Turns out vows were not all this idiot took!
Maryland's Tiffany Alston, who voted against marriage equality after having been a co-sponsor of a bill for it, has been formally charged with embezzling...in order to help fund her own wedding!
I hope she's not married to her freedom, because I think this principled lady might be wedding-marching straight to jail.
At tonight's Republican debate, the crowd BOOED a soldier serving in Iraq. What? Right-wingers booing a soldier? How could that be?
That could be—he's gay. BOOOO!
Disgusting display. If you need proof that President Obama is not the same as a Republican, try comparing how he'd treat this soldier vs. how Rick Santorum and his silent fellow Rs did. And then recall that this crowd, booing a soldier serving during wartime, is made up of people who want "anyone but Obama."
Wow, I got emotional watching this video of a U.S. soldier calling his dad to tell him he's gay. Poor guy, so nervous and worked up. Glad to hear that his father took it in stride. "Doesn't change our relationship," he replies. It's pretty funny when he says, "Do you wanna tell Mom for me?" and the father says, "I don't believe so."
I hope he asked his dad's permission before posting such an intimate conversation, but the father should be proud of his reaction as well as of his son.
Gay officer Todd Burton reacts to the fact that Don't Ask, Don't Tell officially ended at 12:01 a.m. today. Great video...
I was invited to a special screening of The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the new documentary by World of Wonder wizzes Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey that debuts at midnight tonight on HBO—DADT is history as of that time.
Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know, this pop documentary (it's got lots of visual candy to make all the complex policy talk idiot-proof) underscored a few things for me, such as the fact that DADT, considered a "step forward" back in Clinton's 1993, was actually the first time it became illegal to be gay in the military as opposed to being in violation of a policy. It was definitely a case of two steps back to get forward 20 years later.
Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Victor Fehrenback, Mike Almy & Aubrey Sarvis
Also interesting was the history of our country's policies on gays in the military (a quickie look at gays in the armed services over the past few thousand years was a bit cutesy for me)—I'd had no idea that WWII was the first time it became against policy, and loved the film's argument that the very notion of a gay community came from gay soldiers during WWII being discharged and dumped at ports...like Manhattan and San Francisco. Anchors aweigh we go, Mary!
Via Towleroad: DADT R.I.P.
The filmmakers have crafted an almost shockingly apolitical film Yes, John McCain is a delicious villain, but he's not manipulated nor is he a metaphor for all anti-gay people; he was there in '93 and there again in '10 for the birth and death of DADT. The film depicts Bill Clinton as an idealist who grossly underestimated the necessity of getting the military to buy into his plan to open its ranks to gays, and depicts Barack Obama as more of a pragmatist, who wanted the ban lifted and who set about doing it methodically. Neither man comes off poorly, and Republicans are not singled out by party; instead, we are able to see each individual man and woman who testified or worked for or against DADT in his or her own words. It's quite weird to see a film about something that just happened, yet to see so many of the players already relegated to the sidelines—Patrick Murphy in particular.
Choi & Fehrenbach
The film is greatly boosted by interviews with actual servicemen and servicewomen whose lives were heavily impacted by DADT, including the heroic Margarethe Cammermeyer, Victor Fehrenbach, Mike Almy (pictured, right) and Dan Choi. Their testimony about how DADT affected them stands in stark contrast to the sophomoric nonsense about shared showers and "unit cohesion" parroted by the powers-that-were, including Colin Powell.
Not exactly the best way to change the minds of gay-squeamish troops, but...wow!
I highly recommend the film. It's therapeutic to watch it and remember, "Whatever happened from Point A to Point Z, we won this sucker."
After, we were able to quiz the filmmakers, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's Aubrey Sarvis as well as Fehrenbach and Almy, who gave terrific answers:
My question was the one someone asked last, which is: If a Republican wins the presidency and decides to reinstate DADT, would that happen? The answer seems to be it totally could happen, but the military (ironically) would probably protest:
Clearly, more still needs to be done:
Afterward, I had a chance to meet all involved. I missed shaking the hand of Melvin Dwork, the 89-year-old man who just this week had his "undesirable" discharge from 70 years ago converted to an "honorable" discharge. (Now to take care of the 99,000 others!)
SLDN'S Aubrey Sarvis with the newly desirable Melvin Dwork
Mike Diamond, whose fisting parody of Katy Perry's "E.T." will have you (and your duodenum) in stitches, threw himself at the servicemen so shamelessly I had to borrow some Crisco from him to lube them up and pull him off. But it's okay—gay people have every right to become servicemembers in the military, and those of us not in the military have every right to attempt to service the members of anyone on or off active duty.
Because I, too, am a hussy
Dan Choi visits The Six Pack and discusses various topics, including his recently becoming ordained as a minister. (He's a born-again Christian but seems to refer to his ministry quite irreverently.)
On whether one of the first legal New York same-sex weddings might've been as emotional for the minister performing it as for the couple being joined in matrimony:
"I think so. I think for all of us who've been working so hard, we wanted that moment to say, 'We're finally equal in this aspect.'"
The six pack...before
Missed Mike C. Manning's Trailblazer Campaign video when it was posted a couple of months back. But the message is timeless so now is as good a time as any...
So ultimately, Dan Choi is an idiot after all—so disenchanted with President Obama and "his fawning gay elites" (gee, he really fits right in with that GOProud crowd he cozied up to), he's now saying he likes Gary Johnson because he's much stronger on civil rights than Obama.
Towleroad thinks the insane pledge Republican presidential candidates are being asked to sign is most controversial because it asserts homosexuality is a choice. I'm thinking the ban on all pornography might piss off more conservatives—they consume pornography in equal if not greater numbers.
So far, Bachmann has signed it (with support from her wife, no doubt)—but would Mitt Romney sign such a thing? He's the front-runner. We'll see.
