After years, we finally succumbed and put ads up (the upper right hand side of the page). Here’s the thing. They should be contextual – but either way, politically. We had a “Nation for Marriage” ad that was up against New Hampshire Governor Lynch, chiding him for – among other things – signing the gay marriage bill in his state. Ads cost money. And if it’s one thing I’d love to do, it’s draining money from bigots and haters.

So if you see an ad – particularly one for a Republican, against a Democrat or Progressive, or especially against gay marriage or other progressive causes – CLICK IT. It costs them money. Every click times thousands of ads will drain their coffers.

Reposted from sister blog BuryingTheLead.com

I cannot believe just how horrific some stories of abuse can turn out to be, especially for the elderly.  All too often, cases of our elders being taken for granted and scammed are in the news, and the actual act of elder abuse is rampant.  Try doubling elder abuse with that of gay elders, and you get the following story.

A gay elderly couple that had been together for quite a while named Clay and Howard lived in Sonoma County, California.  Now you think of Sonoma, and think – this place is just North of San Francisco, and it is known as the wine country.  It has to be progressive.  Well not for Clay and Howard.  You see, Howard (age 88) fell down outside his and Clay’s (age 77) home.  Unable to care for him, Howard was put in a nursing home.  But things took a dramatic turn for the worse.  Clay was forbidden by the County to see Howard.  Clay himself was put in his own nursing home.  The County and the facility declared that Clay and Howard were just “roommates”, and thus Clay had no legal right to either see Howard, nor make any decisions about his care.

This is an excerpt from the article that is most horrific – though I plead with everyone to read the entire thing over at NCLRights.org:

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold’s lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

This is beyond chilling and horrific.  This is some of the most disgusting treatment of gay elders that I have ever read about.  And I ask you this one question:  Would this have happened to a man and a woman who were married?  No, not at all.  So why would we allow this to occur to a gay couple?

Marriage is about love, and gay and lesbian couples have and express love just like their straight counterparts.  But it is also about protection and civil rights provided by law.  This is why marriage is so very important – gay and straight.

So there is a bunch of misinformation out there about the GLBTQ community, and it members of that community that are responsible for educating people.  We need to keep people in the know, clear up misconceptions, and stomp on the downright lies of the bigots and homophobes until they no longer are spread.

But this morning, I actually found myself having to educate not only the straight people around me, but my gay brethren as well.  Let me explain.

They are holding a blood drive at work today, out in the open common area.  People are happy and buzzing around, talking about it.  One coworker turned to me and another gay man and asked, “Are we donating blood today?”.  Almost in unison, I said “We can’t” while my gay coworker said, “Probably not, no.”  I looked at him and said, “Um, we CAN’T donate blood.”  That made the whole room stop.

At that point, I had to explain to everyone, gay and straight, that any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 is prevented from donating blood.  I personally know this because I was a three gallon blood donor and have filled out the form many times.  Those three gallons I donated were pre-coming out, so I was honest.  And because I believe in being honest and safe, and having just had my annual physical, I would be a perfect donor.  But I have had sex with another man since 1977, and am thus, disqualified.

The information about a gay-male ban on blood donation came as news to everyone in the room.  No one, not even the other gay man, knew about the blood donation issue, except for one – and he was misinformed, saying the FDA recently lifted the ban.  No, not according to the FDA’s website!

I am proud to call myself a 3 gallon blood donor.  I was even part of the bone marrow donation part of the Red Cross, and was called in as a potential match.  And even though I’m a healthy, disease-free gay man, I’m not good enough to help save lives.

This policy MUST end.

Remember during the 2008 election, when Senator Barack Obama said that he would be a “fierce advocate” for the GLBT community?  Fast forward a few months, when President Obama’s administration defended DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, and equated gay marriage to pedophilia and incest.

Remember the 1992 election, when Governor Clinton became one of the first national leaders to champion gay rights?  And then remember the following years when DOMA and DADT came about?  Senator Clinton caught hell for that in 2008, when rocker Melissa Etheridge said that Clinton’s husband threw the gay community “under the bus” given the first chance.

Flash forward to today in Washington, DC.  There was a big buildup to a massive protest, headlined by “gay advocate” comedian Kathy Griffin.  She was headlining at an HRC gala a few nights ago, and was to be part of a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal affair with the HRC (Human Rights Campaign). Griffin made it to lobby the Senate.  Then she indeed headline at a rally today, along with HRC’s leader Joe Solmonese and Lt. Dan Choi.  When Lt. Choi got up to speak, he apparently offered an act of civil disobedience.  He asked Griffin and Solomnese if they would go to the White House with him and Captain Jim Pietrangelo in support, which apparently they said they would.

Well that was it for Griffin and Solomnese.  A photo-op is all they wanted.  They didn’t dare step anywhere near Choi or Pietrangelo, especially when Choi and Pietrangelo handcuffed themselves to the White House fence.  Griffin and Solomnese were nowhere to be seen.

Griffin did tweet after the rally.  This is what she (@kathygriffin) wrote:

It was my honor 2 share th podium w Lt Dan Choi today. I understand he’s been arrested in front of the White House. I dig that dude! Balls!

Yes, he does.  We, as a community – a community of gays, lesbians, democrats, liberals, and progressives – WE need to have balls like Lt. Choi and Captain Pietrangelo.  Why?  Because our “fierce advocates”, from President Obama, to Kathy Griffin, to HRC President Joe Solomnese aren’t.  They proved today that they could care less about what is right, and only about what is doing what is convenient for them.

What if Rosa Parks decided, “Well, I don’t want to rock the boat. I’ll move to the back of the bus”?

What if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have hopes for my children, but I’m not willing to make waves over it.”?

What if Susan B. Anthony decided, “Yes, women should be equal to men, but I shouldn’t speak up.”

These people were different.  They were the leaders that we need today.  We don’t need people like Griffin or Solomnese, who are using the GLBT community as props.  Props for ratings.  Props for fame.  Props for money.  Props for donations.  We need people who stand up and do the right thing, like Lt. Dan Choi and Captain Jim Pietrangelo.  They know what needs to be done, what we need to do to get the progressive movement MOVING!

I previously took the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” pledge because Democrats decided to stop moving forward on GLBT issues, and when the Obama White House decided to defend DOMA.  Now, the HRC has shown that it wants to do what’s convenient, not what’s right, and abandoning GLBT soldiers, so that organization can go and rot, too.  But you and me.  We are the ones that can use Choi, and Parks, and Anthony, and King as our guides, and do what is right – not what’s convenient.  We are nobody’s props.  We are humans, and we all deserve civil rights.

It seems that there is more and more homophobia, calls for violence, and all-out crappy treatment of the LGBT community that either being reported, or just becoming more fashionable to do.  I’m not sure which one if is, but it’s disturbing, especially given that hate crimes against the LGBT community seem to be going up.

So the first big one was the Notre Dame cartoon.  Second was John Mayer’s comments.  Now, it’s another gay-bashing T-Shirt making the rounds.

Perusing through Facebook, I found an update from T-Shirt Hell.  Normally their stuff is edgy but fun.  Then I saw they were promoting this shirt to bring back (the top image):

Go check it out for yourself.  Yeah, the “Holy Fucking Shit” is gross, but hell, to each his own.  But “Nothing runs like a queere”, with a person being chased by people with baseball bats?  That’s crossing the line.  If you want to see for yourself, sign into Facebook and check T-Shirt Hell’s page at: http://www.facebook.com/tshirthell.  They think it’s so funny, that’s their company’s avatar.

You know, when you read the Declaration of Independence put forth by the Founding Fathers, you have to notice one fact.  There are no footnotes or asterisks that direct the reader to some subsection saying that “well, we didn’t mean it applies to this group or that”.  The most famous line is, of course, this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Yes boys and girls, that is exactly how it’s written.  It’s not:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal (see note 1), that they are endowed by their Creator (see note 2) with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note 1: This may not apply to those Catholics; we just don’t get their religion.  Oh, and not the homos.  No offense, but ewww…  And not those Italians that come over here.  You know, looking all swarthy and all.  And don’t get us started on those crazy Indians!  We’ve got some smallpox blankets to take care of them!

Note 2: When we say “Creator”, we mean the good, PROTESTANT God.  We don’t mean a Catholic God, or some heathen race God like Ganesha or Mohammed or Zeus or Odin.  Nope, the only Creator we mean is our good, Protestant God.

So what does this mean?  It means that A) we are ALL meant to be able to pursue Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and B) every person has the right to their own beliefs about their Creator.  It means that black people have the right to marry white people.  It means that people should be allowed to be hermits in a cave, or be the life of a party in downtown Manhattan.  It means that people are allowed to pursue Mormonism.  It means that people are allowed to howl at the moon, if that is their want for worship.  And it means that men should have the right to marry other men, and women should have the right to marry other women.  You see, it all comes down to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  I have been with my partner for over seventeen years.  But someone took away our rights of the pursuit of Happiness in a popularity contest back in 2004.

We should be granting rights, not taking them away.  Because honestly, no one person is better than another.  No one person’s rights should be granted when another person’s rights are taken away.  We are all equal.  We should all BE equal.  That is the way that our Founding Fathers wanted.

This is not only disgusting, but VILE.  A small town in Wisconsin has started campaigning against their public library because they carried books that held a positive view for GLBT youth.  That just wouldn’t do.  They demanded books of hate be carried as well.  You know, books that denounce and deride people.  When that didn’t happen, they got some library board members removed, and suggested that they start burning the pro-gay books.

Propaganda and hate, anyone?

Nazi book burning

This weekend, as I was working in my yard and came upon an idea.  And low and behold, it came into being.  What was it?

You see, I was thinking that those that support the civil rights of GLBT Americans need to get those haters that fight against gay marriage to come out against marriages performed by the Justice of the Peace, or by City Hall.  Yes, the “civil” part of “civil marriage”.  Pretty damn good idea, if I say so myself.

Well cut to tonight, as I’m about to do some blogging on the subject, when I come across this great link on AmericaBlog’s new gay blog.  Seems that indeed, there is a group of men that truly believe IF a man and a woman go to City Hall and get married, they are basically doing nothing more than “shacking up”, and their marriage is not a true one.  While the man in the video says that’s not what the issue is he and his organization (which is male only, because they don’t bring the women along since the language used by people might be “dirty”) were dealing with right then, it IS an issue that they support.

So there, mister and misses heterosexual married couple that got married in front of a Justice of the Peace or by a clerk at City Hall.  YOUR marriage is not good enough.  And when this group continues to help ban gay marriage, they’ll come after yours!

How’s THAT for activist judges?

Remember a while back when Florida passed a bill that prevented gays and lesbians from adopting children?  Pure hate, no?  Children need families, even if those families are headed by two men or two women.  But that wasn’t good enough for the bigots in Florida, so they passed a law saying that GLBT people could not adopt.  Let’s see… Discrimination, anyone?

Well Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Cindy Lederman certainly though it was discriminatory, and found it unconstitutional.  So what does she get in return for this decision, after 15 years on the bench?  She gets demoted.  Yes, the new Chief Justice that is over Lederman’s court decided they “wanted to go another direction” and got rid of her.  Nice, eh?

Stupid f’ing bigots!

Wow… On the West Coast, there really are a few cities that you look towards for GLBT leadership.  Those cities are San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Portland (probably in that order – at least in my mind).  We have leadership in those cities that not only welcome the GLBT community, but help fight the ignorance and hate from those on the right.  But what’s going on in Seattle right now is scary as hell.

The City of Seattle has various groups that employees of the city can join.  One of those groups is the GLBTQF (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning, and Friends) Club.  The city gives each of the groups $1,000 per year and allows employees to work on behalf of their group for two hours per month.  That’s all fine and dandy.  And then along comes Seattle City employee Philip Irvin.  He wanted to join the GLBTQF Club, but he was not allowed.  Why?  Because Philip is a fundamentalist who does not think that gays should be allowed to exist, much less have a club.  Obviously the GLBTQF Club is within their rights to refuse him entry.  After all – would you want to bring someone into your home that’s just going to yell at you endlessly?  No – that’s why we all moved out of our families homes!

Well Philip would not let it sit.  To “get even” with the group, he is suing the city and is asking to force the names of everyone in the GLBTQF Club to be named publicly.  He wants the names of ALL GLBTQ Seattle employees to be published so that everyone knows who they are and the City of Seattle almost went along with it, until a temporary injunction could be put into place.  If the names are released what are you going to do, Mr. Irvin?  Will these employees end up like Dr. George Tiller?  Haunted constantly, and then some whackjob goes and tries to assassinate them, too?

Think I’m a little out there?  Think again.  The rate of hate crimes – specifically murder – against GLBTQ folks is rising at an alarming rate.  Yeah. This is 2009, and people are still being racist, homophobic, murdering bastards.  So excuse me for NOT wanting to give out the names of the GLBTQF Club employees!