Subject: Referenda

• Two Shades of Green

  Perhaps it's only logical that in a state which has a man still trading on his movie role as a killer cyborg from the future as governor, politics would grow closer to comic books. Or perhaps it isn't. Either way, it's California. At last weekend's state GOP convention, the San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Marinucci spotted TV's ex-Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno. And guess what? [Ferrigno] says he's thinking about going into politics one day, too. "I have a feeling I'm going to get dragged into

  August 23, 2006

• OC Fundie Funder Gives Money to Wacky Reeps, Homo-Haters--And Lou Correa?!

  The most influential Orange County man you've never heard of is undoubtedly Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., heir to the Home Savings (remember that bank?) fortune. He rarely makes public appearances due to suffering from Tourette's Syndrome, but that hasn't stopped him from giving millions of dollars away to some of the craziest causes imaginable: creationism, anti-gay marriage, anti-gay clerics in the Episcopalian Church, and so many others that in its list of America's most influential evangelicals a

  June 19, 2008

• Baby Hewie Firmly Aligned With Howard Homophobe Ahmanson

  In the couple of years I've been listening to local conservative blabbermouth Hugh Hewitt, I've seen the two causes he most firmly aligned himself with fail miserably: the 2006 mid-term election and the laughable presidential primary effort of Mitt Romney. Let's hope Hewie makes it a losing trifecta with his endorsement of Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage initiative. Besides beginning to devote more attention to the cause on his radio show (and shouldn't that count as a campaign contribution

  August 18, 2008

• No on Prop 8 public service announcement

  Weekly contributing writer Dave Barton and his friend Greg Adkins directed and edited this moving No on Prop 8 clip, currently making the rounds of YouTube and even the Daily Kos. The lines being read are from 1 Corinthians. And of course you already knew that Proposition 8 is the November religious-fundie ballot measure that seeks to ban re-ban gay marriage in California...

  September 29, 2008

• Nativo Lopez Organization Cowardly Stays "Neutral" on Propositions 8 and 4

  Remember Nativo Lopez? Guy called Larry who became radicalized during the 1960s, led renter strikes against SanTana slumlords during the 1980s, served on the SanTana Unified School Board during the 1990s, then was recalled for his conflict-of-influenza, amongst other sins in early 2004? He's spent the last couple of years trying to remake himself as the next great Chicano Movement leader by heading the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), a once-great group that now has the moral weigh

  October 14, 2008

• Proposition 2 Opponents Use Pete Wilson Card for Their Tricks

  Amazingly, both parties have ignored Mexicans in this election. So leave it to the animal-abusing geniuses behind the No on Proposition 2 campaign (y'know, that nefarious measure that would force farmers to treat their animals humanely) to conjure up the spectre of the Reconquista in this ominous ad. Dig the long lines! And it's not the first time Prop. 2 opponents have bagged on Mexico:

  October 28, 2008

• Martin Millard Not Just a Racialist, But a Homophobe

  The man who fancies himself the savior of Costa Mesa had this concluding couplet in his rambling reasoning to support Proposition 8: "On the other hand, it could be argued that if it is true that, as many gays now assert, homosexuality is genetic, then allowing gay marriage (and the normalization of homosexuality in society) will tend to have the effect of keeping gays from faking being straight and marrying people of the opposite sex and reproducing. Then, since they aren't reproducing the "ga

  October 28, 2008

• Hugh Hewitt Makes Robocalls for Prop. 8

  Got my dinner ruined yesterday when local blabbermouth Hugh Hewitt called me--or, rather, his recorded voice. He was urging me to vote yes on Proposition 8. Given the Baby Hughie curse, it gives me hope that this sexual Know Nothing initiative might go down. On his blog, Hewitt seems to be admitting defeat. Remember how Republicans laughed at those libs who threatened to leave the United States after the 2004 election? Baby Hughie links to a David Brooks story about the coming new change (cross

  November 4, 2008

• Protest Prop 8 tonight and Sunday

  Is your activist streak feeling unloved after watching footage of yesterday's protests in LA against the passage of Proposition 8? Well, here's your chance to vent (peacefully, people, peacefully...). Tonight (Friday), the Long Beach Gay & Lesbian Center is organizing a protest march down Broadway, starting at 7 p.m., and beginning on the corner of Broadway & Redondo. The march will head westward along Broadway, ending at Hamburger Mary's. Then on Sunday, an OC march/rally is being planned in,

  November 7, 2008

• Protesters Without Borders

  Capitalizing on the energy of the weekend’s marriage inequality protests (including Friday's march in Long Beach), Join the Impact, a blog designed to promote equal marriage rights for all Americans, is organizing a national protest on Saturday November 15. All supporters are asked to meet on the steps of your City Hall at 10:30 a.m. PST/1:30 p.m. EST. "Our community will take to the streets and speak out against Proposition 8 and all of the other pro-equality losses that [the LGBT community

  November 10, 2008

• Calvary Chapel Transforms Another Gentle Soul into a Homo-Hater

  Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed by all the protests gay-marriage advocates are holding outside Mormon temples. Yeah, the Latter-Day Saints hierarchy urged their faithful to donate millions of dollars to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, but Mormonism has always been upfront in their homo-hating--too easy a target. Much more devious and hypocritical in their approach is the Calvary Chapel movement. They're the ones whose primary spark, the Original Jesus Freak Lonnie Frisbee (pictured), was ga

  November 14, 2008

• Supreme Court To Hear Challenges Of Prop 8

  The California Supreme Court agreed to hear legal challenges to the recently passed Proposition 8 today according to the LA Times. The state's highest court could have chosen not to hear any of the oppositions to the new amendment to the state constitution but decided to do the right thing instead. Yay, them! They've done the right thing today just as they've done in the past. Hopefully they will continue to do the right thing after hearing these pleas for equality. Stay tuned for more.

  November 19, 2008

• Harvey Milk: the Man, the Movie, and Orange County

  This past Tuesday night at the Edwards South Coast Village in Santa Ana, and an Orange County Film Society-sponsored advance screening of the new Gus Van Zant-directed, Sean Penn-starring Harvey Milk biopic, simply titled Milk. Go ahead and Google the name if you must -- it's not like Harvey's story is getting taught in public schools -- but some background info is in order here. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to win an elected office in the United States, a seat on the San Franc

  November 21, 2008

• The Purpose Driven Knife in the Back of Obama's Gay Supporters

  Perhaps for not going so hard on Barack Obama in last summer's Saddleback presidential forum, the Lake Forest mega-church's pastor, Rick Warren (right), will deliver the invocation at the president-elect's swearing-in ceremony Jan. 20, reports CNN. Warren did not make a public endorsement in the race, but his past views (and forum questions) were certainly slanted more toward  John McCain. And Warren did publicly support California's Proposition 8, commenting in Saddleback's October newslet

  December 17, 2008

• Rick Warren Offers to Save Homo-Hating St. James Anglican Church, But Where's Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr?

  Rick Warren has finally crossed the Rubicon of homo-hating with his invitation to St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach to set up camp at Saddleback Church because the California State Supreme Court recently ruled they can't stay on their Balboa Peninsula property. A quick primer: St. James split with its Episcopal diocese in 2004 because they didn't like the idea of a gay man getting ordained as a bishop and began taking its orders from a homo-hater in Uganda. So this isn't even a gay-marr

  January 13, 2009

• Still More Fun From the Prop. 8 Imbroglio . . .

  If it is even possible, there will be a greater concentration of gay and lesbian people in San Francisco on March 5, when the California Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the challenge of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. On the flipside, the day could also see a huge spike in intolerant religious zealot homophobic nutbars. Paaaartay! With the backing of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown will ask the Supremes to invalidate Prop. 8 on grounds that cer

  February 3, 2009

• Prop. 8 Backers to Local, State Politicos: Butt Out and Get Back to Work!

  Local and statewide proponents of Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban approved by voters last November, have a message for local and statewide politicians: stop trying to overturn the election results and get back to work fixing your cities and/or California.State senators and Assembly members "are authoring meaningless nonbinding resolutions that take up the time of legislators and legislative staff who should be focused on appropriate legislative priorities such as solving the state defic

  February 18, 2009

• Iowa Gay Marriage Ruling Means Everything or Nothing

  The Iowa Supreme Court's overturning of the law banning same-sex marriage in that state either bolsters the arguments of those pushing for gay marriage in California or has nothing to do with the issue here. It depends on who you ask.National Center for Lesbian Rights legal director Shannon Minter:"The fact that two state supreme courts--including now a court in the heartland of our country--have now followed the California Supreme Court's holding on that issue underscores very powerfully that t

  April 3, 2009

• [¡Ask a Mexican!] Will Mexicans Queer the Deal on Prop. 8?

  October 30, 2008

• [Election 2008] Obama, McCain (Who Sucks, By the Way) and the Gayest Election Ever

  October 23, 2008

• [Summer Guide] My Big Fat Gay Wedding

  June 12, 2008

• El Rancho Much Too Grande

  May 5, 2005

• Slapp-Happy

  February 24, 2005

• Fieldstoned

  November 6, 2003

• Sodomized

  September 9, 1999

• Rebel Yell

  April 1, 1999

• Don't Leak on Me

  March 4, 1999

• Political Mercenary

  January 28, 1999

• 'Jeeeeeezuz Christ!'

  November 12, 1998

• Is the OC Deputy Union Instigating Trouble in the DA's Office?

  Photo by Beth StirnamanMike MajorDeep within the bowels of Orange County law enforcement circles today, a secret ballot vote will be announced regarding the popularity of Mike Major, the acting chief of the district attorney's bureau of investigation since March. On the surface, the non-public contest might deserve little attention. Cops are all pals, right?Wrong.Besides strong personalities, there are factions within factions in every law enforcement department. This is true at the Association

  May 13, 2009

• Orange County LGBT Pride Festival "Revival" Starts Small

  Sasha Baron Cohen's comedy has nothing to do with OC pride festivals. We just can't find photos from past fests. ​Orange County's first-ever gay and lesbian pride festival was held in Santa Ana's Centennial Park in 1988, when angry Christian conservatives showed up not because they'd finally come out of the closet (knew it!) but to fling urine-filled balloons, taunt attendees with chants of "Go back to your closet," and cheer on an airplane they'd hired to fly over the event with a banner read

  July 29, 2009

• Groups on Either Side of Prop. 8 Blast 2012 Same-Sex Marriage Initiative

  Equality California's decision to hold off on pursuing a same-sex marriage voter initiative at least until 2012 is not being cheered by groups on either side of the Prop. 8 debate.Reports the San Francisco Chronicle:But the organization's decision appears to collide with other progressive groups fighting for marriage equality. The 700,000-member Courage Campaign said Tuesday it is "pushing ahead to file a ballot measure" in 2010, when state voters will decide their next governor, and its officia

  August 12, 2009

• Actually, Here's The Important Prop. 8 Decision Event To Attend

  Thanks to Paul Cook-Giles for pointing out that I missed the real OC-connected news with regards to the upcoming California Supreme Court decision on a challenge to Proposition 8. While Gloria Allred's press conference is cool and all, you might be better served by going to OC Equality Coalition's "Day of Decision" event at the Old Orange Courthouse in Santa Ana at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. Cook-Giles writes: Depending on what the court decides, we will either PROTEST or CELEBRATE. We will PROTEST if

  May 24, 2009

• LGBT Groups Seek to Intervene in Prop. 8 Challenge

  This just in from the ACLU, which believes the action taken today will help a judge hearing a challenge of Prop. 8 understand the unequal rights inherent in the ballot initiative . . . SAN FRANCISCO -- Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today asked the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to allow Our Family Coalition, Lavender Seniors of the East Bay, and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays to intervene in Pe

  July 8, 2009

• Proposition 8 Is Keeping Same-Sex Couples From Marrying, But It Has United OC's Gay Community

  November 19, 2009