Whacko all-male PA group campaigns against same-sex marriage in ME. They think straight marriages performed at City Hall (without God) don't count.

This is too good to wait:

A group of men from Pennsylvania is in Maine this week supporting the concept that marriage is between a man and woman.

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property is based in Pennsylvania. This week the group is in Maine with signs and handouts about marriage.

The group says gay marriage is harmful to society because children do not have a mother and father. They also claim that marriages performed at City Hall, without God present, are not really marriages. However the group is not arguing that issue while in Maine.

Okay, now watch this video:


This is what we're up against. And, this is a group going after straight marriage, too. These fundamentalists really want to control everyone. They're not campaigning against the straight marriages -- yet.

Our ActBlue page for Maine Freedom to Marry is here. We're going to need all the help we can get. Read More...

Just so folks know...

Joe's and my plan for the new blog is to do a few posts a day, on whatever news is happening that you should know about. We don't really want to have ten or twenty posts a day, unless it's a day with massive, and massively important, gay news. Otherwise, like today, we'll have two or three posts, maybe four. Including, hopefully, some more thoughtful posts, like the DADT one below. Hope you enjoy. JOHN

PS And therefore one of the best way to keep up to date on what we're writing is to subscribe to the RSS and/or Twiter feeds at the right, or the email feed (you'll get an email once a day with all of our blog posts). Read More...

Wrong-headed Washington Post editorial on "Don't Ask Don't Tell"

While Joe and I certainly appreciate that today's Washington Post editorial on Don't Ask Don't Tell cites our online chat with Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA), the editorial fails to understand how effective leadership in Washington works.

The Post, at its core, misjudges the power and purpose of the presidency. While it is true that the president cannot introduce legislation - only members of Congress can do that - and it is also true that the president's constitutional role is to sign, or veto, legislation already passed by Congress. But that does not mean, as the Post editorial suggests, that the president has no role whatsoever in passing legislation or, more generally, influencing the legislative process.

As Team Obama is finding out this week, the president has one hell of a bully pulpit. In addition to his powers to run the various executive branch agencies under his command, the president is much more than the leader of a branch of government. He is the leader of our country. He has the ability, the duty, to influence the direction of our nation, including the ability to influence what Congress does and does not do. That is why, for example, there was such a heated discussion about health care reform during the Democratic primaries. Yes, health care reform is under Congress's purview, as they are the ones who have actually introduce, debate, and pass legislation. But implicit in the battle between Hillary and Obama over health care was the recognition that the president could powerfully influence the congressional health care reform process, should he or she choose to do so. Otherwise, it would be irrelevant what our candidates, or presidents, think about any piece of legislation, since they do not have a vote in Congress. (And it would be nonsensical for the White House to ever weigh in, pro or con, on any proposed legislation, when in fact, it does on a regular basis.)

This is what the gay community wants from President Obama. Leadership on our issues, leadership on his campaign promises. Not a simple reiteration that he will support the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the repeal of DOMA, and the passage of ENDA should Congress decide to ever get to it, but rather, as the president has now recognized with the health care reform debate, America wants him to lead the debate over these issues. America wants him to recognize that he has the ability, and the imperative, to lead.

We've begun to see that recognition this week in the health care debate, as Joe wrote earlier this morning. The president is now pulling out all the stops to get a good bill passed. He needs to do the same on his gay rights promises, and his other campaign commitments as well. The Washington Post is flat out wrong when it implies that the best president is an impotent president who sits back and waits for Congress to act on his promises. The best president, the most admired president, the most successful president is the one who leads. Read More...

You need to know Paul Cameron "the grandfather of all anti-gay junk science"

Last weekend, I saw "Bruno." Featured in the film is the anti-gay researcher, Paul Cameron. As soon as the movie was over, I sent an email to Alvin McEwen, who has tracked Cameron for years. Today, Alvin has an important post on Cameron. Alvin is right. Every LGBT and all of our straight allies need to know Paul Cameron -- and be prepared to debunk his junk science:

Not many people in the lgbt community or the world know who Paul Cameron is.

But we all should.

Paul Cameron is the grandfather of all anti-gay junk science.

When the religious right compares us to pedophiles, when they claim that we have a short life span, when they talk about how "how homosexuality has dangerous physical and medical consequences," it's his discredited "data" that they are inferring.

Paul Cameron is probably singlehandedly responsible for every lie, every distortion, every bastardization of science that has plagued the lgbt community since the onset of the AIDS crisis.

The post is worth a read. Cameron keeps rearing his ugly head. Unlike the cameo in Bruno, most of the time, Cameron is given credibility when he should have none. Read More...