Calif gay history referendum facing uphill battle?

The really intriguing element in this report is that the Catholic and Mormon churches have not (yet) lent any financial or organizational support to this anti-gay initiative, and that this lack of church support could sink the attempt. If so, it corroborates the evidence from elsewhere that they are likely to be less enthusiastic than in 2008 and 2009 to dive into the marriage ballots come November 2012 - and that is good news for the forces fighting for marriage and equality. 

"Organizers of the Stop SB48 campaign— Senate Bill 48 was the law approved by the California Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in July — are telling would-be voters the new mandate would inappropriately expose young children to sex, infringe on parental rights and silence religion-based criticisms of homosexuality. Those are talking points successfully used by proponents of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California.

But so far, Mormon and Catholic church leaders and conservative groups who spearheaded the Proposition 8 campaign have not joined the effort to qualify the gay history referendum for the June 2012 ballot, leaving less-experienced Christian conservatives to lead the charge without the organizational prowess and funding to hire paid signature gatherers."

-The Associated Press:

Let’s Face it – Homophobia is So Gay

"This week, we learned that virulently anti-gay Puerto Rican Senator Robert Arango was on a diet.

Like any straight man wanting to show off his sculpted new body, he posted pictures of his anus on the gay men's cruising software Grindr. Last week, a homophobic Indiana lawmaker, Rep. Phillip Hinkle (R), answered a Craig's List ad for an $80 male prostitute looking for a Sugar Daddy. After he was exposed by the escort, Hinkle said that he isn't gay and declared "I don't know what was going through my mind." And, of course, we all know about Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) who sought sex in a Minneapolis airport men's room by tapping his foot.

These tawdry tales of deception and deceit are tailor-made for the tabloids. They provide vindication for the LGBT community and punish villains who deserve their fate. However, it is time to look beyond the headlines and have the psychiatric community examine the heads of closet cases that inflict enormous damage on their own people. These disgusting betrayals are much greater than hypocrisy. They represent full-fledged pathology that has devastating consequences for the LGBT community."

 Falls Church News

Anti-gay Senator Roverto Arango resigns after seeking gay hook-up

The latest elected official caught with his pants down is Puerto Rican senator Roberto Arango, whose personal pics somehow wound up onGrindr. We say “somehow” because Arango, who leads the U.S. territory’s Partido Popular Democratico and has strong ties to the GOP, claims he can’t remember if he posted them or not.

“You know I’ve been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I’ve been taking pictures…  I don’t remember taking this particular picture but I’m not gonna say I didn’t take it. I’d tell you if I remembered taking the picture but I don’t.

Okay, some Jenny Craig-type snapshots got swiped and posted on a gay hookup site to embarrass a public official. That’s plausable. But how does Arango explain the down-on-all-fours/starfish picture? (Note: The particulars are blurred, but the image is still relatively NSFW.) Senator Roberto, whose resignation was announced on Sunday, was married to Ana Margarita Barba and is the father of one daughter. He has opposed gay-rights legislation and worked on George W. Bush’s 2004  re-election campaign in Puerto Rico.

Roberto, estupido, if you want to post pictures on Grindr without getting caught, don’t wear a necklace people have seen you don in public. Just a suggestion.

-Queerty

UPDATE:

Senator Arango has now resigned, leaving him more time to cruise the net.


Related posts:

• Indiana Republican Just Talked About Baseball, 'The View' With Gay Teen He Met on Craigslist
• Anti-Gay Republican Cruised Craigslist for Male Prostitute
• To Catch a Predator Host Allegedly Cheated on His Mistress With a Stripper

Marriage grant funded salaries, rent

Marriage grant funded salaries, rent "Federal grant money awarded to a social conservative group to provide marriage counseling also helped pay some of its operational expenses while it was leading an anti-gay marriage campaign, according to grant documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

The $2.2 million received by the Iowa Family Policy Center between 2006 and 2010 helped hundreds of Iowans receive education and counseling, according to the documents. But it also paid for part of the salaries of five employees, rent, telephone, Internet and other expenses while it was fighting legalized gay marriage in Iowa."

-full report at Houston Chronicle:

'via Blog this'

Census: More same-sex couples in more places

"Researchers from Alfred Kinsey to local nonprofits have tried for decades to count the United States' gay, lesbian and bisexual population, and still, there were no hard numbers.

But for the first time, the decennial census results report counts of same-sex partners and same-sex spouses, regardless of whether same-sex marriage is legal in their states.

Headlines from across the country reveal common themes: There are more people who identify as gay, and they've dispersed to more places."

-full story at  CNN.com

'via Blog this'

Idea of gay marriage slowly expands in Australia

TEN days out from the 2010 election, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott fronted a forum of undecided voters at Rooty Hill RSL, in Sydney's west. It was a media circus, to be sure, but it was also mercifully unscripted, perilous for the leaders, and all too rare in our politics.

One of the moments that lives in the mind was when Janice Waters from Old Toongabbie challenged the Prime Minister on same-sex marriage. Gillard reeled off Labor's policy and her own belief: marriage was between a man and a woman and there would be no change to the Marriage Act.

"I'm a taxpayer," the determined Waters replied. "I'm a law-abiding citizen, and I want to be able to say to that woman that I love, 'Will you marry me?', not 'Will you civil union me?' " The rousing applause that followed showed three things: an audience that felt free to stick it to the Prime Minister, a feeling there was a gap between what Gillard had just said and what was really in her heart, and some evidence that out here in the burbs, confronted with such personal ardour, folks were more relaxed about gay marriage than the woman who was seeking their votes.

-Full analysis at The Australian

Deportation halted for lesbian Mexican national in same-sex marriage

A Colorado immigration judge halted the deportation on Friday of a lesbian Mexican national in a same-sex marriage who would be eligible for a marriage-based green card if not for the Defense of Marriage Act.

-full report at Washington Blade

More Anti-gay hypocrisy: Indiana anti-gay politician in hotel male hookup.

 

"A married Indiana Republican state legislator who voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage sought to pay an 18-year-old man “for a really good time” in a hotel room, according to an email exchange published Friday by the Indianapolis Star.

The 1,600-word front-page story details the interaction between state Rep. Phillip Hinkle, 64, and 18-year-old Kameryn Gibson, who met the lawmaker after the sixth-term Republican responded to Gibson’s Craigslist advertisement in a men’s section of the site."

Politico

Out in Sport: Basketball Exec Rick Welts Steps Out of the Closet

Although he had opened up to his supportive parents and to his younger, only sibling, Nancy, Mr. Welts feared that if he made his homosexuality public, it would impede his rising sports career.

“It wasn’t talked about,” he said. “It wasn’t a comfortable subject. And it wasn’t my imagination. I was there.”

But this privacy came at great cost. In March 1994, his longtime partner, Arnie, died from complications related to AIDS, and Mr. Welts compartmentalized his grief, taking only a day or two off from work. His secretary explained to others that a good friend of his had died. Although she and Arnie had talked many times over the years, she and her boss had never discussed who, exactly, Arnie was.

Around 7:30 on the morning after Arnie’s death, Mr. Welts’s home telephone rang. “It was Stern,” he recalled. “And I totally lost it on the phone. You know. Uncle Dave. Comforting.”

Even then, homosexuality was never discussed — directly.

For weeks, Mr. Welts walked around the office, numb, unable to mourn his partner fully, or to share the anxiety of the weeklong wait for the results of an H.I.V. test, which came back negative.

Sometime later, he began opening the envelopes of checks written in Arnie’s memory to the University of Washington, and here was one for $10,000, from David and Dianne Stern, of Scarsdale, N.Y. In thanking Mr. Stern, Mr. Welts said they “did the guy thing,” communicating only through asides and silent stipulations.

“This was a loss that Rick had to suffer entirely on his own,” Mr. Stern said, reiterating that he was following Mr. Welts’s lead. “It’s just an indication of how screwed up all this is.”

When Mr. Welts left the N.B.A. in 1999, he was the league’s admired No. 3 man: executive vice president, chief marketing officer and president of N.B.A. Properties. By 2002, he was the president of the Suns who still kept his sexuality private — a decision that at times seemed wise, as when, in 2007, the former N.B.A. player John Amaechi announced that he was gay, prompting the former N.B.A. star Tim Hardaway to say that, as a rule, he hated gay people.

But again Mr. Welts paid a price. Two years ago, a 14-year relationship ended badly, in part because his partner finally rejected the shadow life that Mr. Welts required.

 - NYTimes.com.