Loving Day

Today is Loving Day, an annual celebration held on June 12 each year, marking the anniversary of the 1967 United States Supreme Court ruling "Loving v. Virginia" that struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in sixteen U.S. states. Citing "there can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the ruling invalidated U.S. state laws banning interracial marriage, mainly forbidding marriage between non-whites and whites.

Postcard US-3284982 to Russia features a pair of beautiful swans forming a heart shape with red flowers. It was purchased at Zazzle.

Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee

Postcard US-3064194 from Michigan, USA was a "Greetings from Nashville", Tennessee card that highlights its nickname "Music City" with an antique guitar. As the capital of the state of Tennessee, Nashville is located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state, serving as a center for the music, healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries. It also has a large number of colleges and universities.

Today, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case Tanco v. Haslam, No. 14-562 from Tennessee challenging state laws barring the recognition of same-sex marriages performed outside the state. It was part of the consolidated cases in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the bans on same-sex marriage in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. By granting petitions seeking review from plaintiffs challenging those bans in each state, the United States Supreme Court posed to decide once for all whether the Constitution requires states “to license a marriage between two people of the same sex” and whether states must “recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out of state.” The Supreme Court's decision is due before the end of June. Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee, a Republican, did what litigants who have won in the lower court usually do by urging the Supreme Court Justices not to hear the case.

Love is a Force of Nature

I got this Brokeback Mountain movie promotional card during its Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival premiere at Cinema Paradiso in 2005. The movie told a powerful story of two young men, a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy, who sheepherded in the Wyoming mountains in the summer of 1963 and formed a life-long bond with love and conflicts.

Sixteen years ago today on October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming. He was targeted and attacked by two men because he was gay. His death from severe head injuries six days later brought national and international attention to hate crime legislation. However, it wasn't until October 2009 that the United States Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. President Barack Obama signed the "Matthew Shepard Act" into law on October 28, 2009.

Today on October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review those cases where state laws banning same-sex marriage were overturned by federal appeals courts, which resulted immediate recognition of same-sex marriage in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Wyoming could see same-sex marriages recognized by the end of this year as it was covered by the same circuit appeals courts as Utah and Oklahoma. Five additional states: North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Colorado, and Kansas, are also covered.

The card was sent in to obtain a first-day-of-issue postmark on a Harvey Milk Forever Stamp on July 21, 2014, along with other first-day-of-issue postmark and digital color postmarks. It took two months for the fulfilled order to be returned on September 23, 2014.

Pride + Joy: One Year After Historic Supreme Court Ruling

One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings on June 26, 2013: one striking down part of the the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denied federal recognition to same-sex marriages and the other allowing same-sex couples to marry legally in California.

Since then, huge advances for the same-sex marriage have brought pride and joy to many couples who could not marry before. Before the rulings, same sex couples could marry in only 10 states and the District of Columbia; today, that number has almost doubled to 19 states and the District of Columbia, covering near 44% population of the country.

Most recently on Wednesday June 25, 2014, a federal judge struck down same-sex marriage ban in Indiana. Meanwhile, a 2-1 decision from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the first issued at the level of the federal appellate courts, ruled that the same-sex marriage ban in Utah was unconstitutional. Marriage-equality lawsuits are now pending in all 31 states where same-sex couples are still barred from marrying.

Postcard US-2333973 to Indiana, which was sent on July 25, 2013 and has since expired, was made out of a hand fan distributed by Macy's during the 2012 Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Parade in San Francisco. The 2014 Parade, themed "Color Our World with Pride," will start at Market & Beale and end at Market & 8th Street in downtown San Francisco at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday June 29, 2014.

Same-sex Marriages Started in Wisconsin

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb declared the gay marriage ban in Wisconsin unconstitutional Friday, June 6, 2014. Same-sex couples began getting married in Madison and Milwaukee shortly after the ruling, in spite of confusion over the effect of the ruling. Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's vowed to appeal the ruling and to seek an emergency order in federal court to stop the wedding.

Wisconsin is the latest of the 15 consecutive lower court cases won for the same-sex marriages since a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June, 2013, although many of those rulings are still being appealed.

Postcard US-2576413 shows the Wisconsin State Capitol Building in Madison.

The Parade is Coming

San Francisco's Pride Celebration and Parade is the largest LGBT gathering in the nation, taken place over the last weekend in June each year. About one million people attended the event last year in 2012. My postcard US-2246692 to Netherlands shows a group of young men climbing onto a pole in anticipation of the incoming parade on June 24, 2012. 

In less than 12 hours, the 43rd annual San Francisco Pride Parade will start marching on the Market Street at 10:30 am on June 30, 2013. More people are expected this year due to the Supreme Court rulings last week. The theme for this year is "Embrace, Encourage, Empower". House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other elected officials will be in the event.

View SF Pride Parade Route in a larger map 

 

From Greenwich Village to Golden Gate: a Journey of 44 Years

Today is the 44th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that members of gay community protested against police raids at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village, New York City, in the early morning of June 28, 1969, It marked the beginning of the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.

Same-sex marriage resumed today in California after a federal appeals court lifted a hold on the lower-court ruling that struck down the state’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, followed a US Supreme Court decision two days earlier.

This rainbow fist postcard symbolizes a 44-year's journey of struggle with determination, highlighted by the above bookend-like events. The postcard was purchased at Zazzle.com.

More Rainbows

Hoover Dam

I need to clarify that when I mentioned in my last post rainbows were rare seen in Las Vegas, I meant those meteorological rainbows. In fact, rainbows are easily to find in and around Las Vegas thanks to many water features and fountains. My traveling postcard sent to Turkey US-2283223 shows a rainbow formed over the mist from the Hoover Dam spillway. I have a video showing a rainbow over the famous Bellagio music fountains taken by a GoPro cam.

I generated a HTML5 WordCloud with my blog feeds. The result was interesting.

Also if you type in any text string that contains "gay" in Google's search box today, the search box will be surrounded by rainbows. It marks two separate rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down portion of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and cleared the way for same-sex marriages banned under the Proposition 8 to resume in California.

Miranda Warning

Statue of Liberty

I will use my Statue of Liberty postcard to mark the US Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona forty seven years ago on June 13, 1966. It requires that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them. The purpose is to ensure that the accused is aware of, and reminded of, their rights under the U.S. Constitution; and that they know they can invoke them at any time during the interrogation.

The postcard was made using one of my photos at Walmart.com Photo Center.

Never Be Fearful About What You Are Doing When It Is Right

Rosa Parks Bus at Henry Ford Museum

Fifty nine years ago on May 17, 1954, United States Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. That ruling signified a turning point and was a major victory for the civil rights movement.

When I was searching for a postcard for an 8th grade teacher in Taiwan to show her students, I found one marking another historical event in the same era. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, on her bus trip home after work, refused to obey bus driver's order to yield her seat to a white passenger. Her act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott became important symbols of the modern civil rights movement. It resulted in another Supreme Court decision on November 13, 1956 to upheld a district court's ruling to desegregate the buses. The card shows the restored Rosa Parks bus currently on exhibit in Henry Ford Museum.

With a USPS stamp issued on February 4, 2013 to commemorate Rosa Parks' 100th birthday, I hope the card can convey an important message to the students. “You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.” said Rosa Parks.