A Matter of Time

Amidst all the convoluted details and disappointments, the optimist in me says “when” is better than “if”

Gay-rights Roundup

(Image from here)

Let’s start off with the bad stuff…

In a vote of 38-24, the New York State Senate rejected a bill that would have allowed gays to marry. It sounds like the Senators who voted down the bill were thinking along these lines: “Well, the economy is bad… so gay’s can’t marry!” Right… so this effectively shuts down gay marriage chances in New York until 2011. Read more

Moving on to New Jersey- a gay marriage bill similar to the one in New York will be up for a vote this Thursday. Proponents of the bill are eager to pass it now while their outgoing Governer, who supports the bill, is in office. His replacement has promised to veto it. Keep your fingers crossed. Read more

In other good news, the Washington D.C. Council voted decisively in favor of gay marriage becoming legal in our nation’s capitol. A second vote, coming up in less than two weeks, will decide if the measure will become law. Read more

And finally… “Two of Congress’s three openly gay members said Saturday that the U.S. House is poised to pass bills to provide health coverage for the same-sex partners of gay federal workers and to protect all gay and transgender employees from job discrimination.” Read more

And that’s the legal clusterfuck for this week… what I wouldn’t give for everyone to just get off already

Congress addresses rape kit backlog

“Each year, approximately 200,000 rapes are reported in the United States. The majority of these sexual assault victims undergo a medical examination immediately after the attack so that the police can obtain a rape kit — a collection of any physical evidence the attacker may have left behind, including vaginal swabs, urine samples, blood tests, and fingernail scrapings. And then, in many cases, these kits sit collecting dust.”   Read Roxann MtJoy’s whole story here. At the end, there’s a link to contact your congresswomen and men.

There’s a Rep for that

The man behind this is also my go-to guy for strategy when arguing marriage equality- check out the rest of the videos on his blog: Waking Up Now