Here's a quick update on Equality Florida's conversations with Congresswoman Ros Lehtinen
Today, she issued a statement reaffirming her strong opposition to Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
She also encourages us all to focus our efforts on those who have not yet signed. Constituent messages are particularly valuable for her colleagues.
To that end Equality Florida, Progress Florida and Service Members Legal Defense Network have teamed up to get our supporters to sign on to a letter that will be delivered to Congress.
Here's the link and I've also posted the letter below: http://eqfl.org/DADT/
Below is the release her office put out today and please take a moment to sign the letter to Congress.
For Immediate Release
August 7, 2009
Ros-Lehtinen Supports Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy
(WASHINGTON) - U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said today that she will support the repeal of the U.S. Defense Department's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy which bars gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Statement of Ros-Lehtinen:
"Since the policy was announced 15 years ago, thousands of talented men and women, some with critically important skills, have been drummed out of military service. Many more continue to serve with distinction, contributing greatly to the defense of our country. But they are never free from the fear that their careers and lives could be ruined for reasons that have nothing to do with how well they do their job.
We've wasted a great deal of time and effort trying to enforce this failed policy. At a time when our armed forces are under unprecedented strain, we should welcome all those, regardless of sexual orientation, who ask nothing more than to serve their country."
Wow. It's a nice stretch of bad They bought their tix in May and hadn't heard a peep since so all was well. They packed, boarded their pets, got ready to go and then the phone rang -- the digital prerecorded voice of doom from "something special not in the air" announced that their flight was deep-sixed. They were rebooked on a flight that would get them to BHM at 10 PM the next day.
I guess the only things Mary and Hank can be thankful for is that: 1) they planned to arrive a day and a half ahead of the rehearsal dinner so they didn't miss that, and 2) they weren't staying in a hotel so they didn't get screwed out of that $, and 3) they hadn't made it to the airport for a stellar butt-numbing wait in the terminal to find out their fate.
Related:
* American Airlines sucks gargantuan donkey turds
* The massive sucktitude of American Airlines is beyond belief
* Ironic press release of the day - American Airlines
crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
(Come on folks, this is funny)
I was reading something on the online rightwing site Town Hall that just defies description.
Apparently Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, has published a piece that credits beauty queen and former Miss California Carrie Prejean for "saving traditional marriage" and holding back the push for marriage equality.
I kid you not. Of course how Lopez accomplishes this is an old trick that I have seen the religious right do - take several unrelated incidents and link them together. The credibility of these claims generally depend on the emotions of the audience they are writing to.
Lopez is obviously a master of this because according to her after Prejean made her now infamous statement and had her brush up with gossip columnist Perez Hilton, the momentum started to shio shift against marriage equality.
Of course she claims that it is not her argument but that of National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher's in the newest issue of the National Review, which has Prejean on the cover. But if you ask me, based on what she wrote, it's obvious that Lopez had an whiff of whatever Gallagher was inhaling when she wrote her piece:
The New York Times, just a day or so after Gallagher's piece ran, confirmed that something has changed. In an article titled "Backers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push," the paper reported on how, discouraged by the political and cultural climate, many gay-marriage advocates are scaling back efforts to overturn Proposition 8. This, despite the supposed inevitability of which some of my friends on the right were all but convinced, not long ago.
In reality, there is much debate amongst those who want to overturn Proposition 8 on whether it would be advantageous to pursue this action in 2010 or 2012. I hardly think it has anything to do with Prejean seeing that the situation with Proposition 8had been taking place long before she verbalized her opinion about gay marriage.
The last part of Lopez's piece is a hoot:
And unlike the most strident advocates of gay marriage, who spent the time during and after the Proposition 8 campaign intimidating and punishing those who supported the measure, most of us who oppose gay marriage are not looking to exclude anyone from any kind of happiness.
Carrie Prejean is now a face of that kind of tolerance. The contrast of her measured, mildly offered opinion to the angry, ugly Internet response from beauty-contestant judge Perez Hilton, who asked Prejean the fateful question, was striking . . . According to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, support for gay marriage has dropped nine percentage points from a 42 percent historic high. According to Gallup, only 13 percent of Americans believe that gay marriage would make us better off, while 48 percent believe it would be change for the worse. While Republicans were tripping over themselves to pose with the party's Log Cabin branch and join the march of inevitability, a beauty queen made it OK to confidently acknowledge reality, in a loving and beautiful and even tolerant way.
So Lopez, Gallagher, and others are trying to make Prejean some sort of symbol now; a Florence Nightingale-cum-Betsy Ross of the anti-gay marriage movement.
It could work.
All they have to do is make everyone forget about those half naked pictures of her, her breast implants, and her wannabe-divalike behavior that led Donald Trump (who was in her corner)to finally kick her to the curb.
And I haven't even scratched how Gallagher and her National Organization for Marriage tried to distance themselves from Prejean when it was discovered that there were some tire tracks in that pure as the driven snow image she has tried to project.
The entire thing leaves me depressed. Obviously, Lopez can't seriously believe that tripe she wrote. But But she is getting paid a lot of money for it.
How can I get in on that racket?
www.GayTalkRadio.org
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