Keith Olbermann on Marriage Equality and Prop 8

Adam R wrote today on a PFLAG National Blog post Olbermann on Marriage Equality:

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC commented on his show recently about the passing of Proposition 8 in California, and his dismay and disappointment with the results. He wonders why anyone would want to deny another person the right to the same things that they enjoy. Be sure to watch this clip...

Keith Olbermann is thoughtful, powerful, and wonderful. He said:

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out.

Please watch & listen to the whole commentary.

Thank you, Keith Olbermann.

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Please stand with us in Olympia on Saturday.
Olympia is joining in a nationwide protest of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, the citizens' initiative that took away the hard-earned right of gays and lesbians to get married.

Please join in the rally at City Hall, 8th Avenue and Plum Street, at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 15. Bring signs and umbrellas. There will be guest speakers. We'll meet on the south side of City Hall on the steps to Council Chambers.

Please help spread the word.

If you have any questions, local contacts in Olympia are Alec Clayton at alec@alecclayton.com and Anna Schlecht at aschlecht@juno.com.

You can find posters, signs, and more information at http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com.

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Also, see this post on my blog for a message from Rebecca Riots and a link to a free song to download: Rebecca Riots - A Thousand Hands (Wedding Song '08).

'And Daddy Makes Three' is delightful.

On This American Life, Chicago's Public Radio, available online through their free podcast and heard on more than 500 public radio stations around the USA and seen as a television show on Showtime.

And Daddy Makes Three

Six-year-old DJ has two dads, Dan Savage and Terry Miller. DJ is being raised by two gay men, but he has a preschooler's understanding of what gay means. Which is to say, he doesn't understand it at all. Though he does oppose gay marriage. Dan, the author of the syndicated column and book Savage Love, tells the story. His latest book is Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America.

Listen to this American Life Episode 293: A Little Bit of Knowledge which originally aired 07.22.2005.

Click on 'Full Episode' to listen online. Act Two: 'And Daddy Makes Three' is 11 minutes long and starts at 18:02 of this podcast. There are several places where music might make you think it is over. Be sure to listen to the whole.

What love's got to do with it

Bauman is the co-chairman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays for Blacksburg and the New River Valley. He lives in Blacksburg.

Jim Ludington's commentary "Gay marriage threatens our culture" (June 29, Horizon) raises again the grim specter of American culture threatened by marriage between two persons of the same gender.

He progresses from gay marriage to polygamy to pedophilia to "no legal standing against any form of perversion." The very foundation of our nation will crumble as "activist judges destroy the basis of our culture, and indeed, our civilization."

The final comparison is to Nazi Germany, where good people stood by while the nation fell into depravity.

Good grief. Chicken Little has run amok. Who knew that gay people had such power?

and

The value of a person is not determined by sexual orientation, nor is the quality of a family decided by the differing gender of the parents. Gay people, like straight people, can be good or bad, or like most of us, somewhere in between. As parents, they can be loving, kind, and exempalry of good character and high moral standards -- or not.

If there is the potential for demise of the American family, it will not come because of same-sex marriage. Heterosexual parents in America haven't exactly made the mold for marriage excellence. Divorce happens, like spousal and child abuse, in families of all persuasions. Gay marriage can strengthen families by providing two loving and care-giving parents by adoption to children who have no family, or by combining split families. It can be the tie that binds for committed couples.

Read the whole response to a commentary "Gay marriage threatens our culture" - What love's got to do with it
by Dick Bauman
July 02, 2008 - The Roanoke Times, Roanoke VA