Across the Pond: British Parliament Approves Gay Marriage

By TinaPJ

The following is cross-posted from fromthemindoftinapj. Read the blog in its entirety here.

Gay Marriage?

So, finally, Parliament caught up with the prevailing mood of the country and voted to allow gay people to marry.  Woohoo.  I’m thrilled.  About time too!

According to those who are against ‘gay marriage’ this is pretty much Sodom and Gomorrah (a bible story which they appear to have misunderstood due to the use of the word ‘sodom’ which is a town name, and gave its name to an act which was not one which only occurred between two men and is therefore not ‘a gay act’).  Marriage is devalued!  Marriage is for procreation!  WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

In reality no religious institution is going to be forced to marry same-gender couples if they don’t want to.  Their right to discriminate through religion is protected, and not all religious institutions oppose same-gender mariage anyway.  What is no longer happening is the extension of that discrimination throughout society based on the beliefs of a minority.  Believe what you want, that is your right, but when you use that belief to oppress and discriminate, that is a problem.  If you don’t want a ‘gay marriage’, don’t have one.  Simple.

This wasn’t even about ‘gay marriage’, a misnomer which has been irking me for a while.  This was about equality, and allowing couples who are not one-man/one-woman to be wed.  This was about marriage being available to ALL, not just heterosexual couples (although it is still mono-amorous, but that’s another and way more complicated legal debate).  This was about Marriage Equality, and frankly I’d prefer it if the debate had been titled that, but hey, we won, so meh!

This is a massive step for gender equality also.  Marriage has long been held up by some as oppressive in that it inherently perpetuates traditional gender roles.  This is because it has been “husband/wife”, or worse (as in many religious ceremonies) “man/wife” – seriously, the man remains an autonomous individual and the woman becomes an appendage to his autonomy and defined by her legal relationship to him?  What’s THAT all about?!  I am married, and for me it was a public show of my commitment to and love for my lover/partner/friend/cohabitee-through-life, and provided vital legal protection to boot.  It had nothing to do with expected gender roles, and in reality we are not at all traditional in any way in our marriage.  If marriage is no longer only to be undertaken between the man/woman couple, then the traditional gender roles through which men have retained privilege and women have been oppressed will also be challenged.  Yay!

New Year News Roundup!

By Heather Turner

It's been a bit quiet here at NTQ! But we are back with a bang after surviving the Mayan Apocalypse and the now delayed "fiscal cliff" apocalypse. 2012 was pretty exciting for news-watchers. Yet, methinks this year will be every bit as interesting. Lacking the headache of an impending major political election, 2013 has all of the potential to be the year the major news outlets start reporting on the issues that really matter to the public at large. Why such optimism?

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Well, as Alternet points out in its "Top 25 Progressive Victories" list of 2012, despite the electoral sideshow and Congressional dysfunction, quite a lot was accomplished last year by progressive activists and politicians alike. However, as  George Monblot, writing for the Guardian, notes, one of the most neglected issues of 2012 was the environment:

It was the year of living dangerously. In 2012 governments turned their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem, however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half-century.

Three weeks before the minimum occurred, the melting of the Arctic's sea ice broke the previous record. Remnants of the global megafauna – such as rhinos and bluefin tuna – were shoved violently towards extinction. Novel tree diseases raged across continents. Bird and insect numbers continued to plummet, coral reefs retreated, marine life dwindled. And those charged with protecting us and the world in which we live pretended that none of it was happening.

Their indifference was distilled into a great collective shrug at the Earth Summit in June. The first summit, 20 years before, was supposed to have heralded a new age of environmental responsibility. During that time, thanks largely to the empowerment of corporations and the ultra-rich, the square root of nothing has been achieved. Far from mobilising to address this, in 2012 the leaders of some of the world's most powerful governments – the US, the UK, Germany and Russia – didn't even bother to turn up.

...

Our leaders now treat climate change as a guilty secret. Even after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and the record droughts and wildfires that savaged the US, the two main presidential contenders refused to mention the subject, except for one throwaway sentence each. Has an issue this big ever received as little attention in a presidential race?

The same failures surround the other forces of destruction. In 2012 European governments flunked their proposed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is perfectly designed to maximise environmental damage. The farm subsidies it provides are conditional on farmers destroying the vegetation (which also means the other wildlife) on their land. We pay €55bn a year to trash the natural world.

This contributes to what I have come to see as a great global polishing: a rubbing away of ecosystems and natural structures by the intensification of farming, fishing, mining and other industries. Looking back on this year a few decades hence, this destruction will seem vastly more significant than any of the stories with which the media is obsessed. Like governments, media companies have abandoned the living world.

With the hectic election season and other sensationalist news occupying a great deal of the corporate newshole, the environment took a back seat, and global warming denialism in the media became a routine part of creating a balanced debate. And on top of that, Shell started poking holes in the ground. Deeeep underwater. In the Arctic. Which was all but virtually forgotten until The Yes Men helped to put the media's attention back on Shell's half hazard efforts to drill for oil in Arctic waters. So could 2013 be the year of paying at least marginally more attention to environmental issues (and possibly doing something about it)? If starting off the year with a Yes Men press debacle and massive Australian wildfires are any indication, then it is reasonable to expect that global environmental catastrophes of historic proportions will continue to be staple news items of the coming year.

A Guide to Living With (and Responding to) Obama Derangement Syndrome

By Nathan Rothwell

If this is how President Obama routinely appears to

you in your also routine nightmares, you may suffer 

from Obama Derangement Syndrome, or ODS.

If you or someone you know is suffering from ODS,

consult this article immediately.

It's way cheaper than a psychiatrist.

In 2003, Fox News stormtrooper correspondent Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” When critics of the Bush Administration took it to task over its misadventures in foreign and domestic policy, Krauthammer dismissed the criticism as symptoms of a faux medical condition that causes "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush."

Here we are a decade later, and one can easily see how “George W. Bush” can be replaced with “Barack Obama,” and the term “Obama Derangement Syndrome” can just as easily be applied to some of the Obama Administration’s most outspoken detractors. Many an uninformed voter exists who can’t have a rational conversation about Obama without launching into a tirade of either unquantifiable or improvable belief statements (Obama HATES the troops), or attacks stemming from a realm of pure fantasy (Obama waived the work requirements for those lazy welfare freeloaders!) So while it pains me to lend Krauthammer any credit, this Obama-version of his “derangement syndrome” concoction seems to best describe some of these people.

A form of O.D.S. found its way into my inbox recently in the form of one of those “Why OBAMA Should GO!!!” emails making its rounds in the American cyberverse. It pains me greatly that chain emails comprise any sort of public discourse in this country, let alone political discourse. However, it did grant some insight into the world of those who despise President Obama, but aren't particularly artful in explaining why. Their core beliefs are backed by discredited statistics, and sometimes no facts at all.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously said that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” In this spirit, I thought it might be fun to respond to the source of the chain email with facts that fly in the face of the “reasons” that President Obama should be voted out of office. And in the spirit of promoting informed debate during this election season, I’ve reprinted responses to some of the more common unfounded criticisms surrounding Obama. While many have made their minds up to hate him no matter what, I hope that there are some people out there who might reevaluate their convictions when presented with information stemming from outside the Fox News bubble of myopia.

Anyway, onto the fun. 

Missouri bill would ban discussion of sexual orientation in public schools

This would keep groups like PFLAG and PRISM from having meetings on school property. It's just absurd.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

            Section A. Chapter 170, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 170.370, to read as follows:

            170.370. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no instruction, material, or extracurricular activity sponsored by a public school that discusses sexual orientation other than in scientific instruction concerning human reproduction shall be provided in any public school.