01.07.10
Posted in D's Thoughts at 4:51 pm by pikapp44
New Jersey’s state Senate has defeated a bill to legalize gay marriage.
The defeat, by a vote of 20-14, likely ends any chance that the state Legislature approves gay marriage soon. Five senators did not vote; there is one Senate vacancy.
Gay rights advocates had been pushing hard for the bill because on Jan. 19, new Republican Gov. Chris Christie takes office and he has vowed to veto a gay marriage bill. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine had promised to sign it into law.
It was a major effort to get the bill to a full Senate. A vote was canceled last month when it appeared the measure would be defeated there. It wasn’t until Tuesday that Senate leaders decided to allow the vote.
New Jersey offers civil unions that grant the legal rights of marriage to gay couples.
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12.25.09
Posted in D's Thoughts at 9:29 pm by pikapp44
Some will say, but the Salvation Army performs good work — the organization feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, clothes the impoverished, whether gay or straight.
Yes, yet there are many other organizations performing the same work as the Salvation Army that do not discriminate against gays and lesbians, that will not use your donation against you.
From the Salvation Army’s Web site: “The Army regards the origins of a homosexual orientation as a mystery and does not regard a homosexual disposition as blameworthy in and of itself or rectifiable at will. Nevertheless, while we are not responsible for what we are, we are accountable for what we do; and homosexual conduct, like heterosexual conduct, is controllable and may be morally evaluated therefore in light of scriptural teaching.
“For this reason, such practices, if unrenounced, render a person ineligible for Salvation Army soldiership.”
You can find a charity more worthy of the stray dollar in my pocket.
The power of the Salvation Army. It is a massive Christian evangelical organization — with a quasi-military structure and raising $2 billion a year — and it promotes discrimination against gays and lesbians in its employment policy; at local levels of government, going so far as to threaten to close soup kitchens in New York if the city enacted domestic partnership legislation; and at the national level of government.
We can find charities more deserving of our dollars and our volunteer time.
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12.05.09
Posted in D's Thoughts at 10:15 am by pikapp44
After taking heat from Adam Lambert’s fans and gay advocates for a week, ABC on Friday extended an olive branch of sorts to the “American Idol” runner-up who made headlines with his provocative performance last month at the American Music Awards in which he kissed a male musician.
ABC canceled Lambert’s scheduled appearances on “Good Morning America” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and stopped considering him for “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” which drew thousands of complaints from viewers and gay advocates who believed the network was retaliating against him because he is gay.
On Friday night, Lambert took to Twitter, where he first announced the cancellations, to tell his fans that he will appear on “The View” next Thursday.
Without offering an explanation and declining to comment, ABC confirmed the appearance.
Lambert will be interviewed by “The View” hosts and will perform. Both will be pre-taped.
Lambert will appear on “The View” the morning after his interview with Barbara Walters for her “10 Most Fascinating People” special on ABC. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which earlier accused ABC of subjecting Lambert to a double standard, applauded ABC’s invitation.
“ABC has taken a step toward fairness by inviting Adam Lambert to perform on ‘The View,’ ” the group’s president, Jarrett Barrios, said. “GLAAD has been advocating against the double standards that have been applied to Lambert as an openly gay performer.”
GLAAD issued that statement after releasing three statements in two days that left Lambert’s supporters confused and angry.
In the first release, the group seemed to give ABC a free pass: “It would appear that the kiss between Adam Lambert and his keyboardist did not factor into ABC’s decision.”
In the second statement, GLADD called on ABC to clarify “why Lambert is being denied the opportunity to perform on the network.”
Then GLAAD issued its strongest statement, charging that ABC canceled Lambert’s appearances because he is openly gay.
In an interview, Barrios said he realized after the first statement that GLAAD’s position was being misunderstood because “I’ll admit it, [it] should have been more clearly worded.”
“Giving ABC the opportunity to explain themselves is important, but it’s also important for us to be clear about what our position is. And that is that we believe that Adam Lambert is being subjected to a double standard because he’s an openly gay entertainer.”
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12.03.09
Posted in D's Thoughts at 5:30 pm by pikapp44
Adam Lambert, last year’s American Idol runner-up, performed at the American Music Awards, which were broadcast on ABC. During the performance, the openly gay Lambert kissed his keyboard player, another man, on stage.
No big deal, right? Well, you’d think that. But ABC thinks differently. They responded to the “controversy” by cancelling Lambert’s scheduled performance on Good Morning America last Wednesday. This saddened a lot of his fans and caused a major uproar on Twitter.
But now, ABC has gone even further. The Disney-owned company has cancelled two more Lambert performances that would be televised by their network: one on Jimmy Kimmel Live and one for the infamous Dick Clark’s Rockin New Years Eve.
Let’s get this straight right off the bat: this is homophobia. Plain and simple. As is pointed out in the linked article other performances that night referenced drinking, sex and even rape. However, Lambert’s same-sex kiss has gotten him seemingly banned from the network. Rumor is that this is the network caving to FCC pressure, which raises an important question: why does the FCC think male on male kissing is somehow more offensive than Eminem rapping about having “17 rapes under his belt?” Two men in a consensual relationship is WORSE than repeated sexual assault? Really?
But here’s another interesting point: Katy Perry, an artist who performs same-sex kisses on stage, has appeared and performed on Good Morning America as well as being a headlining performer at least year’s New Years Rockin Eve festivities…and in both cases has performed a song about girl on girl kissing. So, we’re to assume that girl on girl kissing is okay, but boy on boy is wrong? Or this is a case of “Well, with girls it doesn’t count because there’s no penis involved?” This is further proved by CBS’s The Early Show blurring out the male-male kiss from the AMA’s, but not blurring the infamous female-female kiss between Britney Spears and Madonna from the VMAs several years ago.
Or, let’s even go one step further: Perry doesn’t identify as homosexual. She’s heterosexual, but sings about kissing girls as something taboo and “naughty.” Lambert kisses boys in his real life, and not just as a crazy thing to do in a bar. So, it’s okay to act gay on TV or on stage, but only if you’re straight? If you’d actually like doing it off stage it’s wrong to do it in front of other people? Is that what we’re getting at? Does that even make sense?
If you’re upset by this situation, you should contact ABC to let them know that homophobia in this day and age ISN’T entertaining.
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12.02.09
Posted in D's Thoughts at 9:49 pm by pikapp44
Meredith Baxter, a star of the 1980’s sitcom “Family Ties”, said on Wednesday she was a lesbian as media reports and published photos of her and a woman embracing began to surface in public.
Baxter, 62, told NBC’s “The Today Show” that she discovered she was gay seven years ago, several years after her divorce from her third husband. She said her five children, who range from ages 25 to 42, supported her when she told them.
“I am a lesbian, and it was a later-in-life recognition,” she said. “I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.” Her comments came amid recent online photographs of her walking with her girlfriend of four years, building contractor Nancy Locke, and reports that she attended a Caribbean cruise with some 1,200 lesbians, which she confirmed.Baxter said she decided to speak to the media to set the facts straight. She also said she was once so paranoid the media would expose her secret that she asked Locke, who was openly gay, to park her truck farther away.
“She said, ‘No’. I thought, ‘All right.’ I had to reach a level of comfort. It wasn’t fair to push her back into some kind of secrecy, and the nice thing is that we live very ‘out’ lives in Los Angeles,” Baxter said.
Baxter played Elyse Keaton, mother of Michael J. Fox’s conservative-minded teenager Michael P. Keaton, from 1982 to 1989. She has had guest and recurring television roles since then and also runs a skincare company.
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Posted in D's Thoughts at 9:44 pm by pikapp44
New York lawmakers rejected a bill Wednesday that would have made their state the sixth to allow gay marriage, stunning advocates who weathered a similar decision by Maine voters just last month.
The New York measure needed 32 votes to pass and failed by a wider-than-expected margin, falling eight votes short in a 24-38 decision by the state Senate. The Assembly had earlier approved the bill, and Gov. David Paterson, perhaps the bill’s strongest advocate, had pledged to sign it.
After the vote, Paterson called Wednesday one of his saddest days in 20 years of public service and he criticized senators who he said support gay marriage but “didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to vote for it.
Senate sponsor Thomas Duane, a Manhattan Democrat and the Legislature’s first openly gay member, expressed anger and disappointment. “I wasn’t expecting betrayal,” he said.
During debate, Sen. Ruben Diaz, a conservative minister from the Bronx, led the mostly Republican opposition.
“If you put this issue before the voters, the voters will reject it,” Diaz said. “Let the people decide.”
But Sen. Eric Adams, D-Brooklyn, challenged lawmakers to set aside their religious beliefs and vote for the bill. He asked them to remember that once even slavery was legal.
“When I walk through these doors, my Bible stays out,” Adams said.
“That’s the wrong statement,” Diaz countered later. “You should carry your Bible all the time.”
Others told personal stories of friends and relatives who are gay and unable to marry. Many also spoke of grandparents who survived the Holocaust and racism and said they wouldn’t want to see gays subjected to such treatment.
Supporters had been hopeful they could eek out a narrow win, or a much closer vote. But afterward, they said private assurances were broken. In the end, a half-dozen Democrats opposed the measure when it was expected only two or three would vote no. While no Republicans supported the bill, most advocates expected it would attract as many as four or five GOP senators.
“This is a loss for every family in New York,” said New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “This is a loss for every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender New Yorker.”
Others tried to put a positive light on it.
Immediately following the vote, gay rights advocates chanted: “Equal rights now!”
“We have a road map for 2010,” said Alan Van Capelle, executive director of the Empire Pride Agenda, a leading proponent of the bill. “We certainly know who are friends. We certainly go to bed tonight knowing more about where our support is, and that’s a victory.”
But a fight in the election year next year might be more difficult.
Gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont. A New Hampshire law takes effect Jan. 1.
New York also doesn’t allow civil unions, but has several laws, executive orders and court decisions that grant many of the rights to gays long enjoyed by married couples.
Karen Taylor of Queens stayed home to watch the legislative debate with her partner Laura Antoniou. The women, both 46, were legally married in Toronto, but hope to be able to marry in New York someday.
“It would have more meaning to both of us to be able to marry in New York,” said Taylor, the national advocacy director for Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders in New York City. “This is something that should be available to us as New Yorkers.”
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11.26.09
Posted in D's Thoughts at 5:51 pm by pikapp44
“American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert on Wednesday admitted he got carried away during his racy American Music Awards performance, as furor over his singing and dancing stoked a wider controversy in the U.S. gay community.
More than 14 million people watched the gay, glam rocker close the live AMA telecast on Sunday with a performance that included Lambert kissing a male keyboard player and pushing the head of another performer into his crotch.
Complaints poured in to the ABC TV network that aired the show, and it canceled the Lambert’s appearance on its “Good Morning America” news and chat show set for Wednesday.
Yet rival network CBS put him on its “The Early Show” program, where Lambert claimed he had not intended to provoke audiences but declined to apologize, saying: “I’m not a baby-sitter. I’m a performer.”
“I admit I did get carried away, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. I do see how people got offended, and that was not my intention,” he said.
“If it had been a female pop performer doing the moves that were on the stage, I don’t think there’d be nearly as much of an outrage at all,” Lambert added. “I think it’s because I’m a gay male.”
The “Early Show” also ran video footage that blurred Lambert’s male kiss, and doing so caused the network its own problem. Gay rights groups accused CBS of hypocrisy by also playing unedited video of a kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at 2003’s MTV Video Music Awards.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said the CBS decision “reinforces an unfortunate double standard that is applied to openly gay performers.”
CBS said it had thought hard about the issue. “The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences,” a CBS News spokesperson said.
The broadcast of material deemed obscene or indecent can leave U.S. TV networks open to fines.
Some members of the gay community also scorned Lambert.
Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief of website 365gay.com, said his performance hurt the cause of gay marriage in the eyes of mainstream Americans “who think gay life is exactly what (he) portrayed on the American Music Awards.”
Lambert, 27, took a flair for showmanship, powerful vocals and sexual ambivalence all the way to the finals of top-rated U.S. TV show “American Idol” in May.
But his weekend performance at the AMAs has drawn mixed results. ABC received more than 1,500 complaints, but sales of Lambert’s debut album “For Your Entertainment” are strong.
Released on Monday through Sony Music Entertainment, “For Your Entertainment” was No. 3 on the iTunes U.S. album chart by Wednesday night. Music industry sources told Billboard magazine it is outperforming expectations and could sell about 225,000 units in its first week.
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Posted in D's Thoughts at 7:00 am by pikapp44
CBS’s The Early Show, which added Adam Lambert to its Wednesday program after ABC’s Good Morning America canceled the singer’s appearance, has nevertheless found itself in hot water for showing a clip of Lambert’s American Music Awards performance in which his kiss with a male keyboardist was intentionally blurred out. Moments later, The Early Show aired unedited footage of Madonna and Britney Spears locking lips.
In response, Jarrett Barrios, President of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), issued a statement: “The Early Show’s decision this morning to blur Adam Lambert’s kiss from the American Music Awards reinforces an unfortunate double standard that is applied to openly gay performers.”
An Early Show rep sent EW this statement: “We gave this some real thought. The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences.”
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11.11.09
Posted in D's Thoughts at 7:27 am by pikapp44
Peter Vidala, 24, says he was unjustly fired after telling another employee he thought her impending marriage to another woman was wrong.
A manager at a Massachusetts retail store claims he was unjustly fired after he told a colleague he thought her impending marriage to another woman was wrong.
Peter Vadala, 24, told FoxNews.com he was terminated in August from his position as second deputy manager at a Brookstone store at Boston’s Logan Airport after a conversation he had with a manager from another Brookstone store who was visiting the location.
Vadala claims the woman, whom he declined to identify, mentioned four times that she had married her partner. He said he then left the store briefly to visit the airport’s chapel before returning.
“I found it offensive that she repeatedly brought it up,” Vadala said. “By the fourth time she mentioned it, I felt God wanted me to express how I felt about the matter, so I did. But my tone was downright apologetic. I said, ‘Regarding your homosexuality, I think that’s bad stuff.’”
The woman, according to Vadala, then said, “Human resources, buddy — keep your opinions to yourself,” before exiting the store.
Two days later, Vadala, who had been employed for just a matter of weeks, received a termination letter citing the company’s zero-tolerance policy regarding “harassment” and “inappropriate and unprofessional” comments.
“In the state of Massachusetts, same-sex marriage is legal and there will be people with whom you work with who have fiancées or spouses who are the same gender,” the Aug. 12 letter read. “… While you are entitled to your own beliefs, imposing them upon others in the workplace is not acceptable and in this case, by telling a colleague that she is deviant and immoral, constitutes discrimination and harassment.”
Vadala disputes using the words “deviant” and “immoral” during conversations with human resources employees on the matter.
“I did say I regard that lifestyle as deviant, as in deviating from the norm, but I never, ever said to that to the [manager],” he said. “In general, I believe people don’t want to hear about controversial issues like that in the workplace. They shouldn’t have to.”
Vadala, who has not hired a lawyer, said he is considering filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In a statement issued to FoxNews.com, Brookstone President/CEO Ron Boire said a “thorough and fair investigation” had been completed in the matter.
“We do not comment on any specific personnel issues,” the statement read. “However I will say that Brookstone is an equal opportunity employer, meaning that we maintain a healthy, safe and productive work environment free from discrimination or harassment based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, or other factors that are unrelated to the Company’s legitimate business interests.
“We are proud of our diverse workforce of varying cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds.”
Asked why he felt the need to comment on the woman’s personal life, Vadala, who has since left the Boston area, said he felt compelled to do so.
“I see, like all real Christians, homosexuals as people who, like me, are sinners and need to be told the truth in a loving way,” he said. “In this situation, I took issue with the behavior. I think it’s lunacy to call that type of behavior marriage in any kind of form. I had to express that I’m intolerant of that behavior. It’s a love-the-sinner, hate-the-sin kind of deal.”
Vadala said he felt “intentionally goaded” by the manager to comment on her relationship.
“She knew how I felt about homosexuality,” he said. “When you talk to someone about something like that, you want their support. She was kind of looking into my eyes for that social cue for me to say, ‘I’m happy for you.’ But I really couldn’t feel happy for her.”
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Posted in D's Thoughts at 7:13 am by pikapp44
The Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake city laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
The Utah-based church’s support ahead of Tuesday night’s vote came despite its steadfast opposition to gay marriage, reflected in the high-profile role it played last year in California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure that barred such unions.
“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.
Passage made Salt Lake City the first Utah community to prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under the two new ordinances, it is illegal to fire someone from their job or evict someone from their residence because they are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.
Utah lawmakers tend to quickly fall in line when the influential church makes a rare foray into legislative politics. So Tuesday’s action could have broad reaching effects in this highly conservative state where more than 80 percent of lawmakers and the governor are church members.
“What happened here tonight I do believe is a historic event,” said Brandie Balken, director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah. “I think it establishes that we can stand together on common ground that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are lot of things that we can work on and be allies.”
But the church has pointed out an inherent dispute it has with the gay lifestyle. Mormonism considers traditional marriages central to God’s plan. Gays are welcome in church, but must remain celibate to retain church callings and full membership.
It’s strong support for Proposition 8 in California last year drew a sharp reaction from gay rights supporters nationwide, with many protesting outside temples that singled out Mormons as the key culprits in restricting the rights of gay couples.
Since then, however, Utah’s gay community has sought to engage church leaders in quiet conversations to help foster better understanding, said Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Utah Pride Center.
“I thought this conversation would never come to be while I was here in Salt Lake City,” said Larabee, adding that the discussions have “shifted her perspective of what’s possible” and could foreshadow a different relationship between the two sides.
But addressing the council on Tuesday, Otterson said the endorsement is not a shift in the church’s position on gay rights and stressed it “remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.”
Church support for the ordinances is due in part to the way the legislation was drafted to protect those rights. Exceptions in the legislation allow churches to maintain, without penalty, religious principles and religion-based codes of conduct or rules.
“In drafting these ordinances, the city has granted common-sense rights that should be available to everyone, while safeguarding the crucial rights of religious organizations,” Otterson said Tuesday .
Previous Utah legislation that sought statewide protections for the gay community did not contain those exceptions.
And although this was the church’s first public endorsement of specific legislation, it is not the first time the church has voiced support for some gay rights. In August 2008 the church issued a statement saying it supports gay rights related to hospitalization, medical care, employment, housing or probate as long as they “do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.”
Last year, church leaders were silent on a package of gay rights bills known as the Common Ground Initiative, dooming them from the start.
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