Filed under: gay rights | Tags: maine, marriage equality, omaha beach, philip spooner, veteran, world war II, wwII
A moving video of Philip Spooner, an 86 year-old WWII veteran, who testified for gay marriage in Maine. “A woman at my polling place asked me, ‘Do you believe in equality for gay and lesbian people?’ I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me.”
Spooner continues, with candor and compassion: “Finally, I asked her, ‘What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?”
As election day nears, polls show that Maine voters are split on marriage equality: 48% in favor; 48% against. Critics worry about a repeat of the Prop 8 fiasco in California. Now, more than ever, we need to voice our support for marriage equality as clearly as Philip Spooner.
Filed under: gay rights | Tags: bilerico project, cleve jones, gay, marriage equality, national equality march
Prominent gay rights activist Cleve Jones talks with Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project about the National Equality March scheduled for October 10-11 2009 in Washington, DC. Jones addresses criticisms of the march–its apparent lack of focus–and encourages a change in strategy from the state level to the national stage.
Jones, of course, was one of the prominent activists who helped to elect Harvey Milk and collaborated with Dustin Lance Black on the Oscar-winning screenplay of Milk. Seems that he’s fully behind the National Equality March coming up over Columbus Day weekend. With anti-gay sentiment in the Obama administration’s support of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (not to mention DOMA), it’s critical to make the road trip to D.C. to show our numbers to Congress and the nation about the need for LGBT equality.
“I want our people to stop accepting second-class citizenship,” Jones says. “To reject incrementalism, to reject compromise, to reject delay.”
Filed under: gay rights | Tags: jon stewart, gay marriage, ben and jerry's, ben jerry, chubby hubby, marriage equality
Oh, Ben and Jerry. The infamous (and infamously liberal) ice cream company celebrates the legalization of same-sex marriage in their home state of Vermont by renaming their popular “Chubby Hubby” flavor to “Hubby Hubby”. This has been my favorite ice cream flavor–the pretzels and peanut butter perfectly mixed with vanilla ice cream–even before its spanking new name.
In April, Jon Stewart joked about Ben & Jerry’s renaming the flavor in a monologue. Instead of “Chubby Hubby” it would be called “Chubby Hubbies”. Apparently, the B & J folks didn’t go for that one.
