12/31/13
One of my favorite quotes from this year
This is what I tell my more self-involved gay friends: if you don't have empathy and stand-up for the institutionalized suffering of others (racism, sexism, etc.) then it is unrealistic and selfish to expect others to do the same thing for you. None of us are free until all of us are free.
2013 was so gay: many victories for the LGBT but this recent one in Ohio may be the most important win of all...
From The Daily Dish:
Jeffrey Toobin covers the recent surge in court victories. He calls Monday’s ruling in Ohio possibly “the most important of all”:
James Obergefell and John Arthur, who lived together in Cincinnati, married in Maryland at a time when Arthur was gravely ill. In anticipation of Arthur’s death, the couple petitioned the state of Ohio for Arthur to be listed as “married” on his Ohio death certificate, and to record Obergefell as the “surviving spouse.” Ohio, which does not allow same-sex marriages, refused, but federal judge Timothy S. Black ruled against the state and in favor of the couple. The judge said it was “not a complicated case.” Throughout Ohio’s history, Ohio has treated marriages solemnized out of state as valid in Ohio. “How then can Ohio, especially given the historical status of Ohio law, single out same-sex marriage as ones it will not recognize?” Black asked in his opinion. “The short answer is Ohio cannot.”
The Ohio decision is crucial because people in the United States tend to move from state to state. Like Obergefell and Arthur, people in same-sex marriages may well end up living in states where such marriages are illegal. Once they are in those states, these couples will become enmeshed in the legal system in the way that heterosexual married couples do. They will have children; they may divorce and dispute child custody; they will seek to file joint tax returns; they will visit each other in the hospital; they will want to be with each other when they die. Their lives will intersect with the legal system in scores of ways at those junctures. In light of this, many judges will face dilemmas similar to the one Black just resolved.
12/30/13
12/29/13
12/28/13
Quote of the day...on queer empathy
"We've got a responsibility to our LGBT brothers and sisters in places like Alabama and Texas and elsewhere," said Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network. "We can't just allow them to twist in the wind even though we've won legal equality here in Illinois
12/27/13
12/24/13
Finally, the WWII-era computer pioneer Alan Turing receives a royal pardon
From the Guardian:
The brilliant mathematician, who played a major role in breaking the Enigma code – which arguably shortened the war by at least two years – has been granted a pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by the Queen, following a request from the justice secretary, Chris Grayling. Turing was considered to be the father of modern computer science and was most famous for his work in helping to create the "bombe" that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. He was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment". His criminal record resulted in the loss of his security clearance and meant he was no longer able to work for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), where he had been employed following service at Bletchley Park during the war. He died of cyanide poisoning in 1954, aged 41.
12/23/13
12/22/13
Leonard Cohen, "What is a saint?..."
“What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love,”
-– Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers.
The homophobic Archbishop of San Francisco tries to soften his anti-gay image. But he still believes the LGBT are "intrinsically disordered" and should not be protected by the civil laws
Archbishop Cordileone:
"They’ve been disowned by their families. They’ve been harmed and they want to come to a place that will accept them for who they are. And affirm them. So it tenderizes us."These words are really rich from a man who has led the conservative Catholic movement to stop the enactment of civil laws to protect the LGBT from discrimination beyond marriage equality. He may be softening his anti-gay public rhetoric but he thinks we are second-class people and Catholics. I don't buy any of it.
The murders of LGBT people: This video shows the brutal murders of two Nigerian men who are believed to be gay by their tribe. Horrible, gruesome scenes like this one still take place around the world
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
12/21/13
Quote of the week, from Utah
"These rights would be meaningless if the Constitution did not also prevent the government from interfering with the intensely personal choices an individual makes when that person decides to make a solemn commitment to another human being,"
-- U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby ruled that the state's 2004 ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment's due process clause
12/20/13
Uganda passes anti-gay law that promises life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality." We must speak out against this
From the Gay Star News:
Uganda’s parliament has passed the dreaded anti-gay bill today (20 December), leading LGBTI people to fear a 'hunt'.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga put forward a motion for second reading today and the bill passed.
Originally known as the 'Kill The Gays' bill, the death penalty has been dropped but people can still get life in prison for homosexuality.
The bill will make it illegal to 'promote' homosexuality and will also jail anyone who does not report homosexual activities to the police.
Ugandan LGBTI people are said to be 'panicked' and 'afraid for their lives'. It has already been predicted it will lead to more deaths in the LGBTI community.
Members of Parliament (MPs) heard every clause in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. But debate which was expected to run all day was over very quickly
12/19/13
12/18/13
Obama supports the LGBT community to the max, by sending many gay people to the Sochi Winter Olympics in the U.S. delegation. The Obamas and Bidens will not attend the Games
Lots of gays in this delegation (see some of the names in blue type). This except below from a press release from the White House:
The Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russian Federation will be held on February 7, 2014. The delegation will attend athletic events, meet with U.S. athletes, and attend the Opening Ceremony. The Honorable Janet A. Napolitano, President of the University of California, will lead the delegation. The Honorable Michael A. McFaul, United States Ambassador to the Russian Federation. The Honorable Robert L. Nabors, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. The Honorable Billie Jean King, Member of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, Member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mr. Brian A. Boitano, Olympic gold medalist, figure skating.
The power of truth and reconciliation, not vengeance, by Mandela and Tutu
Mandela refused to grant legal absolution to the perpetrators of apartheid’s crimes until they publicly confessed their guilt. In the run-up to South Africa’s first free elections, de Klerk granted clemency to 4,000 members of the South African police and security services. But after winning those elections, the ANC overturned de Klerk’s action and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which required detailed, public confessions by anyone seeking amnesty. In the words of Mandela ally Bishop Desmond Tutu, who ran the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth…because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/12/09/what-mandela-asked-of-his-oppressors/
12/17/13
Pope Francis and the laity are taking the Catholic Church back from the theocons! Read this editorial from the National Catholic Reporter.
Editorial: The church was not 'out-marketed' on gay marriage
The church's problem with the issue of homosexuality, claims New
York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, stems from lousy marketing, that most
secular undertaking of the materialist culture. The problem, he
asserted, is not in the church's teaching, but in how it has been sold.
It's just not been made pretty enough to entice people to take it off
the shelf. Hollywood and a host of other secular interests were first to
place their shiny new products on the shelf.
Dolan made his comments the First Sunday of Advent to David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press." On the issue of gay marriage, Dolan said, "We've been out-marketed sometimes. We've been caricatured as anti-gay."
The cardinal, who lives on Madison Avenue, is within walking distance of some of the best marketers the world has ever known. If he looked to them for advice, they might suggest he begin with a focus group.
In a sense, the church has in its questionnaire preparing for the Synod of Bishops on the family (see story [1]) a focus group study underway right now. If Catholics honestly answer these questions and bishops' staffers honestly report their answers, church officials might just learn -- among other things -- why most Catholics aren't "buying" the notion that their gay children, parents and friends are "intrinsically disordered" or suffer from a "condition."
If the church faces a marketing failure on issues of sexuality, the failure is in listening to its people. In recent years, the U.S. bishops have been deaf to the people of the church -- and the American voters -- on the issue of same-sex marriage. When it comes to contraception and divorce and remarriage, the church has tuned out what the faithful have been saying for 50 years. The church's teaching on sexuality is unpersuasive because the church advances teachings that actually reduce human sexuality and sexual activity to its most banal, utilitarian and mechanistic level, detaching it from the deepest possibilities of genuine human intimacy.
They've detached it from human experience, and according to sociologist William D'Antonio, whose life's career has been studying Catholics, "Lived experience is trumping abstract teaching. Wins it all the time."
Official teaching on contraception has been so widely dismissed in practice, one wonders it even comes up in conversation. The same is true for divorce and remarriage.
The same is quickly coming true on the topic of homosexuality, because among Catholic parents who know their children as all manner of things -- curious, funny, loving, mischievous, talented, gracious, annoying, musical, athletic -- all the things that parents revel in and come to love, some are also coming to know their children as gay. Thank God that today most parents are not cowering before a catechism characterization of their children and sending them off in a panic to a Courage meeting to be remade into something more acceptable.
We dare suggest that some of the Catholic faithful, particularly the family and friends of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons, might be a bit further down the road in loving as God would have us love, that they might understand Pope Francis' teaching about encounter to a greater degree than many of us.
Perhaps in his wandering among the sheep in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Francis encountered gays and their parents, and perhaps that is why today he can say, in answer to questions: "When I meet a gay person ... if they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalized. The tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem ... they're our brothers."
On another occasion, when asked if he approved of homosexuality, he explained: "I replied with another question. 'Tell me, when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?' We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being."
Dismissing the lack of acceptance of church teaching as a marketing failure is an insult to the very idea of teaching and certainly to gays and lesbians. It walks, in search of a sound bite, right past the mystery of the human being.
Dolan promised to keep up the battle against gay marriage, all the while, we presume, trying to convince the world of the popularized notion that the church can simultaneously hate the sin and love the sinner. As if the human mystery can be bifurcated and compartmentalized into portions lovable and despicable.
Should the cardinal want respite from the fight, he might take an evening or two and meet with some gay Catholics and their parents. Ask them to tell their stories, ask them why they stay in the church, ask them how they pray, what they hold as their hopes and dreams. Really listen, maybe even make allowance for certitude to melt a bit.
Dolan made his comments the First Sunday of Advent to David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press." On the issue of gay marriage, Dolan said, "We've been out-marketed sometimes. We've been caricatured as anti-gay."
The cardinal, who lives on Madison Avenue, is within walking distance of some of the best marketers the world has ever known. If he looked to them for advice, they might suggest he begin with a focus group.
In a sense, the church has in its questionnaire preparing for the Synod of Bishops on the family (see story [1]) a focus group study underway right now. If Catholics honestly answer these questions and bishops' staffers honestly report their answers, church officials might just learn -- among other things -- why most Catholics aren't "buying" the notion that their gay children, parents and friends are "intrinsically disordered" or suffer from a "condition."
If the church faces a marketing failure on issues of sexuality, the failure is in listening to its people. In recent years, the U.S. bishops have been deaf to the people of the church -- and the American voters -- on the issue of same-sex marriage. When it comes to contraception and divorce and remarriage, the church has tuned out what the faithful have been saying for 50 years. The church's teaching on sexuality is unpersuasive because the church advances teachings that actually reduce human sexuality and sexual activity to its most banal, utilitarian and mechanistic level, detaching it from the deepest possibilities of genuine human intimacy.
They've detached it from human experience, and according to sociologist William D'Antonio, whose life's career has been studying Catholics, "Lived experience is trumping abstract teaching. Wins it all the time."
Official teaching on contraception has been so widely dismissed in practice, one wonders it even comes up in conversation. The same is true for divorce and remarriage.
The same is quickly coming true on the topic of homosexuality, because among Catholic parents who know their children as all manner of things -- curious, funny, loving, mischievous, talented, gracious, annoying, musical, athletic -- all the things that parents revel in and come to love, some are also coming to know their children as gay. Thank God that today most parents are not cowering before a catechism characterization of their children and sending them off in a panic to a Courage meeting to be remade into something more acceptable.
We dare suggest that some of the Catholic faithful, particularly the family and friends of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons, might be a bit further down the road in loving as God would have us love, that they might understand Pope Francis' teaching about encounter to a greater degree than many of us.
Perhaps in his wandering among the sheep in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Francis encountered gays and their parents, and perhaps that is why today he can say, in answer to questions: "When I meet a gay person ... if they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalized. The tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem ... they're our brothers."
On another occasion, when asked if he approved of homosexuality, he explained: "I replied with another question. 'Tell me, when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?' We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being."
Dismissing the lack of acceptance of church teaching as a marketing failure is an insult to the very idea of teaching and certainly to gays and lesbians. It walks, in search of a sound bite, right past the mystery of the human being.
Dolan promised to keep up the battle against gay marriage, all the while, we presume, trying to convince the world of the popularized notion that the church can simultaneously hate the sin and love the sinner. As if the human mystery can be bifurcated and compartmentalized into portions lovable and despicable.
Should the cardinal want respite from the fight, he might take an evening or two and meet with some gay Catholics and their parents. Ask them to tell their stories, ask them why they stay in the church, ask them how they pray, what they hold as their hopes and dreams. Really listen, maybe even make allowance for certitude to melt a bit.
12/16/13
Saturday Night Live lampoons Fox's Megyn Kelly's comment that Santa is white. So good!
And Andrew Sullivan's analysis of Megyn's comment:
I have to say there have been moments when I’ve thought Megyn Kelly was a real blast of fresh air in the fetid, morning-breath swamps of cable news: whip-smart, mildly sassy, occasionally rebellious, she is a real star on the propaganda network of the GOP/Tea Party. So I wondered how she would respond to her rather unfortunate assertions this week that both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ were “white”. Here’s the original segment. Here is her response.
I’d say two things. The original segment was clearly not as light-hearted and humorous as Kelly now insists it was. She did not originally refer to the Slate piece as “tongue-in-cheek” and responded to its provocation by being offended, not amused. Since both tapes are out there, make your own mind up. But rather than cop to an obvious error – made off the cuff – she made the decision to hunker down and accuse others of persecuting Fox News because it isn’t liberal. So the classic and silly notion that white Republicans are somehow an oppressed class – and minorities should just stop whining – became her “correction.” But that’s not a correction. It’s a distraction.
More to the point, the much more disturbing assertion that “Jesus was white” – something Kelly injected into the conversation all by herself – is left hanging. She claims in one aside in her response that the question “is not settled.” But it is. Jesus was a first century Jew. He’s not a northern European. He was Semitic, not Caucasian. Now maybe Kelly will unpack why she may believe that Jews are somehow “white” in her racial categorization of humanity, while, say, Hispanics are not. But it seems likely she won’t. That would open a very large box of premises Roger Ailes prefers to keep vacuum-wrapped.
So she screwed up – which we all do. But on the core measure of whether she could fairly cop to her screw-up, correct and apologize for it, she failed. I tend to think that how journalists respond to error is more instructive than how they report and analyze in factually impeccable fashion. On that count, Kelly emerged this week as a flak and a hack. I guess I was foolish for hoping for more.
Saunders High School's Boys Basketball Team wears #BeTrue t-shirts in support of their openly gay coach, Anthony Nicodemo
From Outsports:
The Saunders High School boys basketball team played their first game of the season Sunday, and it was special.
The players entered the gym and warmed up wearing Nike #BeTrue shirts in solidarity with and support of their head coach, Anthony Nicodemo, who came out publicly as gay earlier this year. The #BeTrue line is Nike's LGBT brand that has helped fund the work of the LGBT Sports Coalition. It was a pretty powerful statement by the players, largely straight inner-city youth, who came up with the idea themselves.The game was a thriller. After leading by 9 with under five minutes left, Saunders let Nanuet creep back into the game, which was tied with 30 seconds left. After a missed Saunders layup with seconds remaining, Nanuet grabbed the rebound and called a timeout with 0.3 seconds left. There was only one problem: They didn't have any timeouts left. Game MVP Dijon Gonzales buried two technical free throws and Saunders walked away with a 55-53 win.
12/14/13
At many colleges, there is a revolution going on in creating a more supportive atmosphere for gay athletes. It's beautiful
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Ohio State
Stanford
Ohio State
Stanford
Sullivan sees the worst aspects of human nature in Fox News
"It has been fascinating lately to watch Fox News go after the Pope for reiterating long-standing Catholic and Christian doctrine about the false god of materialism. By echoing Jesus’ insistence that you cannot know the kingdom of Heaven if you are bound up in wealth and possessions, the Pope drew charges of Marxism (which is anathema to Christians for the same reasons that unrestrained market capitalism is) and engaging in politics (from a channel that has long insisted that Christianity cannot and should not be relegated to the private sphere).
"When you absorb the constant racial undertones on Fox, and its constant worship of the god of money, when you absorb their long list of fears about the 'other', whether immigrants or gays or the poor, when you recall their glee at the torture of human beings, or their passion for the death penalty, you can’t help but wonder if they are not one of the most powerful forces against Christianity in our culture. They have competitors out there, but Roger Ailes is never satisfied with being Number Two, is he?"--Andrew Sullivan
Via Joe My God
12/13/13
The good congresswoman, Jackie Speier re-introduces a Federal version of the law that my friends and I helped pass in CA: banning ex-gay "therapy" on minors
A few weeks ago, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) reintroduced a House resolution that denounces the use of "ex-gay" torture on LGBT youth. Speier introduced the same resolution in November 2012, but it was not allowed to come to a floor vote. Lambda Legal reacts to today's action via press release:
We applaud the introduction of this important resolution, which adds the voice of the U.S. Congress to the growing chorus opposing attempts to change a young person's sexual orientation or gender identity. So-called 'reparative therapies' fail any credible scientific or therapeutic test, and serve only to traumatize those most vulnerable - our youth. From community centers to therapists' organizations to crisis hotlines, many have witnessed first-hand the casualties of baseless promises in the guise of 'therapy' to change sexual orientation and gender identity. Lambda Legal has argued in the courts about the trauma of this so-called ex-gay therapy and the trail of fractured lives and ruptured families left in its wake.
Change is happening at the Coast Guard Academy: the first same-sex marriage announcement made there
It’s a tradition at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., that when a cadet becomes engaged to be married, the lucky man or woman’s friends will announce the engagement to the entire corps in the wardroom at lunchtime, the one meal that all four years of students eat together. On Thursday, Dec. 5, the announcement was a little different. “Over the weekend, Cadet First Class Kaitlin Ward got down on one knee and proposed to her longtime girlfriend, Lauren Bloch. This is the first announcement of its type.”
There was a brief moment of silence as the room realized the significance of the announcement — the first in the school’s 137-year history — before the corps of cadets started cheering and whooping for their classmate and her fiancée, the latest couple who had met and fallen in love at the academy.
12/12/13
This documentary in development exposes how US gay teens are being forced to undergo 'ex-gay' therapy at Christian boot camps in the Dominican Republic. Please support it
From the Huffington Post:
"Kidnapped for Christ" is a compelling new documentary that follows the experiences of several American teenagers after they were kidnapped from their homes and shipped to Evangelical Reform schools located in the Dominican Republic. Many of these teenagers' parents discover their children are either gay or experience same-sex attraction, and are sent to “therapeutic Christian boarding school[s]” in order to "transform into healthy Christian adults" in an environment outside of U.S. law.
We need to help these kids. Please give a few buck to help make this documentary. Joe
12/11/13
Jon Stewarts points out that Obama's handshake with Raul Castro was appropriate at a memorial service for a man who was lauded for forgiving his opponents
Obama has more grace than the entire tea party.
12/10/13
In Obama's eulogy for Mandela today, he reveals his depth as a human being: someone who is self-reflective, speaks truth to power, and continually advocates for equality
For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe - Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate his heroic life. But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or circumstance, we must ask: how well have I applied his lessons in my own life?
It is a question I ask myself - as a man and as a President. We know that like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation. As was true here, it took the sacrifice of countless people - known and unknown - to see the dawn of a new day.
Michelle and I are the beneficiaries of that struggle. But in America and South Africa, and countries around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not done. The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality and universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important. For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger, and disease; run-down schools, and few prospects for the future. Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs; and are still persecuted for what they look like, or how they worship, or who they love.
We, too, must act on behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of peace. There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us who stand on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.Time and time again, Obama makes me proud to be a American and an advocate for equality.
12/9/13
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