Click the video [...]]]> So I did a short film earlier this year, an all-volunteer cast & crew, to protest the passage of Proposition 8 here in California, which bans same sex marriage in favor of opposite marriage. The Supreme Court just ruled it constitutional, and the finished PSA was uploaded just after the decision.

Click the video for a slightly higher quality version on YouTube (hit the HQ button).

A group called the National Organization for Marriage (NOM? They know about the internet meme they’re conflating, right?) has an unintentionally hilarious ad out whining about not being able to discriminate as they please. It’s not quite as funny as a Glenn Beck rant, but good for quite a few laughs.

HRC has [...]]]> Duhn-duhn-duhhhhhhhhhhhh!

A group called the National Organization for Marriage (NOM? They know about the internet meme they’re conflating, right?) has an unintentionally hilarious ad out whining about not being able to discriminate as they please. It’s not quite as funny as a Glenn Beck rant, but good for quite a few laughs.

HRC has a page that eviscerates their weird lies.

There are a couple of points, [...]]]> This was another long-form interview (for the Daily Show, anyway) where Stewart gets a chance to dig deeper into an issue with his guest. This time, Mike Huckabee’s feet were held to the fire as Stewart doggedly tried to get him to explain his reasoning against gay marriage.

There are a couple of points, however, that Jon failed to make. I don’t really fault him for this, he only has a few minutes. The argument that gays are trying to “redefine” marriage is only superficially true. Actually, we’re making it more basic than religious groups: marriage is between two people. The slippery slope that would allow polygamy, man-goat weddings, and pedophilia is absurd, and unsustainable as argument. Only adult humans have the right to freely enter into contracts with each other, so forget about anything involving animals and children. Polygamy? I’m not shutting the door on that concept forever. We’ve redefined the concept of marriage to disallow it in modern society, so maybe we’ll want to introduce it again, someday. What is right out is the idea that any human is another’s property. Goodbye to that, and good riddance. We shouldn’t be afraid of fearful claims that we’re redefining marriage. We’ve redefined it with regularity over centuries.

Why are there any legal protections and benefits for marriage at all? Because we think that society benefits in turn from sanctioning its bonded couples. Society benefits from stable relationships, as even the most rabid anti-gay-marriage advocates will agree. But no one has any evidence whatsoever (and there is good evidence to the contrary) that gay marriage will weaken straight marriages. The opposite is true: gay subculture will benefit from married couples in its midst, and society will benefit from supporting gay marriages.

I’m tired of hearing the other side say they think gay couples should have the same rights, just not be able to use the word “marriage.” Aren’t we just arguing semantics, here? Aren’t we back to the idea of separate but equal? The reason it doesn’t work is that it’s an oxymoron. Separation leads to inequality.

One more thing—saying, “gays have the same rights we do: to marry a person of the opposite sex.” That works the other way, too: straights will have the same right to marry a person of the same sex. No special rights for anyone, just simple equality, QED.

I love you, Neil Patrick Harris. And Jack Black still does the best Jesus (or Jeepers Creepers).

There were [...]]]> It was a fine Saturday, if a little hot for mid-November. Better than cold and rainy, I suppose. We lazed around the house until it was too late to go to the nearest Metro station, so we had to drive down to get there in time to meet up with a few friends.

There were a few lonely anti-gay protesters, but they were countered, and shouted down, by a bigger line of anti-Prop-8ers.

We found a bit of shade.

Shiloh joined the straight allies in our midst, while Morgan reveled in his first protest in decades.

Now that people have had a chance to work on their protest signs a bit, I think they’re doing a bang-up job making them poignant, funny, and clever.

I’m not sure what will result from this. These carefully planned, mapped, and cordoned off protests are great for angry homos letting off steam, but they’re not inconveniencing the public, and I don’t know if they’re getting anyone to change their mind about their Prop 8 support. We have a far bigger problem, and that is the education of would-be tolerant Yes-on-8ers. Maybe the amendment will be overturned. I’m not holding my breath. But we’ll still have an uphill struggle against prejudice and discrimination. Perhaps we’d be better off continuing to change one mind at a time, staying visible and reaching out to those who don’t know any gay people.

It was the coming out movement that changed minds. People who railed against the evils of homosexuality suddenly discovered they had a gay person in their own family, and it made empty much of the desperate, hysterical rhetoric they’d been fed by their church leaders and ignorant bigots. We need to keep reminding those who voted against same sex marriage out of fear that we want the same legal protections from the state they do, no more, no less. We need to demonstrate that we value our relationships just as much, that despite years of struggle to obtain the tiniest scrap of governmental recognition we held on to our partners just as tightly, and cared just as much as they did for theirs.

We need to keep showing that love isn’t any different in gay or straight relationships. We need to demonstrate not just with our signs and our shouts, but with our hearts.

My favorite sign among many at the Silverlake No-on-8 protest [...]]]> It’s not over. Denied a basic civil right, one we’ve fought for over decades, one that was nearly unimaginable when I was a kid, we will not stop fighting for it. Our relationships exist, with or without legal recognition and protection. Like it or not.

My favorite sign among many at the Silverlake No-on-8 protest rally on Nov. 8: