I'm officially on vacation now,

I'm officially on vacation now, so I thought that I'd use my new Virgin Island image that I'll use while making blogs from the Virgin Islands (just click on the image to see my plans). It will make it a bit easier for me to see what entries were made while on vacation. Today, I'm making all the final preparations for the trip: calling the airport to make sure the flight times haven't changed and confirm my reservations; checking the same on the web; put everything together for my trip in one place; pick up shirts from cleaners; pack; check in with cat sitter.... etc.

I put together my tentative travel itinerary here that will pretty much tell what I'm planning to do. It's not by the day because I'm not going to run that tight a schedule. Basically, there are things I want to see and get done while I'm there, and it really doesn't matter to me when that happens. I'm just going to go with my mood and do what I feel like doing each day. So, the itinerary will just be a rough sketch. My close friends will know exactly where I'm staying if anything comes up.

Take care everyone. I hope to have access to make some entries, but one never knows. If not, I'll talk with you all on June 1st!

Just a few items that came to my attention in the news....

Pennsylvanians Behind Santorum in Gay Issue. PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Republican Sen. Rick Santorum created a stir when he compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy and incest, but most voters in his home state don't seem bothered, a poll concluded on Thursday. The vast majority of the state's voters -- 75 percent -- said Santorum should not resign as Senate Republican Conference chairman, while 58 percent said homosexuality was morally wrong, the Quinnipiac University poll said. On the other side of the heated debate over the politician's remarks, more than one-quarter of Pennsylvania voters said they were less likely to vote for Santorum after his inflammatory comments.
Poll: Gay Remarks Don't Hurt Santorum

Cardinal Uses Commencement To Launch New Anti-Gay Attack. (Washington, D.C.) A leading Vatican theologian has used his commencement address to graduating students at Washington's Georgetown University to wage a new assault on gays and lesbians. Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and widely regarded as a top contender to succeed Pope John Paul II said that happiness is found not in the pursuit of material wealth or pleasures of the flesh, but by fervently adhering to religious beliefs. "In many parts of the world, the family is under siege," the Nigerian prelate said. "It is opposed by an anti-life mentality as is seen in contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. It is scorned and banalized by pornography, desecrated by fornication and adultery, mocked by homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions and cut in two by divorce." The speech led Theresa Sanders, a professor of theology at the Jesuit university, to walk off the stage in protest. She was joined by a about a dozen students.
Cardinal's anti-gay comment sparks protest

The bottom line to these two stories should be obvious. It's still quite acceptable for people to openly show hatred and disapproval to gays and lesbians - the last group of citizens where this type of behavior is still acceptable. I guess things are getting better for us as a community, but the progress is slow. If Santorum had equated African Americans to bigomists, he would be out now. Even the President (that's right, OUR President - of ALL the people) came to his rescue and labeled him as an "inclusive man". Give me a ^%$^ing break!

Vancouver - City councillors embrace June's Gay Pride Week. NANAIMO -- A new city council is working to wipe away the homophobic stigma that tainted the Hub City in recent years. After refusing to read a Gay Pride Day proclamation just three years ago, city council has agreed not only to read the proclamation but to hoist the international symbol of gay pride -- the rainbow flag -- during Gay Pride Week, June 23 through 29. It's a welcome move for Nanaimo's gay community.

Gay Iraqi blogger resurfaces, writes again. Salam Pax, the anonymous twenty-something Iraqi Internet writer whose blog attracted readers interested in learning about life under the government of Saddam Hussein, is back online after remaining silent during the worst days of the war.

"Let me tell you one thing first," Salam Pax wrote in his first posting since the fall of the Saddam government. "War sucks big time. Don't let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don't think about your 'imminent liberation' anymore. American civil administration in Iraq is having a shortage of bright ideas," he wrote in his May 9 instalment. "I keep wondering what happened to the months of 'preparation' for a 'post-Saddam' Iraq. What's with the juggling of people and ideas about how to form that 'interim government'? Why does it feel like they are using the (let's-try-this-let's-try-that) strategy? Trial and error on a whole country?"

Despite his frustration with the chaos of the coalition takeover of Iraq, Salam Pax wrote he was glad to see Saddam Hussein out of power. "The truth is, if it weren't for intervention this would never have happened," he wrote. "When we were watching the Saddam statue being pulled down, one of my aunts was saying that she never thought she would see this day during her lifetime."

Gay adoption battle continues. The state of Florida does not allow adoptions by gay couples, but a federal appeals court is considering lifting that ban. Currently, some gay parents go to great lengths to adopt – a situation some support while others say it’s just unfair. Four-year-old Austin is an all-American kid, but his beginnings are anything but. Born deep in Cambodia, he was left in an orphanage where many of the children had scabies and slept on mats on the floor. Oceans away in Naples were Mike and Curtis, an openly gay couple together for 23 years. They wanted to adopt, but Florida law makes it illegal. Statute 63.042 says no couple involved in a homosexual relationship can parent a child. But that didn't stop Mike and Curtis. "I went as a single person," Mike Federau said. He filled out a lot of paperwork, and lived under a microscope for weeks. "I had five hour homestead investigations, background checks the whole nine yards," he said. The catch was that Curtis had to vanish. "We had to take every scrap of evidence that Curtis existed out of this house," Mike said.
That is honestly pretty messed up. There is something very dark about the fact that you have to lie and violate your integrity to serve your country in the military. Now, in some states (probably most if the truth were known), you have to lie to become adoptive parents. Raising children isn't easy. There are people who have kids who have no business procreating. Here, we have two people who did what they had to do to give a child a better life. I wish them all the best, and I'd do anything to keep my child, even if I had to move to another state. It's too bad one has to go to lengths to do this, but it's the messed up world we live in I suppose.