I’ll just ignore all the other issues (Rachel Maddow covers them beautifully in her segment below), and I’ll answer the question posed by Mr. Skelton…

7 years old is the perfect age to discuss what it means to be gay with your kids. Why? Because at that age it’s not about sex - it’s about the relationship. You don’t have to discuss what you might think of as “icky” sexual practices - you can talk about loving relationships which should never be seen as “icky”. If your 7 year old asks if gay couples have kids, explain adoption to them and say gay couples adopt kids that same-sex couples aren’t able to care for. There’s nothing icky in that either…

I can see where the question could be awkward if the kid is 12 or 13, but I don’t see anything awkward about answering the question when the kid is 7.

And now for Rachel Maddow’s take on the issue…

After listening to the intro, skip the discussion of the oil spill by clicking in the area to the right of the pause button and jump to time code 7:23 in the video…

Some of the best lines were Matthew Dowd saying “Republican office holders are so far out of step on this”, “it’s way overdue” (his emphasis). And then George Will saying that for young people “being gay is like being left handed - it’s not really very interesting”. And then he quotes a Supreme Court decision that talks about “the evolving standards of decency that mark a maturing society”. I wonder if he realizes just how damning that phrase is of people who favor “traditional values”. It literally says they’re neither mature nor decent. Then he goes on to say “the case is over” and the Republicans in Congress are “not being very intelligent”.

First there was Laura Bush, now Matthew Dowd and George Will… It’s really refreshing to see Republicans standing up for what’s right. But what took them so long? Democrats figured this out decades ago…

She’s now my conservative hero… Can we clone her?

I wonder if she disagrees with George W on drilling in the arctic and offshore?

The other night Frontline had a program the other day on “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan”. Afghanistan has a tradition that’s called “bacha bazi” (بچه بازی) which literally translates to “baby play”. Poor young boys are recruited by an older wealthy men, their families paid pretty well for the boys, and they’re “trained” to entertain men. Not stated in the documentary, but pretty clear from watching which boys are recruited, is the fact that they’re trying to find and recruit kids who are probably gay. It probably also explains why the families are willing to  sell the boys - I doubt they’d sell their butch, rugged son, but it’s not such a big deal to sell the kids who they suspect to be gay.

The entertainment consists of dressing them as women and having them dance for a group of men. Curiously, the dancing part is quite modest - like women dancers, hardly any skin shows.

The issue is that after the performance their “master” (owner) may lend the boy to another man for the evening and sex is expected. From a western perspective this is literally sexual slavery of minors. The other big problem is that while some of the boys manage to fit in (the femmy gay ones), ones who resist and cause problems are often killed.

What’s interesting is that it’s all practiced pretty openly. Frontline even showed one case where bacha bazi was the entertainment for men attending a wedding. And most of the men who involved are powerful, with standing in the community - military commanders, police chiefs, businessmen, etc.

When I was in college studying sociology and Middle Eastern studies one of the big challenges was to try to look at cultures from their own eyes - cultural relativism. The Afghans who are outraged about bacha bazi are typically western educated, English speakers, or strict Muslims (the Taliban banned bacha bazi). I think part of their outrage comes from that fact that rich, powerful “straight” men with families might actually be gay or bisexual. Yes, there are serious exploitation issues with bacha bazi, but I think homophobia is a big part of the opposition to it. If the boys were older and things were more consensual (like western drag queen) many of the opponents would probably still be opposed to it.

However, the traditional Afghan seems to pretty much accept bacha bazi, and in a culture that isn’t all that fond of educating women and makes women wear burqas, it’s really not that surprising. Human life just isn’t intrinsically valued in Afghanistan like it is in the west. All men are not created equal. In Afghanistan if you’re male and wealthy you get to do pretty much what you want. And if you’re poor or female your life will be dictated by others with more power. Women literally can’t show their faces in public and some poor boys are required to have sex with older wealthy men.

So ultimately this is less about a sex crime and more about principles of basic equality. You can pass all the laws you want outlawing bacha bazi (as the Taiban did), but it will have little effect if you don’t instill in people that everyone is inherently equal and that there are certain human right everyone just gets without earning them.

If you’re sitting there thinking the Afghans are so horrible for accepting bacha bazi, think again. Many in the “Tea Party” movement seem to have big problems with the fact that the country is being led by a black man and say pretty horrible things about him based solely on his skin color. Others spend millions of dollars fighting civil rights for gay people. Others don’t like to ride in airplanes with Muslims. Then there are the thousands of hate crimes that are reported every year with some people getting killed simply because of the color of their skin, or their religion or their sexual orientation. We’re really not in a position to throw stones at the Afghans.

How would you like it if some did a study as to whether people like you should be treated with equality and respect? They’re literally going around asking service members and their families whether they have a problem with gay men and lesbians serving, as if we should care if they don’t.

What would the reaction be if we were asking people if they minded if Jews, Mormons or African Americans served in the military? It’s an absurd question on it’s face.

Yet these things do happen… I remember when I went to the University of Texas at Austin I stayed in a private dorm that was run by Jews (orthodox Jews got the lowest floors, then more mainstream Jews were on the floors above them, then there was a mixed intensive study floor, and then the top of the dorm was where the ‘goyim’ lived). When I sat down with them and they were trying to find a room for me they said “well, we have a spot on the intensive study floor, but your roommate would be Latino - do you mind that?” The question floored me. While I was brought up in an almost all white environment I had been taught race didn’t matter.

I know none of this sort of thing comes as a shock to people who are racial minorities and have faced inequality all their lives, but I still really wish I could turn the table on some of these bigots and have a study which asked people if they should be treated with dignity and respect. They seemed to have forgotten “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”…

I know it’s just a matter of time before Don’t Ask Don’t tell is gone, but it sorta galls me that a President who’s had to deal personally with racial discrimination can’t stand up for the core principle of treating everyone equally. Taking policies like this down slowly reinforces the idea that it’s understandable to be a bigot.

And how can a military that doesn’t live by “equality and justice for all” police that concept around the world? Military conflicts just get worse when soldiers think the person they’re pointing their guns at aren’t as good as they are…

UPDATE:

Even though President Obama it crystal clear about getting rid of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the White House has also made it clear that they won’t get rid of it until their ’study’ is done. What is the logic in that? Either their not taking the study seriously and it’s recommendations will have no impact and they’ll do what they’re telling the LGBT community, or they are taking the study seriously and they may not get rid of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, in which case they’re flat out lying to the LGBT community. Pick a side - any side… Just stand for something…

Take a listen…

My concept of marriage is a male and a female for the perpetuation of the species, for children to be born and identify the bloodline and the heritage. But I’m pretty sure, as things are moving along, that that will probably change. (Source)

So, if we take him at his word that means he opposes marriage for anyone who can’t bear a child. So, if you’re a woman over 45 Burris wants to take away your right to marry. Pretty much all marriage for the elderly is out. If you have fertility problems he feels you shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

Thing is, I’m pretty sure he’d be shocked at what I just said. Apparently he’s not bright enough to understand that from a reproductive standpoint (which is the point he’s arguing) there’s no difference between an elderly straight couple and a gay couple. Actually, the gay couple is more likely to adopt an abandoned child - but of course there’s no place for that in his ideology either - if it doesn’t pop out of your uterus it’s not your ‘bloodline’, ergo not worthy of granting you marriage.

Of course this is ridiculous. Even Burris understands things are changing - too bad he can’t figure out it’s only logical that they’re changing. A bloodline argument for marriage hasn’t made sense for hundreds of years (if it made sense back then).

All I can say is thank god views like his aren’t prevalent among young people - there’s hope for the future!

It all started when my roommate for the summer, Nial Gaffney, an astrony major, said to me that when he looked into the stars he saw the handiwork of a god that was bigger than the god of the bible. It took me a little while to digest that, but I knew it was true. The bible puts god in a box and makes god in the image of man. The truth of the matter is that our creator is so far above us that it’s impossible to understand him/her/it. We are no more significant to our creator than grains of sand are to us.

That lead me to being a Deist. There’s actually a great deal of Deist history in the US - many of our founding fathers were Deists - Thomas Jefferson being the most notable. But that was just an accident of history since our country was founded at a time that was Deism’s zenith and that was simply because society was moving from a culture where non-believers were killed to one where they were tolerated and Deism was simply the step before atheism. When our country was founded you could be respectable and be a Deist, but you could lose everything (including your life) if you were an Atheist, so the Atheists of their day called themselves Deists.

Other changes in my belief system happened pretty quickly. If the bible wasn’t absolute truth then everything was up for reconsideration. At my heart I knew I was gay and so a year after rejecting Christiantity, I accepted myself and came out.

The process had actually started earlier - when I was in high school. The school I went to in Baltimore (Arlington Baptist School) had whole chapel services about the evils of rock music - including listening to it backwards and hearing things that praised Satan (lol). When I was in Lynchburg (at Jerry Falwell’s high school, Lynchburg Christian Academy) I had to drive with these guys from school to get to driver’s ed. They used to play Chaka Khan on the way almost every day. I got to love “I’m Every Woman” and it struck me - how could something so happy and joyous be evil? Listen to it and you’ll see what I mean…

Like almost no other song that one just puts a huge smile on your face and makes you feel like you’re having a great day. And that was supposed to be evil… Right… At that point I decided to make up my own mind as to what was good and bad, and Chaka Khan was not bad - not in the least.

So deciding that god was bigger than the god of the bible wasn’t really that hard. Deciding that my being gay wasn’t evil wasn’t all that hard either.

The question became what do I do with the conservative elements in my family? For years after I came out to my parents I hoped they’d accept me. But that never happened. When my lover died of AIDS in January of ‘95 Mom made a comment about how her mother had been there for her when her first husband died in World War II and I thought she got it, but that was quickly dispelled in our next conversation.

The bottom line was that it was bad for me to weigh myself down with my parents. It’s not good to be around people that tell you there’s something wrong with you - especially when they’re your parents (who are supposed to love you unconditionally) and they can’t just ignore the issue and interact with you without it getting brought up. Their lives revolved around Jerry Falwell’s church and that meant that their lives revolved around fighting liberalism including gay rights. I was the enemy and there was no way for me to be comfortable in their world.

At a point I just had to tell myself that they died and I needed to move on, which is what I did. There’s a song/video out lately, “Fuck You Very Much”…

In a way it resounds with my decision to separate from my parents, but it also trivializes the decision. It’s easy to say “fuck you very much, we hate what you stand for, please don’t stay in touch” to a stranger. It’s a more complicated process when it’s your parents.

When I was growing up our parents were sort of the glue that held our family together. I remember big phone bills calling all my sisters every week. That doesn’t happen any more. I didn’t really get those phone calls even before I had issues with them - not sure why. And now that I’m not really wanting to have much to do with them it’s a bit of a wedge in an already weak relationship with some of my sisters. It’s unfortunate really, but it is what it is…

Of course lately the issue is marriage. Let me put this bluntly - separate but equal is always separate, but never equal. Civil unions will not work - nothing but marriage will work, because only marriage has the full rights. Only with marriage can I finally give Dan citizenship…

But of course the fundamentalists, like my parents, want to tell gay folk like me what marriage means. Somehow they’ve forgotten that there’s a marriage contract involved that requires going down to your local government office. They equate marriage with the wedding ceremony - forgetting that Atheists get married all the time without any religious ceremony. So since I’m on a YouTube kick, let’s remind ourselves what “traditional, biblical marriage” really means…

Yes, biblical marriage really is that messy, and the fact that Christians think it’s some solid, honorable standard is laughable. For a moment let’s consider what it would be like if “traditional marriage” were actually enforced…

That’s right - no divorce, no blacks marrying whites, no women who weren’t virgins on their wedding night… Funny how Christians forget all those bits about “traditional marriage”…

The bottom line is Chaka Khan isn’t evil and neither are gay men and lesbians. Take a deep breath, sit down, and just accept it…

When I hear “political correctness” used to silence people it’s sadly used by gay people. It baffles me that a gay man would want an end to homophobia, they’d like marriage, not being fired from jobs, etc., but they’ll do things like tolerate racism in their midst. This happened at IML this year (the International Mr. Leather Contest in Chicago - a huge event that’s Chicago’s 4th largest conference). One of the presenters - a real veteran in the leather community made racist (anti-Asian) comments. Then later in the program the entertainer made stupid comments about East Indians. Yet those same people expect others to give them rights and treat them as equals. When I complained one person told me I was just being “politically correct”.

Well, it doesn’t work that way. If you want respect you have to start by respecting others. If you want others to be politically correct, perhaps you should be politically correct too. This is a clear two way street. I don’t care how much someone has contributed to a community - no one earns the right to be racist.

I should stop and say that intolerance of intolerance is not the same as other forms of intolerance. Think about math - the word “of” is used in cases like 2 of 3 - it stands for division - 2 of 3 = 2/3rds. So “intolerance of intolerance” is similar to saying -2 of -2, which equals a positive number, not a negative.

When you hear someone use the word poltical correctness to shut someone up - stop them. Explain how they probably want someone else to accept and value them - how can they ask that of others if they don’t demonstrate it themselves.

Here’s a video that refutes the major claims made by the religious right about gay marriage… The bottom line is that their claims are just fears - nothing more. The sky isn’t falling…

I’m sure eventually there will be some bad consequence of gay marriage to someone, somewhere. But there’s obviously many bad consequences now for millions of gay Americans. When the time comes and a heterosexual is harmed in some way, it can be remedied in the courts and, if necessary, the legislature just as we’re trying to remedy our problems now.

Senegal’s court of appeal has overturned the jail sentences of nine homosexuals arrested in December, according to a statement released by UNAIDS on Monday.The nine men had been sentenced to eight-year prison terms in January for “acts against nature and the creation of an association of criminals”

The decision was taken on Monday but it was not clear when the men would be freed. Senegal’s ministry of justice was not immediately available for comment about the case.

Homosexuality is illegal and taboo in the former French colony, where 94 percent of the population is Muslim.

(Source: Reuters)

That’s probably not exactly what you were expecting, but honestly what’s the difference between that court decision and one here in the US about adoption or marriage or workplace discrimination?

The religous right often says progressive liberals are the ones redefining what’s “traditional”, but in truth their the ones redefining a number of things…

• In their world “equal protection” is an oxymoron - it’s not really equal at all and it only protects the people they want it to protect.
• In their world marriage is a religious sacrament but they ignore all the thousands of marriages between athiests that don’t seem to bother them at all.
• They now say that the only point of marriage is procreation, yet they’re fine with post-menopausal women getting married (to men).
• They often say they’re “strict constructionists” but one of the guiding concepts in the US Constitution is that a contract that’s valid in one state is valid in all states and will be recognized by the federal government. But now they’ve redefined things so marriage contracts that are valid in some states aren’t valid in many other states and aren’t recognized by the federal government.

The social conservatives often forget that the role of the courts is to interpret the law. They like to brand judges who are just doing their job as “activists”. That’s hardly the case and part of what’s great about our system is that it affords a healthy debate and a balance of power.

Thankfully, things are slowly starting to shift towards equality for all people and the religious right is starting to lose…

I was just a kid in the 70s and my parents were big fans of Jerry Falwell. I remember going to Thomas Road Baptist Church one Sunday and having gay men protesting on a picket line outside, so my experience with the gay community in the 70s isn’t first hand…

But looking back at pictures and videos from the era there was a level of creativity that you don’t see anymore. Sure they have the obligatory gay guy on every design/make-over show, but how did the creativity of gay men go from the outrageous antics of groups like The Radical Faeries and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (both founded in 1979) to making picture perfect apartments and making straight guys into metrosexuals?

I mean think The Radical Faeries are all about rejecting heterosexual norms and finding our own way - of not being afraid to blend masculine and feminine - of not being limited by norms of acceptable creativity… Here are some pics I’ve “borrowed” from LifeLube’s blog - they have a weekly Friday is for Faeries blog post which is inspiring to see that while the Faerie movement is small, it’s still very much alive…

As you can see - they range the gamut - some can be wonderfully creative, others just enjoying themselves and having fun, while others are just normal guys who seem genuinely well-adjusted.

Then you have The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence… They take more of an in-your-face, over-the-top, “shock and awe” sort of approach to their creativity…

Needless to say whether it’s the Radical Faeries or The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, these are the sorts of gay guys who really push creative boundaries in our society. With the commercialization of gay creativity on reality TV shows, it just feels like gay creativity is less than it used to be - more mainstream, more homogenous.

Or maybe there are just as many as there were in the 70s, but they’re less visible because they’re now a smaller percentage of our community since all the people who had no problem “blending in” have now come out of the closet.

Still, it’s wonderful when you see crazy creative minds at work. One of the latest that I’ve come across is François Sagat who’s best known for being a big name porn star, but when you look at his his blog and his YouTube channel you realize how much more he is - how wonderfully creative he is. He is a porn star and a lot of his creativity is centered around his body (his ass in particular), but he takes it way beyond the vulgarities of porn and makes it into something fascinating and edgy…

One of his more recent videos is a music video of sorts with him, a drag queen (playing his girlfriend), and another guy who he’s got the hots for…

Yes, I like the fact that HIV/AIDS isn’t killing off gay creative talent like it was in the ’80s and early ’90s. I like the fact that gay men are back in the saddle creatively - even if that’s making straight guys into metrosexuals, or helping women chose better outfits, or decorating a home. But I’ve got a special place in my heart for the guys who are “out there” and push the limits of what’s acceptable. I’m a geek - I’ll never be one of those people, but I know they’re special - very special…

Ellen DeGeneris did a wonderful segment on her show recently about the killing of Larry (Lawrence) King. He was a kid who wanted one of his male classmates to be his valentine and the kid shot and killed him two days later…

It seems like whenever its an election year and gay marriage is being discussed the attacks worsen. But that only goes to show how important these issues are…

Please talk to your friends and family about these issues, and consider whether the politicians you vote for would work hard to end these killings…

While some gay teens are able to “pass” the ones who are effeminate just can’t hide who they are. It’s hard enough for them going to school every day and being ridiculed for being the way they are (Lawrence King apparently had been harassed for a while before the shooting), but for them to now have to deal with the prospect of being killed while attending school is just too much.

This case points out a number of things. First, it is urgent that we pass hate crimes legislation that protects gay men, lesbians, transsexuals (and a few straight people who appear gay). Ironically the people who are most vocal in their opposition to gay hate crime legislation are themselves protected by hate crime legislation (for their religious beliefs).

And second, school administrators and teachers need to do a better job of protecting gay youth. The ones who come out in the hostile environment of high school usually don’t have an option, and they’re the most vulnerable to attack. This incident could have been handled while it was still teasing and taunting. If it had Lawrence King would still be alive.

With elections coming up I urge you to vote for candidates who understand that we are all created equal and we all deserve protection from hateful attacks.