1. One rationale in the founding of our country was religious freedom; its the 1st amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, to our United States Constitution. This same amendment also gives rise to the separation of church and state. This particular wording is from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists. These anti-gay zealots, are double-faced. Opportunists. Cheaters. Which is likely behavior which should be against their own religious rules. Why? Because our ancestors fought to keep religion out of the laws. And now, because they don’t like something, they want to not put religious dogma in our laws.The 14th amendment says,
   

   “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

   Yet here is California and many other states doing just that. Invading the private lives of homosexuals and depriving them of life and liberty; also denying equal protection by forbidding marriage which grants approximately 1,400 benefits and rights of marriage. Things like hospital visitation, inheritance, not testifying against your spouse…very core basic human rights.

   Given all that, I believe any reasoning or proof that includes reference to a deity or religious text should be dismissed. Why? Because our governmental laws (especially constitutions) should not codify religious dogma because of our separation of church and state, equal protection, and religious freedom.

2. Moving a bit more recent in history, slaves and interracial marriages were forbidden. Here’s just a few examples of our past stupidity. As you read these, substitute in same-sex marriages where you see interracial references.
   • After the Civil War, California chose to specifically prohibit “intermarriage of white persons with Chinese, Negroes, mulattos, or persons of mixed blood descended from a Chinaman or Negro from the third generation inclusive.”
   • In 1869, a Georgia judge blocked the marriage of a white Frenchman and a black woman by saying, “The amalgamation of the races is not only unnatural but is always productive of deplorable results.”
   • In the widely known 1959 Loving case in Virginia, Judge Leon Bazile sentenced a black man and white woman to prison for trying to circumvent Virginia law by marrying in Washington D.C. He said, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Maylay and red, and he placed them on separate continents…And but for the interference with His arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriages.”

   Finally, on June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to laws preventing interracial marriages. A unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that Virginia’s “white supremacy” marriage law and similar interracial marriage prohibitions in 15 other states did indeed violate the 14th Amendment. Decreeing that marriage is a “fundamental” civil right, the court told the nation that “the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state.”

   That was less than 50 years ago. Seems our zealots have a short-term memory. Or…perhaps they have selective memory because they don’t remember about separation of church and state, not casting stones, not committing adultery, rape victims that don’t cry out loud enough (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), and big ones like, “He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:17)”

3. Separate but equal doesn’t work. The propaganda that civil unions are an equal substitute for marriage is horrible. It would not give the 1400+ rights and privileges of marriage. Proven time and again is the abolishment of separate but equal laws, institutions, schools, buses, and bathrooms. They are never equal. They are unfair. They favor the ruling class (many times the majority). This Rosa Parks summary of separate but (non) equal transportation in the southern states captures the issue well.

I was born and raised in Alabama. I have seen past and current racial and ethnic discrimination; some from my own family. I deplore their behavior and offer correction when I hear it. Alabama is not the best educated state in the country. It has the 6th highest divorce rate in the nation and one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. This is also the same state that four times elected George Wallace governor. In 1963, George Wallace stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in defiance of the Deputy U.S. Attorney General and said, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Wallace was an idiot and a bigot. But a popular idiot and bigot elected four times by Alabama voters.

I’m not proud of the state of Alabama. However, I am proud of most of my family. My mother taught me about fairness and treating people well. My father was a helicopter pilot in the US Army where my parents and I traveled to Germany and Kentucky; I was exposed to different people and cultures. When my father left the army, I was nine. We moved back to Enterprise, Alabama where I remember going to a public school (rather than military) for the first time. One day, I was making friends with an African-American. Later that same day, a Caucasian kid pulled me to the side and asked me, “Why are you talking to that black kid? We don’t talk to them.” I was a little kid and didn’t really understand the weight of what he was saying.

What that kid said to me at nine was stupid. I ignored him and kept making friends no matter what their skin color. My early exposure traveling to different countries forever gave me a broader view of the world and possibilities within it; appreciating diversity. My mother then educated me about fairness. She wasn’t really exposed to homosexuality and we didn’t talk about it much in my youth. When it did come up, she always spoke fairly and with grace.

African-Americans in the 1900s were able to change the laws to officially end segregation and discrimination. They are a proportionally large group (13%) of Americans; the single largest racial minority in the United States. Homosexuals and others that desire same-sex marriages are at most 10% of the population. This is a small group of Americans that are being discriminated against, harassed, fired from jobs, denied hospital visitation rights, and some are even murdered in hate-crimes.

I am asking for those people that easily have those 1400+ rights and privileges of marriage to consider their own history, America’s past mistakes, and learn from them. If they would stop their mindless histrionics of hate for a few days, perhaps they can calmly gather all the facts and information and make an informed decision. Otherwise, its time for you to leave my country. If you want a religious zealot-based government, I hear of other places for you where they still stone their women.

• “Content service providers” are required to check the consumers age and apply restrictions according to an examination done by the Australian Office of Film and Literature (OFLC)
• The examination sets a rating of the content based on their own rating system
• They can enforce it by banning content or sites, sent take down notices to hosts, or even blacklist whole sites or companies with themandatory Australian Internet sensor.

Australian government, I’m happy to consider complying with your new Australian laws even though I live and am hosted in the U.S.A. I will need the following from you:

1. An overview or summary of these new laws.
2. Clear detailed documentation, in electronic form, on the laws, rating process, ratings, and any other related items needed to comply with these new laws.
3. A government accepted method to check the age of Australian consumers. All electronics or servers involved will need clear documentation along with a one year proven track record of 99.999% uptime before integrating it with my systems.
4. An Australian government liaison to work with my project manager and my accountant.

After this information is provided, I’m happy to consider it with the intention of finding an acceptable solution between us both. At this point, any delays, blacklisting, censorship, or take-down will be due to your own delays or neglect. I am ready and waiting to jump into action.

All expenses will be summarily tracked by my accountant and invoiced to you; each due within 30 days. Please have your liaison provide a clear method for reimbursement back to us. Starting in 2008, these are the hourly rates (outside of hard expenses) for taking on this project:

• Project manager, $175/hr
• Accountant, $250/hr
• Owner supervision, $275/hr
• Web developer, $75/hr
• SQL developer, $125/hr
• C++ developer, $125/hr

Thank you, and I look forward to this new cross-Pacific partnership. You may contact me using the information listed in the WHOIS database for this domain.

Bull shit. I’ll concede that Wong probably happily allowed Chang to post it not thinking about the licensing terms. And Wong is probably not going to sue Chang about it given they are friends.

First, it is questioned whether Virgin Mobile appropriately attribute the photo. I’ve read and seen that there is “photo is from flickr.com/photos/chewywong” in small print at the bottom of the picture in the print ads. Linking to a profile on Flickr does give a unique identifier for him. He’s not Bruce Weber so having something better than “Photo by Damon Chang” is much better. Both his location in Fort Worth and a way to contact him with FlickrMail is in his profile. This seems reasonable to me…but then Damon misappropriated that he took the picture.

Chang waxes on about Virgin Mobile not contacting him. While that might have been a nice thing to do, its not required by law or license.

So the only interesting and questionable area in my opinion (yes, I’m a layman) was that Virgin Mobile might not have gotten permission to use the model’s image. The “model” is Chang’s niece Alison. The ad in question appeared in Australia and their laws should be considered in regards to model rights in advertisements. So regardless of the licensing mistake Damon Chang made, Alison Chang may have a case. This is discussed by the person who took a picture of the poster down in Australia.

My opinion on the rest of the Chang claims about Creative Commons having a duty to them and “breached this duty by failing, among other things, to adequately educate and warn him … of the meaning of commercial use and the ramifications and effects of entering into a license allowing such use.” Grasp…strain…waaaa…waaaa.

Bull shit.

Its plainly available at http://creativecommons.org and on Flickr. Here’s some of what was available to Chang:

• Once you upload a photo to Flickr, you can set a photo’s license with the visible and easy to see link on the right of the photo page. You can also change licensing of many photos using the batch feature on Flickr and choosing Permissions/Change licensing.
• Licensing defaults on Flickr which give links to the below.
• An easy step by step wizard.
• Clear description of the specific license Chang had.
• A section of frequently asked questions, FAQ.

The family is suing both Virgin Mobile (ok, give it a whirl) and Creative Commons. The latter is…what’s the word…come on come on…BULLSHIT. Creative Commons is innocent in this situation. They did legal research and published a no-cost license that people can freely use. Chang used it (incorrectly since he wasn’t the photographer). And now Chang wants to sue them because he’s an idiot. A film making idiot who doesn’t know about copyright and licensing yet makes films.

Several other news sites have their own comments such as The Register, WTOP, and Houston Chronicle if you’re interested.

Oh…and an update on my fourth amendment civil rights broken by the New York Police Department (NYPD). I called two law firms in Manhattan specializing in this. Both gave identical answers. Yes, my rights were probably broken and we would probably win the case. However, cost of prosecuting the case would be more than the compensation that I would receive in the judgment. It is in the NYPD’s favor to search without warrants. They can say things like, “I don’t care, I’m doing one [intrusive body search] anyways.”

So how do you cause change? You inflict pain. Its sad, but pain is still our society’s tool. We take away their money with levied fines. We take away jobs. We send people to prison. In this case though…no fines…no court action. The NYPD can continue to break our civil rights again and again and there is no court means to stop them unless I was “harmed more” like being jailed and held there for two days. The NYPD violated my fourth amendment rights and harmed me, a citizen of the US. It was small harm, but harm nevertheless.

I do have the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and they have issued complaint number 200712794. I’ll update you all with progress as I hear of it from the CCRB.