Darkside Rainbow

Every day, the GBLTQ community faces prejudice; we’re accused of corrupting principles of home and family, destroying traditional marriage, promoting sin, seducing children, even bringing down the wrath of one god or another in the form of natural disasters ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the Indian Ocean tsunami. If there’s a problem with the price of rice in China, it’s our fault. We’re the scapegoats for practically every homophobic cause in existence - and now, according to Pope Benedict XVI, we’re also a threat to world peace.

Pope’s message - gay weddings threaten peace - PinkNews.co.uk

The annual message from the head of the Roman Catholic Church to the world has been unveiled. [...] It is entitled The Human Family, A Community of Peace, and in it he calls for the dismantling of nuclear weapons and environmental co-operation and describes gay marriage as “an obstacle on the road to peace.” The 80-year-old German-born pontiff theorises that peace and the family are inherently linked and any threat to the “traditional family” will be opposed by Catholics.

[...]“Many legislative initiatives work against peace by weakening the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, by directly or indirectly forcing families not to be open to accepting a morally responsible life, or by not recognising the family as having primary responsibility in the education of children,” he said.

[...]“The natural family, as an intimate communion of life and love, based on marriage between a man and a woman, constitutes “the primary place of ‘humanisation’ for the person and society,” he wrote.

“The family is therefore rightly defined as the first natural society, a divine institution that stands at the foundation of life of the human person as the prototype of every social order.

“Whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace.

“This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.”

It really disturbs me that millions of people worldwide look upon this man’s words as the word and law of their god. Any remotely agreeable fellows out there want to take a New Year’s road trip to New Hampshire with me to get semi-hitched out of sheer spite alone? No? Thought not. Let’s move on to the discussion, then.

Here’s my main problem with that entire pile of bigotry: the Pope is defining a family by marriage alone, rather than accepting that one doesn’t need marriage papers to mate and bear children, and even provide for both mate and children. A simple word and a few documents don’t automatically confer moral responsibility; the number of broken homes and abused children that come from traditional marriage can attest to that. A strong family would be a strong family with or without that definition, based on the characters of and the relationships between the people involved. So right there we’ve found one instance of flawed logic in this critical institution of marriage as the “new life” that promotes moral responsibility and proper child-rearing. A wedding ring will not change a person’s character for the better; nor will lack of one change said character for the worse.

I can almost get behind the idea that peace is related to the family unit, simply out of sheer animal territoriality. We, as beasts, instinctively want to protect our mates and offspring; it’s hard-coded in those twisty little ropes of deoxyribonucleic acid that form the building blocks of the mess of muscle, blood and bone that we call homo sapiens. That can actually lead at first to further violence when defending one’s claim, but eventually leads to peace as boundaries are defined and the human animal attempts to avoid conflict in order to preserve the lives of those within its territory and maintain one’s own safety in order to act as guardian and provider. These rituals of territoriality existed long before we slapped words like “marriage” onto our pack-animal mating behavior and frittered together a few documents to make it sound important, binding, and somehow fundamentally tied to a universal truth rather than a label that we concocted to apply to existing relationships.

The problem is that we’ve moved beyond simple competition for territory, food, and mates, and into a more complex economic and social structure that we like to call civilization. We’re no longer competing to provide for a single family unit, or even for a single pack. We compete to provide for cities, states, provinces, municipalities (hey, I’m not just assuming the U.S. here), entire nations, and one doesn’t have to be part of a man-woman-children family unit to be a part of any of those common groupings. Even if we aren’t contributing to the gene pool - and that goes for heterosexuals who don’t breed, and not just homosexuals who don’t seek alternate methods of childbearing - we’re contributing to our local economy and our local workforce, thus using our skills and our revenue to strengthen our respective nations and help contribute to the maintenance of a peaceful balance. Family alone is no longer the sole foundation of a peaceful society. Industry and commerce are large factors, and one can contribute quite well to industry and commerce without being part of that kernel family unit that the Pope espouses.

With the human race numbering in the billions, we aren’t needed to ensure the continuation of the species; in fact, we may well be helping to combat overpopulation, a problem that would definitely lead to more violence. The more families - defined by marriage or not - breed, the more mouths there are open and crying for scarcer and scarcer resources, and the more one must consider the possibility of taking what one needs by force when there’s too little to go around.

Even more, if gays were allowed to marry and form families, we would be able to help stabilize the flagging family unit by looking after those who fell through the cracks of the much-touted traditional marriage and heterosexual family unit. There are so many gay couples who would be happy to adopt children whose straight parents either voluntarily left them or lost them due to neglect and abuse. Those children would grow up loved, properly looked after, well-educated, and could eventually grow to contribute even more to the society that they help to form…rather than being forgotten, with only a few given the opportunity to struggle towards something better rather than become a burden upon the economy. I’d say that’s one hell of a “primary responsibility” to take up, if only we were allowed. It’s the proponents of traditional family units that are dropping the ball, not us. We’re even offering to help pick up the slack, clean up the mess…but they don’t seem to want it cleaned.

Yes, the family unit - if not necessarily marriage, people keep forgetting that it’s just a word and fabricated standards - can be defined as the first “natural” society. Every social structure starts off small. First the family, then the neighborhood, then the village/town/city, then the region, then the nation; it all builds in borderline fractal tessellation, and every nation is made up of all of these smaller units broken down again and again. They are the foundation, but they aren’t the be-all and end-all of society, and they aren’t the only role for which any family unit - regardless of the gender pairings of the primary providers in the family - is suited. That’s like saying that a car can run without fuel, transmission, a muffler, wheels…as long as it has an engine. Yes, the engine is the core unit of propulsion, but it couldn’t operate without all of those other supporting factors. Society has grown too complex to try to reduce the encompassing issue of world peace to something so oversimplified and utterly rooted in dogma.

There are too many entrenched faith-based assumptions without logical foundation for the two issues to be anything other than mutually exclusive. You can feasibly approach peace in society and its relation to the family unit from a sociological and anthropological perspective, as long as you retain objectivity and account for multiple influencing factors rather than making hard and fast statements of absolutes with little grounding outside of personal beliefs. You can’t base your argument for traditional marriage on wholly subjective ideas of morality and flawed assignations of roles in child-rearing and then try to apply the argument objectively to the sweeping issues of economics and culture that govern the interactions of many societies. You can’t call something a “divine institution” and then hold it up as a standard for a global community that will quite happily inform you of their differing ideals of what constitutes “divine”.

And you can’t say that gay marriage is a threat to peace, when we’re trying our damnedest to make peace with the ideals of the world we live in - and not break its structure, but join it in the only way we can.

Next thing you know, they’ll be calling us terrorists and swearing that we want to bring democracy to its knees.

gay marriage, gay rights, traditional family, pope benedict xvi, roman catholic church, world peace

I am a geek. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I love books, I love computers, I love programming, and I spent half this past weekend intensively researching formation of pillow lava and submarine lava tubes along fissures on the mid-Atlantic ridge - ostensibly as background information for a story idea, but after a while I forgot about the story out of fascination with the subject matter. I read Slashdot, I can write my own applications in Flash, and discussions of nanotechnology in crystal solar cells and aberrant prion structures can turn me on faster than a gyrating Chippendale covered in chocolate sauce. Tinkering with the building blocks of our world and ourselves just sends little thrills of pleasure down my spine. Obviously, scientific advancement and discovery don’t make me uncomfortable.

What makes me uncomfortable is the intentions not only of those who make the discoveries, but of those who are given the information and the power to make use of it.

So you can imagine that I was at once fascinated and disturbed to read that scientists have discovered how to use drugs to turn homosexuality on and off within a matter of hours - in fruit flies, mind you, not in humans. I’ve long been a proponent of some kind of biological explanation for homosexuality, whether it’s genetic or a more complex combination of factors resulting from chemical adaptations to the environment, making it as much a physical trait as the color of your eyes or the tendency to grey early around the temples. While fruit flies and humans aren’t exactly the same, the finding that fruit flies’ sexuality is affected by a gene they called “genderblind” and the transportation of a neurotransmitter called glutamate is still a major leap. Chemically altering the levels of glutamate changed the flies’ sexuality by changing how they react to the scents of pheromones. If the same can be said of humans and other animals, then we’ve helped to narrow down the biological source of homosexuality. Great; conclusive proof against homosexuality as a sin or lifestyle choice.

What bothers me is what can be done with this. On one hand, you have to experiment with being able to artificially create and remove biological homosexuality in order to prove that it even is biological, so of course I wouldn’t assume that the scientists involved in the experiments have some kind ulterior motive. They’re trying to understand the nature of homosexuality, nothing more. What I worry about is commercial and private interests pouncing on this. There are enough homophobic people in positions of corporate and political power in this country, people who view homosexuality as a disease, that they could easily take this finding as proof that homosexuality is a defect that can and must be “cured”. It makes me shudder to think of drugs designed to change the synaptic response to glutamate, marketed loudly as the “gay cure” and administered indiscriminately to humans to fix their “defect”. The very discovery is a new weapon for ex-gay ministries to use to seduce people into thinking that they even need to be cured.

Am I doomsaying and predicting the end of the world as we know it? No. This isn’t the Marvel universe, and we’re not going to be rounded up in mutant concentration camps and administered cures for our “genetic aberration” (I told you I was a geek). All I’m doing is raising a note of concern that should be present in all scientific and medical discoveries: concern for the ethical use of findings, and awareness that all discoveries, no matter how innocent, can be misused by those with the wrong intent. It’s a fancy way of saying that I don’t trust people, especially people in power.

What I’m saying is to be aware. You’d be surprised at the things your government does when they think you aren’t looking, such as pushing legislation that could allow government copyright agencies to seize and sell your property on the suspicion of copyright violation, without trial and without recompense - fully overriding due process and protections against unlawful search and seizure, much the same as civil forfeiture in drug possession cases. No, that’s not farfetched speculation of what could happen. That’s an actual bill in the works. The United States government will do anything its people will let it get away with, often with the encouragement of privately owned corporations and religious organizations - even if often, people only “let” things happen by being passive, by not acting, by not even knowing what’s going on until it’s too late.

Don’t be passive. Keep your eyes open. Homosexuality is a hot issue, a divisive issue, and can draw focused attention from legislators. There’s no cause for outright paranoia; this isn’t 1984 and while yes, Big Brother is watching, Big Brother isn’t all-powerful. It’s up to the citizens to protect their rights before they’re taken away - and part of protecting your own rights is being informed. Be aware of what’s happening around you, and how it affects you. Be aware of the ethical accountability of all factions of government, science, medicine, capitalist enterprise - so that when the time comes to speak for yourself, you can.

After all, it’s hard to protest something when you aren’t even aware of it until it’s done.

fruit flies, genderblind gene, genetic homosexuality, glutamate, pheromones, gay gene, ex-gay

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…I am so, so dead.

[laugh] Seriously, though, Hikaru - don’t pay me any mind. You know I adore you just the way you are, political party and all; I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take the opportunity to poke you a bit. Besides, I doubt that looks even remotely like you. I think I gave you bad hair. [sheepish look] Sorry.

(For anyone who’s wondering why a reader’s showing up in the comic: he won the 1,000-comments contest. Half of the prize for that was a cameo in the comic.)

I think my hand was drunk while I was drawing this one. Not the rest of me; just my hand. (Though if you could have seen me while I was working on this last night, you might have thought I was drunk - playing Pink at top volume, bopping around in my seat and singing along. Loudly. And very off-key.) See, it’s sitting there sucking up the martini through one finger. I don’t know; maybe I should go back to drawing these on paper, even if it takes longer. Instead of getting better with the tablet, I appear to be getting worse…especially on Red. I don’t know what happened there.

And…gah. Giant wall of text. I have to start trimming these scripts down, although the amount of text isn’t quite such a sin in a single-panel comic. Those tend to rely more on text to expand upon the single illustration.

Anyway. Although it was meant as a joke, the “urban legend” attitude towards gay Republicans is pretty common. In fact, discussion of the seeming rarity of gay Republicans and the disparaging behavior towards them is what prompted a survey regarding sexual orientation and how it affects your choice of political party. Despite the widely-held belief that all that matters to gays and lesbians is a party’s stance towards gay rights, the survey showed that it was actually only a minimal factor in most’s choices. I know that my prior allegiance to the Democratic party had nothing to do with my sexuality.

Yes, that’s right. I, Mr. No Concrete Affiliation, where I’ll only loosely identify myself as an Independent…used to be a proud Democrat. Not because I thought Democrats were better for me and my personal well-being and ideals; I didn’t even think about it that way. I just believed what I was told, and grew up thinking what my parents taught me to think: anyone with dark skin in the deep South had to be a Democrat. It’s like that for many; they follow a political party because their families do. I listened to the party lines and repeated them without really knowing what they meant, or caring. There was a time when I wasn’t particularly politically-minded; I devoted my intellect more to programming and didn’t much care for the outside world. It’s a bit embarrassing to think about, honestly. The self-centered nature of youth, I suppose.

University taught me otherwise. University taught me about the world outside my small, sleepy town nestled in New Orleans’ shadow, taught me how to look at things as objectively as I could (as a naturally subjective being who can only know what his senses and subjective reasoning tell him), how to make decisions based on my own analysis rather than based on what I was told was right and best for me, or based on what everyone else “like me” was doing.

And when I stepped back and looked at both the Republican and Democratic parties, I realized…

…they’re both complete douchebags, and I don’t want much to do with either of them.

It’s amazing the things you learn when you open your eyes and think with your mind, rather than with the expectations of others.

So even if I don’t agree with the Republican party on much, I do have to say that I commend gay Republicans for, in most cases, choosing a political party based on their personal beliefs rather than just on what’s expected of them based on their sexuality alone.

I’m out of here until tomorrow’s rant and ramble. Before I go, though: how much do you want to bet someone’s going to start fabricating blame-laying stories about gangs of violent gays responsible for this, similar to the myths of lesbian gangs packing pink pistols?

no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, denver, arvada, colorado springs, new life church, youth with a mission, shooting

Yesterday was not a pretty day in gay and lesbian news. To take a look at a few of the highlights (since I can’t in good conscience say “lowlights” without feeling as cheesy as Hikaru):

Shepard Hate Crime Bill To Be Dropped: While I’m still rather cynical in my stance towards use of emotionally-charged phrases like “hate crime” in the criminal justice system, it still bothers me to see that this bill is being pushed by the wayside. Regardless of the words used to describe it, people are still victimized every day out of prejudice against their sexuality. If other minority groups gain special protections under hate crime laws, then it’s entirely unfair (since when was life ever fair?) to leave the GBLTQ community out.

In some ways it’s unfair that anyone should have more protections under the law than anyone else - or stronger penalties, which imply stronger protections through greater punishment as a means of discouragement. But hate crime laws do some good in forcing people to understand that prejudice-related crimes aren’t acceptable, hopefully leveling the playing field a bit…unless you bat for the other team, that is. Reportedly the Democrats are resigned to sidelining the bill after a threatened White House veto. What was that about “Relax, it’s all right, the Democrats are in charge now”? Pfft.

Iran Executes 21 Year Old Accused Of Gay Sex When He Was 13: …then again, the next time I feel the need to complain about the state of gay rights in the US, perhaps I should spend a day or two in Iran. Unfortunately, I doubt I’d ever make it back home. In a rather convoluted trial, a man was spared execution for the sake of a retrial only to be summarily executed ten days later. The article itself is confusing, mentioning never accusing the man of rape - when at that age, wouldn’t he have likely been a rape victim, and thus possibly spared the death penalty? Regardless, the entire affair is sickening. No homosexuals in Iran, eh? One way or another…

HIV-Pos Navy Priest Charged With Unprotected Sex: Dear United States Navy: STOP SCREWING UP. Thank you. Sweet honkin’ Jeebus, what are you teaching these people? In a lovely two-for-one shot, a gay Roman Catholic Priest has been charged with knowingly having unprotected sex with military men without informing them of his HIV+ state. From the article: “Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, 42, is charged with sodomy, aggravated assault, indecent assault, fraternization and conduct unbecoming a military officer.” Um. You know, I don’t think that’s what they mean by “don’t ask, don’t tell”. I’d be laughing out of sheer schadenfreude at the situation (come on, two of the loudest anti-gay protesters rolled into one?) if the entire situation wasn’t so horrific. Who knows how many of those men were infected and their lives destroyed?

Well, that was a lovely, depressing little romp through the news.

Maybe I’ll stick to airing little bits of my dirty laundry and using them to chastise my peers. That theme seems to be working for me.

Edit/Update: Prize for the 1,500 Comments Contest

Just thought I’d let you know that I snagged something for the prize in the second incarnation of the comments contest: a Sandisk Sansa 1GB MP3 player.

In pink.

Because that amuses the bloody hell out of me.

We’re already at 1,126 comments, though…er…[cough] …a large portion of that may be my fault. Ahem. Anyway. Rules are the same; spam comments/comments just to inflate the comment count will be deleted; my comments and pingback link comments count to raise the comment count but don’t count to win, and whoever gets the 1,500th comment (or the first qualifying comment after 1,500) wins.

And to answer a question from last time: international readers do qualify to win. International shipping on small, lightweight items is generally quite cheap, and customs isn’t a problem when I mark it as a gift.

Matthew Shepard hate crime bill, iran, Makvan Mouloodzadeh, Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, HIV/AIDS, in the Navy

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…anyone else noticing that more and more of these comics end with me threatening people? I may want to do something about that sour temperament of mine.

Naaaaah.

So as the comic title says: despite my complete contentment with single life, the siege has already begun. My friends gave me about a month of space, a month of soft-talking and pitying “are you all right?” questions that I glibly ignored before they began the assault to find a new man for me. I foresee much stabbing in my imminent future. My friends and I have very different tastes in men. The kind of guys they’d hook me up with are usually men I’d run screaming from rather than give them my number.

…then again, I won’t even pretend that I’ve been doing that great a job of picking for myself, either. [headdesk] Yyyep. Me. Single. Good. And I swear to gods, if Red wakes me up again she’ll be experiencing that oft-mentioned shiv to the trachea.

(By the way, for a bit of comic trivia: while J, T, and a few others actually reflect real people in my life, Red is actually an avatar representing several of my friends. I have a disproportionate number of friends who all happen to be short, pale, busty lesbians with short red hair and either green or blue eyes. It’s completely by accident, and yet I somehow have my own harem. And they’ve all got attitude, and all love to turn it on me. The girl that I call Red in the comic has pretty much come to represent all of them.)

In more serious news: remember Senator Larry Craig getting caught soliciting for gay sex in a bathroom sting? (Republicans do love their bathrooms…) Well, despite his repeated assertions that he’s not gay, four gay men have come forward to confirm that he’s flirted with them in the past and to say that they’re sick of his denial. Even the guy who outed Ted Haggard has chimed in. At this point I actually feel bad for Craig; he’s trying to fight his way out of this, and things just keep sinking deeper and deeper. When something like this happens, with people suddenly conveniently coming forward, I tend to be skeptical and think it’s a ploy for publicity to defame the person accused. In this case, though, I’m torn; the four men really have nothing to gain by speaking out this way. If they were going to bribe Craig, they’d have been quieter about it. Who knows. Either way, I don’t see Craig getting out of this pile of dung any time soon.

I’m out of here. Tune in tomorrow for more rambling, or next week for a new comic (featuring Kujo Hikaru, winner of the comments contest).

larry craig, no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip

Some time ago, I said that I didn’t quite understand the outrage in Tuscany over an anti-discrimination ad featuring a photo of a newborn baby. I thought the ad was clever, to the point, and extremely effective. I didn’t once stop to think that using the knee-jerk human reaction to anything involving children in such a way constituted some rather underhanded and manipulative tactics, right from our side of the gay vs. anti-gay war. I thought it was all right, because it got the point that I wanted to make across. I didn’t realize that I was setting a double standard.

I realized when I read an article about New Jersey anti-gay campaigners who’ve launched a series of radio ads using the voices of children to denounce gay marriage.

The ads begin with an announcer saying “If we change the definition of marriage..” but is interrupted by a child.

“Grandma, my teacher said if grandpa was a girl that’s ok, you can still be married,’” the voice says.

The announcer then returns to say: “Our kids will be taught a new way of thinking: ‘God creating Adam and Eve is so old-fashioned.’”

“Thinking the unthinkable: ‘If my dad married a man, who would be my mom?’”

I started frothing. “This is wrong,” I snarled to myself. “It’s dirty, it’s underhanded, it would take a bunch of sleazy rats to use children to prey on people’s reactions just to spread their propaganda–”

And that’s when it hit me.

I was being a damned hypocrite.

I was being just like every other narrow-minded, hot-headed political mudslinger who flings words like “liberal” and “conservative” around as insults, points fingers, and accuses the other side of every atrocity known to man. I was condemning them for tactics that people on my side of the argument used, and following the very same mindset: it’s reprehensibly wrong if they do it, but it’s permissible if we do it because we’re right, damn it. It doesn’t matter which side you define as “us” or “them”. In the end they aren’t so different.

In the end, I became what I loathe most. I lost my rationality, my objectivity, my sense of fairness. I succumbed to bias.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been that disgusted with myself.

No, it isn’t all right to use manipulative tactics like that to spread your propaganda - and no matter what side you stand on, to someone your beliefs will be considered propaganda. It’s not right for us, it’s not right for them, it’s not right for you, and it’s not right for me. If I’m going to condemn conservatives for using such methods, then I have to condemn anyone else who does as well, even if I agree with their message.

You can’t call it “fighting the good fight” when you fight dirty. Some may say that you do what you must to win; I can’t say that I agree. Just because one side fights dirty doesn’t mean that you must sink to those levels to win. Don’t set a bad example, and don’t follow one, either; rise above, and set the standard for your opposition to adhere to. Both sides would benefit if we fought fair, fought cleanly, and met each other face to hard, ugly face. That includes facing our own hypocrisies, and recognizing our own double standards. It means understanding that we often loathe things in others that reflect what we hate most about ourselves. It means respecting the opposition…and making ourselves worthy of their respect, in return.

Only then will these battles of human rights come to the table of negotiation, and be settled fairly with no further blood shed.

new jersey, gay marriage, radio ads, national organization for marriage

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…nnngghhh. [insert entirely graceless faceplant into a pillow here] It’s morning already? Sweet honkin’ Jeebus, why is it morning already? Here; read this while I go make some mother-snortin’ coffee.

US Set to Deport Gay Iranian - ZNet/ZMag

President George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may not agree on much, but tragically they may find common ground about the disposability of Hassan Parhizkar’s life.

Since November 7, a mild-mannered 40-year-old gay Iranian businessman from Rockville, Maryland has been sitting in jail in the Frederick County, Maryland Detention Center, housed with common criminals, in the living hell of limbo between the freedom he has known since he came to the United States as a young man 17 years ago and the certain persecution, imprisonment, or worse that will be his fate as a gay man if he is sent back to Iran.

A deportation order to send him back to Iran has been issued, and any day he could be put on a plane back to Tehran, where he was born.

“I am very afraid, and so very frustrated,” Hassan Parhizkar told me in a truncated, collect telephone call from jail.

“My asylum request has never been before an immigration judge. I just don’t know what to do, I just don’t know what to do…” he added in a voice choked with tears.

“I work hard, I pay my taxes, and I live a quiet life without bothering anybody,” Parhizkar told this reporter.

Done reading? Good; I’m done brewing (and even marginally awake now).

The article goes on to tell such a deliberate tearjerker of a story that I had to stop and Google the validity of the source (and I still have my doubts; why isn’t this being covered anywhere else?). Hassan has been preyed upon by a man falsely representing himself as an attorney, arrested by the morality police in his own country for having a relationship with another man (but homosexuals don’t exist in Iran, do they, Mr. President?) and now, after struggling to make a life for himself as a business owner, faces deportation to a country that will likely make sure that he doesn’t bring that gay census count from 0 to 1. No doubt adding one more to the body count is seen as less heinous than allowing a known homosexual to make a liar of Iran’s president.

I can only hope that he won’t be deported once he’s had a fair hearing. The U.S. has standards set in place for situations such as this, in which if the illegal immigrant faces undue punishment, torture, the death penalty, etc. then the U.S. will grant them asylum. It’s a public relations nightmare, after all, for a country’s immigration services to say “You’ve been living here illegally? Nope, back home to the noose you go, we’ll send flowers for your grave.” No, I’m not going to go off on a Bush-bashing tirade assuming that of course he’d want to send the man back to Iran to die because he’s evil, homophobic, uneducated, thick-headed, the usual rhetoric. Bush probably doesn’t even know what the man’s name is yet, but if it gets to the point where the issue’s brought to his direct attention then he’ll pretty much have no choice about granting asylum lest he stir up one hot mess. Even if you trust Bush to be stupid, trust his advisors not to be that idiotic. So honestly, especially if this picks up more media coverage, I’m not too worried about Hassan Parhizkar. I do feel sorry for him, though.

If you want to do something about his situation, there’s a petition going around to grant him asylum. This may be my sleep-deprived, I-am-a-b*tch-in-the-mornings state talking, but it’s fairly useless beyond making people feel better about themselves. Stick your name on the petition, pat yourselves on the back. The power of petition just isn’t as strong as it used to be, especially at the federal level. But hey, go sign it anyway. Better to do one tiny, useless thing than to do absolutely nothing at all.

My cranky butt is out of here.

Hassan Parhizkar, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, homophobia, anti-gay sentiment, illegal immigration, asylum, deportation

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…what? They can’t all be about being gay. My life doesn’t revolve around being gay, so my comic won’t always, either.

So…yeah. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but part of my highly-mixed ethnicity includes a significant portion of Native American blood. When I say I’m part Native, I don’t mean “I’m white as hell but think it makes me cool to say that I have a great-grandmother nine generations back who was a blue-eyed Cherokee princess”. I mean “You know, next summer I really should take a trip out to visit my uncle and cousins on the reservation.”

So on matters of principle, I don’t celebrate the current common American idea of Thanksgiving - but I also don’t take it as seriously as the comic makes it sound. Every war has a loser, and the victor is often those with the best weapons and superior numbers. I’m not happy that Native culture has been either murdered, assimilated, or erased and is in danger of melting away entirely, but being an a** about it to Americans who enjoy Thanksgiving won’t change the past. So I have my principles, but try to keep a sense of humor about them - hence mocking both myself and my friend a bit via comic. (My friend was wrong, though, when we had this conversation. I do celebrate Christmas, just not from a religious standpoint - more from the “spirit of giving” standpoint, which is why I call it Happy Shiny Buy Things for My Friends Day, as I love giving gifts. And the only reason I don’t celebrate Easter is because I often forget about it until the day after, which happens to be my favorite holiday of the year (especially since it occurs after almost every holiday): Cheap Candy Day.)

For something a little more GBLTQ-topical, Anji sent me a link yesterday regarding the ongoing and tiresome battle over an Okeechobee, FL high school’s gay-straight alliance - in which the school board called the alliance a “sex-based club”. That statement alone is a horrible demonstration of the ignorance in society that helps to perpetuate both prejudices and stereotypes. Understanding one’s sexuality and gathering with those who also seek to understand their sexuality and fight for their rights doesn’t mean that they’re also gathering to act on that sexuality. Being gay isn’t just about having sex, and gay issues aren’t just about sexual experimentation or gratification. At this point the actual sex involved is practically tangential; there are so many more issues of human rights involved that I can’t believe anyone would think a gay-straight alliance, intended to promote tolerance and acceptance, was nothing more than a “sex-based club”.

But that’s not all from the WTF Factory today, kids. Not by a long shot. Apparently, if you disagree with the GBLTQ rights that a particular employer offers its workers, the answer is to buy out as much stock as possible in that company in order to gain a majority interest and, via shareholder vote, force those dirty gay supporters to comply with your beliefs. No, I’m not joking. Reverend Ken Hutcherson is urging conservatives to do just that with Microsoft.

That goes beyond extremism and into insanity. One can assume that most of these people don’t even work for Microsoft, but they’re so bothered by the fact that M$ - who really can’t be redeemed in my eyes, but at least this is one point in their favor - dares to support GBLTQ workers’ right to equality that even though it doesn’t affect them, they want to strip that right away. Why? Because it constitutes “pushing the homosexual agenda”.

What. The. Hell. That’s not pushing a homosexual agenda; I’m about as sick of that phrase as I am of the phrase “sanctity of marriage”. There is no homosexual agenda. We don’t distribute manifestos regarding our secret plan to conquer the country and turn it into a giant disco version of Fire Island; we don’t try to convert or recruit; we don’t do anything other than ask that we, as minorities, are afforded the same rights as other minorities contesting against the majority. We ask to be treated like human beings, like citizens, with the same rights and protections as anyone else. We aren’t asking for superiority. We’re asking for equality.

That’s not an agenda. That’s long damned well overdue.

Hutcherson even thinks that the battle for civil rights for gays can’t be compared to the battle for civil rights for African-Americans…just because ex-gays exist, but ex-blacks don’t.

Just because a biological trait such as homosexuality isn’t physically apparent doesn’t mean that it’s any different from one that is, such as skin color. They share a common factor: they’re things we’re born into, not things we choose. Ex-gays haven’t really stopped being gay; they haven’t changed that biological trait. They’ve been conditioned to ignore it and act against it, and often are psychologically damaged as a result.

The comparison between the two struggles for civil rights is still quite apt. The prejudice against those who are different hasn’t changed; the tactics of discrimination have. Hutcherson wants to say they’re different because homosexuals were never forced to ride in the back of a bus; blacks were never sent to ex-black camps and mentally reconditioned to think they aren’t black, either. It doesn’t change the fact that both minority groups have been discriminated against, denied rights and privileges, abused, and ostracized in the past - and both still are now. Both are treated as less than human; there was a time when being black was viewed as a perversion, an abomination in the eyes of God, and black people were somehow less than human. Isn’t that how homosexuals are treated now? We’re told that we’re sick, we’re sinners, we’re filthy in the eyes of a God that loves and welcomes anyone but us, that views us as little more than rutting animals.

Hutcherson wants to use the race card to play up the struggle of African Americans for equality as somehow superior, morally above the struggle for GBLTQ equality. It’s not. They are the same, and equally deserving of consideration.

We’re all the same. If people could realize that, we wouldn’t even have these arguments.

no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, microsoft, gbltq rights, lgbt rights, gay and lesbian equality, workplace equality, reverend ken hutcherson, gay-straight alliance in okeechobee florida, thanksgiving, native americans

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

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

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

I admit to being charmed by Barack Obama. His charm is one of his many assets, and it’s the reason he’s been pegged as the next John F. Kennedy. Part of that charm, however, is a certain boyish naivete that, while endearing, does little to reassure the shrewd voter that he knows what he’s doing, has a solid and well-grounded foundation, and will be able to lead with a clear and calm head. His statements give one cause to wonder if he even knows where he stands on certain issues, but it’s his actions in regards to the GBLTQ community right now that give me pause for concern.

Ex-Gay Gospel Singer a Hit at Obama Event Despite Controversy - GayWired.com

To many gays and lesbians, ex-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin was one of the last entertainers they would have liked to see headlining Barack Obama’s “Embrace the Change” concert tour of the South.

Those who attended last night’s stop in Columbia, S.C., however, must have thought the complete opposite, as they reportedly leaped from their seats when McClurkin strode on stage.

“We’re here,” the singer told the crowd, estimated to be 2,000-strong, according to the Associated Press. “We’re here and we’re glad we’re here.”

McClurkin got through the evening without mentioning the controversy he brought to the event and to Obama’s campaign. That is, until the concert’s final 60 minutes.

According to the Washington Post, McClurkin approached the subject subtly before launching into a full-on plea to those in the crowd.

“I just said yes,” he said of the invitation he received from the Obama campaign. “I didn’t know so much was going to happen,” the Washington Post reported. “I didn’t know my yes was going to mean I was misunderstood and vilified. .. . Sometimes people can take your words and do this with them,” he said while making a twisting motion with his hands.

Mr. Obama, do you know what the phrase “birds of a feather flock together” means? I can assure you that millions of voting Americans do, and that assumption will carry more weight with the general populace than your half-hearted protests. Even if you have your reasons for including an ex-gay minister in your gospel tour, you are a public figure and your image is, unfortunately, very important to your presidential campaign. For you to ignore that displays an astonishing lack of foresight. Were you making a stand on something unpopular and controversial and sticking to your guns despite what it might do to your reputation, I might understand making a move that might alienate many of your otherwise supportive voters while gaining the vote of many more.

This isn’t such an issue, though. This is a muddled middle ground in which you seemed more concerned with courting the votes of your African-American supporters with the inclusion of a gospel minister than you were with alienating your GBLTQ supporters by your association with an ex-gay minister. Being the unimportant smaller margin doesn’t feel good, Mr. Obama. It doesn’t win votes. And it can’t be appeased by a perfunctory conciliatory statement made by bland, impersonal press release; if it could, we wouldn’t be actively protesting your involvement with McClurkin, no matter how incidental.

Is this political suicide? Hardly. It’s an issue, and an uncomfortable one, but not so grievous an error as to cause a scandal.

But has it tarnished the lustre of Barack Obama’s boyish charm? Most certainly. The boy scout’s halo is slipping just a little, and while this slur might be set aside for the day, it won’t be easily forgotten.

democratic presidential candidate barack obama, ex-gay minister donnie mcclurkin, embrace the change gospel tour

Remember the discussions of ENDA and GENDA? Well, now there’s a new contender in the ring: DUMBARSE. That’s not really an acronym for anything, but in my current mood it was intensely satisfying to type that in all caps.

White House Warns Of ENDA Veto - 365Gay.com

(Washington) In its first statement on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would protect gays and lesbians in the workforce the White House said Tuesday the bill is likely unconstitutional and that if it passes in Congress the president’s senior aides would recommend vetoing it.

“[The bill] is inconsistent with the right to the free exercise of religion as codified by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),” the White House said in a statement.

The House is expected to vote on ENDA, along with an amendment that would extend protections to include gender identity on Wednesday.

The White House raised what it called two examples of how ENDA would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“For instance, schools that are owned by or directed toward a particular religion are exempted by the bill; but those that emphasize religious principles broadly will find their religious liberties burdened by H.R. 3685. A second concern is H.R. 3685’s authorization of Federal civil damage actions against State entities, which may violate States’ immunity under the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

The administration also said that ENDA was result in unnecessary litigation.

“For instance, the bill establishes liability for acting on ‘perceived’ sexual orientation, or ‘association’ with individuals of a particular sexual orientation. If passed, H.R. 3685 is virtually certain to encourage burdensome litigation beyond the cases that the bill is intended to reach.”

In addition the White House said that provisions of ENDA “give Federal statutory significance to same-sex marriage rights under State law. These provisions conflict with the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman. The Administration strongly opposes any attempt to weaken this law, which is vital to defending the sanctity of marriage.”

[...] “It is shameful that the President’s senior advisers would recommend that he veto landmark legislation to end workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Fully qualified, capable Americans should never be denied a job or fired from a job for non-work related reasons,” Miller said.

“Basing employment decisions on prejudice and not on merit is un-American and should have no place in our society. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is an historic civil rights bill and if the President opposes it he will be on the wrong side of history.”

[...]ENDA, as currently worded, would make it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee.

There are, however, some notable exceptions. It does not cover small businesses, churches and the uniformed members of the armed forces. The White House concerns suggest that ENDA could be used against faith-based agencies and to seek domestic partner benefits from employers. The threatened veto is the second against LGBT legislation before Congress. The other is the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act.

[deep breath] Buckle in, kids; this is going to be a long one. I’m pissed, and I’m going to ramble. There are so many things in there that set me off that I don’t even know where to start, but I’ll try to pick and choose my points rather than going off on every little tangent.

“[The bill] is inconsistent with the right to the free exercise of religion as codified by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),” the White House said in a statement.

Here we run into a dilemma, my friends, and the very first thing in this article that raised my hackles. Despite being a full-blown atheist, a walking and talking godless heathen, I believe strongly in the freedom of religion. Hell, it’s part of what this nation was founded on. I believe in freedom of religion as part of every person’s personal freedoms, a right that should not be taken away from anyone as long as it isn’t harmful to other people.

But I don’t believe in exercising one’s religious freedoms in order to encourage discrimination. Freedom of religion should never come before basic human rights. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we’ve lost sight of the separation of church and state in this nation, and all other human rights take a back seat to upholding religion. Neither faith nor religious institution should come before the protection of basic civil rights. Yes, religious freedom should be protected. But it should come second to civil rights for the GBLTQ community, or civil rights for any group that is discriminated against based on race, gender, sexuality, or other traits that are one’s birthright, not one’s choice. To say protecting the rights of our community is unconstitutional is like saying equal rights for African Americans is unconstitutional, or that the right for women to vote is unconstitutional.

Faith is a choice, people. People constantly label homosexuality as a lifestyle; it’s not. It’s a trait. Faith is a lifestyle. Faith is an adopted set of beliefs and a way of life that you choose to follow. So don’t discriminate against people for what they are because you’re trying to protect people for what they choose. Protect both, but get your freakin’ priorities straight.

The administration also said that ENDA was result in unnecessary litigation.

“For instance, the bill establishes liability for acting on ‘perceived’ sexual orientation, or ‘association’ with individuals of a particular sexual orientation. If passed, H.R. 3685 is virtually certain to encourage burdensome litigation beyond the cases that the bill is intended to reach.”

That, right there, is the only valid argument I can see against passing ENDA - from their stance, anyway. If the language is ambiguous enough it’ll create more problems than it solves, and open up ground for frivolous lawsuits in absolute droves, from both sides of the spectrum. If that was the only reason for the threatened veto, I’d say “Fine, you’ve got a point. Go fix the thing and then run it through the wringer again, damn it.” But it’s not. Oh, no, it’s not, and here comes the one that got me really steaming.

In addition the White House said that provisions of ENDA “give Federal statutory significance to same-sex marriage rights under State law. These provisions conflict with the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman. The Administration strongly opposes any attempt to weaken this law, which is vital to defending the sanctity of marriage.”

….

…….

…………

Wave that torch a little higher, Shrubby.

“Sanctity of marriage”, my tarty little brown arse.

I loathe the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. I always have. I think it’s an outdated, antiquated piece of filth that basically forces the religious views of a particular sector onto an entire nation, shielded by federal law. It goes against everything that “separation of church and state” stands for, by abusing the power of the state to enforce the power of the church, and it never should have been introduced in a modern age. It should not in any way be used as an argument against ENDA.

You know what? Maybe ENDA should be used against faith-based agencies that way. Maybe employers should be forced to recognize domestic partner benefits regardless of whether they’re a faith-based agency or not. I’m normally not a fan of aggression over diplomacy, but this is getting ridiculously out of hand. We’re constantly told that we should put aside our sexuality in the workplace, and therefore equal rights in the workplace and discrimination based on faith vs. sexuality shouldn’t affect us. Stay in the closet, pretty much.

Why don’t the people who protest our very existence get in their own damned closet? Why don’t they put their faith aside in the workplace in the same way they tell us to put our sexuality aside? If we don’t deserve equal consideration for who we are, why should they deserve equal consideration for their choices? Either we both win, or we both lose.

Or they can suck it up, we can come to a compromise, and we can have our basic human right to equality before they exercise their freedom in their choice of religion. It’s entirely unfair of them to wage their religious wars over our civil liberties.

Something’s got to give here.

And I’m getting damned sick of it being us.

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

Hooo…kaaaaay. My bad-news moratorium? Broken. I can’t keep quiet about this. I’ve been trying, for days. Days. It’s not working. I’m biting my tongue so hard it’s about to start bleeding.

Gays Banned But Military Recruits Increased Number Of Convicted Criminals - 365gay.com

(Washington) The Army last year again increased the number of its recruits who have prior criminal records by granting them special exceptions.

The Pentagon’s top personnel official defended the policy, saying it’s so stringent that many in Congress would have difficulty getting into the military today, too, because of things they did in their youth.

The military routinely grants waivers to recruits with past criminal behavior, medical problems or low aptitude scores that would otherwise disqualify them from service.

In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 18 percent of recruits needed waivers for problems with the law - up from 15 percent the previous year, Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, told a Pentagon news conference. He said 87 percent of those were for misdemeanors such as joy riding or violating curfew. [...] [D]efense personnel head David S.C. Chu said the waiver policy, taken as a whole, is a tough one and takes into consideration the whole person and his or her future abilities, not just mistakes the person may have made in the past.

One question they are asked, he said, is whether they have ever used marijuana, even once. “If you answer ‘yes’ about one use … it requires a waiver. [...] That’s a pretty tough standard,” he said. “Not to be cheeky about this, but (if) we apply that standard to our legislative overseers, a significant fraction would need waivers to join the United States military.”

Think about that last statement. Think about it really hard. I think that should bloody tell you something, genius.

Right now I’m seeing two obvious interpretations on this, from my (admittedly annoyed and prone to snarly speculation) perspective:

1. “Even a barely-functioning idiot or convicted sex offender is better than one of those stinking fags; we don’t want those types in our armed forces.”
2. “Take the criminals and the ill first and use ‘em as cannon fodder. Best way to get ‘em out of the breeding population and if the military doesn’t straighten ‘em up and set ‘em right, then at least it’ll get rid of ‘em so they’re not a problem anymore.”

Either option? Not acceptable.

(You know, later when I stop fuming, I’m going to end up rolling my eyes at myself for framing those interpretations in such sensationalist language. Y’know, just so you know I’m aware of how bad I’m being. I’m starting to think sensationalism is a job requirement for working in news media, though so hey - I’m on the right track, right?)

How much more ridiculous is this going to get? If you have a criminal record, you get a special exception and you’re in. Hey, we do it for politicians, might as well do it for soldiers, right? And if you’re too stupid to follow orders and so clumsy you trip over your own bare feet, that’s fine, we’ll just put you on the front line and push you in the right direction. You’ll make a great shield for the other soldiers. Oh, what’s that, you’ve got a heart condition? Don’t worry, a stray bullet will kill you before your heart condition does. You’re in.

Not you, though. Yeah, you, over there. The guy in great shape who takes care of himself and doesn’t have a single medical condition. The brilliant engineer who can probably put his skills to good use keeping people alive on the front line. The guy with the spotless record who doesn’t even have a DUI. Yeah, you? You’re out. I saw you eyeing that other recruit’s butt. We don’t stand for that in our armed forces, buddy.

I’m starting to think the people who make these policies were given a few of those special exceptions for low aptitude scores.

Don’t get me wrong, I wholly approve of forgiving past mistakes for the sake of future potential; I made a lot of screwups in my younger years, and I’m still paying for them and dealing with their consequences. I’ve learned to be a more responsible person because of it. People grow up, people change, people get their sh*t straight and move on to do some great things. My problem is that potential hazards are being forgiven for the sake of meeting recruitment quotas, but harmless homosexuality is still an offense that will get you booted from the military.

Unbalanced? Yes. Idiotic?

Hell bloody yes.

On a closing tangent, the man I ranted about in the killing of Michael J. Sandy has been convicted of a hate crime despite his dubious plea that he, too, is gay. I only have one thing to say to that:

Damn straight, baby.

No pun intended, naturally.

Since it’s Friday I hate to end with a down note, so for a little humor I present you with something I yanked off my site metrics: the strangest term anyone has ever Googled to get to this site.

“New Jersey transsexual husband lesbian bread.”

That’s so weird it bears repeating.

“New Jersey transsexual husband lesbian…<