Muammar Al Khadafi

Remember in 2008 when to great fanfare a same gender marriage bill passed in New Hampshire while a trans rights bill that was up at the same time in the Granite State barely passed in the New Hampshire House thanks to the efforts of then Speaker of the House Terie Norelli (D) and was shot down 24-0 in a female leadership dominated Senate?

Fast forward three years because the karmic wheel may be turning in this case. 

In the November 2010 midterm elections the New Hampshire House flipped from a 216-174 Democratic advantage to a 298-102 Republican controlled chamber. The results were just as devastating in the New Hampshire Senate as it moved from a 14-10 Democratic majority to a 19-5 Republican one..

An effort is underway in the GOP dominated New Hampshire House to repeal the marriage equality law and replace it with civil unions despite polling showing that 62% of people in the state oppose those efforts.   HB 437 originally banned same gender marriages and civil unions but was amended by a 3-1 vote on September 14 to allow civil unions for gay and heterosexual couples.

The Judiciary Committee meets tomorrow to consider a subcommittee recommendation that they repeal the same gender marriage law that took effect last year. 

The amended HB 437 should it get out of committee tomorrow won't be voted on by the full New Hampshire House until the new legislative session convenes starting on January 4, 2012.

People who were married in New Hampshire won't have their marriages revoked, but should HB 437 take effect marriage would only be allowed for a aman and a a woman. 

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch is a Democrat, so if it does pass the House and Senate, it'll be up to him to veto or sign it.   If he does veto it, the GOP might have enough votes to override it and make it law.   

Elections have consequences people, and the sooner that people learn that lesson on the liberal-progressive side, the better.  Not voting is NEVER an option if you wish to not only have progresive change in society, but keep it.

Been keeping my eye on the Occupy Wall Street protests and the Occupy Houston protests that are occurring here.  While I have much love for the people participating in them and love the messages of fairness and social justice that are coming out of these protests that are spreading all around the world as I write this and striking fear in the hearts of the 1% and the GOP politicians that support them, I still have some reservations and concerns.

What I'm concerned about and why I haven't really gone all in with the Occupy Wall Street movement is because I'm not hearing enough language or ideas about what we do to channel this activism and anger of the 99 percenters at the jacked up status quo into reforming the political system to make it effectively work for the other 99% of the country.

For you folks who think the Occupy Wall Street protests are the bomb, these protests aren't going to mean jack if you don't follow them up with bumrushing the voting booths on Election Day next year and for the next ten to 20 years.

You can take your money out of the banks, make long eloquent speeches about corporate greed at the General Assemblies of the Occupy Wall Street  protest sites, sit in and get arrested, but unless you get your butts up on November 6, 2012  and every subsequent election day after that for the rest of your lives to throw the political bums out who aren't doing the job, the Republican politicians whose policies and conservafool philosophies enable the 1% to screw you, you don't run for public office yourself or support the candidates that would help create the political world you'd like to see, then this is just a colorful but colossal waste of time  

These direct action protests are a wonderful thing to witness and have been invaluable to jumpstarting a consciousness raising conversation about this Greed is Good culture we find ourselves in that isn't benefiting those of us not in the 1% end of the societal scale.  

But they need to be backed up with those same people that you got to turn out for these Occupy Wall Street protests to channel that enthusiasm and energy into consistently marching those same massive numbers of people to voting booths on Election Day and being permanently engaged and committed to the political action piece for the rest of their lives. 

Our enemies and the people they bamboozle into voting for them will damned sure be at the polling places in full effect, and we on the liberal-progressive side need to match their energy and exceed their turnout.   The 1% also likes it when they see voter turnout in the 40% or less range and hear people on the center left end of the political spectrum stupidly say they aren't going to vote.  Helps make it easier for them to keep the right wing politicians in office who screw you.  

But the more people who participate in the voting process, the more progressive candidates that get elected.  

Why do you think the Republicans have been engaged in voter suppression tactics against my community for decades and have been actively working to make it harder for low income people and students to vote?

You need all the tools in the civil rights toolbox to enact systemic change, and the most important one is the power of the ballot.

So as you plot your strategies in the various protest sites around the country and the world in the coming weeks and months, you may also wish to consider taking some voter registration cards with you as well or marching unregistered people to the county courthouse to get them registered to vote, and then follow up to ensure they do.

This panel discussion I'm posting was organized by the Heinrich Boll Foundation and took place in Berlin on October 5.  It was discussing the Transrespect Vs Transphobia (TvT) Project and included panelists from several nations and different regions of the world. 

One of the panelists I was delighted to discover as I watched this unfold was Naomi Fontanos, the chairwoman of STRAP, the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines.   STRAP is the world renowned premier trans rights and trans empowerment organization based in the Philippines and Fontanos spoke about the situations of transpeople in East and Southeast Asia.