Artist Louise Bourgeois has passed away. I’ve known her as the sculptor behind those huge creepy awesome spiders and had a vague idea that she worked in other mediums, but I’m hella impressed to learn that she continued creating art right up until her death yesterday at age 98. Seems like much of her work was pretty controversial, too.

Her lovely piece “I Do” (pictured) is currently for sale on Freedom to Marry’s website, with proceeds helping to garner support for marriage equality throughout the U.S.

Freedom to Marry also attributes this nice quote to Ms. Bourgeois: “Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.”

From the misspelled, to the ironic, to the simply bizarre,  Buzzfeed.com’s 50 best protest signs of 2009 eased my political despair. Some favorites are after the jump, and there’s more at the Huffington Post.

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This is still almost two weeks away, but on the 16th the National Organization for Marriage plans to hold a Marriage And Family Day at the Aldrich Mansion in Warwick, and the National Director of NOM (nom nom nom) is going to be making an appearance. Hopefully the weather will hold out!

It’s free and open to everybody, which I think means we should all go.  I’m not really sure whether I can secure myself a wife and kids before then, but it’s worth a shot, right?  There’s an ice cream social at the end, so it’ll totally be worth it.

(PS: if anyone can find out who the ‘local bands’ are that are playing in the afternoon, I’d like to know.  Thanks!)

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property is in town.

Yesterday a contingent of the clunkily-named group of Catholic extremists started campaigning around the state to remind us all about the evils of gay marriage.  They’re an easy bunch to spot, since wear red capes to do their protesting.  However, unlike the Westboro Baptists that were recently here, The official website for TFP–or, as I prefer,TASFTDOTFAP–doesn’t have a calendar saying where or when they’re going to be anywhere.  I  guess they’re just more into surprises (or maybe just afraid of counter-protestors.)

If you’re bored and looking for something to read, their website’s got an article about why it isn’t fair that Michael Jackson was acquitted of child abuse charges when many priests’ careers are ruined for “much less serious allegations.”  There’s also a mysterious link to an article about why global warming is a myth, and an even more mysterious link to a website about property rights (the only link under the Pro-America header.)

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As of this morning, same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut.  Two down, 48 to go.

Yesterday MERI had a State House press conference to announce its legislative agenda for the year:

Besides a bill that calls for the recognition of same-gender marriage, another piece of legislation introduced was the Compassion for All Families Act, which would provide domestic partners the spousal benefits of family medical leave, nursing home visitation and funeral planning. The ACLU is also supporting an “equal divorce” bill.

The bills in question confer on same-sex couples only 3 of the 430 rights afforded to married couples. It’s still a little early to speculate as to the likelihood of passage this session.