The Scene: 

Soft introduction music plays…

"Are you embarrassed easily? I am. But it’s nothing to worry about; it’s all part of growing up and being British. This course is designed to eliminate embarrassment, to enable you to talk freely about rude objects, to look at awkward and embarrassing things and to point at people’s privates. The course has been designed by Dr Karl Gruber of the Institute of Going a Bit Red in Helsinki."

-Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Every Friday evening now for almost a year, I’ve made it a point to drive down to D.C. and hang with my gay friends down there.  We have a regular happy hour/dinner end of week gathering.  It keeps me sane.  I’m single, I live all by myself up here in Baltimore, and if I don’t actively seek out companionship I just go nuts.  I wasn’t cut out to be a loner. 

This week I decided I wasn’t drinking.  My body really isn’t used to regular drinking nights, and alcohol was never my favorite form of relaxation.  So I just drank Cokes.  One of my friends later blamed that for how embarrassed I became at the…erm…low altitude of the dinner conversation.  But I don’t think so.  You have to expect when you’re with a pack of gay guys in a gay bar in a gay neighborhood in a city with a large gay population, that the conversation is going to get a tad sexual.  I strongly doubt that’s really any different from the tone of most conversations in straight pickup bars either, but I wouldn’t know about that.  Last night however, thanks to a few folks at the dinner table the conversation got really really raunchy.  So I did what I usually do when I’m not enjoying myself.  I tuned out.  Ironically, I suppose that was a tad rude of me.  I really felt sorry for our waiter.

I blame my Baptist upbringing for the modesty to the point of paralyzing inhibition I’ve been stuck with ever since puberty.  But it may also just be in my blood.  I wish I could be more of a gay peacock.  I was a cute little dickens when I was younger and I’ll go to my grave regretting I didn’t make more of that.  And I get embarrassed.  So much so that I’ve been asked outright on occasion if I really am gay.  I think people mistake my embarrassment for disgust.  But if I am anything it’s sexually frustrated, not turned off by the idea of sex between guys. 

But I’ll cheerfully admit to being grossed out by some of the kinks people get into.  Some heterosexuals get into those same kinks too and I don’t confuse my libido’s sexual tastes for a moral sensibility.  As long as people consent to whatever it is they’re doing and as long as it’s done with some degree of care and sympathy it neither picks my pockets nor breaks my leg what they’re doing with each other.  I don’t expect people to accommodate my embarrassments.  Matter of fact I’m usually grateful when they don’t.  But not last night.  I wish I didn’t get embarrassed so easily, but I do not regret being a romantic in the least, which is the polar opposite of raunch, and there were other people in that dinning room besides us.

The night that started out with my making my first ever iTunes buy from my iPhone.  Before heading downtown I was at a friend’s house when I heard Dionne Warwick singing This Girl’s In Love With You on his Pandora station…

You see this girl, 
This girl’s in love with you 
Yes I’m in love 
Who looks at you the way I do 
When you smile I can tell 
We know each other very well

Somehow I’d never gotten around to buying that one…probably because I never saw it on the singles rack back when I was a teenager.  But I sat there listening to it at my friend Jon’s house and next thing I know I’m calling up the iTunes store on my iPhone.  My inner teeny-bopper has been grooving to it all day today.  Probably as a tonic to last night’s raunch.

My hands are shakin’ 
Don’t let my heart keep breaking 
‘Cause I need your love, 
I want your love 
Say you’re in love 
And you’ll be my guy…

Am I really gay?  As I was sinking deeper and deeper into my chair last night in embarrassment, one of the guys, who had been briefly married, started talking graphically about a certain way straight guys can make their ladies happy and That was when I started getting grossed out.  No offense to my heterosexual readers here…I know some of you would probably get grossed out by a graphic conversation about the same sex version of that kind of sex, and that doesn’t make you homophobic.  It’s just your libido grimacing.  One person’s sweet delight is another’s gross-out and that’s just the way it goes.  That part of us just has its own way of looking at the world and all you can do is just try to deal with it honorably. 

I was embarrassed, not disgusted.  But I think I have a plan.  From now on I’ll save my drinking for when the conversation starts looking like the letters page of Screw magazine.  Then I’ll walk up to the bar for a shot or two.  They say people in a bar generally look better when you’re drunk.  Probably they make better sense too.

I have a confession to make.  I have this…tragic…habit of falling madly in love with guys who tell me after I’ve become completely twitterpated on them that they’re straight, and later go on to lead thoroughly heterosexual lifestyles (and yes, I am using the word ‘lifestyle’ ironically here…).  Either they tell me they’re straight, or do so in so many words.  Not always…’K’…my ex…is certainly not presenting himself as a heterosexual…at least not to his friends.  And I’ve had the random crush on guys who were unambiguously gay.  Alas, none of those ever seemed to have a crush back on me.

What I find…interesting…after having just had a brief email chat with one…is that almost without exception none of these straight guys I’ve ever crushed deeply on have ever gone on to get married.  The exception being, ironically, my first crush back in high school.  He got married, or so he says…to a girl he seems to have met in his college years, and is still married after thirty years now.  But he’s the only one of the lot who ever married.

And none of them…not a one…has ever had kids, or even expressed the slightest interest in having kids.  The only guy I’ve ever been in love with who ever expressed an interest in having kids, ironically enough, was ‘K’…the openly gay one.  And…interestingly…he Did get married.  For a little while.  After his parents pressured him into it.  Then he got divorced…and called me up…and came up to Baltimore for a visit…  But that’s another long and tragic story…

So…about a half dozen serious crushes in my life who present themselves as heterosexual.  And of the lot, only one ever got married and none have kids.  Most of them are single now, as I write this.  In their 50s.  Most of them have been single for most of their lives.

I have no idea what this means, but it isn’t random.  I take any other random group of six heterosexuals who I know and there are kids there, and the ones who don’t have any are the exception.  But there are no kids by any of the heterosexuals I’ve ever fallen in love with, and only one outright marriage.

There’s an obvious conclusion here, and maybe I just don’t want to look at it.  But at least I’m not blaming myself anymore.  Time was I used to think of myself as the cure for homosexuality that NARTH has been searching for…

The attorney of the 14 year old boy who shot 15 year old Lawrence King in the head thinks he has a new and improved version of an old strategy…

Lawyer blames school in shooting of gay Oxnard student

As 14-year-old Brandon McInerney prepares to be arraigned today in the slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, his lawyer is advancing a defense that at least partly blames school officials for the tragedy.

Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys, which began when King openly flirted with McInerney, said Deputy Public Defender William Quest.

No.  The tensions pre-existed that.  The flirting was Kings way of dealing with the abuse he was getting from the other kids.  But look at this carefully.  Quest is hanging a dead skunk on a sliver of truth obvious to everyone in hindsight.  Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys…  Yes.  And right here is the poison Quest is trying to slip in along with that…

Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus, Quest said.

You’d think the boy was going to school in drag…which is exactly the image Quest is creating there.  Quest is slyly turning a murdered 15 year old gay kid into a drag queen exploring his sexuality on other terrified teenagers.  He’s pushing all the usual buttons there.  But look past that.  King’s behavior was creating turmoil on campus.  Quest has probably figured out that blaming a 15 year old gay kid for his own murder isn’t going to play well…at least with California juries.  He might get away with it, but considering Matthew Shepard’s killers couldn’t even in Wyoming, it’s a risk.  So what to do?  Simple.  Blame the school for not blaming the victim. 

Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus…

Isn’t that a neat trick? The school was siding with the gay kid, which left the other kids in turmoil, which caused Brandon McInerney to bring a gun to school and shoot Lawrence King in the back of the head.  Poor Branden was so traumatized over having a gay classmate, and even worse being flirted at, that he couldn’t even look him in the eye when he pulled the trigger.  And it’s all the school’s fault.  For nurturing the gay kid.  When they should have been keeping him under control.  So the other kids wouldn’t be in turmoil.  So Branden McInerney wouldn’t have been in turmoil.  

You have never seen the gay panic defense so slickly inserted into a murder trial. 

Hey kids!  Microsoft’s super good music player, Zune, is becoming Double More user friendly!!!

Information Week: 

Microsoft Gets More Social With Zune Update

Users of the portable media player can now download friends’ nine most recently played songs, as well as nine tunes flagged as favorites.

Microsoft, which trails far behind Apple in the portable media player market, tried to narrow the gap Tuesday with the release of new technology that enables Zune users to share more of their music libraries with friends.

The latest update to the Zune software that synchronizes the player with a person’s music library on the PC and Microsoft’s online store reflects how Microsoft is hoping to grab market share from the Apple iPod by encouraging Zune users to build online social networks. Microsoft last November launched a music community Web site called Zune Social, where users could browse each other’s playlists and share opinions on songs and bands.

Neato!

PC Week:

Microsoft Looks to Social Networking for Zune 2.0

Along with the three new Zune players, including Microsoft’s first-ever flash-based model, Microsoft announced a new community site, dubbed Zune Social that it will fire up as beta in November. According to Microsoft, Zune owners can automatically share their current playlists with friends using a Zune-to-Zune Social sync.

That sync will rely on user-made profiles that Microsoft’s calling Zune Cards; other Zune owners will be able to view a friend’s Card, then play short samples of those tracks and/or buy the tunes at the also-redesigned Zune MarketPlace online store. The sharing concept isn’t new, as several services — notably iLike — already promote something similar.

"Microsoft must find a way to grow the coolness of the Zune," said JupiterResearch’s Michael Gartenberg. "This isn’t a bad strategy, and at least it’s found a way to differentiate from Apple."

Super Cool!  And…oh look…here’s another way they can differentiate themselves from Apple…

Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune

If you like to download the latest episodes of “Heroes” or other NBC shows from BitTorrent, maybe you shouldn’t buy a Microsoft Zune to watch them on.

A future update of the software for Microsoft’s portable media player may well include a feature that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it.

…

Late Tuesday afternoon I reached J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, to ask why NBC found Microsoft’s video store more appealing than Apple’s.

He explained that NBC, like most studios, would like the broadest distribution possible for its programming. But it has two disputes with Apple.

First, Apple insists that all TV shows have an identical wholesale price so that it can sell all of them at $1.99. NBC wants to sell its programs for whatever price it chooses.

Second, Apple refused to cooperate with NBC on building filters into its iPod player to remove pirated movies and videos.

Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright “cop” to be installed on its devices.

…

Mr. Perrette said the plan is to create “filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.”

He said this would be similar to systems being tested by Microsoft, Google and others that are meant to block pirated clips from video sharing sites. NBC is also working with Internet service providers like AT&T to put similar filters right into the network.

… 

Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to discuss details of this effort other than to say that the software company is exploring anti-piracy measures with NBC. He said Microsoft, which suffers from its own piracy problems, is sympathetic to Hollywood’s concerns.

Let me unpack that for you: NBC agreed to let its content be sold by Microsoft, because Microsoft is willing to make it’s products block the playback of unauthorized copies.  They’re talking about videos there, but does anyone doubt for a moment that same technology will be used to prevent the playback of music too.  And remember, The Music Industry Regards Copying From CDs To Players Like The iPod As Theft. 

Microsoft is going to help the industry make that impossible.  If they can get the technology developed, the industry will then press congress to make it manditory.  Never doubt it.

Oh…wait…  Microsoft says it’s all been a terrible mistake…

In the Zune Insider Blog, Cesar Menendez, a member of Microsoft’s Zune team, refers to this post, and the blog discussion it prompted. He writes:

We have no plans or commitments to implement any new type of content filtering in the Zune devices as part of our content distribution deal with NBC.

Microsoft, let it be said, is second to no one in its skill at deploying tactical syntax.  Let’s unpack all the weasel words in that statement, shall we?   We have no plans…  Right.  Why not say "We will not…"?  as opposed to "We have no plans…"  How about, "We are not in the planning stage, but the proof of concept stage."  Any new type of content filtering…  Why not just say "Any content filtering"?   New Type?  Fine.  They already have something on the drawing boards.  It isn’t new.  As part of our content distribution deal with NBC.  Fine.  But that isn’t the only deal you have with NBC is it?  So are you developing any content filtering, based on an already existing "type", apart from any deals you may have made with NBC, or anyone else…?  Do you have any internal efforts directed at content filtering or blocking?.

No…no…  It’s just not possible to get straight answers out of Microsoft if they don’t want to give you any.  And besides, all you need is to look at Windows Vista to see how devoted Microsoft is to DRM.

Windows Vista is the bloated pig it is, in large measure because of all the DRM technology packed into it.  Vendors are having nightmares getting it to work with hardware because of the DRM requirements Vista imposes and Redmond mandates.  Your video and audio circuitry must literally have no possible point on it for a user to tap a signal from before it can be certified and Vista will allow the highest quality signals through it.  Otherwise it cripples the output.  That Redmond would develop technology to allow the music and film industries to control what you can and can not play on your own playback devices is as unsurprising, as the fact that they’ll be deploying it on paltforms running their software with or without the owner’s consent. 

They say that men don’t change, they reveal themselves.  Once upon a time I made my living programming exclusively on Microsoft platforms.  And I felt proud to be a part of a revolution that was bringing power, as the slogan of my generation went, to the people.  But empowering the common folk was never what Bill was in it for.  He just wanted to own the world.  Bill Gates is to computer technology what Mao was to government.  He spoke the language of revolution, he posed as a friend of the common people against the powerful.  He told them he was about returning to them the power that was rightfully theirs.  The computers would be taken out of the big data processing centers and put right there on your own desktop.  Your data would belong to you, not big business or big government.  Information you need would be directly accessible to you.  Bill Gates promised the world would be at your fingertips.  And if he really meant that, I wouldn’t care if he was ten times as rich as he is.  Instead, he became one of the biggest despots the world ever saw.  Your computer belongs to him now.  And to his friends in the penthouse board rooms.  Men don’t change, they reveal themselves.  Here’s to the new boss…

[Edited a tad…]

Atrios says…

I always found it truly bizarre how nice the weather is but how difficult it was to enjoy it.

Of course you can enjoy it, in the planned physical activity sense. Go hiking! Go to the beach! But it isn’t integrated in your day to day life in any sense because you’re in your car.

He’s linking there to a Matthew Yglesias post about how, ironically enough here in the U.S., all our walkable cities are in areas with not so wonderful weather most of the time, whilst out in parts of the west and southwest where the climate is great for walking most days, the cities are designed mostly around the automobile.  But that’s because they came of age at the same time the automobile did.  The old eastern cities remember the days of horse traffic. They are walkable, because that’s what most people in them had to do when they were busy becoming cities.  There weren’t any cars.

I actually walked in to work today…an achievement of sorts.  I’ve been…reluctant…to leave my car at home ever since I bought it.  Partly it’s for fear that a Mercedes-Benz all alone in a quiet city neighborhood is a target.  But mostly its I haven’t wanted to let pass any little opportunity to drive the thing, I’m still so bedazzled by it.  The sane thing to do with gas prices being what they are is let the car sit and walk to work.  That way I save gas for errands and pleasure driving.  And also, a lot of one mile each way trips is hard on a car.

When I got up this morning the sky was bright and sunny and blue like it is almost all the time in southern California but seldom here in the Mid-Atlantic states except briefly in spring and fall.  It was Pleasantville weather.  Much as I’m still in New Car Love I knew I’d be nuts to let it pass by and not enjoy the walk to work.  There are people in this region who would kill to have the commute I do.  And…it was a lovely day.  We just don’t get many of those here.  So for the first time since I bought the car, back in October, I left it home.

Soon it will be sweltering summer again and I’ll be driving in to work anyway, for the car’s AC, so I’m not a dripping mess of sweat soaked clothes by the time I get to work.  Tomorrow they’re calling for rain so I’ll probably drive.  But from now on I think I can let myself take advantage of the nice weather when it comes, and start walking to work again.  Actually, walking has been an integral part of my day to day life ever since I learned the trick. I walk to the store…I take a walk around the neighborhood I live in most days.  I’ve done these things ever since I can remember.  I bought the house I did because it was within walking distance of where I work.  The closest I’ve ever come to practicing a sport was wilderness backpacking.  I love to drive, but I am a walker.  It’s only been lately that I’ve been driving this much.

From my server logs…

Referring URL: http://www.google.co…her means.%E2%80%9D

Search Engine: google.com

Search Words: 2. explain the statement: "war is a continuation of politics by other means."

Okay…write this down…  "War" is the sequel to the PlayStation game "Politics By Other Means", by D.C. LaRue Novelty and Business Software, the brash gaming upstart that revolutionized bash console 2D sprite games. Written entirely in ADA, a programming language created by the U.S. Department of Defense, "War" takes "Politics By Other Means" to new heights by introducing Higgs boson controllers, dark energy, lead free sprites and support for Hercules graphics mode.  A version for Microsoft’s Zune player is in the works.

That should get you through finals week…

I don’t think a pit bull is spec for a ’98 Ford F100…but let me double check…

(Story Here) 

From our letters to the Get A Fucking Life Editor department…

Mannequin spoils outing

During a visit to Salt Lake City, just blocks from Temple Square at the Gateway Mall, I was aghast to see in the Victoria Secret’s display window a sexually positioned mannequin dressed in skimpy black underwear with garters and black stockings. I credit them for not including whips and chains, but the implication was surely there for the world to see – including small children and teenagers. A nice little Mormon family outing turned into a lesson on immorality with an explanation to my kids why they should wear their temple garments after they are endowed in the temple.

Why should I be exposed to that lewdness unless I choose to walk into the store? At least then I can walk out if I am offended, but please, don’t throw it in my face. It is sad to see that Babylon prospers so well in Zion, and that apparently no one cares enough to protest the perils of pornography. Well, I’m standing up to protect children from exposure to it.

In my childhood, the public was sheltered from inadvertent exposure to pornography by the use of brown protective wrappers on magazines. What a concept! I live in the country and I don’t get out much. Thank goodness.

I have a question.  How is it that a moral woman in a nice little Mormon family who grew up protected from pornography by brown paper wrappers and lives in the country and doesn’t get out much knows about including whips and chains with skimpy black underwear, garters and black stockings? 

Do you take vitamins? Did you ever travel with vitamins? Oh, well… if you take a lot of vitamins, and they’re not the kind that says "Joe’s Vitamins" on the side "the plain-looking vitamins" and you have a whole lot, and you don’t the whole big jumbo thing on the road, you take as many as you need – and they’re not marked. And the jar you put them in isn’t marked. If a policeman really wants to give you a hard time, he can hold you overnight while they check the vitamins. That’s why I travel with Flintstones vitamins!

-George Carlin 

Unfortunately…that’s not a plan that works anymore…

The pills? Pain relief. The arrest? That hurt.

SARASOTA — When the police stopped him one night in Sarasota, Villis Sanders told officers that the small blue pills in his car were Aleve, an over-the-counter medicine for his aching wisdom teeth.

A patrolman used a drug kit to verify what the pills were.

The test said the tablets were amphetamines, Sanders was jailed and his car was impounded.

But it turns out that the test was wrong. Prosecutors took the pills to a laboratory before Sanders’ trial and found out that they were Aleve, after all.

In typical fashion, the DA’s office never bothered to tell Sanders that the charges were dropped because…well…he was innocent.  He found out when he went to court and they told him to go back home. 

Experts say that "false positives" are rare, but when the police department tested additional pills — including an Aleve tablet provided by the Herald-Tribune — the results were the same: Aleve shows up as amphetamines.

No one knows why the test keeps getting it wrong.

The manufacturer said that officers might not have been properly trained, or that Aleve might contain a compound similar to one found in amphetamines.

Officials from Bayer Health Care, which makes Aleve, did not immediately respond to questions.

And Sarasota police officials questioned both the kits and the compounds in Aleve — but say that they did everything they could to figure out what Sanders was carrying that night.

Well…not quite Everything… 

In this case, both of the tablets found in Sanders’ car were blue and oblong, and each was stamped with the word "Aleve."

I’m waiting for the day when I read a news story about a man who was arrested and jailed and had his car impounded for possession of a quarter pound of cocaine that turned out upon further examination back at the lab to be a Quarter Pounder With Cheese.  Well the test said it was cocaine so we arrested him…

Via Brad DeLong…

EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect: Nothing is misspelled, and the grammar all seems in order, but something seems wrong with an article headlined "Dueling Appeals On Taxes From Obama, Clinton" that never explains what the dueling tax appeals are…

Emphasis mine.  This is the fucking Washington Post he’s talking about there, not People Magazine.  This one sentence sums up what is completely fucked up about American journalism better then any I’ve seen to date. 

Morgan has posted to YouTube the rough cut he currently has of the opening sequence to This Is What Love In Action Looks Like. It looks to be a fantastic documentary when he gets it all put together. And for the first time, people will get a chance to hear Zach speak for himself about what happened to him.

In this clip via the historical footage Morgan managed to dig up, you get a taste of what it was like before the gay rights movement came of age. The captioning Morgan adds to it captures the sense of the times perfectly…

Once upon a time…
There were some monsters…
Everybody was scared of them…

I was a gay teen back in those days, although I spent most of it in a comfortable cocoon of ignorance. But that’s exactly how it was. Homosexuals were monsters. And then one day I realized I was one of the monsters they were talking about. Watching those clips Morgan found brought that whole period of time back to me. And for the haters, it’s still true to this day. We are monsters, not human beings. That is why the Ex-Gay ministries appeared. Not to save our souls, but to impress upon us that we are monsters.

There’s only a small portion of the interview Zach gave Morgan here. And I think I can say now that this is out, that I was privileged to be there to witness and photograph it (I agreed that Morgan would have the copyright to the photos). There is so much I haven’t been able to say these years, biting my tongue while others waved Zach’s first blog post after leaving Love In Action as proof that he had taken LIA’s side of things and ultimately agreed with what had been done to him. And Zach, let it be said, isn’t interested now, and wasn’t really then, in being the center of a media storm. The poor kid just wanted to live his life. When he cried out for help, it was to his friends. That it quickly spread all over the Internet and became an international media storm was as much a surprise to him as to anyone. But he’s smart, he’s got a good heart, and he’s perfectly capable of speaking for himself when he wants to. I think that comes through pretty clearly in the few moments you see of him in this clip.

There will be more of the interview with Zach, and much more of the events surrounding the Love In Action protests, when Morgan finally finishes his edits and premieres the documentary. I have no ETA and I don’t think Morgan does either…he’s working hard on getting it right, because its so important. It’ll be done when it’s done.

And before you ask…yes, I am listed as an Executive Producer on this documentary. But seriously…all a producer does is produce money. The film is 100 percent Morgan’s, and I cannot speak for or about anyone involved in the production or anyone interviewed in it beyond what you can already see here. Morgan and crew can all speak for themselves, and probably will if you ask them. Morgan can be reached Here, at the Sawed-Off Film’s web site. You can see a collection of Sawed-Off YouTube clips Here.

I’m stealing this from Andrew Sullivan because it’s worth your read…

I’m 30 years old, from rural Ohio, and met my German boyfriend in Boston 8 years ago.

We moved to Berlin together when his visa expired, where we lived for 5 years and eventually got married (okay, "entered into a civil union" is more accurate, if not as eloquent).  We work online, which affords us a lot of freedom, and have lived in Ireland and now Spain. Thanks to the "Freedom of Movement" policy, I can legally reside anywhere in the EU, because Juergen and I are married.  But, I can’t move home.

An American and a German can legally reside in Ireland, Spain and Slovenia, but not America.  When I think about it like that, I want to punch a wall.

Trying to explain our situation to my American friends inevitably results in confusion and disbelief.  People are truly unaware of the situation gay, bi-national pairs have to deal with.  "You could get married in Massachusetts!"  Um, no. "You could get Juergen a work visa!"  Not likely. "He could marry a woman, and then you guys just, like, live together anyway!" Seriously, a suggestion I’ve heard more than once.

It’s not that people don’t understand our situation — but that they don’t even know it. And, honestly, the chances that we ever move back to the States are getting more and more remote with each year.

Thanks for continuing to expose this problem…

The virtuous god-fearing lying connivers of the religious right have done a bang-up job convincing people that all their attacks on same sex marriage aren’t intended to deny same sex couples any rights so much as preserve marriage as a union of one man and one woman.  So a lot of people apparently think that same sex couples aren’t really as utterly bereft of legal standing as they are.  You could get married in Massachusetts…  Right.  And that and a few bucks will get them both a couple Big Macs…but not the right to live together here in the United States.  Repeat After Me: The Defense Of Marriage Act.  Or, as Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council put it succinctly…

“I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.”

Gotta love that loving the sinner stuff…

I’ve said this before: the only reason I’m as free to move around my own country as I am is because I am single.  If I was coupled, the two of us could not travel in or even through most of the states in this union because if something were to happen to one of us it could quickly become a nightmare for both of us.  That was the intent.  Not to protect marriage, but to persecute gay people for doing what we are emphatically not allowed to do: Fall in love.  Commit to one another.  Make a life together.  If gay people can find love, can find in it peace and fulfillment and joy and contentment, then clearly the righteous aren’t loving Jesus enough.

I had no idea that Glen Greenwald is gay.  His other half is Brazilian, and…thankfully…Brazil recognizes the sanctity of their love enough to let them be together, if the United States of America does not…

AoTP: You very seldom, if ever, write about gay and lesbian issues per se. Yet discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation directly affects where you live, since you and your domestic partner — who is Brazilian — cannot be together on any regular basis in the U.S. Do you hold strong views about anti-gay laws in your own country?

GG: The state of American law with regard to same-sex couples is an ongoing disgrace. America is one of the very few countries in the world — along side countries such as China and Yemen — to continue to ban HIV-positive individuals from immigrating. And the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from extending any benefits (including immigration rights) to same-sex couples means that we put our gay citizens whose partners are foreign nationals in the excruciating predicament of being forced either to live apart from their life partner or live outside of their own country. That is reprehensible.

Most civilized countries, even those that don’t yet recognize same-sex marriage, refuse to put their citizens in that situation. Brazil was a military dictatorship until 1985. It has the largest Catholic population of any country in the world. And yet I’m able to obtain from the Brazilian government a permanent visa because my Brazilian partner’s government recognizes our relationship for immigration purposes, while the government of my supposedly “free,” liberty-loving country enacted a law explicitly barring such recognition.

The difference between a nation with a large protestant fundamentalist population and one with a large Catholic one.  The pope can be a raving Nazi bigot and the flock can still know what it feels like to have a human heart. 

But it won’t just be the bi-national couples leaving the USA if same sex couples must remain strangers in the eyes of the law…

Study: Young Gays Expect Future Long-term Commitments

A new study shows that many lesbian and gay youths, much like their heterosexual peers, expect to have long-term committed relationships and raise families in the future, according to an April 23 press release from Rockway Institute.

The study questioned about 133 gay New York City youths on various topics, including long-term relationships, family, and adoption. Researchers found that "more than 90% of females and more than 80% of males expect to be partnered in a monogamous relationship after age 30." About 67% of males and 55% of females expressed the desire to raise children. In terms of adoption, 42% of males and 32% of females said they were likely to adopt children.

"We seem to be witnessing the mainstreaming of lesbian/gay youth, with many of them wanting exactly what heterosexual youth have always wanted — the whole American dream complete with kids and the minivan," Robert-Jay Green of the Rockway Institute said in a statement. "Most agree that the primary issue is whether these youth will be given the equal legal rights to realize their couple and family aspirations just like their heterosexual peers."

…which they won’t be able to achieve here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave if the religious right has its way.  But they will elsewhere in the civilized world.  And this is a generation raised on the Internet.  The world is, literally, their oyster.  They’ll go where they have the opportunities they need.  They may always call themselves Americans.  They may always think of themselves as Americans.  But if they can’t find their American Dream here in America, they’ll go live where they Can find it.

My generation fled the sticks for the urban centers.  In the future, they’ll speak of the gay American diaspora…

I found this in my home directory yesterday while I was installing CentOS 5.1 onto Mowgli, my office workstation.  Not sure when I started filling it out but it was probably something I got passed to me on MySpace some time ago.  So just for kicks and grins, and because as I’ve said before these things actually do give me some insights, I finished filling it out and updated some of the answers.  Notice how I never seem to know what a simple one word or yes/no answer is…

200: My name is:
Bruce

199: I was born in/on:
Pasadena California, September 12, 1953.

198. I am:
Male.  Gay.  White.  Longhair.  Artist.  Software Engineer.  60s Child.

197. My eye color is:
Gray-blue

195. My shoe size is:
7 1/2   

194. My ring size is:
Erm…don’t know offhand.  I don’t have any.

193. My Favorite Color is:
Intense Primaries.

192. My height is:
5′ 9”

191. I’m allergic to:
Some kind of tree pollen.  Don’t know which.  Not much this year though.

190. I live in:
Baltimore, MD.

189. The last book I read:
"Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner

188. My bed time is:
When I’m too tired to stay awake.   Usually around 11-ish.

187. First screen name:
Bruce Garrett.  Seriously.  I like my name.  I don’t do aliases.

179. My favorite Holiday is:
I like the summer vacation ones best.  Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day…

178. The perfect kiss:
Affectionate and wholehearted.

177. The last band listened to:
Aerosmith.

176. Last song that made me almost cry was:
One Summer Dream.

172. My most treasured possession(s)
My artwork, negatives and slides.

170. What did you do last night:
Worked on some photos down in the art room.  Took a walk.  Finished installing CentOS on a free drive on Mowgli, my office workstation…

167. My skin’s reaction to the sun is:
To turn red and complain.

==========================
:::::I Do (YES)/Do Not (NO) Believe In:::::
==========================

143. Santa:
Well, no.  But…yes.

142. Love at First Sight?
No, not literally.  I believe in Oh My God He’s So Damn Good Looking My Eyes Hurt though.  That can lead to love eventually.  Maybe.  I hope.  But it isn’t love itself.

141. Luck:
Yes, but I spell it ‘Chance’.

140. Fate
Er, no.  I was never Calvinist enough.

138. Aliens:
They’re out there.  But if the speed of light really is the limit on how fast anything can travel, then we may never be able to communicate with any after all, or even know they’re there.

135. Ghosts:
I’ve never seen one.

134. Horoscopes:
No.

133. Soul mates:
Yes.  Where is mine…

132. Devil:
In all of us.  So is God.

131. Masturbating:
Does not grow hair on the palms of your hands.  I read this somewhere…

130. Earth:
The only place in the entire universe that we know for sure there is life.  We should take care of it.

====================
:::::Which is Better?:::::
====================

129. Hugs or Kisses:
Hugs and Kisses.

128. Drunk or High:
A difference that makes no difference.  Neither one is better then sober.  But both can be pleasant every now and then.

127. Phone or online:
For family it’s phone somehow.  For a lover it would especially be phone.  For everyone else it’s online.

126. Red heads or Brown hair:
Long hair.

125. Blondes or Brunettes:
Long hair.  Can you hear me?  Long.  Hair.  I don’t care what color.

124. Lamb and tuna or peanut butter and jelly:
Jelly, Not.  Lamb and…tuna?

123. pool or darts:
No.

122. sci-fi or horror:
Sci-fi.  But it has to be good.

121: eat at home or eat out:
Home mostly.  Out sometimes, somewhere nice, when I have someone to go with.

120. Night or Day:
I like both.

118. Curly or Straight hair:
Straight and log.  If curly then short.

==========================
:::::What comes to your head ?:::::
==========================

117. Scary:
High bridges over water.

115. Backstabbers:
Gay Friendly Politicians.  Usually democrats.

116: Parents:
Wish mine were still alive…

115. School:
Loved high school and college.  Loved my first day in Elementary school.  Hated the rest.

================
:::::Last time?::::::::
================

102. Hugged someone:
Friday.

101. Seen someone you haven’t seen in a while?:
Last Christmas week.  Two someones.

=========
::::MISC.::::
=========

90. Who’s the ditziest person you know:
I know someone who likes to play ditzy.  But he isn’t and he should stop that. 

89. Do you like anyone at the moment:
Yes.  I have always ‘liked’…….someone…

87. One thing I’m mad about right now:
Bigoted attacks on same sex couples.  You’d think there was too much love in this world for some people…

83. The last movie I saw in the theater was:
The Phantom Empire.  Yes…it’s been a while since I’ve been in a theater.

78. This summer:
Driving my new Mercedes.  Breaking in my first passport.  Figuring out how to live the rest of my life knowing I’ll always be single…

77. this coming school year:
Just like all the others since I graduated…back in 1972.

76. Something I will really miss when I leave home:
I missed my sense of privacy when I left home because my first place was a makeshift room in a friend’s basement.  But I got it back when I moved to my first apartment all my own some years later.

75. The thing that I’m looking forward to the most is:
Once upon a time I would have answered this ‘finding my other half’.  I still haven’t, and I can’t rightly say now that I’m ‘looking forward’ to it.

========================
::::::What are you doing?:::::::
========================

73. Tonight:
Washing my car probably.  It got rained on last night by tree pollen and seeds.

71. Tomorrow:
Same as today, probably…

72. Today:
The usual.  Work.  Eat.  Go home, do chores.  Sleep.

71. This Summer:
Driving my new Mecedes.  Breaking in my new passport.  Say…haven’t I already answered this one…?

72. For Christmas:
Way too soon to tell.

====================
:::MISC:::::(CONTINUED)
====================

62. The person(s) who knows the most about me is:
Nobody.  I have a few close friends who each have their own line of sight into me.  And my brother probably has a better one then anyone else.  But there hasn’t been anybody in my life who sees Me since mom died.

61. The person that can read me the most is:
My brother, I’m sure. 

60. The most difficult thing to do is:
Walk up and speak to someone I don’t know.

59. I have gotten a speeding ticket:
Not in years I haven’t.

57. My crush(es):
Delight me.  Terrify me.

56. My relationship status:
My ‘use by’ date has come and gone I think…

53. The one person who can’t hide things from me:
Nobody.  I’m very easy to hide stuff from once you get to know me.  I wear my blind spots on my sleeve.

51. Right now I am talking to:
Er…nobody.  I’m answering this survey.

50. I play a sport:
Not into sports.

49. I love it because:
Not.  Into.  Sports.  Some of us are like that.  Adjust to it.

48. I have best friends:
A few close friends.  No best friend at the moment.

47. I have a pet[s]:
None.  Last pet was my black cat, Pepper.  He died in 1989.  He was 14.  I live too much alone now, and travel too often, to have a pet.

44. The ONE person that made me cry the most is:
I won’t name him here.

43. Have you ever done drugs:
I’m a 60s child.  Ask me which ones I haven’t done.

42. Have You ever Smoked:
Yes.  And occasionally inhaled too. 

41. Which parent are you most close with?
I was closest to mom, but I loved them both.

39. What’s your favorite movie[s]:
Casablanca.  To Have And Have Not.

35. Someone you’ve gotten closer with this year:
Tico.  A little.  I think.  Maybe.

33. My favorite piece of clothing is:
My 501s.

32. My favorite sport is:
Ignoring sports.  I practice often.

31. Last time I cried:
In Keith’s arms, last Christmas week…

26. My worst experience:
Jr. High.  They call it Middle School now.  I still have bad dreams about it.

21. The best feeling in the world is:
Loving someone.  It can also be the worst.

19. The most annoying thing/s ever is/are:
The Stupid…it burns…!

18. The most annoying person you know is:
TV news anchors.  All of them.  They are very annoying…

17. I lose respect for people who:
Cheat.

16. I hate:
Cheats.  Sharks.  Bullies.  Bigots.

14. My Favorite day is:
They all have their good points.

13. My Favorite Month is:
September.

12. My Favorite band is:
No particular favorites at the moment.

11. The worst pain I ever felt:
When I broke a tooth.  Tooth pain is relentless…you can’t out-stubborn it…

9. favorite tv show:
The Outer Limits (original series)

8. My favorite actress/actor is:
No favorites.

6. Inside joke between you and one of your friends:
"Well Mr. President, it’s the bees and spiders again…"

5. What is your favorite candy?
Chocolate.  I try not to eat much of it these days though.  My slim figure and all that…

4. Whats your phone number?
I’m in the book darling…

3. Ever had MD?
I live in MD.

2. I filled out 200 questions because:
It was passing fun.

1. Favorite Phrase:
"When the bird and the bird book disagree, believe the bird."  Also, "I believe in God but I spell it Nature."  And, "No stream rises higher then its source."  And, "When you gaze into an Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you."

From Double Indemnity…

Phyllis: I’m a native Californian. Born right here in Los Angeles.

Walter Neff: They say all native Californians come from Iowa.

I was born there, in California.  Not LA precisely, but Pasadena.  Raised in Maryland of all places.  Lived here ever since I was a first grader.  I really wish sometimes mom had stayed there.  But I’ve been back and I can see now how California wasn’t her land.  How on earth it became mine I really don’t know, other then somehow, someway, the land of your birth always lays claim to you.

I wish I could go back.  I always know it’s getting bad, when I find myself heart-aching for that far away shore…and those Pacific sunsets…