Lake County Stonewall Democratic Club : News

California state won't be forced to defend Prop 8

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:59:26 -0400

California's gay marriage battle may run for another two years (Photo: Tim Schapker)

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney-General Jerry Brown will not be forced to defend the state's ban on gay marriage.

The challenge was brought by a conservative legal group but a Sacramento judge at the 3rd District Court of Appeal rejected it.

The Pacific Justice Institute argued that Mr Schwarzenegger and Mr Brown had a duty to uphold state laws and said it will appeal to the California Supreme Court.

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10/6

Jerry Brown Unsure Whether Gay Marriage Helping Or Hurting Campaign

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:14:03 -0400

By Carlos Santoscoy, OnTop Magazine

California Attorney Jerry Brown is unsure whether his support for gay marriage is hurting or helping his bid governer.

Brown and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are under pressure by social conservatives to appeal a federal district court ruling that found the state's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, unconstitutional.

Both officials – the named defendants in the suit – have refused to defend the law and urged the court to lift a hold on the decision as it's being appealed. Doubts have been raised about whether Protect Marriage, the sponsor of the measure, has legal standing to appeal the ruling as ordinary citizens.

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10/4

Obama’s Moral Cowardice

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 22:50:12 -0400

The president needs to to find his principles.

newsweek.com

Barack Obama’s redecoration of the Oval Office includes a nice personal touch: a carpet ringed with favorite quotations from Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, both Presidents Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. The King quote, in particular, has become a kind of emblem for him: “The arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” For all the carping about his every move, the only big problem with the Obama presidency is the gap between what’s written on his rug, and what’s under it—the distance between the president’s veneration of moral leadership past and his failure, so far, to exhibit much of it in the present.

Obama has had numerous chances to assert leadership on values questions this summer: Arizona’s crude anti-immigrant law, the battle over Prop 8 and gay marriage, and the backlash against what Fox News persists in calling the “Ground Zero mosque.” These battles raise fundamental questions of national identity, liberty, and individual rights. When Lindsey Graham argues for rewriting the Constitution to eliminate the birthright-citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, or Newt Gingrich proposes a Saudi standard for the free exercise of religion, they’re taking positions at odds with America’s basic ideals. But Obama’s instinctive caution has steered him away from casting these questions as moral or civil-rights issues. On none of them has he shown anything resembling courage.

In responding to the fight over the mosque, Obama has been characteristically legalistic and technical. At an iftar dinner he hosted at the White House, the president supported the right of Muslims “to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan”—itself a too picky allowance. The next day, he hedged even further, telling reporters, “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there.” This sail-trimming, where a bold defense of freedom of worship was wanted, left it to the newly heroic Michael Bloomberg to instruct us, at his own iftar dinner in New York, that the issue was “a test of our commitment to American values.”

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10/4

Cannabis Electric Cars: Canada 1, U.S. 0

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:53:01 -0400

by Nikki Gloudeman, change.org

Hippies, rejoice: The world's first cannabis electric car may soon hit the roads of Canada. And guess what? The amusing auto is a truly inspiring feat of engineering.

Developed by Alberta-based Motive Industries, the car prototype—known as the Kestrel—is made from a biocomposite partly derived from local hemp. Because the material is uber-light, it reduces the car's electricity consumption. And it's cheaper, more renewable and less health-hazardous than standard fiberglass to boot. (The only possible hitch so far is the speed of the vehicle. It is projected to max out just under 60 miles an hour at maximum.)

As the car's designer told Fox News (which wrote a surprisingly positive story about it), "Electric Cars need to be efficient, therefore the Kestrel design had to be simple and light weight, while still being unique and eye catching."

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10/1

Club Events

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:54:01 -0400

Watch for dates on the following club event:

Chili Cook off by candidates running for office in Lake County.

Thanksgiving Dinner for Club member and guests.

Xmas Dinner for members and guests.
12/26

Greetings!

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:05:53 -0400

Glenn Beck's decision to hold an event at the same location and on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington has elicited outrage amongst civil rights organizations who accuse him and the radical right of hijacking the legacy of the Civil Rights movement.

Read commentary on this controversial event here

Sharon Kyle, Publisher
LA Progressive
9/30

Letter from Courage Campaign

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:17:05 -0400

Dear Friends --

Honestly, I'm offended by Meg Whitman.

Ninety years ago this August, women won the right to vote when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was finally ratified in 1920.

I take that right seriously. Meg Whitman doesn't.

Whitman wants to be governor of California. But she has rarely voted in three decades. Shouldn't our next governor show more respect for our right to vote -- and for the struggles that earned women the right to vote?

That's why the Courage Campaign is joining the California Nurses Association to send a message to Meg Whitman about the voting rights she took for granted. On Thursday, August 26, nurses and activists from across California will travel to Sacramento for a rally celebrating women's right to vote. Many will take a train to Sacramento, honoring the suffragist movement and their success, and dressing in costumes from the suffragist era.

Even if you can't join the rally, you can still help us send a message to Meg. Click here to watch our video about how Meg Whitman has taken the 19th Amendment for granted. Then sign up to Vote-By-Mail -- the most reliable method of voting in every election. Show that you'll stand up for voting rights, even if Meg Whitman won't:

Suffragists fought for decades to win the right to vote. They faced sexism, violence, and other obstacles in their effort to secure equal rights.

Ninety years later, full equality still eludes us. Many women are denied the right to marry the person they love. Others lack health care services, education, and jobs.

Meg Whitman supports Prop 8. She pledges to cut public funding for health care and education. She's already promised mass layoffs if she becomes governor, just as she did at eBay. And she can't even be bothered to exercise that most basic of rights -- the right to vote.

That's why the Courage Campaign and the California Nurses Association created this video to hold Meg Whitman accountable for her deplorable voting record. Please watch our video and then apply to Vote-By-Mail -- it's the most effective way to stand up for voting rights today:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/VoteByMail

Thank you for showing Meg Whitman that you take women's rights seriously.

Sarah Callahan
Chief Operating Officer, Courage Campaign

Courage Campaign California is a part of the Courage Campaign's multi-issue online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots supporters to push for progressive change and full equality in California and across the country. Supported by thousands of small donations from our diverse community, Courage Campaign California holds politicians accountable to progressive values, works for fundamental reform to our state's broken government, and trains and organizes activists to change their communities.

To power this campaign today, please chip in what you can:

This email was sent to:
purrfect@basicisp.net

To unsubscribe: http://couragecampaign.org/unsubscribe
9/24

Pentagon conducts survey of military spouses on potential repeal of 'Don't ask, Don't tell'

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:53:51 -0400

By Christopher Brocklebank, Pink News/UK

A new survey questions military spouses on their potential reactions to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The Pentagon has distributed a 44-question survey to 150,000 military spouses in the USA to gauge their views on potential situations that may arise should the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy be repealed.

It is hoped that the policy, which bars openly LGBT people from serving in the American military, will be repealed by Congress later this year.

Taking this into account, questions in the survey include asking if a military spouse would encourage their husband or wife to leave the forces should the ban be repealed, whether it would effect their willingness to recommend a military career to family or friends and if the attendance of gay couples at social events would affect their decision to attend such gatherings.

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9/24

If Gay Marriage Wins...

billberkey@nospam.com (Bill Berkey) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:51:14 -0400

Chris Weigant, Author, Political Commentator, and Blogger, Huntington Post

Last week, a federal judge handed down his decision in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which said (in no uncertain terms) that gay marriage was a civil right, and should be guaranteed to all -- no matter what voters thought about it -- in much the same way that interracial marriage is a constitutional right guaranteed to all (which happened via a similarly-contentious federal court ruling in the 1960s). While this ruling was rightfully hailed by gay rights supporters, everyone knows that there is still a long road ahead until it reaches the Supreme Court, where the matter may be fundamentally decided.

While the outcome in the highest court in the land is obviously uncertain, what strikes me is that even people who support gay marriage winning in the courts may not have fully appreciated what such a victory would bring. Because it would be monumental, and change forever the status of gay rights in this country in a very fundamental way -- one which would likely be impossible to touch, from that point onwards. I don't think I'm overstating the case when I say that if the Supreme Court upholds the decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, it will become the "final battle" for gay rights. Not that America would change overnight into some sort of Utopia for gays, but that the battles for legal equality would be decided once and for all, and (other than a few minor skirmishes) gay rights activists would move on to making sure that their rights were adequately implemented and defended from that point onwards, rather than having to fight to gain legal recognition of these rights in the first place.

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