Category: equal rights

Irish parents with a gay son urged a “yes” vote on the gay marriage referendum

May 24, 2015 • 10:30 am

Although some folks who favor gay marriage are still grousing about yesterday’s great victory in Ireland, calling out the Irish for not legalizing abortion at the same time, those are curmudgeons who can’t appreciate that big step forward, or realize that legalization of abortion will follow in time. What happened this weekend was a slap in the face of retrograde Catholicism, and so let us celebrate that for at least a short while.

Meanwhile, reader Gunnar sent me a link to an article in Friday’s New York Times about a video made by two Irish parents in their late 70s, Brighid and Paddy White (you can’t get names more Irish than that!), whose son came out to them as gay 13 years ago. The son, Padraic, is a professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. To support him, and the cause, Brighid and Paddy made a short video in March supporting the referendum, which they put on YouTube. Here it is:

Doesn’t that bring tears to your eyes? Sure, they’re reading their lines, but so what? The sentiment is genuine, and shows that no matter how old you are, you can still change your mind and do the right thing.

As the Times reports, the Whites are Catholics:

The couple continue to practice Catholicism, and they said they made the video not in spite of their religion but because of it.

“We are Catholics, and we are taught to believe in compassion and love and fairness and inclusion,” the elder Mr. Whyte said. “Equality, that’s all we’re voting for.”

Ms. Whyte added that her gay son and religious beliefs weren’t her only reasons for making the video.

“I must tell you,” she said. “I have 11 beautiful grandchildren. So that’s another reason, I want to make a better place for them.”

It’s a pity that, unlike the Whites, the Vatican wants the world to remain a mean-spirited place of inequality.

One of Them: Part IV

April 30, 2015 • 6:38 am

Wiley Miller continues his series on America’s Hate Laws at Non Sequitur. (Why does that old dude have a cat on his shoulder?)

nq150430

Reader “Micky pearce” (who won’t be seen here in the future) tried to comment on this post, demonstrating precisely the kind of religiously-inspired bigotry shown in the strip:

This is unfair freind. Who wrote that. Not accurate complete picture. pro-gay businesses have rejected Christian approaches too. If homosexuals are wicked enough to approach and target Christian businesses instead of the hundreds of others who would happily fulfil their requirements, seeking trouble and the imposition of their agenda upon others, who really is the uncharitable and divisive party at work here. Bigotry works in all spheres, including the refusal to accept someones Christian position.

Is there a correlation between conservative religiosity and the inability to write and spell?

h/t: Linda Grilli

Burger King introduces a “gay pride” burger, Christians worried that believers may consume one inadvertently

July 20, 2014 • 7:22 am

But why? Do they think it will turn them gay?

What with Hobby Lobby, Chick fil A, and other right-wing and/or religious businesses flaunting their faith or even enforcing it on employees, it’s good to see a chain—a big one—come out in favor of gay rights.

It’s Burger King, which, in early July, briefly sold a “Proud Whopper” in San Francisco (sadly, in only one store). Still, that’s something:

GayPrideWhopper

And KENS5, a San Antonio (Texas) news station reports:

The downtown San Francisco Burger King sold Proud Whoppers last weekend, during the parade and also passed out some 50,000 rainbow Burger King crowns, that were worn by parade participants and spectators. The video, created by the Miami office of Burger King’s ad agency David, captures customers discussing whether or not the burger, itself, is different. At $4.29 it costs the same as a conventional Whopper. And, indeed, customers ultimately discover the only difference is the rainbow wrap.
All Proud Whopper sandwich sales, Machado [head of BK international brand marketing] says, will be donated to the Burger King McLamore Foundation for scholarships benefiting LGBT high school seniors graduating in spring 2015.
Here’s the company’s video, which also includes a few people beefing about the burger:


Unsurprisingly, the American right just can’t leave this alone. The Raw Story reports some pushback from the odious American Family Association:

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer voiced his concern on Friday over the idea that a new Burger King item honoring LGBT Pride events in San Francisco could be sold in other parts of the country, Right Wing Watch reported.

“If this isn’t bottled up in San Francisco, this kind of nonsense, then it’s going to be spreading across the entire fruited plain,” Fischer complained. “And you’re going to be going to your Burger King in Des Moines, Iowa and you’re going to have a rainbow color wrapper for your Whopper.”

I can’t help but think that “fruited plain” (which comes from one line of the patriotic song “America the Beautiful“) is a sly and denigrating reference to gays, which in my youth used to be called “fruits” (pejoratively, of course).

The burger chain featured the “Proud Whopper” earlier this month at one San Francisco location, bearing rainbow-colored packaging and the phrase, “We are all the same inside” on the inside of the wrapper. The company also posted a video of people ordering and reacting to the promotion.

“I cried in there,” one woman said in the video. “A burger has never made me cry before.”

Fischer scoffed at the tearful reaction, and suggested that his group would try to do an “action alert” to protest to the company.

“I gotta tell you, I think this is a marketing mistake,” he said. “I think this is a bonehead move from a marketing standpoint. Because I gotta guarantee you, when people sit down to eat a hamburger, the last thing they want to be thinking about is two guys having sex.”

Yeah, as if that’s what they’d be thinking about. And I seriously doubt that Burger King has lost any business.

h/t: Ginger