Aussie Marriage Equality

Fw: At our dinner with the PM...

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G'day JustinO...

 

Any Aussies out there?

 

Gary

 

----- Original Message -----

From: GetUp!

To: gary@comcen.com.au

Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 12:54 PM

Subject: At our dinner with the PM...

Gary - If you believe in equal rights for same-sex couples, now is the time to say "I do" and urgently share our petition.

It's crunch time in the campaign for marriage equality. This weekend, a group of conservative pastors will ask congregations across Australia to sign a petition against equality.

They already claim some 34,000 signatures, and they're planning to deliver the petition at the ALP National Conference in a few weeks, when the party's policy on marriage equality will be decided.

The good news is that we may be able to deliver our petition to the Prime Minister in person any day now. Earlier this year GetUp members chipped in donations and won a charity auction to have dinner with Julia Gillard. Three inspirational same-sex couples are lined up to dine with the PM, and we’re expecting the big day to be in the next few weeks.

Can you help ensure Sandy and Louise, Steve and John, and Sarah and Emma have a HUGE national petition to deliver to the PM over dinner?

Share the petition with your friends here: www.getup.org.au/marriagematters

So long as we have inequality enshrined in law, the hatred and bigotry of homophobia will continue and so too will campaigns like the one we're seeing the rolled out across churches this weekend.

It's a campaign that's being driven by two men most Australians have never heard of, pulling the strings without the support of those they claim to represent.

Joe de Bruyn is the National Secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), a powerful union representing retail shop assistants, bakers, cleaners, photographers and hairdressers. He's the man who ultimately gets to decide who gets preselected to run for office from the Labor Party's right faction in NSW. This power puts enormous pressure on Labor delegates to toe his line. Just this week, Mr De Bruyn said: "I will exercise every ounce of influence I have to keep the existing platform, which says marriage is between a man and a woman."¹

The other is Jim Wallace, the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby. Over the past few months he has variously said, tweeted or endorsed statements such as, "the Anzacs didn’t die for gay marriage"² and has brought speakers into Parliament House to make remarks such as, "gay marriage will lead to pedophiles marrying children".³

These men don't represent the majority view of their faith, their Party or the Australian people. Stand up and show them they're against the tide of change.

When delegates take to the conference floor, we need to equip them with the support they need to say Australians demand equality. Your name is already there, can you encourage friends to do the same?

We've been pointing to the Labor Party’s National Conference – just three weeks away now – as a watershed moment in the fight for marriage equality. We know that the momentum we've built may bring a positive change to the Labor Party's stance on same-sex marriage, and Australia one step closer to full equality under the law.

It's not beyond us. Advocates within the Labor Party have recently ramped up their calls for change and we need to help them. Minister Mark Butler said it well in an op-ed this week: "Australia should recognise that marriage is now predominantly a civil institution and apply standard principles of equal treatment at least to civil ceremonies."⁴

It is important for our allies on this issue, like Minister Butler, that we give them strong evidence of the public support for the ALP having binding position on this.

For all your effort thus far, thank you. Together we've done much and it feels we’re closer than ever to finding the equality Australia deserves.

Paul,
for the GetUp team.

PS. Poke around on www.ido.org.au, it's our new hub for all things marriage equality. You can check out the great video we put together with Australian Marriage Equality and share it with your friends!

¹http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labors-right-warns-of-electoral-backlash-over-gay-marriage/story-fn59niix-1226191108267
²http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/jim-wallace-from-australian-christian-lobby-causes-anzac-day-outrage-with-anti-gay-anti-muslim-twitter-message/story-e6frea8c-1226044466591
³http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2011/08/16/anti-marriage-crowd-small/59392
⁴http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/conscience-vote-on-gay-marriage-not-enough-20111108-1n5b0.html

---

GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Authorised by Simon Sheikh, Level 5, 116 Kippax St, Surry Hills NSW 2010 

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FROM:

• Richard Hastings

TO:

• 'Justin OShea'

Message flagged

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 4:28 PM

Message body

 

On Thursday, November 10th, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on the Respect for Marriage Act to repeal DOMA. We have the 10 votes to pass the bill, but Sen. Grassley is circulating amendments today that would take away rights from married same-sex couples. His goal is to either gut the bill or add enough poison pills that would make Senators waver on the bill, and we can't let that happen.

The Courage Campaign and their members have gotten us the 10 votes we need, and 31 overall in the Senate, along with President Obama's formal, public endorsement. I just signed their emergency petition to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats today, urging them to oppose any amendments that would weaken the Respect for Marriage Act.

Join me!

http://www.couragecampaign.org/SenJudiciaryDOMARepeal

Richard

I Paid. . . .  Didn't You?     This was sent to me, I am forwarding it because it does touch a nerve in me.. This is another example of what Rick Perry called "TREASON in high places" !!! Get angry and pass this on! Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had. Entitlement my backside, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!! Congressional benefits free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements? We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile , and Turkey And now Pakistan ......home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!! Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries! They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries. Sad isn't it? 99% of people won't have the guts to forward this. I'm one of the 1% -- I Just Did.     ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com

The Story. . . . .a post script. . .

In passing I used the term "to kean" .. . more correctly spelled "to keen". . . .a wailing, piercing crying, mournful sounds, used traditionally at times of death and funerals. . . especially among the Irish and Middle-Eastern countries.  Here is an except from an article on this style of grief-expression. . . 

The Irish Funeral Cry (the Ullaloo, Keeners and Keening at Irish Funerals)

From The Dublin Penny Journal, Volume 1, Number 31, January 26, 1833

The well known custom so long used in this country, of keening, or lamenting over the dead, is of the most remote antiquity. History informs us, that it was known to the Greeks and Romans, who, however, seem to have borrowed it from the Eastern nations, among whom probably it had its origin; and from the Scriptures we learn that it was practised among the Israelites. Dr. O'Brien tells us, that the word in the Irish language, as originally and more correctly written, is cine, and not, as modern orthoepists have it, caoine; and this makes it almost identical with the Hebrew word cina, which signifies lamentation or weeping with clapping of hands. The learned Jezreel Jones, in speaking of the Shillah or Tarmazeght, a language or dialect of the inhabitants of the mountainous part of south-western Barbary, in a letter to John Chamberlayn, dated "Westmonasterii, 24 Decembr. 1714," declares that "the Shilhenses have the same custom as the Arabs, the Jews, and the Irish, of lamenting over the dead, uttering various cries of grief, tearing their hair, and asking the deceased why did he die? why did he leave them? and desiring that death would seize them also, in order that they might rejoin him whom they lamented."

This is the url to the full article. . . 
http://www.libraryireland.com/articles/IrishFuneralCryDPJ1-31/index.php 

A Story . . .The Widow's Walk

(This is not a photo of the O'Shea residence. . . )

GreginAdelaide said...

Sex, politics and religion.
What else do we talk about here?
I long for another feel-good warm Justy post on life, his life and life in general. Paint us a word-picture Justy....not now, but once in a while.
The other stuff tends to be depressing if taken in long lumps.

November 8, 2011 7:07 PM

Coop said...

I'm with Greg :-} Tell us a story, Unca Justi.

November 9, 2011 8:19 AM

JustinO'Shea said...

Aaaaww. . .OK, Greg n' Coopsta..cozy in. . .hehe. . .Now. .

Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a big, old, old-fashioned white house, built high on The Dunes a bit outside the town of Chatham, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,and when the winds blew from the South from miles-away Long Island Sound and then the broad Atlantic Ocean, you could hear the long-ago, far-off almost forgotten voices of the wives of fisherman lost in terrible storms during the diffficult Winter months.

At the top of our house, high up on the roof there is the part called "The Widows' Walk" where the women would climb up to from the steep narrow insides stairs in the attic providing exit to this safe area, surrounded by railing, space where the women would go to look for their men returning from the fishing voyage.

The closer to the guestimated day of return. . .the wife had been marking off the days on the large calendar in the kitchen.. . .the more often in the day she would make the trek up the stairs to the attic, and then up and out onto the roof to stand and walk looking out in the direction of the hoped-for return of her Man and his fishing crew . . and, sometimes as the children grew, often the oldest son would sail away with his father, she would feel the tugs at her heartstrings from her husband and her first-born son, praying in her strong womanly faith for their safe return.

Sometimes at night, in the late Autumn grey November days and darker black nights, you could hear the keaning of the wife and her children crying under the eaves for the husband and father feared lost in the storm somewhere far away from the outer banks on Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. . . . the moans and cries carried in the wind. . .

And everyday she was there, when the work was half-done, she would be there searching out to sea for the special flag her Man flew on his ship for his beloved waiting at home. . . and, from miles away when her heart caught sight of that special colored flag. . her flag. . .she and her Man had chosen the strong bold colors and she had hand-stitched the pieces of cloth together. . . she would sing with joy and know deep in heart that HE was safe and coming home. . . . ;-)

November 9, 2011 9:06 AM

The Rainbows of Autumn

COULD IT BE. . . .. ???

The Latest national garbage dump. . . . .

Accuser Details Lewd Behavior by Cain

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and TRIP GABRIEL

Michael Appleton for The New York TimesSharon Bialek, left, with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, at a news conference on Monday.

A Chicago woman alleged on Monday that Herman Cain grabbed her in a sexually aggressive way when she sought his help after losing her job at the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s.
Sharon Bialek, accompanied by the celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, became the first woman to publicly accuse the presidential candidate of sexual harassment, saying that she wants to “give a voice” to other women who might have been harassed by Mr. Cain during his tenure at the association.
“I want you, Mr. Cain, to come clean,” Ms. Bialek, who said she was a Republican, told a packed news conference in New York City’s Friar Club. “Just admit what you did. Admit you were inappropriate to people, and then move forward.”
In a statement issued moments after the news conference started, Mr. Cain emphatically denied the accusation.
.

May I propose a vague possibility?  Could this all be part of the plan to rid the GOP of yet another black candidate for president. . . .that no one "in charge" of the choreography ever intended Mr Cain to get this far. . . .?  That this is part of the fire control. . . .?  Purge the list of candidates but above all get rid of the N-word candidate.          .