It has been slow here in the land of Autostraddle. Most of the staff are away at A-Camp and the rest of us are moping in our respective offices/blanket fortresses, suffering from some major FOMO right now. Given that the world could be considered a big ol’ ball o’ suck right now, let’s speed through the bad news!
Pueblo city councillors tabled a motion that would have extended partner benefits to city workers in same-sex domestic partnerships. Even though it looked like it would pass (5-1!), it was still tabled as the 56k price tag to tell gays that they are people just like everyone else was too high with a projected $5.8 million budget shortfall.
City Councilman Eric Ulrich VIA MARIELA LOMBARD FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Queens Republican Juan Reyes decided to act like a playground bully instead of an adult running for senate by calling out opponent Eric Ulrich for doing the unthinkable by being gay-friendly. In his mailer, Reyes shamed Ulrich for having dinner with his gay friends and hiring gay staffers. Gasp. Just remember y’all, if you ever wanna fit in with the GOP, you have to practice yelling illogical arguments instead of treating people like human beings.
Okay, enough with the bad news for now, there’s a lot of hope elsewhere!
Malta looks like it has a fine batch of potential politicians. Their National Youth Parliament had their session earlier this week and voted in favour of granting same-sex couples the ability to marry and adopt children. The leader for the “opposing party” made some statements that actual politicians need to hear.
If we are granting them the same rights because they are taxpayers like us, why should we place them even one millimetre below us?
My new hero via pravasitoday
Continuing with people-that-politicians-should-listen-to, Ban-ki Moon, the UN secretary, urged the organization to focus on LGBT issues at the HRC convention on Monday.
Third, I commend the progress made by the Council in various thematic debates.
In particular, I welcome the groundbreaking, first-ever intergovernmental discussion, in March this year, on discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
This should not be a one-time event. I urge you to deepen your engagement on this issue so that protection and dignity truly reach all members of the human family.
Jerusalem is giving some people back their dignity as the Jerusalem Magistrate’s court ruled in favour of a lesbian couple that had been denied use of a wedding hall. Tal Ya’akovovich and Yael Biran had booked the reception with the Moshav Yad Hashmona events hall, but the owners reneged on the deal once they learned it was to celebrate a same-sex wedding. The court ordered the hall to pay the couple $15,000 and cover their legal fees since “a wedding reception hall is not a religious institution and must grant equal service to the public.”
This won’t happen anymore! VIA FRACTAL FACTOR
And of course, the Google gods are finally smiling upon bisexuals. BiNet announced that bisexual is no longer blocked in Google’s Instant Search algorithm, even though it’ll take some time to see the full effect. It’s about time they taught their Autocompleters to extend their vocab.
It looks like somebody released a music video with her husband. Rather than force you to watch that, I’ll remind you that Ladyhawke just started her North American tour on Saturday and I’ll spend my Friday trying to get over my A-Camp FOMO by dancing myself into a delerium.
So google does that kind of thing ON PURPOSE??? I was wondering why its so damn hard to search anything LGBTQ/sexuality related.
The problem they have is differentiating the “adult results” from genuine results, such as Autostraddle. It’s an incredibly complex algorithm to get that as accurate as possible. If they were to accidentally serve porn to an innocently curious minor then they would be in a lot of trouble.
Whaa??
Not long on lyrics is it…
DIE AUTO-TUNE DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it even physically possible for them to be so in love with themselves that D&R watched that video and thought “yup..this is it…music video gold”?
Oh wow… that music video is golden. I think my favorite part is where he’s playing acoustic guitar, when there’s NO guitar in the actual song. Who do these talentless molesters of the arts think they are?
they remind me of will ferrel and chris kaftan in the movie a night at the roxbury. Remember the scene in the car? where they are both bopping their head at the same time? I tried to watch this video, even with the sound off, I kept thinking….are these two for real? I keep waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and say ” you’ve been punked!”
I am so pleased by the Google news. So damn pleased.
That video.
I have questions. Was the beach supposed to be symbolic in someway, perhaps look at the vast empty white beaches of my love – please ignore the garbage behind me, that is not symbolic.
Also, the time lapse, where its suddenly sunset, is upsetting because they then flashback to earlier on the beach. And that really messes up the timeline. Or was that intentional and symbolic? Maybe, our love defies all logical laws of time and spatial relations.
Was the guitar symbolic? Like, despite the fact that we are both talentless hacks, we can still love each other enough to make this video?
Was the black and white symbolic? Or did Romi accidentally change camera modes when she was filming Dusty.
O.M.G. Really?! I couldn’t even finish watching it…
Same here, I just can’t.
that is not only the most pathetic excuse for a song ever, but also, the most pathetic excuse for a professional music video. I watched the first 30 seconds before I wanted to throw my laptop out the window of my 14 story apartment.
Jeez. That video. Look at your life, look at your choices.
They call this singing? Romi must’ve spent like what 1.5 seconds recording this?! Also, that is the most undynamic music video of all times.
The Google story is amazing! The search vocab needed to be extended. I get the trying to block out porn argument but there is such a host of information that wont be found and is needed! This is so awesome…
I read things like Moon’s statement lately and have this moment where I imagine my grandkids asking me what it was like to live through the times when the world changed.
Then I watch D&R videos, and go back to wondering whether there is any hope for the future.
ah hell to the No! generally can’t turn off “train wreck” type stuff but only made it to 1:09 on that one – it was THAT bad!
Yay Google! on the subject of searching… has anyone else noticed that on Tumblr if you search gay or lesbian it autocorrects to “lol”? as in “lol you can’t be serious do you want porn or something because that’s the only thing those words mean, obvs”. idk, maybe if you create an account instead of being a public user you can search lesbian? Because I know Tumblr is supah gay.
Dear everyone who is holding down the Autostraddle (blanket) fort: you are doing an awesome job! Great articles this week. I feel like we’re going deeper into geek/nerd territory and into books/lit territory and I love it. Except my to-read list is now 64 books long and I have an anthology to edit …
WHY DOES THERE NEED TO BEE THAT MUCH VOICE MODULATION. (A more appropriate term, ‘autotune’ implies they were just getting it to the closest note to what was actually sung, and i feel is a pretty indespensible tool for not having to re-record stuff for being up to half a note off).