Update on hate

There have been a few developments on some anti-gay stories I’ve posted about, and have been watching since. For a change, the developments are good news:

Rhode Island slaps its governor

In November, I wrote about how Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri (a Republican and virulent opponent of marriage equality) had vetoed a bill giving GLBT couples (domestic partners) the right to claim the bodies of their deceased partners and make funeral arrangements for them. At the time, I called Carcieri a “heartless bastard” for the veto.

In his veto message, Carcieri said: “This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.” To Carcieri, kicking grieving gay people in the gut is a great way to stop marriage equality. Heartless bastard really was far too kind a thing to call him.

Today the Rhode Island legislature easily overrode Governor Carcieri’s veto: The Rhode Island House vote was 67 to 3 and the Senate vote was 29 to 3. Take that, you heartless bastard!

MSM tells the truth on US-Uganda connection

On Sunday, the New York Times reported on the connection of far-right American christianists to Uganda’s proposed “kill the gays” bill. The paper identified three in particular who were heavily involved in Uganda and are complicit, despite their current disingenuous denials.

On Monday, the NYT editorialised about the three radical christianists: “You can’t preach hate and not accept responsibility for the way that hate is manifested.” Amen.

This is significant coverage from one of the most important papers in the US; even if conservatives hate it, other papers throughout the world quote the NYT.

I wrote about this story on December 13, and by that time the story was already a few weeks old. I’m glad that a major newspaper is taking up this story, so much so that I’ll overlook how long it took them. I just hope that now other newsmedia outlets will take up the story, too, so maybe this bill can still be stopped.