Embryos Are Human Life.

That’s the opinion of columnist Mona Charen, a syndicated writer in Washington.

I read her opinion piece this morning in the Hartford Courant as I was having my bagel (with lox no less) this morning at Charley’s, in Vernon, Connecticut. Kent and I go there every Sunday morning for breakfast - somewhat of a ritual, I suppose. I’ve often thought that, if someone wanted to wipe us out, it would be easy, because Kent and I are creatures of habit and we definitely have our routines.

The Kansas City Star, editorializing about the president’s threat to veto the stem cell bill passed by the House, described human embryos as the “excess products of fertility procedures.” The Los Angeles Times, contemptuous of the president’s ethical misgivings, declared: “It’s not a choice between a human life and an embryo’s life. It’s a choice between real human lives and a symbolic statement about the value of an embryo.”

I agree with that. How can you really compare an embryo (one that was going to be discarded, by the way) with that of a human life? The research from this could lead to many medical breakthroughs for many people - people with Parkinson’s Disease, Diabetes, or Alzheimer’s Disease, to mention just a few.

If you really want to make an argument that human embryos (that were going to be discarded) are on equal par to someone who might benefit from stem cell research, then I think you could equally make the argument against those who self-pleasure themselves and discard unused sperm, or those who wear condoms during sex, only to throw the condom containing sperm into the garbage can. No, I’m not trying to be crude. I’m try to make a valid point.

If you can say that an embryo is human life and that stem cell research should not be done, then how can you say that the sperm from a male is not equally valid? After all, the sperm provides a genetic blueprint to make it possible for that embryo to develop into a person. Mona goes on to say:

The New York Times and others object that majorities in public opinion polls support this research. Is that how we should evaluate moral claims?

Mona, apparently so. You know what I find amusing in all of this? Mona Charen will make a statement like that, but when it comes to the “majority” of Americans opting to pass state constitutional amendments preventing gay couples from getting married, they are all for that - because it is what the majority wants.

Now, with a subject like embryonic research, suddenly they aren’t so interested in what the majority wants. Now, they are interested in the “moral” thing.

So where do you draw the line? I happen to believe that it is immoral to put basic, equal, civil rights up for a popular vote. I think that is immoral, when law abiding, tax-paying citizens like ourselves are openly placed into a second-class status. Kent and I will enter into that second-class status after October 1st, if we decide to enter into a Connecticut Civil Union. It’s second class because it is not called “marriage”, and the second we leave the state of Connecticut, it dissolves. I think that is wrong. But, that is what the “majority” of people in Connecticut want - for us to be second class.

I suppose I have to live with that. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If you are going to use that argument, BE CONSISTENT. You can’t use the argument that gay couples cannot get married because the majority of citizens don’t want that, then turn around and bitch because the majority of citizens favor stem cell research. It doesn’t work that way, and someone as smart as Mona Charen damn well knows it.

Mona, stop being a hypocrite.

And the Bible says that homosexual offenders should be put to death. ... So help eradicate homophobia now. Kill the Queer.

You Queers can vanish to volcanic ash, and reappear in hell with a can of gas and a match. I hate QUEERS and God hates QUEERS! And the Bible says that Homosexual Offenders should be put to Death!

That’s what a couple of the fliers said that has been littering the campus of Southern Oregon University, in Ashland, Oregon.

Kent and I have been there before. Ashland has a huge Shakespeare festival every year which is first rate. It’s sad to see this kind of stuff happening at a place that had so much going for it. (source)

Other related stories:
Alleged hate crime at SOU leads to police investigation
“Hate” victim speaks out

I’m sitting here listening to The Marriage of Figaro, by Mozart. I know, most of you don’t know opera. That’s not the point.

I come to this place when I feel overwhelmed by life. Today is the Sunday before Memorial Day. I’m wondering how many people really honor or understand Memorial Day. It’s kind of like Christmas, I suppose. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, which is fine. But many don’t even know what they are not celebrating.

I was going to point out some injustices in the world - where do I begin? But you know, sometimes you just have to overlook everything and realize that, there were injustices before my existence ever came to be. There will be injustices after I’m gone. It’s important to realize that our lives are only a slice in time on this planet. That’s important, because it points out just how fragile and short life is.

People say all the time, “Life’s too short for that...”. But do they really stop and think about what that means? I think it’s become cliché. I remember my sister used to say it all the time - when were were speaking to each other. The last time I talked with here was 1984, on the occasion of my Mother’s funeral.

God... now Maria Callas is singing Ah! Je Ris, from Faust (Gounod). WONDERFUL!

I’m very disconnected to my family. What is family? I know this is going to sound very very lame. But to those of you who have seen the Star Wars movies, indulge me...

There is a scene where Yoda talks about The Force. He talks about how everything is connected - how The Force is everywhere, “...yes, even the ground we walk on.” That is what life is to me. And, one of the things that has been most difficult for me to deal with in life is how we focus on everything that is different about ourselves at the expense of what we have in common. We let that tear us apart.

There is something inside me that wants to shake mankind into knowing that we are all one people. We are all the same, when you get down to the elements of what make us human beings. How much war, hatred, and bigotry must we put ourselves through before we realize that? That is the tragedy of life.

I think when people get to old age, there is a lot that they have come to accept and let go of. One is that people are petty. People care about everything that is unimportant. They put whatever that is important at any given time up on a pedestal (along with themselves) and say, “THIS is what is important!”

The seventy-year-old person will see through that and understand that it means nothing. They are brought back to the elements of their existence - the people they love – their humanity. Their sole and selfless message to all is, care for others. That’s what I want to say.

I enjoy my life. This is actually the best period of my life right now, but when I’m seventy or so years old, if I make it to that age, I think I will be ready to leave. By that time, I suppose no one will care about anyone else. But eventually, I suppose after civilization falls (and I don’t think we are that far off), we will all come back to what is important – humanity. Or, we will perish. It really is just that simple.

All the things we think are so damn important now, will disappear. I’ve put marriage way up at the top of my list because I believe that it is possibly one of the last things that can bring us closer together. It’s important to me. But, is it the real issue? Probably not. I love Kent. That is what is important. The fact that he may not be able to visit me in a hospital because we are “legal strangers” probably shouldn’t be the hot issue to me. But my insecurities win the day all the time it seems. I find myself wondering why people hate so much and are so threatened by Kent and myself - I probably won’t understand that until I am seventy or so.

Hopefully, by then, I will have an answer to share with all of you, if we are still here.

(Augusta, Maine) The Maine legislature is expected to debate a proposed amendment to the state constitution next week that would ban same-sex marriage.

But, if the reception the measure got in committee Friday is any indication, it will likely fail.

The Judiciary Committee split 7 - 5 along party lines with 7 of the eight Democrats voting against it and the 8th absent from the committee.

Even an attempt to “moderate” the amendment did not sway Democrats signaling its likely to be defeated in the Democratically controlled House. (source)

I’m actually very proud of Maine. Kent and I go to Maine at least once a year on vacation. We are scheduled to go an a week up to Ogunquit and then on up to Bath, Maine. We always have a great time there.

As in Connecticut, there are those who are trying to prevent gay couples from ever having marriage or civil unions. In Maine, some religious groups are gathering signatures to try to place the issue on the ballot. So when this came out, it gave me a good feeling about the state.

This is a sign of true progress. Maine is a state I have long worried about because I knew it would be very easy for the state to go either way on the issue of equality. It’s starting to look as though the majority of citizens in Maine favor fairness and equality.

I’m glad. It means that we won’t have to find a new vacation spot!

I guess I’m getting old. I shouldn’t admit this, but I remember when a gallon of gasoline cost 25 cents. I was just a kid and back then, we complained about it getting all the way up to 50 cents. It was horrible. Of course, everything is relative, I suppose. Yesterday, I paid $2.19 a gallon. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it because it’s now a way of life.

So many things cost so much money today, and we don’t even think about it. And, as time goes on, it seems as though we just get used to it, and accept it. I remember that when you would take a trip and fly from one destination to the next, you would get lunch or dinner on the plane, if you were flying around lunch or dinner time. No more. Now, they don’t serve - not lunch or dinner at least. Now, they serve crackers or pretzels with soda. When they started doing that and eliminated meals, I thought to myself that it was like going from 25 cents to 50 cents a gallon for gasoline.

Well, in a few days from now, one airline will stop serving even pretzels. Beginning June 9, Northwest Airlines will charge for anything other than soda. They estimate that this will save the airline $2 million dollars a year. How can pretzels cost that much? I mean, has anyone actually counted how many pretzels you get in one of those little packages? Well, I did. I was bored and had nothing else to do, so I counted them. There were 22 little pretzels in my package. How much longer before the other airlines follow suit?

I suppose in the not so far future all airlines will follow this practice and offer nothing at all unless you pay extra - even for soda. It doesn’t bother me so much. The truth is, the meals were never that good, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s no great loss. It’s more of a concern to me that the airlines feel that they have no other choice to do this to save money. They are all about service, so if they feel they don’t have a choice, they are running very close to the edge of survival. This should be a wake up call to all of us and especially, our government.

Today they are sacrificing service and their offerings to customers. What will be sacrificed tomorrow, safety and short cuts in maintenance?

Three senior Boeing Co. employees have filed a lawsuit against the aircraft manufacturer claiming the company ignored numerous defective parts used to build airplanes. [...]

The lawsuit contends the parts did not pass minimum Federal Aviation Administration safety requirements and were used on 737s, 747s, 757s and 767s made in Wichita and delivered for sale from March 1998 through November 2004.

DENVER - Gov. Bill Owens vetoed a bill Friday that would have outlawed workplace discrimination against homosexuals, but he allowed another measure to become law adding gays and lesbians and the disabled to the list of people protected under the state's existing hate crimes statutes.

Owens said he vetoed the workplace discrimination bill because he considered it unnecessary and said it could force employers to spend large sums defending lawsuits. (source)

Owens said he vetoed the workplace discrimination bill because he considered it unnecessary and said it could force employers to spend large sums defending lawsuits.

Think about that for a second. If the legislation (had it not been vetoed) would have forced employers to spend a lot of money defending lawsuits, doesn’t that tell you that many people are being fired from their jobs for being gay?

Astonishing. The governor basically admitted that this is a problem, and decided to let it continue to happen.

I sent this letter to Justice Jonathan A. Katz of New Paltz today, at 8:28pm.

Dear Justice Katz:

I was reading today that Mayor Jason West will face 24 misdemeanor counts of violating the state's domestic relations law by marrying gay couples last year. I hear that he could face fines and up to a year in prison.

Your Honor, it is rare to see such courage in someone so young. Jason is a hero of mine. If he is charged, I beg you to allow me to serve the time he would serve. I know this is a strange request, and perhaps not possible, but I am sincere in this request. I am sane and of sound mind and body.

What Jason did was extraordinarily courageous. I would gladly serve his time, and I will try to do my part to pay his fines.

What he did was right and just. That can never be wrong. It would be my privilege to do this for Jason.

Sincerely,
... (my name and address omitted from original letter for Internet posting)

The village mayor who challenged New York law by attempting to marry gay couples will face trial, the state’s highest court ruled Friday.

New Paltz Village Mayor Jason West faces 24 misdemeanor counts of violating the state’s domestic relations law by marrying couples without marriage licenses last year. West’s defiance of a law that state officials say forbids gay marriage made the little Hudson Valley village a flashpoint in the national gay marriage debate. [...]

West was hit with the criminal charges shortly after marrying couples before a cheering crowd and dozens of reporters. He became the second public official in the nation to join same-sex couples, following San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, helping spread the debate over gay marriage.

West faces fines and up to a year in jail if convicted on the misdemeanor counts of solemnizing marriages for couples without a license. (source)

This is one of the biggest injustices of all. Mayor West will apparently face charges for marrying gay couples. He did this because he felt it was wrong to deny gay couples equality.

I will tell you this, and I’m totally sincere and honest in saying this. If he does get sentenced to a year in jail, I would be honored to take his place and do the time for him. That may sound crazy to you, but that’s how strongly I feel about this.

You see, I wouldn’t be doing the time. I would be taking the punishment for righting a wrong. That is never wasted. You are your principles! It is always honorable to stand up for those principles. There are times in life when you have to look an injustice in the eye and say, “I will expose your for what you are. Let’s do this.”

This is one of those times. When and if Jason is sentenced, I’m going to be there

Related entry

(Washington) New hate crimes legislation introduced today in the House would amend existing hate crimes laws that cover crimes motivated by race, color, national origin and religion to include crimes based on actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity.

If passed, the legislation would allow the Department of Justice to assist local authorities in investigating and prosecuting cases in which violence occurs because of the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

For more than a decade bills have been filed almost annually to include gays in hate crime laws and each time they have died.

The first attempt to pass a hate crime bill failed in 1994 and further attempts have died almost annually since then. (source)

So who wants to make bets that it’s going to pass this time?

Today, I will be calling Exxon/Mobil to cancel my Mobil/Exxon card as well as my Mobil/Exxon Speed Pass. I like the speed pass because it is convenient. But, I’m not about to buy gasoline at a company who doesn’t give a damn about all of it’s workers.

If they will not put in place job protection against their workers to guarantee they are not fired or demoted for being gay, I will not do business with them.

I urge you all to do the same. If you do, contact them to let them know. The number to call to cancel your account is 800-344-4355.

SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITY!

(Dallas, Texas) For the seventh consecutive year shareholders in ExxonMobil have rejected an attempt to include sexual orientation in the company’s non-discrimination policy.

At the oil company’s annual meeting Wednesday in Dallas, shareholders voted 29.4 percent in favor of giving LGBT workers protection. It was the highest support the measure has yet received.

ExxonMobil is the only U.S. company that has ever rescinded a non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation. (source)

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. May 26, 2005 — The Marine Corps dropped murder charges Thursday against an officer accused of riddling two Iraqis with bullets and hanging a warning sign on their corpses as a grisly example to other suspected insurgents.

Autopsies conducted on the Iraqis’ exhumed bodies backed 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano’s assertion that he shot them in self-defense after the men disobeyed his instructions and made a menacing move toward him, Marine officials said. [...]

The two Iraqis were killed during an April 2004 search outside a suspected terrorist hideout in Mahmudiyah, Iraq.

Prosecutors said Pantano, 33, intended to make an example of the men by shooting them 60 times and hanging a sign over their bodies “No better friend, no worse enemy,” a Marine slogan. Pantano did not deny hanging the sign or shooting the men repeatedly. (source)

I’ve never been a soldier, so I suppose it’s valid to say that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I also was not there, thank God. But, how can you justify shooting someone 60 times if you were just defending yourself? And then, on top of that, you hang a sign on the bodies that says, “No better friend, no worse enemy,” a Marine slogan. What the hell is that about? Do you have to be a hard-ass marine to understand that? He sounds like a sadistic bastard to me.

It’s doesn’t seem quite right to me. And, this seems like the marines covering for their own. I suppose I’ll be accused of being “unpatriotic”, or some nonsense, but will the United States ever be accountable for any damn thing we do to these people?

I thought about it overnight, and decided that it was unfair of me to make reference to a comment that I wasn’t going to show.

The comment that I referenced in A State of Grace is given below. It is unedited including the IP Address, name, and email address. It was reformatted for the comment. The verbiage remains completely intact. Read if you’d like. It’s up to you.

IP Address: 199.80.109.227
Name: A. Friend
Email Address: !!!!@!!!.!!!
URL:

Comment:

Gentlemen,Ladies?

Caught a glimpse of your writing in relation to gay marriage. Sounds like you really haven’t gotten it.

Most of us, even though we don’t always live up to it, consider marriage sacred. Yes, there are a few things, that as human beings (not necessarily right wing religious fanatics), we consider sacred.

We see that you obviously have no appreciation for that fact, however your perverted life and sexual style will never be acceptable to the vast majority of humans because it is unnatural and perverted. I don’t say this to insult you, but truth is truth; it’s not relative as your need for gratification would lead you to believe.

I hope you find another way to deal with the tendencies you possess--I know mental and physical urges are strong but you don’t have to be a slave to them. I could suggest approaches but I think it’s best if you come to them yourself.

Wishing you true peace and love.

Apparently, you don’t wish me a love that it true to my nature. An artificial love would suit you. Perhaps if I were to marry a woman and lie to her about being gay, you would sanctify that?

You don’t need to answer. I already know you would. And, the state and federal government would also sanction that lie and give us a marriage license.

This is the sanctity of marriage that you so disparately hold on to. How can a lie ever be sanctioned? How can that ever be “sacred”?

Kent and I are truth. I love Kent with everything I am. We already have a marriage. It’s not recognized by any government and it’s not recognized by most people. But it is recognized by our friends and us. It is real. It is not a lie.

At some level - at some time, someone, either in this world or the next, will recognize that.

Original reference for this post

I received a comment on my site today. Because the comment was entered on an old entry, it was being held for my approval. I read it, and was stunned. The gist of the message was that we (Kent and I) are sick and demented people because of what we are. And, that “normal people” who are not “perverted” and who believe in God will rule the world. We can never win, because we are evil.

I deleted the message. I found it strange that, even though I receive a lot of this type of email, this one effected me. I had a lot of feelings after I read the comment. I felt sad, angry, and an unshakable feeling of facing the enemy. I suppose if the commenter had left a valid email address, I would have given it a bit more credence, and may have published it.

Whoever left the comment, I want to say to them, that before you pass judgment against someone, perhaps you should open your heart enough to at least know who and what you are judging. You should know the passion of those you are so ready to condemn. You should know, before you dismiss us, that we love, we hurt, and we have a need to belong to humanity. You will of course dismiss this because you know what is right. You know the will of God, after all. I would remind you that the same judgment was made against Jesus. If you want to think in those terms, it’s risky business.

I am light. I tell of my truth. I talk about what it is like to be me; what my life is like, good and bad. Truth. That is what will expose those who leave hateful messages and hide behind an invalid email address. Truth.

There is good and evil in this world. Evil leaves a message telling me that I am going to hell and that our cause is unjust because we are less than others. Evil tells me that we are perverts deserving of death and eternal damnation.

I know better than that. I know me. I know our community. I have watched the amazing strength that all of us have inside of us, gay and straight, if we will just open ourselves up to the possibility of being true to ourselves and our passions. This scares some people. They want us to feel little and alone because they want their world order to remain the same; their vision of what a marriage is, their vision of what men and women are, their vision of love, their vision of America, and their vision of God.

I have seen God. I know the light. Where, you ask? In myself, as a child when I came to know myself as being different. In my friends who gave me strength as they were dying. They had amazing grace. At the time, I felt damned. I was losing my friends left and right and no one gave a damn. My dear friend Stanley said to me once, “We have every right to hate society for what they have done to us.” He’s right. We do.

But hate goes nowhere. I remember what President Richard Nixon said in is White House farewell statement. I never cared for Richard Nixon because I do think he was a crook and a liar. I noted the tone in his voice and his sincerity as he said this because, it was the only time that I heard him talk where I knew for sure that he wasn’t lying. He said, “Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” He was right. Hate is evil and, it is a dead end.

Today, the gift that my friends gave me as they left me, one by one, is strength. I have an amazing peace inside myself. It is from knowing that no matter what others say to me, they really can’t touch me.

05/26/2005 - The comment that was left

Recently, the FDA issued an edict advising sperm banks to bar as donors men who have had sex with other men within five years prior to donation. I have searched through the medical literature for a sound scientific basis for this directive, yet the only reasoning behind the recommendation is the fact that homosexual men are at high risk of HIV. If this were the rationale, though, it follows that the FDA should bar other high-risk donors such as men who have used IV drugs or have had sex with prostitutes. This, however, is not the case. Considering the (increasingly) stringent testing procedures employed by sperm banks, the glaring inconsistency suggests the FDA is influenced by ideology, concerned more with sexual preference than with risky behavior. Here’s why, using California Cryobank, the nation’s leading sperm bank, as a model:

All donated sperm, regardless of the sexual orientation of the donor, is frozen and quarantined, allowing for ample time to retest both donor and sample -- every three months -- for not only HIV but gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis, and a host of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In addition, donors must pass a battery of tests for genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, Thalassemia, canavan disease, Fanconi anemia, and various chromosome abnormalities to name a few. Also, each donor’s medical history is documented, as is that of his parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins. The donor must have gone to a four-year college, commit to donating routinely for one to two years, and undergo blood tests and physical exams every three months. Interestingly, once all is said and done, less than 5% of hopeful sperm donors are accepted. [...]

The FDA always faces pressure from a variety of interest groups. Let us hope that the agency is not caving into pressure from homophobic moralists in its recommendation to bar sperm donations by gay men. That would truly be a disservice to the public from a supposedly science-based regulatory body.

Aubrey Stimola is the Assistant Director of Public Health at the American Council on Science and Health. (source)

You have to wonder in all of this... If being gay is genetic, which I believe it is, do you think that by banning gay men from donating sperm, that they are really trying to get rid of the “gay” trait from the gene pool? Just a comment from my paranoid self, for what it’s worth.

Related entry

I don’t know how this is happening, but apparently, webmaster@billandkent.com is not an email account for Senator Bill Frist. I’m still looking into it, but people are sending their letters addressed to Senator Bill Frist, and they are being addressed to webmaster@billandkent.com. Weird!

Here are three of them. It’s always nice to know what the “other side” is thinking.

Subject: from dr. ben powell for dr. frisk
From: dr. ben powell (email address omitted from this posting)
To: webmaster@billandkent.com

Dr. Frisk,

Please don't give in to those moderates. They are controlling the senate you are not, if you give in. Go for an up and down vote anyway.

Thanks
Dr. Ben Powell (home address omitted from this posting)
South Carolina

---

Subject: Stop All Filibusters and Vote YES or NO!!!! Be BOLD and do what is Right!!!
From: Terry Vogel (email address omitted from this posting)
To: webmaster@billandkent.com

As your constituent, I ask you to vote to stop all filibusters of President Bush’s nominees to the federal courts. I ask specifically that you support the nominations of Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. These two women deserve to serve on the federal bench.

Terry Vogel

---

Subject: THE RENEGADE SENATORS
From: Phyllis Stuart (email address omitted from this posting)
To: webmaster@billandkent.com

Dear Senator Frist,

Thank you for your solid support of President Bush.

I have been a frustrated Republican for about 40 years, and thought that finally we had an opportunity to see our values represented. So, now, I have to say that I feel extremely disappointed and even
somewhat betrayed. Please continue to do everything in your power to thwart those renegade, self-serving so-called "moderate" Republicans. I hope desperately that I have misunderstood the actions of these senators, but if my understanding is correct, I can only ask you:

PLEASE DO NOT GIVE UP. PLEASE CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR THE PRESIDENT, AND FOR THOSE OF US WHO BELIEVE THIS COUNTRY'S BEST DAYS COULD STILL BE AHEAD, IF THE RIGHT CHOICES ARE MADE NOW.

Sincerely,
Phyllis Stuart

I thought this photo from AP was cool. It’s a female bear who wandered into the San Fernando Valley’s Porter Ranch area. It ended up taking a swim in a backyard pool.

The animal was tranquilised and released into the Santa Susana Mountains. (source)

(Spokane, Washington) Spokane Mayor Jim West returning from a leave of absence, following revelations he offered city jobs to men he met in a gay chat room, has apologized for what he calls “poor judgment in my private life.”

But, he dismissed a demand from local business leaders to resign amid allegations of abuse of power over the affair. [...]

West, a former sheriff’s deputy and Republican leader of the state Senate before he was elected mayor in 2003, built his political career on conservative issues including a condemnation of gay rights.

After Gov. Booth Gardner signed a surprise executive order banning discrimination in state jobs based on sexual orientation, West and 14 other Republicans introduced a bill in January 1986 to bar gays and lesbians from working in schools, day-care centers and some state agencies. The bill, which called for firing state workers whose sexual identities became known, failed.

In 1986, West voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS during sex.

West opposed gay rights bills introduced in 1985 and 1987.

In 1989, West opposed expanding a needle exchange program from Pierce County to the entire state.

In 1990, West proposed that teen sex be criminalized.

In 1998, West voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

In 2003, West, as Senate majority leader, bottled up a gay-rights bill in committee and it died.

As incoming mayor in November 2003, West opposed giving benefits to domestic partners of City Hall workers, citing cost. The Spokane City Council in April approved domestic partner benefits in a 5-2 vote, enough to withstand any mayoral veto. (source)

I like to think of myself as a very forgiving guy. I’m someone who would help anyone in trouble. I can understand how someone can be closeted and not wanting to let anyone know that he’s gay. I can understand how that person can be in office and perhaps not endorse a measure that his colleagues endorse that deals with gay rights. After all, you are living a secret and if you support a gay rights bill, what will people think?

What I don’t understand is how someone who is a closeted gay will go out of his way to make life for other gay citizens more difficult through his actions. This mayor has a lot of explaining to do to the gay community. I honestly don’t think there’s anything he can say that will make his actions excusable and forgivable.

I think it’s better for us that he resign in disgrace, and I think our community has every right to cheer that on. If any friend of mine did this, that friendship would be over in a heartbeat. Your actions define who and what you are. Mayor West is nothing more than a self-serving, self-loathing hypocrite.

Related entry

I spotted this interesting tidbit on the Internet. There's more than a little truth to much of it.

DEMOCRATIC: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICANISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?

SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows but you don't know where they are. While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have some vodka. You count them and learn you have five cows. You have some more vodka. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION: You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. You get a $40 million grant from the US Government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION: You have two cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION: You have two bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION: You have one cow. The cow is schizophrenic. Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish. The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow. The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION: You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION: You have millions of cows. They make real California cheese. Only five speak English. Most are illegals. Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

The hundreds of cards and letters, some written by schoolchildren, some signed by Arizona legislators, were tacked up along a wall in Lois Fraley’s home. They were physical evidence of the community’s support. They helped boost Fraley’s spirits, helped the corrections officer recover from being held hostage for 15 days in a prison tower.

The letters of support ended up in the home Fraley makes with her partner of five years, Tere Knight. But that home is not getting much support now. Fraley’s relationship is not recognized by her employer and might be under attack at the ballot box.

“It’s, uh, what is that called?” Fraley said, searching for words over a vanilla latte at the Starbucks at Park Central. “Someone, like, backstabbing. Where you can praise somebody face to face and...”

“Hypocritical,” offered Knight, who was seated next to her.

“Hypocritical,” Fraley said, nodding. “Either you like me or you don’t. But don’t sit there and say, well, that you like me as a person, but you don’t like me because I’m gay.”

Last week, a group called Protect Marriage Arizona announced the drive for a ballot initiative that would not only define marriage as being between a man and a woman, but also deny benefits to any couple that’s not married.

That would mean Fraley and her partner. Someone the state flooded with support and lauded for courage would have her unequal status enshrined in the constitution.

“That’s the shame of it, that people can’t understand who you are,” she said.(source)

The Lois Fraley Foundation

That is the shame of it. People don’t understand us, and I don’t know what the solution to that is. My neighbor has made his opinion of us known. There’s really nothing I can do to change his mind, because he has made his mind up long before he ever met us. Gays are queers and bad for society. That is what I’m up against in having him know us for the people we are.

So what can I do? Not a hell of a lot. People want to know us, or they don’t. I suppose it’s easier to sit back and quote venomous quotes from the Bible than actually getting up off their collective asses and make an effort to see us as people.

And this is why so many of us are depressed and lose hope. Tonight was tough. I came home and somewhere in the middle of making dinner, I sat down on the couch, and just started crying. I think at times that there are so many things we are up against, and it all seems so overwhelming at times.

Tomorrow will be better. I’ll go to bed early, and try to arm myself with a good nights sleep. We have to keep our hope up.

I was at least gratified that the American Psychiatric Association has endorsed gay marriage for our community. Maybe that’s where we start. I don’t know.

Representatives of the nation’s top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of same-sex marriage.

If approved by the association’s directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.

The statement supports same-sex marriage “in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health.”

It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

Next week will decide the direction our country takes.

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. MAKE YOURSELF HEARD!

This from moveonpac.org. Sign the petition that they will be delivering to the Senate.

Senator Bill Frist has pulled the trigger on the “nuclear option.” We now have less than 72 hours to stop him from seizing absolute power to stack the courts - including the Supreme Court. The vote is still too close to call. If we raise our voice, we can win.

We’ve launched an emergency petition we’ll be delivering to congress every three hours, from Monday morning until the final vote is complete. Our allies will read your comments on the Senate floor, and every senator will know the American people are standing ready to hold them accountable. Please sign today!

There are many readers who come to my site to look around. In fact, last month, I received more than one million visitors to the site. This has created somewhat of an interesting problem for me, in a couple of ways. First, it has increased my bandwidth greatly. I have also lately been having some concerns about storage. This left me with two choices. I either upgrade my service plan with my Internet service provider for more space and bandwidth, or, I pull the site, which would mean that I’m done with blogging.

I decided to stick around for a bit longer. So, today, I called my service provider and increased both storage and bandwidth (they were overjoyed).

So, if you ever try to come to my site and find that I’ve been removed from Internet existence, it won’t be because I’ve decided to call it quits and disappear from the blogosphere. I mention all of this, because I am apparently being monitored by the Federal Government. At least, it’s fair to say that they are taking an interest in this site - and probably not in a good way.

I have been extremely outspoken about my feelings on a variety of topics ranging from gay marriage, gay rights, domestic violence, the death penalty, taxes, government intrusion into our lives, and the injustice of the war in Iraq. I have talked at length about my feelings on this war, our current administration in Washington, our President, and how I feel about him running this country into the ground. I’ve been criticized by people I know for being “un-American” for not “supporting” our President and our country at a time when we need “unity”. I have been criticized by my family for “causing trouble” by being so outspoken.

Well, that’s propaganda, and it’s bullshit. I call it like I see it. I will not support this President, because he is a moron and has no clue on where or how to take this country into a future that will ensure the rights of all citizens. He won his last election not by bravely confronting the problems this nation faces - problems that effect all of us, but rather, by telling people that if he doesn’t win election, the very future of marriage is at stake. This drove large masses of religious conservatives to the polls. After the election, he wanted nothing to do with the amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as “one man, one woman.”

In other words, this President has the integrity of a piss ant in a colony of ant eaters - he will do whatever it takes to survive. Screw integrity and screw beliefs. This is our leader. His integrity as a leader is matched only by his attitude towards other peoples of the world and his absolute contempt for anyone else (the United Nations) who might disagree with him. He is not my President. He is a President who was given the Presidency by the U.S. Supreme Court the first time around, and narrowly won election (and even that is still being disputed) for his second term.

This is what America is today - a nation that is too good for everyone else, a nation who looks down it’s nose at everyone else, a nation who is filled with hatred and bigotry tempered with a self-righteous attitude that the way we treat some of our citizens is justified based on religious doctrine.

Weekly, I check my site statistics on who is visiting my site, and, more importantly, where they are going. Over the last couple of months, I have seen a dramatic increase in traffic to this site from “.mil” domains (U.S. Military). And not just one branch. All branches have visited the site. And recently, the Pentagon has taken an interest in the site.

This urged me to take a closer look at where they were going. It’s hard for me to believe that they are here to read about gay marriage, so it was reasonable to assume that they were here for other reasons. Sure enough, each of their stops was to view the comments left in the Abu Ghraib photo album.

I posted the album some time ago. Actually, when the photos surfaced. Over the months, the rhetoric taking place in the comments left in the album have become increasingly hostile and anti-American. This was not my intention. I created the album because I feel what happened at Abu Ghraib was a terrible injustice. In fact, after the Abu Ghraib scandal, 90% of those held at the prison were released because they were falsely imprisoned. Many of these prisoners were the men who were abused in the photos.

I’ve always felt that those who were truly responsible for what happened there would never be punished. The people really responsible for letting this happen were too far up the chain of command. And sure enough, history has proved me right. Only the low-level soldiers who were there are the ones receiving the punishment for Abu Ghraib. That’s unfortunate, but expected. It echoes the Bush Administration’s ability to avoid all blame for anything that happens under it’s watch.

The administration, and indeed the United States does not need my help to make us look bad. We seem to be doing this just fine all by ourselves. The news around the world is buzzing about the photos just release of Saddam Hussein in his cell, in his underwear, no less. When I heard the news on TV and saw the photo, I just shook my head in disbelief and wondered how people could be so stupid. This was first released in a British newspaper but we were fast to pick up on it as well and publish it. Here we are at war, we’ve gone through the Abu Ghraib scandal, and now this. We just don’t learn. You don’t fight against a fire by throwing more gasoline on the fire. Stupid. It pissed me off, and I’m not even Iraqi.

I view free speech as being sacred. It is what our country is founded on. And believe me, if there’s one thing I do, it’s to exercise my right to free speech. But I don’t take it for granted. It’s possible that some day, you may try to come to billandkent.com, and we would no longer be here. If that happens, you will know what happened to the site. Call me paranoid, but I trust our current administration and our current government about as far as I can throw my house.

This is the world we live in folks. I’m a middle-aged gay man living way out in the country with my partner of 30 years. I live a private life, yet, on the Internet, I’m outspoken and direct. And, I am being monitored. For what? For my ideas? For calling things what they are?

I love my country. I don’t love what they are doing and I don’t love what we, as a nation, are becoming. And recently, it’s been difficult for me to say that I’m proud to be an American, for a lot of reasons. Some will say, “Well, if you don’t like America, get the hell out.” Believe me, we have thought long and hard about leaving. It’s hard to stay and be bashed by one state or another in this country day after day just because you want to marry your life partner, and still feel like “things will eventually get better.”

I don’t believe that there should be different tiers of rights for different groups of people in this country. We should be better than that.

I don’t believe that we have the right to militarily beat the hell out of another country because we are the bad ass United States. We should be better than that.

I don’t believe that we should tell the United Nations to go screw themselves because what they believe is inconvenient for us. We should be better than that.

I believe we should not use war as a first resort to solve our problems, at the expense of the lives of the young men and women serving our country in the military forces. We should be better than that.

I don’t believe that we should let a vocal minority in this country use selected passages from the Bible to beat down and demonize an unpopular minority in this country to justify legislation to further their means. If we allow that, we should also allow for the death of those who are adulterers. Divorce should be against the law and those who work on Sundays should be put to death, along with women who wear make up, for they are “harlots”. This is what the Bible calls for. You either carry out ALL the instructions of the Bible, if we want to go down that road, or we don’t. You shouldn’t get to pick and choose who or what group to condemn because it’s convenient to ignore some groups because they hit a little to close to home for you. We live in a democracy, not a theocracy - at least not yet. But if people like Senator Bill Frist gets his way, this democracy that we take for granted may soon be a thing of the past. We should be better than that.

I don’t believe that we should be spending like there is no tomorrow because “we are at war”. That excuse is getting pretty worn out and lame, and future generations of children are going to be left paying for the bill that this administration is racking up. WE SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THAT!

But we won’t be better than that unless people start speaking up and saying, “enough already!”. I don’t know what it will take for people to start doing that - to start caring about their country again - to take back the greatness of what America used to be, and should be. This is my way of doing that, for as long as I can, for as long as I am allowed.

07/06/2005 Update - Ex-Officer Gets Life Sentence for Death of MU Student

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- A former Columbia police officer was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole in the 2004 death of a University of Missouri-Columbia student with whom he had an affair.

Steven Rios, 28, also received a consecutive sentence of 10 years on a count of armed criminal action for the throat-slashing death of Jesse Valencia, 23. A Clay County jury, brought to Boone County because of intense media coverage of the case in Columbia, convicted Rios of first-degree murder in May.

Meet Jesse James Valencia. Jesse was murdered by a police office who was seeing him on the side. It sounds like a plot out of a soap opera. Unfortunately, it’s all true. As it turns out, he was killed by a man named Steven Rios, a police officer. Rios killed Jesse because he feared that Jesse would talk about the affair he was having with Jesse. Rios was married and had a child. He didn’t want that exposed. So one night, he went to Jesse’s home, and, after a heated argument, killed him.

Even with 27,000 other students in this leafy college town, Jesse James Valencia stood out. Outspoken, gay and blessed with the looks of an Abercrombie & Fitch model, the 23-year-old junior seemed to saunter through his busy life at the University of Missouri.

He carried a full load of history and political science courses, worked evenings as a hotel clerk, and packed his social calendar with parties, Internet dates and drag shows at Columbia’s only gay nightclub. He wrote editorials in the campus papers advocating same-sex marriage and had big plans for his future.

“He talked about going to law school and he even toyed around with running for president, the first homosexual,” a friend, Jennifer Witherspoon, recalled. (source)

Rios was prosecuted and was just sentenced to life in prison for the murder. His DNA was found under the Jesse’s fingernails.

One of the things that bothers me a bit about this story is the fact that Rios was going to come forward about the murder sooner, but felt that he couldn’t because of the “brutal” comments other officers were saying about Jesse, because he was gay.

Sgt. Stephen Monticelli, who supervises the department’s Major Crimes Unit, testified Rios came to his office June 8 to talk about a CrimeStoppers tip he’d heard that indicated Valencia had an affair with a married officer and that Rios thought the tip was about him.

Rios agreed to be interviewed by Short, Monticelli said. Both Short and Monticelli testified that Rios initially denied knowing Valencia beyond an official capacity in the April 18 arrest.

Eventually, Rios confessed in “bits and pieces” of the affair, Monticelli said. The suspect told them he wanted to tell someone about the relationship on the day the body was found but that he decided not to after hearing other officers at the crime scene make “brutal” comments about Valencia being gay. (source)

This is exactly why the gay community doesn’t trust the police. I would like to think that this police department would take a long hard look at itself and get some training in these areas. I don’t want to stereotype, but, that’s probably not going to happen, given that it’s the police department of Columbia, Missouri.

I visited the Columbia, Missouri Police department feedback page. This is the message I left for them:

I read this today in an on line news article concerning the sentencing of former police officer Rios:

Rios confessed in “bits and pieces” of the affair, Monticelli said. The suspect told them he wanted to tell someone about the relationship on the day the body was found but that he decided not to after hearing other officers at the crime scene make “brutal” comments about Valencia being gay.

I sincerely hope that you take action within your police department to deal with the root of these “brutal” comments made about Jesse Valencia. The boy was gay and when the comments were made, he was dead. I can only imagine what your officers said about him.

He deserved a bit more respect than that and the police department should serve and protect ALL THE CITIZENS you serve.

The “brutal” comments were undeserved. My hope is that you would learn something from this and maybe something good could come out of this terrible tragedy.

Other source

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said yesterday that he might introduce a bill next year that would seek to accomplish some of the same aims as legislation he vetoed Friday that would have granted certain rights to unmarried partners, including gay couples.

“We may very well put in our own bill next year,” Ehrlich (R) said during a radio interview on Baltimore’s WBAL. (source)

Feeling the heat, Governor?

It would have been easy for you to pass the bill before you to give gay couples just twelve of the legal protections married couples have in your state. Just twelve out of all the protections your state offers. And you couldn’t even do that.

Now, does it really make sense for you to introduce a bill next year that would do exactly the same thing as the bill you just vetoed? Unless of course, you are playing politics with these gay couples, who want nothing more than to protect the lives they have built together.

Republicans playing politics... now there’s a new concept.

Related entry

(Annapolis, Maryland) Maryland’s Republican governor announced Friday he will veto two bills which would have helped same-sex couples and gay families.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich said that he will reject the Medical Decision Making Act and a bill that would have eliminated an unfair property tax levied only on unmarried couples.

The Medical Decision Making Act would have created a limited domestic partnership registry allowing unmarried couples to serve as each other’s next of kin for crucial healthcare and post-mortem decisions.

The Act contained 11 basic protections, seven of which could not be accomplished through advance directive, power of attorney, or will. (source)

And, he actually did veto the Medical Decision Making Act.

Governor Robert Ehrlich of Maryland vetoed a bill yesterday that would have granted rights to gay partners who register with the state, concluding after weeks of intense deliberations that the legislation threatened “the sanctity of traditional marriage.” [...]

Modeled after laws in California, Hawaii, and other states, the partners’ rights legislation would have granted nearly a dozen rights to unmarried couples who register with the state. Among those: the right to be treated as an immediate family member during hospital visits, to make healthcare decisions for incapacitated partners, and to have private visits in nursing homes.

Another measure sought by gay-rights activists that would have extended a property transfer tax exemption to domestic partners also was vetoed. (source)

I don’t know what to tell you folks. To the couples in Maryland, my thoughts are with you. My hope is that someday, somehow, those who have worked at and successfully denied our families basic human dignity will someday find themselves in a place or situation of knowing what this feels like. I will never understand how people such as the governor of Maryland can be such a narrow sited ignorant homophobe.

This bill had nothing to do with marriage. This bill would have protected real families and real people who, as things stand now, have no way of obtaining that protection.

Follow up entry

Taxas has executed Richard Cartwight who, on August 1, 1996, killed Nick Moraida, a gay man, in a robbery attempt.

On August 1, 1996, Richard Cartwright and two male accomplices met Nick Moraida after he pulled up in a small black sports car. The trio invited Moraida to go drinking with them at seaside park. After Moraida, agreed, they drove to a secluded fishing area off a cul-de-sac on Ocean Way.

Once parked in the cul-de-sac, the four men went down a hill to the seawall area, and Cartwright pulled out a gun and said, “This is a robbery. Put your hands on the cement [wall].” At the same time, one of the accomplices held a knife to Moraida’s neck. Cartwright and his accomplices took Moraida’s watch, keys, wallet and an envelope containing cash, then an accomplice cut Moraida’s throat and Cartwright shot the victim. (source)

This from the Houston Chronicle:

HUNTSVILLE - A former mechanic from Chicago was executed Thursday for the robbery and fatal shooting of a Corpus Christi man.

In a brief final statement, Richard Cartwright thanked his friends and family for their support.

“I want to apologize to the victim’s family for any pain and suffering I caused them,” he said. Then he urged his fellow death row inmates to “just keep your heads up and stay strong.” [...]

There were no witnesses from the murder victim’s family.

Cartwright, 31, was the eighth Texas prisoner put to death this year and the second in as many days.

Cartwright was one of three men who duped Nick Moraida into thinking they were homosexuals offering to share beer with him at a beachfront park along Corpus Christi Bay in 1996.

Instead, Moraida was stabbed then shot to death while being robbed of his watch and wallet containing between $60 and $200.

His assailants hoped to use the money to buy drugs and alcohol.

Kelly Overstreet, 27, and Dennis Hagood, 28, are serving long prison terms. They agreed to plea bargains and testified against Cartwright.

Less than an hour before his scheduled lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a late appeal in which Cartwright’s lawyers argued he was condemned by a Nueces County jury because of testimony Overstreet now insisted was false.

Overstreet originally placed much of the blame for the shooting on Cartwright, but in a written statement to Cartwright’s lawyers earlier this month, Overstreet said, “I intentionally made Cartwright out to be the bad guy out of spite when in fact I am the one who was at the forefront of all events.”

Crime Details
Background

Newsweek apologized yesterday for an inaccurate report on the treatment of detainees that triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 15 people died.

Editor Mark Whitaker expressed regret over the item in the magazine’s “Periscope” section, saying it was based on a confidential source -- a “senior U.S. government official” -- who now says he is not sure whether the story is true.

The deadly consequences of the May 1 report, and its reliance on the unnamed source, have sparked considerable anger at the Pentagon. Spokesman Bryan Whitman called Newsweek’s report “irresponsible” and “demonstrably false,” saying the magazine “hid behind anonymous sources which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage that they have done to this nation or those who were viciously attacked by those false allegations.” (source)

George W. Bush took us into a war built on lies. He wanted this war to happen because he wanted Iraq to fall. They never were a threat to the United States, and he damn well knew it. As of yesterday, there have been 1,806 coalition troop deaths, 1,627 Americans, 88 Britons, 10 Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 21 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq.

So now, we are all over Newsweek magazine because one of it’s sources turned out to be lying when he said that American interrogators at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.

The Bush Administration was quick to label this as “irresponsible”, “demonstrably false”, and that Newsweek magazine “hid behind anonymous sources which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny.”

Oh please! Why don’t we hold the Bush Administration up to the same scrutiny that we do Newsweek? Their mistake was to trust a source that turned out to be untrustworthy.

Our mistake was to trust a President who has no moral fiber what so ever and who blatantly lied to us, the American People. He should be impeached. Where is our outrage on this?

It’s very difficult for me to throw stones at Newsweek. In the greater scheme of things, their offense doesn’t even show up on the map.

Well, I know that I shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. And I know that I shouldn’t let my imagination run wild with me.

But tonight I received my neighbors mail in my mail box. You remember my neighbor? He’s the one who, when I went over to his yard with a bottle of wine to welcome him to the neighborhood, pulled his children in behind him as if he were protecting them from a child molester? Yeah, that neighbor.

Well we haven’t talked since. He gave me the creeps. His kids say hi to me occasionally, but that’s it. Today in my mailbox was a catalog addressed to him from Majesty Bibles and Books.

I guess that’s why he can’t stand us. I just remember something Mom said to me once. “You can’t make people more than what they are.” It’s sad, but true.

It amazes me. I consume on average 1000-1500 calories a day. That’s not much, so the kind of food I consume matters a lot. I concentrate on low fat and high protein. I don’t count calories per se, but I do watch the fat content. Since January, I have lost 30 pounds (and counting) and my energy levels have increased 200%. I also workout and exercise. There’s really no substitute for that.

The Wendy’s Classic Tipple (pictured below) is what a lot of people have every day in this country. I used to go to Burger King and McDonalds all the time. Believe me, this is what a lot of children eat. And guess what? Every one of them have weight problems. And, we wonder why people are having so many health problems and why so many people are obese.

If I ate this, I would be sick for hours. It’s just not what I’m used too.

Source information

My diet is simple. I eat whatever it is that I want to eat. I call it the “Cher diet”.

I was flipping channels one day, and came upon an info-mercial featuring Cher. They wanted to know her lifestyle, her diet, etc. When she talked of food, she talked about all the healthy things to eat, in the right proportions. I also thought she was a health nut. The interviewer said, “Well, I can see now why you are so skinny.” She looked at him and said, “You think this is easy for me? I’m in the gym two hours a day to look this way. There’s nothing easy about it, and every thing you eat matters.”

They interviewer said, “Well, what if I like chocolate cake and want to eat that. You make it sound like food such as that are never to be eaten.”

Her answer blew me away. She said, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with that piece of cake. It is every bit as valid as that low-fat salad. The difference is, I don’t have to run for 45 minutes on a treadmill to loose the calories if I have the salad over having the cake. The bottom line is, if you want that piece of cake, you should eat it, and enjoy every bite of it. Then, you should pay the price for it and work it off! So the real question you should be asking yourself is, ‘Is that piece of chocolate cake worth that 45 minutes on the treadmill?’ If it is, then have it!”

Her point was, everything in life has a price tag. If you eat fattening foods, and do nothing about it, the price tag will be weight gain. If you work out and pay that price, a piece of cake once in awhile is not a bad thing.

I took all of that to heart. She also mentioned that when you eat, you really need to know what you are eating. If you are eating pasta, you should substitute the word “pasta”, for “complex carbs”. They burn off slower than simple sugars (candy bar). That’s how I look at all food now. If I’m going to have a piece of chocolate cheese cake, I substitute the words “chocolate cheese cake” with “gratuitous fat”, because to the body, that’s actually what it is - simple sugars and saturated fat.

You are what you eat.

(Syracuse, New York) Syracuse University has banned a Boy Scouts of America activity from campus because of the organization’s prohibition of openly gay Scout leaders. (source)

I don’t actually have strong feelings about this... anymore. They are a private organization (according to the U.S. Supreme Court) and as such, have a right to their opinions and their policies (I’m going to get a lot of “bad” mail on this).

That being said, I think it is wrong to teach bigotry. Just because they have a “right” to it doesn’t mean that they “should” do it. I do have a big problem with parents who say that they do not support bigotry and have many gay friends, yet turn right around and place their son in the Boy Scouts. That’s hypocrisy.

Your beliefs should reflect your actions.

BOSTON — When the Legislature votes again this year on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and allow civil unions, it will be another dramatic step in what has been a long and often painful political fight. [...]

The amendment would overturn the Supreme Judicial Court’s 2003 ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that declared the state law banning gay marriage to be unconstitutional. That decision took effect May 17, 2004. [...]

The amendment — which was approved, 109-92, last year — is expected to pass again this year. If it does, it requires the approval of the majority of voters at the ballot box next year. (source)

My understanding is that, if the amendment does pass, it will go before the voters. If the majority of voters approve the amendment, it will become part of the state constitution. I believe that all the marriages performed for gay couples in Massachusetts would then be converted over to a “civil union”. I’m not clear is those “civil unions” would have fewer rights than marriage.

One thing is clear. If this were to happen, it would be more difficult to challenge this at the federal level. Today, these couples have full marriage. Those marriages are, in Massachusetts, no different than heterosexual marriages. Why aren’t married gay couples in Massachusetts allowed to file a joint federal tax return like their straight counterparts? Good question, and this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

However, the federal government does not support or have a mechanism in place to honor a “civil union” and my bet is, even though we all know that everyone in Washington is striving to be fair and equitable, that they probably have no intention of ever honoring a civil union.

An interesting map showing the hate groups in the United States, broken down by Black Separatist, Christian Identity, Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Confederate, Neo-Nazi, Other, and Racist Skinhead.

A hate group may just be in your own back yard. I know I was surprised.

We set up the courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse. - Tom DeLay

And they have the power of the Constitution. I wonder who will win?

And they wonder why we want marriage...

This is one of the reasons.

For more than a decade, a focus of gay rights groups and other activists has been persuading employers to offer health insurance and other benefits to the domestic partners of unmarried employees. And Jessup was pleased that his employer was among those that did. [...]

Employer-provided group insurance “was a great plus for us because he is a self-employed writer and content developer,” Jessup, 39, said of partner Bob Chenoweth. J.P. Morgan’s coverage “was much cheaper than what he could get on his own.”

But there was shock in store.

“Something I didn’t understand at the time was how much the taxes would be. I was very surprised when I started doing my taxes” this spring, said Jessup, who is in Morgan’s commercial banking division in Indianapolis.

Under federal law, any portion of an employer-paid insurance premium that goes for coverage for a domestic partner is treated as taxable income to the employee. The employee also may not make any payments for partner coverage, such as premiums under a “cafeteria” benefit plan, with pretax dollars. [...]

“My taxes went up $150 a month. That’s something I hadn’t planned for,” he said of the reduction in his paycheck caused by additional withholding.

First, employer-paid health insurance is tax-free only for employees, their spouses and dependents. “A man and a woman who have not officially gotten married are in the same boat,” said Christopher Colwell of the accounting firm BDO Seidman LLP.

Heterosexual couples have the option of getting married; same-sex couples do not, except in Massachusetts. Even if they did, it wouldn’t help with the tax treatment.

The Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, defines marriage for the purposes of federal law as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and stipulates that “spouse” refers “only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” It requires that both these definitions be used “in determining the meaning of any Act of Congress.”

Thus, same-sex couples, no matter what states do, will remain unable to get federal-tax-free health insurance for one partner through the other’s employer. A 1997 study by the General Accounting Office found 1,049 federal laws in which marital status is a factor. (source)

I may have to re-think closing my Wells Fargo Account.

A month or so ago, I received a call from Wells Fargo collection services. I’ve had a Wells Fargo account for years. I actually had an account with First Security Bank when I was in college. Later, First Security was bought by Wells Fargo. I kept the account all these years.

So, I’m in a management meeting at work, and I get this call from a rude collector (I think maybe all collectors are rude. They have that “I know you are trying to hack into our bank and take all our money and pull a fast one” attitude before you can even get a word out).

As it turns out, he was calling me because I had a 30-day past due amount of $29.00 on my account. My reply was, “You called me out of a management meeting for $29.00?” He said, “Yes, and we want to know when it’s going to be paid.” I don’t run past due amounts. I talked to Kent, who pays the bills, and he had us as being current. I had words with the bank. It wasn’t the stupid $29.00 I was bothered by. To me, that’s nothing. What bothered me was the absolute lack of consideration they had for me, having been a customer since 1976. All they had to do was to look at my payment record. Just amazing.

I was so pissed that I told them I would be closing my account. I’m cooled off now. I suppose since they are supportive of my community, I will overlook their lack of judgment on this.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., May 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC - News), announced that Howard Buford, founder and president of multicultural advertising agency Prime Access, Inc., was honored as the first recipient of the NGLCC/Wells Fargo Excellence in Small Business Award. The award was presented Saturday, May 14th at the Excellence in Business Awards Luncheon during the 2005 NGLCC International Business and Leadership Conference in San Francisco. [...]

“Small business is big business at Wells Fargo, and we believe in the strength, diversity, and potential of the fast-growing LGBT segment,” said Michelle Scales, Director of Diverse Growth Segments for Wells Fargo. “Our ongoing alliance with the NGLCC, and our recognition of business owners like Howard Buford, reaffirm our commitment to support and partner with LGBT business owners, and help them succeed financially, in business and personally.”

The LGBT community will account for over $600 billion in consumer spending power this year alone. The NGLCC estimates the number of LGBT-owned small businesses nationwide to be approximately to one million strong. (source)

Related Entry on Wells Fargo
December 5, 2005 - Way to Go Wells Fargo

BOSTON -- Matt Laderer figured it was the kind of stuff straight people talk about with their moms and dads: When is the right time to get married? How do you pop the question?

“I realized, I don’t know that information,” the 24-year-old mechanical engineer said on a recent night out with his boyfriend at Club Cafe, a gay bar in Boston’s South End. “I don’t know when to buy the ring.”

When Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage one year ago, it was hailed by gays and lesbians as a milestone in their struggle for acceptance. But it also added a new dimension to the gay dating scene -- the pressure to get married. (source)

This is something new to think about. I also realize that I never really gave much thought to how this would change the dating scene for gay and lesbian people. Questions like, “Should I propose?”, “What’s the right time?”, were never an option for Kent and myself. We just kind of... happened, over time. Part of that angers me greatly. We overcame all kinds of bad stuff to be where we are today because we had zero support, and that didn’t have to happen. Are we stronger because of it? I think we probably are. We know that, no matter what happens, we can rely on each other, because on so many occasions in our adult lives, we’ve had to do just that.

But for a lot of gay and lesbian people who are dating, this adds a new dimension to the scene - commitment. And not only commitment, but societal commitment - it’s marriage. We’ve never had that before or had access to that. This is new for the couples in Massachusetts. For the first time, but only in one state in this nation, we actually belong and are part of society.

(Austin, Texas) The Texas lawmaker behind a bill that would ban gays and lesbians from being foster parents in the state says he was called on by God. (source)

This is why we need more middle-of-the-road people in our legislatures. People who claim that God is telling them how to rule are unfit for the job at hand. And, it’s a bit scary, if you think about it.

Finally some good news! Nebraska’s state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (passed by the voters) has been struck down by a federal judge, citing that the ban “goes far beyond merely defining marriage as between a man and a woman.”

I expect to see more of this in the future as these amendments are tested. This is a big step forward.

Here in Connecticut, starting October 1st, gay couples will be able to enter into a Civil Union, which will effectively give gay couples most of the rights of heterosexual marriage in the state. I expect the Civil Union arrangement also to be challenged (a case is pending) as being separate and unequal.

Nebraska’s ban on gay marriage was struck down by a federal judge who ruled the measure interferes with the rights of gay couples and people in a host of other living arrangements, including foster parents and adopted children. The constitutional amendment, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, was passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2000.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled Thursday the ban “imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights” of gays “and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiffs’ right to petition or to participate in the political process.”

Bataillon said the ban “goes far beyond merely defining marriage as between a man and a woman.” [...]

The judge said the “broad proscriptions could also interfere with or prevent arrangements between potential adoptive or foster parents and children, related persons living together, and people sharing custody of children as well as gay individuals.”

Forty states have laws barring same-sex marriages, but Nebraska’s ban went further, prohibiting same-sex couples from enjoying many of the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy. Gays and lesbians who work for the state or the University of Nebraska system, for example, were banned from sharing health insurance and other benefits with their partners. (source)

With friends like Spokane Mayor Jim West, who needs enemies?

I’ve not written anything about Mayor West, because I hate to kick someone while he’s down. And down he is - big time. Not only is his political career ruined (that’s unfortunately, a good thing for the gay community), but he may also be spending some time in prison, if allegation of child molestation are proven to be true. He denies that this happened. I’m not going to judge that here. It will be ironed out in the court room. The allegations of molestation of two boys happened decades ago. He is accused of using the trappings of his office to try to court a young man on a gay Web site.

What I will talk about is his absolute hypocrisy on the issue of gay rights. Here, we have a man, who now claims to be gay, who has worked for years against equal rights for gay. Here’s a run down:

James West’s votes on gay rights issues as a state legislator and as mayor

In January 1986, West and 14 other state House Republicans introduced a bill to bar gays and lesbians from working in schools, daycare centers and some state agencies. The bill, which called for firing state workers whose sexual identities became known, failed.

Also in 1986, he voted to bar the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves from AIDS during sex.

West opposed gay rights bills introduced in 1985 and 1987.

In 1998, as a senator, West voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

In 2003, West, as Senate majority leader, bottled up a gay rights bill in committee, where it died.

As incoming mayor of Spokane in November 2003, West opposed giving benefits to domestic partners of City Hall workers; the City Council approved domestic partner benefits in a 5-2 vote in April - enough to withstand a mayoral veto that did not occur. (source)

Yet, he wants to claim that his private and public life are two different things. Wrong. If you are a public servant, how you live your personal life is up for public scrutiny. This is especially so if the mayor was making decisions making life more difficult for gay people while being a gay man himself.

A lifelong Republican and former state Senate majority leader, West was best known in Olympia as a fiscal conservative. He rarely led on social issues.

Still, he opposed extending protected-class status to gays during his two decades in the state Legislature, and last week threatened to veto a city ordinance giving benefits to the gay partners of city employees.

In 1986, he supported legislation barring gays and lesbians from working in schools and day-care centers. At the time, he was actively involved in the Boy Scouts.

“He acknowledged he compartmentalized, building a wall between his public and private selves,” said Blaine Garvin, a political-science professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane. “When you do that, you’re not being honest with yourself. I think it’s appropriately called hypocrisy.”

State Rep. Bob McCaslin , a Spokane Valley Republican who served with West, disagrees.

“If you talk about [gay] rights, and his philosophy, I don’t see any hypocrisy,” he said. “I’m sure some people will, if in fact he’s gay.”

West told The Spokesman-Review newspaper that his opposition to gay-rights legislation doesn’t mean he supports discrimination. “I have never been outspoken against gays, I have never discriminated against gays,” he said. “It’s dicey to vote for those bills I consider an extension of a benefit that didn’t exist, need to exist.” (source)

Bullshit. When you prevent bills from becoming laws that would protect gay workers from being fired for being gay, you are supporting discrimination. He did this in 1985 and 1987.

In 1986, West, along with 14 other state House Republicans introduced a bill to bar gays and lesbians from working in schools, daycare centers and some state agencies. Think about that. Yet, this mayor sits there and says, “I have never been outspoken against gays, I have never discriminated against gays.”

This is a man with a deep seeded hatred for people like... himself. He has to deal with these demons as we all have. With all the negative information about gay people that has been thrown at me in my lifetime, it has been very difficult for me to come out on top and feel genuinely good about myself as a person. What has made that happen is my own personal integrity.

I don’t even have to think, “If I were in his position, I would like to think that I would be better.” I simply know that I would be. I wouldn’t put down others to make myself look better. Not ever. Not one time. That is called integrity and it is also why I would not make a good politician. I don’t play the game of politics. If I look someone in the eye and make a statement, they can assume it’s true.

That is what we need in politics today. That is what is missing in Mayor Jim West, our Congress, our Vice President, and our President. None of them - NOT ONE OF THEM - gives a damn about people. None of them can see beyond the issue of how it will make them look in their current office or for their future political aspirations (enter Bill Frist).

It reminds me of 57-year old Mary Mornin, a divorced single mother, who told President Bush, “I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.” The President replies, “Fantastic. The hardest job in America, being a single mom.” Morin tells the President that she works three jobs to do all of this. He said that was “uniquely American” and “fantastic.” He asks her if she gets any sleep. (source)

Maybe it is today “uniquely American” to work three jobs, but there is nothing “fantastic” about it. You have no time to spend with your family because you are busy just surviving, and life should be about more than just surviving. Do you think this President or most politicians for that matter really care about people like Mary Mornin? There are a lot of people like her out there. Maybe you are one of them.

Gay people are an easy target in all of this but what America doesn’t understand is that we are just the smoke screen to what is really happening in this country. You bash gays, you will get votes. That simple. After you get the votes and get into office (the last Presidential race), you can do what you really want to do (no longer have to really push for that anti-gay constitutional amendment against marriage for gays) and continue on your quest to rape the environment, drive our national debt to an all-time high, wage war on a country because they have weapons of mass destruction and when it’s shown that they don’t, create all kinds of diversions (enter Terri Schiavo) so that the American people will forget all about it. And, we will forget, because we have very short memories.

They have us figured out perfectly. So does Mayor Jim West, assuming he can survive the child molestation charges.

More on this released today.

Follow up - 05/24/2005
Follow up - June 5, 2005 - Wrestling with the conservative-approved model of being gay

(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) The Oklahoma House of Representatives has passed a resolution that would ban books on gay families from the children’s sections of public libraries.

The measure does not have the power of law but calls on Oklahoma libraries to “confine homosexually themed books and other age-inappropriate material to areas exclusively for adult access and distribution.” (source)

Well yes..... Let’s keep the gay books away from the children and make the libraries a place for the bigots, because that is what they are really trying to teach children.

I’m all for keeping adult materials away from children. I really have no problem with that. My issue is with a legislative body doing everything in it’s power to make gay people and same sex couples in particular, to appear to be deviant and something children should not be exposed too.

We are people, just like anybody else. I’m sick and tired of parents trying to instill in their children fear against us. This is how gay bashings happen and that is exactly what killed Matthew Shepard and many others like him.

The bottom line in all of this is that if they want to keep gay couples from getting these benefits, there’s always a way to do it by killing the process of signing up with red tape.

It’s the same way with firing or hiring someone. If a company wants to get rid of someone bad enough for a reason that isn’t legally possible, they will do it by another means. For example, if an employee is over weight, or gay, or black, you can’t fire them for that reason (in 36 states, they still can fire you for being gay). Rather, they will find some other “legitimate” reason for getting rid of you.

The same holds true for age. I’m sure that many people are denied jobs that they are capable of doing because they are “too old” - not quite what the company is looking for. Of course, you will never be told that. Instead, some other person (who just happens to be a young, preferably white, and single male) will get the job. You will never know that you were discriminated against, illegally.

In this case, the university system in Montana is asking gay couples to come up with all kinds of different criteria to somehow prove they are a couple. But it goes beyond that. You can tell they are making it as tough as possible for gay couples to enroll. Many, I’m sure, are just saying to hell with it. That’s a shame.

And what are gay couples to do? None of this applies to straight married couples because of the legal power that marriage brings to the table. Gay couples cannot get married. They really have nothing to fight with, other than the court system.

Last December the Montana Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide lesbian and gay employees of the University System with the option of purchasing health insurance and other employee benefits for their domestic partners. [...]

But, Casey Charles, a University of Montana English Professor says the requirements for entering the benefits plan are “onerous” and “unreasonable”.

To obtain health insurance benefits for a partner, the University System requires that couples prove, among other things, joint tenancy or joint home ownership for the last 12 months and that the partner is ineligible for other insurance. In addition couples must prove three of the following criteria: that they have joint ownership or lease of motor vehicle, have at least one joint liability, such as a loan or credit card, have mutually granted powers of attorney for finances or health care, designated each other as primary beneficiary in wills, life insurance policies, or retirement annuities, or meet the Internal Revenue Service definition of a dependent. (source)

The Marine Corps is recalling 5,277 combat vests issued to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti after a newspaper article raised concerns that they failed a test to determine whether they could stop a bullet.

The Marines said in a statement they are recalling the vests to alleviate any doubts caused by a Marine Corps Times article published Monday, but service officials insisted they do not believe the vests are faulty. (source)

And they wonder why recruitment is down.

Scientists trying to sniff out biological differences between gay and straight men have found new evidence - in scent.

It turns out that sniffing a chemical from testosterone, the male sex hormone, causes a response in the sexual area of gay men’s brains, just as it does in the brains of straight women, but not in the brains of straight men.

“It is one more piece of evidence ... that is showing that sexual orientation is not all learned,” said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

Witelson, who was not part of the research team that conducted the study, said the findings show a biological involvement in sexual orientation. (source)

I don’t know. I think I respond better to the smell of Armani than I do the smell of men.

Other Sources...
Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones
Scent study suggests difference in brains of gay, straight men

I had a nice day today! I woke around 8:30 and slept all night without waking up. It was a bummer waking up without Kent here. I did some blogging (as you know), then decided to try to get my movie collection in order. After an hour of that, I was getting stir crazy. So, I got in the car and headed off to Northampton, Mass. I’ve been there before. It’s a college town that is loaded with shops and art galleries - really expensive art galleries.

I parked in my usual spot and went to pay for a ticket only to find out that parking on Sunday is free. Then, it started to rain a bit. But, I decided that it wasn’t going to dampen my day. After a few minutes, it stopped. On my way downtown, I took this path because all the trees were blooming. I love flowers. I figure that if a tree went to all that trouble to make the flowers, the least I can do is notice. So, I took this picture.

I went to this awesome kitchen shop (just women and gay men there - go figure) and bought some things that I just couldn’t live without, such as this bread basket for the dinning room table made out of fabric, a bright orange serving platter (I don’t have an orange one!), and a couple of cookbooks (sauces and soups). I got to the counter and she said to me, “Did you know that the fabric bread basket is a set of three, in different sizes?” I said, apparently really loud, “OH MY GOD!!! SERIOUSLY??!?”. People snickered, but I didn’t care. I was excited.

I left and on my way back to the car, spotted this Argentinean restaurant called Caminito. It was nice. I took a picture of the sign out front because I was certain I would never remember it, and a photo of the interior.

I had their salmon entree, which came with salad and rice. It was very good. Maybe too good - the salmon was braised with butter I believe (yum but so bad for you). The salad was good with an Argentinean lemon dressing and the rice was especially tasty.

Afterwards, I went to a small place that was serving cappuccino. I wanted a bit of caffeine for my ride home. Then, halfway home, I decided to stop at the health club and work out for an hour. I got to thinking about all the carbs in that rice I ate.

Guilt sucks!

Happy Mother’s Day!!

With that being said, I wanted to share this little story with you concerning a man in professional sports who shared a family secret he had with some fellow players. It shows the commitment and love he has for his parents - who just happen to be two moms.

Put a group of men in a confined space for any amount of time and some mind-bending subjects are bound to arise.

Joe Valentine, Ben Weber and David Weathers shared such an experience in the Reds’ bullpen during spring training when they broached the topic of same-sex marriage.

“I was joking around because I don’t really know anything about same-sex parents,” Weber said. “But I said, ‘All I know is this: A kid with same-sex parents is going to be pretty (messed) up.’”

Silence.

The next voice -- and there’s no mistaking the sharp Long Island accent -- was Valentine’s.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been raised by two moms.”

More silence.

Eyes widened and shoulders shrugged.

“I was like, ‘Oh, dude, let me remove the foot from my mouth and apologize,’” Weber said. But he wasn’t offended.

“It’s great that he shared it with us. He seemed to turn out pretty damn good. He must have some awesome parents.”

Valentine agrees.

Read the rest of the story...

I came upon this letter several days ago. I was gratified that someone without a great personal gain in our struggle for equality would speak out for us. There are many like him. My straight friends, of course. But we also have to understand that there are many straight people in our country who does want to see us as equal citizens. I believe that. And, it’s one of the big things that keeps me going.

LEONARD PITTS JR. is a writer in the Free Press.

BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
May 4, 2005

Gay Holocaust?

That was the subject line of an e-mail I received last week from “Chris,” a lawyer in a red state. He wanted to know if anybody else sees a similarity between the beginning of the Holocaust -- the nibbling away of rights and personhood that ultimately led to the attempted extermination of a people -- and what is happening to gay people in the United States.

He knows it’s far-fetched. “But,” he says, speaking of the conservative element that is pushing hardest against gay rights, “we are not dealing with normal people here.”

Chris concedes that there are differences between the plights of Jews and gays. “But they also have this in common -- at one time in history, that time being the present for gays, they were the object of official government-sponsored hatred couched in the name of religion or morals.”

The bigger offense

Here’s what I think:

Steve Ballmer, the company’s chief executive, announced the reversal in an e-mail message sent to 35,000 Microsoft employees in the United States. “After looking at the question from all sides, I’ve concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda,” he said. “I respect that there will be different viewpoints. But as CEO, I am doing what I believe is right for our company as a whole.”

Long known for its strong internal policies protecting gay employees from discrimination and offering them benefits, Microsoft sparked an uproar last month when officials decided to take a “neutral” stance on the anti- discrimination bill this year, after supporting it for the two previous years. [...]

The bill, which would have extended protections against discrimination in employment, housing and other areas to gay men and lesbians, failed by one vote April 21. But it is automatically up for a new vote next year because bills introduced in the Washington Legislature are active for two years even if they are voted down the first time. [...]

Some lawmakers had said that Microsoft, a major employer based in Redmond, Wash., could have lent crucial backing to the legislation through influence on lawmakers from the more conservative Seattle suburbs. (source)

The bill that would have added “sexual orientation” to the list of protected categories in the state of Washington lost by ONE VOTE, after Microsoft withdrew it’s support for the bill.

The bill would have added protections for gay people against the threat of being fired or evicted just for being gay. Had Microsoft not withdrawn it’s support, would the bill have passed? I guess we will never know.

But now that the bill is dead, at least for this year, it’s nice and safe for Microsoft to say that in the future they will support diversity.

I have a couple of questions for Microsoft.

Why was supporting diversity so hard for you?

Why was it ever a decision that had to be made whether or not you would support the concept that people, some of whom are your employees, should be treated with dignity and equality?

You see, I don’t believe for one minute that Microsoft has changed it’s stripes. Now, they are busy doing damage control. They don’t believe what they are saying. Why should I?

I received this today, in a comment, and decided to share it with you.

This is Sean Ethan Owen’s mother.

Yes, I believe my son was murdered because he was gay and he was the kindest person you could know. The people that murdered my son needs to look deep down and ask themselves why. But there is no reason why you could just kill a person that hasn’t done any thing to you. Just cold blooded murder him. Why could anyone just take a life for no reason? You ask your self many times and you still get no answer.

If they just wanted a car they didn’t have to kill my son for it. He would have gave them the car so that is not why they killed him. You see you can get a car from any where but no, they wanted to kill a gay man that hasn’t done a thing to them. One of the boys, Matthew Taylor got out on a bond. He was smiling like it was no big deal that he killed my son. I don’t think it was fair to just let a man out, after knowing all the evidence and still let him out on bond. Why I ask myself but I have no answer. Can anyone tell me why?

I want justice and I don’t think I am going to get it. I see in my eyes if it was a white boy killing a black person you would not hear the end of it, but since it was a white man killed by three black men it looks like to me that they are saying another white man is gone. That is sad, a person is a person no matter what color they are and they need to only look at that - not the color of my son, that did not deserve to be killed.

I wrote about Sean’s murder on April 20, 2004. He was lured by three men from an Internet chat room to meet him. I’m not sure he knew it was three men. Their plan was to steel his car. Sean ended up being strangled, tortured, and with two bullets in his head. He was found several days later. This happened a year ago.

Then on Wednesday, May 4, 2005, one of the men who did this, Matthew Taylor, received a reduced bail from $200,000 to $150,000, a sum Taylor’s relatives said they could afford.

Saying his bullet-riddled, beaten and strangled son was dumped into the Eno River “like a sack of garbage,” a grieving father was enraged Wednesday after bail was reduced to a manageable amount for one of three suspects in the homicide case.

“It’s damn sickening,” Michael Owens complained after Judge Orlando F. Hudson (pictured left) cut bond from $200,000 to $150,000 for 17-year-old Matthew Taylor.

Taylor’s relatives had indicated that $150,000 was a sum they could afford.

“I’m furious,” said Owens. “They go in and ask the judge for something. They get it. What do I get? I don’t get my son back. I just get the headache of knowing [Taylor] will be on the street again soon.” [...]

The victim’s father and Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cline pleaded with Hudson, who is Durham’s senior judge, not to further lower Taylor’s bond on Wednesday.

“My son is gone,” said Owens. “I’ll never see my son again. Who’s to say that when [Taylor] gets out, he’s not going to be roaming the streets to kill someone else. ... God only knows what this man will do if he gets out of jail. It makes me want to throw up right here. ... They threw my son into the river like a sack of garbage. What is the world coming to to let somebody like him out on the street to hurt someone again?”

Cline argued that Taylor bought the gun that killed Owen and also lured the victim to Durham with an Internet message: “Come on to Durham Sean. I want to meet you. I want to spend some time with you.”

“But for his actions, Sean would still be alive today,” Cline said of Taylor. (source)

Five years ago, a friend made an observation about Kent and me. This friend had known us for quite some time (several years). He was a straight man who had no problem with gay men. I know this isn’t totally fair, but if you are a straight man, you have to prove to me that you aren’t threatened by gay men. Yes, I know - it’s my baggage. But, I have come to rely on that baggage to protect me from those who would do harm to us.

My friend said to me, “I never see you and Kent show any affection towards each other.” I immediately turned to him and said without hesitation or thought, “You won’t. We are very well trained.” With that, he laughed. He thought it was hysterical. I didn’t laugh.

I don’t honestly think that he could understand what I was talking about. I don’t really think any straight person can. There was a day that I remember when we lived in San Francisco. We were walking some place and came upon a tag sale. We stopped. I remember that we were holding hands. This was twenty years ago, in a city that had a very large and very present gay community. The yard sale was not far from the Castro, the gay neighborhood in San Francisco. I thought we were safe. We passed this other couple, a straight couple. After we got fifteen feet beyond them, the male turned around and said out loud so everyone could hear him, “fucking faggots!”. We totally ignored him. The guy giving the tag sale looked at us, but said nothing. We became uncomfortable, and left the area.

There were many other instances of harassment that go on and on and on. At some point we made a decision that it just wasn’t worth the risk of being insulted and beaten up. This is the freedom that we have and enjoy in the United States. This is what our life is like. We leave our homes, and we have to try to pass for straight from straight thugs who hate our guts. This is not freedom.

I know there will be gays out there who say, “I wouldn’t do what you have done. To hell with them.” Well, you will say that until you get the crap beat out of you and it takes three months to recover from your injuries - and that’s just the physical injuries. The mental issues to having that done to you will never leave you. Is it worth it? Is it worth the risk? We decided it wasn’t.

I grew up in a state that was not what you would call the center of enlightenment. My best friend in grade school was chased out of our town in the middle of the night along with his family by a bunch of thugs who then set fire to his home. He never returned to the town or the school. His only sin was that he was black.

In junior high (we call them “middle schools” in the East), I had heard about boys who would go out and “roll some queers”, slang for beating them up. I later heard the cops in our town joking about how they let the boys go and told them to go home and go to bed. As for the victim in the crime, the cops threw him in a ditch and told him to keep his sexual orientation to himself. I suppose it’s very ironic that he was straight. He married later in life and now has children. But, he was perceived to be gay.

All of this I learned from. My friends in high school were even talking about how they hated queers. After they found out I was gay, that friendship meant nothing to them. I became the target of their hate.

This brings me to the story I’m talking about today. Chris Chain, editorial director of the gay newspaper chain Windows Media, was attacked and beaten by seven men while in Amsterdam, Holland. He was walking hand-in-hand with his boyfriend early Saturday morning. In his story, he says, “I got another punch to the face, and when they kicked me to the ground, time seemed to stop.”

It’s true. Time does stop. When I was beaten in my home town and thrown down a ravine by boys who used to be my “friends”, it seemed that I was only away from people a few minutes. I was unconscious and the actual time it took me to regain consciousness was several hours. I climbed to the top of the hill to the road. It was a deserted road that used to be used heavily. But, since the new highway was put in, very little traffic came by. Someone did come by and saw me on the ground leaning against the monument on the hill. I had blood all over me, my blood. It was a couple and a small child. They helped me into their car, and I felt myself getting a sick feeling. I fell unconscious again. The next thing I knew, days had gone by. I woke up in the hospital. I never got the names of the people who helped me. After taking me to the hospital, they left. Time stands still.

Crain described the gay-bashing in a first-person story scheduled for publication Friday in the Washington (D.C.) Blade, one of several papers owned by Windows. Crain and William Waybourn founded the chain in 1996.

“I was covered in blood, mostly from my nose,” Crain wrote, “but I got lucky: no broken bones, no damage to my vision, just some very nasty bruises and a lot to think about.” (source)

A lot to think about indeed. I’m sure Chris is weighing the same arguments that Kent and I went through. People can say that they are against public displays of affection, but most would say that they see nothing wrong with holding hands. To me, it is an extension of what you feel inside towards another person. Should we really have to live in a world (or, our country who claims to be all about freedom) where even that has to be filtered?

If you would have told me when I first came out that at some point in my life I would be beaten up for being gay, I would never have imagined it like this. As a child of the South, where “fag” and “queer” were everyday insults, I would have expected a fist to the face somewhere back home for sure.

For years now, in big city and small, I suppose I’ve tempted fate, living my life as I have always seen everyone else live theirs. If the mood strikes me to hold my boyfriend’s hand, I do it. If a chill in the air makes me want to put my arm around his shoulders, I do that, too. If he says something romantic that deserves a peck on the lips, he can expect that’s coming, too.

As it happens, I tempted fate one too many times in arguably the “gay-friendliest” place on the planet. By almost any measure, the equality movement in the Netherlands was won years ago. There are laws protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation, there are hate crime laws, and Holland is one of only a handful of countries where gay couples can legally marry. [...]

I was walking through central Amsterdam with my boyfriend back to our hotel. People were still milling about on the sidewalks from Friday night’s revelry. We were only blocks from the most popular gay areas; and we were holding hands.

As we passed two men standing on the side of the street, one of them deliberately spat on us, mainly hitting me in the face. Without saying a word, we stood our ground. We stopped, turned around, and asked why. The man, who looked in his 20s, had Moroccan features and spoke with a heavy accent, murmured something about “fucking fags.”

Within seconds, the two somehow turned into seven — and five of them were ganging up on me, probably because at 6-foot-7 I’m a good bit bigger than my boyfriend. It seemed like every direction I turned, I got another punch to the face, and when they kicked me to the ground, time seemed to stop. My heart still races as I write about it now. It felt like the situation had spiraled completely out of my control.

Then just as quickly as it began, it was over. I was standing up on my own, and our attackers were fleeing. There had been dozens of people on the street corner, but none of them had acted or even yelled anything. My boyfriend had escaped his attackers and had come to my aid, and that finally convinced the others to run.

I was covered in blood, mostly from my nose, but I got lucky: no broken bones, no damage to my vision, just some very nasty bruises and a lot to think about.

Should we have been walking hand-in-hand late at night, especially on a party weekend? Should we have shrugged and kept going after the initial spit? On the ambulance ride to the hospital, I beat myself up on both those points much worse than my attackers had. I could see in my boyfriend’s face the fear that I might be seriously hurt. He had no visible injuries, but the whole nightmare for him had been worse. He saw me surrounded by five men, being beaten and kicked and covered in blood. (source)

To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

The FDA has rejected calls to scrap the provision, insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all gay men rather than adopting a screening process that focuses on high-risk sexual behavior by any would-be donor, gay or straight.

“Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he’s been celibate for five years,” said Leland Traiman, director of a clinic in Alameda, Calif., that seeks gay sperm donors. (source)

Gee, now they are doing the same thing with sperm donations from gay men that the American Red Cross is doing with blood donations.

I say, forget about it. It doesn’t matter. If it makes society feel safer, I guess they can continue with their policies. It’s a battle I no long feel is worth my time, as long as they don’t come crying to me because they are short of blood.

It’s the same way with sperm donations. For me though, it’s a bit different. I used to donate blood, when I was allowed too, because I felt that it was a way I could help people. I wouldn’t want to donate my sperm, because the thought of having a child out there that was mine that I had nothing to do with would drive me nuts. I guess it’s just me, but I couldn’t do it.

Related entry

I read this on Boston.com this morning. That was what John Kerry said when asked his opinion of the Democratic Party supporting equal marriage rights for gay couples.

Kerry is entitled to his opinion. You know, as a gay American, it lately seems that I am voting for the “least worst” to be President. I don’t have too. If both candidates suck, why vote for either? Most would say that you vote for one who would be best for the country. But, after being made to feel like a second-class citizen by both John Kerry and George W. Bush in the last election, they both lost my vote.

When it comes to voting for anyone who puts me in second-class, that’s where I draw the line. John Kerry, you have lost my vote. I won’t vote for another President until one comes along who will support equality for my community.

Kent is in Washington, D.C. I miss him. He just called and everything is going well.

I’m watching some mindless TV and thinking to myself, “I don’t get it...” Do you ever watch TV and wonder, “What has happened to the world?” But you don’t want to say that because you will sound like some old guy who just doesn’t have a clue.

Then, this memory comes to my mind about how I used to think that, when I was eight years old, about people who are now... MY AGE! What goes around, comes around.

Did I mention that I miss Kent?

Baby Pepper-Sprayed In Family Feud
A woman doused a 2-month-old girl with pepper spray while feuding with the infant’s family in a Wal-Mart, police said.

Lorlie M. Gantenbein, 36, of Sagle, was charged Tuesday with felony injury to a child. She was released on $5,000 bail and ordered to have no contact with the baby’s family.

Kansas debate over evolution becomes a war of words
Eighty years after the first famed “Monkey Trial,” a second one of sorts opened Thursday, but this time with evolution in the dock.

A State Board of Education subcommittee began four days of trial-like hearings that give evolution’s critics, many of them advocates of intelligent design, a public forum to attack the theory attributed to 19th Century British scientist Charles Darwin.

Some science groups and many scientists contend the board is being pushed to adopt language that would enshrine tenets of intelligent design in the standards - even if that concept isn’t mentioned by name. National and state organizations are boycotting the hearings, viewing them as rigged against evolution.

Abu Ghraib - Judge halts woman’s trial over plea on jail abuse
A MILITARY judge threw out yesterday the guilty plea of Lynndie England, the most visible figure in the Abu Ghraib scandal, bringing her trial to an abrupt end.

Colonel James Pohl said he was not convinced that she knew her actions in the Baghdad jail were wrong at the time.

His ruling left her fate uncertain and cancels the plea bargain Specialist England worked out with prosecutors in which she would have faced little more than two years in jail.

March of Living marks Holocaust
More than 18,000 people have taken part in the annual March of the Living between the notorious Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps in Poland.

It comes 60 years after the camps were liberated by Soviet troops.

More than one million people, most of them European Jews, were murdered by Nazi Germany in the two camps. [...]

From the photo caption:
Construction began in 1940 on site which grew to 40 sq km (15 sq mile)
At least 1.1 million deaths, one million of them Jewish
Other victims included Poles, Roma (Gypsies), Soviet POWs, homosexuals, disabled people and dissidents
Of 7,000 Nazi guards, 750 were prosecuted and punished after the war

...and it only took them 30 years to acknowledge that homosexuals were the victims of the holocaust and another 25 years to acknowledge that they didn’t deserve the treatment and eventual death they received. When the “allies” finally did free the prisoners, the homosexuals were continued to be mistreated by the allied forces, but until recently, no one seemed to care.

Still, it’s a good sign that they made mention of those unpopular men who died so long ago. Imagine being killed in such a brutal manner and no one caring. Maybe things are improving.

On the pepper spray story... Why would anyone spray a defenseless child with pepper spray? Astonishing how unbalanced some people are.

On evolution... Kent can speak of that. We talk about it often. It gets him all fired up.

As for Abu Ghraib, I think what has happened at that prison is very unfortunate, for the people it happened to, as well as the stain it placed upon our nation. The soldiers that did these deeds are guilty and are being punished, but the real culprits are much higher up in the chain of command. I’m not going to hold my breath that any of this will roll down on them.

There’s quite a battle being waged on this website over in the photo gallery of the Abu Ghraib abuses, if you care to read the comments. Be warned though, the language is harsh and the photos are very graphic, and much of it filled with extreme hatred. With that warning, you can see a sample here if you wish. It seems that the Arab world has discovered the photos along with our military, and the war of words continues. I have stayed out of the fight. It’s valuable to have the dialog I suppose, although, when each side is saying the other side should die, it’s hard to believe that any good will come from it. I’ve debated on whether to pull the album from the gallery because of that.

I posted the photos long ago to show that at least some Americans are willing to show an injustice and acknowledge it as an injustice. Unfortunately, our government doesn’t seem to think that the Geneva Convention applies to the United States.

People have told me that I don’t understand what war is and that “these things happen in time of war”. They are right. I don’t understand war, but shouldn’t we TRY at least to be better? Shouldn’t we aim for a higher standard?

Just my feelings.

I’ve put off posting anything about this, because my initial response was one of anger. My hope was that my anger would subside and I would be able to be a bit more objective on this. Some of my thoughts when I first heard this...

We have struggled so damn hard to achieve equality for our relationships and our families. It’s not easy and people who can get married obviously have no damn clue what it is like to deal with the crap we go through every single day at work and in our daily lives, let alone try to have a good life through the nurturing of a strong family life. Wanting marriage in our life is still just a dream for us.

Everything in society is trying to say “you aren’t good enough”, “you are second rate”, “we hate you, why can’t you just go away”. We all hear it and we all feel it. I know I do. There are times, like yesterday afternoon and evening, that I just want to give up. Yesterday started out rainy and foggy. We went to breakfast, ran some errands, and came back home. We were going to go to a movie, shop for groceries, and I wanted to make a nice dinner - that was the plan. Around 1:00, the skies cleared and it got sunny. Nice. But then, I started losing my energy and my will to do anything. It was depression. I can see it coming but I can’t often stop it. I told Kent to forget about the movie because I just wasn’t feeling up to it. I sat upstairs, with a blanket over me with my eyes closed wondering if this is all there is?

I don’t make decisions when I’m like that. I know where it comes from. I know that it is what we are going through getting the best of me. So sometimes, when it does get the best of me, I just wrap myself up in a blanket, close my eyes, and ride it out. Is anyone else like this? Is it just me? I was like this the rest of the day. I watched mindless TV, without even consciously knowing or caring what I was watching.

Today, I am revisiting this entry. My feeling of anger has turned into disappointment. I read the story again and I realize that to some people, we are still just a punchline and a way to get a quick laugh. That hurts. I guess the only consolation I have is that it’s less than it used to be. I remember the days when people made jokes about gay men dieing of AIDS. They no longer do that because many people they know have had AIDS. And, it’s no longer “fashionable” to make jokes of people dieing, I suppose.

I remember the days when Eddie Murphy would make people laugh with extremely crude jokes about “faggots”. When confronted at the time, Murphy said, “...you can kiss my ass...”. Later, much later, he said that he was wrong in his attitude towards gay people.

Did Jeff West mean this as demeaning. No, I don’t believe he did. But it honestly did hurt to read this article. Maybe I should grow thicker skin, but at the age of 50 with a lifetime of struggle behind me, I don’t see that happening. Instead, I get depressed and wrap myself up in a blanket.

People should give more thought to how their actions might effect others, before taking those actions. Do you think I will live long enough to see the day that we are treated with some dignity, and not just the object of a punchline?

An announcement of a gay civil union ceremony placed in last Sunday’s MetroWest Daily News weddings page was this week revealed to be a “prank,” perpetrated by one of the two men involved.

The listing of the impending “civil union” ceremony between Jeff West and Matt Hunt was a hoax, West admitted yesterday. [...]

As it turned out, however, Matthew Hunt, the other man in the announcement and in the photo wasn’t laughing.

Though West had confirmed the announcement was bona fide when asked by a News editor before publication, his story began to unravel Wednesday, when Hunt contacted the newspaper to say the listing was a fake and that West had been behind the fake item. [...]

For gay or lesbian couples who battled for years for the right to marry, however, seeing their efforts made into a punchline bordered on offensive.

“I think many people don’t understand how seriously gay and lesbian people take the institution of marriage,” said Joshua Friedes, the advocacy director for the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts.

“I’ve never heard of a couple sending in a fake wedding announcement to imitate a straight couple,” he said yesterday. “I think this incident is a subtle form of gay-bashing.” (source)

I always find it a bit interesting to see the traffic that comes to my site and to see what people are looking for. For the first time ever, I had over 1 million hits to the site in April. The total count was 1,064,636 displaying 151,924 pages.

Searches:
barry winchell (over 1768 searches for Barry, who was killed while in the military in 1999)
faro portugal
michael shiavo
abu gharib pics
abu gharib prison photos
senator frisk
faro beach
redfish lake lodge
baby hippo
lincoln memorial photo
mildred luce
leonard matlovich
naked lesbians
jason west new paltz
matthew shepard photo
chapel of the bones
petit lake idaho
elmoujahidine
rachel carson
dachshound pictures
solomon act
franco corelli
terri shiavo
straight acting quiz
terri shiavo before her accident
princes diana
connecticut civil unions
charles graner photos
senator john danforth
high jack this fags
pope hitler youth
crooked neck giraffe
50 sucks
redfish lake id
the marginal way
site billandkent.com chapel of bones
hartford pictures
gallery of vietnam memorial
monet s table
six reasons why gays should not legalized
gay parenting
canoeing on a pond
ratzinger hitler youth
dian fossey
guys in the locker room
i don t hate gays but
kansas bans gay marriage
black canyon damn emmett idaho
sanctioning homosexuality
emmett idaho gay
george moscone
pictures of camilla parker bowles when she was young

And finally, my favorite....
santorum latin for asshole