Happy Sunday Funday! Is it really warm and nice out where you are? I’ve been pressing a lot of flowers lately and I came home on Friday and remembered that when I first cut my hair I was totally channeling Rizzo.
This Sunday Funday let’s curl up and eat ice cream as Barack Obama’s views on gay marriage slowly evolve.
Ben and Jerry’s Likes Gay Marriage in Britain
Ben & Jerry’s is already the most awesome ice cream company ever, and just thinking about it makes me really miss my childhood days in the Adirondacks, when I would stay right outside of Vermont in a motel with my mom and eat ice cream every night.
The company has supported gay rights efforts, specifically gay marriage issues, in the past. They use their ice cream as a fundraising platform often, raising money directly via sales in their ice cream stores and outside retail locations. And if you were in Britain right now, you’d see how they’re supporting their latest cause – the legalization of gay marriage in the region.
“The point is to raise awareness around same-sex marriage issues,” company spokeswoman Liz Stewart said Friday. […]
“We’ve been an activist brand really since our inception in 1978,” she said. “We’ve stuck up for social justice issues in the past, and it’s something we’ll continue to do going forward.”
She said people at Ben & Jerry’s “believe love is love.”
“Marriage,” she said, “should just be defined by love and commitment.”
Nice Thing Obama Did for Gay People This Week
President Obama recently spoke out against the proposed marriage ban in North Carolina:
“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples,” said Cameron French, his North Carolina campaign spokesman.
“That’s what the North Carolina ballot initiative would do – it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples – and that’s why the President does not support it.”
This Is A George Clooney Appreciation Segment
george clooney arrested for civil disobedience this week because he is just so cool and progressive
George Clooney is a total badass, and recently sat down with The Advocate to talk about gay activism and his role in 8, the play about Prop 8:
You’re playing pro-equality attorney David Boies opposite Martin Sheen as his adversary-turned-ally Theodore B. Olson. What about Boies appealed to you?
I looked through the parts, and I just liked Boies and thought that was the part I could best serve. I haven’t spoken to Mr. Boies, but I’ve read the transcripts of the trial, and, of course, I’m very familiar with him and how special it was that he and Olsen got together on this issue.
When did you decide to get involved in the fight for marriage equality?
It’s always been this albatross that stood out to me as the final leg of the civil rights movement. It really came to a head during the 2004 elections, when it was used as a wedge issue, and it was a very effective tool to keep the Republicans in office and to avoid talking about other issues. Well before Prop. 8, I’ve made the point that every time we’ve stood against equality, we’ve been on the wrong side of history.
Openly Gay CA Federal Judge
Michael Fitzgerald. a Los Angeles attorney, just became the first gay Federal Judge in the state of California:
Californa’s first openly gay federal judge will be Michael Fitzgerald, after the Los Angeles attorney won Senate confirmation on Thursday.
The Senate voted 91-6 to confirm the former federal prosecutor, the third openly gay person elevated to a judicial positions by President Barack Obama, according to reports. The first two, both confirmed by the Senate, serve in New York, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Switzerland is Letting Gay People Adopt, Maybe
The upper house of the Swiss Parliament Thursday voted to legalize gay adoption.
via butches and babies dot tumblr dot com
Obligatory Adorable Animal
Oh my gosh I am so glad somebody saved this sea otter’s life.
Nicely done Ben & Jerry’s! That’s how you reach out to LGBT people.
Not like that “gay beer for gay people” thing last year.
Also I never knew apple pie could be ice cream. :-9
they also make a peach pie? cobbler? one that I think was good, the one time I tried it.
They have oatmeal cookie and cinnamon bun too, I think. Mm, oatmeal cookie.
Oatmeal Cookie Chunk is THE BEST ice cream flavor ever. If I could I would marry it.
WILLY NELSON’S COUNTRY PEACE COBBLER.
It’s pretty much the best.
I LOVE sea otters. Thanks for that.
This whole piece makes me happy…and now I want pie…and an otter.
Also. Made the horrible mistake at peeking at the comments on the Obama article… I usually steer clear of those because it literally makes me feel sick. (Yeah, I prefer to stay in a happy bubble sometimes.) Anyway, I can’t believe how ridiculous and outdated some of these ideas are! If I hear one more anti-gay person say that “marriage is naturally one man, one woman, and their children… it’s how God and nature wants it… it’s what best for everyone…” I am going to scream. I think most Americans can name only a handful of people that match that description.
What about single parent families? Step families? Married couples who can’t have children? Married couples who don’t WANT children? Kids being raised by grandparents because their parents suck? Blended families? Women on their fifth or sixth husbands? Men with a wife at home and a girlfriend on the side? Marriages that last all of a month and a half?
The idea of a family and a marriage ONLY being one man, one woman, and their mutually biologically babies, together and committed and forever is just so outdated. It is LAUGHABLE that that is what conservatives are holding on to sooooo tightly. I would MAYBE understand this argument if what they were holding on to was the norm. Hell, even if it was vaguely commonplace. It’s just that families made up of a male and female parent, both on their first marriages, with only their own biological children is not the rule anymore. It’s basically the exception to the rule.
If gay people can’t get married because it’s “not natural” or “in the best interest” of whoever, then I think divorce should no longer be legal to anyone, and second or third marriages should definitely not be legal. If these people think marriage has to be one man and one woman for all of eternity, then they need to stick to that. Don’t hold us to standards that you yourself cannot even meet. A lot of heterosexuals see marriage as disposable. No one fights harder for marriage than gay couples.
lol I once had a super conservative Christian co-worker tell me that society was better in the 1950’s (aka before divorce became so prevalent, also before the Civil Rights movement and Women’s Liberation, when everyone lived in Beaver Cleaver-style households, even if everyone in them were miserable.) wtf.
I do not agree in the slightest that if the gay community is not allowed to marry then the straight community should not be allowed to divorce. If my parents wouldn’t have been able to get a divorce, I would be way more messed up than I am. My parents tried to make it work. They were required by law to go to some counseling before proceeding with the divorce. Sure, divorce sucks, but it allowed me to see my parents as real people, and their personal happiness increased tenfold after the dust settled. Seeing my parents happy and watching my mom develop a relationship with the man who is now her husband set a positive example of how to be in a relationship for my siblings and me. If my parents had not been allowed to divorce and were forced to stay in a toxic marriage, I probably never would have realized I was gay and probably would have married a man and had children because that’s what you’re “supposed” to do and been absolutely miserable.
At the very foundation of relationships is the idea that they begin and they end, regardless of the orientation of the individuals involved, and regardless if there’s a legal piece of paper saying two people are united forever. People die, people change, things happen. I think we need to focus on the positives in the argument for gay marriage rather than saying “If we can have what we want (and rightfully deserve) than you don’t get this other thing.”
I wasn’t saying that divorce should be illegal. I wish my parents had divorced… I think they would both be happier and healthier and our family would be calmer. I think divorce is completely inevitable in certain cases and way better for everyone involved. My point is that if we can’t get married because marriage is for ideal nuclear families, I think its a bit hypocritical to say married couples can just back out whenever they want. A lot of people pushing these anti gay issues are on their second or third marriage it have mistresses or whatever…yet they have the balls to say I can’t legally marry my wife because it’ll jeopardize the holy institution??
Reread this and thinking I might seem like I was just going back on what I said. Clarification, I guess… I wasn’t being literal in the first post or having that as my actual personal opinion. Sometimes divorce is the healthiest option.
I said if gays can’t be married because it’s best and natural to have ONE husband and ONE wife, then by that reasoning, that one man and woman should have to stay together because it’s what is best. Kinda pointing out the flaw in that logic.
I font judge people. Im open to accepting all sorts of relationships or lack thereof. But until anti marriage advocates all have perfect marriages, I don’t think they are in any position to pass judgment on what is “best” for marriage and who can or cannot partake.
Ok done. :)
I understand what you’re saying within the context these people aren’t practicing what they preach, so to speak. I agree the hypocrisy is outrageous.
According to my Swiss friend there’s a pretty good chance the adoption law will pass in the National Council, so yay Switzerland!!
Actually, gay people can already adopt here in Switzerland.
But only as a single person, which makes no sense whatsoever.
Basically, when they enter into a civil partnership, they lose the right to adopt children.
The problem being, of course, that they currently stay legally single, adopt, then get their civil partnership, which pretty much denies the child a second legal parent.
So. Now, like “swiss” below me said, it’s a long, long process. The initiative has been making rounds for at least 2 years, it was kicked out of national council already, so they put it through what you called the “upper house”, and now it needs to go through a whole shitload of complicated political hoops before we can even think of adopting – and when i say “adopting”, they limited it to the already-existing child of the partner. No new adoptions if they’re already civil-unionized.
Anyway. I guess it’s progress? Sort of.
yay, my country is on autostraddle! so i decided to comment the first time here :)
the thing with our political system is that it’s kinda complicated… the upper house said yes, now the lower house may too (which is uncertain), if yes the federal council (thats “the president” of our country consisting of 7 persons from 4 parties) has to make the legislative proposal which again must be considered by the upper and lower house.. then there is the possibility of a referendum, which means in the end the voters will decide.
like i said, complicated…
That picture of the Adirondacks is of Bolton Landing! That’s SO CLOSE to where I grew up! I worked at the Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop right around the corner from where that beach is the summer before college. Ohhhhh the memories.
becca w. is that you? figures that the only two queer ladies within five miles of lake george would be on this site
re: picture, my thoughts exactly…memoriesssss
<3 kate
Don’t want to rain on the Sunday Funday parade, but I find George Clooney’s statement about gay marriage being the “final leg of the civil rights movement” super problematic since, you know, there are still SO MANY issues we need to work on, not just for LGBT people, but for people of color, women, etc. I mean, I still totally love Clooney and I think overall he’s a great advocate and, of course, he had only the best of intentions in The Advocate interview, but I just felt that that statement needed to be challenged.
Yeah, that one caught my eye too, but I’m letting it slide this time because I love him so much. He seems like the kind of guy who’d probably understand the problem with that statement if someone explained it to him, anyway.
I am not in the UK so I can’t get the special gay marriage flavor, but I totally went to 7-11 and bought two pints of Ben and Jerry’s in honor of this post. And because ice cream is just awesome.