Arkansas cannot ban homosexuals from becoming foster parents because there is no link between their sexual orientation and a child’s well-being, the state’s high court ruled Thursday.

The court agreed with a lower-court judge that the state’s child welfare board had improperly tried to regulate public morality. The ban also violated the separation-of-powers doctrine, the justices said. [...]

“There is no correlation between the health, welfare and safety of foster children and the blanket exclusion of any individual who is a homosexual or who resides in a household with a homosexual,” Associate Justice Donald Corbin wrote.

In addition, the court said, the testimony of a Child Welfare Agency Review Board member demonstrated that “the driving force behind adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board’s views of morality and its bias against homosexuals.” (source)

I just wanted to share a piece of good news. It’s easy for us to forget the good things that happen now and then. It’s important to remember that we are making progress in some areas. Arkansas is a very conservative state. Maybe things are turning around a bit, at least in terms of foster parenting and adoption.

The elimination of adoption rights for gay couples is the next big push in what the conservatives are going after. So far, they’ve made little headway in this area. We can hope that trend continues.

After a long talk with one of the people I work with (I managed to go into the office today), he has talked me into giving the weights another try. I guess I will. He explained that the guy who took me through the routine had me on weights that were way too heavy, too many reps, etc. Basically, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

He suggested a lot of stretching first, then trying very very light weights with very few reps, even it it seemed that I wasn’t working the muscles that much. The main issue is to get more stretching and movement in the muscles. Then, add weight when they are ready for it.

That actually makes sense to me. I’m probably going to give myself a day to rest, and try this tomorrow.

God I hope I don’t regret this.

While I’d love to write on this (because I have a lot to say about this), I’m afraid I will have to pass on this one.

The Supreme Court today delivered a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, ruling that it exceeded its authority by creating tribunals for terror suspects that fell short of the legal protections that Congress has traditionally required in military courts.

As a result, the court said in a 5-to-3 ruling, the tribunals violated both American military law and the military’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions. [...]

“What this says to the administration is that you can no longer decide arbitrarily what you want to do with people,” Mr. Ratner said in a telephone briefing for reporters. “It upheld the rule of law in this country and determined that the executive has gone beyond the constitution and international law.” (source)

All I can say about it is, “Good! It’s about time someone stood up to the President and his misuse of power.”

On the personal front, I’ve been sick. Actually, it’s rather silly I suppose. And when I tell people about what has happened to me, most chuckle. Last Sunday, I went to the gym to work out. I asked if I was still eligible for the new member orientation. They said I was, and they proceeded to give me a full workout. I mean a FULL WORKOUT - one that would be a challenge to a 23 year old.

I’m not 23 years old anymore. We went though four full sets (12 reps in a set), with heavier weights than I should have been using, on five different weight machines. And all of that came before we did the free weights.

In short, I just wasn’t up to it. The end result, I have been spending my whole week, except for Monday, at home, on pain medication. Now, I know this sounds dumb and people think it’s funny, but I’ve been popping Percocet and taking hot baths like there is no tomorrow. Why? Because I can’t raise my arms above my waist! It hurts like hell. The only way I can describe it is by saying that it feels like someone stuck a hunting knife completely through each bicep. My entire body feels like it has a toothache going completely through it.

Tuesday, I stayed home. Got up. Had breakfast and had a hell of a time. An hour later, I lost my breakfast. Nothing was touching this pain. I went through it that day, and took an extra strength Motrin before going to bed Tuesday night, which seemed to do nothing. I was able to get to sleep. At 2:00am, I woke up in intense pain. After taking five minutes just to get out of bed, I considered going to the hospital, but then didn’t know how I would even drive my car. And, since Kent was out of town, what about my cats?

So, at 2:00am, I went to my medicine cabinet to see if anything could help with the pain. I came across some Percocet, and took one. The bottle said, “One table every six hours for pain.” I went back to bed and an hour later was still in agony and wide awake. At that point, I had had it. I got up and took another Percocet. After 20 minutes, the pain started subsiding, along with all the very bizarre and not-so-unpleasant side effects of Percocet. Then I fell asleep.

The next morning, I was feeling the other side of narcotics... the narcotic hangover and I’ll just say, I felt like crap. I thought coffee would help. An hour later, I lost the coffee. I went back to bed.

I won’t bore you with the rest of my week, but I will just say, it’s not been a funny experience for me. Just today, I’m starting to feel better and I have a bit more movement in my arms. And, I’m totally turned off now with weight lifting, along with personal trainers. I know some of you will think I’m over reacting, but I’m a bit alarmed that they didn’t even take some key factors into account, such as the fact that I haven’t lifted weights in a very long time. I’m 51 years old. And they didn’t even ask me if I was on blood pressure medication, which will effect what your target heart rate is.

All around, a not so funny experience. I’m looking forward to having a long weekend ahead of me to rest.

(Washington) The Department of Defense has admitted it conducted surveillance on groups opposed to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on a more extensive level than previously reported.

The new revelations are part of an ongoing call for information under the Freedom of Information Act by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization that represents gays in the military.

Some of the surveillance outlined in the new documents suggests, SLDN says, that the spying may have been part of an undercover Pentagon operation.

The new material shows government surveillance of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and anti-war protests at the State University of New York at Albany, William Paterson University in New Jersey, Southern Connecticut State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

The documents released today indicate that emails sent by various student groups were intercepted and monitored by the government and that the government collected reports from seemingly undercover agents who attended at least one student protest at Southern Connecticut State University.

None of the reports in the documentation, however, indicated any terrorist activity by the students who were monitored.

“Federal government agencies have no business peeping through the keyholes of Americans who choose to exercise their first amendment rights,” said SLDN executive director C. Dixon Osburn.

“Americans are guaranteed a fundamental right to free speech and free expression, and our country’s leaders should never be allowed to undermine those freedoms. Surveillance of private citizens must stop. It is the suppression of our constitutional rights, and not the practice of them, that undermines our national security. It is patently absurd that this administration has linked sexual orientation with terrorism.” (source)

Well, I suppose this is one reason I’m being monitored by so many “.mil” sites, since I’ve spoken out so many times against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That and the fact that I’ve repeatedly called the President a moron and other less generous names. I’m not surprised.

The United States is coming closer and closer to a police state every single day. How long are we going to keep living in denial as our rights, one by one, get stripped away?

And this week the Senate is about to pass a constitutional amendment against burning the American flag. For the first time, it’s going to be a very close vote.

As much as I love the American flag and would personally never burn it (I actually have two hanging on my home), I will defend the right of expression for those who do feel they should burn it. That is what democracy is - defending something that you yourself feel is repugnant and wrong. That is defending freedom.

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

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called yesterday for criminal prosecution of The New York Times, saying that its report Friday on U.S. government surveillance of confidential banking records “compromised America’s anti-terrorist policies.”

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican, accused the newspaper of compromising national security when it exposed a Treasury Department program that attempts to track terrorist financing by secretly monitoring worldwide money transfers. The program, instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks, bypasses safeguards put in place to ensure against government abuse. [...]

According to the reports in both newspapers, the program was part of an effort to gain intelligence data by tapping into bank transfers from the world’s largest financial communications network. The network - run by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT - carries up to 12.7 million messages a day. Those messages typically include names and account numbers of bank customers - private citizens and huge corporations alike - that are sending or receiving funds.

To gain access to the information, the Bush administration used an obscure power known as “administrative subpoenas,” which are not subject to independent governmental reviews. [...]

Yesterday, Specter indicated that Congress and the White House were nearing agreement on a proposal to submit all such eavesdropping to a secretive federal court that considers intelligence matters. “We’re getting close with the discussions ... to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” he said. “That would be a big step forward for the protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties.” (source) - Highlighting my own

You didn’t really think that our current government was going to stop with illegal wire tapping, did you? Anything you do right now - absolutely everything you do - can be picked up and heard by an outside source.

You go to the keyboard to send an email to a friend, it’s likely being read by some computer program that is parsing your information to try to determine if you are some kind of threat to national security. Everyday, I look at the traffic logs on this site. Those logs tell me that I am being watched carefully on what I write about and the content of that writing. I can tell from the logs that these are not just people, but I am being scanned by government computer programs, probably because I have been highly critical of this government.

When someone is talking to me on the phone, I can hear an occasional click. I know what it is and what is going on.

And all of this, without my knowledge (supposedly) and without a warrant. Why? Because the President of the United States feels that he has that power. And when Specter states that, “We’re getting close with the discussions ... to having the wiretapping issue submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” what he is really saying is that the U.S. Government is “getting close” to abiding by the law - laws that require the review of a court before these actions are taken in the first place - laws that have been on the books since 1978.

So just remember, when you pick up that phone, when you send an email, when you post to your blog, when you place a bank transaction, when you go to a U.S. Post Office to buy that money order, it’s all being recorded for who knows what reason.

And if that’s not bad enough, I keep hearing about breaches in security involving “private” records - although, if the government is collecting these at will, how “private” are they? First, it was the Veterans Administration, when someone took computer records home that were stolen. The information contained sensitive information such as date of birth and social security numbers. You can do a lot (assume an identity) with that information.

And just a few weeks ago, I received a letter from Mortgage Lenders Network (our mortgage lender) informing me that I “may” have been included in information that was “potentially” leaked that included our private mortgage information - where we live - how much we paid for our home - what’s left on our mortgage - along with our legal names, date of birth, social security numbers, credit report information, annual salaries, place of work, and on and on. Their suggestion is that we request an annual credit report to “make sure” that no one is using our identities for anything unapproved, and to also put a “fraud alert” on our credit report, which would require that we be called every single time a new account is created in our name. This, they said, had to be renewed every three months.

I guess I can understand why the government wants this information, although they should go about getting it legally. My big beef is that there is apparently nothing in place to prevent this information from getting out in the open. We are all vulnerable here.

Meanwhile, the President of the United States and Congress, while kind of talking about it here and there (when they aren’t talking about an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to prevent “gay marriage” and “flag burning”), are really doing nothing about it - other than threatening the New York Times for exposing what the government is up to.

Our government at work.

I woke up this morning around 9:00. It felt so good to just sleep in. I worked for awhile on general chores around the house, and decided to get my things together and go to the gym.

I joined this new gym a few months ago. I was good about going for awhile, but then other things in life got in the way, like work. It’s easy to let things slip. But today, I decided to go back and get back into it. When I joined the gym, I had the option of getting a tour of all the services they offered. At the time, I really didn’t have the time to do it. I just wanted to get to my workout.

Today, after signing in, I asked if it was still an option to have that tour. They said it was, and they sent this young man up to walk me through a workout. God, it was grueling, but it showed me just how much work I have ahead of me. And of course, they tried to sell me on the idea that I absolutely needed a personal trainer. And as it turns out, they have a “special rate” that is going on until next Thursday. I probably will just do my own thing. I’ll have to think about it.

After I left the gym, my arms felt tired and like rubber. I decided to go by the store close to the gym to pick up some “health food” - low in fat, high in protein, etc.

As I got out of my car, I noticed that the Red Cross truck was parked at the side of the store. I assumed they were doing a blood drive. This man from the truck quickly approached me, and asked me if I would mind spending a few moments of my time to donate blood. I replied, “Not if you don’t mind taking the blood from a gay man.” He looked a bit stunned, and said, “No, we can’t do that.”

I looked at him and said, “Then stop fucking asking me.” He replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” I replied, “Do you have any idea how demoralizing and insulting it is for me for your organization to have it’s belittling attitude towards people like me? A straight man can have sex with prostitutes and still donate blood. But I am banned for life for being a gay man even though all blood is tested. So don't stand there and look shocked that I am talking to you with this piss poor attitude.”

He started to say something. With that, I took my arm and waved him away in disgust. I realized just how far my mind has come with this subject. I’ve gotten to a point that I openly voiced my disgust to a member of the Red Cross. And, when they tried to talk more, I waved him away in a way that said, “Go fuck yourself.”

I understand that the Red Cross helps people. I just can’t seem to reconcile my personal life with their policy. I find it repugnant. They don’t know me. They don’t know people like me. And, they don’t seem to want to know people like me. So, I don’t have the time of day for people or organizations like that.

Am I the only one out there who feels this way?

I usually don’t write about the happenings in Iraq. I used to, but I stopped. Why? Because I believe that what has happened in Iraq, and what is happening in Iraq, is self evident. We all know what is going on. We all know (at least if we are honest about it) that this was a fabricated war, all in the name of “fighting the war on terror”. History will decide how well the United States will fare in this war - both from the point of view of winning the war and our global reputation. This is the legacy of George W. Bush...

I do not support this war. I do not agree with the reasons we put our troops in harms way because one moron in the White House decided for political reasons that Iraq was a threat to our national security. What has endangered our national security is allowing Osama bin Laden to escape when we had a good chance at stopping him. Instead, we stayed behind in Iraq.

Having said that, I do support our troops. I support them and what they must put up with in every way I can. I have helped many of them who cannot afford a call home by providing a means for them to make that call home. I can not think of a better way to reach out to them by allowing them to talk to the ones they love. I do not say this to show what a caring and decent person I am. I say this to show that I am more than just words - words are easy. Deeds are tough.

So last week, when I read of what happened to Private First Class Thomas Tucker and Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, who were tortured and killed in Iraq, I was left with a sense of outrage and sadness. I want to be able to say that they died to preserve our freedom rather than just the tool of some political maneuver.

And now that they are dead, I am further outraged at the news that members of the Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing the funerals of both of these two soldiers. They are the same people who host the website, godhatesfags.com (I refuse to link to the bastards and I notice with a sense of satisfaction that their website seems to be down at this time). I find it hard to say this and still keep a sense of decency in me, but they are more deserving of the fate that happened to those two soldiers. They are despicable and hateful people.

Of course, this is democracy, and democracy isn’t easy. Democracy means that they have the freedom to spew their hatred and contempt for gays and lesbians - and now, apparently, for the whole nation because the nation lets us live. That’s right. They would not be content until the United States put a death sentence on every gay and lesbian citizen. I would imagine that they would want us stoned to death in the public square or hanged and left strung up for days for all to see. Only then, would they say that we are deserving of God’s grace.

It’s scary that we live in a country that has such people in it. But I am grateful that the same democracy that allows these animals to spew such hatred, also allows me to live as an openly gay man and a proud American.

I honor the memory of these two soldiers.

A controversial, much-scorned Kansas church that believes America is doomed and suffering because it tolerates homosexuality has been picketing the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq - and so, members plan to travel to Central Oregon and Texas to protest at the services for Pfcs. Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca.

What’s more, on their Website, godhatesfags.com - which is hard to view, because of the no-doubt constant tech attacks on its existence - the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., hails the killing of the two men by their Iraqi insurgent captors. It called the killings retribution for the attacks on their graveside protests, including a new federal law that bans protesters from being too close to military funerals at national cemeteries.

“Thank God for the grisly deaths of Privates Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca,” the Website message states. “They died at the hands of an angry God in His retaliatory wrath in punishing America for her violent persecution of Westboro Baptist Church for preaching the truth to America about her abominations. WBC will picket their funerals.” (source)

I’ve been following this for awhile now. I looks as if Lewis will not be put to sleep. We was placed under permanent house arrest since he was attacking the neighbors. Also, he apparently attacked the Avon lady (I probably would have also - I don’t like Avon).

I can’t believe they put Lewis on Prozac.

BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut (AP) -- A Connecticut judge on Tuesday spared the life of alleged serial-scratcher Lewis the cat, whom even Prozac could not tame, but ordered that the felonious feline remain inside his owner’s home at all times.

“There are no exceptions. None,” said Judge Patrick Carroll, who also granted accelerated rehabilitation to Lewis’ owner, Ruth Cisero of Fairfield, Connecticut.

That means her record will be expunged if she successfully completes two years of probation.

Cisero had faced a charge of reckless endangerment. Neighbors complained that the cat’s long claws and stealth have allowed it to attack at least a half-dozen people and ambush the Avon cosmetics lady as she got out of her car on her neighborhood rounds. (source)

The Macy’s department store chain says removing two mannequins from a gay-pride display at a Boston branch earlier this month was a “mistake--unquestionably.” The display featured a list of gay-pride events and Web sites and two male mannequins, one with a rainbow flag wrapped around its waist. [...]

In it, Klein blamed “an internal breakdown in communication,” declaring the mannequins “were not removed because of pressure.” However, he defended the decision to remove the mannequins, saying the store does not “traditionally” use mannequins in “community windows” because such “tributes” don’t include the introduction of merchandise.

Klein’s letter also notes the company’s “commitment to diversity and to the GLBT community,” and concludes, “I am hopeful that Macy’s long track record of support for inclusion and diversity will be remembered by the GLBT community.” (source)

Well, one thing that Macy’s should learn about our community is that loyalty is very important and, we have a very long memory. If you don’t believe that, just ask Coors.

I suppose that Macy’s can say that is was “an internal breakdown in communication,” but you know what? I can have “an internal breakdown in communication” also when my brain tells me, “Bill, let’s go shop at Macy’s,” and decide not to set foot in Macy’s again until they show their true colors. An apology, after it’s safe to make such an apology (Boston Pride is over), just isn’t good enough.

That is the message I would like to see Macy’s receive. And the one thing that will give them the message loud and clear is when we take our $$$ somewhere else, because that is the language that Macy’s understands.

Damn, there’s still a big of activism left in me. Now, if I lived in Boston, I’d organize a picket right out in front of their store. Macy’s, as a company, has the right to not support Boston Pride. I just wish they had the balls to own up to their decision.

Now, I’m going back to enjoying my ruby-red grapefruit margarita. It’s delicious!

This couple is so similar to Kent and myself in so many ways. We have both been together over 30 years and we both live in Connecticut. The only difference at this point in time is that we are both healthy, as far as we know.

This is my greatest fear. The state of Connecticut passed this Civil Union bill a couple of years ago and now think that everything is just fine and dandy. Tell that to this couple who may lose they home.

Civil Unions are crap that have no federal benefits associated with them. The faster we all realize that and demand equality, the better.

They live on a circle of tidy houses in a subdivision nestled in Windsor Locks, a couple in love since they met in a Hartford bar 30 years ago.

Another gray-haired, tax-paying family of two. You might like them as neighbors.

They own their home. There are retirement accounts for the future. They go to church. There were these plans, too, for hiking, kayaking and enjoying life for years to come.

This being the land of civil unions, Rob Scanlan and Jay Baker figured things were looking up for an aging gay couple in the suburbs.

Then, a little over a month ago, Rob was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS - and they were reminded that there isn’t equality.

It’s different for gays, even in a blue state with a civil union law. The problem is not that ALS is a death sentence. It’s that Congress and the federal government recognize only marriage when it comes to taxes, Social Security and medical issues.

Because federal law does not recognize civil unions, Rob and Jay could be faced with liquidating everything - home, savings, retirement - to pay for costly care. Meanwhile, I’m told, a married heterosexual couple can sometimes take advantage of federal benefits so that a surviving spouse can at least protect the home.

Rob and Jay’s case is not entirely clear yet, but the inequity remains.

“You have a couple that has been together all this time. They have paid their taxes and they have contributed to the community,” said Gary Buseck, legal director for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston. “Why are they treated differently? There is no answer.” (source)

It’s late - past 10:00 pm. I came home from school at 4:30 in the afternoon with just enough time to grab a sandwich and head out the door. Mom asked me, with the worry she always seemed to have in her eyes, “Are you off to philharmonic practice?” I said, “Yes Mom, I don’t have much time. Practice starts in an hour.” I gave her a hug, told her that I loved her, grabbed my violin, and headed out the door.

I got into my car, went by my music teachers’ house to pick her up, and we drove to Boise, Idaho for a practice session in the Boise Philharmonic. We shared a ride to Boise three times a week and on Saturday - a 30 mile ride. It was good for me. I was sixteen years old and one of the very few students accepted into a rather rigorous program the Boise Philharmonic was offering called the “Young Outstanding Student’s Award”. It was only given to a few high school students. You had to go through three auditions, and prove that you could technically play well, and be able to do the program and keep your grades up in school. In return, I got paid a bit and my gas money was paid for.

In those days, I was a powerhouse of energy. I don’t know where I got it from. I would get up early, put in a full day at school, come home and practice, then go off to the Philharmonic for a four hour practice three to four times a week - on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Saturday. When I got home, I would do my homework. On Monday nights, I played in the College of Idaho Community Orchestra where my musical mentor and teacher, Walter Cerveny, was the conductor.

The goal in all of this was to mold me into the world of performance and give me as much exposure as possible to all kinds of different music. It was a wonderful program. I was a good kid. I was never in trouble, until later when I would drink to hide a lot of emotional pain. On this schedule, there was little time for trouble.

I got home from practice, and parked my car in the garage. I got out of the car and opened my trunk door to get my violin out. I got it out and closed the truck. It made a slight noise, and I heard something move in the other car - the family car, which was also in the garage.

I slowly walked over to the car and looked into the back window. There my Mom was lying in the back seat, visibly shivering from the cold with a thin blanket covering her nightgown. I opened the door and ask numbly as if I didn’t want to hear the answer, “Mom, why are you sleeping in the back of the car?”

She said, “It’s my fault. He got mad at something I said. Don’t get mad. Just get your things and go to bed. Be quiet not to wake him.” I said, “ok Mom. Go back to sleep.” I closed the door to the car.

I went over to my car, and quietly put my violin back into the trunk and closed the trunk door. I went over to this box that had some of my brothers’ things in it. He was in the Navy and we were storing things in it. I pulled out a baseball bat. My heart got calm. My adrenaline was high. I - was - strong. Something else was driving me. I felt my jaw and muscles tighten with determination, as though I was going into battle - the kind of battle where only one would be left standing. I was made of steel.

I started methodically walking to the door that lead into the house. Mom, without me hearing her, had gotten out of the car. She gets between me and the door and says to me, “What are you going to do? You can’t go in there like this. Please go to bed!” I said, “I will, but first I want him to tell me why my mother is shivering in the back of a fucking car when his sorry ass is lying in a nice warm bed! And then, I’m going to put the bastard in a hospital bed.”

She pleaded with me, “You can’t go in there. He’ll kill you.” I held up the bat and said, “I - DON’T - THINK - SO!” She looked at me and said, “I love you! Please don’t do this!”

My eyes opened and I said in a whisper, “I love you too.” My heart was beating fast. It was quiet in the room. I could hear Kent breathing. My cat was asleep on the foot of my bed. I am back from then and from that place. I get out of bed, go to the bathroom, closed the door, and I cry.

Then, I come to this computer and typed this, but does this matter?

I hate that son of a bitch. I’m glad he’s dead. When my brother asked me ten years ago if I’d come back to Emmett for his funeral, I answered, “I’ll come back to piss on his grave. Is that good enough?”

How can this live on in me? How can he have a hold of me in this quiet peaceful place I am in? I haven’t thought about him in years, until now.

I hate him. I hate him.

(Santa Fe, New Mexico) The two men labeled ringleaders in a gang attack on two gay men more than a year ago in Santa Fe will not be going to prison a New Mexico judge has ruled.

State District Judge Michael Vigil said that he believed Isaia Medina, 20, and Gabriel Maturin, 21, could be rehabilitated.

“You both would be ruined if I sent you to prison,” Vigil told the pair at a sentencing hearing on Friday. “I would be throwing you away. I don’t want to do that.”

Vigil ordered them to serve 90 days in the Santa Fe County jail. They will then be subject to a year of house arrest and be required to return to the jail on weekends.

At the end of the year they will be on five years of probation and must perform 500 hours of community service.

During that time they will take a mandatory course on tolerance, and must work with PFLAG to present classes on equality and tolerance at area schools.

Vigil’s sentence also requires the pair to make restitution to the victims of the attack, James Maestas, 22, and Joshua Stockham, 24.

“Both of you can do a whole lot to help mend this community for this horrible act,” Vigil said. (source)

Is this justice? I guess I shouldn’t make the judgments because I wasn’t there. They are making restitution to the victims of the attack, although, from going through the experience myself, I honestly don’t know what they can give back to the victims to take away the psychological damage caused by this. The victims of this crime will carry that around with them for the rest of their lives. Making financial restitution for medical expenses is the easy part. You have a price tag for that.

What is the price tag for making the nightmares go away? That’s what they should be paying for. I would say that in prison, the attackers would be given their own set of nightmares to deal with, but that would just make me sound vengeful and, would it really help anyone?

You can’t fight hatred with hatred, and at what point does “justice” become “hatred”?

As one commenter put it....

Anyone who wants to know why gay people have their own rodeos, congregate in their own communities, etc., etc. : this is why. Because they can’t trust mainstream society to offer them the same protections being offered to non-gays. If these men had beat up a young girl or young straight man, they’d have been given severe sentences.

So much for “justice for all”. (source)

More in depth report on this from the New Mexican.

Related Articles
March 2, 2005 - Hate Crime in Santa Fe
March 3, 2005 - Man beaten in gay bashing clings to life

I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago. He is a straight male and a good friend. He knows much of my past. He asked me when I knew I was gay. I told him I knew when I was six years old. I didn’t know what it was that made me different, but I did know I was not like other boys. At six years old, being gay is not a sexual feeling. I loved music. I loved art and beautiful things. For some reason, I just couldn’t get into the idea of playing tether-ball until my hands would bleed. That just wasn’t me.

So, I was scared that people would discover that I was different. So, even at the tender age of six when I started school, I started being very careful about talking with anyone. In fact, I was a recluse. I talked to no one. During lunch, Mom would come and bring me lunch because I was afraid that she too would go away to that magical place of forever. It had to be hard on her because when the end of the lunch hour would come, I would start crying, every single day. I would make her promise that she would never leave me... never... never... never. She would promise. I would cry more. She would promise again, and again.

Two years passed. I was better about lunch. I would take the sandwich that Mom made me, and go off to some secluded place to eat it. I would then wait out my lunch period all by myself. And, I did this for years.

I told my friend this and he said, “Didn't your Dad die when you were six?’ I said, “Yes, he did.” He replied, “Maybe that’s why you turned out gay.”

I don’t know how to answer that. I believe that I was born gay. But, maybe the trauma of my father dieing in the middle of the night and leaving me did something to me. Maybe the fact that my family wouldn’t tell me that my father would never come back did something to me. How would I know?

But in a bigger sense of it all, why does any of that matter? It’s almost like saying that being gay is a bad thing, and I don’t believe that is true. Is being straight superior to being gay? Does being gay mean that something went wrong with me long ago? I don’t know how to react or feel about that.

To me, people are people, and they are made up of many different factors and aspects of their personalities. Sexual orientation is just one of those aspects - I don’t think it is unfortunate that a person is homosexual - I don’t think it is unfortunate that a person is straight. I think it is what it is.

And, if I really wanted to look at the REAL problem with being gay, it has nothing what so ever to do with being gay. It has to do with what prejudiced people do with that knowledge. I prayed to God when I was a scared 15 year old to change me into a “normal” person. I did this because I was afraid of what I would face if He didn’t make me “normal”. Today, I thank God that he never did because I think I’m not all that bad as far as people go. In fact, being gay has given me the sensitivity to reach out to people and have compassion for others who feel adversity.

I look around me and everywhere I look, I see people who hate gays or other minorities, people who are indifferent to the needs of others, people who only care for themselves, people who see something wrong with everyone else, but themselves. It makes me sick, because the real issues I have faced in my life have come from people who can’t accept what I am. And if they do accept what I am, they try to understand what “went wrong” to make me that way. And, that is almost as painful as someone calling me a faggot, because it usually comes from someone that I care about, be it a friend or a family member. Even today, I know of some gay people who will have as little to do with straight people as possible because they just don’t trust them. I think that’s sad.

I suppose the real question to be asked is, why is being straight the only desirable thing that a person can be? This is at the heart of what gay kids face today. The “disease”, if you want to call it that (some would), isn’t being gay. The disease is prejudice, intolerance, and a desire to try to force people, through intimidation or violence, into being something they aren’t. And if they can’t change, as I couldn’t, they try their best to hide it - I did for years.

Any way you slice it, a lie is no way to live your life. People shouldn’t have to live that way.

It’s a heated exchange between Fox anchorwoman Julie Banderas and anti-gay crusader Shirley Phelps-Roper (Fred Phelps daughter) that turned from a heated exchange into an all out fight. (make sure your speakers are on)

Found on the Washingtonblade.com

Jun. 16 (CWNews.com) - The governor of Maryland has fired a Catholic political appointee who said that homosexual activity is “deviant.”

Governor Robert Ehrlich announced that he was removing Robert Smith from a post on the board of the Metro, the public-transportation authority for metropolitan Washington, DC. Ehrlich said that Smith was dismissed for making a statement that was “highly inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable” during a political discussion on a local cable-TV station. [...]

During a televised discussion of homosexuality last week, he objected to the notion that “government should proffer a special place of entitlement within the laws of the United States for persons of sexual deviancy.” (source)

I tell you, it’s getting harder and harder for someone who holds bigoted views. This man won’t even admit that his views are bigoted. Many people are the same way. You can hold a view and claim that it is part of your “religious beliefs”, but that doesn’t mean that in the public arena, that that view is or should be acceptable.

There is freedom of religion in this country. He can go to his church and say all Sunday morning long how deviant and sick and perverted gays are. The same holds true for anyone who has bigoted views of black people, or Jews. But, the line should be drawn when they bring those views into the public arena, where some of those people they represent are blacks, and gays, and Jews.

The same can be said of marriage. They want to claim the religious “sanctity” of marriage. Fine. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the fact that they don’t want to stop with that. They want to impose their religious beliefs into the state and federal systems, which just happens to grant benefits to state and federally sanctioned marriages. That’s wrong. As long as people like me pay taxes and abide by the law and do my best to be a good citizen, that’s wrong. I also find it repulsive that, for all the talk of saving marriage from the gays, there is precious little being said by these people concerning the prevention of divorce or adultery. In addition, in most every instance, these same people also want “civil unions” banned, which really makes one wonder about their sincerity of “saving marriage”, when “civil unions” and “marriages” are two entirely different things. THAT is a bigot.

He’s entitled to his beliefs, but the fact that he chose to bring his religious views to a public forum makes me uneasy that he can treat “deviants” in an impartial way. Let me put it this way....

If Senator Bill Frist was still practicing medicine, would you feel comfortable going to him as a patient if you were gay, after he just wasted a week of our country’s time trying to pass an U.S. constitutional amendment against marriage equality, knowing full well that it had a snow balls chance in hell of passing?

Slice it any way you want.... THAT is a bigot.

On my lunch break, I often go down to the Connecticut River. It’s just across the road from where I work - just over the levee. It’s nice over there, although the river is so high that the water comes right up to the parking lot.

As I sit and eat lunch, I often listen to the news, just to see if we’ve bombed Iran or Korea yet. Often, it’s the same dribble... Republicans hate Democrats.... everyone hates Karl Rove... yada yada yada....

Nothing usually gets my attention. But today, one correspondent said something that got my attention. I’ll try to paraphrase it.

He said, “One thing is clear. The United States has clearly changed it’s goal in Iraq. Now, we are no longer trying to defeat the insurgents. Now, we are trying to get the country in a stable enough condition that we can hand it over to an Iraqi government that will hopefully be able to control it, and will hopefully be tolerant to all the people of Iraq. We (the United States) have come to the conclusion that the day-to-day bombings are going to be a regular occurrence and are not going to go away anytime soon. The best we can hope for is to try to restore power to people for more than one hour a day, and basic services.”

The November elections are coming. After everything this president has put our country through, I would like to think that he’s not going to cut and run now. I would like to think that the lives of our soldiers lost have not been thrown away and lost for nothing.

When I talk about an exit strategy for our troops, I’m talking about one that works. I’m less interested in coming up with a date that we will be out. I’m much more interested in doing what we have to do now to at least give the government a fighting chance for long-time survival. We did this to them after all. Do we not have an obligation to see it through?

Or, better yet, not fabricate a war and go there in the first place - but that decision has been made for us. We are beyond that now. President George W. Bush once said, “The Command In Chief must not waver!” Well, if there was a time when he should listen to his own advice, this is it. He shouldn’t waver on this, other than coming up WITH A PLAN ALREADY!

Bush, on his second trip to Baghdad since the 2003 US-led invasion, was boosted by last week’s killing of Zarqawi but he warned of further violence.

“There are going to be tough days ahead, and more sacrifice for Americans, as well as Iraqis,” he said during his five-hour unannounced visit.

“But I come here - come away from here believing that the will is strong and the desire to meet the needs of the people is real and tangible.” [...]

“There is the worry almost to the person that we will leave before they are capable of defending themselves and I assured them they didn’t need to worry,” Bush told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One on the way home.

“They are deeply concerned that the stability provided by our coalition forces will be removed and there will be a vacuum and they’re concerned about what goes into the vacuum and I can understand that concern,” Bush said. (source)

And my favorite....

“And it’s in our interests that Iraq succeed. ... And when Iraq succeeds in having a government of and for and by the people of Iraq, you will have dealt a serious blow to those who have a vision of darkness, who don’t believe in liberty, who are willing to kill the innocent in order to achieve a political objective.” (source) - Highlighting, my own.

Words. Just words, all wrapped up in political rhetoric, signifying nothing! Absolutely nothing. He still doesn’t understand the culture of the region. He uses American concepts of freedom such as having a government of and for and by the people, as though that will work in Iraq. Tell that to the gay people in Iraq who are being executed right now - today, as our troops do nothing! A couple of weeks ago, a gay asylum seeker asked our troops for protection because he was a homosexual. They laughed at him and turned him away. Days later, he was executed. As one gay Iraqi put it, “But, when we go to the Americans, they laugh at us and don’t do anything. The Americans are the problem!”

The President’s concept of our way of government has worked well for us. It’s a noble concept. It sounds good, except for the fact that it hasn’t always worked very well for America either. Under those words, we’ve had slavery, lack of equality for women and minorities, and even today, we have a government that falls far short of being a representative government for the people. It is a government of special interests, political games and cover ups, and the outright breaking of laws. This is the best we can do for Iraq?

And after all of this grand standing (it reminds me of when Bush stood on the aircraft carrier and announced, “Mission Accomplished!”), the fact remains that since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, nearly 2,500 of our soldiers have died, along with tens of thousands of Iraqis. And, the ONLY safe and secured place in Iraq is the “Green Zone”. It’s not a big place. It’s heavily fortified and the only safe place that the President could enter - and then only at night in an unmarked Black Hawk helicopter that came in completely unannounced. He came, he spoke, he left.

And we are still no further ahead in how we are going to get out of this mess. This was nothing more that a scheme to try to boost his sagging-by-the-day poll numbers. Will it work? Well, it didn’t work with the troops in Iraq. According to the news last night, Bush is not very popular in Iraq among our troops. Can you blame them? I listened to his speech to them last night. He is either the worst spokesperson I’ve ever seen (which is highly possible), or his words were scripted and insincere (which is highly possible). Whatever the case, the troops didn’t buy them. Why should they?

But another cause of the current chaos may be traced to the blunders committed by Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and other policy makers after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime three years ago. That history had to be in the minds of Iraqis yesterday when Bush told Maliki, “I have come to not only look you in the eye; I have also come to tell you that when America gives its word, it will keep its word.”

Presumably, Bush was saying Iraqis can trust his administration not to abandon them prematurely. But Iraqis have had to live with the chain of disasters traceable to an attitude Rumsfeld expressed when he responded to an ominous outbreak of postwar looting by saying glibly: “Stuff happens.” [...]

If Bush is serious about finding the right policy balance for Iraq, he will order an end to petty and divisive political tricks. (source)

Well, it’s true - America has never broken a promise to anyone, right? We are always truthful and righteous in our cause. And don’t forget, God is always on our side because we are “one nation, under God”. And Rumsfeld is right, “stuff happens”, and pigs fly, and elephants are purple, and Karl Rove is innocent. But one would hope that we can do a little better than that. And one would hope that the future of Iraq has more to hang on too than a politically charged trip of our President in a surprise visit to Iraq.

If the President can’t do better than that, any traction that he gets in his poll numbers will be just a bleep on the political polling screen.

Two Issues Today...

Rove won’t be charged in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Top White House aide Karl Rove has been told by prosecutors he won’t be charged with any crimes in the investigation into leak of a CIA officer’s identity, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Attorney Robert Luskin said that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald informed him of the decision on Monday, ending months of speculation about the fate of one of President Bush’s closest advisers. Rove testified five times before a grand jury.

Fitzgerald has already secured a criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

“On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove,” Luskin said in a statement. (source)

Is anyone surprised by this? This Administration does whatever it is they want to do. They get away with torturing people, lying their way into war, scapegoating one group against the other for political purposes, spying on us without warrants, and breaking laws left and right because the President just decides too, and nobody challenges him. In the end, no one will be held accountable.

Sen. Arlen Specter has also introduced a bill that would “grant blanket amnesty to anyone who authorized warrantless surveillance under presidential authority, a provision that seems to ensure that no one would be held criminally liable if the current program is found illegal under present law.” Nice, huh?

Kids Who Flirt With Danger... or... Parents, Start Parenting!

She is an honor student from a small town in Michigan. He calls himself Abdullah Psycho.

They found love on the Internet and it became an international incident -- a spectacular example of what experts say is fast becoming a modern twist to an age-old problem of young girls, older men and bad decisions. Nationwide, Web enticement cases have quadrupled in recent months, according to a national group that tracks such incidents. [...]

She wanted to meet a man with the ominous nickname, believed to be 25, whom she met on the popular Web site MySpace.com. Instead, FBI agents tracked her down Thursday during a layover in Amman, Jordan, and persuaded her to return to her bewildered family.

“Evidently, she’s in love with this man. That’s what she said,” said family attorney Renee Wood, during a press conference Monday on the steps of the Tuscola County Courthouse in Michigan’s Thumb. [...]

Shehan said MySpace doesn’t appear to have any liability in the case. In fact, he praised the site for adding a link to his group’s hot line in the past two months and working with law enforcement on enticement cases. (source)

It amazes me how people let their kids on the Internet without knowing anything about what they are doing. I suppose to the parents, it’s the same as giving your son or daughter $50 and telling them to go to the mall for an afternoon with their friends. I have known people who have done that many times. So why is it that we are so concerned that they now do the same thing with the Internet.

I guess I’m amazed at parents who do this because you have to be stupid in this day and age to believe that there are no bad people around. They are everywhere. A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine was robbed and killed just blocks away from where I work. I hear all the time about how someone met someone on the Internet and lucky for them, they walked away with disappointment that the picture displayed on the web didn’t match the person they met at the bar or restaurant. In some instances, these people make arrangements to meet their new on line friend at a hotel/motel room. That is so stupid, and if you don’t understand why that’s stupid, you might as well stop reading this now and go on to the next blog, because this is over your head.

My Space is no different than any other Internet service. They are merely providing a place for people to meet. They are not responsible when people take information from their site and do stupid things with it - such as meet a stranger in a non-public area that could turn out to be another Jeffrey Dahmer. The Internet is no different than that mall you send your kid off too. The only thing the Internet offers is some additional cover for these creeps to hide in.

Someone at work asked me how to keep their kid safe from the Internet. I told them, “Keep your kid off the Internet. And, if they must go on, have the computer in a common area in your house in clear view of what they are viewing or watching. If you pass by the computer and your kid quickly changes screens, they are up to no good!

Also, people are seldom what they say they are on the Internet. People lie. You should ALWAYS assume that people are lying to you on the Internet, until they prove otherwise. Which is why I hardly ever go on line for chat anymore. And when I do, I have it set up so that only my buddies (people I met first in “real life” and then talk to occassionally on the Internet) can see me. That keeps the creeps out. Yes, even I get unsolicited requests for sex or other scams from people who don’t even know me.

Parents, the Internet is a wonderful tool for information (there’s a lot of crap on here too), BUT, THE INTERNET IS NEVER A SAFE PLAYGROUND FOR YOUR KIDS!

Just more evidence that bigotry in this country against gay and lesbian citizens isn’t working any longer for self-righteous bigots who want to win votes from bigotry.

After the Senate’s rejection of the Marriage Protection Amendment Wednesday, supporters tried to portray it as nothing more than a temporary setback. “We are making progress,” announced Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, noting that since the last vote two years ago, 14 states have approved bans on same-sex marriage.

If this is progress, it’s on the order of a shipwreck survivor swimming toward the nearest island, 500 miles away: going in the right direction, but with no chance of getting there. All the leading indicators suggest that the smartest thing the amendment’s supporters could do is pack it in. [...]

Start with public attitudes, which are growing more and more favorable to gays and gay rights. The hard right thinks the citizenry absolutely detests “activist judges,” but when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stunning decision overturning state laws against sodomy in 2003, the public barely blinked.

In fact, 74 percent favored striking down such statutes. If Brownback and his allies think the public is with them on gay issues, where is the federal anti-sodomy amendment?

And finally, to me, the most telling of all...

Growing tolerance presents a huge obstacle to another cause of social conservatives. Earlier this year, they were trumpeting a multistate push to ban adoption by same-sex couples--to prevent homosexuals from “experimenting on children through gay adoption,” in the words of Russell Johnson, head of the Ohio Restoration Project.

It seemed a shrewd and logical follow-up to the state-by-state offensive against gay marriage. Since Florida was alone in explicitly outlawing adoptions by same-sex couples, the opponents of gay adoption thought they had a target-rich environment--not to mention a winning issue with voters.

But they had a little problem launching the campaign. Kent Markus, director of the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy at Capital University Law School in Ohio, says that in state after state, “it peeked above the surface and got knocked right back down. Nothing has gained any momentum anywhere in the United States.” (source)

I think what is the saddest and most pathetic concept in all of this is the need of the conservatives’ failure to understand us as people. They are more interested in getting the vote at all cost. And if that means they have to alienate a segment of the population from the rest and divide this nation on issues of equality, they seem to be very willing to do that.

The problem is, when everything is said and done, we have all lost. And eventually, these damaging laws that only serve to hurt people emotionally, psychologically, and patriotically (it’s hard to feel good about a country who thinks you are scum and at the center for the problem with our children and marriage today).

They point to the “gay agenda”. Our agenda is a simple one - equality. It always has been. Their agenda will not stop with marriage. They want it all, right down to the denial of adoption rights. At the heart of this debate are people, just like you and I. I recently read of a gay male couple who was able to be foster parents for a child who was born HIV positive. There were able to care for the child as foster parents because the child was “unplaceable” because of his HIV status. So, this gay couple were good enough to be foster parents to the child. They kept the child for nine years. Then the unbelievable happened. The child turned HIV negative. His body was able after years of medication and care, to rid itself of any detectable traces of the virus. Suddenly, the state wanted to take possession of the child again because he was now “placeable” in a “normal” home.

The only problem was that he had bonded with these two men and thought of them as his parents. They tried to adopt him to protect their family, and are still fighting. This happened in a state that had no laws against gay couples from adopting. However, because of this case, a bill was introduced in that state to prevent gay adoptions.

This is what the article referenced above addresses. Make no mistake about it - there is an agenda. Ours is one of equality and fairness. Their agenda is quite a bit less than that, and they know it. The question is, will straight Americans buy into it.

I guess we will see what happens in November.

I’m taking the day off today - call it a mental health day. After this week, I think I’ve earned it.

I haven’t posted many photos lately. My Nikon D70 camera died. It literally just quit working. I thought they lasted for years. I took it in to get it serviced and was told that it would cost $699 to send to Nikon for repairs. No matter what is wrong with it, it is a flat rate since we never bought the extended warranty program (we never do because we think they are basically rip offs). They also told me that I should be sending the camera in twice a year for “routine service”. That seems like a lot to me.

Anyway, we had two choices. We could either send the camera in for service, which could take up to 8 weeks to get back, or we could buy the D70s. The D70s replaced the D70 and is very similar to the camera. And it costs $700, about the same price as sending in my D70 for servicing.

We thought about what to do over cappuccino. We decided that sending the camera in for service wouldn’t work because if it did take up to eight weeks to get it back, I wouldn’t have the camera for our trip to Amsterdam and Denmark. The D70 and D70s are 6 mega pixel cameras. We started talking about upgrading to a different camera, the D200, with 10.2 mega pixels. But it cost around $1,600. We opted for that since this is the one serious hobby that we both enjoy. We also bought the three year service plan on this one. We are still learning the camera. It’s a very different configuration than the D70, but so far, it’s awesome. And, all my current lens work just fine with it.

Tonight, I’m meeting an old friend for a movie and dinner. I haven’t seen him in ten years. He’s a concert pianist and quite successful. We are going to the Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival to watch Guys And Balls (yes I know... I was also taken aback by the title - sounded like porn movie to me).

We are going to the movie first at 7:30, then off to dinner at 10:00 (very late dinner for me), but it should be fun. I’ll just pretend I’m in Paris, where they really do start eating dinner around 8-10 at night. We are going to Peppercorns Grill in Hartford.

There’s an interesting article over on Slate concerning gay marriage. Kent sent me the link this morning. I basically says (and I don’t want to dwell on this subject anymore) that the tactic of using this issue (gay marriage) again to garner votes will fail, for three reasons:

The first is the combination of cynicism and futility evident in the way Republicans are bringing the matter up now. In 2004, when Bush campaigned on the Federal Marriage Amendment and the Senate first considered the matter (which fell short by a wide margin), there was at least a news hook. [...] But since 2004, the momentum has been thwarted (though pending court decisions in Washington state, New York, and New Jersey have the potential to revive it). The San Francisco couples were ruled not legally married by the California State Supreme Court. [...] Two years later, 45 states have passed laws prohibiting gay marriage and Massachusetts remains the only place where it is legal. After Bush’s re-election, Republicans simply blew off the issue—to the great dismay of leaders on the religious right, a few of whom indicated that they felt taken advantage of.

A second reason the issue won’t work again is that Democrats have by now figured out how to handle the issue. It is reasonable to assume that a great many of them would, in their heart of hearts, like to see gay marriage legalized. But they recognize that pressing the case nationally is likely to set back the cause as well as their prospects for retaking Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. So, Democrats have honed their talking points on the subject: Marriage should be an issue for states (the federalist position usually espoused by Republicans); the amendment is discriminatory and would also ban civil unions ... and why tinker unnecessarily with the Constitution, especially while the Defense of Marriage Act is in force?

The third reason gay marriage will fail as an issue is that Bush is bucking the tide of history. The past two decades have seen a quiet revolution in attitudes toward homosexuality throughout the West. People in advanced democracies around the world are growing more accepting of gay unions by the year.

I think it’s all true. The political climate on this issue has changed in a very short period of time. I suppose I’ve relaxed a bit on the issue, on a personal level, because I know that time is on our side on this issue. I am 100% certain that gay marriage will happen. I don’t believe I will live to see the day that the federal government will treat it equally to heterosexual marriage, but I could be wrong. I do expect to see a splattering of states around the country allowing civil unions with full marriage benefits (to the extent a state can offer benefits) before I leave this Earth. Unfortunately, all the really important protections that carry the most weight are at the federal level.

But aside from my predictions of history, what I thought would happen, did happen. On Monday, the President addressed the nation on this most important issue, as did the Senate. All other business in the nation came to a halt, as if we had nothing else to worry about. The very next day, the President had moved on to immigration as though Monday never happened, leaving the Senate to be left behind with an issue that has been rated # 33 on the list of concerns for average Americans.

After that, the backlash started in the press, and blogs like this one, across the country. And talk radio is having a field day with this, and not in a good way for the Republicans. They are now seen as a party who just doesn’t get it and a party who is just pandering for votes on this one issue (let’s call it desperation).

It’s time the administration called off its marriage-discrimination crusade. The Senate won’t go there, Mr. President. It’s also time to stop using the issue to divert attention from Iraq, deficits and so many other mistakes. (source)

But something did happen this morning that is good news for all of us - the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This will boost the morale of our troops in Iraq, as well it should. But there are other young terrorists who are just itching to take his place, and they will. Still, this is a blow to the tide of violence. Why? Because the tips that we received on the location of al-Zarqawi didn’t come from our intelligence. They came from ordinary Iraqis who are growing tired of the day to day violence against innocent Iraqi civilians.

On my way to work this morning, I listened to President Bush’s address on this news. It was a short speech and only addressed the death of al-Zarqawi. But one thing I did notice in the President’s speech was his lack of the phrase, “...this is a turning point...”. He’s used that before - many times, to bolster our efforts in Iraq. Perhaps he’s learning to stop using catch phrases that can eventually bite him in the ass. Perhaps he’s learning to stay to script and not waiver from that script.

Short speeches from him are nice. The less I must hear his voice, the happier I am.

Macy’s killed their gay pride display. For those of you who don’t know it, June is Gay Pride Month. I got a kick out of this. I don’t know why it struck my funny bone.

“They were male mannequins with enlarged breasts, and one was wearing a skirt,” said MassResistance president Brian Camenker, referring to the gay pride flag wrapped around one figure, cinched with a white belt. “It was really disgusting.” (source)

Enlarged breasts?? That would probably disturb me on a mannequin also.

It seems that we have moved on from bashing gay couples for all the ills of marriage, to illegal aliens, or some other topic. At least, that is my hope after today. The Senate is scheduled to vote today on the amendment to “protect” marriage from gays. If you ask me, if they really want to protect marriage, how about an amendment that makes it illegal to divorce. Or an amendment that states that if you have married and divorced, you can’t re-marry?

It’s funny in a way to see people all worked up about this. It’s ridiculous to think that with everything else going on, they are focusing on this. They look like total fools. This is what Lou Dobbs said about them this morning.

It’s clear that cynical, patronizing White House political strategists are trying to rally a conservative base that they believe is more base than conservative. They’re wrong on all counts.

We’re fighting a war against radical Islamist terrorists with ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re drowning in debt from our growing record trade and budget deficits and we’re watching our public education system fail a generation of students. Congress has yet to act on an effective solution to our illegal immigration crisis as millions of illegal aliens flood our borders every year, and our nation’s borders and ports are still woefully insecure, four and a half years after the September 11 attacks. [...]

The president and the Senate are focusing on one of the few reasons that has not been proven to cause divorce. They instead should look to financial hardships, and the lack of communication about family finances. The median family income is stagnating while gasoline costs and higher interest rates are eating up the family budget. (source)

This too shall pass. Personally, it has brought me down somewhat. But hell, I’ll get over it. The frustrating thing for me is that if they would just stop to learn about the people they are so dedicated to damning, they may just find out that we are of no threat at all. We are just everyday people, like they are. Except, we, unlike them, really are concerned about all the other problems facing our country.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s a good sign that they are concentrating so heavily on this issue because it just shows how disparate and scared they are. I also think it’s funny to observe the President in all of this. On Monday, he came out in favor of passing a constitutional amendment. After that, nothing, nada, not one word. The very next day, it was back to “securing our borders” yada yada yada...

At least, most people seem to see this for what it is, pure politics. One more thing caught my eye.

Senate Democrats, all of whom except Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska oppose the amendment, say the debate is a divisive political ploy.

“The Republican leadership is asking us to spend time writing bigotry into the Constitution,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose state legalized gay marriage in 2003. “A vote for it is a vote against civil unions, against domestic partnership, against all other efforts for states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law.”

Hatch responded: “Does he really want to suggest that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?” (source)

In response to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), I’d like to answer his question. Yes Senator Hatch, I really do believe that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots, including you. I’m tired of hearing rhetoric about, “I have nothing against gay people...” bullshit. That’s pure crap, sir, and you know it.

Deeds speak louder than words, and your deeds have shown the level of bigotry you and your Senate buddies have for this segment of society. But that’s fine. History will be your judge, just like it judged countless people who were against letting blacks into the military, allowing interracial marriage, and those who fought against the end of segregation.

History is much less tolerant than I am.

FINALLY.....

This just in... The amendment failed to pass the U.S. Senate on a vote this morning.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A constitutional ban on same-sex marriage failed to pass the U.S. Senate on Wednesday but Republican leaders planned to take it up in the House, keeping a national spotlight on the divisive issue.

The 49 to 48 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to end debate, thwarting President George W. Bush and the mostly Republican senators who argued that the Constitution must be amended to prevent judges from striking down existing state-level bans on gay marriage. (source)

Now can we move on?

I’m listening to the Air from the Holberg Suite, by Edvard Greig. God, it’s quite unbelievable and beautiful. And as I listen to it, I can close my eyes and see myself in my college orchestra performing this work years ago with my teacher, Walter Cerveny, conducting the college orchestra.

I miss magical moments like that. I miss Dr. Gabbard, who always had kind words of encouragement for me when I was down (which seemed to be a lot in those days). He taught me that life was music and music was life. It’s true. Horror and beauty can be found in both.

Walter and Dr. G. are both gone now, and I miss them both, but they are etched vividly in my memory - word for word - action for action.

Today’s a difficult day for me. I’ve isolated myself with beautiful things. I’m getting a lot done at work, but I’ve also isolated myself with earphones that completely shut out the world. So now, I’m listening to the second movement from the Ninth Symphony of Antonin Dvorak with that beautiful English horn solo. Yeah, nothing but beautiful things for me today.

Tonight, when I go home, I’m going to take a photo of the wild flowers out in front of our home. They are nice now. All the darkness of the rain we’ve had the last week has made much beauty.

I don’t know why such memories come back to me, but they seem to come back to me when I need them most.

I got a chuckle out of this and just thought I’d share it.

2:00 -- “ACTIVIST JUDGES!” If DoMA is overturned, EVERY STATE WILL HAVE TO RECOGNIZE MARRIAGES FROM MASSACHUSETTS AND SAN FRANCISCO!

He’s getting into it! He’s excited again, banging the podium. Civics lesson time. How does an amendment get ratified? First, you need a demagogue.

“Every American deserves to be treated with tolerance, respect, and dignity.” Give or take 10%. But hell, let’s just agree with him about the constitutional amendment thing being the most Democratic way to solve the HOMO LOVE CRISIS. Once it fails miserably in the Senate, will it PLEASE GO AWAY FOREVER? THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN. (source)

Source for cartoon

WASHINGTON Jun 5, 2006 (AP) -- President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives. [...]

“A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry pure and simple,” said Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, where the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriages in 2003.

Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, which in 2004 began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, on Monday denounced Bush’s move as predictable and “stale rhetoric” aimed at rallying conservatives for this year’s midterm elections.

“It’s politics. It’s pandering and it’s placating a core constituency, the evangelicals,” Newsom said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” (source)

I’m told that this amendment has a snowballs chance in hell of passing, so I’m not really worried about it. I’m more disgusted than anything else. They want to leave this issue to the states to form “civil unions”, or not (preferably, give us no recognition what so ever).

The real issue is, therefore, if they really feel that way, perhaps we should embrace the notion that separate but equal is what our country should be about. Perhaps we should revisit...
blacks joining the military
and after we let blacks into the military, if it was a good idea that they were finally allowed to integrated into the “white” units because it was feared that it would have a negative effect on “unit cohesion” (sound familiar?)
the right of women to vote
Brown vs. Board of Education
interracial marriage (Loving vs. Virginia)
and of course, abortion
and while we’re at it, hell, why not slavery? At the time, we would have kept that by a popular vote!

And no, I’m not talking out of both sides of my mouth here. When I said I am no longer going to fight them on this issue, I meant that. I just hate hypocrisy and that is what I’m trying to address.

And, I find it ironic and sad that our President has picked this day to use his office to advance bigotry. On June 5, 1981, twenty-five years ago today, U.S. public health officials reported the first known cases of a disease that would come to be called AIDS.

Related Article
June 4, 2006 - Dividing A Nation

But like so much else in contemporary politics, the Senate vote isn’t designed to produce a law; it’s intended to pick a fight. The White House and Senate GOP leadership are betting that a noisy confrontation over gay marriage will encourage turnout this November from conservative voters -- many of whom, polls show, are discouraged over President Bush’s second term.

That strategy may help Republicans in some red states this year. But it could also deepen the image of intolerance hurting the GOP in many white-collar suburbs outside the South. Either way, these near-term, tactical calculations don’t represent the most important political consequence: Both parties may pay a long-term price if manufactured cultural clashes such as the gay marriage amendment continue to control the spotlight. (source)

I told a friend at work last week that I’m tired of this fight. They have managed to wear me down to the point that the right to marry my partner is no longer worth the fight for me - not when there are so many more important issues facing this nation.

This is not easy for me to say. I call being able to be married a “right”, because there are over 1500 federal rights associated with it. That makes it more than just symbolic. So, people like me have a lot to lose when I give up on this fight.

But to people like President George W. Bush, it actually means less to him. It meant so much to him, that he used it in the last presidential election to get his conservative base to the polls to vote to reelect his sorry ass back into the presidency. It meant so much to him that after he was re-elected, he completely dropped the issue altogether - until now.

Tomorrow, he will give a speech on how we must protect marriage from the gays - the same sorry, warmed over argument, all over again. I say we completely ignore the fool. Let him and his party show their intolerance and hatred for what it is. And let us concentrate on the larger issues that are real to most people, and to us, since our president and Senator Frist are apparently unable to do that.

Will their tactic work again? Will it manage to drive the conservative base back to the polls even after they were betrayed last time? Well, nothing would surprise me. In this country, most people do not vote. And of those who do vote, 90% of them are not well read on the issues. They pull the lever without ever really knowing what they are voting for. They vote largely on what people have told them are “bad”. They do not vote on facts, they vote on emotions, and they certainly don’t stop to think about the unfortunate consequences about passing a state constitutional amendment banning all relationships in law, outside of “marriage”. They never stop to think that it may just effect them, and that would be “bad”, because they aren’t in the minority group du jour that is being bashed. Even some from conservative groups can see this for what it is.

GEORGE Bush is facing escalating crises in Iraq, an out-of-control budget deficit and a slumping approval rating down to about 30 per cent.

So this week the President is focusing the nation’s attention on the problem of greatest concern to his social conservative supporters -- many of whom are pathologically obsessed with the threat posed to American values by homosexuals. [...]

The debate will drag on for most of the week before it’s defeated in the Senate, with most senators wishing that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, with his 2008 presidential ambitions in mind, had not insisted on this debate.

Will this cynical and hopeless political exercise give Bush a boost with his conservative base? Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network, is an anti-gay marriage lobbyist who remains sceptical.

“I’m going to go and hear what he says, but we already know it’s a ruse,” Glover said. “We’re not buying it.” (source)

So it is in our country. The larger issue is not gay marriage. It is the idea that a group of people - any group - can be singled out and demonized for what is wrong with this country, thereby distracting people from the real cause of the problem.

The real cause of these problems stems from a President, and a Congress who would rather cause a distraction than admit that they are out of answers for our country.

They have no idea what to do about gas prices in this country. They have no idea what heating costs are going to be for Americans next winter or how to have any control over that. They have no idea what we will do if another natural disaster strikes. They have no idea what to do about Iraq. So they appeal back to their base with “flag burning” and “gay marriage”. It’s like standing in your house while it’s on fire. As the flames approach you, you are standing in your TV room trying to figure out why your video recorder isn’t working the way it should.

Meanwhile, our men and women in Iraq are doing their best with what they have. What they have to answer to is a government who puts such issues as gay marriage above that of them and their brothers in combat.

Disgraceful.

This is why I’ve decided to move on. I rarely look at the gay marriage debate anymore because I now see it for what it is - a tool to help religious fanatics that want control of this country. That will only work if people like me fight them. Without me, they will have nothing to fight. And at the end of the day, when the smoke clears, what we will see is a group of self-righteous bigots who care nothing for our country, or what is going on in the real world.

Hopefully, President George W. Bush, Senator Bill Frist, et. al., will be standing right there with the pathetic lot of them.

The Bush administration, heavily influence by the Christian right, is blocking key proposals for a new United Nations package to combat AIDS worldwide over the next five years because of its opposition to the distribution of condoms and needle exchanges and references to prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals.

The United States is being supported by many Muslim countries, including Egypt, and various conservative African and Latin American nations. “There are a lot of unholy alliances all over the place,” said a European official attending UN talks in New York last night.

Fraught negotiations were continuing to try to salvage as much of the package as possible. More than 140 nations are attending the UN summit in New York which began on Wednesday. The meeting is intended to update a 2001 declaration that provided the momentum for a worldwide campaign against AIDS. A new declaration is due to be agreed today.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, told the summit: “The world has been unconscionably slow in meeting one of the most vital aspects of the struggle: measures to fight the spread of AIDS among women and girls. These shortcomings are deadly.” (source)

You know the thing that bothers me most about my country today? It isn’t that we have so many points of view that disagree with each other. That is after all, democracy. What bothers me is that our elected officials have been bought out by religion. They are being pimped out by the Christian Right. That’s a good analogy. They Christian Right pays them larges sums of money, mobilizes their forces to keep these bastards in office, then turns around and says to them, “Now, go earn me some money, bitch!”, read, vote the way I want you to vote! And that is when we stopped being a democracy.

Without a cure for AIDS, we’ve come to a point where we won’t even recommend the one thing that has been the most effective weapon against AIDS to date - the condom (pictured left... hey, if it embarasses you to look at it, you can’t talk about it to those who need it, and if an older Jewish lady such as Dr. Ruth can come on national TV and say, “The vagina can accommodate any penis size.”, I think we can talk about condoms, right?). Why is the United States trying to block the use of condoms? Because the religious fanatics don’t believe in the use of condoms.

We are beyond that. I would think that millions of people dying, and millions more being infected each year, would trump their fear of a simple piece of latex material to be placed over a penis prior to sex. That’s just logic and you would think that we could see that.

The same holds true for clean needle exchange. They would say that we are encouraging drug use. Folks, the drug use is already going on and if you know anything about drug addiction, you can’t tell someone that they can’t shoot up because you refuse to give them a clean needle. They will simply find another needle, and they won’t be picky about how clean it is or how many have already used that needle, because their craving for their fix outweighs all other considerations.

The answer, give them a clean and safe needle to shoot up with. Then, deal with the drug addiction problem separately, because that really is a separate (and bigger) issue. At least, they will be alive.

Why can’t my government see this? It’s simple logic. It would attack the disease directly in the absence of a cure against AIDS.

Luckily, my community, who was largely outcast already by the religious creeps driving this, had little problem tell them to go screw themselves. We distributed condoms all over the place. We did the same thing with clean needle exchange programs, and where that wasn’t possible, we distributed bleach to drug users and taught them how to sterilize their needles before drug use.

These are drastic times. People are dying of AIDS, and they don’t need to. For our government to buy into this religiously motivated bullshit is.... GENOCIDE.

The USA is rejecting gay, black and poor communities in its response to AIDs, according to a health watchdog.

The report, published by the Public Health Watch HIV/AIDS Monitoring Project of the Open Society Institute (OSI), provides the first comprehensive analysis of how the United States is responding to the domestic AIDS epidemic and calls on the US government to step up prevention and treatment efforts.

It claims US efforts against the disease are uncoordinated, with no national plan for comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, and support, half the people in the US who need HIV treatment are not receiving it, and the number of new HIV infections in the US has not decreased in over a decade.

The document also highlights a lack of support for communities of colour, gay men and men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and the poor. (source) Emphasis, my own

Well, I honestly don’t know when the United States was EVER coordinated (or cared) about it’s citizens with HIV/AIDS, so I guess I’m at a bit of a loss to understand why this story is news.

But, on other issues, we are fully coordinated.

HURRICANE KATRINA
I mean, we handled Katrina pretty well, didn’t we? We got to those people in weeks and helped them out. And now, a few nightclubs are open and doing business with the hundreds that have come back into the city. As for the people who’s homes were destroyed, the government has concluded that many of those homes weren’t that good anyway (no need to rebuild).

IRAQ
Things couldn’t be better. We are were going to pull troops out pulling troops out of Iraq until just a week or so ago, when we order 1500 more in to try to control the insurgents. And these massacres that we keep hearing about in the news is just a “few bad apples”, but the President is “very concerned” about it all, and will coordinate with “others” to bring that under control. AND, we do have an exit strategy and always have (that was coordinated also). It’s just that it’s highly classified information and we will know what it is when we need to know.

GAY MARRIAGE AND FLAG BURNING
I’m not sure how those two got lumped together as the two top concerns that Congress is going to tackle next week, but you can rest assured that this is a coordinated effort to bring both of those under control. Maybe most flag burners are gay and want to get married? I don’t know. I don’t have those secret “intelligence reports” that Bill Frist and the President has, BUT, they are both coordinated!

PRICE OF GAS
Not a priority at this time because even though we citizens are paying over $3 per gallon of gas, it’s going to the oil companies and that’s eventually going to “trickle down” to ... us, I think. At any rate, the President is “very concerned” about that too and just working and thinking (he likes to think a lot) about a way to coordinate it. I have faith that he will deliver relief with Katrina-like speed!

NATIONAL SECURITY
On my way to work this morning, they said that the Office of Homeland Security is pulling funds from areas at high risk of being attacked. Washington, D.C., and New York City will have about 40% of their funding cut. They say that they want to “direct larger chunks of money to high-risk cities, rather than less obvious targets.” I would think that Washington, D.C. and New York City are both obvious targets, but apparently not true. It seems that Omaha, Nebraska and Milwaukee, Wisconsin are bigger targets. Needless to say, this is all coordinated.

HIV / AIDS
We, as a country, are coordinated on this -- we simply don't care for “those people”. Let’s be honest about it and stop saying that “everything that can be done is being done”. Oh please. (related story)

So, we are coordinated. This accusation that our country doesn’t have it’s crap together is greatly exaggerated (and uncoordinated).

IN THE LATEST “X-Men” movie, the humans discover a “cure” for the mutant “X gene,” and the mutants find themselves at war among themselves over whether to take the bait.

The analogy to homosexuality isn’t lost on us gay viewers, since we’ve all probably thought about whether we’d take “the cure,” if there ever were such a thing. Of course the politically correct answer for any well-adjusted, self-respecting homo is that our sexual orientation isn’t an illness to be “cured,” anymore than heterosexuality would be.

That’s certainly what our X-Men heroes would have us believe. The reality, on the other hand, is much messier.

Who among us hasn’t explained our lives to a straight friend or family member by arguing we didn’t choose to be gay. “After all,” we say, “who would choose a life of disapproval and rejection from society?”

So if we wouldn’t have chosen to be gay at the outset, why would we choose to remain gay if the “cure” were at hand? (source)

I read this interesting article by Chris Crane on the Washington Blade. It reflects much of my feelings and concerns about all the research going on today to find the gene (or gene sequence) that makes someone gay. Interesting from a research point of view, I suppose, but of course I know where it would go if they actually did accomplish their task. I’m told by people who are geneticists by profession that it would be practically impossible to isolate all the variables into any kind of formula that could be applied. So, I guess I will breath easier on this.

But, the question is, if they did develop a “cure” for being gay - something that would turn me into a straight heterosexual man (as if that is the “ideal” thing to be), would I do it?

When I was a 14 year old boy, praying to God to make me “normal”, I would have obviously taken such a cure. Then came the beatings, the gay bashings of high school years, earning my way into the time honored societal tradition of placing me into the “fucking queer” category, and all the other stuff that you learn in high school.

Then of course, the 1980’s when AIDS took most of my friends. More of us than not, who are gay, knows what that was like. And today, more straights than not knows someone who has AIDS or who has died of AIDS. But for me, it’s a toss up of what was more difficult for me -- losing my friends to AIDS, or having to face a society that basically said, “LET THEM DIE”, “I DON’T WANT MY TAX DOLLARS SPENT FOR PREVENTING AIDS FOR QUEERS”, and others. Yes, I remember those being said vividly. But wait, I am an American. We were dying. I thought that is what we do - we help each other. What a lesson that was to learn. From all of this, I learned these things...

1) You are what you are. Get used to it.
2) People hate you. If you can survive, do it, and get used to it.
3) If you get sick, people will let you die for being queer. Get used to it.
4) If your friends get sick, you take care of them because no one else will. Get used to it.
5) American idealism of helping others is SHIT. Get used to it.
6) You are gay. Others are gay. Form a community and find support from them. They are your friends. They are the only people you can count on. Get used to it.
7) Society hates you and if they can’t cure you with drugs, intimidation, terror, and death, we have to adapt to being hated, and SURVIVE. Get used to it.
8) Never forget your friends who have passed, most who had only you at their side when they died because their family disowned them. They are your family.
9) WATER is thicker than BLOOD!!!

I’ve gotten used to it.

In fact, I’m so used to it, that I wouldn’t begin to know what it’s like to be fully accepted as a gay man. I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be able to hold Kent’s hand in public and have people say “hello” to us warmly -- they usually look the other way in disgust, or call us “faggots”, and go on their merry self-righteous way. And no, I'm not bitching about it - I got used to it. I wouldn’t begin to know how to be a straight man. Kent and I would separate (I guess) because we would be straight, but what the hell would I do with a woman? I guess I would have to learn, but I guess that’s what The Joy Of Sex is for, right?

But beyond all of that, I wouldn’t choose to be straight, because being gay has shown me some remarkable people who are the bravest and most loving people in the world. It has shown me that as gay people, we have each other, even though we don’t always agree. It has shown me the true meaning of “family”. And, my hope is, that as time goes on, it will be perfectly ok for us to be gay, have our relationships recognized, and not have to worry about judgment.

For me, I think that is too late. I’m used to the hard realities of adversity. Hopefully, future generations of gay people (if they don’t “cure” them), will grow up in a world that loves them FOR WHAT THEY ARE, not in spite of what they are.

“Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from human haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” - William Shakespeare, As You Like it, Act II