The Deeper Dream

pantslessprogressive:

Washington state has legalized same-sex marriage. Washington’s legislature passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage Wednesday by a 55-43 vote, making Washington the 7th state to do so.

Gov. Chris Gregoire says she will sign the legislation into law next week.

Washington joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont (and Washington D.C.) in granting marriage licences to same-sex couples.

State Rep. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle), who is gay, spoke on behalf of the approved bill:

“I would like for our four children to grow up understanding that their daddy and their poppa have made that kind of a lifelong commitment to each other. Marriage is the word that we use in our society to convey that idea.”

Most excellent! Congratulations, Washington!

socialistexan:

nine-time:

Breaking news! Newt Gingrich is still a total dick.

I refer you to this

Good job at being on the wrong side of history, Newt. Makes hating your pompous ass that much easier.

Obviously Newt hasn’t read the actual decision, which was actually fairly narrow. Mr. Gingrich not knowing what he’s talking about? Color me surprised.

</sarcasm>

Reblogged for awesomeness and truth.

When I’m on the train, I read my favorite gay magazine. I can’t remember having ever seen someone who looks like me on the cover. When I read it I see more ads - for underwear, cologne, cruises, hotels, and clothes - with people who don’t look like me. None of the writers look like me, nor are there any stories about anyone who looks like me. When I finally see an advertisement with someone who shares my skin color, the advertisement is for HIV medication.

While I’m waiting for my friend in the gayborhood hotspot I notice that none of the bartenders, DJs, or waiters look like me, nor do most of the clientele. Out of boredom, I fiddle around with the Grindr mobile dating app on my iPhone. My screen is filled with different faces, bodies, and torsos of men in the area. One particularly handsome man attracts my attention, until I read the “NO ASIANS” typed in angry capped letters on his profile. I wonder how I would feel if I were Asian.

After having a few drinks with my friend, I walk home through the garment district in midtown Manhattan. I see a gay male couple walking hand in hand down the street. They also do not look like me. In fact, they look like they could be in one of the gay cruise ads I see in my favorite magazine. Their relaxed and happy faces turn frightened when they see me, and they immediately cease holding hands and separate. On this late night in an unfamiliar area of the city, I am not seen as a member of the LGBT community. I am black. I am male. I am a threat.

“

—

The Bearable Whiteness of Being Gay - CNN Opinion (via thenoobyorker)

What’s shocking is when I read on Grindr or something else “Aryan for same”.

It’s like, “W… what?”

One time I actually read “übermensch” in a Grindr profile.

(via cuntymint)

</3

(via oppressionisyucky) This is why I don’t bother to read gay magazines. (via titotito)

Nothing new. The queer rights movement was rehashed and renamed as the gay rights movement, which already implies its exclusive nature. The queer rights movement’s catalyst is attributed to the Stonewall Riots, which was mostly white, but if you ask anyone about the Compton’s Cafeteria riot, which was mostly people of color, you’ll find that some people don’t even know about it. What’s worse, some people don’t even care. The queer rights movement was hijacked by affluent, attractive, white males, that only seek to normalize us through heteronormativity and gaining our freedoms and liberation through lobbyism. All they want to do is capitalize on people’s hardships to propagate a capitalist model that alienated, disenfranchised, and killed many of our own, and I don’t want any part of it.

(via sinidentidades)

ramble ramble ramble »

holymotherofrowling:

joeyboy123:

To argue against it, putting religeon aside, I think that, and many studies have proven, to raise a child, a father and mother do best. but I suppose that isn’t marriage, let me put it this way. I think the act of what they’re doing is wrong, and they won’t be able to have a successful marriage while continuing to live that way. Marriages simply don’t work the way they’re meant to when people have such intentions. I wouldn’t endorse many strait marriages either for the same reason.I believe marriage without religeon is possible, but not as successful. When religeon goes, morality follows. and I’ve seen to many horrible marriages based on sin. It originated to be preventative of sin, therefore I don’t think it can work to endorse it. I don’t think such couples should ask for God’s blessing when they don’t believe in god.

If religeon is absolutely out of the picture, the couple doesn’t care about any of that they just get a big lightning bolt to the heart and they don’t want to work or do anything, except run off and make babies (or not even that in some cases) and live happily in love with each other, then i would say go for it, do what you want. But don’t associate your marriage to a Christian Marriage in the slightest, because that is offensive.

i sort o f rammbled, but to sum it up: 1. I think homosexual love is artificial and not strong enough for marriage. 2. It defiles Christian Marriage. 3. By all means if they want to be legally united, the state shouldn’t prevent them, but it should not be under God. 4. The point of marriage is to be under God, and that’s why it doesn’t work for them. They should have the right to wear rings and be united in the eyes of the government (though I discourage it). God and marriage yes. Gays and marriage no. Gays uniting in love (fake to me) but it should be their right. Saying Gay Marriage is a contradiction in itself. That’s my argument. So if you were to take religeon out of that argument, then genuine marriage would not be impossible, but the rights that marriage permits in this country should be for everyone. Being united (with anyone) is fine with me, as I’ve reitterated, but it’s insulting and wrong to simply water down a Christian marriage to serve that purpose. Religeous matramony among gays is wrong and impossible, as it is for anyone without the intention of serving God or of serving each other with vile intentions.

First off, there are many studies showing a same-sex couple can raise children just as effectively as a heterosexual couple.

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051012/study-same-sex-parents-raise-well-adjusted-kids

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1994480,00.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-21-parentgender21_ST_N.htm

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/514477

So yeah, you’re wrong. If kids raised by same-sex couples are hurt in any way by their parents, it has nothing to do with the parents’ sexual orientation. In fact, it might have something to do with laws against gay couples. Here’s another article talking about the effects discrimination against same-sex couples has on their children:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/children-sex-parents-harmed-anti-gay-laws-study/story?id=14862339#.TwEhSdQ9mjM

Let me also point out that marriages precede Christianity. In fact, marriages predate recorded history. So, no, I don’t want your “Christian marriage.” I want a legal marriage involving the institution that has existed longer than your religion has. I don’t want to be married “under God.” I don’t even believe in God. I just want to be married. I don’t believe churches should be made to perform same-sex marriages - if a certain one doesn’t want to do so, whatever. However, some do. That’s not your choice…. let me just also point out that Paul, who homophobic Christians tend to quote when they want to make an argument against same-sex marriage - he actually believed marriage should be purely about sex. He believed people should marry someone so they wouldn’t have sex before marriage. So much for this pure love you’re talking about.

“I think homosexual love is artificial and not strong enough for marriage”

Fuck you fuck you fuck you. There are same-sex couples that have lived their whole life together. There are same-sex couples who have stayed with each other through awful diseases. There are same-sex couples who have died for each other. Who are YOU to say their love is artificial, you self-righteous dick? Who are you to say my love for my girlfriend is artificial? I love my girlfriend. I’d do anything for her. Screw you for thinking you can categorize that love as worth less than anyone else’s love.

I can’t even begin to rebut the original post. “Where religion goes morality follows”? How about the atrocities that have been committed in the name of God, or the great acts of compassion committed by people regardless of their beliefs?

Same-sex marriage “defiles” Christian marriage? How? My two best friends are a straight, married couple. I don’t defile their marriage—I attended their wedding at their invitation, for Christ’s sake! They would be the first to tell you that their marriage is neither so fragile or so sanctimonious.

The point of marriage is to be under God? The point of marriage is to bond two people together in a union that is stronger than either one alone, and to bond that couple to the community as well. If God enters into that arrangement for you or your community, fine, but I highly doubt it’s a necessity.

To quote (an admittedly overquoted passage) Paul, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Cor. 13)

Tell me something—that “Christian love” that you’re talking about, the one that can’t suffer being diluted, or being challenged, or having anything different from it…is that Paul’s love? Or the kind he’s speaking against?

Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights. It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look, or behave… To LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support, or feel isolated, and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone. People around the globe are working hard to support you, and to bring an end to the injustices and dangers you face. That is certainly true for my country. And you have an ally in the United States of America. And you have millions of friends among the American people.

“

—

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton • Giving vocal support to the plight of oppressed LGBT persons worldwide, at a meeting of diplomats in Geneva. Clinton’s speech is being hailed as a landmark event in terms of U.S. foreign policy towards LGBT rights, and dovetails with the Obama administration’s memo earlier today pledging foreign aid support for the same cause. After her speech, she received a standing ovation. This could well be worth marking down on your calendar for future reference, everyone; this could be a big, big deal, whether Rick Perry likes it or not. source (via • follow)

drinkthe-koolaid:

chrisafer:

Strong (by RPerry2012)

“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.
Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.
I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message.”

SCHOOL PRAYER IS NOT ILLEGAL. SCHOOL-ORGANIZED PRAYER IS.

It looks like Rick has decided gay bashing is the lifeboat he needs for his Titanic of a campaign.

Rick, you’re right. I don’t have to sit in the pew at all (and I don’t, since I’m an atheist) to see what’s wrong with this country. All I need to do is see idiots like you considered viable candidates for the presidency.

As a Christian, I’m offended by this video. As a gay man, I’m incensed. What kind of weird, bizarro-world does this man live in?

Later this evening, I’m going to go to my church, which is decked out in full Christmas regalia, to practice for our Christmas cantata. I will be one of many, in many churches, not only in my town but across America. No one is persecuting us. No one has passed a law saying we can’t worship as we wish. The only thing that anyone’s said, is that it’s probably bad form to shove our Christianity down the throats of the millions of Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, agnostic and atheist people that we share space with in any given day.

Let’s also not forget that no one is forbidden from praying in school, they’re forbidden from public, mandatory prayer in schools. Which, by the way, Jesus himself preached against: “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward.” (Matt. 6:5)

That assumption; the callous, idiotic assumption that because Christianity doesn’t rule and dominate all American life it is somehow oppressed, irritates me. My faith is neither so small or so fragile as to demand such concessions.

But as a gay man, this makes me shake with rage. How dare this man say that there is something about me which makes me unable to serve in the military, should I choose that? How dare he say that being able to do so is in some way a wrongness, a persecution of Christianity? Who I love and who I am attracted to is in no way connected to my ability to serve my country, as thousands of LGBT men and women have shown.

How dare he judge the service of those men and women, and condemn it to score political points.