12/31/12

Miraculously, marriage equality comes to my former state of Maryland...at midnight tonight


I never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime. I went to college at University of Maryland and my family lived there for 15 years, so I am especially proud to see my former home state lead on the civil rights issue of today.  Same-sex couples there will begin marrying tonight. Yay!

Two Russian soccer players cuddle up on their vacation. A bromance or lovers? You be the judge...

I find it hard to believe that two top Russian soccer players would come out given that country's  widespread homophobia and draconian anti-gay laws. But that is what several gay blogs are reporting. There are few professional male athletes from team sports that are openly gay, making the locker room the "last closet" in many ways.

Regardless of the context, these two seem to enjoy one another.






The back story on one of most published photos of 2013. An interview with the 'super' Marine who kissed his boyfriend after returning from Afghanistan

12/21/12

The human experience...some highlights of 2012. I am traveling to Arizona for the next couple of days. Merry Xmas!

Living and loving without shame...that's the vision for the LGBT


The joy and playfulness of this college-aged gay couple is inspiring...and a glimpse of the future, when we hope to realize all of our potential.

Zen lesson on liberation

To fall into habit is to cease to be.
-- Miguel De Unamuno

This troop of comfort dogs is helping with the grieving community of Newtown, CT




From The Atlantic: "'Gay Conversion' Therapy Is Not Protected Free Speech"

A well-reasoned piece by Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law: 
The fact that conversion therapy is done primarily through words does not mean that it is automatically protected as speech under the First Amendment. Never have the courts treated the First Amendment as an absolute protection for speech, and indeed they have upheld many laws that restrict speech by professionals, such as doctors and lawyers. For example, the Supreme Court has said that once an attorney enters the courtroom, "whatever right to 'free speech' an attorney has is extremely circumscribed." Similarly, doctors may be sanctioned for their speech during treatment, such as when they express an incompetent or false medical opinion to a patient, or fail to provide adequate instructions or ask necessary questions. 
With respect to therapists specifically, state licensing boards and courts already enforce a plethora of speech-based restrictions and requirements, including barring false, deceptive, or harmful statements. There is no First Amendment barrier to such regulations, and there is none to SB 1172. Just as a therapist cannot lawfully endanger a person with anorexia by telling her "you are too fat," or treat a condition such as "female hysteria" that has long since ceased to be recognized by modern medical authorities as a psychiatric disorder, so therapists in California cannot subject minors to dangerous practices based on scientifically false and discredited views about sexual orientation.

An increasingly desperate Syrian government is using cluster bombs on unarmed civilians. Barbaric


Watch this video report from the New York Times

Eric Cantor's shame after failing to pass the ill-advised Plan B. Obama has compromised with spending cuts, but GOP left the table as they were getting close to a deal. Shame, indeed

12/20/12

Dedicated to the families of Newtown: 46 children from the Creative Planet School of the Arts with the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles. Heart-warming

"Gay warriors!" Support this kickstarter project to fund the portraits of same-sex military couples



Support this project by donating $5 - $25 on kickstarter.  Only $700 left to be raised (out of $12,000 project total) in three days.

When a man loves a man...beautiful


RIP: Spencer Cox, a fierce LGBT & AIDS activist, who was a spokesperson for ACT-UP. A real hero

Photo of the day: one proud Gay American


There is nothing more American and patriotic than advocating for equal rights for all citizens, including the LGBT.

These brave Russian LGBT activists, protesting a proposed anti-gay 'propaganda' law, are taken away by police

Wisdom from a little Buddha


Rachel explains how conservatives got their wish: few gun regulations and few people to enforce them, so they bear some of the responsibility for these massacres


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12/18/12

Remembering Daniel Inouye, one of the longest serving senators. A great advocate for LGBT Americans



He voted against DOMA and has an outspoken advocate for equality for all. This is what the late Senator said upon the repeal of DADT:

“Finally, all brave men and women who want to put on the uniform of our great nation and serve in the armed services may do so without having to hide who they are. My only regret is that nearly 13,000 men and women were expelled from the military during the 17 years that this discriminatory policy was in place. In every war we have had men and women of different sexual orientation who have risked their lives for their country. I fought alongside gay men during World War II and many of them were killed in combat. Those men were heroes. And once again, heroes will be allowed to defend their country, regardless of their sexual orientation.”

I agree with Towleroad naming Thomas Boswell as one of the top 50 coming out stories of 2012. The life of this 18-year-old Welsh rugby player has changed for the better



A few weeks later...



And now he has a boyfriend...




 Check out his tumblr page.  Thomas is on his way to having a good life. 

Andrew Sullivan explains why he uses the word "Christianism"

"Many evangelicals loathe my use of the word Christianism, rather than Christianity, to describe the fusion of political power and religion to police the moral lives of others. They recoil at the echo of Islamism - although we know many Islamist parties, as in Turkey or Indonesia, that do not engage in terrorism, but merely believe in the fusion of church and state as emphatically as older American evangelicals do. 
"That's why it's revealing to see a major figure in the American Christianist movement, Pastor David Dykes, - he opened the 2008 Congress with a prayer - openly advocate the execution of gays, and criminal penalties for exercise of free speech in defense of gays, in Uganda. If these people could, they would do the same here. The constitution protects us - especially our right to speech. But what these theocrats want is as undeniable as it is repellent in a free or humane society. 
"More to the point, here is an alleged Christian demanding that those on the margins of society not be embraced, as Jesus practised, but be executed, as Jesus' Roman executioners did. It doesn't get more anti-Christian than that. To even associate the word Christianity with these sentiments is an attack on Jesus Christ."
 -Andrew Sullivan

There is always light juxtaposed with shadow

‎"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world."
 -- Mister Rogers

12/17/12

Love is bigger than fear and rigid definitions


Martin Bashir takes to task to those crazy American ministers who blame the Newtown massacre on the lack of prayer in public schools (and other "Christianist" delusions)


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This is what hatred looks like: an American Baptist preacher, David Dykes, endorsing Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill

The power of accepting ourselves

Our entire life, with our final moral code and our precious freedom,consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

-- Jean Anouilh

A modern family...bound together by love


One of the best op-eds of the last week: Krugman's "The G.O.P.'s Existential Crisis"



Two of my favorite lines of Paul Krugman:

Since the 1970s, the Republican Party has fallen increasingly under the influence of radical ideologues, whose goal is nothing less than the elimination of the welfare state - that is, the whole legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. From the beginning, however, these ideologues have had a big problem: The programs they want to kill are very popular. Americans may nod their heads when you attack big government in the abstract, but they strongly support Social Security, Medicare, and even Medicaid...
...The G.O.P. is lost and rudderless, bitter and angry, but it still controls the House and, therefore, retains the ability to do a lot of harm, as it lashes out in the death throes of the conservative dream. 

Full piece

Marine officer proposes to his partner at the White House. Change happens when the people demand it and elect a good leader


The President with the surviving kids of Newtown



A week of love in Washington State: marriage equality happens

12/14/12

Quote of the day


"If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.  
"Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. But that’s unacceptable. As others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t 'too soon.' It’s much too late."  
- Ezra Klein, writing for the Washington Post.

Indeed, God bless America...with more wisdom. Amen


The President is right: we need mourn the victims of today's shooting in Newton and find some way to keep guns out of the hands of troubled people

Jon Stewart's "LGBTQ Watch" shreds the arguments of anti-gay judges and politicians

12/13/12

What's up with gay twenty-somethings in NYC? Check out this video

20MALEGAYNYC from Blake Pruitt on Vimeo.

Compared to my generation at this age, there is a lot more self-acceptance, pride, and openness. However, despite 30 years of progress since the 1980s, I detect lingering internalized homophobia in the form of self-judgment, bitchiness towards other gays, and the social deference to more masculine gay men.

Colbert destroys ex-gay 'therapy' with satire. So good

Ho-ho-ho, this young gay couple is merry. Beautiful


Quote of the day on perseverance


"It was a great lesson if you're having troubles in life. Just keep going. Keep trying. Someone will help you, and you're gonna win."

-- Josh Kilmer-Purcell of the Beekman Boys, a gay couple that won "The Amazing Race"

The beauty of a soccer bromance:)


Gay Princeton Freshman Duncan Hosie confronts Judge Scalia on his outrageous comments about gay people. Watch this interview with Duncan. He's sharp


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Politifact: "Lie of the Year"; the Romney campaign's ad on Jeeps made in China


In 2012, we learned that Mitt would say anything to win the election. Wisely, the American public noticed his chronic lying problem and said no to him.

So it is no surprise that Politifact has named Romney's mistruth about Jeep shipping jobs to China as the lie of the year. This lie may have cost him the state of Ohio where he nearly universally criticized for his lack of veracity on the topic. And the presidency.

Karma.

12/12/12

The first openly gay ordained Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, charms Jon Stewart and his audience


Every day, we are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of America.  Indeed, love is triumphing over fear.

Same love


Nick Cave kills it with this love song

Ewan McGregor shows how to skillfully respond to homophobic remarks

How Obama's nerds helped win the day


Read this interesting piece on "When the Nerds go Marching in," from The Atlantic.

Bottomline: the same type of genius and forward-looking creativity that built the Internet economy also built the technology that powered the Obama campaign. (Conservatism tends to focus on conserving  things and looking backward -- no wonder that most technologists are futurists and voted for Obama).

More supreme homophobia: Anthony Scalia's seven most scathing anti-gay statements


From the Right Wing Watch: 
  • Compares bans on homosexuality to bans on murder: Yesterday, Scalia asked a gay law student, “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”
  •  …and to bans on polygamy and animal cruelty: In his dissent to the Colorado case, Romer v. Evans, Scalia wrote, “But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible--murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals--and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of ‘animus’ at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct, the same sort of moral disapproval that produced the centuries old criminal laws that we held constitutional in Bowers.”
  • Defends employment and housing discrimination: In his dissent to Lawrence, the decision that overturned Texas’ criminal sodomy law, Scalia went even further, justifying all kinds of discrimination against gays and lesbians: “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as ‘discrimination’ which it is the function of our judgments to deter.”
  • Says decision on “homosexual sodomy” was “easy” because it's justified by long history of anti-gay discrimination: In a talk at the American Enterprise Institute earlier this year, Scalia dismissed decisions on abortion, the death penalty and “homosexual sodomy” as “easy”: “The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion,” he said. “Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state.”
  • Says domestic partners have no more rights than “long time roommates”:  In his dissent in Romer, Scalia dismissed the idea that a law banning benefits for same-sex domestic partners would be discriminatory, saying the law “would prevent the State or any municipality from making death benefit payments to the ‘life partner’ of a homosexual when it does not make such payments to the long time roommate of a nonhomosexual employee.”
  • Says gay rights are a concern of “the elite”: In his Romer dissent, Scalia lashes out at the majority that has upheld gay rights: “This Court has no business imposing upon all Americans the resolution favored by the elite class from which the Members of this institution are selected, pronouncing that 'animosity' toward homosexuality is evil. “
  • Accuses those who disagree with him of supporting the “homosexual agenda”: Lifting a talking point straight from the far right, Scalia accused the majority in Lawrence of being in the thrall of the “homosexual agenda”: “Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.”
In short, he is imposing his Catholic religion on all of us. This is not an intellectual debating society with grand gestures and flowery language; this is about how people live their lives -- with dignity, equal opportunity, and freedom from fear and discrimination.  That's the America that I believe in but not Judge Scalia. 

Quote of the day

"Our lives begin to end the day we become 'silent' about things that matter."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dan Savage: gays have informed straight culture and vice a versa. touche!


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Yesterday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon made a powerful statement in support of LGBT people worldwide


These are heady, historic days for the LGBT. Read the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at Human Rights Forum on Tuesday:

Thank you all for coming to this remarkable meeting. What a meaningful way to commemorate Human Rights Day. I welcome all of the activists, supporters and others here today.

The very first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

All human beings – not some, not most, but all.

No one gets to decide who is entitled to human rights and who is not.

The United Nations has a proud record of combating racism, promoting gender equality, protecting children and breaking down barriers facing persons with disabilities. We have a long way to go in all of these areas. But we are turning the tide on discrimination in both law and practice. Slowly, some old prejudices have started to dissolve.

Yet others remain in place, with horrendous consequences.

Around the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are targeted, assaulted and sometimes killed. Children and teens are taunted by their peers, beaten and bullied, pushed out of school, disowned by their own families, forced into marriage … and, in the worst cases, driven to suicide.


Read more

Also, Ricky Martin supported the Secretary General by telling his own story of coming out and the resulting feeling of freedom he felt:

12/11/12

Boys will be boys:)


In the case of these soccer boys, that is a good thing.

Love is...well, love


From Washington State

Next male fashion trend: "meggings". A look popularized by bicycle messengers and harks back to the 17th century

Smugly, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia believes that majority rule is more important than the rights of a minority


Anthony Scalia is a brilliant man. But he has misused his mind to rule against the rights of the people saying that he tries to interrupt the original meaning and context of the law, which did not envision an America where women, gays, blacks and others have the same rights as him.  He's a legal luddite in many respects but has been quite lenient and creative in giving corporations the same rights as people (in the case of gay people, even more) or finding a legal way to ensure George W. was president in 2000. In many ways, he is representative of the GOP's problem: an entitled white man who finds legal mechanisms to cling to his privileges and the past.

Some in the audience who had come to hear Scalia speak about his book applauded but more of those who attended the lecture clapped at Hosie’s question.

“It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the `reduction to the absurd,’” Scalia told freshman Duncan Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”

Scalia said he is not equating sodomy with murder but drawing a parallel between the bans on both. Then he deadpanned: “I’m surprised you aren’t persuaded.”

As Scalia often does in public speaking, he cracked wise, taking aim mostly at those who view the Constitution as a ‘‘living document’’ that changes with the times.

‘It isn’t a living document,’’ Scalia said. ‘‘It’s dead, dead, dead, dead.’’ 

He said that people who see the Constitution as changing often argue they are taking the more flexible approach. But their true goal is to set policy permanently, he said. ‘‘My Constitution is a very flexible one,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s nothing in there about abortion. It’s up to the citizens. ... The same with the death penalty.’’

Read more here

George Wills explains why marriage equality will triumph, in one sentence

Dan Savage: "one gay person coming out has a ripple effect...it's our super power." Just like Harvey used to say

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12/10/12

Metaphor for life:)

Happy World Human Rights Day, which celebrates the visionary Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The work of Eleanor Roosevelt and other great leaders

Read the preamble to this remarkable document, in many ways parallel to the U.S. Bill of Rights (my bolding):
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, 
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, 
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, 
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
to continue...
Read today's statement from United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, including promoting the rights of the LGBT:
Today, we pledge to live up to Eleanor Roosevelt’s inspirational example, for in far too many places human freedoms are still denied. As long as a family anywhere is tormented by a state-sanctioned killer; a peaceful agitator is hounded by a violent brigade; an artist is locked away for expressing what she thinks; an LGBT individual is harassed because of whom he or she loves; a community is beleaguered because of how it worships; a person with a disability is marginalized by those who ignore plain injustice; or a girl is threatened for having the audacity to pick up a book; all of our rights have been violated.
The United States is relentless in pursuit of a world that protects these rights. We fight for them at the United Nations, where we have made important strides, because we know that American leadership in the world can bring action against oppressors and hope to the oppressed. Our job is not done and the path ahead is fraught. But may we work together every day for the cause of human rights, so that our efforts can forge a world that respects our differences, protects our dignity, gives our children opportunities to pursue their dreams, and ensures that freedoms we have pledged to protect are universally enjoyed. 
That's something you would have never have heard from a Romney administration. Elections do matter! Gay people deserve equal rights and to be treated with dignity and respect.

Spanish locker room sexiness on display...by some of my favorite players


Zen lesson on awareness

We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world. 
- Robert Pirsig

(Dedicated to my Guy)

The 'hell yes' quote of the day


"When Thea and I met nearly 50 years ago, we never could have dreamed that the story of our life together would be before the Supreme Court as an example of why gay married couples should be treated equally, and not like second-class citizens. While Thea is no longer alive, I know how proud she would have been to see this day. The truth is, I never expected any less from my country." 
- DOMA litigant Edith Windsor, 83


Senate GOPers vote no on an UN treaty encouraging all nations to adopt the same disability access standards we have in the U.S. Why? Right-wing paranoia about the UN


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Dan Savage: on the importance of marriage and that we will win in the end regardless of what the Supreme Court decides


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12/9/12

Tweet of the day


Quote of the day on the GOP's decline

"Instead of smallpox, plagues, drought and Conquistadors, the Republican decline will be traced to a stubborn refusal to adapt to a world where poor people and sick people and black people and brown people and female people and gay people count."

Proud, free, and in love