Tag Archives: lgbt

Get them to the church on time

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AlaMarriageThe New Yorker calls it “The Moment for Marriage in Alabama,” while the Religion News Service says, “[the] Handwriting [is] on the wall for gay marriage.”

And they’re both right, at least in the big picture sense. Though we must remember the proverbial warning about counting chicks before they’re hatched. It is clear which way the arc of history is going, but Alabama shows us yet another example of how smooth sailing isn’t in the immediate future—even though In 17 Words, Justice Clarence Thomas All But Declared Marriage Equality Inevitable.

Lots of people have drawn a parallel between the Alabama Chief Justice’s declaration that state officials don’t have to follow the federal court orders about marriage equality to George Wallace’s refusal to let schools integrate racially back in the 1950s. Enough people have drawn that parallel that now op-Ed prices are being written to claim that it isn’t merely “Alabama being Alabama.” According to those pundits, this is somehow not merely prejudice but a manifestation of a deeper-seeded conflict between local and state control versus federal control.

The only way you can make such a ridiculous argument is to be completely ignorant of the history of the struggle for racial equality. Because the argument that it wasn’t prejudice but rather a states’ right claim is exactly what Governor Wallace and the other opponents of segregation and the civil rights movement claimed at the time.

Alabama isn’t the only state where officials are fighting tooth-and-nail against equality for gay people, so in that sense it isn’t just Alabama being Alabama—but it is most definitely bigots being bigoted. If the opponents of LGBT rights were merely (and really) concerned with local control, they wouldn’t (at the same time as they’re making these states’ rights arguments) also be passing state laws to overturn individual cities’ gay rights ordinances.

So, the haters are gonna hate. They’re going to lie and defy. They’ll impede and interfere. But in the end they’re going to lose. Justice will triumph. Equality with reign. Love will prevail.

So, get those lesbian and gay couples to a church, chapel, or courthouse, and let love win the day! And then, let’s dance!

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here!)

Four Childhood Crushes

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Clockwise from upper left: Race Bannon, James West, Mowgli, Major Don West.
Clockwise from upper left: Race Bannon, James West, Major Don West, Mowgli.
Last week lots of people were sharing lists and sets of pictures of their childhood crushes with the hashtag #4childhoodcrushes. I was thinking this might be too late for me to come to the party, except that when I did a google search on it, I found a big cluster around the tag dated in 2010. One thing that was a bit disconcerting was how many of the people I follow on social media were posting pictures of TV and movie characters that didn’t come into existence until I was in my 20s or later. Clearly I’m the old, old man of several online social circles. Continue reading Four Childhood Crushes →

Dumb arguments against legal protections for transgender people, part 4

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I’ve written before about dumb arguments people make for why there shouldn’t be legal protections for transgender people. And here’s one I haven’t tackled:

The Bible says it’s a sin!

You might want to read the whole book before you make that claim:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
—Galatians 3:28

The usual Biblical arguments about transgenderism ignore this verse, or try to claim that it’s being metaphorical about how god judges people. And then they point to verses in the Bible about how god created each person, or the verses about women covering their hair and so on to infer a definitive statement from god. But they’re wrong, as I’ll explain below… Continue reading Dumb arguments against legal protections for transgender people, part 4 →

A few brights lights among the gloom

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Things may not look so bright for Equality after the midterms, but it isn't all awful.
Things may not look so bright for Equality after the midterms, but it isn’t all awful.
I knew it was going to be bad news. More because of low turn-out and the demographic skewing that happens in those elections. But it wasn’t all bad news at the elections.

  • All six openly non-heterosexual members of Congress who were up for re-election have won their races. Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Rep Mark Pocan (D-WI), Rep David Cicilline (D-RI), and Rep. Kysten Sinema (D-AZ) all retained their seats this week.
  • The Citizens of Dallas, Texas, overwhelmingly voted to amend the city charter to include an anti-discrimination clause which included both sexual orientation and gender identity.
  • The Duck Dynasty cousin (Zach Dasher) whose slogan running for Congress was, “My platform begins with God,” lost. It is important to not that he was running against an incumbent conservative Republican whose previous campaign was all about defending the sanctity of marriage (and lots of other anti-gay statements), because said incumbent was too liberal. While Dasher has lost, we don’t yet know the winner. The Sanctity of Marriage guy has a run-off with a moderate Democrat in a few weeks.
  • Massachusetts has elected the first out lesbian state attorney general.
  • The anti-gay governor of Pennsylvania whose poor choice of words and even more suspect legal arguments I’ve written about before, Tom Corbett, was defeated by a candidate who has pledged to sign a comprehensive hate crime law if the legislature passes it.
  • Anti-gay crackpot (who is currently embroiled in a lawsuit about crimes against humanity for some of his anti-gay activities in Uganda), Scott Lively, failed to get even 1% of the vote in his bid for Massachusetts governor.

There were other bright spots here and there. Most of the local races I voted on went the way I wanted them to. There were other good candidates elected around the country. Despite the crowing of some of the anti-gay activists out there, there is little evidence of a change of heart of the electorate on equality issues. This election was more about who didn’t show up to vote rather than a change in the opinions of the majority.

And I’m not as bummed out as I was afraid I would be. Most of which I attribute to the fact that I started NaNoWriMo on midnight, Friday, and I written over 10,000 words already. So I’ve paid less attention to all the depressing news, rather than my usual level of obsessing over election stuff.

Go purple!

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Millions go purple on Spirit Day in a stand against bullying and to show their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.

I’ve written way too much about my own experiences being bullied in my youth. It can be depressing to think that all these decades later it’s still going on. But I refuse to be daunted. And these kids do, too:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Find out how to go purple at http://glaad.org/spiritday
Find out how to go purple at http://glaad.org/spiritday

Out! Out! Come out now!

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National-Coming-Out-Day-300x300Today is National Coming Out Day. If Ray were still alive, it would also be the day we’d be celebrating the twenty-first anniversary of our commitment ceremony (he promised to stay with me for the rest of his life, and he did).

Since I am still occasionally surprised to learn that someone I know or work with hasn’t figured out that I’m gay: my husband (Michael) and I are both men, and we’re very much in love with each other and happy together.

My husband and I.
My husband and I.
But while I’m (re-)stating what I think ought to be obvious, I would like to announce that I am a card-carrying liberal gay man who thinks:

Continue reading Out! Out! Come out now! →

It’s the footnotes that bring it home

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From the unanimous ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declaring same-sex marriage bans in Nevada and Idaho unconstitutional.
From the unanimous ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declaring same-sex marriage bans in Nevada and Idaho unconstitutional.
One day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review five other appeals, the 9th Circuit released its unanimous ruling concerning the same-sex marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada. There are several wonderful passages, and more than one amusing footnote from the judges.

The best one is footnote 12, concerning the closing arguments from the Governor of Idaho:

He also states, in conclusory fashion, that allowing same-sex marriage will lead opposite-sex couples to abuse alcohol and drugs, engage in extramarital affairs, take on demanding work schedules, and participate in time-consuming hobbies. We seriously doubt that allowing committed same-sex couples to settle down in legally recognized marriages will drive opposite-sex couples to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.

You can read the entire ruling here.

Traditional marriage?

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BzSbHKKIAAAEyiyYesterday, the Supreme Court officially declined to review any of the Marriage Equality cases that had been appealed to them thus far. Declining to review means that the ruling by each appeals court is, essentially, upheld. The immediate effect was the stays against those rulings were lifted, and in five more states Marriage Equality now is the law of the land. The secondary effect is that any other states covered by one of the five Circuit Courts whose rulings were upheld will almost certainly become marriage equality states as soon as an appeal gets to the circuit. That means very soon the number of states that have marriage equality will be 30. In fact, officials in Colorado, knowing that the circuit court they are currently appealing to has already ruled against a nearly identical ban in a neighboring state, have decided to drop the appeal, and have told county clerks to start issuing marriage licenses.

Now, there are several other cases that have yet to be ruled on by any circuit court, so those last 20 states may take a while.

Governors of at least two of the states who lost Monday are not taking it gracefully. Most hilarious of these is Mary Fallin, governor of Oklahoma. Fallin’s righteous indignation is so funny because Fallin is a divorced adulterer. Continue reading Traditional marriage? →

Lies of the Devil Talkers

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Pastor Manning is once again misquoting the Bible to bash gay people.
Pastor Manning is once again misquoting the Bible to bash gay people.
Let’s all heave a big sigh, because Pastor Manning and his church sign are at it again.

This week the sign says, “When the homos bullied the poor and needy in Sodom like they do in Harlem, Jesus fire and brim-stoned them,” and then cites three Biblical passages: Ezekial 16:48-50, Leviticus 20:13, and Genesis 19:24-? – the last one is cut off, as it doesn’t quite fit into the lit up part of the sign.

The first thing to note about these Bible verses is that all of them are in the Old Testament, where Jesus does not appear, as he hadn’t been born yet, and is not the person speaking. One could argue that it might not have been the intent of the Pastor to imply that Jesus is being quoted in those verses, but given the context of why this sign is saying this particular message now (which I will get to), that argument is wrong. So, the first lie in the sign is the notion that Jesus said anything about homosexuals at all. Jesus did not at any point at all in the Bible.

So, what do those verses actually say? Continue reading Lies of the Devil Talkers →

Oh, bi the way…

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BiWeek Featured ImageI often quote the study completed by the Centers for Disease control in the early 90s whose conclusions included the line, “Americans would rather admit to being heroin addicts than being bisexual.” So I am hardly the first person to notice that bisexual visibility is fraught. As one friend said, “My orientation is bisexual, but my temperament is monogamous, then I fell in love with a man, and there’s just no natural moment to mention to your future in-laws, ‘oh, by the way, I’m bisexual.'” Later, when we were both members of the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Chorus, she said the chorus finally gave her a way bring it up with many people as she would try to sell tickets to the concerts. “No, you don’t have to be gay or lesbian to sing in the group, we’ve had a few straight members. But I’m not one of them.”

Most of the bi people I know (or I should say, most of the people I happen to know are bisexual) have wound up in long-term opposite-sex relationships. Just as a matter of statistics, there are more straight people, so the number of potential partners who happen to be opposite sex is much larger than the number who are same-sex. Some bi people, like my husband, end up in long-term relationships with same-sex partners. That same CDC study I mentioned earlier found that about one-third of people who self-identify as gay are actually bisexual, but keep quiet about it.

Because society—even folks who think of themselves as enlightened—assumes that people will settle down as part of a couple, when you do get into a long term relationship, colleagues and acquaintances assume they can infer your orientation. If you wind up with an opposite-sex partner and they are aware of any of your previous same-sex relationships, they assume it was an experimental phase. If you wind up with a same-sex partner and they are aware of any of your opposite-sex relationships, they assume you were in denial.

And gay people like me who actually did try to convince ourselves that maybe we weren’t really gay but actually bi don’t help your cause. Because there was a time when I described myself as bi, and because many gay people do that as part of their own coming out process, a lot of people assume that’s what everyone who describes themselves as bi is doing. For which I apologize.

I do know that the only way to decrease the stigma of being bisexual is to be out. Just as the only thing that has made people warm to the notion of gay and lesbian rights was for more and more of us to be out to our families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, that’s what it’s going to take for bisexuals. Yes, it’s scary. But being open and honest is very liberating.

So, come out, come out, wherever you are!