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<title>Commentary at Metro Weekly (Newspaper Magazine of Gay and Lesbian Washington, DC)</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com</link>
	<description>Weekly gay publication of Washington, DC including features on news, arts, politics, lifestlye, film, music, as well as events calendars, classifieds, home ads and free personals. </description>
	<language>en-us</language>
	<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
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<title>Metro Weekly magazine</title>
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	<title>OPINION&#58; Should a Publicly&#45;Funded Charity Serve the Public&#63;: Catholic Charities attempts to block marriage equality while sitting on the public dole</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=4669</link>
	<description><![CDATA[
Commentary: If you receive public funds&#44; should you have to serve the public&#63; That is the question the Catholic Church is now asking itself&#46; It seeks to retain millions of dollars in taxpayer funds while refusing to spend the money on those in need&#44; unless the D&#46;C&#46; City Council agrees to discriminate against its gay and lesbian citizens&#46; The church has weighed its priorities&#58; feeding the hungry&#44; clothing the naked&#44; sheltering the homeless&#44; and mistreating the gays and decided its fourth priority is its most important&#46; After all&#44; what would Jesus do&#63; This may seem a bit harsh&#46; The church claims its stance has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with protecting the Catholic sacrament of marriage&#46; The church says it simply does not wish to provide benefits to those secularly married couples they consider unlawfully married in the eyes of God&#46; But a simple example proves beyond any doubt that this position has no more authenticity than the Shroud of Turin&#46; Consider divorce&#46; There are few doctrines in Catholicism more important than its strict opposition to divorce&#46; This is no small matter&#46; Those who remember history may just recollect that a seemingly minor dispute between the Pope and King Henry VIII over divorce led to the creation of the Protestant Church in England and countless religious wars to follow&#46; ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Gay Judgment Day: Stonewall Baby</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=4653</link>
	<description><![CDATA[
Commentary: It&#39;s a gorgeous Sunday&#46; Just about one of the last perfect days of 2009&#46; But am I outside enjoying it&#63; No&#46; And why not&#63; Two reasons&#44; really&#46; First&#44; it&#39;s the so&#45;called Sabbath Day&#46; As the unholy harbinger of the fall of the American empire&#44; it&#39;s best to be sacrilegious&#46; Second&#44; sowing the seeds of societal decline is hard work&#46; Who has time to while away taking in the autumnal foliage&#63; To make things worse&#44; the work has been getting even harder lately&#46; The problem is that more people seem to be wising up to the gay agenda&#46; When upstanding citizens thought that all we wanted was their children &#38;ndash&#59; and that&#39;s certainly not to say we&#39;re not still interested in stealing any kid we can get our hands on for our gay&#45;ification experiments &#38;ndash&#59; it was much easier to go about dismantling everything those same citizens have worked so hard to build&#46; And by &#39;&#39;build&#44;&#39;&#39; I of course mean simply attending regular worship services and tithing appropriately&#44; as only God alone really builds societies&#46; ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Allies Before Animosity: Center Field</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=4638</link>
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Commentary: The No on 1 campaign lost despite a strong effort because too many Maine voters were persuaded that marriage equality would require teaching schoolchildren about gay sex&#46; To overcome that&#44; we need to be more aggressive and imaginative in combating the lies and illustrating the harm of discrimination&#46; But improved messaging is not enough&#46; Turning the tables requires better cooperation with others&#44; including minority populations demonized by the nativists on the right&#46; Mutual mistrust is one of the greatest barriers to coalition building&#46; Trust requires a relationship built over time&#46; Lacking that&#44; we often simply tell people what they want to hear&#46; But real families argue&#46; The surest sign of fake multiculturalism is avoidance of any disagreement with members of other groups&#46; Strong alliances are tested&#44; and require us to venture outside our comfort zones&#46; In dealing with people of different backgrounds&#44; you can&#39;t just talk about equality&#59; you have to speak their language&#46; Activist leaders preparing for the next ballot fight can start by venturing outside their boardrooms&#46; If you cannot engage dissenting voices within the LGBT community&#44; you can hardly expect to reach more intractable voters&#46; This point is evidently missed by Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese&#44; who appeared willfully obtuse in a post&#45;election message rejecting any &#39;&#39;if&#39;&#39; questions on how such a campaign might be run differently&#46; He thus dismisses not just recrimination but the analysis and war&#45;gaming essential to any effective campaign&#46; To be fair&#44; HRC doesn&#39;t run the statewide campaigns&#44; and its support wins praise&#59; but when we spend millions and still come up short&#44; the post&#45;mortems need to be opened up&#46; ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Opportunity for Alliance: Center Field</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=4609</link>
	<description><![CDATA[
Commentary: YouTube videos of an Aug&#46; 18 news conference illuminate the radical right&#39;s strategy of recruiting African&#45;American ministers to attack progressive policies&#44; and point to practical linkages between gay rights and women&#39;s rights&#46; Last Saturday&#44; as I prepared to testify for the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance at two D&#46;C&#46; marriage&#45;related hearings set for Oct&#46; 26&#44; I received a call from my friend the Rev&#46; Mark Thompson&#44; an African&#45;American civil&#45;rights activist&#46; I told him of my plan to address the anti&#45;gay lies of marriage&#45;equality opponent Bishop Harry Jackson&#46; Thompson pointed out Jackson&#39;s participation in the news conference&#44; which was held jointly by the National Black Pro&#45;Life Union and Priests for Life to attack the proposed national health care reform&#46; They said some off&#45;the&#45;wall stuff&#46; At the news conference&#44; anti&#45;gay activist Alveda King &#40;who calls herself &#39;&#39;Dr&#46;&#39;&#39; despite only having an honorary Doctor of Laws&#41;&#44; director of African&#45;American outreach for Priests for Life&#44; introduced speakers who claimed that the Democrats&#39; health care legislation promotes abortion and euthanasia&#46; King has written&#44; &#39;&#39;Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother&#46;&#39;&#39; ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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	<title>Street vs&#46; Suite: Center Field</title>
	<link>http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=4586</link>
	<description><![CDATA[
Commentary: The National Equality March &#40;NEM&#41; on Sunday brought out tens of thousands &#40;according to The Washington Post&#41;&#44; including lots of dogs and children&#44; with the simple purpose of demanding equality&#46; It remains to be seen whether the rally&#44; the AIDS vigil&#44; and the flash protest against &#39;&#39;Don&#39;t Ask&#44; Don&#39;t Tell&#39;&#39; will be followed by productive action&#46; The march mixed the serious and the festive&#44; with banners saying &#39;&#39;Equal Justice Under Law&#39;&#39; and &#39;&#39;Teabaggers for Gay Rights&#46;&#39;&#39; Placards ranged from &#39;&#39;End the Harm from Religion&#45;Based Bigotry and Prejudice&#39;&#39; to &#39;&#39;If Liza Can Marry Two Gay Men&#44; Why Can&#39;t I Marry One&#63;&#39;&#39; The messages at the rally at the U&#46;S&#46; Capitol were a hodgepodge&#46; On one hand&#44; there were strong speeches by Lt&#46; Dan Choi and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond&#46; On the other hand&#44; Lady Gaga said&#44; &#39;&#39;This is the single most important moment of my career&#46; And you know I love Judy Garland&#46;&#39;&#39; &#40;The Judy mythology refuses to die&#46;&#41; David Mixner spoke conspiratorially about &#39;&#39;politicians in a back room&#46;&#39;&#39; Urvashi Vaid described the four steps that are necessary to bring down the Patriarchy&#46; ... (more)]]></description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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