Hooray for Argentina!

They’ve really come a long way down in Argentina since the dark days of Peron and his cronies. Now they’ve become the first country in South America to legalize gay marriage. This now means that in Canada, Argentina, Mexico City and five US states, gays can marry, plus a few locations elsewhere. Here’s a handy graph from Nate Silver.

The weird spike is caused by California legalizing and then unlegalizing it.

Anyhow, this is certainly wonderful progress! It’s not everything and it certainly isn’t enough, but for now it’s pretty damn great!

Oh, and for something less great, yet morbidly amusing, check this on the DADT policy.

Gay Marriage News

A federal judge has issued a sensible ruling. The ruling was on the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and it said that the act violates the 10th Amendment, which reserves certain powers for the states.

From the New York Times:

“The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid,” Tauro wrote in a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Damn fine ruling.

Of course it’s going to be challenged. Look for it in the Supreme Court in the next year or so. When it gets there, I’m pretty sure they’ll do the expected ruling, which is to say that states don’t have to legalize gay marriage, but they do have to recognize any legal marriage from another state/territory. It’s the only real sensible, Constitutionally sound ruling they can make. Plus once that’s done, I can start really working on the someone special in my life. Who is probably cringing on reading that.

So, yeah, minor progress, but progress nevertheless.

More on the McDonald’s Ad

Courtesy of the Dish.

Bill O’Reilly made some obnoxious remarks about it the other day. See here:

Dan Savage is a little irked.

Because, you know, gay teenagers with schoolboy crushes on classmates and the kind of Islamic fundamentalism that inspires Islamic regimes to execute gay teenagers and Islamic immigrants to bash gays and lesbians in France—hey, pretty much the same thing.

Eh. I understand his point, but I’m pretty sure O’Reilly was simply making a very stupid, poor-taste joke. It was a dumb thing for him to have said. I doubt he’ll apologize for it; that’s just not his style. But I won’t take it seriously, either.

One other point Savage makes:

I also have to take issue with that statement by the French McDonald’s executive: “There’s obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today.” If that’s the case… why isn’t this insanely cute gay teenager out to his gruff-but-loving dad? If the ad had ended with the teenager saying, “Dad, there’s something I have to tell you…” and then we saw Dad lean across the table as the camera pulled back to put a hand on his son’s shoulder in a clearly supportive manner, well, maybe then you could argue that everything’s wonderful for gays in France.

Yeah, I guess my original comments on the whole thing are a little Pollyanna-eqsue. I keep forgetting that just because I, and everyone I’ve known, had an easy time dealing with my parents when I came out, that doesn’t mean everyone does. Hell, that’s part of the crux of a novel I’m working on.

Shut up, Stewie.

Slightly Less Evil in Malawi

Back a few days ago I wrote about an incredibly evil move by the Malawian government to punish a consenting, adult, gay couple with 14 years of prison and hard labor.

Well, now comes the good news that they’ve been pardoned by the country’s president. But the bad news? If they resume their relationship at any point they can be re-arrested and charged once more.

But Patricia Kaliati, Malawi’s Minister of Gender and Children, said Monjeza and Chimbalanga’s release did not mean they could continue their relationship.

“It doesn’t mean that now they are free people, they can keep doing whatever you keep doing,” she said.

Charming. Yes, just because you are adults doesn’t mean you have the freedom to have a relationship with each other. Also, Ministry of Gender and Children? What the hell?

Here’s what the President of Malawi had to say when pardoning them:

“In all aspects of reasoning, in all aspects of human understanding, these two gay boys were wrong – totally wrong,” he said.

Listen, uhm… sorry, I didn’t bother to pay attention to your name, so I’ll just call you President Jerk. Listen, Jerk, first, they are men, not boys. They have the right to have whatever relationship with each other they want.

Second, don’t tar everyone with your stupid brush. It is not true that in “all aspects of reasoning,” and “human understanding” that they were wrong. They were not. Your stupid, evil little government was wrong for punishing them for an imaginary crime that hurt no one. Yes, it’s great that you pardoned them, but you’re still an little slug in charge of a government of little slugs and your asinine persecution of gays needs to stop and stop now.

I still find it appalling that any nation, much less one with as many problems as Malawi, bothers to waste time dealing with fake crimes like being gay. I guess it’s much easier than dealing with real ones, like massive government corruption.

Do We Have a Right to Know?

Now why would anyone think she's a lesbian?

President Obama has picked Elena Kagan to be the next Supreme Court justice. Aside from any questions about her political leanings (from what I can tell she’s more liberal than the conservatives would like and more conservative than the liberals would like), there’s a 500 pound gorilla in the room that the media doesn’t want to touch.

Is Kagan a lesbian?

The answer is, “probably”. We don’t know for sure, and no one has asked her. If we ask her, “Are you Jewish?” she’ll say, “Yes.” But I’m sure if someone asked, “Are you a lesbian?” she’d ramble off onto some non-answer about how that’s part of her personal life and not really anyone’s business, which will translate into, “yes, I am,” without her actually saying she is.

I’m partly inclined to agree that it’s not anyone’s business. But I do come back to the Jewish thing. Is it any of my business that she’s Jewish? Does that make a bit of difference? Not really, but it’s something every article on her points out.

But no mainstream article on her brings up the gay question. Surely having the first-ever openly gay justice on the court would be a major issue akin to having the first Jew on the court (which happened some time ago), but since no one is asking the question, she doesn’t have to be open about it.

She should be. She should tell us firmly, “yes, I am,” or “no, I’m not”. But she won’t tell cause no one in the mainstream media will ask. But they should. We have the right to know about that just as much as we do about her religion, and that’s something everyone is talking about.

So ask the damn question.

In Today’s Issue of Unsurprising News

Ricky Martin has come out. Cue the sounds of shock and surprise, etc. I guess that’s one advantage to having your career stall: you no longer need to be appealing to all the women out there.

Gay Kid-Vid?

You be the judge, but don’t be judgmental!

The State of Gay Marriage

As of today, New Hampshire has joined four other states in allowing gay marriage. Good for them! They’re apparently the most conservative of the New England states, and I’m happy to see them getting with the program.

It’s been an odd time recently for gay marriage. We lost the battles in California and Maine (both of which we should’ve won), and got a surprise from DC when gay marriage was legalized there (the law has not yet taken effect). There’s also more “marriage, but we aren’t calling it marriage, because we still want to discriminate against the gays” in places like Washington State, where I fully expect the state supreme court will soon rule that refusing to call it marriage for the purpose of discrimination can’t be done and, much like in California, gay marriage will be made legal.

The fight goes on. We have equality in less than 10% of the country right now. Until there’s a law putting gay marriages on equal footing on a national level, even the state gay marriages don’t have the same legal standing. If I marry a man from, say, England, that man doesn’t have the same right to remain in this country as a woman from there would. The IRS also doesn’t recognize same-sex couples.

But progress is made. Hopefully this year we’ll add another state or two to the roster and, in time, the Supreme Court will likely issue a ruling that says while states don’t have to allow gay marriage, they do have to recognize legal marriages performed in other states. It’s something to look forward to.

¡Buen Trabajo, Ciudad de México!

I see that gay rights are gaining traction in Central America now. Yep, Mexico City has become the first city in Latin America to legalize gay marriage! Excellent job, guys! Now hopefully our capital, which has legalized it, will be allowed to keep it legal!

Five States and One District Down, 45 States and 6 Territories to Go!

I always thought this a mildly dull flag, but I'll change my mind for now!

So the DC city council, by a vote of 11-2, which is astonishing even to me, has decided to allow gay marriage in the District!

This is nothing but a good thing, especially following recent setbacks in Maine and New York (though we also had a small triumph in Washington which is likely to result in a court ruling making gay marriage legal in that state as well). It’s also going to create a fascinating “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” thing with Congress.

See, legally DC is Congress’ bitch. Any laws they pass, Congress can override. This includes this fine little law allowing gay marriage.

So the choice our Democratic-controlled Congress faces is this: do they allow this law to go through and then have to explain to people in their home states why it’s ok for gays to get married in DC but not in whatever state they’re from (assuming they aren’t from one of the five that allow gay marriage), or do they override it and have to explain to people back home why they interfered with local politics and forced a discriminatory move on people who don’t want it?

Either way, expect this to add more fuel to the fight to make DC a state, especially if Congress blocks the law.

It’ll be interesting to see where this goes. It’s nice that, for a chance, people in the District will actually have more rights than those elsewhere in the country.