Thank God it's Friday!

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.”