Quote of the day: Zach Wahls dips his toe into Dan Savage's pool

Photo: Storm Farnick, Daily Nebraskan

The bon mots below, from Zach Wahl's What Makes a Family appearance last night at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln student union, is probably a part of Wahl's lecture circuit patter and therefore not new, but we haven't heard it before, and it's much funnier than the "I'm really good at putting the toilet lid down" line.

“I’m always asked two questions when people realize I have two moms,” Wahls said. “It’s ‘Dude. You have lesbian moms,’ which isn’t actually a question. And then, ‘Are they hot?’”

Zach Wahls speaks tonight at 7:30 in Lincoln

Click on flyer to enlarge

Zach Wahls at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, March 28th, 7:30 pm in Student Union

Click on flyer to enlarge

Free for NU students with valid Ncard, Five bucks for faculty, staff, and the public. $250 for Jean Stothert, GOP candidate for Mayor of Omaha.
     Yeah, we did make up that phony last sentence solely as an excuse to link to our post about "Mean Jean" sneaking an antigay activist into her new TV ad without identifying him by name, much less by his agenda.
     Why? Because we want people to steal AKSARBENT's snarky video about Stothert's insulting, patronizing remarks to gay Omahans in the City Council chamber just minutes before she voted against Omaha's LGBT antibias law last spring
     We even published the embedding code for anyone who wants to let their own readers/viewers know exactly how much patronizing contempt Stothert has for gay people in Omaha.
     To see the video and swipe the code, go here.
     Once you see the video you'll realize that if there were ever a gay reason to vote against a candidate instead of for one, Jean Stothert is that reason.
     We seem to have forgotten the subject of this post — oh yeah, Zach Wahls.
     As a gayer-than-normal blog, we eagerly await the question-and-answer part of his presentation, having been very impressed with his Wahl's articulate and suave astuteness during his Ask Me Anything reddit session in fielding an important question about the biggest dinosaur he thinks he could defeat in a Dinosaur Death Match using primitive weapons and not being allowed to set traps.

Zach Wahls compared to Stockholm Syndrome slave defending her masters by Robert Oscar Lopez in post by National Organization for Marriage affiliate, Witherspoon Institute

Maggie Gallagher (left) and MIT professor Robert P. George,
a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute and widely
considered to be a financial mover and shaker of the group.
George co-authored, with Watergate felon Chuck Colson,
the Manhattan Declaration, which exhorted signers to ignore
laws which prohibit discrimination against LGBT people
and which was twice rejected by Apple as an iPhone app.

Here's an appalling excerpt of the piece, from Public Discourse, a publication of the Witherspoon Institute. You can read more about the activities of that establishment here.

...From virtually all angles, the modern-day equivalent of uprooted blacks reduced to chattel and severed from their own flesh and blood is not anyone in a same-sex couple, but rather, any child forced to be raised by such a couple!
     Literature is useful here. Read Phillis Wheatley's “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”
     She was removed from her birthplace, Senegambia, and brought to New England to live under the ownership of John Wheatley. The Wheatleys were fond of her and taught her Latin and English. She wrote a set of poems called Poems on Various Subjects, and published them at around the same age Zach Wahls was when he testified that growing up with two moms was great. “On Being Brought from Africa to America” is the most anthologized and most agonizingly controversial poem in that historic poetry collection. Here it is below:

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understanding
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with a scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd and join th'angelic train.

     She thanks whoever took her as a little girl from her birthplace to New England. She thanks the people who enslaved her... Our basic skeptical faculties can tell us that whatever gratitude Wheatley expressed above was compromised...
     Can we trust the testimony of a teenager testifying in court in front of his lesbian moms? Is our skepticism that atrophied? Are we that blind to common sense? Can we take seriously a letter written by a little girl to the president about her gay dads? 

David Blankenhorn offered some pushback to Lopez in FamilyScholars.org:

     ...Lopez has a valid story to tell. (Don’t we all.)  He’s a powerful writer who knows exactly what he wants to say.  In my view, there is some portion of hard truth in what he writes.   I thought so when I opposed gay marriage, and I still think so now that I favor it. I credit Lopez for these things. 
     But overall, I am repulsed by what Lopez says and the way he says it.  To me, his voice is the voice of the fanatic, the denouncer of others, the accuser, the utterly self-confident dogmatist who wants to pound us all, in party by the sheer vehemence of his language, into accepting whatever doctrine he is insisting on.  I read him with care, and I find some nuggets of truth, including some that are troubling to me now (in a good way), but  in him I find no wisdom, no maturity, no way of seeing the world that reminds me in any way of our shared humanity or the  complexity and mystery of the human condition.  
     I do not a trust a voice of this type on anything that truly matters to me.

     Predictably, NOM's Maggie Gallagher defended Lopez, and by extension, his contemptible attack, in her comment on Blankenhorn's response. Gallagher accused Blankenhorn of finding Lopez repulsive and placed herself on higher ground, even though Blankenhorn clearly labeled what Lopez said as repulsive. Does Gallagher really think that the reading comprehension of Blankenhorn's audience is so poor that she can fool them so easily?

(H/T JoeMyGod)

Zach Wahls starts another petition — aimed at UPS — over Boy Scout funding

Wahls was successful in convincing Intel to stop giving $700,000 a year to the organization, whose leadership is dominated by Mormons, pending a change in its antigay policies. Now he's asking UPS to do the same, noting that the Boy Scouts’ policy “...is inconsistent with how UPS views workplace equality and it is inconsistent with the Scout Law, which demands bravery, loyalty and kindness....” The UPS petition says, in part:

UPS Foundation President Eduardo Martinez should know all too well how senseless and out-of-touch the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay policy is. Mr. Martinez serves as Chair of the Corporate Development Council for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and is a board member for The Metro Atlanta YMCA. Both of these organizations welcome and benefit from embracing gay youth and leaders in their programming.

Iowa's Zach Wahls makes an Obama campaign video

After a day of watching the usual suspects circle the Chick-fil-A wagon, this is refreshing.

Zach Wahls, YouTube-famous Iowan with two moms, answers questions of significant import on Reddit

From Wahl's Ask Me Anything reddit session in connection with his book tour:

If you had to fight a dinosaur to the death in a Dinosaur Death Match using only primitive weapons and not allowed to set traps, what's the biggest dinosaur you think you win against? You don't have to name a specific dinosaur, just give us a size reference.

Gimme a mace and I feel like I could beat anything shorter than 5' or so. I've got long arms, so I've got good reach which is really important when it comes to fighting probably not that big dinosaurs.

Do you get hit on constantly these days?

Yes.

Jon Stewart to Zach Wahls: You are peaking too soon!

(Via Towleroad)

Iowa viral Internet sensation Zach Wahls on Letterman to promote new book

Wahls'new book, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family, is out this week to capitalize on the interest created by the viral YouTube popularity of his testimony to the Iowa House against the cynical advancement of a GOP initiative to kill gay marriage in the state, as well as bar the door to civil unions and domestic partnerships.


(Via Towleroad)

Iowa's Zach Wahls at GLAAD Media Awards in NYC

It's knowing that a conservative talk radio host in western Iowa felt so threatened that he had to spend 30 minutes of his program going through that testimony line by line by line. It's the reminder of the power that I have, the power that we all have to shape the narrative that describes the human condition.

Above: Zach Wahls, raised by two moms, at the GLAAD Media Awards on March 24, 2012, described the whirlwind year following his testimony to the Iowa House of Representatives against HJR6, which would have advanced a measure to ban gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in Iowa.
     Although the video of his testimony eventually was viewed almost 17 million times on YouTube, Wahls wasn't able to convince the Iowa House to defeat the measure (see who voted against marriage equality here) but ultimately it went nowhere because Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has vowed never to cooperate in an attempt to put the civil right of marriage to a popular vote.
     Gronstal, adamant in his defense of his gay constituents, said so again in Carter Lake on March 17. For this, Gronstal has been called a "dictator" by right-wing Iowa fundamentalists. (Gronstal's smart wife, Connie, gave the accusation all the respect it deserved by fliply saying that if her husband is a dictator, she wants more shoes.)



The GOP, The Iowa Family Leader and the National Organization for Marriage will be spending several small fortunes on TV, radio ads and robocalls to defeat Mike Gronstal.

Zach Wahls testimony at Iowa House hearing was top political video of 2011 says Google

With 18,000,000 views, Zack Wahl's testimony during the Iowa House Joint Resolution 6 hearings was the YouTube's top political video of 2011, according to Google, YouTube's owner.



Here is AKSARBENT's repost about last January's hearing, followed by the transcript of Wahls' testimony.

Iowa Republicans Kim Pearson (l) and Glen Massie flatly
refused to answer Rep. Nathan Willems' questions about HJR 6.

After the formality of last night's HJR 6 hearing, Iowa House Republicans bulldozed the measure through the General Assembly today, five hours earlier than scheduled (because of the snowstorm, they said.) Republicans own 60% of the 100-member Iowa house, and all of them except one absentee voted for HJR 6, which would put to a popular vote an amendment to the U.S.'s least-amended state constitution that would deny marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships to gay couples. Three Democrats defected to the Republican side: Dan Muhlbauer, Brian Quirk and Kurt Swaim. Every other Democrat voted no. The Iowa Independent took note of the following:

Two outspoken opponents of marriage equity — Republican state Reps. Glen Massie of Des Moines and Rep. Kim Pearson of Pleasant Hill — took the highly unusual step of refusing to answer questions in defense of the constitutional amendment when requested by Democratic state Rep. Nathan Willems of Lisbon.

Considering the quick evisceration that Willems gave Rep. Erik Helland (here), they were probably smart to duck his questions. It's all the more rich when you consider that Helland is a lawyer and Willems isn't.

Here is Zach Wahls, 19, defending his two moms and his family during Monday's HJR 6 hearing from the political assault brought by Iowa Republicans, the national anti-gay-for-pay industry, and Danny Carroll of Iowa's so-called Family Leader. We have Tim Gill to thank for the fact that Danny Carroll is no longer in the Iowa Legislature.

Testimony of Zack Wahls to Iowa HJR hearing, 1/31/11:

Good evening Mr. Chairman. My name is Zach Wahls. I'm a sixth-generation Iowan and an engineering student at the University of Iowa and I was raised by two women.

My biological mom, Terry, told her grandparents that she was pregnant, that the artificial insemination had worked, and they wouldn't even acknowledge it.

It wasn't until I was born and they succumbed to my infantile cuteness that they broke down and told her that they were thrilled to have another grandson.

Unfortunately, neither of them lived to see her marry her partner Jackie of 15 years when they wed in 2009.

My younger sister and only sibling was born in 1994. We actually have the same anonymous donor so we're full siblings, which is really cool for me.

I guess the point is our family really isn't so different from any other Iowa family. You know, when I'm home we go to church together, we eat dinner, we go on vacations. But, you know, we have our hard times too, we get in fights...

Actually my mom, Terry was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2000. It is a devastating disease that put her in a wheelchair. So we've had our struggles.

But, you know, we're Iowans. We don't expect anyone to solve our problems for us. We'll fight our own battles. We just hope for equal and fair treatment from our government.

Being a student at the University of Iowa, the topic of same sex marriage comes up quite frequently in classroom discussions... The question always comes down to, well, "Can gays even raise kids?"

...The conversation gets quiet for a moment because most people don't really have any answer. And then I raise my hand and say, "Actually, I was raised by a gay couple, and I'm doing pretty well."

I scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT. I'm actually an Eagle Scout. I own and operate my own small business. If I was your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I'd make you very proud.

I'm not really so different from any of your children. My family really isn't so different from yours. After all, your family doesn't derive its sense of worth from being told by the state: "You're married. Congratulations."

No. The sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other. To work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That's what makes a family.

So what you're voting here isn't to change us. It's not to change our families, it's to change how the law views us; how the law treats us.

You are voting for the first time in the history of our state to codify discrimination into our constitution, a constitution that but for the proposed amendment, is the least amended constitution in the United States of America.

You are telling Iowans that some among you are second-class citizens who do not have the right to marry the person you love.

So will this vote affect my family?

Would it affect yours?

In the next two hours I'm sure we're going to hear plenty of testimony about how damaging having gay parents is on kids.

But in my 19 years, not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple.

And you know why? Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character.

Thank you very much.

How the Christian Post spun the Zach Wahls story

Almost formulaic, really. The Christian Post began with a description of Zach Wahls and his now-viral video, then they presented the other side (that would be the considered viewpoints of those who don't think the gay parents of children should benefit from legal marriage, legal civil unions, or legal domestic partnerships) from Dawn Stefanowicz, a pediatric anesthesiologist who is becoming the female Paul Cameron. For good measure the Post threw in he-said-she-said from the American Academy of Pediatrics (the mainstream organization) and an unnamed study from the American College of Pediatrics, the tiny, antigay right-wing splinter group, treating the two organizations as if they are equivalent.

"I come from a stand point having grown up since infancy with a father that has had various male partners that came into the home," shared Stefanowicz to The Christian Post.
     As a child of a homosexual father, Stefanowicz described feeling very different from and not accepted by other children. She said that experience hurt her and her twin brother very deeply.
     ...the American College of Pediatrics has concluded in a study that "children fare best when reared by their two biological parents in a loving, low conflict marriage" over any other form of parenting relationship be it that of a single homosexual parent, committed homosexual couple, or single heterosexual parent.
     The ACP found that mothers and fathers parent differently and make unique contributions to the overall development of the child. In homosexual parenthood they found, "children reared in homosexual households are more likely to experience sexual confusion, engage in risky sexual experimentation, and later adopt a homosexual identity."
     Additionally, Dr. Sharon Quick of the ACP has revealed [see Narth!] that over half of the references in the AAP's 2006 report are inaccurately quoted.

Zach Wahls gets props fromfellow Iowegian Ashton Kutcher

National and Iowa reaction to Zach Wahls' speech defending his two moms; Iowa Republican lawmakers are given pause

Zach Wahl's testimony to the Iowa House defending his two moms in the face of a GOP assault on same sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships has now gone viral on YouTube. The million+ hits the video has received has made it one of youtube's most-seen new videos this week. (If you'd like to see the transcript, click here.)

The video also has reverberated throughout Iowa. While not changing any Republican House members' votes, it has given them pause. The younger, shrewder ones have begun to realize that the center of Iowa's body politic is shifting, and that hitching their political future to the LDS/Vander Plaats/NOM wagon may not be in their best long-term interest. (In the first clip watch Rep. Josh Byrnes (R-Mason City) cynically backpedal after voting to legally destroy gay families in Iowa.)

Here are two clips, from local and national television, including a post-speech interview with Wahls on CBS. If the second clip doesn't display in your browser, see it here.

Video: Zach Wahls, his moms and sister on MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell; Iowa City's KCRG does followup interview

KCRG, the ABC affiliate in Iowa City, interviewed Wahls after his appearance on MSNBC.

Transcript of Zach Wahls' testimony to Iowa House during HJR 6 hearing on Republican initiative to ban gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships

Zach Wahls was raised by his biological mother, Dr. Terry Wahls, a clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Iowa and her legal spouse, Jackie.

[Note: The transcript at lybio.net is a ripoff of an slightly inaccurate, earlier version of this post, which has now been corrected. As of this writing the lybio.net post is still wrong.]

Good evening Mr. Chairman. My name is Zach Wahls. I'm a sixth-generation Iowan and an engineering student at the University of Iowa and I was raised by two women.

My biological mom, Terry, told her grandparents that she was pregnant, that the artificial insemination had worked, and they wouldn't even acknowledge it.

It wasn't until I was born and they succumbed to my infantile cuteness that they broke down and told her that they were thrilled to have another grandson.

Unfortunately, neither of them lived to see her marry her partner Jackie of 15 years when they wed in 2009.

My younger sister and only sibling was born in 1994. We actually have the same anonymous donor so we're full siblings, which is really cool for me.

I guess the point is our family really isn't so different from any other Iowa family. You know, when I'm home we go to church together, we eat dinner, we go on vacations. But, you know, we have our hard times too, we get in fights...

Actually my mom, Terry was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2000. It is a devastating disease that put her in a wheelchair. So we've had our struggles.

But, you know, we're Iowans. We don't expect anyone to solve our problems for us. We'll fight our own battles. We just hope for equal and fair treatment from our government.

Being a student at the University of Iowa, the topic of same sex marriage comes up quite frequently in classroom discussions... The question always comes down to, well, "Can gays even raise kids?"

...The conversation gets quiet for a moment because most people don't really have any answer. And then I raise my hand and say, "Actually, I was raised by a gay couple, and I'm doing pretty well."

I scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT. I'm actually an Eagle Scout. I own and operate my own small business. If I was your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I'd make you very proud.

I'm not really so different from any of your children. My family really isn't so different from yours. After all, your family doesn't derive its sense of worth from being told by the state: "You're married. Congratulations."

No. The sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other. To work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That's what makes a family.

So what you're voting here isn't to change us. It's not to change our families, it's to change how the law views us; how the law treats us.

You are voting for the first time in the history of our state to codify discrimination into our constitution, a constitution that but for the proposed amendment, is the least amended constitution in the United States of America.

You are telling Iowans that some among you are second-class citizens who do not have the right to marry the person you love.

So will this vote affect my family?

Would it affect yours?

In the next two hours I'm sure we're going to hear plenty of testimony about how damaging having gay parents is on kids.

But in my 19 years, not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple.

And you know why? Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character.

Thank you very much.

62-37: Iowa House passes HJR 6;Video: Zach Wahls defends his gay moms from political assault waged by Iowa Republicans and Family Leader

Iowa Republicans Kim Pearson (l) and Glen Massie flatly
refused to answer Rep. Nathan Willems' questions about HJR 6

After the formality of last night's HJR 6 hearing (see previous post — click HOME tab), Iowa House Republicans bulldozed the measure through the General Assembly today, five hours earlier than scheduled (because of the snowstorm, they said.) Republicans own 60% of the 100-member Iowa house, and all of them except one absentee voted for HJR 6, which would put to a popular vote an amendment to the U.S.'s least-amended state constitution that would deny marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships to gay couples. Three Democrats defected to the Republican side: Dan Muhlbauer, Brian Quirk and Kurt Swaim. Every other Democrat voted no. The Iowa Independent took note of the following:

Two outspoken opponents of marriage equity — Republican state Reps. Glen Massie of Des Moines and Rep. Kim Pearson of Pleasant Hill — took the highly unusual step of refusing to answer questions in defense of the constitutional amendment when requested by Democratic state Rep. Nathan Willems of Lisbon.

Considering the quick evisceration that Willems gave Rep. Erik Helland (here), they were probably smart to duck his questions. It's all the more rich when you consider that Helland is a lawyer and Willems isn't.

Here is Zach Wahls, 19, defending his two moms and his family during Monday's HJR 6 hearing from the political assault brought by Iowa Republicans, the national anti-gay-for-pay industry, and Danny Carroll of Iowa's so-called Family Leader. We have Tim Gill to thank for the fact that Danny Carroll is no longer in the Iowa Legislature.