88 Percent

That's the number of foster children adopted by gay couples in San Francisco since last July. This week, as San Fran prepares a huge pro-gay adoption blitz (complete with billboards all over the city), apparently the San Francisco Chronicle likes to quote leaders of hate groups, as recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The offending article was printed yesterday morning, and the offending paragraph goes like this:

The campaign, which will include a billboard in the Castro featuring two dads with their teen daughter, is perhaps the first of its kind and sure to be controversial. It comes just two weeks after the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family began its drive to recruit more Christians as adoptive parents, partly -- the group said -- to keep foster children out of homosexual hands.

Focus on the Family's objection to same-sex parents is grounded in interpretation of biblical scripture and research by Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute in Colorado. Cameron says gays and lesbians are unfit parents, are more likely to molest children of their same sex, switch partners frequently, have shorter life expectancies and cause their children embarrassment and social difficulties.

"Any child that can be adopted into a married-mother-and-father family, that's the gold standard," Cameron said. "An orphanage would be the second choice, and then a single woman."

Well, if all that isn't offensive enough, reporter Ilene Lelchuck fails to mention that Paul Cameron, according toAmericablog: "told the 1985 Conservative Political Action Committee conference that "extermination of homosexuals" might be needed in the next three to four years. He has advocated tattooing AIDS patients in the face, and banishment to a former leper colony for any patient who resisted. He has called for gay bars to be closed and gays to be registered with the government.

He was kicked out of the American Psychological Association, and was publicly rebuked by the Nebraska Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. And he has been called the leader of a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, America's number one civil rights organization for tracking the klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The Southern Poverty Law Center went so far as to say that "Cameron's 'science' echoes Nazi Germany." And the SPLC tracks actual Nazis, so they have the right to make the comparison.

This is the "expert" quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle. And to make matters worse, not only did the Chronicle quote a known hate group as an expert on civil rights, but they didn't even identify who Cameron really is. Nope. They don't tell their readers anything at all about Cameron, simply that he's an expert on gays molesting children. Do you think it's relevant that the man's "science" has been debunked? Not according to the "journalists" at the Chronicle.

I suspect Ms. Lelchuck will most likely be issuing an apology in the next day or two. This is just incredibly sloppy, lazy reporting. Why quote the man in the first place, unless that's your agenda?

Perception Makes Perfect

Since Jerry Fartwell's death last week, a number of op-ed pieces and genuine articles have been sounding the death knell for evangelicism in American politics. Or, at the very least, its relevance. I don't think it's hyerbolic to say that America has been held in a death-grip of terror by these fanatics (and I'm including Muslims in that loony bunch, too, because they're no worse than the Christians; the only reasons the Christians aren't flying planes into buildings is just because they don't have to), and Fartwell's death is more than a little symbolic at this point in history.

Yesterday Frank Rich had an editorial in the NYT about this very symbolism, saying Falwell's death "...happened at the precise moment that the Falwell-Robertson brand of religious politics is being given its walking papers by a large chunk of the political party the Christian right once helped to grow. Hours after Mr. Falwell died, Rudy Giuliani, a candidate he explicity rejected, won the Republican debate by acclamation."

Sullivan piles on the commentary by laying claim that James Dobson, America's preemminent Evangelical leader, refuses to endorse either Giuliani or McCain, who, at this point, are pretty much the only Republicans capable of taking the nomination. At least in my opinion. So what will that leave their flock to do? Think for themselves? Not vote? The prospect inherently makes one giddy with glee at what the next election can hold. Which is also to say, I won't underestimate the Evangelicals' power. It's a sign of absolutely sickening cynicism in America when things have even gotten to the point where Evangelicals cannot simply be dismissed out of hand by political candidates anymore. I mean, if Jerry Falwell had ever said that crack-cocaine was a punishment by a just God against black people (like he said AIDS was about gay people), would any politician anywhere in the country have aligned with him? No fucking way! But because he was beating up on the gays, it was okay. The fact that any of these wackos are invited onto talk shows, and given newspaper columns, and taken seriously at all, even by supposedly "liberal" politicians is nauseating. And as Christopher Hitchens so helpfully pointed out in his brilliant Slate column last week, anyone that made half the claims that Fartwell did would have been locked up in a loony bin, were they not rich and with the word "Reverend" in front of their name.

But people are getting fed up, I think, and starting to realize that not only are these people greedy and mean, they're also liars and full of shit. The Mark Foleys and Ted Haggards, and Jack Abramoffs, and Paul Wolfowitzes of the world have seen to that. Not to mention their divinely-inspired leader, George Bush, who has probably done more to discredit Evangelicals than even they could do on their own. Which, actually, is saying a lot. And as much as I think Mary Cheney is a heartless, self-hating Ice Bitch, I have to give her a shout-out for her own hand in bringing about this change. So thanks, Bitch.

This morning, too, the NYT ran an interesting article about the now shifting priorities of the new, "modernist" evangelicals, to things that really matter, like ending AIDS in Africa, and global warming. Naturally abortion will always be a hot issue (that ain't going anywhere), but it was refreshing to read about how so many of these new evangelicals really want to distance themselves from the likes of Falwell, Dobson, and even Bush. They want a return to real Christian values and a focus on issues that Jesus would be concerned about, like poverty and the environment. It ends by even adding that the younger generation, while still conservative, also have gay friends, and view them more as real people, with real lives and values, than their parents ever did. In another generation, gay marriage will really be a moot issue, much how inter-racial marriage became a non-issue in the span of one generation.

It also makes one wonder if maybe this movement is overstated, or if the original, more hateful and hypocritical movement was the one overstated. There are so many other variables when you consider the presidency of Bush, like 9/11 and the war in Iraq. I think a lot of otherwise sensible people voted for Bush the second time based on these two issues and an environment of so much uncertainty and "danger." If 9/11 had never occurred, who knows what would have happened. The war in Iraq most certainly never would have happened (well, maybe not). I definitely think it's too soon to let down our guard and vigilance against the religious fuckers, but the tides do seem to be genuinely turning. I am so curious as to what will happen next year.

UPDATE: In the interest of full disclosure, as some of you may know, back when I had a soul-sucking corporate job and spent all day ensconsed in a cubicle, I listened to a lot of conservative radio. Don't ask me why. It fired me up, it gave me pause, I genuinely wanted to learn how they thought and understand them. Granted, I was listening primarily to Bill 'O Reilly and Dr. Laura, but still. I often found them very interesting, especially Dr. Laura, seeing as how her show wasn't overtly political, but was primarily about psychology. I liked her no-nonsense approach to life and matter of factness, although I think she too greatly discounts the value of emotions in dealing with life. However, I turned her off one day and never listened to her again when she said date rape was a myth, that if a woman is on a date with a man and drinks alcohol, then that woman should expect, and deserves, whatever she gets.

All of which is to say that I wanted to point your way toward a really strange story regarding Dr. Laura's son, who is a US marine. It involves his MySpace page (since removed), and its lurid content, described by an Army official as "repulsive."

The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.
The site is credited to and includes many photographs of Deryk Schlessinger, the 21-year-old son of the talk radio personality known simply as Dr. Laura.

It goes on to give a driect quote from Deryk himself: "Yes . . . F---ING Yes!!!" said one blog entry on the Schlessinger site. "I LOVE MY JOB, it takes everything reckless and deviant and heathenistic and just overall bad about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it . . . and some that don't."

Classy. The article does acknowledge, however, that it could have been a fake site set up to smear Dr. Laura and her son. Who knows. I just thought it was an interesting addendum to this post.

The Rosa Parks of Tolerance.

Stephen Colbert has the scoop on the recent hate-crimes bill.

I don't understand how these people can live with themselves with so much hate in their hearts and lies on their lips - in the name of Christianity.

Today on Politico, Matthew Shepard's mom, Judy, has written an eloquent and heartbreaking op-ed piece about a piece of federal hate-crimes legislation that President Bush has already vowed to veto.

On Thursday, Congress is considering a bill that would expand federal aid to law enforcement officials investigating hate crimes that result in serious physical harm and death.

The Senate version of the legislation carries Matthew's name.

Congressional offices all across Washington are being flooded with phone calls opposing the legislation because political organizations on the ultra-right have been lying to their members, and telling them that this legislation would punish religious people for anti-gay speech -- dubbing this a "thought crimes bill."

One group spreading misinformation to its membership -- the so-called Traditional Values Coalition -- has even gone so far as to put a picture of Jesus on a "wanted" poster, implying that religious people who speak out against homosexuality could become the targets of criminal investigations.

Obviously, that's just not true.

The people spreading this type of propaganda are blatantly lying to their members out of fear that the federal government might finally legislatively recognize that gay Americans exist, and need the same rights and protections the rest of us take for granted.

Even worse, the Traditional Values Coalition is misleading and manipulating its members to make these phone calls to Congress, even when they know in their hearts that they are spreading lies.

This type of behavior has nothing to do with real traditional values.

It's not even so much that Bush might veto a hate-crimes bill; honestly, I'm sort of ambivalent about hate crimes carrying harsher penalties than "regualar" crimes, but I need to do more research. What I find so upsetting are the lies and "gay panic" that the conservatives are engaging in, because God forbid, as Mrs. Shepard said, gay people should be treated like everybody else and expect the same rights. This is America, people, not fucking Iran!

In somewhat happier news, all Democrats, one Independent, and two Republicans in the Oregon legislature passed a "domestic partnership" bill that affords gay couples every legal recognition of marriage in that state without actually calling it marriage. Good enough for me. In some ways, I kind of like the idea of doing that better than calling it "gay marriage." The word "marriage" has so many religious connotations, and if the right-wing whackos won't let us call it that, then fine, we'll do it and just call it something else. I don't want to be in their club anyway. What makes it even cooler is that almost 3 years ago, the people of Oregon voted to ban gay marriage in that state by a very narrow margin, but a margin nonetheless. It's nice to see some politicians actually standing up for what's right.

Sen. Frank Morse, R-Corvallis, who supported the bill, said Oregon must find a way to treat all citizens with dignity and respect, regardless of sexual orientation.

"Our task today is to find how big is Oregon's heart," Morse said.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2008, same-sex couples will be able to go to their county courthouse and enter into a legally binding contract that grants them rights and responsibilities. The benefits include nearly all those accorded to married couples under state law, covering the rights to jointly file state taxes, child custody, hospital visitation and inheritance rights, among others.

"The world is white no longer, and will never be white again."

To add a counter-weight to my last, somewhat...negative post, I'd like to draw your attention to an incredibly inspiring "3am" column in this week's Austin Chronicle. The writer, Michael Ventura, argues that once the notion of an idea is released into the public, once the idea is in the air, "everyone inhales it."

What he's talking about is the idea of gay marriage, and the more the conservatives have to reiterate what it "should be" (as in, "marriage should be between a man and a woman"), the battle by the progressives has been won. It may take another generation to be fully integrated into society, but it will be integrated, and all this silly hand-wringing and non-comittment by politicians (we're looking at you, Clinton and Obama) will be a laughable trademark of the past.

Already it's legal in Massachusetts, it's on its way to being legal in New York; exact-replicas of marriage, dubbed "civil unions," but only in semantics, have been recently passed in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, California, and DC; new laws protecting the rights of transgender students (read: kids!) have recently been passed in Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, New Jersey, and DC; and sweeping new pro-gay (well, anti-discrimination) laws have been passed just in the last couple of weeks in Iowa, probably will pass in Oregon (including a civil unions bill), and the gay foster parent ban was killed in Arkansas; a federal bill was introduced that would make discriminating against gay people in employment illegal.

But I digress. He argues that as society becomes more and more accepting of the debunking of "traditional" marriage vales and gender identities, a whole, new, sexually pluralistic world will be ours to embrace however we see fit (and however we see fit to define ourselves and our relationships). It's an exciting concept that makes me giddy to think about.

My mom has been really putting a lot of pressure on me lately to move back closer to home. Of course, it's never going to happen, but whenever I sort of (as nicely as possible) shrug off her suggestions and cajoling, it kind of breaks my heart a little bit more, as I'm sure it does hers. It's frustrating sometimes, and the real irony of it all is that the life she's always wanted me to lead, and the life I've affirmatively decided I want, I could never have there.

I want a family (yes, including kids). I want a home. I want a fulfilling career, and to feel a sense of inclusion and community wherever I live. Everything that I want is so ordinary, so regular, so boring. But were I to do all of those things in Rogers, Arkansas (which wouldn't even really be feasible), it would be considered radical and provocative. This is one thing I've absolutely never understood about opponents of gay marriage, and by extension, gay rights: for years they've maligned, persecuted, slandered, discriminated against, and threatened gay people for upsetting the status quo, for corrupting children and society, for being hedonistic, selfish, narcissistic. But when a gay person says, "Hey, I want exactly what you want. I want a spouse, I want 4 kids to raise, nurture and love, I want a regular job that I go to, and to make money to take my kids on nice vacations and send them to good schools," the conservative world shutters (or shrieks) and accuses us of being evil.

I'm pretty good at being empathetic I think, and seeing other people's points of view, even if I vehemently disagree, but that just makes no sense to me. I mean, obviously it presents a threat, but I don't get why. I truly, truly don't. Like, my mom loves for my brother and his family to come to her church on Sunday, and she parades my nephew around, and brags on him, and shows him off to everybody. I wonder if I had a husband, and a child that we adopted, if she would be quite so willing to put herself out there and so eager to show off our child, and say, "This is my son and his husband's daughter," and have to endure people's looks, questions, and whispers. Somehow, I doubt it. No matter how proud she might be, I just don't think she would have the strength to do that.

And it's fine. That's why I'll never live there (well, one reason among many), but I wonder if that would make sense to my mom. She thinks gay people wanting to raise children is radical. If she's gonna freak out if I kiss my boyfriend goodbye in the driveway of her house (because someone might see), well, then I'm fairly certain she would be pretty uncomfortable with the idea of my bringing home someone I call a husband, and our children, and sitting together in a pew at her small, conservative-ish church.

It's not that she's not supportive, it's just that, well, maybe it is radical. But it shouldn't be. And I think that's what Ventura is arguing in this article: that someday, probably sooner rather than later, it won't be so radical. The generation that thinks gay people have to be single, childless and alone their whole lives will someday all be gone, replaced with a new generation who takes gay families for granted. When I mentioned to my mom recently that I did want a family, and I did want kids someday, she gave me an utterly perplexed look, and said something along the lines of, "Well, you're gonna have to find a woman in order to do that." Well, yes, I suppose so technically. It's just not something people of her generation expect gay people to do, thus, she doesn't understand why it would be so difficult for me to live in Rogers, Arkansas. Not to mention, I'd just kill myself from boredom.

Ventura ends the article (and this is where he really won me over) with a quote from my favorite writer, James Baldwin, and a little nugget of real hope:

In 1953, James Baldwin, a gay African-American, wrote the most telling sentence of the 20th century: "The world is white no longer, and it will never be white again." He was right; the primacy of white power was soon to end. Now marriage and gender are no longer defined strictly by heterosexuals. Heterosexuals will not cease to be the majority, but – an enormous sea change in human history! – they have ceased to be the sole "official" definers of sexuality. Eventually this will expand our relationships in ways we cannot imagine. We've embarked, as a species, upon unmapped spectrums of sex. Baldwin would be pleased that half a century later his sentence could be refashioned to read: "The world is heterosexual no longer, and it will never be heterosexual again."

I'm not really sure what color day I was born on, to be honest....

For my birthday on Sunday, I received a rather large (and unexpected) sum of money from my parents, so on Monday, I decided to go splurge a little bit and took myself down to the shiny new Borders Books near my parents' house, and actually bought a new hardback! Of course, I also had about $7 in gift cards left over from Christmas, so that helped as well.

The book I bought was one I've been wanting for awhile, a memoir by Daniel Tammet, the brilliant autistic savant that I wrote about back in February called Born on a Blue Day. The book is a very quick read, and totally fascinating, if not incredibly well-written, but that's all right. I'm not done with it yet, but I'm almost there, due to a good 4 hours of traveling back to Texas on Monday.

Anyway, the point is, when I started my Abnormal Psychology class this semester, my professor warned us that studying all these mental illnesses up close, we would probably gradually begin to apply all of these broad, generalized, and often vague symptoms to ourselves and start to think we were going crazy, or had scizophrenia or something.

Well, I think I'm autistic. I mean, it is possible to be just a little bit autistic, right? Well, except in my case, without the superior intelligence or any discernible gifts or talents.

Reading Mr. Tammet's book, I've been struck throughout it by how similar we are in our behaviors and mannerisms. Or so it seems; it's difficult to get a good grasp of what someone is really like be reading about them.

We both felt tremendous amounts of anxiety as children, beginning as early as we can both remember, and we were both terrified of the other kids, even before we had a reason to be.

As children, and largely as adults, we both found/find emotions to be completely overwhelming, and have a really hard time dealing with them, putting them into perspective, and they cause us great anxiety.

We both have tremendous difficulty concentrating or focusing on a task for very long.

We're both self-professed bad conversationalists. Which is weird to me, because it seems like people find it naturally easy to open up to me, and I've never quite figured out why until yesterday, when I was thinking about this, and I realized I think it's because I don't ever know what to say to people. In conversations, the other person generally does a lot of talking (at least from my perspective; I could be completely mistaken) and I just sit there, taking it in. Generally. But I think people generally just want an active ear, and my lack of communication skills makes me a good listener, so there you go.

We're both very easily overstimulated, especially around people and crowds, and usually prefer to stay in for that very reason. For both of us, noise is the greatest source of overstimulation.

I, too, am kind of obsessed with numbers, but not to the degree that Daniel Tammet is, obviously. But I constantly count things in my head, and if there are multiple items of the same thing (like candle holders on the back of my toilet), they either have to be in an even number, or shaped in such a way that being odd numbers is okay, like in a pyramid shape.

I also do this thing in my head with letters, that I've done ever since high school, when I did it with a stop sign while sitting at an intersection, and I just never stopped doing it. It doesn't seem all that weird to me, but when I've told people that I do it, and that I do it constantly, like, sometimes to the point that it starts to make me crazy, people always freak out. What I do is take words in my head and rearrange the letters of the word so that they're in alphabetical order. This happens generally when I see signs, billboards or advertisements. Sometimes it even distracts me when I drive, because I'm too busy putting all the letters in a billboard in alphabetical order to drive properly. For instance, if I see the word "grocery," I immediately put the letters in order, like:
c-e-g-o-r-r-y.

Or highway:
a-g-h-h-i-w-y.

Or house:
e-h-o-s-u

Or Dallas:
a-a-d-l-l-s

And I can do it instantaneously, within a blink of an eye, almost any word. Which, needless to say, sometimes even makes reading difficult, because, especially if I'm stressed out already or feeling anxious, I'll just start doing that with all the words on the page. I do it almost the entire time I'm at work, ringing up people's groceries, running words and letters in my head. Sometimes even while I'm talking to them.

But ultimately, I guess everybody has their own little weird things that they do, and eccentricities. I suppose rather than admitting I'm just sort of dumb, socially awkward, and have poor coping skills, I'd rather blame it on a learning disability.

I'm sort of loath to even draw attention to it, because I think the less attention they get, the better, but I couldn't peel my eyes away.

I've posted the first part of a 7-part BBC documentary on the Phelps (the crazy God Hates Fags family) called The Most Hated Family in America. So far I've only watched the first episode (each one is about 8 minutes) but I'm sure I'll watch them all in time. Or maybe I'll get bored.

Honestly, these people are so nuts, and everybody hates them so much, that they don't get me riled up like people do who actually have any power or influence. If anything, the Phelps probably turn more people sympathetic to the gays than create any more hatred. I just wish people wouldn't engage with them, or have them on talk shows. (Although I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrite posting this video. Oh well.)

And sadly, if nothing else, I hate them because in the clip they inspire Sean Hannity to actually say something I agree with. And that turns my stomach.

I love you so much, it makes me sick.

Well, I have to say I'm a little disappointed that it wasn't actually directed by Alexander Payne, but the trailer for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is out. I'll withold judgement until further notice, but the trailer mostly looks like the same old tired gay jokes, stereotypes, and satiric send-up of homophobic violence that everyone thinks is so funny these days. I don't doubt the integrity of its ultimate message (that everyone is equal, I'm assuming), but the packaging looks fairly unbearable.



In other news, good ole Barack has made the closest endorsement a mainstream politician running for president is ever likely to make in favor of gay marriage. It was yesterday on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, and though his response was fairly dodgy, all you have to do is read between the lines (and not even very carefully) that he's clearly in favor of gay marriage.

"Well, I think that 'marriage' has a religious connotation in this society, in our culture, that makes it very difficult to disentangle from the civil aspects of marriage. And as a consequence it's almost -- it would be extraordinarily difficult and distracting to try to build a consensus around marriage for gays and lesbians. What we can do is form civil unions that provide all the civil rights that marriage entails to same sex couples. And that is something that I have consistently been in favor of. And I think that the vast majority of Americans don't want to see gay and lesbian couples discriminated against, when it comes to hospital visitations and so on."

Civil unions are almost always used for a cop-out to say that you support gay relationships when you really don't, but in this case (and maybe it's just wishful thinking) I want to believe that that's not what Barack is talking about.

We were actually talking about gay marriage in my American Dilemmas class this morning, and people can parade around "civil unions" all they want to, but under federal guidelines set up by the hideously hateful Defense of Marriage Act signed by one Bill Clinton in 1996, even civil unions lack most of the legal benefits of marriage. All civil unions can really do is make a relationship legally recognized in whatever state they occur in, and offer some extra rights afforded to gay couples, but since DOMA is a federal law, most of the rights granted to married couples (like joint income tax filing, and automatic inheritance, just to name 2 big ones) can't be given by any state. Furthermore, it's because of DOMA that states can hold elections to make gay marriage unconstitutional in any particular state. Before that, according to federal law, a marriage in one state was a marriage in every state. So, Massachusetts granting gay marriage to its citizens (which is looking less and less likely to be the case in the near future), would have translated to every state. Not so anymore, thanks to Bill Clinton. Of course, if that was still the case, I'm sure there would have been all kinds of states that would have refused to acknowledge marriages performed in Massachusetts and there would still be legal problems, but were that the case, and the Defense of Marriage Act didn't exist, then legally, those states would probably have had to recognize the marriages.

Which is sort of crazy to think about.

Arkansas bill banning gay foster parents dies in committee.

Thank God. Gov. Mike Beebe thinks it's bad for foster kids to be adopted by gay parents because it could "stigmatize" them.

That statement is so stupid that I can't even begin to refute it. So I won't. And I bet if challenged, Mr. Beebe probably wouldn't be able to make a very good case for backing it up, either.

This, however, is probably my favorite exchange:
Walt McKay of Mountain Home, a licensed counselor, testified children, especially those who have been put up for adoption or removed from their home, need a stable environment.

"Statistically, homosexuals and heterosexuals who aren't married are not able to provide it," he said.

Rep. Kathy Webb, D-Little Rock, asked McKay if he was aware of research by organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association which suggests the development, adjustment and well-being of children with homosexual parents does not differ greatly from that of children with heterosexual parents.

"It's really difficult to find an unbiased opinion on either side," McKay said.

Yeah, good response.

Dan Savage explains that banning gay and lesbian foster parents would cost the U.S foster care system $130 million a year!

America is far too capitalistic for my taste, but I will say, it's interesting how the struggle for gay equality in this country often comes down to economics. The gays have become such a powerful force in the economy that we can no longer be ignored.

Like, for instance, the Iowa Senate adding same-sex orientation to its list of illegal discriminations. It was largely a matter of economics.

Backers of the bill, mostly Democrats, pushed it to passage on a 32-17 vote. They portrayed the legislation as a needed strike against discrimination that would also make the state more economically attractive.

"It is difficult to convince a talented young person to come to Iowa or stay in Iowa when they can be discriminated against simply because of who they are," Gronstal said. He said several of Iowa's top companies, including Principal Financial Group, Wells Fargo and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, already shield homosexuals from workplace discrimination.

That's something, I think, more and more states are waking up to. Virginia and Michigan, the two states in America that currently have the most, and harshest, anti-gay bills on the books, will probably realize this sooner or later as well. Whether or not they'll admit it is another matter.

But hey, whatever it takes.

Well, that basketball player IS pretty hot....

The Daily Show takes on gay conversion therapy.

"A Letter to America's Heterosexuals"

Today in the L.A. Times there is an op-ed piece of sorts by the gay activist and writer Larry Kramer. Despite changing the title from the subject above to "Why Do Straights Hate Gays," and describing him as an "aging 72-year-old gay man," (I mean, could they make it sound any more dismissive?), it's worth a read.

There is not much nuance to the letter, and reads a bit like an undisciplined, whiny temper tantrum, and I was almost embarassed to read it. It's so easy to forget that a man who is now 72, though, grew up in such an incredibly different environment than I did, and that I take so much for granted. I told someone at work the other day that I would never march in a gay pride parade as long as I lived because I wasn't proud to be gay. Which is not to say I'm ashamed of being gay, but that I don't think people should be proud to be gay any more than straight people should be proud to be straight. I realize this grossly misses the point, but I ended my conversation with this person by saying, "I'm proud, though, that all those people marched a generation ago so I don't have to." God, if I could go back and slap the shit out of myself only a week ago. What a smug, ungrateful attitude. Which is also dangerously insouciant. Rights are never a given (even here, where so many people seem to think they are), and even if you have them today, you could lose them tomorrow.

In the piece, Kramer also makes a rallying cry to boycott voting for any politicians, because "there is not a one...that wouldn't sell gays down the river." I'm not sure I completely agree with that, but he makes a good point. After all the flap about General Pace's comments last week about gays being immoral, both Hillary and Obama were disgracefully slow to respond, and Obama even outright ignored the question in favor of signing autographs and brushing off the reporter by hopping in a limo. Though he didn't outright say it, his attitude conveyed a sense of disinterest and apathy in this subject. Finally, several days later, through a rep, he issued a statement along the lines of "I don't think gay people are immoral."

Gee thanks.

And of course John McCain is a complete joke, and the fact that politicians even pay remote lip service to right-wing evangelicals in this country is absolutely terrifying. These contemporary fascists should be shunned, ignored, denounced, and maligned. The fact that they even have an iota of a say in politics and legislation in this country (which was formed on the basis of escaping religious persecution) is stomach-turning.

Anyway, I've decided to past Kramer's letter here. It's worth a read.

Kramer

Why do straights hate gays?
An aging 72-year-old gay man isn't hopeful about the future.
By Larry Kramer, LARRY KRAMER is the founder of the protest group ACT UP and the author of "The Tragedy of Today's Gays."
March 20, 2007

DEAR STRAIGHT PEOPLE,

Why do you hate gay people so much?

Gays are hated. Prove me wrong. Your top general just called us immoral. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is in charge of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian troops, some fighting for our country in Iraq. A right-wing political commentator, Ann Coulter, gets away with calling a straight presidential candidate a faggot. Even Garrison Keillor, of all people, is making really tacky jokes about gay parents in his column. This, I guess, does not qualify as hate except that it is so distasteful and dumb, often a first step on the way to hate. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tried to duck the questions that Pace's bigotry raised, confirming what gay people know: that there is not one candidate running for public office anywhere who dares to come right out, unequivocally, and say decent, supportive things about us.

Gays should not vote for any of them. There is not a candidate or major public figure who would not sell gays down the river. We have seen this time after time, even from supposedly progressive politicians such as President Clinton with his "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military and his support of the hideous Defense of Marriage Act. Of course, it's possible that being shunned by gays will make politicians more popular, but at least we will have our self-respect. To vote for them is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us.

Don't any of you wonder why heterosexuals treat gays so brutally year after year after year, as your people take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood? Why, even as we die you don't leave us alone. What we can leave our surviving lovers is taxed far more punitively than what you leave your (legal) surviving spouses. Why do you do this? My lover will be unable to afford to live in the house we have made for each other over our lifetime together. This does not happen to you. Taxation without representation is what led to the Revolutionary War. Gay people have paid all the taxes you have. But you have equality, and we don't.

And there's no sign that this situation will change anytime soon. President Bush will leave a legacy of hate for us that will take many decades to cleanse. He has packed virtually every court and every civil service position in the land with people who don't like us. So, even with the most tolerant of new presidents, gays will be unable to break free from this yoke of hate. Courts rule against gays with hateful regularity. And of course the Supreme Court is not going to give us our equality, and in the end, it is from the Supreme Court that such equality must come. If all of this is not hate, I do not know what hate is.

Our feeble gay movement confines most of its demands to marriage. But political candidates are not talking about — and we are not demanding that they talk about — equality. My lover and I don't want to get married just yet, but we sure want to be equal.

You must know that gays get beaten up all the time, all over the world. If someone beats you up because of who you are — your race or ethnic origin — that is considered a hate crime. But in most states, gays are not included in hate crime measures, and Congress has refused to include us in a federal act.

Homosexuality is a punishable crime in a zillion countries, as is any activism on behalf of it. Punishable means prison. Punishable means death. The U.S. government refused our requests that it protest after gay teenagers were hanged in Iran, but it protests many other foreign cruelties. Who cares if a faggot dies? Parts of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. are joining with the Nigerian archbishop, who believes gays should be put in prison. Episcopalians! Whoever thought we'd have to worry about Episcopalians?

Well, whoever thought we'd have to worry about Florida? A young gay man was just killed in Florida because of his sexual orientation. I get reports of gays slain in our country every week. Few of them make news. Fewer are prosecuted. Do you consider it acceptable that 20,000 Christian youths make an annual pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray for gay souls? This is not free speech. This is another version of hate. It is all one world of gay-hate. It always was.

Gays do not realize that the more we become visible, the more we come out of the closet, the more we are hated. Don't those of you straights who claim not to hate us have a responsibility to denounce the hate? Why is it socially acceptable to joke about "girlie men" or to discriminate against us legally with "constitutional" amendments banning gay marriage? Because we cannot marry, we can pass on only a fraction of our estates, we do not have equal parenting rights and we cannot live with a foreigner we love who does not have government permission to stay in this country. These are the equal protections that the Bill of Rights proclaims for all?

Why do you hate us so much that you will not permit us to legally love? I am almost 72, and I have been hated all my life, and I don't see much change coming.

I think your hate is evil.

What do we do to you that is so awful? Why do you feel compelled to come after us with such frightful energy? Does this somehow make you feel safer and legitimate? What possible harm comes to you if we marry, or are taxed just like you, or are protected from assault by laws that say it is morally wrong to assault people out of hatred? The reasons always offered are religious ones, but certainly they are not based on the love all religions proclaim.

And even if your objections to gays are religious, why do you have to legislate them so hatefully? Make no mistake: Forbidding gay people to love or marry is based on hate, pure and simple.

You may say you don't hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what's the difference? Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal. Which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you.

Sometimes I don't, actually, regret once saying that America deserves whatever it gets.

And, you know, you really can't blame the conservatives for being so scared and freaked out. America is, by definition, a liberal and progressive country, that, I believe in my heart of hearts, ultimately does the right thing, even if it might take decades.

- Arkansas votes today to keep 800 foster children homeless. Because it's what's best for them.

- Dan Savage rips Garrison Keillor a new one after the self-appointed leftist argues that gay men are to effiminate to raise children. And shame on Salon for running it.

- And lastly, some professor at UNC makes an open call for the execution of homosexuals. And yet, somehow he's allowed to keep his job. Because the title "How to Bomb a Tennessee Blues Joint to Kill a Whole Bunch of Those Self-Righteous Niggers" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

And conservatives think that America's university system is all run by pinko commie lefties. Silly fucking morons.

There are gay couples in Arkansas?!?!?

Apparently, legislation in Arkansas to ban gay foster parenting and adoption is well underway. After a 75% vote in favor of banning gay marriage in 2004, some want to take their hatred a step further.

No state law bans private adoptions regardless of sexual orientation. Before Fox's ruling, prospective parents had to meet the same requirements as prospective foster parents -- no gays allowed -- to adopt through the state program. Since Fox's ruling, the state no longer inquires about a prospective parent's sexual orientation.

On Monday, Womack noted the high court's focus on the review board's lack of authority in imposing the gay foster parent ban and said his bill, if it becomes law, would withstand a court challenge.

"The court was clear that the state's responsibility is to protect the best interest of a child," Womack told the committee. "That's what I'm trying to do here."

...

Gov. Mike Beebe, who said during his successful gubernatorial campaign last year he would support reinstating the gay foster parent ban, said Monday he was still reviewing Womack's bill.

"Some of this is going into a different area. What we talked about during the campaign was foster care and the fragile nature of those children," Beebe told The Associated Press.

Sometimes it's true that you can never go home again.

You can find your place, but never fit in.

There's lots of documentation that homosexuals have shorter life spans, and are more prone to suicide and depression, so it's not very loving of us to let them stay in that situation. - Ron Luce, director the of Texas-based ministry who brought 20,000 kids together in San Francisco this past weekend to protest treating gay people like human beings. So far, that's the best excuse I've heard yet for condoning discrimination, simply because it's true. What Mr. Luce doesn't seem to understand, however, is that it's because of people like him, and the environments of shame, hostility and hatred they create that make gay people more prone to substance abuse, depression and suicide, thus overall creating shorter life spans.

You can read a more in-depth reporting on the story here.

But on the other hand....

The New York Times reported this morning on the closing of the famous "gay playground" the Roxy Nightclub over the weekend. Which ordinarily I wouldn't care about, as very little makes me feel more alienatd from other gay people than going out to gay clubs does, but I wanted to point out this wonderful little quote at the bottom of the article about their practices of inviting people to their parties:

He went on: “This was the emergence of the Chelsea era, and the Chelsea Boy look. Everyone worked out really hard. And they all worked on the same body parts.”

Mr. Blair, who had owned gay health clubs, explained the coding system that he and his business partners devised for the Roxy’s loyalty cards and mailing lists. “We rated everybody on a scale from 1 to 4 based on how they looked,” he said. They kept the rankings in a database, so that for certain events they could direct their invitations to a specific mix of loyal customers and trophy guests.

“We gave out very few 1s — that’s the worst-looking, or for straight people,” he said. “Then, most people got 2s; if they’re pretty, they got a 3. Four is for people we have to let in free — either they’re really hot or they’re a friend of mine or somehow important in the club community.”

He explained that 3s were actually more desirable guests than 4s. “A 3 is a cutie that pays,” he said.

On second thought, perhaps Mr. Luce is on to something. Most of the time, I feel like we're all our own worst enemies.

On the backs of Gay Men

Another interesting response, though really it's a rant against Mitt Romney.

Faggot

So, yeah, I have nothing to say about Ann Coulter, but I did want to point readers to a pretty great response by Andrew Sullivan to her appearance on Hannity & Colmes last night.

And yesterday I had a thought. (I know, it's crazy.) What if Ann Coulter is actually a totally left-leaning crazy liberal, and this whole screaming banshee act she has going on is just that: an act? What if she's intentionally, by playing a role and being a martyr, actively (in cognito) simply demonstrating how bigoted, racist, homophobic, hateful, and dumb the far right and most Republicans are? Now that even Republicans are starting to denounce her for making them look bad (not that they need any of her help!), her plan would seem to be starting to work.

What if she's really a hero?



UPDATE: I just read this, further down the scroll on Sullivan's site, from some other dude:

The political equivalent of Britney Spears shaving the hair off her head, Ann Coulter made headlines at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) by calling Democrat John Edwards a faggot. Wearing a leather dress and a Christian cross around her neck, Coulter must be a liberal infiltrator whose purpose is to give conservatism a bad name.

I really felt sorry for those Republican presidential candidates who attended CPAC and were forced by the liberal media to respond to Coulter's remarks. It's guilt-by-association, but Coulter had to know that making such a remark would put those candidates in an uncomfortable, even embarrassing, position. As a former staffer and contributing editor of Human Events, I can't understand why this conservative weekly publication continues to feature her on the masthead as a "legal affairs correspondent" and puts her columns on page one. Jed Babbin, the new editor, must be sick to his stomach. Coulter's columns are anything but legal analysis.

Infiltrator: that's a good word I should have used.

Gabies

The new issue of Texas Monthly has a really interesting article about the current state of gay parenting in Texas. Surprisingly, San Antonio has the highest percentage of children living with gay parents of any other U.S. city, and according to a 2000 census poll by the Urban Institute, gay couples in Texas are more likely to adopt children than in any other state in the country. Nationally, about 1 in 4 gay couples has children, but in Texas it's closer to 1 in 3 couples.

The article focuses primarily on the Texas State Legislator's attempts to deny parenting status, and the ability to be foster parents, to gay couples throughout the past decade, with most efforts led by two Republican legislators, Warren Chisum and Robert Talton. In 1999, and again in 2003, legislation was introduced that would have forced the removal of children from any "gay" homes, and banned all future placement in any gay households. Another bill filed in 2003 would have outright legally banned gay adoptions.

As of now, gay adoption isn't illegal in Texas. Generally, when a gay couple has children, it's a child left over from a previous marriage or relationship, and often the new partner adopts the kid. In both straight and gay adoptions, this is called "second-parent" adoption, and is incredibly common, as you can imagine, among straight people. In Texas, as in other states, it's not illegal for gays to engage in second-parent adoption, but not exactly condoned, either. In cases where a gay couple adopts a child that doesn't biologically belong to either of them, or when a gay couple applies to be foster parents, the home is treated as single-parent household with "other adults present," and only one partner is principally dealt with by the CPS (Child Protective Services).

What makes all of this so sad, as is the case with gay marriage, are the potential legal quagmires and emotional devastation. If a same-sex couple splits up, whoever the "principal" guardian is can legally bar the other partner from ever having any contact with the child whatsoever, and the barred partner has absolutely no legal recourse. They may be prevented from visiting children in the hospital or adding a child to an employer's medical plan. If the birth or adoptive parent should die, the remaining parent again has absolutely no legal obligations or privileges to the kid. The child's biological relatives, or even a sperm donor that may have never met the child, have more legal right than a parent who might have raised the kid from birth. There are more children supported by Social Security payments in America from a deceased parent than are on welfare, but again, a non-custodial gay parent cannot (absent a legal relationship) bequeath these payments to their children, even if the parent has paid into Social Security for decades. Surviving children are also subject to significantly higher taxes on inherited property than are children of heterosexual parents who both have legal rights to the child.

Gay parenting in Texas became a huge issue in 1997, when CPS employee Rebecca Bledsoe removed a foster child from a family in Dallas for the sole reason that the parents were both lesbians. She was admonished and demoted by CPS, so she sued. Her lawsuit held little weight, but it opened the doors for all kinds of legislative action against gay foster parenting and adoption (in addition to marriage), all of which were supported by then governor George W. Bush.

In one side-note, in a 2006 television interview, Tennessee legislator Debra Maggart claimed that gay men adopted children for the sole purpose of having unfettered access to children they can molest. This tells you the kind of mentality we're fighting here.

In 2005, Robert Talton once again tried to ban gay foster parenting, and it was defeated only at the last minute, partly through the work of openly gay Austin legislator Glen Maxey. Of the roughly 19,000 children in foster care in Texas, between 2,000 and 3,000 are presumed to be in gay households. The immediate cost of finding new placement for them would have cost the state (taxpayers) over $8 million, and provide a huge setback for CPS, which is already scrambling to find enough suitable homes for all the foser kids.

After the 2005 defeat, to his credit, Chisum agreed to leave the gays alone. "Some of them do a fabulous job of stepping in when no one else will," he said at the time. Talton, the magazine notes, remains unconvinced and is expected to bring up the issue in session once again in 2007. Gay families all over Texas are holding their collective breath.

It paves my way, but it corrodes my soul.

In lieu of any remotely original thoughts of my own today, but needing to kill some time between classes, I decided to bring you the boys of FAGATS, and their mildly amusing series of entries entitled, "Why You Are Gay." Which, if you are actually, gay, might even give you a couple of chuckle-worthy "Ah-Ha!" moments.

Why You are Gay:
1."In the Night Kitchen"
2. "The Neverending Story"
3. The Hardy Boys
4. Trapper Keepers
5. "A Separate Peace"
6. "School Ties"
7. And last but not least, and particularly apropos to this week for me, just posted yesterday, Friends, Summer Camp!!

And speaking of summer camp, I have my first phone interview on Friday for a camp in northeastern Pennsylvania, which you can read about here. I'm trying not to get my hopes up or anything, but it's exciting. I talked very briefly yesterday to the guy who's going to be interviewing me, and he seemed pretty awesome. So cross your fingers for me.

In the meantime, I'm going to do my best not to think about the fact that the man I went on a blind date with last night, set up by a dear friend, which went quite swimmingly, lives only 2 blocks away from the last man who completely shattered my heart.

Good times. Happy Thursday.

Queer & Loathing

In the New York Times today they have a very interesting article about gay people kissing.

About gay people kissing in public, specifically, and why it's still so scary for so many people to do. Or to show any same-sex affection at all. It might seem like a simplistic and kind of dumb thing to write a whole article about, but I really appreciate the tack they take, which is essentially that for a same-sex couple, especially two men, to hold hands, or especially kiss, in public is still a pretty politically charged thing to do. It takes a conscious decision and is never done casually or thoughtlessly. I don't care how comfortable you are with yourself internally, or what city you live in, if you're two men (or women), and you decide (and yes, it's a decision) to hold hands (or God forbid, kiss!) in public, you know it's a "statement" and you know people will be watching and you feel like you're on display.

It's hard for straight people to understand, even the most empathetic among them, why it's so scary. And why it does feel like something "political." It's something that I think most straight people just take for granted (like getting married) and it's difficult to explain how this affects your behavior and your relationships. One woman they interviewed I think gives a fairly succinct description

After considering herself exclusively lesbian for decades, Sarah Van Arsdale, a novelist, not long ago found, to her surprise, that she had fallen in love with a man. At first, as she wrote last week in an e-mail message from a writer’s colony in Oaxaca, Mexico, “ Whenever we would hold hands in public, I felt a frisson of fear, waiting for the customary dirty looks or at least for the customary looking-away.”

In place of revulsion, Ms. Van Arsdale was startled to discover that, having adjusted her sexual identity, she was now greeted by strangers with approving smiles. “I felt suddenly acceptable and accepted and cute, as opposed to queer,” she said.

It's not an incredibly in-depth article, but worth reading. And bravo to the NYT for running it (and for framing it in political terms; I think that was gutsy for some reason). It's something more people should think about.

Not Ready to Make Nice

If anyone's interested in donating money to LYRIC, a San Francisco-based housing retreat for gay and lesbian teenagers, you can do so here, in the Ted Haggard Betting Pool.

All you have to do is wager a guess on the what the date will be when he "falls off the wagon" and gets caught with his mouth wrapped around some random guy's dick at an interstate rest stop, and if you're closest to the correct date, you win!

Obviously, my sympathy for the man has greatly diminished. My hopes that he would use this opportunity to become a real person have not reached fruition. Instead, he's going to go on preaching his hate and ignorance and taking part in ruining more people's lives. Fuck him.