Junk Activism

Remember Full House?  Where the two Olsen twins made us smile and cringe by tag-teaming their role as the little Michelle Tanner who cracks silly, cheeky baby jokes to Bob Saget & John Stamos?

Those two little brats are all grown up now and fashion conscious, which means movies and now writing books, curly blond locks, a shitload of eyeliner and donning the finest exotic animal hides.

PETA has a fondness and obsession with fur, as well.  Except their fondness for fur is to hold signs and hide their faces by wearing what appears to be an ugly Kabuki mask, advertising such unfunny slogans as “Hairy Kate and Trashley Olsen”.  Cute, but hardly clever:

Then we are told:

“The Olsen twins support an industry that forces animals to live in tiny wire cages their entire lives and electrocutes and kills them for vanity,” PETA rep Ashley Byrne said.

PETA, I’m very disappointed in you.  No toplessness?  No fake blood?  No guys in chicken costumes?  No video demonstrations of the hide tanning process?  No promotion of fuel-burning synthetic alternatives?  Shell out a few more bucks next time.

Ok, time to take a shower, eat breakfast, and electrocute some small mammals in tiny cages with the Olsen twins.  Happy Friday everyone!

Something huge in the gay community has happened in the past couple weeks and it’s not in anyone’s trousers.

It was Proposition 8, which I wrote an opinion on this week.  To write this blog I pan over news feeds on protests around the world on a daily basis.  This has gotten more attention on the Internet than anything yet in the past two months except Thailand’s political troubles.

Gay protesting and plans for protests are sprouting up everywhere from L.A. to New York City to Austin to Lansing Michigan (who is now famous for their ‘Gay Fascists‘) to Salt Lake City and back to San Fran and Sacramento.  No matter where you go, it seems there is a gay ole time to be had.

Here are some links I found with some more clever, funny gay protest signs for your imagination to chew on:

Proposition 8 Protest Signs - Several here that are good and I haven’t seen before.

Top 10 Prop 8 Protest Signs - I question why there is a top 10 already, it looks like the protests are just getting started. But regardless, there are still some funny ones.

Cre8ive Prop 8 - “Focus on your OWN Family” made me laugh.

I’m sure there is more to come….

Do I need to say the obvious here after reading the article about Germany protesting Nuclear Waste transportation:

The train carrying the waste from France arrived at Dannenberg terminal in Lower Saxony early Monday, Nov. 10, at 1:15 am CET with a 14-hour delay after protests tried several times to halt the transport, police said.

and….

Elsewhere, wiring and signal gear along German railway lines were set on fire. Though most of the attacks were anonymous, police said it was likely the sabotage was the work of anti-nuclear militants.

ARE YOU PEOPLE F**KING INSANE?!?!!? You’re going to protest the problems of Nuclear Waste by… burning train tracks during the travel of NUCLEAR WASTE?

Let’s be logical here, and just a little serious for a moment.  If that train is derailed and nuclear waste spills, you’re going to have a real disaster on your hands and I doubt you’ll be the ones who are forced to clean that shit up.

Nuclear waste is sort of like an ugly stepchild with A.D.D. who refuses to drink their Nyquil every night - You’re forced to deal with it, it may keep you up at night, but the reality is that you want it on its way as soon as possible. 

Let these people do their job safely! Just get that waste out of your town as soon as possible!!!!

Wow.  So the weekend’s over and I’m doing my daily rounds, checking out what’s new in the Protest world when I realize one thing rings loud and clear:  Gay is “In” in the news world. Election is over, and while some of the media is following Obama around, Prop 8 protests are alive and well.

I’m not sure if anything has struck such controversy in the past two months since I launched Junk Activism as Proposition 8 in California.  All sorts of interesting tidbits as the gay community strong-arms the religious community into changing silly Mormon superstitions.

Melissa Etheridge is protesting that she has “not a full citizen” and is refusing to pay her taxes over the gay marriage ban.  With the IRS these days, I must say Melissa you must have brass balls.

100 Pro-Gay Protesters sang, “Jesus Loves Me” outside of a Dallas Church holding a sermon called “Why Gay is Not O.K.”

Thousands protested in San Francisco over the weekend, even painting their faces, dressing up in drag, rainbow flags a-flying.

The gay community is pissed.   And I can’t blame…what could be worse than having something you want taken away from you?  Especially something as institutional as marriage.

To me, that is the inherent problem that sums it all up:  Marriage is a very, very old institution.  And it’s a religious one - not a political one.  There is a lot of psychology here, and while the protests seem to be relatively peaceful, there’s a lot of animosity and very, very angry people on both sides.

I see the issue as having two entirely separate and distinct parts and both sides need to give a little.    My goal here is to find a reasonable medium so both sides can duke it out but neither one feels entirely shafted by the legislation involved as they do so.

The first side is see is the “religious” side.  What I’m seeing here is this is a social struggle with a group of people that many Christians have ostrichized as sinful and immoral while the gay side argues that Jesus loves them the same. This battle plays in this space because marriage is a religious institution and until the Christian churches change their minds here, it’s going to be a neverending battle.  The gays say these folks are ignorant and unfair, these Christians say that it’s against their beliefs.

The other side I see is the “political” side.  Namely, legal recognition of partnership.  This side is the litigation that allows same-sex consensual partnerships and recognition as a “couple”.

The government’s job is not to be our moral compass.  We have that all within ourselves - and we all have our own sense of “right” and “wrong”.  This is America, we will never agree on all of these things, but it is not the government’s job to dictate our religious institutions regardless if the majority agrees with them or not.

However, this does not free the government from its obligations of serving its people fairly.  There’s a serious demand for same-sex partnerships, and a lot of people feel hoodwinked by the lack of ability to be registered in a consensual gay partnership.  We should legally allow this.  Why not?  What is the inherent problem with that?  Is it going to really be any different, other than people can actively pursue a lifestyle in peace?  We are all living together here, anyway, why should we let such a simple issue divide politically when its a matter of giving the same legal rights to all people.

So, the semantics are different.  My solution isn’t “marriage”.  But even legally, “marriage” is really only a “partnership” named so because of the religious superstitions behind it.

To be honest, with a something-like 80% divorce rate in America, I’m not really sure why ANY monogomous couple today would want to even associate themselves with being “married”.

Words of the wise: Be modern and progressive, and far more importantly than the gender of those involved, we all should be active in changing the way monogomous relationships are viewed, so we can actually have a working system in America.  We’ll go much farther that way.

I’m open to opinions on this subject, so I encourage you all to comment and let’s have some different perspectives.

Found here

Even Marilyn Manson showed up.

“I’m glad my (heart) grandmas are married”