Gay Rights Advocates Renew Push for Same-Sex Marriage on Valentine's Day
Advocates for same-sex marriage marked Valentine's Day with a nationwide campaign to tout the merits of gay love and urge greater legal protections for it.
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From California to Texas to Illinois, activists are organizing trips to courthouses and county clerks' offices to request marriage licenses, despite laws in those states and 42 others that forbid gay couples to wed. Photo
"We're going to ask for our marriage license and get denied," Rex Fender, 22, said outside a San Diego courthouse.
She wants to marry her partner of two years, Rudi Redman, 23.
"Our love is just as legitimate as everyone else's, and we want that to be recognized," she said. "On this day of love, we want people to see we're proud about our love."
Meanwhile, New York City-based advocacy group Freedom to Marry launched what it called the largest-ever national TV ad campaign aimed at educating the public on gay love and why marriage rights matter to same-sex couples…
Read complete report & view videos:
CATHOLICS Now Favor Allowing Gays And Lesbians To Marry Legally,
October 6, 2010 - Pew Research Center
…The shift in opinion on same-sex marriage has been broad-based, occurring across many demographic, political and religious groups.
Notably, pluralities of white mainline Protestants and white Catholics now favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally -- the first time this has occurred in Pew Research Center surveys. Political independents are divided in their views of same-sex-marriage; in 2009, they opposed it by a wide margin…
White mainline Protestants and white Catholics have become more supportive of gay marriage, though virtually all of the change in opinion among both groups has come among those who attend services relatively infrequently.
About half (49%) of white mainline Protestants support same-sex marriage while 38% oppose this. This is a reversal of opinion from the past two years when 40% favored and 49% opposed allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. Just 35% of white mainline Protestants who attend church at least once a week favor same-sex marriage, nearly the same percentage as in 2008-2009 (34%). Among those who attend services less often, support has increased by 11 points (from 42% to 53%).
There has been a similar shift among white Catholics -- 49% now favor same-sex marriage while 41% are opposed. Opinion was more evenly divided over the past two years (44% favor, 45% oppose). Here too, support has increased among those who attend services less than weekly, from 51% in 2008-2009 to 59% in 2010…
… Jews and the unaffiliated have remained far more supportive of same-sex marriage. Their views also have changed little during this time. Three-quarters of Jews (76%) and 62% of the religiously unaffiliated say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally…
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On the eve of Valentine's Day, protesters converge on Holy Name
by Tara Malone,
February 13, 2011 - Chicago Tribune
On the eve of Valentine's Day, Helen Moshak pinned rainbow ribbons to her white knit cap and returned to the Roman Catholic Church she left five years ago, dismayed by its opposition to gay marriage when two of her three children are gay. Photo
The 76-year-old Skokie woman did not step foot inside Holy Name Cathedral, the storied seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.
Nor did she join in the picket line of about 60 men and women — her son Damian Moshak and his partner among them — protesting the Catholic Church's stance on gay marriage and other stances they see as unjust to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Rather, Moshak stood across the street from the downtown cathedral and held a sign that read: "Catholic parents of gay kids know that all are equal before God." Photo
"I feel a bit shy. But then again, it's the right thing to do," Moshak said…
Read complete report:
Related links:
Benedict XVI UNSUBSTANTIATED Claims That
same-sex couples violates 'natural law'
Benedict XVI – MUST Provide Documentation
*
Galileo & Gay Marriage
Pope described as …"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"
The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder
Benedict XVI teaches that homosexual activity is sinful is
– NOT
The Catholic Church Teachings.
*
"Authoritarian ≠ Authoritative,
Unsubstantiated Antigay Teachings ≠ Well-informed Conscience"
Gov. Quinn to 'follow conscience' on unions
by Dave McKinney,
December 2, 2010 - Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief
GAY RIGHTS | Says he'll sign bill despite Catholic Church criticism Photo
SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois Senate Wednesday passed landmark civil unions legislation that is now headed to Gov. Quinn, who has pledged to sign it despite new church criticism he would not be a good Roman Catholic in doing so.
"Today was a great day for the people of Illinois, for the family of Illinois,'' Quinn said after the Senate's 32-24 vote for legislation that would make Illinois the sixth state to recognize civil unions between gay and lesbian couples.
The Senate's vote followed House approval Tuesday and came despite criticisms over the measure's potential cost to taxpayers, the likelihood it would lead to legalization of gay marriages and concern that it had trumped fixing the state's budget ills among legislative priorities.
Shortly after the Senate's move, the governor, who is Roman Catholic, got an earful from the head of Springfield's Catholic archdiocese, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, who questioned Quinn's adherence to church teachings…
…Told of the bishop's statement, Quinn shrugged.
"I follow my conscience. I think everyone should do that. I think that's the most important thing to do in life, and my conscience is not kicking me in the shins today,'' the governor told reporters…
…"I have a gay daughter," said state Sen. David Koehler (D-Peoria), the bill's chief Senate sponsor, whose child, Maggie, watched the deliberations from the Senate gallery with her partner.
"I've seen this issue through the eyes of a father who has a gay child. What it means is I have one daughter amongst my three who doesn't have the same rights as the other two, and I don't understand that,'' Koehler said…
Read complete report:
Related links:
More related links:
GAY YOUTH SUICIDE | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS Child Sexual Abuse Cover-ups – Negligence Protecting (1) Children & (2) LGBT Children | Family of Rutgers suicide victim lends name to bill – November 19, 2010 – CNN
JAMAICA | The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?
April 12, 2006 – TIME
…Though familiar to Americans primarily as a laid-back beach destination, Jamaica is hardly idyllic. The country has the world's highest murder rate. And its rampant violence against gays and lesbians has prompted human-rights groups to confer another ugly distinction: the most homophobic place on earth…
FAMILY ACCEPTANCE of LGBT Youth
Protects Against Suicide,
Depression & Substance Abuse
and Predicts Better Health & Self-Esteem
Caitlin Ryan, PhD
Truth Wins Out
Non-profit organization that defends the
GLBT community against
anti-gay misinformation
campaigns through media advocacy
and university outreach.
Gay rights groups attack iPhone confession app for Roman Catholics - by Jamie Doward and Gabriel Stargardter, February 13, 2011 – guardian.co.uk
Peter Tatchell
Human Rights,
Democracy,
Global Justice, LGBTI Freedom
Without love, there can be no liberation worthy of the name."
Peter Tatchell
Read & learn more:
Vatican blocks gay human rights vote at the UN.
Michael Jones
is a Change.org Editor.
He is the former Communications Director for the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, as well as the former Director of Communications for Pax Christi USA, a national Catholic peace and justice organization… Photo
Read more:
Apple: Stand Strong Against Homophobia and Anti-Gay Discrimination - by Michael Jones - December 15, 2010 – Change.org News
Sexual Orientation - Love – Attachment Theory - Internalized Homophobia
Nothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times. Photo
Gay marriage -> Restoring
"Hope of Love"
To Children In Early Childhood
March 23, 2010 – by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Marriage Equality, like Galileo, is the truth about the facts of growing up gay. Marriage Equality will not become a reality until people learn that its most vital purpose is that it restores the “hope of love” to children in early childhood – essential to their development and well-being for life. Without Marriage Equality we teach children how to hate love and how to be mean and indifferent to people as adults. With all due respect, without Marriage Equality we would teach them in much the same way as has been shown by Benedict XVI and the hierarchy, especially in their lack of care and protection of children for decades.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS that gay and lesbian relationships are SINFUL or INFERIOR to heterosexual relationships HARM gays and lesbians. Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling Photo
California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
30 years - Benedict XVI Silencing Homosexuality Worldwide.
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.” Emile Zola
What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. Luke 12:3Iowa’s Catholic Bishops urge legislators to Discriminate Against Adults and Children Who Are Gay – Bishops Lack Substantiating Evidence To Support Claim, February 9, 2011
Is Homophobia Associated With Homosexual Arousal? Photo
Vatican Asking For Male Prostitutes
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”
(Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back.)
The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting... Photo
Pope 'is at centre of Vatican abuse cover-up', says Hans Küng
by Roger Boyes, Berlin,
March 25, 2010 – The Times
Despite outrage, little progress in church scandal
By Robin Washington,
January 2, 2011, Duluth News Tribune
“Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.” Erik Erikson
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
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