LoginThanks for checking out our Blog! We're the team of RainbowWeddingNetwork (Marianne, Cindy, Kendra & Ira) - Enjoy the posts, and always feel free to message us with any feedback through Facebook or email us directly. If you do reach out, be sure to request a copy of our latest e-newsletter! ...and remember to check your spam filter for any reply from us, if you don't see a response in your inbox.
Subscribe to RWN's bimonthly e-newsletter: Informative & Uplifting information sent right to your inbox! Subscribe Now!
We also invite you to like our FB group page at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LGBTQWeddings for more inspirations and connections to other couples and wedding vendors.
To learn more about who we are, visit the About Us page!
______________________________
I invite you to check out this info and consider helping to fund this documentary against western backed homophobia in Uganda. Please give what you can & share http://www.gofundme.com/dblaw
Western evangelicals from the UK and US have been preaching hate in Uganda which has led to anti-gay legislation that has caused extreme persecution of the LGBT community and led to an increase in violence, rape and murder. It has also led to a rise in HIV infection rates as people no longer have access to health care.
A new law promised as a "Christmas present" to the people of Uganda makes it illegal to provide employment, housing, transport and even health care to members of the LGBT community.
Please donate what you can to help expose the murderous hatred of these western evangelicals and the vile propaganda they tell to the Ugandan people to perpetuate the hatred of and violence towards an already persecuted minority.
The previous bill passed in December 2013 and signed by President Museveni in February 2014 was annulled by the constitutional court on a technicality (not the required quorum) in August. The MPs all signed a petition to bring it back and a draft of a new bill has been leaked. This new bill has been promised as a Christmas present (2014) just like the old one was in December 2012 and includes harsher clauses than the original bill and equates homosexuality to bestiality.
_______
Blog info suggested by Daniel B Law / Dec. 13, 2014
CHECK OUT Modern Brides & Modern Grooms by NYC based psychotherapist Mark O'Connell. The book mixes genres--LGBT, wedding guide, relationship therapeutic, memoir--but it is mostly a post-DOMA book about how we are all more alike than we are different. Mark speaks as a married gay man, and also includes perspectives from many other relationships as well. Insightful, fun, lighthearted!
How to make any wedding liberating, brave, and sexy.
This post-DOMA book is for any couple—same or opposite sex—seeking a personalized wedding that dignifies the relationship and the individual self. No “new normal” here—this guide emboldens you to harness your unique, brazen, queer truth; to be creative; and to plan your wedding your way.
Every fiancé faces the question: How do I become something new without losing myself? Using his own story—from how he and his husband connected via MTV’s The Real World to the real world of their marriage—author Mark O’Connell reflects on conflicts that arrive during wedding transitions, as well as various other transitions throughout your lives.
As a psychotherapist, O’Connell offers ideas to bridge relational gaps with your partner, family, and friends. As a professional actor, he also offers insight into the ways your wedding is a theatrical production: how this can help you to conceptualize the event, consolidate your efforts, and increase creative collaboration as a couple. This will serve you not only on the day, but also for the rest of your time together.
Whether we’re straight, gay, or other, weddings inspire us to carve out more fun, freedom, recognition, life-space, love-space, and connubial space than we’ve ever had before.
Find it on Amazon! Great gift for yourself, your fiancee, or your newly engaged friends!
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brides-Grooms-Nontraditional-Twenty-First-Century/dp/1629145831
A quick MUST-read from Australia! Go Mom!
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/12/mom-corrects-birth-announcement-in-support-of-transgender-son/
Is this the one?!
Article by: Noelle Price
Photo credit: MSNBC
MTV contacted us here at RainbowWeddingNetwork, to ask for our help with a casting call. They are working on a new project about a family that has a parent who is transgender or transitioning. The producers are hoping to depict an honest, unique and respectful experience by showing the love and laughter of one family.
If you're interested, check out the links below!
http://remotecontrol.mtv.com/casting-call-for-parents/
http://remotecontrol.mtv.com/casting-calls/casting-call-for-kids/
Our good friend DJ Shelly, with Michelle Lee Entertainment, is spotlighted in this rockin' article from PGN! Check it out for great tips on choosing your own wedding deejay... and for info about discounts offered in the Philly area for fabulous services from Shelly!
http://www.epgn.com/columns/before-the-bells/7994-bringing-music-out-of-the-background
PGN writer Jen Colletta met DJ Shelly at our recent LGBT Wedding Expo in Bucks County... And soon enough, our tour of 'Same Love, Same Rights'® LGBT Wedding Expos will be returning to the area (March 15, 2015) and you may have the chance to meet Shelly and her crew in person!
For more info on the Expo, visit www.SameLoveSameRights.com - see you on the dance floor!
(Boise, ID, October 22, 2014)—A 74-year-old Navy veteran who challenged Idaho’s marriage equality ban so she could be buried with her late wife in Idaho’s state-run veterans cemetery will have her wishes respected after Idaho state officials agreed to allow the couple to be interred together.
Today, Madelynn "Lee" Taylor went to the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery to make arrangements to have both her ashes and those of her late wife, Jean Mixner, interred together at the cemetery. Idaho officials agreed to Taylor’s request following the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ (NCLR) recent victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found that Idaho’s ban on marriage equality violated the U.S. Constitution. The court ordered marriages to begin on October 15, 2014, and directed the state to recognize the marriages of couples who married in other states.
Taylor served in the Navy from 1958 to 1964. In late 2013, Idaho officials denied Taylor’s request to be buried in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery together with her late wife, citing Idaho’s laws prohibiting marriage by same-sex couples. NCLR and Boise attorneys Deborah A. Ferguson and Craig Durham of Ferguson Durham PLLC filed a lawsuit on Taylor’s behalf, challenging the exclusion as a violation of the due process and equal protection guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.
“Words can’t describe how incredibly grateful I am for all the work that went into making our wishes possible,” said Taylor. “Idaho is where some of our best memories together are and it’s where I want to spend eternity with Jean.”
How Exciting!!
15 years ago, when my partner Cindy and I began www.RainbowWeddingNetwork.com, we pounded the pavement to spread the word about our new LGBT Wedding Resource. Few then (including ourselves) truly believed we would witness such a turnaround on the issue of equal marriage rights in such a short time. Within just a decade and a half, we are set to see equal marriage in at least 30 states and the District of Columbia. Amazing!
At times, we have thanked the conservative right for their part in this strong leap forward... Would the issue have garnered so much national attention, without the conservatives making it such a hot-button topic at election times? It's a valid question, indeed.
Regardless, we are elated at the progress and ongong momentum! Thanks to all who've taken an active role in ensuring equal rights for the LGBTQ minority in America! And CONGRATS to all the happy couples who have married!
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Editorial-A-gay-marriage-victory-5818234.php
Critics Consensus: Held aloft by remarkable performances from John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, Love Is Strange serves as a graceful tribute to the beauty of commitment in the face of adversity.
97% positive on Rotten Tomatoes! Kudos to the actors & production team involved with the project!
Article suggested by Kristi Barnette
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People Possess Rights Too! Branded by many as the civil rights movement for the twenty-first century, the quest for LGBT civil liberties has amplified since the battle kicked off almost eight years ago. Nonetheless, LGBT individuals still continue to experience prejudice in numerous parts of American culture today.
To help straighten out the myths and to give readers some information on the strife that LGBT people have faced to get the movement to where it stands today, we assembled a brief timeline on the topic, which we hope that folks will enjoy reading.
The 30s 40s and 50s: A Tempest on the Horizon From 1920 to 1923, American, Henry Gerber, worked in Germany; and after browsing some through all-gay publications, which were openly distributed across Europe, Gerber started to become aware of the oppression that American culture had forced upon all homosexual men and woman when accusing them of daily "immoral acts."
Soon after arriving home, Gerber established the Society for Human Rights (SHR) in Chicago, the country's first known homosexual establishment.
John T. Graves quickly registered as president, and both men set up a printing shop for editing and releasing, Friendship and Freedom, America's first gay-interest magazine. However, things were rough back home. The United States throughout the 20s was actually in a status of disarray and misconception in regard to the country's sex laws.
Any sort of LGBT social practice in the 20s was looked at as inexcusable, and publishing openly-gay literature was considered obscene, which generally resulted in public dissent against all homosexuals.
Attn Maryland and DC couples! You can win a FREE Wedding!
Our friend Mozelle Scott-Bey, owner of An Xquisite Affair, is once again offering a free wedding package, complete with venue, DJ services, photography, catering, wedding cake, limo services and more! She has reached out to us here at www.RainbowWeddingNetwork.com to be sure we were aware the LGBTQ couples are welcome and included in this opportunity. Mozelle has been LGBTQ-friendly for many years and loves helping her lesbian brides & fabulous gay grooms plan their Dream Ceremonies.
The application process is simple, you simply need to write a letter of 350 words or less explaining where and how you first met and something exciting about yourselves that would make the participating vendors eager to work with you in creating your 2015 wedding ceremony. Detailed information about the giveaway can be found on Mozelle's website: http://www.anxquisiteaffair.com
Further contact info is also listed below.
GOOD LUCK!!
_________
Mozelle Scott-Bey
An Xquisite Affair
410-258-4926 (Cell)
410-542-5332 (Office)
www.anxquisiteaffair.com
Worth the quick 15 seconds to watch this infomercial about the mayoral candidate in RI. And yes, he's family!
The fact that his husband is included in the ad so matter-of-factly speaks volumes as to how far our minority has come in a very short time. Can you imagine this ad being produced five years ago? Ten? Fifteen??
Best of luck to Brett in Providence!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFxRLYeR9As&feature=youtu.be
We're hoping he might come out and speak at our 2nd Annual 'Same Love, Same Rights'® LGBT Wedding Expo in Providence on August 4th!
By Nadine Smith, CEO of Equality Florida
My wife and I married in Vermont in 2009, and we committed, in front of friends and family, to love, cherish and protect each 
other for the rest of our lives. Our son Logan, now three years old, only added to our joy as a family.
However, we live and work in Florida, a state that refuses to recognize us as a family.
To add insult to the ongoing injury of denying our marriage, Attorney General Pam Bondi has taken the position that recognizing marriages of couples like us would “impose significant harm.” Those are the words she used in a brief calling for the dismissal of a lawsuit that would recognize gay couples married in other states. Worse, AG Bondi invokes the outrageous and thoroughly debunked claim that impugns gay couples who are raising children.
"Florida's marriage laws have a close, direct and rational relationship to society's legitimate interest in increasing the likelihood that children will be born to and raised by the mothers and fathers who produced them in stable and enduring family units.”
Bondi is now trying to spin the content of the brief and distance herself from her own words, claiming she is a neutral defender of the marriage ban amendment approved by voters in 2008.
Under a hail of criticism, Bondi released a statement that attempts to walk back inflammatory portions of her brief, by pretending they don't exist. She tries to explain away the “public harm” comments as a misunderstood state’s rights argument. She doesn’t address her parenting salvo or her outrageous claim that Florida should continue to gain financially by denying gay married couples access to benefits that we pay for just like everyone else.
But Bondi can’t get around the fact that she is authorizing the state of Florida to make those pernicious arguments, which are based on invidious stereotypes about same-sex couples and our families. By way of contrast, even when it was defending DOMA, the US Department of Justice refused to rely on any asserted justifications for DOMA based on child welfare because it acknowledged the scientific consensus that same-sex parents are just as fit and capable as different-sex parents.
She also can’t get around the fact that she swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States as well as Florida’s. She can’t ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality. She can’t ignore the 19 consecutive victories since the high court ruled handed down by judges appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike. Attorneys General and governors across the country, aware of their duty to protect the basic rights of their residents, have declined to defend anti-gay marriage bans precisely because it is clear to them that these laws are both morally and constitutionally indefensible.
Florida has changed dramatically since 2008, when voters approved an anti-gay marriage amendment. Our state now leads the South, with 57% in favor of marriage equality.
The tide has turned, and the day is coming when anti-gay marriage laws will meet the same fate as laws banning interracial marriage that limited my parent’s options.
As Judge Robert J. Shelby said in his ruling against Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, “While the State cites an interest in protecting traditional marriage, it protects that interest by denying one of the most traditional aspects of marriage to thousands of its citizens: the right to form a family that is strengthened by a partnership based on love, intimacy, and shared responsibilities.”
My wife and I married because we love each other. We wanted to demonstrate our commitment and ensure we could take care of each other in every way possible. Our son deserves to have his parents’ marriage respected and our family protected under Florida law.
_______
Further info available through Equality Florida's website: www.eqfl.org
Photo L. to R. Nadine Smith, with wife Andrea and son Logan
Photo Credit: Heidi Kurpiela/Ask the Locals
Does it really serve us as a minority, to include this many letters in naming our minority? At some point, it outdoes the intention of being inclusive and instead only serves to confuse whatever issue it is we're trying to focus on.
How can people outside our community actually consider the implications of marriage equality, when they are spending time trying to decipher what 'LBGTTIQQ2SA' actually stands for? Can they take our point of view seriously, when stumbling over what we call ourselves is really what most draws their attention?
Since we began RainbowWeddingNetwork 14 years ago, we have noticed how a lack of cohesiveness within our minority has dampened our efforts toward equality. Perhaps this lack of cohesiveness is still being reflected in that long litany of letters...
Yes, naming ourselves is very important indeed. But it can't be done at the expense of clarity & meaning.