Results tagged “civilrights”

What with people wanting to put minority rights up to majority vote, we were doing some light R-71-related reading the other day and stumbled upon the Washington Values (sic) Alliance website, on whose logo (modified, on right, for purposes of commentary and mockery) we could spend pages doing a semiotic analysis. There we found "8 Good [sic] Reasons To Defeat Marriage Equality Bills." Here's one of the bullet points that caught our attention:

When the state legislature passed the bill expanding the rights of same-sex domestic partners, it was only a matter of time (19 days to be exact) until we heard the rebuttal from the opposition. Today, anti-gay rights activists have filed a referendum seeking to overturn the recent decision expanding the state's domestic partnership law. Opponents of same-sex marriage (and rights) will need 120,500 valid voters' signatures by July 25 to qualify for a spot on the ballot come November.

Under a measure passed yesterday by the Senate, same-sex domestic partners in Washington would finally have the same rights offered to married couples--rights which many people have been denied since the stale, dated Defense of Marriage Act of 1998, which restricted marriage to unions between a penis and a vagina.

          

For today's Prop 8 march and protest, the weather cooperated nicely. Obviously, God loves a civil rights parade.

Dan Savage, on CNN yesterday, debated the Prop 8 debacle with smug asshat Tony Perkins. We really think Savage did a good job arguing with this waste of space.

At the top of the P-I today is a story about nude swimmers who like to converge on the Ballard pool for a monthly go. The crux of the story is that the Ballard pool is having a tough time finding lifeguards to stand watch during Naked Swim. We're not sure that making sure nude people don't drown is akin to selling the morning after pill. Do lifeguards really need to turn down duty simply because they don't agree with nudism? Is there a soul who wouldn't save a naked guy just because his junk is out there?

The script to Birdie Blue is the sort that, if there was any justice in this world, would have been unceremoniously trashed by every producer whose desk it crossed. Unfortunately, this being the real world and all, this awful script has been produced off-Broadway and in regional theatres all across the country, despite the fact it's guilty of every terrible conceit and device you could associate with the modern theatre. Nothing would have made us...

The Stranger has endorsed a No vote on the RTID Proposition 1 (along with the Seattle Times, but thankfully with more logic and, er, research). Their reasoning? "Rather than letting compromised politicians tell us what's possible, the people should tell the leaders what's needed: more light rail without massive roads expansion."

The press release came in a short time ago and we haven't really had the opportunity to go through it with our hair pick of information discovery, but the fact that the Mayor even has an Immigration and Refuges Initiative is, itself, a good start. Look, World, Seattle has an immigration initiative and it doesn't involve the construction of any Great Walls, much less mass arrests or the floating of barges full of human cargo out the Sound (or, if it does call for mass arrests and deportations at least that part's buried and "improving services to Seattle's growing immigrant population" is the headline).

The clock is ticking down on statewide ballot initiatives that hope to throw themselves into the field of vision of voters in November, and an article in Sunday's Olympian has a good rundown on who's going to make it and who's a laughable crank. The article mentions the boring-but-important initiatives that are likely to appear on ballots as well as all of the hilarious hits like the initiative that would apply the death penalty in cases of election counting errors, the initiative that would nullify straight marriages if they don't lead to offspring and--the most hilarious of them all--the initiative that would roll back the equal rights measures enacted by the state government last year. Unless that last one's not a joke, in which case it's the least hilarious. The Olympian article talks about how initiatives generally have to raise a shitload of money to get on the ballot, but that there could be an exception in the case of this most/least hilarious initiative.

What defines a terrorist or terrorism? You know, besides standing between a Republican and the camera he wants to install in your panty drawer? Is it your actions? Is it your nationality? Is it your race? Is it your intent? We better figure it out because there are suddenly a whole lot of laws on the books all over the place that say criminals get this sentence and terrorists get this other one. Down in Eugene right now the (and this next word is important) eco-saboteurs who perpetrated a string of arsons across the Pacific Northwest are about to be sentenced.

CALL 911! CALL 911!: Political and economic commentator and White House strategist during the Nixon administration, Kevin Phillips talks about his book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Phillips traces the set of related causes that caused the downfall of historical world powers. That same combination of ills he says -- global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems, and ballooning debt -- is at work in the U.S. today.

One of the best things on the local internets last month was the Spanning_time blog's Black History Month series "A Revolution Stunted." February's over and the series has reached its conclusion, but that only means that now is a great time to check it out in its entirety. Blogger Donte Parks (of Seattlest fame) compiled the depressing, enlightening, inspiring, insipid and insightful body of video clips that chronicle one man's relationship to the revolution. A revolution...stunted? We asked him what that means:

A few days of awful publicity later, the website of Americans United to Preserve Marriage, the anti-gay-marriage organization bankrolled by Sonics owners, is now "under construction."

--A portion of all Sonics/Storm ticket sales now go to opposing civil rights for gays!.

THEATER: The Brown Derby Series, which debilitated audiences last year with their staged production of Trapped in the Closet, is back, this time they're doing Total Recall. With Seattlest favorite Dusty Warren!

MUSIC: Yeah, we're really not sure about this, it could go either way, but the Crocodile is hosting a Disney cover night, featuring members from Catch, Kane Hodder, Pris, and a bunch of other acts. That's right. Disney covers. If it fails, it should fail in a uniquely horrifying manner.

We're not sure exactly what this guy's motivation is for sending us an email about his parking vigilantism, but we're definitely open to emails that are apropos of nothing. This guy and his stealth army of sleeper parking enforcement cells are going to get busier and busier as "density" happens to Seattle without any attendant infrastructure. Every time two houses are torn down like they recently were in Seattlest's backyard and a condo or apartment building is erected, parking pressure is increased on the street. We're not hijacking this guy's rant and slipping in an anti-condo angle. Seattlest is all for density in the inner neighborhoods and we realize that no one's going to start building one-bedrooms with two underground parking spots so we'll shut up now, about three sentences too late.

Eyman called a press conference in Olympia to show and turn in the signatures he gathered for two of his initiatives-- one that would repeal the civil rights legislation passed by the state legislature last winter and one concerning his obsession over 30 dollar car tabs.

-A fishing boat burned up this morning off of Richmond Beach. Six people aboandon ship and Chief Sealth put out the fire.

It seems that everyone in town is buzzing about Maya Lin's new exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery. Personally, we only really know Lin through her premiere memorial in DC, and, really, there is no denying the power and simplicity of that work. There is, however, great scope to her work. The Vietnam Memorial launched her career, but she is also responsible for another simple, powerful monument--the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. Creating works which inspire reflection and hope without trivializing the events they commemorate is a difficult line to walk. With the amount of criticism she endured from her first project, her own resilience has also become a subtext of her work. In fact, the 1995 Academy Award winner for best documentary, A Strong Clear Vision, revealed that resilience and exposed the sensitive soul that accompanies it.

You've heard of Gawker Stalker, right? When someone spots a celeb walking around Manhattan they notify the Gawker website of the identity and location of said star and a bunch of weirdos can track them on a map. Celebrities hate it and stalkers and people who think it's funny to piss of celebrities love it.

Ed Murray, the state representative you hate if you love firing your gay employees for getting stuck in traffic, is running for State Senate. He will take on incumbent Pat Thibaudeau this September in Seattle's 43rd District.

Today at 11:00am, KUOW 94.9 will air the gay marriage debate between King County Executive Ron Sims, and Eastside bigot, Rev. Ken Hutcherson.

Earlier in the week it looked as if Mayor Nickels' plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel had run out of time. Olympia lawmakers wanted him to present a funding package by April 1, an almost impossible task given the project's 3 to 4 billion dollar cost.

The Rev Sims vs Rev Hutcherson title fight went down last night and although we couldn't attend there's enough written material about it to keep us reading through the weekend and into next week. It would be cool if the Stranger guys could throw up a video or at least a transcript of it somewhere... Anyway, it sounds like Hutcherson brought a posse with him by bus so the crowd wasn't as one-sided as the venue, the organizers and the subject of debate would suggest. We're happy to hear there were no physical assualts.

In honor of President's Day, we've included our fave prezzes along with our weekend activity list.

-Liberals think he's guilty of hypocrisy. Conservatives would convict him for being gay. A Federal Court has decided there are no charges to be brought against ex-Spokane mayor Jim West.

Last week Democrat Dwight Pelz and Republican Diane Tebelius were elected to head their state political parties.

-4000 black employees who brought a racial discrimination suit against Boeing were told today that the aircraft manufacturer did not, in fact, violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.