Thinking Out Out

I Don't Know What to Think!

2010-10-13T00:00:00.003+08:00

....and neither will a lot of people once they see this:

What's that? An Indiana Jones hat? Leopard print undies that tie at the sides??!! And look at those ferociously cute kitties!!

What's he trying to say here?

I don't know, but I'm afraid for the kitties!

In Today's SPAM....

2010-06-21T09:18:00.000+08:00

In today's collection of messages in my SPAM filter I received an email from the Irish National Lottery...

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...written in Spanish!

Hahahahaha....I love going through the SPAM filter for good laughs!

Myth of the Gay Lifestyle

2010-04-13T13:02:00.002+08:00

Such a good article, I have to keep a copy of it here so I can re-read it into perpetuity!

Myth of the 'gay lifestyle' justifies bias
By LZ Granderson, Special to CNN

(CNN) -- On most mornings, my better half wakes up around 5:30, throws on some sweats and heads to the gym before work.

About a half hour later, I wake up my 13-year-old son, go downstairs to the kitchen to make his breakfast and pack his lunch. Once he's out the door, I brew some coffee and get to work.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the "gay lifestyle" -- run for your heterosexual lives.

I understand opponents of gay rights must highlight differences in order to maintain the "us against them" tension that's paramount to their arguments. But this notion that sexual orientation comes with a different and pre-ordained way of life -- as if we're all ordering the No. 3 at a drive thru -- only highlights how irrational groups such as Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and others like them are in this whole debate.

Pro-marriage organizations try to stop two consenting adults from marrying. Pro-family groups try to stop stable couples wanting children from adopting unloved orphans.

And somehow, me doing something like going to the grocery store threatens the very fabric of society, as Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern spewed. She says "the homosexual agenda is destroying this nation" and "homosexuality is more of a threat than terrorism." I'm not sure what her idea of a gay lifestyle might be, but with a growing teenager, buying and cooking food dominates my day-to-day.

I don't worship Barbra Streisand, I don't watch any TV show with the word "Housewives" in its title and I love fishing, beer and Madonna. But more important, I'm just a father trying to keep my son away from drugs, get him into college and have a little money left over for retirement. I'm no sociologist but I'm pretty sure those concerns are not exclusive to gay people.

In one of the most pivotal scenes in the biopic "Milk," Harvey Milk, played by Sean Penn, gathers a group of community organizers and activists to come up with strategies to combat a 1978 ballot initiative that sought to ban LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) teachers and their supporters from working in public schools in California. As the small crowd settles down, Milk quickly glances around the room and says ..

"If we're going to convince the 90 percent to give a ---- about us 10 percent, we have to let them know who we are ..."

"What" we are -- be it gay, straight, black, white -- is simply window dressing. "Who" we are is where the substance is, where the person is, where our humanity is.

Too often, discussions about gay people and gay rights focus on sex, as if a person's entire being is defined by his or her Hollywood crush.

This fixation has been the crux behind attempts to link gay men to pedophilia -- from John Briggs, a state legislator from Orange County who introduced the proposed ban on gay teachers in California, to the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, whose recent attempts to excuse the church for its global scandal coverup by seemingly blaming homosexuality -- and it's a tactic that is evil incarnate.

Actually, Bill, sexual predators whose victims are 13- to 17-years-old are called hebephiles -- a la Joey Buttafuoco, Madeleine Martin and Heather Kennedy -- not homosexuals. And that still doesn't explain why the church opted to save face as opposed to, in the words of the infamous anti-gay figurehead Anita Bryant, "Save our children."

Being gay doesn't dictate how people live their lives any more than being straight does. There are gay people who go to church every Sunday and straight people who do not believe in God. There are single gay men who believe in the sanctity of marriage and married straight men who apparently do not -- such as Gov. Mark Sanford, ex-Sen. John Edwards and Sen. John Ensign, to name a few.

The truth is the only thing all gay people have in common -- you know, besides being gay -- is that we face continuous rhetorical, social and legal attacks for simply existing, thus potentially making something as mundane as bringing a date to a work function a fight-or-flee situation.

And yet, even in the face of that discrimination, LGBT people all handle it differently.

Some of us live in the closet, some of us do drag every Wednesday night, some of us are Republicans hoping to be change agents within a conservative sect and some of us are apathetic Democrats too dumb to carry on a conversation about anything other than Lady Gaga.

In other words, we're just as diverse, intolerant, upstanding and tragic as our straight counterparts and unless there is an annual meeting I don't know about, the only item on the much talked-about gay agenda is an abbreviated passage from the Declaration of Independence -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

In 29 states, people can be fired simply for being gay regardless of their education, experience or job performance; servicemen and women can be dismissed from the military regardless of their qualifications, dedication and courage; and partners are unable to see their better halves in the hospital regardless of the love, commitment and life they share.

Wanting to be judged by the content of one's character isn't a special right, it's a constitutional one guaranteed by the 14th and 15th amendments.

And yet, 145 years since the abolition of slavery, 90 years since women were allowed to vote and 20 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act, we're still involved in McCarthy-like investigations, holding Briggs-like elections and taking opinion polls based solely upon "what" someone is as opposed to "who" they are.

It's sad. We're such a great nation, still full of great hope and promise and yet we keep being tripped up by ignorance, which leads to fear and then eventually hate. Being gay isn't a choice, but being a bigot certainly is.

So What the Hell Does this Have to do With Anything???

2010-01-20T12:22:00.001+08:00

I received a disturbing email the other day. In it, the originator tried to insinuate Muslims had contributed virtually nothing to the world.

The proof?

The poster compared the number of Nobel Prizes won by Muslims vs. Jews; claiming Muslims had been awarded 7 to the Jew's 129. Furthermore, noting Muslims far outnumber Jews in the world, so therefore Jews are that much better due to their high concentration of prizes per capita.

Amusing. Comparing Nobels.

Doesn't surprise me though. Since the vast majority of Muslims live in impoverished countries with poor to no education, how would we expect them to have Nobels? Those countries that do have wealth have only had it since oil was discovered there in the 1950s/1960s. The Nobels listed were won mostly beginning in the 1970s, so that seems about right given the years it must take to build an education system and put out a significant number of graduates (who finally had the money to obtain their college educations in America and Europe) capable of Nobel-worthy achievements.

The Jewish people by contrast, have had the advantage of European and American education, politics, hegemony, and wealth for hundreds of years.

Of course, the Nobel Prize has only been in existence for a little over a century. This comparison ignores contributions for the centuries of human progress preceding it, including such trivial Arab contributions as algebra and astronomy. While Europe was living in the Dark Ages, cowering under a blanket of a repressive Christianity, the Arab world was flourishing in the sciences of math and the stars.

As civilizations flourish and fall throughout time, so Europe arose during the Renaissance and the Arab world eventually went into decline.

It really pisses me off to see markedly stupid people successfully brainwashing large groups of others through their biased, narrow, and simplistic arguments ignorant of all the facts being disseminated through mass emails forwarded to tens of thousands of people who read and digest this trash without question.

Mitch McConnell's Circus

2009-12-11T05:28:00.003+08:00

by Bob Cesca, Huffington Post (12/10/2009)

If it weren't for the fact that the Washington media establishment is gamed in favor of Republicans, it's very likely that they would have long since been relegated to nothing more than a LaRouche-style crackpot cult, handing out mimeographed pamphlets outside the post office.

How else, other than via the self-conscious deference afforded it by the press, do the Republicans get away with issuing the following two press releases within a single 24 hour span:

Sunday: "Cutting Medicare is not what Americans want."

Monday: "Expanding Medicare a plan for financial ruin."

In case you're wondering, these statements didn't come from one of the many far out wingnuts like Steve King, Michele Bachmann or Virginia Foxx (Medicare recipient). They were, in fact, dispatched from Senate Minority Leader (And Real-Life Albino Sleestak) Mitch McConnell's office. Yes, the highest ranking Republican in Congress wrote-up both headlines, ostensibly proof-read and unapologetically shoved into the public record.

Two press releases that exactly contradict each other. Yet I'm a little disappointed that Mark Halperin and Chuck Todd didn't fire off tweets about how the opposing headlines were "bad news for Obama." After all, every Republican gaffe is somehow "bad news for Obama." And so they get away with it.

As we have observed over the years, this Republican contradiction problem has been a feature of modern Bush Republicanism for a while now, but it's only during the past year that the gap between contradictory statements -- let's call it the Wingnut Gap -- has narrowed down to just 24 hours. Prior to this week, it took several years for, say, the Republicans to contradict their "criticizing the commander-in-chief during wartime undermines the troops" mantra, or for Glenn Beck to accuse the Obama administration of being Maoists then to inexplicably suggest that America needs to be "more like the Chinese."...

...But this is a dynamic that's most prevalent when the Republicans discuss Medicare. It really flummoxes them. After all, they despise socialized medicine. They despise single-payer health insurance. They despise government-run health care. They voted against the formation of Medicare during the high water mark of LBJ's Great Society. They ultimately would love to privatize (or drown in a bathtub) the whole thing and be done with it.

Yet at the same time, 55 Republican members of Congress are on Medicare. Congressman Weiner wrote up a list that includes Mitch McConnell. I could be wrong, but I also think proxy-Republican and anti-government-run-insurance drama queen Joe Lieberman, at 67 years old, receives Medicare. He's eligible. Additionally, I'm still attempting to ascertain how many Republicans get their primary care from the government-run Office of the Attending Physician. The office won't give me a partisan breakdown of their patients, but we can safely assume that, based on ideology, it's all Democrats, right?

Today, embattled Republican David Vitter spoke in favor of Byron Dorgan's Canadian drug-importation amendment and, in the process, praised the Canadian system -- which is, as you know, single-payer. However, Olympia Snowe said she doesn't support the Gang of 10's Medicare buy-in compromise, but she supports the Canadian importation measure. So she's siding with the rank and file Senate Republicans against single-payer health insurance on the buy-in, but she supports the single-payer system on the drug importation amendment. And it's not just Snowe and Vitter. The congressional Republicans are all toeing this upside-down We Hate-Slash-Love Medicare position.

No wonder the teabaggers and dittoheads are screeching in gibberish -- steam shooting from their ears. When it comes to Medicare, they have no idea what to support or how to support it. All they know is that President Obama should keep his government hands off their Medicare -- whether or not they understand that the government, in fact, runs Medicare. He just should. So there.

The fact is that if the Republicans really supported Medicare, they should also support the Medicare buy-in proposal for Americans between the ages 55-64. But they won't. Why? Because they hate Medicare. Even though many of them are on it. And even though many of them say they want to protect it from "ruin."

But expecting logic, reason and consistency from the Republicans is wasted time. (See also Fox News Channel's Rasmussen poll analysis showing a total of 94 percent of Americans think climate scientists falsified their evidence, while 26 think they didn't, thus indicating a total of 120 percent.)

The fact remains that the private health insurance system is broken and America is being left behind by the rest of the world as we cling to the decaying wreckage of a failed healthcare system. Medicare is an obvious solution.

If Medicare works for senior citizens, then it can work for everyone else. Expanding the revenue base for Medicare by upwards of 2 million Americans with this buy-in plan, allowing a younger, healthier and, consequently, less costly population to buy into the system by paying the full, unsubsidized premiums, will only help to ameliorate Medicare's fiscal problems. Likewise, widening the buy-in window to include all adults would ultimately stabilize Medicare even further, because we'd ostensibly be adding even younger and healthier people to the pool, allowing chunks of their unused premiums to flow upwards to older, sicker recipients who need it.

And if you, Mr. and Mrs. Republican, are against a Medicare option for everyone, then you have to be against Medicare period. And feel free to be against it. You just can't have it both ways -- no matter how ridiculous and contradictory your congressional leadership is.

What I've Been Saying All Along...

2009-12-11T05:23:00.003+08:00

From today's Huffington Post. Article by Sam Stein:

BUSH DEFICIT HURTING OBAMA

The emerging narrative in political circles is that the White House has a deficit problem. Glenn Beck, over at Fox News, insists that Obama is "spending us into oblivion." Politico called the recent round of job-stimulus appropriations a "spending binge." Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) deemed this an era of "fiscal recklessness and irresponsibility," the extent of which is "shocking to the American taxpayer."

The drumbeat is loud enough to put Democrats on notice. The president has increasingly discussed the need to get the deficit under control in recent speeches. And in Congress, a proposal to set up a bipartisan commission to force deficit reduction is gaining steam among the party's more conservative members.

All of which may be vital, say budget analysts say. But the hysteria over the deficit misses a fundamental point: the country's fiscal problems largely aren't due to Obama but rather his predecessor.

A forthcoming study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concludes that the $1.4 trillion annual deficit run by the government has little to do with current White House policies and much to do with George W. Bush's actions.

"What we have looked at were several major contributors to the deficit: the tax cuts between 2001 and 2003 (on the assumption they get extended in 2010), the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the effects of the recession as well as the legislative response to the recession," James Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the Center, told the Huffington Post. "When you take those things into account -- in other words, if we hadn't enacted the tax cuts, had the wars, if we hadn't had the recession and needed the legislation to deal with those problems -- the deficits are much, much lower. And basically none of those represent Obama's policies. He didn't run saying he wanted to pass a stimulus to deal with the recession or that he wanted to continue the war in Iraq or escalate [to this extent] in Afghanistan. He inherited these issues once he took office."

"Now we still have a big budget problem in the long run," Horney added. "It is not inappropriate for people to say we have to deal with that. And it is not inappropriate for them to say Obama is president and has the responsibility to deal with this. But it is not appropriate to say that Obama's policies have contributed to the deficit problem."

Horney said that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' analysis will be released in the next few weeks. But already, there is data available to supplement its findings. In mid-November, the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress put together an analysis of its own, in which it concluded that the so-called "Obama spending spree" paled in comparison to the checks written by Bush.

"It's true that spending in 2009 was much higher than it was the previous fiscal year, by about $602 billion, excluding payments on the national debt (which actually declined in 2009 because of low interest rates)," wrote Michael Linden, an associate director for tax and budget policy at the Center. "But it turns out that a huge chunk of that increase actually happened before President Obama took office. In fact, fully 41 percent, or $245 billion, came in the form of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the rescues of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, actions taken in the fall of 2008 under President George W. Bush.

As for the deficit that conservatives decried, Linden concluded that it was the recession, not Obama, that was to blame. In 2009, federal tax receipts were $419 billion below 2008 levels -- the largest decline from one year to the next in seven decades. "The overall cost of the decline in tax revenues was four times larger than the cost of Obama's initiatives," wrote Linden.

The decline of tax revenues due to the recession may not be a development tied to Obama. But it has become a perplexing problem for this administration.

The White House has raised spending levels by roughly $600 billion in FY2009 -- almost exclusively through temporary programs such as the stimulus -- in order to spur economic growth and increase that revenue base. But spending money to make money can be a costly venture in the short run, especially as the recession is prolonged. Unemployment benefits that used to expire after six months, for instance, have been extended by Congress at a heavy but morally defensible cost. And even when GDP rises, the government is still operating off a largely reduced revenue stream, complicating its efforts to pass pieces of domestic legislation.

"It is not like when the recession ends, people's incomes bounce back to where they were before the recession," said Rob Shapiro. "You will be behind where you were before the recession for a while... There has been a real economic reduction in the base of GDP. So GDP now, when it goes up three percent, it is off of a lower base. It's not off of, say $15 trillion but off of $14 trillion."

...of course, Republicans (especially the Palin supporters, Tea Party and birther types) will never admit this. They couldn't even read through the entire article.

Practice Makes Perfect

2009-10-09T02:44:00.000+08:00

Komiks

2009-09-21T00:41:00.002+08:00

How It Is

2009-08-26T21:14:00.000+08:00

It Ain't What You Say....

2009-08-13T16:01:00.002+08:00

...it's what you DO.

Note to most of the so-called Christians out there:

We do not believe if we do not live and work according to our beliefs.

In other words: don't tell me you're Christian. If you live what Christ taught, I'll already know.

Telling me is like you're advertising...and we all know we can't believe everything that's advertised!

Thinking....

2009-08-13T15:59:00.000+08:00

Just Funny

2009-08-07T21:09:00.001+08:00

Yes, This Does Happen!

2009-08-07T21:04:00.002+08:00

When I was growing up, all we had to do was rattle the can opener to get the attention of out five cats. No calling out their names; they wouldn't listen. But rattling that opener was a sure-fire way to get all of them together!

Hard at Work

2009-08-07T21:03:00.000+08:00

The Truth of Social Networking Sites!

2009-08-07T21:01:00.000+08:00

Yep

2009-07-26T09:54:00.000+08:00

Funnyfunnyfunny

2009-07-13T11:55:00.000+08:00

Dismantling? Imploding?

2009-07-06T11:22:00.003+08:00

First there was Ensign. (adultery)

Then there was Sanford. (adultery)

Then Coleman finally officially lost to Franken.

Now there's Palin resigning the Alaska governorship for "the team" or some ridiculous reason.

It must really suck to be a Republican right now. One wonders if the party will survive long enough to send any of its members up for re-election in 2010.

Of course, Palin thinks she can win the presidency in 2012. I suppose she resigned now so she could spend the next few years learning something about civics, speaking, world culture, reading "everything" (like she always has). Naturally she denies all this and claims not to have any plans. At least I think that's what she said in one of the most incoherent press conferences I've ever heard. All I can remember is her constantly going back to sports metaphors, which only served to prove she knows more about women's basketball than governance and politics. By the time she finished speaking I thought I'd just come off a dizzying carnival ride. That's what happens when you listen to a ditz for some 7 to 8 minutes. Even CNN's cameraman appeared to be losing it as he listened: the camera briefly jarred upwards towards the sky in what I can only surmise was the cameraman himself suddenly coming back to his senses after a moment of complete confusion induced by Mrs. Palin.

Pathetic!

2009-07-05T09:47:00.002+08:00

LOL

2009-07-01T11:21:00.002+08:00

Make Me Laugh!

2009-06-26T08:32:00.003+08:00

Ah, the sanctity of marriage!

2009-06-26T08:29:00.002+08:00

BERLIN - A Polish couple living in Germany fell out after tying the knot and decided to end their marriage on the same day.

"He said he never wanted to see her again and wanted an immediate annulment, and she said the same thing," a spokesman for police in the northern city of Hanover said Thursday.

Right after the civil ceremony Wednesday, the 50-year-old man began rowing with his bride and tried to cut her hair with a kitchen knife, police said.

The 34-year-old woman called police, who issued the man with a restraining order, which he readily accepted, police said.

Two attempts at a rapprochement later that evening by telephone ended in more shouted exchanges before the man went to spend his wedding night in a local shelter for homeless people.

I'll bet these people are just like the multiply-divorced Limbaughs, McCains, Giulianis, etc. who say I can't marry at all.

Bigoted shit heads all of 'em.

Wahahahaha!!

2009-06-15T11:25:00.001+08:00

Birds & Cats

2009-06-11T22:03:00.000+08:00

Mix Bag of Funnies

2009-05-30T21:14:00.000+08:00

Craziness

2009-05-22T19:45:00.002+08:00

It's a good thing Republicans have all been drinking from the "crazy juice" to keep the political cartoonists at work:

Shoe on a Roll

2009-05-22T19:43:00.001+08:00

Because Laughing Helps!

2009-05-05T15:25:00.000+08:00

Yeah, I've thought this before...!

2009-04-24T18:03:00.000+08:00

The New "New" Math

2009-04-20T17:44:00.002+08:00

Breaking News from the New Yorker!

Just Plain Funny!

2009-04-20T17:41:00.000+08:00

Today's Kitty Humor

2009-04-04T20:56:00.002+08:00

This is why I like cats. Cats actually do this sort of thing.

Today's SPAM

2009-04-04T20:53:00.002+08:00

Meet and Marry a Gorgeous Russian Queen Llenka advertises.

Tired of dating women? she continues...Date an overly effeminate Russian gay guy!

That last part is what I surmise followed. I wasn't going to open the mail to read what it was Llenka had to say...

Kitty Fun

2009-03-26T14:34:00.000+08:00

Time to Laugh

2009-03-04T22:09:00.000+08:00

They Just Don't Get It

2009-03-04T21:48:00.004+08:00

I found it interesting to hear that a cable news guy went on a rant during his report about the economy and mortgage crisis in the US, saying he didn't want to pay for his neighbor's mortgage. He seems to believe that everyone who is unable to pay their mortgage was aware they could never pay it when they took out the loan. Whatever the case, he will pay the price whether the government under President Obama's plan helps bail out homeowners or not.

If a house on his street were to be foreclosed, it will drag down the value of his home an average of 9%. On an average home, that's $20,000!

Under Obama's plan, the government will be bailing out almost 1 million homes to the cost to the taxpayer of about $1000 each.

That's a $19,000 difference.

Of course, he's a conservative, and it is the principle! If it costs him an extra $19,000, so be it!

Likewise, after Obama's State of the Nation address, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal went on and on and on about how he believes "Americans can do anything".

That seemed to be his (and the Republican Party) plan. They want tax cuts for the wealthy, and to let Americans fix things themselves without any aid whatsoever.

Because Americans can do anything!

So, if I am to understand all this correctly what he's saying, under a Republican plan is: Americans, you're on your own!

Yeah, like that's gonna help!

No wonder new polls show the Republican party now is the least-trusted and least-favored it has ever been in US history! They know Republican party policies and ideals were some of the key reasons the economy is in the mess it's in.

Republicans don't.

Republicans still aren't aware they were thoroughly trounced in the last elections, their values, policies, and politics all rejected.

They just don't get it...

Stupidity Clarified

2009-02-25T08:23:00.001+08:00

John Stuart Mill, in answer to an attack upon him for calling Conservatives "the stupid party" said: "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservatives."

Still holds true even today.

-comment on Huffington Post by Erdgeist February 24, 2009

Sean Penn Wins Best Actor Oscar for "Milk"

2009-02-23T19:59:00.002+08:00

As he took the stage to accept his prize for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk, Sean Penn gleefully told the crowd: “You commie, homo-loving sons of guns.”

He followed with condemnation of anti-gay protesters who demonstrated near the Oscar site and comments about California’s recent vote to ban gay marriage.

“For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think it’s a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect on their great shame and their shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that support,” Penn said. “We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

-excerpt from the AP.

The GOP Out to Relive History

2009-02-19T15:20:00.000+08:00

Frank Rich, The New York Times, February 14, 2009

. . . Just as in the presidential campaign, Obama has once again outwitted the punditocracy and the opposition. The same crowd that said he was a wimpy hope-monger who could never beat Hillary or get white votes was played for fools again. . . .

The G.O.P. doesn’t recognize that it emerged from the stimulus battle even worse off than when it started. That obliviousness gives the president the opening to win more ambitious policy victories than last week’s. Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill. . . .

As Judd Gregg flakes out and Lindsey Graham throws made-for-YouTube hissy fits on the Senate floor, Obama should stay focused on the big picture in governing as he did in campaigning. That’s the steady course he upheld when much of the political establishment was either second-guessing or ridiculing it, and there’s no reason to change it now. The stimulus victory showed that even as president Obama can ambush Washington’s conventional wisdom as if he were still an insurgent.

But, as he said in Fort Myers last week, he will ultimately be judged by his results. If the economy isn’t turned around, he told the crowd, then "you’ll have a new president." The stimulus bill is only a first step on that arduous path. The biggest mistake he can make now is to be too timid. This country wants a New Deal, including on energy and health care, not a New Deal lite. Far from depleting Obama’s clout, the stimulus battle instead reaffirmed that he has the political capital to pursue the agenda of change he campaigned on.

Republicans will also be judged by the voters. If they want to obstruct and filibuster while the economy is in free fall, the president should call their bluff and let them go at it. In the first four years after F.D.R. took over from Hoover, the already decimated ranks of Republicans in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate and from 117 to 88 in the House. The G.O.P. is so insistent that the New Deal was a mirage it may well have convinced itself that its own sorry record back then didn’t happen either.

Copyright The New York Times 2009

Another Reason to Allow Gay or Single-Parenting!

2009-02-17T23:20:00.002+08:00

Cops: Teen kept in bathroom, beaten for years
Boy has broken forearm and oozing wounds that may mark years of abuse

Again, why not all straight couples should be allowed to raise children! But at least the boy has a mother and a father to raise him, not a single person or a homosexual or homosexual couple. What this boy endured is as God intended and wants, right??? Read on:

As reported on MSNBC:

SPRING HILL, Florida - For three years, neighbors in a quaint, middle-class community scarcely saw the lanky 16-year-old boy who lived with his adoptive mother and her boyfriend.

Now, they know why: According to authorities, the teen was brutally abused and held captive in his own home. Most recently, he'd been confined to a bathroom, locked from the outside and sealed with a piece of plywood over the window.

By the time he escaped last week, the Florida boy had a broken forearm and scars, scabs and oozing wounds that investigators say mark years of abuse.

Hernando County Sheriff Richard Nugent called it "barbaric."

"This is almost like what John McCain went through in Vietnam when he was a prisoner of war," Nugent said.

Tai-Ling Gigliotti and her boyfriend, Anton Angelo, were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment last week.

Gigliotti, 50, was released on a $15,000 bond. Her attorney did not reply to messages seeking comment, and no one answered when a reporter visited her home. Angelo, 45, was released on a $50,000 bond. Available public records don't show if he has an attorney. He refused comment when approached by reporters after his arrest Thursday.

Authorities are still piecing together the boy's history, but they believe Gigliotti is the boy's aunt, and that she brought him from Taiwan to the United States when he was a young child.

The teen, whose name was not released because he is an alleged victim of child abuse, told investigators his stepfather was Anthony Gigliotti, who was the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal clarinetist. The stepfather died at age 79 in 2001, before the abuse apparently began.

The teen appears to have lived a mostly normal life early on. Tai-Ling Gigliotti had met her late husband when she took clarinet lessons from him, said Charles Salinger, another former student who's now a clarinetist with the Pennsylvania Ballet orchestra.

The pair married about 1990, and Anthony Gigliotti treated the boy like his own son. The two would go fishing and crabbing together, and the stepfather taught the youngster about music, said Lynne Gigliotti, the man's daughter from a previous marriage.

"My father was crazy about him," Lynne Gigliotti said.

Abuse began three years ago
According to an arrest affidavit, the abuse began at least three years ago, when the boy was forced to sleep in a hallway as punishment. Then in November 2007 daily confinement in a bathroom began.

Nugent said the boy seemed to believe the abuse was his fault for minor problems like a messy room. He was also told he'd be deported if he escaped, Nugent said.

Over the three years, the teen sometimes managed to leave the house briefly when the adults were away, Nugent said. He'd get food or listen to classical music in one of their cars.

Last week, the abuse reached a new height, police said. According to an arrest affidavit, Gigliotti and Angelo discovered the boy had found a way to pry open a barricaded window and free himself with a piece of his clarinet.

The teen was forced to strip, and Gigliotti beat him with a piece of wood about three feet long, police said.

The authorities' account continues as follows: When the teen couldn't stand the pain, he grabbed the wood and held it. Gigliotti beckoned her boyfriend, who came in and took the wood away. She then beat him with the metal and plastic ends of a water hose.

After that, his hands were bound with packing tape. He was left nude and with cuts all around his body. The bathroom's electricity was cut, leaving him in darkness.

"The pain had to be horrific," Nugent said. "I think at that point he just became absolutely fearful for his life."

When the couple left the next day, the boy, who weighs 111 pounds, managed to break the door frame and pull the door open, Nugent said.

He put on some of Angelo's clothes and ran to a neighbor for help.

Authorities took him to a hospital, where the full extent of his injuries were uncovered: His arm had been broken for at least three days and he had bumps, scratches, and oozing wounds. Repeated beatings had left scabs and scars.

The state has placed the boy with a foster family.

"This is just — for the length of time this kid went through this — barbaric," Nugent said.

'Cause You Gotta Laugh

2009-02-17T21:06:00.000+08:00

History Repeating

2009-02-03T17:15:00.003+08:00

History has proven in the last 3 most severe recessions that tax cuts only worsen the situation, providing an even greater distance between the wealthy and the poor, and diminishing the middle class in the process. Republicans unanimously voted against Obama's stimulus package because they want no spending on energy or infrastructure or assistance to those at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. They want a bill comprised entirely of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Republicans don't know their history.

Really, Republicans don't know shit.

Cartoon by Bob Englehart, Hartford Courant.

Laugh Out Loud!

2009-02-03T17:14:00.000+08:00

One Last Bush-Bash

2009-01-19T01:25:00.005+08:00

Before riding off into the sunset as the president with the lowest recorded approval rating in history aside from impeached President Nixon, here's a final bash - really not a bash, just a nifty look back at his "accomplishments".

Inspiring

2009-01-15T22:28:00.000+08:00

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

-Groucho Marx

This is True

2009-01-15T22:25:00.000+08:00

Cats do do these things.

Ca AG (and former Gov) Brown Calls for Rejecting Prop 8

2008-12-21T11:41:00.002+08:00

By 365gay Newscenter Staff
12.19.2008 8:58pm EST

(San Francisco, California) California Attorney General Jerry Brown told the state Supreme Court Friday that it should invalidate Proposition 8, the voter approved amendment to the state constitution that bans same-sex marriage.

In a brief submitted to the court Friday, Brown’s office said the measure should be invalidated because it deprives people of the right to marry—an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution.

“Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification,” Brown’s brief said.

Brown argued that in order to invalidate such a fundamental right, the court “must determine that there is a compelling justification to do so.”

But in the marriage cases that the court ruled on earlier this year, striking down the ban on gay marriage “the court found that no such compelling justification exists. Accordingly, Proposition 8 must be stricken,” the brief said.

Brown also said that he believes that same-sex marriages entered into between June 16 and November 4, 2008 are valid and recognized in California regardless of whether Proposition 8 is upheld.

The position was a surprise to some. Although he personally supports same-sex marriage many thought as Attorney General Brown would ask the court to uphold Prop 8. Brown’s office said that as Attorney General he is obligated to argue state constitutional law, which is what he did.

The court had ordered Brown’s office to submit its brief by today in reaction to legal challenges to Prop 8.

Following passage of the proposition the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the vote. They were joined by additional suits by the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The lawsuits charge that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone, by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians.

They also say that Proposition 8 improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities.

The suits say that under the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works, the groups said in a statement.

Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters.

That didn’t happen with Proposition 8, and that’s why it’s invalid, the petitioners said.

The Supreme Court set Friday as the deadline for Brown’s office to reply and it said that in addition to hearing arguments on the validity of the vote it wanted to address what effect, if any, a ruling upholding the amendment would have on the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that were sanctioned in California before Election Day.

In addition to the brief from attorneys for the Protect Marriage Coalition, the umbrella group that put Prop 8 on the ballot. It argued that the will of the people must be respected by the court and that the measure also invalidated those marriages performed prior to the vote.

The coalition has hired Ken Starr who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica L. Lewinsky, to argue its case before the high court. It said it needed a high profile attorney because it did not trust Brown to fight for Prop 8.

The court is expected to study the briefs and then ask for comment from the litigants. Oral arguments in the case could be heard as early as March but a ruling would not come for months after that.

And a wonderful response from a reader at 365gay.com:

The California Supreme Court MUST invalidate Prop 8, or they will render themselves powerless. They have already stated in their May 2008, 172 page opinion, that they have the power to review and either uphold or invalidate all laws, propositions, amendments and all other legal aspects of California statutes.

They already called civil marriage a “fundamental right” of all people, (I suppose just residents of Californians, but it is not explicitly so stated, and probably applies to ALL people. They stated explicitly non-residents can get married there too! Too bad, Utah!)

I agree with Rick (another respondent) when he said:
“I DONT WANT THE CHURCH INVOVLED IN MY PRIVATE LIFE”

Freedom of religion also includes the “freedom FROM religion”, “freedom FROM FORCED religion”, “freedom FROM YOUR religion” and “freedom from your FORCED religion” as well.

By allowing the religious bigots to win, then the courts are forcing us to bow to one particular brand of religion. And that is FORBIDDEN by the U.S Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Since there are many religions that sanction and approve of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages, I want my state sanctioned civil marriage contract. It is good, it is right, it is meaningful and it is most definitely needed in today’s legally administered society. Most of all my partner and I need it.

The Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Holy Rollers, Catholics, Muslims, Winesses, Mormons et. al. choose their practices of religious worship and their choice of God, and their religion laws.

Simply put, their choice does NOT trump my right to life, my right to liberty, and my right to find my own happiness.

Their choice of religion does not give them a superior moral position over me, and I will not allow them to try to force their misbegotten ideals and practices on me or those I love.

Please, all you religious fanatics, bigots, ignorant, and nutcases, GO HOME AND LEAVE ME ALONE. I will not enter your home or church, and please keep your nose and silly ideas out of my life and the places I frequent. You do not get to tell anyone what to do, much less deprive me of what I hold dear. I do not need your religion to be a good, kind, moral, upstanding, and yes, even god-fearing human being. Leave me to my choice of religion, and those human characteristics with which I was born.

Advertising Made Easy

2008-12-14T20:46:00.001+08:00

Pretty much what we all realize after enough years of being inundated by commercials.

Interesting Article Supporting Gay Marriage - From the Bible

2008-12-10T22:12:00.003+08:00

Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.

Our Mutual Joy
By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK
Published Dec 6, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Dec 15, 2008

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

The battle over gay marriage has been waged for more than a decade, but within the last six months—since California legalized gay marriage and then, with a ballot initiative in November, amended its Constitution to prohibit it—the debate has grown into a full-scale war, with religious-rhetoric slinging to match. Not since 1860, when the country's pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social (and economic) institutions been so subject to biblical scrutiny. But whereas in the Civil War the traditionalists had their James Henley Thornwell—and the advocates for change, their Henry Ward Beecher—this time the sides are unevenly matched. All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections.

The argument goes something like this statement, which the Rev. Richard A. Hunter, a United Methodist minister, gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in June: "The Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman. The church cannot condone or bless same-sex marriages because this stands in opposition to Scripture and our tradition."

To which there are two obvious responses: First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else's —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes. "Marriage" in America refers to two separate things, a religious institution and a civil one, though it is most often enacted as a messy conflation of the two. As a civil institution, marriage offers practical benefits to both partners: contractual rights having to do with taxes; insurance; the care and custody of children; visitation rights; and inheritance. As a religious institution, marriage offers something else: a commitment of both partners before God to love, honor and cherish each other—in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer—in accordance with God's will. In a religious marriage, two people promise to take care of each other, profoundly, the way they believe God cares for them. Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call "the traditional family" are scarcely to be found. Marriage was critical to the passing along of tradition and history, as well as to maintaining the Jews' precious and fragile monotheism. But as the Barnard University Bible scholar Alan Segal puts it, the arrangement was between "one man and as many women as he could pay for." Social conservatives point to Adam and Eve as evidence for their one man, one woman argument—in particular, this verse from Genesis: "Therefore shall a man leave his mother and father, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." But as Segal says, if you believe that the Bible was written by men and not handed down in its leather bindings by God, then that verse was written by people for whom polygamy was the way of the world. (The fact that homosexual couples cannot procreate has also been raised as a biblical objection, for didn't God say, "Be fruitful and multiply"? But the Bible authors could never have imagined the brave new world of international adoption and assisted reproductive technology—and besides, heterosexuals who are infertile or past the age of reproducing get married all the time.)

Ozzie and Harriet are nowhere in the New Testament either. The biblical Jesus was—in spite of recent efforts of novelists to paint him otherwise—emphatically unmarried. He preached a radical kind of family, a caring community of believers, whose bond in God superseded all blood ties. Leave your families and follow me, Jesus says in the gospels. There will be no marriage in heaven, he says in Matthew. Jesus never mentions homosexuality, but he roundly condemns divorce (leaving a loophole in some cases for the husbands of unfaithful women).

The apostle Paul echoed the Christian Lord's lack of interest in matters of the flesh. For him, celibacy was the Christian ideal, but family stability was the best alternative. Marry if you must, he told his audiences, but do not get divorced. "To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): a wife must not separate from her husband." It probably goes without saying that the phrase "gay marriage" does not appear in the Bible at all.

If the bible doesn't give abundant examples of traditional marriage, then what are the gay-marriage opponents really exercised about? Well, homosexuality, of course—specifically sex between men. Sex between women has never, even in biblical times, raised as much ire. In its entry on "Homosexual Practices," the Anchor Bible Dictionary notes that nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women, "possibly because it did not result in true physical 'union' (by male entry)." The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as "an abomination" (King James version), but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?

Paul was tough on homosexuality, though recently progressive scholars have argued that his condemnation of men who "were inflamed with lust for one another" (which he calls "a perversion") is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery. In his book "The Arrogance of Nations," the scholar Neil Elliott argues that Paul is referring in this famous passage to the depravity of the Roman emperors, the craven habits of Nero and Caligula, a reference his audience would have grasped instantly. "Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all," Elliott says. "He's talking about a certain group of people who have done everything in this list. We're not dealing with anything like gay love or gay marriage. We're talking about really, really violent people who meet their end and are judged by God." In any case, one might add, Paul argued more strenuously against divorce—and at least half of the Christians in America disregard that teaching.

Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument). Common prayers and rituals reflect our common practice: the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer describes the participants in a marriage as "the man and the woman." But common practice changes—and for the better, as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." The Bible endorses slavery, a practice that Americans now universally consider shameful and barbaric. It recommends the death penalty for adulterers (and in Leviticus, for men who have sex with men, for that matter). It provides conceptual shelter for anti-Semites. A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism. The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours.

Marriage, specifically, has evolved so as to be unrecognizable to the wives of Abraham and Jacob. Monogamy became the norm in the Christian world in the sixth century; husbands' frequent enjoyment of mistresses and prostitutes became taboo by the beginning of the 20th. (In the NEWSWEEK POLL, 55 percent of respondents said that married heterosexuals who have sex with someone other than their spouses are more morally objectionable than a gay couple in a committed sexual relationship.) By the mid-19th century, U.S. courts were siding with wives who were the victims of domestic violence, and by the 1970s most states had gotten rid of their "head and master" laws, which gave husbands the right to decide where a family would live and whether a wife would be able to take a job. Today's vision of marriage as a union of equal partners, joined in a relationship both romantic and pragmatic, is, by very recent standards, radical, says Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage, a History."

Religious wedding ceremonies have already changed to reflect new conceptions of marriage. Remember when we used to say "man and wife" instead of "husband and wife"? Remember when we stopped using the word "obey"? Even Miss Manners, the voice of tradition and reason, approved in 1997 of that change. "It seems," she wrote, "that dropping 'obey' was a sensible editing of a service that made assumptions about marriage that the society no longer holds."

We cannot look to the Bible as a marriage manual, but we can read it for universal truths as we struggle toward a more just future. The Bible offers inspiration and warning on the subjects of love, marriage, family and community. It speaks eloquently of the crucial role of families in a fair society and the risks we incur to ourselves and our children should we cease trying to bind ourselves together in loving pairs. Gay men like to point to the story of passionate King David and his friend Jonathan, with whom he was "one spirit" and whom he "loved as he loved himself." Conservatives say this is a story about a platonic friendship, but it is also a story about two men who stand up for each other in turbulent times, through violent war and the disapproval of a powerful parent. David rends his clothes at Jonathan's death and, in grieving, writes a song:

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
You were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
More wonderful than that of women.

Here, the Bible praises enduring love between men. What Jonathan and David did or did not do in privacy is perhaps best left to history and our own imaginations.

In addition to its praise of friendship and its condemnation of divorce, the Bible gives many examples of marriages that defy convention yet benefit the greater community. The Torah discouraged the ancient Hebrews from marrying outside the tribe, yet Moses himself is married to a foreigner, Zipporah. Queen Esther is married to a non-Jew and, according to legend, saves the Jewish people. Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, believes that Judaism thrives through diversity and inclusion. "I don't think Judaism should or ought to want to leave any portion of the human population outside the religious process," he says. "We should not want to leave [homosexuals] outside the sacred tent." The marriage of Joseph and Mary is also unorthodox (to say the least), a case of an unconventional arrangement accepted by society for the common good. The boy needed two human parents, after all.

In the Christian story, the message of acceptance for all is codified. Jesus reaches out to everyone, especially those on the margins, and brings the whole Christian community into his embrace. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, cites the story of Jesus revealing himself to the woman at the well— no matter that she had five former husbands and a current boyfriend—as evidence of Christ's all-encompassing love. The great Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, emeritus professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, quotes the apostle Paul when he looks for biblical support of gay marriage: "There is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ." The religious argument for gay marriage, he adds, "is not generally made with reference to particular texts, but with the general conviction that the Bible is bent toward inclusiveness."

The practice of inclusion, even in defiance of social convention, the reaching out to outcasts, the emphasis on togetherness and community over and against chaos, depravity, indifference—all these biblical values argue for gay marriage. If one is for racial equality and the common nature of humanity, then the values of stability, monogamy and family necessarily follow. Terry Davis is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Conn., and has been presiding over "holy unions" since 1992. "I'm against promiscuity—love ought to be expressed in committed relationships, not through casual sex, and I think the church should recognize the validity of committed same-sex relationships," he says.

Still, very few Jewish or Christian denominations do officially endorse gay marriage, even in the states where it is legal. The practice varies by region, by church or synagogue, even by cleric. More progressive denominations—the United Church of Christ, for example—have agreed to support gay marriage. Other denominations and dioceses will do "holy union" or "blessing" ceremonies, but shy away from the word "marriage" because it is politically explosive. So the frustrating, semantic question remains: should gay people be married in the same, sacramental sense that straight people are? I would argue that they should. If we are all God's children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color—and no serious (or even semiserious) person would argue that. People get married "for their mutual joy," explains the Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center in New York, quoting the Episcopal marriage ceremony. That's what religious people do: care for each other in spite of difficulty, she adds. In marriage, couples grow closer to God: "Being with one another in community is how you love God. That's what marriage is about."

More basic than theology, though, is human need. We want, as Abraham did, to grow old surrounded by friends and family and to be buried at last peacefully among them. We want, as Jesus taught, to love one another for our own good—and, not to be too grandiose about it, for the good of the world. We want our children to grow up in stable homes. What happens in the bedroom, really, has nothing to do with any of this. My friend the priest James Martin says his favorite Scripture relating to the question of homosexuality is Psalm 139, a song that praises the beauty and imperfection in all of us and that glorifies God's knowledge of our most secret selves: "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." And then he adds that in his heart he believes that if Jesus were alive today, he would reach out especially to the gays and lesbians among us, for "Jesus does not want people to be lonely and sad." Let the priest's prayer be our own.

Yet More Funnies

2008-11-30T17:48:00.002+08:00

Laughing Helps

2008-11-09T10:17:00.000+08:00

A Mormon's Lament: Church Is On the Wrong Side of History Again With Proposition 8

2008-10-28T16:44:00.002+08:00

(Read in Oct. 27 Huffington Post blogs update)

by Joe Vogel:

In late 2002, as President George W. Bush began building his case for preemptive war in Iraq, a remarkable thing happened. In contrast to the general timidity of American churches in response to the conflict in Vietnam, leaders of faith were speaking out. Observed the Reverend Jim Wallis at the time:

Opposition to war with Iraq has come from a wide spectrum of the churches - Roman Catholic, Protestant denominations, Evangelical, Pentecostal, black churches, Orthodox. All of the statements, letters, and resolutions from church leaders and bodies take the threat posed by Saddam Hussein seriously, but they refuse war as the best response.

Importantly, these church leaders are not making their decision based on whether or not they approve of President George W. Bush - some do and some don't. Rather, they are doing so on the basis of Christian theology and moral teaching.

One notable exception to this dissent: the Mormon Church.

The LDS Church's cautious official response to the war (one of the most consequential decisions in recent American history) and near-unconditional subsequent support for the Bush Administration (in 2005, Dick Cheney was awarded an honorary doctorate and invited as the commencement speaker at BYU, the Church's flagship institution), raise important questions about the Church's involvement in political affairs, particularly when an issue has moral/ethical implications. When should it speak out? When should it stay neutral? And how does it treat its members with minority views?

Nearly six years and thousands of lost lives since the war began, Mormon authorities still haven't weighed in on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, or Guantanomo Bay. Neither have they directed semi-annual Conference addresses to the genocide in Sudan, human rights violations caused by multi-national corporations, or climate change that could have devastating effects on future generations. Instead, in the past few months they have decided to take action on a "moral issue" of a different sort: denying gay couples the constitutional right to get married in California.

In support of California's Proposition 8, the Mormon Church has gone into political overdrive. Under the direction of Church leaders' admonition over the pulpit, they have formed a formidable grassroots machine, providing boots on the ground, making phone calls, writing letters, forwarding emails, while donating an astounding $19 million to the cause.

"What we're about is the work of the Lord, and He will bless you for your involvement," apostle M. Russell Ballard proclaimed in a broadcast to church buildings in California, Utah, Hawaii and Idaho.

This stand, sadly, follows a disturbing trend of being on the wrong side of history on issues of social justice and equality for the LDS Church.

For nearly 150 years, the Mormon Church stubbornly held to a racist policy that refused all members of African descent the privilege of entering temples or receiving the Priesthood. Even as slavery, segregation, and Jim Crowe receded into the American past, the Mormon Church still treated its own black members as second-class citizens. The practice was justified as the plan of God. Apostles and prophets, the highest authorities in the Church, rationalized the continued discrimination by pointing to the "curse of Cain" and disobedience in the pre-existence. Other leaders said they simply didn't know but were sure God had some mysterious reason for keeping the full blessings of the Gospel from black people. Only a rare few leaders, including apostle Hugh B. Brown (and many more grassroots members), spoke out on behalf of civil rights. So the infamous ban lived on until 1978.

Along with polygamy, this blatant institutional racism is perhaps the most regrettable scar in Mormon history. Though progress has been made, race remains a taboo subject to this day for most Mormons, shrouded in shame and myth. It hasn't helped that the Church still hasn't publicly acknowledged or apologized for its racist past.

Yet sadly this is not the only example of the Mormon Church attempting to stifle progress and equality. In the 1970s the Church went to great efforts to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment for women. Much like Proposition 8, they argued that it undermined the traditional structure of the family. Church leaders called it "a moral issue with many disturbing ramifications for women and for the family as individual members and as a whole." President Spencer W. Kimball said it "would strike at the family, humankind's basic institution."

Sound familiar?

So here we are, in 2008, and now the threat is gay people who are already gay, who love each other and in many cases live together, and want to get married. How does this hurt the average Mormon family?

If the concern really was the practical welfare of the family, perhaps the Church could instead invest its vast resources into making healthcare universal and affordable, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, cracking down on child predators, and improving the quality of our educational system. All of these issues have a direct impact on my family and millions of others.

You hear of marriages ruined all the time because of abuse, neglect, or stress over finances. But I have personally never heard of a divorce caused by another gay couple getting married.

Yet instead of focusing on issues that can really help nourish our families we obsess over a word. A word we refuse to share. A word that has never been perfectly fixed. There was a time, after all, when inter-racial marriage was just as taboo and illegal as gay marriage. Marriage has been many things, but the common ideal has been and should continue to be a relationship built on love and commitment.

So to my fellow Mormons: I ask you to please re-consider. Take the time you would spend fighting this errant cause with your family. Go to a movie. Take a drive together. Watch the World Series.

Maybe you don't completely understand homosexuality. Maybe you think it's a sin. But shouldn't we leave that to God and allow others to be who they are and make their own choices? As followers of Christ, isn't it always better to err on the side of compassion and love?

Martin Luther King once lamented in his famous letter from Birmingham Jail:

So often the contemporary Church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent---and often even vocal---sanction of things as they are.

In case after case when the moral chips have been on the table, I have hoped for my Church what Dr. King prayed for in his time: that "the Church as a whole will meet the challenge of [the] decisive hour." But sadly, so often on the issues of peace, equality and social justice, it has failed, whether by silence or misguided support.

With Proposition 8 it is time to stand for justice, not discrimination. It is time to stand for equality. It is time to be on the right side of history. Regardless of race, gender, or sexuality human beings are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. Today I voice my public support in favor of treating my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as equals, and ask my fellow Mormons to do the same.

UPDATE: To clarify, I commend all the good, charitable work the LDS Church does and have written about it in the past. The purpose of this article is specifically on the Church's response to political issues with moral implications.

UPDATE 2: To those publishing hateful words in the comments towards Mormons, I ask you to re-consider. I'm with MLK: we should strive for moral ends by moral means. Healthy criticism is fine. Hate and intolerance perpetuates hate and intolerance whether it is directed at gays or Mormons.

Of Cats and Cash

2008-10-21T16:50:00.000+08:00

How the GOP is Anti-America

2008-10-21T16:44:00.002+08:00

From MSNBC's Keith Olbermann:
Divisive politics is anti-American
GOP ticket's willingness to say anything to win ultimately damages America

Oct. 20, 2008 on MSNBC.com

I have frequently insisted I would never turn the platform of the Special Comment into a regular feature. But as these last two weeks of this extraordinary, and extraordinarily disturbing, presidential campaign project out in front of us, I fear I may have to temporarily amend that presumption.

I hope it will be otherwise, but I suspect this will be the first of nightly pieces, most shorter than this until further notice. And thus a Special Comment tonight about the last five days of the divisive, ugly, paranoid bleatings of this Presidential race, culminating in the sliming of Colin Powell for his endorsement of Sen. Obama.

There was once a very prominent sportswriter named Dick Young whose work, with ever-increasing frequency, became peppered with references to "my America."

"I can't believe this is happening in My America;" "We do not tolerate these people in My America;" "This man does not belong in my America." His America gradually revealed itself.

Insular. Isolationist. Backwards-looking. Mindlessly flag-waving. Racist. No second chances. A million rules, but only for the other guy. Dick Young died in 1987, but he has been re-born in the presidential campaign as it has unfolded since last Thursday night.

In that time, Gov. Sarah Palin, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer, and Rush Limbaugh, have revealed that there is a measurable portion of this country that is not interested in that which the vast majority view as democracy or equality or opportunity. They want only control and they want the rest of us, symbolically, perhaps physically out.

Gov. Palin:

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington D.C.," you told a fund-raiser in North Carolina last Thursday, to kick off this orgy of condescending elitism.

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation."

Governor, your prejudice is overwhelming. It is not just "pockets" of this country that are "pro-America" Governor. America is "pro-America. "And the "Real America" of yours, Governor, is where people at your rallies shout threats of violence, against other Americans, and you say nothing about them or to them.

What you are seeing is not patriotism, Governor. What has surrounded you since your nomination, has been the echoing shout of mob rule. Indeed, that shout has echoed to Minnesota, where the next day an unstable Congresswoman named Michele Bachmann added to the ugly cry.

"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an expose' like that."

For nearly two years, Ms. Bachmann, who made her first political bones by keeping the movie "Aladdin" from being shown at a Minnesota Charter School because she thought it promoted paganism and witchcraft, has had a seat in the government of this nation, a seat from which she has spewed the most implausible, hateful, narrow-minded garbage imaginable.

Well, Congresswoman, you have gotten that "expose'" you wanted, have you not? Though not perhaps in the way you imagined.

Since giving voice to your remarkable delusion that there are members of Congress who are "anti-America," and the extraordinary tap-dance of sleaze and innuendo about Sen. Obama which followed, the challenger for your house Seat, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has been inundated by donations – $7,000 in the three days after you spoke.

Because the America you perceive, Congresswoman with its goblins and ghosts and vast unseen hordes of traitors and fellow travelers and Senators who won't ban "Aladdin" exists only in your head, and in the heads of the others who must rationalize the failures in their own lives and of their own policies as somebody else's fault as a conspiracy to deny them an America of exclusionism and religious orthodoxy and prejudice, about which they must accuse, and murmur, and shout threats, and cleave the nation into pro-America and anti-America."

And back it comes to the McCain campaign. And Sen. McCain's talking head, Ms. Pfotenhauer, who on this very network Saturday, and seemingly without the slightest idea that dismissive prejudice dripped from every word, analyzed the race in Virginia.

"I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia," she said. "But the rest of the state, ‘real Virginia,' if you will, I think will be very responsive to Sen. McCain's message."

Again, a toxic message. The parts of the country that agree with Nancy Pfotenhauer are real; the others, not. Ms. Pfotenhauer, why not go the distance on this one? It was Sen. McCain's own brother who called that part of Virginia nearest Washington "communist country."

Cut to the chase, Madam. No matter the intended comic hyperbole of Joe McCain. This is the point—isn't it? Leave out the real meaning of "Communism," Madam, Joe McCain reduced it to a buzz-word; it has no more true definition right now than does "Socialism," or the phrase "a man who sees America like you and I see America."

It's about us and them. The pro and the anti. Never mind, Madam, that the bi-secting of this country you would happily inspire, means taking a tiny crack in a dam and not repairing it but burrowing into it.

It is not enough that Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama might differ. One must be real and the other false. One must be pro-America and the other anti. Go back and, as your boss Rick Davis said today, "re-think," Mr. McCain's insistence not to drag the sorry bones of Jeremiah Wright into this campaign. And whatever you do, Ms. Pfotenhauer, allow no one enough time to think about the widening crack in the dam.

And now all of this comes together to attack Colin Powell. "Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," writes Rush Limbaugh, the grand wizard of this school of reactionary non-thought.

"OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with." It is not conceivable that Powell might reject McCain for the politics of hate and character assassination, or just for policy.

In the closed, sweaty world of the blind allegiances of Limbaugh, one of "us" who endorses one of "them," must be doing so for some other blind allegiance, like the color of skin.

The answer to this primordial muck, must be addressed to one man only. Sen. McCain, where are you? I disagree with you on virtually every major point of policy and practice. And yet I do not think you "anti-America." I would not hesitate to join you in time of crisis in defense of this country. Fortunately you did not echo this chorus of base hatred. But neither have you repudiated it.

What is "pro-America", Senator? Is it pro-America to call a man a racist because he endorses a different candidate? Senator, you have based your campaign on many premises, but the foremost (and the most nearly admirable) of all of them, have been the pitches about "reaching across the aisle," and putting, as your ubiquitous banners reed, "country first."

So when Colin Powell endorses your opponent, you say nothing as your supporters and proxies paint him in this "Anti-America" frame and place him in Gov. Palin's un-real America. Sen. McCain, did not Gen. Powell just "reach across the aisle?" Did he not, in his own mind at least, "put country first?" Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to, if not applaud, then at least quiet those in your half of our fractured political equation?

Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to say "enough" to Republican smears without end? Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to insist that, win or lose, you will not be party to a campaign that devolves into hatred and prejudice and divisiveness? And Sen. McCain, if it is not your responsibility, whose is it?

Memories

2008-10-10T20:30:00.002+08:00

These, to remember what I hope will be the most-memorable election in my time:

And this, because all my life I've had this same basic feeling towards algebra!

How Timely!

2008-10-05T20:38:00.000+08:00

Having Lived with a Plethora of Pussycats...

2008-10-03T18:48:00.001+08:00

...I can believe all of this!

Waaaaahahahahahaha!

McCain's Big Lie Campaign Against Alaska Repubs...er, Democrats, er...

2008-10-02T10:19:00.002+08:00

As read in The Nation -- John McCain has a problem.

His running-mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is the subject of a legitimate bipartisan inquiry into charges that she abused her authority to fire a respected lawman who would not do her personal bidding.

The charges are so serious that they could lead to her impeachment and removal as governor -- a development that would not reflect well on the Republican presidential candidate's decision to try and put Palin in line for the presidency.

What's a McCain to do?

On the eve of the first and only vice presidential debate, McCain has authorized a smear campaign designed to foster the fantasy that the inquiry into Palin's alleged wrongdoing is just partisan politics.

The campaign is based on lies, lies about the people involved in the inquiry and about Palin's relationship to it.

Those lies are contained in a new advertisement from the McCain campaign titled, "Alaska's Political Circus."

Here's the script:

ANNCR: In Alaska. The circus has come to town.

When Gov. Sarah Palin dismissed Walter Monegan over insubordination regarding his budget, blogger conspiracy theories started to fly and an investigation ensued.

Meet Sen. Hollis French. An Obama supporter.

He moved the investigation deadline to the middle of the presidential campaign, saying it could lead to an October surprise.

Meet Sen. Kim Elton. An Obama donor who continues to ignore the calls of his own committee members to reconsider whether the investigation is legitimate.

And then there's Steve Branchflower. Appointed as a QUOTE independent investigator by Elton. Branchflower and French were recently exposed for colluding on the issuing of subpoenas.

So why are they even investigating Gov. Palin? Conspiracy theorists say it's because Monegan was dismissed because he wouldn't fire Trooper Michael Wooten.

Even after Wooten was cited for tasering his 10-year-old stepson.

Secrecy, collusion, and October surprises. It's nothing more than a three-ring circus emceed by Obama partisans.

What the McCain campaign ad fails to note is that the inquiry into Palin's activities was initiated by Alaska Republicans.

It has been supported all along by Alaska Republicans.

The investigation continue to this day because Alaska Republicans believe the allegations against Palin are serious enough to warrant the expenditure of $100,000 to organize the investigation, the hiring of an independent prosecutor to conduct it and the abuse they have experienced from the McCain campaign to pursue it.

Let's be clear about the facts:

Palin did not say she fired Monegan, a former Anchorage police chief who served as state Public Safety Commissioner and who has been hailed by the state's most conservative commentators as the state's top lawman, for "insubordination." That word only came into the discussion after the McCain campaign flew a former Bush-Cheney administration federal prosecutor from New York to Anchorage with instructions to derail the investigation.

Republicans, not Democrats, and certainly not Obama backers, control the Alaska legislature.

It was a former Republican legislator and statewide candidate, Andrew Halcro, who began pressing for the investigation.

It was Alaska's Republican-controlled Legislative Council that authorized the investigation and appointed Hollis French to manage it. French did not move the deadline to conflict with the election campaign, he actually moved it away from the election so that the report on Palin's wrongdoing would not be released on the eve of the November 4 national vote. He did that to try and avoid partisan conflicts.

It was Alaska's Republican-controlled Legislative Council that approved the hiring of Steve Branchflower, a universally respected retired prosecutor who has no partisan affiliation.

It was Alaska's Republican-controlled Legislative Council that authorized continuation of the inquiry after the McCain campaign flew a noted Bush-Cheney administration fixer -- a veteran of the Florida recount fight -- into the state to try and prevent completion of an investigation that McCain aides feared would expose Palin as an abusive and irresponsible official.

It was a Republican-controlled state Senate Judiciary Committee that began issuing subpoenas in the case.

It was a Republican governor who welcomed the legislative inquiry and promised full cooperation with Hollis Smith, Steve Branchflower and everyone else involved with the investigation.

Her name was Sarah Palin and she said, "Hold me accountable."

It appears now that she was lying.

Palin's lie, while distressing, cannot compare with those contained in the McCain campaign's latest ad.

The ad is a shameful, big-lie assault on the truth.

And it is authorized by John McCain, a man who once claimed to practice "straight talk."

More Funnies

2008-09-04T16:18:00.000+08:00

6 Things the Palin Pick Says About John McCain

2008-08-31T07:59:00.003+08:00

From Saturday's Politico...and exactly what I was thinking, though I probably wouldn't have said as well!

Jim VandeHei, John F. Harris Sat Aug 30, 9:57 AM ET

The selection of a running mate is among the most consequential, most defining decisions a presidential nominee can make. John McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says a lot about his decison-making — and some of it is downright breathtaking.

We knew McCain is a politician who relishes improvisation, and likes to go with his gut. But it is remarkable that someone who has repeatedly emphasized experience in this campaign named an inexperienced governor he barely knew to be his No. 2. Whatever you think of the pick, here are six things it tells us about McCain:

1. He’s desperate. Let’s stop pretending this race is as close as national polling suggests. The truth is McCain is essentially tied or trailing in every swing state that matters — and too close for comfort in several states like Indiana and Montana the GOP usually wins pretty easily in presidential races. On top of that, voters seem very inclined to elect Democrats in general this election — and very sick of the Bush years.

McCain could easily lose in an electoral landslide. That is the private view of Democrats and Republicans alike.

McCain’s pick shows he is not pretending. Politicians, even “mavericks” like McCain, play it safe when they think they are winning — or see an easy path to winning. They roll the dice only when they know that the risks of conventionality are greater than the risks of boldness.

The Republican brand is a mess. McCain is reasonably concluding that it won’t work to replicate George W. Bush and Karl Rove’s electoral formula, based around national security and a big advantage among Y chromosomes, from 2004.

“She’s a fresh new face in a party that’s dying for one — the antidote to boring white men,” a campaign official said.

Palin, the logic goes, will prompt voters to give him a second look — especially women who have watched Democrats reject Hillary Rodham Clinton for Barack Obama.

The risks of a backlash from choosing someone so unknown and so untested are obvious. In one swift stroke, McCain demolished what had been one of his main arguments against Obama.

“I think we’re going to have to examine our tag line, ‘dangerously inexperienced,’” a top McCain official said wryly.

2. He’s willing to gamble — bigtime. Let’s face it: This is not the pick of a self-confident candidate. It is the political equivalent of a trick play or, as some Democrats called it, a Hail Mary pass in football. McCain talks incessantly about experience, and then goes and selects a woman he hardly knows, who hardly knows foreign policy and who can hardly be seen as instantly ready for the presidency.

He is smart enough to know it could work, at least politically. Many Republicans see this pick as a brilliant stroke because it will be difficult for Democrats to run hard against a woman in the wake of the Hillary Clinton drama. Will this push those disgruntled Hillary voters McCain’s way? Perhaps. But this is hardly aimed at them: It is directed at the huge bloc of independent women — especially those who do not see abortion as a make-or-break issue — who could decide this election.

McCain has a history of taking dares. Palin represents his biggest one yet.

3. He’s worried about the political implications of his age. Like a driver overcorrecting out of a swerve, he chooses someone who is two years younger than the youthful Obama, and 28 years younger than he is. (He turned 72 Friday.) The father-daughter comparison was inevitable when they appeared next to each other.

4. He’s not worried about the actuarial implications of his age. He thinks he’s in fine fettle, and Palin wouldn’t be performing the only constitutional duty of a vice president, which is standing by in case a president dies or becomes incapacitated. If he was really concerned about an inexperienced person sitting in the Oval Office we would be writing about vice presidential nominee Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge or Condoleezza Rice.

There is no plausible way that McCain could say that he picked Palin, who was only elected governor in 2006 and whose most extended public service was as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population 8,471), because she was ready to be president on Day One.

Nor can McCain argue that he was looking for someone he could trust as a close adviser. Most people know the staff at the local Starbucks better than McCain knows Palin. They met for the first time last February at a National Governors Association meeting in Washington. Then, they spoke again — by phone — on Sunday while she was at the Alaska state fair and he was at home in Arizona.

McCain has made a mockery out of his campaign's longtime contention that Barack Obama is too dangerously inexperienced to be commander in chief. Now, the Democratic ticket boasts 40 years of national experience (four years for Obama and 36 years for Joseph Biden of Delaware), while the Republican ticket has 26 (McCain’s four yeasr in the House and 22 in the Senate.)

The McCain campaign has made a calculation that most voters don’t really care about the national experience or credentials of a vice president, and that Palin’s ebullient personality and reputation as a refomer who took on cesspool politics in Alaska matters more.

5. He’s worried about his conservative base. If he had room to maneuver, there were lots of people McCain could have selected who would have represented a break from Washington politics as usual. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman comes to mind (and it certainly came to McCain’s throughout the process). He had no such room. GOP stalwarts were furious over trial balloons about the possibility of choosing a supporter of abortion rights, including the possibility that he would reach out to his friend.

Palin is an ardent opponent of abortion who was previously scheduled to keynote the Republican National Coalition for Life's "Life of the Party" event in the Twin Cities this week.

“She’s really a perfect selection,” said Darla St. Martin, the Co-Director of the National Right to Life Committee. It is no secret McCain wanted to shake things up in this race — and he realized he was limited to a shake-up conservatives could stomach.

6. At the end of the day, McCain is still McCain. People may find him a refreshing maverick, or an erratic egotist. In either event, he marches to his own beat.

On the upside, his team did manage to play to the media’s love of drama, fanning speculation about his possible choices and maximizing coverage of the decision.

On the potential downside, the drama was evidently entirely genuine. The fact that McCain only spoke with Palin about the vice presidency for the first time on Sunday, and that he was seriously considering Lieberman until days ago, suggests just how hectic and improvisational his process was.

In the end, this selection gives him a chance to reclaim the mantle of a different kind of politician intent on changing Washington. He once had a legitimate claim to this: after all, he took on his own party over campaign finance reform and immigration. He jeopardized this claim in recent months by embracing ideas he once opposed (Bush tax cuts) and ideas that appeared politically motivated (gas tax holiday).

Spontaneity, with a touch of impulsiveness, is one of the traits that attract some of McCain’s admirers. Whether it’s a good calling card for a potential president will depend on the reaction in coming days to what looks for the moment like the most daring vice presidential selection in generations.

Mike Allen contributed to this report.

OK, You Were a POW. Now Shut Up Already!

2008-08-30T17:49:00.002+08:00

Everybody knows John McCain served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, was shot down, captured, and was a prisoner of war for over five years. That experience, as challenging as it must have been, does not automatically qualify one to be the president of the United States...or does it?

Raising his POW experience to Jay Leno to justify not remembering how many houses he owns:
Could I just mention to you Jay, that in a moment of seriousness, I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair.

Raising his POW experience to justify his love of the song Take a Chance on Me by Abba:
A lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface to air missile with my own airplane, McCain said to Walter Issacson at the Aspen Institute. (In fact, Abba began recording years after he was shot down.)

Raising his POW experience to justify his opposition to universal health care:
I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good health care, I had it from another government. Look, I know what it’s like not to have health care, McCain said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Raising his POW experience to attack political opponents:
Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum. Now, my friends, I wasn’t there. I was tied up at the time, McCain said during a primary debate.

Former president Jimmy Carter was bewildered by McCain's performance at the Saddleback Presidential Forum hosted by pastor and author Rick Warren in Lake Forest, Calif., earlier this month.

Carter said that whether he was asked about religion, domestic or foreign affairs, every answer came back to McCain's 5½ years as a POW. "John McCain was able to weave in his experience in a Vietnam prison camp, no matter what the question was," Carter said. "It's much better than talking about how he's changed his total character between being a senator, a kind of a maverick … and his acquiescence in the last few months with every kind of lobbyist pressure that the right-wing Republicans have presented."

Yeah, the John McCain I remember pre-2001, the 2001-2007 McCain, and the 2008 campaign McCain are very different Johns. And I must agree with Carter's assessment.

Heroine Del Martin Rests in Peace

2008-08-28T10:43:00.004+08:00

Pioneering lesbian rights activist Del Martin, who married her lifelong partner in June on the first day that same-sex couples here gained that right, has died. She was 87.

Martin died at a San Francisco hospital Wednesday morning with her wife (and partner in life for many decades), Phyllis Lyon, by her side.

Along with six other women, Martin and Lyon founded a San Francisco social club for lesbians in 1955. Under their leadership, that group evolved into the nation's first lesbian advocacy organization.

The couple were married at San Francisco City Hall on June 16. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the wedding, singled them out to be the first gay couple to legally exchange vows in the city, in recognition of their activism.

The two were among the two dozen couples who served as plaintiffs in the lawsuits that led the state Supreme Court to overturn California's ban on gay marriage in May.
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom looks on as Del Martin, left, places a ring on her partner Phyllis Lyon, right, on their wedding day, June 16, 2008.

While it seems so terribly sad that she has died just two months after their wedding, consolation exists in the many decades they had already shared together. Let us all pray the love Del has for Phyllis, and Phyllis' spirit as a pioneering activist for all our rights, wipes away some of the tears and sorrow and allows Phyllis to continue on the rest of her days with us.

God bless you Del and Phyllis. Well, you had over 50 years together. God has been blessing you both for a long, long time. This isn't an end to that.

peace & love
peace & love
peace & love

Quotes on Homosexuality

2008-08-23T23:46:00.003+08:00

The next time someone asks you, "Hey, howdja get to be a homosexual anyway?" tell them, "Homosexuals are chosen first on talent, then interview... then the swimsuit and evening gown competition pretty much gets rid of the rest of them." ~Karen Williams

"god made only a few gifted people, the rest are heterosexuals" -unknown

Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?" ~John Stewart

It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain. ~Francis Maude

When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one. ~Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich, 1988

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines

"Why do we have to recycle the old conflicts so many times: first we fight about slavery, then segregation, then gender, and now sexual orientation, while gender identity is in the wings waiting? Why can't people look at the phrase 'liberty and justice for all' and simply accept that 'all' means 'all.' " - Anonymous

"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." -Lynn Lavner

If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: "Hello. Can't work today, still queer." ~Robin Tyler

Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality. -James Baldwin

There's this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That's completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved. ~Boy George

Soldiers who are not afraid of guns, bombs, capture, torture, or death say they are afraid of homosexuals. Clearly we should not be used as soldiers we should be used as weapons. ~Letter to the Editor, The Advocate

You could move. ~Abigail Van Buren of "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.

More Fun SPAM Messages

2008-08-23T22:57:00.005+08:00

necati kupczyk sent: McCain Chooses Paris Hilton to be Running Mate
Not after her video response to his attack ad he didn't!

niyazi batchelder sent: Paris Hilton Donates Income To Children's Hospital From Mini-Me Sex Tape
She had sex with him too?? Not that I did! But, his ex-girlfriend did and the tape got out...

Milap olasanski sent: Paris Hilton To Operate New Atom Smasher
Paris is really getting around, isn't she??

raimond ahmedd added this: Paris Hilton Returned By Aliens
Was she ever gone?

This from Hesam valentine seems almost believable: Britney heartbroken as Diana's Butler beds Winehouse

alvin gil sent: Satisfy all big cock lovers with Penis Enlarge Patch
There's a patch for just about everything now, isn't there?

vilceanu schuetter adds this bit of weirdness: Britney Spears Gives Foreskin Museum Amazing Gift
Some things are better left unknown, don't you think?

Coda steinfort's message was something I've long wanted to know: Britney Spears Confession: 'I'm the Father of Anna Nicole Smith's Baby!'
Now I can sleep at night. It also marks the first time I have any real interest in lesbian sex.

And if that wasn't Britney enough, champ perreault adds this: Bald Britney Spears Says Shaved Head Goes Well With Shaved Vagina
It's the symmetry, you know.

Absolutely Beautiful

2008-08-20T18:25:00.004+08:00

Poem credited to Jack Benny in a letter to his wife, Mary, telling her about the roses he had been sending her each year:

Each year he sent her roses,
and the note would always say,
I love you even more this year,
than last year on this day.
My love for you will always grow,
with every passing year.'

She knew this was the last time
that the roses would appear.
She thought, he ordered roses
in advance before this day.
Her loving husband did not know,
that he would pass away.

He always liked to do things early,
way before the time.
Then, if he got too busy,
everything would work out fine.
She trimmed the stems and
placed them in a very special vase.

Then, sat the vase beside
the portrait of his smiling face.
She would sit for hours,
In her husband's favorite chair.
While staring at his picture,
and the roses sitting there.

A year went by, and it was
to live without her mate.
With loneliness and solitude,
that had become her fate.

Then, the very hour,
The doorbell rang, and there
were roses sitting by her door.

She brought the roses in,
and then just looked at them in shock.
Then, went to get the telephone,
to call the florist shop.

The owner answered, and she asked him,
if he would explain, Why would someone would
do this to her, causing her such pain?

'I know your husband passed away,
more than a year ago,'
The owner said,
'I knew you'd call, and you would want to know.

The flowers you received today,
were paid for in advance.
Your husband always planned ahead,
he left nothing to chance.

There is a standing order,
that I have on file down here,
And he has paid, well in advance,
you'll get them every year.

There also is another thing,
that I think you should know,
He wrote a special little card...he did this years
ago. Then, should ever I find out that he's no longer here,
that's the card that should be sent to you the following year.'

She thanked him and hung up the phone, her tears now flowing hard.
Her fingers shaking,
as she slowly reached to get the card.

Inside the card, she saw that he
had written her a note.
Then, as she stared in total silence,

this is what he wrote...

'Hello my love, I know it's been a year
since I've been gone.
I hope it hasn't been too hard for you to
overcome.
I know it must be lonely,
and the pain is very real.
Or if it was the other way,
I know how I would feel.

The love we shared made everything
so beautiful in life.
I loved you more than words can say,
you were the perfect wife.
You were my friend and lover,
you fulfilled my every need.
I know it's only been a year,
but please try not to grieve.
I want you to be happy,
even when you shed your tears.

That is why the roses will be sent to you for years.
When you get these roses,
think of all the happiness that we had together,
and how both of us were blessed.

I have always loved you and
I know I always will.
But, my love, you must go on,
you have some living still.

Please...try to find happiness,
while living out your days.
I know it is not easy,
but I hope you find some ways.

The roses will come every year,
and they will only stop,
When your door's not answered,
when the florist stops to knock.

He will come five times that day,
in case you have gone out.
But after his last visit,
he will know without a doubt!
To take the roses to the place,
where I've instructed him
and place the roses where we are,
together once again.

If that doesn't bring a tear to your eyes or lump in your throat, I don't know what will.

I found this here.

The Exotic Candidate Is The One With Eight Houses

2008-08-15T11:19:00.004+08:00

This from Bob Cesca in the Huffington Post:

"It is possible," Gore Vidal once wrote, "for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions."

The barbecue media script for this election, a work of unabridged fiction and co-written by the modern Rove Republicans, has crow-barred Senator Obama into the incongruous frame of the exotic effete elitist, irrespective of the fact that, on all counts, he's absolutely none of those things. It's the same script that's been wheeled out during the last several presidential elections -- designed as a way of sculpting reality into a neatly packaged prime time dramatic narrative that both reinforces and exploits fear-based stereotypes.

This week, for example, Cokie Roberts and Michael Crowley, along with a creepy monster squad of Republican stalkers, have been trying to peg Senator Obama's vacation in Hawaii as proof that the script is accurate. Hawaii, they say, is only for exotic elitists. Senator Obama is in Hawaii. Therefore, Senator Obama is an exotic elitist. See how that works?

Never mind that this Hawaii-is-exotic-and-elitist gripe came from a not-elitist millionaire with the not-exotic name "Cokie." This Cokie phenomenon is a solid example of the script's paradoxical, fictitious awfulness. Despite similar griping from the McBush Republicans, the truth is that Senator McCain is far and away the more elitist and exotic of the two candidates. Fact. No bias here.

Let's start with Hawaii and do the list.

Senator McCain met and fell in love with his current wife, Cindy Hensley, while on vacation in... exotic and elitist Hawaii. He was 42, she was 24. He was still married to his first wife at the time, who was disabled as the result of a car accident, by the way. The whole scene -- Hawaii, cheating on a disabled wife with a super-rich beer heiress -- is just about as exotic and elitist as it gets according to the standards of the script.

So... Cokie?

For the sake of contrast, Senator Obama and Mrs. Obama's biography as a couple is about as ordinary and traditional as Americana itself. No weird cheating or ugly divorces. No trophy heiress nearly half his age. Just an ordinary American love story. How the barbecue media and far-right talk radio has managed to spin the Obamas as the African-American version of Mickey & Mallory is one of the most wicked examples of dishonesty from this dark ride -- worthy of the most backwards of Karl Rove's non-reality-based conspiracies against the truth.

Cindy McCain's beer distributorship pulls in upwards of $300 million annually. Hardly relatable to the middle and working class families who are losing their homes to foreclosure -- one of many consequences of the last 30 years of the Republican war on the middle class. So it's not a stretch to suggest that being married to a woman whose family business is worth a quarter of a billion dollars is -- what's the word? -- unusual? Atypical? Irregular? How about exotic?

Such cash allows for certain not-elitist and not-exotic perks. A private jet for example. According to Mrs. McCain, getting around Arizona is hard work so thank goodness the McCains have their own jet. Just like you and me and the Obamas, right? But maybe it's unfair to badger the McCains about their personal jet airplane. How else are they going to travel around to their eight houses (this one, for example). Walk? Drive a car? That's just silly talk. Senator McCain would totally ruin his not-elitist and not-exotic $520 Italian shoes engaging in such an effort. Then what would he wear while he's hosting SNL or visiting the set of a movie he's appearing in? Jelly shoes from Payless? Yeah right. Try installing Senator McCain's lifts inside of those hideous things.

The only truly "ordinary" thing about Senator McCain is that his first name is "John" (there are just over 5 million guys named "John" in the United States, so they win this one). He's also white. Really, really white. Like, squishy subterranean cave dweller white.

Yet irrespective of what white, upper-class Republicans or Mark Penn or Very Serious Mark Halperin or Pat Buchanan might think, Senator Obama quite literally looks like 21st Century America. Mixed-culture, mixed-heritage, middle class roots. Senator Obama, in terms of his racial composition and family history, has more in common with average Americans than just about any modern Republican presidential nominee.

The only way he's not is if somehow we've been transported into an episode of Leave It To Beaver -- or if by "America" the Republicans and the barbecue media mean to suggest "Kentucky." Even with that as a qualification, half of Senator Obama's racial composition is rooted in rural Kansas. His parents were divorced. He barely knew his biological father.

Now, Cokie, drive down (or have your driver take you) to the nearest Wal-Mart. Line up 100 people and ask them whether they can relate to a man who owns eight houses and whose wife is a gazillionaire, or if they can relate to a man who represents the American melting pot -- a man who just recently paid off his student loans -- a man who was raised by a single mother -- a man who is (shock horror!) still happily married to his only wife. Then drive back (or have your driver take you) down to ABC's Newseum studio this Sunday and look directly into the This Week cameras tell us that Senator Obama is the more exotic or elitist of the two candidates.

And that goes for you, too, Buchanan. (Pat Buchanan has recently been engaging in some concern-trolling by wondering aloud, "Why can't Senator Obama close the deal?" This is one of Buchanan's more subversive race-baiting tricks. The answer he's begging is very likely his favorite lamentation about the senator: "Because he's too exotic.")

The modern Republicans have hijacked the label "real American" and stapled it onto the foreheads of a platoon of phonies. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, John Sidney McCain, Rush Limbaugh. Hell, even the poster boy for this hillbilly dark ride, Larry the Cable Guy, is a fraud in redneck drag. And the very serious barbecue media has accepted this trickery as reality because it fits perfectly into their antiquated election year narrative.

Throughout the course of this seemingly interminable election cycle, it's been well-documented by various blogotubers that the key to winning this election will be to fight the barbecue media's script -- to debunk the "series of flashing fictions." I would suggest that reversing this "exotic elitist" frame is, to borrow a familiar phrase, a central front in the war on the barbecue media. In the case of Senator Obama, reality is on our side. It's simply a matter of repeating the reality until the script is slowly immolated and the truth rises to the surface. And in the process, perhaps the barbecue media will begin to realize that the modern liberal movement has more in common with "average Americans" than any fraud or flimflam artist the Republicans have dropped onto the stage.

I find it odd that Americans can't seem to see through the misinformation spread by Cokie Roberts and the other talking heads. Sure, John McCain was a POW. That and his name, are where his credibility as an average guy end. Otherwise, like current poster boy for infidelity John Edwards, McCain also had an affair with another woman, and that woman is now his wife. Obama has just one house (like most people, if theirs hasn't been lost to foreclosure), and only recently was able to pay off the last of his student loans. OK, he lived a couple years in Indonesia as a child. A lot of army brats live overseas for a couple years of their lives as well and no one ever complains about that.

I also cannot fathom why the media believes Obama's visit to his grandmother is so elitist. Is it because she lives in Hawaii? She's always lived there! Lots of people live there. Is it expensive to go there? Yes. But since his grandmother can't fly out, he has no choice but to fly there to see her.

Maybe Cokie and Co. should do their jobs and report the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and WHY of a story (that's called "reporting") and let the public decide, instead of deciding for us how we should interpret the story by hiding or omitting certain facts.

As Dragnet's Joe Friday always said: Just the facts, ma'am.

World's oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC

2008-07-31T22:11:00.001+08:00

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today.

It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

It heads the world's oldest top 10 joke list published by the University of Wolverhampton Thursday.

A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second -- "How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish."

The oldest British joke dates back to the 10th Century and reveals the bawdy face of the Anglo-Saxons -- "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before? Answer: A key."

"Jokes have varied over the years, with some taking the question and answer format while others are witty proverbs or riddles," said the report's writer Dr Paul McDonald, senior lecturer at the university.

"What they all share however, is a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion. Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humor can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research."

The study was commissioned by television channel Dave. The top 10 oldest jokes can be viewed at www.dave-tv.co.uk.

(Reporting by John Joseph; Editing by Steve Addison)

OK, this is interesting, but what was the reaction by the people who pays this guy when they realized what he'd been researching???

How the Rest of the World Sees the USA

2008-07-27T08:31:00.003+08:00

Or it this how Americans see things?

See, we're seen (especially folks in the midwest--a.k.a.: Bush supporters) as a bunch of naive, unworldly, brainwashed so-called Christian nut jobs from outside. Well, midwesterners are viewed that way in the US as well...

...hmmm...

...and the Canadians are left in Rodney Dangerfield's shoes, getting no respect while Mexico is enjoying winning back the land the US stole from them years ago.

Funnies

2008-07-27T08:19:00.005+08:00

Why?

Because they're really funny and I want to keep them someplace where I'll remember where to find them.

Man wins damages over gay driving test retake

2008-07-15T09:09:00.003+08:00

Sexual identity's effects on road performance? Performance in bed...sure, but...read on...

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled the government must pay 100,000 euros ($157,700) in damages to a man who was told to retake a driving test because he was homosexual.

When 26 year-old Danilo Giuffrida told doctors he was gay at his medical examination for military service, they passed the information to the transport ministry, who told him he must repeat his driving test or have his license withdrawn due to his "sexual identity disturbance."

Giuffrida agreed to re-take his test, passed it for a second time, but the ministry renewed his license for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

The judge ruling on the case in Catania, on the southern island of Sicily, said the actions of the defense and transport ministries showed "evident sexual discrimination" against Giuffrida and ran counter to his constitutional rights.

The behavior of the ministries led Giuffrida to have "a grave sense of mistrust towards the state," added the judge, who ordered them to pay him 100,000 euros of damages in his verdict issued on Saturday.

Giuffrida's lawyer said the case marked the first time the state had been punished for sexual discrimination, and he hoped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would "summon Giuffrida and apologize to him on behalf of the state and all Italians."

Giuffrida said the sentence was "a step forwards for civil rights because from now on what happened to me can't happen again."

(Reporting by Gavin Jones and Roberto Landucci; Editing by Matthew Jones)

What I want to know is: was there an (ahem) oral exam????

Spam Fun

2008-07-07T11:00:00.002+08:00

John Lemuel sent me a message today which my email account filed in my spam folder saying:

Let me show you my tits. No credit card needed.

Uh "John"....wrong tree.

This was followed by Shirley Jehu's offer:

;) Look sexy songs Full!!!

Jennifer Aniston Kick-up porno dvd.

Look it now!

Umm, sure...if I had any idea what you were trying to say.

Johnnie has this to offer:

With at training has roots in the trend in Western culture since the Dark ages of

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146 Items on Sale Today.

We reduce our prices regularly
virtual reality is being made to sound a lot more important than

Well, I'm sure "reducing" prices isn't the only thing Johnnie does regularly.

It's Not Coincidence

2008-06-27T21:48:00.002+08:00

Hmmm...it doesn't take a lot to wonder how everything has gone right for the administration personally while so badly for the citizenry of the US...and the rest of the world!

Words of Wisdom

2008-06-25T15:49:00.001+08:00

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

-Dr. Seuss

The End May be Near...RIP George Carlin

2008-06-23T18:13:00.003+08:00

(One of the last voices of reason in the United States has left us. Be very afraid. People aren't very good at thinking for themselves and depended on him to help them do it!)

Carlin, counterculture comedians' dean, dies at 71

By KEITH ST. CLAIR, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.

Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).

"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"

He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.

Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.

"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin was born May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar.

Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.

Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."

Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.

But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."

Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this report.

The Truth of Television News Today

2008-06-22T16:09:00.000+08:00

Androgynous

2008-06-21T11:04:00.001+08:00

A great cover of Paul Westerberg's 1980's song by the amazing Joan Jett.

A Call to be More Civil

2008-06-21T10:27:00.000+08:00

From the Cristian Science Monitor:

By Timothy Snyder Fri Jun 20, 4:00 AM ET

New Haven, Conn. - Congress has just approved a massive upgrade for Amtrak, the national rail service. As fuel prices rise, we will become again, like it or not, a people that rides the trains. Now is our chance to think of how we might make that necessity a pleasant one.
ADVERTISEMENT

Trains were once the civilized form of travel, allowing us to contemplate, read, or talk to a neighbor. A whole genre of American films, such as Hitchcock's "North by Northwest," depended on the premise that people could get to know each other on trains.

Today, this would be impossible, since we neither think nor talk to each other on board. Generally, we sit with eyes glazed, making cellphone calls, reminding friends and family far away that we are on the train, that the frozen peas are in the freezer, and that the baby's diaper will need changing.

Is this necessary? Why not install cellphone jammers on half the train cars on the new Amtrak?

What about all of the businessmen and their urgent conversations? Surely we need nonstop communication for economic growth? Sound business decisions, like all sound decisions, require concentration and focus. They also require the development of an attention span.

Sometimes, when the stakes are highest, connectivity is exactly what we don't need. Take, for example, the International Congress of Plasma Physicists: Organizers of the most recent congress consciously decided to forgo Internet connectivity. These are the scientists who are working to turn fusion into a viable solution to the world energy crisis. Their task is quite literally to save the world, so they concentrate on their work.

But who is Amtrak, or the government, to make a decision to jam cellphones in the train? What about free speech? No one freely chose the situation we currently have, in which we beam radio signals through our skulls and transmit obnoxious noises into the hapless minds of our neighbors.

Public cellphone use today is what smoking in public places was until very recently: an obvious violation of the rights of others. Cellphones also undermine the whole purpose of free speech, as understood by the Founding Fathers: public discourse. Contrary to the intention of the framers of the Constitution, we have made speech into something that keeps us apart, rather than brings us together.

When people can't use cellphones, they are much freer to speak with one another. Buddhists advise us to "be here now." As we zone out and force others to do the same, our motto is rather "be nowhere indefinitely."

We can do better. Cellphones are useful tools for the lost traveler, the fireman, the farmer in his combine in the middle of a field. They can bring the lonely together and keep comrades close. But there is no need for cellphone access everywhere.

Airlines should not use jammers, for technical reasons, but they should ban cellphone use on board. There is no reason why people couldn't say "I'm at baggage claim," rather than the current "I just landed and I'll call you again from baggage claim." With the exception of true emergencies, such as terrorism and heart attacks, no one actually has to make a cellphone call from an airplane.

If some train cars could be jammed, then others could be connected. Then cellphone users could choose to be together, as could those who prefer traditional conversation or reading. People who think they might need their cellphones could simply sit in an unjammed car.

This would be far better than a single "quiet car," where oversensitive passengers hush people who are having normal conversations. Let us create a real choice and allow people to have a public space.

This could be the beginning of a national conversation. Mindless, habitual connectivity in all places is making us a worse society. The time has come for some forethought, about the kind of people we are becoming ourselves and about the generation we are creating.

University and school buildings should all have jammers in their classrooms, for example, to be turned on and off at the discretion of teachers.

At some point these decisions are no longer a matter of courtesy, but a matter of the creation of a thoughtful body of citizens. The train is a good place to start.

• Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University. His most recent book is "The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke."

So Funny

2008-05-30T18:25:00.000+08:00

Disastrous!

2008-05-21T21:24:00.003+08:00

The work of Christian Science Monitor cartoonist Clay Bennett...so, so true!

See more at http://www.claybennett.com/ .

Opinion Piece

2008-05-15T16:18:00.002+08:00

As seen in the Philippine Daily Enquirer today. Read on for a un-conservative, un-Catholic view of the 'real world', a world the Catholic church seems to not know it exists within.

THERE’S THE RUB

Natural

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:14am (Mla time) 05/15/2008

I read with much interest a couple of bishops’ take on gays. Their remarks were occasioned by several other Church officials earlier expressing their unhappiness over gays participating in the Santacruzan traditional parade, which they said tarnished the image of the Virgin Mary. It stirred up a minor storm last week.

Bishop Jose Oliveros, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Office on Bio-ethics, says that contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church is not intolerant of gays, it is liberal with gays. The Church, he says, has come to terms with them. “We try to be compassionate and understand homosexuals and guide them towards the right path where they should not act out on their desires.” By itself, being attracted to the same sex is not a sin. Doing something about that attraction is.

Bishop Leonardo Medroso, CBCP Commissioner on Canon Law chair, agrees. He has a rather clever way of proving it. Catholics, he says, are forbidden to have sex outside marriage. That applies to everyone, man or woman. “Marriage and sex, as the Church views it, are solely for reproduction. That’s the nature of marriage, opening up a couple to producing children. We cannot have that in a man-to-man or woman-to-woman relationship. Therefore, sex between persons of the same sex becomes unnatural and offends the Church.”

The argument is clever. It says nothing about whether being gay is aberrant or not. It merely says that all sex outside of marriage is a sin. And since gays may not marry (at least each other), then any sex by them is a sin!

The easiest course is for gays to just bolt out of Catholicism and shop around for a faith more hospitable to their cause. Though I grant that isn’t easy: Islam seems far more forbidding, with its irascible “May Allah strike down the unclean” attitude toward those who do not fit the mold. I don’t know what the Buddhist, Hindu and Confucian positions are.

But not all Filipino gays will want to do that, many of them counting themselves lucky to be embracing Christ—in the figurative sense of course. I personally have gay friends who are good and decent—why shouldn’t they be, they’re no different from the rest of us—who are self-professed Christians, and who have gay relationships. A couple of gay women I know are even planning to have kids by artificial insemination. They cannot imagine a God that is compassionate and merciful who will consign them to hell because of it. But that’s the wonder of it, how the Church insists on practicing the religious equivalent of Procrustes’ bed: If the person does not fit the bed, cut off or stretch his arms and limbs until he does.

The Church’s doctrine on marriage in particular should be enough to drive Catholics, straight or gay, into the arms of Hinduism, which extols the virtues of the Kama Sutra, or at least does not frown on it. The idea that marriage and sex exist solely for procreation could only have been invented either by masochists or persons whose nerve endings have been dulled to a state of insensateness. One is tempted to say that this is a case where the sheep should assure the shepherds that sex, or getting laid, or f---ing your brains out—three ways of expressing a miracle of Creation—is one of the most intense, well, religious experiences they can possibly have. But I doubt they need to be assured it at all. If they did, the Pope wouldn’t have to publicly apologize to the victims of all sorts of sexual abuse by the clergy.

The idea of a couple, married or not, having sex in order to procreate is hilarious. It conjures the image of them hard at it (no pun intended for the male partner), enduring the ordeal, determined only like soldiers pinned down in trenches to persevere out of a sense of duty and finally to break through in one great rush. What a perverse and joyless act that is. I doubt any Christian, short of an ascetic, will fill the bill.

Whatever happened to love? Whatever happened to ecstasy? Whatever happened to two people, straight or gay, bonded by feelings that cannot be expressed by words, needing to express themselves to each other by flinging themselves into each other’s arms and surrendering themselves into a consummation devoutly to be wished? Surely that is part of the magic of life?

Which brings me to the argument that the Church is not proscribing against gays, it is merely proscribing against gays acting as gays, or that it is not demanding that gays do not get attracted to other gays, it is merely demanding that gays do not act on it. I don’t know about you but I found Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” to be an honest-to-goodness love story, ranking up there with “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle.” Gays do fall in love too, and what I figure is unnatural is to compel them on the ground that it is perverse or that they cannot procreate to abort it. There is nothing more natural than love in whatever form it takes. Sex is not overrated, procreation is. Demanding that gays feel but not fulfill is not Christian, it is sadistic.

I don’t know the finer points of theology, but I’ve always had the impression that what distinguished the Old Testament from the New Testament is that the New looks at the world more positively. Where the Old Testament called on fire and brimstone to befall those who failed to obey their ten “Thou shalt not’s,” the New Testament called on God’s grace to fall on those who obeyed his son’s single commandment of “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” That seems like a pitch for tolerance and largeness of spirit. Last I looked, if Jesus Christ frowned on anything, it was on prissiness and hypocrisy, preferring the company of fishers and a reformed (?) prostitute to those that scorned them.

It was so unnatural they nailed him to the cross.

Lessons In Life

2008-04-22T22:29:00.002+08:00

This is why we don't have a television:

Cathy's dogs make a good point. Residing in the Philippines, a major source of jobs outsourced from the US, this seems to strike me all the more funny...and I feel sad for those little cartoon doggies!

Yeah, It's Like That!

2008-04-14T13:06:00.002+08:00

I just had no idea it was education via cable television!

Is this what cats get out of our programs? A kind of hidden signal buried in a wavelength humans can't perceive?!

Hmmmm.......

Oh, What Next?

2008-04-08T11:10:00.004+08:00

School Costume Event Draws Church Ire
by The Associated Press

Posted: April 7, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(Reedsburg, Wisconsin) An elementary-school event in which kids were encouraged to dress as members of the opposite gender drew the ire of a Christian radio group, whose angry broadcast prompted outraged calls to the district office.

Students at Pineview Elementary in Reedsburg had been dressing in costume all last week as part of an annual school tradition called Wacky Week.

On Friday, students were encouraged to dress either as senior citizens or as members of the opposite sex.

A local resident informed the Voice of Christian Youth America on Friday.

The Milwaukee-based radio network responded by interrupting its morning programming for a special broadcast that aired on nine radio stations throughout Wisconsin.

The broadcast criticized the dress-up day and accused the district of promoting alternative lifestyles.

``We believe it's the wrong message to send to elementary students,'' said Jim Schneider, the network's program director. ``Our station is one that promotes traditional family values.

``It concerns us when a school district strikes at the heart and core of the Biblical values. To promote this to elementary-school students is a great error.''

Schneider co-hosts ``Crosstalk,'' a nationally syndicated call-in Christian radio show.

After the program aired, both the school and Reedsburg School District office were flooded with calls complaining about the event.

The response surprised Principal Tammy Hayes, who said no-one had raised any objections beforehand.

She said a flier detailing Wacky Week had been sent home with children the prior week, and an announcement was also included in teacher newsletters.

The dress-up day was not an attempt to promote cross-dressing, homosexuality or alternative gender roles, district administrator Tom Benson said.

``The promotion of transgenderism _ that was not our purpose,'' Benson told the Baraboo News Republic. ``Our purpose was to have a Wacky Week, mixing in a bit of silliness with our reading, writing and arithmetic.''

This is a prime example of what is wrong with the world today.

Completely missing the point that it is "WACKY WEEK" at the school, some moron could only see that the kids were encouraged to dress as someone of the opposite sex.

They ignored the dressing as someone elderly option.
They ignored that this was in the spirit of fun.
They ignored that this makes the kids use their minds and be creative.

Why?

They are ignorant!

So now a whole brouhaha has erupted from some innocent fun.

I suppose the same people who are aghast at this were adversely affected by Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Harvey Korman, Dustin Hoffman, Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo, Wesley Snipes and Robin Williams dressing as women as well. We can see how dressing as women led to those actors' slippery slopes towards Hell.

Why can't these righteous, pompously pious, I-must-stick-my-nose-into-someone-else's-business "Christians" (I quote that because we all know they are not) keep their "family values" to themselves?

If they never want to experience any fun at all, that's fine by me. The school here is just trying to get the kids to engage in an activity that exercises their creativity. Disguised as fun, (which being creative is) this helps to exercise a part of the kids' minds that is unfortunately neglected in today's world of standardized tests and budgetary constraints. Art and music education aids children in learning how to "think outside the box" and develop problem-solving skills they need for math and science.

Oh, I forgot...fundamentalist Christians don't want those kind of "smart (aleck) kids"...

Love Shoe!

2008-04-04T20:51:00.000+08:00

Clinton talks; Obama balks

2008-04-04T20:16:00.000+08:00

By Mark Segal and Sarah Blazucki
(c) 2008 Philadelphia Gay News

The Democratic race for president has been heating up for months. And
where once eight contenders graced the national stage, only two have
made it to Pennsylvania' s primary: Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama. In these months, an alliance of LGBT papers sought to speak with
the top three contenders - Clinton, Obama and former Sen. John Edwards -
to no avail. Now, with the delegate spread hovering around 150, smaller
constituencies, including the LGBT community and their superdelegates,
are playing a larger role.

PGN invited both Clinton and Obama, as well as presumptive Republican
candidate John McCain, to speak with us. Only Clinton granted an
interview.

PGN: I assume that you and President Clinton have gay friends. Can you
give me your impression of one of those couples that you socialize with,
without giving any names?
Hillary Clinton: Oh my gosh. There are so many of them. I know that Mark
[Walsh, Clinton's national director of LGBT outreach] is on the phone.
Let me say this, we don't get to socialize a lot. But when we do, it's
usually at a big event where we get to see people and spend time with
them. This is something I want to do more of as soon as I finish this
presidential campaign. It's sort of hard to pick out people. We go to
some events in Washington and New York. I've got friends, literally,
around the country that I'm close to. It's part of my life.

PGN: How would you respond to those friends if they asked you why they
can't get married?
HC: What I say is that marriage is in the province of the state, which
has actually turned out to be lucky for us, because we didn't have to
get beaten on the Federal Marriage Amendment because we could make,
among other arguments, that it was such a stretch for the federal
government and it was wrong to enshrine discrimination in the
Constitution. And that states are really beginning seriously to deal
with the whole range of options, including marriage, both under their
own state constitutions and under the legislative approach. I anticipate
that there will be a very concerted amount of effort in the next couple
of years that will move this important issue forward and different
states will take different approaches as they did with marriage over
many years and you will see an evolution over time.

PGN: What will you do to improve the immigration policy for same-sex
couples?
HC: I think that that's one of the biggest problems that we've got to
contend with. Even states that have civil unions, domestic partnerships
or even marriage laws are running into roadblocks with the federal
government when it comes to federal benefits and privileges. Of course,
immigration is a federal responsibility and I am going to do everything
I can to eliminate any disparities in any benefits or rights under our
law at the federal level so that all people will have available to them
every right as an American citizen that they should, and that would
include immigration law.

PGN: What changes would you make toward governments that execute gay
people, such as Iran, Egypt and Iraq and numerous other countries in the
Middle East and Africa? Will you offer political asylum?
HC: I would be very strongly outspoken about this and it would be part
of American foreign policy. There are a number of gross human-rights
abuses that countries engage in with whom we have relations and we have
to be really vigilant and outspoken in our total repudiation of those
kinds of actions and do everything we can, including using our leverage
on matters such as aid, to change the behavior so we can try to prevent
such atrocities from happening.

PGN: In 1948, President Truman issued an executive order banning
discrimination based on race. Would you issue an executive order or a
signing order with a military appropriations bill to temporarily - until
Congress had a chance to deal with it - end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"
HC: If I were legally able to do it. I don't know what the legal
framework would be because you remember that, in the face of what Bill
[Clinton] was trying to do in '93, the act, by veto, proved majorities
made prohibitions on doing that. So whether the president has authority
to do it by executive order or not, I'm not sure. But I have been
committed for more than nine years to eliminating "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell."

PGN: Could you do so via a signing order connected to a military
appropriations bill?
HC: No. I don't think so. I will have that examined, but I don't think
so. What a signing order can do, a signing statement, what Bush has
done, is to say you're not going to enforce certain aspects of a law
that's been passed. This is different. There's a law already on the
books, which says the president cannot waive "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
But nobody has ever asked it of me quite like that. I don't think the
president would have the authority. I think we'd have to get it changed
by legislation, but I will look into that.

PGN: You co-sponsored the Domestic-Partnershi p Benefits and Obligation
Act for federal employees. Would you support federal domestic-partner
legislation to give rights to all LGBT citizens, not just federal
employees?
HC: Of course. But I think the reason why I have zeroed in on the
Obligations Act is because that's what's in the province of the federal
government and I think we might be able to get that passed. But I would
certainly sign anything that was broader too.

PGN: In states like New Jersey and Massachusetts and others that have
passed domestic-partner bills or civil-union bills, one of the major
roadblocks they find is the federal tax codes or joint filings for IRS
returns. What could we do about that?
HC: That's one of the laws we have to change. I will have a
comprehensive review, and I think a lot of that work has already been
done, to look at everything that is discriminatory in the tax code or in
any other aspect of federal law. And we will try to eliminate all of
that discrimination. I think we will have a good argument, ironically,
because I think we can say, look, the states are making determinations
about extending rights to same-sex couples in various forms and the
federal government should recognize that and should extend the same
access to federal benefits across the board. I will very much work to
achieve that.

PGN: Should the Department of Education give local school districts and
teachers direction on presenting GLBT-positive lesson plans?
HC: That's an area that you can get direction from the federal
government but the federal government doesn't have any real authority. I
think there was some guidance given during the Clinton administration
and I will look into that and see if there is some additional guidance
that could be given.

PGN: Currently before the Pennsylvania legislature is an anti-gay
marriage bill that would be on the Pennsylvania ballot in 2010, when
your colleague, Sen. Arlen Specter, is up for reelection. What advice
would you give him and our legislators?
HC: Don't pass it. I really hope that that doesn't go anywhere. I would
be very distressed if Pennsylvania were to adopt that kind of
mean-spirited referendum and I hope it won't happen.

PGN: How would you improve services for GLBT youth and seniors?
HC: I would be guided by advice by the LGBT community about the
additional kind of services that would be needed on top of the general
services that were available. For example, I've done a lot of work in
supporting the LGBT community here in New York to deal with the special
problems that adolescents face: the high suicide rates, the sense of
alienation and the experiences with bullies. I think there's a lot of
very specific and difficult challenges that LGBT young people face.
Obviously, I want to protect our young people and I want to give them
access to the services that they need. I believe the idea of guidance at
schools is important so that schools are well aware of how much more
intense the mistreatment of LGBT kids happens to be. I think we need to
do everything we can to try to protect our kids and give them a chance
to have a productive and safe childhood and adolescence, and I would
certainly zero in on that.

PGN: As first lady and as senator, you've lent your presence and support
to various gay organizations by being present at gay Pride celebrations
and so forth. When elected president, would you continue to do such?
HC: To the extent that security would permit. That's one of the
challenges of being president. I don't think the Secret Service let Bill
walk in a parade when he became president. I had a lot more flexibility
as first lady. I have more flexibility as a senator. I'll see how much
they try to trim my sails as president.

PGN: If you win the nomination, will you speak with PGN as the
Democratic nominee for president?
HC: Absolutely and I'll speak to you as president.

GOP Former Senator Slashes Bush On Gay Marriage, War, Abortion

2008-03-26T11:02:00.001+08:00

Sad that none of what I read here surprised me in any way. It just reaffirmed everything I believed had been going on since Dubya took office.

by The Associated Press

Posted: March 25, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(Providence, Rhode Island) Former Rhode Island Senator. Lincoln Chafee often seemed to be odd man out in Washington.

He was one of the Senate's most liberal Republicans, bucking his party on big issues such as Iraq, tax cuts, abortion and the environment. His reserved, sometimes quirky personality was never a smooth fit in the clubby Senate, where friendships can mean more than political ties in making things happen.

In his new political memoir, Chafee revels in his outsider status as he chronicles his disillusionment with the bitter partisanship that dominated his seven years in the Senate. He wields a broad brush, heaping blame on Republicans and Democrats alike for putting party loyalty and ambition ahead of the public good.

Chafee points plenty of fingers, but President George W. Bush, whom Chafee backed in 2000, earns his harshest scorn.

He brands Bush as two-faced for solemnly promising during the campaign to be a ``uniter, not a divider,'' but later pursuing a hard-line GOP agenda using wedge issues like abortion and gay rights. Chafee complains about Bush's ``juvenile streak.'' And he rails at Bush's pretending to search for weapons of mass destruction behind the White House furniture during a skit at a black-tie Washington dinner.

``It was obscene for him to joke about a falsehood that American troops had gone to their graves believing,'' Chafee writes.

As U.S. casualties in Iraq mounted in fall 2003, Chafee says he even considered a primary challenge against Bush but quickly scrapped the idea after Saddam Hussein's capture boosted the president's political stock.

Chafee bemoans the GOP's rightward drift and the disappearance of moderate Republicans such as himself. Chafee's independence was a matter of political survival in a Democratic-leaning state.

Chafee's hopes for a second full term were dashed in 2006 by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in the Democratic wave that swept control of Congress from the GOP. Chafee in 2004 voted for Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, as a symbolic protest against the younger Bush. Last year he became an independent.

Readers may detect a bit of pettiness, too. Chafee does not bother to refer to his 2006 GOP primary opponent Steve Laffey by name.

He recalls being ``irked and amused'' at the parade of ``Democratic Bush enablers'' who campaigned in Rhode Island for Whitehouse, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

``I was the only candidate in the race with a record of standing up to entrenched powers,'' writes Chafee, the lone GOP senator to vote against authorizing the Iraq war.

The seeds of bitterness with Bush were sown early on.

Chafee recalls Vice-President Dick Cheney outlining a ``shockingly divisive'' agenda during a meeting with a handful of moderate GOP senators shortly after Bush won the presidency in 2000.

``Cheney was not asking for support _ he was ordering us to provide it,'' writes Chafee, who somehow seems surprised at such hardball tactics by Cheney, a man infamous for his take-no-prisoners brand of politicking. Chafee, too, seems stunned that none of his GOP colleagues put up much of a fight.

Chafee reminded Cheney that the votes of their small group of moderates would matter in a closely divided Senate.

``I chose my words carefully, and probably stammered with the effort to contain my fury,'' he writes.

Cheney, ever the conservative warrior, brushed Chafee aside.

Six years later, Rhode Island voters did roughly the same thing, ending the political balancing act that was Chafee's Senate career.

Sometimes You Just Want to Tear Your Hair Out!

2008-03-26T00:35:00.003+08:00

Reading ridiculous stories such as this:

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: March 25, 2008 - 10:30 am ET

(Atlanta, Georgia) The Georgia Court of Appeals has overturned a criminal contempt charge against a woman who was sentenced to 10-days in jail for not handing her daughter over to foster care after she lost custody solely because she’s a lesbian.

The little girl, now aged seven, was eventually returned to Elizabeth Hadaway but the contempt sentence had not been rescinded, although it had been stayed to allow Hadaway to appeal.

The appeals court ruled a year and a day after the lower court judge passed the sentence.

"Just yesterday I was watching Emma hunt for Easter eggs and thinking how the possibility of going to jail and being separated from her again made it hard to just enjoy the moment,” said Elizabeth Hadaway, a 29-year-old paramedic who first took in the little girl when the child’s biological mother asked her to raise and adopt the little girl named Emma.

"I’m just so grateful that the court has lifted this burden so we can move on and I can keep focused on making sure Emma has a happy home and a good life."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented her in the appeal and secured the little girl’s return home from foster care last May, applauded the appeals court decision.

"We’re pleased that the court has agreed with us that Elizabeth Hadaway shouldn’t do jail time simply for doing the right thing for her child, but it’s unfortunate that it’s taken almost two years of court proceedings to end up with things where Elizabeth, Emma, and Emma’s biological mom wanted them to be in the first place," said Debbie Seagraves, Executive Director of the ACLU of Georgia.

"None of this would have ever happened if the trial court had recognized this child’s needs and not been swayed by misguided beliefs about gay people," said Ken Choe , a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s national Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project.

"No child should fear being torn away from home just because his or her parents happen to be gay."

Hadaway was granted legal custody in 2006 and under Hadaway's care, the child began making great strides in her schoolwork, self-confidence, and emotional well-being.

In January, 2007, Wilkinson County Superior Court Judge John Lee Parrott appeared to be on the verge of granting Hadaway's request to permanently adopt Emma when he noticed in a home study report that Hadaway was living at the time with her same-sex partner of seven years.

At that point Parrott abruptly denied the adoption, ordering that Emma be sent back to her biological mother.

Hadaway complied and met with the biological mother at a truck stop to hand over the girl.

After accepting custody, the biological mother saw how distraught Emma was at being taken from Hadaway and again insisted that Hadaway should raise the girl, according to court papers.

Hadaway, who had ended her relationship with her partner, then moved with Emma to Bibb County, where she applied in a Bibb County court for custody with the biological mother's full consent.

Shortly after that Parrott found Hadaway in contempt of his ruling and ordered the little girl be taken from her home to live in foster care in spite of the biological mother's wishes.

In early April a Bibb County judge then granted custody of the child to Hadaway, after hearing evidence from an expert commissioned by Wilkinson County DFCS to study Emma in her foster home.

The expert found that the little girl is unable to get the individualized attention she needed in her foster home and was experiencing emotional trauma because of the separation from Hadaway.

Nevertheless, the child remained in foster care, with the Division of Family and Children Services uncertain of which judge's ruling to follow.

In May DFCS agreed that the biological mother's wishes should be honored, and little Emma was reunited with Hadaway. (story)

The contempt charge against Hadaway remained outstanding, however, and her ACLU attorney filed a motion with the Court of Appeal to have it overturned.

©365Gay.com 2008

Let's see: The biological mother wants her daughter to be raised by this woman. The daughter wants to be raised by this woman. The woman wants to raise this woman's daughter.

Do I have that right?

THEN WHAT'S THE PROBLEM??!!

Ignorant, conservative, Bible-up-their-ass idiots are the problem! Worst part is they are judges! You'd think they would have to exhibit some sort of....some sort of.....uh, what's the word????.....intelligence...to be appointed to the position!

Apparently not.

I guess those who do are the "rogue judges" we keep hearing about. You know, the ones who read (imagine that) the constitutions of their state and find nowhere does it say marriage can only be between persons of opposite genitalia, so rule in favor of gay and lesbian couples being allowed to marry, since nothing says they can't.

Yeah, what renegades!

Conservatives call that "legislating from the bench".

I call it "doing their job"...even if it meant a verdict I was unhappy with.

So Like a Cat!

2008-03-19T21:07:00.000+08:00

Just Imagine...

2008-03-13T19:07:00.001+08:00

Spitzer Out. Do the Same with Oklahoma's Kern!

2008-03-13T18:46:00.003+08:00

"I honestly think it's the biggest threat our nation has, even
more so than terrorism or Islam."

That's from an Oklahoma lawmaker's speech about gay people.

You heard right. A secret recording has just emerged of State
Rep. Sally Kern speaking to a Republican group in January, where
she equates both sexual orientation and religion with terrorism.

That her views are merely expressions of her own personal hate towards homosexuals as evidenced by the following quotes:

* "No society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted
for more than, you know, a few decades."

(What society? Obviously she has no idea what she is talking about.)

* "What's happening now is they're going after, in schools,
two-year-olds."

(Two-year-olds?? Where do children that young go to school??? I've heard of Head Start, but this is ridiculous. Again, she doesn't have the slightest idea what she is talking about.)

Also, as a Christian, I am appalled by her remarks towards another religion. All religions have swept a lot of dust under their rugs and have closets full of skeletons...all Christian faiths included. Does she truly believe Islam is as much a threat to us as the Christians were to the Inca and Aztec people?

All this and few people have taken note because 1. it regards Oklahoma, and 2. there are no adulterous affairs involved.

New York governor Elliot Spitzer was forced to resign today after he was caught in a prostitution ring. (At $1,000/hour, she better have been worth it, Mr. Spitzer!) But what he did was NOTHING compared to what Sally Kern is doing. I don't condone what he did, nor his hypocrisy. But it is a matter which pretty much only ruined things with his wife. I don't really care where my governor's penis is, so long as the state is run well. What Kern is doing effects the entire population of her state. And since her arguments are pure fabrications pulled out of the air around her, she seems ill-qualified for the office to which the voters (people voted for her???) have elected her.

But we must remember, this is Oklahoma, where everyone accused Islamic terrorists of the Oklahoma City bombing until it was discovered a man neither Muslim nor from the Middle East was responsible.

Timeless!

2008-03-06T21:27:00.000+08:00

I Know People Like This!

2008-02-24T22:19:00.000+08:00

Jack Benny on Sex Education

2008-02-13T20:31:00.002+08:00

From an interview on the Dick Cavett Show in 1973:

Adam & Eve must've known about sex or we wouldn't be here. How they did it with an apple I don't know....and with a snake watching them yet!
I tried it with an apple and it's nothing!
It looks so silly.

More Funnies

2008-02-06T23:05:00.000+08:00

Well Said

2008-02-06T23:00:00.000+08:00

I thought this was well put:

Straight people are not normal, they're just common.

Words of Optimism

2008-02-02T11:29:00.000+08:00

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

God Loves Gays. It's in the Bible. Must be True.

2008-01-24T15:42:00.000+08:00

Ruth 1:16-17 and 2:10-11 describe their close friendship Perhaps the best known passage from this book is Ruth 1:16-17 which is often read out during opposite-sex and same-sex marriage and union ceremonies:

"Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

Ruth 1:14, referring to the relationship between Ruth and Naomi, mentions that "Ruth clave onto her." The Hebrew word translated here as "clave" is identical to that used in the description of a heterosexual marriage in Genesis 2:24: " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

Because We Gotta Laugh

2008-01-24T12:17:00.000+08:00

Gore Supports Gay Mariage

2008-01-24T12:13:00.000+08:00

Al Gore Voices Support For Gay Marriage
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: January 23, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(New York City) Former Vice President Al Gore has come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

"I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage to allow it by gays and lesbians," Gore said in a posting on his person blog in the Current.com website.

"Shouldn’t we be promoting the kind of faithfulness and loyalty to one’s partner regardless of sexual orientation?"

Current is the news network founded by Gore.

"[T]he loyalty and love that two people feel for one another when they fall in love ought to be celebrated and encouraged and shouldn’t be prevented by any form of discrimination in the law," Gore said in the video posting.

In 2000 when he ran for president Gore said he supported civil unions or contracts but not marriage.

His turnaround was hailed by gay Democrats.

"We applaud Vice President Gore for firmly stating his support for allowing same-sex couples the freedom to marry. It is a position which some would still call courageous, but which a new generation of Americans would call common sense," said Jon Hoadley, Executive Director of National Stonewall Democrats.

"Vice President Gore has demonstrated leadership on this subject, and we encourage all Democratic leaders who restrain their consciences out of political expediency to demonstrate their leadership as well."

None of the frontrunners seeking the Democratic nomination for president supports same-sex marriage.

"Clearly, the environment is not the only thing that Al Gore is right about," said Sean Kosofsky a spokesperson for Triangle Foundation, Michigan's largest LGBT rights group.

In New Jersey, where gays are pressing the legislature for same-sex marriage, Garden State Equality said Gore's remarks made him the highest-ranking public figure in the United States to endorse marriage equality for same-sex couples.

New Jersey allows civil unions but Garden State Equality says it has received complaints from 512 couples since the law took effect on February 19, 2007 that employers are not respecting their civil unions because civil unions are not marriage.

Nearly 100 civil-unioned couples and other witnesses recently testified about the failure of the civil union law over eight hours of hearings of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, which will release its first interim report on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, the one-year anniversary of the law.

"Al Gore gets it in a way that the others don't," said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality.

"In the real world, civil unions don't give same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage, because employers view civil unions as inferior. In New Jersey, the failure of employers to recognize civil unions like marriage has resulted in a failure rate of our civil union law of at least 1 in every 5."

Legislation to allow gays and lesbians to marry in Maryland will be introduced on Friday.

The issue of same-sex marriage will be argued in the California Supreme Court later this year, and in Vermont, the first state to allow civil unions, a committee set up by lawmakers will deliver its report on whether to convert civil unions to marriage sometime this spring.

Massachusetts is the only state where same-sex marriage is legal.

Three of the Best of Borgman

2008-01-07T13:20:00.000+08:00

Three of my favorite cartoons from Cincinnati Enquirer political cartoonist Jim Borgman. Oh, we both attended the same high school, though not together!
http://borgman.enquirer.com/