Queer. Contrarian. Lover of beer.
© 2010 Rick Powell
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My buddy Craig, of GayVentures, makes The Daily Dish:
DOMA should be renamed the “Homosexual Discrimination Act of 1996″ or HDA. It is the most discriminatory piece of legislation passed in the last 50 years, and a Democrat signed it into law. DOMA’s reach is vast and affects legislation even today.
Read more: The Poison Of DOMA
And yes, I’m jealous.
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www.dcexaminer.com >> Politics
This delay had nothing to do with sunlight — and everything to do with showmanship.
Straight Couples in France Are Choosing Civil Unions Meant for Gays – washingtonpost.com
In passing the [civil unions] law without making it specific to gays, however, France distinguished itself from other European countries that have approved civil unions or even marriage for same-sex couples. As a result of that ambiguity, the PACS broadened into an increasingly popular third option for heterosexual couples, who readily cite its appeal: It has the air of social independence associated with the time-honored arrangement that the French call the “free union” but with major financial and other advantages. It is also far easier to get out of than marriage.
The lights are going out all over Twitter | Technology | guardian.co.uk
[The new law] tells internet service providers that they “must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination” of accounts used by anyone deemed a “repeat infringer” – regardless of whether the person has been convicted of a crime or not.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Ym7-AyQuQ preview=force mode=3]
“Even the lesbians get it!”
via The Bilerico Project.
The gods saves us from fundamentalists. A Buddhist chaplain attempts to defend a comatose lesbian woman (and her partner) from her estranged, deranged Christianist family:
Buddhist Channel | Buddhism News, Headlines | Opinion | Prop 8: What really matters
They would hold loud rituals in the patient’s room in an attempt to “exorcise the demon of homosexuality” from the comatose woman, until we made them stop because they were disturbing the other patients as well as the staff. And they were always trying to convert other people in the hospital to their brand of Christianity, which, they assured everyone, was the only “true” version of Christ’s doctrine (don’t ask what they thought of the others, especially “Papists”).
The chaplain then goes on to explain both his ethical and legal objections to Proposition 8. A lovely and well-reasoned essay from an unexpected source. Tina Turner was always saying she didn’t understand why more queers weren’t Buddhists. Maybe there’s something to that.
This quote is from an article on a Tampa Bay newspaper’s Web site. The articles discusses how the LGBT community’s attempt to reclaim the city of Ybor City created alliances between government, businesses and citizen, both gay straight.
The article is positive and intelligent; some of the comments are not. Some librul het folks rip the trolls a new asshole.
Where where these people when I was growing up?
Despite Marriage Ban, Support Grows For Gay People
I know. I’m lazy and several hours too late, but this is my contribution to Right To Marry Day, or whatever it’s called.
[Drunk and tired, back from a roof-top party at a nearby hostel. Crazy kids.]
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Apple donates $100,000 to fight same-sex marriage ban* | Technology | Los Angeles Times
Is this my first Prop 8 post? I think it is.
Coming soon after the high-profile announcement from Google, Apple, Inc., the company that manufactures the world’s most popular mp3 player, as well as Macintoshes, also indicated that it would have a problem with alienating its talented employers. Oh, and also with Prop 8’s opposition to marriage equality:
From Apple’s start page today:
I like the wording: not just a political issue. Meaning that it is, but that’s not the most important aspect.
I like Apple a little more, and I have forgiven Google.
So where the fuck is David Geffen and Gus Van Sant?
I share Andrew Sullivan’s frustration with queer academia. A recent e-mail statement issued by the Columbia Queer Alliance, which I have not read in full because Andrew didn’t quote it in full, seemingly used the occasion of Iran President Ahmadinejad’s tour of U.S. campuses to make a pomo point: Namely, that the artificial sexual dichotomy of gay vs. straight makes very little sense in many, many parts of the world. Given Ahmadinejad’s denial that there are homosexuals in Iran — Mr Gay Iran, I’m sure, would beg to differ — and the fact that his government persecutes and executes gay people, quibbling over semantics hardly seems the most salient protest to make. Like much of the far left, they seem not to have their priorities straight.
However, I share queer academia’s frustration with Andrew Sullivan. One would only have to travel to other parts of the world to realize that the Queer Alliance’s assertions are true. They’re true now, and will no doubt continue to be true for the foreseeable future. You don’t have to have a degree, or to have read Foucault, to see it. Indeed, you would only have to leave the Beltway and P-Town once in awhile.
Living as I do among the rent boys of Prague and having met young men in Muslim countries, I can tell you that the categories of gay and straight simply do not hold. They do not hold even among the punters I know. I see no reason to believe that would change even if these cultures completely adopted an American-style economy and political system. Andrew has had a big-ass bee in his bonnet for some time about how allowing gays to marry would somehow fundamentally alter male sexuality. Normalizing it, in other words, using his own nomenclature. I see this as neither inevitable nor desirable. I certainly hope straight men don’t stop sticking their hard-up dicks through the holes at the sex shop. My life would be a lot less fun if they did. None of the friendships I have with the boys whose photos appear on this blog would even exist in Andrew’s idealized world. So sorry, but I’m opting out.
That’s always been my biggest problem with pursuing gay marriage as a political goal. I’m with the proponents, I really am. It suits a great many people and it’s clearly a Constitutionally-justified human right. On the other hand, my personal pursuit of happiness does not include marrying the single gay man of my choice and moving to a house in the suburbs. I can’t see how it ever will.
There’s a streak of sexual and cultural totalitarianism in Sullivan’s writings on this subject but one that reflects the way gay political culture has developed in America. A real consensus exists, at least among the gatekeepers, and that’s reason number 573 why I don’t live there anymore.
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