Gay Marriage - The Dinner Table Debate: Dan Savage vs. Brian Brown

With the New York Times' Mark Oppenheimer moderating, Dan Savage (the sex columnist and originator of “It Gets Better”) invited Brian S. Brown (a conservative Catholic who is president of the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay-marriage advocacy organization) into his home to debate the issues regarding same sex marriage in the USA.



Oppenheimer wrote about the event in in a NY Times article entitled, 'After Dinner, The Fireworks', which gives some great background as to how the debate came about and what the participants thought about it several days later. Currently there's just the one video on the YouTube channel, but here's hoping they decide to continue the series and address many other contentious issues.

Via: UCL Atheist, Secularist & Humanist Society

Seriously Russia, WTF?

The internet has long known that Russia is... different.

So much so that they awarded it the honour of it's own meme in the form of the "Meanwhile in Russia" image macro.

The past few weeks certainly haven't done much to improve the country's reputation in the eyes of the rest of the world.

The world does have a thing for bad boys...

From banning Gay Pride parades in Moscow for 100 years, to suing Madonna for speaking out about gay rights at a recent performance in violation of St. Petersburg's propoganda law because:

"After Madonna's concert maybe some boy becomes gay, some girl becomes lesbian, fewer children are born as a result and this big country cannot defend its borders - for me it causes moral suffering."

there is clearly a very different attitude toward gay rights in Russia than in many of it's European counterparts, but don't think Russia is focused solely on the oppression of homosexuals.

"5 years ago, I was disowned via letter when I came out to my father. This is how hate sounds."

This stunningly heartless letter, in which a father disowns his son for coming out, was recently shared on Reddit.

[click to enlarge]

Lady Gaga performing an amazing piano set at Roma Europride 2011

Take 10 minutes to listen to something beautiful. I was in tears by the end.

What would you do if you saw this happening in a restaurant?

I thought this was going to be negative and sleazy but it actually turned out to be uplifting and reassuring. Donovan's beautiful words brought me to tears.