06/17/2009
News: Civil Disobedience, Mariah Carey, iPhone 3GS, O.J.
Savage: One year Civil Disobedience plan for gay rights.
Schwarzenegger: Prop 8 challenge should be decided by the courts.
End sign?
Listen: Mariah Carey's new single "Obsessed".
Portland Mayor Sam Adams woes continue: home payment default.
Gizmodo's review of the iPhone 3GS.
Madonna's new kid Mercy and her peeps.
Biologists: Same-sex relationships may drive evolution. "Same-sex sexual behaviors are flexibly deployed in a variety of circumstances, for example as alternative reproductive tactics, as cooperative breeding strategies, as facilitators of social bonding or as mediators of intrasexual conflict. Once this flexibility is established, it becomes in and of itself a selective force that can drive selection on other aspects of physiology, life history, social behaviour and even morphology."
Australian poll: 60% support marriage equality.
It's the 15th anniversary of the O.J. chase.
Thousands flock to Banksy show. "During the show’s opening weekend, almost 8,500 people flooded the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, about eight times what the venue would normally expect."
Sex change in China could require permission from the police: "The proposed guidelines, posted Tuesday, say candidates for surgery must show an agreement from police to change their sex on their identification cards once the procedure is complete. The ministry posted the draft guidelines to invite public and professional opinions before July 10. China has no laws against sex change surgery, and the ministry says the guidelines are necessary to regulate the procedure."
Jamie Dornan all buttered up for new Calvin Klein campaign.
Anti-gay attack on College Street in Toronto: "Around 2:30am on the morning of Jun 7 — after a night out at El Convento Rico dance club on College St — Corey John and Takonda Majikwa were walking west toward Ossington when a group of men approached them. 'They were drunk and had open beer bottles in their hands,' says John. 'When they approached us they were making remarks as 'faggot,' 'fudge packer' and 'you and your girlfriend.'"'
Why people tend to enjoy Cristiano Ronaldo's time off best.
Larry Kramer praises book on pre-Oscar Wilde gay sex in Britain: "Certainly nothing like this has appeared in America, thus allowing queer and gender studies to pretty much swamp, nay drown, the gay history field with their gobbledygook theorizing of what might have happened. This ludicrous state of affairs prohibits making statements such as: "they did then what we do now," without the wrath of queer theorists raining down insults of an uncommonly vitriolic nature. You don't have a right to say that! say they. You can't prove it! say they. It's been here all along since the beginning of history, say many others of us. Well now it can be said, and proved, in Britain at any rate, thanks to Upchurch."
Posted 3:30 PM EST by Andy Towle in Arnold Schwarzenegger, Australia, Banksy, China, Crime, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dan Savage, Gay Animals, Gay Marriage, Larry Kramer, Madonna, Mariah Carey, News, Sam Adams, Toronto | Permalink
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I don't think much of Dan Savage's proposal. It would stop generating press in DC pretty quickly, and the press at home often wouldn't cover the arrests. I share his agnosticism about the effectiveness of a march, but having one couple arrested every day is too small scale to achieve much. After all, 18,000 couples got married in CA last year, and that apparently didn't mean much to a lot of people.
I just don't think many people opposed to marriage equality are going to even read, much less be swayed by, portraits of same-sex couples who got arrested at the White House. And the White House would probably quickly come up with a way to arrest the couples quickly, ignore them, or accommodate them. People get arrested at the White House all the time, and they're often a bit nuts. Going to the White House and asking to talk to Obama about DOMA, then getting arrested when they say no, also sounds a bit nuts. (Not to mention, the man is often out of town.)
Posted by: Paul R | Jun 17, 2009 5:36:28 PM
This isn't a strategy, its a gimmick to get attention for Savage. Making demands of politititions and threat of witholding support in the up-coming congressional elections is the only effective way to go.
Posted by: Jack L. Crain | Jun 17, 2009 6:37:12 PM
as to my cristiano, oh-emm-fucking-gee!
Posted by: nic | Jun 17, 2009 6:56:09 PM
Just two people every day for a year...or forever? TWO people?
I've heard a lot of self-delusional, bad ideas in the last several months that have only served to distract people from actions that might actually accomplish something but naivete and good intentions do not change the fact that this one is so savagely silly that it makes my teeth hurt.
Raise your hand if you knew that EVERY day, twenty-four hours a day, for the last TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS there has been someone holding a "peace vigil" on the sidewalk in front of Lafayette Park across the street from the White House. Several someones, actually, who take shifts, every hour, all day and all night, seven days a week for TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS.
Would TWO PEOPLE getting arrested every day make a difference?
Perhaps Savage has never been arrested by the FBI. I have. Perhaps Savage has never been caught between a "vice" of hundreds of DC police. I have. Perhaps Savage has never demonstrated in front of the White House. I have. Perhaps Savage has never walked by Secret Service agents into the Oval Office or the WH's private employee quarters. I have.
And those experiences inform me that TWO people only, whether or not they are IMMEDIATELY whisked away which they will be if they become just a nuisance let alone perceived as a security issue, will, by their smallness and unvarying repetition BORE the media to barely muffled yawns and mocking laughter after two news cycles. At best.
Then the Couple of the Day will become as totally and perpetually ignored by the MSM, by ANYONE in power, let alone O, as the sincere Peace people across the street have been for TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS.
If they're not carted off, they'll start to blend in like shrubs, except shrubs that need potty breaks and sunscreen, and the only impact, the only memory of them will be in fading photos in dusty scrapbooks back in the hometowns of the tourists who took them. "Jethro! Put down the red, white, and blue snow cone and take my pitcher with the gays!" A lifesize cardboard cutout of a gay couple would be just as effective.
I TOTALLY support the concept of civil disobedience, but in civil disobedience SIZE definitely matters .....unless you're capable of transfixing media attention such as a celebrity like Martin Luther King or by inciting the violence that half a dozen blacks sitting-in at segregated lunch counters did, two people a day will quickly become the equivalent of the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear the sound.
Posted by: Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com | Jun 17, 2009 7:00:39 PM
I have a few ideas:
I agree we need to not give any more $$$ and need to tell them why, maybe even re-register away from Dem.
When called in for jury duty make a public announcement such as, "Until the legal system treats LGBT people equally I can not serve a system which oppresses me and my people."
Massive "spontaneous" outings in DC or state capitals, then move slowly, stopping maybe to "window shop" and hold hands and be a little affectionate here and there, and tie up everything. No permits, etc needed.
Posted by: Francis | Jun 17, 2009 7:34:38 PM
I think a form of civil disobedience where married gay couples file as married couples on the federal income tax forms would make a lot more sense. Plus it has one-line explanation for the press: "I refuse to lie," or "I'm not going to deny my marriage."
Posted by: Pender | Jun 17, 2009 8:30:56 PM
NO to Jury Duty.
NO to Taxation Without Equality.
NO to Acting UN-Equal when government tries to force us to be that way.
You want my tax dollars? You better bring a gun; I'm not playing around anymore.
Posted by: John Bisceglia | Jun 18, 2009 3:09:02 PM