News Briefs 1/21/2009
Obama
The Reverend Rick Warren’s Inauguration Invocation, The Advocate. The full transcript; see below for an excerpt. What a hypocrite.
Rick Warren’s inaugural invocation gets mixed reviews, The Los Angeles Times, Duke Helfand.
New White House website shows LGBT rights an agenda priority, glaadBLOG, Justin. President Obama definitely seems to be the gay-friendliest president we’ve ever had. Click to visit whitehouse.gov to see the list.
States
Focus Action [based in CO] lobbies in Wyoming [against] gay marriage, ABC KRDO.com.
Prop 8 foes push new ballot measures to reverse gay marriage ban, The Sacramento Bee, Aurelio Rojas.
Hawaii lawmakers to consider gaming, gay marriage, Forbes, Mark Niesse.
International
[Members of the European Parliament] demand end to foreign aid to Nigeria over gay marriage ban, PinkNews.co.uk.
Swedish proposal on gay marriage presented to parliament, AFP.
Defence [sic] to invoke gay marriage as polygamy trial begins in [British Columbia, Canada], The Globe and Mail, Gloria Galloway and Robert Matas. It was just a matter of time.
Miscellaneous
The U.S. military’s crush on Harvey Milk, Popnography.com.
Rep. John Lewis: ‘You cannot separate the issue of civil rights’, Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway.
Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV refuses to air ad with gay families during Inauguration: ‘Too controversial, families will be watching’, PRNewsWire.com. On the other hand, you can’t buy publicity like this.
Excerpts from the above headlines follow:
The Reverend Rick Warren’s Inauguration Invocation
Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.
Rick Warren’s inaugural invocation gets mixed reviews
In his inaugural invocation Tuesday, evangelical Pastor Rick Warren delivered a message of unity that pleased some of his most vocal critics in the gay and lesbian community.
Yet even as the founder of Orange County’s Saddleback Church appeared to mollify those who have fought with him over gay marriage, he raised other eyebrows by invoking Jesus’ name and concluding with the Lord’s Prayer — both distinctly Christian practices on a day that has typically been characterized by more general expressions of “civil religion.”
New White House website shows LGBT rights an agenda priority
The newly re-launched WhiteHouse.gov, the website of the Obama administration, lists out the administration’s upcoming agenda priorities. Among those priorities are Civil Rights, in which “Support for the LGBT Community” is listed.
Focus Action lobbies in Wyoming [against] gay marriage
A Colorado-based evangelical group has launched a telephone lobbying campaign trying to influence a gay-marriage bill in Wyoming.
Prop 8 foes push new ballot measures to reverse gay marriage ban
Angered by the passage of Proposition 8, grass-roots activists are working to place measures on the ballot to reverse California’s ban on same-sex unions.
The sparsely financed groups are acting independently of the No on 8 Campaign, which is challenging the measure in the state Supreme Court. They plan to use the Internet to collect the nearly 700,000 signatures of registered voters needed to get on the ballot.
Hawaii lawmakers to consider gaming, gay marriage
Civil unions have broader support from labor unions and some religious groups this year than in the past, said Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu, D-Waipahu-Waikele, the new House Judiciary Committee chairman who will hear the bill.
[Members of the European Parliament] demand end to foreign aid to Nigeria over gay marriage ban
The European Parliament’s Intergroup on gay rights has responded to moves to criminalise same-sex marriage in Nigeria by calling for a suspension of EU aid.
Swedish proposal on gay marriage presented to parliament
Sweden may allow homosexuals to wed in the Lutheran Church or civil ceremonies as of May if parliament adopts legislation presented to parliament Wednesday, the prime minister’s party said.
“The main proposal in the motion is that … a person’s gender will no longer have any bearing on whether they can marry. The marriage law and other laws concerning spouses will be rendered gender neutral according to the proposal,” a statement from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s conservative Moderates said.
The proposal has wide backing in parliament and is expected to be adopted, though a date has yet to be set for a vote.
Defence [sic] to invoke gay marriage as polygamy trial begins in [British Columbia, Canada]
The lawyer for Winston Blackmore, the man with 19 wives in the B.C. religious community of Bountiful who is to appear in court today on polygamy charges, says he will cite Canada’s gay-marriage laws as part of his defence.
It’s an argument that people on both sides of the same-sex marriage fight were expecting: If same-sex marriage is justified under Charter rights to equality, then polygamy is justified under the Charter’s protection of religious freedom.
The U.S. military’s crush on Harvey Milk
Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy Thursday announced the nominees for the 2nd Annual Cadet Choice Award for the movie character that best exemplifies West Point leadership. Not surprisingly most have some kind of military or hero-esque flavor — Bruce Wayne from the The Dark Knight, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, Nazi with a heart of gold, from Valkyrie, James Bond from Quantum of Solace — and would feel right at home soaping up with the cadets in West Point’s gang showers, but we were a bit shocked to see Harvey Milk’s (played by Sean Penn above) name on the list.
Rep. John Lewis: ‘You cannot separate the issue of civil rights’
As he talked about the struggles to achieve basic voting rights for African-Americans, he also reflected on the importance of fighting for civil rights for everyone, including LGBT people.
Non-profit organization GetToKnowUsFirst.org produced five 30-second commercials featuring gay and lesbian families, with the message “Marriage promotes families. Support marriage equality.” The ads, while not tied to any current election, are the result of California’s passage of Proposition 8 in November. The group aired the spots in 42 of the states’ 58 counties — everywhere the initiative passed by 50% or more — during Tuesday’s coverage of the Presidential Inauguration. KABC is the only station that refused to sell the ad space.
