Daily Archives: July 11th, 2008

In November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ignited a nationwide debate over same-sex marriage when it declared the state’s ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. The ensuing battle has included fights in Congress over a federal marriage amendment that would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman; a spate of same-sex wedding ceremonies (in some cases in violation of state laws); and the passage of numerous state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. On May 15th2008 California became the first state to follow in Massachusetts’ footsteps when the California Supreme Court struck down a statewide ban on same-sex marriage. Here in the state of Pennsylvania we continue the fight. I recently had the pleasure of meeting one of those fighters…

RALLY AROUND OUR RIGHTS

Holly Alden

I go back to the 1960’s for my passion about rallies. I hadn’t been to a one since Washington D.C. in the 1990’s when I rallied for Gay Rights. When I heard about the protest in our state’s capitol against the Marriage Protection Amendment, soon to be voted on, I felt that old feeling of empowerment and exercising my right of free speech. It’s always an uplifting experience to join with mostly strangers who bond instantly with each other in mutual disgust, outrage and commitment to higher principles of living in community with others. We are supposed to be a free people with the same rights as everyone else. Fortunately, in this country, we get to fight for these rights without the use of guns and bombs. Unfortunately, we have to do this to assure our rights are secured.
It was a brilliant sunny day May 5th, 2008 in Harrisburg PA. I had only just found out about this event so friends were not available. I was on my own, but I knew from my past rallies that I would find comrades at first contact and would not be alone. So, I eagerly prepared with a bag lunch, water and extra sweatshirt. I drove to the Capitol building parked and attended the general meeting given my Equality Advocates of PA instructing us on what the Amendment would mean for the citizens of PA, our freedom, welfare and happiness whether gay or straight. We were also coached on how to behave and where we could stand to let our voices be heard.
Several hundred of us met inside the Capitol on the steps leading to the second floor. We filled the steps and in between the Senators, Representatives, clergy, and organizers speeches we chanted as a group “STOP THAT BILL”. We also sang rally songs from the inspiring times of Martin Luther King like ‘We Shall Overcome’ and others. We were told that our State Representatives, who were in their meeting about the Amendment, could hear us. Afterward, we talked and many of us exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Then we gradually went our separate ways to start our journey home.
The next week I learned that the Marriage Protection Amendment was voted down in the committee. Which was a victory for us, because it was put on a long list and would not be a top priority for our State Governments review. I feel more appreciation for our governmental process in this democratic country and clarity on what my citizenship requires in order to keep equality in our Nation a reality.

Via The Onion:

New Dad Thinks Baby Might Be Gay

SCOTTSDALE, AZ—Citing “something vaguely effeminate” about his eight-month-old son Michael, first-time father Joe Oebrick, 32, reported Tuesday that he suspects the infant may be a homosexual.

New DadOebrick and his possibly gay infant son Michael (inset).

“I love my son,” Oebrick said. “But, you understand, I’m worried, too.”

Among the many “small signs” that suggest that his son may be gay, Oebrick cited a home video in which the toddler crawls across the living-room carpet of the family’s suburban Scottsdale home, wiggling his hips from side to side.

“I don’t think it’s normal for a baby to move like that,” said Oebrick, wincing as the infant paused and flapped an arm in the air. “Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”

Confiscated Patriots Videotapes Contain Extensive Footage of Tom Brady Showering

Confiscated Patriots

NEW YORK—The hundreds of hours of game and practice scouting videotapes that league officials seized from the New England Patriots also include over 100 hours of painstakingly thorough footage of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the shower, sources within the NFL competition committee confirmed Tuesday.

“We are still investigating whether the assembled shower footage of Brady soaped up and wreathed in steam—which I can personally confirm was in fact taken in the showers of several different NFL-affiliated facilities around the league, and appears to have been shot by head coach Belichick himself—constitutes a violation of league laws or policies,” league spokesman Greg Aiello told reporters during a press conference held at the league’s Manhattan offices. “It is the opinion of the commissioner and the league that further extensive study is required before any judgment can be rendered in this matter.”

Homoerotic Overtones Enliven NRA Meeting

COEUR D’ALENE, ID—Repression was the order of the day as the National Rifle Association’s North Idaho Chapter held its annual convention this weekend.

Homoerotic Overtones Enliven NRA MeetingNRA member Jack Harwich admires a fellow member’s piece, stirring potent new feelings within himself.

More than 25,000 dedicated gun lovers from across Northern Idaho flocked to the Coeur d’Alene Convention Center for the two-day event, happily sublimating homosexual impulses amid a carefully maintained facade of platonic camaraderie.

Moscow, ID, resident Richard Hoflinger, 47, a longtime gun-rights activist, exhibited the collection of antique rifles through which he has channeled his culturally unacceptable impulses. “Guns should be part of any upstanding Christian family,” Hoflinger said, sticking a long, thick, oily pipe-cleaner 14 inches up an 1886 Remington.

In the next booth, another latent gay man, Duane Erlich, moved his hand slowly up and down a well-polished 1948 Winchester. “Ain’t she a beautiful baby?” he said, displaying the kind of feminization/infantilization of firearms for which NRA members are renowned.

Erlich then demonstrated the proper loading procedure for his “baby,” lovingly inserting a pair of bullets into the dark, snug-fitting tunnels before thrusting the gun’s bolt smoothly into the action, cocking it firmly. “This’ll blow a man straight to heaven,” he said.

Transgendered Sea Anemone Denounced By Clergy As Abomination

HUNTSVILLE, AL—A coalition of Baptist clergymen spoke out Monday against the Telia felina, a transgendered sea anemone they are decrying as “base and depraved.”

Transgendered Sea Anemone Denounced As 'Abomination' By ClergyThe dually gendered Telia felina sea anemone, which Baptist leaders are denouncing as “base and depraved.”

“This filthy anemone, which exhibits both male and female characteristics, is turning our oceans’ intertidal zones into dens of sin and perversion,” said Rev. William Chester, spokesman for the Save Our Seas Coalition, a Huntsville-based activist group dedicated to “the preservation of aquatic decency and morality.” “For God knows how long, this twisted sea creature has been running rampant in our oceans, spreading its unnatural, bisexual lifestyle. And it’s high time somebody took a stand.”

The controversial anemone, common to warm-water reefs and basins worldwide, has been practicing its alternative sexual lifestyle at least as far back as 1859, when Charles Darwin first catalogued its phylum and species. Since then, over 40 subspecies of Telia felina have been identified as dually gendered.

The Baptist group also strongly denounced the anemone’s reproductive habits and family structure.

“Unlike so many respectable, God-fearing creatures, the Telia felina reproduces asexually, openly mocking traditional family values by giving birth to and raising its young in a single-parent setting,” Chester said. “This anti-Christian anemone, which has the audacity to think that a child can grow up properly without the benefit of two loving parents, is truly the Murphy Brown of the deep.”

Transgendered Sea Anemone Denounced As 'Abomination' By ClergyRev. William Chester of the Save Our Seas Coalition.

Added Chester: “If you still doubt the pain and suffering wrought by this undersea abomination, just look into the eyes of a young anemone child forced to grow up wondering why Mommy and Daddy live in the same body. This, my friends, is not natural.”

Area Homosexual Saves Four From Fire

FALMOUTH, MA—Near-tragedy turned to joy Monday, when Phillip and Karen Widman and their two children were rescued from their burning house on Locust Street by Kevin Lassally, a homosexual man.

Area HomosexualFalmouth resident Kevin Lassally (inset), who likes to hold and kiss other men, is being hailed as a hero after rescuing a family of four from a deadly blaze.

The fire, believed to have started when a lit candle ignited a set of drapes, threatened to consume the home and the Widman family along with it. Lassally, heading home after visiting with other homosexuals, smelled smoke and saw flames through the Widmans’ living-room window.

“I heard those children crying, and I knew I had to do something,” the 34-year-old gay computer programmer told reporters. “I used their porch railing to climb up onto the roofing that hung below the children’s bedroom. Then I kicked in their window to reach them.”

Once the window was broken, gusts of wind began blowing into the house, feeding oxygen into the fire. “I couldn’t see through the black wall of smoke,” Lassally said, “but I was able to locate the children from the sound of their crying.”

After the blinded, gay Lassally eased Meghan, 3, and Joshua, 18 months, out the window and leapt to the ground, protecting the children by absorbing the impact on his own back, he realized the children’s parents had yet to be rescued.

“The older child started crying, saying that her parents were still in the house,” said Lassally, who prefers the company of men to women. “So I had to go back in for them.” He then climbed onto the roof of the house and entered the second-floor window, only to discover that the master bedroom was not on the upstairs floor. Bolting down the stairs, he found the first floor to be engulfed in flames and collapsing timbers. He nevertheless located the bedroom and carried the unconscious parents out on his shoulders.

By now a blackened, sooty, homosexual figure, Lassally set the Widmans down a safe distance from the house just as firefighters were arriving, and he collapsed on the lawn, exhausted and gay.

Lassally suffered burns covering over 25 percent of his body and sustained injuries leaving him unable to work or have sex with other men for about two months. Doctors describe his condition as stable but homosexual.

As donations and toys come pouring in to the family, which lost most of its possessions, congratulatory cards and telegrams are also being sent to Falmouth’s new favorite gay citizen.

“This brave homosexual has inspired us all,” Falmouth Mayor Matthew Colella said. “The local hospital has announced plans to rename its burn ward “The Kevin Lassally Gay Burn Ward.”

Karen Widman beamed with praise for her new hero: “He’s the kind of guy you hope your kids will grow up to be like in certain ways, like courage.”

Added husband Phillip: “Sometimes life makes you cynical, like it’s you against the world. Then, out of nowhere, comes a totally selfless gay person who turns your whole view around.”

Lassally is modest in the face of so many tributes: “I’ve always believed that one [homosexual] really can make a difference.”