In the era of marriage equality, it isn’t just traditional nuptials themselves which are getting a makeover — but other wedding customs, too. Independent filmmaker Elliot London has put together this short film, titled “The Wedding Dance,” which features a surprise twist ending that’s sure to bring a tear to your eye.
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan on CNN Kirk denounced the notion of Same Sex Marriage and said that homosexuality is unnatural, detrimental and destructive to civilization. When queried what he’d say to a child of his if they were gay… he said he’d say just because you feel one way doesn’t mean you should act on it, just because that’s the way you feel.
First-year college students’ political and social views shifted in a more liberal direction in 2011, according to the CIRP Freshman Survey, UCLA‘s annual survey of the nation’s entering students at four-year colleges and universities. Notable changes were seen in student views on same-sex marriage, affirmative action and access to higher education for undocumented students.
The survey, part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), is administered nationally by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.
An unprecedented 71.3 percent of incoming college students indicated that same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status, compared with 64.9 percent in 2009, a remarkable 6.4 percentage-point increase over a two-year period. While support for same-sex marriage is highest among female students and those who identify as liberal, a significant amount of conservative students (42.8 percent) and an increasing number of male students (64.1 percent in 2011 vs. 56.7 percent in 2009) expressed support for this issue.
I want to know what it’s like…
To be normal. To be accepted. To be human. To be equal. To be free.
I want to know what it’s like…
To be open. To be heard. To be loved. To be happy. To be me.
I want to know what it’s like…
To feel like I belong.
To feel like I am strong.
That who I am isn’t wrong.
I want to know what it’s like…
To know that I am here.
That Iʼll make it through the year.
To know I wonʼt disappear.
I want to know what it’s like…
To not have to fight.
To see an end in sight.
To make what is wrong right.
I want to know what it’s like…
To be able to believe.
In a higher power that doesn’t see.
Me as sin or sodomy.
I want to know what it’s like…
To have liberty & justice for all
To break down this dividing wall
To remove homophobia from the law
I want to know what itʼs like…
To have a feeling that isn’t sad.
To have something that I’ve never had.
To have a child call me dad.
I want to know what it’s like…
To not feel like Iʼm a freak
To not feel like I am weak
To not be silenced when I speak
I want to know what it’s like…
To live beyond a closet door.
To see my father once more.
To show him I’m not who I was before.
I want to know what itʼs like…
To donate the blood from my vein
But because Iʼm gay I must refrain.
Why does my sexuality pertain?!
I want to know what itʼs like…
To not BE expelled from school
To not be made to look like a fool.
How is homosexuality breaking a rule?!
I want to know what it’s like…
To undo what’s been done to me.
To give sight to those who cannot see.
That I am no lesser of a human being.
I want to know what itʼs like…
To not be considered a disease.
To not have a majority I have to please.
To freely express my individualiTY.
I want to know what itʼs like…
To live in a land truly of the free.
Not a land that excludes me.
This is not how itʼs supposed to be!
I want to know what itʼs like…
To not be the target of bigotry
To not have you question my sanity
To not succumb to your superiority!
I want to know what it’s like…
To overcome all of my fears.
To uncry these countless tears.
That have been shed over the years.
I want to know what it’s like…
To learn about gay leaders of the past.
In my high school history class.
Can somebody please tell me what is so wrong with that?!
I want to know what it’s like…
To have pride.
To not have to hide.
To not have to lie my whole life.
To not have my sexuality be denied.
I want to know what it’s like…
To not have to feel this hurt inside.
To not think these thoughts in my mind.
To not contemplate suicide.
I want to know what it’s like…
To have this pain in me subside.
To heal this wound that bleeds inside.
To get back the tears that I’ve cried.
To take back the years that Iʼve tried.
To bring back the life that has died.
To unite this world’s divide.
To make change with stride.
To not stand below, but beside.
I want to know what it’s like…
To have this choice you say is mine.
To have science & religion intertwine.
To have love be redefined.
I want to know what it’s like…
To have a government that won’t instate
Unfair laws that provoke hate
For fear society will disintegrate
I want to know what itʼs like….
To live in a world without hate.
A world that does not discriminate.
A world in which I can feel safe.
Whether I am gay bi or straight.
This is the world we must create!!!
These are the decisions we must make.
These are the actions we must take.
The time is now we cannot, we must not, we will not wait.
I want to know what itʼs like…
To have equal opportunity.
To know the feeling of full equality.
To be one collective humanity.
I want to know what it’s like…
To be treated equally by my peers.
To stand alongside every queer…
On the edge of a new frontier.
A frontier that no one will dictate.
A frontier where there will be no debate.
A frontier in which everyone can relate.
A frontier made up of love and not hate.
I want to know what it’s like…
To open your eyes so you can see.
The way this world is supposed to be.
We arenʼt so different, you & me.
As an Ex-Greenville Citizen, this one hits especially close to home… As oppressive as Utah can be (and is) South Carolina is suppressive… Of course, that is unless you’re affluent… Then you’re just eccentric!
I’m glad to see South Carolinians fight for their rights for first class citizenry. Keep up the great work and your efforts MATTER!
Concerned Women for America’s Janice Crouse trots out a cavalcade of statistical cliches to demonstrate how gay relationship threaten the institution of marriage.
Southern Equality launched The WE DO Campaign in Asheville, NC from October 3rd through the 14th. Same-Sex couples requested marriage licenses daily throughout the campaign to raise awareness and call for full equality under North Carolina law for LGBT people.
Raising awareness in North Carolina is critical when this state is considering a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The group isn’t stopping with rights in North Carolina though. They’re calling on the federal government to extend equal rights to all citizens in every state. These acts are inspirational. These acts are courageous. These acts should be viral across our country!
Posted below is a heartbreaking video of committed loving couples asking and being rejected the right to marry. Especially powerful for me were two women who upon rejection of their license asked:
“We’ve been together for 25 years… We’re in our mid 60′s. Can you tell us what steps we might take to become full and equal citizens under the law… before we die?
The Deseret News, a Mormon run biased newspaper with little journalistic credibility recently ran an article that Lawrence Research (owned and operated by Gary C. Lawrence) has recently released a new poll which contends that 64% of American’s are against same sex marriage. Although Gallup’s poll contends that 52% of American’s favor same sex marriage, Gary Lawrence (a card carrying Mormon) claims those pollsters ask the wrong questions. Of course, Gary definitely knows how to ask a question. It’s Gary and Company which conducted polls in California during the Proposition 8 vote. Additionally, when asked about his data and how it’s collected, neither Deseret News (a Mormon newspaper) or Gary would answer how many were polled, in what States and specifically what questions were asked. Like the Mormon leadership, Gary just expects the public to ‘trust’ him.
SANTA ANA, Calif. — When it comes to polls about same-sex marriage, it’s all about how you ask the question. A new national poll by Lawrence Research found that 64 percent of Americans feel that marriage should only be between one man and one woman. Thirty-three percent feel marriage should be redefined to include any two people.
The poll results may seem to contradict a Gallup poll in May that found 53 percent of Americans thought “marriage between same-sex couples should … be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriage.”
But the results, like the issue itself, are open to debate.
Gary Lawrence is the president of Lawrence Research in Santa Ana, Calif., and is very familiar with both the topic and the polling. His company conducted polls in 2008 for the “Yes on 8″ campaign, which successfully pushed for the passage of Proposition 8 in California to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
….
Maggie Gallagher, the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and the former president of the National Organization for Marriage, thinks Lawrence’s poll results match the results at the ballot box when the question is put to voters. “People are becoming increasingly sensitive to not wanting to be perceived as hostile to gay people and that is affecting the polling,” Gallagher said. She said this change has a lot to do with what she perceives as an enormous change in gay marriage advocates’ rhetoric following the passage of Proposition 8. “In the past they acknowledged that not everyone who opposes gay marriage is a bigot or a hater or a discriminator. But the main message in the press now is that if you simply don’t believe in gay marriage, that in itself, is enough to demonstrate that you have bigotry or animus,” Gallagher said. “And people are becoming reluctant to tell pollsters what they really believe unless they have a signal from the pollster that it is safe to do so.”
Perhaps all this time the Republican Tea Party and their right-wing Religious Christian Zealots are right. God is unhappy with America and what’s going on this country and he’s getting his revenge.
Perhaps he’s exacting revenge on the religious extremists and their supporters for discriminating against God’s LGBT Children and denying them full marriage and human rights equalities.
Since conservative ‘traditional’ family Christian groups started attacking LGBT rights in the midwest, the temperature in those states has been going up! Across the midsection of the country they spew their bigoted words of hate at God’s LGBT children, oust the fair-minded justices in Iowa, lewdly use God’s name for political gain in Texas, Exodus International’s Bigot Conference in Minnesota this July and the fag hating Westboro Baptist Church use God’s name to hate his children; the heat in the Midwest and central South has done nothing but go up!
God has turned up the heat! I surmise that God is PISSED at these conservative Tea Party/Christian Extremists and he is smoking them out to extinguish these bigots who claim to hide under God’s wing!
Perhaps if the likes of NOM, AFA, AFTAH, Rick Perry, and all the other LGBT hating bigots got together in Texas and prayed to God for forgiveness on how they’ve mistreated, discriminated against, lied about, and forced LGBT’s into second-class citizenship, the Lord would find it in his heart to provide rain and temperature relief to these areas of the country… Perhaps!
The Facts Don’t Lie!
National Weather Service: “The stage is being set for a massive heat wave to develop into next week as a large area of high pressure is anticipated to circulate hot and humid air over much of the central and eastern U.S. Maximum heat index values of at least 100°F are likely across much of this area by the middle of next week, with heat index values in excess of 110°F possible over portions of these areas.”
Extremist climate science deniers like Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty are campaigning tirelessly to give their state the climate of Texas. That is what would happen if the nation and the world continues to follow in their preferred path of doing absolutely nothing to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
I know it is just a coincidence, but Minnesota is going to get a taste over the next several days of a Tea Party future (as will much of the rest of the country). CNN reports today:
Extreme heat indices — how the air feels, with heat and humidity — are expected to reach up to 116 degrees in Minneapolis next week.
“These are extreme out-of-the-ordinary temperatures for Minnesota,” CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said.
Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and other areas in Texas experienced afternoon heat indices of 105 degrees or more through Thursday.
The month of June was the hottest recorded for Texas since 1895, according to the National Weather Service.
I recently read an article on a blog (Two Gay Bullies) who have the same disdane for political correctness as I do. The story focused primarily on the impact the Jewish community attempted to have on the recent passage of the NY Gay Marriage law. In the article though, I found a wonderful section dedicated to our local UT villians, the Mormons. Around these parts, we call them LDS (Latter Day Saints) but that term has never really stuck outside of Zion. The rest of the country still knows them from the fuzzy glowing commercials they run during news casts… The Mormons. I chose this section because of it’s local based content and the writers misunderstanding of the Mormons wield their influence. The writer felt that the Mormon’s didn’t have much to do with the whole NY Gay marriage amendment because there aren’t allot of Mormons in NY. It’s an understandable misconception, but untrue none the less.
As far as religious entities go, the LDS are pretty slick. They don’t run around preaching from the pulpits, selling their versions of a Baptist fire and brimstone sermon, nor do they send Rabi’s into the streets to protest.
The Mormon’s have become far more sophisticated than that. What they prefer to do, is find a good Mormon boy with a beef that wants to start his own organization, and then they help fund it! They work their magic in groups like Evergreen International (Mormon faith-based ex-gay therapy), The Minnesota Family Council and the National Organization for Marriage. Why do you think NOM resists providing the government who their donors are? The Mormons (and the Catholics) don’t want that kind of politically incorrect exposure.
So on the 24th of July when NOM takes to the streets protesting Gay Marriage (by the way, July 24th is a Mormon holiday celebrating their entry into the promised land…Utah), and announces a 2 million dollar spend to oust legislators who voted for Gay marriage, don’t think for one minute that it’s not the Mormon’s meddling in NY affairs like they did in California and Hawaii. They’re just far more passive-aggressive about it (a skill well and alive in the Great State of Utah).
I really like how the homosexuals of California handled their Prop H8 defeat. Blacklisting their (mostly Mormon and Catholic) opponents guarantees that anyone who disagrees with us will think twice in the future about voting, speaking, or donating money. Blacklisting used to be a bad thing, back when the Hollywood studios used it against the Stalinist Left for about fifteen minutes during the McCarthyite 1950′s. I know it was bad because I’ve seen about sixteen movies and four PBS documentaries about it. But those were just utopian visionaries who wanted to bring the oppressive Soviet system to America, so let’s not compare them to the moral monsters who object to redefining marriage.
That’s why I was thrilled to discover a website pop up after Prop H8 called stopthemormons.[com]. Click on the site on my blog roll. As the bloggers explain in their FAQ, “Stop the Mormons” is not a bigoted, anti-Mormon site because Mormons really do deserve all the hate they get. Personally, I’ve never met a Mormon, but I kind of agree.
(Barker, NY) A town clerk in upstate New York says she’s resigning over her religious opposition to gay marriage.
Laura Fotusky submitted a letter of resignation to the town board in Barker on Monday, saying her religious beliefs prevent her from signing a marriage certificate for a gay couple, as she’d be required to do as a municipal clerk. The letter was published on the website of the Christian lobbying group New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms.
The 56-year-old Republican has served since 2007. She says she’ll step down on July 21, three days before New York’s law allowing same-sex marriage takes effect.
Bob Vander Plaats wants you to sign up for his anti-modern family definition of marriage, which you guessed it, strips LGBT people of their right to marry. According to Vander Plaats “These are common sense goals and objectives”
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