Back to School

I know I mentioned this last week, and it's been coming through in my twitter feed, but I just wanted to mention again, about the series the Queer Etsy Street Team is doing to offer some hope to LGBT youth heading to high school or college and afraid of possible bullying. Our next story was posted this morning, and more are scheduled to post weekly through October which is LGBT History Month and includes National Coming Out Day (October 11) and Spirit Day (October 19).

Please pass this link on to as many people as possible; we want this message to get through to the ones who really need it...

Back to School

This month the Queer Etsy Team is doing a series of stories to give hope to LGBT student returning to school and feeling under attack.  Please take a moment to read them and share them with as many people as you can; you never know where the person who needs to hear it most will be...

Back to School: Stories of Hope for LGBT Students

Etsy Teams Newsletter

I am so freaking excited!  The Etsy Teams newsletter for Gay Pride month just went live, and they chose one of *my* photos to showcase!  *SQUEEEE!!!!*


Click here to read the newsletter!

Giveaway!

The Queer Etsy Street Team is doing an awesome giveaway in honor of LGBT Pride Month and because we got 700 followers on Facebook, and it's packed with a lot of great things! My original watercolor postcard, Let Your Love Shine, is just one of them! Do head over to the Queer Etsy Street Team's blog, check out the list of prizes, and leave a comment to enter to win! It's THAT simple! What are you waiting for? CLICK HERE!


Let Your Love Shine
And after you've entered the contest, you can check out some great merchandise by the QuEST folks, at all the great treasuries we've created and listed here! Just click here!

Marriage Equality Act

YAY! NYS passed the bill 33 to 29!!!

PURPLE DAY

Today is Purple Day. People all over are wearing purple to raise awareness of bullying today, in support of LGBT kids who need to know it gets better, and in memory of those who didn't hear that message in time.

PURPLE represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all children to have: spirit. To know that times will get better and that they will meet people who will love them and respect them for who they are, no matter their sexuality.

So please wear purple today!

Queer Etsy Street Team

It's been a while since I talked about them, so I thought I'd rebroadcast some of the great things QuEST has been doing.

As you may remember from my post in June, QuEST has a team shop which, at the moment, is donating all profits to The Trevor Project. So far we've made just under $100 for them and would like to give them more. If you are able, please head over to our shop, check out the great items for sale there, and buy one to make your donation!

More recently we've been collecting items to donate to the Human Rights Campaign which will be auctioned off at their National Dinner in Washington DC this fall. There's some really great stuff pouring in for it; I donated one of my necklaces, similar to this one, and this postcard:

I can't wait to see what else ends up in the basket... And how much it goes for! ^-^

We're planning so many other wonderful things! Be sure to keep up-to-date with all the happenings by Liking our Facebook page and adding our blog to your reader!

QuEST Charity Shop

Well, since I've been posting a lot of pictures and paid posts lately, I'd thought I'd take a moment to share a link with you all to one of my favorite Etsy Street Team shops: http://QueerEtsyStreetTeam.etsy.com/

Now you might think this is just someplace we all add a few items to get the word out about out team, like many other teams do - there's not thing wrong with that - but we've decided to make our team shop a way for us all to give back to the community, and 100% of our profits go to the charity we have chosen.

Right now, all the money we make, minus Etsy & PayPal fees, is going to The Trevor Project. It is the first and only nationwide, around-the-clock helpline for gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, and questioning youth in the US. The project was named for the title character in the 1994 Academy Award-winning short film, Trevor, a comedy/drama about a gay 13-year-old boy, who, teased by so-called friends for being gay, attempted to take his life.

When HBO went to air it in 1998, the producers decided to post a phone number for a gay teen suicide hotline after the movie aired, in case others were facing the same kind of crisis. As one of our other team members said, "There was only one problem: There wasn't one."

Thus The Trevor Project was born. That was the biggest shock for me: that something like it hadn't been born in amidst the AIDS crisis of the 80s, that it took until the late 90s for anyone to even *THINK* that his might be needed. Today, in addition to the hotline (which can be reached at 866-4-U-TREVOR or 1-866-488-7386), The Trevor Project provides information, support, and resources for educators & parents as well as GLBT youth.

Won't you please help us help them ensure the safe and healthy future of our youth? Shop the Queer Etsy Street Team Shop and donate today!

Turn up the Volume!

Even with all the legal precautions in place, the county treated these men like chattel, not citizens, nor even as human beings. I am shocked and saddened. Please spread the story...

Elderly Gay Couple Forcibly Separated, Abused, Robbed By County Officials in California
posted by DAN SAVAGE on SUN, APR 18, 2010 at 11:09 AM

This is shocking and outrageous:

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.
One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property.

Clay is now suing the county, the auction company, and the nursing home. This story should get as much attention as Constance McMillen's story. More attention. There should be protests outside the hospital and county administration buildings. And I think another phone call from the president is called for.

15 Reasons Why Marriage Matters

From Marriage Equality USA

1. Marriage offers 1,138 Federal benefits and responsibilities, not including hundreds more offered by every state.


2. In times of crisis, spouses have hospital visitation rights and can make medical decisions in event of illness or disability of their spouse.


3. Employers offer spouses sick leave, bereavement leave, access to health insurance and pension.


4. The law provides certain automatic rights to a person’s spouse regardless of whether or not a will exists.


5. Married couples in elderly care facilities are generally not separated unless one spouse’s health dictates hospitalization or special care.


6. Married couples are permitted to give an unlimited amount of gifts to each other without being taxed.


7. The law presumes that a married couple with both names on the title to their home owns the property as “tenants by the entirety.”


8. A married couple, by statute, has creditor protection of their marital home.


9. Many married people are entitled to financial benefits relating to their spouses, such as disability, pension and social security benefits.


10. With marriage, a couple has the right to be treated as an economic unit and to file joint tax returns (and pay the marriage penalty), and obtain joint health, home and auto insurance policies.


11. When a spouse dies, there is no need to prove ownership of every item in the household for taxable purposes.


12. A child who grows up with married parents benefits from the fact that his or her parents’ relationship is recognized by law and receives legal protections.


13. Spouses are generally entitled to joint child custody and visitation upon divorce (and bear an obligation to pay child support).


14. The mark of a strong family and healthy children is having parents who are nurturing, caring, and loving. Parents should be judged on their ability to parent, not by their age, race, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.


15. For adults, a stable, happy marriage is the best protector against illness and premature death. Decades of research have clearly established these links. (Burman & Margolin, 1992; Dawson, 1991; Verbrugge, 1979).

Finally

The NY State Senate has agreed to vote on the same-sex marriage bill before the year is through. Urge your senator to vote YES!

Liberty and Justice for Some

And to think... here I am, 39 years old, and my stand against the Pledge of Allegiance has only been to not say the *under God* part.

This boy amazes me for his courage and conviction.

Ben & Jerry are Awesome

As if I needed another reason to love them...

http://www.benjerry.com/hubbyhubby/

(Now can we lower the price a smidge?)

AmazonFail Update

After much hullaballoo, to which I was a late-comer, Amazon has corrected an error in coding, made at an international division, that resulted in not only books with a GLBT theme, but also thousands of others. You can read more at SeattlePi:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166384.asp
http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166329.asp

Thank you Amazon for correcting the situation.

Amazon is Anti-Gay?

In a time when gays and lesbians are making strides toward equal rights, Amazon.com has taken a step back. A step back to a time when you didn't ask and didn't tell, a time when you hid your love for fear of persecution, a time when even the suspicion of homosexuality was enough to get beaten or even killed. Amazon.com has reclassified gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender books and movies as an adult product which blocks them from their sales rankings.

However, like Mark Probst said, "if they are really going to try and exclude so-called “adult” material, then how come this has an Amazon ranking?" And there are plenty of other *adult* themed books still ranked as well, as shown by this list. Curiously, if you put "homosexuality" into a search of their site, and you'll find books on "preventing" and "curing" homosexuality, but you won't find Brokeback Mountain or Tipping the Velvet or other previously high ranking books or movies.

Today, Amazon.com claims this was just a glitch that they are fixing now, but some authors lost their ranking way back in February, and only now is it getting any attention. And if it's just a glitch then why tell authors their books have been "classified as an Adult product" and "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature." Obviously that's not just a glitch.

Like so many others are twittering, AmazonFAIL! Please sign the petition.