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Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organizations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, September 28

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Here is this week’s rundown of what’s happening with the four marriage ballot campaigns:

Maryland Question 6: If passed, Question 6 will provide marriage equality while guaranteeing that “each religious faith has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine regarding who may marry within that faith.” Marylanders for Marriage Equality is fighting for Question 6’s passage. Last Friday, Rev. Delman Coates of Clinton, Md., hosted a news conference at the National Press Club featuring nearling a dozen prominent African-American clergy, including Rev. Al Sharpton, to endorse Question 6. As Rev. Sharpton put it, “It’s not about forcing people that have religious views to do something they don’t agree with, it’s about truly believing that we are all equal under the law. Religious groups must still be able to maintain their spiritual and moral option to either give or withhold a religious or sacred blessing to such unions.” Gov. Martin O’Malley lent his hand in the fundraising effort to pass Question 6, saying, “We do need to raise another couple of million dollars, and if we’re able to do that I believe that we will pass this. And raising those dollars is critically important for our ability to be able to defend this at the ballot.” Toward that end, Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, who came out as a strong supporter for Question 6, will host a Monday Night Football party, with Marylanders for Marriage Equality holding a raffle for a chance to attend.

What you can do: You can enter a raffle for a chance to attend Ayanbadejo’s Monday Night Football party, sign up for a volunteer vacation in Maryland, commit to volunteering during their Weekends of Action, or donate here.

Maine Marriage Initiative: A “Yes” vote on Question 1 will allow same-sex couples to marry in Maine. Mainers United for Marriage is the main campaign behind the initiative. This week, they released an ad featuring four firefighters, one of whom is gay, talking about why they’re all voting “Yes” on Question 1.  The Christian Civil League is already trotting out the ususal junk science: “When a girl doesn’t have a father to fill that role she’s more likely to become promiscuous in a misguided attempt to satisfy her inborn hunger for male attention and validation.” And in a conference call to Question 1 opponents, Frank Schubert, an out-of-state consultant who led California’s campaign to pass Proposition 8, slipped up and called himself the “manager” of the campaign in Maine.

What you can do: Ever wanted to see New England’s famed fall colors? You can do that when you sign up for a volunteer vacation or donate miles so someone else can travel. You can also buy stuff from their online store, or you can donate here.

Minnesota Marriage Amendment: The ballot proposal to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage is known simply as “the marriage amendment.” Minnesotans United for All Families is the main group fighting against the amendment’s passage in November. This past week, they’ve released their second television ad after the first one began airing last Thursday. Minnesota Congressman Tim Walz and co-chairs Jeff and Lori Wilfahrt, whose son was a gay soldier who died in Afghanistan in 2011, launched Veterans United at the State Capitol. The new coalition, which will mobilize veterans who oppose limiting the freedom to marry in the state constitution, began its statewide tour this week. Meanwhile, Catholic bishops in Minnesota sent letters to 400,000 Catholic households asking for them to donate money to Minnesota for Marriage, the group fighting to write discrimination into the state’s constitution. Chuck Darrell, who serves as Minnesota for Marriage’s Communications Director, said that the only way for the proposed amendment to fail would be if amendment opponents “find a whole lot of atheists.”

What you can do: Login with your Facebook account and starting using the new kNOw Tool to help identify “no” voters that you know, you can sign up to volunteer, sign up to run the Big Gay Race on Saturday, or simply donate here.

Washington Referendum 74: If Referendum 74 is approved, same-sex couples will be able to marry just like everone else in Washington state. Washington United for Marriage has put up a new its television ad this past week, and just yesterday they held a press conference featuring several faith leaders announcing their support for R74. All told, R74 has the support of more than 120 faith groups across Washington. Meanwhile, NOM has officially donated $250,000 to Preserve Marriage Washington, whose campaign chair, Joseph Backholm, recently went on record with more questionable claims about Washington’s bipartisan marriage law during a debate on broadcast television in Seattle. The Approve 74 campaign wasted no time unleashing a little marriagefactcheck.com on his assertions.

What you can do: You create your own “Raising Millions for Marriage” page to encourage your family, freinds and neighbors to help support the fight for marriage equality, sign up for one of 50 weekly phone banks across Washington, or you can donate here.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Cumbria, UK; Gainesville, FL; Hong Kong, China; Moab, UT; Richmond, VA; Sedona/Cottonwood, AZ; Soweto, South Africa.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Ann Arbor, MI; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Jackson, MI; San Deigo, CA; Wilmington/Rehoboth, DE.

Other Events This Weekend: Get Wet, Willemstad, Curaçao; Everybody’s Perfect LGBTIQ Film Festival, Geneva Switzerland; Queer Lisboa Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal; Queer Fest 2012, St. Petersburg, Russia.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
A Same-Sex Marriage in Nevada: 1877. The LGBT acronym that we often toss about reflects the fact that we today understand ourselves as though we were measured along two distinct axis. The first axis (the L/G/B one) speaks of the gender of those to whom we are attracted; this defines us as gay, straight, or somewhere in between. The second axis (often lamented as the silent “T” by transgender advocates), describes how we see ourselves: we are male or female, and for most of us (cisgenders) our self-understanding of our gender matches our bodily appearance; for a few (transgenders), it doesn’t. Taken together, these two sets of descriptions — of one’s sexual orientation and gender identity as separate categories — have been adequate for most of us to describe who we are as sexual beings.

But notice what they do: they also describe states of being rather than things we’re doing. And this is a very modern way of thinking. Until very recently, one was much more defined — and one’s available life choices were much more restricted — according to one’s gender role, which defined who one is according to what one does and vice versa. And until fairly recently, it was madness to consider that the two could be seperable. And so gender roles went like this: the male gender role meant that men wore men’s clothing and cut their hair, they left the home every day to make a living, and they loved and/or married women. The female gender role meant that women kept the house, did the cooking, raised the children, wore dresses and petticoats, and they loved and/or married men.

Because there was no option to separate out one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or career aspirations from one’s gender role, it gets very complicated when we try to assign historical figures into today’s modern categories. There are countless stories of women who, in order to pursue career paths that would be closed to them (and this would include just about everything besides teaching, nursing and domestic work), take on the male gender role simply because they couldn’t do what they wanted to do as women (see July 25 for one possible example). We have far fewer examples of men taking the female gender role for similar reasons, but that is probably because there were almost no career restrictions for men. But we also find examples of both men and women adopting the opposite gender role when entering what would otherwise be a same-sex relationship. Not everyone did this, but when they did, their examples are much trickier to understand: are we seeing a straight relationship with a transgender person, or are we seeing a gay or lesbian relationship where one adopts an opposite gender role in order to allow the relationship to go unnoticed?

Today’s story opens with that very question. On September 28, 1877, Sarah Maud Pollard,as Samuel M. Pollard, married Marancy Hughes in Tuscarora, Elko County, Nevada Territory. My friend Homer Thiel, a Tucson archaeologist and historian, wrote about that marriage in a guest post last year:

Sarah Pollard was born in 1846 in New York, the daughter of a middle class merchant family. After working in a shoe factory in Massachusetts and sewing shirts in New York, she headed west to Colorado in the 1870s. She caused a stir because of her masculine appearance. Around 1876 she moved to Nevada and took up wearing male clothing in order to find work and she started calling herself “Sam.” She met young Marancy Hughes, born in 1861 in Missouri, and actively courted her. Hughes’ family hated Pollard and the couple eloped on September 28, 1877.

New Orleans Times-Picayune article about the Pollard marriage, June 23, 1878. (Click to enlarge.)

They were happily married for six months, and then Marancy broke the secret. The small silver-mining town of Tuscarora, Nevada was transfixed by the story. The matter ended up in court and after Marancy testified, a dramatic re-union took place. Stories about the troubled marriage were carried in newspapers across the country (even appearing in a New Zealand paper). The couple broke up two more times, before Marancy moved on to a marriage with a man in 1880.

Pollard’s story appears to have had a happy ending:

Sarah moved to Minnesota to start a new life by 1883, working by herself on a farm. The story of her successful farming career again made national newspapers, which noted she wore a bloomers-type outfit while plowing. By the 1890s she had met a woman named Helen Stoddard, a schoolteacher who was born in 1864 in Vermont. In later census records Helen was listed as her partner or companion. Sarah died in 1929, and Helen paid for her arrangements at a local funeral home, the owners puzzling over the relationship of the two women.

If all we knew about Pollard was restricted to the events in Nevada, we would be left with an open question: Was she lesbian or was he transgender? But as the second half of the story reveals, the question itself was mistaken. What she did in Nevada was adopt a male gender role which allowed her to do male things: make a living and marry a woman. But a decade later, she decided to forget about gender roles and just live — she farmed (a man’s job), wore bloomers while plowing (a woman’s garment) and became a partner to a female schoolteacher — with Helen maintaining a traditionally female gender role but with Sarah’s gender role remaining flexible. No wonder the funeral home’s owners were puzzled by the relationship.

US Civil Service Refuses To Meet With Washington Mattachine Society: 1962. Frank Kameny and Jack Nicholes founded the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society in 1961, soon after Kameny’s appeal of his 1957 firing by the U.S. Army’s Map Service was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The federal government’s ban on employment of gays and lesbians was firmly in place, but Kameny didn’t let a small thing like the Supreme Court stop him from demanding the lifting of the ban. In 1962, the Mattachine Society requested a meeting with the U.S. Civil Service Commission to discuss the federal employment ban, but in a letter dated September 28, 1962, they were turned down cold:

UNITED STATES· CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

Washington 25, D.C.

Sep 28 1962

Mr. Bruce Schuyler, Secretary
The Mattachine Society of Washington
P. O. Box 1032
Washington 1, D.C.

Dear Mr. Schuyler:

Your letter of August 28, 1962 and attachments relating to the purposes of the Mattachine Society of Washington have been read with interest. It is the established policy of the civil Service commission that homosexuals are not suitable for appointment to or retention in positions in the Federal service. There would be no useful purpose served in meeting with representatives of your Society.

Sincerely yours,

(signed)
John W. Macy, Jr.
Chairman

Lifting the ban would remain one of the highest priorities of the Mattachine Society for the next thirteen years. Campaigning for the ban’s elimination would lead to the first ever gay rights pickets in front of the White House, the Pentagon and the Civil Service Commission in 1965, and would finally end with the ban’s lifting in 1975 (see July 3). In 2009, Frank Kameny received a formal apology from the openly gay director of the Office of Personnel Management, the modern-day successor to the Civil Service Commission.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

McDonald drops out

Sen. Roy McDonald has decided not to run as a third party candidate to retain his seat. Kathy Marchione, the NOM-supported Republican who beat him in the primary, will face off against Democrat Robin Andrews.

Gay marriage supporters of both parties had been backing McDonald (in appreciation for his pro-marriage vote). But now Andrews, who is a lesbian, is the only candidate who believes in equality under the law and it is hoped that McDonald’s supporters will see her as the better candidate.

NOM Bashes Christians and People of Faith

I’m starting to think you could make a full-time job out of shredding the National Organization for Marriage’s fundraising appeals. Here’s the latest email gem from President Brian Brown:

“Repressive.” “Anti-human being.” “Anti-gay.” “Anti-woman.” “Anti-children.”

Does this sound like tolerance to you?

Well, these aren’t my words. They belong to Randy [sic] Weingarten, an Obama surrogate, homosexual marriage activist and powerful teachers’ union boss, who recently bashed marriage supporters, Christians, and all people of faith at Obama’s national convention.

False! Would you be surprised to learn Randi never mentioned Christians or people of faith in her speech? I’ll grant a courtesy that NOM refuses you: Here’s the video of her speech. Check for yourself.

Weingarten actually directs her harshness at the Republican platform. So let’s look at whom she’s “bashing“:

• Opponents of marriage equality? Sure.

• Christians? Some of them.

• “All people of faith”? Absolutely not.

Think about that last claim. It only works if all people of faith oppose marriage equality — every last one of them. Does NOM really believe that? I see three possibilities.

1.  NOM is fully aware of what it’s saying, and means it.

Specifically: supporting marriage equality automatically means you’re a person of no faith. Not a person of a different faith, or a person of faith making a doctinal error, or who doesn’t think doctrine should dictate law. No. Voting for same-sex marriage is willful leap into Gehenna’s steaming pit. I know some of NOM’s supporters and regular blog commenters really do believe this.

2.  NOM is lying.

Specifically: NOM is saying something they don’t believe. They know many people of faith support marriage equality and oppose the Republican platform. They just don’t care. NOM’s most aggressive (and lucrative?) line of attack is that religious people are being persecuted, and this lie serves that interest. The mailer continues:

So make no mistake: if Barack Obama is re-elected in 40 days and marriage is re-defined for everyone, faithful Americans who support the God-ordained understanding of “one man and one woman” marriage will be treated in the law and in society as bigots and racists. Weingarten’s assault will become the opening salvo of an official, national policy for everyone.

NOM needs people to believe this, that the government is planning an attack on religion in general and on them in particular. Their livelihood literally depends on it.

3.  NOM is incoherent.

I firmly believe the average NOMmer can simultaneously hold two contradictory opinions in mind:

• All supporters of same-sex marriage are sex radicals who hate religion.
• Gay activists have fooled good people of faith into supporting same-sex marriage.

NOMmers need to believe both, so they do. They just…do. Their anti-gay fervor has smashed a baseball bat into their basic reasoning skills.

My guess, based on nothing but intuition and what I read, is that NOM and its allies are 65% incoherent, 25% fully aware and completely sincere, and 10% lying.

No matter what it comes down to, NOM is bashing the whole segment of Christians and people of faith who support marriage equality. It’s either misrepresenting their views, or accusing them of being liars whose show of faith is merely a sham. Either way, NOM’s strategy is in full effect:

Spread a falsehood.

Get money.

Repeat.

If Gay Marriage, Why Not Polygamy?

Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organizations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, September 27

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Radically Gay: Centenary of Harry Hay: New York, NY. This year is the centenary of Harry Hay (see Apr 7), founder of the Mattachine Society, which became the first successful organization for gay men (and, sometimes, women). A former member of the Communist Party in the late 1930s, he became involved with union organizing and promoting civil rights for African-Americans. In 1948, he conceived of the idea of creating a gay activist group, and while his first effort failed to attract a following, his second attempt, in 1950, bore fruit when the Mattachine Society was birthed on November 11, 1950 in his home in Silver Lake, California. The new group’s success however exceeded his grasp; newer members were more conservative than him, and they feared that his past ties with the Communist party (which he had left because it didn’t allow gay members) would bring the government’s hammer down on the organization. In 1953, Hay was forced out of the Mattachines, and after a period of exile and study, he re-emerged in the early 1960s to devote the rest of his life to developing, promoting and personifying a radical gay identity.

In observance of Hay’s centenary, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studys at the City University of New York today kicks off a four-day conference called “Radically Gay: The Life and Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay” exploring Hay’s controversial life and ideas, and his impact on the LGBT movement that he pioneered. The conference is organized around four major themes — the arts, political activism, spirituality and sexual identities — and includes panels, lectures, films, and live performances from scholars, activists, and artists, exploring the growth and development of LGBT life in the 60-some years since Hay founded the modern LGBT movement. The conference begins this evening at 7:00 p.m. at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave in Manhattan.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Cumbria, UK; Gainesville, FL; Hong Kong, China; Moab, UT; Richmond, VA; Sedona/Cottonwood, AZ; Soweto, South Africa.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Ann Arbor, MI; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Jackson, MI; San Deigo, CA; Wilmington/Rehoboth, DE.

Other Events This Weekend: Get Wet, Willemstad, Curaçao; Everybody’s Perfect LGBTIQ Film Festival, Geneva Switzerland; Queer Lisboa Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal; Queer Fest 2012, St. Petersburg, Russia.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Six men pilloried in London for Homosexuality: 1810. In early 19th century Britain, the penalty for homosexuality was death. If a judge felt lenient, he might instead sentence the accused to stand time at the pillory. The September 27, 1810 entry in the Annual Register describes the pillorying of six members of what we might describe today as a gay hangout known as the Vere Street Club. That description goes like this:

Such was the degree of popular indignation excited against these wretches, and such the general eagerness to witness their punishment, that, by ten in the morning, the chief avenues from Clerkenwell Prison and Newgate to the place of punishment were crowded with people; and the multitude assembled in the Haymarket, and all its immediate vicinity, was so great as to render the streets impassible. All the windows and even the very roofs of the houses were crowded with persons of both sexes; and every coach, waggon, hay-cart, dray, and other vehicles which blocked up great part of the street, were crowded with spectators.

The Sheriffs, attended by two City Marshals, with an immense number of constables, accompanied the procession of the Prisoners from Newgate, whence they set out in the transport caravan, and proceeded through Fleet-street and the Strand; and the Prisoners were hooted and pelted the whole way by the populace. At one o- clock four of the culprits were fixed in the pillory, erected for and accommodated to the occasion, with two additional wings, one being allotted for each criminal; and immediately a new torrent of popular vengeance poured upon them from all sides. The day being fine, the streets were dry and free from mud, but the dfect was speedily and amply supplied by the butchers of St. James’s-market. Numerous escorts of whom constantly supplied the party of attack, chiefly consisting of women, with tubs of blood, garbage, and ordure from their slaughter-houses, and with this ammunition, plentifully diversified with dead cats, turnips, potatoes, addled eggs, and other missiles, the criminals were incessantly pelted to the last moment. They walked perpetually round during their hour [the pillory swivelled on a fixed axis]; and although from the four wings of the machine they had some shelter, they were completely encrusted with filth.

Two wings of the Pillory were then taken off to place Cooke and Amos in the two remaining ones, and although they came in only for the second course, they had no reason to complain of short allowance, for they received even a more severe discipline than their predecessors. On their being taken down and replaced in the caravan, they lay flat in the vehicle; but the vengeance of the crowd still pursued them back to Newgate, and the caravan was so filled with mud and ordure as completely to cover them.

No interference from the Sheriffs and Police officers could refrain the popular rage; but notwithstanding the immensity of the multitude, no accident of any note occurred.

The six men were relatively lucky. Depending on the ferocity of the crowd, death at the pillory wasn’t out of the question. The pillory was formally abolished in England in 1837.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

McDonald gets Cuomo endorsement

New York has an unusual primary process by which the same candidate can run for more than one party. The result is that one person could win the Democratic Party nomination, but their Democratic opponent could still be on the November ballot as the Working Families Party. Or the Republican Party nominee could face his challenger again running as the nominee from the Conservative Party.

Sen. Roy McDonald was targeted by the National Organization for Marriage due to his vote for equality. And after absentee ballots came in, he lost the Republican Party nomination by around 100 votes. But he was elected the nominee for the Independence Party and, if he chooses to stay in the race, he will be on the November ballot along with Republican nominee Kathy Marchione and Democratic nominee Robin Andrews.

Today McDonald’s decision received a significant nudge. (WSJ)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday pledged his “full endorsement” for a Republican state senator whose vote to legalize gay marriage is seen as a factor in his apparent GOP primary loss.
…
In a letter to McDonald released to reporters, Cuomo, a Democrat, said it would be “an honor to stand with you.”

If McDonald drops out of the race, gay support will go to Andrews, a lesbian who supports our community’s goals. It is also likely that a chunk of Wall Street Republican money would go towards ensuring that Marchione loses (several Wall Street Republicans put forward significant support for the marriage bill).

However, if he stays in, the organized gay support will rally around McDonald to keep NOM from holding his loss over the heads of other potential supporters. Other factors to consider are that the primary draws the “party faithful” which tend to me much more conservative than the significantly higher Republican turnout at the general election and that Andrews is a relative unknown.

Good news for future Illinois equality

The good people of Illinois have been enjoying the benefits of civil unions for over a year now. And they are appreciative for the hard work and careful deliberation that got them there. But no one ever believed that “almost kinda equal” was the end goal and so the hard work continues.

And here’s some good news that holds promise for the future. In a three way race between, full equality, civil unions, and “but the Pope said”, marriage is pulling ahead: (the Southern)

The poll by Southern Illinois University’s Simon Public Policy Institute found that 44 percent of voters support legalizing gay marriage. That’s up 10 points from two years ago.

Nearly one-third of voters said they back civil unions for gay couples.

Only 20 percent oppose any legal recognition of same-sex couples.

Who would you vote for?

There’s a choice – well, a non-choice really – in the 60’th House seat in Illinois.

Candidate A

A opposes same sex marriage. The members of her church disapprove of “that lifestyle”.

“We do not allow those types of behaviors in our church at all. Not that you can’t come there, but if you do you’re not going to be blatant. What you do at home needs to stay at home.”

When asked to explain what types of behaviors she meant, A said: “Two men kissing, two women kissing.” And, besides, why do gay people need marriage?

“I’m still not clear on why they feel the need for marriage when you’ve got civil unions,” she said. “One of the answers I was told is that civil unions didn’t give them enough. How much more do you want?”

A did not vote for civil unions either, answering “present” instead.

Candidate B

B opposes same sex marriage. He thinks marriage is for pro-creation and notes that while gay couples can adopt they cannot have biological children together.

“I have a very big problem with the use of the word ‘marriage.'” he said. “I’ve been married 40 years. That word actually means something.”

B is worried about how the family has “dissolved” in our society and said “the gay marriage issue fits right into that.” As for civil unions or expanded rights, he is less bothered by that.

“I don’t have the right to tell people who they should love or how they should love, but I do believe that the word marriage should not be incorporated in there.”

I know we are not one-issue voters. But if they take positions on our lives, that has to be a major factor.

And just as a matter of intellectual curiosity, I wonder if either of these candidates appears worse than the other – and why. After you decide, go see whether the party affiliation confirms, changes or in any way impacts your gut impression. (And let’s pretend you can’t choose a third party, write in, or sit this one out or else your grocery clerk will pack your ice-cream in the same bag as your fresh warm deli-roasted chicken).

Tasmania votes on marriage today

The Tasmanian House approved a marriage bill last month, 13 votes to 11. The Senate has been debating the bill since yesterday and it is expected to reach a vote today. If it passes, Tasmania will be the first Australian state with marriage equality. However, questions still remain about its legality as marriage has traditionally been a federal issue.

Home HIV Test now available

Tomorrow is National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. So it’s appropriate to announce that the OraQuick home HIV test is now available at CVS, Rite-Aid, Walgreens drugstores, along with Kroger and Walmart. And if it hasn’t been distributed to your local store, you can get it online directly form OraQuick.

Although it’s priced a little higher than I was hoping, at $39.99 it is still affordable to many who should get tested but who are either afraid of the intrusive and highly personal questioning that some testing centers employ or who never find a ‘convenient time’ to get to a center.

And for those who don’t have an extra $40 (and unknown HIV infection disproportionately impacts those who are less economically advantaged), in a week I’ll revisit my suggestion for a new October tradition.

The Definition of Marriage

Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organzations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

Signers Withdraw from Manhattan Declaration: It’s not Intolerant Enough!

Oh, the irony.

Remember the Manhattan Declaration, where co-signers vow to break any law requiring them to treat “immoral sexual partnerships” as if they were equivalent to marriage? It’s in a spot of trouble now, according to its Facebook moderator:

This morning I’m returning phone calls to some who wish to have their name removed from the Declaration. It’s quite deflating. It seems a handful of signers don’t wish to be affiliated with an ecumenical movement. How they missed that part when they first signed is anyone’s guess.

At Manhattan Declaration, we don’t color over the distinctive characteristics of any Christian tradition; rather, we seek to be united despite those differences, in faith in Jesus Christ, to accomplish a mission we can all agree is of the utmost importance.

The Manhattan Declaration represents a Christian alliance: Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical. And apparently: Whoa! Some of these Christians isn’t my kind of Christians! I is outa here!

This is delightful. It will tickle me all day long. An organization founded to promote intolerance is upset its members are being intolerant. Who could have predicted that?

UPDATE: They’re deleting Facebook comments that point out the irony (and they’ve revoked my commenting privileges). I have to admit, I get an added kick at the idea that they now have to resource someone to scour their page to delete inconvenient facts.

Eugene Delgaudio Sued for Stolen Photo; Allegations Surface of Taxpayers Footing the Bill for Delgaudio’s Activities

Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere in their engagement photo, kissing in front of the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York skyine. (Photo by Kristina Hill Photography)

Before Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere married in Connecticut in 2010, they posed for an engagement photo of them kissing in a park, with the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Skyline in the background. The photo,posted on the Internet for friends and family to enjoy, ended up being swiped almost two years later by Eugene Delgaudio without  Edwards and Privitere’s permission. Delgaudio then altered it, and used it in two primary campaigns in Colorado against two Republican legislators, one of whom voted for a proposed Civil Unions. The two legislators targeted in the mailers lost their primary campaigns. But Edwards and Priviterer didn’t know that they had been unwillingly drafted in the campaign until a friend read a story about it in the New York Daily News, which included one of the altered photos in the story that had run earlier in the Denver Post. Brian Edwards wrote about his reaction on his blog:

Altered States: Delgaudio’s attack ad mailers featuring Edwards and Privitere’s stolen image.

First off – I want to share what this picture means to me. It represents my first home away from home, my beloved NYC, which at the time this image was taken (2 years ago) did not allow same sex couples to marry. It represents my longterm relationship with my best friend, my partner, and now husband – the love we share and obstacles we have overcome. It is a reminder of the happiness I felt the day he proposed to me and of the excitement I had all throughout our engagement. It represents hope and it represents love. Or at least it did…

Now I see it faded and brown with a big red, blood-emulating slash across our bodies.  It cuts us in half just below our hearts. How do I feel? I’m in shock and I’m angry and I’m hurt and I’m flabbergasted and I’m livid.

And, I can’t help but feel the need to warn other LGBT couples that hey, even after you overcome your fears of coming out to your families and friends and coworkers; even after you graduate and leave that hell-hole of a high school, where every single day you feared for your life; even after all the letters to your senators and the countless marches that eventually won you and your state the mariage equality you deserve; even after you find your soul mate, get engaged and then married… someone, a stranger, will seek out your image on the internet, perhaps on a site like this one which was created to document our journey down the aisle with the hopes that our experiences would benefit other LGBT couples… steal it and use it in an attempt to destroy others who support you.

Yesterday, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced that they will file a lawsuit today on behalf of Edwards, Privitere and the photographer in U.S. District Court in Denver. The SPLC earlier this year placed Delgaudio’s Public Advocate on its very selective list of anti-gay hate groups.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that Delgaudio, a Loudoun County, Virginia Supervisor, used county employees to perform work for his non-county related anti-gay political activities:

She worked from a spreadsheet that listed more than a thousand names and the political campaigns to which they had contributed. For weeks earlier this year, she said, she sat in a county office, while on county time, and spent hours calling them, one by one. The goal was to arrange meetings with the donors and her boss, four-term Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene A. Delgaudio (R-Sterling), one of the region’s most controversial politicians, who is known for his animated diatribes from the dais. If she was successful, Donna Mateer, a part-time aide, was to list the appointment in a Google calendar titled “Eugene 2012 Campaign Schedule,” she said.

Since then, Mateer came to believe that what she was doing was unethical. She filed a complaint with the county’s Human Resources Department that also alleged a hostile work environment.

I can’t wait to see his email today.

Several business leaders in Loudoun County, a Washington, D.C. suburb, have confirmed to The Post that they have been contacted by Delgaudio’s county employees to set up meetings to discuss Delgaudio’s non-county related political activities. Two other office workers have resigned over pressure to perform illegal work for Delgaudio on county time. Delgaudio then fired Mateer because she was “not political,” just after she filed a complaint concerning the improprieties and alleging that Delgaudio launched into abusive racist and homophobic rants in the county office. (Delgaudio told the Post, “You have to have some sense of humor.”) But before she was let go, Mateer collected incriminating documents, spreadsheets and emails and turned them over to the FBI.

Earlier this year, BTB’s Rob Tisinai reviewed Delgaudio’s IRS990 forms and found that out of a total of $1,276,232 raised in donations, Delgaudio pays himself $171,606 in “management fees” and other expenses. He also spends $849,691 for postage, printing, and computer and list maintenance to support his fundraising activities. Not one dime was spent for lobbying in 2009.