High-powered entertainment attorney Steve Warren demanded that Justice Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Supreme Court justices act against the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop. 8 during a stirring speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco last night.
“Our basic civil rights are currently being experimented with in 50 different state laboratories,” said Warren, a board member of the watchdog org and recent recipient of its Stephen F. Kolzak Award. “Many of which have little or no hope of ridding themselves of the prejudice and hate that still exists in so much of our country. It pains me to think of what could have been for our relationships, including my own of 26 years, if our nation had embraced all of us, and given us the love, respect and support given to heterosexual couples, of all races. We need, we deserve and we are rightfully entitled as American citizens to be included under the shield of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”
Warren took specific aim at Justice Thomas, drawing a parallel between his interracial marriage and the struggle for the same recognition for same-sex couples.
“Because the Clarence and Virginia Thomas’s of the world are accorded the protections of the U.S. Constitution and we are not,” Warren stated. “Our basic civil rights are currently being experimented with in 50 different state laboratories. Many of which have little or no hope of ridding themselves of the prejudice and hate that still exists in so much of our country. It pains me to think of what could have been for our relationships, including my own of 26 years, if our nation had embraced all of us, and given us the love, respect and support given to heterosexual couples, of all races. We need, we deserve, and we are rightfully entitled as American citizens to be included under the shield of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.”
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Ferris8
So glad that GLAAD has had yet another awards presentation.
sanfranca1
Ah, there is only one CHIEF Justice, and his name is John Roberts…
tdx3fan
Isn’t this about equivalent of standing in front of a run away freight train and demanding that it stop!?! There is no way Scalia and Thomas will ever vote for anything that furthers gay rights.
tdx3fan
@Ferris8: What else do you expect them to do with the money that they collect from their donors!?! HRC and GLADD are all about throwing yet another fancy party and co-mingling with the stars on your donation.
jwrappaport
@sanfranca1: Seriously. *facepalm*
jwrappaport
@sanfranca1: We gays should invest time in becoming legally literate – not being lawyers or experts necessarily, but knowing the general anatomy of a common law judiciary, how our rights are adjudicated, and how to frame basic legal arguments on both sides.
rand503
Yes, I’m sure Scalia and Thomas will take heed.
Sheesh — what a waste of time and money.
Still, I am very hopeful that SCOTUS will vote our way. The real haters, like at FRC and such, seem to be quite worried that they will lose, and are acting rather desparete. I can’t help but think that one or more justices or law clerks has leaked out to the real conservatives, like Heritage Foundation, with the news on how they know the voting is going.
Remember, Thomas’s white wife works at Heritage and is a big homo-hater. He could easily tell her how the votes are going, and she spreads the word.
viveutvivas
Who gives money to these clowns? No regular gay person I know does.
jeff4justice
Based on these comments seems like most people are fed up with elite LGBT mega groups that whore for corporations, have major redundancy in objectives, kiss Democrat ass no matter how Republican-like they become, and pay their top staffers 6-figure salaries while ignoring LGBTs in poverty and those outside the big city areas.
jeff4justice
@jeff4justice: And yet at Pride events you see fool after fool lined up to donate to the LGBT mega groups.
Obviously they’ve still convinced people of their relevancy.
Reality101
@jeff4justice: Jeff4Justice, I think more people would be inclined to listen to your talking points and perspective if you wouldn’t so eagerly throw the gay community under the bus on your personal you tube channel. Instead of using that venue as a spring board to promote your issues, you do nothing but try to divide the LGBT community against each other, by pinning gay vs. trans vs. this that and the third knowing full well your divisive message against gays is being spread to a heterosexual audience. It’s nothing short of attempting to pile on crap to the gay community in the same climate as others are piling on us too.
Your disdain for gays doesn’t even correlate with your third party agenda. You can easily advocate for your third party agenda without the (often militant) mission of attacking gay people and the gay community. But your you tube videos read like misdirected anger. They start off about how the system feeds the wealthy and overlooks the poor then derails into how bad gays are, how awful gays are, and more of the same. You’re trying to attract gay people to your cause by bashing us? And you also make a mockery of us pursuing our rights by us supporting Obama. You state Obama support by gays is self serving and how we need not be so concerned with gay rights. Again, it’s insulting. It’s insulting to know how much our people and community has endured in the past, how many people have been killed throughout history for being gay, how many historical events our community has been attached to….and pretend we live in a post homophobic society. The two party system being in place was not set up by gays, but is a fact and reality of society. Gays picking the lesser of two necessarily evils does not make us evil. It’s self survival, and we owe it to ourselves to be concerned for issues that concern us when we have gay couples brutally beat for holding hands.
In short, the gay community would be more apt to listen to your views if you didn’t belittle them every waking moment. Gays have enough people telling them why they are bad? How in the heck did you figure they want to hear that same thing from ANOTHER gay person?
jeff4justice
@Reality101: You seem to think LGBTs are above criticism.
Your reaction is the equivalent to black people complaining about Cornel West and Glen Ford for calling out the many evils of Obama.
You’d rather focus solely on the oppression of the anti-LGBT wannabe supremacists while ignoring the oppression of LGBTs caused by other LGBTs.
To reduce my work as “disdain for gays” for gays is silly considering my well documented extensive record of taking on anti-LGBT foes and working to better LGBT community in my hometown.
Regarding your defense of not voting for fully supportive truly progressive alternative party options – it reminds me of how some gays want to leave out transgender folks from ENDA or how the major LGBT groups initially tried to stop the Prop 8 lawsuit from getting to the Supreme Court. Unprincipled people are always full of endless fear-based excuses.
However, I understand the need for “self survival” – but I think anyone who votes for the increasingly Republican-like Democrats has really misjudged “self survival.” Don’t worry though – the Christian right is making the same foolish mistake by failing to move to alternative parties too.
Regarding your accusation that I belittle gays, in the spirit of equality, I treat my fellow LGBT brothers and sisters as I do anyone else. Some of them are good, some bad, and some somewhere in the middle. But for the record, I’ve given platform to numerous LGBT voices that are often ignored by the major LGBT media.
You accuse me of misdirected anger. I accuse you of the same. You don’t like my vids. So be it. Just as you can find liberal or conservative media that fails to examine the ills of their own, there’s plenty of safe LGBT media out there for you to enjoy.
Scott Johansen
@jeff4justice: The difference between you and Cornel West is that you qualify your statements with combative and belligerent remarks like “I despise the gay community” and if their criticism of Obama was started with “I hate the general black community” you can bet it would be at the detriment of their mission, and they would rightfully be challenged for that ignorance. You fan the flames and polarization of how gay Americans are treated by constantly slamming every minute detail of gay people. It’s not even playing field because your videos do not in fact make sweeping negative generalizations against the heterosexuals, religious community or another other segment as you do gays. THAT is an irrational prejudice against a core group of people. Most fascinating is that you want the very group of people you make a career of insulting to listen and empathize with your message. There’s only a select group of people who you’ll attract for that, and most are the ones that have an irrational dislike of us as well.
And the fact that you can’t grasp how the gay community has been far more vocal and helpful toward trans rights than heterosexuals, yet you hold the gay community at fault for transsexual set backs tells me and the other poster that you have an agenda drenched in dragging gay people through the mud and making us turn on each other, within our own community. It’s illogical, and it lacks basic compassion for the very people who you want to be your listeners.
And finally, to address one of your videos. I have attended many gay prides and was filled with joy over how much charity I saw. How many LGBT smiling families I saw. How many loving couples holding hands I saw. How much strength I saw.
Deepdow
The Constitution has only ever expanded rights, aside from Prohibition, which was voided and DOMA, which will be voided.
Deepdow
@jeff4justice:
Thank you for being strong enough to counter homophobia though you seem to be experiencing confirmation bias with regard to your opinion of gay rights groups and their activists – which is merely a part of the progressive movement, which stretches back to the nineteenth century. Obviously, the end game for our society is total equality within all demographics. We will never get there if most of us behave like you are behaving in the public discourse. You should be encouraged to see the future instead of mooring yourself in the fleeting politics of the present.
Good day.
jeff4justice
@Scott Johansen: True I am not as eloquent as Cornel West. But as eloquent as he is, he is still demonized so it does not matter. If a person is anti-establishment you’re demonized no matter how you carry yourself.
Too bad we don’t yet have a LGBT version of the cartoon The Boondocks.
Next, I like my righteous anger so… I’m good thanks. And if you choose to ignore the many times I’ve taken on homophobes and stood of for LGBTs then so be it.
Next, maybe I missed the charity when I saw seas of people walking over the homeless – the same homeless that places like the Castro criminalize. But I’m sure donating some bucks to HRC to pay for a 6-figure-salary-earning-director for a sticker brings a lot of smiles. But I’m sure the groups duplicating the same objectives while whoring for 1% type companies are smiling Proud too. Is all of Pride bad? No. But most of it is a superficial as any other pointless holiday. If you have a better feeling about it then good for you.
Next, I never opined that heteros have done more to help trans folk.
I used to be a happy-go-lucky gay activist idealist. Then I saw the horribleness that LGBTs inflict upon ourselves though classism, elitism, racism, sexism, and other discriminations.
Sorry not all voices are as nicey as you’d like them to be.
jeff4justice
@Deepdow: Sorry, not going to romanticize the LGBT community as you do. LGBT folk are just like anyone else – some are nice, some aren’t.
Some folks get so caught up into collectivism they just can’t handle critique of their own.
My vids and podcast are not for everyone.
jeff4justice
@Scott Johansen, @Deepdow, & @Reality101
BTW, I am soooooooo mean to LGBT people that tonight I’ve been trying to help a transgender friend find housing – since no mega groups ever help with their 6-figure EDs and all the money they get at Pride events.
I’ve helped LGBT people find housing, give them rides, help them move, take them to get HIV tested, feed them, etc… But I’m so mean to LGBTs.
I started the first LGBT group in my hometown. While most of the well-to-do LGBTs chose to stay in the shadows, I put myself on the line risking my safety and job prospects to stand up to the homophobes. And could I ever make the LGBTs happy? Nope. One half scolded me for being too harsh towards the anti-gays, the other half criticized me for not being mean enough. What kind of people did I meet? Sure there were nice ones. But there were also plenty of elitists, discriminators, and apathetic people immersed in alcoholic/drugged-out escapism – as fostered by the gay bars.
How awful am I to LGBTs? I’ve interviewed numerous gay public figures regarding topics often under-covered by the major LGBT media. I also interviewed many LGBT groups to let them promote on my channel. But who cares – my interviews with porn actors get more views anyway.
And I am so mean for not bowing down to LGBT mega groups who whore for the 1% corporations and Democrats who persecute marijuana users, contribute to lie-based wars, support NDAA and Patriotic act, and take money from GMO companies.
I know – I am so fucking mean to gays.
Deepdow
@jeff4justice:
Usually the longer the comment – the crazier the person 🙂
jeff4justice
@Deepdow: When you cannot refute and have nothing of subtenancy to add I can understand your need for cheap shots.
But I’m not celebrating your gay assholery so I’m mean. Got it.
Deepdow
@jeff4justice:
And you have no sense of humor about it which is sad considering you take delight in interviewing gay porn stars.
Also, I didn’t call you mean amigo, I called you crazy – BIG DIFFERENCE 😀
jeff4justice
@Deepdow: How many fucks and I suppose to give?
Deepdow
@jeff4justice:
None. Now delete your youtube channel, forgo caring about LGBT issues and come out of the misanthropy closet you people hating homosexual hypocrite 😉
jeff4justice
@Deepdow: I’m flattered by the attention as a supposed crazy person. And I did not call you amigo, crazy.
Deepdow
@jeff4justice:
It’s always about you sir, lest we forget.
Have a good one.