Recorded live and presented unedited (be warned): Joining me for today’s Live Chat on Pride48.com were regular panellists Steven in Wisconsin and LurryDean, as well as Larken.
After thirty-one defeats in a row, and despite a narrow win in Washington State, radical religious extremists have been emboldened by their victory in Maine and are marching on in their campaign to deny GLBT people ALL civil and human rights, not just the right to marry. How do we fight back—and win? Sure, we have to wage mighty grassroots campaigns, but how do we fight a lie? How do we take on scaremongering? How do we defeat the radical religious extremists without coming across like we think all religion or religious people are our enemies? How do we put an end to the nonsense of people being able to vote on who is and who is not an equal citizen? What do we need to do right now to turn the tide?
Toward the end of today’s episode we talk about all sort of things, some of it related to today’s topic, most of it not. That’s the point of a group show, after all.
Posting of the recorded version of this episode was delayed by my heavy work commitments.
Join us on for the next live podcast on Pride48.com for a lively, wide-ranging discussion. The next live chat starts at 8pm Eastern North American time on Thursday, November 12 (2pm Friday, November 13 New Zealand time). You can also join other listeners in the chatroom, where you can ask questions or make comments as the show is streamed.
Links for this episode
Little Mosque on the Prairie
The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See
Little Aussie Battler
Best Church of God on Twitter
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During last night’s show the question of what could be done to develop support for our issues was offered. At the time I could not think of anything, however, this morning I was reminded of one group that seems to doing a lot of things in Colorado. It is the Gill Foundation (http://www.gillfoundation.org) and it’s giving arm, the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado (http://www.gayandlesbianfund.org).
These organizations were founded by Tim Gill, who was the founder of Quark after Colorado’s sojourn in the wilderness after Amendment 2. While their focus is to support the Gay and Lesbian Community, they like to support other organizations that might make life better for all Coloradans. They give money to several art groups in the state (do opera companies count as non-gay organizations?). The donations put the Gay and Lesbian Foundation on the group’s materials etc., which link gays and lesbians to the arts.
Similarly, they have picked public broadcasting as a focus. Again this puts the name of the organization out there a couple of times a day. This also encourages these media outlets to cover our issues.
The people who enjoy the arts and public media have a slight tendency to be on the liberal side, which might not be the people we are trying to reach, but it does put gays and lesbians out there.
Now comes the “We must build/support “these type of groups. This is the problem. Others are always the answer, but I think we each must each come up with an answer how we can help.
Thank you so much for commenting—the first one to comment after a live podcast and before the recorded version was posted. A milestone!
Seriously, I agree with you that we must each come up with how we can help. There’s something for all of us, no matter how deeply closeted (like purchasing decisions, for example). The Gill Foundation does interesting stuff, particularly because it’s targeted. Gill is also targeting campaign donations to candidates who can defeat anti-gay politicians—in other words, he gives money were it can do the most good. There really is something everyone can do.
If we get “Everything But Marriage” it’s the same as saying “You’re still different”. We may have all the same laws, but THEY are still better. How many times will it take before we get that “Separate but equal” DOES NOT WORK! The heterosexual world drums it into our head as kids that we will grow up and fall in love and GET MARRIED. They read us books about it, make us watch movies about it, TV shows about it — they TEACH us FROM BIRTH that it is OUR BIRTHRIGHT. And then we fall in love with someone of the same sex and THEY TAKE IT BACK. Well “F” that! I say it’s time to take away some of their “rights”. They think we’ll DESTROY marriage? Fine. Let’s restrict and redefine marriage for the purpose they state. HAVING KIDS. I want fertility tests and a timeline and they better be able to afford them, and NO DIVORCE until the woman hits menopause and then MARRIAGE DISSOLVED. And Boxer isn’t going anywhere. She is well liked.
You stole my ending! That’s okay. 🙂
I need to join in the group shows again sometime.
On my way to work I was listening to the first 20 min (My commute time…) of the conversation and when I got to work my RSS feeder showed me this research curtsy of Schneier’s blog. Here’s the interesting exert:
“Nonetheless, the breadth of increased distrust that the public puts into practice is striking. Individuals threatened by terrorism become less trusting of others, even their own neighbors. Other studies have shown that they become less supportive of the rights of Arab and Muslim Americans. In addition, we found that such effects extend to immigrants and, as well, to a group entirely remote from the subject of terrorism: gay Americans. The specter of terrorist threat creates ruptures in our social fabric, some of which may be justified as necessary tactics in the fight against terrorism and others that simply cannot.”
I find it very interesting as it may explain some connections we are not aware of.