Mike, look, as far as I'm concerned, you are perfectly entitled to spend your days watching porn, screwing any boy that moves, and pounding the latest mind-mincing chemical into your veins, heart and brain. Suicide is suicide, whether you do it all at once or one dime-bag at a time.
I've also got no problem with the realization you had, long about 3AM, not that many nights ago, while vomiting into a porcelain portal, your ass slick with used lube, Fred's Four Fisting Family O' Fun casting shadows upon the passed-out bodies of the deep friends you met for the first time at Rage about 45 minutes ago, and with whom you then invited back to your place because they too loved the cinematograpy in Fred's orgy scene and were more than up for helping you reenact it, even at this late hour, that your life wasn't exactly turning out as planned. Greater insights than yours have come from lesser events --like, say, the Holocaust.
I'm not even going to knock you for thinking that your Magic Super Friend Sam took time from His busy day of running the Universe, giving pet ponies to His supplicants, and torturing Heathens, to wave His majestic wand your way and, poof!, you were no longer a Poof. Usually, I'd chock that up to fallout from the mind-mincing dime bags, but today I'm feeling nice.
However, to hop up on a box and bleat to the world that your life is all the better now because you wet your willy with a woman is just textbook hubris. It's also asinine. The problems with how you lived your life -- the exceedingly poor choices you made, your own inability to live for anyone other than yourself -- were yours and yours alone.
Oh, and despite what you may think, they weren't that novel. Lots of people have made similarly bad choices, never the mind who they sleep with. I counseled more of them than I would have liked. That was my choice though. I'm not complaining. Much.
Until you deal with you, with your particular excuses for messing up your life, your problems won't go away, no matter what defense, or person, you mount. They'll just sneak back up on you, quietly, unhindered, until, once again, it's 3AM and you have a brand new assortment of house guests asleep in the other room.
Mike, the root of your problem isn't your lusts or or your loves. It's you.
That night, when his mother got home from work, she stuck her head in his room to say hi. "I said, 'Ma, I need to talk to you about something, I'm gay.' She said, 'O.K., anything else?' 'No, but I just told you I’m gay.' 'O.K., that's fine, we still love you.' I said, 'That's it?' I was preparing for this really dramatic moment."
The unexpected irony of all this is that as society becomes even more accepting of gay teens and adolescents, the "Post Gay" phenomena likely to become ever larger. It's not that much of a stretch to think that gays will be allowed to serve openly in the military within 10 years. Domestic Partnerships and perhaps even Gay marriage itself will be widespread within 15. The wide use of VOD and Internet TV will push content currently localized only on Logo and Here!, the USA's two gay TV networks, into even more homes and households within the same span of time.
In such a world, homophobia will be of the form and intensity that racism is now -- still present though greatly reduced in prevelence and impact, rearing it's ugly head just often enough to grab headlines and cause (public) apologies and rehabilitations.
What is this world coming to when a bunch of superstitious nut-jobs can't make hate-filled rants without young adults recognizing it for the tripe it is and commenting about it on their personal home pages?
It seems that the good folks at Americans For Truth -- the infamous Anti-Gay outfit run by Peter "I Sneak into Bath Houses to just look around" LaBarbera -- took time out from bashing their usual targets to go after a new threat to the American Family.
Disgusted by the stupidity and hatred he saw on display by a supposedly "adult" organization, said My Space Teen vented his anger over AFT's ambitions and goals to his fellow page reading peers. He closed out his heartfelt comments with a wish that people wouldn't hate one another over things they don't understand.
AFT's Research Analyst Sonja Dalton couldn't let such earnestness go unspoiled. She posted a fairly lengthly response, which I'll summarize for you thusly:
"Hey Kid, Shut Up!"
Given the threat the AFT feels from a teen critique of their lunacy, you can't help but wonder how big a gasket they'd blow were they ever to see the refrigerator drawings of Rosie O'Donnell's four year-old:
"...We at the AFT must counter the lies that Noted Homosexual Activist Vivienne Rose O'Donnell continues to publish. Her use of the term "Mom" and "Mommy" to refer to Rosie O'Donnell and Kelly Carptenter, denigrates millienia of REAL Moms and Mommys! (Note: Children can only have ONE or the other. Not BOTH.)
Further, "Luvvv U xxx ooo" is not only misused, but offensively so. This demonstrates for the record that children shouldn't be allowed to comment on such important matters as Marriage and Adoption nor use sacrosanct expressions such as "xxx" "ooo" and most importantly "Luvvv." "
I hope the young owner of the My Space page remembers this incident for the rest of his days. People do pay attention to what you write.
...for never letting the facts get in the way of a stupid opinion. That something said is though made with a snicker and a derisive observation that all the professed "reasoned contemplation and assessment" undergirding the opinion are as non-existent as an Ice Cream & Cheese Buffet at the Fatally Lactose Intolerant's annual convention.
As gay people macking in movies is a bit of a hobby of mine, I was confused because I didn't remember Ed Norton smooching with anyone of the same gender. I asked Priscilla what she was talking about. Her reply was ever so enlightening
It speaks to the success of desensitization efforts that we can't remember any homosexual scene.
In fact, there is a violent, racial, homosexual rape scene per:
http://www.racematters.org/americanhistoryx.htm
"A black-and-white homosexual rape sequence has been so strikingly photographed by Mr. Kaye himself that it makes up for the facile nature of the film's prison interlude."
http://www.louisville.edu/~cnwoot01/ahx.html
"In a very disturbing shower-room scene, Derek is brutally raped by members of the white supremacy group. "
Maybe some people could justify exposing their children to such, but many of us do not agree that there is some kind of educational value for teenagers in exploring the basest extremes of racial hatred, rape, and homosexuality. That is why there was a law requiring parental notice - so that parents who find it acceptable can opt in and parents who find it objectionable can opt out.
You scroll through the postings and not only is she and the rest of her club worried about the least little mention of homosexuality or Gay people, but she's one of the social club set itching to start nuking the Middle East.
Sweet Noodles for Brains, sometimes it seems insanity is just popping up all over.
One last illustration because this is just really bothering me.
The scene in question from American History X, the one that Ms. Jael equates with average, everyday, "homosexual behavior?" Quickie description of the action in the sequence is that Ed Norton's neo-Aryan character, a rather despicable soul who caused much evil between the races at the beginning of the film, is beaten, pummeled, and held down in the shower while several other despicable people his former buddies in the jail house White Supremacist Gang* brutally ass-rape him over and over again before leaving him crying in a bloody, bested pile.
Curiously enough, the above and full scale war in the Middle East have one blindingly truth thing in common, folks.
I doubt my comment is going to make it past the authorization process. I find that people who take the most extreme positions possible on their blogs, have a deep distaste for anyone to critique their deceptively intelligent remarks.
I simply just wanted to make you, humble Readers, aware of the utter lack of compassion the self (and other) hatred homophobia can engender in its victims.
Feel for Steve Bennett. The pain that haunts his psyche is far, far worse than the shit that falls from his mouth.
Update: He actually replied. Terrible justification for his comment. "Letter of the Law." He misses the point of compassion so completely. Sad.
Update #2: Questions are a tough thing to handle. One can either answer them forthrightly, with honesty and conviction, or one can clam up, trill loudly, and erase the fact that someone disagreed with them. Guess which one Steven did?
MEMORY FLASH: I wonder whatever happened to Jed, the boy I played "house" with in Ms. Dombrosky's kindergarten class, three decades ago? Of course, the "house" was one of those plastic play-sets you see banged up in the corner of the playroom and "going to work" in our game involved a day spent killing dinosaurs and other scaly beasts. You haven't lived though until you've had tyrannosaur steak broiled in an Easy Bake Oven.
I also knew, younger than 10, that most other people didn't feel this way. As time went on, and crushes ceased having a little "c" in front of them and began having a big "C" leading the way, that those feelings had to be stuffed down and away. It wasn't good to talk about them, express them, even acknowledge them.
I'm really excited then that these kids might actually get to express their feelings at an age appropriate time, to socialize and learn the same life-lessons right alongside their peers. I do, though, remain concerned that the safe structure for that -- formed by parents, peers, community -- is firmly established enough so that these kids don't encounter disaster by the ignorance of those so charged with helping them.
But hey, it's still really cool.
I wonder if I can get an Easy Bake on Ebay? Dinosaur meat just doesn't taste the same stir-fried on my range.
Just got done watching this excellent piece from 60 Minutes on the the Science Of Sexual Orientation. I was amazed that they actually got it right for a change. So many reports, be they TV, magazine, or blog, are woefully behind on the latest research on the subject. While the 60 Minutes report was a quick summary of what we currently know, in that summary it covered all the major points -- that sexual orientation really isn't a choice, that it is prevalent pretty early on, that it seems to run in families, that it has a genetic component, hormonal influence, birth order proximity and gender implications. It also exploded the conventional wisdom that gay men are any more promiscuous than straight men -- they're just more fortunate that their partners feel about sex the same that they do -- and that both gay men and straight men are equally shallow.
You have to laugh at that.
It also touched on the more controversial areas, vis a vis voice and mannerisms, "feminized" vs. "masculinized" brain regions, and the truth behind stereotypes. Most importantly, it also discussed that there is still so much that we don't know about the subject, but hope to understand some day soon.
It was an excellent piece of journalism that really won't have much of an impact on those who simply choose not to understand. I have no doubt we'll be seeing many postings in the next 24 hours discussing the "bias," the "propaganda," or the "anti-family-ness" of the piece.
Whatever.
The science is still the science and I'm fascinated by where it will lead.
"MSNBC News reports that two students from Birmingham-Southern College were arrested last night in their college dorm rooms, in connection with the string of arsons that damaged or destroyed nearly a dozen Baptist churches in rural Alabama last month... So far, authorities have declined to discuss motive or any other details of their investigation....And here is a possibility for motive.. [I}t is not inconceivable that the psychotic hatred of Christians in general by gay activists, coupled with Prof. Speigner's murder, may have precipitated these crimes."
It's also not inconceivable that the Easter Bunny fell off the wagon, went on a bender, and freebased cocaine at the scene of each of these arsons, thus setting the fire and causing the disastrous results. As long as we're pulling explanations out of our asses, we might as well go with the fluffy one.
a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs.
For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month.
A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects.
that can trip up even the most careful of us.
In cases such as the one I linked, where no care was taken in generating thie post, I prefer to call it the "You're An Idiot" bias. This variant of the Confirmation Bias has the added bit that the author wouldn't know the truth if it skipped up to him, twisted his nipples and gave him $20 bucks for his time.
And the guy is making a minor mint off of them. I rented a few from NetFlix -- NETFLIX!!! -- and clutched my stomach at the absolute inanity of his efforts. His films are advertised for sale and rental everywhere. Fleckidy-flook. Drives me batshit crazy.
Anyway, don't watch his movies. I sacrifice for you, dear friends. Save yourselves, save yourselves, all.
PARSHALL: Well, I think we are all part of this government, and we all have a voice, and I think it's important that we understand in the marketplace of ideas, all ideas should be listened to. Good ideas will last and stand; bad ideas will fall under their own weight. You know, it's interesting, Larry, in this debate -- and I think it was Chad or else it was Guy who said earlier, we're going to debate this for a long time. We are. We're going to debate this until the cows come home. And there will in the final analysis be two mutually exclusive perspectives on this. One will say, hey, anything goes, don't box me in by rules, I want to do my own thing, I want to define it any way I want to. Just give me the liberty to live as I want.
And then the other world view that says, well, you know what, I do have free will and I do have choice. But I bow in submission to a loving God -- not a cosmic bully who wants to beat me to death with his rules, but a loving God who says, here's a parameter. I've made man and I've made woman and I've made the institution of marriage. And when you step outside that institution and you engage in sexual activity, you're going to get hurt. And because our God loves us unconditional, he hates it when we get hurt. And so that's what we do, we speak out and we speak the truth. And it isn't a matter of saying, well, we're the haters and we're pointing fingers.
KING: But Janet, if you choose to do it and you don't get hurt -- some people get married and do get hurt -- something is wrong with the equation?
PARSHALL: You know what? I have to tell you, Larry, that we are all sinners. The statement that was made earlier that somehow Al and I are pointing fingers at other people -- you know, Al and I got all dressed up tonight and sat here to be with you, and we came here as sinners, but we are sinners that understand that we are loved by an unconditional God.
KING: So you're sinners with more understanding than these sinners.
PARSHALL: My...
KING: You have more understanding than your fellow sinners?
PARSHALL: No...
KING: This is a panel of sinners, but two of them have more understanding than the other two?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're all sinners, but they get to get married.
KING: Well, you have more understanding than they do.
A VISION of an Islamic society that bans mixed dancing and sternly disapproves of homosexuality has been given by Mahmoud Zahar, the most senior leader of Hamas in Gaza....
Dr Zahar condemned homosexual marriage, saying: “Are these the laws for which the Palestinian street is waiting? For us to give rights to homosexuals and to lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick?
In the meantime, I've got blogging as an outlet, a good place to find other bits of writing that I like (or don't) and respond in something close to real time. Good writing is good writing, after all. Take the closing paragraph of this post for example:
And when the necessary growing up is done and these illusions are shattered, I can say from personal experience it will be inexpressibly painful. But, like all parents, we conservatives will be standing by, as patiently as we possibly can, waiting to catch our family when they fall.
I thought it was a great gut punch that summed up the intent of the writer's essay quite nicely. It was a terribly immature and misguided essay, but it did end well.
The post came from the self-named blog Prism Warden, presented by a 26 year old, gay conservative out of Chicago. From his posts, it seems that he reached his current conservative beliefs sometime after transitioning out of college, and now, as the linked essay explains, finds that in the common gay house we all all happen to share, the conservative gays are the adults on the premisis while the left leaning 'Mos are the wayward teenagers:
...No matter what our disagreements, we are forced through various pressures to live in the same homosexual house, and we all have different ideas about how that house should be run. Studying this, I have come to a conclusion:
Gay conservatives are the parents, and gay liberals are the teenagers.
The problem with the gay liberal mindset is that it is infested with a naïve idealism and penchant for wanting to see the world as how they wish it to be, not how it objectively is. The Democratic Party is their first true high school love, and like all true loves, the warts and faults have been smudged to a blurry shadow cast by their perceived Adonis....Gay conservatives, on the other hand, are generally cynical adults. While some decry it as nothing more than jaded bitterness, cynicism is a characteristic wrought of experience and the wisdom that accompanies it....You see, it is about being honest. Gay conservatives have no problem seeing their situation honestly....Instead of engaging in a shrill, emotional breakdown, we choose the path of reasoned discourse and steady persuasion....
Gay liberals don’t want a discussion. They want what they want, and they want it right now, to hell with everyone else... With a driving need to be loved and accepted, the gay Left will swallow anything and everything they are told to swallow. Not only swallow it, but actively promote it.... Gay liberals will lie to themselves and others, because they believe there is someone in this world who unconditionally loves them, and someday the rest of us will see it.
It just isn’t so. And when the necessary growing up is done and these illusions are shattered, I can say from personal experience it will be inexpressibly painful. But, like all parents, we conservatives will be standing by, as patiently as we possibly can, waiting to catch our family when they fall.
Until then, the battle to force them into adulthood continues.
Prism declares that a jaded, cynical view of the world is the hallmark of being an adult. His experience has led him to bitter eyes, a broken heart, and a realization that, unlike Disney fairy tales, much of life truly does suck. As he now looks like an adult, the way he says he feels, must therefore mean he is an adult.
That's really cute.
Seriously.
As I mentioned above, I remember being there. In this wacky world, it's good that some things remain eternal. What's also eternal is that cynicism has nothing to do with being an adult. Far from it.
Cynicism is as much a reaction formation to the dashed illusions of youth as is the childlike expectation of rescue when presented with oncoming and certain oblivion. It's a failure to engage the world as what it is: neither objectively good, or objectively bad. While the world, while life, contains both good and bad, it is neither of those things. Life simply is.
The poety of the Tao Te Ching -- the superstitious gobbledy-gook that results when it's poetry is followed literally is a post for another day -- suggests this idea:
One thing seems long by comparison with that which is, comparatively, short.
One thing is high because another thing is low;
only when sound ceases is quietness known,
and that which leads is seen to lead only by being followed.
In comparison, the sage,
in harmony with the Tao,
needs no comparisons,
and when he makes them, knows
that comparisons are judgements,
and just as relative to he who makes them,
and to the situation,
as they are to that on which
the judgement has been made.
Or more concisely from the Tao of Jody, "Life is full of it, but not just shit."
Yeah, yeah. Stick to screenwriting. I know.
Proving you're an adult because you now see things harshly and bitterly, is at best an affection exemplified by the bevy of leather jacket wearing brooders proclaiming that same truth in the cafeterias of every American (and probably French) high-school, red or blue. At worst, it's a defeatist attitude, a justification for retreat, entrenchment and the erection of barriers, parapets and bolt holes. Stock up on the Prozac, lock up the women and wait out the end, for all is but walking shadow, and it is better not to dream than to have ever dreamed at all.
Further, in attaching your politics to your pain, and then hoisting yourself above others, proclaiming that not only your political beliefs but your take on your sexuality is now better than that of those same others is a lot like throwing three feral cats, a rabid dog, and a jar of peanut butter into a dryer and turning it on: a really bad idea. It creates a foul mix that coats everything from justifications for Executive ineptitude to fears regarding your status as a "man" in a miasma of paranoia, projection and defensiveness.
The traditions of Conservative thought, the debt we owe our Hellenistic past, the obligation of fiscal responsibility and strong economy we have to our future and the strong defense required to bridge those points, are noble and necessary ensigns to loft high, celebrate and march behind. Yet the "...naïve idealism and penchant for wanting to see the world as how they wish it to be..." which leads some to stare down attack dogs in an effort to vote and others angry men with guns to protect children is equally as important, as it addresses and protects those left behind when the ensigns have long since past.
All children, but one, eventually grow up, so I hope that one day Prism Warden understands exactly what cynicism really says about himself. It does not illustrate depth, knowledge, or an understanding of the realities of the world. If it's anything other than a transitory mask worn during the drama of adolescence (or even young adulthood), cynicism becomes nothing but a feint, a covet fueled grab for the privileges of adulthood while avoiding the responsibilities those privileges entail.
In the end, cynicism is about being a child, a physically large one no doubt, but an angry and spoiled one nonetheless.
"Just days before "Southern Decadence", an annual homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the French Quarters section of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina destroys the city...
We must help and pray for those ravaged by this disaster, but let us not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said. "May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage concluded.
Translated: Hurricanes are caused by (gay) sodomy.
Now I, a rather rational person, except when I'm writing horror stories, sci-fi tales, or balancing my check-book, was shocked to hear this. I thought an unfortunate confluence of atmospheric events caused hurricanes, but apparently it's common knowledge by many people, Mr. Marcavage and Rev. Pat Robertson included, that butt bouncing and bumping causes the heavens to unload their wet wrath on both the land and the seas.
I was a little offended by this, thinking that once again another nut job, with far too much time on his hands, delusions of grandeur, and poor fashion sense was scoring media face-time off the pain and suffering of the poor.
But then I pondered deeply the power that me and my brethren held deep in our... well you know where.. and decided in a flash to embrace stone age logic. For if several hundred thousand humpin' homos can level a city, what might a few hundred do to a hate spewing organization?
On accepting this power, and as the duly self-appointed and deluded leader of the Vast Homosexual Conspiracy, I here-by invoke my rights under Article 69 and call for an organized application of said power. No, not with a Teach-In (so tired), nor a Love-In (too 60s), but something modern, in-your-face and steeped in the magic Marcavage and his kind say we have:
I call a Fuck-In.
Centered on Repent America's offices.
Not a big one mind you; copulating cordons of cock-sure catamites could no doubt seriously wash away the entire office block -- or the residential neighborhood, given the mailing address for RA is a PO box -- that Repent America occupies. Plus, with the responsibility my and mine bear for the destruction of New Orleans, I wouldn't want to add anymore to our karmic debt.
I think a few couples, or triples, or quintuples (I'm really open-minded about these things) undulating on the mauve shag carpeting of RA's office / rumpus room would be more than enough to summon a sizable storm inside and spew hail and ice over membership rolls, floppy disks and the odd stack of Jack Chick tracts.
A van of orgastic excess could also be appointed to roll behind the intrepid Repenters, dragging a dire-downpour where ever they happen to go. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find plenty of couples, or triples, or quintuples (as I said, I'm rather open to whatever floats one's boat) who'd even be willing to personally follow Mr. Marcavage about his day to day doings, ensuring there's always a storm when he needs it.
Wait a minute!
I think I've discovered an erotically enhanced ethereal enterprise of sodomongic gamoragaganzas! Think about it: Scale things up to White Party size, set it down in Tora-Bora and we'd have a Weapon of Mass Destruction the likes of which Osama Bin Laden has never seen. ("They're sending in the fags? Sheeeet! Someone find me a boat!") Scale it down and a couple of boys jacking-off could water a garden or fill a small pool. Self-love with the freezer door open? Ice, ice baby! I bet a little french kissing could even wash a car.
Fuck the Fuck-Ins, Marcavages, Repent Americas and prehistoric logic. I'm off to the patent office to register this fabulous new process.
After all, it doesn't take much to get a rise out of me.
Speaking of rises, yes, I'm so angry over the legitimate disaster of New Orleans, one that we had the power to reduce and repair had we relied on ourselves and not superstition and wishful thinking, that a few moments spent ridiculing "Repent America" feels really, really good right now
A friend shared this with me today. I met him shortly after all of this transpired, so I had no real idea what exactly went on before our first conversation:
The lights go off for the last time...
A glow from the blinking red letters of the clock I begged my mom to buy me when I was little, 3:15.
A sea of boxes, and an empty bookshelf
...The bland memories fade...
I duck, a water bottle is hurled past me...the window shatters behind me...I'm a little shit.
I'm thrown outside, my clothes follow...I'm worthless.
A shoe flies by my head...I was just trying to help...I'm useless.
A tear falls from my cheak...13 years, you've wasted that money and gotten nothing for an education.
I'm a disgrace.
The door slams, dad looks back...he walks out of the room...mom opens the door...It's your fault.
A friend comes to watch a movie...I'm a slut.
"Fag."
Maybe all the memories should fade.
Makes me cry. No one should have to go through that. No one.
Later, I IM him: "What ever you do, don't believe you are a disgrace.
Not even in those dark moments. Because you are nowhere even close."
He sends back: i don't think i am...its just interesting when you hear it from your mother
Me: Yes, you find yourself believing it, even when you don't want to.
My friend: tis true...its gotten to me more this week than it has in a long long time...
Me: Big hug, big guy...And a tear from another to let you know that while it's your pain, you don't go through it alone.
The nice thing about this young man is that he's got a brain, drive, ambition, and a firm plan out his Texas two-steppin wazoo that's bound to take him farther than even he thinks he can go. I've got faith in him, and I know a lot of you folks, sight unseen, have faith in him too.
I think in some small way that makes up for the others who should, who don't.
Every day I cry at night," Feiraz said. "I'm a homosexual and was forced to work as a prostitute because one of the people I had sex with took pictures of me in bed and said that, if I didn't work for him, he was going to send the pictures to my family."
"My life is a disaster today. I could be killed by my family to restore their honour," he said, explaining that homosexuality was totally unacceptable in Iraq due to religious beliefs.
Following the conflict in 2003, there has been an increase in the number of commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the country, especially among teenagers, according to local officials.
Or his dad to take him in the shower and show them his penis.
Excellent, excellent, overview article in The Boston Globe on the ongoing lines of research around why some people are gay. Once again, it shows how far our understanding of the subject has come, and how seriously far it has yet to go.
...[T]he boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.
"Dad, I'm 19."
"Shut up and get in the shower. Now, look at my penis. It's bigger, see? You're not looking, son."
"But Dad..."
"LOOK AT MY PENIS!!"
Life in a Fundamentalist family home: It's all Naked Showers and Penis Watching™.
Okay, who talked to Janet? Didn't anyone read the memo? Loose lips sink Vast Criminal Conspiracies Against All That Is Holy, people! Get with the program!
But maybe if someone were to tell Bush that the Iranian Theocrats were really Democrats and the two kids were proud members of the Young Republicans...
Well today, my mother, father, and I had a very long "talk" in my room where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist christian program for gays. They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they "raised me wrong." I'm a big screw up to them, who isn't on the path God wants me to be on. So I'm sitting here in tears, joing the rest of those kids who complain about their parents on blogs - and I can't help it.
This "Love in Action" camp is evil, vile and wrong. The people who run it are evil, vile, and wrong. What they do to this kid and the others forced to be there? Evil, vile and wrong.
This simple horror is not going unnoticed. this group has actually formed because of this young man's blog. They've even garnered a TV story.
Bang a drum, folks. Give this story as big a view as possible for Zach stuck in the camp, those forced to be there with him, and all the other young people just like them we hear nothing about.
In the recent upgrade to MT 3.5, about 12 months of entries between 2004-2005 were corrupted. The back-up files still exist. It's just going to take me a while to enter them again. Until then, there are quite a few "gaps" on these archive pages.
As usual, for my morning amusement and slight ire-getting, I peruse the commentaries on the various blogs whose ideologies I find at best tiresome. On the indelible Mr. Shea's site, referenced here before and no doubt to be referenced here again because its just so damn easy to do, I find this diddy from a reader commenting on why discrimination against gays in marriage isn't really such:
Anyone can "feel" discriminated against. I'm sure polygamy, incestual, and man/animal relationships are next. To be honest, polygamy and incest are not nearly as bad as homosexual relationships because they at least respect the design of creation itself. They don't try to use orifices which are meant for other pooposes, whoops I mean purposes.
The depth of thought and the height of humor amongst those of the Religiously Right never ceases to amaze me.
Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to permit gays and lesbians to wed just after midnight today, when Cambridge City Hall welcomed more than 250 same-sex couples who hugged, cried, cheered, and applied for the marriage licenses many thought they would never see in their lifetimes.
Andy, as usual, beat me to a comment about my favorite fundamentalist Catholic Mark Shea's recent linking of the horrors in Iraqi prisons with the blossoming equality of gays and lesbians in the West. Mark sums everything up -- the failure of leadership in Iraq, the spurious reasons for war, the depravity of the guards -- by saying those who either initiated, supported or fought the war were driven by some deep desire to spread homosexuality to the ends of the Earth:
As I say, Western sexual depravity is now a faith for which many are willing to kill and die.
I just can't stop picturing those late night secret meetings at the White House, all dark and shadowy, shafts of light spilling harsh grays across hard visages, with Rummy, Cheney, Powell and the Shrub, nattering on about sending legions to war to the glory of stained sheets, the SPICE network and cool, spunky ciggies wafting an ethereal trail of nicotine and menthol out a slightly cracked Double Hung 1500. Who knew Bush even had homosexual attractions, let alone chained their expression to the explosions of 50mm cannons?
What's just a little unsettling is the the number of folks who chimed in in support of his facile analogy in the comments. It's always disturbing to see that there are quite a few fellow travelers joining Mark on his journey to fatuousness, an assemblage of asininity who seem to share a prodigy for Theodosius and a lament for both January 17th and the fraying of telomeres.
I suppose it's an easy place to live from when you regard the love between people of the same gender as the nexus of all villainy and pain in the world. Makes for easy answers to unrelated questions by intoning a simple phrase, a a quick and convenient response uttered when presented with such evils as being shortchanged at the market, cut off on the freeway, or reminded again and again at how pervasively their minds have been vitiated by prejudice:
When a queen goes to a gala she wants to arrive in style, and that say Birmingham police is what led a gang of marauding drag queens on a crime wave that targeted exclusive car dealerships in five southern states and Michigan.
What's the most amusing tough is just how hard up a lot of the victims are for a good date
One hapless salesman couldn't believe the beautiful woman who kept him busy was actually a man.� "God, I feel so foolish," the man, who asked that his name not be used told 365Gay.com. "I mean she, he, was gorgeous.� I was trying to get enough nerve to ask her for a date."
At least their mug shots will look fabu when they're caught.
Yes, you too can show this video to your children and teach them the dangers of men with bow ties, of men who ask for directions, or those who just want to take kids fishin'. Even more, it allows parents to use little Jimmy as a warning lesson, as the poor fellow winds up on probation and constant surveillance after his encounters.
Hey mom! Bring the popcorn. We're going to watch the video again!
Poor Randall Terry, the Anti-Abortionist, Pro-Prayer, Pro-Theocracy, Pro-Homphobia, father of a homosexual son:
For me, the most horrifying part of the story is my son's admission: "I did have numerous sexual encounters with my friends, usually during sleepovers at my parents' house" and "I was home from boarding school in my old bedroom at my parents' house in Windsor, N.Y., where my friend 'Johnny' and I had just finished fooling around ... we had been having sex for ages. ..."
Kinda gets ya' right here, don't it?
Oh, sorry. That was gas. My mistake.
Sad part about the article is that its obvious there's a lot of pain in that family, not least of it stemming from a just a weeeeee bit unbalanced -- and deceitful -- fellow like Mr. Terry trying to do one of the toughest jobs out there -- raising a foster kid from a difficult background.
Reading the dish he fires back about his son's own difficulties gives a touch of insight into what life is like in both the Terry family and Randall Terry's head.
Give us a rest Randy. If the greatest "problem" you have with your children is that one of them is gay, you've got nothing to complain about.
(Oh yeah. Randy, kids mess around when their parents aren't home. My guess is that if you queried your other children, the "good," straight ones, you'd find more than enough stuff went on in your home while you were otherwise occupied with shtupping your secretary, initiating divorce proceedings, starting political forays and engaging in general media grand-standing.)
A suit seeking to overturn Arkansas' ban on gays from becoming foster parents has been put on hold after the state's only expert witness was killed in a car crash.
Dr. Charles Gist was to testify that there is a correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia.Dr. Gist, a child psychiatrist from Little Rock, was killed in a two-car accident Wednesday night while returning from Louisiana to testify.
As it is, I can just feel wonderfuly conflicted, very sad for the loss to Dr. Gist's friends & family and quite happy that bullshit, homophobic views didn't get aired in support of a bullshit, homophobic policy.
All eyes are on an upcoming episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation, airing Monday, March 15 at 8:30 p.m. ET. In the episode entitled "It's Raining Men, teens Marco and Dylan go on their first date, heightening a storyline that has been developing all season. When the two exchange a tender kiss, another barrier will have fallen for the franchise as Marco and Dylan share the series first teen-on-teen, gay kiss.
The Degrassi franchise is no stranger to breaking down stereotypes and exploring sensitive storylines. Ever since the Degrassi franchise debuted more than 20 years ago, it has tackled real-life challenges that confront kids; from drugs and sex, to teen pregnancy, abuse, suicide and rape.
Researchers in the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine have confirmed that a male sheep's preference for same-sex partners has biological underpinnings.
A study published in the February issue of the journal Endocrinology demonstrates that not only are certain groups of cells different between genders in a part of the sheep brain controlling sexual behavior, but brain anatomy and hormone production may determine whether adult rams prefer other rams over ewes.
"This particular study, along with others, strongly suggests that sexual preference is biologically determined in animals, and possibly in humans," said the study's lead author, Charles E. Roselli, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, OHSU School of Medicine. "The hope is that the study of these brain differences will provide clues to the processes involved in the development and regulation of heterosexual, as well as homosexual, behavior."
The results lend credence to previous studies in humans that described anatomical differences between the brains of heterosexual men and homosexual men, as well as sexually unique versions of the same cluster of brain cells in males and females....
