San Diego Mayor Stands Up For Marriage Equality

Keith Olbermann Special Comment on Proposition 8

You Can Forget My Taxes by Melissa Etheridge

I am reprinting a letter that Ms. Melissa Etheridge wrote on her blog.
God I love this woman!

You Can Forget My Taxes
by Melissa Etheridge

Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California—and she won't be paying the state a dime.

Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.

Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.

…Really?

When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?

I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.

I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.

Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.

Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too...

Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.

Don't be a douche!

A Very Brave Man and A Hero Rev. Geoffrey Farrow

Father Geoffrey Farrow is a longtime Catholic priest who revealed recently that he is gay and opposed to Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that would overturn the California Supreme Court's decision earlier this year allowing same-sex marriage. As a result, Farrow has been stripped of his job as a parish priest in Fresno, including his salary and health benefits.

"At what point do you cease to be an agent for healing and growth and become an accomplice of injustice?" Rev. Geoffrey Farrow asked during a Church mass held on Sunday, October 5.

"How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives?" he asked parishioners of the St. Paul Newman Center. "I am morally compelled to vote no on Proposition 8."

Rev. Geoffrey Farrow is a Hero and a very brave man to lose not only his job but to be banished from what he loved to do, simply for having the courage to stand up for what he believed in and that was equality for all!

The complete story from The LA Times is here...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaypriest13-2008oct13,0,2646781.story

Wake up People...before it is too late.

Think before you speak....

http://www.ThinkB4YouSpeak.com/

Vote No on Prop. 8

PLEASE

California - Vote "NO" on Prop. 8!

Arizona - Vote "NO" on Prop. 102! AGAIN!

Florida - Vote "NO" on Amendment 2!

Connecticut - Vote "NO" on Question 1!

Vote No! on Prop 8

I heard from my one and only former boyfriend over the weekend, that he and I were featured in the current issue of Frontier's magazine once again. The photo near the end of the magazine entitled Love Story on page 138 had been originally published in Frontier's magazine in 1993 and later in a book about Gay weddings. The photo was taken of us after we were married in front of the IRS building in Washington D.C. during a mass wedding held by Rev. Troy Perry, the evening before the March on Washington in April of 1993.

Even though Lee and I are no longer together as a couple, we are still a part of each other's lives for better or worse. Just as straight couples, I believe that I should have the right to marry whom ever I choose just as my parents, two older brothers and my younger sister have done and as I did with my former wife before I came out of the closet.

How do you cue that Barbara song on here now?........"Mem'ries light the corners of my mind. Misty water color mem'ries of the way we were. Scattered pictures of the smiles we.....

Vote No! on Prop 8 in California!

http://noonprop8.com/

Remembering Matthew Shepard

Remembering Matthew Shepard

A Call to Action to Erase Hate

Please join us tonight to observe the ten-year remembrance of Matthew Shepard’s death and renew our commitment to erase hate in our communities.

Oakland University

Oakland Center - Gold Rooms A and B

2200 North Squirrel Road

Rochester, Michigan 48309

Monday, October 6, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.

Featured speakers:

Joann Bautti-Roche, Coordinator, Oakland University Gender & Sexuality Center

Tim Larrabee, Chair, Oakland University LGBTA Employee Resource Group

Representative Paul Condino, Sponsor of the Michigan Anti-Bias Crime Statute

Dan Levy, Chief Legal Officer, Michigan Department of Civil Rights

Melissa L. Pope, Director of Victim Services, Triangle Foundation

The event is being sponsored by the Oakland University Gender & Sexuality Center, the Oakland University LGBT Employee Resource Group, and Triangle Foundation. 

For more information, contact Melissa@tri.org.

Matthew Shepard - Ten Years Ago Tonight

Matthew Wayne Shepard

(December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998) 

Matthew Shepard was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was badly beaten, tied to a wooden fence, and left to die near Laramie on the night of October 6 - October 7, 1998. Shepard died five days later from (among many other things) severe head injuries at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12, 1998. 

His murder brought national as well as international attention to the issue of hate crime legislation (or the lack of) at the state and federal levels. Ten years later we still do not have a federal hate crimes bill passed thanks in part to W.

What is really needed (in my opinion) is more awareness and acceptance in schools so that kids grow up knowing that being gay is okay and normal. I personally would have done better in school and in life had I felt better about myself and had known I was not the only one "like that".

We remember Matthew Shepard and all victims of hate crimes today including Susan Pittmann and Christine Puckett.

May they all rest in peace.

Just an interesting thought...

Just an interesting thought... 

I have at this time, roughly $4,900.00 in debt added up because of costs from my documentary.

 

That isn't a complaint, just a statement. I have been very blessed by all the wonderful people, friends and strangers a like who have given me money to make this film. 

From $1,000 donations - (three so far) 

to spare change that was collected in a can at Just 4 Us in Ferndale on Nine Mile Road. 

And everything in between.

Today I read that 72 year-old John McCain paid a make-up artist $5,583.43 to apply make-up to his face.

One time.

 

A Great Day - Candle Fundraiser and More....

Hello,

This day turned out to be great.

I was working on my website and getting the Candle Fundraiser officially started today! 

Hint Hint!

Thank you to Michael Lovett for all of his help with that page of the website.

Thank you to Anne as well since she is the reason I am doing this fundraiser in the first place.

Then the icing on the cake today was I received a phone call from Michael Puckett - Christine's brother! I have been trying to get a hold of him for some time now.

I see Peter Cooper tonight to discuss an upcoming interview with him soon, I hope.

Carry on. Everyday a little bit closer to that end result. 

Talk to you later,

Brian

http://www.pittmannpuckett.com/fundraiser_candles.php

Please help fight the Anti-Gay Proposition 8 campaign in California!

Please help fight the Anti-Gay Proposition 8 campaign in California!

Just because you may not live in California doesn't mean that this doesn't effect you and/or someone you love. Not buying Bolthouse Products is just one way to help and of course if you are a registered voter in California please Vote No! against the proposition. If you are not a registered voter, you have till October 20th to do so.

Here are some links to help us all:

http://www.californiansagainsthate.com/

http://www.dontbuybolthouse.com/

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm

Looking for Specific People to Interview for this Documentary

Hello Everyone,

I guess I should change the part where it says I update daily to I update weekly.

Just for the record, I am looking for specific people to interview for this Documentary.

I am looking for people who either knew Sue and Chris at one point in their lives and/or who were involved with Affirmations, The Triangle Foundation, and/or M.A.P.P. (and other tri-county LGBT community organizations in southeast Michigan during the late eighties and early nineties.

Above is the origianl Affirmations building which was located off of Southfield Road. I have found three of the people in the photo but am still looking for the other six. If you are one of these people or you know one of these people in the photo, please let me know through my website's email address which is balexander@pittmannpuckett.com

I can get some of the editing done now, but it would be a whole lot easier to work on the editing when most if not all of the interviews have been completed.

I don't want to post names of people I am looking for because that might not be cool for people who don't want to be interviewed. I hope to be done with all the interviews by the end of this year. I'll write more soon.

Take care,

Brian

Someone I knew, Scott, died last Saturday...

Someone I knew, Scott, died last Saturday and his funeral was today.
Even though I have known Scott for less than two years, I can tell you that Scott was the sweetest guy. He was gentle and very kind. He lived about a half mile from where I live, although I didn't know that. That is because Scott was also very quite. A number of years ago, Scott had been very badly gay-bashed and was left with a closed-head injury. Something he probably dealt with everyday of his life. The men who beat him up several years ago have no idea the pain they would put him through for years to come and the rest of his life.

Scott was only 44 years old when he was struck by a car on his way to probably buy cigarettes across the street from where he lived. He will be sadly missed by many including myself.

Also in sad news, Kevin McAlpine sent out an email today that he is leaving The Triangle Foundation this month. First Stephanie and then Jeff and Sean, and now Kevin. And I am not even sure when Crystal left? Was it something I said? Triangle is changing faster than I can keep up with. Best wishes to Kevin and also to the new Triangle staff. The only person I know there now is Kate.

I am working on the candle fundraiser page today and hope to get that completed by next week at this time. This fundraiser will last till the end of this year. I'll let you know when it is completed.

I have an interview this Thursday with Shey Howell and I look forward to that.
I am meeting with another person this Tuesday about another possible interview.
I'll write more soon,
Brian

Sunday, September 7, 2008 - Blog Day Two

Hello Everyone,

I met with my wonderful friend Cindy today.

She agreed to meet with me every other Sunday to help me get things going.

I have several people that I will be calling this coming week to see if I can interview them.

I have at least five people that I can think of right now that will be coming into town in the next few months and I will interview them then.

I only have one interview scheduled right now.

I like to have three people lined up at a time.

I will have this blog up tomorrow on my website before I leave for work.

Talk to you tomorrow,

Brian

First day of the blog. Looking for Vincent Johnson...

Hello Everybody and Welcome to the Pittmann Puckett Documentary Blog.

This blog will keep people up to date on what the latest happenings of this documentary are.

I will do my best to post something everyday with the progress of the film.

Another reason for the blog is in hopes that people out there can help me find other people that I am looking for so I can interview them for the film. I am in the process of finding Vincent Johnson who was a juror for the Pittmann Puckett Murder trial in late 1992.

I am also in need of photographs and film of the era that this film is about. More about all of that later. Right now I just want to get this blog up on the Internet and that will happen on Monday morning.

Talk to you soon and thanks for taking part,

Brian