I would suggest that wingnuts boycott Google, but judging by their self-imposed disengagement from reality, I think they already have been for years:

Starbucks, Google and Alcoa are the latest large corporations to endorse legalizing gay marriage in Washington, according to the group Washington United for Marriage, which backs the legislation.

Microsoft, Nike and Group Health Plan have already endorsed the legislation, which picked up the 25th and final vote needed in the state Senate for pass the law.

There’s a whole list of other companies in Washington who are supporting the legislation at the above link. It’s worth a gander if you live up that way and have a need for any of their services.

[h/t Joe]

When I was a little kid, we alternately subscribed to the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat. Back in those days, there was an actual rivalry going on between Little Rock’s two major newspapers, and they were constantly tossing subscribers back and forth, depending on who was doing a better job at that point in time. Then, of course, the papers merged and became the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Regardless, I loved it when the paper came, especially on Sundays. I loved the funny papers, of course, like any kid, but I also had this weird obsession with architecture and real estate, and the papers really delivered when it came to that kind of reporting.

My point is that I have history with this paper. So it’s sad to report that, when given the opportunity to break a little bit of ground and publish the commitment ceremony announcement of a gay couple, they chose failure:

Cody Renegar, 35, of Elkins, Ark. asked the Arkansas Democrat Gazette to publish an engagement announcement for his June wedding commitment ceremony, something Renegar said happens for other couples who would like to announce their impending nuptials.

“I called the newspaper and asked how I can submit our announcement for publication,” Renegar told Yahoo! News. “I was told that they won’t publish them until it’s legal.”

Renegar said the newspaper declined to run the announcement because of long-standing policy.

Lame. It’s worth noting that this seems to specifically involve the Democrat Gazette’s Northwest Arkansas affiliate, the Northwest Arkansas Times. However, it’s all the same company, and it seems all branches have the same policy. Also:

According to newspaper representatives, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette charges a minimal fee and has content length requirements, but does run announcements on a regular basis for heterosexual couples, including mixed race couples.

Oh, that is big of you, Democrat Gazette, considering the fact that Loving was handed down in nineteen-sixty-freaking-seven.

There is a petition at Change.org, asking the paper to, instead of being dragged into history as it happens, be a pioneer and refuse to discriminate against any of their readers, regardless of what state law says. Sign it.

[h/t Towleroad]

Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign was rocked last week when his second ex-wife, Marianne, revealed to ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross that in 1999, the former Speaker confessed a six-year affair with a staffer and asked her for an open marriage so his relationship with his mistress could continue:

“I said to him, ‘Newt, we’ve been married a long time,’ and he said — ‘but you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn’t care what I do’ … he was asking to have an open marriage and I refused … that I accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life… No. No. That is not a marriage.”

Naturally, since a GOP presidential debate was being held that same evening in Charleston, South Carolina, the moderator, CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, opened the debate with a question for Gingrich about the sensational allegations (which, being a human being with a pulse and functioning brain, Newt should have seen coming a mile away). When King asked Gingrich if he’d “like to take some time to respond to that,” Newt smarmily replied “No, but I will.”

The crowd roared its approval.

Gingrich continued:

“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.”

Now the crowd was on its feet, cheering and hollering like churchgoers at a revival.

“Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it, two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine… and I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate.”

When King tried to cut in to explain that a.) it was not his network that broke the story, and b.) the question was a valid one as it had become a topic of conversation for many Americans, the crowd booed and Newt excoriated King with finger-wagging sanctimony:

“John, it was repeated by your network, you chose to start the debate with it. Don’t try to blame somebody else. You and your staff chose to start the debate with it.”

He then emphatically denied his ex-wife’s allegations, adding that his campaign offered to send personal friends to vouch for his innocence but the network wasn’t interested because “they would like to attack any Republican… I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.”

That’s right: pay no attention to the jaw-dropping hypocrisy. This is all a massive anti-GOP conspiracy conjured up by that evil, elite, liberal media.

The sheer arrogance dripping from Gingrich’s response is nearly beyond comprehension. Sure, Newt’s planet-sized ego has been well documented (even by members of his own party), but Thursday’s display propelled the former Speaker to new heights of political narcissism. After all, when he spoke of the “decent” people who heroically choose to campaign for public office in the face of a “destructive” media onslaught, Mr. Gingrich — a thrice-married philanderer who served two wives with divorce papers while they were dealing with major medical problems — surely counted himself among them.

As I watched King’s question and Gingrich’s response, my head began to spin. What happened to the “personal responsibility” so fetishized by American conservatives? Is this self-victimizing, blame-the-media blowhard the same Newt Gingrich whose so-called “Contract with America” included a “Personal Responsibility Act” that denied welfare assistance to mothers under eighteen, blocked additional aid for dependent children if they were born while their mother was on welfare, and ended aid for dependent children entirely after five years? Is this pompous politician who kisses up to women outside his marriage the same one who pays lip service to the Religious Right’s “values” and travels the country speaking and peddling dozens of books about God, virtue, and the importance of family (including, unbelievably, a “God and the Founders”-type speech to a Republican women’s group in Erie, Pennsylvania just two days after his open marriage ultimatum to his wife)? Is this defiant, habitually non-monogamous sexual reprobate the same former House Speaker who demeaned married same-sex couples in lifelong committed relationships as “friends,” pledged to advance a constitutional amendment excluding same-sex couples from marriage, and funneled $200,000 into the successful effort to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices whose ruling allowed LGBT couples the freedom to marry?

Mr. Gingrich clearly fails to grasp the irony in the fact that he, a self-proclaimed “family values” man, was schtupping a staffer at the same time he was pharisaically pontificating against President Clinton for sexual immorality and leading the charge to impeach him for his extramarital activities. Newt’s ego is so monumental that once he could no longer conceal the affair, he had the temerity to demand in all seriousness that his wife “share” him with his mistress. And his self-righteousness is so epically proportioned that it blinds him to the dissonance between his apparent belief that he should have whatever kind of marriages, open or otherwise, that he wants and his stated conviction that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans should be forbidden from marrying at all.

Perhaps the only thing more disconcerting than last evening’s histrionic display? The fact that when Newt Gingrich abdicated his personal responsibility and blamed everyone else — ABC News, the media at large, his ex-wife — for his serial adultery and the troubling flaws in his character, the audience in South Carolina leaped to its feet and cheered.

Heaven help us.

Via Joe:

NPH would like his longtime partner/boyfriend/what-have-you to be called his “husband,” please:

“I`m not the biggest fan of the word `partner`. It either means that we run a business together or we`re cowboys. `Boyfriend` seems fleeting, like maybe we met two weeks ago,” said Harris.

“I`ve been saying `better half` for as long as I`ve been able to. I think it`s a little self-deprecating and clearly defines that we`re in a relationship, but it would be nice to say `my husband,” he added.

I completely agree. Part of the discrimination involved in denying gays and lesbians equal marriage rights has nothing to do with hospital visitation or estate planning. Sometimes it’s really simple little things like “how do I introduce my spouse to my coworkers?”

Personally, I’m a fan of using the word “husband” whether or not the government approves. It would be nice, though, when that time comes, to be using the word in the exact same sense as my straight friends are using it, with everything that it entails.

Take that, gay Republicans:

[h/t Think Progress]

The Religious Right may cynically use the term, but they certainly don’t own it. Here, a Republican straight guy in New Hampshire, standing up for his gay brother and talking about why he supports marriage equality:

I have a brother kinda like that. #awwwwwwww

[h/t Joe]

UPDATE: Craig Stowell, the straight brother in the video, has a petition up at Change.org, asking New Hampshire legislators not to repeal marriage equality. Go sign it.

Wow. Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt (Remember him? The one who turned the Catholic Mass and that church’s holiest sacrament into a weapon with which to bludgeon LGBT people?) does NOT want dissent within the clerical ranks when it comes to same-sex marriage.

In a dictatorial move, Nienstedt essentially told the priests of his diocese that when it came to the Minnesota Catholic church’s campaign to pass a constitutional marriage discrimination amendment, they had two choices: help out or shut up.

It is my expectation that all the priests and deacons in this Archdiocese will support this venture and cooperate with us in the important efforts that lie ahead. The gravity of this struggle, and the radical consequences of inaction propels me to place a solemn charge upon you all — on your ordination day, you made a promise to promote and defend all that the Church teaches. I call upon that promise in this effort to defend marriage. There ought not be open dissension on this issue. If any have personal reservations, I do not wish that they be shared publicly. If anyone believes in conscience that he cannot cooperate, I want him to contact me directly and I will plan to respond personally.

Writing for the American Independent, crack reporter Andy Birkey revealed yesterday that Nienstedt’s authoritarian remarks were delivered in a private speech to priests last October. Just to make sure his message reached every priest under his jurisdiction, the archbishop later sent the text of that speech to all priests who were unable to attend. (According to Birkey, Nienstedt’s remarks are only coming to light now because someone within the church leaked the speech to a group called the Progressive Catholic Voice, who released it to the media.) In the same address, Birkey reports that Nienstedt also spoke about sending teams consisting of “a priest and a married couple” into Catholic schools to discuss marriage discrimination with schoolchildren.

Minnesota Catholics: if you put money into the collection plate on Sundays, this is what you’re supporting. Yes, Nienstedt’s bigotry is out of step with the vast majority of Catholics. Yes, the Catholic church provides important services to poor and disadvantaged people. But there are dozens if not hundreds of charitable organizations providing the same services as the Catholic church without the spiritual bullying. When you donate to your local parish instead of these other charities, though, you give tacit approval to Nienstedt’s reprehensible persecution of your LGBT family members, friends, neighbors, and congregants.

Money talks. Assuming that the Catholic church will change its position on marriage equality or even ease up on its anti-gay attacks without significant incentive to do so is the height of folly.

Intimidating priests whose consciences might compel them to take a position on Minnesota’s marriage amendment different from that of the institutional church. Sending teams of adults into Catholic schools to teach children that only some of them will be worthy of marriage when they grow up. Ordering priests to organize grassroots political committees in their parishes for the express purpose of drumming up support for marriage discrimination. Producing and shipping DVDs attacking same-sex couples and families to every Catholic household in the state. Composing a prayer for divine help in the quest to write a divisive and discriminatory religious teaching into the civil constitution, then tying that prayer to the central act of unity in the Catholic tradition.

I can’t think of a more repulsive distortion of everything that a church is supposed to represent, and I couldn’t imagine supporting it with my hard-earned nickels and dimes. Minnesota Catholics, do you want this on your conscience?

State by state, politician by politician, voter by voter…

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire announced her support for gay marriage legislation on Wednesday, potentially putting the state on track to become the nation’s seventh to fully recognize same-sex unions.

Gregoire, a Democrat in the final year of her second term, is backing legislation to be introduced before the Washington state legislature, which reconvenes next week.

“It is time in Washington state for marriage equality,” Gregoire told a news conference in the state capital of Olympia. “It is time, it’s the right thing to do.”

The article points out, though, that passage isn’t assured, as some Democrats have sided with wingnuts. And of course, the hate groups will be traveling to Washington:

Brian Brown, president of the 800,000-member, Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage, told Reuters his non-profit group would lobby against marriage equality in Washington state.

“The people of this country believe that marriage is a union of a man and a woman,” Brown said in a telephone interview. “I expect the legislature in Washington state will stand up for this commitment and vote to protect marriage.”

“The people of this country” are not represented by you, Brian, and the sooner you realize that, the healthier you’ll be.

It’s becoming a typical story: Republican wingnut politician is politically anti-gay because it’s necessary for the rube vote, while his wife either secretly or publicly supports marriage equality. It actually leads me to suspect that many of the wingnut men actually do not care about the issue, but are craven enough to pretend that they abhor gays to satisfy the worst parts of their bases.

Here’s Diana Fine Cantor, wife of House Majority Leader and known wingnut Eric Cantor, stating her support for marriage equality. I find this significant for one reason, though: it’s been a long time since the anti-gay hate from John McCain or George W. Bush, both of whose wives support marriage equality, seemed sincere. Not so with Eric Cantor, who has been one of the most vocally and actively anti-gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

My goodness, she’s also pro-choice.

[h/t Towleroad]