Take That, Bigots!

U.S. appeals court rules Prop. 8 unconstitutional

The ban on same sex marriage remains in place while the case is appealed to the US Supreme court.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46294255/ns/us_news-life/#.TzGGFsiO0sI

My Video from today's Occupy Philly March

One more reason I love my Phillies.

"How many more gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually wants them around?" Steve Simon

The Admiral and Me

I've been doing volunteer work for Admiral Joe Sestak, who is running for Senate here in PA. He's trying to mount a come from behind win over uber-conservative Pat Toomey. I managed to get this shot at a rally in Media, last Sunday. After trailing for most of the race, Sestak has pulled it into a dead heat.

PA Kills Anti-gay marriage law.

Thanks to you and your hard work the Pennsylvania State Senate Judiciary Committee just voted 8-6 to table SB 707!  SB 707 is the bill to amend the PA Constitution to ban same sex marriage.  This is a huge victory for us, since the vote effectively kills the bill.

This is your victory.  We had over 120,000 emails sent to senators, over 75,000 in the last 24 hours!  In addition, our allies and friends generated thousands more phone calls, emails and letters.

We should celebrate, but we need to remain vigilant.  It is unlikely, but it is possible that the bill could come to life again.  Especially if they think we aren't going to act again.

Please encourage your friends and family to join us at www.keystoneprogress.org

Also, help us maintain our network with your financial contribution.  Any amount can help.  You can donate at  http://www.keystoneprogress.org/page/contribute/kspdonate

Congratulations on your incredible victory. 

For Equality,

Michael Morrill
for the Keystone Progress Team

NH Rejects Gay Marriage Ballot Initiative: Score one for the Good Guys

Yesterday, the New Hampshire House resoundingly rejected an attempt to place a vote to repeal same-sex marriage on the November ballot. CACR 28 defined marriage in this state by saying it can only be between a man and a woman. It was rejected by a wide margin, 201-135, short of a simple majority and far below the three-fifths majority -- 238 votes -- it needed to advance to the Senate. Sponsors tried to delay a vote on the bill until March 17, so local voters could weigh in on petitions at town meeting that ask for a popular vote on the amendment. "All we're trying to do here is put this on the ballot," Rep. David Bates, R-Windham, arguing voters should have their say.

Full Story HERE

District of Columbia Passes Gay Marriage

Final City Council Vote 11 Yes 2 No

Chey yes
Evans yes
Graham yes
Grey yes
Mendelson yes
Thomas yes
Well yes
Alexander NO
Barry NO
Bowser yes
Brown yes
M. Brown yes
Catania yes

And the vote can NOT be put to a public referendum ala Prop 8.

More from MSNBC Here

Tramps like us, Baby, we were born to wed.

Bruce Springsteen backs gay marriage in NJ

Posted using ShareThis

AmericaBlog Calls For Gay Donor Boycott Of Democratic National Committee (From Joe.My.God)

Some may recall that, over the summer, I posted a blog titled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Donate." Looks like the sentiment is spreading.

************************************************************************

Under the headline Don't Ask, Don't Give, John Aravois and Joe Sudbay of the widely-read AmericaBlog today called for a boycott of LGBT donations to the Democratic party over the failures of the Obama administration and the DNC to properly support and advocate for gay causes.

Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Michelangelo Signorile, Paul Sousa the founder of Equal Rep in Boston, and soon others. It's really more of a "pause," than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends - President Obama and the Democratic party - who have lost their way.

We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.So please sign the Petition and take a Pledge to no longer donate to the DNC, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends. You can find our Frequently Asked Questions, below, that explain the entire campaign. You can use our "Tell a Friend" page to tell all of your friends, family members, and coworkers about this effort (and we won't keep any of the email addresses you entire, they'll all be deleted after the emails are sent).

Tensions between the DNC and AmericaBlog came to a boil last week after openly gay DNC treasurer Andy Tobias revealed that the DNC had "intentionally" asked Maine contributors to support NJ Gov. Jon Corzine with no such accompanying request to help Maine's marriage equality effort.

When a Lifelong Rebuplican and WWII Vet can see it this clearly...

This is what Gay Bashing looks like

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/10/13/2009-10-13_surveillance_video_captures_brutal_beating_of_gay_man_jack_price_in_queens.html

Everyone should be very, very pissed and send this to thier elected officials, ministers and anyone else they can think of.

Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary: Rest in Peace

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary dead at 72
(AP)




DANBURY, Conn. — Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died. The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.

Travers joined forces with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early 1960s. The trio mingled their music with liberal politics, both onstage and off. Their version of "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem for racial equality. Other hits included "Lemon Tree," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (The Magic Dragon.)" They were early champions of Bob Dylan and performed his "Blowin' in the Wind" at the August 1963 March on Washington.

And they were vehement in their opposition to the Vietnam War, managing to stay true to their liberal beliefs while creating music that resonated in the American mainstream. The group collected five Grammy Awards for their three-part harmony on enduring songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" and "Blowin' in the Wind." At one point in 1963, three of their albums were in the top six Billboard best-selling LPs as they became the biggest stars of the folk revival movement.

It was heady stuff for a trio that had formed in the early 1960s in Greenwich Village, running through simple tunes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb." They debuted at the Bitter End in 1961, and their beatnik look — a tall blonde flanked by a pair of goateed guitarists — was a part of their initial appeal. As The New York Times critic Robert Shelton put it not long afterward, "Sex appeal as a keystone for a folk-song group was the idea of the group's manager, Albert B. Grossman, who searched for months for `the girl' until he decided on Miss Travers."

Their debut album came out in 1962, and immediately scored a pair of hits with their versions of "If I Had a Hammer" and "Lemon Tree." The former won them Grammys for best folk recording, and best performance by a vocal group. "Moving" was the follow-up, including the hit tale of innocence lost, "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" — which reached No. 2 on the charts, and generated since-discounted reports that it was an ode to marijuana. Album No. 3, "In the Wind," featured three songs by the 22-year-old Dylan. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Blowin' in the Wind" both reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies during one two-week period.

"Blowin' In the Wind" became an another civil rights anthem, and Peter, Paul and Mary fully embraced the cause. They marched with King in Selma, Ala., and performed with him in Washington. In a 1966 New York Times interview, Travers said the three worked well together because they respected one another. "There has to be a certain amount of love just in order for you to survive together," she said. "I think a lot of groups have gone down the tubes because they were not able to relate to one another."

With the advent of the Beatles and Dylan's switch to electric guitar, the folk boom disappeared. Travers expressed disdain for folk-rock, telling the Chicago Daily News in 1966 that "it's so badly written. ... When the fad changed from folk to rock, they didn't take along any good writers."
But the trio continued their success, scoring with the tongue-in-cheek single "I Dig Rock and Roll Music," a gentle parody of the Mamas and the Papas, in 1967 and the John Denver-penned "Leaving on a Jet Plane" two years later.

They also continued as boosters for young songwriters, recording numbers written by then-little-known Gordon Lightfoot and Laura Nyro. In 1969, the group earned their final Grammy for "Peter, Paul and Mommy," which won for best children's album. They disbanded in 1971, launching solo careers — Travers released five albums — that never achieved the heights of their collaborations. Over the years they enjoyed several reunions, including a performance at a 1978 anti-nuclear benefit organized by Yarrow and a 35th anniversary album, "Lifelines," with fellow folkies Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk and Seeger. A boxed set of their music was released in 2004.

They remained politically active as well, performing at the 1995 anniversary of the Kent State shootings and performing for California strawberry pickers. Travers had undergone a successful bone marrow transplant to treat her leukemia and was able to return to performing after that.
"It was like a miracle," Travers told The Associated Press in 2006. "I'm just feeling fabulous. What's incredible is someone has given your life back. I'm out in the garden today. This time last year I was looking out a window at a hospital." She also said she told the marrow donor "how incredibly grateful I was." But by mid-2009, Yarrow told WTOP radio in Washington that her condition had worsened again and he thought she would no longer be able to perform.

Mary Allin Travers was born on Nov. 9, 1936 in Louisville, Ky., the daughter of journalists who moved the family to Manhattan's bohemian Greenwich Village. She quickly became enamored with folk performers like the Weavers, and was soon performing with Seeger, a founding member of the Weavers who lived in the same building as the Travers family.

With a group called the Song Swappers, Travers backed Seeger on one album and two shows at Carnegie Hall. She also appeared (as one of a group of folk singers) in a short-lived 1958 Broadway show called "The Next President," starring comedian Mort Sahl. It wasn't until she met up with Yarrow and Stookey that Travers would taste success on her own. Yarrow was managed by Grossman, who later worked in the same capacity for Dylan. In the book "Positively 4th Street" by David Hajdu, Travers recalled that Grossman's strategy was to "find a nobody that he could nurture and make famous." The budding trio, boosted by the arrangements of Milt Okun, spent seven months rehearsing in her Greenwich Village apartment before their 1961 public debut.

Travers lived for many years in Redding, Conn.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Keeping America Stupid; SC Divison

There must be something in the water for them South Caroliner Politicos. First there was Governor Mark Sanford, who gave new meaning to Appalcian Trail. He had an affair and now he won't shut up about it. There's his second in command, Lt . Gov. Andre Bauer, who just might be having affairs with men, and he won't talk about it. Other than to deny it without being prompted. A lot. And then there's this freak of nature:

Meet South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, the man who will now live on in YouTube infany for being the utter jackass who squealed "You lie!" when President Obama firmly denied any Free Illegal Immigrant Health Care was in his Health Care reform bill. While watching the President give his speech, when I heard the shout from the crowd, my first thought was if there were any civilian spectators who had opened up a protest. But no. It was bona fide elected evidence that not only should abortion remain legal, it should be extended into the 89th trimester. If there was ever a living, breathing, vomiting piece of proof that the Republican Party has zero interest in Bi-Partisan Heath Care legislation, this man is it. We won't even go into liklihood of Wilson's subliminal racism.

On a positive note, soon after Mr Wilson's extraordinary show of how out of touch the Rebuplican party is circa 2009, his web site had crashed, he had taken a beating on his Twitter page and Democrat Rob Miller had raised thousands of unexpected dollars online for a possible rematch with Wilson in next year's midterm elections, according to Lachlan McIntosh, Miller's campaign manager. In the eight hours since Wilson's outburst, former-Marine Rob Miller has received nearly 3,000 individual grassroots contributions raising approximately $100,000, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said. So sometimes, the system works.

It really is this simple.

I believe that no one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the evening / Labor Day weekend......

Ben and Jerry's commomerates VT Gay Marriage with...

(But where's the Bride Bride Berry?)

Will PA be the next gay marriage state?

From Keystone Progress.org

Great news for supporters of Marriage Equality-Senator Jim Ferlo has joined onto Senator Daylin Leach's bill, SB 935, the first bill in PA to legalize marriage for all.
That brings us to three courageous senators who will be standing up to legalize same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania.

Senator Leach is holding a news conference to announce the introduction of his bill this Wednesday.

Please join us in Harrisburg on Wednesday, July 8. We'll be in the Capitol Rotunda starting at 10:00 AM. You can let us know you'll be there by going to
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190442540289

If you can't join us on Wednesday, but still want to make marriage equality a reality in Pennsylvania, here are some simple steps you can take:
Sign the petition asking your senator to co-sponsor Senator Leach's bill. You can do it online at http://www.keystoneequality.org/

Are you on Facebook? Then keep up to date by becoming a fan of Keystone Equality, Marriage Equality for Pennsylvania http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keystone-Equality-Marriage-Equality-for-Pennsylvania/94410911683

Are you on Twitter? Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/keystoneprogres

Make a contribution to our work. You can contribute online at: http://www.keystoneprogress.org/page/contribute/PAequality

Sincerely,
Michael Morrillwww.keystoneprogress.org

Senator John Eichelberger - Homophobe!

Senator John Eichelberger has called LGBT couples "dysfunctional" and said the state is "allowing them to exist." Dozens of activists confronted him today outside the Senate chambers asking for an apology. He refused.




Wanna bet he has an affair or two in the backroom someplace?

NYC Pride Parade, 6/28/09: Law Enforcment Edition

It was really a delight to see the number of law enforcement officials at the NY Pride parade who seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Here are a few pics I took while riding the CORE float.





I just likes his eyes!



Kitties on parade.



They were taking pictures of us!



Stern one



nice stache.



Laughter!



Bear cop!



And the Gay Officers Action League in the parade itself.





Any picture here, it should be noted, IS NOT indicitive of a sexual preference.

NYC Pride Parade, 6/28/09

Me, Joel's Daughter Miriam and Joel