gay marriage

Still thrilled about New York's victory for marriage equality? Yep, me too. I wish I could have finished off Pride month in the Big Apple amongst millions of ecstatic fellow QUILTBAGs.

You know who's not as happy, though? Douchebaggery all-stars like big-gay-storm-fearers NOM (which stands for National Organization for Marriage, and yes, they often write it as "NOM") and the Campaign for Children and Their Families. Both of these hateful, misleadingly named groups have been thorns in activists' sides for awhile, but now, NOM has a new heroine and faux-"casualty": Barbara MacEwen, the town clerk for Volney, New York.

This week on Grey's Anatomy: family building, surgery dramas, and escalations in the race for Chief Resident as the show gets down to the wire. With only two more episodes left to go, and a finale Rhimes promises will be mellower than usual, where is Grey's Anatomy going to take us? Be warned, we didn't hold back the snark this week!



Find out what the Grand Rounds crew thinks of things, and add your own thoughts, after the jump!

Need some awesome links to start your weekend? Thought so!

• First, the great news, in case you didn't hear: Obama declared DOMA unconstitutional!
• Feministe links to the full list of events for the Walk for Choice. Mark your calendars for Saturday! At Feministing, Ann Friedman talks about her experience on MSNBC talking about Planned Parenthood and points to ways to speak out and donate.
• Also at Feministing, Rose describes a feminist's fraught feelings about Malcolm X.
• Like Nadra Kareem Nittle recently did, The Detroit News talks about the relationships between race, names and discrimination, focusing on one loaded name in particular: Washington. (via Racialicious)
• Did you miss blogger extraordinaire s.e. smith on the Glee panel at Western Washington University? Keep up with ou's reviews, collected on Tumblr!
• Vampires on the mind? Dr. Sayantani DasGupta discusses the bizarre supernatural-BFF-as-Other trope on both Racialicious and Stories are Good Medicine.
• The New York Times reports that Ablene Cooper, who used to work as a maid for author Kathryn Stockett, is suing for appropriation of her name and image in The Help.
• Huffington Post covers the history of Petfinder.
• Jezebel pokes some bitter fun at the politicians clamoring to legislate our bodies.
• On Tiger Beatdown, Grizzly Fetus continues to rant from the womb by naming some anti-abortion a-holes... including Kanye.

The first time I read of a queer critique of gay marriage was in the article "Queers on the Run" in Bitch #47, the Action issue. Maybe this position has not gained much media coverage (or maybe I was just guilty of not thinking critically of the movement around gay marriage) but activist filmmakers Eric Stanley and Chris Vargas's argument that same-sex marriage should not be the ultimate goal for the queer community was deeply illuminating to me.

Hence my excitement to discover that the Against Equality collective's anthology, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, has just landed in the Bitch Community Lending Library.

Image via the SF Gate

From yesterday's ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

What are your thoughts? What have you been reading?

The title of this zine comes from an old Irish expression that says, "There will be white blackbirds before an unwilling woman ties the knot." The zine features interviews with 11 women who all have something to say about why they don't want to be married.