Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Via JMG: Crazy Eyes On Gay Marriage


"In 5,000 years of recorded human history... neither in the east or in the west... has any society ever defined marriage as anything other than between men and women. Not one in 5000 years of recorded human history. That's an astounding fact and it isn't until the last 12 years or so that we have seen for the first time in recorded human history marriage defined as anything other than between men and between women." - Rep. Michele "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann, speaking yesterday before the Iowa hate group, Family Leader.

Bachmann went on to describe her 2003 reaction to Massachusetts legalizing same-sex marriage: "I heard the news on my local Christian radio station in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and I was devastated. And I went across the street and I took a walk and I went to prayer, and I said: 'Lord, what you have me do in the Minnesota State Senate?' And through prayer I knew that I was to introduce the marriage amendment in Minnesota."

Minnesota presently does not have a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but that may change soon now that the GOP dominates both chambers of the state legislature.


reposted from Joe

Via JMG: UAFA To Be Reintroduced In House


The Uniting American Families Act will be reintroduced in the U.S. House this Thursday by Rep. Jerrold Nadler and several other Democrats. Via press release from Nadler's office:
On Thursday, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, and Representatives John Conyers (D-MI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), Mike Honda (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Jackie Speier (D-CA), and others will announce the re-introduction of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). This overdue legislation would allow gay and lesbian Americans to sponsor their permanent partners for legal residency in the United States, a right currently enjoyed only by married heterosexuals under immigration law. Because the U.S. does not legally recognize gay and lesbian couples and their children as families, many same-sex binational couples are torn apart. The announcement will take place at 1:00pm on Thursday, April 14th at the House Triangle in Washington D.C.
Like the latest edition of ENDA, advocates have dim hopes of the bill's approval in the GOP-dominated House.


reposted from Joe

Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Fred Karger


"While governor of Arkansas, 11 years ago, [Mike] Huckabee commuted the 108-year prison sentence of Maurice Clemmons. Clemmons then went on a crime spree and ended up in Seattle, Washington, where on 19 November 2010, he casually walked into a coffee shop early one morning and shot and killed four police officers while they were eating breakfast. He fired at point blank range, killing all four instantly. Mike Huckabee has the blood of those four police officers on his hands. He has never even apologised to the families of the slain officers, or showed any remorse for what happened in Seattle that day.

"One year ago, Mike Huckabee said terrible things about my community and me. He compared gay marriage to incest, polygamy and drug abuse. He said that gay couples should not be able to adopt: 'These are not puppies, raising children is not an experiment.' Who the hell is he to cast aspersions on others?" - Openly gay GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger, comparing the above-cited murders to Michael Dukasis' 1988 "Willie Horton" incident, which Karger used against Dukakis in his role on the committee to elect George H.W. Bush.


reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Out Magazine's 50 Most Powerful Gays


Out Magazine has issued this year's list of the 50 "most powerful" gay people. New Apple "acting" CEO Tim Cook heads the list on his first appearance. Billionaire GOProud moneyman and libertarian whackadoodle Peter Thiel ranks at #7. Another GOProud member and the 21st century Roy Cohn, Ken Mehlman, debuts at #37. Hit the link for bios on everybody.


reposted from Joe

Via AmericaBlogGay: Demographer attempts to explain new gay polling data

John wrote about the importance of the LGBT community being counted. The demographer, Dr. Gary J. Gates, who came up with the "3.5% of adults are LGB" -- or rather, 3.5% of adults are willing to admit to a stranger that they're LGB -- number has an article in the Washington Post detailing why it is so important to come up with an accurate number and basically admits to several glaring problems and inconsistencies while attempting to justify his data. 

I recently reviewed findings from 11 large surveys conducted since 2004, seven in the United States and four internationally. Averaging across the U.S.-based surveys, I found that nearly 9 million Americans (3.8 percent of adults) self-identify as LGBT. That’s equivalent to the population of New Jersey.
An estimated 19 million Americans (8.2 percent) report having engaged in some same-sex sexual behavior, and nearly 26 million (11 percent) report some same-sex sexual attraction. The latter figure is equivalent to the population of Texas.

But as a population scientist, I don’t want to have to comb research for pertinent data to average. I’ve attended dozens of meetings with representatives from federal statistical agencies to ask them why they are not counting the LGBT population. They tell me that they worry about survey respondents refusing to answer such questions or, even worse, terminating the survey. They also wonder exactly what questions to ask.


Should they count only those who explicitly identify themselves using terms such as “lesbian,” “gay” or “bisexual”? Or should they measure sexual behavior? Or sexual attraction? For the transgender population, should they include only those who have explicitly transitioned from one gender to another, or should they consider a broader group of people who express their gender in ways that do not easily conform to traditional notions of male and female?
Sorry, I'm not buying it.

The most absurd statement has to be this from Dr. Gates:
As a demographer, I look at it a little differently. I’m amazed at how close we are to equality, given how small the community is.
Uh, thanks for nothing, Pollyanna.  Like John wrote:
And it's all well and good to say "gosh, our civil rights shouldn't be based on how many people we are," but sorry Charlie, numbers matter, especially in politics.
NOTE FROM JOHN: It's terribly difficult to get good data on our community, so a part of me is sympathetic to federal agencies that say "how can we measure your community?" Having said that, you can get basic numbers, that are a bare bones bottom line, like the numbers Gates is talking about - they don't reflect how many people we are, but they are a bottom line population figure, meaning at least we know we're MORE than that number. The problem, of course, is that those bare bones numbers will be taken by the media, and our enemies, as "real" numbers that accurately reflect our true population - and they're not.

I'm not sure what the scientists and the agencies should do, but they need to be darn careful proceeding in this area. And quotes like the one Tim cites just above are decidedly not helpful.