!
Anita Collins, 67, was wearing a crucifix and handcuffs at her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court for grand larceny and falsifying business records — charges that could send her to jail for up to 25 years if she is convicted. The white-haired bookkeeper alternately prayed and glared at the news photographers as investigators laid out her alleged scam. She did not enter a plea and was ordered held on $750,000 bail. “She held herself out to be a religious woman going to church every day,” said Assistant District Attorney Amy Justiniano said. “Yet, behind their backs she would lie and steal.”Compared to their kiddie-fucking payouts, the Archdiocese will probably just file this loss under "miscellaneous." Meanwhile Collins will go to confession, be ordered to say ten "my bads," and she'll be square with the house.
Anti-Gay Groups Rally Against Same-Sex Marriage Outside Maryland State Capitol
Igor Volsky has the story at Think Progress.
Concerned Women Are Concernstipated That Gay Marriage Will Curse Maryland
"There can be no doubt that America and the state of Maryland have been richly blessed throughout our history. And I hope we can all recognize that those blessings did not come in the abstract. They are the direct result of policies that found their underpinning in the teachings of Christ. Our Founders recognized that. It is a simple calculation. We cannot expect to receive the same blessings we have in the past if we enact polices that go directly against the ones that brought us the blessings in the first place." Mario Diaz, legal counsel for Concerned Women For America.
Gay Marriage Caused 9/11
"Satan has warred mightily against this region, and has effectively neutralized it through the influence of principalities of rationalism, humanism, intellectual pride and spiritual arrogance. Massachusetts, as well as all of New England, has become a cemetery of churches, a breeding ground for heretical doctrine, and intellectual furnace energizing attitudes of godlessness, rational arrogance and secularism. It is no coincidence, of course, that something as dramatically distant from the Christian worldview as gay marriage would be originated in this region."Is it exaggerated to see prophetic significance in the fact that on September 11, 2001 Boston served as the point of departure for the deadly forces that spread so much destruction and havoc in this nation and all over the world? What took place at the material level is now being carried out at the moral and spiritual level, as the virus of homosexuality and gay marriage begins to spread dramatically all over this nation and perhaps the world." - Pastor Roberto Miranda, whose endorsement of Mitt Romney was touted yesterday on Romney's official campaign site. (Via Right Wing Watch & Good As You)
Simpler Circumcision
As part of a campaign to reduce HIV infections in Africa, groups such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are advocating the use of the above "simpler" circumcision method. The new procedure is intended to speed the rate of circumcisions in regions that have few doctors.Circumcision is believe to protect heterosexual men because the foreskin has many Langerhans cells, which pick up viruses and “present” them to the immune system — which H.I.V. attacks. From the initial safety studies done so far, PrePex is clearly faster, less painful and more bloodless than any of its current rivals. And it relies on the simplest and least-threatening technology — a rubber band. The band compresses the foreskin against a plastic ring slipped inside it; the foreskin dies within hours for lack of blood and, after a week, falls off or can be clipped off “like a fingernail,” said Tzameret Fuerst, the company’s chief executive officer, who compared the process to the stump of an umbilical cord’s shriveling up and dropping off a few days after it is clamped. It is done with topical anesthetic cream, and there is usually no bleeding. And PrePex can be put in place and removed by nurses with about three days’ training.Three separate studies have shown that circumcision can reduce HIV infection from vaginal sex by up to 60%. Another study was cut short when it became clear that circumcising men that are already infected provided no protection to women. In 2009 the CDC announced that it was considering recommending that American boys be circumcised at birth, but that policy was never formalized. No study has yet confirmed that circumcision provides any protection for gay men.
Wingnut Vs Homocon: Infighting Is Funny
"Matt Drudge has decided to completely sell out and has signed on with the moderate Republican establishment and is pushing the Mitt Romney campaign and is acting as the attack dog against Newt Gingrich. And people aren't buying it. Doing exactly what the Democratic National Committee wants them to do has been an abject failure over and over again. Moving toward the middle to try to appeal to that much-coveted independent vote, all that does is alienate the base of the Republican Party, which is vastly conservative." - Liberty Counsel spokedouche Matt Barber, who adds that closet case Matt Drudge has now destroyed his credibility. Hurray!
Newt Sued Over Campaign Song
He's been using Eye Of The Tiger as his entrance music for years, but Survivor has finally gotten around to suing Newt Gingrich.
Rude Music Inc. -- owned by a member of the band Survivor -- filed the suit today in federal court in Illinois ... claiming Newt has jacked the song made famous in "Rocky III" to push his political agenda. According to the lawsuit, Newt has been using the song at various political events since 2009. In the suit, Rude Music claims Gingrich used the song at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2009, 2010 and 2011 ... as well as the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in 2010.
Maryland Marriage Poll: Tipping Point?
Another question on the poll reveals that of those who oppose same-sex marriage, 74% cite "religious belief" as the foundation for their position. Only 74%?
Radio Host David Pakman Interviews Anti-Gay TN State Rep. Stacey Campfield
Clip description: "Stacey Campfield, Tennessee State Senator and sponsor of the "Don't Say Gay" bill joins us to discuss being kicked out of a restaurant on Gay Street for being anti-gay by the owner, about homosexuality being harmful, and he denies homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom."
RELATED: Check out Michelangelo Signorile's initial interview with Campfield. An excerpt:
RELATED: Check out Michelangelo Signorile's initial interview with Campfield. An excerpt:
"Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community -- it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall. My understanding is that it is virtually -- not completely, but virtually -- impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]. "What's the average lifespan of a homosexual? it's very short. Google it yourself."
NEW YORK CITY: Developers Overturn Winning Design For AIDS Memorial
Only hours after the winning design for a planned West Village AIDS memorial was announced, the developers of the site rejected that design for one of their own.
Rudin Management, which won City Planning Commission approval on Jan. 23 for its plans for the former St. Vincent's Hospital site, said it will work with the AIDS Memorial Park coalition, Community Board 2 and locals on plans for the park, but that its current design by landscape architect Rick Parisi will provide its basis. “Our neighborhood park design … allows for a commemoration of both those affected by the AIDS epidemic and of St. Vincent’s Hospital for its 160 years of service to the community and its steadfast commitment to care for those suffering from HIV/AIDS," Rudin CEO and vice chairman Bill Rudin said in a statement. [snip] Parisi's design for the park —which some locals called generic — calls for more than 600 seats, 31 trees and 4,861 square feet of plantings.I thought Infinite Forest was gorgeous.
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