i am feminist. activist. woman. vegetarian. pansexual. queer. human. smith college junior. i prefer female pronouns.
i love people. rwanda. love. human rights. learning. africa. exotic animals. photos. beauty. dancing. LGBT rights. the ocean. heat. sun. my boyfriend roth.
Predictions of 2011 made in 1911. Most of them are surprising accurate!
…except their prediction for poor children. And the importance of etiquette and housekeeping in public schools.And shorthand English being used academically. But still worth the read!
With current immigration laws in place, THESE are the jobs that undocumented people often have to take.
Who lived on that land first, sir?
(Source: wtfmorringhan)
This article has great commentary about the civil liberties consequences of budget cuts, including the restructuring of programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the Affordable Care Act, which serve as a social safety net to the country’s poorest people.
The House of Representatives says these programs are too expensive, and yet we must continue to allow tax breaks for the wealthiest and least diverse 1% of our population. In other words, helping the poor is too costly, but cuts into military spending and domestic security is not an option.
“The elections in 2012 will be a test as to whether we elect leaders who will deepen the economic crisis on the backs of the poor and middle class, or whether we choose people who care both about civil liberties and strengthening the economic conditions of a majority of Americans. We need to convince people to vote as if our lives and livelihood depend on it, because they do.”
We Will Not Fight Another Rich Man’s War: Vietnam veterans against the war in the Middle East
thinknoevil0 asked: First, thank you for the follow. Secondly, as a human rights advocate, member of the LGBT community and also an advocate for said community, do you feel the world is moving more towards accepting the homosexual/transgender community or is that an American progression wrongfully pictured on a global scale? (e.g. Uganda and Sharia law)
Of course! I think I’m really going to enjoy your blog.
And damn. This is a loaded question. In some ways, I feel that the world is moving toward acceptance for LGBT folks, but in some ways, definitely not. It’s interesting to see what rights are legal in what regions of the world. For example, same-sex relationships are legal in most parts of the world, except for most of Africa and the Middle East. Same-sex marriage is slowly being recognized in the Global North. Gender rights are slowly taking hold in certain countries… it really depends on what “acceptance” means in this context. Some countries have protections for LGBT people, some permit same-sex marriage, some allow people to change their gender on official documents. This map is a super cool resource to see what rights and protections are in place and where: http://ilga.org/ilga/en/index.html
Homosexual and trans* rights are definitely in very different stages globally, though, and I don’t feel right generalizing about them. Perhaps in the future I will write a separate post about each.
I think, in general, though, that the economically richer countries are doing better at LGBT acceptance and protection than economically poorer countries. Because Capitalism creates “haves” and “have nots”, the “haves” have a lot more time to spend fighting for rights and changing people’s minds—not to mention access to resources that teach them about LGBT differences (internet, TV, media, etc). The American religious right has played a huge role in the Uganda anti-gay bill, which I could go on for ages about, and Shari’ah law, which I’m certainly not an expert in, is only practiced in certain areas, and the current uprisings might affect the state of such laws. I found the map below helpful as well.
