March 2005 Archives

A proud day for Maine! Now I feel better about booking my next vacation there.

(Augusta, Maine) Maine Governor John Baldacci signed a bill in law Thursday to protect gays, lesbians and the transgendered from discrimination, but a conservative group has vowed to force the issue to a referendum in the next election.

Calling it a “proud day for Maine.” Baldacci, who pushed for the legislation put his named to the document at a ceremony in his office.

Baldacci said that the new law not only “offers essential civil rights,” but also “serves as a welcome.”

It amends the Maine Human Rights Act by making discrimination in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education based on sexual orientation or gender identity illegal.

The measure passed its final test Wednesday night when the Senate agreed with the House to add a clause addressing concerns of opponents that the bill would be a gateway to gay marriages. Language was added to say that the human rights bill did not extend to the issue of marriage. (source)

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube. [...]

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement. [...]

But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around. (source)

This from John C. Danforth, a retired conservative senator from Missouri who sees the dangers the current Republican Party is heading for. There will be a fall off of this support. Not from the Republican Party, but from the American People in general. Religious conservatives do not make up the majority of people in this country. Eventually, there will be other issues introduced that have an impact on many other people.

For gay people, the obvious issue is marriage. I can understand that most Americans don’t like the idea of gay people getting married. I get that. What I don’t understand is why they can’t see the bigger issue. The big issue is the concept that we have a ruling party who is eager and willing to write discrimination right into the Constitution of the United States, because religious conservatives say that they must do so. All gay issues aside, that really should get everyone’s attention.

For those Americans who do not care about this issue, I can only say that those who are pushing the far right agenda have a laundry list. Today it is gay marriage. Tomorrow, they will hit on something a little closer to home for you.

For example, stem cell research. As Mr. Danforth said:

In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the human uterus. They argue that such cells are human life that must be protected, by threat of criminal prosecution, from promising research on diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and juvenile diabetes.

It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law. [...]

...Criminalizing the work of scientists doing such research would give strong support to one religious doctrine, and it would punish people who believe it is their religious duty to use science to heal the sick.

There are so many dangers involved in allowing religion to dictate social issues. People should be free to practice whatever religion they wish. Instilling the values of any religion into laws that we all must live by should never happen.

Congress has a legislative and moral duty to do what we can to protect her. Her life is being threatened, and we have it in our power to act on her behalf. Every human life deserves at least that much. - DeLay said on March 17, after the House passed a measure intended to prevent the withdrawal of Schiavo’s feeding tube.

I suppose I can understand how, being caught up in the moment, Rep. DeLay would think that. Congress seems to think that it is their duty to protect Terri Schiavo from the wishes of her spouse, her husband, who wants her to finally be at rest.

But what about all the other people out there who are in the same situation as Terri Schiavo? Will each of them have their own pieces of legislation to prevent someone from withdrawing life support from them as well?

And what about Rep. DeLay’s own father? Sixteen years ago, Rep. DeLay’s own father was injured in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Texas. Because of that injury, his father “suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure”. His mother and his siblings made the decision to withhold kidney dialysis when it became clear that he would not recover.

Has Rep. DeLay had a change of heart? Would he do things differently now for his father? Or, is this just pure politics? We will probably never know the answer to that.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council said, “Two different situations. With Terri Schiavo, there was no plug pulled, there was no respirator taken away from her. She was simply by court order deprived of food and water.”

We are splitting very very fine hairs here. The end result is death. Terri Schiavo is being deprived of her feeding tube - something that is keeping her body functioning. Rep. DeLay’s father was deprived of kidney dialysis - something that was keeping his body functioning. Both functions were withdrawn. I see no difference what so ever, other than Terri Schiavo’s situation serving the purpose of Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.

Rep. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader who led the congressional effort to spare Terri Schiavo’s life, was confronted more than 16 years ago with his own agonizing end-of-life dilemma and agreed to withdraw life support from the patient, his father, according to a report Sunday in the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper reported that DeLay’s father, Charles Ray DeLay, 65, a drilling contractor, was severely injured in 1988 in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Texas. [...]

The account said DeLay had suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure, and that his wife, Maxine, and their other children had made the initial decision to withhold kidney dialysis and other treatments when it became clear he could not recover.

DeLay, at the time in his third term in the House, did not object, the newspaper’s report said. (source)

I hesitate to even write about this situation and about the Schiavo family. I hesitate because I don’t want to write about what has happened in their family and all the heartache they have gone through and compare it to my situation.

But one thing about the case that has been brought to the forefront is the power of marriage in making life and death decisions. Without the power of marriage, none of this would have happened. Michael Shiavo would have had no say about Terri’s fate.

As the fight over Terri Schiavo’s fate played out in court, gay and lesbian organizations watched quietly from the sidelines, aware that any outcome would speak to one of the key motivations in their quest for same-sex marriage: the right to make medical decisions for a partner.

It’s an issue faced regularly by same-sex couples, and the battle that Michael Schiavo waged with his in-laws as he sought to remove his wife’s feeding tube only underscored their difficulties, said David Buckel of the New York-based gay rights group Lambda Legal.

“It certainly resonates with us,” said Buckel, director of marriage-related activities for Lambda Legal. “If folks look at this situation and see that a spouse is struggling to carry out the wishes of his loved one, imagine what folks face when they don’t even have access to the spousal relationship because they can’t get married.” [...]

In addition, because such rights differ by state, there is no guarantee that a couple will be able to share in each other’s medical decisions should disaster strike far from home. Flanigan and Daniel, for example, were from California, but they were in Maryland when Daniel fell ill.

And gay activists say even if they have gone through the legal machinations of having their partners declared health-care proxies, hospitals might be unfamiliar with such rights or simply refuse to respect them. If the partners don’t happen to be carrying the paperwork to prove their status, they can similarly be refused their rights, said Buckel. (source)

It does happen all the time for us. Every time I go to work, I worry that if something awful should happen, will Kent be able to make decisions for me? Will he be able to see me in the hospital if that should happen? And, when we finally get our power of attorney (it’s in progress), will it make any difference to a hospital? When we go on trips together, I’m told that we will have to carry those papers around with us, just in case something happens. All of this, in this “free” country we live in, because we are unable to marry.

Another part of me tells me not to worry about it because whatever happens, there’s really nothing I can do about it. That’s true. But I worry about Kent. If he were in the hospital and I was not allowed in to see him, I don’t know how I would survive that. Or, if the reverse is true, how would he deal with it?

No wonder they want to keep marriage from us. It has a lot of power and, unlike a civil union that my own state of Connecticut will soon have, it travels with you from state to state.

During the election process they tried to convince voters that they were against abortion and gay marriage when the reality is they just used these issues to divide the nation and were not really concerned about either. Rather, their goal was to persuade voters to elect them to office so they could continue the campaign of bankrupting the nation while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and destroying the social, health, and environmental programs that decades of progressive Democrats and Republicans had set in place.

Now they are making political hay at the expense of a woman who is unable to defend herself. These politicians voted against the very Medicaid that supported Terri Schiavo through years of need. They also voted to restrict law suits against negligent corporations of the very kind that provided funds supporting the wishes of Terri Schiavo’s family to keep her alive. Now, solely for political gain they wanted to prolong the life of this individual whom the courts have determined wished not to be subjected to this kind of indignity they wanted to impose upon her. (source)

Sadly, it’s all true. During the last presidential race, it was the gay marriage issue that the Bush Administration used as their hot ticket to get the conservative base to go to the polls and put him in office for another four years.

Now, those same conservatives are mad as hell because the president hasn’t followed through on his promise to push for a constitutional amendment against marriage. Why should he? He got what he wanted. He’s in for four more years. Pushing for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage simply is a losing issue for him that brings him no gain. It has nothing to do with his real goals; keeping the war going in Iraq, “fighting terrorism” (at least his definition of it), killing Social Security, gutting the environment so that a few corporations can get even richer than they are. These are his goals. Gay marriage doesn’t even show up on his radar screen anymore. It has served his purpose. I suspect it won’t show it’s ugly head again until the next presidential race. But will it work again? Given how gullible the American People are, I suspect it will.

And to the conservatives out there who loyally marched to the voting booths to stop the gays from having marriage, you were used. Get over it. At least now you can see what you voted for.

A few days ago on my way home, I was listening to Sean Hannity. He was going on and on about Terri Schiavo and “activity judges”. I personally can’t stand Sean Hannity, but I listen to him to try to gain an understanding of what it is we are dealing with. He said (I’m paraphrasing) that, “I never thought I would see the day when judges would have such contempt for the will of Congress and the will of the people, that they would just completely ignore those wishes and rule however they wanted. What has America come too?”

I wanted to yell back to him, “You moron! The function of the court is not and never has been to appease the will of the people or to listen to the will of Congress! The function of the court is to interpret and carry out constitutional law. Sometimes that will happen to agree with the will of the people, but not always.”

That is the function of the court - to interpret law. And if the Supreme Court had heard the Schiavo case, I suspect that they would have had some rather harsh words for the intrusion of Congress into this issue. This is called the Separation of Powers. Congress would do well to brush up on what is apparently a little known fact to them.

When something horrible happens like the shootings in Red Lake, Minnesota from 16 year old Jeff Weise, I get so tired of reading that the culprit must have been the antidepressant he was taking. In this case, it looks like they are going to blame the popular antidepressant Prozac as the culprit.

They claim that since his daily dosage was increased to 60mg per day, that must have caused it. I was on 80mg per day, along with other antidepressants to boost the effects of Prozac, and it didn’t make me want to go out and kill people. It had other effects on me that weren’t altogether pleasant, but I dealt with them.

If society wants this kind of thing to stop, they should start looking at the real cause of it, and stop trying to pawn the blame off on some chemical that can’t defend itself.

The real blame is our society. We embrace violence. It is in our movie theaters, it is on our streets, it is in just about every facet of our lives. And sometimes, it is in very innocuous things that we gloss over. A commercial comes to mind about Honey Nut Cheerios. This man is eating Honey Nut Cheerios. A group of cowboys are around him and one of them ask him what he’s eating. He replies, “Nut’N Honey”. They all draw their guns and point them to his head as if they are about to blow his brains out. And, that was funny?

That is part of the culture we have cultivated. You have a problem, you don’t deal with it and work your feelings out on it. You get even. That may mean playing a cruel trick on someone, or it may mean that you get a gun and really get even. Guns are everywhere. I don’t own a gun, but I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could have one in my hands before the day was over.

And it’s not like we are doing anything about it. The right to bear arms after all, is a “right” of all Americans. So why then are we so confused when we hear about some student who was bullied or made fun of, all the sudden go off the deep end and seek revenge for the wrongs done to him?

It’s really no mystery to me. If you want to solve this problem, we have to stop looking at the smoking guns (the real guns and the Prozac’s that we blame) and really start looking at what is at the heart of all of this: OUR SICK SOCIETY THAT BREEDS HATRED AND VIOLENCE.

You want the killings to stop? Let’s start there because that is what really let this happen.

RED LAKE, MINN. -- Relatives of high school killer Jeff Weise, 16, believe the popular anti-depressant Prozac, may have played a role in the teen’s rampage. Friends and family members have said he had been taking Prozac since a suicide scare last summer.

Family members told the New York Times newspaper Weise’s dose was recently increased to 60 mg a day.

“I can’t help but think it was too much, that it must have set him off,” an aunt, Tammy Lussier, said. (source)

I found this on the Internet and, being a person who has suffered from depression in the past, I got a kick out of it.

It’s amazing. This has been a big year for the State of Virginia. They’ve managed to pass a constitutional amendment making marriage impossible for gay couples (and also prohibits civil unions), print up “traditional marriage” license plates as a way to rub our noses in it, and a gay adoption bill that was narrowly killed. Here’s the wording from the marriage bill, called the Marriage Affirmation Act:

“...a civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited and that such an arrangement entered into in another state or jurisdiction is void in Virginia and any contractual rights created thereby are void and unenforceable.”

If that isn’t hate and a total disdain for us, I don’t know what it. In my opinion, Virginia can take it’s insurance bill and shove it. It’s too little, too late. There’s no excuse for the hateful crap they’ve been pulling against gay families in Virginia. They are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this.

I think we should officially launch a boycott against their damn state. That includes people transferring there for jobs, going to school there, or any other form of business we can think of. Virginia has made it extremely clear how they feel about us. I think we should return the sentiment.

(Richmond, Virginia) Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner has signed legislation allowing insurers and businesses to extend health-insurance coverage to same-sex couples. It becomes effective July 1.

Under the new law an insurer and employer would be free to decide who would be covered under a group accident and sickness insurance policy.

“[It] provides a long-overdue option to Virginia businesses,” said Warner. “It allows private employers to extend group accident and sickness coverage to any class of persons agreed upon by the insurer and the group policyholder.” (source)

This is an easy decision for me. I too believe that the war in Iraq is unjust. We have no business being there. And don’t go saying that I don’t support the troops by saying that. I do support our troops. I just don’t support our President for being a moron and dropping the ball on this.

If memory serves me, we went to Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden. We didn’t. We let him slip away from us. We got bogged down in Iraq “fighting terror” and now we are going to be there for a very long time. Our military resources are being depleted, fewer men are enlisting, morale in the military (and in our society) is extremely low, and our costs for this war are out of control.

Thank you very much Mr. President! You are an idiot.

I don’t blame this man one bit for not going to Iraq. I agree 100% with his assessment of this war. I’ve also talked with people at work concerning this war. A few have boys who are around the age of 15. They tell me what it is like for them, and what their fears are. Some become overwhelmed with emotion as they talk about the possibility of losing their son in this war.

I tell them, “It would be easy for me to decide what to do. I’d be looking at leaving this country with my son.” Don’t get me wrong. If we were being attacked or if we were really fighting an enemy that threatened our very existence, I’d be the first to take up arms. This is not the case with this war. It is 100% political with this President, and if you think he gives a rats ass about your son, I have an ocean front property to sell you in Arizona.

TORONTO -- An American war dodger who fled the U.S. military because he believed the invasion of Iraq was criminal has lost his bid for refugee status in Canada in a case closely watched on both sides of the border.

In a written ruling released Thursday, the Immigration and Refugee Board said Jeremy Hinzman had not made a convincing argument that he faced persecution or cruel and unusual punishment in the United States. [...]

During his three-day refugee hearing in December, he said any violent acts he would have committed had he gone to Iraq would have amounted to an atrocity because the war itself was illegal. [...]

His case was bolstered by a former United States marine, who said trigger-happy American soldiers in Iraq routinely killed unarmed women and children, and murdered other Iraqis, in violation of international law.

Adjudicator Brian Goodman had previously ruled that the soldier’s view of the legality of the war on Iraq could not be used to support his refugee claim.

As a deserter, Hinzman faces court martial if he returns to the United States and a potential five-year jail term. (source)

More on Jeremy Hinzman
Absent Without Regrets: A Soldier's Story
Jeremy Hinzman.net
Jeremy Hinzman: Military hero
Hinzman to appeal Refugee Board decision

President Bush’s job-approval rating has sunk to 45 percent, the worst of his presidency, amid public opposition at his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case and growing concern over gasoline prices.

The 45 percent rating is a far cry from his record 90 percent approval after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it’s still well above the low marks scored by most recent presidents. (source)

I guess that anything is up for grabs if you can profit from it, even sacrificing decency for it.

Videotape of Terri Schiavo blinking at her parents has inspired donations from people around the country to the foundation set up to help pay for the family’s legal battle. But many other groups are soliciting donations in her name as well, some for a much broader agenda.

“Help Save Terri Schiavo’s Life!” says the Web site of the Traditional Values Coalition, a Christian conservative group best known for its campaigns against gay rights. Next to a link to the Web site of her parents’ foundation is a pitch to “become an active supporter of the Traditional Values Coalition by pledging a monthly gift.”

“What this issue has done is it has galvanized people the way nothing could have done in an off-election year,” said Rev. Lou Sheldon, the founder of the group, acknowledging that the case of Ms. Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, had moved many to open up their checkbooks. “That is what I see as the blessing that dear Terri’s life is offering to the conservative Christian movement in America.” (source)

Kent sent me an article that speaks to a lot of my feelings about how many of the states are moving to outlaw marriage rights for gay couples. They article basically spells out why it is such a big issue for us. In this case, this couple used to live in Virginia, a state that has introduced and passed some of the most hateful legislation against gay couples in the nation.

The article is entitled “A Reason to Move” and was written by Lynn Adler.

Imagine that you are looking for a job. Imagine that you are good at what you do, and you have a choice of opportunities. Imagine being offered jobs that were comparable in almost every way, but located in different states.

In one state, you and your spouse would be able to use a family health insurance plan, visit each other in the hospital, and have a relationship and family that was legally recognized. In the other state, your spouse would have to buy separate health insurance, and there would be no guarantee that doctors, hospitals, lawyers, banks, schools, or anyone at all would recognize your relationship or family. [...]

I left a state that did not recognize my relationship in favor of one that did. I was hired as an assistant professor of biology by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2001. Although I knew that Virginia was a conservative state, I found the department to be very friendly and supportive. Colleagues were welcoming toward my partner, and we enjoyed living in the area. [...]

During those three years, however, my partner and I paid thousands of dollars for private health insurance when my partner was working part time, because she could not get those benefits through me. We did all we legally could to provide ourselves with the rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples, including the right to visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions for each other. [...]

Because it seemed clear that laws of Virginia were not going to change in any way beneficial to us in the near future, I went on the job market in 2004. I was offered an exciting position at a university in Massachusetts, which had just become the first state where same-sex couples could get married. [...]

Virginia Tech attempted to retain me in my position with a counter offer, and my partner and I had several discussions about what it would take to convince us to stay. In the end, we concluded that no amount of salary, extra funds, or other benefits would counteract the risk that our relationship might not be recognized in a time of crisis.... When I announced my departure, I received an e-mail from an administrator who told me that others had left for similar reasons, but had done so quietly. I spoke out about why I was leaving, and I’m writing this article because I believe it’s important for educators and politicians to understand that discriminatory laws have a price.

The very sad an unfortunate thing in all of this is that Virginia has lost more talent and soul than it realizes. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t give someone your business because of discriminatory practices, that you let them know that they lost your business because of it.

Something happened today as an example of this. Kent needed new running shoes. I suggested that he get two pair; one for the gym and one more suitable for running outside, which he enjoys.

He suggested the Foot Locker. I said, “No way! They discriminate against gay people.” He had forgotten that. I wrote about it at the time, and even sent their corporate office a response to how I felt about their act of discrimination. The Foot Locker later settled their bias suit.

That’s all well and good, but I still have no desire to do business with a company who believes or acts in this manner. So, I will be writing to the Foot Locker corporate office again with a copy of the receipt of the business they lost based on their past discriminatory practices.

I think it’s important to hold people accountable to their beliefs. Many times, as the State of Virginia will eventually find out, those beliefs come with a price tag. What is the price tag for endorsing discrimination? It’s up to those who are discriminated against to bring this to light, just as the couple in the article above has done. And, just as I have done with the Foot Locker.

The military is the same thing, with their Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy. They have lost unbelievable talent because of this stupid discriminatory policy. They are now seeing just how much harm it is doing not only them, but our nation as a whole. I think the general public are starting to realize this and agree that it makes no sense.

Still, you will always have people such as William M. Acker Jr., a senior judge with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham, who will argue until the day they die that discrimination against whoever is the unpopular group of the day is just fine in this country. Those days are slowing dieing out.

The conservative movement damning us for being open and honest about ourselves is slowly dieing out. It is isolated in states such as Virginia and Georgia, and that may not change anytime soon. But change is coming, and there’s no stopping it. If there’s one thing history has shown us time and time again, it is that light will always triumph over darkness. Always.

I spotted this article in the Hartford Courant this morning. Yale Law School has made it a policy not to allow military recruiters in it’s school because the military discriminates against gay and lesbian soldier with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

In this article, we have Judge William M. Acker Jr., an alum of Yale Law School, who sent Yale Law School a letter stating that because of their policy, the judge would not accept any applications from the law school.

The judge is a 1952 graduate of the law school and resides in Alabama, so I can understand his views on this. But, of all people, the judge should realize that history hasn’t treated people with those kinds of views with kindness. Perhaps he will be dead by the time that he will be labeled as being short sited in his willingness to embrace one of the last bastions of discrimination; that of discriminating against gays.

NEW HAVEN -- Upset that Yale Law School bars military recruiters from interviewing job candidates, a federal judge in Alabama has announced he will no longer consider any Yale Law students for clerkships.

William M. Acker Jr., a senior judge with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham, wrote a letter last month to Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh to inform him that he would not accept any applications from the law school. [...]

Acker’s decision is a protest against the law school’s policy of limiting military recruiters’ access to students. Officials of the law school say the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against gays violates the school’s anti-discrimination regulations. [...]

In his letter, Acker said he will continue to refuse Yale law students for clerkships “until YLS changes its mind,” or until the courts rule the Solomon Act to be constitutional and enforceable by the government. He also wrote that he is “exercising the same freedom of speech” that Hall protected for the Yale Law School faculty. [...]

Koh said he didn’t want to speak extensively about Acker’s letter because he didn’t want to give it more importance than it warranted. [...]

Yale law student Michael Gottlieb has been more outspoken. He responded with an open letter to Acker in which he states that he’s proud of the school’s faculty for taking a stand.

“My professors believe that their African American students will make excellent attorneys,” he wrote in the letter, which was recently published in the Yale Daily News. “They believe that their Asian students will make equally good attorneys. As will their female students. And their Muslim students. And their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students. And they are not willing to cede this point.”

It was a busy day yesterday. I got a lot done at work and then went to the gym. I didn’t do so well last night. I was ok on the elliptical trainer for about thirty minutes (I try to do an hour), but after that I started feeling weak. I went home and was just exhausted. I probably did too much on the diet and at the same time overdid the exercise. I basically ran out of energy to do more. A lesson learned.

I got home, relaxed, and went on line to catch up on the daily news. I read this really nice opinion by Titania Kumeh, Staff Writer of the Courier Online. It’s worth a read.

I also came across an opinion from Alabama concerning the proposed ban on gay adoptions. I wrote on this yesterday. The opinion was entitled Don’t eliminate all gay adopters.

A bill pending in the Alabama Legislature to stop individual gay Alabamians from adopting children is wrongheaded, and it should be considered wrongheaded by both those who believe in gay rights and those who do not.

The sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Hank Erwin Jr., R-Montevallo, argues that it is needed as a matter of consistency.

“If we are going to say we are a family-friendly state with traditional family values, then we need to have traditional family adoption policies,” Erwin said. [...]

It’s also scary. If Erwin succeeds in making gays second-class citizens when it comes to adoptions, what is his next step in the name of consistency? Banning them from holding certain jobs? Will he let them continue to be loving uncles or aunts?

The sad fact is that Alabama, like most states, has hundreds more kids in need of adoption than it has people willing to adopt them. There just aren’t enough “traditional families” willing to adopt.

Gay couples cannot adopt in Alabama because the state does not recognize gay marriages. But gay individuals can if they meet the same standards as their non-gay counterparts.

Another bit of good news is that a bill outlawing discrimination again gays in things such as housing, public accommodations, insurance and employment has been introduced in Delaware. It defines sexual orientation as heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual.

A bill adding sexual orientation to Delaware’s anti-discrimination protections is again headed to the Senate after clearing the House in a close vote Thursday - just as it did in 2001 and 2003.

The so-called gay rights bill may fare better this year in the Senate, where it died in committee in 2002 and last year - if you believe the bill’s sponsor, Rep. William A. Oberle Jr., R-Beechers Lot.

The heavily amended version of House Bill 36 that passed the House 22-18 has deleted language the Senate previously found objectionable. Oberle hopes that’s enough to win it a vote in the upper chamber. [...]

Amendments deleted wording that the bill covered “real or perceived” discrimination, and added burdens of proof that are not applied to plaintiffs alleging discrimination based on sex, age, race or religion.

And this from Maryland...

The Maryland House passed legislation Thursday that would add sexuality and gender identity to the categories of people protected under the state’s hate crimes law.

The legislation now moves to the Senate.

While Maryland has had a hate crimes statute on the books since 1988, current law only covers crimes motivated by race, religion, and national origin.

And this from Washington State on how quickly we dismiss some in our society.

We Americans are quite prone to dismiss someone with whom we are uncomfortable by pointing only to the person’s offensive attributes: “He’s fat.” “She’s a smoker.”

I’ve observed people dismiss gay people in the same way: limp wrist, butch, campy or queen. The truth is that he might have a limp wrist, but he also might be a good father, a faithful companion or a volunteer at a homeless shelter.

She might be “mannish,” but she also might rescue discarded animals, visit nursing homes or take care of her elderly parents.

Over the years, I’ve noticed individuals who can dismiss entire classes of people with the wave of a hand react much differently when they know some individual from that class.

It might behoove us all to read deeper into the “books” that cross our paths each day. It seems it is true: “You can’t tell a book by its cover.”

(Montgomery, Alabama) Legislation has been filed in the Alabama legislature that would bar gays and lesbians from adopting children.

The bill sponsored by Sen. Hank Erwin Jr. (R-Montevallo) would make it illegal for a person who is gay to adopt a minor.

The state already bars same-sex couples from adopting under its Marriage Protection Act. [...]

The state is also looking at a bill that would ban gay speech from any institution which receives state money. (source)

Banning speech. Doesn’t that violate the First Amendment to the Constitution?

U.S. Constitution: First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It’s hard for me to understand all of this hatred. It’s as if they wanted an excuse to pass all of this nasty legislation against us, and they saw that with gay marriage. But I’ll tell you this. Everything has a time and place. The legislation these state are passing will not stand. They will eventually be found unconstitutional based on the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Amendment XIV - Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

And, it only takes one ruling against what the states are doing with regards to the state constitutional amendments against full equality for gay couples. Just one, and they will all be gone. I’d bet my soul on it. I may not live to see it, but it will happen.

This is just another example of what can happen when people mess with a constitution, either at the state or federal level. This happened to be a case concerning a straight unmarried couple. One was charged with domestic violence, a felony. But, because of Issue 1, the Ohio constitutional amendment that prevents unmarried couples from having the protections of marriage, the judge reduced the charge to simple assault, a misdemeanor.

His public defender, David Magee, had asked the judge to throw out the charge because of the new wording in Ohio’s constitution that prohibits any state or local law that would “create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals.” (source)

I suppose their solution would have been to get married. Then, she would have had some protection. Unfortunately, with Issue 1, that option is not available to gay couples.

A judge’s ruling could lead to the repeal of Ohio’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

NewsChannel5 reported that a Cuyahoga County judge Wednesday reduced a domestic violence charge against a man accused of attacking his live-in girlfriend, saying the law only applies to married couples under the new amendment.

Frederick Burk was charged with domestic violence, a felony, but Judge Stuart Friedman reduced the charge to assault.

Last fall, Ohio voters passed Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that forbids the state to grant legal status to relationships of unmarried individuals like Burk and his girl friend. (source)

“Don’t Californicate Idaho”. That used to be the saying in Idaho when I was growing up.

I remember when I was growing up in Emmett, Idaho, there were a lot of bad feelings about people from California moving into our valley. It did change our life somewhat and nobody wanted them to stay. You get very set in your ways when you are isolated from other cultures. I would have thought that after all these years, Idaho would have changed a bit, from others moving into the state. Is this not true of all states? People move all the time for jobs and lifestyle changes. I guess some things die hard.

Saying he saw what the influx of out-of-staters, especially Californians, did when he lived in Hayden, Jerry Higgs, now living in Bonners Ferry, has launched a one-man campaign to encourage Californians to stay away.

“When I left Hayden, I counted three native Idahoans on the block where I lived,” Higgs said. “Some were from Chicago, some were from Oregon. But most of them, at least nine families, were from California, and they all brought their own ideas of what was right for Idaho, even though they had no concept of our way of life.” [...]

“I’ve had Californians tell me they wanted to get away from the Asians, Mexicans and blacks. We are not racist here! Richard Butler, Reverend Bertollini and Randy Weaver … racists who gave Idaho a black eye … were all out-of-state carpetbaggers.

“We don’t want your gay business districts, same-sex marriage, body pierced, tattooed to the ankles, (c)rap music, lowrider, celebrating diversity-while-standing-for-nothing liberal nonsense here in Idaho.

“The last thing we need is a Californian a half car length behind us trying to do ten miles per hour over the speed limit on a cold January day while the roads are covered with black ice. Your people tell us we are stupid while trying to change Idaho into the very thing they were trying to escape.” (source)

In his own way, he has a point. People are moving to Idaho to find a new way of life - to escape overcrowding, pollution, and crime.

On my way to work this morning, I tuned into my favorite news stations, almost out of habit. It’s the same depressing news, and although I’m a news junky, I found myself switching to a music station. It was a jazz station, and thought to myself, “...it’s too early for jazz...”, so I switched to a classical station.

I was suddenly listening to Les Preludes by Franz Liszt (1811-1886). Admittedly, Liszt is not one of my favorite composers. In fact, I’ve never liked him and have not listened to him for years. But this morning, while sitting on my heated seat in my car and sipping on hot coffee, I decided to listen.

But then, I suddenly had a revelation. It was my baggage from college that made me hate Liszt. The chairman of my music department was a man named Dr. Richard Skyrm. He was actually quite a brilliant scholar. He was also the professor who was assigned to me for my thesis. My thesis centered around a musical analysis of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Dr. Skyrm and I would often disagree and would often have heated discussions concerning the work and our opinions on the work. I would constantly challenge and question his conclusions on the work - something he did not welcome. I told him once, “Just because you have a doctorate does not mean that I have to rubber stamp every opinion YOU have!” Yes, I was arrogant in those days. After all this time, I am still correct about the work, although I actually no longer listen to the work. And even though we disagreed right up to the time I turned in my thesis, he gave the paper an “A”, with a comment of “Good work”. Go figure.

Which brings us to Liszt and my dislike of him. In college, I also had a big discussion with Dr. Skyrm about Franz Liszt. Dr. Skyrm loved Liszt, I believe because of the wealth of music he produced for the piano (Dr. Skyrm was a pianist). I made some comment that Liszt was a lousy orchestrator. I don’t remember the context in which I said that. He didn’t like that at all. So, for all these years, I’ve hated Liszt because of that. Again, go figure.

So this morning as I was listening to Les Preludes of Franz Liszt, I was absolutely stunned and overwhelmed by the genius of Liszt. I’m trying to describe the layers upon layers of complexity that somehow magically works. The word that comes to mind to describe it is “chocolaty”. Layers upon layers of rich chocolate.

The work is about 15 minutes long (about the length of my commute - it finished as I entered the parking lot at work) and is in one movement. From the Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra program notes:

However, Liszt then prefaced the score with a paragraph of his own, which has almost nothing to do with Lamartine’s poem. “What is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song of which the fast solemn note is sounded by death? Love is the enchanted dawn of all existence; but who is lucky enough not to have his first delights of happiness interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates love’s illusions, ... ” and so on, in this rather opaque and difficult to read style.

What this tells us is that the music is an expression of various states of emotion, of a passionate and extreme nature - a fact fully in accord with Liszt’s own flamboyant personality! The music is in one movement of about 15 minutes, and begins with a slow introduction to the first and principal theme of the work. This is followed by a contrasting “love” theme, after which the “storms of life” set in with a vengeance. A calmer section follows, before the energy is whipped up again to a martial and triumphant conclusion. (source)

So, with this triumphant conclusion, I got out of my car, and marched into work.

We’ve been hearing a lot this past year about activist judges. At first I was puzzled by the term. I first heard it applied to the judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court after they ruled that denying gay couples access to marriage went against the state constitution.

Shortly after that, I heard the Republicans in Congress along with President Bush, call the judges “activist judges”. Now, with the ruling by federal district judge James Whittemore to not re-insert the feeding tube for Terri Schiavo, I suppose Judge Whittemore will also be labeled an “activist judge”. I’ve come to conclude that an “activist judge” is a judge who doesn’t rule in favor of the majority of legislators, in this case, conservative legislators.

Perhaps it is time for a new term. Let’s call it “congressional activism” as Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick has done.

Whether Terri Schiavo will live or die in the coming days has come down to this: Can federal district judge James Whittemore set aside virtually every bedrock constitutional principle on which this nation was founded, just so members of the United States Congress may constitutionalize the nowhere-to-be-found legal principle that a “culture of life” is a good thing?

This morning’s decision by Congress and President Bush—to authorize new federal legislation that will obliterate years of state court litigation, and justify re-inserting a feeding tube into Terri Schiavo, based on new and illusory federal constitutional claims—is not about law. It is congressional activism, plain and simple; legislative overreaching and hubris taken to absurd extremes.

Let’s be clear: The piece of legislation passed late last night, the so-called “Palm Sunday Compromise,” has nothing whatever to do with the rule of law. The rule of law in this country holds that this is a federalist system—in which private domestic matters are litigated in state, not federal courts.

Until now.

One thing that seems difficult for people to understand is that Terri, by all medical accounts, has not been conscious for a very long time. Brain scans indicate that the entire area of the brain responsible for cognitive thinking has been destroyed. If you view a healthy brain and compare it to Terri’s brain, you will actually see a huge black mass in the center of her brain that used to be healthy brain tissue. It is now dead. The experts agree that she has no knowledge of her existence at this time. That isn’t life and it’s no way to live an existence.

I can understand the heart wrenching ordeal her family is going through, but there is a time to think of Terri and her wishes. There is a time to let go.

I would choose to remember Terri in the light of this photo of her, a photo of a vivacious woman, full of life. She deserves better than political pandering. She is more than an opportunity for politicians to push their political agenda to try to show people just how much they value life.

My message to them is this. If you value life so much, then you must pass legislation to abolish the death penalty. If you value the life of a one week old fetus, then surely a man on death row qualifies as life. After all, I can talk to him. He can think. He is self aware. Is a fetus? They will never be able to understand this argument. Instead, this is what we have in this country at this time - this is the environment:

Frist, who has asserted special credibility “as a physician,” claimed that “neurologists who have examined her insist today that she is not in a persistent vegetative state”—neglecting to mention that neurologists who testified in court concluded the opposite. On the Senate floor, Frist claimed to have “been in a situation such as this many, many times,” when in fact he had never made such an evaluation. On the basis of the family videos, he challenged the assessment made by doctors who had examined Schiavo in person.

When it’s your turn to face an end-of-life decision, here’s the kind of scrutiny you’ll get. Two neurologists and a judge won’t be enough, according to Frist: Congress will “go and collect more information, have neurologists come in.” A second judge will be empowered to “make new findings of fact.” DeLay wants to deprive judges of discretion because “when you affirmatively give the judge the discretion not to put the tube back in, they won’t.” Everyone has to be involved. “For one person in one state court to make this decision is too heavy,” says DeLay. “It does take all of us to think this through.”

And here’s the culture you’ll get. Schiavo’s parents have filed a motion to divorce her from her husband. Protesters at the hospice have suggested that the husband should be starved and the judge should be beaten. On the Senate floor, Frist has challenged the husband’s right to make the decision because he has “a girlfriend.” What about the judge’s confidence in the husband’s account of Schiavo’s stated wishes? Unless Schiavo “had specifically written instructions in her hand and with her signature,” scoffs DeLay, “I don’t care what her husband says.” This from an out-of-state congressman who got his legal training in campaign-finance creativity and his medical training in pest control. (source)

At what point do our civil liberties get acknowledged? If the federal government can intrude into extremely private family matters such as this, do legal documents or even the power of marriage mean anything anymore? If I have a power or attorney, or a living will, what’s to say at this point that they can’t be overturned? There are many families out there who are going through these issues. I would hate to think that I would have to be kept alive, no matter what the quality of my life was, just because some legislators took that decision away from me and told me, “You WILL live, no matter what.”

This legislation, the “Palm Sunday Compromise”, creates a dangerous precedent for all of us who want to live free lives without government intrusion. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will rule it unconstitutional.

Yesterday, Judge Whittemore refused to order the reinsertion of Terri’s feeding tube. The decision is being appealed. There’s no happy ending here, for anyone.

David Gibbs III, the parents’ attorney, argued at a Monday hearing in front of Judge Whittemore that forcing Terri Schiavo to starve would be “a mortal sin” under her Roman Catholic beliefs and urged quick action: “Terri may die as I speak.”

But George Felos, an attorney for Michael Schiavo, argued that keeping the woman alive also violated her rights and noted that the case has been aired thoroughly in state courts.

“Yes, life is sacred,” Mr. Felos said, contending that restarting artificial feedings would be against Schiavo’s wishes. “So is liberty, particularly in this country.”

Michael Schiavo said he was outraged that lawmakers and the president intervened in a private matter. “When Terri’s wishes are carried out, it will be her wish. She will be at peace. She will be with the Lord,” he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” late Monday. (source)

Study: Obesity to cut 2 to 5 years off live span

CHICAGO - New and disputed research adds a twist to the Social Security dilemma, suggesting that a nation gorging itself on bacon double-cheeseburgers will one day dramatically shorten the average U.S. life span.

Obesity - especially its alarming rise among children - is the culprit, fueling a startling reversal in life expectancy, which likely will drop by two to five years or more within 50 years, according to a report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Just priceless. That was a quote from Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

As a public official, Governor Romney is sworn to uphold the law of his state and to enforce the law in a non-biased way. He should be fired for this. He’s entitled to his own personal opinion. Because of that opinion, he is unable to fulfill his obligations to the office he holds.

Source for this story.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army, stung by recruiting shortfalls caused by the Iraq war, has raised the maximum age for new recruits for the part-time Army Reserve and National Guard by five years to 39, officials said on Monday.

The Army said the move, a three-year experiment, will add about 22 million people to the pool of those eligible to serve, from about 60 million now. Physical standards will not be relaxed for older recruits, who the Army said were valued for their maturity and patriotism.

The Pentagon has relied heavily on part-time Army Reserve and Army National Guard soldiers summoned from civilian life to maintain troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. Roughly 45 percent of U.S. troops currently deployed for those wars are reservists.

At home, the all-volunteer Army has labored to coax potential recruits to volunteer for the Guard and Reserve as well as for active-duty, and to persuade current soldiers to re-enlist when their volunteer commitment ends. (source)

Now, I ask you... Why would anyone volunteer to serve in the service now when we’ve all heard or know of people who are going back to Iraq for the second or third time, risking their lives for a government who doesn’t care about them?

Sound harsh? How about this... We ask these people to go to Iraq to try to clean up the mess we’ve made. Because of the huge drain on our economy, we decrease the wages and benefits of military personnel, tell them to go back for a second or third tour of duty, and on top of that, tell them that they can’t get out because of a stop-loss order put in place by the President. In other words, we have violated the terms of their contract for military service.

Stop loss gives the President that authority in times of war and when there is grave danger to our country. This doesn’t exist at this time. What does exist is a country that we invaded and gutted. We are there now to keep a worse hell from emerging. People can see this for what it is. We aren’t there to spread democracy. We are there to put our fingers in the cracks of the dam to keep it from completely falling apart.

I like this guy. I’ve said the same thing before. If we are going to have second class rights, we should have second class taxes as well.

Let’s add an amendment that makes it illegal to accept taxes from gays and lesbians and ignore them in earnest on all of their issues thereafter.

This biggest argument against gay marriage typically comes from conservative Christians who say this is a Christian country founded on Christian principals.

Using this reasoning, they say they should be able to glue a copy of the Ten Commandments anywhere they want. They say they should be able to mandate prayer anywhere they want.

They want to mandate that God remain in the Pledge of Allegiance, even though the writer of the pledge never intended it to be there in the first place. They want everyone forced to say the pledge despite any objections, including those that might come from other Christians.

And then, of course, there is the fight to ban gay marriage. If you want to change the Constitution to accomplish this, go ahead. But as you’re writing, make sure you also add:

And they say that bans on same sex marriage won’t effect current benefits given to same sex partners...

Many of the states who passed amendments to their state constitutions last November stated that it was only to prevent same sex partners from getting married. Now we are finding that it goes farther than that. In Michigan for example, the attorney general is saying that cities and government entities will not be able to provide benefits to same sex partners because it violats the terms of the amendment.

Surprise surprise. This was the intention all along. They just didn’t want to say it at the time because it might look as if they were mean spirited. And they say we have an agenda.

(Detroit, Michigan) A lawsuit was filed Monday in Detroit aimed at blocking attempts to use Michigan’s ban on gay marriage from being used to deny benefits to same-sex partners.

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, asks the court to declare that the amendment passed by voters last November, does not prohibit domestic partnership benefits offered by public employers.

Last week, Michigan’s attorney general issued a legal opinion saying cities and other government entities won’t be able to provide benefits for same-sex partners of employees in future contracts because it would violate the terms of the amendment. (source)

I actually heard this on my way in to work this morning, and it made a lot of sense to me. We all have positive and negative things working in our lives every day. How we respond to that is really up to us. The speaker on the radio said that one way to channel positive energy is to exercise, but when you are doing the exercise, give thanks to all the things you have. His examples were that you can give thanks to your health, to your legs that are enabling you to walk and run, among other things. It all sounds somewhat ZEN to me, but I think he has a point.

I guess that is what I was getting at in my entry last night about shifting my focus on how I look at life.

You know, I have so much to be thankful for. Life to me is unbelievable right now. So much is going so well. Kent and I are so happy. We both have jobs, we both have our health. That’s huge!

It is part of my makeup to hate inequalities in life. Right now, my inability to make my life totally complete hinges around being able to fully participate in society. I don’t think I can do that without access to marriage. But, that’s one thing, and it doesn’t have to spoil the pot, so to speak. I also think it’s important to recognize in myself that I do have this big issue with inequality. To me, it’s a big thing; to others, they don’t care.

So, I’m going to focus on what is right in my life. And it comes to mind that the wireless head phones I bought yesterday (to watch TV silently while Kent is sleeping), ROCK! Now, I can listen to my TV while standing in the middle of my yard! How cool is that??!

I’ve written for a long time about my life. Sometimes, when life in this society of ours gets too tough to deal with, you find yourself up against a few options.

You can just keep getting more and more depressed until you have to talk yourself into simply getting out of bed in the morning. I’ve been there. You get to a point when you read in the news day after day after day how little you are valued in society, that you finally get pissed and decide to do something about it.

So, you pull yourself together and go to the Legislative Office Building where they are having hearings on marriage rights for gay couples. You think it will help make you feel better inside because you are able to lend your support to something you care deeply about. You get there, and you hear one person after another talk about how these “perverts” are trying to “steal marriage” and “pervert” it into something that is “unhealthy”, “unnatural”, “against the will of God”, and will be the “downfall of mankind”. It was a mistake for me to go there. For the next three weeks, I had little energy and really didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning.

I think I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired of being reminded day after day what I don’t and can’t have. It’s demoralizing. So, I have put my energies into myself. I’ve decided to go back to the gym that I’ve belonged to for the last ten years. I haven’t gone for a long time, but I never stopped my membership. Instead of taking Prozac, I give my depression to my workout and channel all of that negative energy into myself.

And I guess it’s working. I’m gaining muscle, and so far, I’ve lost 21 pounds. I still don’t feel good about what is happening in the news with the President renewing his wishes to pass a federal constitutional amendment against allowing gay couples the ability to marry, but I can’t control that. What will happen, will happen.

But for now, I have my health and I even had some dude at the gym checking out my butt a week ago - a sure sign of progress!

I've been busy trying to get a new blog set up. I'm keeping this blog for writing, but I'm setting up a photo blog. I've been using this blog as a photo blog as well, but I think they will work better if I separate the two, and have links referencing each other.

But beyond all of that, there are a few things in the news that are so ironic, I just have to write about it. I'm constantly amazed at the hypocrisy of our government. With the Republicans in power, I have seen the national deficit grow out of control, our environmental needs set aside for the fast buck, and government growing faster than it ever has. The irony is that all of these things, with the possible exception of what they are doing to the environment, are things that the Republican Party has always said they were against.

They say they are against big government, yet the government has grown more in the last four years than it has in the last two decades. They say they are against governmental spending, yet we have a President who has yet to veto one spending bill. And, they say that they are for a less intrusive government. Unless of course you are a gay American where it's just fine to dictate that we are not allowed to marry our partner, or Terri Schiavo.

I feel for what her family must be going through. I'm not going to get in the middle and take one side or the other, with regards to whether her parents or her former husband is making the right decision. But I am absolutely certain that our federal government has absolutely no business being in the middle of this decision. They are interfering with something that should be decided in the family, and for what? For political gain. They love having their pictures in the paper and being so "moral". They are trying to show their conservative constituents that they do indeed value life, and they are willing to back that claim up with new legislation to value all life, even if that means trampling all over individual freedoms.

Is anyone else concerned about this?

One of the most difficult challenges for me is to be tolerant. I didn’t used to be this way. It used to be my nature to be tolerant of others who disagree with me on any issue. There was a time that I would never turn my back on a friend. Never.

But, I’ve changed in the last couple of years. Apparently, with age, I’ve been given the gift of being able to see through bullshit when I see it. A couple of examples...

The article below shows yet again one more attempt from our government to send a strong and resounding message that it’s perfectly ok to discriminate against gays. I guess it’s our turn. I get get. I understand that. But it doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.

What the Boy Scouts are doing is simply wrong. They are sending out a message that it’s just fine to keep the gay men away from kids (the Girl Scouts do not discriminate against lesbians). In essence, the Boy Scouts are saying, although they wouldn’t want to admit this in front of a camera, is that there is truth to the stereotype that gay men can not be trusted around your male child. Is it fair? Certainly not, but this is what they are up too.

GOP Bill Would Force Cities To Admit Scouts Despite Gay Ban

Senate Majority leader Bill Frist has introduced legislation that would make it illegal to bar the Boy Scouts from using pubic facilities.

In 2000 Supreme Court ruled that the Boys Scouts can prohibit gays. The high court said the constitution gave the scouts, as a private organization, the right to choose its members. The Scouts also prohibits atheists.

Civil liberties groups have challenged the scouts’ access to government facilities because of the ban and its requirement to swear an oath of duty to God.

The Pentagon last year settled one lawsuit by telling U.S. military bases around the world not to become direct sponsors of Boy Scout troops or Cub Scout dens.

Dozens of cities and school boards have also barred the scouts from using public facilities.

If Frist’s “Support Our Scouts Act” becomes law the federal government would be obliged to support the Scouts and state and local governments would be required to give Scouts access to their facilities if they make them available to other groups.

So how does this effect me? I went to the grocery store not so long ago and a couple of men were out in front of the store collecting money for our local Boy Scout troop. They looked at me and apparently I glared back. When I approached the store, they did not ask me to contribute. I will not give money to anything that discriminates in this fashion.

People can choose what they want to do as far as their children are concerned, but I will tell you this. If I am friends with some couple, and I find out that their son is in the Boy Scouts, how close do I want to be to those people? Everyone knows how the Boy Scouts feel about gays. Yet, they are allowing their son to be a part of that. So, does that mean that at some level, they support and endorse that behavior? I don’t know, but I do know that I am more cautious around people that do this. A wall goes up.

In the last election, I lost a friendship because he voted for President Bush because it was for the “good of the country” (his words). How is trying to keep me at second class citizenship for the “good of the country”? I know... there are other issues that we are facing that are important. But it seems to me, that in a country that boasts freedom for all, trying to establish a second class of citizenship smacks in the face of what we tell the world we believe in.

So where does this leave me? Very simple really (when you get to be 50, you want simplicity in your life). I won’t be friends with anyone who will not support me as an equal citizen. PERIOD. If my relationship with Kent isn’t on an equal standing with your marriage, I won’t be your friend. If I don’t have that support, you never were my friend to begin with.

Friendship is about respect. It demands nothing less.

You ever wonder why people are so afraid of love?

I used to think when there were so many beatings and killings in our community that they hated us because they saw us as being so different.

They never saw us as their equals. They never saw us as people.

They had a whole set of terms they used, just for us. On a good day, we were “them”. On a bad day, we were less than “them”.

Now, they hate us for trying to be like them. They hate us for trying to be with them. They hate us for wanting inclusion. They hate us for trying to claim our love in marriage.

They never saw us as their equals. They never saw us as people.

It’s a strange world we live in.

Tennessee Gay Marriage Ban Heads To Voters
The Tennessee House on Thursday approved the wording of a ballot question asking voters to approve a an amendment to the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

The Senate had given its approval in February.

The House voted 88 - 7 to put the question on the ballot in next November’s gubernatorial election.

Georgia Senate protects clubs’ right to ban gays
ATLANTA - Private clubs that ban gays from membership would get extra legal protection under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate.

The plan, which already passed in the House, is aimed at a fight in Atlanta between the city government and Druid Hills Golf Club. [...]

Some Democrats argued the bill is simply an effort by Republicans to score political points by bashing gays.

“In 2005, the idea we would use division to appeal to the worst in us - use division to achieve and maintain political power - seems worse than what happened in a prior generation,” said Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta.

The plan passed 37-11. It now goes to Gov. Sonny Perdue to be signed.

7:15am - March 18, 2005
Today is another day. Sometimes I feel exhausted and wonder if it is my own exhaustion that contributes to my overall feeling of despair concerning our civilization. But, I woke up this morning feeling the same way. Perhaps what I feel does not have it’s roots in exhaustion, but in reality.

I was moved by what another blogger said about this entry. I read this over at the