The Freedom to Marry — Ohio movement, which aims to put marriage equality on the Ohio ballot and overturn 2004’s Defense of Marriage Amendment, keeps gaining momentum.
A Saturday rally by the Free Stamp in downtown Cleveland attracted several thousand people despite bad weather, and was followed by a mock marriage event of at the Galleria of both straight and gay couples, which organizers dubbed “the largest illegal mass marriage” ever staged. (That’s to separate it from those Moonie weddings of thousands of couple held in stadiums — those are legal).
Then on Monday, Freedom to Marry — led by former Columbus area Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy — dropped off its second batch of preliminary petitions for to Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office. (To get an issue on the ballot, a group must first submit 1,000 valid signatures to get approval to start circulating the actual petitions. DeWine turned down the group’s first batch on technicalities in the language which the group corrected).
Ian James, the Columbus-area activist who kickstarted the Ohio marriage equality campaign, said before the group headed down to DeWine’s office,
FreedomOhio is preparing to file its Summary Petition containing 2,387 signatures from 60 counties with the Ohio Attorney General. Upon approval of the summary, the Ohio Ballot Board will meet to review the petition language. We anticipate having a certified petition no later than April 24th for circulation. Get ready Ohio, Freedom to Marry is just ahead.
As of Friday, the group had pre-validated 1,300 signatures from 46 counties. Volunteers continued to validate signatures and collect more over the weekend — even though they were assured of having enough — in order to make a statement. — Anastasia Pantsios
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2012.
Because the divide between conservatives and liberals is perhaps at an all time high, I would like to investigate what it is in 2012 that the population sees as right or left, dem or repub, good or bad, ego based or spiritual…right or wrong.. I am biased toward liberal thinking as all who know me know, so do not take my opinion with too much credibility..I seek debate..civil and with the purpose of identifying truth.
My training tells me that the first law of chaos is: To believe that the truth can be different from one person to another. To those who believe as I do the truth is real and it can not be determined by dogma of religion or arbitrary laws of man and culture. It is stronger even than science, but it resembles science more than it does religion. Take a scintific assumption: That energy can not be created or destroyed..Can you see how much truer this law of thermo dynamics is than say a court of law and the idea of seeking out prescedents to prove a disagreement. ‘Well, last time this came up we decided to torture the person for the crime so that is what we will do now.’
Please list the characteristics you see as liberal and those which you see as conservative. I will start with some of the ideas based upon my blogs and debates of yahoo.news. The comments on yahoo are from all over the country and out of country as well so it is a good sampling of how the vocal voters and opinionated folks (like me) seem to think.
On yahoo the recent politics and the election year have seen great changes pertaining to social media and its power of communication and expression. Three years ago most of the comments were all about how the dems hated Bush and Chenney and how the repubs hated Obama and liberals. All the comments on yahoo are little more than arguments kids have on the playground…The conservatives say stuff like: ‘You fucking libtards don’t know how to manage money or do good business or raise children or make decisions on taxes and how they should be spent..You fucking libtards always have you dirty hands out to get a hand-out from us..”
And then the liberal shouts back with capital letters and much emotion: “You fucking repubic-hairs are a bunch of pricks. You hate women and you hate blacks and you hate everything and everybody other than white men and money!”
And then the conservative comments back (on yahoo) something like this: You and your no-good president Oblama are stealing all of our rights to free speech. Rush and other voices are just telling the truth about you loosers and you can’t stand to hear the truth about you. OWS is just a commie and dirt-bag bunch of lazy fuckers who don’t want to work. Entiltlement fuck-faces who fling shit around…That’s right I saw them playing catch with one of their own fucking turds…Right on Wall Street.’
And then the left comes back often like this: ‘We were playing hot potato with a dog terd you idiots….but the potato is a republican terd trying to get back to its office. Whoever can get the terd back into the Wall Street Office wins a free sleeping bag…a double sleeping bag so that a hot libtard couple can fit into it..Eat your heart out you fucking repubic-hair pecker-heads.”
And then the conservative says: ‘A libtard couple would be two libtards doing the Jerry Sandusky camp out’ We all know how you libtards put each other in the Father Nelsen hold.”
And then the libtard returns: ‘Jerry Sandusky is a registered repubic-hair you know?’
And then the repubic-hair gets the final word in: ‘Fuck all libtards and send them to hell…nuf said libtard fuck-face’