July 2005 Archives
Gay bloggers’ dangerous liaisons
By Jeff Gannon
DURING THE 2004 election, the Internet became a potent force in political activism. Fund-raising, grassroots organizing, advertising and communication could all be done with a mouse click at a small fraction of the cost of television spots, direct mail and phone banks.
One of the greatest technological advances in the history of civilization enabled anyone with a laptop and a DSL connection to become part of the process to decide the future of America.
But some gay activists have been exploiting this new medium to advance a political agenda that doesn’t reflect gay people in general. Instead of focusing on the key issues that affect the lives of men and women throughout the U.S., they appear bent on tearing down the Bush administration no matter the damage to the country as a result. (source)
And this from an gay porn star (pardon me, EX porn star) who lied about his motives to gain access to the White House (how did he pull that off anyway and do I really want to know?), was an acknowledged plant to ask “soft questions” in press core meetings with the President, and to do everything in his power further an administration that took this nation into a war, all built on lies.
As far as this gay blogger is concerned, my only real agenda is advancing truth - truth about gay people and our lives - truth about Bush’s real motivations, and the truth about a nation that is on a very dangerous path.
Mr. Gannon, what is your truth? You say that gay bloggers have a “political agenda that doesn’t reflect gay people in general.” How the hell would you know? You probably don’t realize that the Federal Government still has not approved an anti-discrimination clause prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. You probably don’t realize that gays are still kicked out of the military left and right - WHEN WE ARE NOT AT WAR. Does any of that matter to you because, that is what matters to “gay people in general”.
You know, I don’t really care that you made your living in the porn industry. I don’t really care how many people you did and in what positions. I do care about some self-loathing hypocrite who will turn around and bash gay people who are just trying to make life easier for ourselves and our community by wanting, of all things, equality and equal protection under the law!
For all the time you spent with the President, did you ever once ask him about that?
As far as “tearing down the Bush administration no matter the damage to the country as a result”, I think that the Bush Administration needs no help what so ever in damaging this country and damaging our reputation to the international community.
And I’m curious... why write this column now? Trying to get your old job back?
Paul Day and Christopher Robertson knew life as gay men in Polk County could be rough. They had been called names and taunted by neighborhood teens before.
Day, 25, said he even had a mailbox riddled with shotgun pellets once when living near the Green Swamp in the north part of the county.
The couple never thought it would get so bad as Monday, when they returned home from errands to find their house in Kings Manor Mobile Home Park in Lakeland torched and the words “Die Fag” spray-painted on the front steps.
Statewide, though, there is an upward swing in the amount of violence reported toward people because of their sexual orientation. In the latest state report, for instance, hate crimes based on orientation accounted for a higher percentage of all hate crimes than ever before. [...]
Day and Robertson have called Polk County home for most of their lives. As early as high school, Day said he knew he was gay and identified himself openly. Problems with other people, though, have plagued him. He said he called the authorities three times for such incidents as rocks thrown at his home and a shot-riddled mailbox when living in north Polk County.
“Between Tampa and Orlando, it’s just a void,” Day said of the Lakeland area. “It’s a different world. Very behind the times.”
Added Robertson, 23: “For the past six months, I’ve been saying, ’I want to move; I want to move.’ I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s stressing me out.” (source)
Referenced in photo album Crimes of Hate
Update
10-13-2005 - Hate Crime and Arson Found to be a Hoax
08-23-2005 - Gay Arson Victims Hit Again
Before Connecticut’s civil union law even went into effect, it’s being challenged. The law that is giving gay couples in Connecticut most of the legal benefits of marriage (at the state level) is scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2005.
I agree with this action. The fact that the state is willing to give us most of the legal benefits of marriage is further cause to question the purpose behind putting us in a separate category for our relationships.
Kent and I decided not to get a civil union for exactly that reason. It just seems like we would be endorsing the idea that we’re just not quite good enough to be like other married folks.
HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut’s decision to legalize same-sex civil unions is the basis for a lawsuit that seeks to force the state to allow full marriage rights for gay couples.
Lawmakers legalized civil unions earlier this year, granting gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as married couples but denying them the ability to wed.
Eight couples argue in a brief filed Thursday in New Haven Superior Court that if the state is willing to grant same-sex couples all the legal rights and privileges of marriage, it has no reason to bar them from actually marrying.
“The civil union law undercuts any rationale the state ever could have had for denying marriage,” said Ben Klein, a senior attorney with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. The group, known as GLAD, successfully challenged marriage laws in Massachusetts, which now allows same-sex couples to marry. [...]
“The reality is that civil unions are not equal,” Klein said. “Marriage is a unique legal and cultural institution. It has no substitute. It has no equivalent.” (source)
Too many of Iraq’s new police officers are barely literate, some have shown up for training with criminal records, and the extent of insurgent infiltration in their ranks is largely unknown, according to a new U.S. government report issued Monday.
Inspectors from the State Department and Pentagon, who spent five weeks in Iraq this spring evaluating police training, also found that most of the training had been designed and carried out with too little input from Iraqi leaders.
The inspectors agreed with recommendations from Iraq’s Interior Ministry and international trainers that Iraqis would be better able to screen police recruits than foreign soldiers would. They further suggested that the program should be focused on training police already in the ranks, rather than simply adding more.
The U.S.-led coalition plans to train 135,000 new Iraqi police by the end of 2006. Turning more of the country over to Iraq’s nascent security forces is a cornerstone of the U.S. strategy for an eventual drawdown of American soldiers.
But “this emphasis on numbers overshadows the attention that should be given to the qualitative performance of those trained,” the inspectors found. [...]
“We are preparing them for failure,” the report quoted one unidentified officer as saying. Another said that it is “widely perceived that the police are under-trained and underpaid.” (source)
And yet, today I read that General George Casey stated that the US may be able to “make fairly substantial reductions” in personnel in Iraq in the next year.
What are these people smoking? I suppose that statement is coming just in time to gear up for the next presidential race. It’s more difficult to keep political footing for the Republicans when our sons and daughters are coming home in flag-draped coffins. I suppose they feel that they have to throw a bone to the people.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States hopes to sharply reduce its forces in Iraq within the next year, its top commander on the ground said on Wednesday.
“I do believe that if the political process continues to go positively, if the developments with the (Iraqi) security forces continue to go as it is going, I do believe we will still be able to make fairly substantial reductions after these elections -- in the spring and summer of next year,” General George Casey said at a briefing with visiting Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (source)
ALBANY -- Republican George Pataki, who brought down Democratic icon Mario Cuomo to become governor of New York and is now weighing a possible 2008 bid for the White House, said Wednesday he would not seek a fourth term next year.
“It’s the rig ht thing to do,” Pataki told The Associated Press during an interview in his state Capitol office.
Pataki said when it comes to a possible presidential run, “That’s for down the road. I’m not ruling anything in or out, but my goal is to be the best governor I can be for the next year and a half.” “I don’t want people thinking that I’m focused on being something other than being the best governor I can be for the next year and a half,” he said. (source)
Governor Pataki is right, not running again for Governor is the right thing to do. Especially after giving his nod of approval to George W. Bush for taking us into the war in Iraq. His exact words were, “With supreme guts and righteousness, President Bush went into Iraq.”
Pataki then turned around to offer his support to get his son a three-year law school deferment from the Marines so his son wouldn’t have to die in the war he just supported. It really is true that politicians wage wars that are fought by the children of others. In most cases, these kids come from poor families.
As far as running for President in 2008, Pataki should fit right in. Lies and deception seem to be enough these days to get anyone elected to be President of the United States.
I thought this article was well written and thought out. A lot of my life, especially childhood, dealt with the pain of being told that I was an abomination to God. In my heart, I knew that I wasn’t. I knew that I was being the best person I could be. I just wish the rest of America would really stop to think about us a bit more. They read their selected passages from the Bible and try to make us into monsters. Yet, all around them, they know gay people, but they just don’t make the connection.
As the writer said, “...there are 362 admonishments towards heterosexuals but only six towards homosexuals. With that said, the admonishments surrounding homosexuals are mere interpretations of biblical text.”
Still, most people will gloss right over that and stick with what they have been told - that gays are an abomination and should be treated as such. As an uncle told my brother in reference to me, “He is worthy of death.” My uncle knows me. I frequently saw him and was at his house with his wife and his children as I grew up. I am roughly the same age as his children. Yet, when he found out that I am a homosexual, all of that went right out the window. A judgement was made.
It’s sad - not so much for all the grief we are put through because of it, but more because so much time and energy is spent trying to lead happy, productive lives, despite the hostility we face day in and day out. We do pretty well, considering what we are up against.
The Bible is filled with verses condemning “sin” in general. And I agree that many of these “sins” are wrong and punishable. But to say as Leviticus 20:13 states “If a man lie with another man as he lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they should surely be put to death”-ridiculous. Yes I do believe I just called something out of the Bible ridiculous, let me explain.
This passage was taken from the part of the Bible that contains the Jewish Holiness Code, which were laws enforcing and protecting holiness. However this holiness code also permits polygamy, prohibits sexual intercourse when a woman has her period, bans tattoos and bans wearing clothes that are made from a blend of textiles (cotton/polyester blend). Why is it that the only part of the holiness code that we still choose to follow today is the part on homosexuality?
Sodomy is another word that often comes up when discussing homosexuals and their sexual acts. The funny thing is sodomy has nothing to do with homosexuals. [...]
Not once is homosexuality mentioned anywhere near the story of Sodom. Yet the sexual relationships that homosexuals have are still surrounded by that one word, “sodomy.”
In all actuality, there are 362 admonishments towards heterosexuals but only six towards homosexuals. With that said, the admonishments surrounding homosexuals are mere interpretations of biblical text. (source)
Speaking at a conference of Exodus International, the largest religious group promoting the idea that gays can can change their sexual orientation, Rev. Jerry Falwell endorsed forcing gay kids into counseling designed to change their sexual orientation.
Falwell compared allowing a child to identify as gay with allowing children to play on the interstate and dismissed psychologists’ claims that consent is fundamental to a healthy counseling relationship and that parents should not force their gay kids into therapy. [...]
Concerns about safety and professionalism at Love in Action
were raised after a 16-year-old Tennessee teen blogged that his parents were forcing him into an unconventional program intended to turn him straight. (source)
You know, I try to be “tolerant” of everyone, despite our differences. But it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that some people don’t really give a damn about doing that.
“Reparative therapy” is an act of violence when performed against gay kids against their will. This bastard (Falwell) is simply adding to the argument that he has absolutely no love or concern over gay kids and would rather see them dead (by their own hands or the result of “reparative therapy”) rather than simply being themselves and trying to find happiness in this world of ours.
He will wrap all of that up into his nice little package and call it “Christian love”, or some other bullshit label. My message to Rev. Falwell and his ilk is to take their message of love and... go to Hell, where they belong. Leave kids alone and if you really want to show them support and love, try listening to what they are trying to say to you.
The Church of England is to allow gay clergy to enter into civil partnerships but only if they promise to abstain from sex, according to guidance issued yesterday. [...]
In a “pastoral statement”, the House of Bishops said that clergy would be able to take advantage of the Act, but only if they reassure their bishops that they will uphold Church teaching. Clergy were also told that they should not offer formal services of blessing for couples who had been through a civil partnership ceremony, but they could pray with the couple. (source)
Oh yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
My Replay TV just recorded this documentary of a German historian who believed Hitler was a homosexual.
Who the hell cares? He was a murderer and a psychopath. Who cares about his sexuality (yes I know, some scholars probably do - I suppose it makes for interesting philosophical arguments)? It doesn’t matter. There are always going to be bad, good, and evil people in the world. Their sexuality is irrelevant. What they do with their life is all that matters.
Hitler chose to exterminate six million Jews and two million homosexuals for his Aryan race. The worst part of it is that he himself was a black haired mongrel. The fact that, sixty years after his suicide, we are sitting here talking about if he was gay or not, is ridiculous.
This is a tough entry to make, but I feel I have to do it so that the deaths of these two gay teenagers are not forgotten.
It astonishes me the savagery in our world today. These two teenagers were caught having sex, an act punishable by death in Iran. Death can be carried out one of four ways; being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch. The accused can make the choice.
According to Article 152, if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge‘s discretion. Gay teens (Article 144) are also punished at a judge‘s discretion. Rubbing one‘s penis between the thighs without penetration (tafheed) shall be punished by 100 lashes for each offender. This act, known to the English-speaking world as ‘frottage,’ is punishable by death if the ‘offender’ is a non-Muslim. If frottage is thrice repeated and penalty-lashes have failed to stop such repetitions, upon the fourth ‘offense‘ both men will be put to death. According to Article 156, a person who repents and confesses his gay behavior prior to his identification by four witnesses, may be pardoned. (source)
Further discussion is given here.
I have reluctantly posted the photos of this act. The executions took place on July 19.
And this is a country that we want better relations with. What does that say of us? These people are barbarians.
I thought this was interesting. It’s the campaign contributions given by the next Supreme Court nominee, Judge John Roberts.
Maybe it’s not too much to ask also that a father teach his son that “gay” is not something you can knock out of a child. Nor should you want to.
I have a younger brother. By the time he was a toddler, my father had resigned himself that his bookish and unathletic oldest child was doomed to punkdom. So Dad decided he’d save my brother. He taught him every manly art and vice he could.
I’ll give you one guess which son went to the gay pride beach party.
It’s probably a sign of God’s mercy that our father did not live long enough to learn. (source)
That was from an editorial by Leonard Pitts, Jr. I don’t often agree with Leonard. He recently issued another editorial in which he said that gay couples should just give in to the fact that we should settle for “civil unions” and give up on marriage.
I wrote a letter to him stating that he shouldn’t be so naive about the issue, and asked him, “Would you be willing to settle for second best, knowing that the Federal Government would not honor it?” He answered me back simply saying that he appreciated my thought. I answered back saying that, while I was happy he appreciated my thoughts, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he really didn’t think through the issue of equality.
This editorial seems to be better, probably because as a straight man, he probably just couldn’t understand what it would be like not to have the benefits of marriage once you were legally married. It’s appalling to me why this concept is so difficult for so many.
At any rate, he “gets” the concept of having a gay brother, and the issues that come up from having a gay sibling. I thought his statement, “It’s probably a sign of God’s mercy that our father did not live long enough to learn.”, was very poignant. And, it hit pretty close to home for me.
I was asked by an aunt to never reveal to my mother that I was gay because “it would kill her”. At the time, it sounded to me that being gay was right up there on par with being a murderer or a rapist. I suppose that would have killed my mom as well. But, I was just gay. That’s all.
Then my brother telling me that it was probably better for me that my dad died when I was six years old because he “would not understand” and would have been “very disappointed”. Would I have been disowned, or would I have met with an “accident” such as little Ronnie Paris? In those days, they didn’t have the ”conversion therapies” that they have to day. They put homosexuals through shock treatment and in some cases, they were given a lobotomy, all to “cure” their homosexuality. If you were in the military and it was found out that you were gay, it was common that you would have a “training accident” (which would usually be fatal) while in training or “killed in action” on the battle field. That is how taboo it was.
Now, as an adult, I realize that there were many years that went by when my family never knew me. Today, they all know. And yes, for the most part, they treat me like a stranger. There are pockets of liberalism in my family around the issue of being gay, but for the most part, I have a mental illness. One distant cousin even went so far as to say that I was “worthy of death”.
My family, along with many other families, still don’t know us. Perhaps they never will. How would you feel about having a gay child? Would you honestly accept that child, try to change him, or, if you could somehow know he/she was going to be gay, would you try to abort that child?
I’m sure I wouldn’t be here today had my family known that I was going to be gay. In that sense, I’m glad that technology doesn’t yet provide that information. In the future, who knows?
SACRAMENTO – Opponents of same-sex marriage have abandoned their campaign to recall a Sacramento County Superior Court judge who upheld a controversial gay-rights law.
The drive against Judge Loren McMaster had been closely watched, coming as it did at the height of ideological fights in the courts and Legislature over same-sex marriage.
The state’s attorney general, judges from across the country and gay-rights advocates had rallied behind the jurist, saying removing him would send an ominous message.
Sacramento County social conservatives launched the recall in late December, angered by McMaster’s ruling three months earlier that upheld the state’s domestic partners law granting same-sex couples many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.
The state Supreme Court unanimously agreed with McMaster in a June 29 ruling.
“That took the wind out of our sails,” recall leader Tony Andrade said in a phone message announcing the campaign had folded. (source)
We’ve all heard of the Judiciary. When we grew up and studied the structure of our government, we learned that we had the President, the Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the Judiciary.
In the past, it seemed to me at least that the “action” always came from the White House or the Congress. Seldom did you hear from the Judiciary, except once in a great while when some monumental case was decided that cut right to the core of our civil rights. A few cases come to mind in my lifetime; Roe vs Wade (right to choose), Bowers vs Hardwick (right to privacy for gay citizens), and Lawrence vs Texas (overturning of sodomy laws). See also Welcoming Gay People Back Into the Fold: The Supreme Court Overrules Bowers v. Hardwick for more information.
Because of the Judiciary, we now have marriage equality in Massachusetts. There was also an effort to kick the four judges off the bench who voted to marriage equality in Massachusetts, just as the case above illustrates.
Shortly, we will have to deal with the confirmation of another Supreme Court justice. Everyone is saying that we want someone who is “moderate”, but no one really believes that. We all know the type of judge the President wants, and the majority of the House of Representatives, as far as that goes.
Basically, they want a “moderate” judge who believes in “American Family Values”, and will “uphold the Constitution” and “not legislate from the bench” to “make new laws”.
Translated...
American Family Values = No gay marriage or anything (civil union) that will approximate marriage (crude translation: give the fags NOTHING!), no abortion, nothing out of the mainstream.
Mainstream = Nobody really knows. This term is thrown around and we are all wondering what the hell they are talking about. Twenty years ago, this term would have worked. Today, the reality in America is that just down the street, people know of a same-sex couple raising a child and guess what, the problems they face are the same problems that you face so.... isn’t that couple now mainstream?
Uphold the Constitution = Uphold the principles of the Constitution, with a few exceptions. When the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”, we do want the Supreme Court to uphold that, except in cases where it violates “American Family Values” (see above). That means that homosexuals are to be exempt from this provision of the U.S. Constitution even though gay couples who want to have the protections of marriage are being denied equal protection of the laws (This amendment will be overridden by a new amendment added to the Constitution entitled "Shit Happens - Section I"). If the Supreme Court (or any other court for that matter) rules otherwise, they are “legislating from the bench” and “making new laws”.
And that is what people like Dick Cheney (with his token closeted daughter Mary who apparently has no sense of self worth), President Bush (who has “many gay friends”, who also apparently have no sense of self worth), and Senator Rick Santorum (who is “enlightened” because he has on his staff an “openly gay staffer” (who also just happens to have no sense of self worth or self respect and is all too willing to do the bidding of his boss at the expense of people just like him).
The fact of the matter is, more of us are becoming more mainstream and people like George W. Bush and Rick Santorum and the Dick Cheney’s of the world just can’t seem to deal with the fact that they and their views are quickly becoming obsolete. The Judiciary is working and the U.S. Constitution is being upheld. They just don’t like the rulings being given by the courts that uphold the civil rights inherent in the Constitution. The world must be turning into a lonely place for people like that.
I still have faith that the majority of the American People understand that equality and fairness should rule the day. I have to believe that because if I don’t, I will no longer believe in my country.
I was going to post this awhile ago, before the bombing in London, but thought it was not appropriate.
This is from London. Apparently, this is a public urinal (for males I’m assuming), right out there in the open. I think we are just a bit more up-tight in this country about such things.
Protecting The King. In the case of Washington, D. C., that’s how things work - protect The President, at all costs. AT ALL COSTS! Nothing is more inportant than that, America, not even the lives of your children who lost their lives in Iraq. You had better wake up to the fact that they did not lose their lives to “protect freedom”, or “restore democracy” (which was not there to restore in the first place), or “fight terrorism”. This war was about personal political interests and financial gain. There is a military term for what they call people who die in such a war, as your sons and daughters did. It’s called “collateral damage”.
History repeats itself. Now is the time for the administration to enter the cover it’s ass stage, just as the Nixon Administration did in the Watergate scandel.
Nixon Administration - 1972
“I am saying that if anyone was involved in that type of activity which I referred to, they would not be working here.” - Ron Ziegler, press secretary to Richard Nixon, defending the presidential aide Dwight Chapin on Oct. 18, 1972. Chapin was convicted in April 1974 of perjury in connection with his relationship to the political saboteur Donald Segretti.
Bush Administration - 2005
“Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn’t be working here at the White House if they didn’t have the president’s confidence.” - Scott McClellan, press secretary to George W. Bush, defending Karl Rove on Tuesday.
Kent forwarded me this op-ed article on the controversy surrounding Karl Rove. It’s well thought out and I think right on target. (highlighting my own)
Even so, we shouldn’t get hung up on him [Mr. Rove] - or on most of the other supposed leading figures in this scandal thus far. Not Matt Cooper or Judy Miller or the Wilsons or the bad guy everyone loves to hate, the former CNN star Robert Novak. This scandal is not about them in the end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at most secondary players. [...]
This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That’s why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair. [...]
Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.’s could be found, [...] The administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up, asserting that the various warning signs about the uranium claims were lost “in the bowels” of the bureaucracy or that it was all the C.I.A.’s fault or that it didn’t matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive rationales to justify the war. But the administration knows how guilty it is. That’s why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.
Next to White House courtiers of their rank, Mr. Wilson is at most a Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The brief against the administration’s drumbeat for war would be just as damning if he’d never gone to Africa. But by overreacting in panic to his single Op-Ed piece of two years ago, the White House has opened a Pandora’s box it can’t slam shut. Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there’s only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it’s essential to protect the king. (source)
A top aide to one of the U.S. Senate’s leading antigay members has told a Washington blog that he is gay and stands by his boss, Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum.
Robert Traynham serves Santorum as the main spokesman and deputy chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference, which Santorum chairs. After receiving tips from readers of his Web log, BlogActive, Michael Rogers called Traynham and asked him if he is “out to the senator.” In a tape Rogers provided to Advocate.com, Traynham responded, “I am.” Asked whether the senator’s constituents know he’s openly gay, Traynham said, “I’m not sure that’s really relevant.”
In a statement released exclusively to Advocate.com, Santorum said, “Robert Traynham has worked for me for eight years; the last four as a member of my leadership staff as deputy chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference. He recently returned to my personal office and is now communications director for me. He is widely respected and admired on Capitol Hill, both among the press corps and among the congressional staff, as a communications professional. Not only is Mr. Traynham an exemplary staffer, but he is also a trusted friend and confidant to me and my family. Mr. Traynham is a valued member of my staff, and I regret that this effort on behalf of people who oppose me has made him a target of bigotry in their eyes.”
The senator added, “It is entirely unacceptable that my staff’s personal lives are considered fair game by partisans looking for arguments to bolster my opponent’s campaign. Mr. Traynham continues to have my full support and confidence as well as my prayers as he navigates this rude and mean-spirited invasion of his personal life.” (source)
It is entirely unacceptable that my staff’s personal lives are considered fair game by partisans looking for arguments to bolster my opponent’s campaign.
Perhaps. But it is entirely acceptable to expose a hypocrite and a fraud for what he is. And that is exactly what Robert Traynham is; a gay man working for and helping the cause of the likes of Senator Santorum ultimately at the cost of our community. It’s like Ernst Röhm, a gay man, who served Hitler - helping to exterminated over two million homosexuals during the holocaust. It’s disgraceful.
Other Writings on this...
Cognitive Disonnance Overload
While members of an anti-American and anti-homosexual group from Kansas protested outside six Dover houses of worship on Sunday, church leaders emphasized tolerance to their congregations.
Members of the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church protested outside Christ Episcopal Church, Holy Cross Catholic Church, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Whatcoat Methodist Church, First Southern Baptist Church, and the Presbyterian Church of Dover.
The group targeted the churches for being tolerant of homosexuals.
Inside the churches, however, the messages were ones of love and acceptance for all people on Earth.
The Rev. David Brumbaugh, pastor at Presbyterian Church of Dover, preached tolerance throughout the Sunday morning service. He called statements made by the protesters, who were in front of his church from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., “nasty” and “offensive.” (source)
You guessed it. The demonstrators are part of the Topeka, Kansas based Westboro Baptist Church. I never really take these people seriously anymore. I believe they do more for our community than anything else. Let people see the hatred that is out there. I wonder though, do they really understand how they are viewed to the public. Honestly, it’s hard for me to get upset with them because I believe that they are half way to being mentally unstable.
I work with Kodak a fair amount for photo processing on line. I always loved their service, and I really like that fact that they value diversity. In fact, they devoted a site just for their gay and lesbian workers and the gay community, called “Pride @ Kodak”. Pretty cool.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry has squandered more than $300 million buying faulty and outdated military equipment in what appears to be a massive web of corruption that flourished under American-appointed supervisors for a year or longer, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said this week.
Vendors are suspected of vastly overcharging for substandard equipment, including helicopters, machine guns and armored vehicles, and kicking back money to Iraqi Defense Ministry buyers. [...]
Investigators are looking at purchases dating back to the June 28, 2004, transfer of sovereignty from American administrator L. Paul Bremer III to the caretaker government of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Many Iraqi administrators hired under Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority kept their jobs after the handover of the ministry, but after that the U.S. military no longer had the final say in awarding contracts.
However, Americans still ran the show behind the scenes, said several Iraqi bureaucrats involved with the ministry at the time. It’s implausible to them that U.S. officials, who held daily briefings with Iraqi defense chiefs, didn’t catch wind of the alleged wrongdoing.
“It seems hard to understand to an outsider that this stuff could go on under our noses and Americans wouldn’t know anything about it. But, clearly, we didn’t know everything,” said a U.S. military official familiar with the events. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss an open investigation. (source)
Just keep in mind that aside from all the coverage we hear in the news from day to day on how well (or bad) the situation is in Iraq, the fact remains, war is big business. Entities behind the scenes, whether they be people or companies, stand to make huge profits from selling equipment and services to “restore” Iraq.
Of course, this may take time to reap the rewards of war, regardless of the cost of human life to bring Iraq back to stability.
I also don’t buy for one minute the argument that the U.S. knew nothing about this corruption. We have crooks in our government left and right folks going all the way up to very very high levels Vice President in our government. Of course, since they control the flow of “intelligence”, you will never be able to prove it.
War is good business. You didn’t really think all this time that we were there to “liberate Iraq” did you? Iraq is only a means to and end. There will always be an Iraq out there for us. We will make sure of that. Terrorism will be used as the excuse of whatever we want to do to further our agenda, no matter what the cost to other people in this world.
I think it’s important to be honest about these things. I’m all for patriotism and the “American way of life”. But if we achieve that by raping other countries of their dignity just for a damn profit to bureaucrats and secret companies, the price is too damn high.
The United Church of Christ made a crucial statement in favor of human rights at a time when some members of Congress are attempting to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage.
It’s a sad indictment on religion that this is such a big story, you would think that religious institutions would have blessed the concept of equal rights for all generations ago. [...]
Several major religious denominations allow same-sex unions, but do not give them the same status as marriage, including the Episcopal Church, with about 2.3 million members, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, with 5 million members, and Reform Judaism, with 1.7 million members.
These religious organizations should take the next step forward and demonstrate they are serious about “family values” by officially recognizing same-sex unions. Gay couples should not be relegated to a second-class status, a gay union is as legitimate as a heterosexual union. (source)
Many people come and go from the relationship they have with their church. Some people never have a relationship with a church. Some don’t believe in God. Others have more than one God they believe in. And, in each one of those scenarios, people view communion differently.
I have seen so many people come to church reading The Bible from cover to cover as though they are looking for life’s deeper meaning; why they are here; why bad things happen. I’ve come to realize from so many things in life that there is no deeper meaning than us. And, unfortunately, there is no “why”.
Communion
1. The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings.
2. Religious or spiritual fellowship.
3. A body of Christians with a common religious faith who practice the same rites; a denomination.
My understanding of communion comes from the second definition, with an emphasis on spiritual fellowship. That is the deepest understanding that anyone will ever come to the understanding of God.
I had the strangest experience years ago in San Francisco. It was a cold night. There was an AIDS march from The Castro to City Hall. I went on the march alone. I walked down to The Castro, a short ten minute walk from our apartment.
There, I was met with thousands of mostly gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who were about to start on the march towards City Hall. I had lost many of my friends to AIDS, and many of my friends were dieing at the time. I went on the march for fellowship and communion. You think that is irrational and radical? Tell that to Jesus. He held communion and fellowship all the time with the most scandalous of characters and in the oddest of places.
We arrived at City Hall. There were so many of us. Yet, I felt so alone. So very alone. People were giving speeches and it was very emotional. The mist from the night breeze hit my face and felt like tiny needles piercing my skin. I was overwhelmed by the hopelessness of AIDS and what we were up against. We were dieing and it seemed that nobody cared. People were crying as different people talked on stage and as people embracing one another. I was by myself and I was overcome with emotion. I dropped to my knees, closed my eyes, and asked for strength for my friends, and to know what the answer was to this problem.
Out of nowhere, I felt this hand on my shoulder. I was startled and look up to see this very handsome man looking down on me. No words were spoken. I stood up, and looked him in the eyes. I was greeted by this very warm and accepting smile. His eyes met my eyes. With no words, he put his arms around me and held me tight. I wept. He whispered in my ear, “You are not alone,” as if he had read my thoughts. Then he said, “Remember me.”
I didn’t want to let go because I felt acceptance at that moment. I focused my attention to the stage for a brief second and turned around to utter the first words to this friend that was there. But, in that brief second, he was gone, as if he evaporated into thin air.
I went home on the subway. I took the Church Street train up to Delores Park, and walked the one block to our apartment. Kent was inside and asked how the gathering was. I asked him, “Do you believe in angels? I think I met one tonight.”
That is communion.
It’s a sad indictment on religion that this is such a big story, you would think that religious institutions would have blessed the concept of equal rights for all generations ago.
It is a sad indictment on religion that, after saying that homosexuals were psychologically unable to foster long-lasting relationships, that religion itself is unable to psychologically deal with the fact that homosexual couples want to be part of the fabric of society and religious blessings.
In all honesty, I too find this concept to be quite vexing. There was a time in my life that I wanted nothing to do with “straight society”. It was the time when the tourist buses would come to The Castro to see the freaks and take pictures of the queers, all from the safety of their buses - never venturing out into our neighborhood to see what we were really about. We would, in turn, accommodate them by pulling down our pants and mooning them, as if it were a ritual.
Did this help our cause? No. But helping our cause was not the hot issue. Our brothers were dieing for Christ’s sake. As far as we were concerned, these tourists and the rest of society could go fuck themselves.
That was then. Not really so long ago. It astonishes me how things have changed. I want to say, “... how far we’ve come ...”, but that implies that there was something wrong with where we were. There was nothing wrong with where we were. We were just in different places.
But now, at this point in time, with so many of our brothers dead, we want to come home. Home means that we want to belong to the embodiment of man.
It is sad that religion is the last to understand what true communion is about. Communion is acceptance. Communion is coming home.
I was watching a reenactment of the hate crime of Matthew Shepard on the new (new for me) gay-themed channel LOGO. It’s called Anatomy of a Hate Crime. It was hard to watch. It brings back too many horrible memories for me.
But what I thought was really strange were the commercials inserted here and there from the Christian’s Children Fund. I have nothing against the Christian’s Children Fund. I have a lot of issues with religion in general. Basically, in one statement...
Religion is the single cause for most of the wars in this world, 99% of the reason people are killed, and any message of hope that the Bible had has been lost in a message of hate and intolerance.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem I have with religion. As far as LOGO, the gay themed channel goes, I want to ask them, “What the hell man?!? What are you thinking? Religion has been used time and time and time again against the people who are your target audience.” It was just strange. It’s probably just me.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman apologized to one of the nation’s largest black civil rights groups Thursday, saying Republicans had not done enough to court blacks in the past and had exploited racial strife to court white voters, particularly in the South.
“Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization,” Mehlman said at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.” (source)
How long to you think be before they say “we were wrong” for demonizing gay and lesbian citizens for political gain?
The father of a gay teenager who wrote in a Web log that he was being sent against his will to a camp run by a group called “Love in Action International” to “cure” him of his homosexuality is defending his actions.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network Joe Stark says he did the right thing when he sent his 16 year old son Zach to the camp near Memphis, Tennessee.
“We felt very good about Zach coming here because… to let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future, and to give him some options that society doesn’t give him today,” Stark told CBN. “Knowing that your son... statistics say that by the age of 30 he could either have AIDS or be dead.” (source)
I wonder if they will ever know the psychological damage that has been done to their son? How will he deal with this? Will he withdraw from life? Will he try to be celibate throughout his life? Will he marry a woman and try to be straight? Will he end up being a criminal because he is so angry he has no way to deal with that anger?
If this were done to me, I think it would destroy my relationship with my parents for life - trust was destroyed). If I were Zach, I would probably bide my time and try to keep a low profile (no boyfriend, no nothing), until I was 18. Then, I’d do everything in my power to cut them lose. Who needs their crap?
Related Entry
June 16, 2005 - How We Treat Gay Kids
July 19, 2005 - Teen about to leave gay ‘conversion’ camp
Other Links
Antigay Father Outs ‘Zach’
Zach Vs. Pat
I couldn’t believe this story. It’s very sad. I suppose some people, like the legislator in Kansas, would rather something like this happen than have the child adopted by a gay family. It’s just amazing some things people will do.
Ronnie Paris would shake, wet himself and vomit as his father forced him into a box and repeatedly slapped him on the head in an effort to prevent him from being gay, the child’s mother, Nysheerah Paris, testified Monday. The boy was 3 years old when he died from swelling on both sides of the brain on January 28.
Others backed up the mother’s testimony on the first day of the capital murder trial of Ronnie Paris Jr., 21, of Tampa, Florida. Paris is accused of physically abusing the toddler until the boy slipped into a coma.
“He was trying to teach him how to fight,” the boy’s aunt, Shanita Powell, told the court. “He was concerned that the child might be gay.”
“He didn’t want him to be a sissy,” Shelton Bostic, the defendant’s Bible-study friend, testified.
Ronnie’s death followed a history of physical abuse, according to Prosecutor Jalal Harb. (source)
And this from the New York Blade:
Preachers can raise a lot of money in their direct mailings by bashing gays from the pulpit. And politicians can get lots of votes by urging discrimination against gay Americans.
But there is a price to be paid.
As the testimony unfolding in a Tampa murder trial this week demonstrates, playing to people’s homophobic fears can have deadly consequences.
Ronnie Paris Jr. thought his 3-year-old son, Ronnie Paris, was “soft” and told a a friend that he “didn’t want him to be a sissy.” The boy’s aunt testified that his father “was concerned that the child might be gay.” Ronnie Paris Jr. was determined to change that. So he regularly boxed with the child in an effort to toughen him up, slapping him in the head until he cried.
He was going to beat the gay out of him, even if it killed the boy. And in this case, the prosecutor maintains that it did.
A conservative legislator in Topeka, Kan., wants to review policies allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children in foster care, an issue gay-rights advocates feared eventually would arise after voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
State representative Steve Huebert, a Valley Center Republican, told the Lawrence Journal-World he is pursuing the issue on behalf of a constituent worried that her granddaughter might be adopted by a lesbian and raised by a lesbian couple. (source)
And they say the gay community has an agenda.
I remember going to the market a few months ago and seeing the Boy Scouts out in front of the store collecting money. They looked at Kent and myself with a fair amount of disapproval. Maybe I was looking at them strangely. I don’t know.
At any rate, it’s nice to see that other people are calling them to task on their discriminatory policies. I happen to think that the Boy Scouts do a lot of good. It’s too bad that they also teach impressionable boys that discrimination is ok.
I read this letter on fredericksburg.com.
I am one mother who is tired of hearing about the Boy Scouts’ plight to retain their government-funding golden goose [“Scouts may lose funding,” July 9].
It seems that in our haste to shout “separation of church and state,” we have completely neglected the greater picture.
Frankly, I feel it is deplorable for an organization that has repeatedly discriminated against homosexuals be given any assistance from our government. It seems as if giving the money is another way of endorsing its discriminating behavior.
In all my years, I have not witnessed the same support and funding for the Girl Scouts. Is this also a quiet nod that perhaps girls/women are still viewed as the lesser-valued sex?
It may be 2005, but rest assured the Good Ol’ Boy network is alive, well, and taking care of its own.
Leslie Jordan
Spotsylvania
A few days ago, I received an email from an old friend. It was someone who I hadn’t talked to in ten years. When I received the email, I didn’t recognize the name at first. We exchanged a few emails, and I gave him my phone number. I didn’t expect him to call actually, But that same night, he called me.
He said that he wanted to thank me for being such a positive force in his life. I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about. He told me that because of me, he now had a career in technology. He reminded me when I would help him with programs when he was with the company. Today, he works as a consultant with an IT consulting firm. He has a beautiful family with two small children. He sent me photos of them, and I saw him for the first time. You see, we never met in person. I worked with him long distance as he worked at a remote office within my company.
I was touched by his friendship and his desire to become better friends. But then, something rather dreaded happened. I realized that he didn’t know about me being gay.
If there’s one thing in the world that is horrible to me, it’s the dreaded conversation I have to have with someone I hold very dear to me. I hadn’t talked to my friend in ten years, and he is just as much a friend to me now as he as ten years ago. That is how I am.
I read this article on the Internet entitled “Finding out old friend is gay is not so important”.
I was chatting with a new young friend a few days ago when the talk turned to an old friend. It seems my new friend “spent a good part of the ’80s working for” this older guy. [...]
I haven’t seen the old friend in years, which happens sometimes, even when you both stay in the same town. It’s the way of the world. As much as you still enjoy them, some friends are linked to certain times of your life. They were co-stars of an era, and you see them in your mind’s eye, forever young at that place where everybody knew your name.
So, I asked for an update.
“How is old so-and-so?” I said. “You know you were lucky to work for him. He’s a legend in that whole industry.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “And he lived his life as a proud gay man. That couldn’t have been easy in the 1970s.”
Long pause.
I stood there with a just-walked-into-a-glass-door look on my face as I reshuffled my mental files. [...]
But sometimes these days, we get the feeling that being gay is not just important, it’s the most important thing about a person. Listening to the political and religious storm around us, we can wonder if it’s the defining thing, the thing that determines whether a person should be teaching our kids, taking communion or even living next door.
In that sense, you can argue I really didn’t know this person at all. I could tell you that he was a good man and trustworthy friend, and you might say, yeah, sure, you didn’t even know he was gay.
I guess I was feeling a little that way myself. My feelings were hurt that I missed something important. I wasn’t in the loop on something a friend was proud of.
If there’s one thing I’m beginning to learn about straight society, it’s how little they really understand gay culture.
In that sense, you can argue I really didn’t know this person at all. ... My feelings were hurt that I missed something important. I wasn’t in the loop on something a friend was proud of.
That statement right there tells me that the concept of not being able to be yourself is absolutely foreign to so many people. They don’t understand the fear of being rejected by friends and family.
I am 50 now. If I haven’t gotten over the fear of losing friends because I’m gay, I suppose I never will. But it amazes me that society doesn’t understand us being open with them when people like me are commonly beaten up, verbally berated, or killed. We are talking very basic survival here in many instances.
For me, I take friendship seriously. So seriously in fact, that I will avoid the topic of my sexuality in friendships. If I don’t need to bring it up, I won’t. The problem is, at some point in time if the friendship develops, there is a time of reckoning. You have to tell your friend that you are gay because if you don’t do that, they will never understand who you are.
Many straight people will say, “Well, I never tell my friends I’m straight. Why do you feel the need to say anything?” The answer is that being straight is assumed, so all these questions are automatically answered. It is assumed that you have someone in your life (or will have) and it is assumed that it will be someone who is the opposite sex. All of this does not need to be articulated.
For us, getting to know a new friend who is straight or disclosing the fact that we are gay can be risky on many fronts. Do you know how he/she feels about gays or gay civil rights? How about gay marriage? A new friend could seem like a nice person, but what you may not know is that they have real issues with gays. I suppose many will say that I’m too sensitive about this, but I’m only talking from experience.
I’ll end with this letter that I posted over a year ago. I says it all.
IF YOU spend hours downloading songs to your iPod, the days of fiddling around with wires are coming to an end. A Japanese company has discovered that the best cables may be your arms and legs.
According to NTT Laboratories, your whole body is the perfect conductor for electronic data, meaning that information such as music and films could be downloaded in seconds via your elbow. (source)
Uh huh..... I don’t think I would let my elbow do that. 
Personally, I hope that the Bush Administration keeps the likes of Karl who will do anything to achieve an end Rove and Scott I wouldn’t know a lie if it bit me in the ass McClellan, on the White House Staff.
Both serve to further distract a failed administration that just can’t seem to do anything right. Any distraction that will keep us from screwing something else up (which seems to be all we can do these days), should be welcomed.
When one is busy putting out a fire, you have little time to start a new fire.
I was very relieved to read that the charges against Jason West have been dropped. This is a great victory in many ways. Jason married gay couples because he felt it was a violation of the state constitution and a violation of his oath of office not to do so. In the end, civil rights won the day.
Now that this is over with, when will the State of New York address the issue of equality?
A prosecutor dropped all charges Tuesday against a small town mayor who could have faced up to a year in jail for marrying gay couples on the steps of the village hall.
New Paltz Mayor Jason West, then 26, was among the first public officials in the nation to marry same-sex couples, following San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in February 2004.
He had been charged with 24 misdemeanor counts of violating the state’s domestic relations law after marrying about two dozen gay couples in ceremonies that drew national attention to the village of about 13,000 residents 75 miles north of New York City.
Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams said Tuesday he dropped the charges because he believed a trial would be unnecessary and divisive.
West called the decision a “complete vindication” and said the district attorney had been “wasting taxpayer money for 18 months.” [...]
West has maintained he was upholding the gay couples’ constitutional rights to equal protection - and thus his oath of office - by allowing them to wed. (source)
Related entries
06/14/2005 - Thoughts On Gay Pride
05/27/2005 - Mayor Jason West will be charged for marrying gay couples
02/02/2005 - Charges against New Paltz Mayor Jason West Reinstated
03/03/2004 - In Defense of Mayor Jason West
A fire at a church that also was vandalized with anti-gay graffiti was arson, federal investigators said Monday.
The graffiti included a message that members of St. John’s Reformed United Church of Christ were sinners. On July 4, the denomination passed a resolution endorsing same-sex marriage.
The fire Saturday burned a stack of hymnals and damaged a portion of the choir loft and a pew. The church had smoke damage, but there were no injuries.
“It’s an arson. We’re confident on that,” said Bart McEntire, agent in charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for southwest Virginia. (source)
Gee..... and the African American community are always saying that the struggles of gay people are not like those they suffered in the 1960’s. This sounds a lot like the black churches that were burned by whites. This after the United Church of Christ made an endorsement last week for gay marriage. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the hatred that “Christians” hold for our community. This is not news, but it’s important to recognize it for what it is. We should expect more of this.
I would bet a fair amount of money that the person who started this fire was a conservative Christian. Behind all the rhetoric about how they “hate the sin but love the sinner“, it’s all crap. Behind all of that, this is what they are.
To the conservative Christians out there who don't agree with me, here’s my challenge; prove me wrong. Reach out to me with Christian acceptance and love. You think you are up to the task? That’s the only thing that will change my mind about your agenda.
Other News Sources on this Story
wvec.com (Virginia)
newsleader.com
As I get older, one of the things that I’ve trimmed out of my life is all the BS that happens over time. For example, I no longer have friends who were only friends who take advantage of me for being such a nice guy. It’s true, I have a big heart for people in need. You would be surprised at just how many people are out there who want to take advantage of that.
I had a friend once who wrote me a very abusive letter. He was feeling that I was making light of a relationship he was having with his new female friend (she had dumped him once before) and now he was getting back with her. Instead of just telling me how he was feeling, he started his instant message to me this way, “You fucking asshole.” I was absolutely shocked. I asked him, “Are you ok?” I honestly had no idea why he was so pissed at me or why such harsh language. Well, it went down hill from there. He ended the message by saying, “I don’t want you in my life any longer.” My reply, “ok. Goodbye. Have a nice life.” That was all I said and those were our last words. I never looked back and I have never regretted it. That was six years ago.
I had come to the conclusion that I don’t need people in my life who pull that kind of crap with me. This happened almost six years ago. Why did I have that reaction? Because when I was in my early twenties, Kent and I had a friend who did exactly the same thing to me. I can’t tell you how many times I went home crying from having hurt feelings by something very caustic this person said to me. That was almost thirty years ago. I vowed that I would never let anyone treat me that way again.
Fast forward to what happened six years ago, and you can probably understand why I had that reaction. I just won’t allow people to give me emotional turmoil anymore.
Over time, I’ve also applied this to other areas of my life. I am no longer willing to be second rate at anything. This applies to being able to have marriage for me and my partner, having gay citizens being able to serve openly in the military, and other aspects of life that are unfair and wrong.
You may ask, what can I do about all the injustices in life? The answer is simple. Don’t support the injustices in life. That is what you, as an individual, have absolute control over. Use that!
Example: Kent mentioned an Internet service provider this afternoon as a company I may want to move this website too. My very first question was, “Where are they located?” We found out they are located in Michigan. Kent asked, “They are ok, aren’t they?” I answered, “Nope. Michigan just passed a constitutional amendment against gay marriage and they are looking at legislation preventing gay couples from being able to adopt children.” That was the end of consideration for that company. That, in and of itself, has nothing to do with that company, but the company will in some way support that state by paying state taxes. I won’t support that. That is my statement to them telling them that it sucks for them to be in a state that is that closed minded, and, there is a price to be paid for that. The price is my total loss of even being considered for business. Now, if enough of us would do that...
Another issue is the lifetime ban of gay men to donate blood. It is a stupid policy that is very discriminatory. But more than that, it gives people a very false sense of security which could risk their lives. Gay men are no longer the group that has the fastest growing incidence of HIV in this nation, but you can’t tell that by looking at the current policy of the Red Cross - a policy that was founded in 1990. For instance,
A senior executive at the Red Cross said it had no control over the ban on blood donations from men who had had sex with men.
“It’s an FDA policy,” chief medical officer Jerry Squires said at the organization’s headquarters in Washington. “I’m trying to say as clearly as I can that we’re not the experts.”
At an FDA hearing in 2000, the last time the agency reviewed its policy, the Red Cross testified in favor of keeping what the industry called a “lifetime deferral” for men who had had sex with men. The FDA’s expert panel voted 7 to 6 to maintain the ban.
Derek Mitchell, who organized the Red Cross boycott at the University of Maine, said the organization was largely responsible for the FDA decision. [...]
They point out that the rules are far more forgiving to members of other high-risk groups. “A woman who has sex with a bisexual man is banned for just a year,” Mitchell said. “A man who has sex with the same man is banned for life.”
Squires, of the Red Cross, acknowledged that was an inconsistency in the rules. (source)
No kidding it’s inconsistent. But for me, I’ve long accepted that it’s ok that I can’t give blood anymore. I used to give blood at every opportunity. I did so because as a citizen, I wanted to do my part to help others in need. When the ban was put into place, I could understand the rationale. I didn’t like the policy, but I did understand it. Now, it’s pure homophobia and prejudice at work.
Over time, I stopped caring about the policy. If you intellectually analyze the issue, why should I care? I can’t effect the policy. I can’t change people’s minds other than trying to be an example of what I am, which I am doing. So, I suppose it all comes down to three simple words: “Not my problem.”
I don’t say that in a hateful or mean spirited way. It’s more of a reconciliation of the way things are. I’m 50 now. If the American Red Cross wants to collectively be assholes, does this really affect me? No, not unless I let it affect me. So many things in life are that way. So many problems that we, all of us, carry around in life are like a sack of bricks we carry on our backs. All we have to do is put the sack down.
Other writings on this
The way I felt... 15 years ago
WARNING! Every time I access your blog, a virus is downloaded to my IE temp folder.
sploit.anr
Downloader.Trojan
Norton AntiVirus gives me an alert each time I refresh your blog's homepage.
This problem has been fixed.
Apparently, a hacker changed a template on my site that generates the index.htm file that gets read every time someone goes to my site.
The html template has been repaired, and taken offline for security. They will not have access to the file in the future. All files on the site have been rebuilt and checked myself. There should be no further problems.
Thank you for letting me know of this problem, and I apologize for the inconvenience. Everyone who goes out on the Internet must have an antivirus package. If you don't, I'm quite sure you have computer viruses of some sort.
I take every precaution to ensure that my site is clean. Even given this, there are very clever people out there with nothing else better to do than to try to hack into sites.
How to check for computer viruses
You should have comprehensive (updates virus signatures at least once a week - preferably daily) virus protection software installed on your computer. Here are a couple:
Norton Antivirus (I prefer this one)
McAfee Virus Scan
Protection against Spyware
Another great threat to computers is what is called spyware. These are programs that get installed to your computer and can do many things that are harmful; anywhere from saving cookies on your computer for tracking purposes, sending back information on your Internet surfing habits, and sending out credit card information on purchases you have made.
Here are a few programs that I use to prevent this from happening:
Ad-Aware, by Lavasoft
Spybot Search and Destroy
Those programs search for spyware after-the-fact, after it has been installed, and it gets rid of it.
I also use a program that monitors in real time to stop spyware from ever making it to your PC in the first place.
Spy Sweeper
I saw this article and couldn’t stop laughing. In this day and age, it’s good to laugh at the realities of life, and sometimes at ourselves a bit. Some key items from having a gay airline (from the article)...
The changes would be noticeable right away, starting with on-time departures. There wouldn’t be any, for starters. All that rushing around to get to the gate on time? Gone.
Well, you get the idea. I can just imagine Shirley Phelps, daughter of Fred Phelps (from the godhatesfags.com group that’s always demonstrating outside the funerals of gay men...) taking a flight on the airline and proclaiming, “You are abominations!” Only to be scolded by the flight attendant, “Oh pullllease honey!! You are calling us abominations with THAT hair!! I don’t think so!!!”
Enjoy the article! 
I spotted this interesting little tidbit, and thought I’d share it.
“With supreme guts and righteousness, President Bush went into Iraq,” Gov. Pataki told the Republican National Convention last August. The place erupted with applause. It was all very stirring.
Almost one year later, Pataki’s son Teddy is, with supreme guts and righteousness, seeking a three-year law school deferment from the Marines, which last week commissioned the recent Yale grad as a second lieutenant.
The governor, who himself received a medical deferment during the Vietnam War because of poor eyesight, has said he hopes his son is granted the deferment. Of course he does. No doubt all the parents of New York’s nearly 100 war dead also wish their children could have gotten deferments. But they couldn’t. They got killed instead. (source)
This prompted a response from Sheryl McCarthy, a columnist for Newsday to write a piece called “Ship young Pataki straight to Iraq”.
The governor, who proudly announced last week that his son has been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines, also noted that Teddy Pataki hopes to defer his military service for three years until he finishes law school.
Coming only days after 20-year-old Marine Cpl. Ramona Valdez of the Bronx was killed by a suicide bomber in Fallujah, to suggest that Lt. Pataki be allowed to pass the next three years studying torts and contracts seemed positively obscene.
It was another example of how politicians wage war but expect other people’s children to fight them.
She’s right. It’s not fair to the other men and women fighting in Iraq. Actually, that’s not strong enough. Fair isn’t the right word. What he’s trying to do is despicable. I could see a deferment if we weren’t at war and if we didn’t have a President shoving this war in Iraq down our throats. And to top that off, Governor George Pataki was right there with the President and other Republicans telling all of us that the war in Iraq was a just war and for the good of America, to “fight terrorism”.
Well fine. I will accept that argument. I don’t personally believe that, but I can accept that someone else would believe it. But, when someone turns around and says, (paraphrasing) “Yes, I believe in sending other people’s sons and daughters off to war to die in a foreign land, but when it comes to my child, I hope he gets a deferment for three years. Hopefully, the war will be over by then.”
Yes indeed, it is apparently true that the job of politicians is to wage war - war that other people’s children should fight.
The city of Green Bay and seven other local bodies will fight a lawsuit seeking health benefits for partners of gay state employees, saying they will be forced to provide similar perks if the lawsuit succeeds.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in April on behalf of six state workers, claiming state government’s refusal to provide health insurance to their gay partners violates the equal protection clause of the Wisconsin constitution.
Earl Van Den Heuvel (pictured left), a member of the Green Bay City Council, which voted Tuesday night to fight the lawsuit, said the case could force all Wisconsin cities to provide benefits to partners of gay employees and open up a floodgate of lawsuits from others seeking benefits.
“As a government, we just can’t afford it,”, he said. “The biggest cost our city has is health benefits.” (source)
Well, that argument really doesn’t hold water does it? If the city of Green Bay is looking to save money by denying health benefits, it should start with all married couples - no benefits for anyone who is not a direct employee of the city. That means no spouses. Think of all the money they would save!
That is what would be fair, and if they did it universally, no one (gay or straight) would be able to complain or file a lawsuit against them. But this has nothing to do with fairness, does it?
I read this a week or so ago. I was surprised that a main stream church would do this, but was happy to see it. In some circles, what we are asking for is respected and accepted. Maybe more will follow.
On the flip side of this, the committee approved the resolution, but the church can still decide if it will formally become policy. Also, United Church of Christ churches are autonomous. This decision does not create policy for its more than 5,700 congregations.
In my own life, I’ve given up on religion. I’ve come to a decision that most people in religion don’t understand our community or have any desire to understand our community. I think what did it for me was when the local Presbyterian Church in Coventry told us that, as a couple, we would not be welcome. That was a tough one for me to deal with.
A committee of United Church of Christ representatives approved a resolution Sunday that moves the church one step closer to becoming the largest Christian denomination to endorse same-sex marriage.
The resolution supported by the UCC’s president, John H. Thomas, drew overwhelming support and was recommended for approval when the General Synod votes on it Monday.
It would specify that bisexual and transgender persons merit the same support and protections as gays and lesbians. The wording was revised Sunday, however, to included the “recognition that this resolution may not reflect the views or current understanding of all bodies within the gathered church.”
UCC churches are autonomous, meaning the leadership does not create policy for its more than 5,700 congregations. (source)
Then this came out yesterday...
Church Gives Gay Marriage the Go-Ahead - Some say it's a landmark week for civil rights.
A major church passed a resolution Monday blessing gay marriage--- but what's it mean for our area? (source)
And this from Canada.....
...So Harper seems like an idiot, but it’s not only the federal Conservatives that are causing a ruckus. As a leader in opposing the same-sex marriage bill, Premier Ralph Klein refuses to give up the battle of protecting the traditional definition of marriage in Alberta; however, since marriage falls under federal jurisdiction, there is little he can do. Klein has suggested that the province of Alberta only perform civil unions, leaving marriage to religious orders and withdrawing from sanctioning marriages altogether - a move that would make Alberta unlike any other province in the country.
It seems kind of futile to try to prevent the yielding of a right that is already in effect in the vast majority of the country. The Conservatives, both federal and provincial, are trying too hard to prevent society from accepting homosexuals into mainstream society. Its time for them to join the rest of their country and accept that citizens should be granted the same marriage rights, regardless of their sexual preference. (source)
Gee, sounds just like the United States.
Statement from Tony Blair
I am just going to make a short statement to you on the terrible events that have happened in London earlier today, and I hope you understand that at the present time we are still trying to establish exactly what has happened, and there is a limit to what information I can give you, and I will simply try and tell you the information as best I can at the moment.It is reasonably clear that there have been a series of terrorist attacks in London. There are obviously casualties, both people that have died and people seriously injured, and our thoughts and prayers of course are with the victims and their families.
It is my intention to leave the G8 within the next couple of hours and go down to London and get a report, face-to-face, with the police, and the emergency services and the Ministers that have been dealing with this, and then to return later this evening.
It is the will of all the leaders at the G8 however that the meeting should continue in my absence, that we should continue to discuss the issues that we were going to discuss, and reach the conclusions which we were going to reach. Each of the countries round that table have some experience of the effects of terrorism and all the leaders, as they will indicate a little bit later, share our complete resolution to defeat this terrorism.
It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, and the long term problems of climate change and the environment. Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack, or a series of terrorist attacks, it is also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8. There will be time to talk later about this.
It is important however that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world. (source)
A previously unknown group claimed responsibility on an Islamist web site in the name of al-Qaeda for this attack on London. They call themselves the “Secret Group of al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe”. Below is the statement they issued:
The time has come for the revenge from crusading Zionist nation of Britain a response to the massacres carried out by Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The heroic Mujahedeen carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and fright from the north to the south, east and west.
We warned the British government and the British people again and again.
We have fulfilled our promise and carried out a blessed military raid in Britain after hard efforts carried out by heroic Mujahedeen. The effort