Minnesota passes gay marriage!

How’s this for a glorious turnaround? The same state that only months ago was deciding whether to impose a constitutional ban atop its existing laws against same-sex marriage now has the bicameral vote – and the governor’s promised signature – to grant marriage equality to LGBT folk:

With deafening cheers and overwhelming emotion, the Minnesota Senate voted 37-30 to legalize same-sex marriage.

[…]

The measure next moves to Gov. Mark Dayton, who will welcome it with his signature in a celebratory ceremony at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Once it is signed, Minnesota will become the twelfth state to legalize same sex-marriage.

Yet one more state joins the right side of history. How long before the rest of the country – and someday, the civilized world at large – does the same?

(via @breakingpol; RT: @BreakingNews)

Delaware reaches same-sex marriage equality

Coming less than a week after the last US state passed gay marriage:

(BuzzFeed)

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Rhode Island passes same-sex marriage

And Li’l Rhody makes ten (for now):

Capping a battle that began 16 years ago, the Rhode Island House of Representatives voted 56 to 15 Thursday to pass legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

[…]

With the bills headed to the south steps of the State House for a public signing by Governor Chafee, Rhode Island joins its five New England neighbors in legalizing same-sex marriage and becomes the 10th state in the nation to do so.

My upcoming weekend plans now include making a beat from all the exploding heads on the homophobic Right. How about you?

(via @breakingpol; RT: @BreakingNews)

Same-sex marriage sweeps across three more Brazilian states

Though the Brazilian government already allows same-sex couples to marry through a two-step process that involves entering a “stable union” and then petitioning a judge, a rapidly growing number of states are doing away with the needless complication:

Yesterday, marriage continued moving forward in Brazil when the Corregedor Geral de Justiça in two additional states - Paraíba and Santa Catarina (Articles in Portuguese) - authorized marriages between same-sex couples. Now, fourteen of the 27 jursidictions in Brazil (13 states and the Federal District) have approved the freedom to marry. Earlier this month, Rio de Janeiro and Rondônia saw similar developments.

[…]

In these states (and the federal district), couples can marry in Brazil without the two-step process: Alagoas (December 2011), Sergipe (July 2012), Espíritu Santo (August 2012), Bahía (November 2012), the Brazilian Federal District (December 2012), Piauí (December 2012), São Paulo (December 2012), Ceará (March 2013), Paraná (March 2013), Mato Grosso do Sul (April 2013), Rio de Janeiro (April 2013), Rondônia (April 2013), and now Paraíba and Santa Catarina (April 2013).

Now, nearly 60% of the population of Brazil live in states where same-sex couples can marry without the two-step process.

An increasingly large part of the rest of the world is looking at you, “Land of the Free”.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Vox Day: Women should rely on daddy to choose their husbands

Our ol’ pal Theodore “Vox Day” Beale, who’s never encountered a form of misogyny he didn’t take to and spin as a means of preserving (his grotesque ideal of) society, has a suggestion for stripping women of their most basic autonomy:

Who Nose asks a pertinent question:

"If you want to understand why women are not permitted serve in Church leadership, and why human societies do not survive more than a few generations of young women being permitted to choose their own spouses"

It begs the question: Who ought to choose their spouses?

The Church?
The Father?
The Mother?
The State?

The question is further begged: What kind of law would need to be passed to enforce the choosing of a spouse.

Finally, another question is begged: What would you do with the 99% of women who responded to the suggestion or the law with, "F*ck Off"?

1. The Father, with the advice of the Mother.
2. No law is necessary. Simply informing their daughter that a woman who is capable of choosing her own spouse is clearly also capable of paying for her own college education and supporting her own lifestyle decisions will suffice for most parents. If a woman is independent enough to insist on paying her own way in order to pursue a career, she's probably not wife-and-mother material anyhow and would likely end up a reproductive dead end regardless the options she is afforded. We can always hope that instead of children, such a woman will contribute some revolutionary Powerpoint slideshows to society, produce a cure for cancer, or introduce some truly ground-breaking HR policies that will change the world for the better.
3. I would simply wish them the best of fortune in their future endeavors. But the number won't be anywhere nearly that high because women are, first and foremost, the practical sex.

Today in bad Christianist analogies: Homosexuality vs. adultery

The unquestioned masters of horrible analogies are at it again: Here’s a delightfully nauseating video (in both style and substance) from Christianist group Faith2Action that tries to show why homosexuality is wrong … by comparing it to adultery:

My transcript (yes, you may feel sorry for me now):

TOM and his WIFE are seated on their couch. Both are overweight; Tom is neckbearded.^[1]

TOM: What I’m trying to say is … I have these desires, these … urges … and if I don’t act on them, I’m not really being true to myself.^[2] You love me, right?

WIFE: Of course I love you, Tom!

TOM: If you love me, you’ll support what I do, who I am! I’m … an adulterer!

Tom turns towards his MISTRESS, seated aside him and with whom he’s holding hands. (Not sure how his wife didn’t notice her.) Mistress is even more overweight and is clad in a glitzy purple top and necklace(s?), heavy makeup and sports a gaudy hairstyle.^[3]

TOM: Wow, that felt so good to say out loud!

MISTRESS: I am so proud of you for finally coming out!^[4]

TOM: [to wife] Well? Aren’t you proud of me?

WIFE: I, um …

TOM: Huh, I’m feeling a bit judged, here! Aren’t we, honey?^[5]

Daily Blend: 04/20/13

With that hurdle out of the way, time to play catch-up:

Only functioning abortion clinic in Mississippi gets a temporary reprieve from being shut down by anti-abortion legislators.
(via @breakingpol; RT: @BreakingNews)

Rio de Janeiro becomes tenth Brazilian state to legalize same-sex marriage.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Imagine that an eighth-grader gets suspended, arrested and charged for wearing an anti-gun shirt to school. Now, imagine it’s a pro-gun shirt. Any difference?
(via @radleybalko)

And finally, the Family Research Council gets busted for blatantly bullshitting about the Boy Scouts. Why, exactly, does anyone still take these pathological liars seriously again?
(via Joe. My. God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

New Zealand legalizes same-sex marriage

And the land of orcses and Hobbitses makes 13:

New Zealand's parliament has legalised same-sex marriage, the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.

Lawmakers approved the bill, amending the 1955 marriage act, despite opposition from Christian lobby groups.

The bill was passed with a wide majority, with 77 votes in favour and 44 against.

This comes less than a week since Uruguay became the 12^th country to pass LGBT marriage equality, following Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Sweden. (Johnny Cash would be proud.) Meanwhile, gay marriage is all but imminent in both France and Britain as well.

Sure sucks to be homophobic these days, don’t it?

Daily Blend: 04/12/13

Audrie Pott (15)

Understatement of the Day: “It turns out that the Obama administration has not been honest about who the CIA has been targeting with drones in Pakistan.”
(via @ggreenwald)

I just don’t have the patience (or stomach) today to write about the horrific Kermit Gosnell case, other than to affirm how it’s the perfect argument for why abortion should be fully legalized and easily accessible to ensure women never need to resort to such barbarity out of desperation.

Ditto with Vox Day’s predictably pathetic rant about how pro-choicers are all worse than Nazis and so on.

Another teenaged girl ^[pictured] commits suicide to escape persecution resulting from the publicization of her student gang-rape. Now to watch the rape-culture-soaked media fret over those poor arrested rapists. (Again.)
(via Pharyngula)

Appeals court denies Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli’s petition to bring back anti-sodomy law.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Uruguay becomes latest country to legalize same-sex marriage.

And finally, Cracked presents some popular online myths, revised for accuracy.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Poll: Majority supports gay marriage (and opposes abortion)

Here’s yet another poll, this one by CBS and The Wall Street Journal, showing just how greatly the tides have turned in only a few short years:

Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two highly publicized gay-marriage cases, a majority of Americans continue to say they support same-sex marriage, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Fifty-three percent of respondents favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, which is up 2 points since the NBC/WSJ survey last asked this question in December, though that increase is within the poll’s margin of error.

It’s kind of awesome how ho-hum these polls are getting already.

And now to sour the mood:

According to the survey, a combined 52 percent say that abortion should be illegal either with exceptions or without them, versus a combined 45 percent who say it should be legal either “always” or “most of the time.”

This is a reversal from the NBC/WSJ poll in January, when a majority – for the first time – said abortion should be legal in some form or fashion.

I guess this means we can’t really trust the hoi polloi to decide who gets to enjoy basic civil rights or not after all.

NOM: Same-sex couples destroying marriage retroactively

It’s apparent that any wingnut group that could interpret data rationally and honestly would no longer be a wingnut group. Giving credence to this theory now is the virulently homophobic National Organization for Marriage, which recently posted this graph to their Facebook page:

It’s unsourced, so I can’t immediately confirm its credibility, but it appears to mesh with US Census data at a glance.

Now, a reasonable person might look at this data and understand that marital rates have been in a continuous and steady decline for at least 50 years (and presumably longer, given the rate of decline present at the start of the graph), presumably as a result of an increasingly liberal culture that rejects forcing partners to remain trapped in loveless or hostile unions and encourages people to wait until they’re more certain of who they are and what they want in life before deciding to settle down.

And then, there’s NOM’s interpretation:

Marriage rates down, out-of-wedlock birth rates up. Conservatives may have correctly predicted the consequences of same-sex marriage.

Amazing – gay and lesbian couples are so pervasive and noxious that they’re actually destroying society retroactively, starting decades before they were even allowed to marry anywhere in the world! Maybe these arch-conservative groups are onto something after all.

(Or just on something. Something with strong reality-altering properties.)

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

The wages of political expediency for equality

On the one hand, does this chart represent a core problem with US politics (if not democratic governance in general) by illustrating the cravenness exhibited by the ruling class as they bend over backwards and disregard their own stated principles to appeal to the whims of their voter bases in the naked hopes of gaining support for reelection (particularly when juxtaposed with public support for the same)? Of course:

On the other hand, it’s also fucking awesome how far the drive for equal rights has taken the US political climate.

There may be hope for democracy yet.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Vox Day asks some (dumb) questions about feminism

Vox Day

Amidst reiterating his usual claim that feminists are literally worse than Nazis (because most of them promote abortion rights, and terminating pre-viability fetuses that can’t feel or think is obviously worse than murdering millions of mature adults), Theodore “Vox Day” Beale then presents one of his critics with the following query:

[T]he statement [that feminists demand that women be immune from any legal repercussions for any breaches of contract, theft, and murder] not only is true, but it can be easily defended. There is no reconciliation necessary to defend it because it is based on straightforward observation. I direct the following questions to A. Man.

1. Did American women not demand, and do they not presently possess, the right to break marital contracts at will?
2. Have feminists not defended the right of women to kill men who abuse them?
3. Does the feminist definition of abuse include non-physical abuse?
4. Have feminists called for ban on actions that make a woman feel uncomfortable?

And so, partly to break the tedium of spending all day coaxing recalcitrant audio mixing software into working properly, here I go:

1. Wait – that’s a bad thing? Forget for a moment about Vox’s apparent wish of stripping women of the right to extract themselves from abusive or loveless unions; the ideals of personal liberty and bodily autonomy alone – which, as a self-professed libertarian, Vox should take particularly to heart – require that people have the right to enter or leave any relationship as they see fit. (Or are women so inferior to the Great Purveyors of XY Chromosomes^TM that some fundamental freedoms are just too good for them?)

   Furthermore, how does giving women the right to file for divorce somehow equate to allowing them to break any other contract at will? And when has any feminist ever demanded such a thing? That’s an impressive hybrid of strawman and non-sequitur right there.

2. What a ridiculously loaded and overbroad statement. It would certainly help to know what the hell he’s on about; but ravings from fringe-dwelling nuts on street corners aside, no, feminists most certainly do not request the right to murder anyone they see fit, except in extreme cases of self-defense (an exception that applies to anyone, not just abused women).

3. No, Vox, that’s the standard definition of abuse, as employed by anyone, anywhere, ever. Look, it’s in the dictionary and everything:

Daily Blend: 03/26/13

Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R-ND)

Applying for an internship/apprenticeship/something at a ranch tomorrow! Wish me luck. (Or a broken leg. However it goes these days.)

North Dakota Gov. Dalrymple (R) ^[pictured] signs law banning abortion at six weeks, presumably planning emergency fund for inevitable court loss. Wonder if he’ll also enact the even worse “personhood” law.
(via @BreakingNews)

Berlin-based company confirms their “atheist”-branded packages take significantly longer to reach their destinations, when they don’t go missing altogether. Looks like the US Postal Service has some explaining to do.

Oh, look, it’s another boilerplate, evidence-free diatribe about how “[m]ilitant atheism has become a religion”. (Hemant Mehta tears it apart, as does PZ Myers.)
(via @religionnews)

Vox Day: Egalitarians are “inferior beings” (because some of them sometimes make crude jokes on the Internet).

And finally, here’s the trippiest damn water spiral you’ll’ve ever did seen (more info here):

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

The Onion on the Supreme Court on gay marriage

It seems someone at The Onion has discovered the ability to peer into an alternate reality where today’s Supreme Court hearings on California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act took a more straightforward and commonsensical turn:

Ten minutes into oral arguments over whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to marry one another, a visibly confounded Supreme Court stopped legal proceedings Tuesday and ruled that gay marriage was “perfectly fine” and that the court could “care less who marries whom.”

“Yeah, of course gay men and women can get married. Who gives a shit?” said Chief Justice John Roberts, who interrupted attorney Charles Cooper’s opening statement defending Proposition 8, which rescinded same-sex couples’ right to marry in California. “Why are we even seriously discussing this?”

“Does anyone else up here care about this?” Roberts added as his eight colleagues began shaking their heads and saying, “No,” “Nah,” and “I also don’t care about this.” “Great. Same-sex marriage is legal in the United States of America. Do we have anything of actual import on the docket, or are we done for the day?”

Seriously, why is this still an issue? The same once went for interracial marriage, and will one day go for polygamy and any other form of interpersonal relationship based on consent. It simply isn’t the government’s business who loves or shacks up with who else, end of story.

I can only hope to see the day where articles like this are no longer considered satire, but fundamentally and obviously true.

(via Political Irony)

Daily Blend: 03/22/13

Richard Littlejohn

Today in “there ought to be a hell”: Fuckbrained bigot Richard Littlejohn ^[pictured] and trash-rag extraordinaire Daily Mail succeed in blithely bullying a transgender schoolteacher into killing herself.
(via Pharyngula)

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) officially signs civil unions bill.
(via @breakingpol; RT: @BreakingNews)

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) vetoes “Religious Freedom Act” that would’ve permitted anti-gay discrimination based on bigots’ “sincerely held religious beliefs”. Expect wingnut heads to commence exploding shortly.
(via Joe. My. God.)

PZ Myers is dead on: Adria Richards did everything exactly right. It’s amazing how many men can’t stomach the idea of being called out publicly for misbehaving in public.

Pope Francis comes out swinging against Catholic Church’s track record with covering up clerical child abuse. Now to see if his actions match up with his words.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

And finally, why is it still such a shock (to some) that women can be science aficionados, too?

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Sen. Chambliss won’t marry a gay, so neither should you

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)

From Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), affirming the typical Republican line on LGBT marriage equality:

When asked if his views had changed on gay marriage, the Georgia Republican quipped: “I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.”

Who ever asked you to? And furthermore, why should your personal decision extend to everyone else, gays and lesbians included?

Top 10 reasons to make gay marriage illegal [updated]

This has been floating around the Web for years (here’s the earliest version I could find), but I thought it was funny and worth sharing here (slightly retouched by yours truly):

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people encourages you to be tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets, because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all, just like many of the principles on which this great country was founded: Women are still property, Blacks still can’t marry Whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage is allowed; the sanctity of marriages like Britney Spears’s 55-hour, just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents from raising children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms, just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

A potent blend of irony and common sense is always so refreshing, is it not?

(via A Femboy Called Jeremie ^[NSFW])

---

UPDATE: 03/19/13 1:17 PM ET —

Rob F points to this being the original, dating back to 2004. Practically Precambrian, wot.

Daily Blend: 03/15/13

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)

Catholic Church in Joliet, Illinois forced to release thousands of internal documents that “reportedly show every bishop since the 1950s has been aware of diocese priests sexually abusing children”. I can hear Bill Donohue preparing his “old news” stamp already.
(via @jennifurret)

Ironically named National Vaccination Information Center launches anti-vaccination billboards in four states. Not sure why Phil Plait expects the same company that proudly hosts Rush Limbaugh to apologize for, well, anything.

Why police officers shouldn’t be automatically believed (especially by the courts).

Republican Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) ^[pictured] becomes latest example that the best way to get someone to drop their homophobia is for them to know a gay person.
(via Joe. My. God. & @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Information is Beautiful on the major causes of death in the 20^th Century. Is it just me, or does cancer seem disproportionately large?

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: 03/13/2013

TJ Kincaid

Heads Up: Later today/tomorrow is when Disqus is slated to force its “upgraded” platform upon users (like me) who still cling to the old, customizable version. Might take a little while for changes to take effect. Stay tuned.

I’m also trying out a new title style for this Daily Blend (rather than the usual long-form date). We’ll see if it sticks. That is all.

Oh, look, it’s another bone-chilling climate study for pseudoscientists and ideologues to deny and lie about!

New Zealand votes to guarantee passage of same-sex marriage. Yay!
(via Joe. My. God.)

Some more gay (in both senses) news: Floundering “ex-gay” group National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) loses tax exempt status, forced to slice their Rentboy budget.
(via Joe. My. God.)

This just in: TJ Kincaid ^[pictured] is still an embarrassment to the atheist community and humanity in general. (Also: Go, Anita Sarkeesian!)
(via @SallyStrange; RT: @jennifurret)

Virginia steps a little further into the 21^st Century by overturning law against “consensual sodomy”. (Wingnut outrage in 3 … 2 …)
(via Joe. My. God.)

And finally, here’s an interactive infographic of global Internet porn habits. (East Europe is amazingly perverted.)
(via Joe. My. God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.