Louis CK on Gay Marriage

Discussing Modern Conveniences

Girls Aloud - Something Kinda Oooh Music Video

Keith Olbermann 11/10/08 Proposition 8 Special Comment

Transcript of Speech:

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8. And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics.

This is about the… human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them — no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give them all the same legal rights — even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage.

If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal… in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry…black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are… gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing — centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children… All because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

—

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of…love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know…It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person…

Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge.

“It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:

“So I be written in the Book of Love;

“I do not care about that Book above.

“Erase my name, or write it as you will,

“So I be written in the Book of Love.”

Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away

this is the best blog I've ever read....! (from -Melissa Etheridge, by means of a few friends)

Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.

Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.

…Really?

When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?

I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them." Now the them is me.

I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.

Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.

Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too.

-Melissa Etheridge

"Bebot" by Black Eyed Peas

BEBOT (from http://morecomplex.blogspot.com/)

When the American hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas came back to the Philippines in July for a concert at the Araneta Coliseum, the media were quick to point out that their most recent album, Monkey Business (2005), contained a track titled "Bebot."

That's right, bebot--as in girl, woman, the female of the species. And it isn't just the title that's in Tagalog. The entire song is in Tagalog!

LYRICS
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ang aking
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ang aking
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ay

Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino!

Hoy pare, pakinggan n’yo ako
Heto na ang tunay na Pilipino
Galing sa baryo - Sapang Bato
Pumunta ng L.A. - nagtrabaho
Para makatulong sa Nanay
Dahil sa hirap ng buhay
Pero masaya pa rin ang kulay
Pag kumain - nagkakamay
‘yung kanin - *chicken adobo
‘yung balut - binibenta sa kanto
Tagay mo na nga ang baso
Pare ko, inuman na tayo

Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino!

Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ang aking
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ang aking
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ay

Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino!

Masdan mo ang magagandang dalaga
Nakakagigil ang beauty mo talaga
Lambing na hindi nakakasawa
Ikaw lang and gustong makasama
‘yung bahay o kubo
Pag-ibig mo ay tutoo
Puso ko’y laging kumikibo
Wala kang katulad sa mundo

Pinoy ka - sigaw na - sige
Kung maganda ka - sigaw na - sige
Kung buhay mo’y mahalaga - sige
Salamat sa ‘yong suporta

Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino!
Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino!

Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ang aking
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Bebot bebot bet
Ikaw ay

Pinoy ka - sigaw na - sige
Kung maganda ka - sigaw na - sige
Kung buhay mo’y mahalaga - sige
Salamat sa ‘yong suporta - sige

Pinoy ka - sigaw na - sige
Kung maganda ka - sigaw na - sige
Kung buhay mo’y mahalaga - sige
Salamat sa ‘yong suporta

Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino! - Filipino!

La la la la la la la . . . .
la la lo . . . .
La la la la la la la lo . . . .

Viva FILMEX

Viva FmIéLxIiPcIoNAS cabrones!

¿A qué parece un anuncio Méxicano? Qué va... c'est les Philippines! Bisous

La Cerveza San Miguel es Filipina!

Para los que piensen que la cerveza San Miguel es españolaaaaaaaaa no no no!! Es FILIPINA!! Claro, aqui se vende como una cerveza filipina pero la marca y el producto si es de Filipinas... Alah... ya sabeis algo mas sobre la cerveza... un dato q pocos conocen...

Aquí van los anuncios televisivos de San Miguel emitidos en Filipinas en los ultimos años:

Mighty Mouse - Dibujos de una infancia en Filipinas

Me flipaban estos dibujos animados de pequeño. Por haber nacído en Filipinas vivir alli los primeros ocho años de mi infancia no suelo compartir la misma experiencia con la gente de mi generación de que nació y vivió en España. Obviamente es de importación americana y mis compañeros americanos suelen concer este dibujo. Me ha echo mucha ilusión encontrar estos videos.