Via Slog… Another reason not to check myself into an Ex-Gay ministry…
“A Consequence of Misuse of the Internet”
That’s how a New York judge has summed up this tragically effed-up mess, in which a 48-year-old man (who’d been posing as an 18-year-old Marine in online chat rooms) murdered his 22-year-old rival for the virtual affections of a middle-aged West Virginia mother posing online as an 18-year-old student.
The Associated Press untangles it all for you here.
You know…I’ve never lied about myself on the Internet…about my age or my looks or my income or anything. Not on the Internet, not on the few dating sites I’ve tried. I just don’t do it. Believe that or not as you like, but I’ve never even used a pseudonym. I’ve have always gone by my birth name online. It’s not rectitude, it’s vanity.
It has been an honor and a privilege for both of us to serve on the Human Rights Campaign Business Council. Since joining the Business Council in 2002 we have both played active roles in advancing workplace equality, providing education, guidance and leadership, and ensuring that workplaces in America are fair for ALL employees. Our collective work has been at the forefront of the successes that HRC has enjoyed in recent years, has affected the daily lives of GLBT employees throughout this country in profound and substantive ways, and is a continuing source of pride for us both.
Rather than rest on past achievements, the Business Council continues to develop critical new initiatives to support transgender employees. We are working to raise the bar on the Corporate Equality Index. We are planning to revise and re-publish the booklet Transgender In the Workplace: A Tool For Managers. We are planning a Female-to-Male educational DVD. We have been working on insurance issues affecting transgender employees. Never before have so many important efforts for transgender workers been underway and we are both heavily involved in all of them. That is why the decision we are announcing today is an extremely difficult one.
Recent HRC policy decisions – to actively support a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that excludes our transgender brothers and sisters as well as gender-variant lesbian, gay, and bisexual people – have placed us in an untenable position. On November 8, the day after the ENDA vote in the House of Representatives, we requested an opportunity to meet personally with HRC President Joe Solmonese to share our concerns and to discuss HRC’s strategy for addressing recent legislative shortcomings before making a decision to stay or go. As the only transgender representatives on the Business Council our community expects us to have some influence, or at least to receive the courtesy of a consultation. Almost 3 weeks have passed since that request and we have heard nothing in response. This lack of response speaks volumes, so we feel compelled to take this stand today.
(Emphasis mine…) After a while, you finally begin to realize that the reason you’re there is window dressing. And then…you’re no longer needed.
That the bill in question doesn’t really do anything is wrongheaded, only if you think it’s purpose to make a difference in the lives of GLBT Americans, and bring this nation a little closer to reaching its promise of liberty and justice for all. No. That’s not the purpose of this bill. What the bill does, is give Barney the place in history he’s always wanted, as the man who put through the nation’s first non-discrimination bill for gay and lesbian Americans. It’s not that it doesn’t actually protect any of us, it’s that its got his name on it. That is why transgendered Americans had to be thrown under the bus.
For Tax Year 2007 I Will Not Be Bringing My Schedule C Income Onto My Balance Sheet
Via Atrios…
From CNBC: "Citigroup will not be bringing its SIV assets onto their balance sheet."
SIV = Structured Investment Vehicle. The Wiki article isn’t bad…go read it for some insight into why big capital is getting anxious about what’s happening now due to the sub-prime mortgage collapse. Basically what Citigroup is trying to do here is a little creative Enron style shell company book keeping in the hope of propping up their market value. Oh no…those aren’t Our worthless assets…they belong to that company over there…er, the one we created to hold those worthless assets… What’s…astonishing…is how brazen they’re apparently being about it.
And you thought the stock market was the only form of gambling Wall Street did. Oh goodness no…
Laying awake the other early morning, the twin images of Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton kept coming into my mind. Maybe it was the Ambien, but inevitably the choice between those two haunts the fevered brow in the dead of night.
Pay attention here…he’s been prescribed a CPAP machine (which he’s previously written flowery praises of) and he’s taking Ambien on top of that and he Still can’t get to sleep. I was on Ambien myself for a while and I’m here to tell you it knocked me flat.
Problem was, it also fucked with my head. Maybe some day I’ll go into more about the ugly episode in my life when I was dealing with insomnia and was taking sleep medication and eventually put onto a CPAP machine myself. It was an adventure in our modern health care system that taught me in spades how little the system actually cares about your health, as opposed to selling you treatments. There must still be some Baptist left in me because I’m feeling guilty right now as I type this at taking pleasure in the grim ironies in Sullivan’s predicament. He’s been bellyaching ever since Michael Moore’s Sicko came out about how superior the American profit motive health care system is over the socialized health care systems used by every other industrial nation in the world, and there he is, a perfect example of what it does to people. He’s on a CPAP machine, he’s downing Ambiens and he still can’t sleep. But you best believe his doctors have another pill he can take for all of that. And the best part is his sleepless nighttime is haunted by worries over the moral character of the person who will occupy the absolutist presidency left behind by George Bush, a man he once compared in a fit of giddy hero worship to Frodo, and then to Sam in Lord of The Rings.
You know…all that lefty field hippy stuff about eating more whole grains and fresh veggies and wholesome organically grown food and exercising more and keeping your weight down and not pigging out on junk food, really does go a long, long way toward getting you a good night’s sleep without drugs and machines pumping air into your lungs through a mask attached to an air hose. Ask me how I know. Ah…but that’s lefty stuff isn’t it Andrew…and that automatically makes it evil. So you’ll be popping those pills and hooked up to that machine and staring at the ceiling wide awake in the middle of the night for all of that anyway for the rest of your life won’t you?
Keith Mays, creator of the blog mocking men without that extra ‘Y’ chromosome Andrew Sullivan adores, is the creator of many other blogs besides Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians. One of them is titled, People I No Longer Speak To.
So I see Rex Wockner, and Andrew Sullivan are in agreement with John Aravosis that transgendered people have basically hijacked the gay rights movement. Dan Savage is at least on board with the transgender free Barney Frank/HRC bill that just passed the house. Somehow, it’s…unsurprising…to see the "No Fems" contingent bellyaching that they just don’t get the transgendered. Here’s Wockner giving it his best attempt…
I’ve been sitting here sort of picking my own brain and asking myself if gay and trans people do in fact have some crucial thing in common. I’ve read tons of opinion pieces and blog posts on the ENDA war in recent weeks, but none of them really opened my eyes. What do I have in common with a guy who wants to remove his willy, grow breasts, become a woman and get married to a man? From where did this relatively new concept of "the LGBT community" come?
Any deeper then this and Wockner is in danger of getting his own reality TV series. Wille. Wille. You know, not all transgendered persons go the sex reassignment surgery route, but I wouldn’t expect anyone in the "No Fems" crowd to have picked up on that. Geeze…and I used to think I had a problem with things female, my libido and my emotions being so relentlessly polarized toward the male sex. But the worst I ever was, was indifferent. I didn’t dislike girls and I don’t now, they just don’t register on my radar like guys do. I like guys. I like being a guy. I like being around guys. I like being made sweet sweet love to by guys. But there really are males, heterosexual ones too amazingly enough, who just get deeply anxious when confronted with anything even vaguely suggestive of femininity, and never more so then when it’s within another guy. I guess they’re afraid of their own dicks falling off or something if they get too close. Notice Wockner’s problem is with "a guy who wants to remove his willy, grow breasts" and "become a woman". Notice further that he’s saying this right after talking up Shannon Minter, born female, now living as a man.
I do, in fact, count myself among those Americans who still don’t fully understand and "get" the whole concept of being born in completely the wrong body. I’ve asked Shannon for a personal, one-on-one crash-course the very next time we’re within range of each other on the national map.
Probably because Shannon is butching it up and Wockner can deal with that better then with a person born male but who considers themselves female. Well let me say I don’t "get" what the goddamned problem is here. Has Wockner, after all this time, never pondered what makes some people gay and others straight? There is a mountain of evidence building now, that sexual orientation is innate, something in our biology, that draws us to mate to our own sex. It’s not in our willies, but in our heads. Is it really that hard to look at this, and consider then that gender expression may also work in some similar way? And for Christ’s sake it’s not like issues of gender haven’t been animating American politics ever since…oh…the feminist movement. I know that serious questioning of whether gender expression is more nature or nurture, biological or sociological, have been tracking alongside the same questions regarding sexual orientation since at least my own teen years and I’m older then any of these three deep thinkers (Aravosis doesn’t seem to be thinking about any of this at all so much as machine gun jerking his knee…)
I think my eureka moment came some decades ago while reading an article on boys who had been born with deformed or missing genitals and were, shortly after birth, surgically assigned a female gender and raised as girls. Tragically, horribly, it didn’t work. There was one boy in particular, who said he’d kept on reflexively trying to pee standing up all through his childhood. That opened my eyes. As it turns out, it’s not what we have between our legs that makes us masculine or feminine, it’s what we have between our ears.
What T’s have in common with LGB’s is that primary opposition to all of you comes from your subversion of proper, binary, complementary gender roles. You may be quite different from the inside, but from the outside you look similar. I heard my southern baptist grandfather give a sermon in which one of the ills of the modern world was "men not wanting to be men." I’m pretty sure he had gays in mind.
Surely you know this.
To which Sullivan reliably babbles…
If we are defined by those who hate us, LGBT makes some sense, although it could also include straight women who don’t conform to traditional roles, straight men in the same position, and so on, which would mean LGBTSFSMQ or something. My point is that the respective experiences of being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender are very distinct and different. And I do not define myself primarily by shared victimhood. Indeed, as many angry LGBTQWhatever readers have insisted, I am not a victim. I am a privileged, white sexist patriarchal rich HIV-positive-with-meds guy. So why, then, pray, am I still regarded (in your acronym at least) as a part of your "community"?
Not to worry Andrew, a lot of gay folk don’t regard you as being part of our community either. Not after you swooned over the man who vowed to veto any attempt to repeal the Texas sodomy laws because he thought they were a valid expression of the morality of the majority of Texans. But, no you drooling moron, the entire point of anti-discrimination laws Is how other people view us, not how we view ourselves.
Yes, yes…we’re all different from one another in so many little ways. Men and women from other men and women. Whites and blacks and Asians from other whites and blacks and Asians. Gays from other gays. How many different sub groups within that vast rainbow of humanity that are homosexual? Bigotry on the other hand, ignorantly lumps people together. Since when did prejudice ever make sense? No, the color of your skin doesn’t say anything about the content of your character. Neither does your sexual orientation. Neither does your gender. Neither does your gender expression. And as for why ‘T’s are part of this movement too, well let’s let Jack Chick explain something you need very much to understand:
Now, look at that. No…Really Look At It. Anti-discrimination laws aren’t about how minorities see themselves. What they address is how popular prejudices view and treat minorities. Look At That Image. This is what the bigots see, when they look at us. They don’t see difference one between the ‘GL’s, the ‘B’s and the ‘T’s you idiot. They don’t even admit there is such a thing as sexual orientation. let alone something called transgender. To them, it’s all sex perversion. You’re a man and you’re having sex with other men and that means as far as they’re concerned, that you’re acting like a woman. Never mind you don’t think you are. It’s not about what you think. Butch it up until you’re growing hair on your palms and it still won’t matter to them. They see a man making himself into a woman. They see gender non-conformity. In my 8th grade sex ed class back in 1969, I was taught that as a literal truth: that homosexual men think they’re really women. You’ll always be a fairy to the bigots Sullivan.
None of us, the ‘GL’s, the ‘B’s and the ‘T’s behave according to the gender expectations of the majority. That’s why we’re discriminated against. That’s the stinking rotten core of it, along with a healthy dose of misogyny. Men rule, women serve men, wives gracefully submit to their husbands who are the head of the household and all is right with the world. Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgendered people all throw that nice neat little "natural order" into question and they can’t deal with it. But you need to understand that the problem from their perspective isn’t that you’re homosexual. Many of them insist there is no such thing as a homosexual to begin with, merely damaged heterosexuality. Their problem is that you’re a man who, by having sex with other men, makes himself into a woman. That’s the thinking going on here. They see no distinction, zero, zilch, nada, between a transgendered individual and a homosexual. None.
And this is why any anti-discrimination law that does not include gender expression in it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Incrementalism is fine I suppose, when it actually gets you somewhere. Civil Unions before marriage. Okay…I can dig that. I don’t like it but I can dig it. At least Civil Unions are a step forward; at least they’re something. The EDNA passed last week is nothing but hot air and a bunch of preening politicans and HRC lobbyists patting themselves on the back for appearing to be doing something when all along they were too goddamned timid to actually fight for something honestly worthwhile because that might be risky. You know…behaving like democrats always do these days. Any bigot with half a brain can simply say they fired you because you weren’t conforming to their company gender norms, not because of your homosexuality. And Barney Frank has given them the green light to do that, by insisting that the law Specifically omits gender expression as a protected catagory. Lambda Legal has been all over this big honking loophole, and Frank and HRC (say…I thought you didn’t like them Andrew) went ahead and did it anyway.
But then…why someone who doesn’t believe in anti-discrimination laws in the first place is bellyaching about including ‘T’s, when he thinks ‘G’s and ‘L’s and ‘B’s shouldn’t be protected classes either is beyond me. I guess you just have to jerk your knee at every fucking thing that liberals are for, or that you imagine they’re for. The guy who once said that liberals might mount a fifth column against the war on terror is certainly no stranger to how bigots think is he? And I see that the candidacy of Hillary Clinton has you back to nearly full time snarling at the Clintons again hasn’t it? Jesus Christ you are one big fucking bundle of surly knee jerk reflexes aren’t you?
Instead of writing the transgendered out of EDNA, maybe Barney should have just written "No Fems…" into it. That would have made you guys happy, wouldn’t it?
No fems please…we’re all manly cocksuckers here. Hey…don’t get me wrong…I’m a big fan of Y chromosomes myself. Just not the big stupid ones.
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
-Ben Franklin
A southwest Idaho woman accused of setting fire to a mounted bison head at her ex-husband’s home faces arson charges. Police arrested Ryann Jean Stafford, 26, Thursday on a charge of third-degree arson, a felony.
Investigators said Stafford and her former spouse got into an argument at his home. But after he left the house, police said Stafford began throwing objects and then used a lighter to ignite the mounted head.
I’m sitting here wondering if the Bison head was there when she married him. Did he put it there to spite her? To drive her crazy? Hey honey…you ever notice how the bison’s eyes seem to follow you around the room…? Did he give it to her as a gift and she filed for divorce immediately thereafter? Was it a prized memento from their honeymoon? Were they fighting over who gets it in the settlement? Did he name it after her? After her mother?
Note to self: Marital bliss is probably not enhanced by tacking large dead animal heads to the wall. On the other hand, I used to know a gay couple who had a buffalo hide rug and they said it was absolutely their favorite thing to have sex on.
My brother and I were talking last night about the sub prime loan whirlwind and the housing market drop. He’s a home improvement contractor and business where he lives is actually still very good for him (he has a good name in the market where he does business). But he’s been renting now for ages and he’d like to buy if home prices would just come down a little. Unlike a lot of folks, he wasn’t the type to be suckered in by any of the creative financing schemes that are currently causing people to loose their homes, and CEOs to loose their jobs.
Anyway…I just thought he (and you) would appreciate this little blurb today from Atrios…
Deep Thought of the Day
Nobody could have predicted that it might not be such a good thing if the issuers of loans have little incentive to issue good loans.
-Atrios 09:27
There’s a big part of the problem right there. The other big part, is that the anti-government republicans are in charge, and they could be reliably counted on to look the other way while Wall Street went crazy with other people’s money.
Someone calling themselves Mrs du Toit responds to my post yesterday on the Nazification Of The Western Male. I’ve no way of establishing the authenticity of the commenter, but I reply back in the comments.
SPOKANE — State Representative Richard Curtis says he’s not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women’s lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis’ activities publicly.
A search warrant unsealed Tuesday morning disclosed that State Representative Richard Curtis (R – La Center) had sex in his room at the Davenport Tower with a man identified as Cody Castagna, 26, of Medical Lake, who he met at the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on October 26th.
Curtis, according to a search warrant unsealed Tuesday, went to the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on East Sprague on October 26th at approximately 12:45 a.m. The store clerk, who had talked with Curtis, referred to him as "The Cross-Dresser" and said that during their conversations he confirmed he was gay and was married with children at home.
During his visit to the video store Curtis was observed wearing women’s lingerie while receiving oral sex from an unidentified man in one of the movie viewing booths inside the store.
Afterward he met Cody Castagna, and they talked about getting together at Curtis’ hotel room to have sex. Curtis left Castagna his cellphone number and went to Northern Quest Casino and receiving a call from him around 3 a.m., and planned to get together at the hotel a short while later.
The two met at the Davenport Tower around 3:34 a.m. and police reports confirm Curtis and Castagna had anal intercourse after which Curtis fell asleep. Castagna, according to court records, then allegedly took Curtis’ wallet out of his jacket pocket and left the room.
Around 7 a.m. he called Curtis and told him he knew he was a member of the Washington State House of Representatives and was married, that he had taken pictures of Curtis with a camera on his cellphone and he offered to return the wallet in exchange for $1,000. In police reports it is claimed that Curtis offered Castagna that sum of money in exchange for having unprotected anal intercourse.
Richard Curtis, a GOP state rep in Washington, voted this year against domestic partnerships for gay couples. He also opposed a bill that bans nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. So knowing what we know about this generation’s crop of Republican lawmakers, this should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone…
Check out the Giant Closet in the new Republican National Committee HQ. And…get this…from Dan Savage over at SLOG…
UPDATE 2: Anti-gay Washington state representative Richard Curtis is a lying cocksucker.
Detective Mark Burbridge of the Spokane Police Department, in a signed affidavit, concluded that Curtis and Castagna engaged in mutual sexual activities, after which Curtis fell asleep. Burbridge’s affadavit is based on interviews with both men.
The affidavit alleges Castagna left the hotel room with Curtis’ wallet. He later called the state lawmaker and offered to return it in exchange for money, Burbridge said in his affidavit….
Burbridge’s court filing offers a far different account from the brief interview that Curtis gave to Columbian Editor Lou Brancaccio Monday afternoon. During that phone interview, Curtis emphatically said he is not gay and has not had sex with a man. He said he was only “trying to help someone out.”
“Richard Curtis was adamant he never agreed to give Cody Castagna any money for sex, especially $1,000,” the court filing says.
I would never pay for sex…especially not at the prices I was quoted… The escort says he was only trying to get payment for services rendered. The republican says it was blackmail. So who’s the more trustworthy, a prostitute with a rap sheet for assault, theft and burglary…or a republican? Mmmmm….thinking…thinking…thinking… Here’s Savages’ take:
Closeted gay GOP elected official with an anti-gay voting record and—and I’m putting this charitably—a deeply troubled gay kid with a rap sheet—these two were made for each other.
As cartoonist Ruben Bolling says…the new gay stereotype is a middle aged, married, conservative, "family values" man.
I could spend all day unpacking this Obama statement, but I’ll try to stick to my usual terse self.
Part of the reason that we have had a faith outreach in our campaigns is precisely because I don’t think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate, even though we may disagree with them.
Aside from the adoption of right wing frames, this kind of statement is incredibly insulting to both the LGBT community who are apparently "hermetically sealed from the faith community" and to the "faith community" which is apparently defined as nothing more than a bunch of anti-gay bigots. Not to mention the Democratic Party, which apparently includes no actual religious people.
Obama gets smaller and smaller every day doesn’t he? Of course, this statement wasn’t directed at the gay community, but at the so-called ‘faith’ based voters. You know…the ones who keep insisting that the United States is a Christian Nation. No. It’s a nation where everyone, Christians included, have freedom of worship. And that’s precisely because the government isn’t supposed to take sides in matters of faith. Which is just what the religious right wants it to. So the only freedom of worship Americans will have, is the freedom to be a right wing Christian.
I guess Obama thinks he can woo enough of these away from the republican ranks that it won’t matter how many gay voters he slaps. He did it there again, speaking to the religious right, in the terms it understands. If we’re talking about people of faith, as opposed to the people who wear the label "People Of FAITH" on their sleeves along with "I’M A GODLY PERSON BOW DOWN BEFORE ME YOU HELLBOUND HEATHEN YOU", then of course a good many, if not most gay people are also people of faith. Never mind how often and how loudly the religious right bellyaches that homosexuals are anti-Christian. When I was working the Weekly Community Events board at the Gay and Lesbian Information Bureau BBS (GLIB), about half of all the notices, and there were tons of notices, were for gay accepting, gay friendly, religious worship services. Every, and I want to emphasize that, Every denomination was represented. There were Catholics. There were Baptists. There were Quakers. There were various Mennonite sects. There were Mormons. There were Unitarians. There were notices from various gay friendly Synagogues. In addition to a host of non-Judeo-Christian faith services listed. Don’t tell me that gay people are not a living part of that all embracing rainbow colored body that compasses people of faith.
And don’t tell me that Obama doesn’t know this. When he adopts a right wing frame for the issue of religious faith in America, he knows exactly what he’s doing. And I don’t believe for a second that his taking on an ex-gay gospel singer was an accident either. My hunch is Obama thought he could dog whistle to black homophobic conservatives. It didn’t work and now he has to take a stand and he’s Still dog whistling to them.
[Update…] from the New York Times report on the concert…
COLUMBIA, S.C. — At Barack Obama’s gospel concert here last night, more than 2,000 black evangelicals were singing, waving their hands and cramming the aisles _ most enthusiastically when Donnie McClurkin, the superstar black gospel singer, decried the criticism he has generated because of his views that homosexuality is a choice.
…
He approached the subject gingerly at first. Then, just when the concert had seemed to reach its pitch and about to end, Mr. McClurkin returned to it with a full-blown plea: “Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have suffered the same feelings,” he cried.
“God delivered me from homosexuality,” he added. He then told the audience to believe the Bible over the blogs: “God is the only way.” The crowd sang and clapped along in full support.
And the gay white minister Obama invited to the concert after the controversy errupted…? Ah…yes…
The Obama campaign had appeared to be caught off guard by the reaction to inviting Mr. McClurkin in the first place, and it may have been surprised tonight by the degree to which the singer focused on himself. The other speakers and singers had avoided referencing the controversy. Even an openly gay minister whom Mr. Obama had invited after the fact to try to appease his gay and lesbian critics spoke so early that few people heard him.
CNN said the white gay preacher, Rev. Andy Sidden, gave a short prayer at the beginning of the concert when the auditorium was less then half full, and then he left. I wonder if his prayers were answered.
The Mercedes C Class, verses the Chinese made Geely Merrie 300. Check out the cute little hood ornament on the Geely. Ah…but pity the poor billionaire who spent his hard earned money on a Rolls Royce…
When he Could have bought the Chinese Hongqi HQD and saved so much. More auto knock-offs Here. Say…I don’t see a knockoff Spirit of Ecstasy standing on the Hongqi’s grill. Maybe some talented Chinese artisan could make one for it. Something like this maybe…
The common media image of today’s youth is that they have, under a steady barrage of sexually charged images, become increasingly precocious – engaging in intercourse at a younger and younger age and with a dizzying array of partners.
But the reality, according to a new report entitled Sexual Health in Canada, is that adolescent sexual practices have remained largely unchanged for decades. "Young people aren’t having sex any younger than their parents or grandparents," Linda Capperauld, executive director of the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, said in an interview.
Nor – despite suggestive music videos, ready access to Internet porn and creeping hemlines – are more teens having sex.
Nationwide, only 28 per cent of adolescents age 15 to 17 report having had sex, a figure that rises to 65 per cent by age 18 to 19.
All told, the mean age for sexual intercourse is 16.5 years, about where it’s been since the sexual revolution that was launched by today’s baby boomers.
Despite the closing gender gap – equal numbers of boys and girls now say they have had sex – the primary reason for not having done so remains remarkably unchanged from previous generations: Most girls said they were not ready, while most boys reported a lack of opportunity. The No. 2 reason for both sexes is the same: "I haven’t met the right person."
But when they do, teens are remarkably faithful. The number with a single sexual partner is on the rise.
It’s not all good news though
The 150-page report also contains some grim news. The number of teens with sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis is soaring.
Gosh…that wouldn’t be because they’re being given adequate sex education, on the theory that if we don’t tell them how to have sex they won’t have it? Sex is a basic instinct, older then the fish, let alone the mammals, let alone the primates, let alone humans. Human couples are perfectly capable of figuring out how to have sex on their own. What they need to be taught is how to avoid pregnancy and disease. And…a little responsibility please. But responsible sex is the last thing they’ll learn from the Family Values crowd…
OCTOBER 8–An Alabama minister who died in June of "accidental mechanical asphyxia" was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report. Investigators determined that Rev. Gary Aldridge’s death was not caused by foul play and that the 51-year-old pastor of Montgomery’s Thorington Road Baptist Church was alone in his home at the time he died (while apparently in the midst of some autoerotic undertaking). While the Montgomery Advertiser, which first obtained the autopsy records, reported on Aldridge’s two wet suits, the family newspaper chose not to mention what police discovered inside the minister’s rubber briefs. Aldridge served as the church’s pastor for 16 years. Immediately following his death, church officials issued a press release asking community members to "please refrain from speculation" about what led to Aldridge’s demise, adding that, "we will begin the healing process under the strong arm of our Savior, Jesus Christ."
GREEN BAY — The chairman of the Republican Party in Brown County faces criminal charges for allegedly fondling a 16-year-old Ethan House runaway and providing him with beer and marijuana late last year.
Donald Fleischman, 37, of Allouez, was charged last month with two counts of child enticement, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child and a single charge of exposing himself to a child.
If convicted on both felonies and all three misdemeanors, Fleischman faces up to 52 years in prison.
Fleischman’s attorney, Jeff Jazgar, said he plans to confront the charges at the preliminary hearing set for Oct. 29.
“My client is innocent of the charges,” Jazgar said Friday. “Our plan is to get some witnesses to testify and present enough information to dismiss the case.”
Efforts to reach Fleischman were unsuccessful.
Fleischman has resigned his post with the Brown County Republicans, said Kirsten Kukowski, communications director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
The teen, now 17, told authorities Fleischman took him to a hotel in Appleton during that time and then to a cabin near Florence for several days before returning to Fleischman’s Allouez home. The boy said Fleischman provided him with beer and marijuana, the complaint said.
The boy told police that when he would go to bed, Fleischman would fondle him and that on one occasion he awoke to find Fleischman at the foot of his bed masturbating.
To neighbors here, J. D. Roy Atchison was a deft federal prosecutor, an involved father and a devoted volunteer, coaching girls’ softball and basketball teams year in and year out.
His wife is a popular science teacher; his youngest daughter, an honors student who was on her high school homecoming court last year. Their house, with rocking chairs on the porch, oaks in the yard and a wrought-iron fence, is among the prettiest in town.
But in an instant last week, the community pillar became an object of community loathing. Mr. Atchison, 53, was arrested getting off a plane in Detroit on Sept. 16 and charged with the unthinkable. The authorities there said he was carrying a doll and petroleum jelly, and that he had arranged with an undercover agent to have sex with a 5-year-old girl.
Now Mr. Atchison is awaiting trial in a federal prison in Michigan, and the people of Gulf Breeze, an affluent bayside suburb in the Florida Panhandle, are outraged, baffled and repulsed.
…
Mr. Atchison has worked at the small United States Attorney’s Office in Pensacola since the 1980s, most recently handling asset forfeitures in criminal cases as an assistant United States attorney. In one high-profile case, Mr. Atchison oversaw the government seizure of a popular beach bar at the center of a cocaine-trafficking ring.
His is considered one of the most conservative United States attorney’s offices in the country, known for refusing plea agreements and seeking the stiffest sentences.
Mr. Johnson said Mr. Atchison was close with the other prosecutors in his office, going with some on an annual lobster-diving trip in the Florida Keys. A big white fishing boat sat in his otherwise-empty driveway this week. His interests, according to the Yahoo profile that the police said was his, include “surfing, skiing, diving, boating, young girls, petite girls, skinny girls.”
And yes…according to a commenter at Daily KOS who looked up the public election records for the Pensacola suburb of Gulf Breeze, Atchison was a republican. Surprise, surprise. And here’s another anti-gay republican with a wide stance…
A Florida state representative and co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign was arrested Wednesday for offering to perform oral sex on a male undercover cop in a Titusville, Fla., public restroom, police said.
Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island, was booked into the Brevard County jail on a charge of solicitation to commit prostitution, the Orlando Sentinel reported, then released on $500 bail. The charge, a second-degree misdemeanor, is punishable by a year in county jail and a $500 fine.
Titusville police told the Sentinel that they were carrying out a burglary detail in a city park when they saw a disheveled, unshaven man enter and leave the park restroom three times. They decided to send in an undercover officer; minutes later, they told the Sentinel, the man knocked on the stall door and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20.
"After he was arrested, he (Allen) mentioned he was a state legislator," Lt. Todd Hutchinson told the paper.
Allen, 48, is married with a daughter, according to his legislative bio.
First elected in 2000, Allen is the chairman of the House Committee on Energy. He received the Rainbow Democratic Club of Orlando’s worst possible rating.
In March, he co-sponsored HB269, the Lewdness and Indecent Exposure Bill, which proposed enhanced penalties for "offenses involving unnatural and lascivious acts or exposure or exhibition of sexual organs committed within specified distance of certain locations." The bill never made it to a vote.
About six years ago, he was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign Gov. Jeb Bush’s friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state’s ban on gays adopting children, Rainbow Democratic Club secretary Carol Bartsch told Gay.com
"Practically as soon as he got into office, he wanted to go on record as being anti-gay," Bartsch said.
Due to be termed out of the House next year, Allen, however, had been considered a likely state Senate candidate, Sentinel writer John Kennedy blogged Wednesday.
Just a few of your friendly neighborhood Family Values folks who know what’s best for the rest of us when it comes to having sex…
Brown County GOP Chairman Donald Fleischman has resigned his post, says a spokesperson, after being accused of enticement and fondling of an underage boy, reports the Green Bay Press-Gazette Saturday.
Fleischman, 37, is free after posting a $20,000 bond on September 28. "My client is innocent of the charges," says attorney Jeff Jazgar, who "declined to discuss specifics."
"Our plan is to get some witnesses to testify and present enough information to dismiss the case."
The boy was found by police in Fleischman’s home on two occasions in late 2006 while being sought as a runaway from Ethan House, a home for at-risk youth. Now 17, he says he stayed with Fleischman at his house and a cabin, where he was provided with alcohol and cannabis, and regularly fondled.
On November 19, 2006, according to a September 7th complaint obtained from the WisPolitics Courtwatch Blog, the boy in question was found hiding in a bedroom closet, and a pipe was found in the house, which tested positive for THC. Shortly after, on December 8, 2006, Fleischman said he was trying to convince the boy, discovered again in the home, to turn himself in as a runaway.
Fleischman faces two counts of child enticement, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child, and one count of exposing himself to a child. He returns to court on October 29.
It’s been like a week doesn’t go by that some GOP operative or religious right nutcase turns up in the middle of some kind of sex scandal. And they’re lecturing us on sexual conduct?
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