Goodness and Truth Marriage equality supporters have won another victory over the Forces of Darkness the dinosaurs.
The Minnesota senate has passed its marriage equality bill 37-30. Gay marriage begins in the Great Frozen North on August 1.
That’s two victories for this fine state, and we’re the 12th state to outlaw yet another form of discrimination.
If anything preserves true representative government anywhere in this world during the 21st century, it will be transparency in the media and in government enforced by use of the internet.
From the Sunlight Foundation:
We know that at the heart of the open, transparent government we seek is ‘open’ government data that is available online and in real-time.
Government information should be as accessible to us as information about the weather, sports scores or knowing what’s going on in the stock market — and we need it to be this way so we can both hold government accountable and create new enterprise with what is made available to us.
Read the essay. It’s well worth your time.
I haven’t written on this blog since November 2. Here’s what I’ve been up to.
On Tuesday 11/6, the 2012 U.S. election cycle is over (Боже мой!), and I was happy to see the end of it. Obama won (yay!), the attempt to codify “traditional marriage” in our state’s constitution was defeated (yayyay!), and it would seem that billionaire conservative donors didn’t make much headway. (Every candidate funded by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS was defeated.)
On Thursday 11/8, we went to pick up our crockpot from the Shoreview office for Minnesotans United for All Families. The Spouse and the Horsemen (her boys) all worked like dogs on this campaign; we were all determined that legal discrimination against gays was not to be borne — certainly not in any state we live in! Now we’re all thinking about how to get the anti-gay-marriage law repealed and make Minnesota the 11th American jurisdiction to recognize true marriage equality.
On Saturday 11/10, I took a tumble going down a steep and slippery hill, got my foot turned under me, and ended up with a very badly dislocated foot (the talus bone of my left foot was rotated 30° to the outside). I also got three cracks at the end of my tibia. Reduction took care of the dislocation, and surgery next week will deal with the cracks. Horseman #4′s reaction to watching the reduction was “Cool!”What cool things have you folks been up to lately?
Here is the another story about fire fighters doing their jobs:
Firefighters are battling a six-alarm fire in the Breezy Point section of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. Officials say the fire was reported at about 11 p.m. Monday…
The interesting thing about this story? The fire took place last night. In New York City. During Hurricane Sandy.
Firefighter personnel saved scores of people from the fire, sometimes maneuvering hoses through chest-deep water.
~~~
The backup power generator at NYU Langone Medical Center failed, forcing evacuation of patients, including 20 babies from the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit), all during 60-mph winds and torrential rain.
~~~
A construction crane on 57th Street came loose from its moorings and is dangling 75 stories in the air by entangled cables. The NYC Building Department sent inspectors up into the building (during a freakin’ hurricane!) to assess the situation; a spokesman described the inspectors as “the best of the best”.
~~~
And this morning I found this:
‘Nuff said.
From playwright Doug Wright:
I wish my moderate Republican friends would simply be honest. They all say they’re voting for Romney because of his economic policies (tenuous and ill-formed as they are), and that they disagree with him on gay rights.
Fine. Then look me in the eye, speak with a level clear voice, and say, “My taxes and take-home pay mean more than your fundamental civil rights, the sanctity of your marriage, your right to visit an ailing spouse in the hospital, your dignity as a citizen of this country, your healthcare, your right to inherit, the mental welfare and emotional well-being of your youth, and your very personhood.”
It’s like voting for George Wallace during the Civil Rights movements, and apologizing for his racism. You’re still complicit. You’re still perpetuating anti-gay legislation and cultural homophobia. You don’t get to walk away clean, because you say you ‘disagree’ with your candidate on these issues.
Watch all of the video, please.
The first is a video from David Blankenhorn. You all remember David, right? The expert witness testifying for California’s Prop 8? The guy who spent a decade trying to convince people that gay marriage was bad.
Be prepared to be surprised.
(I couldn’t get the YouTube link to load properly, so here’s a local copy.)
The second is an announcement of a streaming event featuring a debate concerning marriage equality between Minnesota Viking punter Chris Kluwe…and an empty chair.
No, really.
It’s at 17:00 CDT on 10/19/2012. That’s today! Right now! Go watch it !
(There will be a recording of it, so if you miss it, you can see it here later.)
Everyone’s heard of the old Reagan-era trickle-down economics chestnut called “job creator”. According to David Stockman, and with the enthusiastic support of the newly-elected Right in power in Washington in 1981, the key to creating new jobs was to ensure greater economic inequality in America by lowering taxes on the rich, and spendspendspend.
In recent years Stockman has repudiated his advocacy for trickle-down (or “supply-side economics”, as he used to describe it).
Other capitalists have done the same, including such entrepreneurs as Nick Hanauer. Here’s what he had to say in a recent TED talk:
“Here’s an idea worth spreading: In a capitalist economy the true job creators are middle-class consumers, and taxing the rich to make investments, to make the middle class grow and thrive is the single shrewdest thing we can do for the middle class, for the poor, and for the rich.”
The real clue that Hanauer knew whereof he spoke was that TED management did not put the talk online until there was an uproar about the exclusion. (It’s no longer posted, BTW.)
(I’ve talked about this talk before, but it’s well worth a repeat.)
As Dan Savage urges all his readers, “blog this!” everywhere.
No sooner said than done.
Archie: Well, who the hell wants people like that teaching our kids?! I’m sure God don’t! God’s sittin’ in judgment!
Edith: Well, sure he is, but he’s God. You ain’t!…Archie, listen, you wouldn’t want to be the cause of somebody losin’ their job! Archie, she’s all alone in the world now and she’s got nobody to take care of her like I have. And she can’t help how she feels. And she didn’t hurt you, so why should you wanna hurt her? Archie, I can’t believe you’d do anything that mean.
(Emphasis Dan’s and mine.)
I’m live-blogging at Minneapolis’ Big Gay Race this morning.
For haters that claim that they represent the majority of Minnesotans by spitting in the face of our gay friends and neighbors (and in my case, a gay son who’s defending our country), here are pictures of real grassroots.
I don’t see 6000 “vote for traditional marriage” folks having fun together and gathering to raise money and awareness for what they believe in.
Perhaps that’s the real difference.
Mr. Loftis and Being a Geek remind us of just how important art can be.
Jadehawk’s logo for Atheism+
Jen McCreight has started another small revolution that may not stay small.
Back in 2010 McCreight got annoyed at the Iranian asshat who claimed that earthquakes were caused women who “dress immmodestly“. To illustrate how appallingly ignorant that statement was, McCreight formed the Boobquake movement to demonstrate
Or, in her words, “a humorous exercise in scientific and skeptical thinking“.
Boobquake also started a firestorm.
McCreight and others discovered (or rediscovered) that there appears to be little room within the atheist community for feminism. Or social justice. Or diversity.
I don’t feel safe as a woman in this community – and I feel less safe than I do as a woman in science, or a woman in gaming, or hell, as a woman walking down the fucking sidewalk. People shat themselves with rage at the suggestion that cons should have anti-sexual harassment policies. DJ Grothe, president of JREF, blamed those evil feminist bloggers for TAM’s female attendance problem instead of trying to fix what’s scaring women away (and then blocked me on Twitter and unfriended me on Facebook for good measure). A 15 year old girl posted a photo of herself holding a Carl Sagan book to r/atheism and got a flood of rape jokes in return. The Amazing Atheist purposefully tried to trigger a rape survivor. Paula Kirby decided we’re all feminazis and femistasis. I’ve become used to being called a cunt or having people threaten to contact my employers because a feminist can’t be a good scientist. Rebecca Watson is still receiving constant rape and death threats a year after she said “Guys, don’t do that.” And mentioning her name is a Beetlejuice-like trigger for a new torrent of hate mail.
Groups of people are obsessively devoted to slandering Freethought Blogs as a whole because many of us have feminist leanings. They photoshop things to try to humiliate us, they gain unauthorized access to our private email listserv. And anyone associated with us feminists are fair game. People have tried to destroy Surly Amy’s business, and Justin Vacula has publicly posted her home address with a photo. One blogger who describes their blog as “rejecting the watson/myers doctrine” ridiculed skeptical teen activist (and feminist ally) Rhys Morgan for flunking his exams because he had severe physical and mental illnesses.
As a result of this backlash, McCreight has formed the group Atheist+.
We are…
Atheists plus we care about social justice,
Atheists plus we support women’s rights,
Atheists plus we protest racism,
Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia,
Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.It speaks to those of us who see atheism as more than just a lack of belief in god. danielmchugh summarized how I feel perfectly:
Religion is responsible for generating and sustaining most of the racism, sexism, anti-(insert minority human subgroup here)-isms… it gave a voice to the bigotry, established the privilege, and fed these things from the pulpit for thousands upon thousands of years. What sense does it make to throw out the garbage bag of religion yet keep all the garbage that it contained?
I can’t help but see social justice as a logical consequence of atheism. I’m for getting rid of all the garbage.
I would put forward that those who hold with atheism and skepticism are led inevitably to social equality if they remain true to the use of logic and truth. Those who claim to hold with atheism and skepticism on the one hand, and with misogyny or other intolerance with the other, are deluding themselves.
And those people are perfect examples of my Great Internet Truth #15.
The Spouse put a post on Facebook today about the annoyingly persistent whines you hear from inadequate GOP sheeple about how whites are being discriminated against (involving a racist SuperPAC – you can’t make this stuff up).
My brother rose superbly to the challenge:
My feelings about being a white, straight male in American society. I am in the most privileged group in the most privileged country in the history of the world. White men still control just about everything you see around you, one way or another. Things are not swinging to discrimination against white men in America. Things are swinging towards a more equitable society so that everyone has a piece of the peace and prosperity pie.
Women, people of color, and gays are all inching towards a bit more parity, but we still have a long way to go before they all get their fair share. Electing a black president is a big step for us.
Any time I hear some white, straight male colleague whine about being discriminated against, I just roll my eyes and think that at least your sex and race and orientation were never 3/5 of a person, could vote for more than the last 100 years, and could marry whomever you loved.
Preach, man, preach!
For a good stick poke at this and other GOP talking points, and for your general amusement:
For those who aren’t aware (or those who don’t want to be), the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity touched down on the Red Planet in a flawless way early this morning:
For those who praise Nature (or God or whatever supernatural force they prefer) and damn mankind for its achievements, I have but three words:
And the best comment about Curiosity so far today?
