You Can Get Married….RIGHT NOW
One of the TV shows I watch for pure entertainment is Judge Judy, and I don’t watch much TV. I usually find her common sense approach refreshing and it’s amusing to see how many absolutely clueless people are out there in the world.
I also pay attention to the cases and how most people never think about the future. This is especially true with couples who buy property together, sign leases together, buy furniture together, and “play house” together without actually getting legally married. It never fails. A couple…gay or straight…will start out with good intentions and wind up two years later in court suing each other and Judge Judy will tell them without being legally married there’s not much she can do and she’s not going to waste her time dividing up their dishes, pots and pans.
With that said, I’ve seen a lot of gay couples celebrating the SCOTUS ruling last week, and rightly so. It was a huge historic event, and it should be celebrated. Yes, “love wins” and we can all do a happy dance and have a happy cry for getting something…equal rights…we should have had all along in the first place. However, I’ve also seen couples who’ve been together for many, many years talk about planning their weddings in the future…like months from now. And frankly, I have to wonder why they aren’t running out to get legally married as soon as they can to protect themselves legally…just in case. We’ve waited YEARS for this…lifetimes.
If you are a gay couple and you’ve been together for a number of years, and you own property together, share bank accounts, investments, cars, and all those other things responsible grown up people do in life you might want to think about getting married as soon as you can and plan for a wedding celebration in the future. Make it legal now, celebrate later. Because unless you have worked things out legally in a creative way that protects you or your spouse from paying inheritance taxes and dealing with relatives looking for what they can get, you might be playing Russian Roulette with everything you’ve worked so hard to build over the years.
I don’t think I’m being too dramatic in this case. I’ve seen it happen too many times to older gay couples…and even younger gay couples. One suddenly passes away, unexpectedly, and the other is left in a financial nightmare from which he or she may never recover.
Unless you’re living in a state where they are trying to fight the SCOTUS ruling, you don’t have to be one of those people anymore.
Turkish Police Use Tear Gas At Gay Pride
I think it’s important to focus on lgbt issues globally, too, especially in Muslim countries. Here’s what happened at a gay pride event in Turkey. It’s been creating outrage all over the world.
Turkish police used water cannons and tear gas to clear a gay pride rally from Istanbul’s central square Sunday.
Between 100 and 200 marchers were chased away from Taksim Square after a police vehicle fired several jets of water to disperse the crowd.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the police intervened to push the peaceful if noisy rally away from the area.
This year, however, the timing of the parade coincides with the holy month of Ramadan, something that could cause conservative Muslims to bristle.
Mike Huckabee, Again
I remember when I was a kid, even though my concept of politics was limited, we had politicians on both sides who at least seemed to conduct themselves with dignity. They didn’t come across as sideshows, not even the worst. These comments by Mike Huckabee seem to suggest he’s taken the sensationalized Sarah Palin route and all he’s doing it baiting people and hoping there will be trouble.
“I don’t think a lot of pastors and Christian schools are going to have a choice,” the a former governor of Arkansas and Baptist minister said on ABC’s “This Week.” “They either are going to follow God, their conscience, and what they truly believe is what the scripture teaches them or they will follow civil law.”
There’s a video clip and the whole thing is actually a rant. He compares the President lighting up the White House with Rainbow colors to what it would be like if he put up a nativity scene on the White House lawn at Christmastime.
First, I couldn’t care less what he puts out on the White House lawn. I wasn’t all that thrilled with Obama’s stand on same sex marriage up until now, when it suited Obama politically, and I’m not all that thrilled about the rainbow colors on the White House lawn either. I’m supposed to be celebrating an equal right to marry that I should have had all along. That’s not easy to parse if you have any amount of self-respect.
Second, the main point is that the rainbow colors don’t signify anything religious, the nativity does. And while I have nothing against the nativity, and I even have one in my own home at Christmas, I don’t believe in government getting involved in anything religious.
I’m starting to think Huckabee knows he doesn’t have a chance in hell at winning the White House. Why else would have make such ridiculous comments? You know, or maybe you don’t, these guys make a lot of money making statements like this.
Kool Aide comes in many different varieties.
You can read more here and watch Huckabee on video.
Gay Pride In Korea Faces Hate
At least the division between equal rights and Christians isn’t just in the US. It’s happening in Korea, too. And it IS a division between equality and the religious rants of those who want to keep other people down. That’s the bottom line. Last I heard no one LGBT is stopping anyone from practicing any religion.
Gay pride faced Christian outrage in central Seoul in a showdown that dramatized the conflict between Korea’s deeply conservative values and the country’s latter-day surge toward democratic equality.
Advocates and foes of gay rights clashed after a gay pride rally on the grassy plaza in front of Seoul City Hall that drew several thousand people — many celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing marriage between gay couples.
As they cheered, sang and danced inside the plaza, thousands of foes of gay marriage shouted slogans and epithets from beyond rows of policemen. The policemen, pouring from dozens of police buses, probably outnumbered both the gay ralliers and their foes.
