Your Friday Awesome: Teh Gays Are After Your Husbands (and are hilarious)

This is kind of pure genius. An Australian sketch comedy show tackled marriage equality by co-opting the epitome of masculinity in current pop culture. The last three lines made me snort.

Transcript available at Feministing.

Gender and Sexuality at Prom: The Good, the Bad and the Awesome

This year students across the country made it pretty damn clear that prom is not just about finding a date and the perfect dress - its has become a political statement about who you can date and what you can wear openly.

Constance McMillian wanted to bring her gilfriend to prom. When she couldn't, she got the ACLU on her side, and thousands of others, and even that was not enough to get the school district to treat her with respect (though it did get a bill proposed in the Senate - woo!).

Omar Bonilla ran for prom queen and came very close to winning, but was suddenly suspended two days before prom for a questionable parking violation

Derrek Lutz not only won his right to wear a dress, he was crowned Prom King:

Prom wasn't the first time Derrek expressed his identity in front of classmates and school administrators. Last month he did it with an entire posse:



Extra points for the awesome and crass intro. But, is it just me, or does it look a little bit like the writers of Glee found some inspiration there for this week's episode?

Speaking of Glee, I cannot express how happy I am that this clip was aired in primetime, particularly now when students like Derrek, Constance and Omar are in the press.



Yeah, grab a tissue. And then do what you can to make sure the kids you know are safe and supported.

What students like Derrek are doing is incredibly brave, because even if you have a posse of backup dancers (or in Constance's case, lawyers) doesn't mean everyone in the school supports you, obviously the administration had to be convinced. Furthermore, not going to prom isn't the only threat students face.

I am in awe of these students that are using what has been one of the most heteronormative high school rites of passage and turning it on its head, making it inclusive and representative of who they and their fellow students are.

"So, that means you love each other!"

In honor of DC legalizing marriage for all:



I have a very vivid memory of my small self sitting on the floor looking at my two aunts and thinking, "hmm, that is more than one aunt..." reconciling that fact with my parents' relationship, and then simply moving on to whatever I did next. Its really that simple.

Full transcript at Shakesville.

Another Friday Awesome: Ac**kalypse Now

While we are on the subject of anxious masculinity...



Sadly, Sarah Haskins will no longer give us Target Women, but that's okay - Bryan Safi is here!

Quote of the Day - Jane Lynch

"Shouldn't there be safeguards against the majority voting on the rights of a minority?" Lynch wonders. "If people voted on civil rights in the 60s, it would have never happened. It took somebody like Lyndon Johnson going, 'F all of you! I'm going to do this.'"

Via Feministing. Image via snarkerati.

Quote of the Day - The Boss

The Boss officially joined Sean Penn in the ranks of commie, homo-loving son of a guns with this statement on his site:

Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples and fully agree with Governor Corzine when he writes that, "The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is -- a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law." I couldn't agree more with that statement and urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now.

The Right has been co-opting "Born in the USA" for years, twisting the meaning of the song for their purposes (I do not think it means what you think it means), so in honor of Bruce and standing up for equality:

Jesus Doesn't Love Hypocrites

Evidently Catholic churches in Italy have admitted that Holy Water isn't special enough to be swine flu free. Is it possible the sign of the cross doesn't have antibacterial properties because Jesus is unhappy with hypocrites?

"The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law."

How charitable of them.

Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street

With the recent attempts to create tiers of citizenship and personhood by denying individuals their civil rights and ability to make decisions about their bodies, it is nice to remember one of the reasons why we have a generation that knows that it is wrong and believes that we can change our community for the better:



As Andi says, looking back it might not have been perfect, and has certainly disappointed us as adults, but thank you Sesame Street.

Thanks for teaching us about the alphabet and social responsibility through puppets. Even the ones that terrified me.

Permission

Although...there should be no asking of anyone's hand since it is a decision made by two equal parties to enter into a partnership, but still a very clear message about the inanity of marriage inequality.

Your Wednesday Awesome

Because the moving testimony of Philip, an 86 year-old veteran, can't wait until Friday:

...The woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?

...I have seen with my own eyes the consequences of caste systems and that make some people less than others, or second class. Never again. We must have equal rights for everyone.

Who else needs a tissue?

Your Friday Awesome

Posting has been light (or rather, nonexistent) this week since I've been in DC for work. Unfortunately I missed the National Equality March by two days. 200,000 people marched on DC alone.

Photo via Yahoo News.

Banned Books Week

The last week of September isn't just the last week of my 20's (it's okay, really) it is also Banned Books Week.

In high school I remember a few very loud parents flipping out about The Bean Trees. Frankly, as a freshman I thought the book was fantastic and not just because of the illicit mention of a penis. After the eighth grade reading list, I was just damn happy it wasn't another book about a boy and his dog - or a boy and his pig.

This year's most challenged books include:

And Tango Makes Three - Not gay penguins! I wonder if they reconsidered after it turned out the penguins were bisexual...

Gossip Girl series - Turns out it was books before it was a television show. I'm never one to accuse a book of what it's TV adaptation does, so I'll refrain from comment.

TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R series - I couldn't quite bring myself to read a book full of texting, but I betcha a whole bunch of teens love it. Also, it doesn't look like any books about teenage boys claiming their sexuality are the list...strange...

Uncle Bobby's Wedding - Oh noes! Its the gays again! Showing an example of a loving family to boot, how dare they? One librarian had a pretty awesome response.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress.

There is a list of ways that you and your local library or book store can support Banned Books Week. One of them is to "include a Banned Books Week feature in your organization's newsletter or on your blog." Since I am a nerd and always do what (radical) librarians tell me to do...done!

They have also put together a map of all of the known challenges across the country, including one just through the tunnel in Concord, California:

"Lois Lowry's The Giver was challenged by two parents at the Mount Diablo School District who objected to its descriptions of adolescent pill use, suicide and lethal injections given to babies and the elderly."

Here's a thought: how about you read the book. Not only is The Giver an all around amazing book, it is a dystopian novel. For those of you who don't like readin' stuff that means it takes place in a time period that is nor our own and is the opposite of a utopia. In other words, it is saying that those things that you are so ignorantly railing against are bad! Then again, I also wrote a graduate school paper on the entire series (yes, Lowry wrote two more recently) about how the book is also against anti-intellectualism and a lack of analytical curiosity and supports adolescent individualism and agency, but we wouldn't want you kids getting any ideas, would we?

I doubt that any the same folks that asked for these books to be pulled have asked the same of the text books that have been proven to have inaccurate information. Yeah...nope.


View Book Bans and Challenges, 2007-2009 in a larger map

Thanks to Sociological Images for the heads up.

The Love Letters Project

As I've said before, my husband and I were lucky enough to be married when everyone in the state of California could be. We were thrilled that our marriage license read "Party A" and "Party B" (though I think two lines with "Spouse" might have been nicer). We filled out the license at 8:30 in the morning before we headed off to work, and knowing that many other couples were filling out the same lines at the same time, made us even more giddy.

To be honest, for most of my adult life, I was a bit ambivalent about the politics of marriage. I figured if the religious right was going to throw a hissy fit about extending marriage rights to all, then why not just change the semantics. Legalize "civil unions" for everyone and leave "marriage" to the religious folks. In other words, let everyone go to the courthouse to obtain all the rights provided by the state, but if you want to have a it recognized by whatever god you believe in and be "married," more power to 'ya, but that shouldn't have anything to do with the law.

The problem is that uniting two people with all of the legal obligations and privileges of the state ignores the heart of the matter - just that, the heart. Thankfully, in the U.S. we have moved past the origins of marriage, you know things like kinship and dowries, so that for most of us marriage really is about love. And there is just something far more romantic about telling people, "We're married," than, "We are civilly unioned!"

Which is why I think The Love Letters Project is a very powerful way to work toward marriage equality. Crystal and Christina were married in Iowa this summer, but their marriage is not recognized in Wisconsin where they live, nor is it in much of the country, and of course not by the federal government. Which is why Crystal has been writing a letter to President Obama every day, relating the daily joys of her marriage and asking him to extend civil rights to everyone. She even sent him postcards from their honeymoon in Spain:


Thanks to Laura at Adventures of a Young Feminist for the heads up.

The Marriage of Economic Civil Rights

Using your "morals" as an excuse to refuse birth control, or emergency contraception, or any other prescription or medical procedure is inexcusable. This is not the 1400's: "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't save (or better) your life because the Almighty God wills it so." Uh, uh. We have moved through the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, so lets move on and do our jobs.

But, in the argument over Prop 8 that quickly went to the economics of weddings, I tended to think that if a florist or caterer didn't want the business of non-hetero couples, so be it. It's your economic, social and (yes) moral loss. I mean we boycott businesses for political reasons all the time, this seemed to be in that vein.

In my own search for vendors, I actively sought out if not outwardly feminist folks, people who did not swallow the WIC Kool Aid.* I wasn't interested in being around people, and more importantly, giving them my money, if all they were going to do was talk about my big daaaaaaaaayyyy and freak out when then realized I wasn't wearing a veil.

But, then I read this blog by Kevin Drum. And he brought up an very good point:

After all, do same-sex couples really want to hire photographers and caterers who make it clear they loathe them? Probably not. But then, you might have asked the same thing 50 years ago: do Southern blacks really want to eat at lunch counters where they obviously aren't welcome? As it turned out, yes.

It turns out, this really isn't about a simple case of wedding vendors, after all.

But once they start covering bog ordinary commercial establishments that don't have even a tenuous connection to a church and want to discriminate merely because they don't like gays — well, that's a line that gets pretty hard to draw pretty fast. What's worse, in some places it's a line that would essentially take over entire towns. If a caterer can refuse to sell me a wedding cake just because I'm gay — despite state law that would normally outlaw such discrimination — can a landlord refuse to rent me and my newly married partner an apartment despite fair housing laws saying he has to?

So this really isn't about just hiring vendors. It is about rights, no matter how you slice it, because we cannot separate economics from civil rights. We can certainly separate marriage from religion. Have a super religious wedding if you want, not everyone needs to take communion, or jump over a broom, but everyone should have the opportunity to file a simple piece of paper with their county clerk and enjoy the municipal, state and federal rights that it provides. Thank goodness it looks like we are on our way.

*No, not the social program for mothers and children...the Wedding Industrial Complex. Trust me, this is not an exaggeration.