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Dear Crate and Barrel Ultimate Wedding Contest Coordinators: I Have A Dream…

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Editor’s note: This article is by David Mailloux, with whom I co-founded “The Great Nationwide Kiss-In” last summer. David is now a board member with Join the Impact Massachusetts, and a co-founder of The Maine LGBT Civil Rights March. He is also my friend.

The voting for Crate and Barrel’s “Ultimate Wedding Contest” ended last night, with same-sex couple Jonathan Howard and Gregory Jones coming in a very close second-place. Final voting results, which count for just 20% of the judges decision, were 21,562 to 20,759, a difference of only 803 votes, or just 3%.

Hi there.

I know you technically don’t know me from Adam, but you do know me. I come into your stores every single day. I look like the mild-mannered academic who wants a nice set of dishes for his next dinner party with the folks who might recommend him for tenure. I look like the quiet, closeted accountant who needs a new kitchen set since his mother has heckled him for years to purchase a new one. I look like the fortunate college student whose parents make six figures each and every year, who can afford to shop in your store weekly with his allowance to deck out his perfect apartment. I am the boyfriend who dreams of registering with your establishment in the days after successfully proposing marriage to the man he loves.

The bottom line: I am gay. And every single one of the people I described is gay. But they could also be straight, with just a tiny switch of the pronouns or modifiers. That’s what I’m talking about here. One of the top couples in your Ultimate Wedding Contest is gay. They are two gay men who live an ordinary life with extraordinary circumstances. They are a psychologist and a retail store manager who live in Washington D.C. but their love, their future marriage isn’t recognized in 90% of the states in this country, nor is it recognized by the country they call home.

I live about 500 miles away from Jonathan Howard and Gregory Jones, and I am an activist. My primary goal in this lifetime is to see a time where Jon and Greg, these two regular 20-something guys, can be married and have their marriage recognized throughout our land of the free and home of the brave. In order for them (truly) to be recognized, we have to change the viewpoint of our society. We have to educate our citizens in the reality that gay men exist, they are real, they have not chosen who they are as much as straight people have chosen who they are, and they are deserving of the beautiful reality that many straight married couples live every single day.

Jon and Greg are in love, as much in love as any straight couple would be. Their love is undeniably, unquestionably real. They have spent nearly three years with each other in both the best and worst of times. In August of 2008, as Jon walked home from a fun night out on the town with friends, he was attacked by a random group of men who clearly held issue with his sexuality. He and one of his best friends were beaten in the middle of what is arguably the friendliest neighborhood for gay men in the city of Boston. When Jon was discovered by a passing motorist, an unidentified man was stomping on his head, and one of his best friends was running for his life, covered in his own blood from this disturbing attack. And as that passing motorist jumped out of her car and approached the scene, Jon lay in the street, nearly dead, because someone hated the way he was born.

I write this through tears because no human being alive should have to suffer through such an experience. I write this through tears because Jon is just an ordinary guy, this sweet and real human being, who happens to be gay and he suffered through this disturbing attack on his well-being, and his confidence, and his life, worse than anyone I know might have experienced. But, when this happened, the beautiful partner he had chosen just a year before stood by his side. He found his unconscious partner in the middle of the night at a local hospital, stayed with him, and brought him home when it was all over.

And through the tears and the nightmares and the trial of his attacker and the regular life they lived in between, they stayed in each other’s arms. They never strayed. They believed in the power of true love. They emerged from an existence fraught with hurt and pain as activists, believing that nobody should have to experience their hurt, believing in a world where their love would be recognized as real and as solid as anyone else’s.

I know these boys who now live in D.C. and I consider them my brothers in a fight that I may never win in my lifetime. I often wonder if my time is limited, if I might never experience the love, the passion, the beautiful realities and disasters of their relationship. I possess a jealousy that one should never have of their friends, but I feel that jealousy with love and admiration at the same time. I believe in their love. I believe in their lives.

And even though they might not have the highest number of votes at 11:59 p.m., CDT on March 31, 2010, I can assure you: they are your guys. They are your winning couple. And not only that, but they are very likely the beginning of the end of our struggle. Because they are a gay couple in love, two men who live like everyone else, who deserve your recognition – these two 20-something guys who have a lifetime of beauty and sharing and… undoubtedly… many sets of Crate and Barrel dinnerware ahead of them.

Jon and Greg are the beginning of the end of our struggle because they took their beautiful love and dared to put it in the spotlight. They will change the landscape with their ordinary, yet extraordinary world. And they can make many people realize that they are just like everyone else. And once they alter our landscape with their love, once they educate people with their normalcy, they can encourage a life worth living for thousands of gay and lesbian couples throughout this beautiful country who have feared the everyday reality of Anytown, USA. And the equality for which I have bled, for which thousands upon thousands of gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender people have bled and died, may very well happen.

Dearest contest coordinators, it may sound as if I’m suggesting that you make a political statement with your contest, but I’m really not. I’m just asking you to realize that two gay men, just as well as any straight couple, can represent you, represent your company with the grace and ease that will bring you both success and fame. Besides that, though, I have a dream that the battle my friends and I, my brothers and sisters have fought will not be in vain. I pray that I’ll live to see the day that a couple like Greg and Jon can find the recognition they deserve, in light of the pain they have suffered. I have a dream that our society will recognize that Greg and Jon are as regular, as ordinary, as beautiful as any other couple in the world.

Someday, there won’t be talk of gay marriage or same-sex marriage. Someday, couples like Greg and Jon will be married in every one of our 50 states and nobody will think twice about it. The horror of the early days of their relationship might be forgotten, replaced with the realization that they are exactly the same as their brothers and sisters nationwide. And they will walk into your store and not even think twice about who they are, because their lives will recognized as simply, as perfectly as everyone else.

Please think about this. Please choose my friends, my brothers as the winning couple. Please step alongside us and change the world. In the end, we will have made a difference. We will take the first steps together. And they will be beautiful.

Regards,
Dave Mailloux

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OPINION

‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

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11 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is mocking House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer over a CNN report revealing the embattled Kentucky Republican who has been alleging without proof President Joe Biden is the head of a vast multi-million dollar criminal bribery and influence-peddling conspiracy, has given up trying to impeach the leader of the free world.

CNN on Wednesday had reported, “after 15 months of coming up short in proving some of his biggest claims against the president, Comer recently approached one of his Republican colleagues and made a blunt admission: He was ready to be ‘done with’ the impeachment inquiry into Biden.” The news network described Chairman Comer as “frustrated” and his investigation as “at a dead end.”

One GOP lawmaker told CNN, “Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out.”

“He is fed up,” the Republican added.

Despite the Chairman’s alleged remarks, “a House Oversight Committee spokesperson maintains that ‘the impeachment inquiry is ongoing and impeachment is 100% still on the table.'”

RELATED: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Last week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) got into a shouting match with Chairman Comer, with the Maryland Democrat saying, “You have not identified a single crime – what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going?” and Comer replying, “You’re about to find out.”

Before those heated remarks, Congressman Raskin chided Comer, humorously threatening to invite Rep. Moskowitz to return to the hearing.

Congressman Moskowitz appears to be the only member of the House Oversight Committee who has ever made a motion to call for a vote on impeaching President Biden, which he did last month, although he did it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

It appears the Moskowitz-Comer “bromance” may be over.

Wednesday afternoon Congressman Moskowitz, whose sarcasm is becoming well-known, used it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

“I was hoping our breakup would never become public,” he declared. “We had such a great thing while it lasted James. I will miss the time we spent together. I will miss our conversations. I will miss the pet names you gave me. I only wish you the best and hope you find happiness.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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OPINION

‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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13 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case centered on the question, can the federal government require states with strict abortion bans to allow physicians to perform abortions in emergency situations, specifically when the woman’s health, but not her life, is in danger?

The 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), signed into law by Republican President Ronald Reagan, says it can. The State of Idaho on Wednesday argued it cannot.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, The Washington Post’s Kim Bellware reported, “made a clear delineation between Idaho law and what EMTALA provides.”

“In Idaho, doctors have to shut their eyes to everything except death,” Prelogar said, according to Bellware. “Whereas under EMTALA, you’re supposed to be thinking about things like, ‘Is she about to lose her fertility? Is her uterus going to become incredibly scarred because of the bleeding? Is she about to undergo the possibility of kidney failure?’ ”

READ MORE: Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

Attorney Imani Gandy, an award-winning journalist and Editor-at-Large for Rewire News Group, highlighted an issue central to the case.

“The issue of medical judgment vs. good faith judgment is a huge one because different states have different standards of judgment,” she writes. “If a doctor exercises their judgment, another doctor expert witness at trial could question that. That’s a BIG problem here. That’s why doctors are afraid to provide abortions. They may have an overzealous prosecutor come behind them and disagree.”

Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito appeared to draw the most fire from legal experts, as his questioning suggested “fetal personhood” should be the law, which it is not.

“Justice Alito is trying to import fetal personhood into federal statutory law by suggesting federal law might well prohibit hospitals from providing abortions as emergency stabilizing care,” observed Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

Paraphrasing Justice Alito, Kreis writes: “Alito: How can the federal government restrict what Idaho criminalizes simply because hospitals in Idaho have accepted federal funds?”

Appearing to answer that question, Georgia State University College of Law professor of law and Constitutional scholar Eric Segall wrote: “Our Constitution unequivocally allows the federal gov’t to offer the states money with conditions attached no matter how invasive b/c states can always say no. The conservative justices’ hostility to the spending power is based only on politics and values not text or history.”

Professor Segall also served up some of the strongest criticism of the right-wing justice.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

He wrote that Justice Alito “is basically making it clear he doesn’t care if pregnant women live or die as long as the fetus lives.”

Earlier Wednesday morning Segall had issued a warning: “Trigger alert: In about 20 minutes several of the conservative justices are going to show very clearly that that they care much more about fetuses than women suffering major pregnancy complications which is their way of owning the libs which is grotesque.”

Later, predicting “Alito is going to dissent,” Segall wrote: “Alito is dripping arrogance and condescension…in a case involving life, death, and medical emergencies. He has no bottom.”

Taking a broader view of the case, NYU professor of law Melissa Murray issued a strong warning: “The EMTALA case, Moyle v. US, hasn’t received as much attention as the mifepristone case, but it is huge. Not only implicates access to emergency medical procedures (like abortion in cases of miscarriage), but the broader question of federal law supremacy.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

 

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News

Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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16 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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