Mike Tidmus

Journalist Dan Aiello, writing at California Progress Report, has a great piece with some notable reactions to the signing, by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, of a bill honoring Harvey Milk with a “special day of significance” in California: The governor’s endorsement comes just one year after Schwarzenegger vetoed similar legislation intended to create “a special day [...]

Everything To Do With Schools … the Sequel (video: Yes on One at YouTube) If the video above looks just a tad familiar, that’s because, despite all the Catholic and Mormon money and influence that’s being funneled into Maine by out-of-state organizations like New Jersey’s National Organization for Marriage and Colorado’s Focus on the Family, this [...]

California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) (photo: Dan Aiello) Dan Aiello, writing at California Progress Report, provides a status update on AJR 13 — a measure that would put California on the record as opposing the ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men. In addition, Aiello has extensive background information on how the [...]

Protestors in Sacramento question the governor’s veto power (photo: courtesy of Dan Aiello) Today, California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, took his blue pencil and vetoed a number of desperately needed California programs. These line item cuts will adversely effect seniors, the disabled — including people living with AIDS, the poor and the young. Leave to The [...]

AIDS budget cut protest in Sacramento on 10 June 2009 (photo: Dan Aiello) I had a CT scan and doctor appointments yesterday because I have pneumonia and I’ve had constant fevers for the last three weeks. I forgot to bring the mail in until late last night, and I discovered that, as part of Arnie [...]

In a post about San Diego’s Equality Town Hall Meeting last week, I mentioned a presentation by Geoff Kors, Executive Director of Equality California, on upcoming GLBT legislation in the Golden State. Coincidentally, Dan Aiello, writing at the Bay Area Reporter, has an update on the progress of Assembly Bill AB382, which would add sexual orientation and gender [...]

From Prop 8 Hurt My Family – Ask Me How (Photo: Marriage Equality USA) “My 20 year old son (who is gay) and I started rallying at visible corners around Sacramento back in August. I cannot tell you how many times I was told I was going to hell and that my son was an [...]

A month ago, many who were keeping an eye on what was happening in Hawaii considered civil unions all but a done deal. Then things went south. What happened? Dan Aiello, writing for the Bay Area Reporter, has some answers, but as Aiello notes hard questions remain: Hawaii civil union bill dead by Dan Aiello [...]

A civil unions bill in Hawaii has stalled and may end up on the rocks without an infusion of funding from the mainland. They are so close. This past Saturday, over 2000 supporters of the civil unions bill rallied in downtown Honolulu. Check out the update below for something you can do to help immediately. [...]

San Diego marches against bigotry on 8 November 2008 (Photo: mine) Dan Aiello, writing in the Bay Area Reporter, shines a much needed light on the lengthy history of the Mormon church’s surveillance of the queer community and the church’s attempts to thwart equality at both state and federal levels. Given the unprecedented Mormon involvement in Prop [...]

By now everyone knows that Rick Warren has actually eaten dinner with actual homosexuals in their actual homosexual homes. Tina Reynolds, of Sacramento’s Equality Action Now, thinks the pop pastor should make a habit of breaking bread with us queer folk. We learn, via Dan Aiello writing in the Bay Area Reporter, that Equality Action [...]

San Francisco’s Archbishop George Hugh Niederauer  (Photo: Mark Constantini, San Francisco Chronicle) About a month ago, I wrote about a secret 1997 Mormon memo that proposed the Mormon leadership discreetly solicit a number of established religious faiths in a concerted plot to thwart marriage equality for queer families. According to ABC News, the memo sent by [...]

My 2006 poster for a vigil in Amsterdam commemorating the execution in Iran of gay teen-agers Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari (Graphic: the Tidmus archives) British activist Peter Tatchell has a must-read article on the declaration for the global decriminalization of homosexuality in today’s Guardian called A watershed for gay rights. The declaration will be [...]

Writer Dan Aiello, in The Bay Area Reporter last week, published an interview with No-on-8 campaign manager Steve Smith. Smith had much to say about what went wrong and what went right with the campaign. One thing, worth noting given the current situation in Sacramento, is Smith’s assessment of what has happened since Election Day. [...]

(Music: Joey Ryan, “California” | Video: In the MO, via YouTube) This is excellent. A tip of the blogging beret to Dan Aiello for pointing it out.