As 14-year-old Brandon McInerney prepares to be arraigned today in the slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, his lawyer is advancing a defense that at least partly blames school officials for the tragedy.
Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys, which began when King openly flirted with McInerney, said Deputy Public Defender William Quest.
No. The tensions pre-existed that. The flirting was Kings way of dealing with the abuse he was getting from the other kids. But look at this carefully. Quest is hanging a dead skunk on a sliver of truth obvious to everyone in hindsight. Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys… Yes. And right here is the poison Quest is trying to slip in along with that…
Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus, Quest said.
You’d think the boy was going to school in drag…which is exactly the image Quest is creating there. Quest is slyly turning a murdered 15 year old gay kid into a drag queen exploring his sexuality on other terrified teenagers. He’s pushing all the usual buttons there. But look past that. King’s behavior was creating turmoil on campus. Quest has probably figured out that blaming a 15 year old gay kid for his own murder isn’t going to play well…at least with California juries. He might get away with it, but considering Matthew Shepard’s killers couldn’t even in Wyoming, it’s a risk. So what to do? Simple. Blame the school for not blaming the victim.
Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus…
Isn’t that a neat trick? The school was siding with the gay kid, which left the other kids in turmoil, which caused Brandon McInerney to bring a gun to school and shoot Lawrence King in the back of the head. Poor Branden was so traumatized over having a gay classmate, and even worse being flirted at, that he couldn’t even look him in the eye when he pulled the trigger. And it’s all the school’s fault. For nurturing the gay kid. When they should have been keeping him under control. So the other kids wouldn’t be in turmoil. So Branden McInerney wouldn’t have been in turmoil.
You have never seen the gay panic defense so slickly inserted into a murder trial.
Users of the portable media player can now download friends’ nine most recently played songs, as well as nine tunes flagged as favorites.
Microsoft, which trails far behind Apple in the portable media player market, tried to narrow the gap Tuesday with the release of new technology that enables Zune users to share more of their music libraries with friends.
The latest update to the Zune software that synchronizes the player with a person’s music library on the PC and Microsoft’s online store reflects how Microsoft is hoping to grab market share from the Apple iPod by encouraging Zune users to build online social networks. Microsoft last November launched a music community Web site called Zune Social, where users could browse each other’s playlists and share opinions on songs and bands.
Along with the three new Zune players, including Microsoft’s first-ever flash-based model, Microsoft announced a new community site, dubbed Zune Social that it will fire up as beta in November. According to Microsoft, Zune owners can automatically share their current playlists with friends using a Zune-to-Zune Social sync.
That sync will rely on user-made profiles that Microsoft’s calling Zune Cards; other Zune owners will be able to view a friend’s Card, then play short samples of those tracks and/or buy the tunes at the also-redesigned Zune MarketPlace online store. The sharing concept isn’t new, as several services — notably iLike — already promote something similar.
"Microsoft must find a way to grow the coolness of the Zune," said JupiterResearch’s Michael Gartenberg. "This isn’t a bad strategy, and at least it’s found a way to differentiate from Apple."
Super Cool! And…oh look…here’s another way they can differentiate themselves from Apple…
If you like to download the latest episodes of “Heroes” or other NBC shows from BitTorrent, maybe you shouldn’t buy a Microsoft Zune to watch them on.
A future update of the software for Microsoft’s portable media player may well include a feature that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it.
…
Late Tuesday afternoon I reached J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, to ask why NBC found Microsoft’s video store more appealing than Apple’s.
He explained that NBC, like most studios, would like the broadest distribution possible for its programming. But it has two disputes with Apple.
First, Apple insists that all TV shows have an identical wholesale price so that it can sell all of them at $1.99. NBC wants to sell its programs for whatever price it chooses.
Second, Apple refused to cooperate with NBC on building filters into its iPod player to remove pirated movies and videos.
Microsoft, by contrast, will accept NBC’s pricing scheme and will work with it to try to develop a copyright “cop” to be installed on its devices.
…
Mr. Perrette said the plan is to create “filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.”
He said this would be similar to systems being tested by Microsoft, Google and others that are meant to block pirated clips from video sharing sites. NBC is also working with Internet service providers like AT&T to put similar filters right into the network.
…
Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to discuss details of this effort other than to say that the software company is exploring anti-piracy measures with NBC. He said Microsoft, which suffers from its own piracy problems, is sympathetic to Hollywood’s concerns.
Let me unpack that for you: NBC agreed to let its content be sold by Microsoft, because Microsoft is willing to make it’s products block the playback of unauthorized copies. They’re talking about videos there, but does anyone doubt for a moment that same technology will be used to prevent the playback of music too. And remember, The Music Industry Regards Copying From CDs To Players Like The iPod As Theft.
Microsoft is going to help the industry make that impossible. If they can get the technology developed, the industry will then press congress to make it manditory. Never doubt it.
Oh…wait… Microsoft says it’s all been a terrible mistake…
In the Zune Insider Blog, Cesar Menendez, a member of Microsoft’s Zune team, refers to this post, and the blog discussion it prompted. He writes:
We have no plans or commitments to implement any new type of content filtering in the Zune devices as part of our content distribution deal with NBC.
Microsoft, let it be said, is second to no one in its skill at deploying tactical syntax. Let’s unpack all the weasel words in that statement, shall we? We have no plans… Right. Why not say "We will not…"? as opposed to "We have no plans…" How about, "We are not in the planning stage, but the proof of concept stage." Any new type of content filtering… Why not just say "Any content filtering"? New Type? Fine. They already have something on the drawing boards. It isn’t new. As part of our content distribution deal with NBC. Fine. But that isn’t the only deal you have with NBC is it? So are you developing any content filtering, based on an already existing "type", apart from any deals you may have made with NBC, or anyone else…? Do you have any internal efforts directed at content filtering or blocking?.
No…no… It’s just not possible to get straight answers out of Microsoft if they don’t want to give you any. And besides, all you need is to look at Windows Vista to see how devoted Microsoft is to DRM.
Windows Vista is the bloated pig it is, in large measure because of all the DRM technology packed into it. Vendors are having nightmares getting it to work with hardware because of the DRM requirements Vista imposes and Redmond mandates. Your video and audio circuitry must literally have no possible point on it for a user to tap a signal from before it can be certified and Vista will allow the highest quality signals through it. Otherwise it cripples the output. That Redmond would develop technology to allow the music and film industries to control what you can and can not play on your own playback devices is as unsurprising, as the fact that they’ll be deploying it on paltforms running their software with or without the owner’s consent.
They say that men don’t change, they reveal themselves. Once upon a time I made my living programming exclusively on Microsoft platforms. And I felt proud to be a part of a revolution that was bringing power, as the slogan of my generation went, to the people. But empowering the common folk was never what Bill was in it for. He just wanted to own the world. Bill Gates is to computer technology what Mao was to government. He spoke the language of revolution, he posed as a friend of the common people against the powerful. He told them he was about returning to them the power that was rightfully theirs. The computers would be taken out of the big data processing centers and put right there on your own desktop. Your data would belong to you, not big business or big government. Information you need would be directly accessible to you. Bill Gates promised the world would be at your fingertips. And if he really meant that, I wouldn’t care if he was ten times as rich as he is. Instead, he became one of the biggest despots the world ever saw. Your computer belongs to him now. And to his friends in the penthouse board rooms. Men don’t change, they reveal themselves. Here’s to the new boss…
Morgan has posted to YouTube the rough cut he currently has of the opening sequence to This Is What Love In Action Looks Like. It looks to be a fantastic documentary when he gets it all put together. And for the first time, people will get a chance to hear Zach speak for himself about what happened to him.
In this clip via the historical footage Morgan managed to dig up, you get a taste of what it was like before the gay rights movement came of age. The captioning Morgan adds to it captures the sense of the times perfectly…
Once upon a time…
There were some monsters…
Everybody was scared of them…
I was a gay teen back in those days, although I spent most of it in a comfortable cocoon of ignorance. But that’s exactly how it was. Homosexuals were monsters. And then one day I realized I was one of the monsters they were talking about. Watching those clips Morgan found brought that whole period of time back to me. And for the haters, it’s still true to this day. We are monsters, not human beings. That is why the Ex-Gay ministries appeared. Not to save our souls, but to impress upon us that we are monsters.
There’s only a small portion of the interview Zach gave Morgan here. And I think I can say now that this is out, that I was privileged to be there to witness and photograph it (I agreed that Morgan would have the copyright to the photos). There is so much I haven’t been able to say these years, biting my tongue while others waved Zach’s first blog post after leaving Love In Action as proof that he had taken LIA’s side of things and ultimately agreed with what had been done to him. And Zach, let it be said, isn’t interested now, and wasn’t really then, in being the center of a media storm. The poor kid just wanted to live his life. When he cried out for help, it was to his friends. That it quickly spread all over the Internet and became an international media storm was as much a surprise to him as to anyone. But he’s smart, he’s got a good heart, and he’s perfectly capable of speaking for himself when he wants to. I think that comes through pretty clearly in the few moments you see of him in this clip.
There will be more of the interview with Zach, and much more of the events surrounding the Love In Action protests, when Morgan finally finishes his edits and premieres the documentary. I have no ETA and I don’t think Morgan does either…he’s working hard on getting it right, because its so important. It’ll be done when it’s done.
And before you ask…yes, I am listed as an Executive Producer on this documentary. But seriously…all a producer does is produce money. The film is 100 percent Morgan’s, and I cannot speak for or about anyone involved in the production or anyone interviewed in it beyond what you can already see here. Morgan and crew can all speak for themselves, and probably will if you ask them. Morgan can be reached Here, at the Sawed-Off Film’s web site. You can see a collection of Sawed-Off YouTube clips Here.
I’m 30 years old, from rural Ohio, and met my German boyfriend in Boston 8 years ago.
We moved to Berlin together when his visa expired, where we lived for 5 years and eventually got married (okay, "entered into a civil union" is more accurate, if not as eloquent). We work online, which affords us a lot of freedom, and have lived in Ireland and now Spain. Thanks to the "Freedom of Movement" policy, I can legally reside anywhere in the EU, because Juergen and I are married. But, I can’t move home.
An American and a German can legally reside in Ireland, Spain and Slovenia, but not America. When I think about it like that, I want to punch a wall.
Trying to explain our situation to my American friends inevitably results in confusion and disbelief. People are truly unaware of the situation gay, bi-national pairs have to deal with. "You could get married in Massachusetts!" Um, no. "You could get Juergen a work visa!" Not likely. "He could marry a woman, and then you guys just, like, live together anyway!" Seriously, a suggestion I’ve heard more than once.
It’s not that people don’t understand our situation — but that they don’t even know it. And, honestly, the chances that we ever move back to the States are getting more and more remote with each year.
Thanks for continuing to expose this problem…
The virtuous god-fearing lying connivers of the religious right have done a bang-up job convincing people that all their attacks on same sex marriage aren’t intended to deny same sex couples any rights so much as preserve marriage as a union of one man and one woman. So a lot of people apparently think that same sex couples aren’t really as utterly bereft of legal standing as they are. You could get married in Massachusetts… Right. And that and a few bucks will get them both a couple Big Macs…but not the right to live together here in the United States. Repeat After Me: The Defense Of Marriage Act. Or, as Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council put it succinctly…
“I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.”
Gotta love that loving the sinner stuff…
I’ve said this before: the only reason I’m as free to move around my own country as I am is because I am single. If I was coupled, the two of us could not travel in or even through most of the states in this union because if something were to happen to one of us it could quickly become a nightmare for both of us. That was the intent. Not to protect marriage, but to persecute gay people for doing what we are emphatically not allowed to do: Fall in love. Commit to one another. Make a life together. If gay people can find love, can find in it peace and fulfillment and joy and contentment, then clearly the righteous aren’t loving Jesus enough.
AoTP: You very seldom, if ever, write about gay and lesbian issues per se. Yet discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation directly affects where you live, since you and your domestic partner — who is Brazilian — cannot be together on any regular basis in the U.S. Do you hold strong views about anti-gay laws in your own country?
GG: The state of American law with regard to same-sex couples is an ongoing disgrace. America is one of the very few countries in the world — along side countries such as China and Yemen — to continue to ban HIV-positive individuals from immigrating. And the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from extending any benefits (including immigration rights) to same-sex couples means that we put our gay citizens whose partners are foreign nationals in the excruciating predicament of being forced either to live apart from their life partner or live outside of their own country. That is reprehensible.
Most civilized countries, even those that don’t yet recognize same-sex marriage, refuse to put their citizens in that situation. Brazil was a military dictatorship until 1985. It has the largest Catholic population of any country in the world. And yet I’m able to obtain from the Brazilian government a permanent visa because my Brazilian partner’s government recognizes our relationship for immigration purposes, while the government of my supposedly “free,” liberty-loving country enacted a law explicitly barring such recognition.
The difference between a nation with a large protestant fundamentalist population and one with a large Catholic one. The pope can be a raving Nazi bigot and the flock can still know what it feels like to have a human heart.
But it won’t just be the bi-national couples leaving the USA if same sex couples must remain strangers in the eyes of the law…
A new study shows that many lesbian and gay youths, much like their heterosexual peers, expect to have long-term committed relationships and raise families in the future, according to an April 23 press release from Rockway Institute.
The study questioned about 133 gay New York City youths on various topics, including long-term relationships, family, and adoption. Researchers found that "more than 90% of females and more than 80% of males expect to be partnered in a monogamous relationship after age 30." About 67% of males and 55% of females expressed the desire to raise children. In terms of adoption, 42% of males and 32% of females said they were likely to adopt children.
"We seem to be witnessing the mainstreaming of lesbian/gay youth, with many of them wanting exactly what heterosexual youth have always wanted — the whole American dream complete with kids and the minivan," Robert-Jay Green of the Rockway Institute said in a statement. "Most agree that the primary issue is whether these youth will be given the equal legal rights to realize their couple and family aspirations just like their heterosexual peers."
…which they won’t be able to achieve here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave if the religious right has its way. But they will elsewhere in the civilized world. And this is a generation raised on the Internet. The world is, literally, their oyster. They’ll go where they have the opportunities they need. They may always call themselves Americans. They may always think of themselves as Americans. But if they can’t find their American Dream here in America, they’ll go live where they Can find it.
My generation fled the sticks for the urban centers. In the future, they’ll speak of the gay American diaspora…
Same sex couples in the Australian Capital Territory thought they were going to be treated like human beings soon. Hahahahaha….
Australian Christian groups Monday welcomed a decision by a local territory government to abandon its plans to legalise same-sex civil unions after intervention from Canberra.
The Australian Capital Territory government, home to the national capital, wanted to introduce Civil Partnerships Legislation to allow gay couples to hold ceremonies legally recognising their relationship.
But it was forced to water down the proposal after the federal centre-left Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Sunday it would override any such legislation on the grounds that such unions would too closely resemble marriage.
The ACT government will now introduce laws under which gay couples can formally register their relationships, but any ceremony will have no legal recognition.
The Australian Christian Lobby group said it was pleased the federal government had got involved.
"We can’t allow marriage to become a political trophy for two percent of the population," head of the group Jim Wallace told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Trophy. Marriage is a trophy. Not a union between two people in love, body and soul. Not a commitment to love honor and cherish. But a trophy. Well that clears it up doesn’t it?
And here’s another trophy they can proudly display on their mantle…
As the nation’s culture changes in diverse ways, one of the most significant shifts is the declining reputation of Christianity, especially among young Americans. A new study by The Barna Group conducted among 16- to 29-year-olds shows that a new generation is more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago.
…The study shows that 16- to 29-year-olds exhibit a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations when they were at the same stage of life. In fact, in just a decade, many of the Barna measures of the Christian image have shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people. For instance, a decade ago the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society. Currently, however, just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a "good impression" of Christianity.
One of the groups hit hardest by the criticism is evangelicals. Such believers have always been viewed with skepticism in the broader culture. However, those negative views are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians…
…Interestingly, the study discovered a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.
Emphasis mine. I can’t imagine where this negative perception of Christianity is coming from…
Because if we don’t bleed, then they’re not righteous. Because if they can’t stick a knife into our dreams of love then they’re not following in Jesus’ footsteps. Because if they can’t turn our lives into a desolate nightmare then how on earth will God ever know how much they love him?
In fact, since the American Psychological Association says homosexuality is not a choice, some have even labeled sexuality an “undebatable” topic. While the APA did indeed make this claim, I prefer to go straight to the evidence itself rather than rely on the authority of the APA, the only professional institution to be censured by Congress by a unanimous vote.
He’s probably referring to This little bit of manufactured outrage…but never mind. Science holds no sway that a reasoned and considered vote of the impartial members of congress cannot overrule. If congress voted to make the value of Pi three exactly, then of course that would be its value…right?
…let’s jump straight into the facts, starting with Spitzer.
No, not Eliot Spitzer, Dr. Robert Spitzer of Columbia University. Some may recognize him for his role in removing homosexuality as mental disorder in 1973, and while many have praised his willingness to reject the dogma of the day in the name of science, few know the sequel to his story. 30 years later, Spitzer published a surprising paper based on his research, one which suggested that therapy can change the orientation of an individual. Spitzer still had the same commitment to follow the evidence, but many of his colleagues who vigorously supported him in 1973 had a sudden change of heart. In fact, in the most ironic twist of fate, Spitzer, an atheist, interviewed with Christianity Today in April 2005, elaborating on the consequences of his rigorous and scientific studies. “Many colleagues were outraged,” said Spitzer, later adding, “I feel a little battle fatigue.”
"…his rigorous and scientific studies." Sometimes you don’t know whether the winger children are laughing in your face or whether they’re really the gullible sheep they seem to be. If anything about Spitzer’s study was rigorous it was how meticulously rigged it was. In part and unforgivably with Spitzer’s willing consent, but also right under his nose, to produce a particular outcome. And nobody understands better how the rigging was accomplished then participants like Arana…
In fact, I know Dr. Robert Spitzer’s study well. Dr. Nicolosi asked me to participate in it, but instructed me not to reveal that he had referred me; while he wanted his organization’s views represented, he did not want to bring into question the study’s integrity. Wacker must not have read Dr. Spitzer’s study, or perhaps he has a naïve understanding of scientific inquiry. Otherwise he would know that the study consisted of informal interviews with ex-gays and those still in therapy; it was merely a report of what they had said. The APA and the psychological community have criticized the ex-gay movement for not providing controlled, long-term studies — to date, none exist.
Arana went into ex-gay therapy willingly, and left it feeling cheated. It’s a part of his life he says now that he does not revisit, "…not because it hurts especially but because it has become increasingly irrelevant." Thankfully, he was willing to share some of it in his article. For those of you who think the ex-gay movement isn’t about demonizing homosexuals so much as lovingly helping them with their same sex attraction disorder, read this:
Disgust with what was termed the “gay lifestyle” was implicit in therapy. I remember Dr. Nicolosi telling me, in response to the question of whether one could easily contract HIV from semen, that if this were the case then gays would be “jerking off in hamburgers all over” to infect people.
There’s the mindset right there that animates the pews in this particular congregation from one end to the other. And it’s why the patients ultimately don’t matter, and why the leaders of this movement don’t give a good goddamn about what happens to the people they treat or to their families after they leave therapy. You can’t harm someone who isn’t really fully human to start with. And you can’t destroy a family where no Real family exists as far as you are concerned…
I learned to be a man: I was encouraged to play catch with my father, work out, watch football. At one point Dr. Nicolosi assigned me a therapy partner who was my age. Ryan and I used to speak by phone (he was in Colorado, I in Arizona), gossiping about school, at one point promising to send each other pictures of ourselves (the canker was already on the rose). After not hearing from him for a few weeks I called his family, who told me that Ryan had gone to court and emancipated himself from them. His father, in tears, told me this had ruined his life.
Presumably, that father didn’t get a refund on his son’s ex-gay treatments either.
I wake up…roll out of bed…hit the bathroom for a bit and shave and freshen up…get dressed…halfway…and wander across the hall to my front office and sit down at Mowgli, my office computer. Mowgli runs CentOS, a Linux variant based on Red Hat Enterprise which I let run constantly. I check Thunderbird, my email client for any new mail…glancing at my Institute mailbox for any problems that may have cropped up. I have several processes that run overnight that check on systems I am responsible for and they email me reports when they’re finished. In one of my other mailboxes, usually every morning, is an email from Google News. I have a search set up to send me headlines every day relevant to GLBT news. I am also on several GLBT news mailing lists.
Here’s a smattering of the headlines that greeted me as I sat down to my computer this morning. They are eminently typical…
This being Louisiana, I wondered if the bill was as doomed for adding race to its language as sexual orientation. Naturally it was sponsored by democrats and bulldozed by the republicans, one of whom was proud to say the bill was opposed by the Louisiana Family Forum. Why does a group that claims to be about families hate children…you ask?
He says gay people can get married…just not to someone of their own sex…and that proves the law does not discriminate against us. And atheists had to obey the anti-religion laws in the old Soviet Union too, which proves the communists weren’t discriminating against Christians…
There is a gay candidate running in North Carolina. Granted it’s a pretty red state, but he’s doing well in the polls despite the fact that the democratic national committee is trying its level best to sabotage his candidacy. That’s bad enough. But then along comes our ersatz national gay rights organization and they won’t endorse the gay man’s candidacy because that might offend their beltway party pals in the DNC…who don’t want gay people running in high profile national races.
Meanwhile, grown adults in Louisiana voted throw gay school kids to the bullies, republicans in Pennsylvania are claiming that they’re not bigots simply because they want to write gay citizens out of their state constitution, haters are threatening one gay religious figure while another religious figure incites religious passions at gay people at the National Press Club, the right is thumping keep gay people out of the military, they’re pushing anti-gay shareholder resolutions at gay friendly corporations and I just woke up and sat down to look at the news.
Welcome to the typical day of a gay American. Now I have to finish getting dressed for work.
The anti-gay religious right is mounting Yet Another protest against the Day Of Silence, itself a protest against anti-gay violence in schools. First it was the misnamed Day Of Truth. Now it’s the Golden Rule Day. Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin writes about the competing religious right activity, and sums it up pretty thoroughly here…
More than a year ago, I attended a Love Won Out conference in Phoenix put on jointly by Exodus International and Focus On the Family. That’s where I heard Focus’s Mike Haley address anti-LGBT violence in a Q&A session:
I think, too, we also have to be just as quick to also stand up when we do see the gay and lesbian community being come against as the Body of Christ. We need to be the first to speak out to say that what happened to Matthew Shepard was a terrible incident and should never happen again. And that we within the Body of Christ are wanting to protect that community and put our money where our mouth is…
That was a real “Wow!” moment for me. I thought finally, someone gets it. I can’t tell you how encouraged I was to hear Mike Haley say that. It was an ultimate Golden Rule moment. And I can’t begin to describe how disappointed I’ve been since then.
One year later, Lawrence King was killed in cold blood on February 12 in front of his teachers and classmates. Since then, conservative Christians leaders have celebrated seventy-three consecutive Days of Silence.
Emphasis mine. You should go read the whole thing. Day of Silence? How about seventy-three Days of Silence after a 15 year old gay boy was shot in the head.
That says it all. Can we please stop talking about their "sincerely held religious beliefs" now? This isn’t about faith. This isn’t about how much they love God. It’s about how much they hate us.
Many times on this site, I have offered to anti-gay Christians the idea that they could still oppose homosexuality without spewing hate or contributing to the culture of violence that exists for gay people. I still truly believe that can be done. I would like to start offering some concrete suggestions that anti-gay, Christian organizations could use to oppose homosexuality but without the hate speech.
But then he goes a little further…
I would appreciate pro-gay folks taking a moment to empathize with those who are oppose gay rights and give them some concrete requests to how they can voice religious opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage without promoting violence or hate toward gays. Understanding that some people believe homosexuality is against their religion, not everyone who voices opposition to us is a religious extremist. Some people just hold different beliefs. Perhaps we can talk about better ways to voice those beliefs and even run organizations that lobby for anti-gay rights groups without hate.
I have several problems with this Joe. Thirdly, you shouldn’t assume that us "pro-gay" folks haven’t tried…hard…to understand what is motivating the opposition. Do not assume that its easier to write off the opposition as malicious and hateful unless you’ve looked, really looked, into that Pit called Hate. There is nothing easy about walking up to that terrible edge, and looking in. There is nothing easy about having to go on living with what you saw. Nietzsche was right about the danger of gazing into an abyss.
Secondly, opposition to some things, like same sex marriage, is predicated upon the very dehumanization of gay people you’re asking them to refrain from. There is just no way to oppose same sex marriage while upholding opposite sex marriage without dehumanizing gay people first. It’s one thing to assert that marriage is essentially a religious rite and another to oppose even civil unions, let alone civil marriage. A lot of deeply religious people see the difference there perfectly well. The problem is that haters tend give their principle objection to same sex marriage a religious gloss to prevent people from actually looking right at it and seeing it for what it is.
If atheists can marry in ceremonies utterly bereft of any acknowledgment of God, then what, really, is the objection? It isn’t religious. It’s constitutional in the sense that they regard same sex relationships as a perversion of normal love. That’s what is being said in the opposition to same sex marriage. They’re not objecting to sinners marrying in sin. Someone else’s sin does not defile their own marriages or every 24 hour church in Las Vegas would have been closed down decades ago. Sinners are free to marry every day of the year as long as it’s to a person of the opposite sex. What the haters have been saying, unambiguously for decades now, is that letting gay couples marry defiles their own marriages. By making a mockery of their feelings for one another. Because homosexuals are incapable of those same feelings. Because all we can do, as Orson Scott Card once put it, is play at house.
Witness their insistence lately on that so-called complementary essence of heterosexual unions. Really look at it. What they’re saying is we don’t even have genuine sex, let alone authentically love the person in our arms. What they’re saying is that by calling our damaged, degenerate, empty assignations marriages we are mocking, deliberately mocking, their authentic humanity. That is not about sin, it’s about how they regard gay people as subhuman deviants. Perverts. Degenerates. That is what we are to them, and that is the basis for their opposition to same sex marriage, or they wouldn’t be using the language of defilement to describe their opposition. Two heterosexual drunks getting married after having sex in a Las Vegas hotel doesn’t devalue marriage. Two sober homosexuals claiming to love and cherish one another just like heterosexuals do does. You are asking them to stop dehumanizing gay people in their opposition to same sex marriage when the bedrock of that opposition is how thoroughly they’ve dehumanized us.
But my first and biggest problem with your suggestion is that the folks who aren’t extremists have never acted toward us in hateful ways. There are many devout people out there who aren’t waging kulturkampf against us but are simply and sincerely, if misguidedly, trying to steer us away from what they regard as sin. They aren’t lobbying against us in the statehouses and in Washington. They aren’t flinging mud at us, at our relationships, at our homes, at our hearts. They are instead, offering us a kind of hospitality. The "Good News" as they say. But that hospitality is hard to see beneath all the static the religious right is throwing out into the public discourse.
We don’t need to give those folks any of this advice because they know it all instinctively. And…this is important…they know it instinctively because They Can See The People For The Homosexuals. We are not some faceless other to them. We are not monsters. We are their neighbors. We are human beings to them, as real and as human as they. They have always known this, and they have always treated us as they would treat any neighbor in this life.
Joe…I think you should look…really look…at the advice you are giving the ones you think should hear it, and ask yourself in all seriousness, what sort of person needs to be told any of this…
…start talking about anti-gay violence and condemning it very vocally…
…be sure your information is balanced and based on PEER REVIEWED research…
…If your message is truly about “reaching out” to gays and lesbians than stay away from calling us insulting and dehumanizing names like sodomite and militant…
…Promote youth safety. If you are opposed to teaching about homosexuality in schools or anti-bullying campaigns that include homosexuality as a subject, then you damn well better have a solution to offer that stops the violence and shame that makes life miserable for these kids…
…Gays and lesbians want the same things out of life that you do. I cannot and will not believe that you unable to come up with ways to present your message without the barrage of negative pictures of gays and lesbians…
…Gays and lesbians really are reasonable human beings. Have you ever thought of setting up some meetings with your organization and pro-gay organizations to see what you can work on together and what you can agree on…
…The only reason this is a “war” is because you continue to promote it as one. If you promoted it as a collaboration or a disagreement, then it would be that instead of a war…
…Admit it when someone on your side just goes too far. Comparing us to terrorist went too far…
…We would appreciate it if you could acknowledge that our requests are valid requests even if you disagree with what we want. There is no secret agenda. We want equality and safety…
…Lastly, vow yourself and your organization to abandon myths about homosexuality, especially the one about us choosing to be gay. No one chooses to be gay. Each time you say that you minimize the whole issue to a simple choice and if it were so simple, I wouldn’t be writing this list of requests right now…
Exodus has been saying out of both sides of its mouth for years how "thousands have made the choice to leave homosexuality" and at the same time when asked to back that up with some cold hard facts admits that it is not, as you say, so simple after all. Do you think they cannot hear themselves talking out of both sides of their mouths?
Who needs this advice Joe? No one who would actually take it is who. You are looking for good faith where there is none. What does opposition to homosexuality minus the hate look like? Well I’ve seen it…rarely…but I’ve seen it, and it looks like hospitality. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I would also ask pro-gay folks to try their best to frame their request in Positive Actions Language. In other words, ask people what you DO want them to do, not what you DON’T want them to do.
I want them to get off my back. I want them to get the hell out of my garden. I want them to finally one day look at themselves in a mirror and die of that shame they’ve been running away from ever since they sold their soul to hate because it was easier then living in a world where other people are happy and content. That positive enough?
Another thing about the homosexual/Christian “issue” is that it seems to me that we Christians should be clear on the fact that asserting homosexuals should stop acting homosexual necessarily means asserting that they should spend their lives never knowing the loving intimacy with another that straight people enjoy and know to be the best and richest experience in life.
If I were gay, and I lived and behaved in the way most Christians (understandably!) defend as biblical, I would live alone. I wouldn’t wake up every morning next to my wife. I’d never hold hands with my wife. I’d never kiss my wife. I’d never cuddle with my wife. I’d not know the profound pleasure of every day growing older with my wife. Remaining as sinless as possible would, for me, mean never knowing love of the sort that all straight people, Christian or not, understand as pretty much the best thing life has to offer.
Again: I’m not saying that it’s manifestly absurd and even cruel to suggest that everyone within a broad swath of our population spend their lives in emotional and physical isolation. I believe in the tenets of Christianity as ferociously as any Christian in the world. All I’m saying is that, as far as I can tell, we Christians (insofar as we ever speak with one voice) are saying that it is morally incumbent upon homosexuals to spend their lives in emotional and physical isolation. I hear a lot of Christians asserting that gays and lesbians should stop acting like gays and lesbians. But I never hear anyone saying the unavoidable follow-up to that — saying what that really means — which is that gay and lesbian men and women should spend their lives never experiencing what people most commonly mean when they use the word “love.”
This is what I’ve been waiting to see…someone who believes the bible categorically forbids same sex relationships admit what that really means to gay people. Not babble that homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex. Not witlessly deny that there is ever any fulfilling, romantic, body and soul and spirit component to same sex relationships. But honestly and seriously look at what denying intimate romantic love to gay people does to their lives, to their inner lives, to their heart and soul. To our spirit.
Someone who is at least willing to both see human beings when they look at us, and honestly acknowledge the hell we are being put through for the sake of these biblical passages, can be talked with.
Thank you Mr. Shore. I’ve been waiting for literally decades to see a Christian writer make this connection. Usually it’s just quickly glossed over. I think the reason why is pretty obvious.
When my mom passed away a few years ago, I inherited her diaries. We never discussed my sexual orientation…it was a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell household. I was, like her, raised a Baptist, and the time of my coming of age coincided, not coincidentally, with the period of my leaving the faith. What I expected to read in her diaries from that time was grief over my slow but steady walk away from our church. But no. Grief there was, but it was almost exclusively over how the bright and cheerful son she once had turned into a moody, sullen, angry young man. It makes me cry to read those entries.
When you take the possibility of love away from someone…what do they have left? Think about that, the next time you see an angry homosexual.
Bruce: Perfectly said. Just … perfect. And what a touching, heart-wrenching story.
Liberal Christians like Fred Clark have never had any trouble acknowledging the spiritual potential of same sex love. But they’re not generally biblical literalists. Hopefully I’ll see more of this from those in the coming years. The people who don’t care and just don’t want to know have had the stage for far too long.
When I was 16 I had a dark secret. Something that embarrassed me deeply. Something I knew I could never tell my friends about. No…not my sexual orientation, although this secret of mine really should have spelled it out for me in neon lights. But I was young, and naive, and full of all the myths, lies and superstitions about homosexuality that the adults in my life had fed me, so I was sure I wasn’t one. I didn’t swish…I didn’t lisp…I enjoyed most of the typical boyhood pastimes and had little to no use for girl things. Well…except one. My private stash of Tiger Beat and 16 Magazines. That was my embarrassing secret.
Every month when the new issues would come out, I would sweat blood walking to a drugstore miles away from the nearest ones to my apartment, to get my fix where hopefully none of my school mates would recognize me. Once there I would load up on several other magazines and stuff the ones I really wanted in the middle of the stack and hope the checkout clerk wouldn’t notice too much that a teenage boy was buying teenage girl magazines. Occasionally an eyebrow would arch in my direction, and I would lamely say I was buying them for a non-existent sister. More often then not, the statement was greeted with smirking disbelief. Checkout clerks probably know more about human nature then priests do.
I would take my swag home and immediately open the teen mags and go right to the pages with photos of my favorites on them…my teenage heart-throbs if I had enough courage back then to acknowledge it. But I didn’t. I’d been told all my life that homosexuals were dangerous psychopaths who killed and mutilated strangers while having horrible, perverse sex. And I, being a bit of a late bloomer actually, was still too young to have all that much interest in sex. But I knew I liked looking at beautiful guys. I knew that something about them made my heart sigh. I would lay awake some nights imagining how it would be to be their best friend.
Looking back on all of it, in a different world I could have had my own sweet little teenybopper adolescence. It would have been nice to be able to grow up like most other kids without fear or shame of my own sexuality, and just grow into it naturally. I picture myself sometimes at that age, sitting at my desk, pen or brush in hand, working on a cartoon for the school newspaper, or alternatively soldering iron in hand, circuit boards and a tray of components in front of me, working on a new Heathkit stereo, photos of my favorite funny cars on the wall in front of me, side by side with those of my current male teen heartthrob, the radio next to me playing bubblegum pop. But for a change it’s something that isn’t afraid to speak to the gay teens in the audience too…
This morning, I woke up with this feeling
I didn’t know how to deal with
And so I just decided to myself
I’d hide it to myself
And never talk about it
And did not go and shout it
When you walked into the room …..
"I think I love you!" "I think I love you!"
David Cassidy…man oh man…what a bitchin’ Fox!!!
I picture myself being open and cheerful about my developing romantic interests in guys. At home and at school, among my friends, among my family. Bruce is growing up…and, oh look, he’s discovered…boys. Well, well… His friendships always were a bit intense… So different I would have been from the shy, quiet boy who kept himself slightly apart from the others, because he didn’t understand himself, and was so afraid how people would react to him if he let his guard down. I would probably have been just another bubbly adolescent…a bit artistic, a bit of a techno geek, typically boyish but with a positively girlish streak in him whenever it came to boys I found too cute for words.
But I wasn’t allowed that adolescence. Instead I hid my teen magazines under the bed, and listened to my bubblegum pop alone, never really realizing that I was on the threshold of one of this life’s most wonderful moments…the time we discover what love is all about. I could have walked into it happily…joyfully even. Instead I struggled, stumbled, and hid my heart fearfully. My mom would remark with great sadness in her diaries (which I inherited after her death) how I had changed from a cheerful young boy into one of sullen moods, and a sudden angry temper. It makes me cry to read those entries.
I look at my record collection from back then…mostly the 45rpm singles I bought in my middle teen years because back then I wouldn’t spend the price of a whole album unless it was a band I really liked a lot, and I see almost nothing but love songs among them. Granted, that’s mostly what rock has always been. But there was a lot of it back then about life and politics, the war and the struggles our generation was going through. Songs I loved like For What It’s Worth, and Incense and Peppermint…and interestingly enough in retrospect, Hold Your Head Up.
And if it’s bad
Don’t let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don’t let them see you cry, you can take it
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let them change a thing what you’re doing
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
I don’t think I need to analyze very much why I liked that one. But the songs I turned to again and again alone in my bedroom were the love songs, and what is amazing to me about that in retrospect is that at that age I really didn’t care much for all that gushy love stuff. I was going through my stacks of 45 rpms the other day and it just floored me how much of it was surgery sweet love songs. As I remember that part of my life, I didn’t have much interest in all that love stuff. But then, nobody told me I could fall in love with a guy either.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the lyrics in those songs, but something in the music itself spoke to me, in a way that the lyrics, speaking only to the straight boys in the audience, never could. I would connect with it instantly when I heard it on the radio, and like a flash I was down to the record store to by the single. It would be years before I would find myself listening to the lyrics. I had to grow into myself as a gay man first, and then learn the trick a lot of gay guys have to learn in this world, of mentally changing a pronoun as I listen…
You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
[Girl], we couldn’t get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
I never really paid much attention to those lyrics at first. Just the music, and the sultry sound of Morrison’s voice.
You are all the [woman] I need, and baby you know it,
You can make this beggar a king, a clown or a poet.
I’ll give you all that I own.
You got me standing in line
Out in the cold,
pay me some mind.
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me,
Long as you love me, it’s all right
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you wnat me,
You got the power to turn on the light.
Something in the music spoke to me, in a way the lyrics just didn’t. My record collection is full of these kinds of songs. Bubblegum pop mostly, as they called it back then. In another world, there would have been some that spoke directly to gay guys, or at least was gender neutral enough that I could have taken the lyrics to heart as much as I did the music. But even back then, well before I came out to myself as a gay man, I had a soul for sweet love songs. Perhaps…a tad too sweet.
Which brings me to the one other thing that embarrassed me slightly back in those days, but not so much that I felt I had to go to great lengths to hide it from my friends. That was my taste in music. On the one hand, it was The Doors, and Airplane, and Led Zeppelin. On the other, it was The Monkees, Buddha Records, and Crimson and Clover. In retrospect I’m surprised more of my classmates hadn’t figured me out long before I’d figured out myself. But as it turns out, even were I straight I’d have had to hide most of my record collection from my friends. In another world, I would have been allowed to enjoy that music. In this one only teenage girls are allowed to like those kinds of songs. Because…well…they’re girls.
In most respects I was your usual adolescent male. But there was this definite girlish streak in me that would just pop out at various times. And well before I came understand myself as a gay man, I knew better then to let people see it. I kept it to myself alone in my bedroom. That knowledge had been driven into me in the usual way it is with boys like the one I was, on the school yards and in the hallways, and around corners where no one could see, I would get beaten…badly sometimes…by other boys who thought it was so much fund to beat the crap of out kids like me. But let’s face it, they’d been given permission to by the adults in their lives, and by the culture they lived in.
Girly boy. Consider that phrase for a moment. The knuckle dragging morons who throw it around can be driven by homophobia at times…maybe even most times…but not always. Even among gay males, you see the occasional contempt for those among us who are not 200 percent masculine. There is more misogyny in that phrase, then homophobia. I wouldn’t call myself effeminate. I don’t think any of my friends would either. A bit nerdish, yeah. A bit wonkish. I am no John Wayne by any means, but no Liberace either. But there is this definite girlish streak in me and I have struggled for most of my life now to let it just be itself because I repressed it so deeply when I was a teenager, and then again as a young adult male. Never mind being gay. Gay or straight, guys are not supposed to be sweethearts.
Which brings me to a post a read just yesterday over at Pam’s House Blend…
The writer gives an interesting history of Rickrolling, and then this rather poignant little personal story…
I was introducted to Rickrolling by my teenage nephew about a year or so ago. My nephew told me that he and his friends amuse themselves by sending music and video clips of Rick Astley via e-mail, and cellphone.
When my nephew showed me the video of Rick Astley singing Never gonna Give You Up on YouTube, he laughed out loud uncontrolably. Then, I asked him, "Why do you think this is so funny?"
Silence.
Uh, oh. I’d seen that silent response before. My nephew suddenly remembered that his favorite uncle is gay. He was at a loss for words as to how to explain why he finds Rick Astley to be funny.
I had to press him for the truth, "Is it because he looks gay?"
"Uh, it isn’t that he looks so gay, Uncle Fritz. It is because, uh, his voice doesn’t fit the way he looks."
"Gay?"
Silence.
Of course, ‘gay’ has been turned into an all-around put-down in schools these days…sort of like the way ‘Jewish’ used to be used as a synonym for someone who was cheap or stingy or selfish. I was Rickrolled a few days ago…by a gay friend no less…and I picked up on what was going on immediately. It’s not homophobia specifically. The joke isn’t that Astley or his music is gay in the sense of…well…homosexual. It’s gay in the general put-down sense. It’s gay as in lame. It’s gay as in wimpy. It’s gay as in weak. More to the point, it’s gay as in Sissy.
Now people have been putting down each other’s music since humans were making tunes with drums and sticks, so I don’t think it’s all about gender bullying. Music just reaches in to a place deep inside of us, past our logical rational parts, and strums our feelings directly. Music that rubs our emotions the wrong way can be really, really annoying and it’s no more a rational distaste then seeing someone you find unattractive naked is. I’m sure Never Going To Give You Up gets on a lot of people’s nerves. But enough people liked it that it became an international hit. How many songs do that? Why the disrespect? Simple:
Here’s the thing I want you to notice: it wasn’t Eltonrolling. Say what you want about Elton John, but that he’s a large presence in the pop music world is undeniable. He’s made millions, and that gives him a measure of power and respect. Rick Astley is the too cute for his own good boy-next-door who likes to bring his girl flowers and write her pretty songs and gets the crap beaten out of him by the other kids on a regular basis. That’s why it’s Rickrolling and not Eltonrolling. It isn’t about gay. It’s about wuss.
Sissy is in fact, a put-down applied to gay people out of contempt. The stereotype is that we’re all limp-wristed, swishing lisping effeminates. And yes, you meet some pretty girlish gay guys. But then you also meet some pretty girlish straight ones too. Sometimes those are called Effete Intellectuals. Sometimes they are Bleeding-heart Liberals. This chest thumping de-masculinization of the hated other is about as primitive as it gets, which is why you see a lot of it in school yards and hallways. But more then that, it is a deeply perverse attack not just on the humanity of the target, but on humanity itself. Cold hearted brutality does not build civilizations, it only and gleefully destroys them. It is our ability to love and trust one another, cooperate and protect one another, that keeps the jungle from our streets. The deeper, more ancient animal parts of us may be our bedrock, but it is our capacity to love and cherish that takes us out of the ancient wilderness and into civilization.
But that’s a world the gutter cannot cope with. A world where the smaller gentler boys aren’t afraid, are happy and carefree, is a world where the survival skills of thugs don’t get them anywhere, and that’s a world they will not endure the sight of.
It was more then a cheerful adolescence that was taken from me. It was a part of me that I lost in those years. So different I would have been from the shy, quiet boy who kept himself slightly apart from the others, because he didn’t understand himself, and was so afraid how people would react to him if he let his guard down. Instead I struggled, stumbled, and hid my heart fearfully, and changed from a cheerful young boy into one of sullen moods, and a sudden angry temper. This is how the gutter wins. I’ve been trying to reclaim this part of myself ever since. Maybe some day the human race will stop allowing its children to be abused.
Via Box Turtle Bulletin… Now what the hell was this supposed to accomplish…?
We commented earlier on how the mainstream media omitted all mention of Major Alan Rogers’ orientation or of his efforts to overturn the military’s ban on open gay servicemen. We told you how the Washington Post ombudsman wrote a column to repair that deliberate exclusion. Now there’s a new twist.
The user on Monday redacted details about Rogers that appeared on the online encyclopedia site. Information that was deleted included Rogers’ sexual orientation; the soldier’s participation in American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group that works to change military policy toward gays; and the fact that Rogers’ death helped bring the U.S. military’s casualty toll in Iraq to 4,000.
And while the individual responsible isn’t known,
The IP address attached to the deletion of the details and the posted comments is 141.116.168.135. The address belongs to a computer from the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at the Pentagon. The office is headed by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who was present at Rogers’ funeral and presented the flag from Rogers’ coffin to his cousin, *Cathy Long.
The factual information has been reinstated in the Wikipedia entry.
* Long is the cousin that was unaware of Rogers’ orientation and thought it should be left out of the Post article.
Alan Rogers’ was a soldier and a gay man. He was dedicated to equal rights for gay soldiers. He kept his sexual orientation at least partly in the closet, so he could continue to serve. That is the devil’s bargan Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell demands of gay soldiers. He could have easily avoided the FUBAR that George Bush made of Iraq by coming out of the closet and getting his discharge. He didn’t. Whatever you think of Bush’s splendid little war, Alan Rogers’ was obviously proud of his service to the United States. While in uniform, bearing arms for the sake of his country, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. The least his country could do, is be proud of him too.
And I think his country Is proud. Even the piss ignorant jackasses who still believe in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Some of them anyway. Probably not James Dobson or Sally Kern. But I think even louts like Charles Krauthammer would salute this man’s memory, just as he was. Maybe. However, as you can see, it is still far too much to ask of the stars and bars in their comfortable air conditioned pentagon offices, that they be proud of All their fallen heroes.
The organization collecting signatures for a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage in California says it is close to meeting the requirement.
Protect Marriage says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed. The deadline for turning in the petitions to county registrars is April 21.
Registrars are then required to take a random sample of signatures to verify. If that sampling shows at least 10 percent more valid signatures than required the petitions will be certified and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.
"The numbers are good, solid," Ron Prentice, a spokesperson for Protect Marriage told The Christian Examiner, a conservative Christian publication.
"We are well toward our goal. There are thousands more yet to be counted with a steady stream still coming in."
Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000 prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties. Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.
Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.
It would just break my heart if the land of my birth did that to me. I’ve noted before that the only reason I can travel freely around the United States is that I’m single. If I had a spouse, there are many states in this so-called union that we simply could not set foot in because if one of us had a sudden health problem, or there was an accident, it would become a nightmare for both of us. Even with a so-called durable power of attorney, we could be denied the right to simply be with each other in a hospital…even with a medical directives document…we could be denied the power to make medical decisions for each other should one of us become suddenly incapacitated. Some state constitutional amendments, like Virginia’s are so stringently and thoroughly crafted to ostracize same sex couples from the protections of the law, that they can even be read to deny same sex couples the right to hold a joint checking account.
There are simply not that many people in this country who hate us enough to want to do that to us. The problem, like it was for another hated minority group over in Europe back in the 1920s and 30s, is that the rest of the nation doesn’t care enough to tell them to stop it. So when these amendments are put up to a vote, they stay home and allow hate to have its way. These are the people who say later, "We heard the rumors, but we didn’t believe them…"
Once upon a time I planned to move back to California after mom passed away. Then I got the job I do now, and my little Baltimore rowhouse, and I stayed in Maryland. But even now I think sometimes that when my time to retire comes, if it ever does, I’d like to spend the last years of my life back there where I was born. It’s a lovely state. It would break my heart if the day ever came that I couldn’t even visit California again.
You can tell a lot about the people in the boardroom by how well they treat the workers who are the public face of their business. I think I just learned today everything I need to know about Starbucks: they steal tip money from their servers.
Thousands of Starbucks employees got a personal message from their upset boss, who said the company was being “grossly mischaracterized” in the media over a recent tip pool controversy that could cost the company more than $100 million.
Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz, in a voice-mail message to employees Wednesday night, called last week’s ruling by a California judge "extremely unfair and beyond reason" and said he wanted employees to know the truth.
"I want to personally let you know that we would never condone any type of behavior that would lead anyone to conclude that we would take money from our people," he said.
In a separate statement, the company also said, "Contrary to some reports, Starbucks has not taken money from any of its partners, and nor is there money to be refunded or returned from Starbucks." A spokeswoman said Thursday that Starbucks Corp. has no intention of ending the practice of sharing tips among baristas and shift supervisors in California while it seeks an injunction.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett, in her ruling last week, said there was "uncontroverted testimony that Starbucks continues to utilize the distribution of tips from the tip pool to compensate shift supervisors as well as baristas." Cowett ordered Starbucks to pay thousands of California baristas $86.7 million plus interest for breaking the law.
Now…read that again, particularly that second to last paragraph. Starbucks is saying that "contrary to some reports" they don’t take money from their "partners"…and then in the next breath they insist they’ll keep on doing it. The weasel word there is "partners". Starbucks doesn’t take any money from its "partners". But "partners" isn’t the issue, however Starbucks chooses to define who is and who is not a "partner". The issue is, are they taking tip money from their servers. And…yes as a matter of fact, they are. That’s what, specifically, they were found guilty of doing, and that’s what, specifically, they’re insisting they’ll keep right on doing.
The tips belong to the servers. Customers aren’t tipping the business, they’re tipping their servers. In most cases, the tips are what the servers depend on for a decent income. Taking their tip money is not only immoral, it also happens to be illegal in many states, including California. Now…it’s one thing to insist you weren’t breaking the law. It’s another to insist that the law is unconstitutional and you’ll fight it all the way to the supreme court. And it’s another still to insist that you didn’t do it, in the same breath as you assert that you’re going to keep right on doing it. Starbucks isn’t just giving the finger to it’s servers and customers here, it’s laughing in the face of anyone who can read plan English.
A dear friend of mine works as a waiter, but that’s not the only reason this behavior makes me angry. I never worked for tips in my life…I’m just not outgoing enough to make a go of that kind of work. You have to have a bit of the stage in you I think to be good at that and I am more stage crew then stage. But I know very well what it’s like to work in the service sector and it’s many hours of of hard, thankless work for mostly uncaring, rude and overbearing bosses, usually for not enough money to make ends meet. From what I hear, most folks who work service sector jobs these days need two jobs to earn a bare bones living. And a lot of those businesses nowadays do their damndest to avoid having to pay their service people a decent wage…from limiting their hours so they don’t qualify for full time benefits (and federal protections), to creatively placing them into pseudo-management positions so they don’t have to pay them overtime.
I guess stealing your employee’s tip money is just another way of lining your pockets being a successful businessman in Republican Party Of Moral Values America. How Howard Schultz can live as well as he does and take his servers’ tip money and still look at himself in a mirror every morning and think he sees a decent man looking back at him and not a slimeball is beyond me. Thankfully.
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