Dance

Tonight is the LGBT dance at our church that we have been planning for the past 3 months.
I'm both excited and nervous.
It is our group's first dance in a very long time (and our first ever) so I am hoping it is successful. In the past, dances have hosted anywhere between 200-300 people. At $10/ticket, that's a great donation to our local LGBT drop-in center. I just want to make enough money to cover our costs. Anything above and beyond is bonus!

In case you missed it...

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Warning: political post

(x-posted from my lj)

On the way home tonight, I was struck by a story aired during All Things Considered on NPR about "Milk", a new movie starring Sean Penn about openly gay 70's politician Harvey Milk. I have always known of Harvey Milk, but never knew much detail. I knew he was an LGBT rights activist, the first gay elected official in the nation, and that he was assassinated in '78. What I didn't know is just how much of a voicebox he was for our community. He helped strike down Proposal 6, which was aimed at keeping the LGBT from teaching in public schools. He encouraged the LGBT community to come out of the closet so that the general public could see that we really are just like everyone else, we just love differently.

It got me thinking about Prop 8 and the other anti-gay amendments passed recently, as well as all of the anti-gay marriage amendments passed in 2004 - including in Michigan. I am inspired and moved by the wave of outrage after Prop 8 passed in California, but I think we are too easily forgetting the measures that were also passed in Arizona, Arkansas and Florida. Should we not be equally as outraged for what happened in those states? And furthermore, where was this outrage and series of protests in 2004 when Michigan and several other states added discrimination to their state constitutions? Don't we deserve some protest and media coverage? Aren't the measures passed in our states just as outrageous, or is it only because California is supposedly a more "progressive" state and the rest of us are supposed to lie down and take it (no pun intended) just because our states were at one time considered more "conservative"?

Where is OUR Harvey Milk? Sure there's Barney Frank, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen Degeneres and Melissa Etheridge, but they're more like celebrities that happen to be gay. I don't feel like the LGBT community has one person to unify our movement and bring us to equality. The religious right has James Dobson and mormons. Black civil rights leaders include Martin Luther King Jr and Jesse Jackson. We had Harvey Milk until he was assassinated. Where is our Harvey Milk of today?

I've read several articles and blogs written by members of the LGBT community recently and there seems be one resounding message: indifference. We were all so pre-occupied with getting Obama elected (which is fantastic by the way, and by no means am I trying to take away from its importance) that we stupidly assumed the LGBT equality movement could survive on the back-burner. Now everyone's up in arms about Prop 8 passing. I feel like if we had a Harvey Milk, our fight for equality would have NEVER been a backseat issue this election.

/soapbox.

Comments? Theories?

P.S. If you haven't yet seen it go watch Keith Olberman's commentary on the passing of Prop 8 in California on YouTube. It brought tears to my eyes.

Reminder to self

Status on Joey

(copied from my LJ)

Joey had his check-up yesterday with the vet. She seemed to be pleased with his progress, but told me that his road to recovery is likely to be a long one. Here's a rundown of what we discussed, good and not so good:

• He's not dehydrated any more
• He lost an ounce from his discharge weight (ugh!). He's currently 7lbs, 9oz. Normally he ranges anywhere from 10-12lbs.
  
• His energy is up a little
• He's still not eating on his own yet
• They call him "polite Joey" because the other Joey cat they were watching is apparently a jerk. You know your animal spends too much time at the vet when they start giving it nicknames. Although it's very sweet that they all love him so much (it's kind of hard not to).
• His "girlfriends" all came in to see us while we were there - I told you this cat is a ladies man!
• The vet gave him an orange bandage and a pumpkin sticker for Halloween. Cute!
• The vet also told me that we can drop him off for kitty daycare to help out with his feedings during the day. This will help us immensely.
  

As for us, we are both exhausted. I might win the least amount of sleep award though, because I've been the one waking up for his midnight feedings for the past 5 nights. That has meant a total of about 4 hours of sleep per night on the days I work. I'm off today, and J took the early morning feeding (God bless her) so I could catch up a little. She's also taking over the midnight feeding tonight because I work tomorrow and she is off. She's so wonderful.

In other news, Maggie, Jake and Gracie all realize there is a shift in the house - Maggie especially. She's been so antsy without her buddy to play with, so I've been trying to go out of my way to give her a little more attention and playtime when the rest are asleep. I think she appreciates it, especially when she climbs onto my lap at the end of the night to thank me with her big warm belly spread across my legs. Jake & Grace just want to know what's up with the weird smell coming out of the spare room (Joey's still not quite bathing himself completely, but he's getting better at it).

In other news, election day in the US is just around the corner and things are getting down to the wire. I really hope that two things happen on November 4th. First, I don't think it's any secret that we are big time Obama fans in this house. We need him to win and start turning this country around. (And I'm not just saying this because Sarah Palin makes me want to stick hot pokers into my ears everytime I hear her speak.) Secondly, we need California to maintain their equality so that other states can follow suit and eventually we may all be protected. Our families deserve protection everywhere, but it has to start somewhere. So, here's my plea to you, dear interets, to please Barack The Vote on November 4th. Or I will Rick-roll your comment sections. Heh.

/soapbox.

Amen, my friend!

Caroline over at the Family Equality Council blog just made a great post invoking a strong call to action for the LGBT community this election. To that I say, A-MEN.

Copied from my LJ

I wrote this in my LJ, but I thought it would be just as relevant over here. Basically, Mike Huckabee is an ass. Here's why:

First read on the DailyKos (which is turning out to be my new favorite blog), Mike Huckabee replied in an interview for GQ that gay marriage would end the world as we know it. And he'd feel fine, apparently.

Let's take a look at the question and his initial response:

(GQ) Is the strategy shifting because social conservatives are losing on those core issues? Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to have gay marriage even in liberal Massachusetts. Now it’s there.

(MH) I don’t think the issue’s about being against gay marriage. It’s about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that’s important. You have to have a basic family structure. There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. So there is a sense in which, you know, it’s one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that’s their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that’s an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square. And if you look at states that have had it on the ballot—I know in our state it was a 70-percent-against issue. Most states are similar to that.

Ok, what? I won't list all the different ways "marriage" has been rewritten over the past umpteen centuries; DailyKos does a good job of that. But I'm pretty sure this next quote seals the deal in my feeling that Mike Huckabee is truly and undoubtedly a complete ass:

(GQ) I just wonder what you’d say to the gay couple who says, “Well, we want to live this way, and my partner can’t come visit me in a nursing home.”

(MH) He can with a power of attorney. That’s the fallacy, that this requires some new definition of marriage. It’s simply not the case.

First, I love how he automatically assumes the gay couple in question is male. That is just irritating on its own.

I would love to take Mike into the real world and show him that a power of attorney does NOT guarantee anything to a gay person if they're partner is deceased. How is it fair that a couple who has been together for a significant period of time has to jump through unbelievable amounts of legal hoops and court systems to protect themselves (not to mention the amount of money it takes to do that) when Britney Spears can have all 1100 legal protections handed to her in a fly-by-night Vegas marriage?

People like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney scare me, because they are the fear mongers that perpetuate stereotypes and ignorance in the American people and make it harder for people like me and Julie and all of our friends to be accepted in society.

It's erfing ridiculous.

My friend A responded over in my lj with a link to this, a fantabulous opinion in the NY Times about just how much "marriage" has evolved over the past few centuries. It's truly fascinating to think that today, with all of the information floating around out there, that there are still ignorant people like Mike Hickabee who still see the world as flat.

Hopefully by the time our potential children are old enough to understand they won't have as tough a battle to fight as we do.

Because it's my day off and I've crossed the threshold into obsession

In an effort to kill some time, I've been doing a lot of reading at this computer this morning. My eyes are starting to water and my butt is getting sore from sitting in the same spot for so long (how do you people with desk jobs do it?!). But I found a slew of awesome, mainstream, political, LGBT parenting blogs this morning including gems like:

Mombian
Lesbian Dad
The Family Equality Council Blog
Queercents

I've found an enormous amount of valuable information, including a spot on Mombian instructing straights how to behave when encountering a couple of lesbian parents (my favorite line? "Lesbian. Say the word." ha!)

But it was this post on Lesbian Dad that had me absolutely rolling in my seat with laughter. I'm sure many of you have read it and know which post I'm talking about already. But for those of you who don't and haven't, I present to you : The Turkey Baster Has No Clothes. (J - be ready to hold your cheeks and say "woooooooo"!)