Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released data ranking cities with the highest population of same-sex couples. Now, my first guess would naturally place San Francisco at the top of this list, and I would have been right…21 years ago.
Number 1 this year was awarded to Provincetown, Mass., at the tip of Cape Cod. This was surprising to me, but the dispersal of gay couples from traditional safe havens to more far-flung locations, reflects a positive trend in the community.
According to demographer Gary Gates, as quoted in the NY Times, the reason for this trend is the “growing influence of baby boomers, who became adults in the 1960s and 1970s, when the social stigma was starting to ease, and are more willing than previous generations to stand up and be counted.”
There is unease surrounding this survey, however, as it did not take into account any single members of the gay community, while others doubt its accuracy based on how little-known some of the highly ranked small towns were. The Census Bureau is still working out the kinks, however, as last year was only the third time the survey included same-sex couples.
In general, I think that it is positive to see more same-sex couples living farther from their comfort zones. In the end, a positive attitude towards homosexuality spreading throughout the United States can never be a bad thing.
Recently, a new trend has sprung up in the world of gay rights activism. It’s called glitterbombing, or glittering if you’re trying to eliminate violent connotations.
So far, several presidential candidates (mostly republicans) have been glittered, as well as the former speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich, and others opposing gay rights.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this new movement. On the one hand, I think it’s witty and cute. It’s 100% nonviolent, which I am all for, and has the potential to harm virtually no one.
On the other hand, I’m left gawking and thinking “Wait…really!? Glitter!?” I mean come on people, aren’t most supporters of gay rights also supporters of dashing stereotypes and slaying prejudices? There aren’t very many ‘gayer’ stereotypes that this group could have reinforced than a love for all things sparkly and flamboyant. Don’t we want to be taken seriously? These activists are making their position obvious to their opponents, yes, but I personally think that this is a laughable way of doing so. Literally, my first reaction was to laugh! So if they wanted to be taken seriously, I don’t think this was the right way of going about it.
Maybe if the group had done this once, then held a press conference or made a public announcement that apologized if anyone was offended by a little glitter, but then argued their position in a serious way, I would have been more on their side. But this seems a little bit trite for my tastes, especially when we’re approaching election time.
As I’m sure you have noticed, I have taken a short vacation from my blog. This small break from my usual schedule was due to a little known phenomenon called “summer vacation.” It may be new to some of you, however I am a busy college student and, like other students, appreciate deeply the few months we are given once a year to unwind and relax. For me that meant spending more time doing what I love, which unfortunately (or fortunately) meant time away from this little blog.
This time of relaxation is drawing to a close, and as signaled by my posting here at all, I am intent on jumping back into the blogosphere. A lot has happened in the world of gay rights over this short break, and I intend fully on writing about the important events that have occurred.
Just thought I would post this for you all. It’s a little video I made about some current discussion surrounding same-sex parenting, marriage, etc. Hope you enjoy!
This…is…awesome! Essentially Google is going to “begin covering a cost that gay and lesbian employees must pay when their partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax that heterosexual married couples do not pay.”
This is a great step forward, especially since Google gets so much publicity. Go Google!
Alright, so I may not agree with everything in this video, especially the representation of the little boy as being gay because he’s dressed up as a teletubby and not to mention the wild stereotyping of the ‘butch’ gay woman and good looking gay man, but I do like the scene it sets between those who are very confused about homosexuality and those who know a little bit more, either firsthand or from research. The user who posted this video wasn’t wildly helpful in explaining where it came from, but I’m assuming the link to the 2007 movie For the Bible Tells Me so, means that it’s from that film.
I do particularly enjoy the part that explains that your genes play a far heavier role in determining your sexual orientation than whether you are left or right handed and that society doesn’t punish the left handed. That’s a pretty damn good point!
Disclaimer: I have not checked up on every fact explored in this video but the movie was produced in 2007 so I’m going to assume that the research is correct and at least fairly up to date.
P.s. I do enjoy that the character who seems to have largest gap in his ‘gay education’ is named Christian. I see what you did there, whoever-made-this-video.
It seems to me that there are (at least) two interpretations when it comes to marriage equality and I have recently found an exemplary example (with impressive alliteration, might I add) simply within the state of New Jersey.
One interpretation of marriage equality for NJ can be seen here at the website for the organization Garden State Equality. Their reasoning for using terms like ‘marriage equality’ and the ‘freedom to marry’ is given on the page that I linked and I will restate here as I agree with it to the fullest:
Like other civil rights organizations, we don’t say “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage” because same-sex couples simply want the option of “marriage” – the same option with the same nomenclature that opposite-sex couples have. Nothing special, nothing different. That’s why it’s so disingenuous for our opponents to claim that same-sex couples want special rights, not equal rights. Marriage equality is the epitome of wanting otherwise.
This is obviously the interpretation of marriage equality that I find to be superior. It falls right in line with one of my favorite quotes from Liz Feldman, “It’s very dear to me, the issue of gay marriage. Or as I like to call it: ‘marriage.’ You know, because I had lunch this afternoon, not gay lunch. I parked my car; I didn’t gay park it.” Not one homosexual couple is asking for ‘gay marriage,’ they only desire to partake of the same ‘marriage’ that heterosexual couples have always been allowed.
Now, the second interpretation of marriage equality for NJ can be found at this youtube channel and once visited, one can quickly realize why I disagree with this individual’s interpretation of marriage equality, or at least what they are trying to say about it. The name of the channel is newjerseyequality, and to me this is misleading. When given the term ‘equality,’ I tend to think that whoever is using the term is supporting or aiming for equality in the way that Garden State Equality seems to be.
For this youtube user, however, this is not the case. They seem to be using this moniker in order to draw in those who believe in the first interpretation of equality in order to convince them that they are wrong. But it also only takes a moment visiting this youtube channel to realize how absolutely horrible their argument is, and not in the way that I believe that it is wrong or offensive, but in the way that they make their argument.
Take this video from their channel for example:
Do you see the little red caption boxes that keep popping up over this testimony for same-sex marriage? Those are this youtube user’s only way of making and supporting their argument. Without these little boxes, that include no actual facts or reasoning just bare opinions and accusations, the video itself would be ADVOCATING same-sex marriage! The video is a testimonial from lesbian mothers about why they think they deserve to be able to get married. And newjerseyequality’s only way of refuting their message is to caption the video with questions that don’t even make sense relative to the actual dialogue?
Other than the fact that the title of the video is ‘Same Sex “Marriage” is INFERIOR, not EQUAL,’ there is absolutely no argument being made here against same-sex marriage. There are only idiotic statements made with no reasoning or fact as their basis and to me that makes this interpretation of marriage equality the “INFERIOR” one.
I know that my last post was a little bit of a downer and showed my argumentative side so I just wanted to post this uplifting video. The point that I love is the one that her Nana makes about the criteria for parenting at 2:36.
Her criteria for parents, no matter their race or sexual orientation, are:
“Do you want these children?
Is your home suitable to raise them in?
Do you have room for them?
Are you gonna have enough to feed them?
Do you care about their education? Are you going to love them?
Are you really going to make them feel like they matter in this world?”
While doing research for a project that I am working on, I have been sifting through the arguments from those opposing gay marriage, gay rights, gay parenting, etc. In this process, I have recently found one individual who is much closer to me in proximity than I thought because he came up as speaking against marriage reform in my home state of Maryland.
As I have mentioned before, same-sex marriage has been a hot topic recently in many states and my stomping grounds of Maryland is one of them. Peter Sprigg is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a Christian organization based in DC that is a large opponent to marriage reform and other gay rights issues.
I would like to share this video of Sprigg speaking against marriage reform in Maryland to highlight some of his arguments and explain why I disagree with them. He actually uses my favorite tactic of citing arguments from the ‘other side’ and refuting them, but he must know that return fire is expected if this tactic is to be used.
Sprigg cites and ‘refutes’ several arguments for marriage reform but I would like to examine his first two here. The first is that the current definition of marriage deprives gays and lesbians of the fundamental right to marry. His response to this is that every citizen has access to the institution of marriage on the same exact terms and under the same restrictions. These restrictions keep any individual from marrying a child, a close blood relative, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. He argues that if we are to say that it is discrimination to limit one’s choice of marriage partner that indeed all of these restrictions could be seen in the same light.
Let me see if I understand him correctly. He is saying that if it is discrimination to say one cannot marry based on their chosen partner’s sex than it is too discrimination to say that one cannot marry a child, their brother/sister/etc., or someone who is already married. So it is the same to choose a partner of the same sex as it is to choose a five year old? That is his reasoning? I can understand that he is saying that there are limits on marriage for a reason and I agree that the rest of the restrictions do have reasons behind them that I support. Everyone would agree that it is wrong to marry a child because it would be inappropriate and unacceptable for a child to partake in the responsibilities and experiences that come with marriage like sexual relations and owning a home. It can also be agreed on both moral and biological reasons that marriage is not appropriate between close blood relatives, if not just for the simple fact that it is inappropriate to reproduce in that situation, on moral and genetic grounds, like it is between an adult and a child. And it is certainly agreed, by most American citizens at least, that marriage is binding and therefore one who is already married should not marry another individual.
I do not believe, however, that restricting one’s choice of marriage partner based on sex has good reason behind it. It may have before when the church was not separated from the state and even when the citizens did believe in this definition of marriage, but today is an entirely different ballpark. The citizens of today’s America have different opinions than when marriage was first defined and one of those growing opinions is that one should be able to choose a partner of the same sex. This is not in the same category as believing that one should be able to marry a child or their sister and so should not be discussed in the same way. These restrictions do not relate to one another and so should not be logically connected as Sprigg asserts that they should be.
Sprigg’s second argument that he chooses to refute is that banning same-sex marriage is like banning interracial marriage. To refute this argument, he cites the decision of Loving v. Virginia, not as saying that a person has unlimited rights to marry the person of their choice, but that the choice cannot be limited based on race, based on the special protection against racial discrimination in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. Sprigg argues that the advocates of same-sex marriage resemble those who banned interracial marriage, in that both sought to “burden the institution of marriage in pursuit of social goals that have nothing to do with the public purpose of marriage,” but one with the recognized unworthy goal of enforcing racial segregation and the other with the goal of “advancing the social acceptance and affirmation of homosexual conduct.” Sprigg goes on to say that we have yet to agree on whether or not that second goal is a worthy one, but that in the end it has nothing to do with the historical purpose of marriage of “responsible procreation and childbirth.”
In (a very small) part, I agree with Sprigg, in that the decision of Loving v. Virginia said only that the choice to marry cannot be limited based on race, not that it was unlimited. That is about as far I go with my agreement. Firstly, I think that again Sprigg is lumping together these arguments much like he did with the restrictions on marriage, and comparing them like apples and oranges. Sprigg is arguing that these two movements, the one in support of racial segregation and the other of same-sex marriage, have similar goals and that in that way they can be compared to one another. I disagree, mainly based on his proposed goal of those supporting same-sex marriage. He claims that these proponents are aiming to advance the social acceptance and affirmation of homosexual conduct. This is entirely wrong and I think it is obvious why. Same-sex couples are not looking to make homosexual conduct socially acceptable and affirmed by making same-sex marriage legally recognized. Rather, they are only wishing to be accepted as citizens who deserve the same rights and opportunities as any one else. It seems like Sprigg is saying that proponents for gay marriage want to force homosexuality on society and have it affirmed but that is not the case, because for one thing society already accepts homosexuality. Homosexuality is no longer something to hide and this movement is simply a group of citizens desiring the equality that our Constitution promises them. It’s not that we want homosexuality to be socially affirmed or instantiated like those who desired to support racial segregation. That was about a group looking at a minority and willing inequality on them. Supporting same-sex marriage is about the minority standing up and choosing equality, not defacing it.
This seems to be a long enough post, so I’ll save his other arguments for another time.
I made this video for my class. I hope you enjoy it and maybe that it will help you see more clearly that gay parenting does not negatively effect children. Or maybe it will just make you smile. Either way, enjoy!
What's gay today? 