@RyanNewYork
He's also a director/producer, who lives in Brooklyn, NY and created the musical White Noise. Ryan writes about politics for The Huffington Post & The Hill. He has been a guest editor for Queerty and is the host of the podcast Gay History: Uncut.
Here Ryan blogs about politics, film, TV, history, religion, science, books, theater, digital media, LGBT issues, Bushwick & Williamsburg, New York City, and anything else he's interested in at the moment. Oh, and he'll probably talk a lot about himself.
This is a personal blog. Any opinions expressed here and on my Twitter represent my own and not those of my employer or clients.
This is what it looks like to be on the wrong side of history.
Bigots were thinner then!
A remarkably beautiful story of a lesbian couple, one who serves in the military, told via a familiar social network. Kudos to Freedom To Marry and all involved in producing this, it’s powerful and deserves an audience.
To learn what you can do to help repeal DOMA, click here.
I’ve always thought it was something that was still holding the country back. What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love. That’s their business. It’s no different than discriminating against blacks. It’s discrimination plain and simple… I think it’s the right thing to do, so whether it costs him votes or not – again, it’s not about votes. It’s about people.
It’s the right thing to do as a human being.
Jay Z, endorsing marriage equality.
Watch the video here.
5 Mitt Romney Quotes On Marriage Equality
- “I stood up to fight same sex marriage. I was one of the nation’s leading advocates of traditional marriage.”
- “I opposed then, and I do now, gay marriage and civil union.”
- “I am proud of the fact that I and my team did everything within our power and within the law to stand up for traditional marriage.”
- “From day one, I’ve opposed the move for same-sex marriage and its equivalent, civil unions.”
- “When I am President, I will preserve the defense of marriage act and I will fight for a federal amendment defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.”
For the first time in my life, I have a President who believes that I should have equal rights. Yeah, that feels good.
The last time North Carolina amended its constitution on marriage was to outlaw interracial marriage. History will judge yesterday’s vote just as harshly.
Terrific video showing the diverse coalition voting against discrimination in North Carolina tomorrow. Please vote AGAINST Amendment One.
Fascinating piece by Frank Rich on the anti-gay hysteria of the 80s and 90s, well worth a read.
rtnt:
Airbrushing the History of Liberal Politics and Gay Rights
Guest submission from nineinchnihils.
For New York Magazine, Frank Rich examines the uncomfortable and rarely-spoken-of fact that many national, liberal leaders who now fervently support gay rights only moved to do so when it was politically safe (or beneficial) and that many of those same leaders have track records at direct odds with the equality movement.
The second thing that’s wrong with the picture is far less obvious because it has been willfully obscured. In the outpouring of provincial self-congratulation that greeted the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, some of the discomforting history that preceded that joyous day has been rewritten, whitewashed, or tossed into a memory hole. We—and by we, I mean liberal New Yorkers like me, whether straight or gay, and their fellow travelers throughout America—would like to believe that the sole obstacles to gay civil rights have been the usual suspects: hidebound religious leaders both white and black, conservative politicians (mostly Republican), fundamentalist Christian and Muslim zealots, and unreconstructed bigots. What’s been lost in this morality play is the role that many liberal politicians and institutions have also played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades.
It was, after all, the trustees of the Smithsonian Institution, not a Bible Belt cultural outpost, who bowed to pressure from the militant Catholic League just fifteen months ago to censor the work of a gay American artist who had already been silenced, long ago, by AIDS. It was a Democratic president, with wide support from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who in 1996 signed the Defense of Marriage Act, one of the most discriminatory laws ever to come out of Washington. It’s precisely because of DOMA that to this day same-sex marriages cannot be more than what you might call placebo marriages in the eight states (plus the District of Columbia) that have legalized them. DOMA denies wedded same-sex couples all federal benefits—some 1,000, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ programs—and allows the other 42 states to ignore their marriages altogether.
Today’s terrific ruling on gay marriage reminds me of my favorite video ever from my friends the VGL Gay Boys - Jeffery Self & Cole Escola. It’s a smart, funny take on what the legalization of gay marriage means for a lot of us.
Blows my mind that this video was first posted in May of 2008, when things looked to be going really well for marriage equality in California. All that changed when Proposition 8 passed in November. Great we’re finally seeing the light.
My mom showed me this anti-gay marriage flyer over Skype that she received attending this morning’s mass. It’s from a group called Maryland Catholic Conference and it asks readers to call their local state senator, Jim Mathias in Ocean City, and ask him to support traditional marriage.
Near the end of mass, the priest invited the congregation to an upcoming rally to protect marriage. He made the invite right before the “go in peace to love and serve the Lord” part.
I’ve always felt bad for the gay kids, out or still in the closet, sitting with their parents and being forced to listen to such hurtful nonsense. I sort of remember being that kid.
Michael K Williams, who played Omar Little on The Wire (the most bad ass gay character ever on television) has come out in support of marriage equality.
Louie CK destroys a common (clearly stupid) argument against gay marriage.
The Pope who presided over the largest global child abuse ring in history, thinks that gay marriage is the real threat to humanity’s future.
On second thought, maybe the Pope doesn’t want us to get married because he wants us for the Priesthood.
