Thursday, May 7, 2009

Anchorage Gets a Homophobic Mayor - New England Gets Gay Marriage

--- by E. Ross


It's a good news, bad news week at Bent Alaska, and it's only Wednesday. The bad news is that Anchorage elected Sullivan to a three year term as mayor.

As a member of the Assembly, Dan
1. tried to block domestic partner benefits in Anchorage after the state Supreme Court granted them,
2. led the opposition against selling a municipal building to Out North, and
3. tried to block a PFLAG-sponsored display in the high schools.

On the Assembly, he was unsuccessful in these efforts against us. We hope that he will continue to be unsuccessful in pushing a far right social agenda in his role as mayor.

The good news
Gays and lesbians disappointed by the local news can take comfort in the great national progress on equal rights: Gay marriage is legal in Maine today, and might be legal in New Hampshire by next week.

The legislature of Maine passed a same sex marriage bill yesterday and Gov. Baldacci signed it today, the first time a governor signed a marriage equality bill without a court ruling.

The New Hampshire legislature also passed a marriage bill today. Gov. Lynch has five days to sign, veto, or ignore the bill. Will NH be the 6th state to legalize our marriages? (The current 5 are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Maine.)

The D.C. city council voted 12-1 to recognize same sex marriages, and Mayor Fenty is likely to sign the measure.

Marriage bills are also progressing in New York and New Jersey. New York already recognizes out-of-state same sex marriages.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are there enough progressives on the assembly to override Dan?

You know guv is his next stop, right?

E. Ross said...

Dan was often the lone far-right vote on the Assembly, and the moderate and progressive members can still override him. (And they will spend a lot of time overriding him, instead of helping Anchorage to move forward.)

freeper said...

The accompanying picture has some interest.

From the picture, it appears as if Palin has adopted a a fairly routine physical posture most often associated with 'threat aversion preparedness'.

That posture denoting the possibility of imminent peril is common to humans.

One often sees that same exact physical posture in those who are about to take a quick step back and flee from whatever they've hesitatingly found themselves to be confronted with.

The picture speaks volumes.

.

Anonymous said...

We will see how things evolve or devolve. When I asked him the personal question about how he intends to deal with the question of gay rights, he told me to my face that he would never discriminate against a gay person. I take him for his word until I see proof different.

Amazing you have already named him "Homophobe". I wouldn't smear him with the brush I reserve for the likes of Loren Leman or Jerry Ward. They are just different. He doesn't seem like that to me.

But I am just one person. Who knows what the future holds.

Philip Munger said...

Anon @ 2:44 pm - I hope Sullivan can put his past behind him too. A more thorough rundown of his past actions related to issues of importance to the Anchorage LBGTQ community can be found at the blog Bent Alaska.

KaJo said...

freeper said @ 2:19 PM May 7...The accompanying picture has some interest. From the picture, it appears as if Palin has adopted a a fairly routine physical posture most often associated with 'threat aversion preparedness'.That's NOTHING compared to these pictures!

Of Palin hugging McCain at the RNC -- http://tinyurl.com/ptrpca

air-kissing Cindy McCain (same milieu; ignore the labels, even without them her expression is unmistakable) -- http://tinyurl.com/o9vkvd

and for contrast, hugging Sean Parnell, someone in her inner circle, on her return to Alaska -- http://tinyurl.com/p2p9x3

Google "Sarah Palin RNC John McCain" -- to me, it appears in a lot of those pictures that Palin didn't defer to McCain, that he was merely an accessory for her, that in her mind they were equals on the ticket, in the campaign.

That was pretty obvious in the diplomatic faux pas she committed in the fake Sarkozy phone call -- even though it was a fake, she never should have accepted the call.