As Newsweek notes, these stirrings for the mainstreaming of polygamy (or, more accurately, polyamory) have their roots in the increasing legitimization of gay marriage. In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one’s autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement — the number restriction (two and only two) — is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.
This line of argument makes gay activists furious. I can understand why they do not want to be in the same room as polygamists. But I’m not the one who put them there. Their argument does. Blogger and author Andrew Sullivan, who had the courage to advocate gay marriage at a time when it was considered pretty crazy, has called this the "polygamy diversion," arguing that homosexuality and polygamy are categorically different because polygamy is a mere "activity" while homosexuality is an intrinsic state that "occupies a deeper level of human consciousness."
But this distinction between higher and lower orders of love is precisely what gay rights activists so vigorously protest when the general culture "privileges" (as they say in the English departments) heterosexual unions over homosexual ones. Was "Jules et Jim" (and Jeanne Moreau), the classic Truffaut film involving two dear friends in love with the same woman, about an "activity" or about the most intrinsic of human emotions?
To simplify the logic, take out the complicating factor of gender mixing. Posit a union of, say, three gay women all deeply devoted to each other. On what grounds would gay activists dismiss their union as mere activity rather than authentic love and self-expression? On what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?
ST. GEORGE, Utah — Abandoned by his family, faith and community, Gideon Barlow arrived here an orphan from another world.
At first, he played the tough guy, aloof and hard. But when no one was watching, he would cry.
The freckle-faced 17-year-old said he was left to fend for himself last year after being forced out of Colorado City, Ariz., a town about 40 miles east of here, just over the state line.
"I couldn’t see how my mom would let them do what they did to me," he said.
When he tried to visit her on Mother’s Day, he said, she told him to stay away. When he begged to give her a present, she said she wanted nothing.
"I am dead to her now," he said.
Gideon is one of the "Lost Boys," a group of more than 400 teenagers — some as young as 13 — who authorities in Utah and Arizona say have fled or been driven out of the polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City over the last four years.
…
Some say they were sometimes given as little as two hours’ notice before being driven to St. George or nearby Hurricane, Utah, and left like unwanted pets along the road.
Authorities say the teens aren’t really being expelled for what they watch or wear, but rather to reduce competition for women in places where men can have dozens of wives.
"It’s a mathematical thing. If you are marrying all these girls to one man, what do you do with all the boys?" said Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff, who has had boys in his office crying to see their mothers…
This isn’t some theoretical criticism of polygamy, we can actually watch this happening right here on American soil. It is happening in Colorado City. A few dominant males are rounding up females like chattel, and competing with the other dominant males for harem size. The women are rendered progressively more and more powerless, dependent, and ignorant, because independent, strong willed, intelligent women are systematically selected out of the culture by men who don’t want their women straying out of the harem to find their own sexual and emotional fulfillment. Very young girls are taken by dominant males before they’re old enough to make their own choice, and maybe go with some other guy they actually like. In Colorado City, the local government has been utterly corrupted by the practice. And as of at least last summer, when that article was written, they were dumping their male children by the road out of town like so much human garbage. They do this because every boy born in a polygamous community is a potential challenger to the harem of the dominant males the moment they reach puberty.
This is actually happening. We can watch it happening. Somebody tell me why this isn’t the necessary outcome of polygamy. The question is always raised by jackasses like Krauthammer, that if we allow same sex marriage, why not polygamy too? Well…there’s why.
But Kurtz’s smoking gun is really just smoke and mirrors. Reports of the death of marriage in Scandinavia are greatly exaggerated; giving gay couples the right to wed did not lead to massive matrimonial flight by heterosexuals.
Currently there are nine European countries that give marital rights to gay couples. In Scandinavia, Denmark (1989), Norway (1993), Sweden (1994), and Iceland (1996) pioneered a separate-and-not-quite-equal status for same-sex couples called "registered partnership." (When they register, same-sex couples receive most of the financial and legal rights of marriage, other than the right to marry in a state church and the right to adopt children.) Since 2001, the Netherlands and Belgium have opened marriage to same-sex couples.
Despite what Kurtz might say, the apocalypse has not yet arrived. In fact, the numbers show that heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia, where same-sex couples have had rights the longest. In Denmark, for example, the marriage rate had been declining for a half-century but turned around in the early 1980s. After the 1989 passage of the registered-partner law, the marriage rate continued to climb; Danish heterosexual marriage rates are now the highest they’ve been since the early 1970’s. And the most recent marriage rates in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all higher than the rates for the years before the partner laws were passed. Furthermore, in the 1990s, divorce rates in Scandinavia remained basically unchanged.
Of course, the good news about marriage rates is bad news for Kurtz’s sky-is-falling argument. So, Kurtz instead focuses on the increasing tendency in Europe for couples to have children out of wedlock. Gay marriage, he argues, is a wedge that is prying marriage and parenthood apart.
The main evidence Kurtz points to is the increase in cohabitation rates among unmarried heterosexual couples and the increase in births to unmarried mothers. Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " … married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," and—surprise—he blames gay marriage.
But Kurtz’s interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the norm—most cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married.
(Emphasis in the above mine) The right has to lie about the effects of same sex marriage, and they do it brazenly, because their audience is mostly gay hating bigots like themselves who don’t actually give a flying fuck what the truth is, they just want excuses to keep hating homosexuals. They lie about its corrosive effects on society and culture. They lie about the harm it causes to children raised in same sex households. And when their lies are exposed, they merely repeat them more and louder. But you don’t have to lie about what’s going on in Colorado City, to make a case against polygamy. You can see it happening for yourself.
Can we put this argument about same sex marriage leading to polygamy to rest now? Well…no. Because, see, it never was an argument to begin with. The homophobic right has never argued their case against gay rights in good faith. For decades it’s always been one transparent lie after another. Can we finally start admitting that fact now, because it says it all. Their minds will not be changed, because this was never about reasonable rational fears of what giving gay people equal rights might do to society. It was always about hate. Mindless, knee jerk, hate, and nothing more. We could have same sex marriage in this country for a thousand years with no ill effects whatsoever, and if he could manage it, Krauthammer would still be arguing that same sex marriage will destroy us all, still babbling every crackpot theory about the dangers of homosexuality to anyone who will listen.
These things float around the various friend’s lists via the bulletins. I kinda like filling some of them out because it gives me a chance to pay attention to the random things in my life, large and small. Being that MySpace is a kinda young crowd, you’ll notice that a lot of the questions are about sex. I think some of these questionaires are just ways of getting answers out of your MySpace crush…
1. Have you ever been in a relationship where your partner was unfaithful?
No. Thankfully, I think I tend to bore the random hookup kind.
2. What’s your favorite movie?
Casablanca. "To Have And Have Not" is a close second.
3. What’s your favorite music video?
Ohhh….that’s gotta be Fatboy Slim’s, "Weapon Of Choice"
4. What’s the last movie you watched?
Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow
5. Have you ever had sex with more than 1 person at the same time?
Well…yeah. Me and the guy I was having it with. That makes two. They call having it with only one person masturbation don’t they?
6. Whats your best physical feature?
Not sure I have a ‘best’. I’m pretty average. And…middle aged. (sigh)
7. What friend always brings a smile to your face?
My brother. But he’s not on MySpace.
8. What does that friend do to make you smile?
Just being the guy he is.
9. What is your favorite alcoholic drink?
Kahlua.
10. What was the last movie you watched in a theatre?
Wow… That would have been "The Phantom Empire". Yes…it’s been a while. I have a very low tolerance for audiences.
11. Soup or salad?
Soup. If the soup of the day is good. Otherwise salad.
12. Whats the longest relationship you’ve been in?
6 Years. (sigh)
13. Whats the shortest relationship you’ve been in?
About six months.
14. If you could be any age forever, what age would it be?
Physically? 23. Mentally? I don’t want to stop growing mentally. Ever.
15. Do you work out?
No. I should. It’s a question of time, and always being distracted, and my life not really being by the clock. I work to deadlines, not a clock. It’s the way I have to function in life, otherwise I just go nuts. Regular anything is hard to accomplish, let alone regular visits to the gym. Without my Palm smartphone and its datebook alarm to nag me I will reliably forget meetings and appointments.
16. How important is sex to you?
It’s very important. But love is equally important. The physical and emotional intimacy are of a piece with me when it comes to having a boyfriend. I want it all. I’m greedy like that.
17. Do you watch porn?
Not since I was in my twenties and I figured out that it was all pretty much the same and kinda boring. Pornography is obvious.
18. If you could be any celebrity, who would you be?
I don’t want to be anyone else.
19. Do you smoke?
Cigars. Sometimes. For the nicotine.
20. What kind of music do you listen to?
The musical kind. Seriously.
21. Would you date someone who was sexually active?
As long as it was with me, of course.
22. If someone made out with your boyfriend/girlfriend what would you do?
Leave them.
23. Apples or Oranges?
Do they make an Orange computer? What OS does it run?
24. Who do you think will answer this questionaire?
Dunno…
25. Who do you want to answer this questionaire?
Whoever feels like it.
26. Do you think someone you know may have a crush on you?
I strongly doubt it. But then I am the last to know these things. To my great disadvantage.
27. What do you wear to sleep?
I’ll wear a big floppy t-shirt if the bedroom is really, really cold and there is no electric blanket handy. Otherwise I really don’t like wearing anything. A shower and a clean body nestled inside a set of fresh clean sheets is the way to end your day. Call me a sensualist.
28. Do you prefer to give or receive oral sex?
I prefer a relationship of equals in and out of the sack. What happens at any particular moment is part of the fun.
29. What’s the oldest age of a guy you would start to date?
I tend not to date much older then myself.
30. Do you moan during sex?
There’s only a few guys out there who would know.
31. What’s your biggest turn on in a person?
Their smile usually. A hot body can yank my leash, but a smile from a guy I’m attracted to can make my knees buckle. Keith was always doing that to me.
32. Do you kiss on the first date?
Yeah.
33. Whens the last time you had sex?
That would be the last time a certain someone from Hilton Head came to visit me. It’s been a while.
34. Where is the craziest place you’ve had sex?
I really don’t want crazy when I’m in the mood. Really.
35. What kink have you fantasized about, but haven’t tried yet?
I don’t regard my fantasies as kinks, thank you. And they’re probably pretty tame by most standards…
36. What Myspace friend would you travel to do…
I had a long distance relationship going for some years and I never traveled to do him. I traveled to be with him because I was in love. I have no idea if anything like that will ever happen to me with a friend on MySpace, but it’s not something that will happen overnight.
Heroes Of The Conservative Movement Trading Cards…Collect Them All…
Card 31: Barbra Bush donates a portion of her vast wealth to help her fellow Americans recover from Katrina. Well…to her son actually…
The Houston Chroniclereports this morning that the donation Barbara Bush made to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund was ‘earmarked’ for the educational software company Ignite!
As some of you probably know that’s the junk company owned by her ne’er-do-well son Neil Bush.
Actually, though, it’s way better, or worse, depending on your turn of mind.
Ignite!’s has a unique business model, which works like this. Neil goes around the world finding international statesmen, bigwigs and criminals who want to ‘invest’ in Ignite! as a way to curry favor with the brother in the White House.
A couple years ago when I was at Salon I wrote about the craze for investment in Ignite! then taking hold among Red Sea oil magnates and progeny of the rulers of the People’s Republic of China (See this article as well about the craze for investing in Ignite! in the United Arab Emirates and specifically in Dubai). Now, Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has awakened to the wonders of investing in Ignite!
Kudos to Joshua Marshall. Yes…her donation was tax deductable.
Oh…look…an important notice from Amazon.com in my email box…
In order to maintain the integrity of the entire Amazon.com system , our crew members is running an data base update . This decision was taken by the High Executive Beaurau of Amazon.com and it should be followed by all of it’s customers .
To follow the procedure just click on the link bellow:
I suppose I should heed the commands of the High Executive Beaurau of Amazon.Com. Who knows what’ll happen to me if I don’t. However, said link text does not go to www.amazon.com, but in fact goes to b206d.static.pacific.net.au…
>nslookup b206d.static.pacific.net.au
Hostname: b206d.static.pacific.net.au
IP Addresses: 210.23.137.109
> whois 210.23.137.109
OrgName: Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
OrgID: APNIC
Address: PO Box 2131
City: Milton
StateProv: QLD
PostalCode: 4064
Country: AU
ReferralServer: whois://whois.apnic.net
NetRange: 210.0.0.0 – 211.255.255.255
CIDR: 210.0.0.0/7
NetName: APNIC-CIDR-BLK2
NetHandle: NET-210-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Allocated to APNIC
NameServer: NS1.APNIC.NET
NameServer: NS3.APNIC.NET
NameServer: NS4.APNIC.NET
NameServer: NS-SEC.RIPE.NET
NameServer: TINNIE.ARIN.NET
NameServer: DNS1.TELSTRA.NET
Comment: This IP address range is not registered in the ARIN database.
Comment: For details, refer to the APNIC Whois Database via
Comment: WHOIS.APNIC.NET or http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois2.pl
Comment: ** IMPORTANT NOTE: APNIC is the Regional Internet Registry
Comment: for the Asia Pacific region. APNIC does not operate networks
Comment: using this IP address range and is not able to investigate
Comment: spam or abuse reports relating to these addresses. For more
Comment: help, refer to http://www.apnic.net/info/faq/abuse
Comment:
RegDate: 1996-07-01
Updated: 2005-05-20
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-03-22 19:10
The High Executive Beaurau of Amazon.com should probably stop using link forwarding services. They should do this as soon as their crew members is finished running an database update.
You can play me for a sucker if you want, but at least put some goddamned effort into it.
Soon enough, the floor was changed – citizens wishing to question the Senator should stand up at the podium in front of the audience. I immediately stood up in response, and stood right behind a woman who took charge of the floor at the podium. She questioned health related issues, food additives and the lack of warning labels. Soon enough she stepped down – and the climate was right for controversy – which might I add seems to be the train that follows me, but not the train I attempt to board.
"Thank you Senator," I began as all eyes were on me, Del. Ed Scott looked intently at me – he knew why I was there, Del. Scott and I frequently converse about GLBT issues in Virginia. "I first want to thank you for being here, I really appreciate when our elected officials are so willing to allow the public to speak with them." Senator Allen smiled, what was he expecting me to say?
"I wanted to speak with you in regards to a Hate Crimes bill that was introduced in Congress not too long ago." He nodded at me as I continued, "This bill sought to add ‘sexual orientation’ to the country’s list of types of people that are victims of hate crimes. I myself have been victim to threats and assaults of hate crime based on the fact that I am gay, and I am a Virginian. Only two weeks ago my friend was in Richmond when he walked out of a restaurant with his partner another person called him a ‘faggot’, drew a knife, and attacked my friend. Luckily, my friend lived – others are not so lucky. Last year, you supported legislation which sought to add ‘sexual orientation’ to the nation’s hate crime list, and for that I thank you – but later this year you said that you regret your support for this bill and would not support this bill in the future, why is that?"
Senator Allen kept his smile, kept his poise, and prepared one of those typical political responses. He told me a story, that once he was at a Gay Pride Festival in Philadelphia, and there was a peaceful group reciting verses from the Bible across the street. They were arrested for assault. He believes in religious freedom, and believes religious freedom of expression is ideal in this country. I agree. Senator Allen continued to say that he believes sexual orientation is not a civil right Everyone broke into thunderous applause. I doubt the crowd understood – Senator Allen seemed to turn the table making my statement appear as if I was advocating for "special" rights, which of course is far from the truth.
"Well Senator," I began. "I too believe religious freedom of expression is part of what this country was founded upon – it is a beautiful thing to be able to express your views, however sexual orientation is not a civil right, it is a part of someone, and gay citizens are being denied basic civil liberty, very basic rights that most citizens are granted." The Senator said something along the lines of disagreement. "If you believe that this is how gay citizens should be treated," I continued, "I am assuming that is why you supported the Federal Marriage Amendment."
Senator Allen seemed a bit tense…
I can’t imagine why. It’s one thing to beat up on homosexuals to win the bigot vote and another to do it to a gay teenager who is standing up to you and defending his rights as an American in front of everyone while you’re doing it.
That "peaceful group" in Philadelphia who Allen says were arrested for reciting verses from the Bible across the street? Here’s a snapshot of a couple of them reciting their verses:
AFA attorney Brian Fahling called the arrests "harassment" of Christians and said that the charges violated the protesters’ freedom of speech.
Judge Tucker in a single sentence ruling rejected the argument.
The confrontation began when the 11 protestors marched to the front of a stage at Outfest and began to yell out Biblical passages to drown out the events on stage.
Police attempted to get the protesters to move to to an area on the edge of the site. Instead they went deeper into the gay crowd. Using a bullhorn they condemned homosexuality. They then got into an argument with a group of Pink Angels, who screamed back.
It was at that point police intervened arresting the 11.
"They were not prohibited from preaching," said Karen Brancheau, a lawyer for the District Attorney’s Office. "A reasonable request was made to prevent a situation from becoming dangerous to their own safety as well as the safety of the participants."
At minimum Repent America was trying to provoke a confrontation with the festival goers. At worst they wanted the crowd to give them an excuse for violence. The police stepped in and put a stop to it. They weren’t arrested for "peacefully praying across the street"…that’s a load of right wing bullshit. Had they been peacefully praying across the street they’d have been left alone. But you can’t disrupt a Gay Pride festival from across the street. Allen probably knows full well he was bullshitting that kid, but he’s has been swimming in that religious right bullshit for years now. It’s what you need to do to get votes in the Virginia Heartland.
Just as the time of reckoning approaches and the Washington Post will, like it or no, have to take responsibility for all the flagrant, credulous warmongering it did in a fit of BushCo. access rapture, you guys hire the most thick-witted, mouth breathing home schooled freak you could lay your hands on. The respectable journalists who have managed to survive the Patrick Ruffini sycophancy of John WATB Harris, the jejune truthiness of Deborah Howell and the simple fact that one of the biggest stories of last year was how the paper’s own superstar fucked you over and then wouldn’t talk to you about it are no doubt cringing in the bathroom stalls.
They must’ve really been jamming sharp objects into their eyes this morning after Domanech took them to task for their lack of Red Dawn acumen. Oh, lordy Jim. I have to tell you, if I’d been writing a send-up of a right wing blogger I could not have done a better job.
You have to read the whole thing. It’s fucking hilarious.
The Third Reich collapsed 61 years ago but you wouldn’t know it if you walk into the Martin Luther Memorial Church in Berlin. The stark entrance hall is lit by a black chandelier in the shape of an iron cross. The pulpit has a wooden carving of a muscular Jesus leading a helmeted Wehrmacht soldier and surrounded by an Aryan family. The baptismal font is guarded by a wooden statue of a stormtrooper from Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) unit clutching his cap.
Friezes depicting the eagle of the Reich and helmeted soldiers’ heads have been carved into a giant stone arch framing the chancel. The organ was used at the 1935 Nuremberg rally of the Nazi party and egend has it that the church was originally meant to be named after Adolf Hitler. Indeed, the only thing that might irk the Führer were he to inspect the building now is the absence of swastikas — there used to be plenty, but they have been scratched out from the walls because the Nazi symbol is illegal in Germany.
The church bells — which were also embossed in swastikas — are likewise missing. They were removed and melted down in 1942 to forge much-needed guns and ammunition.
…
In the early 1930s the Protestant church came under the influence of a racist and fascist movement called the "German Christians" — called "stormtroopers of Jesus," by the group’s leader and founder Rev. Joachim Hossenfelder.
"The people who designed this interior wanted to show that religion and the Nazi philosophy could merge into one. But it can’t," said Böhm.
No…but that won’t mean people won’t try. Particularly when it comes to choosing between a faith that says, someday, the last shall be the first, and their own comfortable conceits. Emphatically it won’t mean that everyday people won’t come and worship the muscular Jesus regardless of anything the actual Jesus said, about loving your neighbor as yourself, about doing unto others, about how blessed are the merciful, and pray their devotions to Christ and to the Aryan race, and return to their homes thinking themselves good Christians, good soldiers for righteousness. How popular is Muscular Jesus now in America? How popular the Jesus of vengeance, the Jesus of war? Change the uniforms on the soldiers a tad, and that church could fit easily into any bible belt community in America, and quite a few outside as well.
That, I’m glad to say, is not the Christianity I grew up with. But I’ve been close enough to it to have a certain familiarity with the mindset. And as a gay man my very existence is pummeled daily by the disciples of the muscular Jesus. Had I not the religious upbringing I had, I might be as hostile towards Christianity now, as are others I know.
Why the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell became the media embodiment of Christianity, and not people like Fred Clark, and Peterson Toscano, I have absolutely no idea. But it’s one of the great tragedies of our age. Böhm is right…the religion of Jesus cannot be merged with the philosophy of Nazis. The mistake is that the muscular Jesus isn’t a merging of the two philosophies, but a superseding of the one by the other. So the Jesus that said love your neighbor vanishes in the shadow of the one who says might makes right.
On the train back from Montreal (I love taking the train) two college age male hockey players sat in the seats across the aisle next to me. As they settled into their close seats, one turned to the other and announced, “No Homo”. To which his seatmate replied, “Yeah man, I know”.
They then stripped down to their tee-shirts, leaned into each other to watch a movie on the tiny screen of a laptop, shared one set of ear buds to listen and then ate a meal together picking at each others food.
When I saw the title on Peterson’s post I mistook it for the gay version of Negro Please… But no…it’s a couple of straight guys telling each other that they’re not gay. So they can…sit together?
I have the flirt instincts of a brick, so even when someone is coming on to me I seldom notice when I should. And my gaydar is no better. It took my straight brother to tell me that the two of us were being sized up by a gay guy in a coffee house in Arroyo Grande once. I just didn’t notice, and my eyes were everywhere inside that place. When he told me I was floored. Who? What?? So I suppose it’s hard for me to sympathize with nervous young heterosexuals these days. But…Get Over It! You’re not God’s gift to everyone who lays eyes on you.
It’s true…I hate to break it to you. I’m fifty-two and young and hard-bodied as you might be, I’m probably not interested. In fact, you’re probably not even on my radar. I’ll almost certainly forget I even saw you five minutes after we pass each other on the street. I don’t think my sex drive, even at my age (or especially at my age) is particularly low…I could spend days on end contentedly in the sack with the right guy…and when a certain kinda guy throws a smile in my direction, swear to God I’ll have that smile in my thoughts for weeks afterward. But I don’t even notice most guys I encounter throughout the day and, trust me, I’m really not that different in that regard from most other gay guys. I spend all day long with various male co-workers and I couldn’t even tell you what most of them were wearing at work yesterday, and even after years of working alongside them I still get some of their names wrong from time to time. No…it takes a certain special something to grab my leash and give it a yank and chances are, you’re not it.
And there’s something else you have to face up to: you’re not perfectly safe from most heterosexuals either. The guy in the seat next to you may not be a Kinsey 6 like me, or even a five, but that means there’s still a 20 percent or less chance that they’ll get a stray thought about you while you’re sharing earbuds (and presumably ear wax…). So what you really need to do, instead of saying "No Homo" is exchange Kinsey ratings. Then the conversation could go something like this…
"I’m a zero."
"Yeah man, I know. Me too."
Isn’t that much better? And it would be a bit less offensive to the gay folk sitting nearby, most of whom already know that while beauty is only skin deep, stupid goes right to the bone.
In the interest of fairness and balance, and to make sure all viewpoints are carefully aired, the Washington Post has added a republican blogger to its web site. And if you think that means they’ll be adding a liberal democrat to the roster too, I’ve got a Florida election to sell you…
You recently wrote of reader comments deleted from the Post blog: "If I had let them, they would have obliterated any semblance of civil, genuine discussion." Domenech’s inaugural post on his "Red America" blog for the Post referred to "the shrieking denizens of their [the Democrats’] increasingly extreme base" and "the unhinged elements of their base, motivated by partisan rage." Is that the sort of "civil, genuine discussion" you had in mind? Or do you have one set of rules for your staff and another for your readers, one set for liberals and another for conservatives?
As Greg Sargent writes…
Either way, the problem is this: Those critics can’t be placated. The right wouldn’t stop shrieking their "media is liberal" war cry if every single major liberal columnist in America were hauled off in tumbrels and beheaded on the Mall. Right-wing media criticism isn’t about achieving the "balance" they supposedly seek; it’s about bullying and intimidating mainstream reporters and pundits to fear being labeled as "liberals" if they don’t reproduce GOP spin, even when they know it to be false. It’s also about enabling right-wing voices that are far out of the mainstream to infiltrate the media.
The Post on the other hand, thinks that the likes of Domenech are balanced out by the likes of Richard Cohen. Sorta like Bozo The Clown balances out Pol Pot…
The first computer I ever programmed was like this one:
InfoDog, MB-F Newsletter, October 1992: a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP 1170. It came complete with 128K of memory, 100 megabytes of disk, [15 MHz]…. All this great hardware cost a mere $200,000.
Due to the fact that my laptop hard disk started screaming like a Bain Sidhe last week, I now have a $2,000 MacBookPro:
2G of memory, 92GB of hard disk, running at 2 GHz.
My first computer was a Commodore C64. I bought it as a step up from the ColecoVision game station I had, and because computers had started to tweek the curiosity of my inner techno geek. At first I used it to decipher shortwave teletype traffic. Later, as my business building architectural models grew, I bought a word processor for it, Paperclip, and CalKit, a spreadsheet made by the same company, Batteries Included. But even then my eyes were set on the ultimate personal computer: the IBM PC…a monster of a machine, with a whole 640k of ram and huge 340k capacity floppy disk drives. It was well out of my reach, until parts to build one yourself started appearing at the local HAM fests.
Building my first computer turned out to be much easier then building the Heathkits I so loved back then. It was mostly just a matter of buying the right circuit boards and plugging everything together inside a standard sized case. I decided on a clamshell case for the ease of getting at the computer’s innards (the FCC later banned them due to the amount of radio noise they leaked). I bought two of the best quality disk drives of the time, Teac 360k double sided-double density drives, and the best monochrome monitor made, a Princeton Graphics amber screen. The monitor plugged into a Hercules Graphics card. I bought a copy of IBM-PC DOS 3.2 for it, rather then MS-DOS, on the grounds that if the computer I was building could boot it, then its hardware was absolutely IBM compatible. I remember the thrill of turning it on for the first time, and the heart rending shock when I got a series of error beeps during the POST test and nothing happened. It turned out I had a jumper pin on the motherboard set wrong (I had it set for a CGA color graphics card instead of a monochrome video card…there was no plug and play back then…). On the second try the computer booted, and I beheld my first A:\> prompt.
I remember later that night, sitting on the edge of my bed, staring in a kind of awe at the thing I’d just built. This was no toy computer, for playing games. This was the real thing! How little did I know, even then, how much that computer was going to change my life. By today’s standards that 8088 PC-XT compatible is as much a toy as the Commodore it replaced. But that computer was literally my doorway to the edge of the universe.
There is a power in sharing our stories and I hope we can learn more of J’s experience and others like J who have submitted to ex-gay treatment.
Peterson, himself a former Love In Action participant (like J, he voluntarily entered the program), knows whereof he speaks. Their stories are wrenchingly powerful. This passage from J’s blog struck me at a place too deep for words:
I just started a new job, and the first day was very interesting. I found out that my manager, who happens to be a pastor of some small Apostolic church, also "Hates Fags." Well, we are all familiar with Fred Phelps and "God hates fags." When I came out to my parents the first time at the age of 16, my father conveniently left pieces of paper around and the website(godhatesfags.com or something) as the homepage on my computer.
Some days I find myself trying to fathom the cruelty of some parents toward their children and I just can’t. Nor could I imagine what it must be like to walk through life with that memory.
One interesting tidbit I learned from J’s blog, and in the comments on Peterson’s, is that LIA is apparently not telling prospective entrants (the voluntary ones) that their program does not promise a cure for their homosexuality, until after they’ve signed on the dotted line and coughed up their dough. In comments on Peterson’s blog, one poster puts it this way:
I too went into LIA expecting to be cured–expecting to come out completely heterosexual. Imagine my disappointment when I learned during orientation that there was no promise of a cure. The disappointment that I felt learning that I would never be anything more than ex-gay was bitter. While some of us in that orientation class were disappointed, others were angry–even livid.
If you take someone’s money under false pretenses, isn’t that stealing? Isn’t there a commandment or something about that…?
On the surface, "Hate Crime" may seem like a movie about violence rooted in religious bigotry, but underneath it’s a poorly disguised argument for vigilantism. The writer and director, Tommy Stovall, uses the same extremism and rigid stereotyping his film purports to rebel against.
When half of a young gay couple is viciously beaten and eventually dies, suspicion falls on the new neighbor, a fundamentalist preacher’s son with a brush cut, a permanently clenched jaw and a nice line in homophobic curses. Stacking the deck unnecessarily, Mr. Stovall dresses him in tight, white T-shirts accessorized with beer cans, gives him a Southern accent and a criminal record, then lights him like Robert Mitchum in "The Night of the Hunter." And just in case we’re still not clear where our sympathies lie, the gay couple is seen purchasing wedding rings and discussing adoption.
I can’t tell from this review whether this movie is any good or not…only that this reviewer thinks that violence against a gay couple by a religious nutcase is a ridiculous concept for a movie. Oh…and that showing a gay couple buying wedding rings and talking about adopting is a over the top. Oh come on…I’m supposed to believe this…?
With a little more subtlety — and a lot less predictability — the movie might have played more like a thoughtful drama and less like an outrageous exercise in wish fulfillment.
A jailhouse visit between accused murderer Benjamin Matthew Williams and his parents in which Williams compares himself to Jesus Christ and jokes, ”Oh, the devil made me do it,” came into more vivid focus Wednesday when a transcript of the tape was released.
The tape itself was entered into evidence Tuesday at a preliminary hearing for Williams, 31, and his brother, James Tyler Williams, 29, who are accused in the slayings of a Happy Valley gay couple found July 1.
…
Sally Williams also asks her son if, as reported, he was heavily armed when arrested.
”Yeah,” he replies, also acknowledging that he wore a bulletproof vest.
Then Sally Williams, apparently worried that her son might be suicidal, urges him to ”stick it out, however hard it is. Don’t take the easy way out. Don’t.”
”We put five dollars in the commissary for each of you,” interjects Matthew Williams’ father in one of only two remarks on the transcript attributed to him.
The elder Williams also asked what time the brothers would be arraigned.
”They, they’re not doing the death penalty a whole lot here anymore, are they?” Matthew Williams asks. ”Are we looking at 20, 40 years or something? Then I don’t expect to serve that, though.”
His mother assures him ”the Lord can do miracles, he has.”
But then she tells him that after the detectives’ searches ”they had a tablet you took to the church and they had some of the notes you, that you said, was going to get blamed on you.
”Well, someone ratted, um, I, I don’t know, were there other people involved?” she asks. ”I don’t want to, don’t ans–, this is monitored … Um. I don’t, I don’t think you did what they say you did.”
”What do they say I did?” asks Matthew Williams.
”They say you took out two homos,” she responds.
”Huh. Why wouldn’t you think I’d do that?” Matthew Williams returns.
”Not under those circumstances,” his mother says. ”And Tyler, also?”
”I think they have pretty good evidence,” her son says. ”So I, I don’t know what an attorney could do for you other than take your money.”
His mother suggests an attorney might help with a plea bargain.
”Plea bargaining for what?” Matthew Williams says laughing, adding, ”Oh, the devil made me do it. Yeah.”
A little later in the visit Sally Williams worries about Tyler Williams, his sore knee, diet problems and hypoglycemia.
And she seems to chastise her older son.
”I knew the Lord was going to humble you and I’ve been praying for you for a long time,” she said. ”Some of the things you believe are wrong. … I’m sorry that I have failed you.”
But Matthew Williams suggests that God may have put him where he is because he can use the witness chair as a kind of pulpit and ”a lot of people will hear.”
”Basically, basically, um, society now calls what’s bad good and they call what I’ve done as bad and I want just, just to tell them, you know, if you love me, keep my commandments,” Matthew Williams tells his parents, adding that he has ”followed a higher law …
”I have to obey God’s law rather than man’s law.”
His mother warns that ”a lot of people will hear it with their ears, but not with your understanding.”
Matthew Williams then suggests that ”they” might think he’s insane and ”that might be to our advantage.”
”That will be a good thing,” his mother agrees.
Matthew Williams also says, though he ”didn’t want to do this,” he thought ”that I was supposed to.”
Then he explains that there are ”a lot of parallels between this and a lot of other incidents in the Old Testament.” But he went on to refer to the New Testament.
”I mean, they threw, they threw our Lord and Savior in jail. They, they accused him of things that, that he did that were not wrong, but they said they were wrong, you know, and he was punished for things,” the transcript reads.
Not To Say We Told You So…But…Yeah…We Told You So…
Comes the first tentative stirrings from the kook pews, those first little squeaks of dismay at the wreckage that is the Smirking Chimp’s excellent adventure in Iraq. Then the gulps of dawning appall at the wreckage that is President Junior’s economic policy. What’s this you say…President Strutting Jackass isn’t the tall in the saddle great American whose smirking face every patriotic American should bow down to and venerate every morning? No shit Sherlock.
And so begins the scramble to cover ass. We were all taken in. Bamboozled. He was a fraud all along. A faker. He’s no conservative.
Oh yes he is. He is the living breathing image of conservative values. Never mind the rhetoric…here’s the practice. Here’s the reality. Here’s what you get, when you practice conservative values. You get corruption. You get war and death. You get economic ruin. Smells like…victory. George W. Bush didn’t fail your values, he embodies them. Can’t stand the sight of him now can you? My heart bleeds.
Tom Tomorrow has a post up of quotes from those breathless Mission Accomplished Days, starting with this wee bit of good advice from Cal Thomas:
All of the printed and voiced prophecies should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent. Otherwise, they will return to us in another situation where their expertise will be acknowledged, or taken for granted, but their credibility will be lacking.
Here’s the source of the quotes. Its good reading, if only as a reminder of how seductive and degrading the mob mentality that the Republicans have deliberately cultivated in America is:
“Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America’s unrivaled power and how best to use it.”
(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)
"Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think that we had become inured to everything that we’d seen of this war over the past three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that it was such a just true, genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression, not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breathtaking."
(Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation–Los Angeles Times, 7/3/04)
“The only people who think this wasn’t a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington.”
(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)
“We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back.”
(Newsweek’s Howard Fineman–MSNBC, 5/7/03)
"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the guys."
(CNN‘s Lou Dobbs, on Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech, 5/1/03)
“The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war.”
(Fox News Channel’s Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
“What’s he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it’s over? I mean, don’t these things sort of lose their–Isn’t there a fresh date on some of these debate points?”
(MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean–4/9/03)
“I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks.”
(MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)
"This will be no war — there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention…. The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling…. It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate– cited in the Observer, 3/30/03)
"It won’t take weeks. You know that, professor. Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there’s no question that it will."
(Fox News Channel‘s Bill O’Reilly, 2/10/03)
“I’m waiting to hear the words ‘I was wrong’ from some of the world’s most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types…. I just wonder, who’s going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: ‘Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong’? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war….
“Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that — quote, “The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated.” Sorry, Scott. I think you’ve been chasing the wrong tail, again.
“Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don’t call them ‘elitists’ for nothing.”
(MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)
“Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four more years.”
(Fox News Channel’s Dick Morris, 4/9/03)
“I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?”
(Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, 1/29/03)
“We’re all neo-cons now.”
(MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
No Chris…the word that describes what you are now is tool. What the rest of us have to live the rest of our lives with is knowing that anyone with a brain and even a meager capacity for independent thought could see this catastrophe coming back in 2003, and yet it still happened. Right here. Right in America. I was in Washington in the days just before the war started. I was attending a software developer’s conference at Washington University, a short walking distance from the Mall…a short (for me) walking distance from that black granite memorial to our Viet Nam war dead. I’d protested that war too, and after Nixon resigned I was certain we’d never let ourselves get dragged back into that gutter ever again. I remember walking the streets of Washington between conference sessions. I remember how the shock of it all had simply made me numb. And now…here we are again…
Flashback…Washington D.C…March 18, 2003
Tuesday afternoon. I am attending a conference on open source software in government being held at George Washington University. I am here because my project manager is investigating the possibility of moving the system I’ve been working on for the past several years to open source software. Work on the Hubble Space Telescope will go into maintenance mode shortly, and the thinking is that the Institute doesn’t want to spend a lot of money it won’t have on software upgrades, simply because a certain vendor has a business cycle that requires you to do that. At least with open source we would have the option of making any small fixes we absolutely needed to have before the end of the mission ourselves, without breaking our systems that depend on it. The alternative is to stick to the vendor’s upgrade cycle, and pray the new versions don’t break anything in our software, or introduce new bugs and security holes.
Between conference sessions, I wander around the Foggy Bottom area, and back and forth to my hotel, which I paid for out of my own pocket, rather then hassle with Washington traffic, which is a nightmare. The hotel has a nice little kitchenette, which allows me to eat reasonably well without further damaging my budget for the month. Around noon I begin the walk back to my hotel for lunch, stopping to examine a decrepit building right next to the conference hall, that I assume is one of the student dorms. It is, and I see by the bronze plaque by the door that this one is named Lafayette Hall. I read the inscription, which briefly describes the history of Marquis de Lafayette, who fought beside George Washington, taking a bullet in the process, for the freedom of a nation that was not his own, and who later attended the first commencement ceremonies of the university that bore his friend’s name, shaking the hand of each of those first graduates. While I am reading, a snarky voice in the back of my mind is saying Freedom Fries…Freedom Toast… An old friend of mine I’d had breakfast with that morning, told me a joke he’d heard about a man who, while visiting France recently, asked a random Frenchman, "Sir, can you speak German?" When the Frenchman replied that he couldn’t, the American said, "You’re welcome." I told my friend the Frenchman could just as easily have asked the American, "Sir, do you have a king?"
My hotel is somewhat oldish. My room is on the sixth floor and the elevators are small and slow. I press the button and when one finally appears, I see that there are already two businessmen inside. It’s a tight fit for three. As we go up I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise. There are some who you would never know from the look of them, to be of the right wing thuggish persuasion, and there are others who hit you with it in waves, in the cut of the clothes, the bullying posture that is as second nature as breathing, and the coldness of the face, particularly when smiling at nothing in particular. I tune them both out, pulling out from a space within me I’d almost forgotten about, a "Yes I’m a longhair, yes I know you hate my guts, and no mister establishment person sir, I really don’t give a flying fuck" attitude, close my eyes, and listen to the elevator floor counter click off the floors to mine. I toy briefly about writing a book, "Everything I know about living under Bush II, I learned from Nixon". The old elevator rises slowly. I hear one of my companions say, "I hope they don’t cancel our flight out Thursday." The other chuckles and says, "The war will be over by then."
What you have to understand about that Mission Accomplished banner, is that the mission wasn’t winning the war in Iraq. The mission was starting it in the first place.
Via Alicublog, Ms Instapundit herself comes out swinging for the ex-gay movement…but in the Instapundit way, which is to make gutter crawling bigotry seem downright liberal and progressive, all the while denying that you even agree with…well…anything.
Her beef seems to be that the APA is calling NARTH a worthless bunch of pseudo scientific quacks.
Not only did the APA deny CE (Continuing Education) credit to professionals attending the annual NARTH conference in November, stating that "The program content is not consistent with APA policy" but the APA is attempting to declare therapy to modify sexual orientation unethical
Well…duh. When the fucking science says that ex-gay therapy not only doesn’t work, it is likely to result in long term damage to a patient’s mental health, and can even lead to suicide, then…yeah…it’s unethical to keep doing it lady. What part of "first do no harm" are you having trouble parsing?
And where you really see the agenda here, is that same pusillanimous equivocation that her husband resorts to, whenever he wants to promote the politics of hate without looking like he’s a hatemonger himself…
Personally, I’m skeptical about turning gay people straight…
Like fuck you are lady. A motherfucking cinder block can tell what’s wrong with this, let alone a goddamned doctor of psychology:
But shouldn’t the client be the one to choose, not the APA? The APA has decided that the answer is no.
Are you really a doctor lady, or do you just play one on the Internet? I suppose if someone wants to go on a diet of canned beans and ice cream as a way to cure their left handedness that’s their business…but…yeah…for a doctor to tell them being left handed is a sickness they can cure with canned beans and ice cream would be unethical you drooling fuckwad. That’s the point, and…yes…you fucking know that’s the point!
Dig the way she’s calling it "therapy to modify sexual orientation" as opposed to ex-gay therapy or reparative therapy, as its usually called. This is how we make the essential ugliness of anti-gay hate seem innocuous. It’s not ex-gay therapy, it’s therapy to modify sexual orientation. And a lobotomy is therapy to modify the functioning of the brain.
Christ almighty…who do these jackasses think they’re fooling with this Oh I have nothing against the gays I just think that the people who hate their guts have a valid point claptrap…?
Stand Up For The Pariahs And You’ll Be Treated Like One Too Boy…
A straight seventeen year old high school senior has been expelled from his school for showing his video project to his class. It was about a gay high school romance …
Brandon Flyte, a student at West Linn High School in West Linn, Oregon, was recently expelled for airing a video project he had been assigned in class which includes a same-sex "snuggle" scene. The film, Brokeback High, is a "gay love story" based on themes from Brokeback Mountain, but set in a modern day high school. The shot above was the one that got him expelled.
Flyte writes on his website: "One has to wonder if any of this would’ve happened had the two characters snuggling in my film been male and female. We’re led to believe that diversity is encouraged in schools, but when a 17 year-old straight kid makes a serious gay love story and is expelled for it, it just begs the question of exactly what kind of policy was the administration following?"
Well…let’s see…a quick lookup of the high school web site leads you to a main page with this text very prominently displayed for all to see:
It is the policy of the West Linn/Wilsonville Board of Education and School District that there will be no discrimination or harassment on the grounds of race, color, sex, marital status, religion, national origin, age or disability in any educational programs, activities or employment.
Notice what’s missing…? The school administration wasn’t just sending a message to the gay students, but to the straight ones too. Stand up for the pariahs and you’ll be treated like one… Now that this kid’s plight is getting some internet attention, wait for the school to ban him from his graduation too, in retaliation. I sincerely hope it doesn’t happen, but adults who kick kids around like this for supporting for their gay peers have no conscience.
[Update…] According to Pam’s House Blend, after much local media attention the school has relented and are letting the kid attend classes again. Good.
There’s some discussion in the Pam’s House Blend post about how conservative that particular part of Oregon is. That’s not especially surprising. What is, is this little detail they dug up, from the School District (as opposed to the school’s) policies:
The district shall promote non-discrimination and an environment free of harassment based on an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, parental or marital status or age or because of the race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, parental or marital status or age of any other persons with whom the individual associates.
Which is, in one obvious case, more embracing then the one displayed prominently on the schools’ own web site. I assume the district policies outrank the school’s, but you have to wonder if that one omission was deliberate nonetheless.
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