This Week At The AFA: Homosexual v. Gay

On By SarahIn Fun & Entertainment, Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

I follow the foibles of the American (anti) Family Association, and they have been busy lately. I have received several emails from them telling the latest about the boycott of McDonald’s, who made a donation to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and made a public statement in support of the gay community. And a couple weeks ago, the AFA successfully launched a campaign to get a supposedly “pro gay” Heinz Ketchup ad off the air.

I was ambivalent about these specific incidents. While I am grateful that McDonald’s is making a statement in support of civil rights for the LGBT community, I am not prepared to patronize the business because I think their selling crap to poor people and making a product that is bad for the world. It’s as bad as smoking. That’s not even scratching the surface. There are myriad reasons why I won’t go to McDonald’s, like the unsustainable way they raise their meat…but I digress. Also, the boycott of McDonald’s just reveals the bigotry and ignorance of the AFA and their friends. Do they really believe that buying a Happy Meal will harm the institution of marriage? Yup, they do. It’s really laughable. I don’t need to waste my energy pointing out what’s obviously funny and ridiculous about that. It speaks for itself.

And I saw the Heinz ad, and it’s just weird. I didn’t find it particularly pro gay. If anything, I thought it was making fun of gay relationships in a way I didn’t appreciate. However innocuous it may appear, I think that it revealed a somewhat homophobic attitude by making fun of same-sex relationships. I guess any kind of visibility is better than none, but at this point in history we’re not at a place where we have to take what we can get.

This week, however, they’ve really embarrassed themselves at the AFA, and this also speaks for itself. The AFA’s news service, One News Now, has an auto-replace for the word “gay” — they use instead “homosexual.” With the news release about Tyson Gay’s Olympic trial this week, they reported a story about “Tyson Homosexual” instead.

I laughed so hard I cried.

Chicago Pride 2008

On By SarahIn Community, Fun & EntertainmentLeave a comment


Dyke March Chicago 2008

Originally uploaded by TheFemGeek

We had a blast during our first Pride weekend in Chicago. Here we are at the Dyke March on Saturday, courtesy of TheFemGeek (thank you!), sitting on the sidelines watching the dykes go by. By San Francisco standards, this was a much smaller event than what we’re used to. We were laughing at the “tiny Dyke March,” but make no mistake, it was charming and fun. We do have to adjust our expectations when we say things like “if boys were here, there would be a DJ and a disco ball suspended from a crane.” I love the grass-rootsyness of this event, the drumming on plastic bins, the hand painted signs, all of the women just amazed by the large crowd…it’s all so fun.

The next day we went to the parade, and it was pretty crazy. I forgot how ferklemt I can get at Gay Pride, and I really almost lost it when the veterans marched by. There was another contingent that was fantastic, though I don’t know who they were. It was and all African-American group clad in brightly colored clothing, many twirling enormous bright flags and rifles. There must have been over one hundred of them, and they were so amazing. I also loved the two-steppers and the cheer leaders.

The parade stopped for a long time at one point. After about half an hour, folks in the crowd started talking and getting a little impatient. It was all fine for a while. Boys on top of the building across the street from us were entertaining the crowd by throwing Mardi Gras beads. Gillian caught a strand of each color for me. When a couple of cops walked by, Gillian stopped them (beer in a paper bag in hand — that’s how they do it in Chicago) and asked what the hold-up was. They told her someone’s foot got run over. It was all good, but I was just starting to get a little nervous by the time the parade got going again. People were starting to get agitated. I don’t know why they would think that it would be safer to hold up the parade for 45 minutes to an hour as opposed to getting the injured person out of there as fast as possible. This just tells me that the safety monitors don’t have it together for this event yet.

We then somehow made our way up the street (salmon swimming upstream — it was a little stressful for a moment) to the Anne Sather’s parking lot for the Girl Blast, which we heard was the place to be after the parade. The moment we got there, it started to pour. We held out, made some new friends huddled under our umbrellas, and got soaked anyway. It didn’t matter. We knew it would blow over, and sure enough, it did and more people showed up.

After a while, our new friends got a little too friendly, so we decided it was time to move on. We then hit the dance floor. The music was great, but for some reason we were the only people dancing. We didn’t care. We were having so much fun, and it had been so long since we’d been out and about, we just let go our inhibitions and cut a rug in the parking lot. Eventually others joined us.

At the height of the party, it was time to go home. It was about 5:00 and we were exhausted. For the rest of the evening I was pasted to the couch. All in all, a very satisfying weekend.

Midsommarfest

On By SarahIn Community, Fun & Entertainment, Opinion1 Comment

Here we are enjoying some kabobs at Andersonville’s Midsommarfest.

At the Midsommarfest in Andersonville

You can see my new purse, and the pig t-shirt I got for Gillian’s birthday. We had a great time, wandering around, checking out the music and food and the art, chatting with folks from neighborhood.

However, I could have sword that I read on the website the day before that the festival was officially green. I carried my empties around in my purse all day because the only recycling bins I could find were teeny tiny little ones right at the entrance. Not very green friendly, it seems to me.

However, we had fun, and we look forward to going back next year. I hope they are able to acquire more recycling bins and get serious about promoting green living in Chicago. And perhaps other street fairs in the city will take heed.

Happy Loving Day!

On By SarahIn Friends & Family, Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

Gillian & Sarah, June 2004

Today is Loving Day, the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court Decision of Loving v. Virginia, which made all miscegenation laws (banning interracial marriage) unconstitutional. Mildred Loving died on May 2nd this year, just two weeks before the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry in that state, making that decision and the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia all the more poignant. In recent years, Mildred Loving was an outspoken supporter of the same-sex marriage, seeing the connection to her and her husband’s case forty years prior.

I think it is wonderful that people celebrate this day. I hope that someday soon the organizers of the Loving Day celebration will see the opportunity and clearly articulate the civil rights connection between the marriage equality movement and the Loving decision, as Mildred Loving did.

Meanwhile, I hope anyone reading this blog acknowledges this day with love in some way, our greatest gift to the world.

American Family Association Finally Comes Out

On By SarahIn Opinion, Politics, SpiritualityLeave a comment

The AFA today sent out an “Action Alert” email to their constituency about energy costs. They are blaming environmentalists for the rising price of gas, saying that:

We have abundant energy reserves, but the environmentalists won’t let us use them. All efforts to provide for our needs end up in court because of the environmentalists! A handful of environmentalists are forcing all Americans to pay outrageous amounts for gas!

They are lobbying the American people to support the “exploration of energy sources” saying that this “would not materially effect our environment.” Spreading this misinformation is immoral and dangerous.

And I might add, not Christian. Even Pat Robertson appeared in those ridiculous ads with Al Sharpton saying that we have to protect the environment. What would Jesus do? He would want us to protect and be stewards of God’s creation. I am grateful that there is an Evangelical Christian movement that recognizes the responsibility that we all have to protect the environment.

The American (anti)Family Association has finally come clean and shown their opposition to the environmental movement. This organization that supposedly clings to Christian values spews hate-speech and intolerance, and is now encouraging the American people to believe that they should be able to consume as much gas and oil as they want without regard to their impact on climate change. I can’t say that I’m surprised, but I am perplexed. The values just don’t match up.

I like to use the AFA script pages to write my representatives. Go to this link and type in your zip code, and it will take you to a page where you can fill in the blanks. Here is what I wrote:

Dear Senator/Representative:

The rising price of gasoline is hurting nearly every family in America.  But I believe that every one of us has a responsibility to live in a more environmentally sustainable manner.

It is time for Congress to get serious about making green living a priority in this country. We need to curtail our dependency on oil and to curb our consumption of gasoline and our contributions to greenhouse gases that are contributing to global warming.

We need to develop green-color jobs, create public transportation systems that work, build sustainable communities where people can walk or bike easily from home to work to buy groceries, etc. We need to make recycling easier, and we need to outlaw the use of plastic shopping bags. We need to work to change our culture so that people can live more sustainably. We need to stop consuming goods that only end up in a land fill after two years. We need to set national standards for decreasing carbon emissions.  We need to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from Big Oil.

As one of our Nation’s leaders, you have a responsibility to help find solutions to the climate change problem. The future of our planet, of our children, our families depends on it.