The Washington State Senate has approved SB 6239, a bill granting marriage equality, in a 28-21 vote. It now moves on to the House, where its passage is all but assured, then to the desk of Governor Gregoire, who
started the process earlier this year and has promised to sign it.
But,
then what? As in 2009, when citizens voted 53-47 in favor of
Referendum 71 to reject overturning the legislature's domestic partnership bill, the bill will likely be subject to a citizen referendum, rendering it temporarily inactive until approved by popular vote. A recent poll found that
55% of voters would approve that measure. If that holds true, same-sex marriages could begin in Washington State starting December 7th, 2012.
posted by 0xFCAF
on Feb 2, 2012 -
70 comments
On the same day that NJ governor Chris Christie
announced that he has nominated an openly gay African-American Republican mayor to the state’s highest court, Washington state's legislature has
announced that they have the votes to pass the same sex-marriage bill that the governor has already promised to sign. Washington will be the seventh state to have same sex marriages.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Jan 23, 2012 -
70 comments
On the
6th of December 2011, as has been traditional for the past 9 decades since Finland's Independence, the President, Tarja Halonen and her spouse, Dr Pentti Arajarvi
host what is known as the
Linnan juhlat or Castle Ball, an
extremely popular televised reception for the notables of the nation. Along with the usual dignitaries, the President is also permitted to select invitees based on merit - entertainers, athletes, individuals - whom she feels have been in the news in the past year.
This year Peter and Teija Vesterbacka also were invited due to Peter Vesterbacka's work as the CMO of Rovio. Teija Vesterbacka wore a red dress for the evening that had design concepts from one of the birds in the mobile game Angry Birds.
Highlighted
in the Finnish news by the very select group of photographers permitted entry to this exclusive event, it was when the photograph of this dress went viral among global MSM that
the angry birds began to fly.
posted by infini
on Dec 8, 2011 -
29 comments
In 2009,
Ctrl.Alt.Shift, the "youth
initiative of Christian Aid," held a national competition in the UK for aspiring filmmakers aged 18 to 25. Their mission: create a short film treatment based around three key issues: "War + Peace," "Gender + Power" and "HIV + Stigma." The results were then screened to an audience at the 2009 Raindance Film Festival. The films:
1000 Voices,
HIV: The Musical,
Man Made,
No Way Through and
War School.
(All YouTube links. Vimeo links and descriptions of each film are inside this post.) These films deal with adult subject matter and may be disturbing for some viewers. Some may also be nsfw. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on May 24, 2011 -
3 comments
Security-in-a-Box.
A complete guide to digital security for advocates and human rights defenders (and for you too!). It includes all the info and tools you'll need for anything related to personal digital security.
Mobiles in-a-box: Tools and tactics for mobile advocacy.
Message in-a-box: Everything you need to make and distribute your own media.
NGO-in-a-box: Set up you NGO using free and open-source software.
[more inside]
posted by lemuring
on Feb 28, 2011 -
14 comments
One year after the
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which, overturning over 100 years of precedent, opened a floodgate of corporate money into election campaigns, Virginia Lyons (D-VT), has introduced
legislation (full text of bill not yet available, articles
here and
here) in the Vermont State Senate to amend the United States Constitution to explicitly state that corporations are
not persons.
This would overturn the controversial notion of
corporate personhood which was established in the 1800s. Controversial not only for the unequal distribution of rights and responsibilities among humans and corporations, some, like
Thom Hartmann (
previously), have claimed that the notion of corporate personhood was established as an
intentional misinterpretation of the decision as recorded by court reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis, former president of the Newburgh & New York Railway Co.
[more inside]
posted by laminarial
on Jan 24, 2011 -
102 comments
Copycat of Arizona's immigration status bill has passed the Mississippi Senate by a vote of 34-15. The difference here is that there is a precondition with the immigration status check. Though selection cannot be based on race, color, or country of origin but ability to English can cast enough suspicion to warrant a check on immigration status.
posted by azileretsis
on Jan 20, 2011 -
73 comments
GLBT rights advocate Carolyn Wagner has passed away. In 1996,
Carolyn's 16 year old son, William, was assaulted in his school in Fayetteville, Arkansas, following years of
anti-gay harassment. School administrators rebuffed his complaints, telling him to man-up. His mother, Carolyn, filed a
complaint with the Office For Civil Rights that the Fayetteville Arkansas School District was in violation of their son's Title lX rights and succeeded in convincing the OCR that GLBT students are covered by Title lX, and won.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Jan 19, 2011 -
28 comments
Will Canada be the first developed nation to decriminalise
Polygamy? After Charter challenges legalised
orgies, prostitution (most recently "living off the avails"),
same-sex marriages, non-sexual
adult interdependent relationships, common-law marraiges and
multiple legally recognised spouses in Saskatchewan, the West Coast is now hosting a unique reference case in B.C.'s superior court considering whether section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code is
legal under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
[more inside]
posted by saucysault
on Nov 22, 2010 -
119 comments
She read from notes, stumbling occasionally, and did not so much lean on her metaphors as wrestle them to the floor and grind them underfoot; but they loved it anyway - all 15 minutes of it. She attacked everyone from the president on down, demanded stricter standards for America's service personnel, espoused an aggressive red-meat constitutionalism, and proposed a new policy which she summed up as "if you don't like it - go home."
The 2,000-strong crowd cheered wildly as she literally howled her frustration before leading them, fists pumping, in an anti-incumbent chant of "Go home!" A strange mix of patriotism and petulance, it was a rough kind of stump speech that hadn't been tested in a focus group or tried out on a campaign aide, and which was delivered with complete disregard for how it might play in the media.
Witness the startling political
debut of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, American citizen.
posted by anigbrowl
on Sep 20, 2010 -
115 comments
Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent - Adding to its
long-running series on corruption and abuse in post-Communist Russia, the New York Times has reported on Russian authorities using the pretext of software piracy to seize computers from journalists and political dissidents critical of current policies. In a surprising twist, lawyers representing Microsoft have been found working with Russian police, despite reporters and NGOs providing evidence of legitimate software purchases. An
official response to the NYT piece suggests impostors claim to represent Microsoft in Russia, and notes the company's offer of free software licenses to these and similar groups.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Sep 12, 2010 -
25 comments
Judge Rules "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Is Unconstitutional - Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down President Clinton's
Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy in an
opinion (Scribd) issued late Thursday, ruling on the constitutionality of a complaint brought by the
Log Cabin Republicans (PDF). President Obama's Justice Department has until a September 23 deadline to submit objections to the court regarding Judge Phillips's permanent injunction, which is uncertain given Obama's previous support of his Department of Justice defending the legality of DADT, despite his opposition to DADT in principle.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Sep 9, 2010 -
91 comments
On the heels of the highly publicized Missouri raid that ended in the death of a corgi (
previously), a seven year-old girl has been
killed in a
no-knock raid in Detroit. According to one of Radley Balko's
commenters, the family may have been targeted because they shared a two-family duplex with the target of the raid.
posted by lalex
on May 17, 2010 -
183 comments
Cul-de-sac is a new independent film (
trailer, briefly NSFW) by London-based directors
Ramin Goudarzi Nejad & Mahshad Torkan. It tells the story of Kiana Firouz, a filmmaker, actress, and lesbian activist who fled Iran after authorities learned of her attempt to make an underground documentary about the lives of
Iranian gays and lesbians. According to
this interview, Firouz didn't write the film, but plays herself. Earlier this month, her asylum petition was allegedly
denied. The denial shouldn't have been surprising according to statistics in a
report (pdf) by the
UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, which states that the refusal rate for lesbians and gay men is as high as 98-99%. Although the Home Office claims it takes the sexual orientation of asylum seekers into consideration, laws which permit deportation of gay and lesbian asylum seekers have recently been
challenged in the supreme court.
posted by treepour
on May 13, 2010 -
10 comments
Changes to Orphan Works copyright legislation in the US began to
crumble in 2008 when the NPPA and a grassroots initiative finally gained momentum. Still, the ASMP has a
FAQ outlining their position on the 2008 Orphan Works bill stating that it is inevitable legislation and they should take advantage of a favourable congress to retain as positive a position for photographers as possible.
It seems that new laws are close to coming into effect in the UK government seemingly
nationalising orphan works and in a separate action (same article) banning non-consentual photography making street photography essentially impossible.
[via]
Previously
posted by michswiss
on Feb 25, 2010 -
18 comments
