It's that time again. You'll note from the title that I've
taken a cue from commenters on last week's diary rescue and have hereby
dubbed it "Queerly Kos." (And, no, that's nothing to do with the
various
rumors on the internets.) The week started out in disturbing
fashion for me, as I received an
email from a friend on Monday informing me that his partner had passed
suddenly passed away and giving me the dates for the funeral and
internment. That was bad enough, but it got worse when he told me later
that after finding out that his husband collapsed at work, he raced to
the hospital only to be told upon arriving at the ER that they couldn't
give him any information because he was not
"next of kin."
A day later I read the story of Rob
and Jay, a
gay couple in Connecticut with 30 years together, and a civil union
between them. Long story short, Rob has ALS and when he dies Jay will
likely lose their home because they lack the federal marriage benefits
-- including Social Security and pension inheritance and
low-to-no taxes on inherited estates that are considered taxable
"gifts" between same-sex partners -- that might allow a surviving
heterosexual spouse to keep the home. Not what you would call
"important shit." Right? Happens every day, though. And with that, let's on to the diaries.
- Staying with the marriage debate for a minute, check out
the diary from dennisl,
in which he breaks the existing constitutional amendments into
categories (with interesting results) to support a conservative
argument against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
- Father's day rolled around on Sunday, and as a gay dad I
was intrigued to find (via Damn
Straight) a link to Two
World Collision, where Eric reflected on the
breakup of his parents' marriage and his dad's homosexuality and how
both affected his chose to be out about his sexuality.
- Also check out the Damn Straight post
about how gay families don't always or shouldn't always have to be "picture
perfect." The author, daughter of two gay dads,
sums it all up with "We're not picture perfect. We're a
family."
- Plays
in Traffic posted an interesting diary on marriage as well.
It's under attack by activist judges again who want to let 15-year-olds
marry each other. What's next? Marrying
snakes?
- Davidelf2
has an interesting question concerning the Episcopal church, which
flip-flopped on ordaining gay bishops this week, deciding one day to stand
up for gays & lesbians in the denomination and then
the next day deciding to stand
down in the name of unity. Hmm. Gays getting sold down the
river in the name of "unity." One less difference between religion and
politics, I guess.
- And while we're on the subject of religion, check out tvb's
diary on the weird exchange between a Fox News anchor and a
spokesperson for Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church. Since when did
the media arm of the Bush administration start embracing homos? If
they're going to continue butting heads with wingnuts over this issue,
I'd recommend mlisle's
diary on how to talk about gays with christians. Not that it
would do much good with the Phelps gang.
- And as long as we're discussing religious extremists, Queerty
notes that Muslim cleric Yusuf Qardarwi has determined the best way to
kill a homosexual. Meanwhile both Good
as You and Pam's
House Blend note that Rev. William Gay beseeched
the Southern Baptist Convention to make ministers stop using the word
"gay" to describe homosexuals. To no avail, I might add.
- On the subject of violence, zuzu at Feministe
notes that TransJustice in NYC was denied a permit to march and rally
during NYC's pride parade as part of a Trans Action Day response to the
gaybashing of performer Kevin
Aviance, but on TransMarch
is taking place on the other side of the country.
- Continuing further south, Gay Orbit
points out that Georgia (my state of origin, BTW) is basically rock
bottom when it comes to supporting same-sex marriage and civil unions.
That's probably why one Democratic candidate for governor supports the
state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But she still
takes contributions from gay people. Meanwhile The
Dupont posts a letter (via Andrew
Sullivan) from gay man in Alabama. It's a must read.
- On the subject of governor's races, the only candidate on
record as opposing a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage dropped
out of the Maryland governor's race. That leaves the
Republican incumbent who supports the amendment and the remaining
Democratic front runner who can't
bring himself to oppose it.
- Staying south and heading west, teleporno
links (and links and links) to the story of the lesbian teacher in
Texas who was fired (allegedly) because of her online art gallery.
- Despite all of the above, the
Democratic Daily links to a column by Cokie
& Steve Roberts suggesting that the over all trend is towards
support for same-sex marriage and civil. Perhaps time, if nothing else,
really is on our side.
- The aforementioned progressive trend notwithstanding, Wharton
notes that the backwards-looking DOD still thinks queers are sick in
the head.
- Finally, as for what we're going to do about it all, RichardR
asks "What happened to gay activism?"
That what I managed to catch, from a week of blog reading, in
the sieve that is my mind. Surely there's lots more that slipped
through. If you caught something I didn't, mention it in the comments.
And if during the week you spot something I'm likely to miss, drop me
an email at the address in my profile or via the contact page on my
blog.
'Til next week!