Archive for the ‘Open Letters’ Category
Merry christmas to all
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Liberty Counsel May Lead Pullout of CPAC if Homosexual Group GOProud Remains as Co-Sponsor
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
By Peter LaBarbera
Folks, for years religious conservatives have been complaining about getting the shaft from CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. There is usually only a token panel or two dealing with “Culture War” social issues like abortion and homosexuality (and rarely one explicitly on fighting the “gay” agenda) – as organizers seek to appease the CPAC libertarians, some of whom support goals like homosexual “marriage” that are anathema to socially conservatives.
Now CPAC’s tenuous ”Big Tent” could collapse altogether as social conservatives led by Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber threaten to launch a boycott of the conference (scheduled for Feb. 18-20, 2010) unless CPAC drops a homosexual activist group, GOProud, as a co-sponsor. Barber, my good friend, an AFTAH Board Member, and the Director of Cultural Affairs at Liberty Counsel, is leading the charge to keep the CPAC sponsorship list … conservative.
GOProud describes itself as “the only national organization for gay conservatives and their allies,” but we at AFTAH dispute their definition of “conservative,” which would have the movement’s Founding Fathers, like Russell Kirk (see quotation at bottom), rolling over in their graves. Read More…….
D.C. Council Votes Yes on Marriage Equality
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
The D.C. council held its final vote Tuesday on a marriage equality bill, passing it by a wide margin. Mayor Adrian Fenty has pledged to sign the bill, which will go into effect this spring.
The bill passed the council by a vote of 11-2, identical to the vote in November. After Fenty signs the bill, it will have to withstand a 30-day congressional review period.
“I have been making laws on behalf of the citizens of this city for 12 years, and until now, have never been a fully enfranchised citizen,” council member David Catania, the lead sponsor of this bill, said during today’s vote. He thanked several colleagues and gay rights activists who helped him get this bill passed.
Council member Kwame R. Brown also made a passionate speech in support of the bill, pointing out that he has a mother who disagrees with him on the issue — and said as much in TheWashington Post. He said this vote is for the “unborn— future generations who will benefit. Read more……
Online Gay Marriage License?
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Two researchers are urging states that have approved same-sex marriage to offer marriage licenses online. The marriages are currently legal in only four states, and the move could ease a bottleneck for out-of-state applicants. But critics say those states deserve the revenue from actual – not virtual – wedding trips.
Same-sex marriage is legal in just four U.S. states — New Hampshire will become the fifth on Jan. 1 — a situation that forces gay couples everywhere else to travel to places like Vermont and Iowa to be wed.
Two Michigan State University professors think there’s a better way. They say states that offer same-sex marriage should allow couples anywhere in the country to obtain a marriage license online. But skeptics of this plan abound.
On a Saturday afternoon in 2004, Chris Swope and his partner, Brad Rakowski, exchanged vows in a Lansing, Mich., church before their family and friends.
Two days later, the couple had a second, quieter ceremony in Windsor, Ontario. That’s where they signed the papers that bestowed on them the Canadian province’s legal blessing.
And that poses a dilemma, Swope says.
“You know, it kind of throws us up in the air about which is our real anniversary,” he said. “The one that was more meaningful and heartfelt but has zero legal recognition, or the one that’s legally recognized.”
Swope’s home state of Michigan is one of 29 that impose constitutional restrictions on marriage.
Legal researcher Adam Candeub believes the situation creates a national roadblock. Read more………
An Open Letter to the NY State Senate on Marriage Equality
Friday, December 4th, 2009
Senators,
September 11 2009 my beloved city was terrorized in ways that will effect our world forever. This atrocity was symbolic by location, New York a city where people of all backgrounds can come together and excell in respective dreams. New York is a city where it is not about you, it is about your passion, dream, yearning for something more than the hand that was dealt to you. They hit our freedom of color, religion, integration, sex, love, prosperity, hate and hope. We rallied together as our true nature intended, we bonded as one people and awoke from shock proceeding to prosperity and even further diversity. How can this city, the beacon of freedom for all people, deny! How can we look ourselves in the mirror and believe we advocate freedom? Is it so much to ask, to let people who love each other to be together, to love and to hold forever? Is it so much for you Mr senator to shamelessly deny freedom to people? When I was eighteen I was on the subway and coming home with my boyfriend at the time, we were both drunk and leaning on each other, not once in my entire train ride did some person think to say, stop being a fag! this city, our city! How can we not be ashamed? How can we call ourselves enlightened? How can we call ourselves open minded? Are we the same people that do not accept Muslims because some of them are radicals? Are we the same people that judge a colored person based on there color? This is not our city this is not the dream that is called New York or America. I am ashamed every day i pass on the BQUE and see the blank spot in the financial district, I am sorry to those that died we did not keep freedom in your name.
I sign with a broken heart,
jake
- Stop an eviction when the landlord says unmarried adults cannot live together
- Get social security benefits the couple earned through involuntary deductions to their paychecks
- Get family medical leave to care for an ill partner
- Make medical decisions for a partner in a coma
- Visit a dying partner in the hospital
- Carry out the wishes of a deceased partner for a memorial service and epitaph
- Keep the home and personal possessions after a partner dies without a will and unknown relatives appear with a moving truck
