Writing on Death By 1000 Papercuts, “Red State Gal” adds herself to the list of conservatives who think that Glenn Beck has gone totally and utterly loopy by deciding to move away from condoning gay marriage and concluding it will cause the world to explode.

Saying that he, as a man, does not truly understand the problems that gay marriage pose she then goes on to explain just exactly why any of us gay types getting married will do the world harm stating that same sex marriage will act to prove that “individual and societal happiness is not dependent upon forming loving, equal partnerships with the other half of the human race“  and threaten every woman in the United States (personallywe don’t quite see how gay marriage will act to threaten all the gay women of the US or indeed any but anyway..).

Moving onto gay parenting there’s nearly a compliment when she says that gays can “certainly be great parents” but soon enough is taking it all back saying we act to teach children that no one needs a mother or father before picking on Neil Patrick Harris and his partner saying how they’ve “bought eggs and rented a womb in order to have twins” and by doing so are causing the “erasure of motherhood”.

And then we return to Beck once more where first she criticises him for not being a good Christian asking him when this standing back and letting things happen will end, using the shocking example of a time when, shock horror, “Disney creates its first “princess-princess” or “prince-prince” love story”, to then deciding the man is using some kind of reverse psychology urging everyone back to church to rediscover just how bad gay marriage is.

Nearly coming to her senses towards the end by concluding that “(m)aybe conservatives cannot stop same-sex marriage” she then begins condoning home schooling as the only real way to ensure their children never hear a word of gay marriage. Umm sounds like they’re going to come out as great rounded individuals…

Now really we don’t know where to start on all this so we’re going to hand it over to Eric, one of the commentators on the post, who does a great job of putting Red State Girl in her place.

So let me get this right. The big reason to be against same sex marriage is that it will some how prevent kids from being gay. That didn’t work out so well for the 30 million mothers who currently have gay children. Blocking same sex marriage isn’t going to magically turn gays straight. Let’s be honest making marriage availible to the LGBT community really won’t stop them from living together and raising children. It’s going to happen no matter what the marriage laws are. Taught in schools? What is preventing sexual orientation from being taught there now? Christianity? Only 70% of Americans think of themselves as Christian and Hindus and Buddists have very different veiws on sexuality. It’s time for conservatives to put thier energy where they have a chance of winning, and a chance to actually make a difference.

Photo credit: Chego101

The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck has said that her change of heart over gay marriage came about following a dinner with the lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge.

Saying that she’d spent hours discussing the issue with Etheridge, she then when on to say that anyone who thinks they are against gay marriage should actively try to talk to someone who has either been in a same sex marriage, or wants to have one and then see how they feel about the issue:

“I think there are a lot of, maybe, conservatives out there who are talking about gay marriage and not necessarily with someone who wants to have gay marriage or has been in a gay marriage,”

“You know, I had Melissa Etheridge over, we had dinner, we talked for hours about gay marriage, and I would really challenge people: Get out there. Instead of just talking about it and hating on it, actually talk to someone who’s loved someone else and have the conversation about what can be done.”

Via Showbiz Spy

When Elisabeth Hasselbeck revealed she was in support of gay marriage in an interview earlier this week, the thing she seemed to be most concerned about was  a negative reaction from the gay community. The reality though is it’s her conservative friends who actually have the problem with Americans for Truth About Homosexuality not only saying they disagree, but going as far as to condemn her saying she is abandoning her conservative and Christian principles.

Taking to their website to sking their supporters to contact Elisabeth to make her change her mind on the issue, AFTAH have also published a piece on their site where they not only call her a “pro-gay marriage sellout” who appears to “lack the courage to defend politically incorrect truths”, but also act to criticise her views on abortion and her disregard of the “timeless truth of Book of Genesis”.

Well with conservative friends like that around you, who needs enemies!

It should be noted AFTAH later published an apology for what they’d written and how wrong it was. Sadly however the only thing they felt they’d done wrong was spell her name wrong..

If you’ve ever seen the American show “The View” (it’s like “Loose Women but with better guests..) then you’ve probably spent a good part of that time getting annoyed by Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her super conservative views. Well frankly you’re not the only one.  She has been winding up the LGBT community for some of the things she’s come out with (for example she asked Portia De Rossi why the words “gay marriage” were so important and wasn’t it a bit like a woman saying she wanted to be as man when fighting for equal rights). However right now there seems to be a whole lot of gay love in the air for Hasselbeck, why?

Because Ms Uber conservative Elizabeth has, via in an interview with Fancast, come out in support of gay marriage, saying that whilst she does “ultra-ultra conservative” views in some areas, there are definitely others they don’t, and one of those is gay marriage.  However before you think she’s gone completely gay loving, you’d be wrong, as eve she seems rather defensive about her view:

I think the gay marriage thing would definitely surprise people. I mean, for some people, it will surprise them to the point that they won’t want to hear it. “No, that can’t be, I really want to have this sort of idea of her in my head,” so I sort of rain on their parade there.

Well actually Elisabeth we’re happy to prove you wrong. Yes we, as a community, have criticised you in the past, and frankly on many occasions it’s been for good reason, however being a group of people who know what it’s like to speak out and be saying things that others around you may not want to hear, we think you’re pretty darn cool for doing it and far from raining on our parade, you’ve brought a nice bit of Sun instead.

Two registrars from Lambeth council are under investigation after allegedly informally re-organising rotas to ensure that they didn’t have to conduct any civil partnership ceremonies claiming that they didn’t do it because it went against their religious beliefs.

Exposed after a registrar for the council apparently used it as example during a talk as part of a ‘diversity training’ seminar to demonstrate good practice and a gay member of the staff reported it to the  council’s chief executive, Derrick Anderson, the case was then taken up by Liberal Democrat councillor Brian Palmer, who himself had a civil partnership at Lambeth in 2005, who wrote to the leader of the council Steve Reed questioning if he was aware that registrars were “apparently circumventing Lambeth’s publicly stated equalities standards and the law by refusing to conduct civil partnerships”

Responding to Palmer’s complaint , Labour leader Steve Reed said that the council would definitely not tolerate any such bigotry and has said that he has spoken to the chief executive to ensure all members of staff were aware of their ‘ “contractual obligation to provide services equally to all residents who are entitled to use them and to ensure all managers are making this happen”

Via Daily Mail / Photo credit: Jeff Belmonte

So when you woke up this morning and read the news that gay marriage is banned in California once more you probably thought that you’d gone to sleep and somehow magically gone back in time a couple of months.

Well unless you’re reading this in November then you haven’t, what has actually happened is that the Ninth Court has now smacked on down another ban which now means that it’s going to be at least December before there’s going to be any sign of a gay old marriage in California now.

So why the devil have they done it? Well one reason could be because the Ninth Court want to do a legal version of the Hokey Cokey with the issue of gay marriage but it’s not actually that at all it seems to be all about working out who can actually appeal against the lifting of Proposition 8 with the three judges appearing to be not sure that an appeal by the backers of Proposition 8 is actually even legal.

Still confused? Well don’t worry it took us a while too, but basically the issue is that the backers of Proposition 9 weren’t the defenders named when the case was brought to the courts. That was California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and attorney general Jerry Brown, two men who have no want to appeal the decision by Judge Walker and have in fact offered their support for the lifting. This means that it could said that the backers of Prop 8 may not have the standing to even be recognized by the court, let alone appeal it which not only means they can’t stop the Ninth Court allowing gay marriage but they would have no standing to take it to the Supreme.

So basically what appears at first to be a big negative could actually be a huge positive, though the way things having gone over the last few weeks we won’t be holding our breath…

Photo credit: bkulser

With Judge Walker’s decision in the Proposition 8 case having the potential to bring back gay marriage to California as soon as today, it looks like things are starting to get moving again on the fight for marriage equality not only in the US, but also across the world as other lawmakers look to the state and country whilst making their own decisions about what to do on the issue. For most their decision will be based on what they believe their people want as opposed to educating them on why gay marriage should be just as accepted as heterosexual marriage. Luckily for us all though, there are a number of pro gay marriage organisations and supporters not so willing to just sit back and twiddle their thumbs, and have instead come up with some incredible powerful pro gay marriage videos that act to do just that:

1. Sinead’s Hand

2. Big Lie

3. Let California Ring

4. Hello, I’m No On Prop 8

Bjorn Borg’s Love For All

Photo credit: CarbonNYC

The UK is lucky. We have Civil Partnerships that allow us rights equal to that of heterosexual couples. It’s something that a lot of people in a lot of countries and states only dream of. It’s something that each and every gay and lesbian person in the land appreciates. However as much as there is to celebrate about it there are still issues about it. Still inequalities that shouldn’t exist, and it is for that reason that a growing movement is starting to say that Civil Partnerships aren’t enough any more. Now it’s time for full equality and for gay marriage to be voted in, and the voices in support are getting louder and more powerful as these five high profile gay marriage supporters prove:

1. London Mayor Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson might not have a seat in Parliament any more, but his position as Mayor of London still makes him a powerful figure in England’s capital and the Conservative Party so it’s a big positive to have him speaking out in favour of gay marriage at Pride London and saying he believes it was a real possibility. Not such a big one that the Greater London Authority then tried to backtrack on it somewhat…

2.  Gay Rights Campaigner Peter Tatchell

It’s relatively unsurprising that Peter Tatchell is in support of gay marriage in the UK, but it is incredibly important that he is. One of the loudest voices in the gay rights world, if anyone is going to force people to stop and listen it’s Tatchell. And he made his point to the Independent very clear stating:Lets face it, marriage is the gold standard. Civil partnerships are marriage lite for queers. They are second best. No thanks”.

3. Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg has in the past been vocal in his support of gay marriage telling the Pink News that “Yes, I support gay marriage. Love is the same, straight or gay, so the civil institution should be the same, too. All couples should be able to make that commitment to one another.” On the downside it doesn’t seem to be an issue he has any enthusiasm to push for, but  if others do then having the Deputy Leader on our side could act to be a HUGE positive.

4. Labour MP Chris Byrant

Bryant may not have got the LGBT community the best publicity ever when a photo of him was discovered on the gay dating Gaydar in underwear, but he has also shown himself to be highly committed to pushing the issue of gay marriage recently introducing an amendment in the House of Lords that would look to make it a reality.

5. Conservative MP Margot James

One Conservative in support of gay marriage is surprising enough, but to have to is nearly faint worthy. It isn’t however too much of a surprise concerning James who is an out lesbian politician. It does however act to further push the issue forward, something James seems determined to do telling The Times that “Public opinion is on our side. The government and most MPs are out of touch. An opinion poll conducted by Populous and published by The Times last June found that 61% of the British public support same-sex civil marriage.”

Oh and we mentioned an anti gay marriage supporter didn’t we…

Well that would be none other than Mr Elton John who told USA Today he didn’t want to be gay married and that “I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership … The word marriage, I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.”

Photo by Luke Gillam

The European Court of Human Rights in Brussels have rejected a case by Austrian gay couple Horst Michael Schalk and Johann Franz Kopfa who argued that their human rights had been violated because the state had not allowed them to get married.  Able to enter into legally recognised partnerships that carry some but not all of the rights of marriage, the men argued that they were being treated as lesser people because of this.

A panel of seven judges however acted to disagree ruling inanimously that gay couples were not covered by the guarantee of the right to marry in Europe’s human rights convention and that whilst there was “an emerging European consensus towards legal recognition of same-sex couples,” it currently should be left to the individual states of Europe to work out what that is.

Via Fox News. photo by CarbonNYC

Freedom To Marry are celebrating LGBT Pride month by releasing a new video to educate and get people talking about the issue of marriage equality across the whole of the United States.

Focusing on issues like the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, the video doesn’t, like many gay marriage opponents, go on the attack about the issue, but instead highlights how the LGBT community isn’t looking to change anyone else’s world but just make ours that little bit more equal.

You can sign their pledge calling for marriage equality for all at the Freedom to Marry website.