New Zealand!

The New Zealand Parliament passed marriage equality, voting 77-44. That's the second country this month! Member of Parliament Maurice Williamson gave a great and humorous speech in support of the bill. An excerpt:

I also had a leader tell me I would burn in the fires of hell for eternity and that was a bad mistake because I've got a degree in physics. I used the thermodynamic laws of physics. I put in my body weight and my humidity and so on. I assumed the furnace to be at 5000 degrees and I will last for just on 2.1 seconds.

The video occasionally shows a woman in a rainbow striped shirt. She is Louisa Wall, the lesbian MP who sponsored the bill.

When the vote was announced, the MPs and the gallery burst into a Maori love song.



Four years ago Libby Phelps Alvarez left the Westboro Baptist Church, the hugely anti-gay church founded by her grandfather. Alvarez recently gave an interview with the New York Post -- from the Rainbow House across the street from the WBC. She likes hanging out with the guys there because they talk about stuff other than hell. And she works for civil rights for all. A nice photo of her in front of the house here. And the interview here. It is interesting to see what life was like behind the picket signs.




A couple days ago  I wrote about the 50th anniversary of MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail. NPR's All Things Considered did a story on the anniversary, giving more context than I could. You can listen to the 6 minute audio or read the news story.

From the text of the letter I didn't realize the colleagues King was responding to were white. I also didn't catch the significance of King's criticisms and anger of the moderate white churches who were willing to let injustice fester as long as order was maintained.