Open Letter to Shaw’s Supermarkets in Maine

From: b woods
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 1:50 PM
To:
Subject: Shaw's Anti-Marriage support

Dear Friends,

This morning, at Shaw’s in Augusta, my partner came across a petition table for the collection of signatures to repeal Maine’s same sex marriage law. He made a complaint to the store manager and was told Shaw’s could not be selective about who they allowed to petition at their store. My partner informed the manager he would no longer be shopping at Shaw’s.

I called and spoke to the store manager informing him that I would no longer shop or use the pharmacy at Shaw’s because they were allowing the petition drive to discriminate in matters of civil marriage in their store. I told him I thought that I found it highly offensive that Shaw’s was allowing an organization, aimed at discriminating against a class of people in the law led mainly by select religious groups, to operate on their premises. His response was that Shaw’s was not taking a stand on the issue, just allowing the collection of signatures as they did with other petitions, according to their policies. I asked him if Shaw’s would allow the KKK to collect signatures for a petition to remove racial and religious protections of Maine Law, and he seemed to agree they would not. I said I believe that Shaw’s did not therefore seem to have a blanket policy about allowing any group to collect petitions in their stores and by allowing the anti-marriage organization to advance their petition at Shaw’s, to my mind, meant that Shaw’s was supporting legal efforts at discrimination and also a particular religious dogma. He said he would talk with other management and try to rectify the situation.

I have no idea if anything will happen. But I believe it’s worth letting businesses know that if they’re going to support anti-discriminatory efforts, they’re not getting your business.

I urge other people to take a simple action if you run into any petition collectors in businesses you frequent:
Inform the manager that you find it offensive that the business is allowing and thereby supporting efforts to change Maine law to discriminate against a group of Maine citizens. Further inform the manager that you will stop doing business with them (if you can) and that you will be urging your friends to do the same. Any action needs to be taken swiftly because in Shaw’s case, they allow the petitioners there for only two days.
Local businesses should know it is a bad idea to allow these petition drives at their store and it will cost them. If we are vigilant and quickly confront businesses about the negative message they are giving if they allow anti-marriage (and how it compares to other discriminatory efforts) petition drives in their stores and that they will lose business if they do, it may prevent a lot of shoppers from unintentionally signing a petition they would not otherwise. Please consider forwarding this message to your friends and associates and social justice organizations in Maine.

Bob Woods

Marriage Equality – The Way Life Should Be!! (in Maine)

A video on basic human rights… Freedom to marry.

Technorati Tags: freedom to marry,equal rights,marriage,human rights,equality

 

 

The Choice Is Ours Now

This is quite definitely high up on my "Things that make ya go 'HHmmmmmmmm...' list!"

I'm thinking; she has a point.


This is a message for my brothers and sisters who have fought so long and so hard for gay rights and liberty. We have spent a long time climbing up this mountain, looking at the impossible, changing a thousand year-old paradigm. We have asked for the right to love the human of our choice, and to be protected equally under the laws of this great country. The road at times has been so bloody, and so horrible, and so disheartening. From being blamed for 9/11 and Katrina, to hateful crimes committed against us, we are battle weary. We watched as our nation took a step in the right direction, against all odds and elected Barack Obama as our next leader. Then we were jerked back into the last century as we watched our rights taken away by prop 8 in California. Still sore and angry we felt another slap in the face as the man we helped get elected seemingly invited a gay-hater to address the world at his inauguration.

continued...

---

Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey, then where you are reading it from is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

Snagglepuss on SNL Weekend Update - commenting on Prop8 - WAAY too funny!

Love

---

Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey Designs, the you are reading it from is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

Senate OKs Out-Of-State Gays Marrying In Mass.

Move Expected To Boost State's Economy

Senate has voted to repeal a 1913 law used to bar out-of-state gay couples from marrying in the state. The law prohibits couples from obtaining marriage licenses if they couldn't legally wed in their home states. After Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay marriages in 2004, then-Gov. Mitt Romney ordered town clerks to enforce the little-known law and deny licenses to out-of-state couples.

The repeal effort has the support of Gov. Deval Patrick, whose 18-year-old daughter announced last month she is a lesbian. The Massachusetts Senate voted Tuesday to repeal the law. The House is expected to vote this week. An analysis found repealing the law could draw thousands of couples to Massachusetts, boosting the economy by $111 million over three years.

---

Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey Designs, this site is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

The Way Life Should Be: Marriage in Maine

---

Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey Designs, this site is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

Christian Civic League drops its campaign to repeal the state's equal rights law

Christian Civic League drops its campaign to repeal the state's gay-rights law and prevent other safeguards for gays and lesbians, saying in an e-mail to supporters that it lacks money and volunteers to pursue a referendum in November 2009.

Wednesday's decision, which was made public Thursday, came about two months after the league announced that it hoped to collect 55,087 voters' signatures to place its proposal on the ballot, and less than one month after the state issued petitions to the league on May 21.

In addition to repealing the anti-discrimination law, the referendum would have prohibited unmarried couples from adopting children.

It also would have barred the state from recognizing civil unions, prohibited municipal officials from licensing same-sex marriages and eliminated funding for the state's civil-rights teams.

Supporters say the teams fight bullying in Maine schools. The league argues that the teams persuade teenagers to accept homosexuality.

Thursday's e-mail to supporters from Michael Hein, the league's administrator, said the league dropped the drive because it has "neither enough funds nor enough volunteer support to continue the effort."

A sweet story...

I came out many years ago - to myself. You see this was 1980. We, my then partner and I, were each others' "firsts." As in, first foray into lesbianism and all it's glory! We quite literally thought we were the only two women who loved women, who ever lived on this planet, in this life form - EVER!

Ah! To be young and innocent again!

Ha!

We first learned of other lesbians by going to the library and taking out any book we'd find on the subject. I ran across a number of books that touted the virtues of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin.

Wow! I really grew to look up to these two as true pioneers in the lesbian visibility/ rights department!

I'm so heartened to know that they are still together! Here I am on my 7th relationship. Yep, all with women, I've never been with a man.

I wish I could have found the woman I'm with now when we both were kids!

I really want to spend the rest of my life with this woman. Whatever life is left for us, I am 47 years old ya know? My Mom wonders how she could have a 47 year old kid!!?

I want to be with this woman so much so that I want to be legally married to her!


Nancy,

Will you marry me?

---

"I now pronounce you wife and wife"

If you cry at weddings, grab a hankie; the news of these upcoming nuptials already has me tearing up at my desk. Next Monday, June 16, at 5 p.m. PDT, Mayor Gavin Newsom will preside over the marriage of Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 83, at San Francisco City Hall, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

You may well remember these two brides from their first trip to the altar back in February 2004. Martin and Lyon, who have been together more than 50 years, were the first same-sex couple to be issued a marriage license by the city of San Francisco. (For a refresher, their iconic wedding photos are here and here.)

Mayor Newsom has said that Lyon and Martin's love story inspired him to start issuing marriage licenses to lesbians and gays. But the couple's first marriage license and those of more than 4,000 other couples who got hitched during San Francisco's Winter of Love were later ruled invalid by the courts. Undaunted, Lyon and Martin became plaintiffs in the lawsuit that in May led the California Supreme Court to rule that same-sex couples do have a right to marry.

This isn't the first time that Lyon and Martin have broken new ground. Back in the '50s, they were also pioneers, founding the country's very first lesbian organization. "The couple first met in Seattle in 1950 and moved in together in a Castro Street apartment on Valentine's Day 1953," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. "Two years later, Lyon and Martin and three other lesbian couples founded the Daughters of Bilitis, which historians call the first lesbian organization in the United States. Lyon and Martin have been leaders of the lesbian community ever since. Their organization's monthly magazine, the Ladder, was an influential publication in the LGBT rights movement and began publication in 1956. Both women were inducted into the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Hall of Fame. A San Francisco medical organization founded in 1979 as a clinic for lesbians -- Lyon Martin Health Services -- was named for them."

The state of California officially starts issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the morning of June 17. But California has granted permission to San Francisco to start conducting same-sex ceremonies at 5:01 p.m. on June 16, after the state's official workday ends. In deference to their pioneering role, Lyon and Martin's wedding will be the only same-sex marriage held in San Francisco on the evening of June 16. The next morning, same-sex couples around the state will be free to marry, too.

Broadsheet Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, think it's fitting for San Francisco to honor Lyon and Martin's lifetimes of activism by letting them go first: "At a time when being openly gay cost you everything you cared about, they were. And they took risks and spoke out from the 1950s on in a way that I certainly do not believe I would have nor would most of us," Kendell said. Inviting the couple to be the first to marry "is the absolute least we can do to acknowledge how critical their legacy is to the lives of all of us."

Lyon told the San Francisco Chronicle that it's "heartwarming" that San Francisco wants her and Martin to be the first couple to marry, but ever the activist, she said that what really matters is that so many other couples will now have the chance to do so, too: "Hundreds of thousands of couples will be getting married this time, and that's the important thing," Lyon said. "It's something that has been due for a long time, and thank God, it's here."

-- Katharine Mieszkowski