March 30, 2013

Marie Osmond On Marriage Equality...


Entertainer (and famous Mormon) Marie Osmond has long supported her out lesbian daughter, and this week tells Diane Sawyer she believes in marriage equality:

"The God that I believe in is a god of love, not fear. I don't tell my children if you're not good you're going to Hell. I tell my children that God will be there for them when they struggle. That's the God I believe in...I believe in [my lesbian daughter's] civil rights, as a mother. I think my daughter deserves everything that she desires in life. She's a good girl. She's a wonderful child. I don't think God made one color flower. I think he made many."

This week, as marriage equality was debated in the US Supreme Court, several of Marie's fellow Osmond's including her brother Alan hosted a rally "benefitting the protection of marriage between a man and a woman" at the Utah capitol. Screw them... YAY Marie Osmond:

March 28, 2013

Best Gay Wedding Invite...

When K and I got married almost three years ago, we had about 50 people for a Sunday brunch and kept it pretty low key (for pictures click here). And our invite was pretty minimalist as well.

With all the advances in marriage equality since then, and the cases currently before the US Supreme Court, the people at happyplace.com have come up with a new take on an invite, and I love it:

March 25, 2013

Starbucks is so gay...

I love Starbucks... the coffee smell, the coffee taste, the menu of flavours especially the "blond" blends and my all-time favourite the Christmas blend (which we hoard so I have it all year), the breakfast wraps, even the grumpy/friendly pierced tattooed teens in green aprons who work the till.

One of the many things I love about Starbucks is their community involvement and charity work; more than most other big corporations, they try to do some good while also trying to make stacks of money.

Last week Starbucks earned even more karma points. Here's their CEO Howard Schultz at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Seattle (and by the way, his business book Onward from a couple of years ago is a fantastic read).


Starbucks has long provided benefits for same-sex families and endorsed marriage equality. 

At the meeting, shareholder Tom Strobhar, who advocates against same-sex marriage through the Corporate Morality Action Center, said he was unhappy that Schultz has used the company to support gay marriage and claimed it had impacted the stock price.

The reply from Schultz? "It’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company."

The shareholder made his remark after the board was given approval by a vote to make political contributions, with board members saying they wanted flexibility to promote the company’s policy agenda. 

The CEO told the shareholder that the company was committed to embracing diversity. It is not an economic decision, he said. The lens in which we are making that decision is through the lens of our people. We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity.

His comments prompted cheers and applause from the gathered stockholders and then the CEO offered the discontented stockholder a way out...

If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38 percent you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much.

Wowza, Mr Schultz, I am impressed!


 

March 23, 2013

Worst bus ad ever...?

Sure the idea of putting a "quit smoking" advertisement on a school has merit, especially with a tag line like Smoking Not Our Future... but uh maybe somebody should have done a sanity check before this thing left the garage?

Saying QUIT SCHOOL across the ass of a school bus is not exactly brilliant.

The guy is hot though... not sure what he has to do with school or with smoking, but sure got my attention....

March 21, 2013

James Franco on gay rumours...


In addition to being a really good actor and a really bad Oscar host, James Franco is a writer, director, perpetual student, soap star, Gucci model, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Franco is one busy dude. And oh yeah, he's hot...

While he is straight, Franco has played many gay roles including in the Oscar-winning Milk, and has been rumoured to be gay, and these are rumours he has done little to discourage.


In the current issue of Attitude magazine, Franco talks about it:

One of the things that’s very much part of my public image is the question of my sexuality... It’s not something that bothers me in the slightest. It hasn’t gone away and I get asked about it from all sides. It’s partly my doing and partly not my doing.

I think that the people I have known who are performers who haven’t publicly come out didn’t because they’re afraid it’ll hurt their careers. And they’re afraid they won’t be able to play straight roles anymore.


I think I could see a really big name coming out and doing that... I think the time is about right. I’m not an authority on this but if I think about it for a second…if there’s somebody that was well respected and very secure with their career, I could see it happening in a very positive way.
He's right, it can be done, and in a positive way, not in a Jodie Foster type way... so which actor is gonna step out of the closet first?

March 19, 2013

Sweetest Dad Note Ever....

This was my favourite thing I found online last week... maybe my one of my favourite things I have found online EVER....


In a note reprinted at FCKH8.com, an awesome father saves his nervous son the trouble of coming out by casually leaving him a note explaining how he knows the score already:

Nate,
I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me. The only thing I need you to plan is bring home OJ and bread after class.
We are out, like you now.
I’ve known you were gay since you were six—I’ve loved you since you were born
-Dad
PS: Your mother and I think you and Mike make a cute couple

That dad better get the nicest Father’s Day present in the history of the world...

March 17, 2013

Madonna Honours Anderson Cooper...


This video clip is from last night's GLAAD awards in New York.

Madonna gave an impassioned speech to the audience about discrimination and tolerance, while dressed as a boy scout.
"When I think about young kids in America who are being bullied and tortured, who are taking their own lives because they feel alone and judged, outcast and misunderstood, I want to sit down and cry rivers of tears," she said.
"I have teenagers of my own now, and the idea of them, or any young person experiencing that kind of pain is unfathomable to me, It's an atrocity to me. I don't accept it."
Journalist and gay icon Anderson Cooper, who came out last year, was given the Vito Russo Award, named after a GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) founder, which is presented to an openly LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality.
Madonna was her usually ballsy self; I love her line "NOBODY writes my copy"... so true! Who could...?



and here is Cooper's touching acceptance speech...

March 16, 2013

The Queen & The Gays...


I write over at the smart and snarky Sprocket Ink every Tuesday.

My post this week was less pop culture focussed than usual, it was about the new declaration of rights that Queen Elizabeth signed which doesn't even mention gay people. I was not impressed.



March 11, 2013

Recasting The View...


News broke last Thursday that Joy Behar was leaving daytime chat show The View after 16 years, thereby leaving Barbara Walters as the sole original cast member left standing.

I love the feisty liberal Behar, a standup comic by trade. She brought a lot to the show, but has looked totally bored the last few years and it is probably time to move on.

Then on Friday, the internet jumped all over Us Weekly reporting that cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck was being let go from the show after ten years. This is a good thing as "Hasselbot" is a rude, disrespectful, stupid blowhard. And yes she is a conservative, and yes I disagree with her on almost everything, and yes the show needs a conservative, just not this one. She is nonsensical and socially regressive.

And much as I love Whoopi Goldberg, The View hasn't really been any good since Meredith Viera left the show and Barbara Walters lost her mind, all about seven years ago. Upstart rival The Talk is faster, funnier, more interesting and more entertaining.

While The View is cleaning house they should also dump Sherri Shepherd, the actress/comic/moron who makes even former cohost Star Jones look appealing.

So let's assume Walters and Goldberg stay and the other three go... who should they hire? Who would get me to care about The View again?

My fave choices --- Tina Fey and Amy Poehler  --- are presumably unavailable or uninterested. So who should join the show?

We need young and not so young, liberal and conservative, and likely a mom and a singleton. So here are five options for the three slots...


Brooke Shields: the actress, model and mom is smart and funny and kind. Ace choice... and a bit of a gimme, as she has been guest hosting lately and according to the internet has already been offered the job and is mulling it over.


Maya Rudolph: The very funny, often pregnant former SNL star is free now that her sitcom Up All Night vanished; she would bring some much-needed edge to the show.


Mindy Kaling: The very funny actor and writer is wasting her potential on The Mindy Project; she is brainy and bookish and charming on every talk show, let's get to see her live every weekday.


Megyn Kelly: Okay I don't know much about her, but as we need someone on the right, what little I have seen of Kelly, who trained as a lawyer and is currently on Fox News, is that she is conservative without being backwards, and smart and opinionated.


Anderson Cooper: yep, he's a guy, let's not discriminate based on gender, View people, and yes it's a long-shot as he already works for CNN and CBS while The View (or The Spew as my husband calls it) is on ABC, but Cooper is smart and geeky and sassy and newsy, and his talk show has been cancelled effective the end of this season. So he has mornings free...

Who would you hire to sit at the table on The View?

March 9, 2013

Puerto Rico Hates Fags?

I have seen some weird things in the fine print on receipts, from wonky ads to bad spelling to outrageous return policies, but this was a first for me....


An ATM at a bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is printing WE HATE FAGS at the bottom of its receipts. Bar owners say they have nothing to do with the machine as it’s owned and run by a separate company, and they’ve disconnected it.

Puerto Rico currently does not ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, and maintains a ban on gay people adopting children. Not impressed, Puerto Rico people....

Image from New Civil Rights

March 3, 2013

Ellen's letter to the Supreme Court...

I love Ellen DeGeneres for her humour, her bravery, and her big heart... though mostly for her Annie-Hall-ish wardrobe.

As the US Supreme Court gets ready to hear a case on California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, many businesses such as Apple and Nike, and celebrities including Clint Eastwood, are signing or filing briefs in favour of marriage equality.

Ellen, who is famously gay and famously out and famously married, posted her brief, and as expected it is terrific. Here it is, from her website...



California’s Proposition 8 is headed to the Supreme Court. Hundreds of companies and families as well as Republicans are submitting briefs urging the 9 judges to allow gay people to marry. I thought that was ridiculous. Why would judges want all of that underwear? Then, after a quick talk with some people, I found out what a brief was.
I’ve never filed a brief to the Supreme Court, so I thought I would post mine here. I’m sure someone will tweet it to them.
Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life. And in those 4 years, I don’t think we hurt anyone else’s marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they’re fine.
But even though Portia and I got married in the short period of time when it was legal in California, there are 1,138 federal rights for married couples that we don’t have, including some that protect married people from losing their homes, or their savings or custody of their children.
The truth is, Portia and I aren’t as different from you as you might think. We’re just trying to find happiness in the bodies and minds we were given, like everyone else.
Coming out was one of the hardest things I ever did. I didn’t intend to be on the cover of Time magazine saying, “Yep, I’m gay.” The truth is, I don’t even remember saying that. I mean, I definitely said the “I’m gay” part. It’s the “yep” I don’t remember. I’m not really a “yep” person. “Yes siree Bob” maybe. But not “yep.”
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” And there’s another famous quote that says “A society is judged by how it treats its weakest members.” I couldn’t agree with that more. No one’s really sure who said it first, so if anyone asks, tell them I said it.
I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights. It’s going to help keep families together. It’s going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time.
*I was just told Benjamin Franklin did not say that first quote. I apologize and see that I have a lot to learn about stuff.

March 1, 2013

Can Dogs Smile?

Can Dogs Smile? ....Yes. Yes they can...


... and some fun effects with Alfie photos, courtesy of www.photofunia.com: