[TW: RAPE]
- American media on the India gang rape: Omg those barbarians are out of control! Look at us, we're so ahead of the times!
- American media on the Steubenville rape: Omg look at the lives we're ruining by convicting these 16 year old rapists!
Michigan’s first gay marriage: Same-sex wedding on American Indian reservation under tribal law
(WXYZ) - Tim Lacroix and and Gene Barfield became the first gay couple to be married in Michigan. The two were wed in a ceremony held today on a northern Michigan Indian reservation. Tribal law permitted the marriage which is prohibited under the state Constitution.
Lacroix, 53, belongs to Michigan’s Indian Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. He and Barfield, 60, have been partners for 30 years.
In 2004, Michigan voters approved a same-sex marriage ban in the form of an amendment to the state’s Constitution.
Today’s marriage became possible through an amendment made to the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians’ marriage statute.
The chairman of the tribe in Petoskey, Dexter McNamara, signed that amendment Friday morning. He later participated in the ceremony and pronounced Lacroix and Barfield married.
Tribal officials believe the marriage is safe from the federal Defense of Marriage Act which is in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Lacroix and Barfield both served several years in the U.S. Navy and believe they fought for everyone else’s rights and freedom and now they say they want the same rights.
A 2012 Michigan State University study found that more than half of the state - 56% - supports gay marriage . This marked an increase from when the same study was conducted in 2011.
According to the Associated Press, same-sex marriages are also recognized by the Coquille Tribe in North Bend, Oregon and the Suquamish Tribe in Suquamish, Washington.
Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, the two teenagers on trial for rape in Steubenville, Ohio, have been convicted in a juvenile court. More:
Judge Thomas Lipps announced his decision after reviewing evidence presented over four days of testimony in the case against 17-year-old Trent Mays and 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond, who were tried as juveniles.
Mays and Richmond were tried before Lipps, a visiting judge, without a jury. The trial moved quickly — and through the weekend — to accommodate the judge’s schedule.
They face the possibility of being jailed until they are 21.
The ruling brings an end to a trial that has gained national attention for its lurid text messages, cell phone pictures and videos, and social media posts surrounding the alleged sexual abuse of the girl.
Mays and Richmond (along with their lawyers and families) were extremely emotional in the courtroom in the wake of the decision, with both offering statements apologizing to the victim.
The verdicts out, the Two boys in the Ohio rape case have been found guilty, and they are likely to serve a 5 year sentence. They still maintain however, that it wasn’t rape. The fact that we live in a society where taking sexual advantage of an unconscious girl doesn’t send up immediate flags as something you shouldn’t do is evidence that something is seriously fucked up in society. Fuck rape culture.
It appears there is a wave of unsurprised disappointment among left wing catholic radicals. The new pope opposes liberation theology, same sex marriage, and abortion. He is however, a Jesuit from Argentina, very different than.. well every pope since the 8th century, so it could still be interesting to see where he goes with this.
Posters for my up-and-coming org’s campaign to keep the Lord Calvert trailer park in Great Mills, MD from being redeveloped, and turned into higher-end apartments and townhomes.
The Great Mills area was recently designated a Health Enterprise Zone by the state of Maryland, providing financial incentives for clinics and pharmacies. Cherry Cove has made a deal with MedStar to build a new clinic, but wants to add to the deal a plan to relocate all trailer park residents and build the “East Run development.”
You can follow the campaign by following @MAllianceGD on Twitter, or the hashtag #savelordcalvert. If you live in the Southern Maryland area, please spread the word about what is happening.
Anita Sarkeesian faces backlash for disabling Youtube comments.
In celebration of International Women’s Day, people are taking to the Internet to complain about Anita Sarkeesian. The first installment of her long-awaited video series about sexism in video games was released yesterday, inspiring an inevitable torrent of backlash. Aside from suggestions that she “stole” the Kickstarter funding for the Women vs. Tropes in Video Games series, much of the criticism is because she disabled comments on the YouTube video.
[…]
Leading the charge against Sarkeesian’s decision is Tumblr user amazingatheist, who posted a ten-minute video entitled “Who’s The Damsel Now?“ Arguing that Sarkeesian’s “censorship” of YouTube comments counteracts her message about strong women, and that her TED talk about online harassment amounts to “whining,” amazingatheist says:
“What are you afraid of, Anita? Why can’t people have a discourse about your material? Why can’t people make their opinions towards your content known? I understand that some comments will be abusive in nature — probably most will — but so what?”
Ironically, the existence of this response means by definition that amazingatheist is making his opinion known, as well as participating in a discourse about Sarkeesian’s material. [READ MORE]
The amazingatheist destroyed his own chance at participating in these discussions by being a misogynistic MRA. Just in case, that link needs a trigger/content warning so TW: rape, misogyny, abusive language.
The woman got bombarded with rape and death threats when she talked about the idea of doing this series. And people are up in arms about her not wanting to deal with that during her actual work??
So aside from the misogyny aspect here (and that isn’t to downplay it at all, because holy fucking shit you ASSHOLES,) I would like to point out something that appears to be lost on 95% of the denizens of The Intertubes:
No one is required to let you air your opinion in their space.
This includes the comments section of anything they upload to YouTube.
Seriously, the number of people who think that they are somehow owed the right to comment on things boggles me. You want to bitch about someone’s videos, comment on news articles, disagree with someone’s Facebook post? Go do it in your space. No one owes you shit.
And in particular, no one you are abusive and violent toward owes you shit.I’m still boggling at this bit: “I understand that some comments will be abusive in nature — probably most will — but so what?”
Abusive in nature…but so what?
That comment says everything, doesn’t it?
After all, who fucking cares about what it’s like to receive death threats, rape threats? About what it’s like to have people barge into your space to pour violent, abusive vitriol all over your work? They are owed that opportunity, apparently. They are owed the opportunity to abuse you, and if you deny them that, you’re “censoring” them.
I would like everyone to think about that for a moment. @amazingatheist thinks it’s OK to threaten & abuse women he disagrees with - he’s done it himself, and he’s certainly never had any problem with anyone else doing it.
Abuse is OK. But protecting yourself from abuse? OH NO, CAN’T HAVE THAT.
What a shitstain.
(Source: hellotailor)
“Happy International Women’s Day! When is International Men’s Day?”
For the record, International Men’s Day is November 19.
The questions of bigots that can usually be answered by Google, but they’re too lazy to do even that much.
Look at these fools who don’t actually care about International Men’s Day or even how masculinity and patriarchy hurt men in general making a straw argument to puff up their chests and feel better about themselves.
OMG: Can we talk about how the yearly themes of the men’s day just sound like somewhere someone is trolling?
2011 “Giving Boys The Best Possible Start In Life”
2012 “Helping Men and Boys Live longer, Happier and Healthier Lives”
2013 “Keeping Men and Boys Safe”
The reason why none of these people know about International Men’s Day (or even try to find out if there actually is one) is because they don’t actually care if there is an International Men’s Day or particularly want one. They just don’t want women to have an International Women’s Day.
Is no one gonna talk about “Mike the Rapist”?
Sometimes there are people I really want to punch in the dick.
I noticed Mike the rapist too. We should join forces. I normally wouldn’t hit below the belt, but in this case, it seems very necessary.
Why is there an international men’s day anyway? Why is that not talked about? Celebrating the achievements and accomplishments men seem to be something done daily.
A gang rape happened in Ohio and no one heard about it. A gang rape happened in India and everyone heard about it (as we should). The American media has represented India as a misogynistic country where women need to be constantly wary of the men that surround them. And after that gang rape, large-scale protests blocked the streets and clogged the media. Now, I am in no way saying that rape and domestic violence are not problems in India. As an Indian-American woman who has been to India many times and is incredibly familiar with the culture, I am in no way denying that. Rape, in India, is a serious problem. Rape, especially in lower class areas in India, is an extremely prevalent problem that needs to stop being ignored and taken seriously. Violence against women in India is a serious issue.
But violence against women in America is also a serious problem. Violence against women in South Africa, and Sweden, and Chile, and Thailand, is a serious problem. Violence against women is a serious problem. Period. Full stop. While our media went out representing India as a typical place for these deplorable events to happen, another woman’s similar story went ignored and without subsequent societal action. This country outright refuses to admit that it is a rape culture.
Our media and our country are so obsessed with presenting foreign countries as worse than us or uncivilized or, most importantly, undemocratic, they will blast our radios and timelines and homepages with news of rapes in India, but refuse to acknowledge that the same thing happens here and is happening here.
” Anisha Ahuja, Why Does America Pretend it Doesn’t Hate Women? (Feminspire.com)(Source: feminspire)
Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games
Nine months after her successful Kickstarter campaign, Anita Sarkeesian unveils the much anticipated pilot episode of the Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games series, which examines how video games often portray female characters as someone who needs to be rescued.
