- Prop 8 Panel Deeply Skeptical of Standing | The Recorder – Proposition 8 proponents faced tough questions from all three of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judges today hearing the constitutionality of Prop 8, with the court focusing on the question of whether voters took away a right that previously existed in California…A good chunk of the two-hour arguments in the gay-marriage cases focused on the application of Romer v. Evans , the 1996 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a law aimed at repealing various gay-rights statutes in Colorado.
- Bullies Aren’t Just Other Kids: LGB Teens Get Harsher Treatment | Charlie Glickman –
- Digital Self-Harm and Other Acts of Self-Harassment | DMLcentral – As they started looking into specific cases of teens answering "anonymous" harassing questions, they started realizing that a number of vicious questions were posted by the Formspring account owners themselves. They appeared on Formspring as anonymous but they were written by the owner while logged into their own account.[1] In other words, there are teens out there who are self-harassing by "anonymously" writing mean questions to themselves and then publicly answering them.
- Assange’s Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom – The Slatest – Slate Magazine | Slate – While the "consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors," as a former attorney wrote in an impassioned op-ed, Assange has been charged with something called "sex by surprise," which reportedly carries a $715 fine.
- Melissa Petro Call Girl Turned Teacher – Melissa Petro Interview on Selling Sex on Craiglist – Marie Claire – In college, she stripped. In graduate school, she sold sex on Craigslist. Then Melissa Petro became a popular grade-school teacher, known for inspiring her students. Her secret past could have stayed that way — until she blogged about it.
- The porn supremacy | The Age – It's a dirty little secret, the thing they don't tell you, and they don't talk about – how every wave of technological advance has been fuelled by pornography. ("The Erotic Engine" by Patchen Barss.)
Tagged as:
Formspring,
lgbt,
marriage,
porn,
prop8,
proposition+8,
samesex,
sex,
sexwork,
socialmedia,
technology,
wikileaks,
youth
- Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down | TechCrunch –
- Court won’t force state to defend Prop. 8 | SFGate – The outlook for the legal defense of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, grew cloudier Thursday as a state appellate court refused to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a federal judge's ruling overturning the measure.
- Conservative Group Foiled in Attempt to Mandate Defense of Prop. 8 – Law Blog – WSJ – On Thursday, a state appellate court in Sacramento without comment refused to order Schwarzenegger and Brown to appeal a federal judge’s ruling overturning the measure.
- Bering in Mind: Polyamory chic, gay jealousy and the evolution of a broken heart | Jesse Bering | Scientific American – Unless you have the unfortunate luck of being coupled with a psychopath, or have the good fortune of being one yourself, broken hearts are not easily experienced at either end, nor are they easily mended by reason or waved off by all the evolutionary logic in the world. And because we’re designed by nature to be not only moderately promiscuous but also to become selfish when that natural promiscuity rears its head—again, naturally—in our partners, “reasonable people” are far from immune to getting hurt by their partner’s open and agreed-upon sex with other parties. Monogamy may not be natural, but neither is indifference to our partners’ sex lives or tolerance for polyamory. In fact, for many people, especially those naively taking guidance from evolutionary theorists without thinking deeply enough about these issues, polyamory can lead to devastating effects.
- American Academy of Pediatrics: ‘The media have become one of the leading sex educators in the U.S.’ – National Sex education | Examiner.com – In a policy statement released yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics weighs in on Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media, calls for a national task force on children, adolescents, and the media, and advocates for comprehensive sex education, noting that "It is unwise to promote 'abstinence-only' sex education when it has been shown to be ineffective and when the media have become such an important source of information about 'nonabstinence.'"
- One Woman Explains Her Journey From Anti-Porn to Pro-Porn | Our Porn, Ourselves – After working with her former boss and mentor for an unspecified amount of time, female research intern Beth Brigham completely disagrees and now openly disputes with Gail Dines anti-porn claims. Brigham and has since worked in porn and so now can speak firsthand about what’s true in Dines’ porn statements about porn and its performers, and what is not.
Tagged as:
adult,
censorship,
craigslist,
empathy,
gail+dines,
jealousy,
kinkontap,
legal,
lgbt,
marriage,
polyamory,
porn,
prop8,
relationship,
relationships,
samesex,
sexwork
- Will The Right Sacrifice California to Save Marriage Amendments Elsewhere? | Right Wing Watch – there is some talk on the Right of not appealing or fighting the Prop 8 ruling and letting California have gay marriage in order to keep the case away from the Supreme Court and thereby saving the marriage amendments in all the other states:
- Gay Protest Signs: The Greatest Hits | gay.com –
- Appeals Court Asked To Block Start Of Gay Weddings : NPR – The judge said he's not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since they would not be affected by or responsible for implementing his ruling. By contrast, he said, same-sex couples are being denied their constitutional rights every day they are prohibited from marrying…Proposition 8 supporters "point to harm resulting from a 'cloud of uncertainty' surrounding the validity of marriages performed after judgment is entered but before proponents' appeal is resolved," he said. "Proponents have not, however, argued that any of them seek to wed a same-sex spouse."
Tagged as:
gay+marriage,
humor,
legal,
lgbt,
marriage,
prop8,
samesex,
SCOTUS
- Judge Allows, but Delays, Gay Marriage in California – NYTimes.com – Just a week after ruling that Proposition 8 — a 2008 voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage — was unconstitutional, a federal district judge lifted a stay on his decision on Thursday, opening the door for untold numbers of gay couples to marry in the nation’s most populous state. But he delayed implementation of the order to lift his stay until Aug. 18.
- Who I Am: A Cadet Leaves West Point | Pam’s House Blend – In her own words, here is a video of Cadet Katie Miller discussing her decision to resign from West Point because of life under DADT.
- Dissecting Decontextualization: Donna M. Hughes’ Happy Endings? | Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed › – Having examined how the sex-negative “scare” tactic is perpetuated, let’s look at the pernicious “confuse” tactic. This tactic relies on an audience not to fact-check, as it includes outright lying, omitting important facts (“de-contextualizing”), and even creating false contexts. In this way, the tactic is identical to Andrew Breitbart’s famous example: take the facts, strip them of context, and present them in as emotionally charged a way as possible.
Tagged as:
DADT,
gay,
legal,
lgbt,
marriage,
military,
politics,
prop8,
samesex,
sex,
sexwork
- FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Washington’s Muteness on Prop 8 a Sign of Cynicism, Not Progress –
- Calif. Gay Marriage Ruling Could Have Raft Of Legal, Political Ramifications : NPR – "He did not say that as a matter of law, gay people are a protected class under the 14th Amendment," Koppelman said. "He said that as a matter of fact, the justifications for this law that were offered by its defenders rested on factually false premises. And it's very hard for a court on appeal to say he was wrong about that."
- Scholars: Prop 8 Ruling May Be Tough To Overturn : NPR –
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
Tagged as:
legal,
lgbt,
politics,
prop8
- Vaughn Walker, Prop 8 Judge, Has Personal Life Debated After Gay Marriage Ruling | Huffington Post – William G. Ross, an expert on judicial ethics and law professor at Samford University in Alabama, said that a judge's sexual orientation has no more relevance to his or her ability to rule fairly on a case involving gay marriage than it would for a deeply religious judge or a judge who had been divorced multiple times…"Under the logic of the people challenging the judge's fitness to rule on a case involving gay rights because he or she was gay, one would have to find a eunuch to serve on the case, because one could just as easily argue that a heterosexual judge couldn't rule on it either," Ross said.
- Prop 8 Trial Tracker | A Project of the Courage Campaign Institute – The Prop 8 Trial Tracker is a project of the Courage Campaign Institute, which is a part of the Courage Campaign’s online organizing network of more than 700,000 supporters in California and across the country… The primary contributors are Rick Jacobs, Chair of the Courage Campaign Institute, and Robert Cruickshank, Public Policy Director of the Courage Campaign Institute. California-based bloggers Paul Hogarth and Brian Leubitz also contribute legal analysis and other content to the Prop 8 Trial Tracker. Eden James, the Courage Campaign Institute’s Managing Director, is providing strategic and promotional support as well as adding occasional content.
- N.Y. Appeals Court Affirms Lesbian’s Duty to Pay Child Support | NY Law Journal – "This Court has previously employed the 'implied promise-equitable estoppel approach' … to preclude a man with no biological or adoptive connection to a child from disavowing a relied-upon, implied promise to support the child, thus preventing the man from leaving the child without the support of two parents, as originally contemplated," the 2nd Department observed in an unsigned, unanimous ruling.
Tagged as:
california,
child+support,
equality,
gay,
gay+marriage,
legal,
lesbian,
lgbt,
nys,
politics,
prop8
- Aaron Zelinsky: Why Judge Walker’s Sexuality Doesn’t Matter | Huffington Post – If Judge Walker is biased, then he should have recused himself. Under Title 28, bias is like pregnancy: you are either are or you aren’t. And Professor Bradley does not seem interested in discussing whether a straight judge has a similarly disqualifying interest in the subject.
- Adam Winkler: How Will the Supreme Court Rule on Same-Sex Marriage? | Huffington POst – As usual in the Supreme Court these days, the swing vote belongs to Anthony Kennedy. And there are several reasons to believe that Kennedy, though conservative on many issues, will vote with the liberals on this one. The Supreme Court has issued two major decisions dealing with gay rights over the past 15 years. Both decisions came out strongly in favor of gay rights — and both were written by Justice Kennedy.
- Brian Levin, J.D.: In Prop 8 Case Constitutional Concepts of Marriage and Discrimination Are Key | Huffington Post – Central to yesterday’s decision and future ones will be how far the government can regulate marriage and what threshold of legal protections should extend to gays and lesbians.
Tagged as:
gay,
gay+marriage,
legal,
marriage,
prop8,
samesex,
supreme+court
