This Is An Important Issue


(seems that way to me, anyway.)

Safe Zone:
"The Safe Zone symbol is a message to gay, lesbian, and bisexual students and colleagues. The message is that a person displaying this symbol is one who will be understanding, supportive, and trustworthy if a gay, lesbian, or bisexual student needs help, advice, or just someone to whom they can talk."

Okay, I put up this page a few years ago, after reading an article in TIME magazine that cited a poll saying that 64 percent of Americans believed same sex marriage should be illegal. I was pretty upset at all that hatred, and I threw the magazine against the wall, yadda yadda yadda, you've probably heard this story before. Anyway at the time I threw up a rather lame page of links to resources about gay marriage and some ranting.

Since then I've been more active in gay rights issues and I thought I'd go over this page again, because it *is* an important issue. It's important on two levels. One: same sex couples are denied the legal right of marriage, period. They can't visit each other in the ICU, their property isn't automatically inherited by the surviving partner, they have a hard time adopting kids, and on, and on. All of these "marriage benefits" that people in heterosexual marriages take for natural are out of reach in almost every state of this union. Two: the illegality of same sex marriage represents an institutionalized prejudice against bay and lesbian people. It's more than a single issue; it's one aspect of a whole worldview that discriminates against lesbians and gay men. In Pennsylvania, "sexual orientation" is not even included in the legislation against hate crimes. ??? This is not okay.

So I'll spare you the ambiguous moralizing and the morbid all-black design that were here before. Here are the facts. Read. Read read read.

Okay?

For Better Or Worse: the TIME article that started it all.
Ed Fallon's speech to Iowa government.
News briefs on "what passed, what failed" in 1998.
Lambda Legal, the legal defense project, has info on the marriage issue and on other rights issues.
Here's a CMU person with a TON of links about legal rights and nonrights for GLBT people.
Lesbian and Gay Marriage through History and Culture -- a paper I found on the 'net
The American Civil Liberties Union considers this a priority issue.
The Partners Task Force forGay & Lesbian Couples is "A national resource for same-sex couples, supporting the diversecommunity of committed gay and lesbian partners through a variety of media. This site contains more than 200 essays, surveys, legal articles and resources on legal marriage, ceremonies, domestic partner benefits, relationship tips, parenting, and immigration."

Day of Silence Project:
"Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. People who are silent today believe that laws and attitudes should be inclusive of people of all sexual orientations. The Day of Silence is to draw attention to those who have been silenced by hatred, oppression, and prejudice. Think about the voices you are not hearing. What can you do to end the silence?"

Okay, go home and read. 1