civil unions | Stowaway Travel Writing & Editorial Services

The Good

Governor Quinn has signed civil unions into law for the state of Illinois. It’s not marriage (or for that matter, allowing tax breaks and family rights based not on marriage at all, but that’s another fight), but it ain’t nothin’!

This is how you show you actually care about young people and their health (oh and save your country millions of dollars in the bargain).

The Bad

It isn’t enough that you can’t get abortions through publicly funded insurance plans; the Pennsylvania Senate wants to pass a law prohibiting abortion coverage in private insurance plans. Please contact the PA Senate to let them know how reprehensible this is.

The Idaho Board of Pharmacy said the pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription for a Planned Parenthood nurse until they knew if the woman who needed it was having an abortion did not do anything wrong, since the prescription was eventually filled at another pharmacy. Even though the pharmacist refused to give a referral. And the medicine was to stop bleeding, which seems pretty time sensitive.

Oh and speaking of Planned Parenthood, that despicable organization Live Action is still working to get them de-funded and de-licensed. PP has even asked that the FBI investigate in order to protect their employees and the organization.

The always brilliant Maria Bustillos writes about just how easy it is for Amazon to delete books off your Kindle without ever telling you, and even access/delete the personal files you store on it. Did you know they actually went through and deleted copies of 1984 because of copyright concerns? I’m going to go ahead and call irony on that one.

The Silly

Here’s a map of the US that shows which states correspond to which countries in terms of GDP and also population. Texas has the same GDP as Russia? We already knew they thought they were an empire…

One of my friend’s coworkers has started a blog in which she posts a reused/repurposed item every day. She has an Etsy store too, in case you like her style. I wish she had some instructions on how to make some of the stuff, because I have a hard time going from concept to execution in crafts (I usually just end up covered in glue), but it’s still a neat look at making beauty out of the ordinary every day.

The Good

The Illinois legislature has passed a bill approving civil unions. Governor Quinn is expected to sign it into law by the end of the year. Hurrah Illinois! One step closer to actual equality for LGBTs.

The Pope has made a tiny concession to people who use condoms — they may no longer be headed straight to hell! Baby steps, I guess, although as tigtog points out, there are a lot more steps to go toward making the Catholic Church the loving kind of body it purports to be for members and non-members alike.

This news is very late, but Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from her house arrest in Burma. That Feministing article has links to her speech, which is definitely worth checking out. This woman is a human rights hero and has been a vocal activist for decades, not to mention a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Amnesty International has been advocating for her release for years. Congratulations and I wish her a safe and productive future.

The Bad

Instead of extended unemployment benefits as they usually do, members of Congress have got into the Grinchy spirit and stalled in partisan politics. A lot of people are going to lose their homes (aren’t we done with that yet?) and more from this.

It’s no secret that the intersectionality of identities and abuses based on those identities is a huge part of the discussion of human rights among contemporary social justice groups. Being black isn’t worse or better than being a woman, and vice versa, for example. Unfortunately, mainstream organizations and the government haven’t caught on to this idea yet, and so it is that one group’s needs is determined as less important than another’s. This kind of bargaining is what resulted in black women’s concerns being shunted aside in the 2nd wave of the feminist movement, and it’s what makes many civil rights historians look at the civil rights movement from one angle only, instead of taking into account women’s particular experiences. This great article takes a quick look at how many white men raped and abused black women, and how recent attempts to rectify past wrongs do not allow for pursuing justice in those cases. Also, check it out — Rosa Parks was the main NAACP investigator in the case study presented in the article. Rosa Parks did an awful lot of amazing things!

The Silly

Sessily sent me this cool link: posters made up of the text of a book! I don’t see any book on there that I want in poster form, although The Wizard of Oz and Moby-Dick look really cool. I think an Ursula K. LeGuin novel would be great — Shevek boarding the spaceship in The Dispossessed or just about any scene from the Earthsea series.

http://www.thegrio.com/black-history/how-abuse-of-women-was-overshadowed-in-civil-rights-movement.phpT