gay marriage

Good morning Bitch readers!  Here's what we've been reading today.

• In light of the recent Boston Marathon Bombing, there have been countless racist responses and unfounded finger-pointing. Here's why David Sirota hopes the bomber is a white American, and how white male privilege could dramatically shape the course the U.S. will take. [Salon]
• There's lots of coverage about the sadistic and sloppy abortion-performing doctor Kermit Gosnell. Here's a rundown seperating the truth from the false info in the gruesome case and a commentary on how the situation shows the lack of access to healthcare among poor people of color [RH Reality Check]. 
• One year since three Black trans-women were murdered, we remember them. [TransGriot]
• Folks are celebrating the release of "Trans 100," a list of 100 great trans* activists. [Autostraddle]  
• Breaking the cycle: In Afghanistan, it's taboo for women to ride bikes. But a group of women have semi-secretly formed a national biking team and are getting new gear from American cyclists. [New York Times] 
• Maintaining a heritage language can be difficult enough when you live in an English-speaking country, but coupled with thehuge stigma against foreign languages results in the overwhelming loss of an ability to speak them by the second-generations of immigrants. [Racialicious]
• While there are plenty of YA novels that are a source of empowerment for girls, the focus on "beauty" is still very prevalent. [This Ain't Livin']
• Although we've seen this done before, here's a new take on recreating the all-too-common sexist advertisements using role-reversal to replace the female models with males. [The F Bomb]
• Yay for progress!  New Zealand has officially approved its bill for marriage equality. [Huffington Post]
• North Dakota lawmakers are confident that the newest in a slew of anti-abortion bills will deter women from getting abortions, when in reality, they will only be making it more difficult and, therefore, unsafe. [NY Mag]

 

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.