Something else from my sketchbook…

I saw this guy standing around on the grounds of an abandoned mental hospital in Topeka Kansas. I wouldn’t mess around with him if I were you…

Actually this is Bob in Topeka Kansas. He’s a real nice guy. But I still wouldn’t mess around with him if I were you.

Mike Airhart at Ex-Gay Watch has a post up about the teen that is speaking out after being forced into Love In Action:

A press release follows from Queer Action Coalition, Memphis, Tennessee.

The unidentified teenager will appear at 3 p.m. today outside a hearing between the unlicensed exgay live-in treatment facility Love In Action and the State of Tennessee.

LOVE IN ACTION, the Memphis-based fundamentalist Christian program which describes homosexuality as "a masterful deception from the enemy", has recently launched a campaign targeted specifically at converting youth to their agenda. Their youth program, Refuge, attempts to convert homosexual youth, a process which leading medical associations warn has disastrous affects, ‘including depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior."3 The group came under fire over the past year, after a Bartlett teenager revealed via weblog that his parents were forcing him into the program against his will. This cry for help led to international media attention, and daily protests outside the facility, organized by the Queer Action Coalition (QAC).

For the first time since the controversy began, a teenager who was coerced into Refuge will speak out about his experiences in the program. The teenager will be in Memphis on Friday, February 3 at 3 p.m. in front of the Federal Courthouse, as Love In Action awaits a judge’s decision in a "Motion to Dismiss/Preliminary Injunction" hearing – Love In Action International, Inc. v. Phil Bredesen, et al.

The teen will tell his story, and answer questions about his traumatic stay at Love In Action, including his eventual escape from Memphis, and the legal battle that awarded him with the promise of never being forced into the program again.

It is QAC’s concern that Love In Action is actively targeting youth, and their parents, with an agenda that promotes pervasive myths, and empty, biased stereotypes in an attempt to stimulate a notion of fear and shame. As concerned citizens, we feel the negative views held by the program endanger the well being of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people on a daily basis; people who already face prejudice and hatred which often leads to emotional and physical abuse. Furthermore, we believe that no one should be coerced into any "treatments" for homosexuality, especially with all major mental health associations clearly outlining the danger of such "therapy".

QAC may well be concerned about the targeting of teens, and more specifically, their parents. And that’s because the number of gay adults who have been voluntarily checking themselves into LIA has dwindled so severely since the Memphis protests that they’ve had to sell off one of their residential houses. Smid may now be calculating that parents of gay kids represent a better market for his snake oil then gay adults who can legally make their own decisions. The money’s got to come from somewhere.

As I write this, the press release is not up at the QAC site. When it is I’ll link directly to it. I’ll post more on this, as I learn more…

[Update…] Here’s the press release up at QAC, along with a photo of the teen giving interviews. No more details yet. Stay tuned…

It just gets worse and worse over in donkeyland…

Democrats abolish gay outreach for ‘integrated’ approach

Gay Dem resigns in protest over Dean’s decision

WASHINGTON – Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean has abolished the Democratic Party’s constituent outreach desks, including the post of director of lesbian and gay outreach.

A DNC spokesperson said Dean replaced the outreach director positions with a new program called the American Majority Partnership, which integrates efforts to address the concerns of minorities into all of the DNC’s departments and offices. The little noticed move took place last year.

"It’s an expansion of what we had before," said Damien LaVera, the DNC spokesperson assigned to discuss gay rights issues.

But the former chair of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus doesn’t see it that way. Gay Democratic Party activist and fundraiser Jeff Soref of New York City said he resigned from the DNC and from his position as chair of the gay caucus in August largely because of Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk.

"It took us many years to win that position, have it funded and make it effective," Soref said.

Soref said he told Dean "it was not credible" to simply assume that combining all constituent groups into one program without a specific gay coordinator or director would be effective because it would likely result in less attention to the specific concerns of gay Democrats.

"I thought this system could lead to us being re-marginalized by the party," Soref said in an e-mail message. "I have seen or heard nothing since that makes me feel that is not happening," he said.

This is in-fucking-credible. I can’t believe this. You have to figure they just don’t give a good goddamn about gay voters. Maybe putting Tim Kaine’s face on TV the other day wasn’t just typcial democratic party stupidity. Maybe they really do think that gutter crawling bigot is the face of the party’s future. Karl Rove must be dancing a jig over all this.

Maybe I will re-register as an independent…

More on the situation in Memphis, from someone who has looked it in the face…

Once again, a teenager who was taken into the Love In Action/Refuge program in Raleigh is speaking out against the self-proclaimed "ministry" as teaching a lesson of conditional self-love. The condition is simple: don’t be gay and you can love yourself.

E.J. Friedman asks how throwing a child of 15 or 16 into a place where people are discussing, among other things bestiality, is supposed to help them cope with themselves…

Are they supposed to equate their same-sex desires with fucking a dog or turning a trick?

And what is profoundly disturbing here is that E.J. needs to reassure his readers that he is not slandering LIA’s methods. Yes…that is Exactly what John Smid does to gay teenagers. He throws them into discussion groups with adults who have engaged in sexually ugly and extreme behaviors…this has been verified again and again. And make no mistake, what he is trying to do is tear down that kid’s sense of self esteem, make them come to understand their sexual nature as something horribly and irreconcilably perverse and disgusting, so that they will as adults, be utterly incapable of forming a lasting intimate bond with another person of the same sex. They are not a soul saved, so much as a soul annihilated. In the name of Christ. And for money.

This is child sexual abuse, or the term simply has no meaning. I’ll say this again: John Smid belongs behind bars with all the other child molesters. Just because he doesn’t physically abuse them, does not make it any less a case of child sexual abuse. He is doing to them emotionally, exactly what child molesters do, and he needs to be held accountable for it.

E.J, and the folks at QAC, say they have no problem with LIA treating gay adults who voluntarily seek their help. This is where I part company with them. If LIA were a simple ministry or prayer group I would agree it’s a matter of religious freedom. But they claim to be more then that, at the same time they claim religious freedom as their shield from laws that otherwise protect people from medical quacks. They are doing things to people that science and medicine regard as hazardous to people’s emotional well being, serene in the religious zealot’s confidence that whatever harm they wreak on people’s lives just isn’t their fault, because god gave them permission. If people feel they need counseling for issues of sexual orientation they need to go to professional counselors. If they want spiritual guidance they can find a church or church group, where they can work out their own way to God. LIA acts as if they are both, and thereby announce that they are neither. They are taking people’s money and fiddling around with their deepest emotional and spiritual selves, with no more understanding of what they are doing, let alone regard for the damage they cause, then if they were chicken pluckers posing as brain surgeons. That place needs to be shut down, and the people in it who dragged helpless gay teenagers into a world of mistrust, fear and self loathing, need to be locked up.

Net chatter is that a 17 year old kid who was forced into Love In Action will be speaking out to the media, possibly today. What I’m hearing is that he fled to Georgia and had an emacipation hearing. I don’t know any more then this, however it comes from sources close to the Memphis Love In Action protests.

Stay tuned…

So a guy walks into a bar, and he asks the bartender (stop me if you’ve heard this one) if it’s a gay bar…

At least three people were injured in an apparent hate crime in a New Bedford bar last night, according to broadcast reports.

WHDH-TV, quoting an employee of Puzzles Lounge on North Front Street, said a man went into the bar around midnight, ordered a drink, then asked if it was a gay bar.

He then pulled out a machete and a hatchet and began attacking some of the 18 people inside. When patrons tried to restrain him, he pulled a gun and fired at least five shots.

Three patrons were shot, two in the face and one at the chest. They were being treated at Boston hospitals this morning.

Police are searching for the shooter.

The usual denials of responsibility for the climate of hate toward gay people will be forthcoming momentarily, from the usual suspects…

[Update…] They have a suspect in the shooting that they’re actively looking for:

He is an 18 year old named Jacob D. Robida, of New Bedford, Mass. Police said Robida has dark hair, is about 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 200 pounds. He is believed to be driving a 1999 green Pontiac Grand Am with Massachusetts plate number 85EC58.

Consider him armed and dangerous. If you see him, call the police.

Yes…this week’s cartoon is…uhm…a tad late, isn’t it? Sorry…but my paying job took precidence this weekend. It’s been a hectic rush to get stuff done before our mid February deadline, but it looks like we’ll be fine. I have the cartoon for the week nearly done, it just needs the charcoaling, and a bit of ink wash.

Perhaps in the meantime, can I bribe you with something from my sketchbook…?

The graying out in the lower left hand corner is from the way my sketch book bulged out from the scanner plate. I’m using a thread bound sketch book lately, instead of wire bound and it won’t lay flat on the scanner. The smudges are because it’s a pencil sketch, and I like to work in a very soft lead. I used a .5mm technical pencil and a wad of kneaded rubber for this one, which is the same as I use for the roughs of my political cartoons.

I wish I could draw more from life. I’m at that point now where I know I can improve vastly if I could do that on a regular basis. But for now I have to make do with photos, and a little imagination. This one came from a photo that I found in some forgotten corner of the internet, that I printed out and tacked to the wall in front of my drafting table as an exercise. I adjusted the body proportions and hair style to taste, and made the guy’s jeans resemble something more like I was used to seeing, back in the 1970s, when guys, even straight guys were allowed to be sexy below the waist. I don’t think anybody, anybody male that is, wears hip huggers and flared jeans anymore. Or wide belts. That’s all strictly 70s stuff. As a nod to the present, I resisted the temptation to make his hair longer. Actually, not every guy wore his hair long back when I was a twenty-something either, and some of them still managed to look sexy.

I need to do this sort of thing more often. Just sketch for the sake of it, instead of to produce anything specific. And I need to practice from life, instead of from pictures, and my anatomy books. But I haven’t the nerve to actually ask someone to pose. So I reckon I’ll just have to make due with magazine clippings and the random internet photo.

From Pam’s House Blend:

The vote was 58 to 42. Enough to have sustained a filibuster even without Chafee if 16 Senators believed in more than empty gestures. And Olympia Snowe voted for Alito. There is no middle in the Republican Party. There is only Democratic capitulation masking as moderation.

Dig it. If every senator who voted against confirmation had voted to sustain the filibuster, Alito would not now be a supreme court justice. But you can count on the fact that they’ll try to use their ‘no’ vote on confirmation as proof they’re willing to take a stand for the rights of women and minorities. It’s an empty stand though, as befitting an empty party.

So I got an email from Howard Dean this morning. Well…it said it was from Howard Dean. It may well have even been from Howard Dean. But it wasn’t to me, it was to the DNC mailing list I happened to be on. And so I logged on to the DNC website and I fired back some feedback, basically telling them how I felt like I’d been slapped in the face after they choose a gutter crawling bigot to give the democratic party response to Bush’s state of the union speech.

I got Mr. Dean’s email this morning. The subject line was "What we didn’t hear tonight". But it isn’t what I didn’t hear, it’s what I did. Specifically, I heard homophobic bigot Tim Kaine give the democratic party’s response to Bush’s state of the union. I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face.

I don’t know why you think that gay and lesbian Americans should keep giving you money and support if you’re going to keep kicking us around to try and peel off a little the bigot vote from the republicans. I’m sick of being treated like radioactive material by democrats. I’m an American. Kaine not only wants to ban same sex marriage, he wants to ban even the second class civil unions. The amendment to Virginia’s constitution that he signed off on, is a sweeping attack on our households, on our families, on us. It is breathtaking how broad the attack on us by him is. And there he was last night on my TV screen…speaking for the democratic party.

I can’t begin to tell you how angry I am. Just a few weeks ago I watched sickened while a New Jersey policewoman, Laural Hestor, dying of cancer, begged her local government to do for her life partner upon death, what it would have routinely done for any married couple…extend her pension to her, so she could keep their house. Finally, it was republicans who pressured the Ocean County freeholders to reverse themselves and grant the benefit. Tim Kaine would have taken even that small measure of hope away from Hestor and her partner. Why are gay and lesbian Americans still having to beg to be treated fairly and decently by our government? I can’t begin to tell you how angry I am.

…and so on and so forth. Yes…I know… As if they care…

Chris Crain, Executive Editor of The Washington Blade writes about the new face of the democratic party…

The Democratic Party announced on Friday that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will deliver the party’s official response to President Bush’s "State of the Union" address later this month. Party leaders tapped Kaine because they wanted to reach outside the beltway and pick a fresh face who has proven succes with "red state" voters.

A statement issued by the party praised Kaine, just one week on the job, for being "a champion for working families, putting their priorities above the needs of the special interests."

That description will surprise the "working families" of Virginia headed up by gay and lesbian couples. Because the same day Kaine was picked to be "the new face" of the Democratic Party, the Washington Blade reported that he supports and will sign into law an amendment to the Virginia constitution that not only bans gay marriage and civil unions, but domestic partnerships as well, and may even deprive us the protection of domestic violence laws.

…

…If Howard Dean and other party leaders truly believe Kaine is a "champion for working families who puts their priorities above the needs of the special interests," then we can only conclude that the Democratic Party now views the civil rights of our working families as "special interests" to be sacrificed on Election Day.

Tim Kaine may be the new face for Democrats, but he certainly isn’t their spine.

Actually…he probably is. And that’s the problem.

A lot of people, when they heard last week that Kaine was going to give the Democratic response to the state of the union, went ballistic. To many people Kaine is an appalling choice to speak for the Democratic party. Pam’s House Blend has been all over it:

For gays living under Kaine and his endorsement of a marriage amendment, it’s a clear message that your life partner relationship has no legal footing or recognition in the state — and it will NEVER be recognized. Oh, and keep paying taxes for that luxury.

Yet that’s fine and dandy with the Democratic Party establishment, which tacitly endorses Kaine’s position with this pick. Defenders will say: "just ignore that and look at ‘the whole package’ or ‘the long view’.

Well, I’m looking at the long view, and so far all I see are states falling, one by one, passing marriage amendments because Dems are silent. I take that as either an endorsement of the bigotry, or complete impotence and incompetence on how to counter the message coming out of the right wing.

That’s when you know that civil equality is not a core value in this party.

To me, a true fresh face from Virginia is Delegate David Englin. He is a Fighting Dem that had the balls to publicly slap back at bigotry in his statehouse with a speech that should be read by Howard Dean and the rest of the shiftless, bleating Dem talking heads. The party leadership had plenty of choices to tap for this speech — and they chose Republican lite.

But that’s just fine with some democrats, who seem perfectly willing to throw their gay and lesbian neighbors to the wolves if they think it’ll win them back the Archie Bunker vote:

For liberal bloggers who want to get exercised about something really important: Where are the Democrats or liberals talking about Ford laying off some 30,000 workers, the end of middle class benefits for working Americans, IBM’s gutting of pension security, and the collapse of American manufacturing?

…

If you want to know why Dems don’t win elections, it won’t be because Kaine is talking this Tuesday night. It’s because the mainstream leadership of the Democratic party doesn’t think, feel, viscerally respond to the increasing insecurities of working americans.

Fine. Let’s talk about pension security:

When a dying Laurel Hester appealed to the Ocean County freeholders a month ago, she sat in front of them in Toms River, spoke in a soft voice and asked the five- member board to allow her pension benefits to be extended to her life partner.

Yesterday, Hester was in front of the freeholders again — but this time she was in a videotaped message played on a laptop computer at the freeholders meeting — making what could be her last plea to them before her cancer kills her. Although the freeholders appeared moved by the three-minute video, they were not budging from their decision to not extend Hester’s pension benefits to her life partner, Stacie Andree. At least one freeholder said the board would not change its mind before Hester’s death.

"The board has said so far it is a legitimate and reasonable position we’ve taken," Freeholder John Bartlett Jr. said after the meeting. "In my opinion, I don’t see any need to change it."

Laurel Hestor, a New Jersey policewoman who put her life on the line every day for the security of her community, was begging that community to do for her life partner, what it would routinely do for a married heterosexual couple. Without this, her partner would have had to sell the house they lived in together for many years after Laurel’s death. The freeholders, under pressure from state republicans reversed themselves last week and granted the extension of Laurel’s pension benefits to her partner. Pension security.

Kaine would have it taken away from Hestor and her partner. And there are plenty of democrats, like Katrina vanden Heuvel who I quoted above (via Steve Gilliard, who has a thing or two to say about democrats like her), who wouldn’t give ratshit about it either, so long as the pensions of real people aren’t touched. The insecurities of working Americans is it Katrina? My ass. Just say "prejudices" Katrina. It’s what you meant after all. Democrats have to pander to the lowest prejudices of working class americans once more, like the party used to back in the 1950s, if it wants to start winning elections again. That about sum it up?

But we’re suppose to keep supporting the party anyway, with our dollars, and our energy, and our votes. Last week I got into a brief argument with one of these democrats in a comment thread on AmericaBlog, who told us straight up that we should be willing to sacrifice our right to marriage, and with it any hope for the security of our households and our unions, to "save America" from the republicans. But America is the land of liberty and justice for all. America is the land of equal justice under law. America is the land where we’re all endowed by our creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When you’ve allowed all that to be destroyed, what is it exactly that you’re saving? I’ll hazard a guess: Democrats like Katrina don’t want to save America, they just want to save themselves. And we’re supposed to help them save themselves, by grandly offering to sacrfice our homes, our families, and all our hopes and all our dreams, so that they can keep selling America out piecemeal to the republicans. I’ve got a middle finger right here Katrina that has my answer to you written all over it.

As Franklin once said, we’ll all hang together or for sure we’ll all hang separately. Throwing your gay and lesbian neighbors overboard isn’t going to help keep your ship afloat. It’ll sink it. You won’t get the bigot vote. If each and every democrat running for office personally put a knife in the heart of the first gay person they came across, they Still wouldn’t get the bigot vote. The only way Democrats are going to start winning elections again is to fight like hell for America, for the American dream of liberty and justice for all. As Truman once said, if you give people a choice between a republican and a republican, they’ll elect the republican every time.

But…I guess you have to actually believe in the American dream, to want to fight for it. If you think that the rights of your gay and lesbian neighbors are negotiable, then you don’t believe in it. It really is as simple as that. You can’t say that some Americans are more equal then others and then out of the other side of your mouth claim you still believe in an America where we’re all equal. You’re just looking out for yourself. But nobody buys their own rights, at the expense of their neighbor’s.

First they came for the jews…

Here is a list of democrats who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. They voted to reverse Lawrence v. Texas, and re-establish the sodomy laws. They voted to reverse Romer v. Evans, and allow states to constitutionally place gay and lesbian Americans in second class citizenship status. Remember their names. They are the democrats, who sold out America, who, by voting against the filibuster of Alito, gave the American dream to the haters of democracy on a silver platter:

Arkansas:

Lincoln
Pryor

Colorado:

Salazar

Connecticut:

Lieberman

Delaware:

Carper

Florida:

Nelson

Hawaii:

Akaka
Inouye

Iowa:

Harkin

Louisiana:

Landrieu

Montana:

Baucus

Nebraska:

Nelson

New Mexico:

Bingaman

North Dakota:

Conrad
Dorgan

South Dakota:

Johnson

Washington:

Cantwell

West Virginia:

Byrd
Rockefeller

Wisconsin:

Kohl

Later on this week, some of these will vote against confirmation, and then try to claim that it was a vote against Alito. No. The only vote that mattered, was the vote for or against the filibuster. That was their only way to prevent Altio from sitting on the court and they knew it. By voting ‘yes’ to close debate, they voted to seat Alito, knowing that he will be the vote to finally overturn Roe, and once again reestablish sodomy laws, and make gay Americans, women and other minorities second class citizens…if even that. That is what these democrats voted for.

Over at Kos, diarist Maryscott OConnor has this to say:

Frankly, right now I’d like nothing better than to torpedo the entire lot of them. Just dump them like so much worthless, leaden, VICHY MOTHERFUCKING BALLAST.

I got nothin’, folks. Don’t look over here if you want comfort or a nice, uplifting LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY speech.

I’M DONE WITH THEM. They are DEAD to me.

Yeah. CANTWELL and BYRD and LANDRIEU and BINGAMAN and every last motherfucking one of them, I’m DONE with them.

I’m registering Independent tomorrow. You’re welcome to join me.

If it weren’t for the fact that both my democratic senators voted for the filibuster I’d probably do the same. But I reckon for now I’ll remain a democrat, if for no other reason then I get to vent at all the party telemarketers who call asking for money and support.

In Washington state, some yahoo is organizing a petition drive to establish a Cincinnati article 12 style law to forbid the enactment of laws that protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination. An Alito court could, and probably will at some point, reverse Romer v. Evans, and allow such a thing to become part of the state constitution. For gay and lesbian Americans, and for other minorities as well, it’ll be the 1950s all over again. But the Bush republicans want to push America back even further, back into the 1800s, to a time when the only people who had rights were the rich and the powerful.

This is what I was most afraid of, in a Bush second term. And it’s not over. He’ll likely get another one on the court. And who knows, maybe even one after that. And now they know the democrats will lay down and just let it happen. People are saying the answer to all this is to get more democrats elected. But…why? They had the power to stop this and they wouldn’t use it. And point of fact, when they were in the majority they allowed Scalia and Thomas to sit on the court. Who can really say with a straight face that if they were in the majority in the senate, that Altio wouldn’t be placed on the supreme court anyway, and Bush given essentially free reign to put a knife in the American dream?

Elect a democratic president, you say? They may not nominate batshit crazy right wingers to the court, but anyone they do nominate will be blocked by the republicans unless they are. And capital hill democrats won’t fight for their president’s nominees like the republicans fight for theirs…they just won’t. We’re in a loose-loose situation until the democrats either grow a spine, or new blood comes into the party that is willing to get in the republican’s faces and fight like hell for America. Republicans fight and democrats won’t and until that changes the worst is still yet to come.

Via the BBC…

A man beaten in a suspected homophobic attack in Londonderry has been told he may lose the sight of one eye.

The 20-year-old, from County Donegal, was attacked by two men as he walked along Clarendon Street on Sunday.

He was punched on the face and knocked to the ground. He is now recovering in hospital. There have been a series of attacks on gay men in the city.

David McCartney from the Rainbow Project, a support group for the gay community, knows the victim well.

“He is a student in his early 20s,” he said.

“He is a very quiet fella and is a decent bloke – he is well-liked.

“The fact is that this isn’t the first time this has happened to him.

“This is the second major homophobic incident that he has experienced in the last couple of years.

“It is absolutely traumatising for him – I’m not even entirely sure that the shock has set in yet, that he has in fact lost the sight in one of his eyes.”

SDLP leader Mark Durkan, the MP for the area, said it “was a savage assault on a completely innocent young man”.

Two men attacked a twenty year old student, a quiet and decent guy, and beat him so badly he’s lost the sight in one eye. And you can bet the thugs who did this are having themselves a good old laugh over it. And why not? Politicians tell them that homosexuals represent a threat to their families and their country. Clergymen, mullahs and popes thunder from the pulpits that homosexuals represent an intrinsic evil, a satanic force against Christianity. The two men who did this may be just a couple of gutter crawling thugs, but they were given permission to do this by their ersatz betters. The problem isn’t that there are violent gay bashers out there, but that more and more these days our communities, our churches, and our countries, are led by people with utterly no conscience, who inflame violent passions toward homosexual people because it brings them votes, and fills the collection plates. And so the blood of gay people transubstantiates into money and power.

[Update…] In comments Willie Hewes reminds me that England isn’t the United States and homophobia isn’t the major part of the political message over there that it is here.

Via FreeZ… Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, is having himself a little conniption…

EU Approves Ban on 'Homophobia'; Christians Remain Silent

(AgapePress) - The European Union has unanimously approved a resolution banning "homophobia." A Christian attorney in Mississippi explains why that should concern the citizens of the United States.

The resolution, called "Homophobia in Europe," defines homophobia as "an irrational fear and aversion of homosexuality and of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people based on prejudice, similar to racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism." It calls for action against member states that do not implement programs directed at fair treatment of homosexuals in employment and occupation. It also seeks to "ensure that same-sex partners enjoy the same respect, dignity and protection as the rest of society."

Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, says although the resolution is not law, it could eventually affect the United States.

...

For that reason, the attorney advises that family advocates in the U.S. "absolutely ... should be concerned about this -- and we should be rising up right now before it's too late," he adds.

...

The "Homophobia in Europe" resolution was passed by a vote of 468-149; there were 41 abstentions. Christians and conservatives did not protest the resolution...

Of course, to be either Christian or conservative over in Europe, doesn’t mean that you’re batshit crazy like it does here in America.

Okay…now let me get this straight. The European resolution calls for action against member states that won’t treat their homosexuals citizens fairly in employment and occupation, and also seeks to ensure that same-sex partners enjoy the same respect, dignity and protection as the rest of society. And the problem with this is…what? Sin?

No. That’s not the problem. I was raised in that environment. There are lots of sins besides homosexuality. I was raised to believe that gambling is a sin. I don’t hear any calls from the religious right to deny gamblers the right to hold down a job, or have the same protection of law as the rest of us. Gamblers can marry. Hell…gamblers can be spokesdroids for the religious right. Hello William Bennett? I was raised to believe that drinking is a sin. And smoking. Where are the big religious right political action committees dedicated to taking equal opportunity and equal protection away from drinkers and smokers? They say having sex outside of marriage is a sin. They say divorce is a sin. Why aren’t they fighting against the rights of fornicators and the divorced to hold down jobs, and be treated fairly, like they are gay and lesbian people?

I’ll hazard a guess. They’re not homosexuals. It’s easy to condemn other people for a sin that doesn’t tempt you. It’s more then easy. It’s sanctifying. While you’re at it, you can kick them around for all the sins that do tempt you. It’s not as painful as having to confront yourself over them. Why, it’s positively refreshing. For some people having a scapegoat is better then having a savior. A savior might ask you to stop sinning. A scapegoat is a get out of hell free pass.

The problem with this new European resolution isn’t that it’s telling them to tolerate sin; they already do that. They tolerate it oodles when it’s their own. The problem is that the resolution is telling people they have to treat gays and lesbians fairly. It’s taking their scapegoats away from them. And what the hell are they going to do when they can’t blame someone else for all the evil in the world today?

When I bought the new furnace I decided on the deluxe model from Carrier; the Infinity 80. It has many nice bells and whistles, all of which as far as I can tell are actually useful. It’s a well thought out product. It wasn’t the most energy efficient model (which was the Infinity 96), but that one would have cost me thousands more all told, for all the other modifications to the house I’d have had to make and I couldn’t justify it. But the one I bought was supposed to be able to monitor both the inside and outside temperature over a period of time, and set its burn rate and fan speed to the most efficient (and hopefully less costly) way to heat and cool the house. So I bought the furnace that burned a bit more efficiently then the one I had, with extra features that hopefully make it even more efficient in use. BGE Home installed it Tuesday after New Year. Hopefully the technician they sent over yesterday finally got it working.

Swear to God, every time I catch myself thinking Things are different then when I was a kid I just want to smack myself. I’m Not That Old! But I traded a simple Honeywell round thermostat for a device that looks a bit like an iPod attached to my wall, only with a bigger LCD display and lots more buttons. It tells me what the temperature is inside. It tells me what the temperature is outside. It tells me what temperature I’ve set the heat to. I can program it to different heat settings for various times of the day, for each individual day of the week, or for every day during the weekday and every day during the weekend. I can keep the heat low when I’m asleep, or at work. I can create a completely separate set of heating points for vacation. It’s actually quite simple to program. It tells me when the furnace is on. It tells me if the fan is going, and at what speed. It tells me what the humidity is. It’ll tell me when the media in my electronic air filter needs cleaning. And ever since they installed it, it’s been telling me to call for a service technician to fix it.

System malfunction - Call for service.

I can press a combination of buttons and get a more precise diagnosis, or I can go into the basement and read the error code directly off the furnace. And no…I don’t have all this memorized. Lately I’ve had to keep the instruction manual near my…uh, thermostat device thing. What’s it called again? Ah…right…it’s the Carrier Infinity Control So I have a control unit now, instead of just a plain old thermostat. And it not only came with an instruction booklet…inside the instruction booklet is a quick start guide. Dig it. My new furnace has a quick start guide.

The error code it was throwing, 33, meant that at the low heat/low fan setting the heat exchanger was going over temperature. That threw the furnace into a mode where it would only operate at high heat and high fan speed…exactly like the old furnace did. Efficiency was out the window, but at least I had heat. The probable causes were maddeningly all over the map. Something could be impeding air flow into the furnace, or air flow out of it. Something could be impeding the draw up the chimney. The dual setting burner valve could be malfunctioning. Gas pressure could be set just a tad wrong. Over the past couple weeks the technicians from BGE Home have tried everything. Making matters worse was that the problem could take hours to develop. A technician would leave my house thinking they’d finally fixed it, only to have the error code pop out again four or five hours later.

Finally, yesterday, BGE Home brought out a big gun…a high ranking technician who knew this particular model. He spent about four hours with it yesterday afternoon carefully monitoring the temperature rise in the heat exchanger and tweaking this and that, until finally deciding that it was a combination of improper settings on the PC board, and too much bypass air going through the humidifier. As I watched him turning on and off the furnace to reset the PC board in it so he could test it some more, a thought occurred to me and I had to go sit down.

He’s rebooting my furnace. I have a furnace that boots. I don’t just switch on the furnace, I boot it up… And sure enough, as the furnace was switched on my Control Unit displayed various messages while polling the…uhm…peripherals, of entire system…the compressor, the humidifier, the air filter. You could watch it booting up. My mom used to tell me stories about how she and her brothers shoveled coal into their parent’s coal fired furnace, and cleaned out the ash trap. In point of fact, many of the old row houses over in Hampden, just a short walk from my neighborhood, still have their coal door. I have a furnace with a computer in it that’s probably more powerful then the one that calculated the descent of two astronauts to the surface of the moon back in 1969. And all it does is figure out how to maintain temperature inside my little rowhouse.

My humidifier, a Honeywell Enviracaire (somebody please smack the marketer who invented that word…), uses a fibrous pad that is fed water when the furnace comes on. Air is blown through the pad and into the return air duct, just above where it goes into the furnace. It’s a good system in that it uses no water reservoir where mold and germs can get growing, and there is no water spray from it that can cause corrosion in the furnace itself. But the air going through the media has to come from somewhere and it needs to be somewhat forceful. You can use a fan to push air through it and into the return flow, but it would have to be a big one. A better way is to tap the some of the air coming out of the furnace and route it back through the humidifier. But that air is hot. So you’re basically adding heat to the return air. You can tweak the system to account for that, but it’s a rather fine adjustment of a valve on the humidifier air intake, and switches that control how the furnace ramps itself up to running temperature. Apparently this was all off by just enough to make the heat exchanger run too hot at the low burner/low fan setting. At least, that’s the current theory.

A furnace, even one of the old ones, needs to be recognized as a part of a system that includes your duct work and how big the house is and how it gains or looses heat. You can’t just throw something in and expect it to be as efficient as possible, and if things are grossly mismatched it might not even work at all. And the more efficiency you want to wring out of the system, the more deftly you have to tweak the various parts of it. And that means the whole thing becomes a bit touchy. One of the reasons I’m not blowing a fuse over how long it’s taken to get everything to work is that I kinda saw this coming. I figured there would be a period of adjustment, I was just hoping it wouldn’t be as long as this. This new furnace is a lot more touchy then I’d reckoned on.

My old habits of opening and closing various vents throughout the house will make this furnace throw that same error code. I just can’t disturb the air flow. I have to keep everything open now, and let the furnace do its work if I want it to run at that super efficient low burner/low fan setting. Which is fine, it’s just a habit I need to change. It actually makes the house nice and comfortable when it can run in that mode most of the time. You can’t even hear it running it’s so low. Yet the house is nice and cozy now. And with the humidifier running, I can keep the temperature setting down about five degrees and still feel very warm and snug. And I’m not shooting sparks off whenever I touch something that’s metal now. Thanks to the humidifier the static electricity I usually get when the furnace is on is gone completely. When I switch from AC to heat again next winter, I’ll have to remember to set the humidifier airflow valve correctly (it needs to be turned off completely in the summer). Mom would tell me it beats cleaning out an ash trap.

So I’m watching Logo and the perky Logo/CBS news droid comes on and one of the stories he tells me about is that there are a gosh awful lot of gay themed short films coming out of Sundance this year. The spot goes on to show a few clips from one of them, Bug Crush which the film maker cheerfully describes as the story of a young gay boy’s first high school crush that turns dark and sinister…

Swell. Just swell. Can’t have enough sinister darkness when it comes to stories about gay kids and their first high school romances can you? Is Exodus sponsoring Sundance this year?

I’m at the point now where I think you should have to have a license to make a film with gay characters in it. You apply for the license and you pay a fee and you fill out a form with these three questions on it:

You flunk the test and you get your license stamped NO GAY MATERIAL, because you really shouldn’t be bothering gay and lesbian people with your crap. Seriously. Go bother heterosexuals. No…strike that…heterosexuals don’t deserve you either. Go bother republicans.

Remember how the first thing Canadian winger Stephen Harper said at the beginning of his campaign for Prime Minister was how he was going to make same sex marriage illegal in Canada again? Remember how he stopped talking about same sex marriage throughout the rest of his campaign, to make himself look moderate?

Guess what?

New Canadian PM To Move Quickly On Gay Marriage Repeal

(Ottawa) Stephen Harper says he wants to move quickly as leader of a fractious new Parliament to reopen the same-sex marriage debate.

The makeup of the new House of Commons suggests the prime minister-designate knows there's a good chance such a motion will be rejected.

It would not be a total loss, however. In fact, an honorable defeat on equal marriage would satisfy obligations to Harper's most right-wing supporters while defusing a politically explosive issue.

...

Still, Harper has promises to keep to the most traditional members of his team.

He has said he'll put a free-vote motion before Parliament on whether the heterosexual definition of matrimony should be restored...The Conservatives would then craft legislation to that effect should the motion pass in a sharply divided House of Commons. ...

But at least one Conservative insider who spoke on condition of anonymity said social moderates in the party would welcome the issue's demise.

"There would be a quiet hurrah."

It’d be a relief would it?

Notice what is missing here from this article from the Canadian Press: Any shred of concern for the welfare of gay and lesbian Canadians. And notice that Harper is openly pictured as a man who is merely using the issue to hold onto support from the extreme right. Kinda like our guy in the White House down here, who as I recall also ran as the man to restore ethics to government. But what is ethical about using your fellow citizens as political punching bags for votes, as though their lives, their hopes, their dreams are merely pieces on a political game board? What is ethical about gaming a vote to loose that you’re telling your supporters represents something you stand for. If this is the man some Canadians voted for to restore ethics to government, they’re in for a bitter awakening. Or not. Actually, we’re still waiting for that awakening to happen here in the United States, aren’t we? A moderate more often then not, is someone who doesn’t want to be held responsible for cheap prejudices they know full well ought to be beneath a civilized person.

If anyone in Canada is thinking the gay haters will just go away if they loose this vote they are sadly mistaken. They may not represent the majority of Canadians, or even the majority of Tories, but an American extremist, Ralph Reed, taught their kind some years ago, that they don’t have to be, to make government dance to their tune. They just have to be enough to bring everything down whenever they want. They want the hearts of gay and lesbian Canadians served up to them on a platter, and sooner or later the Tories will have to deliver or loose power. The only question is, will the so called social moderates go from wishing the issue would just go away, to wishing gay people would just go away, as they have here in the United States. This is when you find out who really has a conscience, and who just talks like they know what one is.

I walked away from friends I’d known since college after they voted for Bush in the last election. I had one simple thing to say to them: I am not the “some”, in “some of my best friends are…” I am a human being, with the same need, the same hopes and dreams for love and joy and fulfillment the rest of you have. I need arms to hold me. I need a heart to share with mine. If you vote to take that dream, that hope from me, I don’t give a good goddamn if you dance in its ashes afterward along with the haters or not. I don’t care what your motives were. It’s not the thing you cared about but the thing you didn’t: me. If you could do that to me, you are simply not a friend of mine, and you never were. I don’t know you.

It’s bitter sadness, but there are gay Canadians today, reading the headlines, looking at family and friends, and realizing now that very same thing: I…don’t know you.