Recent News Nuggets

In a brief order made available Friday, a federal judge considering challenges to the Arizona ban said he’s all but convinced that Arizona’s laws and constitutional provision against gays being able to marry are illegal.

Amazing Part of Arizona History – Thank You Terry Pochert and Joe Connolly

Doc 85 – Submit Supplemental Briefs – JUDGE SEDWICK TEXT ORDER re: 47 MOTION for Summary Judgment AND 58 MOTION for Summary Judgment.

Press Covering Marriage Decision in Arizona – With Terry Pochert and Joe Connolly along with David Chaney and Clark Rowley

In October 2005, George Takei figured his long, successful Hollywood career would screech to a halt.  His reasoning? Then 68, the actor best known as Star Trek’s Hikaru Sulu came out as a homosexual.

Declaration of all the Plaintiffs in the Arizona Marriage Equality Law Suit

“If I could marry you, I would ask you right now,” Joe Connolly said from across the table to Terry Pochert. The two men exchanged onion rings at that very moment, a silly gesture that meant much more. Despite how much they loved each other, it was 1995, and the thought of same-sex couples having the freedom to marry was a distant dream. Instead, Terry and Joe made a promise to one another that they would live their lives together in love.

he first case filed with the State of Arizona, Connolly v. Roche, is now being requested by Lambda Legal to have their case transferred into the first case filed Connolly v. Roche

Now that the revised complaint has been filed with the …

Arizona SB1062 Defeat

I have walls of books in my office and upstairs in my music room and some days I just pull out a book at random and open it up and start reading.

…

Terry Pochert and Joseph Connolly – Across the country the legal landscape for same-sex marriage is changing, and fast.  In the Southwest in recent weeks, courts in New Mexico and Utah have delivered victories to gay marriage proponents.  Now in neighboring Arizona, some gay and lesbian couples are challenging their state’s definition of marriage.

Back on January 24, 2014, Terry Pochert and Joe Connolly made Arizona Equality history by challenging the State of Arizona’s marriage discrimination laws.

The attorney representing four gay couples challenging Arizona’s ban on same-sex marriage in federal district court said he hopes that there will be a decision in the case this year.

This Order addresses challenges to state and federal laws relating to same-sex marriage. The Court holds that Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court lacks jurisdiction over the other three challenges.

Luis Ortega plans to spend Father’s Day with his son, Robert, at their favorite park – where they will honor the memory of Luis’ late partner and Robert’s other dad, Christian Barco, who died suddenly last year.

The suit filed Monday claims a voter-approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. It seeks to allow same-sex couples to be married and recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states.

Suzanne Cummins was raised in Mesa, Arizona and Holly Mitchell was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas. Suzanne and Holly met on the job and began dating in 2007. They would like to marry but Arizona laws discriminate against same sex couples.

Photographs and Biographies of Plaintiffs and Attorneys

Clark Rowley was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. He left Iowa to attend Arizona State University. David Chaney was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and moved with his family first to Tucson, Arizona and later Sierra Vista. David also attended Arizona State University and the University of Arizona earning degrees from both institutions.

Over ten years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States recognized that the federal constitution protects the choice to have an intimate relationship with a same-sex partner “without intervention of the government.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 578 (2003).

Joe Connolly was born and raised in Munhall Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb. Terry Pochert was born and raised in the “thumb” of Michigan on the family farm near Port Hope Michigan.

University Lutheran Church, Tempe Arizona – Delegates from the Church attended the Youth Gathering in San Antonio, Texas.

Art Fettig’s Monday Morning MemoMarch 12, 2012 …

When asked what surprised him most about humanity, the Dalai Lama answered, “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

This is the time of the year when retail clerks catch a lot of undeserved verbal abuse from the people they’re trying to serve.  Stores are crowded, people are in a hurry, check-out lines are long and tempers are short.  Under these circumstances, a kind word or gesture from you can brighten a retail clerk’s day.

Art Fettig – We’d experienced a memorable cruise of the Caribbean and we were spending a few days in San Juan.

What if you woke up tomorrow morning and discovered that you were running for the high office of President of the United States? Would you find yourself going “Daaa” or maybe you would discover a growing line up of unhappy women accusing you of improper behavior ten or twenty or maybe in my case sixty-five or more years ago.

If you asked me what the best investment I ever made, I would have to say it was the $12 I paid to take the Christopher Leadership Course back in 1957.

Art Fettig – When I was a kid growing up in Michigan there was a radio show I sometimes listened to and it began with that above statement.

Last week, a fair number of you got a kick out of my …

Buy fake/novelty university diplomas and degrees online. We design our Degree or Diploma Certificates and Transcripts to look 99.99% identical to world famous originals including identical security grade transcript paper, identical water markings, raised-ink crests, embossed seals, correct card stock weight (60-100lb depending upon institution specifications). Most post-secondary institutions available.

This past Saturday, I was trimming shrubs around the pool. I was a little stressed because I wanted to finish the job that afternoon. As I walked around the corner of the pool to get a trimmer, I lost my balance.

Most of us are aware of campus ministry alum Ian Lee and his work reporting for  CNN and Fox on Tarhir Square, Egypt.  He has since gone on to Libya to work for Time magazine and CNN.

Evan Moilan was our Campus Minister for several years. Wife Heather was one of our students and a member of ULC.  Their current community of Bastrop, Texas was devestated by recent fires in Texas.

…unhappiness in our lives. Art Fettig’s …

Art Fettig – Did you ever notice how some people seem to be involved in just about anything that needs doing? Whether it is at work or church or the schools their children attend, they just have a habit of saying “yes”.

Are you the kind of person who does only what is required or have you developed that remarkable success habit of always adding a little more to your efforts? It is like the frosting on the cake, the real cream in the coffee . 

In North Carolina this just might become known as The Great Storm Of The 21st Century.  

While many New Year’s resolutions such as losing weight, getting organized or expanding your horizons can be difficult to follow through on, here’s one that isn’t: be kind. All you need to do is smile and say something positive to the people you come into contact with.

The entire audience was hissing the speaker except for one man. He was applauding the hissing. Does this sound like your last safety meeting? Oh, if this could have been your last safety meeting, but no, there is another one staring you right in the face.

Art Fettig – At a big Trade Show recently a fellow came up to me and said, “Hey Art, I understand that you are involved in safety.  I wanted to meet you.”  And POW! I was off and a runnin’ down the track again just like a race horse. 

Art Fettig – No, I didn’t ride in that beautiful red Lamborghini.  The seat is almost on the floor of that beautiful car and I figured it would take a crane at least to get me out of it. One strong man managed the job. Instead.

Art Fettig – I’ve never been a fast learner but lately I have the feeling that my capacity to learn some things has come to a screeching halt. It has. I am making a valiant effort to learn to talk Southern and for this old Yankee it sometimes seems too much. I feel like Elizabeth Dolittle in My Fair Lady. walking around the room saying “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.”

Art Fettig – This seems like a fitting time to thank everyone who helps me knock out this newsletter week after week after week.

Art Fettig – I’m in here at my computer early this morning so that I can send it off and get over to the library book sale in Chapel Hill. I had to promise my wife that for every book I brought home today I would get rid of at least one book from my office.

Art Fettig – Did you ever go to describe something to somebody and as you did so you got a whole new look at what you were describing? 

Art Fettig – I found a penny on the ground as I was taking a walk the other day. I seem to find a lot of pennies lately.

I ordered some new business cards recently and they arrived in the mail yesterday and they sure brought back memories of long ago. It was in February, 1961 in Battle Creek, Michigan and I’d given up alcohol and purchased an old Underwood Typewriter. 

There’s a very seductive trap that people often fall …

Over 26% of all Americans do some kind of volunteer work during the year.  With our current economy there are more needs to be met than ever and a greater need for volunteers.

The above quote from actress Geena Davis says it all …

We have not exulted about the decisions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly regarding the Social Statement on Human Sexuality and the change in ministry policies. We have been mindful that there were sisters and brothers in Christ who were pained by the decisions, and we wanted to treat their pain with the respect it deserved.

That was the weekend that was and I doubt that I will ever forget it. With my host, Dan Hornak, I visited the Mayberry festival held at Mt. Airy, N.C. and I shook hundreds and hands and posed for so many pictures that my upper lip was numb from all that smiling.

Art Fettig – When is the last time you climbed out of your shell? I said your shell, not your rut. Your shell, if it is anything like mine, is that place I climb into when I am fearful of a new situation.

I have a Distinguished Service to Safety Plaque from the National Safety Council dated 2002 and the metal plate fell off of it. I took it to the frame shop for advice and then stopped over at a friends repair shop.

Abraham Lincoln was reported to have said, 1.You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

I first met Sue in Atlanta when I worked with her husband, Richard, while I was doing some speeches for Alabama Power there.

“The secret of success…is making your vocation your vacation.” – Mark Twain As I read this quote I started looking back on my career and I can honestly say that I did just as Mark Train suggested many years ago.

Recently when Korean golfer Y. E. Yang absolutely whomped the one and only Tiger Woods at the PGA Championship at Hazeltine he said, “I tried to visualize … how to win if I ever played against Tiger.”

I had another of those phone calls yesterday. It began like most of them do, “Art, I heard you speak ten (or fifteen or twenty) years ago and you talked about positive interaction. You persuaded our entire work force to sign a commitment to safety and we have signed that commitment again and again each year pledging to look out for our own safety and the safety of our fellow worker.”

YPSILANTI, July 27, 2009 – Eastern Michigan University has named Walter Kraft as its new vice president for communications, pending approval by the Board of Regents. The appointment is effective August 10, 2009.

It seems like most of the work I do lately ends up on a pile some where.  Some of the things that used to take me an hour now take me a day or even two.

Art Fettig – Courage—That stuff of which Heroes and heroines are made. God, I need a ton of it And more for what I must soon do.

It takes real courage to work in the safety field. Sometimes resistance is coming at you from all directions at the same time. Here is something I wrote some time ago in my book Serenity! Serenity! Living the Serenity Prayer.

People don’t do what you tell them to do, they do what they see you doing and if you don’t like the way your children are turning out then take a look at yourself. Remember when you point one finger at them you have three fingers pointing right back at you. Don’t like the way your teenagers are driving and smashing up your cars? Take a good look at your own driving, after all you have been teaching them by your example for years.

Right now, nobody seems to be happy with President …

Hermon Goring – Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

In the very early seventies I started working with a noted psychologist from Notre Dame University to learn more about employee behavior.  I was trying to figure our why we had such a rotten safety record and what we might do about it. 

On May 26, 2009 the California Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding the constitutionality of Prop 8 which bans gay marriages in the state. Soulforce of Colorado held a nonviolent direct action that same afternoon to protest the ruling and also remind Colorado that marriage equality does not exist here either.

For years now I have been saying that for every negative thing that happens there is an equal positive force if you can only find it.  Well, today I read that GM is closing over a thousand of its dealerships

Two dogs, 3 and 6 months of age, were presented with painful, swollen shoulder and carpal joints; reluctance to stand; and pyrexia. Radiographs in both cases revealed an irregular lucent zone in the metaphysis of the proximal humerus, parallel and adjacent to the physis.

We’ve known for nearly a century that the better you treat people, the harder they’ll work. It’s a pretty straightforward relationship. This being the case, it seems logical to conclude that the job of every team leader, supervisor, manager and executive should be to treat their employees as well as possible so they become excited about coming to work and applying their best efforts toward performing their jobs every day. Unfortunately it turns out that such behavior is the exception rather than the rule.

I wrote a song with the above title and as I was listening to it I had the thought today, “Just what is too long?” Is there a certain time in your life when you should give up on a dream and let it go? What if that dream comes back again and again throughout your lifetime? Should you pay any attention to it? What I am learning as I get older is that the real joys in life come in the journey. Reaching your destination is always a sort of a letdown.

Art Fettig – I wrote a song with the above title and as I was listening to it I had the thought today, “Just what is too long?”

Sunday we drove over to a beautiful little mountain village named Cashiers, in the Blue Ridge Mountains discovered the Laurelwood Mountain Inn.

Whenever the President nominates someone for an important position in government the Senators get their bird dogs out and they start searching for any paper trail the candidate might have left to be exposed in hearings.

Tribute to an Amazing Lady February 12, 2008 – …

University Lutheran Church, Tempe, Arizona

I can remember the day I heard my first professional speaker giving a talk for our railroad group in Battle Creek, Michigan. His name was Herb True Ph.D. and that same day he put me on his team as a humor writer.  That meeting changed my life. 

A moment of truth is an opportunity to come through when the people around you don’t expect you to. I was on a Hertz Rental Car bus in Chicago one time when a pregnant woman traveling with three kids and six suitcases was about to get off.

Some relatives of mine, Dick and Lucille, own and manage a hardware store in a small town in Michigan.  The hardware store they own is part of a chain of hardware stores that specializes in serving small communities.

Ross Reck – Nothing good ever comes out of negative comments.  They make you, the sender, look bad to the people observing your behavior.  They also make the receiver feel bad.  If you regularly dish out negative comments, don’t expect any of these people to give you their best efforts the next time you ask them for a favor.