Meet the grooms, Ed and Erwin. They're legally married. And, it matters.

Joann Armao and her colleagues on the Washington Post's editorial board think it's acceptable to elect a NOM-backed homophobe, Delano Hunter, to the D.C. City Council. In fact, the Post endorsed Hunter, noting "Mr. Hunter is not a supporter of marriage equality." Marriage equality matters to real people.

Armao and her colleagues should read the featured wedding story in today's Post. It tells the story of Ed Urbaniak and Erwin Lobo, who got married in DC in August. They're the parents of two young boys. And, Erwin is fighting a deadly cancer. Marriage equality matters:

"Everyone knows their time is finite, but you think about it more when something like this happens," says Urbaniak. "Make sure you do today what you can't do tomorrow."

Lobo wept as he followed Urbaniak and their sons down a path between 50 friends, all dressed in white, who'd gathered in the sunlit garden of the Meridian House on Aug. 14. Urbaniak's parents watched via webcam as the men promised to care for each other in sickness and health. Urbaniak's parents would have been there, but his father had learned that he had lung cancer.

The day was, in Lobo's words, "a celebration of life."

"I'm very, very lucky," he says. "A lot of people just leave their homes and get shot or get in an accident. They won't have the chance to say goodbye to their families."

Lobo worries that he won't be able to repay the caring Urbaniak has given him. But he worries more about leaving the two young boys at the heart of their union.

"It's unfair for them to lose me at this time," he says. "That's why I'll hold on until I can't."

Take a few minutes to watch the video. It's a tear-jerker.
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Christian Conservatives Protest Marriage Equality in Sacramento, CA

As Joe pointed out with the classic "The Defenders (of Traditional Marriage)", one would think the Talibangelicals would get tired of exposing their hypocrisy when trying to pin the destruction of traditional marriage on "the gays," but you would be wrong:

Thousands of Christian conservatives spent 12 hours Saturday praying and fasting in front of the state Capitol at a gathering organizers described as spiritual repentance "when there is no hope for a nation."

The daylong religious event titled, "TheCall to Conscience," was led by Lou Engle as well as other pastors and speakers to protest gay marriage, pornography and abortion. Many of those attending slapped red "Life" stickers over their shirts and set up blankets and folding chairs facing a large stage with banners that read: "Only One Hope God."

People close to the front of the stage held up their hands when called to prayer. They jumped and danced to musical performances between sermons. The gathering filled the west lawn of the state Capitol and hundreds of people spilled into the next block, but the rest of Capitol Mall's five-block-long lawn went unused despite large screens and barricades set up for the occasion.

What will it take to ever convince these rubes it is their serial marriages, and their own ridiculous hypocrisy that has destroyed society's evolved, formulated supposedly traditional idea of opposite sex marriage that has evolved to include serial marriages, multiple divorces and mix and match step-families? Like many, I come from a combined step-family, with half siblings, but don't try to feed me the line LGBT's couples can't have our own definition of family when opposite sex couples can't seem to settle on what constitutes "traditional marriage and family" except for their ridiculous assertion it has something to do with the couple's private parts.

Certain conservative Evangelicals, like liar and hypocrite, Lou Engle, always need an external enemy, right? Seriously, the opposite sex crowd haven't provided consistent good examples for a supposedly unique institution deserving of special rights now have they? What has worked for one opposite sex family certainly doesn't work for other's no matter how much they want to claim it is some kind of "cookie cutter" institution in danger of being lost. It is long past time for us to have our equal rights realized. Our American LGBT children, family's and our partner's deserve nothing less than the same rights those who want to continue to oppress us enjoy. Read More...

Kerry Eleveld explains to the Wash. Post what homophobia means in 2010.

In this week's "View from Washington," Kerry Eleveld takes the Washington Post to task for its editorial endorsement of NOM-backed candidate Delano Hunter. (My post on the Post is here.)

This is an especially good column because it explains what homophobia means in 2010. And, it calls out the usual B.S. arguments used by those who oppose full equality:

First off, can we please drop the canard that allowing certain people to marry each other somehow impinges on certain other people’s religious freedoms? No one will be forcing churches or religious leaders to perform same-sex ceremonies against their will, and people will undoubtedly maintain their right to worship as they choose completely free of government interference—as they always have. And for the Post to suggest that recognizing marriage equality necessarily conflicts with the beliefs of all religious groups is completely disingenuous, especially after nearly 200 religious leaders in the district stood with the multifaith group D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality.

But perhaps more to the point, it’s time for mainstream America to realize that endorsing politicians who claim to support “equality” for LGBT Americans but not marriage equality is tantamount to aiding and abetting homophobia; that they are mounting a direct attack on the love shared by fellow tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who want to make lifelong commitments to care for one another; that they are relegating people they work with, live with, and, yes, worship with, to second-class status.

There is no gray any longer, no hair-splitting, no rationalization or triangulation that suffices anymore. If you don’t support same-sex marriage, you don’t support equality and that is quite simply homophobic.

Sure, some pols are more virulently homophobic than others, but the outcome is the same: equality denied.

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