Articles tagged with: same-sex marriage
Sara’s News Roundup 5/21/12: NAACP endorses marriage equality
The NAACP endorses same-sex marriage and other reactions to President Obama’s May 9 announcement of support for marriage equality; Boy Scouts oust a lesbian den mother; and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska (with supplemental info from Bent Alaska).
Sara’s News Roundup 4/10/12: Same-sex LDS marriages?
A non-LGBTQ Mormon calls for marriage equality, Latinos more likely than other Americans to call themselves “liberal,” and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska
Sara’s News Roundup 3/12/12: The personal & political in same-sex marriage votes
Republican legislators in three states changed their votes on same-sex marriage through having a personal connection with gay friends, relatives, or constituents, and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
Sara’s News Roundup 3/5/12: Will “Bully” documentary reach its audience?
A petition for the documentary Bully to reach its intended audience, same-sex marriage in Archie’s world, abuse of transgender children, discrimination against the children of LGBT parents of color, and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
Sara’s News Roundup 2/27/12: Another federal ruling against DOMA
The prospects for marriage equality in Alaska, another decision against DOMA in the federal courts, same-sex marriage in Kenya, and other recent LGBTQ news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
A Valentine’s Day wedding at the Empire State Building
Anchorage residents Stephanie Figarelle and Lela McArthur today became the first same-sex couple to wed atop the historic Empire State Building in New York City, one of two same-sex couples to marry there today. Same-sex marriage became legal in New York on on July 24, 2011.
Bent News, 9/28/11: Census data on same-sex married couples
Bent Alaska tweets the news, data from the 2010 U.S. Census on same-sex married couples, a “This Gets Better” video, and more in this edition of Bent News.
Tweeting the news
- Bent Alaska has added (we think) Selective Tweets to our FB profile (as well as page), so we can share news when we’re out & about. #
Bent Alaska has added the Selective Tweets app to our Facebook profile, so we can easily share news with our Facebook friends when we’re out and about — merely by adding a simple #fb hashtag to any tweet we wish. You can also follow us directly on Twitter @bentalaska.
But what if you’re not on Facebook or Twitter? We’ve also added a plugin called Twitter Tools to our blog, which will automatically creates a daily post from our tweets. And suddenly Bent News is reborn: a daily (at least when we tweet) summary of some of the interesting stuff we’ve found around the web. As we’re able, we’ll also supplement it with other news, photos, videos, etc., to try to make it interesting & informative. Our Bent News posts will post the day after the tweets were made.
Let us know how we’re doing! Write to us at bentalaska [at] gmail [dot] com.
Census data on same-sex married couples
- Census Bureau reports 131,729 same-sex married couples, and 646,464 gay couples in the country overall. http://t.co/NdHUdImC #
One of our Facebook friends asked, “Was there a category for LGBTQ persons overall?” Our answer: Not yet. Single people couldn’t self-identify as LGBTQ on the 2010 Census, so there’s no data on how many of us live in the U.S. We’ve got to get that added for 2020!
There’s a campaign by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGTLF) to do just that, called Queer the Census (Facebook page). In its blog post about the Census Bureau’s newly released data on same-sex couples, the Task Force writes,
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force played a key role in getting the U.S. Census Bureau to report the number of married same-sex couples in the 2010 census, and continues to work with policymakers to ensure lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are included in a broad swath of federal surveys and data collection.
See the U.S. Census Bureau’s official press release on the data.
Other tweets
- Biblical arguments for LGBT equality? Yes. @LambdaLiterary reviews God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality http://t.co/nPGV8TRw #
- Right wing claims TX student’s religious freedom being violated by teacher he harassed b/c he thinks teacher is gay http://t.co/i4lAVL2H #
Shared on our Facebook wall
“All the bullies I’ve known were insensitive jerks.” — so says Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia in this video for the It Gets Better Project. Watch:
More Americans support than oppose same-sex marriage
For the first time, more Americans support than oppose same-sex marriage, according to the 2010 General Social Survey.
Sara’s News Roundup 2/13/11
Recent LGBT news selected by Sara Boesser in Juneau, Alaska.
1) Antigay Testimony May Sway Md. Senator’s Marriage Vote
Baltimore, Maryland, Advocate, February 10, 2011
2) Hawaii House passes same-sex civil unions bill
Honolulu, Hawaii, February 11, 2011
3) Jobs program targets transgender people
Boston, Boston Herald, January 24, 2011
4) Court: Student Counselor Must Treat Gays
Michigan, February 11, 2011
5) Lady Gaga’s Latest Song: Born This Way
Gaga Daily, February 11, 2011
6) “Born This Way” Shatters Records
Advocate, February 11, 2011
7) ACLU: Transgender woman, ejected from Lynnwood store, spurs policy change
Lynnwood, Washington, Seattle PI, February 8, 2011
8) Corvino: Love, partnership and Valentine’s Day
365Gay.com, February 11, 2011
9) Opinion: Africa: Transgender Rights Not Simply Gay Rights
Africa, AllAfrica.com, February 10, 2011
10) Harvard Law Review elects first openly gay student as president
Cambridge, Mass., 365Gay.com, February 10, 2011
11) Culhane: Are ‘religious exemptions’ swimming against the tide?
365Gay.com, February 10, 2011
12) GLAAD nominations for Glee, Project Runway
TVNZ.com, January 21, 2011
Juneau student says same-sex marriage should be legal
An 8th grader in Juneau wrote a great essay in support of same-sex marriage and it was published in the Capital City Weekly:
There is no good reason to ban gay marriage
by Madeleina Ellingson-van Sickle, Floyd Dryden Student
Ten percent of America is gay. That’s 1 in 10. Chances are that’s someone you know or someone you come in contact with every day. Why should they be given different rights just because of their sexual orientation? They shouldn’t. Gay marriage should be legal in all 50 states.
The government shouldn’t tell people how to live their lives. Right now, only two states allow gay marriage: Connecticut and Massachusetts. For a short time California allowed gay marriage, but then the people overturned the decision and it is no longer allowed. The problem is, only a small percentage of our country’s population live in those states. What about the millions of others who are gay and love each other? Many people say they should just get a domestic partnership (which is similar in some ways to marriage, except for the 1,138 other rights that married couples have), but still 19 states don’t allow that either. As George Sand, a famous French novelist once said, “There is one happiness in life, to love and to be loved.” Should the laws choose who can and can’t have that happiness based on their sexual preference? People should choose whom to love; we don’t need the government to intervene.
Gay marriage is similar to interracial marriage. People used to say interracial marriage was wrong because it wasn’t “normal” and it was a tradition for couples to get married that were of the same race. But eventually they realized that it was unconstitutional for making individuality illegal. There isn’t much difference with gay marriage. Banning it is unconstitutional. As Charles Evans Hughes, the former Secretary of State, once wrote, “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.”
All in all, there is no plausible reason to ban gay marriage. Just because you think it’s gross, or that your friends don’t like it, doesn’t give us the right to tell people who to love or how to live their lives. This country has freedom of religion, so we shouldn’t make law because our religion says it’s wrong.
As a nation, we should come together and make it legal for gay couples to get married. In the Pledge of Allegiance, it doesn’t say with liberty for the straight people, liberty for the white people, or liberty for men. It just says with liberty and justice for all.
