I am angry, upset, furious, baffled and shocked by the Supreme Court of California ruling that upholds Proposition 8. In the long run, the ruling is not about same sex marriage, or if "opposite marriage" is the only morally correct form of marriage, but if minority rights can be voted away by a simple majority.

Marriage is a civil contract and is only valid in California if a piece of paper is signed and filed with the appropriate agency within a certain period of time. As a clergyperson, I can say to a man and a woman,

Linoleum vinegar spinach

then we and a witness all sign the license, it gets mailed in to the country registrar and *abracadabra hocus pocus dominocus* they are married, with all the rights and privileges at a state and federal level. But if the Pope or Pat Robertson perfom a full blown ceremony and ooopsy doodle, no one sends in the paperwork, that lucky couple is royally screwed–they aren’t married in the eyes of the government, their insurance company or any other official body. So let’s just take religion out of the mix and point out the truth: "Marriage" is a civil contract which grants certain rights. Maine got it right in their legislation, entitled An Act To End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom.

In 1958 Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter got married in Virginia and were criminally indicted for that act because he was white and she was black. Almost a decade later, in 1967 the United States Supreme Court determined that anti-miscegenation was unconstitutional. It took until 2000 for Alabama to repeal that state’s laws banning interracial marriage.

There is talk now of placing a new marriage initiative on California’s 2010 ballot, giving us over year to educate voters that this is about civil rights and fairness. Hopefully we can take a page out of Maine’s book and point out that granting marriage equality doesn’t force churches to perform ceremonies. All we need is a simple majority. . . .

When I was in college I lived in Barrington Hall, a UC Berkeley student co-op notorious for both its activism and its sloth. I saw bands–most famously the Dead Kennedys and X–play in our dining hall, and joined forces with Berkeley’s hippie population to march in whatever rallies were happening. One of my dormmates liberally graffittied the exterior of a UC Berkeley building the night before the CIA was holding a recruitment there. We didn’t really have money to donate to causes, but we had voices and cans of paint.

 Students today-equally passionate about social justice–are faced with even greater economic and educational pressures.  They want to make a difference, though time and money are tight. But what’s the one thing students must have? Textbooks! 

 So last week a group of student activists, in partnership with the California College Democrats launched Textbooks for Change, an innovative program that leverages the Amazon Associates Program, and thousands of student textbook purchases, into cash for California’s Courage Campaign and their ongoing efforts to repeal Prop 8.  By simply using the link on Textbooks for Change as the portal to Amazon and buying textbooks through the online merchant, approximately 7% of the purchase price goes to support ongoing efforts for marriage equality in California.

It almost makes me want to go back to school and like, get my degree…

No H8 Campaign released this video featuring Calpernia, Tia Tequila, Perez Hilton, Shana Moakler and others saying no on to discrimination an hate, and showing their unhappiness over Prop 8. Anyone can participate, just follow the online directions.

Proposition 8–the ban on a certain minority being allowed to marry–was upheld by the California Supreme Court. To which I say: WTF?  As a striaght Californian, as an American, I am so effing pissed. . . and hurt. . . and shocked–and can only imagine the utter pain and dismay that my LGBTQ friends and family must feel. Does this mean that any state can vote to have some se of rights removed from whatever minorities they don’t particularly like?

Because, if that’s the case, I’d like to start with douchey guys driving Trans Ams. Let’s just vote them off the road. And deny them the right to buy CK One. We’d be doing our freeways and our noses a favor.

I find it a travesty that two people of opposite sex can get married so one of them can stay in the country, or get better insurance benefits, or so the couple can get tax breaks–or for any other number of non-romantic reasons–but people who love each other are denied the basic civil rights that marriage allows. IANAL, but my considered opinion is: That’s bullshit.

Iowa, Maine and other states had better gird their loins for a battle at the ballot box.

Did I mention that I am pissed? WTF?!?

Tuesday May 26 the California Supreme Court announces its ruling on Proposition 8 and Day of Decision events are planned in ninety cities across the US and Canada.  There will be dancing in the streets and a celebratory air if Prop 8 is overturned, allowing same sex marriage in California; expect a slightly different vibe if Prop 8 is upheld and the 18,000 marriages already performed are invalidated, or if Prop 8 is upheld, but those marriage allowed to stay in place.

You can find Decision Day groups on  Facebook, Yahoo, and Twitter, and tonight Day Of Decision co-founder Robin Tyler and her wife Diane Olson will appear on MSNBC.

And Wednesday, no matter how the Supreme Court rules, protesters will be at the Beverly Hilton Hotel as President Obama know takes part in a fund raising dinner, since he has failed to repeal DOMA and DADT, two major campaign promises.

We’ll have photos and footage from Los Angeles.

Conservative Chicago radio personality Mancow thought it’d be no big deal to get waterboarded, so when listeners voted that he get  blindfolded and strapped down with his legs elevated, he went for it.  His logic:

They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’ 

Instead, reports NBC Chicago, Mancow lasted 6 or 7 seconds under the pouring water.

It is way worse than I thought it would be, it is way worse than I thought it would be and that’s no joke…It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…I thought I could hold out 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.

Director Kirby Dick and activist/journalist Michael Rogers appeared on "The View" today to discuss the documentary Outrage, about closeted gay politicians who vote against pro-LGBT issues.

Rogers–who has a 100% accuracy rate with his political gay-dar and inside sources–outted Larry Craig nine months before he tapped his toe in the Minneapolis airport men’s room. He explains the why of outting politicans:

The basis of this country is that the people who make the laws have to live under them…[I]n the case of Larry Craig, he voted consistently to discharge lesbian and gay members from the military. If he can do that as a veteran of the military, that’s not living under the laws you want to legislate. That’s called tyranny [applause] where the people who set the rules don’t have to follow them. That’s just unacceptable. The film shows the difference. It shows the exact cases of how are people being hypocrites.

Director Kirby Dick says goal of the film is expose hypocrisy, and Joy Behar called it a very good film. Elisabeth Hasselbeck thinks

In some ways, it is a form of bullying people to have them match their personal lives with what they think is best for the country and I think that is going down a dangerous path. We would have a very different legal system if that were the case across the board.

But if lawmakers are hypocrites they should be busted for it. As Kirby Dick points out,

closeted politicians…vote anti-gay and in the process harm the lives of millions of American gay and lesbian citizens

along with impacting the lives of LGBTQ allies who watch as their fellow citizens, their friends and family members, face discrimination and hate.

Hasselbeck is completely confused and/or off-base. Politicans are lawmakers, and should live under the laws they  make. And are polticians bullied when many, many of them vote the way their religions tell them to and campaign on their faiths’ values? What if they "stray" from those personal religious values when voting on policy that is for the good of the nation–will their churches lambaste them?

One’s religion, or lack thereof, is definitely an aspect of one’s personal life, and there are certainly a vast number of politicians who want to make their personal, fundamentalist religious views part of our country’s laws and enforce their rigid belief system on the rest of us who don’t share their theocratic dream. We have separation of Church and State and imposing laws based on (one faulty translation of) the Bible is, to quote Hasselbeck,

 going down a dangerous path

Though I don’t think that’s quite what she had in mind when she was trying to make her point…

Wednesday May 27–the day after the Supreme Court delivers its Prop 8 ruling– President Barack Obama arrives in the City of Angels for a fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton Hotel where Jennifer Hudson and Earth Wind and Fire will be headlining the $1,000 a person reception. For $2,500 you can get the VIP seating at the reception, and if you’re feeling like a big spender, there’s a bonus $30,400 per couple dinner at what will be Obama’s first appearance in LA since he took office. I wonder if there will be a dessert? As of press time there is no information on the menu…

Organizers are hoping to raise $3 million, and PR guru/political consultant Andy Spahn, one of the event’s organizers, told Wilshire & Washington:

We will meet our goal. It is a tough economy, but there is tremendous excitement about Barack Obama’s first appearance here as president of the United States.

 And over the musical guests! But gosh darn it, I want to know what food they’re serving!

The Supreme Court of California announced today that they will release their ruling on the validity of Prop 8 on Tuesday May 26. Oral arguments were made in March and in the ensuing months we’ve seen some great precedents set in Iowa, Maine and Vermont.

Plans are in place for Day of Decision marches across the state and throughout the U.S. In Los Angeles

at 10:30 a.m. — approximately a half-hour after the expected posting of the ruling — attorneys for plaintiff couples and community leaders will hold a news conference to discuss the ruling and what it means for California’s same-sex couples and their families, communities of color, and the future of LGBT rights in California. Clergy members will deliver an invocation at 9:45 a.m., shortly before the ruling is announced.

Speakers will include City Attorney Rocky Delgadio, Ron Buckmire from the Jordan Rustin Coalition,  Rev. Eric Lee (President/CEO, Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California), MALDEF Western Regional Attorney Nancy Ramirez,  API’s Doreena Wong,  Marc Rosenbaum fomr the ACLU, Lorri L. Jean from the  Gay and Lesbian Center,  and Jorge Amaro of the Latino Equality Alliance  and  Jenny Pizer, Lambda Legal Marriage Project Director.

Though only 28% of the gianormous SAG/AFTRA union combo actually voted, the new three year commercial contract passed by almost 94%. The percentage of ballot returns was pretty much par for the course, but this was an unusally high ratification level. Whether the results will spill over into the film and television contract vote in June remains to be seen.

Variety reports that the new ad deal–providing the first-ever payment structure for ads for the Internet and new media, which goes into effect in the third year–will

generate more than $108 million in increased earnings, including $24 million in increased contributions to the unions’ health and pension funds.

Ballots were sent out Tuesday to 110,000 SAG members to ratify the feature-primetime contract which has been the source of rancor for almost a year and which just last night drove former SAG president Ed Asner to go all Godwins, invoking the Holocaust to describe the impact of the tentative deal, which is a pretty gross overstatement–and yeah, a fellow member rebuked the comparison.

Celebs in attendence included Patricia Heaton, board members Clancy Brown, Gabrielle Carteris, Frances Fisher, Melissa Gilbert and Bruce Boxlietner. Carteris–best known as brainy Andrea Zuckerman-Vasquez on the original Beverly Hills 90210–recently appeared in a video in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.