Miscellaneous: February 2006 Archives

What’s the world coming to? Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay apparently are using gay porn as a means of torture to prisoners. There are so many things wrong with this, I don’t know where to begin. First, it’s demeaning that gay porn would be repulsive enough to people to be considered as a tactic to obtain information. Although, I suppose that some will say they are repulsed by it.... whatever.

Second, the fact that our interregators would even think to use it is weird. I guess that speaks volumes on their feelings of gays.

Third, yeah... this makes me proud to be an American.

Fourth, what are the titles? If they are that bad, I want them!

FBI objected to prisoner treatment at Guantanamo

FBI agents complained of “aggressive techniques” used to interrogate suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to FBI documents released Thursday. One agent said he saw military interrogators force a detainee to watch “homosexual porn movies” and used strobe lights to cause discomfort in the interrogation room. Agents complained that such methods could “result in the elicitation of unreliable and legally inadmissible information.” (source)

Former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan remains convinced the bisexual scenes in his new movie The Matador should stay cut - despite the outstanding success of gay cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain.

Brosnan, who almost backed out of the role altogether after suffering a confidence crisis, and his wife Keely Shaye Smith were both concerned the original script contained too many overtly gay sexual scenes before the actor decided to make some changes. (source)

I never understood the insecurity of some people. If I were an actor, even though I’m gay, I would have no problem what so ever playing a straight part and being convincing in the role. If you can’t take the [gay] heat, maybe you shouldn’t be an actor?

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.

The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.

The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.

But Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was the tie-breaking vote, retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Abortion had been a major focus in the fight over Alito’s nomination because justices serve for life and he will surely help shape the court on abortion and other issues for the next generation.

Alito, in his rulings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, has been more willing than O’Connor, the first woman justice, to allow restrictions on abortions, which were legalized in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. (source)

Gee, and I thought it would take them a bit longer to start dismantling Roe v. Wade. They should at least let more time go by to make it look like it was just another bit of legislation they were looking at. It looks as if they just couldn’t wait to get their hands on it.

It all reminds me of the Star Trek movie I saw a few years ago where the Borg take over the Enterprise. In their assimilation of the Enterprise (read: Roberts and Alito, and the Bush Administration placing “activist judges” on the court to do their bidding), the Borg stopped at “deck 16”. The Klingon Worfe states, “The Borg would not have stopped at deck 16 unless it gave them a tactical advantage.” Captain Jean Luke Picard says under his breath, “The Borg won’t stop at deck 16.”

And so it goes. The Supreme Court will not stop at Roe v. Wade. They will take bits and pieces of it away until all that is left is an empty shell, filled with words that mean nothing, and have no legal authority to do anything.

And so it will be with other pieces of legislation that will come before this court. And if anything like gay marriage equality comes before this court, it will be dead on arrival, assuming they will even hear the case. They will argue it away in some fashion. This is what we have all allowed to happen. These are the people who we put into Congress to give that “up or down vote” of the people who now sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Democracy is working!

As the Angel Gabriel said to John Constantine in the movie Constantine, “Your fucked!”

...wondering if I watch just a bit too many movies.

This reminded me of our current neighbors. I took a bottle of wine over to them as a welcome gift to our neighborhood when they moved to the house next to us. Instead of a friendly neighbor, I was confronted by someone who pulled his kids in behind him, looked at me like I was a child molester (oh, he took the wine), and said nothing else to me.

This all left me so uncomfortable that I backed away never taking my eyes off of him (he was cutting wood with an ax). Today, we don’t talk. If his home happened to catch fire, I would call the fire department... when I got around to it. But there’s no way in hell I’m going to shovel the bastard’s driveway.

DEAR AMY:
My husband and I have lived in our quiet suburban Denver neighborhood for six years.

About two years ago, two young gay men moved in across the street. They’ve taken the ugliest, most rundown property in the neighborhood and remodeled and transformed it into the pride of the street. When it snows, they shovel out my car and are friendly, yet they mostly keep to themselves.

Last month I went out to retrieve my newspaper and watched them kiss each other goodbye and embrace as they each left for work. I was appalled that they would do something like that in plain view of everyone. I was so disturbed that I spoke to my pastor. He encouraged me to draft a letter, telling them how much we appreciate their help but asking them to refrain from that behavior in our neighborhood. I did so and asked a few of our neighbors to sign it.

Since I delivered it, I’ve not been able to get them to even engage me in conversation. I offer greetings but they’ve chosen to ignore me. They have made it so uncomfortable for the other neighbors and me by not even acknowledging our presence.

How would you suggest we open communications with them and explain to them that we value their contributions to the neighborhood but will not tolerate watching unnatural and disturbing behavior.

Wondering

DEAR WONDERING:
You’re lucky that these gentlemen merely choose to ignore you.

Your neighbors could respond to your hospitality by hosting weekly outdoor “gay pride” barbecues and inviting all of their friends to enjoy life on your quiet suburban street. I can hold out hope that they will choose to do this, but I’m spiteful in that way. Your neighbors sound much more kind.

In your original petition to these men, you basically stated that while you value them when they are raising the standard on your street and shoveling your driveway, you loathe them for being who they are.

The only way to open communication with your neighbors would be to start by apologizing to them for engaging your other neighbors in your campaign. Because you don’t sound likely to apologize, you are just going to have to tolerate being ignored.

Source (some editing was done for display purposes only)

Aside from my home state of Idaho approving a state constitutional amendment against gay couples being able to obtain marriage, my week has been ok. Not the best week, but I decided last night that I’m not going to dwell on it anymore. The amendment will go before the Idaho voters in November. What will happen, will happen. I’m moving on.

And part of doing that is to think about the future. We may not have marriage, but hopefully we have protections in place that will hold up to challenges. Kent and I talked about this last night after we went to bed. You know, one of those conversations that you have after the lights go out and it’s so very quiet. I reminded Kent about the story of the couple in Oklahoma who had been together for 25 years. They had a farm together. In their years together, they raised four children, and 50 head of cattle. It was a dairy farm.

Then one day, one of them passed away. That was the beginning of their nightmare. They each had a will, leaving the surviving partner everything. But when a distant cousin challenged the will, the court invalidated the will, and the surviving partner lost everything.

That is what scares me because I’ve been told that there are members of my family who have a desire to do this. I won’t name names. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is my fear of lack of protection. So, the conversation that Kent and I had last night was just that - how safe are we, given that we are unable to obtain marriage, and that we do each have wills leaving each other everything we have.

He said that the will was overturned because it happened in Oklahoma, a very conservative state. His opinion is that this would never happen in liberal Connecticut. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m basically in a position of trusting a judge that I don’t even know, and who doesn’t know me. Our wills are very clear, but will they be honored? Whoever challenges the will would have to come to Connecticut to make such a challenge.

I don’t know if I am over worrying or not. I suppose it’s a mute point. If it becomes a problem for Kent, I will be dead. I don’t believe I would have the same problem with anyone from Kent’s side of the family. I hate the fact that I even have to spend time worrying about this. But, I’ve heard so many horrible things that have happened to people. I was even worried while being in the hospital. I was worried that if anything happened, would Kent be able to make decisions for me. As it turned out, the nurse in charge was very open minded to our relationship, but she could just as easily have been homophobic and made it difficult for us.

Anyway, this is all old news. It’s what we talked about last night. But I’m tired of worrying about things that I have no control over. I can’t control that we can’t have the protections of marriage. I can’t control if some judge will completely disregard our wishes. I can’t control some homophobic hospital administrator denying us visitation rights. God, you can spend all your time worrying about this. I don’t want to do that anymore.

So today, we went to the bookstore and bought the Barron’s Mastering French course. It’s the same course used to train diplomatic personnel of the U.S. Government. We are going to France, and I’m using this opportunity to learn French. I want to eventually become fluent in the language. I have a feeling that we will be traveling to Montreal and Quebec more on our vacations in the future.

After that, I also want to learn Spanish. I took Spanish in high school. I can understand it somewhat. But with more Spanish speaking people in the U.S. today, I thought that it would be a good thing to learn. It will undoubtedly be easier for me to grasp than French. Some of the French sounds are peculiar for me to pronounce, but I’ll get there.

Tonight we are going to Azul in West Hartford. I went a few weeks ago and had a good time. The food is fabulous (so are the martinis)!

I’ve thought about this entry for a good long time. I’ve come up with many reasons why it’s important to try to tell the story of two people who are struggling in America, just for simple equality. It’s been one of the hardest and honestly most depressing battles I’ve ever fought in my life. It’s caused stress, depression, anxiety, and there have been days that I didn’t even want to get out of bed because I was wondering, “What is going to happen next?”

We are in a huge battle in this country for our rights. These rights were always deserved by us because our country’s cornerstone documents talk about the right to “pursue happiness”, “equality”, that abridging the rights of others is forbidden. There are many such documents. Our country has seen many disputes and even revolutions over such things. People, Americans, have laid their very lives on the line for freedom and equality, and many have died fighting that cause.

We thought that we were moving in the right direction when the so-called “Civil Rights Movement” happened and we started to see things moving in the right direction for many people in our country who were certainly less than equal. We went through all of that, and it was very painful. We confronted bigotry and have been striving for years to overcome it. A lot has happened for African Americans in this country. They are now a protected class and it is no longer legal to discriminate against them in ALL of the states in this land - at the state and federal levels. That is most certainly a good thing.

Why is it then that America can so easily, in the face of that history, discard and throw away equality for Americans who are homosexual? Hell, in the liberal state of Connecticut, the best we can achieve it seems is a second-class status of “civil unions”. Last year, when the civil union bill passed, I was told that a bill for full marriage would most certainly be introduced this year. Then, several days ago, I received an announcement that a bill giving full marriage to gay couples would not be introduced this year. Shocking, isn’t it? It’s exactly what I expected.

In most of the states in this country, it is still fully legal to look an employee right in the eyes, and tell that employee that he is being fired because he is a homosexual. You have no legal recourse. At the federal level, we have been striving for years to get this type of protection. But the federal government will have no part of it. So, we are left struggling from state to state (Washington State recently passed these protections by just one vote), just to have the “right” to not be fired for being gay, denied housing for being gay, and all the rest. This is 2006, and this is still happening. And as I type this, Virginia easily passed a full ban of gay marriage and civil unions in their Senate. It now goes to the full House, where it is easily expected to pass. It will then be heading for the November ballot where the voters of the state of Virginia are fully expected to tell us once and for all that we do not deserve equality. It’s hard for me to get my mind around that. I love my country. What is happening to it? Are my fellow Americans really that vindictive and hateful? Yes, it would seem, they are.

The similarities between what we are up against and what African Americans were up against are startlingly similar. Yet, I hear time and time again from African Americans that our struggle cannot be compared to what they went through. They show their own bigotry by distancing our struggle from theirs, and in many cases, turn right around and fire us (or not hire us), because they don’t like homosexuals, even though they faced that discrimination decades ago. I guess it’s not their problem. Now, we are the new “black”. And they wrap this attitude all up by saying that they are “Christians”, when everything in my being tells me that Christ would not be doing this.

I’ve had enough. In so many ways, I’ve given up on my country. All I want to do now is rest and try my best to “pursue happiness”, to the best that I’m allowed.

There are a few reasons I’ve decided to live my life differently. Here are a few of those reasons.

Apathy
I receive close to one million hits on this site month after month. Yet, the number of comments left on this site are minimal. People don’t care. People have tuned out. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. A co-worker recently told me that he no longer even listens to the news because he doesn’t want to know what’s going on. He thinks it’s hopeless. Maybe he’s right. He told me that keeping this blog only serves to bring me down because it’s an endless circle of negative news that I’m feeding on, with no resolution in sight. Perhaps he’s right.

I’ve decided that I too am no longer going to keep caring about the news. I’m going to radically change my life and make my world smaller - MUCH smaller. My world will become my work and my home. At the point that we nuke someone, I suppose I will turn on the news to see what’s going on. Are you surprised at this? You shouldn’t be. No one else cares. Why should I?

Religion
I’ve come to the profound conclusion that those who want to deny me basic equality based on religion can go fuck themselves. I mean that sincerely and literally. I do feel that people have the right to express their religious freedom, but that expression ends when it comes to the polls in the form of referendums that would deny me and my partner basic legal protections - basic protections that they have and they take for granted. To the people reading this who would do this to my partner and I, and our community, you make me sick. You are the cancer that is eating this country alive and turning people against each other. You shop through the Bible and use it as a tool of hatred and divisiveness. I put you lower than Fred Phelps because he at least is honest about his total contempt for us and is willing to stand in front of a funeral home, school, or church and hold up picket signs espousing his beliefs with such words as “FAGS BURN IN HELL!”. At least I know where he stands.

You are the main problem in our country today. You went to the polls to put our current moronic President into office, just on a promise to pass a constitutional amendment keeping marriage out of the hands of gays. What did you end up with? You ended up with a President who abandoned the amendment he won the election on and ended up going to war with Iraq. And in the end, it is estimated that this war will cost our country 2 trillion dollars. That’s $2,000,000,000,000!

But you know what, I don’t even care about that anymore. You got what you voted for. You got a President in office that ran up a deficit that will take generations to pay off. This will not be my bill to pay. It will be paid off by YOUR CHILDREN and YOUR GRAND CHILDREN and YOUR GRAND CHILDREN’S GRAND CHILDREN. That is what you voted for.

When all is said and done, I hope that it was all worth it just so you could keep committed gay couples from ruining your “sanctity of marriage”, as over half of you file for divorce. It’s pathetic.

America
America is no longer the land of the free. Freedom is now defined by those who have the power. It is now perfectly fine to go to the polls in many states so the voters can pass referendums curtailing the civil liberties of a minority. The only two times in my memory that this was unsuccessful was in Maine last November when the voters decided to keep a measure on the books that had been passed by the legislature to protect the rights of gay citizens from being fired. The other time was in California in the days of Harvey Milk when Proposition 6 was defeated at the polls - a measure that would have prevented gay teachers from teaching.

Think about that. Your neighbors and co-workers are going to the polls to pass a referendum or an amendment to the state constitution preventing a minority group from having the same protections as others. There are no special rights (rights that the populous don’t already enjoy) being given. And because this minority group happens to be an undesirable group, your neighbors and co-workers, although nice to your face, will turn right around and vote for these measures. Nice, huh? That’s called “tyranny of the majority”.

The Gay Community
WHERE IS YOUR OUTRAGE?

My community for the most part, doesn’t care. I think, in all fairness, because a lot of people have simply given up - just like I’m doing now. And, in the younger generation of gays, there is a lot of apathy because they don’t see things getting any better. As I mentioned, Virginia is about to pass a constitutional amendment preventing marriage and civil unions for gay couples. In my INBOX, I am getting frantic requests for people to take action and to appeal to the fairness of their legislators. It’s sad and heart breaking to watch. Their legislators hate their guts. That is why this is happening. How many of these legislators have actually wanted to sit in the same room with us to hear our concerns about legal issues? None. I don’t know what to tell them. These are people who want their family to be complete and to have basic legal protections. Many have children, yet they can’t cover them or their spouse under their insurance.

Teen suicide and drug use are going up in our community. Of course, that’s a bad thing, but in all honesty, what do they have to look forward too? The best I can offer them is a life filled with struggle, as state after state lines up to pass hateful amendments that will take a generation to overturn. That will be their struggle. Or perhaps, if equality isn’t important to them, they will find happiness. To me, equality is very important - at least, it used to be. Now, I have come to a point that I honestly don’t give a shit how many more states pass these amendments. It doesn’t matter anymore because you see, America is no longer America. It no longer stands for equality and fairness. It stands for bigotry and hatred. And for the time being, we are the hated.

Cancer
I recently went in for a colonoscopy. It was more routine than anything else, but it was spurred by the fact that at my last physical, my doctor found blood in his examination. He told me not to worry because we were going to do the tests anyway, since I’m at “that age”.

So, I did complete the colonoscopy. When I was out in Arizona visiting Kent’s folks, I called the doctor’s office for the results. They found one growth and took it out, and reported that it was benign and nothing to worry about. I had a follow-up visit the next month.

When I went in for the follow-up, I learned that they actually found two growths. The other one was up close to my stomach area. And, it was “pre-cancerous”. My doctor told me that it was good that we did this now, because if I hadn’t had it done, in 7-10 years, the conversation I would be having with him would have been cancer treatment.

That makes you really stop and think about what is important in life. And all this crap that I talk about in this blog that no one really cares about, is just no longer up there on my list of concerns or priorities.

I’m going to spend my life on what I can control and with the passions of my life. First and foremost, that is my family. Kent and I may not have equality - maybe we never will, but we have each other, and that is incredible. I’ve been so lucky in life. We met in college and he’s been the love of my life. Thirty-one years together. It blows my mind.

My other passion is photography. This blog will continue to exist, but will most likely become a “photo blog”. The appearance may change somewhat, and I may comment on some of the photos I post, but they will most likely be posted to the blog with another application. I’ve chosen Flickr to display my photos. It does a decent job and it is easy to post to this blog directly from Flickr. You can see the photos I’ve uploaded so far here. I may continue to post entries on what is going on in my personal life, but it will focus on us, and not on the lesser mindset of politicians in Washington or the states. They are simply beneath me. At least, this is how I feel now.

I will eventually replace my gallery on my website and move the photos that are there to Flickr, or delete them altogether. And I will be posting links to the uploaded photos as they occur.

Other Changes
Past archives of all my writings will remain intact, for what they’re worth. Who knows.... someday after I am gone, they will at least be a record of the struggle that one gay man went through for basic equality - if anyone cares.

I guess that’s all. To the people who I have met on here and have become friends with, I’m still around, and I thank you for caring. You know who you are.

I wish you all well in all you want out of life. Remember, life is short. You can dictate what you want that life to be, to a large extent. You have to let the rest of what other people in power do to you.... go. For your own happiness, you have to let it go.

...strive to be happy.

A love sonnet by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda

My love, if I die and you don’t---
My love, if you die and I don’t---
Let’s not give grief an even greater domain.
No expanse is greater than where we live.

Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts,
time, wandering water, the vague wind
swept us on like sailing seeds.
We might not have found each other in time.

This meadow where we find ourselves,
O little infinity! we give it back.
But Love, this love has not ended:
just as it never had a birth, it has
no death: it is like a long river,
only changing lands, and changing lips.