Change.org: First Round Voting Ends Today

In an earlier post I asked you to vote up an idea for change titled All Children Deserve Loving Families.

The first round of voting ends today, 12/31/2008 at midnight Pacific time.  This idea is currently in 6th place in the gay rights category and needs 214 more votes to make it to the second round.

Please go and vote it up today.  Please promote this idea by emailing it to all your friends, sharing it on social networking sites, and promoting it on you blog.

Adoption Ban in Arkansas Challenged

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — More than a dozen families sued Tuesday to challenge a new Arkansas law banning unmarried couples living together from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking to overturn Act 1, which was approved by voters in last month’s general election.

“Act 1 violates the state’s legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else,” said Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit.

The group sued on behalf of 29 adults and children from more than a dozen families, including a grandmother who lives with her same-sex partner of nine years and is the only relative able and willing to adopt her grandchild, who is now in Arkansas state care.  Read More

From Associated Press: ACLU of Arkansas Sue Over Adoption Restrictions, 12/30/2008.

Are Gay People Likable Enough?

But we’re not there yet. Warren’s defamation of gay people illustrates why, as does our president-elect’s rationalization of it. When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

It is even more toxic in a year when that group has been marginalized and stripped of its rights by ballot initiatives fomenting precisely such fears. “You’ve got to give them hope” was the refrain of the pioneering 1970s gay politician Harvey Milk, so stunningly brought back to life by Sean Penn on screen this winter. Milk reminds us that hope has to mean action, not just words.

By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

From a NY Times.com editorial today titled You’re Likable Enough, Gay People.

I thought this was an interesting article and it made some good points but I could not figure out the reason for the title.  I read the article and then scanned back through it several times and missed the point of the title.

Can anyone enlighten me please?

All Children Deserve Loving Families: Vote at Change.org

Dana from Mombian was invited by Change.org to submit an “Idea for Change in America”.  Change.org will present the top 10 ideas for social change to the Obama administration on inauguration day.  Her idea is titled: All Children Deserve Loving Families and here is what she had to say:

Every child in America deserves a loving family. The rights of children to find a loving home through adoption or fostering shall not be withheld on account of the prospective parent’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. An adult in a committed relationship with the sole legal parent of a child, whom the legal parent acknowledges as a second parent, shall be recognized under the law as such, even if the two parents later separate. Furthermore, the relationship of a parent to a child, if recognized by a state or jurisdiction, shall be recognized by all states and jurisdictions.

Please visit Change.org and vote it up!

Promote this idea and post the widget above on your webpage.

TV Movie: Prayers For Bobby on Lifetime

The movie Prayers for Bobby comes to Lifetime Television in January and stars Sigourney Weaver.  Prayers for Bobby is base on a 1998 best-selling book, a true story about Mary Griffith and her gay son Bobby who commits suicide because of her religious intolerance.  The show follows Mary’s journey from homophobe to gay rights activist.  Make sure and have a some tissues handy before you watch the trailer.

I think this deserves more mainstream airtime than Lifetime, or a theatrical release to reach more people. What do you think?

Petition Obama for Change

I just received this message from the Human Rights Campaign. Sign a petition asking President-elect Obama to support HRC’s Blueprint for Positive Change — A Five-Point plan for LGBT Equality in America.

On Wednesday, the Presidential Inauguration Committee invited anti-LGBT and Prop 8 supporter Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Presidential inauguration.

Within hours, this announcement unleashed a deservedly loud cry from the Human Rights Campaign and the community at large.

We have a chance to turn all of our energy and outrage into action. Make no mistake - this is a moment of  opportunity we must not squander.

President-elect Obama may not change his mind on Rev. Warren but he can turn the corner on this controversy by officially committing to HRC’s Blueprint for Positive Change — a concrete plan for LGBT equality.

Use the link below to ask President-elect Obama to support HRC’s Blueprint for Positive Change — A Five-Point plan for LGBT Equality in America.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/positivechange?rk=kdz0yfKawPqTW

We just signed the petition. How about you?

Rant: On Obama’s Choice of Rick Warren for Inauguration Invocation

Our good friend Vince agreed to let me post his email rant on the Rick Warren choice by O’bama:

I guess the ballot initiatives weren’t enough of a kick in the gut.

Here are some email addresses to respond, regarding Obama’s selection of Rick Warren (all addresses are either to Obama and/or inauguration related organizations)

• emmett@pic2009.org
• parag.mehta@ptt.gov
• http://change.gov/page/s/yourstory
• activist@democrats.com

Here is an example of what I wrote.  Granted it was out of hurt and anger, and when I take a deep breath, I’m not ready to give up on hope (however the “h” is now lowercase).

It’s simple.  I thought I had lived to see something amazing, and I guess Obama becoming president in America is still pretty amazing.  But I’ll have to pass on his inauguration.  You see my life, the life of my partner of 32 years, the life of our twelve-year-old daughter, our lives together – tenuous and fragile in America – are not made more real or less real by opinions or politics – just safer or more dangerous.  There are no sides to be taken about our lives.

But everyone has a right to their opinion?  We have to reach across the table.  No.  I’m sorry.  Some things are just wrong whether they’re said or done by a bigot on the street or a bigot in the Vatican and by any Rick Warren in between.

There’s no fool like an old fool, I guess that’s exactly what I’ve been since Obama won the primary.

ps:  Speaking of Rick Warren:

“He’s devoted his life to performing good works for the poor and leads the evangelical movement in addressing the global HIV/AIDS crisis.”

Maybe if he and other church leaders would have acted when it was still a “gay” disease, there might not be the current pandemic.  I buried many men to a resounding church silence or condemnation.  And changed the diapers of babies with AIDS when they were still treated like modern-time lepers.

Write on folks!  They need to hear our stories.

Vince

The “Can You Throw a Shoe at Bush?” Game

I got a big kick out of this early this morning having my coffee.  A smile and a chuckle is a rare thing at 5:30am.  I found this on Facebook, shared by our friend Joe from bored beyond belief.

The Bush Game - Can you throw a shoe at Bush?

I just found a similar game at Sock and Awe!

This is strangely therapeutic.  How many hits can you get?

Person of the Year 2008: Barack Obama

Time Magazine has name Barack Obama the Person of  The Year 2008:

But first, there is a bit of business to be dealt with, having to do with why you are reading this story in this magazine at this time of the year. It’s unlikely that you were surprised to see Obama’s face on the cover. He has come to dominate the public sphere so completely that it beggars belief to recall that half the people in America had never heard of him two years ago — that even his campaign manager, at the outset, wasn’t sure Obama had what it would take to win the election. He hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, shattered decades of conventional wisdom and overcame centuries of the social pecking order. Understandably, you may be thinking Obama is on the cover for these big and flashy reasons: for ushering the country across a momentous symbolic line, for infusing our democracy with a new intensity of participation, for showing the world and ourselves that our most cherished myth — the one about boundless opportunity — has plenty of juice left in it.

Is anyone surprised by this news at all?

Friday Family Roundup (11/14/08)

Here is some GLBT family news I’ve gathered from around the web this week:

1. Visit the Family Equality Council Website and Declare Your Family Equal. Check out this video made by the Family Equality Council. Have You Declared Your Family Equal?

2. Tomorrow, November 15, 2008 is a National Day of Protest.  Join The Impact - Protest Prop 8 is organizing action all across the country.  Check out the website to find a protest near you.

3. Here is a bit of local news for us here in New York from the Albany Times Union about gay couples traveling to Canada and elsewhere to get married.  The story highlights Nora Yates and her partner Erika Lewis who traveled to Niagara Falls, Canada to get married.  Nora is the Executive Director of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Communilty Council.

4. Check out Atticus Circle a group of straight American who are fighting for gay rights and marriage equality.

5. Another group, Mormons Stole Our Rights is looking the strip the Mormon Church of it’s tax exempt status for using it’s money to influence the Prop 8 ballot measure in California.

6. In a post titled Somethings Afoot at Daddy, Papa and Me, Trey discusses a sense that something has changed in the response of the gay community to the recent ballot losses. Is there a new activism emerging in the gay community?

This one seems different, more intense, deeper and broader. People I know who have never been ‘activists’ are now, people I know who have been ‘activists’ (from people like me who have been episodic, sometimes accidental activists to full-time activists) seem to have a deeper resolve. It’s only been just over a week, but somethings changed.

7. Guy Dads discuss their reactions to the recent elections, both the good and the bad.

8. Steve at The Hygiene Chronicles expresses his own reactions to the election with a letter to President-Elect Obama and includes a very cute video of his son.

9. Here are some more reactions to the elections; a post titled The Things We Tell Our Children from The Daddy Diaries, Days of the Dragon gives us Post Election Redux, a response to Prop 8 from Family of Choice, and Dana over at Mombian writes about LGBT Parents: The Forgotten Voices of Prop 8.

10. And finally, here is a look back to our own reaction to the elections here at Green Dads, America, Get Over Yourself.

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