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If You Don’t Help, This Film About Same-Sex Binational Couples Won’t Get Made.

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Editor’s note: This guest post by actor and musician David W. Ross (photo, below) (Quinceañera/Bad Boys Inc) explores the path that led him to want to create the film, “I Do.” But without your help, the film won’t get made. The plight of so many same-sex binational couples lies in the hands of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. And until that unjust law is repealed, love, and marriage, for thousands, will disappear.

I hope you’ll take a moment to look in your heart, and pledge to support this film. It’s an important project, worthy of a little sacrifice from all of us. Visit Kickstarter.com to learn more, or to make a pledge. There are just a few days left. Please, share this with your friends!

The script for I DO started out as a broad comedy. What a funny situation! British gay man marries American girl for his green card. Madness ensues! Hilarious, right? Yeah. Not so much. I mean, granted, there’s comedy gold in people mistaking them for a real couple. The awkward kiss at the alter. The clueless boss finally figuring it out. The cat and mouse with the INS. But I’d been working on the script for 5 years and knew I was in trouble. The script wasn’t working. I didn’t even want to see this movie! So I put it away.

The “British Gay Man,” in the script is Jack Edwards; fashion photographer. I had dropped a few thousand on a camera and lenses as I wanted to really get inside a photographers head. Sure I had assisted people since the age of 17, worked in the New York fashion world (didn’t like Devil Wears Prada, loved September Issue) and had rubbed shoulders with so many super models I had lost count, but I really wanted to understand what it’s like to always have a piece of glass between you and everyone else.

It was a balmy night. The California Supreme Court had just banned same-sex marriage and I was asked to document the rally in West Hollywood. I walked through the crowd to the main stage snapping a few pics. Men holding hands with NOH8 t-shirts. Women hugging each other wrapped in American flags. Families, kids, holding banners: “Please don’t divorce my mums.” I jumped up on the main stage and did my job. But something shifted for me that night. This marriage thing was real, for so many people. Families even. The lens finally dropped away and I knew what I DO had to be.

Marriage means different things for different people. For some it is a big poofy white dress, fluffy cake celebration of a love showing it’s commitment in front of friends and family; for some a religious institution, a vow to God but, whatever your beliefs, if you choose to enter into marriage in the US the law affords you certain protections and rights concerning immigration, hospital visitization, estate taxes, social security benefits etc etc etc. Though gay marriage has been fought for and in some States is now entirely lawful, those legal benefits are not afforded to gay married committed couples at a Federal level. Now, I’m not arguing with churches, private institutions who have their own rights, I’m saying how is it fair to throw a bone in the form of legal State marriage and choose to ignore our human rights that go along with that institution affecting not only the couple but any children involved?

I DO is about one of those rights. Immigration. If you, as an American citizen, were to fall in love with someone from another country and you were straight you could marry and sponsor your spouse’s green card. If you’re gay, there is no legal way for you to keep your spouse in the country. Further more, if you are a same-sex couple and had gotten married and the INS found out, your spouse would be deported instantly as marrying a US citizen is seen as an act of wanting to reside here.

I had fallen in love with a British guy. I know, move across the world and fall in love with someone from the same country as you. He was over here on a student visa, learning to fly Jumbo jets. Sounds sexier than it is. In his words, “It’s like being a bus driver in the sky.” He always had a way of normalizing things. I liked that. He wanted to work for a company that sold private jets. Much sexier. But the company only had a position in the UK. I was in a place with my career where I didn’t want to move back to London. (Truth be told I’m an ex-pop star petrified of returning to an island that might see me as a has-been). I began to realize that maybe I was more like Jack after all. But my lens wasn’t made of glass.

I broke it off. My man moved back to London. Sounds simple. It wasn’t. He was the first guy I had ever met that I wanted to marry. Like, really marry. Like, big-poofy-white-dress-fluffy-cake-celebration-of-a-love-showing-our-commitment-in-front-of-friends-and-family married.

For a few years we saw each other whenever I flew over to the UK. I wanted to do a long distance thing. He knew that it would drive us crazy. Either way it drove me crazy. I was devastated. My friends tried to get me to date. They couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just “hang out” with people. What they failed to realize is that I finally knew what it felt like to be in love.

In the movie, after years of casual relationships Brit in New York Jack falls deeply for handsome Spanish American, Mano Cunio. Jack’s determined to stay in the USA as he’s become like a father to his niece Tara and the sole provider for her mother Mya after Jack’s brother is killed in a road accident. In order to stay in the country it’s not enough to marry Mano as Federal law won’t recognize a State level gay marriage. Jack has a choice: move to Spain with Mano, the love of his life and lose the only family he has for his new one or lose Mano and stay in New York. An impossible choice. Unless…he creates a phoney straight marriage with his best friend Ali to gain citizenship. Saying I Do is not so simple…

So many same-sex bi-national couples go through incredible heartache and pain. Being separated from each other, not just sometimes by prison glass, but sometimes separated by thousands of miles, or months at a time because of paperwork issues, or because they are unable to afford the numerous flights it takes to keep a long distant relationship going. Many resort to selling their possessions to pay for lawyers, or trips abroad to renew visas, or just to see each other without the fear that any knock on the door could be an immigration officer ready to deport them. Over 40% of these families have children. Adding to their stress, financially and otherwise.

I’m not as brave as the 30,000 plus bi-national same-sex couples who are staying together whatever the cost. I know now I should have followed my heart moved to London, true love is not the kind of thing you should turn down.

At least in the movies there can be happy endings….

Please pledge your support at Kickstarter.com.

 

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Senator Suggests Trump Engaging in ‘Stochastic Terrorism’ Amid Pet-Eating Immigrant Lies

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September 13, 2024

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Donald Trump is on his fourth day of promoting his false claim that 20,000 undocumented Haitian migrants were dumped on Springfield, Ohio and have destroyed the townsfolk’s way of life, including by stealing people’s pet cats and dogs and eating them. Now, one U.S. Senator is suggesting the Republican presidential nominee is using “stochastic terrorism” to help his flailing presidential campaign.

A bomb threat and another, unspecified threat forced several Springfield elementary schools and one middle school to evacuate or not open Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, the Springfield city hall was evacuated and shut down, as were some state motor vehicle offices.

The emailed bomb threat on Thursday echoed Donald Trump’s and U.S. Senator JD Vance’s racist lies.

“My hometown of Springfield is becoming a thirdworld (expletive) because you allowed the federal government to dump these (expletive) here,” the email stated, USA Today reports. “We have Haitians eating our animals and then you lie and claim this is not happening when we see this happening. I’m here to send a message, I placed a bomb in the following locations…”

RELATED: ‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies

During Tuesday’s presidential debate Trump had falsely said: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

On Thursday he used the lie to promote the candidacy of a Republican seeking to unseat Ohio Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.

And on Friday, despite the bomb threat and other unspecified threat, Trump said in a press conference he would travel to Springfield and vowed to do “large deportations” from that city and send the legal immigrants he removes to Venezuela.

The “20,000 illegal Haitian migrants” are reported 12,000 to 15,000, ABC News reports, and they are not “illegal.” They are in the country legally, and the town as far back as a decade ago resolved to invite immigrants to help rebuild their failing economy and businesses.

Also on Friday, while reportedly not repeating the racist pet-eating lie, Trump dismissed the bomb threats as unimportant.

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) is not dismissing them, but he is asking how anyone could function again under a Trump presidency, and suggesting Trump is engaging in stochastic terrorism.

RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets

“Think about what it would be like to have four years of a President engaging in overtly racist stochastic terrorism against people pursuing the American dream and then just ask yourself what your immigrant grandparents would want you to do. Kids deserve to go to school safely,” Senator Schatz wrote.

Wajahat Ali is a New York Times contributing op-ed writer, Daily Beast columnist, and author of “Go Back to Where You Came From.” Responding to the news Friday of more school evacuations, Ali wrote: “Stochastic terrorism thanks to Trump and Vance.”

Mother Jones’s D.C. bureau chief David Corn, an MSNBC analyst, also noted: “Trump and Vance incite. Look up stochastic terrorism.”

And Mother Jones on X posted: “Days after Trump went on a racist rant during the presidential debate, the city of Springfield, Ohio, received a bomb threat that was explicitly hostile to immigrants and Haitians. This further proves that Trump’s demonizing rhetoric portends violence.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate

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‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies

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September 13, 2024

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For the second day in a row, elementary school children in Springfield, Ohio, were forced to be evacuated due to threats: a bomb threat on Thursday and an unspecified threat on Friday. The threats come after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance, have repeatedly spread lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield this week, including that they are stealing residents’ cats and dogs and eating them.

Thursday’s bomb threat specifically mentioned the false claims about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets, USA Today reported.

“Three schools in Springfield were evacuated or closed Friday, based on guidance from police, school officials said,” local NBC affiliate WLWT reports. “Officials with the Springfield City School District said that based on information they got from the Springfield Police Division, students at Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated and moved to another district location.”

A Springfield middle school was also ordered closed Friday morning, before classes began, and “at least one Springfield location of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is closed.”

READ MORE: ‘Screaming About Eating Cats Is Not a Solution’: Walz Rallies Michigan Crowd, Slams Trump

On Thursday, a bomb threat targeting Springfield city hall and an elementary school forced evacuations of those buildings.

“Police Chief Allison Elliott said that due to the seriousness of the threat, officials evacuated multiple buildings in addition to City Hall, including BMV Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, Ohio License Bureau Southside, Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary School.”

Despite the reports of the bomb threat on Thursday, hours later Donald Trump used his Truth Social platform to promote the Republican nominee working to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, by spreading more anti-Haitian immigrant racism.

“Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State,” Trump declared Thursday afternoon, referring to the far-right extremist Republican who is currently leading in the polls by low single digits.

Trump then invoked his racist Haitian immigrant lies.

“Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.”

On Truth Social, Trump on Thursday also posted memes of cats, including one with them holding a sign that says, “Don’t let them eat us, vote for Trump.”

RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Trump had falsely claimed, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

USA Today also reported that the “false rumor that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets began to circulate in the days leading up to the debate and was further popularized through posts from running mate J.D. Vance about his own state and AI-generated images shared by Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican House Judiciary Committee.”

J.J. Abbott, former press secretary to then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, responded to ABC News immigration reporter Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García’s viral social media post reporting Friday’s threat and evacuations:

“In 2018, the GOP and Trump’s anti-immigrant conspiracies led to the deadliest mass shooting in recent PA history at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The gunman took him seriously and literally. There’s nothing funny or intriguing about this dangerous racism.”

Many others responded to that reporter’s post.

“No sanitizing this. @jdvance and @realDonaldTrump bear full responsibility. They’re promoters of terrorism; and they did it intentionally,” wrote columnist, reporter, and former editor in chief of Crooked Media Brian Beutler.

“Ohio should look at this insanity and vote accordingly. Conspiracy peddling has real consequences. You can’t unring that bell. Donald Trump and JD Vance don’t care,” noted constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis.

“Donald Trump and JD Vance are terrorizing schoolchildren. They are unfit for any public office, let alone the highest,” responded attorney Andrew L. Seidel.

“JD Vance and MAGA influencers whipped up a blood libel panic and now children in Springfield are being traumatized by their lies. Hell isn’t hot enough,” commented the co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, Leah Greenberg.

“There’s a line from Charlottesville to Jan 6 to this. Trump speaks, his supporters act,” wrote political analyst and researcher Arieh Kovler.

“Trump could stop this but he won’t because he believes it serves his interests. It’s the same J6 behavior of spreading false conspiracy theories to inflame his supporters and then sitting back and watching instead of stopping it,” noted political science professor Michael McDonald.

READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate

 

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‘Screaming About Eating Cats Is Not a Solution’: Walz Rallies Michigan Crowd, Slams Trump

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September 13, 2024

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Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz took aim at Donald Trump Thursday night at a rally in the battleground state of Michigan, where the Harris campaign is leading the ex-president by an average of less than two points.

The Detroit News’ Craig Mauger posted a photo of the overflow crowd at the Grand Rapids Public Museum:

Gov. Walz’s speech (full video here) was decidedly down-home and neighborly, but he had no trouble going on the attack as well.

He told the audience that their friends and neighbors had watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate, during which Trump had lied that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Walz did not denigrate Trump supporters. Instead, he said that after the debate, “I don’t hear them out there much. I don’t see them out there much. They’re a little bit – because they’re good people. They’re our neighbors. They’re like, ‘that didn’t look very presidential.’ Screaming about eating cats is not a solution. It’s not a solution.”

RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets

“Well,” Walz continued, “what Kamala Harris was talking about is things that you actually care about. They might not be sitting down at the bar talking about banning books, but they might down there be talking about, ‘how can I afford a house? I’m working hard. I’m working hard. I want to have a house,’ and because that house becomes a home to some of these folks. Your real estate mogul, venture capitalist, whatever, that’s just an asset to be traded and sold to whoever you want. For us, it’s a place we gather around the kitchen table to talk to our kids about what happened in school. That’s what Kamala Harris wants for you. That’s what she wants for you.”

The 60-year old governor who is the only one of the four candidates on either ticket with a positive net approval rating (Harris comes in second), focused on midwestern values.

“What I am most proud of is because of all the things Donald Trump has stolen and all the things he did, what is unforgivable, is him stealing our joy. So here’s the thing, Kamala Harris is bringing not only solutions that focus on you. She’s doing it with a smile and joy on her face.”

“This guy, this guy on purpose, and make no mistake, it’s on purpose. He broke our political system. He tried to break our faith in one another. He tried to break the thing that makes Midwesterners stick together. We’re positive people, for God’s sakes. We walk on water half the year, we have to be it’s cold as hell,” Walz said. “We don’t care. We dig our neighbors out. This guy is trying to tell you your neighbors the enemy. This guy’s trying to tell you that he knows best about what folks in Grand Rapids need. Well, trust me, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“So here’s the deal, we’re nice folks. We’ll dig you out after a snow storm. We’ll say ‘hi’ at the store. Some of us might even let you merge on the highway. Not all of us,” he joked. “We have a saying for that. It’s Minnesota Nice, is what we call it. I’m sure you have it too. But the one thing I’ll tell you about Midwesterners that stretches across that beautiful blue wall of Northern America here, the one thing about us is, don’t ever mistake our kindness for weakness.”

READ MORE: Multiple-Location Bomb Threat Follows Trump and Vance’s False Dog-Eating Immigrants Claims

Walz also went after school shootings while reassuring supporters Democrats support the Second Amendment.

“Leaves are changing,” Walz said, as The Detroit News reported. “Friday night football’s back. Our kids have a new start and they’re going in. It’s a time of excitement and hope. Everything we want. That’s what we want for our kids.”

“But too many of our kids, these first days of school, are a time of sheer terror. A time that is going to stick with them forever,” he said, referencing school shootings.

“I know guns, you know guns,” he said. “Kamala Harris is a gun owner, by the way, which you found out. I’m not going to take any crap (from Republicans) about the Second Amendment. We support the Second Amendment.”

“But our first responsibility,” Walz continued, “is keeping our children safe. And you can have both.”

He also referred to shootings as “that crap,” and reminded the crowd that it “does not happen in other places in the world.”

Walz, a former U.S. Congressman who served for 24 years in the U.S. Armed Forces, called Donald Trump a “criminal.” Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York for business fraud in an attempt to subvert the 2016 election.

He told the crowd Vice President Harris’s debate performance should have not been a surprise.

“She took on the predators. She took on the fraudsters,” Walz said. “She took down career criminals and powerful corporate interests, which, by the way, was on the stage the other night, all those things so, so this time, just to be clear, that criminal being on the stage got put in his place.”

“And this is what true leadership looks like. And she says this time and time again, and I love it. A mark of true leadership is not who beats people down, it’s who lifts people up, who lifts them up. So so when it’s a bully, and there’s a time she proved she can beat some people down if they need it.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate

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