» A grand gesture by Amazon’s founder: With Bezos’ donation, the man who created Amazon from nothing will now be one of the largest donors to same-sex marriage efforts in the country. So what got him to support the effort? An e-mail from a very early employee who is now a lesbian mother of four. “I want to have the right to marry the love of my life and to let my children and grandchildren know their family is honored like a ‘real’ family,” wrote Jennifer Cast, who left the company in 2001. “We need help from straight people. To be very frank, we need help from wealthy straight people who care about us and who want to help us win.” Cast’s e-mail helped make Bezos the largest individual donor in the effort to pass Referendum 74.
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On the left: A Facebook discussion on the Chick-Fil-A page which went horribly off the rails. On the right: A stock photo of a “pretty redhead teenager isolated on white.” What do these two images have in common?
So Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy (who is also the son of the company’s founder) has dug in his heels on this whole gay marriage thing, which he talked about in a recent interview.
UPDATE: Chick-Fil-A has responded with a statement over the comments, which drew strong negative reaction this week.
“The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect –- regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 Restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.
Chick-fil-A is a family-owned and family-led company serving the communities in which it operates. From the day Truett Cathy started the company, he began applying biblically-based principles to managing his business. For example, we believe that closing on Sundays, operating debt-free and devoting a percentage of our profits back to our communities are what make us a stronger company and Chick-fil-A family.
Our mission is simple: to serve great food, provide genuine hospitality and have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”
Good way of handling the reaction?
So Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy (who is also the son of the company’s founder) has dug in his heels on this whole gay marriage thing, which he talked about in a recent interview.
EDIT: Chick-Fil-A has responded to the controversy over their president’s statements. Read more here.
Very happy to announce that as of this morning, Heather and I are legally married (at least in DC). 20 years to the day after our first date.Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary • Revealing that she got married to her longtime partner, Heather Poe, on Friday. The couple, which has two children, lives in Northern Virginia, but got married in Washington DC, one of the areas where gay marriage is legal. Congrats guys!
David Blankenhorn’s evolution on marriage equality is emblematic of the paradigm shift we are experiencing as a country on this issue. Loving gay and lesbian couples should not be denied the ability to make the same lifelong commitment as everyone else and Blankenhorn’s agreement with that proposition puts him in the mainstream of American opinion.Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin • Discussing David Blankenhorn, a once-star proponent for California’s controversial Proposition 8, and his shift towards supporting marriage equality, which he expressed in an op-ed in the New York Times, which you can read here. Blankehorne founded the Institute for American Values and testified in favor of Prop. 8 during the trial in California. source (via • follow)
DOMA Arigato, St. Joseph. A NY woman legally married last October to another woman (known as Jane Roe and Jane Doe, respectively) is suing her employer, Catholic hospital St. Joseph’s, for not extending insurance benefits to her wife. Because St. Joe’s is self-insured, they have freedom under DOMA and the federal government to not extend medical benefits to same-sex couples. This may well be the first case of its kind to take on both the federal government and a Catholic institution, and its decision could have far-reaching consequences —especially for religiously affiliated institutions — nationwide. source
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Now THIS is a man of God: “Have you ever read the Gospel and heard Jesus say anything about homosexuality? … Black folk can’t even deal with homosexuality because we got issues with sexuality. And because we got issues with sexuality we can’t have a healthy discussion about homosexuality. Why, why do you get so upset?” Find out much more about this here.
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This is a very bold stance. Good for him.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
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[I have] a lot of friends who are individually gay but are in partnerships with loved ones, and they are as stable a family as my family is and they raise children. And so I don’t see any reason not to say that they should be able to get married under the laws of their state or the laws of the country.Former Secretary of State Colin Powell • Voicing support for same-sex marriage on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy went into effect, also said that policy was needed at the time due to political pressures. ”It was the Congress that imposed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred,” he said.
» The nitty-gritty: The bill was co-sponsored by 23 senators, including one Republican (Susan Collins of Maine). It passed the committee easily, via a bipartisan voice vote, and is actually rather narrow in scope: It only provides benefits for unmarried, same-sex domestic partners of federal workers. Married same-sex couples—and unmarried opposite-sex couples—are not included. The range of benefits provided, though, is pretty huge: medical, long-term care, disability, life insurance, workers’ comp, retirement, and more.
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Here’s the start of Andrew Sullivan’s cover story on Obama coming around to gay marriage equality. You should read the whole thing—especially if you’re prone to judge a book by its cover.
It was the spring of 2007, back when Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency seemed quixotic at best….
Bad cover, perhaps: But what about the article?
![theatlantic:
Robert Wright on Gay Marriage, Barack Obama, and Andrew Sullivan
I was at the New Republic in 1989 when Andrew Sullivan published his pathbreaking cover story “The Case for Gay Marriage.” There are two things about the experience that may be hard to convey to people younger than 25, maybe even 30:
1) What a radical idea this seemed like at the time. I’m not sure I’d ever heard anyone mention gay marriage, and I’d certainly never seen a written defense of it.
2) How important a single magazine could be in pre-internet days. Mike Kinsley, who for my money is the most amazing editor of his generation, had during the 1980s made the New Republic the magazine in Washington.
The combination of these two things was potent. When you take an off-the-charts idea and unveil it on the most prominent stage in Washington, it gets people talking. Yesterday, when President Obama embraced gay marriage, this was a kind of culmination of the conversation that Andrew, more than any other person, started.
Read more. [Image: The New Republic]
Worth keeping in mind that the guy who wrote this cover story also wrote this one.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3t8t56kQf1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Robert Wright on Gay Marriage, Barack Obama, and Andrew Sullivan
I was at the New Republic in 1989 when Andrew Sullivan published his pathbreaking cover story “The Case for Gay Marriage.” There are two things about the experience that may be hard to convey to people younger than 25, maybe even 30:
1) What a radical idea this seemed like at the time. I’m not sure I’d ever heard anyone mention gay marriage, and I’d certainly never seen a written defense of it.
2) How important a single magazine could be in pre-internet days. Mike Kinsley, who for my money is the most amazing editor of his generation, had during the 1980s made the New Republic the magazine in Washington.
The combination of these two things was potent. When you take an off-the-charts idea and unveil it on the most prominent stage in Washington, it gets people talking. Yesterday, when President Obama embraced gay marriage, this was a kind of culmination of the conversation that Andrew, more than any other person, started.
Read more. [Image: The New Republic]
Worth keeping in mind that the guy who wrote this cover story also wrote this one.
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