Posted on 07/23/2011 8:44:34 PM PDT by Jewels1091
The Lincoln Journal Star Newspaper was running a contest for an ultimate wedding. It was open for couples to put their names in and write an essay on why they deserved the prize, valued at $20,000.
My daughter and her husband's dear friends entered this contest. She has been in a wheel chair since she was like 16 from a car accident. He is serving his country in Afganistan.
She had a dream of becoming a teacher and he is fullfilling that dream. He is supporting both of them while she goes back to school full time.
So, on to the contest....several dozen couples are entered. People voted online for a couple of weeks or so. Then the top 5 couples are again voted on for a week. These wonderful people came in second....who came in first? A gay couple who put this out nation wide to every gay blog they knew of. They can not legally get married in this state, yet they won an ultimate wedding.
My daughter was so upset that she set up a donation page for her friends on facebook. Ok, so now that you know the whole story, would it be exceptable for me to publish this donation site here on Freerepublic for anyone to donate...even $5 would help them.
If I get alot of negative feedback I won't do it. But these kids need some help and it ticks me off how this contest was really rigged!!
(Excerpt) Read more at Vanity ...
Wouldn’t hurt to post the link.
You need to ask Jim. It’s his house.
My wife and I were going to elope but at the last minute we decided to invite a few friends and our families. Planned it all in three weeks; a nice hotel suite, a roast, some champagne, and a preacher.
Going on fifteen years with three great kids and truly blessed!
They sound like they have everything they really need.
Ask the mods first if it’s OK. There is a Freepathon going on right now, and that takes precedent IMHO. On the other hand, I don;t know what the rules are on voting but I can guess it was open to anyone to vote as long as you have a braincell to click for your choice. The homos maximized their sorry homo status to win, and if the rules are open to anyone around the world to vote, then it is what it is.
Sounds like the best course would be to boycott the paper and ask subscribers to stop their sub. The gay guys were clearly ineligible. Their votes should never have been counted.
Raise a brooha about the idiots at the paper who perpetrated this fraud. Contact advertisers. Turn up the heat.
This is a local community issue and needs to be dealt with by your local community, not by asking Freepers to right some wrong that needs to be addressed directly.
Same-sex couple wins Journal Star's Ultimate Wedding Contest (PUKE ALERT!)
Louis, you might note this bit:
Publisher Julie Bechtel said the rules didn't stipulate entrants had to be heterosexual -- only that they be U.S. citizens.
"We opened it up to the entire U.S. because many couples will go to their home state or another venue to wed," Bechtel said.
You asked for opinions, so here’s my two cents: I think the idea of anyone spending $20,000 on a wedding is obscene. We got married with just our immediate families (alright, one aunt came) and then my mother treated us to a nice lunch out at a restaurant. And has our marriage suffered because we didn’t spend a fortune on material goods that would have taken our focus away from the sacredness of the event? No.
Just like retailers have done so much harm to Christmas by making the focus on the presents, so the wedding “industry” harms marriage by telling everyone the most important things to worry about are dresses, and shoes and flowers and all the rest. Doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, whether or not you have fancy invitations, how many hundreds of people you invite. All you really need are a bride, a groom, a preacher, two witnesses and sincere request that God bless your union.
When I got married, I would have been happy having the wedding in my backyard with grilled hamburgers and hot dogs with the honeymoon being a camping trip up in New Hampshire (we could share the same sleeping bag).
I think my wife would have been fine with that too but her mother would have none of it. Had to be the whole 9 yards with the photographer, band, reception hall, limos, etc. I think the only concession to price was the rubber chicken dinner. But all the pomp and circumstance had to be there. I think all the hoopla was more about impressing friends and relatives than anything else.
I tried to participate in all the preparations as little as possible. I just wanted to be told where it was, what to where and what time to be there. Everybody else could worry their heads about the other details to their heart's content.
Bonus: My wife and I never had daughters - just sons. So I never have to worry about paying for anybody's wedding.
It’s not that they wanted to spend that much money, that’s what the contest was for. These kids don’t have much at all! Her dream was to be a teacher and he wabted for her to do that, so he is supporting them both so she can realize her dream. It’s not that they expect a 20,000 wedding, it’s how they came in 2nd that was the kick in the gut!
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