Coming soon to a bigot near you!
When President Barack Obama made international news by announcing his support for marriage equality (what the other side calls “gay marriage”), reaction from the “religious right” was as swift as it was explosive. Fox Nation immediately (and famously) posted a headline “OBAMA FLIP FLOPS, DECLARES WAR ON MARRIAGE.” Minutes later, the headline was changed to the only slightly less asinine “OBAMA FLIP FLOPS ON MARRIAGE.”
But, the damage was done. War has been declared. It is a declaration of war against an institution that has been consistently and radically changed from its God-intended format: old men paying other old men for wives for their sons.
President Obama announced his support for marriage equality during an interview with ABC News this afternoon:
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Roberts in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.
Interestingly, right-wing Republicans who said they would never vote for him have declared… that they would never, ever, ever vote for him. Of course, the religious right and hate groups are all declaring their utter outrage.
Thank you, Mr. President. This is going to be an interesting election year.
Austin Peay State University Theatre & Dance, with license from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact, is proud to announce a one-night-only reading of “8,” a play chronicling the historic trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and AFER Founding Board Member Dustin Lance Black.
This video is worth watching. Brought a tear to my eye. Leave it to the brits to make a great ad for marriage equality.
If there’s anything that “religious right” groups have in common, it’s their unilateral hatred toward the idea that gays deserve to be treated as complete equals in society. They’ve claimed that they’re being lambasted for “merely disagreeing” with the “homosexual lifestyle.” They whine because they’re being blasted for “being Christian” or “upholding biblical values.” As such, at least one group is going over the top in their anti-gay propaganda.
As the battle for marriage equality continues is long path toward inevitability and fairness, anti-gay groups have ramped up their attacks in an effort to “defend marriage.” After all, this poor, defenseless institution is apparently at risk of being completely unhinged because a small number of people throughout the western world want to take part in it. The gays are threatening a sacrament, they say. Marriage must be defended. We must not redefine it, they say.
I’ve long been an advocate for marriage equality, and one of the reasons why is because of the fact that those of us who cannot legally marry — must pay higher taxes as a result. Today, CNN posted a fantastic article that explores this fact.
Last night, more than 30,000 people tuned in to watch a free, live presentation of 8, a play written from the transcripts of testimony during the Perry v Schwarzenegger trial. The finished script was written by Dustin Lance Black, the Academy Award winning writer who turned in scripts for Milk and last year’s J. Edgar.
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