Today is National Coming Out Day. Twenty years ago today, half a million people marched on Washington for LGBTQ equality and Coming Out Day was born.
Every year, in her Coming Out Day post, Pam poses three questions for straight people: Are you "out" as an ally? Are you able to talk about gay friends or relatives with others? Are you comfortable shooting down homophobes when they spout off during a conversation? Happily, every year I can answer a resounding yes to all three.
Sometimes people ask me why I'm so passionate about fighting for LGBTQ equality when I'm not gay. Here's why:
I fight as a patriot. I believe with every ounce of my being in equal rights. I was taught in school from a very early age, as were we all, that America was a place where all people were seen as equal under the law. When I realized this was not true for certain people, simply because of their sexuality—which has no basis for legal discrimination and the prejudice against whom is rooted in a particular and limited religious interpretation that should not have legal standing—it made me fucking mad. And I’ve stayed mad. For my country to fulfill its promise of recognizing its every citizen as equal, it must extend the same rights to the LGBTQ community that it extends to me.
I fight as an ally. As I've said before, it is foolish to believe that there is more feminist, gender-queer cisgendered straight women, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender persons don't all have in common culturally and politically than that which we do, given the particular restraints and prejudices of the patriarchal structure and its rigid notions of sex, gender, and sexuality conveyed in all its aspects. We struggle to achieve and/or maintain, to varying degrees, autonomy over our own bodies, and, crucially, freedom of choice with regard to what we want to do with those bodies. Life- and identity-changing events hang in the balance for us all—parenting, marriage, gender reassignment, being legally able to keep a job in spite of prejudice. We are natural allies. Though all of us, sans rigorous philosophical exertion, are hapless conduits for every limiting and oppressive archetype upon which the patriarchy depends, conveying the bars of our own cages, very few of us are its unconstrained beneficiaries. Even the average straight, white, middle class American man exchanges privilege for severe limitations on his personal expression and emotional life—and he is encouraged never to examine that devastating trade-off too closely, lest the veneer on the alleged bargain prove thin enough through which to see. We all serve the same callous master, and there's little to celebrate in being the favored slave—especially compared to a life of freedom. None of us should be willing to secure rights for ourselves at the expense of rights for the rest, because we are in this thing together.
I fight as a friend. There are people who I love very much, my family by design, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender. Until they are no longer treated as second-class citizens, I will not rest.
Sometimes being a straight ally has meant calling out bosses, coworkers, friends, family who use homophobic epithets. Sometimes it has meant writing to my elected representatives. Sometimes it has meant challenging people's beliefs, patiently and logically, finding an argument to which they can relate. Sometimes it has meant getting confrontational and angry. It always means being uncompromising, unapologetic, and unafraid—which is the very least I can do on behalf of a community who has shown me such a fine example of all three.
Happy National Coming Out Day: Twentieth Anniversary!
gonna get me some religion...
Stephen Colbert style! He's (amusingly) pushing his new book everywhere and you can find on his site, Make Me America/I Am America, a religion converter:
My results: Islam. Now comes with a free trip to Cuba and several other undisclosed vacation spots!
Doris Lessing Wins 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature
I cannot even begin to describe how utterly excited I am that Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is just absolutely one of my favorite authors, with Briefing for a Descent into Hell and The Fifth Child being two of the most amazing books I've ever read, especially the latter—such a truly brilliant commentary on the perils of insularity, a quietly vociferous argument in favor of diversity. The Nobel Prize Academy, in presenting the award, called her an "epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." Yes, yes, yes! ZOMG, I am actually all a-flutter!
The oldest person to win a Nobel for literature, Lessing was only the 34th female laureate since the prizes began in 1901 and the 11th woman to take the literature award.All right, now I'm blubbing.
Lessing, who was shopping when the news of her Nobel broke and learned of it from reporters, said the prize had dealt her the literary equivalent of the best possible hand in poker. "I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot," she told reporters outside her London home. "It's a royal flush."
Jane Friedman, chief executive of Lessing publisher HarperCollins, called the Nobel a complete surprise. "This is such wonderful news. This is absolutely extraordinary," she told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair. "She has been an icon for women for a lifetime."
Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Lessing's work had been of great importance to other writers and to the broader field of literature.And while I'm busy just being insanely happy, I want to note that Reuters is all kinds of ROCK for treating this like the big story it well and truly is.
"She has been a subject for discussion (by the academy) for quite some time, and now the moment was right. Perhaps we could say that she is one of the most carefully considered decisions in the history of the Nobel Prize," he told Reuters after announcing Lessing had won.
"She has opened up a new area of experience that earlier had not been very accepted in literature. That has to do with, for instance, female sexuality."
Nicholas Pearson, Lessing's editor at HarperCollins division the Fourth Estate, called the news "thrilling".
"Those early books changed the face of literature -- the description of the inner lives of women," he told Reuters.
Gonzo Hires Defense Attorney
Former Attorney General Alberto "Liarliar McPantsonfire" Gonzales has retained the services of white-collar defense attorney and Bush crony George Terwilliger, one of Bush's 2000 recount legal experts, who, in a shocking coincidence, was "on the White House's short list last month to replace Gonzales."
Gonzales has hired a high-powered Washington lawyer to represent him in investigations of mismanagement of the Justice Department.Excellent point. So, listen up, Shakers—I don't want any of you jumping to conclusions about Gonzo's wrongdoing just because he's hired an attorney. Instead, I want you to make thoughtful, rational, well-considered conclusions based on having been paying attention to the goddamned news for the last two and a half years.
…Investigators are look[ing] into allegations that Gonzales lied to lawmakers and illegally allowed politics to influence hiring and firing at the department.
Terwilliger said Gonzales, a close friend of the president's and a former Texas Supreme Court justice, maintains he did nothing wrong or illegal, and that hiring an attorney should not signal any guilt.
"It would really be unfair to individuals who are smart enough to get themselves a lawyer to draw some inference that they need a lawyer because they did something wrong," Terwilliger said in an Associated Press interview.
Gonzo is currently being investigated by the Justice Department for: allegedly firing eight federal prosecutors for political reasons, allegedly tampering with witness Monica Goodling, and allegedly lying or otherwise misleading Congress in sworn testimony about the Bush administration's domestic spying program. Gonzo is also being scrutinized by Congress as part of investigations surrounding the US attorney firings and the surveillance program.
If You Meet a Clown in Illinois, Run the Other Way
When I was six years old, John Wayne Gacy, aka "The Killer Clown," went on trial for murder, and the same creepy-ass picture of him dressed in his clown costume was on the news seemingly every damn night, with various reports from the trial detailing his murders. The association between that picture and the murderous ghoul who buried boys in his basement gave me a lifelong aversion to clowns—and now there's another weirdo perv-clown from the Land of Lincoln to freak out a whole new generation.
An Illinois man who worked as a "Christian clown" named Klutzo was arrested yesterday on child pornography charges for allegedly taking naked photographs of young boys at a Philippines orphanage. According to a federal criminal complaint, Amon Paul Carlock took the illicit photos during a "clowning" trip to the House of Joy orphanage earlier this year.OMG. Just the phrase "clowning trip" alone risks pushing me from ordinary clown-ick to full-on coulrophobia.
Regarding the naked photos of young boys, Carlock explained, "That's how they live." Three of the boys seen in the photos told investigators they woke up to find Carlock fondling and caressing them.Gross. Just absolutely heinous. It's bad enough to cloak pedophilia in being a children's entertainer, but to add the extra layer of being godly is despicable beyond words—if totally unsurprising.
On his web site, Carlock (who has worked with his wife, a fellow clown) describes himself as a Christian clown who performs at parties, picnics, vacation Bible school, children's church. Carlock told investigators that he previously traveled to the House of Joy in 2004 and visited a Mexican orphanage in 2002. He also reported being an ordained minister who has been involved in pastoral ministry, Christian education and camping, and evangelism since 1967.
In one Internet posting on a missionary outreach site, Carlock sought to volunteer at an overseas orphanage "doing any tasks that I am capable of doing. Wife cannot come due to work."
The thing is, I honestly can't believe anyone who looked at his website actually wanted to hire him, given that viewers are greeted by this picture:
Even the bloody doll looks like it's scared shitless. And no wonder: You'd be scared shitless, too, after gazing into these eyes.
[H/T Blogenfreude.]
UPDATE: The pictured guy is not the busted clown. He is another clown who also goes by the handle Klutzo, from Algonquin, IL. The Klutzo who got busted is from Springfield, IL. The pictured guy is Jerry Kautz. My apologies to Mr. Kautz for passing on bad info. I hope he will change the picture when he reinvents his clown persona and launches a new website. Because, um, the eyes in this one really are fucking creepy, dude.
The Essence of War
by The Ghost of Dr. Violet Socks
I've written before about how the rape of women is an indissoluble part of war, but Professor Shortell makes the same point in about one-twentieth of the space. He quotes from this article in the New York Times about the war in Congo:
Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.As Prof. Shortell says: "Rape and torture aren't accidents that happen on the fringes of war; they are the essence of war."
It is a conservative myth that men pay the price for war; that our brave boys are the ones who bear the burden of defending our whatever-the-fuck. I'm going to quote myself here, from a piece I wrote in February 2006 about Iraq:
Of course, the bigger point to be made here is that war exerts a profound and particular violence on women. Civilian females raped by marauding troops, female soldiers raped by their own comrades, military wives at home killed by their returning husbands—war and militarism hit women hard. This runs contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds that war is the special burden of men, the great sacrifice that males give for their country. Anti-feminists make a sort of fetish of this, claiming that war casualties are overwhelmingly male. That is, to put it politely, bullshit.Let us add now to that roster of raped and maimed civilians; let us add the Congo women lying in hospital beds with colostomy bags—colostomy bags, I tell you, because they have been so brutally raped their plumbing doesn't work anymore.
Despite the glorification of "our brave boys in uniform," soldiers are not the main casualties of war. Civilian populations are. In the 20th century, 90 percent of all war deaths were unarmed women, children, and men.
I put that statement in bold because I think it needs to become a permanent fixture of everyone's mental furniture. When we think about war, we need to think about its real effects. Forget John Wayne and Rambo; remember, instead, the citizens of Dresden, the women of Bosnia, the ash heaps/former humans of Hiroshima. Let's say it one more time: soldiers are not the main casualties of war. Innocent civilians are.
That's what war is.
(Cross-posted from Reclusive Leftist.)
Miss Malkin Declines
In an attempt to get the discussion about SCHIP back to the discussion about SCHIP and not about the assets of a family in Baltimore and the stalking thereof, Ezra Klein proposed a debate between himself and Michelle Malkin.
"It’s militant leftist bloggers," writes Malkin, "who wouldn’t know a good-faith argument if it bit them in the lip." Let's have a good faith argument. I will debate Michelle Malkin anytime, anywhere, in any forum (save HotAir TV, which she controls), on the particulars of S-CHIP. We can set the debate at a think tank, on BloggingHeads, over IM. Hell, we can set up the podiums in the shrubbery outside my house, since that seems to be the sort of venue she naturally seeks out. And then if Malkin wants an argument, she can have one. We'll talk S-CHIP and nothing but -- nothing of the Frosts, or Congress, or her blog.Ms. Malkin declined the invitation because in previous posts, Mr. Klein had said mean things about the right-wing blogosphere, of which Ms. Malkin in a charter member.
My sense has been that Malkin doesn't want an argument. Rather, she wants to feed her readers the steady stream of outrage that keeps her traffic numbers up. But I realized tonight that I could be wrong, and I shouldn't assume Malkin doesn't want a real argument unless I actually ask her.
So c'mon Michelle: Let's debate health care. Prove to the world that you really want "a good-faith argument." We can talk crowd-out, and cross-subsidization, and whether lower-middle class entrepreneurs are able to procure health care on the individual market. If this is a policy argument you care so deeply about as to travel to the Frost family's house to see if they really deserved S-CHIP benefits, surely you'll want to set up a web cam and talk through the issue.
Not a big surprise, and I don't think Ezra is surprised that not only did she turn him down, she used the opportunity to launch another full-scale attack on him and anyone he's met, talked to, or sat next to in an airport departure lounge. And frankly, I think that while Ezra may have made the debate offer in good faith, he knew what the response would be. But it was nice of him to at least make the offer and to prove once again that the right wing is not interested in discussion or discourse; they just want to make a lot of noise and obscure the fact that they can't make their case.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Question of the Day
Which actor/actress are you convinced should never, for the good of humankind, make another film again?
I'm going to have to go with Ben Stiller—which I gotta tell ya actually kills me, because, back in the day, The Ben Stiller Show rocked. Todd (Mr. Furious) and I still scream "SHUT YOUR STINKING TRAP!" at each other to this day.
But Stiller totally suxxx now and his career needs to die a swift and preferably, on the basis of The Heartbreak Kid trailer alone, a quite painful, death.
Noose Found on NYC Professor's Office Door
Someone remind me what fucking year it is, not that this horseshit was acceptable in any year:
Investigators on Wednesday were looking into whether a noose hanging from the door of a black professor at Columbia University was the work of disgruntled students or even a fellow professor.Insult to injury.
…Constantine has written about race, including a book entitled "Addressing Racism: Facilitating Cultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings." Students said Constantine teaches a class on racial justice.
I am left without words. I'm just going to have to borrow Shayera's: "Are people out of their fucking minds? This shit is intolerable. I literally can not come up with a non-expletive laden sentence for this. What kind of crazy ass shit is going the fuck on?" Word.
Coulter: "We Christians Want the Jews to Be Perfected"
There must be some kind of rivalry between Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Now that Ms. Malkin is getting all the ink and pixels over her raging over a 12-year-old kid, Ms. Coulter feels like she's being overlooked and ignored. What to do? Simple: come up with your own outrage that's guaranteed to attract a lot of attention. Something like saying that one way to achieve her dream of a great America would be by converting all the Jews.During the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, host Donny Deutsch asked right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: "If you had your way ... and your dreams, which are genuine, came true ... what would this country look like?" Coulter responded, "It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention. In fact, that's what I think heaven is going to look like." She described the convention as follows: "People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America." Deutsch then asked, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" to which Coulter responded, "Yes." Later in the discussion, Deutsch said to her: "[Y]ou said we should throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians," and Coulter again replied, "Yes." When pressed by Deutsch regarding whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws."
Before we do that, however, we're going to give you a nice hot shower over there in that building with the big tall smokestack under the sign that says Arbeit Macht Frei.
Of course, she didn't mean to offend anyone.After a commercial break, Deutsch said that "Ann said she wanted to explain her last comment," and asked her, "So you don't think that was offensive?" Coulter responded: "No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe -- this is just a statement of what the New Testament is -- is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament." Coulter later said: "We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all."
Top that, Michelle.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Former President Carter: Bush is a Lying Douchebag
Okay, not exactly, but…
The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.Fucking right. Like how it's a basic human right to not have to pay any taxes if you're stinking rich. Wev. Go get 'em, Jimmy.
"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."
Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.
Btw, though Carter was more circumspect about Bush than my title suggests, he really did call Cheney a "disaster" and "a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military." Arf!
[Thanks to Shaker Kevin—no, the other one…yeah, that guy over there!—for the CNN link.]
Revisiting the Scene of O'Reilly's Most Despicable Moment
Back in January, in what was a ghastly display of revolting malice even by his standards, Bill O'Reilly said that he "hoped" 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, a boy who has just been found after being held captive by for four years by 41-year-old Michael Devlin, hadn't made "a conscious decision to accept his captivity because Devlin made things easy for him. No school, play all day long." O'Reilly also accused the boy of not escaping because he had "a lot more fun then when he had under his own parents. He didn't have to go to school; he could run around and do what he wanted," and bet that "when it all comes down, what's going to happen is, there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances."
Yesterday, Devlin pleaded guilty to the charges against him, and the court not only got to see a video of him torturing Hornbeck, but also heard some of the details of why the boy stayed with him for four years. You'll no doubt be shocked to hear it was not because there was "an element [he] liked about his circumstances."
[Trigger warning.]Michael Devlin offered no apologies but shed light on why one of his victims stayed with him more than four years: The terrorized boy cut a deal just as Devlin was beginning to strangle him.
It's difficult on a normal day for me to accurately convey the profundity of my disgust for the loathesome creature O'Reilly; after reading about an 11-year-old child who had the presence of mind to strike a terrible, desperate bargain to save his own life, a child whom O'Reilly casually accused of enjoying his circumstances, I am left without the words to describe what I am feeling for that disgusting ghoul, who yet makes millions disgorging precisely this type of hateful swill night after night after night to be lapped up by people with no brains or souls.
"This boy made this contract, this deal with the devil, only to survive," Washington County prosecutor John Rupp said.
…After the boy, then 11, was abducted at gunpoint while riding his bike in rural Washington County, Devlin took him to his apartment in suburban St. Louis and repeatedly sexually assaulted him. Days later, Devlin took Shawn back to Washington County in his pickup truck, apparently intent on killing the boy.
He said he pulled Shawn from his truck and began to strangle him. Shawn resisted.
"I attempted to kill (Shawn) and he talked me out of it," Devlin said Tuesday.
Worse yet, he will probably never be taken to account for his nauseating comments about the brave and clever and admirable Shawn Hornbeck, now that the monstrous details of his detainment are emerging. And even if he were forced to revisit his heartless diarrheic bloviations, he would simply engage the excruciatingly familiar conservative trope that he couldn't have known. No one could possibly have known that it was not just inappropriate, but factually wrong to use this boy's devastating misfortune to launch another of his faux-macho-bravado, chest-beating, patriotic tirades about how "American children must be taught survival skills, must be prepared to face crisis situations. That is the lesson of the Shawn Hornbeck story."
Except, of course, that decent people did know. Decent people did say that it was complete, unmitigated horseshit to presume this child didn't use any survival skills: "I guess it would be far too much for [O'Reilly's] puny little brain to engage the thought that adaptability is not only one of humankind's greatest attributes, but also one of our strongest survival strategies—and kids especially manage to adapt to all kinds of grotesquery if they can be convinced their survival depends on it. If he had, he might realize that what appeared to him to be Hornbeck's preference for the kidnapped highlife might well have been in actuality his using 'survival skills' after all."
And of course that's exactly what happened. That little boy made a deal with the devil to be a sex slave if only the devil would let him live. That little boy saved his own life at 11 years old.
At 58 years old, Bill O'Reilly still hasn't figured out how to live a life worth saving.
[Via DBK.]
Caption This Photo
Bake Watch
(In all seriousness, that caption could be "carcinoma watch." Please put on some damn sunscreen, Hoff! Image via Michael K.)
Scrub-a-Dub-Dub
The Wikipedia entry for White House spokesman Tony Fratto is pretty sparse—just a couple of lines.
About a half hour ago, it contained one extra line it does not contain any longer.
Giddy-up! Thanks to Blogenfreude for the hawt tip.
News from Shakes Manor
You know those totally ass Priceline adverts that feature William Shatner? Okay, it totally drives me berserk how he's got his own Shaft-esque '70s blaxploitation theme in which a women's chorus sing-shouts: "Price! Line! Negoshee AY! TOR!" And, often, when commercial jingles drive me berserk, I will replace the lyrics with something that conveys my feelings about them, or just something randomly stupid. Okay, usually the latter.
So last night, we're watching The Daily Show, and by "Back in Black," we're both ready to collapse, so, at the commercial break, we get up and start turning out lights and so forth before hitting the sack. But just ahead of my turning off the telly, one of those damnable adverts comes on. "Price! Line! Negoshee AY! TOR!"
I sing-shouted back out of nowhere: "Butt! Hole! Negoshee AY! TOR!"
And then the most terrible, hilarious thing happened: It got stuck in my head.
I was "Butthole Negotiator"-ing all through our getting ready for bed, which made Mr. Shakes laugh while he was trying to brush his teeth, and toothpaste was flopping out into the sink in big glops, which made us both laugh even more.
We crawled into bed, and chatted for a bit about this and that, and how my feet are either supernovas or ice cubes, but never a normal temperature, which Mr. Shakes is convinced means I'm half-lizard. Then:
Liss: Butt! Hole! Negoshee AY! TOR!
Mr. Shakes: I'm gooing tae negootiate with your boothoole in a minute if ye dinny knoock it ooff!
Liss: It needs you to negotiate with it! Talk it off the ledge! "You have so much to live for! Don't do it, butthole!"
Mr. Shakes: Lissie needs ye!
Liss: "You'll live to turd another day!"
Mr. Shakes: Dinny let the woorld get ye doon, boothoole!
Liss: Butt! Hole! Negoshee AY! TOR!
Mr. Shakes: Quiet noo, wooman—oor I'll have ye kissed.
Us Old Queers
The typical image of a member of the gay community is some well-built and well-off twenty-something, but as this article in the New York Times points out, the gay community -- like everyone -- has problems as it ages, and it also still faces the prejudices and bigotry that confront gays and lesbians of all ages.The plight of the gay elderly has been taken up by a generation of gay men and lesbians, concerned about their own futures, who have begun a national drive to educate care providers about the social isolation, even outright discrimination, that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clients face.
I used to joke with my friends that we should open up an old-age home for queers -- call it something like The Homo Ranch or something and have fun "interviewing" the young and strong guys who applied for jobs on staff -- but now that I'm 55 and single, it is more the reality that a lot of us who came out in the 1970's are facing the same issues as our elders.
Several solutions are emerging. In Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and other urban centers, so-called L.G.B.T. Aging Projects are springing up, to train long-term care providers. At the same time, there is a move to separate care, with the comfort of the familiar.
In the Boston suburbs, the Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home will break ground in December for a complex that includes a unit for the gay and lesbian elderly. And Stonewall Communities in Boston has begun selling homes designed for older gay people with support services similar to assisted-living centers. There are also openly gay geriatric case managers who can guide clients to compassionate services.
[...]
The movement to improve conditions for the gay elderly is driven by demographics. There are an estimated 2.4 million gay, lesbian or bisexual Americans over the age of 55, said Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. That estimate was extrapolated by Dr. Gates using census data that counts only same-sex couples along with other government data that counts both single and coupled gay people. Among those in same-sex couples, the number of gay men and women over 55 has almost doubled from 2000 to 2006, Dr. Gates said, to 416,000, from 222,000.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
"Dear Abby" Comes Out in Favor of Same-Sex Marriage
"I believe if two people want to commit to each other, God bless 'em," the syndicated advice columnist told The Associated Press. "That is the highest form of commitment, for heaven's sake."Rock!
…"I'm trying to tell kids if they are gay, it's OK to be gay. I've tried to tell families if they have a gay family member to accept them and love them as they always have," [Jeanne Phillips, who formally took over the column when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease five years ago] said Friday.
PFLAG director Jody Huckaby said Abby is the perfect choice for the first "Straight for Equality" award, part of the group's new campaign to engage more heterosexuals as allies.
…Phillips realizes not everyone agrees with her on gay rights; she and her husband "argue about this continually," she said. He thinks civil unions and domestic partnerships "would be less threatening to people who feel marriage is just a religious rite." She thinks anything less than full marriage amounts to second-class citizenship.
"If gay Americans are not allowed to get married and have all the benefits that American citizens are entitled to by the Bill of Rights, they should get one hell of a tax break. That is my opinion," said Phillips, who speaks with the no-nonsense tone of someone who is used to settling debates.
Thanks to Shaker SB for passing that along. Pam's posts on this here.
Just when you thought the man couldn’t shock you…
…Scooter B. (President Bush for the uninitiated) speaks.
Lawd, have mercy.
The man is lobbying against declaring a genocide a genocide because he thinks it would hurt our relationship with Turkey.
Blink.
Oh my.
So…ummm…if a nation wants to get away with a genocide they need to build a strategic alliance with the United States of America.
Oh, good Gawd.
What a positive life affirming message of freedom to send out to all the peoples of the world…
