What's Happening, Hot Stuff?? 5/02/2012!!

Welcome to this week's [all very positive] What's Happening, Hot Stuff?? - from a snowy London! Finally, Sarah's had her snow fix for the year!!

The new Bishop of Salisbury, The Rt Revd Nick Holtam, has spoken out in support of gay marriage. Bishop Holtam made the comments in an interview with the Times today ahead of the meeting of the General Synod next week, where civil partnerships in churches and equal marriage are to be discussed. He said: “We are living in a different society. If there’s a gay couple in The Archers, if there’s that form of public recognition in popular soaps, we are dealing with something which has got common currency. All of us have friends, families, relatives, neighbours who are, or who know someone, in same-sex partnerships and I’m no longer convinced marriage should be between a man and a woman.”

Bishop Holtam

He continued: “I think same-sex couples that I know who have formed a partnership have in many respects a relationship which is similar to a marriage and which I now think of as marriage. And of course now you can’t really say that a marriage is defined by the possibility of having children. Contraception created a barrier in that line of argument. Would you say that an infertile couple, who were knowingly infertile when they got married, weren’t in a proper marriage? No you wouldn’t.”

Good for him! It’s nice to see religious figures actually coming out with considered opinions rather than defending ‘tradition’ for tradition's sake.

Speaking of marriage, a Chinese university professor has estimated that 16 million women in China are married to gay guys!

Professor Zhang Bei-chuan of Qingdao University says the huge number of women – equivalent to the population of the Netherlands – who have tied the knot with gay men, are struggling to cope. Speaking to state-run China Daily, the academic said as many as 90% of gay Chinese men marry to conform with social norms. The potentially damaging effect of such marriages was highlighted by 29-year-old Xiao Yao, who was married to a gay man and now runs a support website for wives in similar situations.

The only gays in the village?

China has reduced the penalties for homosexual behaviour since 1997, when it was considered a crime, but it is the pressure of ‘conforming’ that causes the gay community to remain hidden. Can you imagine having to be married to ‘cover up’ your true feelings? Sarah's parents may want her to keep her lifestyle a secret, but once she leave the confines of their house, she can go back to living her life – not to a cover-up marriage.

In China, however, the animal kingdom is getting support to be out and proud. Two gay penguins in China have been given a baby chick by zoo staff. The Metro reports that the gay penguins are often caught stealing others’ eggs during mating season, and the museum staff are confident they can raise a chick between them. The Chinese penguins’ story echoes that of Roy and Silo, penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo, who were given a rejected egg by keepers after they continually attempted to hatch a rock. Earlier this year, the book And Tango Makes Three, which is based on Roy and Silo’s story, returned to its place at the top of the American Library Association’s most complained-about books list. We have ordered our copy!

State side, have you seen all the news about Ellen and JC Penney? Surprisingly Ellen is not a ‘huge star’ in the UK, but (as she is a woman we admire (see HERE)) we follow anything that comes out about her. This week the news was about JC Penney making her a spokesperson – great news we thought – after all, Ellen promotes ‘happiness and joy’. However OneMillionMoms.com took offense and said she should be sacked because a lesbian spokesperson would lose them business. The website said: “Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.’’

In response to these ridiculous (in our opinion) statements, GLAAD set up the Stand Up for Ellen petition to thank the retailer for hiring the gay TV star. It is also being used to raise awareness that in most US states, it is legal to fire gay employees on the basis of their sexuality. Herndon Graddick, GLAAD’s senior director of programs and communications, said “Since Ellen came out 15 years ago, the nation has evolved and support for LGBT people is at an all-time high. Although it is still legal to fire someone for being gay in 29 states, Americans are fair-minded people who know that firing someone just for being gay is not what this country is about. J.C. Penney is standing with Ellen and so do we.” As it stands, the petition has 22,500 signatures. Click on the link above and sign it yourself!

Further to this, the Los Angeles Times ran a reader poll which showed a 96% support for keeping Ellen as the face of JC Penney. Yay to Los Angeles! Yay to GLAAD! And yay to JC Penney.

After doing a little research, we came to the conclusion that the website OneMillionMoms.com is CRAZY - it is a project of the American Family Association, and on its front page it asks its readers to call the retailer and demand Ellen be replaced with a straight face. It is also complaining about Macy’s using a ‘two groom’ advert. They're anti-Modern Family too. Please, find more important things to do with your time!!

Following our update last week that Washington had received its 25^th vote in support of gay marriage, we found the governor of the  North-Western US state of Washington has recorded a video for the Human Rights Campaign where she shows her support for gay marriage. It is still looking likely that gay marriage will be introduced in the state. Governor Christine Gregoire said: “As governor, I believe the state of Washington cannot be in the business of discrimination. As an American, a wife and mother, marriage equality is fair, just, and right. And it is time." We couldn’t agree more!

We agree wholeheartedly with the content of this video and hope to see many more like it from senior  politicians!


Hope you've enjoyed our exceedingly positive WHHS this week!!


If you have enjoyed this post, check out other WHHS HERE!




February Photo-A-Day!!


As you know, we are participating in February's Photo-A-Day (see the rules, subjects and Days 1-3 HERE!!) - this is already harder than first thought haha!! 


Day 4. A stranger - 

We (very craftily, we're sure you can see - that's Sarah's head/earring/shoulder) captured this special human being outside of Victoria Train Station the other day while on our lunch break. Laura loves his apparent support of her local College Football team (GO BRONCOS - orange and blue!!) and Sarah is partial to his flaming cowboy boots - there is so much to love about this guy!


Day 5. 10am - 

So, seeing as we were not awake to see 10am today, we're breaking the rules (we're badass like that) and giving you 10pm instead. It's a lot more exciting. At 10pm last night, we were in the English countryside, running around in the SNOW!! Yes, that's right - we got our first snow in February this year. And it was warm at Christmas. WTF?? Sarah was very excited, the entire drive out she was pointing out individual snowflakes... and our drive home later, we luckily didn't get stuck anywhere, but it took us almost 2 hours to get home at under 40mph on the freeway the entire way!!!

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Sarah & Laura xo