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…

The latest evidence of this is Rachel Maddow’s interview last night with Rand Paul - the teabagger who just won the Republican primary for Kentucky’s Senate seat. He said in the interview that he only agrees with 9/10ths of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1/10th he doesn’t agree with is the part about private businesses not being allowed to discriminate. So while he feels blacks should be able to sit in the front of the bus, he thinks it should be legal if their refused service for things like getting a meal, or getting a hotel room.

He’s also said he feels the same way about the Americans with Disabilities Act. He thinks the government should be required to put in curb cuts for wheelchairs, but doesn’t think employers should be required to provide things like elevators. In the interview below he said it’s adequate if the employer gives the handicapped person an office on the first floor.

The problem is that this type of thinking extends into current day issues like LGBT rights. He would be OK with employers not hiring gay or transgendered people or gay men showing up at a hotel and being refused a room because they’re gay.

He says it infringes on free speech to require private businesses to serve people they’re not comfortable with. I think the point is people are free to say what they want (as long as they don’t incite violence), but if they don’t want to serve everyone they shouldn’t own a service business.

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?

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.

According to CNN the more someone goes to church the more likely they are go support torture. Joe.My.God. put it bluntly by asking “Who would Jesus waterboard?” Then answer is NOONE - Jesus was a pasivist. Let me put this bluntly - If you support torture, if you start wars, if you can’t stand to be in the same room as a gay guy, a lesbian or a transsexual - then you’re not Christ-like.

The one time Jesus was somewhat violent was when he threw the money changers out of the temple. Those of you who are Christ-like Christians have a responsibility to throw the modern money changers “out of the temple”. It’s time you stood up and strongly and forcefully renonuce people who are ruining your religion. Get on CNN and tell them point blank that they are not welcome to call themselves Christians - that they need to change their ways or “get out of the temple”.

This is one area where I have a big problem with John Kerry. In the debates he let George W. Bush take the moral high ground. If Kerry had been a real Christian he would have looked Bush straight in the face and said “Jesus would never have started an offensive war in Iraq” and then he would have read the beatitudes to Bush and constrasted the teachings of Christ with Bush’s actions.

I no longer consider myself a Christian - I’m a Diest, but after so many years of religious training I understand what Christ stood for and 9 out of 10 Christians I see on the news are not Christ-like. Would the real Christians PLEASE stand up? Please?

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 owe Terry a lot - she provided guidance and a job at a really critical time in my life when my parents were cutting me off and rejecting me and I was conflicted about my sexuality (though I don’t think we ever discussed my being gay). In many ways she was a bit like a mother to me for 2 years and a stable, sane force in my life.

Anyway, her husband is Douglas Laycock - a law professor who’s argued in front of the Supreme Court. He made a comment about gay marriage and Jon Stewart found his name funny and said “…there’s still room to giggle inappropriately at an experts name…” He wondered what it would be like if ABC News had two experts on gay marriage - Dr. Laycock and “Sodomy J. Balltickle”… Start at time code 2:00 to see what I’m talking about…

As Jon Stewart said, the comments are inappropriate. Personally I think Doug Laycock should try to get on The Daily Show - it’s a bit of a status thing these days, even if you’re made fun of in the process…

The interview video I saw yesterday (below) puts her in a different light. She’s much less of the dumb bimbo that she’s been portrayed to be and more of just an average person - sorta a “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” sorta character…

Seen as a whole she’s not quite the idiot she seems in short clips. But she’s no brain surgeon either… And that’s sorta my point. She’s just an average person. We’ve been there and done that with George W. and look where it’s gotten us. Average people just don’t have what it takes to be President and the actuarial tables make it clear if McCain/Palin get elected there’s a decent chance she will wind up as President.

We need smart people running the country, and Palin’s not particularly smart. The problem is that her not being smart appeals to a certain class of people. When I was growing up I was always one of the smartest kids in the class (in an academically competitive school). Thing was my parents didn’t appreciate being smart. I’d bring home a report card filled mostly with A’s and a few B’s and they really didn’t care. Mom has even gone as far as to tell me that my intelligence is a problem - that I’ve used it to come to the wrong conclusions - ones that are in opposition to the Bible.

So that’s what we’re dealing with here… Big parts of the US don’t want smart people running the country. They want good ‘ol boys (and girls) who don’t think too much. They want loyalty and people who agree with them on what they consider their “values”. Well, we’ve done that, and it’s gotten us to the brink of our country’s second great depression.

You see the problem with intelligence is that it won’t let you live in a fantasy land. Intelligence requires you to think about whether you can afford your mortgage after the rates adjust. Intelligence requires you to think about what happens after you “win” a war and are in control of a country. Intelligence requires you to think about what the real value of a deriviative security is before you buy it. In other words, intelligence questions the basics and makes you ask whether your premises are in line with reality.

We need intelligence in our leaders. This isn’t a liberal/conservative thing. I’d vote for someone like George Will over a dumb liberal any day. The thing is that neo-cons which control the Republican party think in faith-based ways. Quoting their bible - “faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen”. In other words, faith is saying there is proof/evidence when there is none (i.e. saying there are weapons of mass destruction when there are none, or saying the economy is “fundamentally strong” as it’s collapsing and looking like the beginnings of the second great depression).

So, vote for smart people next month - we need them more now than ever before… Which means, don’t vote for Sarah Palin - she’s not the complete idiot people are making her out to be, but that doesn’t mean she’s smart enough to run the country…