Gender Neutral Marriage Act

"Gays getting married will destroy the sanctity of marriage".

For the past few weeks Finland, well the gay part of Finland, has been talking about the chair person of the law committee telling people she hasn't delayed the Act nor does she think it's important to bring it forward right now. After her rude e-mail replies to questions about the Act were published and Minister level interference came forward, the committee voted on bringing the Act for a vote in the parliament today. They voted against it 9-8. So after a year sitting on her desk, the Act will not be brought to vote. Not this time anyway.

"I do 2013" was established to gather the necessary 50 000 signatures from the citizens of Finland to get this Act into a vote in the Parliament. Vote gathering starts on March 19th, which is the day for equality and will be open for 6 months. They launched their Facebook page today, and as of now they have over 25 000 likes. Facebook totally said I do today!

The names of the committee members who voted no and yes were published today and already a lot of chatter has been heard around the www about what it all means. Someone made a chart of the years they were born and colored them according to their votes. Everyone who voted no were born before 1967 and everyone who voted yes were born after 1967. If you look at the party chart, everyone voting no was from a right wing party. Everyone voting yes was from the left except one who was from the right. Not surprisingly, basic Finns and christian democrats voted no.

I do 2013 stated as their official goal to gather those 50 000 signatures, but today they said they'd updated their goal to 250 000. Depending on which data you believe, 5-20% of people are gay or bi. That means 250 000-1M Finns are in that group. We should have no problem gathering enough signatures for this Act to get it's time in the parliament. I don't know what the highest signature numbers are for a civil Act in Finland, but anything over 100 000 should tell these people that we are serious and we want this. Finland has been lacking in the civil rights movement recently. We need to move with the rest of the world moving forward. Evolve. Show basic human decency. Empathy.

How does me having the right to get married threaten yours?

What I learned from Friday night

I'm pretty sure my destiny is to become a lonely spinster cat lady. Like, as far as any kind of social life goes, Forssa is as dead as a cemetery. And it would be tragic if I found someone from Forssa. At the same time, and I know bar scene is so not my scene, going to a bar is just as pointless. I am too shy and socially awkward to go talk to anybody and it seems that the same goes to the entire lady lovin' population of Finland. Why can't I have Heidi's social skills? I would love to be able to just talk to anybody. And I can't get liquid courage, because that wouldn't be pretty and I'm pretty sure that getting turned down would just shatter my self confidence, hence, I can just declare myself a cat lady and start collecting kitties now. I might just cancel Forssa Pride, because really, what's the point?












(Joking about Forssa Pride btw, in case you don't speak sarcasm)

The gayest bestest week ever

What can I say? It's been a jolly gay week with the Gay Cafe, and the L-world party and now this morning I got my hands on the new Forssa Pride Party 2.0 poster, so it's gonna be hard to top this! On top of that I had a drink with an old friend yesterday before heading home so I feel rejuvenated. All kinds of fun stuff in the works! But here it is, fresh and springly and retro FPP 2.0 poster! I'm going to send it to the Seta offices in southern Finland and to some universities and polytechnics and local schools, so look out in few weeks, if you visit any of those places.  And if you have a place in mind where one could be posted, please leave a message here or e-mail forssapride@gmail.com and we'll see what we can do!

Isn't it pretty?

Gay revolution moves to Helsinki

As if the week hasn't been great so far, tonight I'm heading to Helsinki to go clubbing with Heidi at DTM for the L-world. See you there?

Advertisement for Forssa Pride

This is the best kind of advertisement a little event like ours can get! The co-chair of the board of the national gay rights organization, SETA, wrote about Arctic Pride, which is being held this weekend in Rovaniemi and why it's important to have these little gatherings. At the end of the article he listed all the Pride events in Finland for 2013 and he mentioned Forssa Pride as well! Mikko would be my boy crush if I was capable of crushing on boys! And this is on a national forum written by someone who isn't related to Forssa Pride so it means even more! We're doing what we can and posting our links on all the gay websites we can think of but when it's done by an outsider, it kind of validates us! I think it's good to be recognized.

We're on the map people! And I'm having a fantastic week so far, and on Friday I'm going to Helsinki with Heidi, so things couldn't be better!

Gay revolution in Forssa!

It's starting! Buckle up!

For the first time in a long while, I didn't have to rely on my iPad to keep me company at the newly re-launched Gay Cafe! We had our first male visitors and I feel revitalized as far as this thing goes! It was nice to talk with people who agreed with me about the situation in Forssa, gays in Forssa, gay issues in general in Finland and what we could do to improve things. And they came from Tammela. By bicycle. In a -6 degree C weather! And said they'd be back in 2 weeks. And will tell their friends about it.

I feel so much better hearing from others that this thing is actually needed and wanted. Also, they are interested in buying Forssa Pride t-shirts! So I gotta talk with the designer and see what he thinks.

T'was a good day!

(White) heterosexual privilege

Do you have friends or family member or co-workers who are sometimes so...hetero normative and so so very ignorant, that you just have to roll your eyes and bite your tongue really hard, because otherwise you'd strangle them?

I have a friend I went to grad school with and she's white, she's straight and she's married. And she's obviously highly educated and is aware of a lot of things that go on in this world, and then is totally clueless when it comes to other aspects. While I was still in USA, and unemployed trying to find a job, moneyless and totally dependent on my then girl friend, she posted on Facebook saying she wishes she was unemployed so that she could lounge around the pool and do nothing. Hubby to be was making enough money that it would have been possible and she didn't have to worry about having to leave the country or anything like that.

My cousin is having a baby with an american, and I'm happy for her, I am. Biracial, binational baby is not an easy thing to do, even in this time and age. No matter where they live, they will endure ignorance and prejudice. And how horrible of a person does it make me, when the first thing I though when I heard about this was if he wants to take his family to USA, he can. They can get married, sign some papers, and she and the baby will be on their way, no problem. It's sometimes very hard to not be bitter about these things, and not take it personally.

Why aren't I good enough? Why isn't my love good enough?

My niece is bringing her thai (?) boyfriend to Finland to live and my sister has been Facebooking about the process. Like how she has to write a letter of recommendation or proof that they'll be responsible for him or provide a place to stay or vouch for him or something like that. Because he's not from western civilization, the process is kinda long, but still, wanna bring your foreign boyfriend to live with you? Come on over, no problem.

I'm not bitter, but.

A (girl) friend of mine, who's engaged to a man, offered to marry me in England. Marrying a same sex partner is not possible either in Finland or in England yet and the word marriage is the big thing that the christians especially are up and arms about, because obviously same sex marriage would just ruin the sanctity of marriage and the heterosexual privilege of a 50% divorce rate. Can't have that now, can we?

Told her I don't share.

It seems that every day for the past week or two we've seen news from around the world of marriage or immigration equality being pushed forward, and every time I see it, I share it on Facebook. I'm sure many of my Facebook friends have blocked me from their newsfeed, but I hope the ones who haven't read the stories or check my writing and think about it. And this week we've been hearing aboutt the minister who's chairing the judicial committee which is supposed to be handling the marriage equality initiative in Finland and how they are too busy with other things and there are more important things to move forward. In a way I agree, jobs and economy are important, but at the same time, if we just sit at the back of the bus and do nothing, equality will never be achieved.

I'm not saying that I'm free of prejudice or ignorance or in any way informed enough about what goes on in this world and how bad things are for some people and in some countries, but what I do know is the inequality between straight and gay people and straight and gay couples. And I feel like if I'm not doing anything about this and at least try to educate people, then I can't complain either.

Exercising

I think I've mentioned that I signed up for 10k in June at my home town running event which was named after me? No? Well, I signed up for 10k in June and as I hate running and am totally out of shape, well, "round" is a shape,  but I'm not in shape to run... anyway, I started going to the gym again for body pump classes and I'm actually able to walk down the stairs after class, so I'm improving. Anyway, body pump classes are the best and the worst, kind of a minefield if you're a lesbian in a predominately straight world. Like most of the time you're doing moves, where your gaze is supposed to be downwards in about 2 meters in front of you and do you know what usually is about 2 meters in front of you? Someone's butt. And as with most of group classes, women are usually the majority, so it's a woman's butt your gaze finds. Great, nothing wrong with looking at butts. But it can be kind of hazardous because maybe straight women don't like to be looked at. So I really have trouble finding something to look at which isn't a butt. And I've been branded (tattoo in a very visible location) and labeled (all the publicity for Forssa Pride Party I did in October) so it's hard not to know I'm a lesbian and maybe enjoying the view. Maybe.

And yeah, the marathon isn't actually named after me, we just share a name.

Just thought I'd share.

A solution

I was the only one at the newly renamed Gay Cafe today too. Since I can't convince people to join, I need to come up with a solution. And do you know who could get the gays to come? My brother! I think I need to convince him to be a faux gay for awhile. Within like 5 minutes of him arriving at Forssa Pride he was hit on by a guy. And now he has subtly been labeled and I think I'm at fault here. I invited him to Forssa Pride Party 2.0 on Facebook, and a known gay man from Forssa sent him a friend request probably thinking he's gay...so if I announce my brother as my co-leader, maybe the gays will come?