Jonathan Rauch has a good column up concerning tomorrow’s supreme court hearing on Washington D.C.’s inane gun ban. Rauch is one of the few conservatives, and the only gay conservative I can still trust to be making his arguments in good faith. And I can actually read him with the expectation that I’ll find myself agreeing with him, at least to some degree, more often then not. Sometimes, like in this column I’m in complete agreement with him.
Via Dan Savage over at SLOG… Seems like this is my week to revisit some folks I’ve done political cartoons on. This time it’s Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern, who back in May of 2005 demanded that all Oklahoma public libraries move any book with a gay or lesbian character or theme into a restricted adults only section. Not that Oklahoma has any shortage of office holders who like to gay bash for votes, but Kern if anything, represents a portion of America distinctive for the authenticity and the stamina of its hate. Hear it speak:
Gay America doesn’t really need to hear this. This sort of thing is nothing new to us. We hear it all the time. We know what it is that we’re facing. It is straight America that needs to hear this. All of you, who think that the gay community exaggerates the threat we face every day in a nation where this kind of poisonous vitriol remains largely unexamined, unacknowledged, and unconfronted. The reason Sally Kern can feel free to say that gay people, Gay People, are a cancer spreading throughout America isn’t that she was speaking before a small group of like minded bigots, but that the larger community of heterosexual Americans don’t bother paying attention to the torrent of hate right under their noses. Until it actually kills some poor kid like Matthew Shepard, or Lawrence King. For the sake of your country, for the sake of your own personal safety because more and more these days, straight people are getting gay bashed too, you need to listen to this.
The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation.
Not everyone’s lifestyle is equal. Just like not all religions are equal.
No society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more then, you know, a few decades.
It’s the death knell for this country.
I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has. Even more so then terrorism.
They’re going after…in schools…two year olds.
They’re going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.
Gays are infiltrating city councils.
Have you heard that the city council of Eureka Springs is controlled by gays? There are some others…Pittsburgh Pennsylvania…Kensington Maryland…Oregon, West Palm Beach Florida and many other places in Florida… What’s happening? And they are winning elections.
If you’ve got cancer or something in your little toe, do you say, you know I’m going to just forget about it because the rest of me is fine? It spreads. Okay? And this stuff is deadly and it is spreading and it will destroy our young people and it will destroy this nation.
This is what republicans have been driving voters to the polls with for decades now. And it’s been killing people. And they don’t care, as long as it wins them elections.
Via Pam’s House Blend… Right Wing Watch has this video up on McCain’s new buddy, Ron Parsley, whom I’ve done a political cartoon about previously…
“This so-called hate crimes legislation would preferred status to people based on entirely on who they choose as a sexual partner. What if they change their mind the next night!”
“Why is marriage under attack?!…Why is the family coming under such brutal attack from the forces of darkness…”
“I will lift my voice against THE AGENDA of America’s tortured and angry homosexual population…”
“In essence the Supreme Court of the United States on June 26, 2003, legalized the perverted act of sodomy. And we said nothing…”
“This is not about homosexual rights or lesbian rights…this is about THE DESTRUCTION of the VERY COVENANT (organ music rises up in the background as he waves his finger desperately) They are seeking to “redefine” marriage. In other words, they are intending to PERVERT God’s original intention!”
Parsley, an Ohio megachurch pulpit thumper once shouted out at the “War on Christians” conference in 2006, “A spiritual invasion is taking place! Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!” When these righteous men of god, these men of high moral values speak of war, people listen. And here’s the blood payoff…
The mistake when these people rail against hate crime laws, is to take the rhetoric at face value. They’re babbling that those laws will restrict their ability to preach lock and load sermons from the pulpit, but it’s not the loss of their the first amendment rights they’re worried about. When Parsley shouts “lock and load” he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s calling for blood on the streets. If his useful tools, the young male thugs he’s counting on strike fear into the hearts of gay people, suddenly find themselves being held accountable for their actions, then they might think twice and Parsley’s work, and that of his fellow hate mongers will all be in vain. They’re not worried about being silenced. They’re worried that their words won’t have the desired effect anymore, that the bloodshed will stop. A fearful homosexual, is a good homosexual. A dead homosexual, is an even better one.
No…Actually The Grass Isn’t Any Greener Over There Either…
Whenever someone starts preaching to me about how the sex lives of gay people are sad and broken I just cheerfully point them to the tons, literally tons, of articles out there written by heterosexuals, for heterosexuals on how to fix their own broken sex lives. If the grass is any greener on their side of the fence I’ve yet to see it. Other then the fact that their marriages are given some security in the rule of law that ours are not, their intimate sex lives don’t seem any less difficult to manage then our own.
And believe it or not, single though I’ve been most of my life, and gay ever since…well, puberty…I read those articles now and then, mostly for clues as to what pitfalls to avoid in the event that my own sex life happens to improve. Even though they’re written with a basic premise of gender difference in the relationship, a lot of it can I think, apply to same sex couples too. Conversely, I think opposite sex couples could learn a thing or two from our households too. How gender equality works in practice being one of them, but also how it is to keep things together in a hostile world. When all you have is literally each other, and you have to find a way to make it work without the support of the world around you, then you really know what your union is made of. The same sex couples who have made it in this world, under that kind of relentless emotional stress, are my heroes.
He’s a 38-year-old executive. She’s a 34-year-old homemaker. He says they never fight, and in many ways they’re compatible — but not when it comes to sex.
"It’s almost like a checklist," says Jon (who asked that his real name not be used) of their once-a-month lovemaking. The problem, he believes, is a lack of desire.
Sexually unfulfilling marriages aren’t limited to new parents or aging baby boomers with hormone imbalances. They can ensnare even the relatively young and the recently married. When they are unable to blame kids, stress or physical issues, many couples struggle unhappily to identify — and resolve — the problems behind their lackluster sex life.
Couples end up in sexually unfulfilling marriages for a variety of reasons, says Marty Klein, a licensed marriage counselor and certified sex therapist in Palo Alto, California. One reason, he says, is America’s obsession with marriage.
Laura Berman, a Chicago sex therapist and relationship expert, agrees. "We put the blinders on when we’re dating," she says. "We focus so much on the wedding, we don’t notice the warning signs."
That obsession with marriage being fueled in part, by the fundamentalist kook pews here. Not everyone is temperamentally suited for marriage, and in any case, after you’re married is the wrong time to find out you’re not sexually compatible. Having sex while dating and before marriage, or for that matter when marriage isn’t even a goal, isn’t unhealthy unless it’s unloving. Much as the right hates the sex drive, it’s an important part of our being. Just ask your gay and lesbian neighbors: It does us great harm to put sex in the closet.
In more ways then one. As I was scanning down that CNN article, I saw this on the page…
When your spouse announces he’s gay… Which, wasn’t one of those Surprising reasons you’re not having sex either as it turned out. A lot of right wing pulpit thumpers say that sex before marriage is responsible for weakening the institution of marriage, but it isn’t. It’s the padded cell they’ve put marriage into on the one hand, and sex on the other, that’s weakened it. There is nothing wrong with sex that is truly loving and joyful. The more gay people know that and accept that there is nothing wrong with them and that their sex drives are as legitimate and as beautiful as those of heterosexuals, the fewer surprised spouses there’ll be. And the more intimately couples know each other before they tie the knot, the more likely they’ll go into it with that beautiful body and soul union that can make a marriage endure anything.
I’ve seen it happen. Maybe someday it’ll happen to me. If the pulpit thumpers would just get the fuck off our backs and out of our beds, it might happen to more of us.
Travel experts at the Gay & Lesbian Travel Pavilion at the world’s largest tourism fair have said the a new niche market for heterosexuals has emerged.
"Apart from gay and lesbian cruises, we have noticed a clear rise in hotels and resorts that are not only gay-friendly but targeted mainly towards gay men.
"Straight people are, in most cases, allowed to stay, too. The magic word is straight-friendly," said Robert Kastl, Managing Director of Publicom GmbH, the organisers of the Pavilion.
ITB Berlin, the world’s largest tourism fair, is being held in Berlin from March 5th to 9th.
He claims that destinations that have already established a gay-friendly image are increasingly putting their bets on explicitly gay and lesbian events, which are open to heterosexuals too.
"The range of special travel products has increased and even within the gay and lesbian travel market we are noticing more and more diverse sub-niches," says Kastl.
The reason I prefer to go to gay friendly places while on vacation is because it’s nice to be able to actually relax and let my hair down and enjoy myself and not have to worry that some asswipe is going to bash my skull in to prove how manly he is and/or much he loves god. But what I would really like is to be able to enjoy a mixed and diverse crowd of folks who all get along and just want to have a good time wherever we all happen to be.
You have to figure that a heterosexual who goes to a gay friendly resort goes knowing that they’re going to be in the company of gay people and will likely find themselves witnessing PDAs between same sex couples, if not being the recipient of a cruising glance or two themselves. If they’re the sort that doesn’t faze then far as I’m concerned I’d love to share a vacation space with them. Be really nice to, at least for a few brief vacation days, imagine you’re living in a world where being gay (and for that matter, the color of your skin, or the country you’re from or the specifics of your religion) is no more an issue then the color of your eyes or your hair. It’s hard to believe in that world if everyone around you is the same…even if that sameness is something you need to make you more comfortable. Especially if, actually.
I’ve never been so busy in my life over a weekend, which is why I haven’t been posting. But it’s been exhilarating. And these people, these decent, good-hearted courageous people, have provided a much needed tonic to my chronic anger. To witness so much pain and emotional anguish, so many raw wounds, and still see such essential human decency shining though it all, is astonishing at times. I could never loose my belief in the human status after this weekend.
John Holm, Jacob Wilson, Peterson Toscano, Daniel Gonzales and Brandon Tidwell,
before entering the Love Won Out Conference. All five are survivors of various
forms of ex-gay therapy. John, Peterson, Daniel and Brandon are holding collages that
depict their individual journeys through the ex-gay movement, which they presented
to Exodus conference organizers. They were able to talk briefly with some of them,
before being ejected from the conference building.
Peterson, Branden, Jacob and John on their way back from presenting their
collages to the Exodus conference organizers. No…Daniel didn’t get eaten…he
just walked quickly ahead of the others so he could get back to his video camera
to record the others walking back.
I feel so privileged to have been allowed, encouraged even, to photographically document the weekend events. Yesterday, after the action at the Love Won Out conference, there was a gathering of ex-gay survivors at the Memphis gay community center. My cameras were only conditionally allowed inside, as there was a real need to create a safe space there for people to basically spill their guts about what had happened to them. (This is why I never made it as a newspaper photographer…I always ask permission first…) But I was allowed to witness the event and I’m here to tell you what I saw and heard would make a brick cry, if not a fundamentalist.
One wall inside the center was covered with paper, for the survivors to write little notes on, in an exercise called a "chalk talk". It was a way of helping them get their feelings out into the open and to acknowledge them…something that is excruciatingly difficult for people who have been emotionally battered to do. I was not allowed to photograph the process, for I think obvious reasons, but afterwards I was asked to record the little writings on the wall. I actually had to get up and leave the room twice as, one after the other, the survivors stepped up to the wall and started writing, and I began to see it all coming out, so overwhelming was it. If I can get permission to put some of what they wrote on that wall here I will.
This is tough to watch, and all the more if you’ve ever met Peterson and know what a good heart he has and how much he loves his parents. Never in his life would he have ever wanted to hurt them. What happened wasn’t his fault. But all of that…what happened to Peterson and what happened to his parents…all of that is part of the horrible trail of scar tissue these ex-gay outfits leave behind. There is little enough love in this poor world. To leave the world poorer for it is crime enough. To leave people so wounded inside they have trouble for the rest of their lives finding love and intimacy, to then also drive a stake between them and their parents and family…it is a crime against humanity.
These outfits would largely whither and die almost overnight from lack of money, were they not being bankrolled by the religious right for purely political ends. The ex-gay movement gives them rhetorical ammunition for the Kulturkrieg, and it gives their politicians political cover to oppose basic civil rights for gay people. The war on gay people drives voters to the polls. And…it brings in money. That is why Peterson Toscano, and his parents, and many many others like them over the years, had to bleed. And that is why people are gathering this weekend in Memphis, to shout love into this heart of darkness. Enough is enough. No more wounded people. No more wounded families. No more bleeding hearts. Enough.
I’ll be leaving for Memphis early tomorrow. The last weather forecast I read for Memphis is calling for possible freezing rain around midnight, so I want to be in my hotel well before then. They’ll probably be no blogging tomorrow. But I’ll be posting updates on the events over the weekend as much as possible.
Wilson, then 19, was a part of Love In Action’s adult program, housed in a former Episcopal church in Raleigh, at the same time that a Bartlett teen was forced into since-closed LIA’s youth program, Refuge.
LIA catapulted itself into the national spotlight two years ago when the Bartlett teen wrote about his angst on his MySpace page.
…
The gay community’s outrage was instantaneous, as the saga of the then 16-year-old, whose first name is Zach, spread across the blogosphere.
Zach’s supporters protested outside of LIA, but Wilson says the men and women inside were told not to make eye contact with the protesters and not to read their signs.
After Wilson left LIA, he found out what the protesters had wanted him to know.
"These people weren’t doing it to be activists, they were doing it to show that we weren’t alone, that we were loved … It crushes me that that message was cut from us."
Crushing you was the point. Separating you from the love of your neighbors in this life is how they do it.
His parents promised they’d pay for his stay at LIA, but reneged when Wilson decided he would live as God made him.
…
For Wilson, the cost has been strained family relationships, mountains of credit card debt to pay off LIA’s charges and emotional damage from which he’s still healing…
I see John Smid still isn’t giving out any money-back guarantees.
Here, from Beyond Ex-Gay, is a list of scheduled events this weekend in Memphis. If you can make it, I urge you to come and stand with the survivors. Let them see the love they weren’t allowed to while inside. Show them what Love In Action looks like…
NEW! Friday 2/22 noon Press Conference (Press only) at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center MGLCC (892 S. Cooper). Ex-gay survivors, local leaders and experts release statements about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered community in response to Focus on the Family and Exodus promoting an inaccurate picture about LGBT people.
Reverend Ken Hutcherson, founder and senior pastor of the Antioch Bible Church near Seattle Washington, and one of the three leaders of the hate group, Watchmen on the Walls, is on the warpath over the Gay-Straight Alliance in his daughter’s school…
This poster is hanging in the window of a classrom at Mt. Si High School!
It’s time we wake up and realize we are in a culture WAR!
When teachers are allowed to hang posters like this in our local school, we’ve got a big problem. It’s time to take back our schools.
Pastor Hutch
Timothy Kincaid, over at Box Turtle Bulletin, has more. Apparently Hutcherson is upset that his daughter is being called a stressful presence while "monitoring" those GSA meetings. I can’t imagine why, other then that those kids probably know full well that everyone who attends those meetings, and everything that is said, is being reported right back to Hutcherson, and for all anybody knows, other members of The Watchmen on the Walls. They might as well be holding their meetings in Hutcherson’s church.
The Goths in their black T-shirts were there. So were the punks with fluorescent hair and multiple piercings.
There were even a few adolescent boys carrying skateboards among the nearly 1,000 Oxnard youth and other supporters who turned out Saturday for a hastily organized peace march to pay tribute to Lawrence King, 15, the Oxnard student shot to death in a classroom last week.
"Larry, Larry, Larry!" the crowd chanted before marchers clasped hands in a moment of silence for the fallen student.
There were no bullhorns, no speeches and no politicians. Just a mass of mostly adolescents wearing bright clothing, carrying signs and singing John Lennon’s "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance."
The size of the turnout surprised police, school officials and even the two Hueneme High School sophomores who put the event together just three days ago, spreading the word with fliers, cellphone calls and MySpace bulletins.
"We were expecting maybe 100 or 200 people," said Courtney LaForest, 16, as she gazed at a broad "peace circle" formed by march participants at Plaza Park in downtown Oxnard. "This is incredible."
Courtney said the turnout reflected a community’s anguish over a senseless shooting that has destroyed the lives of two young men. It was also a public plea for tolerance on school campuses for those who are different, she said.
However, "Pastor Hutch" and his friends think it’s time people realize they’re fighting a WAR! And The enemy…? Right here…
And…here…
And…here…
Children are being shot by children. Parents are burying their children. Their friends are being torn apart by shock and loss and grief. And Hutcherson says we’re in a WAR! No shit Sherlock. Two bullets to the head killed a sixteen year old boy and took away from this poor world everything he might have given to it, every moment of friendship and joy and love, every laugh, every smile. Gone. All gone. In an instant. And Ken Hutcherson’s words, and those of his fellow KulturKriegen, were the gunpowder.
(AP) Denmark’s leading newspapers on Wednesday reprinted a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked deadly rioting in Muslim countries two years ago.
The papers said they wanted to show their firm commitment to freedom of speech after Tuesday’s arrest in western Denmark of three people accused of plotting to kill the man who drew the cartoon, which shows Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.
The drawing by Kurt Westergaard and 11 other cartoons depicting Muhammad enraged Muslims two years ago when they appeared in a range of Western newspapers.
It’s worth remembering that the cartoons in question barely got noticed until a Lebanese-born Muslim living in Denmark, Ahmad Akkari, began waving them around the middle east, in a dossier into which he’d inserted a number of cartoons that the Danes didn’t print, including one that portrayed Muhammad as a pedophile, and a photograph of a Danish man wearing a pig mask, taken during a Danish pig calling contest, that Akkari had re-captioned as being a photo taken of a Dane mocking Muhammad as a pig.
Akkari’s activities in the middle east arguably helped get the Danish embassy in Lebanon burned down. When Israel later began attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon Akkari decided the Danes weren’t such bad folks after all and he hot-footed it back to the nation he helped rouse passions against, via his Danish residency and passport. Nice guy.
The sweet irony of angry mobs rioting and burning down embassies over a bunch of cartoons depicting Islam as a violent fanatical religion was, of course, lost on the protesters. That kind of thing will reliably go past zealots of any faith, or none.
Come To Memphis This February, for “Deconstructing The Ex-Gay Myth”
My friends Peterson Toscano and Morgan Jon Fox are helping to organize an event in Memphis, coinciding with yet another Focus On The Family/Exodus “Love (sic) Won Out” conference they’re holding there on On Saturday February 23rd 2008. The events will be held under the banner, Deconstructing the Ex-Gay Myth—A Weekend of Action Art, and will be held from February 22 to the 24th, and will include Peterson, giving a farewell performance of Doin’ Time In The Homo No-Mo Halfway House and the premiere of his new play Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender in the Bible, as well as an exhibit of art by survivors of ex-gay therapy, which promises to be a very moving experience in and of itself. And Morgan’s documentary on the events of the summer of 2005, when a gay teen was dragged into ex-gay therapy against his will, and the world responded with outrage and action, will finally have it’s premiere. This Is What Love In Action Looks Like.
Here’s a short promotional video for the weekend events…
I plan to go, and I urge everyone who can to come to Memphis and participate. The ex-gay movement, funded and operated by right wing theocratic radicals for purely anti-gay political ends has done enormous damage over the years, to many innocent hearts, young and old. In his blog, Peterson writes…
As a Christian and lover of God, I know this to be true–God desires truth in the inmost part. We need each other. We need deep and meaningful relationships and that human touch—emotionally and physically. We need to depend on friends and lovers and loved one and have them depend on us to supply each other with the things only humans can give to each other.
As a Christian I recognize that this is how God set it up. Sure ultimately I know that God supplies all my needs, but just like God supplies my nutritional need through healthy veggies, legumes, fruits and grains, I receive God’s love through other people. God provides me so much of what I need from the emotional and physical intimacy I share with others.
In fact, in regards to these teachings, I see the ex-gay movement as an Ex-Human Movement. In some ways it mirrors what the modern world pushes on us, that we can make it all on our own, except instead of God, the modern world provides us with materialism.
No, we need each other, and when we don’t have our emotional and physical needs met, we mourn, we feel the loss and the pain of detachment, of emotional solitude.
I know that pain of loss and detachment intimately…for a somewhat different reason then the survivors, but nonetheless as part of the experience of gay people in America. It is hard in the best of worlds to find your other half, and make a life together. And in large measure my anger toward those who preach fear and self loathing to gay people, and unforgivably to our families, comes from knowing full well that I might have had a better chance to find my other half in this life, were it not for them. I might have been able to talk to my own parents when I was a teenager, struggling as teenagers do, with first love, and first heartbreak. I might have had a much closer relationship with them then I was allowed to have, because they just didn’t want to know, and the thought of telling them simply terrified me. I had to bottle up so much inside myself back then, and it damaged my relationship with them, and in particular with my mom. We have to bleed…gay children and parents alike…so the haters of humanity can be righteous.
If there is such a thing as Sin, capital ‘S’, in this world, then suffocating the ability to love, and trust in another, must surely be a big one. Our hearts are not blackboards that anyone can scribble their will upon. Our hopes and dreams of love are not their stepping stones to heaven. Please, if you can, come to Memphis and raise a voice for love. Show them what love in action looks like.
On her way to buy some orange juice, 26-year-old Pamela Brown, who started living as a woman three years ago, said she was viciously attacked because she is transgendered.
"I saw five guys blocking the storeway. They called me a [expletive deleted] and then I was hit. Then I was attacked by two more guys from the back and my fiance ran over," she said. "I probably could have been killed if I was by myself."
Brown is now recovering while in protective police custody.
Meanwhile, two young men have been arrested near the Old Town Mall in Baltimore where the beating occurred.
Police commented on the attack last week.
"More than likely it will be upgraded to a hate crime, simply because of the things that were being said," said Troy Harris, Baltimore City Police spokesperson.
But now the city state’s attorney’s office is not pursuing hate crime charges. Why?
A spokesperson says while there was provocative language, it is free speech and there’s no evidence of premeditation.
Dig it. If you’re gay or transgendered here in Baltimore, and someone walks up and beats the crap out of you while calling you a fucking faggot, that’s not a hate crime here in Baltimore, because the fact that they used sexual slurs while they were beating the crap out of you isn’t evidence of either hate or premeditation, merely one citizen’s opinion of another.
This actually isn’t the only kind of crime Baltimore city chronically under reports. And Baltimore probably isn’t alone in that regard either. But check out the link I have on the right to the Baltimore Crime blog every now and then to see just how infrequently the violent criminals around here actually get the attention they need. Between our police department, which as been known to threaten victims for reporting crimes, and Patricia Jessamy, our pathetic state’s attorney who drops charges more frequently then a blizzard drops snowflakes, a lot of stuff around just gets swept under the rug, or dropped somewhere they hope nobody will notice. Which is all to say that it isn’t necessarily prejudice that’s motivating Patricia to under report hate crimes against sexual minorities here in Baltimore. More likely then not it’s just standard operating procedure.
But now some of Baltimore’s black ministers are gearing up to wage Kultur Krieg on Maryland’s gay community over same sex marriage…so expect Patricia to be classifying more violent crimes against gay and transgendered people as freedom of speech in the coming months. Hopefully my family and friends won’t be seeing my name in that roll call.
So I resigned shortly after I wrote the post below about why I’d prefer a non-geek boyfriend, from Chemistry.Com. That’s the dating service that had that cute little commercial jabbing eHarmony for discriminating against gay folks. Their personality profile test seemed promising and I hoped I would get matches that I might actually be compatible with for a change this time. So I bought a six month subscription several months ago. Just last week they stopped sending me new matches. None of the guys I pinged, about a dozen or so over a period of several months, even bothered sending me back a "not interested". I can’t even be sure if they were even active members or not. Nine-tenths of the guys they matched me up with…weren’t even close. That’s pretty much been my experience with dating services…both online and off.
I don’t think I’m that picky. There’s a scene at the beginning of the movie Animal House, where the new freshmen Kroger and Dorfman make the rounds of fraternities during pledge week. First they go to Omega house where they’re greeted with a lot of paper thin smiles and repeatedly ushered into a small room with all the other pledge week rejects. And it’s not like they see anyone else sitting in there that they have anything in common with either. They’re all just the random flotsam of pledge week all thrown together in the category of Other…Not Suitable, all staring uncomfortably at each other. That’s how dating services make me feel.
Peterson Toscano has written about all the tens of thousands of dollars he once spent trying to cure himself of his homosexuality. Well I haven’t spent quite that much trying to find a boyfriend over the years, but it’s been in the thousands. I got pushed an ad the other day as I logged out of my MySpace account, for a new gay dating service called MyPartner. Supposedly it’s only for folks who are interested in long term relationships. Which makes them similar to…oh…nearly all the other dating services I’ve bought into over the years that promised me they were different from the others, and really, really, honestly were only for people who were really, really, honestly looking for relationships, as opposed to quick hooking up. The MyPartner basic service, they claim, is free. But if you are really, really serious about finding romance you can buy into one of their optional packages promising a higher level of service. The ad I saw flashed in my face recommended the five-thousand dollar "Executive Level" package. But for a whole ten grand I can get a program customized specifically for my particular needs.
So…dig it…today’s struggling awkward confused lonely homosexual can spend thousands of dollars in various ex-gay programs over a period of many years to no effect, or they can spend thousands of dollars in various gay dating services over a period of many years to no effect. Let it be said, The Gay Lifestyle™ gives you options. This is why all those surveys of gay people keep finding that we all have so much disposable income. You just can’t afford to be gay if you don’t.
Same-sex couples are just as committed in their romantic relationships as heterosexual couples, according to a report.
The finding disputes the stereotype that couples in same-sex relationships are not as committed as their heterosexual counterparts and therefore not as psychologically healthy.
The study examined whether committed same-sex couples differed from engaged and married opposite-sex couples in how well they interacted and how satisfied they were with their partners.
Researchers from the University of Illinois compared 30 committed gay male and 30 committed lesbian couples with 50 engaged heterosexual couples and 40 older married heterosexual couples, as well as with dating heterosexual couples.
Results of a questionnaire and a laboratory task showed that same-sex relationships were similar to those of opposite-sex couples in many ways.
All had positive views of their relationships but those in the more committed relationships (gay and straight) resolved conflict better than the heterosexual dating couples.
The notion that committed same-sex relationships are "atypical, psychologically immature, or malevolent contexts of development was not supported by our findings," said lead author Glenn I. Roisman.
"Compared with married individuals, committed gay males and lesbians were not less satisfied with their relationships."
And he added: "Gay males and lesbians in this study were generally not different from their committed heterosexual counterparts on how well they interacted with one another, although some evidence emerged the lesbian couples were especially effective at resolving conflict."
Yeah…male ego… But still. It’s possible. It can happen. To us too. That’s what they never wanted us to know…
The study features in the January issue of Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — For many who lived through Vermont’s not-so-civil debate over civil unions, the memories remain painfully fresh: hate mail, threatening telephone messages, tense public meetings.
This time around, as the state weighs whether to legalize gay marriage, the debate is noticeably tamer with little of the vitriol and recrimination that surrounded its groundbreaking 2000 decision to legally recognize gay and lesbian couples.
…
Although that absence of an impending vote may be what’s keeping things civil, people involved in the debate have noticed a change in atmosphere.
"It’s a very different tenor," said Beth Robinson, chairwoman of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, which supports gay marriage. "People have had an opportunity to come to terms. Vermonters have had eight years to see the two guys next door, or the two women down the street who have a legally recognized relationship under the civil unions law."
Ah yes… Now that they’ve had a chance to see how it works for themselves, and that the sky didn’t fall when same sex couples were allowed to have the same rights as opposite sex couples…tensions have eased, and people are more use to the idea….
"It was a time unlike anything since the Vietnam War era, when you had the sense that the whole world around you was divided," said David Moats, author of "Civil Wars: A Battle For Gay Marriage," a book about Vermont’s civil unions controversy.
…
Last summer, the Legislature appointed an 11-member Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection to explore the idea of gay marriage and hear how Vermonters feel about it. The panel, which opponents say is stacked with gay marriage supporters and have boycotted, has held seven hearings and has three more scheduled.
The hearings have generated plenty of input, but no name-calling or personal attacks.
James LaPierre, who has a civil union partner and two children, saw the contrast firsthand. He went to a 2000 meeting on civil unions intending to get up and speak, but he was intimidated by the atmosphere and kept quiet.
"People would stand up and go to the microphone and there was jeering and catcalling," said LaPierre, 43, a nurse from Burlington. "It was hateful, and scary."
Last month, LaPierre went to a hearing by the Commission on Family Recognition. This time, the gathering was "supportive" and he got up and spoke. But it had fewer people — about 100, by his count, compared with about 500 at the 2000 event.
"Instead of a hateful, unruly, mob-like meeting, it was civil and organized. There was representation of the other side, but only two or three people," he said.
Now…you see how that works? When people can see for themselves that gay folks aren’t monsters out to destroy America and Family Life and Moral Values things get a lot calmer.
Oh…wait…
Opponents believe the change in tone may have more to do with their boycott — and the lack of impending action — than acceptance of gay marriage.
There’s the reason things are more civil today in Vermont then they were in 2000. It’s the boycott. The bigots figured they were going to loose…probably even worse this time then in 2000 because their vitriolic hate looks so ugly in retrospect…and so they called a boycott of the town meetings. And so…surprise, surprise…things are a lot calmer now.
This isn’t so much an indication of progress, as a reminder that things would have been a lot calmer back then too, were it not for the hate mongers. Nobody’s really moved on this issue; the majority of Vermonters didn’t object to same sex marriage or they’d have thrown out of office all the politicians who supported it and that wasn’t what happened. Only the bigots care, and of course they still care as much now as they ever did. If you could teach a bigot something they wouldn’t be bigots. The only thing that’s changed in Vermont is that this time the bigots aren’t going to those town meetings to whip everyone into a frenzy of hate. So things are calmer. How…unsurprising.
This blog is powered by WordPress and is hosted at Winters Web Works, who also did some custom design work (Thanks!). Some embedded content was created with the help of The Gimp. I proof with Google Chrome on either Windows, Linux or MacOS depending on which machine I happen to be running at the time.
