Give the Underdogs a Bone

We live in a Country where it is perfectly legal for a woman to leave $12,000.000 to her dog while the LGBTQ Community is forced to sit under the table to beg for even the smallest scrap of rights and protections.

Hard to believe that -- in 2007 -- our State and Federal Governments remain entrenched in bigotry and ignorance.

This attitude is not only demeaning, it is infuriating.

Yesterday, the Senate voted 60-39 to end the debate on the Matthew Shepard Act, which expands federal hate crimes laws to include violence based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender, disability, and other factors.

The House already passed the Act, as a stand alone bill, last Spring.

WAIT! Don't get too excited about getting tossed a bone -- just yet.

What passed yesterday was only an amendment to a defense authorization -- a.k.a Pentagon spending bill and THAT bill has not yet passed the Senate!

And even if the bill DOES pass the Senate with the Hate Crimes Act attached to it, Bush may veto the whole thing anyway.

Why, you ask, would Bush veto a bill that gives the Pentagon the money it needs to continue to wage his immoral war?

Because he is a mean spirited, rich-kid bully whose been handed everything he could ever want in life and then some -- but still loves nothing more than to use his position to deny others he deems as unworthy.

And you, my dear queer, are the unworthiest of the unworthy.

If by chance the bill does pass and Bush does sign it, our struggle will have moved one step closer toward equality.

But -- as we were reminded yesterday by our dear friend, Ruthie Berman, "we've still got a million miles to go."

Postscript: In the saddest of ironies, Larry Craig, the self-hating, on the down-low, closeted gay Repugnican Senator from Idaho, stuck it to us one more time when he voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Ugh.

The Bush - bin Laden Twins: Separated at Birth

Bush gave a speech last night announcing an "enduring security presence" in Iraq. From the first day he announced his intention to go to war with a country that posed no threat to us, he knew we would never leave.

Osama bin Laden knew it too. In a March 1997 interview with journalist Peter Arnett, bin Laden predicted:

"The US today as a result of the arrogant atmosphere has set a double standard, calling whoever goes against its injustice a terrorist. It wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose on us agents to rule us based not on what God has revealed and wants us to agree on all these. If we refuse to do so, it will say you are terrorists."

It is as though Bush and bin Laden are working together to create an endless war from which they both benefit.

Bush aids and enriches the military industrial complex -- run by his cronies and biggest supporters and in return bin Laden has the most successful jihad recruiting tool he could have ever imagined.

Can anyone ever get us out of this mess?

Bush's mission is accomplished but the terror for us is just beginning.

Mad Dogs and Girlie Men

We are living in a time of an endless “war on terror,” growing poverty, waning democracy, overpopulation and environmental catastrophe.

So, what’s the one issue burning in the minds of the Republican base?

You got it: Gay and Lesbian Equality.

A story in today’s Boston Globe declares “For GOP, gay rights issues play role that race once did:”

“Gay issues have widely been perceived as an advantage for the Republican Party, which in 2004 placed referendums opposing gay marriage on ballots in swing states to draw social conservatives to the polls, where many supported GOP candidates.”

Because Republicans candidates and pundits fight like one of Michael Vick’s pit bulls, Democrats are afraid to openly and loudly support full and equal rights for LGBT Americans.

And as the article’s title points out, it ain’t the first time this sort of thing happened.

Back in the 1960’s, when American laws permitted and enforced a “separate but equal” set of rules for “coloreds” and “whites,” many moderates and progressives (some of them Blacks) called for Civil Rights leaders to be patient with the legal system.

They advocated the “waiting game” and decried acts of civil disobedience which pushed the envelope and created moral and ethical conflicts for politicians – especially in an election year.

Keenly aware of the public and private condemnations he was receiving for his leadership role that encouraged peaceful protests, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an elegant letter in response to his critics from his cell in the Birmingham jail:

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered... For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" ...This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never."

Of course, history has shown that King was right: the violent reaction to peaceful demonstrations illustrated to the world the shame and immorality of American “laws” and institutions which maintained a system of inequality.

So, to all of those closeted supporters of LGBT equality, we say, come out! Stop acting like frightened children – afraid of your own shadow.

When challenged by others for your stand, just speak the truth about inequality, social and economic injustice.

In addition to standing up for our rights, don’t be afraid to speak out loudly against the “war on terror.” Have the guts to begin impeachment proceedings. Support a National Health Care System. Advocate for clean alternative energy sources like solar, water and wind power.

If you can find the backbone to do what is right, you will have massive support from the American people!

And when the knee-jerks attack, don’t apologize. Take a page from the Bush/Rove/Cheney play-book and “stay the course.”

So what if your detractors call you names? You know they’ll make the same tried and true accusations over and over again: You’re a “girlie man” who is “weak on terror” with a “pre-9/11 mentality” who “flip-flops” on the issues and uses “nanny-politics,” right?

Since you already know their game plan, why not prepare your own set of short little sound-bite sized responses:

Call them “chicken-hawks” who avoided the draft themselves but now send young American’s to die for oil. Call them “liars” who will say or do whatever is necessary to make and maintain power and an illegal war that is making America less safe and their corporate crony’s rich. Call them “hypocrites” for making laws that regulate the sexual and private lives of others while they themselves are getting down and jiggy with Congressional Pages, DC Madams and in public restrooms.

In other words, tell the truth. Then repeat, repeat, repeat.

If you have the moral fortitude to do this, the house of cards built by your detractors from illogical rants about their moral superiority will come crashing down – exposing them for the frightened little tyrants they really are.

Speaking of courage, here is a challenge to the LGBT Community: why don’t we organize collective acts of civil disobedience? This coming February 14 (it’s on a Thursday), every same-sex couple in America should walk into our local county courthouse and demand a marriage license.

Even better, film a video of your efforts and we will share those videos with the world. If you are asked to leave, just sit down quietly and insist that it is your right to be there. Show the clerk the equal protection clause of your state’s constitution. If enough of us have the courage to simultaneously perform these acts of civil disobedience, perhaps we can force the hand of our oppressors and their silent supporters.

Do you agree that LGBTQ families deserve equal rights? Will you join us on February 14, 2008? If so, please let us know, spread the word and pass it on!

And remember, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed there are "two types of laws: just and unjust.” Thus, it is our duty to disobey unjust laws.

Anything less would simply be un-American.

Bald-Heads and Other Fetishes

Senator Larry Craig likes anonymous gay sex and as the photo collage on the right illustrates, George W. Bush likes the feel of bald heads.

It seems right wing-nuts are more obsessed with sex than Larry Flint.

While they noisily demand adherence to laws and policies that establish socially acceptable, sexual “norms” for the rest of us, many of the loudest of the pontificators of Puritanism have secretly carved out exceptions to those rules for themselves.

The more extreme the anti-sexual rhetoric -- the more bellicose the protestations -- the more likely we are to discover they have their own hidden and lurid fetishes. In the meantime, LGBTQ people are forced to live our lives without the legal rights and protections of marriage.

The scenario has become so silly and obvious: from now on, when we hear extreme conservatives preach aggressively in support of legal and social controls for private sexual behavior between consenting adults, we will see it as a symptom of that person’s own Paraphilia.

Now that we understand the situation, we can easily see why these wing-nuts continue to dwell on the subject of sex, even when the rest of us are concerned about the war, the economy, jobs, fair trade policy, election fraud, democracy, and other minor issues of the day.

We see nothing wrong with wing-nuts obsessing over sex – as long as they do so in private and with other consenting adults. In fact, we wish them well in their pursuit of group sex, threesomes, homosexual or heterosexual sex, pornography, S & M, whatever “stiffs their spiffs.”

But as long as our government is controlled by closeted sexual deviants, same-sex partners will continue to suffer the consequences of life without legal rights and protections. Such rights will only be granted to “normal, heterosexual married couples.”

While we wait for the rest of the country to wake up to the fact that perceptions about equal marriage rights are being warped by negative stereotypes sputtered by holier-than-thou hypocrites, our families bask in the purgatory of second-class citizenship.

Because marriage confers legal rights, protections and obligations we do not have, we are forced to make the time and take the extra effort to get legal documents to protect our families.

And we absolutely cannot and should not wait for our elected perverts to do it for us.

George and John: Breaking up is hard to do!

This week’s meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Sydney should mark the last time that Australian Prime Minister John Howard and US President George W Bush get to schmooze one another as official heads of state.

As they gaze one last time into one another's eyes, perhaps they will be saddened that their days of war mongering against the Muslim world and against the LGBTQ Community are nearly over.

After all, they have been successful at murdering hundreds of thousands of Muslim men, women and children -- and have unleashed an unprecedented assault on gay men and lesbians in the US, Australia, Afghanistan and Iraq:

"Life is particularly less safe for gay and lesbian people in Iraq, many of whom are being hunted down and executed by Islamic extremists. But it is over the rights of their own gay and lesbian constituents that Bush and Howard are arguably most aligned.

In the lead-up to the 2004 US Presidential election, Bush’s Republican Party sought to mobilise right wing Christian voters by placing referenda on gay marriage on the ballot papers of many of the vital swing States that would determine the election result.

Bush went on to win many of those States, with gay marriage banned in each.

Similarly, in the lead-up to Australia’s general election in 2004, John Howard introduced legislation to ban gay marriage."

We say good riddance to both of these dangerous and delusional men.