In a way, it’s comforting to know that a same sex lover’s quarrel can be treated in print like any other public display of mutual love-gone-bad acrimony. But…its bad enough there are so many desperately lonely people in this world…these two really need to stop visiting the same bar at the same time. It’s just…too depressing…
Volusia County Council member Bill Long said all he did was give his former partner, DeBary City Council member Patrick Fulton, a "friendly nudge."
Fulton said Long was drunk when he drove his elbow into Fulton’s back at a bar in DeBary.
But what started out like the latest public spat between the two ex-lovers resulted Tuesday in a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence against Long — and a possible charge of aggravated stalking that, if filed, could result in the two-term County Council member being suspended from office.
"He’s just out of control, and I’m not going to be a punching bag," said Fulton, 36.
Long, a former deputy sheriff, was arrested at 2:20 p.m. at the Halifax Medical Center, where he was said to be visiting a friend, and taken to the Volusia County Branch Jail. Because he was charged with domestic violence, he was held without bail until he appears before a judge at 1:30 p.m. today.
It was the latest wrenching turn in the former couple’s angry — and highly public — breakup after a nearly 14-year relationship ended in 2004. And Fulton said it was Long’s anger that prompted not only the elbow at the bar but later a smashed window and damaged door at the house they co-own but where only Fulton lives.
Long, a 43-year-old DeBary funeral-home owner seeking re-election as the representative for southwest Volusia, said Fulton’s allegations were an attempt at "political assassination." Asked if he was drunk at the Cheers Sports Bar and Package when he made contact with Fulton, Long said: "I don’t recall that at all."
They say booze’ll do that. Can you at least recall the hangover? Look…it’s over…if you can’t love him you need to keep your hands off him.
Via Pam’s House Blend…the implosion at Patrick (you know…that guy who said, "give me liberty or give me death"…) Henry College continues…
Nearly a third of the faculty members at a small evangelical Christian college in Virginia are reportedly leaving the school following disputes with its president over theology and academic freedom.
Christianity Today reports that five full-time faculty members have announced they will not be returning to Patrick Henry College in Purcellville next year. Nine professors have left in the past year, as well as four senior executives in the past 18 months. The departing professors accuse outgoing PHC president Michael Farris of squelching academic freedom on campus and disparaging Calvinist theology.
According to the school’s statement of doctrinal neutrality, Patrick Henry College "welcomes all people who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and "does not take sides on certain doctrinal matters that often separate … believers." The statement reads: "The College itself is neutral on the doctrinal distinctives which go beyond the points covered in our Statement of Faith and are outside the mission of the College."
This is really starting to remind me of H.L. Mencken’s saying how theology is an attempt to explain the unknowable, in the terms of the not worth knowing. But then again it’s not the theology that’s the issue here. This is a fight between two irreconcilable views of what constitutes knowledge. Not truth…knowledge.
Think of it as the difference between sitting like a couch potato in front of your TV set, passively receiving information, verses looking through a pile of books in your local library for the answer to some question you have. The TV tells us everything it thinks we need to know. We don’t get to ask it questions, we just trust and receive. It takes a little sweat sometimes to find what you’re looking for at a library. You have to work for it. The answers don’t just jump off the shelves into your lap. And sometimes the books contradict one another, and you have to judge between them. On the one hand you have those who believe that knowledge is something that is revealed to us. On the other, those who believe knowledge is something that is searched for and discovered. Knowledge as something that is given to us, and which we should regard as a gift, verses knowledge as something we have worked to uncover, and must treat with care, because we are fallible. We do not have the perfect God’s eye view.
Once upon a time, Baptists generally found the latter view more agreeable. The Truth is out there…but we all have to find our way to it ourselves, and take a measure of humility with us along the way.
Well…not anymore…
Farris, a Baptist minister, has publicly expressed views that have shocked some professors and students. "He said St. Augustine was in hell," said Root. "I heard it with my own ears." Other professors and students said Farris has repeatedly disparaged Calvinist theology.
"There is a sense that you face antagonism as someone who is theologically Reformed," said Bates, who sparred with Farris over a speech he was planning to deliver at the college’s annual Faith and Reason Lecture, and again over the use of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology textbook. According to Bates, Farris considered it "too Reformed."
"We are put in a hard position," said Bates. "We’re told this is an open dialogue, but if you engage in open dialogue, you’re in trouble. It’s infuriating because you’re an academic and want to engage in ideas."
Bates said that at a meeting with Farris, "He told me that a person of the Reformed position to which I hold cannot in good conscience sign the statement of faith. When I responded that I failed to see the discrepancy between the two, he replied, ‘I define the statement of faith.’"
I define the statement of faith… Okay. Well I guess we know who the source of all knowledge and truth Really is now…
BLACK JACK, Mo. – The city council has rejected a measure allowing unmarried couples with multiple children to live together, and the mayor said those who fall into that category could soon face eviction.
Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a home in this St. Louis suburb because they have three children and are not married.
The town’s planning and zoning commission proposed a change in the law, but the measure was rejected Tuesday by the city council in a 5-3 vote.
"I’m just shocked," Shelltrack said. "I really thought this would all be over, and we could go on with our lives."
Olivia Shelltrack finally has her dream home. Her family moved into the five-bedroom, three-bath frame house in Black Jack last month. But now she fears she and her fiance face uprooting their children because of a city ordinance that says her household fails to meet Black Jack’s definition of a family.
Shelltrack and Fondray Loving, her boyfriend of 13 years, were denied an occupancy permit because of an ordinance forbidding three or more individuals from living together if they are not related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The couple have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, although Loving is not the biological father of the oldest child.
…
The couple appealed the denial of an occupancy permit last week at a hearing before Black Jack’s board of adjustment. Shelltrack said board members asked her and Loving personal questions about their relationship, their children and their previous home in Minneapolis, from where they moved, for nearly an hour. Then the board denied the couple’s appeal. The case now goes before Black Jack’s municipal court.
At the hearing, Shelltrack said, one board of adjustment member, Norma Mitchell, even pointed at her and asked, "I don’t understand why you as a woman didn’t exercise your right to marry that man," before being hushed by another board member.
Mitchell refused to comment. She referred all calls to Black Jack Mayor Norman McCourt, who defended the ordinance.
"This is about the definition of family, not if they’re married or not," he said. "It’s what cities do to maintain the housing and to hold down overcrowding."
"This is about the definition of family, not if they’re married or not…" Gotta love it. From the book of Doubletalk, chapter 4 verse 12: Thou shalt be married, in order to be a family…however whether or not you are married has nothing to do with it… We thought you were speaking in tongues there for a while brother McCourt, but it turns out you were just talking out of both sides of your mouth.
This is what the religious right wants to turn America into…a place where they can dictate not only who is and is not a family, but where we can and cannot live, and what property we can and cannot hold, based on how well our lives conform to their religious dictates. If you think it’s only same sex couples, only same sex households, that are at risk of being literally thrown off their own property for religious crimes in the United States, think again. You’re on their plate too, your children, your home, your life, it all belongs to them as far as they are concerned. And you can bet your ass that there are people in that town who are nodding their heads approvingly right now, right this instant, and thinking that if the fornicators are arrested, the city can give their kids away to a decent, properly married couple…
Shelltrack, 31, could appeal Black Jack’s decision to the St. Louis County Circuit Court, but she said that would involve legal fees that she and Loving can’t afford because of the money they poured into buying their home.
She said, however, the couple has filed a complaint with the U.S. Housing and Urban Department.
That would be the Bush Housing and Urban Department. Try not to laugh too hard. And if that irony wasn’t enough, from the photos I’m seeing of the couple, it appears that Shelltrack is white and her boyfriend, Fondrey Loving, is black. Loving verses Missouri anyone? And you thought times had changed…
If I Didn’t Love You I Wouldn’t Be Praying For God To Strike You Down
Some moments in your life, you just don’t know whether to put your face in your hands and cry, or put your fist through a wall.
So I’m following the links Mike Airhart put up on Ex-Gay Watch to a discussion about whether or not the term "ex-gay" is offensive (to other ex-gays apparently…) and I find myself scanning the posts on various blogs of gay people who just want to not be homosexual anymore if they only could, and it’s making me sad and then it starts making me angry, nail spitting angry once again, at the Dobsons, the Falwells, the Bauers, the Wildmons, all the pusillanimous bigots of this world who just can’t feel fulfilled in their own lives unless they’re sticking a knife in some homosexual’s heart and twisting it once in the name of Jesus Christ and once more in the name of love… And I’m following the discussions and the links on their blogs to various other blogs, those of other ex-gays and also those of out and proud ex-ex-gays, and I run across this post at Disputed Mutability:
In my last post I shared how I recently learned that several years ago my mother prayed for God to "take me" (i.e., kill me) if being gay was a sin. Many parents ask for similar or less drastic ills to befall their gay children. Sometimes they actively pray for misery that will drive the child in question back to the Lord and the straight and narrow.
HuH? So I follow the link…
Christine over at Rising Up Whole recently wrote about parents who hope or pray that their gay children’s lives are made difficult or cut short. The opening paragraph:
I just had a conversation with a friend who found out her mother had prayed that if being gay was a sin, that the Lord would take this daughter before she had drifted too far from God (yes, as in "take this daughter" out).
Yeah, so that’s yours truly. My mom dropped that bomb on me Saturday, telling me she prayed that prayer about nine years ago. I guess she thought it would be okay for me to hear about it now, because I’m evangelical and exgay and happily married and all that. Apparently she thought I would approve. But I must admit I still find it very, very disturbing.
I can’t imagine why. Just one of those little rites of growing up I reckon. You know…the day your parents tell you that they’ve been praying all along that God would kill you…
GCB at This Gay Christian’s Blog writes about his Beau and the phone call he recently received from his parents:
And among it all comes the proclamation that, among the church gossip and woe-is-me’s about their so-called wayward son, his mother is praying that the Beau and I would have unsettled lives.
This is in line, though more blunt, with my own mother’s proclamation that “God will never bless me.”
A commenter on the above entry related the following:
I know the feeling. My mother sent me a letter saying that she used to (before I came out) pray that I’d find the right woman to marry, but after I came out, she prayed that I would never fall in love (with another man)…So, I remember well the ‘punched in the guts’ feeling of knowing your mother is/was praying against you.
Well I’m sure as shit glad I don’t know that feeling. I had it rough in some sense growing up in the biological middle of two families who didn’t much like each other, and in particular the constant crap I got from people on my mother’s side for just being my father’s son. But I never doubted that my parents, both of them, loved me, and especially mom, the most gentle kind-hearted sunshine and light kinda person you ever met, until one of her relatives started bad mouthing me when they thought they were doing it behind her back and then you never saw her get so angry. Had she ever told me that she was praying for my life to be miserable I think that would have been the thing to make me just go stand in front of a train.
Good Friday. Work let out early, I got to get out of Dodge and come home while it was still light outside. Wonderful! So as I recline on the couch, soaking in some old Will and Grace episodes on DVD – a birthday present from The Beau – he goes off to answer a phone call from his mom. Usually innocuous except for the occasional sigh and hell-bound innuendo, we figured it would just be another dull parental chat.
Until about a half hour later I start to hear the just-this-side of yelling voice coming from the bedroom. Alarmed, I rush in to lend my boyfriend moral support for the rest of the fundamentalist bashing he was going through. And as I stood there, arms around him listening in, I hear the weepy voice of his mother claiming how much Beau hates them (he doesn’t), has said they abused him (he never said that), and refuses to call (who needs to when they call every third day?). And among it all comes the proclomation that, among the church gossip and woe-is-me’s about their so-called wayward son, his mother is praying that the Beau and I would have unsettled lives.
Wait – replay that back a bit – you read it right. Beau’s mother, is praying, against her own son.
This is in line, though more blunt, with my own mother’s proclomation that “God will never bless me.”
And it’s this sort of thing that makes me appreciate the mission of Soulforce all that much more. You can argue for or against the gay Christian activist group, but the fact is they are fighting against spiritual abuse that is laid on our people by our own mothers.
Interestingly, what hurts Beau the most is not the words themselves. Remarkably, he ignores the words themselves and can absorb the sting of their cruelty. None of the surface level attacks stuck to my beloved. No, what set him to tears in my arms that day was the fear his parents would never understand what it means to love unconditionally.
…and I’m reading this and for a second I think I’m going to start crying, and then I think I just want to get up and put my fist through a wall. Well…I didn’t take it out on my poor walls.
What the Fuck are these people doing to their children!? There are adults out there would would gladly raise those kids with all the love they’d ever want in their lives. My own mother had tons of love to spare for every other kid she ever met and every single one of my friends felt it and told me so. Children are precious. If you don’t feel that, even if like me you don’t have kids of your own, there’s something wrong with you. To wound one like that is a crime against all humanity. You’ve not only taken wholehearted love away from the kid, you’ve taken it away from everyone in their lives that they could have loved wholeheartedly. What the Fuck is wrong with some people.
My children had to die to be saved. They were not righteous.
-Andria Yates.
Yates merely drowned her children. So did Susan Smith, watching from the shore as they sank, terrified, strapped in their car seats, beneath the water. At least their pain ended. What do you say to someone who throws their kid into a pit of abandonment to drown in for the rest of their lives? What words could possibly be enough? Lady I don’t give a flying fuck what some babbling mental case with a bible told you about your kid…is there a fucking heart beating inside that miserable body of yours? Does it work? Did it ever? There are no words for it.
The real monsters here, of course, are the ones who encouraged these parents to withdraw their love from their children. James Dobson. Stephen Bennett. James Hartline. Jerry Falwell. Donald Wildmon. et. al. In the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Love, they’ve made this world a smaller, lonelier, meaner place. So many people in this world, so many gay people, walking the streets of their hometowns, coping as best they can with a part of themselves inside that should have been filled with love, empty. Its unforgivable. Sometimes you just want to cry. Sometimes you just want to hit something. Hard.
You want to know what this does to people? Wandering around the blog links in this discussion of parents praying for their children’s misery or death, I finally found my way to the full text of Jack McIntyre’s suicide note. McIntyre was the friend of Love In Action co-founder John Evans back in the early 1970s. Wayne Besen documents the founding of Love In Action in his book, Anything But Straight, and writes of McIntyre:
Even’s best friend, Jack McIntyre, was also part of the ministry. He along with the rest of the participants, struggled mightily with temptations and did everything in his power to change his sexual orientation. As with nearly everyone else in the original ex-gay cast of characters, however, he could not change and remained as gay as the day he walked through the door. For McIntyre, the ministry led to feelings of inadiquacy and intensified his belief that he had failed God.
To save himself from his homosexuality, and keep himself from sinning in the eyes of God, McIntyre killed himself. I’d never seen the full text of his suicide note before, and there it was, staring me in the face like a sign at the end of a dead end street.
TO: Those left with the question, why did he do it?
I loved life and all that it had to offer to me each day.
I loved my job and my clients.
I loved my friends and thank God for each one of them.
I loved my little house and would not have wanted to live anywhere else.
All this looks like the perfect life. Yet, I must not let this shadow the problem that I have in my life. At one time, not to long ago, that was all that really mattered in my life. What pleased me and how it affected me. Now that I have turned my life over to the Lord and the changes came one by one, the above statements mean much more to me. I am pleased that I can say those statements with all the truth and honesty that is within me.
However, to make this short, I must confess that there were things in my life that I could not gain control, no matter how much I prayed and tried to avoid the temptation, I continually failed.
It is this constant failure that has made me make the decision to terminate my life here on earth. I do this with the complete understanding that life is not mine to take. I know that it is against the teachings of our Creator. No man is without sin, this I realise. I will cleanse myself of all sin as taught to me by His word. Yet, I must face my Lord with the sin of murder. I believe that Jesus died and paid the price for that sin too. I know that I shall have everlasting life with Him by departing this world now, no matter how much I love it, my friends, my family. If I remain it could possibly allow the devil the opportunity to lead me away from the Lord. I love life, but my love for the Lord is so much greater, the choice is simple.
I am not asking you to sanction my actions. That is not the purpose of my writing this at all. It is for the express purpose of allowing each one who will read this to know how I weighed things in my own mind. I don’t want you to think that, ‘I alone,’ should have been the perfect person, without sin. That would be ridiculous! It is the continuing lack of strength and/or obedience and/or will power to cast aside certain sins. To continually go before God and ask forgiveness and make promises you know you can’t keep is more than I can take. I feel it is making a mockery of God and all He stands for in my life.
Please know that I am extremely happy to be going to the Lord. He knows my heart and knows how much I love life and and all that it has to offer. But, He knows that I love Him more. That is why I believe that I will be with Him in Paradise.
I regret if I bring sorrow to those that are left behind. If you get your hearts in tune with the word of God you will be as happy about my ‘transfer’ as I am. I also hope that this answers sufficiently the question, why?
May God Have Mercy On My Soul.
A Brother & A Friend.
Love your children. Just. Fucking. Love your children! If you can’t love your children, don’t ask for forgiveness.
The preacher stopped at least, and there arose out the darkness a woman with her hair pulled back into a little tight knot. She began so quickly we couldn’t hear what she said, but soon her voice rose resonantly and we could follow her. She was denouncing the reading of books. Some wandering book agent, it appeared, had come to her cabin and tried to sell her a specimen of his wares. She refused to touch it. Why, indeed, read a book? If what was in it was true, then everything in it was already in the Bible. If it was false, then reading it would imperil the soul. This syllogism from the Caliph Omar complete, she sat down. There followed a hymn, led by a somewhat fat brother wearing silver-rimmed country spectacles. It droned on for half a dozen stanzas, and then the first speaker resumed the floor. He argued that the gift of tongues was real and that education was a snare. Once his children could read the Bible, he said, they had enough. Beyond lay only infidelity and damnation.
-H.L. Mencken – The Hills Of Zion
Fair warning: I’m going to relate some of my own spiritual beliefs here. Your mileage may vary.
In May of the year 2006, in the nation that once put men on the moon, three college professors resigned their posts after being taken to task for telling their students that there is more that they need to know about life, then what written is in the bible…
Professors To Leave Patrick Henry
Mar 23, 2006 — A public debate at Patrick Henry College about whether the Bible is the only source of truth preceded the decisions by three professors and an instructor last week to tell school administration they would not return for another year.
Assistant Professor of Classics David C. Noe, Assistant Professor of History and Literature J. Kevin Culberson, Chairman of the Department of Government Robert Stacey and Instructor of Government Erik S. Root, all submitted letters indicating they would not return after the current school year, according to sources from the Purcellville college. Patrick Henry founder and President Michael Farris said the departures followed an “exchange of ideas” and a critique of an article Culberson and Noe wrote in the student newspaper The Source.
“Shortly after the responding article was published these people indicated they weren’t going to come back next year,” Farris said.
The article in question, titled “The Role of General Revelation in Education,” argues that sources outside of the Bible are needed for Christians to lead happy and productive lives.
“Christians may be inclined to accept this proposition when it comes to things like carpentry and the law,” the article states. “After all the Bible does not tell us how to fix a door jam or file a brief in appellate court. They are less inclined or sometimes refuse to accept this when it comes to matters of ethics and the nature of the soul. But while it is true that the Bible contains all we need to know for reconciliation with God, it does not include all the information we need to live happy and productive lives.”
Patrick Henry College’s Statement of Christian Philosophy states “God is the source of all truth, be it spiritual, moral, philosophical, or scientific. … Christian faith and genuine learning cannot be separated; neither is our Christian faith a mere addendum to the liberal learning process. Instead, our Christian faith precedes and informs all that we at Patrick Henry College study, teach and learn.”
In response to the article in The Source, Raymond Bouchoc, the college’s chaplain, sent a campus-wide e-mail that dissects Culberson and Noe’s article point-by-point. Bouchoc’s response stated that it was endorsed by Farris. The lengthy response cites numerous “harmful implications” of Culberson’s and Noe’s column.
One of those “harmful implications” rebuts Culberson and Noe’s position that the Bible does not include all information needed for happy, productive lives.
“God, by means of His common grace, has provided mankind with the ability to understand and harness the operations of creation for his own benefit and prosperity,” Bouchoc’s response states. “While it is true that the particulars of ‘all things’ are not spelled out explicitly in Scripture, it is, nevertheless, sufficient in that it provides the universal guiding principles for all of life, leaving nothing within creation that is not addressed.”
The school’s mission statement doesn’t mince words. It states: “God is the source of all truth, be it spiritual, moral, philosophical, or scientific. … Christian faith and genuine learning cannot be separated; neither is our Christian faith a mere addendum to the liberal learning process. Instead, our Christian faith precedes and informs all that we at Patrick Henry College study, teach and learn.”
God is the source of all truth… Okay…fine. If God is that which created all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be, then God must be the source of everything we will ever know. But confining your understanding of God to the pages of the bible is worse then Newton’s image of himself: as a boy playing on the beach, now and then finding a prettier shell or pebble then usual, while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered all around him. It is listening to someone else who claims they were at the beach, telling you all about it, and then telling you that what they just said is all you need to know about it.
Take a stroll down any favorite beach one day. Reach down into the sand and scoop up a few grains. If God is that which created all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be, then there in your hand is the Testament of God. Right there. Blake said it best at the beginning of his Auguries of Innocence
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
Little grains of sand glinting the palm of your hand. The sunlight that makes them sparkle. It is the handwriting of God. Anyone can write a bible. Anyone can sit at their word processor, crank out several hundred pages of holy writ in a few breathless hours of drunken inspiration, pound the pavement waving and screaming it in the face of every passing stranger they meet, and Get Followers. You know it’s true. L. Ron Hubbard proved it in our lifetimes. But only God can make a grain of sand out of nothing. When the bird and the bird book disagree, believe the bird.
I can appreciate the insecurities and the fear that animate the fundamentalist. Better to read about God second hand, and from a congenial source, then stand at the edge of everything you know, everything you’ve ever hoped, all your fears, all your dreams, all your deep secret conceits, look God in the face and ask it a question. Because you might get an answer. Why no pope Urban…actually the earth isn’t the center of the universe…and neither are you… It can take your breath away with its beauty. It can scare the steaming shit out of you. But it is not those of us who are willing to let nature speak for itself that are elevating men over God.
“I’ve been told there are things I cannot teach,” Root said. “There are things I cannot ask.” At most any liberal arts college, political science students study Thomas Hobbes and his State of Nature, in which the lack of government causes chaos and an ugly, every-man-for-himself state.
To illustrate this point, Root gave his class a fictional example of the State of Nature, in which two people were stranded on a lifeboat that would only be able to save the life of one person. What would ensue? In Hobbes’ State of Nature, the result would likely not be pretty. This example, Stacey said, was perceived as an example of postmodern deconstruction and used to break down morality. So Root’s lifeboat example was gone.
But there were other instances that rubbed Noe, Root and Stacey the wrong way. A work of literature, which chronicles the birth of Hinduism, was banned. A text, used to teach the Theology Sequence, which had been chosen by various instructors, was pulled from the shelves unless another, balancing view was added to the curriculum.
“We don’t know from day to day, what is going to be accepted or what is not going to be accepted,” Root said. “It’s a moving target.”
That “moving target” has had an impact on discussion, the professors say.
“Students are afraid to raise questions or criticize the school,” Noe said.
The Zeroth Commandment: Thou shalt not ask questions.
WASHINGTON — American oil companies stand to gain in competing for access to oil reserves in Libya by the restoration of normal diplomatic relations and the removal of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime from a U.S. list of terrorism sponsors.
Oh…ya think? Right…they’ve got some of that black stuff under their territory too, don’t they…
On May 6, 2002 United States Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton (now U.N. Ambassador) gave a speech entitled "Beyond the Axis of Evil." In it he added three more nations to be grouped with the already mentioned "rogue states": Libya, Syria, and Cuba. The criteria for membership in this group were: "state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or who have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or have the capability to do so in violation of their treaty obligations." The speech was widely reported as an expansion of the original Axis of Evil.
From Rogue State to valued trading partner in four years. If only the cold war had been so short…
Assuming Congress does not disapprove of Libya’s removal from the State Department’s terror list in the 45 days allowed for review, "the oil companies will send whatever they want to send for their operations," Lichtenbaum, an international lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, said in an interview.
Another control being lifted, he said, was one imposed by energy legislation enacted last summer. It barred shipment abroad of devices that could be part of a nuclear program that companies like Halliburton normally use to explore for oil.
"That potentially was going to shut down U.S. companies’ ability to explore for oil," he said.
So Halliburton couldn’t get their equipment in, eh? Good thing Libya’s going to be taken off the terror list. We wouldn’t want our big defense contractors to be sending devices that could be part of a nuclear program over to terrorist states now would we? What’s the price of gasoline again…?
Stephen Noon, the gay press secretary to British Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor was apparently fired three years ago. So that makes the story old news…right?
The row is embarrassing for the Archbishop because, although Mr Noon was dismissed in 2003, details have emerged only days after Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor wrote in a letter to The Times: "The Church has consistently spoken out against any discrimination against homosexual persons, and will continue to do so." He was writing to counter suggestions that the deeply held Catholic faith of Ruth Kelly might be at odds with her new role as Equality Minister.
[Emphasis Mine…] Ruth Kelly is the Opus Dei operative Tony Blair has, for some godforsaken reason, decided to install in his cabinet as…get this…Equality Minister. Not bad eh? Sorta like making Al Capone Minister of Banks.
It’s important to remember the distinction here isn’t that she’s a Catholic, but that she’s Opus Dei. There is no way on God’s green earth that a member of Opus Dei is going to work for gay and lesbian equality. The opposition apparently tried to pin her down about the sinfulness of homosexuality last week, but that’s the wrong question to be asking her…
Ruth Kelly, the staunchly Catholic minister for equality, angered gay rights campaigners yesterday when she refused to say whether she regarded homosexuality as sinful.
Miss Kelly, who was given the job of promoting equality and fighting discrimination by Tony Blair in last week’s ministerial reshuffle, ducked the question twice in an interview on the BBC’s Radio Five Live.
Opposition politicians leapt on her evasive answers saying her appointment – she is also a member of the conservative sect Opus Dei which is hostile to homosexuality – raised serious questions about Mr Blair’s commitment to equality.
Asked by presenter Nicky Campbell if she thought homosexuality was a sin Miss Kelly said she was "not going to get into these questions".
When he pushed her a second time she said it was not right for ministers to make "moral judgments".
She insisted she was committed to equality and against discrimination of all kinds but would not be drawn on whether homosexual practices were acceptable.
There are many people of good conscience in this world, who understand that democracies have to treat all their citizens equally, without regard to their religious beliefs, even if what they do, the religions they practice, the lives they live, go against their own personal religious beliefs. Rest assured, none of these folks belong to Opus Dei.
You need to ask someone like Kelly what they think equality and discrimination Mean, as applied to the rights of homosexual people. And you have to be precise, and you have to keep asking that question repeatedly until you get a precise answer back. And it won’t be easy because an Opus Dei member will know by heart all the right weasel words to say and make you think that she means one thing, when in reality she means something completely different. It wasn’t that long ago here in America, that some people believed racial equality meant separate but equal, and being against discrimination meant treating all white people equally, and all black people equally, but not treating black people as the equals of white people.
When Ruth Kelly says she is for equality for homosexuals and against discrimination, without a doubt she does not mean that you treat homosexuals as the equals of heterosexuals, or treat same sex couples as the equal of opposite sex couples. She means, you treat all homosexuals equally…as God intended homosexuals should be treated, and not give preferences toward some homosexuals over other homosexuals. But you don’t treat them as the equals of heterosexuals because they aren’t. So treating them as equals would be silly. As Rick Santorum once said, it would be like treating marriages the same as man on dog relationships. Mercy and justice dictate that you treat all homosexuals equally, but not as the equals of heterosexuals.
It’s what they believe, but don’t expect them to say so until after they’ve gotten power. In the struggle for the moral soul of the human race, honesty is only a conditional virtue.
Do I sound a tad too cynical? Well…I’ve been in this fight since the early 1970s, and I know just how these people think, and how willing they are to look you in the eye and lie through their teeth in service to their gutter crawling prejudices. Case in point, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, who rushed to assure everyone regarding Ruth Kelly’s religious beliefs, that the Catholic church "has consistently spoken out against any discrimination against homosexual persons, and will continue to do so", three years after he’d personally fired a man from his staff simply because that man was a homosexual.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has reportedly fired his top aide after discovering the man is gay.
The Mail reports that Stephen Noon’s sexuality was discovered when his long-term partner visited him at his office.
"His partner came to the office at the end of the day and was introduced to the Cardinal," a friend of the couple tells The Mail.
"Shortly afterwards the Church made it clear that his sexuality was incompatible with the job he had to do. Since he was the spokesperson for the Cardinal, Murphy-O’Connor clearly felt he had to act because homosexual acts are regarded by the Church as a sin," the friend was quoted as saying.
You know Murphy…I’ll just bet I could encapsulate your very existance inside a fairly small DOS Batch file…
A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
"It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.
We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
But…but…Bush said they were only going after terrorists. And he wouldn’t lie to us. Look at all the weapons of mass destruction we found in Iraq…just like he said we would…
Even among those who claim to “love the sinner and hate the sin”, this is bedrock. I’ve had bigots tell me to my face that gay lovers don’t love as wholly, or as purely, as heterosexual lovers do. When Senator Rick Santorum compared same sex marriage to a man wanting to marry his dog, he spoke for the many, who believe literally that same sex lovers exist on the same plain as fucking animals. We don’t love, we don’t honor, we don’t care. We don’t feel any higher human emotions, no great joy or awe in a lover’s embrace. All we feel is mindless senseless lust for something that only happens to be another human being. This is the passion behind the fight against same sex marriage rights of Any sort, civil unions or otherwise. To even suggest that gay couples be given any legal status other then perhaps a criminal one, is to literally place their own marriages on the same par as bestiality. They think homosexuals are less then human, and nothing shows it better then their contempt, their utter denial, that gay lovers actually love.
The current pope (the Cardinal formally known as Ratzinger), launched another broadside against homosexual people last week, by way of attacking Italy’s new left of center government. Calling same sex love “weak”, Ratzinger warned that he would use all the power of the Vatican if Italy gave same sex couples any rights that heterosexuals are bound to respect.
It seems in the Catholic church lately, gays are the new Jews. Or at any rate, the hate that can dare speak it’s name sixty years after the Holocaust. And it’s having its effect. Attacks on homosexuals, particularly in non-industrial nations with a strong Catholic presence, are becoming more common, and much more violent. In the Caribbean, in central America, in Africa, and even in Brazil, violence against homosexuals is on the rise and it is killing people.
And yet in the face of all the hatred and violence organized religion can incite, gay people still take their lover’s hand in theirs and say “I love you”. If they had clue one what it means to actually love someone, Ratzinger and his henchmen would get on their knees and beg God nonstop for the rest of their miserable lives to know a love that strong, even if only for a day.
(Click to see the larger version on the Cartoon Page)
I’ve updated the right sidebar, so now you get to see some new stuff I’ve been reading/watching/listening too lately. When I went to the new WordPress system all that got tucked away into a set of formatting templates and I’ve had to set aside some time to figure them out and play around a bit. I want to take the Terror Alert panel back to the cartoon series I’d planned for it…but I have so much on my plate now as it is…
Atrios said (jokingly but still angrily) that Eric Boehlert’s Lapdogs made him want to shoot someone in the face. He even suggested Boehlert use that quote on the bookjacket.
Lapdogs made me want to shoot someone in the face -Atrios
I’ll just say that if you don’t want to get royally pissed off all over again about the way the Mainstream News Media has been kissing George Bush’s and the Republican Party’s ass for the past five years, you probably don’t want to read Lapdogs. The Swift Boat Veterans. Bush’s National Guard Service. Embedded Reporting in Iraq. The Downing Street Memo. The media looking the other way again and again at republican corruption. It’s all there and more.
You I Love is a sweet, quirky and very sexy same sex romance. If you’re like me and starving for stories like this be careful of this one though. The lovers in question are really put through the ringer by the parents of one of them and you literally don’t know until the very last frames whether or not they’ll overcome and endure. I almost threw a chair at the TV set. But it ends happily.
The last of Yun Kouga’s legendary "Boy’s Love" maga series Earthian translated into English is finally here. Volume 3 of the series, like the previous two, collects several issues into one lovingly bound volume. Begun in 1987, and produced over a period of years, Earthian is a lushly illustrated, very, very romantic tale of two angels sent to earth to stand in judgment over the human race. But it’s not what you think. The angels are actually an advanced alien race that live on a distant world named Eden. Self imposed guardians of the few habitable worlds of the galaxy, their race is slowly dying…victimized by their own vastly superior technologies, and their rigid social order. Few children are born, and those that are different are completely ostracized by their parents and treated with suspicion by the majority on the one hand, yet carefully cared for by the governmenton the other, because children are so rare.
Once such is Chihaya, a young angel unusual for both his black hair and startling black feathered wings. Chihaya takes a fondness to the Earthian, and volunteers to count their pluses, to spare them from extermination. He is paired with a counter of negatives, Kagetsuya. The team is sent to Earth, and as the series progresses, they begin to fall in love. But the race of angels is dying, and homosexuality is punishable by death. Their dangerous relationship progresses against a backdrop of cutthroat intrigues among the other angels for power, fallen angels condemned forever to live on Earth, the sudden appearance on earth of a race of black winged angels, and a mysterious cancer that begins to kill the angels on their home world, and as Chihaya and Kegetsuya can finally no longer deny their love for one another, the verdict comes down…the Earthian must be exterminated.
If you don’t like stories that are light on action, thick with romance, and loaded with androgynously beautiful long haired (and I mean…really…really long haired) males you probably want to stay away from this one. Manga like this is mostly directed towards a female audience, but some of us gay guys like a little romance in our lives too and that’s your cup of tea Earthian is one you won’t want to put down. It is simply stunning, for the richness of its artwork, its storyline and its characters. There are some color inserts scattered throughout this collection, I don’t know if they were in the originals or not, but they are absolutely beautiful.
The cheesy anime that was done on this series did not do it any kind of justice at all. But then…the anime they did on Gravitation didn’t do That series justice either.
Chihaya
Finally, I was wandering around iTunes a couple weeks ago and found the Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Jimi Hendrix lp. If the only version of Hendrix playing Voodoo Child is the one you’ve heard on the "Best Of" collections then you need to hear this one. Jack Cassady does bass and Hendrix just electrifies the room he’s playing to. It’s an amazing performance.
That’s all for now…gotta go back to working on the cartoon…
Voting Glitch Said to Be ‘Disastrous’
Inside Bay Area (CA) (05/10/06) Hoffman, Ian
A recently discovered vulnerability in Diebold’s touch-screen voting machines has election officials scrambling to understand and contain the risk. A hacker with minimal specialized knowledge of Diebold’s system and an off-the-shelf component could load software onto the machine to disable it or alter vote counts in a matter of minutes. "This one is worse than any of the others I’ve seen. It’s more fundamental," said Douglas Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist. "In the other ones, we’ve been arguing about the security of the locks on the front door," he said. "Now we find there’s no back door.
No back door eh? Alter the vote count in minutes eh? With off the shelf components eh? I’m just…shocked…shocked I tell you…
) Do you have a crush on somebody?
Not at this time.
) Do you hate more than 3 people?:
What is hate? There are people in this world that really piss me off. More then three without a doubt. But the only person I ever knew personally who could get a snarl out of me, my maternal grandmother, died years ago. My world got a little brighter.
) What’s a random word?
A word that seems to come out of nowhere given the context?
) Least favorite school subject?:
Algebra was horrible. I wish someone had taken me aside and explained to me that you could look at it as a kind of symbolic logic. I might have gotten it then.
) How many pairs of shoes do you own?:
Four casual sneakers, one pair dress, one pair hiking boots, one pair snow boots, one pair sandals.
) Name one thing that is always on your mind:
Being single.
) What is your zodiac sign?:
Virgo. But astrology is crap.
) Ever made a prank phone call?:
When I was a pre-teen. You’re allowed to be a juvenile idiot at that age. In fact, it’s part of your job description.
) Are you sarcastic?:
No. I can be ironic. I’ll kid people with a completely straight face.
) How many watches do you own?:
I still have the mechanical watch I wore in High School but I don’t wear it anymore. I hate having things hanging off my forearms. I don’t even like long sleeved shirts.
) Is anyone in love with you?
Not that I am aware.
) Favorite color to wear?:
I like them all. I wear mostly blue though…as in blue jeans.
) What color is your cell phone?:
Slate and silver.
) Where is your second home?:
Oceano, California. Yes. I would live there if I could.
) Have you ever slapped someone?:
No. I’ve punched a few people in my lifetime though. Always after being punched. I will not throw the first one.
) Have you ever had a cavity?:
Yeah. I had very crooked teeth when I was a kid. I have a bunch of caps now, and a much better smile.
) How many lamps are in your bedroom?:
Four counting the lights on the ceiling fan.
) Ever had braces?:
No.
) Do looks matter?:
Yes…but I am not looking for a supermodel. An intelligent, aware face and a friendly smile can make my knees buckle.
) Do you use chapstick?:
In the winter, yeah. But I use it sparingly. You can actually get addicted to it.
) Name 3 teachers from high school:
Frank Moran, my art teacher. Best. Teacher. Ever. Mr. Ochse: sociology. Mr. Bundy: science.
) American Eagle or Abercrombie?:
Not. Levis and Hechts.
) Are you too forgiving?:
I can be a real hard ass until someone says they’re sorry, and then I just go all limp and wussy and forgive probably a lot more then I should…
) How many children do you want?:
None for me thanks. I’m more a Be Everyone’s Uncle kinda guy…
) Do you own something from Hot Topic?
I think some of them are hilarious but I don’t wear things people have to read. My heart is on my sleeve enough as it is.
) Favorite breakfast meal?:
If I’m eating one, pancakes and eggs and bacon. Over easy.
) Ever thought you were in love?:
I have been in love. It was wonderful. Makes life worth living. Makes it sweet.
) When was the last time you cried?:
Last October, after someone I’d known as a friend since High School told me I should go back in the closet if I wanted to make friends and get by in the world.
) What did you do 3 nights ago?:
Sat at my drafting table drawing.
) Olive Garden?:
Yeah. It’s good. Too much on my plate usually though.
) Have you ever called your teacher mommy?:
Uhm…no. I’ve felt comfortable enough with a few to call them by their first names though.
) Nicknames?:
Bag. My initials spell the word and it’s how I used to sign my cartoons in school. Only friends from High School are allowed to use it.
) Do you know anyone named Bertha?:
Nope. I mistook a gal named Martha for a guy once. And no…she was not big and ugly, she was lithe and handsome and very very cute. Small hips and butt for a gal though. Threw me.
) Do you own something from Banana Republic?:
Nope.
) Are you thinking about somebody right now?
Yes.
) Do you smoke?:
The occasional cigar. Usually La Gloria Cubana. I’ve had a few genuine Cubans and my god they’re…potent. Smooth…and make your head go into the stratosphere.
) Are you happy with your life right now?:
Yes. And…No.
) Do you dye your hair?:
Sometimes. It’s not the gray…its that it’s loosing it’s nice light brown with blond strands. The light brown and blond strands are the ones going gray, leaving only dark brown and gray now. I don’t like it.
) Does anyone have a crush on you?:
Not that I am aware.
) What year were you born?:
1953
) McDonalds or Wendys?
Oh…McDonalds I suppose. I’d rather do a diner though.
) Do you like yourself?:
Yes.
) Are you closer to your mother or father?:
I loved them both, but was closer to mom I reckon because she was around more often in my life, and set a better example.
) Favorite physical feature of the preferred sex?:
This question is so embarrassing. Okay…first, their face. Then…their hips and butt. I like watching lean guys walk. Ask me how much I hate loose baggy pants.
) Are you afraid of the dark?:
No. My reflex is to learn all I can about what frightens me. I’m a "light a candle instead of curse the darkness" kinda guy…but not because I want to light the world. I’m just curious.
) Have you ever stripped?:
Well…I don’t bathe in a bathing suit. Unless it’s really cold I’ll sleep without clothes on. I like wrapping my body in nice clean cotton sheets at night. A lover’s arms would be nice too.
) Ever broke a bone?:
A toe once. That’s luckily been it.
) Are you religious?:
Not religious. Very spiritual though. I love the god I see in nature. Science is a very spiritual activity when you think about it.
) Do you chat on AIM often?:
Among my co-workers yes. My Ex and I used to do it a lot.
) Pringles or Lays?:
Utz. Which I guess is a Maryland-Pennsylvania thing. Nothing beats ’em.
) Have you ever broken someones heart?:
I don’t think so. Gosh I hope not. I would never want to do that.
) Has anyone ever called you fat?:
I was so thin for a while one friend told me his mom asked if I was a heroin addict. I wore 28 inch waste jeans. Sometime in my mid thirties it changed and I started putting on weight. One day when I went to visit mom one of her neighbors remarked on how much better I looked since I’d put on so much weight and I wanted to just die.
) Do you have a birth mark?:
I used to have a tiny little permanent freckle-like thing near my stomach that could either be a mouse or a coiled up snake…but I can’t find it anymore so I guess it finally went away. I thought it was kinda neat because my birth year is a Chinese year of the snake.
) Do you own a car?:
Yes. A 2005 Honda Accord four-door. Five speed vTech four. I got the full dressed version with the nice leather seats and wood (ersatz) trim inside. After so many years of only being able to afford the cheapest car on the lot, this time I wanted something nice.
Then gas prices went up…
) Can you cook?:
A little. I have a fish fry recipe that my neighbors all love.
) 3 things that annoy you:
Advertising. Religion addicts at my door. Registration only web news sites.
) Do you text message often?:
As in cell phone texting? Just about never.
) Money or love?
Love of course!
) Do you have any scars?:
Not externally.
) What do you want more than anything right now?:
To hear from T.A.
) Do you enjoy scary movies?:
Not really. If they’re subtle. I hate slasher flicks. That’s just pushing buttons. The 1963 version of The Haunting is probably my all time favorite ghost flick. By today’s standards its probably pretty lame but I liked the way it tried to get inside your head where your fear of shadowy things that go bump in the night lives. The Shirley Jackson book it’s based on will keep you awake nights with the lights on.
) Relationships or one night stands?:
Relationships!
) Do you enjoy greasy food?
Not greasy. Fried and Deep fried doesn’t’ have to be like that. You pad off the oil when you take it out of the fryer, or let it drain as you’re cooking it. Don’t let the food soak in it.
) Do you own a box of crayons?:
Uhm…pastels. But I’ve never really gotten into pastels. They kinda just sit in the box waiting for me to take an interest.
) Who was the last person that said they loved you?:
Still waiting for the first.
) Who was the last person that made you mad?:
That I know personally? Stuart. But I get mad just about every time I read the news these days.
) Who was the last person that made you cry?:
See above.
) Who was the last person that made you laugh?:
Michele. Some of her bulletins are just hilarious. But the guy (on MySpace) who posted this had one answer on it that made me laugh out loud too. (hips eh…?)
) Who was the last person that you fell for?
Keith. And yes…I fall. Hard. Or not at all it seems.
) Who was the last person that instant messaged you?
Tom, my branch manager. Because we’re all scattered throughout the building, the people in my branch (software engineering) actually use AIM to talk to each other a lot.
) Who was the last person that called you?:
My brother, Billy.
) Who is the person most likely to fill this out?:
They’re either bored, vain, horribly self absorbed, or much too introspective for their own damn good.
1. What curse word do you use the most?
I like variety.
2. Do you own an iPOD?
Yes. Thought they were kinda faddish until I owned one. I love mine now.
3. Who on your Myspace "Top 8" do you talk to the most?
Bob – via email. I’ve actually been in Peterson’s company more.
4. What time is your alarm clock set for?
It’s set for Throw Me Against The Wall If I Ever Go Off. Seriously…no alarm. I hate alarms. You want to see my cranky side, just wake me up out of a sound sleep. I just wake up when I need to. I’m such a light sleeper I can actually do that.
5. How many suitcases do you own?
Oh gosh…let me count… Five pieces of luggage…four back packs (counting the North Face wilderness backpack I never use anymore…) and one briefcase.
6. Do you wear flip-flops even when it’s cold?
No flip-flops. Sandals, sometimes, when it’s warm.
7. Would you rather take the picture or be in the picture?
Take. I am not highly photogenic.
8. What was the last movie you watched?
You I Love. I almost cursed the screen out loud when I thought it was going to end with the lovers broken apart from one another. But it ended happily.
9. Do any of your friends have children?
Yes. And my brother has two which makes me an uncle.
10. Has anyone ever called you lazy?
My maternal grandmother back when I was a kid. But she called me a lot of things. "Stinkin’ Rotten’ Good-For-Nothing Garrett Just Like Your Pap" was one of her favorite names for me…
11. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep faster?
I used to. But they either don’t work or are addictive and make my head fuzzy. I am not going to walk through the last half of my life as a pill addict, and I don’t care what plans the pharmaceutical industry has for me otherwise.
12. What CD is currently in your CD player?
The soundtrack to Ice Station Zebra, by Michael Legrand, is in the Onkyo DX-710 in the living room stereo. The little Sony in my bedroom is empty. I may end up giving it to Good Will. I use the iPod now when I’m doing chores around the house.
13. Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk?
I don’t drink milk. One too many mouthfuls of milk that had gone bad just…er…soured me to it…
14. Has anyone told you a secret this week?
Yes.
15. When was the last time someone hit on you?
Uhm… Last summer actually. It was amazing. As I was walking out the door of the Baltimore Lambda Rising bookstore I heard a guy behind me say, "nice ass" and I was so embarrassed but kinda delighted because at my age you don’t get many of those. But he was looking for a casual one-time hook up and I’m not that kinda guy.
16. Can you whistle?
Yes. Oddly though, only by inhaling. So my whistle is not terribly strong.
17. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My brother.
18. Do you think people talk about you behind your back?
I reckon. I mean…I Hope I don’t just vanish from everyone’s consciousness when I leave the room…
19. Did you watch cartoons as a child?
Oh gosh yes. Astroboy. Jonny Quest. The Space Explorers. I also had a great fondness for the Gerry and Silvia Anderson Supermarionation shows… Supercar, Fireball XL-5, Stingray, Thunderbirds…
21. Are you shy around the opposite sex?
I’m just all around shy. But it’s beautiful guys that really clam me up. Probably why I’m still single…
22. What movie do you know every line to?
Not every line…but I know Casablanca almost by heart now.
23. Do you own any band t-shirts?
Yeah. My brother gave me a Led Zeppelin t-shirt a few Christmases ago.
24. What is your favorite salad dressing?
Ranch.
26. Do you do your own dishes?
I have to…it’s only me here. I have a pretty good Fiestaware collection.
27. Ever cry in public?
When mom passed away.
28. Are you on a desktop computer or a laptop?
I’m typing away on Mowgli, my main Intel (actually a 64 bit AMD) desktop (my household computers are all named after Jungle Book Characters…I loved the Kipling stories…the Disney version not so much). Mowgli can run several versions of Windows and Linux. Currently I’m running 32 bit Windows XP. I’m typing this out on Open Office and I’ll cut and paste it when I’m done. Computer geeks do not give short answers to computer questions.
29. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoo?
Not. I will do many things in the name of fashion but poking holes in my body isn’t one of them. I have a couple clip-on earrings for when I’m in an earring mood.
30. Whats the weather like?
Sun’s just coming up…looks like a clear blue sky this morning.
31. Would you ever date someone covered in tattoos?
Probably not. I’d be very afraid of the odd one over his right shoulder blade (that was for all you Ray Bradbury fans…)
33. When is the last time you slept on the floor?
Back when I was 30 and I pulled some muscles in my back.
34. How many hours of sleep do you need to function?
Lately I’m getting a good six.
35. Do you eat breakfast daily?
No. Just not hungry when I wake up usually.
36. Are your days full and fast-paced?
Sometimes. Sometimes not. I work to deadlines. Life is a roller coaster.
38. Do you pay attention to calories on the back of packages?
No. I should at my age but I don’t. I weigh about 30 pounds more then I want to, yet I eat very little. The problem is my job keeps me sitting, and my sleep disorder keeps me too tired to be active.
39. How old will you be turning on your next birthday?
Fifty-three.
40. Are you picky about spelling and grammar?
I’m in no position to be picky about either. Let’s hear it for spelling checkers…
41. Have you ever been to Six Flags?
No. I do boardwalks but not amusement parks. Unless I’m with someone.
43. Do you get along better with the same or opposite sex?
The same. My feelings and lusts are relentlessly polarized toward guys. I like guys, I like being a guy, I like being around guys. Not idiotic Guy Show kinda guys though. Beautiful, smart, creative, curious about the world, good-hearted guys. They’re my proof that there is a God, and that God is good.
44. Do you like mustard?
Depends on what it’s on. I like it on hot dogs. Not so much on ice cream.
45. Do you sleep on your side, stomach, or back?
Side and stomach.
46. Do you watch the news?
The network news is worthless. Just…worthless. I do Google News, Raw Story, 365Gay and Page One Q periodically throughout the day.
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