Promotional Video for the Protest DOMA National Rally to be held at city halls everywhere in the United States at 1:30pm EST/10:30am PST. The LGBT community is protesting the Defense of Marriage Act and urges President-Elect Barack Obama to repeal this act.
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our next President. Rick Warren has been asked to provide the invocation. Rick Warren helped pass Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in California and took away people’s rights to marry the one that they love. To show your support for marriage equality, wear a white knot, a powerful symbol of marriage equality, at the Inauguration Ceremony, wherever you are in our country.
Until the end, Christine Maggiore remained defiant.
On national television and in a blistering book, she denounced research showing that HIV causes AIDS. She refused to take medications to treat her own virus. She gave birth to two children and breast-fed them, denying any risk to their health. And when her 3-year-old child, Eliza Jane, died of what the coroner determined to be AIDS-related pneumonia, she protested the findings and sued the county.
On Saturday, Maggiore died at her Van Nuys home, leaving a husband, a son and many unanswered questions. She was 52.
Few Americans believe that HIV+ women should have children [percentage below indicates number of respondents in support of women with specific chronic medical conditions who want to bear and raise children ---rk].
Christine Maggiore (1957 – December 27, 2008) was an HIV-positiveactivist who denied that HIV causes AIDS.[1][2] She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which questions the link between HIV and AIDS and supports pregnant women with HIV who want to avoid taking anti-HIV medication.[3] Maggiore authored and self-published the book What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong? Maggiore died on December 27, 2008 after suffering from pneumonia.
Maggiore had long been a controversial figure, particularly following the death of her 3-year-old daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, in May 2005. The Los Angeles Countycoroner concluded that Eliza Jane had died of Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia as a result of untreated AIDS. Maggiore had not taken medication to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV to her daughter during pregnancy, and she did not have Eliza Jane tested for HIV during her daughter’s lifetime.[4][3] A veterinary toxicologist (and AIDS denialist) retained by Maggiore to review the autopsy report disagreed with the coroner’s conclusion, stating that he believed Eliza Jane’s death was due to an allergic reaction to amoxicillin.[4] . . .
Egypt riseth up like a flood, and his waters are moved like the rivers and he saith, I will go up, and will cover the earth; I will destroy the city and the inhabitants thereof. § Come up, ye heroes; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow. § For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries; and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood… § Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt; in vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured. § The nations have heard of thy shame . . .
The epigraph is, to be sure, unusual, and a bit long. Please read it anyway. Twice. Read it not with the reading of the schools, not as “a receiver of a communication,” but as a thoughtful inquirer into the meaning of what is said, as one who intends to say something about what is said.
Read it slowly, as you would read a gnarled sonnet of Donne, moving your lips the while. Listen. Discover its voice and its tone. Judge the effects of diction, its rhythms, its curt images and its metaphors. Pronounce it, at last, not right or wrong, which is useful only with regard to “a communication,” but good or bad, either well-wrought or ill. Consider how, if there were going to be a test, you could justify your verdict. Do all of that now, and do it well, for there is going to be a test–every day of your life, and what follows is the dreadful tale of a man who failed it. So take your time. We can wait.
eartha kitt died christmas day at the age of 81. this is albert rodriguez’ article about her published in the windy city times two years ago.
namasté
—rk
Getting Catty with Eartha Kitt by Albert Rodriguez
2005-04-06
At the age of 78, Eartha Kitt isn’t interested in joining a women’s bridge club or staying home and knitting throw blankets. The legendary entertainer, who boasts Emmy, Grammy and Tony award nominations on her lengthy resume, is as active in her career today as when she purred to worldwide fame playing “Catwoman” in the Batman TV series. In fact, when I rang the land line at her Western Connecticut home recently, she had just returned from the recording studio and was a week away from getting on a plane and heading to the West Coast for a six-night performance engagement.
Anti-gay conservatives have delineated their opposition to the international conversation on the human rights of gays and lesbians by framing the issue as one of homosexuality in and of itself being a right.
A CNS article posted on Dec. 24 referred to homosexuality as being sought as a “human right” of its own accord (rather than addressing the human rights of homosexual people) and slammed France as being the nation that has “fired the opening salvo” in what the religious-right site termed a “battle at the United Nations” over the question of an international accord regarding the treatment of gays globally.
As previously reported, the United States is the only country among the major Western nations not to sign on to the non-binding UN resolution calling for an end to the criminalization of homosexuality in all the nations of the world.
