Gay Facebook Founder and NC Native Chris Hughes Speaks Out, Donates Against Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

Late on Friday, Facebook founder Chris Hughes stepped up action against North Carolina GOP efforts to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage in the state constitution:

September 9, 2011

An Open Letter to the North Carolina General Assembly:

I’m writing today to express my deep concern and fervent opposition to the proposed anti-gay constitutional amendment, SB106/HB777.

As the co-founder of Facebook, I have some experience with the challenges of attracting the kind of driven, dynamic and diverse employees it takes to build a fledgling start-up into a full- fledged economic success story.

Companies like Facebook, Google and Apple are the future of our global economy. But the proposed anti-gay constitutional amendment signals to these and other major employers, as well as their mobile, educated employees, that North Carolina does not welcome the diverse workforce that any state needs to compete in the international marketplace.

In short, this amendment is bad for business, bad for the perception of my home state on the national stage, and a far cry from job-creating legislation that North Carolina lawmakers should be focused on.

But the negative business impact is far from the only harm of this amendment. Growing up in a conservative atmosphere in Hickory, North Carolina, I felt first-hand the stigma of being different in a Southern state—a feeling that made it clear to me that I was not welcome in North Carolina.

The proposed discriminatory legislation will only perpetuate this stigma for a new generation of creative, talented youth, uninterested in second-class citizenship in a state they call home. Gay and lesbian North Carolinians work hard, contribute to society, and want to protect their families like everyone else. Their families deserve the same respect and the same treatment as everyone else, and they should not be exposed to the derogatory and harmful anti-gay rhetoric that inevitability accompanies these kinds of campaigns. North Carolina deserves better than that.

The next Facebook or Apple or Google could be created by another North Carolinian. Be mindful of how you treat them and their families.

Chris Hughes Co-founder of Facebook and North Carolina native


Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/#ixzz1XlxKF5yG

NAACP Condemns North Carolina Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

The NAACP of North Carolina has published an open letter to North Carolinians opposing the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage set to be considered as early as today by the state legislature.

NC close to vote on gay marriage ban in constitution

North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast without a gay marriage ban in its constitution. The idea has gone nowhere in the last decade because Democratic leaders quashed Republican efforts to debate amendment referenda.

Now with Republicans in charge of the Legislature for the first time in 140 years, conservatives are making their move. Lawmakers return Monday to Raleigh to debate proposed amendments, including one to let voters next year decide if a state law already on the books defining marriage as between one man and one woman should be imprinted into the state constitution as well.

“It’s time that we settled this issue,” said GOP state Rep. Dale Folwell of Winston-Salem, the No. 2 leader in the House and a key amendment proponent.

Gay rights supporters and gay-friendly companies in the state have been attacking the proposal, saying a 2012 statewide ballot is unnecessary and would humiliate the state in a nation that’s become more accepting of same-sex relationships. They say it would discourage business from coming to North Carolina, where unemployment has crept back above 10 percent.

“It makes no sense that North Carolina in a dark economic hour, should signal out a minority of its population for public judgment,” said Andrew Spainhour, general counsel of Greensboro-based tableware seller Replacements Ltd., where as many as 100 of the 450 employees are gay, including the company founder.

The marriage debate rises against a backdrop of looming, critical elections. A divisive ballot measure in November 2012 could help bring conservatives to the polls in a state where Barack Obama won in 2008 by only 13,000 votes and which is hosting the Democratic National Convention. Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue also faces a tough re-election fight next year.

“There’s no doubt that there would be some advantage in motivating voters for Republican candidates,” said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On the gay marriage issue itself, he added: “We are polarized on this.”

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Connecticut Christian School Kicks 12th Grader Out For Being A Lesbian

A private Christian school has kicked out a 12th grader for being a lesbian. The Master’s School in West Simsbury, Connecticut interrogated Rachel Aviles about her sexual orientation, then, when she acknowledged she was a lesbian, they forced her out. The school’s website says its motto is, “Veritas Vos Liberabit which translates to ‘the truth shall set you free’ from John 8:32.”

“Aviles said she was encouraged to withdraw, rather than be expelled,” writes Susan Campbell at CT NOW. “It was a not thinly veiled threat,” said Beth Miller, who met Aviles when the student applied to Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation in ’07.


Legally, private schools — secular and otherwise —- have more leeway as to whom to accept within their ranks. The school’s meadmaster, Jon Holley, said he wouldn’t discuss Aviles because of privacy concerns, but Aviles’ former coach, Heather Lodovico, said when she withdrew, Aviles sent her coach a text message.

“She texted me and said something like ‘They kicked me out,’ and I made a joke, ‘What, are you pregnant?’ and she said, ‘No, worse. I’m gay,’” said Lodovico.

The coach said she immediately got on the phone to see if the decision could be reversed, but no.

“She’s a fantastic kid,” said Lodovico. “My reaction was: ‘Wow. Your God’s really small.’ Whether it’s a sin or not, take that out of the picture, and this is still wrong. I think God’s up there shaking His head going, ‘Really? Really?’

Britain To Lift Gay Men Blood Donation Ban

British health officials say they will lift the ban on gay men donating blood – as long as their last sexual contact with another man was more than one year ago.

The U.K. health department said Thursday the change would be implemented in November after a new review found no evidence to support the ban.

The decision reverses a policy first adopted in the 1980s when officials feared AIDS could be spread in the blood supply.

Other countries including Australia, Japan, South Africa, Sweden and New Zealand also allow gay men to donate blood with similar conditions. In Canada and the U.S., however, gay men are still banned from donating blood.

Little Rock Weatherman wakes to Dead Companion in Empty Jacuzzi

A Little Rock, Ark., weatherman was found sleeping in an empty Jacuzzi-style bathtub next to the body of a young friend, a Sept. 6 Arkansas News Bureau story said.

The dead man, Dexter Paul Williams, 24, was wearing a dog collar, news reports said. Williams and meteorologist Brett Cummins, 33, who appears on Little Rock’s KARK-TV, had apparently slept in the tub.

The owner of the home where the death occurred, John Barbour, 36, described the previous evening’s activities, telling authorities that Cummins and Williams came over at about 8:00 on the evening of Sept. 4. The three men got into the tub together at around 10:00 p.m., Barbour said, and they had already used drugs and alcohol by that point. The men continued drinking while in the tub, according to Barbour’s statement.

Pastor Performs Anatomy Demonstration at GOP Presser on NC Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

Calif. Gov Signs Equal Benefits Law

California governor Jerry Brown today signed into law a bill requiring businesses that have large contracts with the state to provide equal spousal benefits for all employees, gay and straight.

The legislation, authored by lesbian state senator Christine Kehoe and backed by LGBT rights group Equality California, prohibits the state from entering into a contract of more than $100,000 with businesses or other entities that deny same-sex spouses the benefits offered to opposite-sex spouses of employees. The bill passed the state legislature last month.

“Providing the same benefits to an employee with a domestic partner, or same-sex or opposite-sex spouse ensures that workers receive equal pay for equal work,” Kehoe said in a press release. “California should lead the way for other employers to provide benefits that are nondiscriminatory.”

“The state’s tax dollars earned by hardworking Californians should not be invested in companies that unfairly discriminate against LGBT people and their families,” added Roland Palencia, executive director of Equality California.

Prop 8 Supporters and Opponents Face Off Before Prop 8 Hearing

Videographer and activist Sean Chapin documented the 'for' and 'against' action before yesterday's California Supreme Court hearing on 'standing' in the Prop 8 case. It's always amazing to me how much hate people can have in their hearts.

Transgenderism Not A Civil Right

Chaz Bono does not have a civil right to be transgender, suggests Fox News pundit Dr. Keith Ablow, discussing his recent column, “Don’t Let Your Kids Watch Chaz Bono On ‘Dancing With the Stars’.” Ablow adds that Chaz Bono’s appearance on “Dancing With The Stars” is a “fame tour” “promoting transgenderism,” and warns parents that tomboys watching Chaz Bono on DWTS will want to become boys — or may think they’re transgender.

"We Don't Need No Education"

"The Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education. That historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state government. To put that into the federal government as we saw a Department of Education in the late 1970s has eviscerated the constitutional understanding that the control of education truly lies with the parents."

- Rep. Michele Bachmann, telling a South Carolina audience that if elected, she will abolish the Department of Education.

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Prayer cures AIDS

As reported in Ugandan media, in May 2011 Dr. Christine Ondoa was chosen as the new head of Uganda’s Ministry of Health. The position will give Ondoa authority over a significant portion of Uganda’s foreign HIV/AIDS mitigation funding, which in the year 2010 included over $270 million dollars from the United States.

Along with her role as a medical professional, Christine Ondoa also serves as pastor in the Life Line Ministries of apostle Julius Peter Oyet, one of the most powerful clerics leading Uganda’s ongoing crusade against gay rights.

Julius Oyet’s Life Line Ministries runs a Uganda branch of an international faith healing ministry under Wagner apostle Cal Pierce, head of the International Association of Healing Rooms. Cal Pierce’s Healing Room Ministries lists almost 400 healing room branches in cities and towns across the United States, and well over 1,000 internationally.

Since her appointment as Health Ministry head, Ondoa has promoted the claim, an established tenet of Peter Wagner’s apostolic movement, also advanced by Oyet’s Life Line Ministries, that HIV/AIDS can be cured through prayer. According to a story published September 2008 in the Uganda Daily Monitor, “Unverified faith healing is posing a threat to adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) by persons living with HIV/Aids.”

Judges seem to side with backers of Prop. 8

The California Supreme Court signaled today that it won't stand in the way of a showdown in federal court over the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

At a hearing in San Francisco, all seven justices, including newly confirmed Justice Goodwin Liu, appeared to agree with sponsors of the voter-approved Proposition 8 that they had the right to appeal a federal judge's ruling declaring the 2008 ballot measure unconstitutional.

When Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in August 2010 that Prop. 8 violated the rights of gays and lesbians to marry their chosen partners, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown declined to appeal. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals then asked the state's highest court whether the initiative's sponsors, a conservative religious coalition called Protect Marriage, had the right to represent the state's interests in an appeal.

At today's one-hour hearing, the answer seemed to be yes.

"Is there any authority for the governor and attorney general to second-guess the majority of Californians?" asked Justice Ming Chin.

Theodore Olson, lawyer for same-sex couples challenging Prop. 8, argued that California law does not give initiative sponsors, or any other private citizens, "the right to take over the attorney general's responsibility to represent the state."

But Justice Joyce Kennard said denying legal standing to the official sponsors of an initiative would leave the measure without defenders in court, and effectively "nullify the great power that the people have reserved to them for proposing and adopting constitutional amendments" at the ballot box.

Liu, hearing his first case since a state commission confirmed his nomination to the court last week, observed that the court has traditionally protected the initiative power as "a check on representative democracy."

Past rulings have also promoted "an adversarial process that is fair" by allowing sponsors of ballot measures to intervene in state court proceedings, Liu said.

The court's decision, due in 90 days, will be limited to the question of whether Protect Marriage has the right to appeal Walker's ruling and will not address the validity of Prop. 8, which the court upheld under state law in 2009. If that right is upheld, the federal appeals court will then decide whether Prop. 8 is constitutional, an issue that could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case is Perry vs. Brown, S189476.

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California Senate approves ‘Seth’s Law,’ aimed at reducing anti-gay bullying

The California state Senate late Thursday approved “Seth’s Law,” an anti-bullying measure aimed at giving public schools tools to prevent and address bullying through mandatory policies and systems to help discourage harassment and track incidents when they do occur.

The bill, introduced by openly gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), is named for Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old gay teen who committed suicide last September after enduring years of bullying due to his sexual orientation.

The measure would require districts to create anti-harassment policies and programs that include bullying based on perceived or actual sexual orientation.

Schools would also be required to have a system in place to ensure all reports of bullying are taken seriously and addressed immediately.

The bill passed in the Senate by a vote of 24-14. The measure passed on June 1 in the state Assembly by a vote of 44-17. It now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, who is expected to sign it into law.

California Supreme Court to hear arguments on ‘standing’ in Prop 8 appeal

For the second week in a row, Proposition 8 is in court and, next week, it’s right back where it started.

On Tuesday, September 6, the court is the California Supreme Court, and the question is whether there is any authority under California law that gives Yes on 8 the right to appeal a ruling that struck down the state ban on same-sex marriage when state officials decided not to.

Yes on 8 is the coalition of groups that organized the campaign to pass California’s ban on same-sex marriage in November 2008, ending six months of marriage equality in the nation’s most populous state.

The Proposition 8 initiative was Yes on 8’s reaction to a decision by the California Supreme Court in 2008 that held that the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

Last Monday, August 29, the venue for the Proposition 8 litigation was the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, and the question was whether the court would release to the public videotapes of the landmark Proposition 8 trial — Perry v. Brown (formerly Perry v. Schwarzenegger). A decision in that matter is expected any day now.

Glitter Rains Down on Anti-Gay Booth at Minnesota State Fair

Glitter rained down from the heavens in a "Minnesota Miracle" on the anti-marriage equality booth at the Minnesota state fair. LGBT equality activists showered the booth from a skilift shouting: "where's our booth?" and "equality for all" in reference to the strange appearance of the anti-gay booth despite the exclusion of a pro-equality booth on the fairgrounds.
"As LGBT people are excluded from basic rights like marriage, the voices of marriage equality activists in Minnesota were excluded from having a booth at the Minnesota state fair," said participant Joanna Hirvela, "but we will not be silenced. Wherever there is bigotry, let there be glitter."



This weekend activists used the Minnesota State Fair skylift to shower glitter upon Minnesota for Marriage (M4M), an organizer behind the state’s proposed constitutional ban on marriage equality. Apparently the (un)fair organizers allowed M4M to have a booth while denying the pro-LGBT Minnesotans United for All Families a booth as well.

Proposition 8 Faces Next Legal Hurdle Before State Supreme Court

California's same-sex marriage ban faces its next legal test Tuesday when the state's highest court attempts to shed light on whether the voter-approved measure's backers have legal authority to appeal the federal ruling that overturned Proposition 8.

The California Supreme Court is scheduled to hear an hour of arguments on that question, which could prove crucial to the future of the voter-approved ban. The federal appeals court that is considering the initiative's constitutionality wants the state court to weigh in on the matter before it issues its decision.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has expressed doubts about the ability of Proposition 8's sponsors to challenge the lower court ruling absent the involvement of California's governor or attorney general, both of whom refused to appeal a federal judge's August 2010 decision striking down the ban as a violation of gay Californians' civil rights.

The court punted the question to the California Supreme Court earlier this year, saying it was a matter of state law.

Lawyers for the coalition of religious and conservative groups that qualified Proposition 8 for the November 2008 ballot maintain they are legally eligible to represent the majority of California voters who approved the same-sex marriage ban. They argue that because California has such a vigorous citizen's initiative process, it would not make sense for elected officials to effectively veto measures by not defending them in court.

"This is a pivotal hearing for us as we continue to fight to uphold the People's vote to restore traditional marriage in California against these ferocious attacks," Andy Pugno, legal counsel for the Proposition 8 coalition said in a letter to supporters last week. "We simply cannot allow our opponents to manipulate the legal system to the point where there is nobody left to defend the People!"

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