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Gay Marriage Gregoire: "This is signed!"

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 12:18 PM

E.S.

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Video of the Day Whitney Is Dead, And So Is Hollywood

Posted by Kelly O on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 12:10 PM

Dear Hollywood: I'm sorry you've run out of ideas for films. I know this was a novel first, but still... (Sigh).

The real-life figure Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States (1861—1865), is fictionally portrayed in the novel and the film as having a secret identity as a vampire hunter. Benjamin Walker stars as Lincoln. Filming began in Louisiana in March 2011, and the film is being produced in 3D.

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The Ladies Painting the Republican Party Line Right Off a Cliff

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:32 AM

Republicans don't seem willing to accept that birth control is not the dividing social issue that it was 50 or even 20 years ago. And when you make your party line impossible to walk for nonwhite, dogmatic males—or, say, paint it off a cliff—it stands to reason that your party is only going to get smaller and smaller:

While GOP senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pledged to fight the Obama’s administration’s modified regulation requiring health insurers and businesses to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, the revised rule “appears to have won over” two of the five Republican women senators.

Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — both of whom have sponsored legislation requiring insurers to offer contraception benefits in all health plans — are in favor of the new compromise, which would allow religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals to avoid providing birth control. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer.

Case and point: Rick Santorum doesn't think birth control should be covered by insurance because it's not a "critical economic need" (like Viagra) and also because it "just costs a few dollars" for women.

Hat tip to the always-impeccably-dressed Sergio.

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TV The Walking Dead Chitty-Chat Club!

Posted by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:24 AM

Welcome back to The Walking Dead Chitty-Chat Club! Did you have a good hibernation during the show's winter break? Glad to hear it. And you'll be happy to know that the show left off right where the last episode ended... when that thing happened. And you know what thing I'm talking about, right? Okay, then! My SPOILER-FILLED thoughts are after the jump... so c'mon, zombies! LET'S GET SHAMBLING!

So two guys walk into a bar, and... oh, wait! Two guys actually ARE walking into the bar! Ha! Thats funny.

Courtesy AMC
"So two guys walk into a bar, and... oh, wait! Two guys actually ARE walking into the bar! Ha! That's funny."

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Gay Marriage The 40-Year March to Today's Marriage Bill Signing

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:22 AM

The desk, the bill, and the governors chair, waiting.

E.S.
The desk, the bill, and the governor's chair, waiting.

In about ten minutes, here in the state capitol building in Olympia, Governor Chris Gregoire will sign a bill granting gay and lesbian couples the right to marry in Washington State. With all the focus on the house and senate votes over the last two weeks, and with all the talk about the repeal referendum that's set to be filed as soon as the governor signs the bill into law, it's easy to lose sight of the historical weight of this moment.

So, a pause to consider just how long people in Washington State have been pushing to make this law a reality. It starts, at least in the courts, on Sept. 20, 1971:

On September 20, 1971, Paul Barwick, a Vietnam veteran and former state patrol dispatcher, showed up at the King County auditor's office requesting a marriage license. With him was the man he wanted to wed, John Singer, a staffer at the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who favored dresses rather than pants at work, and who was soon to change his name to Faygele benMiriam.

The two lived together in a gay-activist commune on Capitol Hill, and had recently heard that their state's marriage law had become gender-neutral in language. Their request for a marriage license, quite unusual at the time, landed on the desk of then-auditor Lloyd Hara (now a Port Commissioner) who promptly refused to grant the license. The couple sued, and their case, known as Singer v. Hara, became, at least until [recently], the best-known gay marriage case in this state.

Singer v. Hara was tossed out by two courts (many gay activists now ruefully describe it as having been "laughed out" of two courts), and it ended, in 1974, at the state court of appeals level, with the couple broke and wary of filing yet another appeal, lest they further cement the dispiriting precedent.

I wrote that in August of 2006, just after another big Washington State court decision on gay marriage: The State Supreme Court's ruling that the Washington State Defense of Marriage Act—passed in 1998—was constitutional.

The majority in that case, Andersen v. King County, went out of its way to note that nothing in the 2006 ruling prohibited a future legislature from overturning our Defense of Marriage Act. As it turned out, it was this legislature that did so—after legislatures in 2007 and 2009 created, and then expanded to "everything but marriage," our state's domestic partnership rights. (And after voters upheld those rights at the polls in 2009.)

There are certainly other mileposts that could be marked here—including Cal Anderson, in 1987, becoming our state's first openly gay legislator, with Ed Murray and Jamie Pedersen following in his footsteps—but for the moment just consider how long it took to make the law Governor Gregoire is about to sign, in front of me, in a few minutes: 40 years.

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Fashion What You're Not Wearing: WHATEVER I WANT Edition

Posted by Kelly O on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:00 AM

Who would wear such a thing? Looky-loo right here.

Timothy Rysdyke

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The Stranger Suggests

DANCE/FILM

‘Pina’

If you do one thing today, DO THIS.

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Gay Marriage Stranger Tournament of Dunces, The Final Four (Round 2)

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:58 AM

[Click to enlarge.]

Rodne vs. Shea is running right here. And here's the other Final Four match-up. Voting closes at 3 p.m.!

Mark "A Jack in the Box Commercial Told Me How to Vote Today" Hargrove...

...versus Bill "Remember Holy Russia" Hinkle

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Booze Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver: It Is a Cocktail Conference

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:41 AM

Yes, such a thing exists, and I am here "working." This Vancouver thing is the famous New Orleans festival of drinks, back for the second year in its special Canadian edition, with four days of seminars, tasting rooms, parties, and the streets of Vancouver pretty much paved with cocktails.

Last night, I fell down some stairs (they were SLIPPERY, no joke) and met a bunch of lovely people. So far today, I have skipped the 9 a.m. let's-start-drinking session.*

Onward and sideways over on Line Out!

*Actually because I have other work to do, but feel free to scold me for lack of devotion to the cause.

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LGBTQITSLFA Gay Kids Are Still Killing Themselves

Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:34 AM

And it's not because gay kids are still being told that they're sick and sinful by their preachers. And it's not because gay kids are still being failed by cowardly school administrators and callous school boards and cowed teachers. And it's not because gay kids are still being bullied by straight kids who have been told that gay people are sick and sinful and that gay people, by simply existing, represent an existential threat to their families. And it's not because the religious right opposes all efforts to prevent anti-gay bullying in our schools and is pushing for new laws that create a special right for little religious bigots to brutalize gay children. And it's not because some gay kids have parents who subjected to years of psychological and spiritual violence before throwing them out and cutting them off.

No. It's my fault. And I should be arrested.

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Religion Father Ryan Stands Up for Gay Rights

Posted by Dominic Holden on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:33 AM

Clearly responding to Seattle Archbishop Peter J. Sartain's escalating campaign to stop a same-sex marriage bill, Father Michael Ryan of St. James Catherdral delivered a sermon yesterday that goes to bat for lesbians and gays. From his homily:

Think, for instance, of gay and lesbian people who struggle so hard for acceptance and understanding, struggle to be respected and loved for who they are. Or think of people who are in marriages that the Church does not recognize and that cannot, for a variety of reasons, be regularized by the Church, yet who hunger to be welcomed and to be given a place at the Table.

In responding to them, the Church can do no better than to look to the Jesus of the gospels, the Jesus of today’s gospel, and to find there the one for whom there are no outcasts whatever: only fellow humans in need of love, human warmth, healing, acceptance.

It is this Jesus whom we now approach in the Eucharist. As with the leper, so with us: Jesus allows us to come close to him, and he lovingly stretches out his hand to touch us, to welcome us, to reassure us, to heal us.

Good for Father Ryan.

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War Israel's Broke War Machine

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:23 AM

Do not separate this...

The Israel Air Force may stop the production of the Iron Dome and David Sling missile interception systems in 2012 as a result of insufficient funds, a military budget breakdown revealed on Sunday.

Last month, the government backtracked on its intention to cut NIS 3 billion from the defense budget, meant to pay for social benefits in the wake of last summer's wave of protests according to the recommendations of the Trajtenberg committee.

The move was decided after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the Defense Ministry's stance, according to which such a dramatic cut would be unwise in the face of the political upheavals taking place across the Mideast. these, in turn, could increase terror threats against Israel.

However, despite succeeding in averting a drastic budget cut, the IDF's financial woes are far from over.

From this...

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of being behind twin attacks on Israeli targets in India and Georgia on Monday in a move likely to further escalate tensions between the two countries and increase international pressure on the Iranian regime.

This is as raw as it gets.

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2012 President Obama Unveils Budget

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:17 AM

In a speech about his new budget, President Obama said that in order to "build an economy that lasts...we can't just cut our way to growth." Here's video of the whole thing:

And you can find the whole budget here. Here's NBC on the feature of the budget that will probably figure heavily in the 2012 campaign:

The Obama budget puts forward $1.5 trillion in new taxes, primarily by raising income tax rates at the end of this year for families making $250,000 or more per year.

Obama, as he has in the past, also proposed eliminating tax deductions the wealthy receive and requiring households making more than $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.

Obama would also impose a new $61 billion tax over 10 years on big banks aimed at recovering the costs of the financial bailout and providing money to help homeowners facing foreclosure on their homes. It would raise $41 billion over 10 years by eliminating tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies and claims significant savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We've known this all along, but this is further proof that the election in November is going to come down to taxes on the wealthy, unless the Republicans can somehow turn it into a referendum on other people's birth control.

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Gay Marriage Stranger Tournament of Dunces, The Final Four

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:16 AM

[Click to enlarge.]

We started on Friday with the eight legislators behind the most idiotic anti-gay-marriage speeches given on the Washington State House floor last week. Then, over the weekend, the people of Slog used our legally binding and eternally infallible electronic polling devices to narrow the field down to The Final Four:

Reps. Jay Rodne, Matt Shea, Mark Hargrove, and Bill Hinkle.

As promised at the outset, the winner gets a flower from a gay florist, a bacon cheeseburger from Jack in the Box, and their official state portrait on this week's cover of The Stranger.

Ready for the Final Four, Round 1? Here we go! (Voting closes at 3 p.m. and we'll do the final match-up right after that.)

Jay "I Don't Know If I Want to Be Here" Rodne...

...versus Matt "My Business Will Not Participate In Gay Marriages Because Florists Are Oppressed and Man I Hate Tulips" Shea

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2012 Santorum Rises

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:17 AM

Rick Santorum has risen to the top of the Republican polls in Michigan, according to Public Policy Polling. While PPP notes that Santorum's support isn't as strong as Romney's, it's still a very bad sign for the Romney campaign, which counted on the continued Republican popularity of Mitt's dad (and former Michigan Governor) George Romney as a solid base of support.

Meanwhile, the National Review is calling for Newt Gingrich to drop out so Santorum can make a clean run at Romney. I expect a lot of Republicans to join the National Review this week in calling for Gingrich to suspend his campaign; I don't see another sudden burst in the polls anywhere in his near future.

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Books The Father of Modern Black American Literature Is White

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:12 AM

To study 20th century black American literature is to be told that Cane is the first work in a movement of novels that ends somewhere around Toni Morrison. I accepted this line of thinking until I saw this...

That's the author of Cane, Jean Toomer. As you can see, if you can see properly, there's a big problem: Toomer is not black at all. Morrison is black, no doubt about that. But Toomer is as black as James Watson.

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Politics Krugman: Severely Conservative Lunatics Running the GOP Asylums

Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:10 AM

Paul Krugman has a must-read column today about how the thirty years of poisonous bait-and-switch politics is destroying the GOP:

How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!

My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy—a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum—and now the party elite has lost control.

And a personal thanks to Krugman for both his restrained acknowledgment of the new definition of "santorum" and for correctly identifying what inspired the new definition:

Rick Santorum [is] the clear current favorite among usual Republican primary voters, running 15 points ahead of Mr. Romney. Anyone with an Internet connection is aware that Mr. Santorum is best known for 2003 remarks about homosexuality, incest and bestiality. But his strangeness runs deeper than that.

The effort to redefine "santorum" was not, as some have asserted, inspired by Rick Santorum's opposition to gay marriage. It was always about—it was in response to—Santorum's infamous 2003 interview with the AP. In that interview Santorum compared same-sex relationships to child rape and dog fucking. The goal was to make sure that no one would ever forget those remarks—"This episode will never be forgotten!", wrote the "Savage Love" reader who proposed the contest to redefine "santorum"—and here we are, eight years later, and Santorum is still answering for that interview.

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Chow Have You Had Breakfast Yet? No? Good! Eat a Piece of Cake!

Posted by Megan Seling on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:01 AM

Cake for breakfast might not be so bad after all...

In the study, obese participants who ate a breakfast high in protein and carbohydrates that included a dessert were better able to stick to their diet and keep the pounds off longer than participants who ate a low-carb, low-calorie breakfast that did not include sweets.

The findings suggest that both meal timing and meal composition play a role in weight loss. Carbs and protein eaten at breakfast may keep us full throughout the day, plus allowing ourselves some sweets helps to stem cravings for these foods, said study researcher Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz, of Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Read all about it on Today Health.

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Architecture Freeway Park

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:41 AM

The park where love goes fovever. "I said to myself, you must have been to a wonderland."

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Panic / Sex Planned Parenthood Exposed!

Posted by David Schmader on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:22 AM

Did you know that Planned Parenthood's whole thing is to use "sex education" to turn kids into sex addicts so it can make a fortune selling them birth control, STD treatments, and abortions? The American Life League dares to tell the truth (with some of the most ridiculous cherry-picking of facts and fear-mongering you ever did see). Enjoy!

Whoever applied that guy's blush is my best friend.

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News Morning News: Whitney Houston, the Grammys, Amanda Knox, Obama's Budget Plan, and More!

Posted by Megan Seling on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:19 AM

Obama Is Going to Present His Budget Plan Today: Watch out, rich people, you're gonna get it!

Hey, the Grammys Happened: Adele won six awards, Jennifer Hudson sang a tribute to Whitney Houston, and notorious asshole Chris Brown not only got to perform at the Grammys this year but he also won best R&B album. Good to see he's come such a long way since the Grammys three years ago when he beat up Rihanna. OH WAIT. HE'S STILL A VIOLENT, GAY-SLUR-HURLING TURD. But now he's a violent, gay-slur-hurling turd with a prize!

In Local Grammy News: Our bands—the Fleet Foxes, Death Cab for Cutie, and Eddie Vedder—didn't do so well.

Sad Gets Sadder: Reports say Whitney Houston died of the infamous prescription drug/alcohol cocktail and her daughter, who has been rushed to the hospital twice since her mom died, is feared to be suicidal.

The World's (Second) Tallest Building to Get the World's Most Terrifying Elevator: Mitsubishi is building elevators for the Shanghai Tower in China, which will "travel at a rate of 3,281 feet per minute, more than twice as fast as those at the World Trade Center." Also, they make it sound like they're designing a car:

Ultra-high-speed elevators require the latest technology in both mechanics and personal comfort. Mitsubishi released data on drive, controllability, super high-rise cable mechanics and safety along with such …. technicalities like "advanced plunger" and "exceptional shock absorption."

Would you ride in an elevator with an "advanced plunger?"

Moving on...

Here are Some Pretty Incredible Pictures of the Riots in Greece: After the Greek parliament approved of an unpopular austerity bill 150 Athens shops were looted and 48 buildings were set on fire.

Puppy Love: A local couple is getting married at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show after their Tibetan Mastiff named Major competes in the show. (Also: I would like a Tibetan Mastiff for Valentine's Day. LOOK AT THAT DOG'S AMAZING FACE!)

Welcome to 2012, Sea-Tac: A new bill will bring much needed updates to Sea-Tac Airport, including shorter landing routes, 12,000 new jobs, and technology that is no longer from the 1950s (no seriously, apparently Sea-Tac has been operating on technology from the 1950s).

Here's the Latest Nerd News: Samsung just launched a $350 Android tablet. Meanwhile, tech experts believer the iPad 3 will be released in early March. And speaking of Apple and Samsung, Apple is taking legal action against Samsung for its Galaxy Nexus smartphones.

No Surprise Here: Big name publishers are fighting for the rights to publish Amanda Knox's book, which, according to Amanda, will "be the true and unvarnished story of what happened in Perugia, Italy." The manuscript is expected to sell for millions of dollars.

Now, here are the Smothers Brothers:

"They'll get you."

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Economy Chimerica Today: Seattle and Shanghai

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:18 AM

Accord to Wikipedia, Seattle's gross domestic product (GDP—this "refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period"), $235 billion...

Shutterstock
Seattle

...is roughly the same as (or slightly larger than) Shanghai's:

Shutterstock
Shanghai

That should put things in perspective. Also, the combined GDP of Portland and Vancouver does not match Seattle's. Again, that should put things in perspective.

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Education / Money Seattle Public Schools Hike Kindergarten Tuition 15 Percent

Posted by Goldy on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:03 AM

It's not just university students who are facing double-digit tuition increases due to budget cuts in Olympia. The Seattle Public Schools recently announced a 15 percent tuition increase for full day kindergarten. At most of Seattle's elementary schools, parents of children who do not qualify for free or reduced price lunch will be charged $2,720 for the additional three hours a day of instruction in 2012-2013, up from $2,370 in 2011-2012.

The irony, of course, is that for all the talk of education reform in Olympia and nationally, the one reform that we absolutely know produces positive results—universal preschool and full day kindergarten—is the one reform that we refuse to implement. Because, you know... it costs money. Instead, we're moving backwards, by making full day kindergarten less affordable for middle class families.

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Politics / Money Required Reading: The Self-Delusions of "Self-Sufficient" Americans

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 6:00 AM

The New York Times:

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government.

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

Don't stop there, and don't miss the map.

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