Recently, the American Family Association (AFA) presented Home Depot’s board of directors with AFA’s demand that they stop funding gay pride events and other events that promote tolerance and diversity.
The AFA had a petition with about 500,000 signatures from people who have vowed to boycott the store unless it joins them in their campaign against gay people.
Home Depot responded with a resounding “No Way!”
From boingboing:
Home Depot Chairman Frank Blake told the AFA to take a hike, stated that Home Depot was proud of its support for diversity, and that’s that.
Like all big box stores, Home Depot isn’t without its problems, but today, they’ve shown some real backbone.
In 2003, a 38-year-old man named Kirk Murphy committed suicide and in his sister’s search for answers she discovered that he wasn’t as trouble-free as she thought. At the age of 5, her brother, Kirk, was sent to government-funded program to correct his sissy behavior.
After Kirk was found hanging in his New Delphi apartment, his sister Maris Murphy dug for possible causes. Their oldest brother Mark reminded her of what she was too young to remember. When she was only 9 months, Kirk’s mother became “a little concerned” that he was playing with dolls and “picking up maybe too many feminine traits.” So, she sent him to a doctor she saw on TV named George A. Rekers, who was conducting a gay cure study at UCLA.
Turns out Rekers’ work with Kirk, under the pseudonym Kraig, would launch his career as the foremost expert on ex-gay therapy. But, Rekers’ methods weren’t what you’d expect from a government-funded study. Kirk—Kraig— was “corrected” with a chip reward-and-punishment system. Kirk’s parents were instructed to give him a blue chip and a reward for displaying masculine behavior and a red chip for effeminate behavior, which resulted in beatings by his father. According to Kirk’s siblings, the beatings were violent and frequent. Mark, Kirk’s brother, tried to help as a child. “I took some of the red chips and I put them on my side,” he said, but the beatings continued.
The Catholic Church doesn’t have the best reputation, mostly due to its constant PR nightmares handling gay issues. Today is no exception. St. Joseph Catholic Secondary School in Canada realized it couldn’t ban gay students. So, in the most ludicrous move by school officials—ever—they decided to do the next best thing: ban rainbow colors.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Leanne Iskander, sixteen-year-old student and founder of the school’s gay-straight alliance. “They said rainbows are associated with Pride.”
American-born Cristina Ojeda and Argentina-born Monica Alcota got legally married in Connecticut. But as it goes, Monica can’t get a green card because the so-called Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from giving same-sex marriages immigration protections. So this loving committed couple could get torn apart just in time for the holidays. Since Santa isn’t real and Jesus doesn’t always pull through, what short of a Christmas miracle will keep these ladies together?
Of course Ojeda and Alcota are just one of numerous bi-national gay couples facing deportation. Immigration lawyer Lavi Soloway, one of the minds behind Stop the Deportations, has decided to show DOMA’s cruelest impact by focusing specifically on the marriages and families the torn apart by its unfairness.
Executive Editor for Lez Get Real, Paula Brooks, has passed along disturbing distressing news – Amina Abdallah Arraf the publisher of A Gay Girl In Damascus and contributor to LGR is missing and has apparently been abducted. From Amina’s blog, her cousin wrote on June 6:
Earlier today, at approximately 6:00 pm Damascus time, Amina was walking in the area of the Abbasid bus station, near Fares al Khouri Street. She had gone to meet a person involved with the Local Coordinating Committee and was accompanied by a friend.
Amina told the friend that she would go ahead and they were separated. Amina had, apparently, identified the person she was to meet. However, while her companion was still close by, Amina was seized by three men in their early 20′s. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed. Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father.
One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad. The witness did not get the tag number. She promptly went and found Amina’s father.
The men are assumed to be members of one of the security services or the Baath Party militia. Amina’s present location is unknown and it is unclear if she is in a jail or being held elsewhere in Damascus.
That Paul Clement is one busy character! Not only is he busy defending DOMA in court on behalf of House Speaker John Boehner, but now he’s also going to defend Arizona’s “show us your papers” anti-immigrant law. He is pictured at right in a photoshopping that we made a few weeks ago for reasons that escape us at the moment.
It’s still unclear how Boehner is going to pay Clement. The $500,000 for DOMA’s defense still hasn’t been allocated, an apparent violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Boehner promises that the money is in place — he just won’t say exactly where it is, and hopes that you will trust him. Okay!
Clement’s paycheck in Arizona is a bit more secure: bumbling Governor Jan Brewer set up a legal defense fund that’s raised $3.8 million from donors who find brown people to be highly suspicious. Clement’s take so far is $150,000, and will increase as the case progresses.
- Dave Badash www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com June 6, 2011
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Monday afternoon stated in a hastily-called press conference that he has made “terrible mistakes.” The embattled Congressman, generally the one leading the charge, was caught defending himself over the past eight days after less-than credible media mogul Andrew Breitbart published a photograph, reportedly of Weiner in his underwear. The Congressman said last week he was unable to unequivocally state it was not him, although the media reports Weiner’s Twitter account, from which the photo was sent, had been hacked.
Weiner said he indeed had tweeted the inappropriate photo accidentally, and had intended it to be a private message to the woman.
Reporters grilled Weiner on his relationship with his wife and repeatedly asked where she is. “She is not here.”
“I never met any of these women, I never had any physical relationship with these women.” Weiner refused to say specifically if he ever had phone sex with any of the women.
High schoolers that identify as gay, lesbian, or bi are more likely than straight teens to engage in risky behavior, according to a comprehensive CDC study.
From 2001-2009, the Center for Disease Control found that gay, lesbian and bi high schoolers were more likely to smoke, drink, use drugs and engage in risky sex behavior. The study also found that GLB teens exhibit higher suicidal tendencies and violent behavior. “This report should be a wake-up call for families, schools and communities that we need to do a much better job of supporting these young people,” urges Howell Wechsler, director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH).
- www.stopthedeportations.blogspot.com June 6, 2011
We invite potential DOMA project participants to contact us if they are same-sex binational couples who are married (or planning to marry) and who want to join our campaign to end discrimination in immigration law. With the exception of our DOMA Project participants, we do not encourage any married same-sex couple to file an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative as such a petition will be denied and the filing of the petition may have significant negative consequences on the foreign spouse’s future eligibility for various non-immigrant visas, or precipitate removal proceedings if that person is in the United States without lawful status. Any binational couples considering marriage should consult THE DOMA PROJECT or other qualified attorney or appropriate gay rights organization to discuss the potential consequences for eligibility for non-immigrant visas and to address other immigration related concerns. To learn more about our DOMA Project, contact us below. Your story is a vital part of winning this struggle.
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