Observations from the Window 12.12

This is just an update to my post on International Human Rights Day which you can read here. On Wednesday, the day after International Human Rights Day, the Supreme Court of India threw out a four year old ruling by a lower court, the Delhi High Court, which had decriminalized gay sex. Section 377 of India's penal code bans "sex against the order of nature" and dates to the 19^th century. The Supreme Court said the lower court had no authority in the matter and that only the Indian government could change the law.

The ruling stunned even the federal government. Several ministers openly criticized the court's verdict and the home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said they would propose a new law that would negate the court ruling. Also the United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said today that the ruling violates international law.

After the ruling was announced protests erupted in various cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. Activists have threatened to continue the protests until the judgment is overrules either by further court review or through a new law in parliament.

But for now my list of countries in which homosexuality is crime now includes India.

Observations from the Window 12.10.2

Today was International Human Rights Day which marks the 1948 signing of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A sign of how far we have come is the little noted use of three words in President Obama's remarks at today's memorial for Nelson Mandela:

"Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs, and are still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love."

"It always seems impossible until it is done," Nelson Mandela.

Observations from the Window 12.10.1

Today was International Human Rights Day which marks the 1948 signing of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A measure of how far the world has to go in one category is the fact that homosexuality is still illegal in 76 countries:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

In addition to that, in five countries, Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, being queer can get you executed.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 12.7

I'm hoping to finish an art post later today but I have a few updates to throw out here. The first is just a link to a list of the 38 Senators who voted against the U.N. disabilities treaty, The List: The 38 Senators Who Voted Against The Disabled. As David Badash wrote with the list, "If there is a Hell, these 38 just earned some frequent flyer miles toward a long-term stay there."

by Meryl Schenker

In some better news yesterday was the first day same sex couples could get a marriage licence in Washington and a lesbian couple who had been together 35 years was the first, getting theirs in Seattle just after midnight. They might not have been the first but this couple, 56 year old Larry Duncan and 48 year old Randy Shepherd, certainly has left the most memorable photo of the day. If these two don't become the new poster guys for gay marriage I don't think anybody should. The first day same sex couples can get a marriage licence in Maine is December 29^th and January 1^st is the first day in Maryland.

Finally I know what I said just yesterday about those end of the year lists but this one is just awesome. From BuzzFeed LGBT comes the 60 Reasons to be Proud in 2012. Number has 14 the best photo and number 31 is the best fact but you're going to have to go look yourself.

For now it's back to waiting for those first infallible papal tweets. I can't wait. Happy Friday.

update - The Supreme Court decided today it would hear cases involving both DOMA and California's Prop 8. The DOMA case wasn't surprising because a federal court had ruled a federal law unconstitutional so SCOTUS has the final say. Prop 8 is the surprising one, what they could ultimately decide is whether or not a state can take away a right once it is given. The problem with that is if they say yes same sex marriage is never totally safe. All very confusing but the cases will probably not be heard until maybe March.

Observations from the Window 12.5

Did you ever wonder why when Bill O'Reilly is talking the words type next to him on a split screen? I never thought about it before but I think the answer came to me last night watching The Last Word. They showed a clip from O'Reilly's show and two reasons hit me. One reason could be that his viewers, and Fox News viewers in general, are so old they can't hear what he is saying. More likely is that those viewers are just so thick they need to see the words just to understand what they are hearing.

Wingnutism reached a new low yesterday when the United Nations disabilities treaty fell five votes short of ratification in the Senate. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, based largely on the Americans with Disabilities Act, was negotiated by the Bush administration and signed by President Obama in 2009. It has been signed by 155 countries and ratified by 126 including Britain, France, Russia and China. Eight Republicans voted for the treaty but a two thirds majority was needed and it fell five votes short. The reason the wingnuts used for voting against it, home schooling. I have this vision of a wingnut fantasy, blue U.N. helicopters flying over America dropping wheelchairs.

John Kerry called the vote one of the saddest in his 28 years in the Senate, "a wake-up call about a broken institution that’s letting down the American people." I repeat, The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is almost a copy of the Americans with Disabilities Act, something that has been law in the United States for twenty two years. These people really are just pathetic and stand for absolutely nothing positive, nothing at all.

After that embarrassing display a petition currently on the White House website looks even better than it did when I first saw it. It says, "Cease paychecks and health benefits to ALL members of Congress and the President until the fiscal cliff is avoided."

Maybe it should say stop paychecks until the Congress of the United States of America starts acting a little more mature than a typical junior high school student council.

Observations on the 2012 Election 10.24

With election just a couple weeks away now it's easy to concentrate on the presidential race at the expense of all the others. What gets lost doing that is the fact that this could end up being a truly historic election for multiple reasons. Gay marriage has been voted on 32 times since 1998 and lost all 32 times. This year it could pass in not one but three states; Maine, Washington, and Maryland.

But the subject of this brief post is that this year a record 141 women are running for Congress and another 18 for the Senate. In 1992 a total of 24 women were elected to Congress which was the most ever, hopefully that will pale next to this years total. It could also include Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin who would be the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate.

In the 2012 United Nations' survey of women in parliaments around the world the United States came in with 16.8% or 78^th which ties it with Turkmenistan. In comparison, Afghanistan had 27.7% and
Pakistan 22.5% women in their respective parliaments.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been one of the forces behind the drive to have women run for office and take responsibility for issues important to women. In 2010 Gillibrand won a special election to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and is running for re-election this year. On Mother's Day of last year she wrote; "Now more than ever, we must get more women engaged at every level of public life. Because if women don't get off the sidelines, there are decisions being made every day about every aspect of our lives and they might not like what they find."

Kirsten Gillibrand: Standing Up For Women

link
Published on Oct 15, 2012 by GillibrandForSenate