Bill Barr, former libertarian party presidential hopeful and author of the Defense of Marriage Act, published an opinion in the Las Angeles times declaring that President-Elect Barack Obama is right, DOMA has to go.  In his story, Barr goes on to explain that DOMA violates the principles of federalism and its impact is not limited to Federal law as intended.  Barr then states:

So the first part of DOMA was crafted to prevent the U.S. Constitution’s ‘full faith and credit’ clause.

As one of the people responsible for writing DOMA, I find this statement remarkably telling as it clearly indicates that the purpose of the Defense of Marriage Act was to void a section of the U.S. Constitution [Article IV, Section 1], which decrees that independent states within the Union must respect the “public acts, records, and judicial rulings” of other states.  Ordinarily, acts of Constitutional “adjustment” are done by Amendments, which are much more difficult to obtain than legislative acts.

Mr. Barr’s commentary comes just in time for the January 10, 2009 National DOMA Protest.

To read Mr. Barr’s full opinion piece, click here.

Chip Saltsman, RNC Chair Candidate, decided it would be a funny Christmas gift to his friends and associates to give them a “comedy” CD by Paul Shanklin which included a song where Paul Shanklin impersonated “Al Sharpton” and mimicked the Peter, Paul and Mary song, “Puff the Magic Dragon” changing the words to “Barack the Magic Negro.”  Magic Negro was an intended reference at the benign literary figure generally associated with postmodern folk who takes away white’s guilt.  The figure has been embodied by Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman and others on the big screen.  As a humorist with few limits, I’m not laughing.

Peter Yarrow, co-author of Puff the Magic Dragon, isn’t amused either.  He has responded to the parody at the Huffington Post stating:

It is almost unimaginable to me that Chip Saltzman who sent the CD, would seriously be considered for the top post of the Republican National Committee. Puff, himself, if asked, would certainly agree.

The Arizona Bar Association proposed changing the lawyers creed [pledge] to include sexual orientation and to read as follows:

I will not permit considerations of gender, race, religion, age, nationality, sexual orientation, disability, or social standing to influence my duty of care.

As if echoing the recently signed “Right of Conscious” Legislation allowing doctors to deny patients care due to moral reservations, a group of 30 lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund (”ADF”) make claims that the proposal is “unconstitutional” and would require them to represent clients they find immoral. [On a personal note, does anyone else find it ironic that lawyers are concerned with morality?]

There are numerous potential problems with this sort of bigotry, including defendants’ rights to a speedy trial.  Assume for a moment that a person is arrested on charges (be they valid or not) and after weeks or months (or justice forbidding longer) the person is finally prepared, with their Court Appointed lawyer, to go to trial.  On a pretrial interview, the Court Appointed lawyer finds out that the defendant is a homosexual and decides he/she can no longer represent this person.  Trial is now delayed and additional time is spent in prison.  Or worse, trial resumes with a new Court Appointed lawyer who has not been able to properly prepare to represent the defendant.  Is this not also unconstitutional?

Oddly enough, the lawyers’ pledge already includes religion, which means a Christian attorney cannot deny an Atheist person proper legal representation solely based upon the religion of that person.  Would this not also be a valid, moral argument and thus unconstitutional?  Yet the ADF has taken no moral stance on this issue.

I have contacted the ADF and will be providing a follow-up report based upon their response.

Read more at 365gay.

Another [potential] oversight of lawmakers and the Bush administration occurred December 26th when Bush signed the Right of Conscience Bill (which this author is endearingly henceforth referring to as the Reich of Conscious Bill) into law.  The Bill, aimed at allowing doctors to refuse abortions due to moral issues, will also allow doctors to refuse to treat gay patients should they morally object on moral grounds.

The new regulations effectually establish the rights of doctors to refuse treatment of any sort to any one or any thing to which they morally object.  Such refusal could result in severe injury or death when patients are turned away from treatment because the doctor feels their conscious cannot allow them to treat such a patient.

Imagine this scenario, as an example.  A young woman goes to the emergency room after being raped.  The doctor, being against premarital sex due to moral issues, could, due to moral reasons, deny the woman treatment.  Although an unlikely scenario, the legislation is potentially that damning.

Legal Director of HRC, Laura Schwartz, has stated that the legislation could also give doctors the right to refuse any treatment to gay people, including treatment for the common cold.

A bill proposed by Senator Clinton would nullify this legislation if passed; however, the bill will die with the end of the congressional session.

You can read more from the Southern Voice:  Rule change could allow doctors to reject gay patients - Southern Voice Atlanta.

Many people in the LGBT Community have expressed their outrage over the choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama.  Mr. Warren, being a conservative pastor at Saddleback Church, has expressed opinions against abortion rights, same-sex marriage and stem cell research.  Because of his conservative viewpoint and exclusionary attitude toward non-heterosexuals, LGBT activists have shown deep outrage over his selection.

But the real questions shouldn’t be why Mr. Obama chose to have Mr. Warren deliver the invocation, instead we should be asking, why, in a country with separation of church and state, an invocation is being said at all to kick-start a Presidential Inauguration?  It’s simple.  In spite of the ideology of separation of church and state, the United States of America has become increasingly theocratic.  Legislation and regulations are no longer based upon what is just and right in the eyes of man, but what is just and right in the eyes of the church.

Obama has defended his selection of Mr. Warren stating that it is part of his political promise to include all Americans during his presidency; however, he has not made any statements regarding allowing religion to be part of an otherwise political ceremony.

See: Obama Defends Invocation by Conservative Pastor | 44 | washingtonpost.com.

I spend a lot of time on this blog focusing on the horrible things people say about homosexuals and the hateful and spiteful acts against homosexuals happening throughout the nation and the world. Sometimes, I have to take a break and look for signs of hope. In so doing, I came across a few videos I would like to share.

Sean Chapin’s Original Song “United We Love” - an anthem for the equal rights movement born from the passage of gay-marriage bans in the United States during the 2008 election. Should I ever be given the right to marry the man I have loved for the past 11 years, this will be my wedding song. I’ve watched this video about 5 times in the last 24 hours. It both makes me sad and happy - but most importantly, it reminds me that I am hopeful for a brighter tomorrow.

United We Love, by Sean Chapin:

Mandy Steckleberg Hates Everyone , but she Loves the Gays. Her song, “I Love the Gays” takes a much more lighthearted look (she is a comedian after all) at the gay marriage issue than Sean Chapin’s song (above). This song was released before American’s decided other American’s weren’t good enough.

My favorite thing about this video is its ability to stereotype homosexuals and still make me laugh myself silly while simultaneously wondering if I can get the hot guy’s phone number.

I Love the Gays, by Mandy Steckleberg:

Oded Gross uses satire to confront the argument that gay marriage would destroy the sanctity of marriage in this song titled “It’s All Because (The Gays Are Getting Married)”. The video is well put together and even has a heterosexual man slapping the ice cream out of a small child’s hands - the audacity! Yeah… I laughed, particularly at the “Dick” reference - as in Cheney. I also love the fact that the argument regarding the sanctity of marriage is so seemlessly satirized. Really??? Is the argument so bad that just by putting the argument into a song it takes on a satirical sort of whine?

It’s All Because (The Gays Are Getting Married), by Oded Gross:

As a blogger, I use Goggle AdSense to help offset the costs of web-hosting and my time (granted I make about a penny per hour using this route).  AdSense allows you to use competitive ad filtering so competitor’s ads do not show up on your website; however, I often find myself playing a game of chase to keep ads from companies and programs that discriminate against LGBT people from appearing on jaysays.com.

I recently noticed that ads for the Yes on 8 campaign from the Protect Family people were showing up on my website as well as some for “conversion therapy”.  I was mortified and immediately ran over to google to filter their ads from appearing here.  The rat race continues.  Since I’m normally accessing my site’s back-end and rarely pay much attention to the ads being displayed, its possible ads I don’t want to appear will appear - or do I want them to appear after all?

I found a way which we, the LGBT community can hit the companies in their wallets by making them pay us, the gay bloggers, and google.  Most ads are pay for impression or pay per click type ads.  Therefore, I decided we as a community should actively seek out these ads online, particularly ads placed on LGBT friendly websites that are from discriminatory companies and get click happy with them.  Each time an LGBT person clicks on these ads, the advertiser has to pay for that click - in same cases I get $0.36 for a click - Google takes a portion too.  The click thus costs at least $0.36.  Now imagine we get click happy… click click click 100, 200, 300 times amongst many many people - we could cost them a small fortune.  It costs us a little time, but we take from their advertising budget and give the money to those people they are preaching against (LGBT bloggers).  We can clean up their “blood money”.

Please note, I request that you do not do this on jaysays.com as actively requesting people to click on your ads is a violation of the terms of service of Google AdSense.  Please only do this on other sites or from google searches which produce ads for these companies and organizations.

I hope this momentum lasts in the gay community. A National Day of Protest has been planned for November 15th at 1:30 CT (check here for your here  local information).

Yours truly will be attending.  I just hope I can decide on a sign.

In the second post exposing the stupid things people say about gays, we will analyze the following comment:

Just like it’s common sense that gay behavior is unnatural. Why can’t we just put all gays on a deserted island and see how long they last? hmon20002000
(28 years old)

Let’s start at the beginning, “…gay behavior is unnatural.” Seed Magazine took an in depth look at homosexuality in the animal kingdom, and, I believe it is indisputable (except by the illiterate) that the animal kingdom can be used to demonstrate what is natural. The study found that Giraffes, Big Horn Sheep, dolphins, killer whales, gray whales, West Indian manatees and others participate in and ejaculate from homosexual activities. Japanese macaques are lesbians, and the closest living primate to humans, the Bonobos engage in lesbian sexual encounters every 2 hours. It also explains that homosexuality has been documented in over 450 vertebrate species. That’s a lot of unnatural behavior in nature. The article is nearly 3,000 words, you can view it here. For further evidence that homosexuality naturally occurs, please watch the following video:

As to the second part of the stupid comment by hmon20002000, “Why can’t we just put all gays on a deserted island and see how long they last?” The answer is clear, we would survive a very very long time. Not only because the greatest gay anthem ever written or performed is entitled, “I Will Survive” but also because we have lesbians. I am a believer that the lesbian is the true root of the homosexual community. Lesbians, stereotypically, grow things, like herbs and corn. They know soil - and guess what, we gay men know a thing or two about plants - just ask any florist. So yes, we would eat… likely an organically grown assortment of fruits and vegetables which will keep our lipids low and we will outlive all heterosexual McDonald’s eating Americans… on our own Isle of Lesbos.

Today, “Gay Marriage” took a step forward, helping to equalize the standings from the backward step of California’s passage of Proposition 8.  Effective today, Connecticut has become state number two in the United States to allow same-sex couples marriage rights; Massachusetts is the only other state to allow for such marriage rights.

Several States allow for Civil Unions or recognize marriages performed in other jurisdictions.  For example, if a same sex couple were to marry in Connecticut or Massachusetts, the State of New Mexico would recognize the marriage, the law applicable states:

All marriages celebrated beyond the limits of this state, which are valid according to the laws of the country wherein they were celebrated or contracted, shall be likewise valid in this state, and shall have the same force as if they had been celebrated in accordance with the laws in force in this state. - NMSA

Other states which recognize domestic partnership or civil union include Vermont, New Jersey and New Hampshire.  Several jurisdictions offer limited recognition of same sex couplings such as Maine, Washington, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

For more information on the Connecticut’s legalization of same-sex marriage, see CNN’s article: Connecticut Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage - CNN.com.