Darkside Rainbow

We are taking a swerve away from the GBLTQ spectrum today; if you’re here for your daily dose of GBLTQ news and rantage, go spend some time with Lyndsey or have a gander at a few of the latest headlines - or come back tomorrow, when things are back on topic. I’d like to take a moment to discuss something that I believe deserves a few moments of my attention - and yours. Its potential effect is primarily on US college students and future students, but even those who don’t reside on American soil or aren’t currently entrenched in our education system may want to be aware of this turn of events and the sickening precedent that it could set.

Apparently the MPAA now thinks it can push legislation that will affect whether or not a school will receive federal funding for financial aid, based on whether or not said school complies with the MPAA’s demands regarding technology aimed at preventing P2P filesharing on campus networks.

The worst part?

The Democratic majority are all for it.

Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else - CNet News

The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill. “We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing,” said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students–even ones who don’t own a computer–would lose federal financial aid.

Yes, you read that correctly. We’re dealing with a multibillion-dollar war that is failing ever more spectacularly with each day; we can’t even get our legislature for GBLTQ rights straight; our government is suggesting that we voluntarily forfeit our right to privacy…and the House is wasting 747 pages and valuable time on harmful legislature that no one will actually read, and will probably sign without realizing what it entails because it’s part of a bill with a pretty name like “College Opportunity and Affordability Act”, which has to be good, right? Hell, that’s halfway how the Patriot Act got through. 300+ pages of tl;dr and a spiffy title that can easily be turned against any politician who protests it by saying “So you’re against patriotism?”

I’m against this damned legislation. This will cripple the American education system - and it’s already limping and floundering - over an issue that shouldn’t even be related to student financial aid. Government bodies should not damned well be answering to the MPAA or the RIAA! Students too poor to even own a computer, let alone afford to attend university without financial aid, could find themselves out on the street because the entertainment industry is overstepping its bounds and taking deliberate malicious action involving punishment far above and beyond any committed “crimes”. Media piracy and copyright infringement are not worth sweeping pulls of financial aid.

I don’t really advocate media piracy. I’m a fence-straddler; I use low-cost subscription services like Vongo to watch legally downloaded movies, and if Vongo doesn’t have what I want to watch on demand then I’ll go buy the DVD later when it’s no longer $20 a pop. I cringe at spending $10 to see a movie on the big screen, but will do it if my friends drag me. I don’t buy overpriced CDs, but I don’t like my music DRM-laden (I don’t even like having DRM-enabling technology on my machine, such as Windows Media Player 11) …so I’ll spend 99 cents per song at Buy.com or some other music sale service that doesn’t require monthly subscriptions or annoying software, download the DRM-burdened version of a track just to say I paid for my music, and then turn around and download a non-DRM version off Shareaza so I don’t have to go through a load of BS to copy it between my computers, cellphone, and my various portable media devices.

Basically, I’ve found an economical way to avoid piracy without paying what I feel are wholly unreasonable prices for media. I think that the entertainment industry has grown far too bloated and greedy, and current tactics of “pay for our overpriced drivel or else” border on extortion. I don’t think that downloading and sharing music for free constitutes harmful theft as they’d have us believe, but I also don’t think it’s the answer to getting around the problem that they present. What it most certainly is not, however, is a crime worthy of the exorbitant RIAA shakedowns that take place on a regular basis - and it’s definitely not a crime worthy of nearly shutting down entire schools for lack of federal funding because one student’s decision to download a movie from The Pirate Bay could potentially affect the entire campus.

It’s a situation where two wrongs don’t make a right, but in this case the entertainment industry is climbing up a vast, towering pillar of wrongness that far eclipses anything a filesharer might have done. It’s no secret that politicians wallow in the pockets of various industries, whether it’s big oil or the entertainment industry. Puppets on strings - but the MPAA isn’t even trying to hide that they’re pulling the strings anymore. It’s exorbitant, it’s disgusting, it’s blatant extortion, and I hope the bill dies amidst derision on the House floor.

Thank you, Democrats, for reminding me of why I refuse to align with any particular party - and for reminding me that no matter the label, a politician is still a politician and can be bought by just about anyone. Maybe if I had more money than the MPAA I could divert your attention from this and get you to spend a bit more time focusing on gay marriage and GBLTQ rights, hm?

The MPAA and their supporters in the House of Representatives are threatening current and future generations of students, all so they can line their pockets and feed a few more gasping breaths into a dying business model that isn’t equipped to handle current information sharing technology. They should be adapting to current technology, not trying to force the technology, under pain of torture, to suit the old business model. It’s a case of the punishment not fitting the crime, and of treating your own customers like criminals. The consumer is the enemy, and must be subjugated under corporate rule.

We have veered horribly off the path and forgotten not the letter, but the spirit of the law and its processes, and this fiasco is only one small symptom of the many horrible abuses of the legislative process that take place every day.

I feel like I’m watching Pirates of the Caribbean. “Take what ye can; give nothing back.”

Only it’s not the so-called “media pirates” following that guideline.

media piracy, copyright law, copyright violation, mpaa, riaa, copyright infringement, p2p networks, file sharing

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Just so you know, never in your natural lifespans will you catch me making that face ever again.

So…if you remember the comic where the wenchzilla was mocking me over my horrible “T-Mobile Magenta” (now trademarked as a color, how ridiculous is that?) RAZR mobile phone…it’s now been happily replaced by a sleek, sexy little black Motorola W490 with a 2GB MicroSD card. I love it; it lets me set stored MP3s as my ringtones without having to specially send them to myself via browser or text message via mobile17.com like I had to on the RAZR. After converting to MP4 format, I can fit a good nine full-length movies on the thing (okay, teeny tiny full-length movies, but still) with about 500MB left over for a selection of MP3s. It does e-mail, IM, ‘net browsing, and all kinds of other nifty little things, leaving me wondering: why the hell would I need a $400 brick-shaped iPhone when I have my sleek little $100 flip phone that does pretty much everything the iPhone can with the exception of the touch screen (which my fingers are too large to use comfortably, anyway)? Especially when the iPhone locks you into overpriced AT&T plans that don’t even do half what my T-Mobile plan does, and yet cost twice as much.

…yes, I am proud of being cheap. I call it being frugal, prudent, and economical, because it makes me feel better about being…well…entirely cheap. The only thing I don’t like about the phone is that even the headset plugs in with the mini-USB jack, so I can’t use standard stereo earphones with it when listening to music or watching movies on the go. Instead I had to buy a special set of stereo headphones with the mini-USB connector, but that was only $3 more.

Okay, I’m done rhapsodizing about my happy new non-pink phone. Pink sunglasses are fine. A pink phone? That’s just pushing it too far along the “flamingly out there” spectrum. Yeah, yeah, I know, real men wear pink. I guess I’m a fake man who loves his little black phone. Oi. (…although the touchpad still lights up with a lavender backlight. Lavender. C’mon, Motorala, wasn’t the neon blue good enough?)

And no, that’s not what it looks like; I’m not suddenly developing hetero tendencies on you with Red back there. My friends are just very snuggly people; I’m very…not. They’re also very contrary people, and like to take advantage of moments of inattention to creep up on me and see how much they can get away with before I notice and the instant “NO TOUCHIE-TOUCHIE!” reaction kicks in.

Ahem. Anyway. If the art’s even more drunken on this one, I actually have an excuse this time. I don’t know what’s wrong with my tablet, but I think it’s been quietly ingesting copious quantities of crack when I’m not looking. I couldn’t get any decent pressure sensitivity or stroke recognition out of it at all last night, even after replacing the battery, recalibrating the pen sensitivity and settings, and rebooting everything just as a catch-all and a failsafe. This thing took so long that I might as well have done it on paper, but then I still would have had to fight the tablet and Photoshop on the color. Bah. I actually tried to get more of her full face in there, but I kind of had to go with what I could wrestle onto the screen. This way’s probably more accurate anyway, considering that at the time the wench was trying to bite my hair. Gah.

Yes, I have weird friends. Like I said last time: shiv. Trachea. ’nuff said.

That’s it outta me. I’m gone until tomorrow. Ciao.

no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, t-mobile, motorola razr, motorola w490, apple iphone, at&t, real men wear pink

Er. Hi. It’s a little late, isn’t it? I didn’t run away; I just got caught up in work and writing this morning. Mainly writing. Hush. I’ll behave myself again after NaNoWriMo’s over.

There doesn’t seem to be much explosively new going on on the news front this morning, anyway. People are b*tching about ENDA, churches are still screeching about allowing GBLTQ parishioners to have certain freedoms or even say anything, and election BS is keying up to levels so high I’m starting to wonder where I left my thigh-high boots.

In other words, to quote Stephen King yet again: SSDD. Same sh*t, different day. Sometimes I wonder if anything’s really ever going to change, or if we’ll be fighting the same battles and having the same petty arguments all our lives.

In browsing the ‘net, though, I ran across something that rather baffled me: an article discussing statistics on a failed HIV vaccine. The article notes that out of test groups of people given the vaccine (synthetic HIV genes tucked into the good ol’ common cold, intended to stimulate the body to fight off HIV as it fights off the cold) vs. people given a dummy vaccine, a higher percentage of those given the vaccine actually went on to contract HIV.

It doesn’t say why.

It says they were more likely to contract HIV through sex or other risky behavior, but the details are still woefully skimpy despite a multi-paragraph article. Did these people engage in more risky behavior because they thought the vaccine would protect them? Did they deliberately ignore the fact that sex partners or others they shared bodily fluids with were HIV positive, because of the vaccine? Or did they go about their normal behavior, and likely would have ended up infected with HIV anyway with the vaccine only slightly increasing their risk?

The article is just entirely puzzling and vague, and it raises another question that wasn’t addressed: could they have been infected with HIV from the synthetic genes alone, rather than just lowering their resistance to it so they were more likely to be infected with the virus when exposed to it “in the wild”?

This sort of testing makes me extremely nervous, honestly. I’m all for developing preventative measures to help defend against HIV/AIDs, but this is a deadly disease with no cure and limited treatment options. You’d think they’d be a bit more certain of what they were doing to their test groups before they forged on ahead.

Something about this just doesn’t sit right with me.

And that’s all I have to say for the day. See you Monday with another page of No Style (with actual drawings this time).

HIV/AIDS, hiv vaccine, failed hiv vaccine

Lyndsey had her rant about this yesterday; I suppose today it’s my turn, ’cause we done gone and done it, kids. ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act intended to protect people from discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity, has passed the House - without the trans-inclusive language.

And according to surveys, the majority of us are all right with that.

Do you know what the LGBT community (oh, excuse me - the LGB community) just did?

We just pulled a W.

That’s right, we took a page out of the rulebook of the man that many of us despise as one of the worst presidents in the history of our nation.

Remember “No Child Left Behind”?

Uh-huh.

Now remember the recent presidential veto of a bill that would have provided healthcare for thousands of children who don’t currently receive care?

…how many children do you think were left behind there, hm?

So what happened to our solidarity? What happened to human rights and civil rights organizations, LGBT/GBLTQ foundations, lawmakers, representatives, lobbyists, all so loudly protesting the removal of trans-inclusive language from ENDA? Somewhere along the way it died down to an abrupt and pathetic murmur, and the T in LGBT got left behind while the rest of us sailed on merrily ahead. I know we’re all tired of having to fight for every last tiny thing we get, but is that any reason to roll over and show our bellies and accept the little table scraps we’re given with hardly a fight?

Are we really so selfish that we’re willing to say, “Well, let’s just take it this time and make sure we’re covered, and we’ll worry about the transpeople later”?

Not acceptable, people. Not acceptable. There’s a reason we call ourselves the GBLTQ/LGBT community - because we are a community, no matter how much we snipe at each other from within. It’s like family; you may not always like each other, but you pull together in the end and support each other even if you don’t always approve of each other.

There comes a time when you have to pick your battles, and be satisfied with the small victories. This is not one of those times. If we start letting transpeople be pushed aside…

…who’s next?

ENDA, employment non-discrimination act, GENDA, workplace protections, house of representatives, house speaker nancy pelosi, transgender, transvestite, transsexual, crossdresser, crossdressing, mtf, ftm, m2f, f2m, male-to-female, female-to-male, gender identity, gender dysphoria, transition, transitioning, sex change

I probably shouldn’t be doing an “Ask Adri” column in my current mood. You can’t see me right now, but I’m making my pain face. Why? Because I’m in pain. I don’t know what I did to my right arm yesterday, but I woke up this morning feeling as if a few members of the WWE had been using it as an illegal blunt object in the ring. With it still attached to my body. So I’m kind of cranky. But the news is alternately boring me or pissing me off with arseheaded reports that now the LGBT community is pushing for a non-trans-inclusive ENDA (what the hell happened to solidarity, people? I bet we wouldn’t be so willing to ditch them if it was the G or L getting left out), and this letter’s been sitting in my inbox for a couple of weeks now, so I really shouldn’t neglect it any longer. (Also, to two people who e-mailed me asking for private responses: I’m not ignoring you. You’ll hear from me some time tomorrow.)

Hello Adrien.

I am 37/gwm/FL. [Note from Adri for those who don't do netspeak: He's a 37-year-old gay white male who lives in Florida.] My wife and I have three lovely children. I am gay. I knew I was gay when I married her but I thought I could live a normal married straight life. I have been happy with my children and I love my wife, but I am very unhappy with myself. I can no longer pretend attraction to my wife and would like to explore my homosexual side. I do not want her to find out. I would like to have a relationship on the side with another man. How can I meet men without coming out publicly? We live in a small town and if I go to the gay bars nearby I will be recognized. Someone will tell my wife. I need to meet a man who can be discreet. Can you tell me how I can do this?

Sincerely,
Frustrated Florida Fag

Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Hold up and slow your roll, Holmes. Are you asking me to help you figure out the best way to cheat on your wife with other men?

Oh, I don’t think so.

Let me tell you something, son. You are going to do this right, rather than in the way that’s the most comfortable for you. You are going to inform your wife, properly and politely, of this particular turn of events in your life. You are going to take responsibility for the years of your marriage, and you are going to make this as easy for her as possible, because none of this is her fault and she’s going to feel hurt and betrayed, almost as much as she would if she caught you cheating. I know this isn’t easy for you, either, and I feel for you, I really do - as while some of this situation is your fault, not all of it is. But you are not going to make it worse by being a reprehensible human being and sneaking around behind your wife’s back like a dog, do you hear me?

You and your wife are going to talk about this. She may leave you, but for the sake of your children, she may not. If she stays with your sorry behind, she may even be willing to come to an agreement. You stay married as parents, but not as sexual partners, and then with her permission you can slip around on the sly all you want as long as you don’t bring your sexual partners home and trip the kids off as to what’s going on. It’s not an ideal situation, and later when the children are older and not as likely to be affected emotionally by their parents breaking up (for whatever reason, sexuality has little to do with how kids are affected by divorce), they will need to be told the truth. Frankly I don’t like the idea of hiding your sexuality from your kids, but it would just be too confusing for them to understand, in their formative years, why Mommy and Daddy have separate bedrooms and Daddy brings men home to spend the night.

And you know what? Your wife may take the kids and leave you. There’ll be a custody hearing; it may be ugly, it may not, but as long as you’re not declared unfit then you’ll get to spend plenty of equal time with your kids. You can even come out publicly and explain a few things to your kids, about how Daddy is gay but Daddy’s still Daddy and still loves them, supports them, etc. - and yes Daddy still loves Mommy, just not in certain ways.

Or you can stomp down your urges, stay miserably in the closet, and keep your family exactly the way it is. It’s an unfortunate situation, and there is no easy answer, no right answer, and no answer that’s going to make everyone happy.

Except you screwing around behind your wife’s back, and that you will not do. Not with my help, anyway. When you get caught, I want no part of this.

And you will get caught. Men always do; I know this from experience, not from cheating myself, but from dealing with cheating men from ex-boyfriends to my own father. You always get caught.

And when you get caught, those hot messes that I described above will be ten times worse.

So just don’t do it.

I know I was a little stern there. You needed it. You need a hard look at the reality of what your decision entails, from an outside perspective. This entire time you’ve probably been focusing on your own misery, and your own potential happiness. When you create a family, you can’t just think of yourself alone anymore. Your decisions deeply affect other people, and you have to consider that before every choice you make. I know you feel trapped by a decision you made years ago, and wish you could go back and undo it. You can’t. Unfortunately, part of adult life is living with the consequences of your past actions, and sometimes there just isn’t a way to wipe the slate clean and start over blameless.

Unless you’re Catholic, but don’t even get me started on that.

Despite my harsh words, I do wish you the best, and I hope that the difficulties along the road ahead are eased by mutual understanding between you and your family. You have a lot of tough choices to make. Good luck with them all.

See this? This is my problem with the whole “sanctity of marriage” crap. Heterosexual marriages break up all the time, for just about any reason; it’s not uncommon for someone to go through two or three spouses on average in their lifetime. How sacred were those marriage vows again?

But this situation in particular, oh, this one gets under my skin. If homosexual marriages were acceptable and legal, this man might not have felt the need to get into a heterosexual relationship and later marriage, in order to conform to the pressures to live the picture of the societal norm. He might have married a man and lived happily ever after, while the woman who - in this alternate future - is not his wife would have married a different man and moved on to have several fat, shiny babies. Instead we’ve got a tangled mess in which the husband is miserable, the wife is oblivious and just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the children could very possibly have a previously happy home torn apart.

Oh, but that marriage is between a man and a woman, so hey, it’s just fine.

George W. Bush, you can suck my middle finger.

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

ask adri, gay advice column, coming out, sanctity of marriage, gay marriage, heterosexual marriage, ENDA

This article doesn’t really discuss anything that isn’t evident to anyone with eyes and common sense, but it does bring up some points that I’ve touched upon before and would like to discuss again.

Study: Gay Couples Becoming More Visible in U.S. - KCBS

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — The number of declared same-sex couples in the United States has quadrupled in the last 17 years, according to a recently released UCLA study.

Demographer Dr. Gary Gates of the Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School says the spike is due to growing acceptance around the country, and more couples willing to self identify. The analysis of census data shows the number of gay couples jumped the most in conservative states.

“We looked back at election results from the 1992 election and basically places that voted for George Bush Sr. had the biggest increases. Places that voted for Bill Clinton had the smallest increases,” said Gates.

He added that the numbers could be an indication that gay couples are becoming more mainstream and their homosexuality is perceived by the public as part of who they are, rather than their entire identity.

I have another theory behind the increase. I don’t think it’s right to the point of invalidating the reasons presupposed in the article, but I think the overall effect seen could be a combined result of all these varying factors.

I think, frankly, that we’re sick of hiding. The atmosphere of fear fostered in the homosexual community, that constant wariness of discovery and its repercussions, begins to wear on you when you live in a nation where, frankly, it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone should be judged for something as basic as their sexuality. People will accept BDSM before they’ll accept homosexuality. It’s enough to eat at the nerves until the sheer idiocy of the contrast can quite easily rouse a defiance that could make just about anyone stand up and say, “I am gay. That doesn’t change that I’m your neighbor, your coworker, your tennis partner, the guy who took the photos at your wedding, the girl who watches your kids until you get home from work in the evenings. You accept me as all of those things; integrate my sexuality into that picture, accept it as something as normal as the brand of tennis balls I prefer, and get over it.”

I’ve often ranted on the subject of blatantly blaring one’s sexuality in a desire for acceptance and acknowledgment. It can foster a perception of the GBLTQ community as obnoxious people who only identify as gay without a single other defining personality trait. For some people, that is their life. But for the rest of us…we’re just like the people described in that article. We don’t want to be known as “that gay guy” or “that lesbian” or “that transgender”. We speak loudly now because we ask, we beg to be acknowledged, but in the end we want that acknowledgment to be quiet, calm, as part of everyday life as we ourselves are. We want to be able to say “my husband” of a same-sex partner in a conversation without stirring a ripple. We want to be able to live our lives openly, without loud proclamations but without making any effort to hide. We want to be able to walk down the street in our suburb, holding hands with our boyfriend or girlfriend, and not draw any more notice than a mother pushing her child in a stroller.

I want to still always be known as “that writer” - that guy who’s trying to get a book published, and maybe in my dreams one day I’ll be known as that bestselling author. That misanthropic, whimsical, batty hermit who can do four loads of laundry separated by “whites” and “blacks” with not even one color load. That guy who makes bad jokes about his mixed ethnicity. That guy who’s always got a book with him, no matter where he goes. That socially awkward guy who pretends to be witty and well-spoken in text, but who trips over his tongue with hideous, blushing shyness when he actually has to talk to people other than his close friends face-to-face. That somewhat lonely guy who wonders if he’ll ever be able to put aside his pessimistic pragmatism to commit to a relationship beyond the bounds of practicality.

That guy who, appended to all of that, just happens to be gay. That guy whose sexuality is but a nuance that adds a shade to that overall tapestry, but doesn’t color it entirely…but who doesn’t have to paint over that color with another for fear of offending anyone’s sensibilities, either.

I want to be just Adrien, and not have to fear that my nation’s politics and prejudices will condemn the many aspects of who that is.

coming out, gay visibility, gay couples, coming out

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Those of you who remember my old comic are probably quite familiar with that threat to stab someone with a pencil. Hell, I probably still have the icon of it lying around my hard drive somewhere; at one point it was practically my catch phrase. Thankfully I haven’t put anyone’s eye out. [clears his throat] …yet.

So yeah, NaNoWrimo and writing chapter two of my second novel kind of combined to take over my weekend. By the time I was supposed to settle down to draw the comic I had planned for this week I was sleepless, completely wasted on coffee, and practically cross-eyed from eyestrain.

Trust me, a screencap of the novel with some pretty text overlaid is far preferable to the drunken, noodly scribbling I would have subjected you to had I tried to draw in that state. (Edit: this morning I woke up and had a few spare minutes before work at my other job, so I upgraded this at least a tiny bit so it’s not just a screenshot with dialogue. Now, at least, it’s a “through Adri’s eyes” perspective.) Next week you’ll get more oddly-proportioned drawings, ubiquitous pink sunglasses, and poofy lips.

Although I can’t blame the weekend’s distractions wholly on NaNo. I’ve been trying to plan a 2008 relocation to Chicago for months now, for many reasons (not least among them being that Chicago does tend to be a bit more gay-friendly than Houston). Yesterday I sat down and after several hours of phone calls, research, and calculations, budgeted the whole thing - covering every expense down to a travel carrier for the cat and gas costs (as I’m probably going to rent a U-Haul trailer and just drive it, because I’m insane like that).

Let’s just say I’ll be working overtime for the next eight months, because apparently one catty fag and one faggy cat can blow more money on an 1100-mile cross-country trip than Paris Hilton at a Prada blowout sale.

So…yes. There you have the reasons for a quick and dirty comic. Hopefully it still amused you, at least a little.

…and no, the dragons in the story aren’t really gay - so Sihaya, stop plotting strange and disturbing Rez/Van fanfic. The Singe/Van idea was scary enough. [smirks]

no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month

If you’re looking for something of substance, skip back a post, because you won’t find it here. I know I’m supposed to be gone for the weekend (and catching up on my NaNoWriMo word count), but someone posted this to my LiveJournal friendslist and I just had to share:

 
Oh my god. I’m torn between laughter and sheer horror, but I really can’t stop giggling long enough to be horrified. That is freakin’ priceless, I swear to gods - and so, so very wrong. The worst part is that it makes me think of some self-styled “leather daddies” who dress and act like that seriously.

If you want to be analytical, it’s a delightfully tongue-in-cheek mockery of some of the more out-there aspects of the American gay subculture that some could even take as an insult, but it’s all in good fun. But oh, man, those kids…I almost choked on my coffee watching that.

Thanks to Keres for sharing. Now I’m going to be snickering all night.

This is why I love Japanese television.

hard gay, Japanese TV, omgwtfbbq

Sometimes reading the news makes me feel like a real jerk. This morning I read a story that first made me ache with the rather bitter sadness of it, especially since it took place in Africa and reminded me of the horrid statements made by Ugandan cleric Sheikh Ramathan Shaban Mubajje - because condemnation of his sort only helps to further self-destructive behavior by gays who are told that what they are is wrong.

My second reaction was to smack my face into my palm and have a “duh-duh-duuuh!” moment worthy of Carlos Mencia, because I just couldn’t believe the stupidity of what I’d just read. And it made me feel like an a**hole (because I am), but it doesn’t change the fact that I just can’t follow the mind-boggling leaps of logic involved here.

Gay Man Kills Parents ‘To Spare Them Grief’ - 365gay.com

(Cape Town, South Africa) A young gay man, despondent after his relationship with another man soured, shot his parents to death to spare them grief when he committed suicide - but he didn’t die and now he’s on trial for murder.

After killing Glenn and Deborah Harris he shot himself but recovered in hospital.

Following his arrest Grant Harris was sent to a psychiatric facility for an assessment.

Doctors concluded that although Harris deeply depressed he was fit to stand trial.

“He is able to appreciate the wrongfulness of the alleged offences and to act accordingly,” the report said.

Dear Darwin: Why, oh why, have you failed us?

I sincerely doubt that Harris is able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions when he couldn’t appreciate just how arseheaded they were in the first place, depressed or not. How do you decide that it’s an act of compassion to kill your parents when you kill yourself, commit murder, and then fail at suicide? How? Oh, sure, if he’d succeeded in killing himself, his parents wouldn’t be grieving his suicide. They’d be dead. That isn’t a preferable option, you melodramatic little emo-child. You may have spared them grief - although their spirits, if they exist, are probably going to haunt you in fury for the rest of your life - but you’ve now caused the entire extended family grief over not one death, but two. It would have been three if you hadn’t botched it. Congratulations, you’ll live another day to do something else dumb and harmful to someone else.

I know I’m being horribly harsh here in the face of a tragic event; this is just one of my buttons that sets me off. People who behave this way infuriate me. “Boo hoo, my boyfriend dumped me, I’m so sad I’m going to kill my special little self and, so my parents won’t be so despondent without the radiant joy that is me in their lives, I’ll kill them too.” No. Nothing is worth suicide. Nothing.

And nothing gives you the right to decide that your life is so valuable that it’s worth ending another’s.

On a random tangent: a study has shown that workers who remain closeted under fear of being outed and dealing with workplace discrimination or firing have a negative relationship with their coworkers, their employers, and of course with themselves, affecting workplace performance and overall affecting the productivity of the company. I’d like the people in the White House who’d like to veto ENDA to think about that, wonder just how many among their numbers fit the description of frightened, closeted employees, and then think long and hard on what it’s doing to their very own workplace environment in the seat of our nation’s government.

Update on the 1,000 Comments Contest

As I write this, we have 813 comments to this column. Only 187 left to hit 1,000; think you guys can do that by the end of November? If you don’t want the prize of a cameo shot in No Style and getting a 1GB USB thumbdrive, let me know via comments what prize you would want (keep it within my means, please, 451 Press isn’t supplying these prizes, but if you let me know what you want I’ll do what I can).

That’s it from me; I’ll see you guys on Monday with a new comic. Have a good weekend, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

…

On second thought, you might want to avoid anything I would do and just be good, okay?

Final thought for you to ponder over the weekend:

The last phrase you ever want to have come up in conversation with your mother is “gelatinous boobs.”

And no, I’m not going to explain that. Why traumatize you with the explanation when it’s more fun to let you traumatize yourselves trying to figure it out?

~Adri

grant harris, glenn harris, deborah harris, murder-suicide, cape town, south africa

This morning I had trouble choosing between news topics to ramble about, and finally just gave up and decided to touch briefly on the ones that caught my interest/amused me/outraged me the most. This is going to be a long one, I suppose. So without further ado:

GOP State Rep Resigns Amid Sex Scandal - Associated Press

Remember when I asked who’d be next among the noisy right-wing anti-gay GOPs to get caught with his pants down and a you-know-what replacing the foot in his mouth? Turns out it’s Washington state Rep. Richard Curtis, who’s voted against gay rights legislation in the past and yet who apparently has no problem having sex with strange men he meets in erotic video stores…and then telling the press about it.

Now granted, this was while telling the press about an attempt the man (Cody Castagna) made to blackmail him, but Curtis might have wanted to choose his words more carefully when detailing the attempt. Might he be innocent? Possibly. Do I think he is? After the latest string of scandals, it’s hard to say. This could just be an attempt by a gold-digger to capitalize on the scandals plaguing the right-wing and cash in at yet another representative’s expense, and Curtis’s admission is actually just a result of poor phrasing.

And it could just be another hypocritical conservative trying to cover his butt, too.

I went to a Catholic school as a child, up until third grade or so. I remember in kindergarten the school staged a play that involved a great number of us dressed up as barn animals and singing. I don’t remember what the play was about, and while I still have the videotape of it, I don’t think my self-esteem could survive watching it to refresh my memory. I do, however, remember that I was cast as the donkey amidst constant teasing that it’s suitable because I’m stubborn as a mule. (Or, now that I’m older, you could just say because I’m an a**.)

I also remember - and now we get to the point of this humiliating little anecdote - that one of the closing musical numbers involved all of the children lining up to sing, “I don’t wanna be a hyyyyyypocrite! ’cause they’re too hip to it!” with the associated and expected hip motions involved to emphasize. I also remember MawMaw White (yes, MawMaw, not MaMa) smacking the crap out of us with wooden cooking spoons if we a.) got it wrong or b.) did anything hypocritical.

I’m not even a Christian anymore, haven’t been for as long as I can remember, but I do still have a major problem with hypocrisy. The lesson was drilled into me early, and drilled into me hard. Maybe a few of these hypocritical politicians need to spend a humiliating few hours dancing around on stage in a donkey suit while a crazy old woman with a wooden cooking spoon stands threateningly over them. That alone could be punishment enough for not practicing what they preach, and I’ll bet they’d remember the lesson for a long time.

At least Curtis had the good grace to resign.

Phelps Clan Ordered To Pay $11M In Anti-Gay Military Suit - 365gay.com

Please allow me a moment of hysterical, maliciously cackling laughter.

…

Okay, okay. [wipes tears of mirth from his eyes] I’m done.

No, wait, no I’m not. [dissolves into snickers]

…okay, now I’m done.

You just don’t know how it made my day to see Phelps and his cadre of loonies getting what they deserved for their insane and cruel actions. In this case they’re being punished for picketing the funeral of a soldier killed in the Iraq war:

(Baltimore, Maryland) A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.

Snyder’s attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to determine an amount “that says don’t do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again.”

Yes. And I say it again, in all caps, YES. These people have set a wonderful example that I hope others follow. It’s not even about financially punishing Phelps and WBC. It’s about making them see that their brand of intolerance, their brand of hatefulness, is beyond inhuman and will not be tolerated by the people that they inflict themselves upon. I hope others follow suit, and make it quite clear to Phelps that he and his kind are not welcome.

Of course, he’ll probably just say that he’s the next Noah, the only true believer who’ll be spared when God destroys the world with fire…

Kucinich questions Bush’s mental health over Iran - Reuters

This isn’t really topical, but it gave me another good giggle anyway. When a man who claims to have seen a UFO questions your mental stability, you’ve got problems:

WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich on Tuesday mockingly questioned President George W. Bush’s mental health for saying Iran’s nuclear ambitions might trigger World War III.

“I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health,” Kucinich, a quirky, long-shot candidate in the race for his party’s presidential nomination in the November, 2008 election. “There’s something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact.”

[...]He told The Inquirer he did not believe his remarks about Bush’s mental stability were irresponsible. “You cannot be a president of the United States who’s wanton in his expression of violence,” Kucinich said. “There’s a lot of people who need care. He might be one of them. If there isn’t something wrong with him, then there’s something wrong with us. This, to me, is a very serious question.”

Amen, man, amen. You may be a little off your nut yourself, but you make a good point. It’s well-known that Bush’s own staff have questioned his stability under stress as far back as his first term, and pondered if he was back on the sauce. At this point it’s just a lost cause. We’ve got one year left to wait it out, and hope he doesn’t push any disastrous big red buttons. Then Laura can drag him off to the ranch and let him be as violent and disassociative (I really think the man has problems grasping reality) as he wants to be, out of the public eye.

Lastly, on another non-gay-related topic, Sihaya sent me this link regarding University of Delaware students and “ideological reeducation”, followed by the University’s rebuttal. There’s a grain of truth somewhere in a middle ground between the two, I’m sure; I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Thanks for the link, Sihaya.

Sorry I was a little behind in updating today (I usually like to write my articles the night before or wake up good and early to get them up before six a.m.); last night I crashed and let myself sleep in for once. I may be a little erratic on updating early in the mornings this month anyway, though unless hell freezes over I’ll still be posting an update every weekday. I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month, using it as a kickstart to get through the majority of my second novel without procrastinating, and that’s going to be dominating my writing schedule every day. If any of you are doing NaNo and want to keep track of each other on the way through, post your profile link in the comments. I’m Deadsong on the NaNo site. Good luck to you if you are participating.

And to everyone: I’ll see you tomorrow.

Washington state representative Richard Curtis, gay sex scandal, extortion, Cody Castagna, GOP, Maryland judgment, Phelps lawsuit, Albert Snyder, Matthew Snyder, funeral protests, Fred Phelps, Shirley Phelps-Roper, Christian protests, anti-gay protests, Westboro Baptist Church, WBC, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, president George W. Bush, mental stability, University of Delaware, ideological reeducation