Personal Responsibility is a myth! If porn stars don’t wear condoms, I won’t either.

A California advisory board has convened and is building the framework for the regulation of the the porn industry. For years, many have claimed the porn industry has run rampant with dangerous practices and is long overdue for regulatory oversight. I am in favor of oversight, if it is necessary. Mandatory STD testing and proper protection for employees and performers should be enacted, in regards to full acknowledgment of their employers expectations and their own responsibility. However, there are open calls to create a law forcing all adult film actors to wear protection in their films.  The logic is that people watch bareback porn and thus engage in bareback sex, because watching a video effectively removes all personal responsibility.

I understand that HIV rates are no longer shrinking and the public in general has a blase attitude towards the disease, but to assume people engage in bareback sex because of a video and not a lack of personal control is faulty and lazy reasoning. People engage in unprotected sex because it feels much better than protected sex, period. I have never met a gay men who openly stated, “I love the feel of joyless sex and condoms are the bees knees! However, I really want to be popular and when I see whores on tv do it unprotected, it makes me want to fit in. I really desire popularity above my personal health.” It is one thing to regulate STD testing and another to strip the public of yet another expectation of personal responsibility. If you engage in risky behavior, you are more than aware of the risks associated with that choice and it would be childish to blame pornography for your own short comings.

We demand so little of our populace as it is and the more we continue to treat them like children, the more we will have to step up and protect them from themselves. HIV and AIDS are very serious issues that require proper dissemination of information and a well informed community, but to claim that bareback sex makes one act without will is the same as claiming that Halo causes children to become violent.  I happen to be a fan of pornography and it has kept me out of trouble through out my life, but I have no real interest in whether or not actors wear condoms. The problem with this comes down to creating another path towards a nanny state in which we remove the public from the realm of personal responsibility. Grown adults are responsible for their own lives and their own action Us.ntil we demand more of our public, they will continue to find a scapegoat for their own failures.

How do you feel about this? Are you in favor of this law? If so, why?

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Constance McMillen’s day in court proves victorious.

 

 

Constance McMillen, the lesbian student who was denied the right to bring her girlfriend to her prom, has won her day in court.  The judge said that she had the right to attend the privately held prom, but did not force the school to reinstate the original, school sponsored, prom. Along with the ruling, students are allowed to wear outfits that would typically be reserved for someone of the same sex. This verdict comes on the heels of a similar reversal of position by a Georgia school district that had originally told 18 year old Derrick Martin that he could not attend prom with his bf.  I would not be surprised if all of this Constance business was a major factor in their reversal.  More on Constance’s victory from the ACLU.

U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson denied the ACLU’s request for a preliminary injunction. He said he’ll still hold a trial, but he did not set a date, meaning any ruling would likely come too late to have the prom when it was originally scheduled. Davidson did say in his order that the district had violated McMillen’s constitutional rights by denying her request to bring her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo. “We consider this a victory,” said ACLU Mississippi legal director Kristy Bennett. But Davidson said a private prom parents are now planning will serve the same purpose as the school prom. He wrote in his ruling that “requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue.”

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Video Blog – Gay Republicans and the culture of “why?”

I have decided to do some video blogging for the literate challenged among you and it’s far easier than typing.  So have at!

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Meet Pat, the worlds first genderless person

Ok so (his, her?) name isn’t Pat, but I couldn’t resist.

Meet Norrie May-Welby, the worlds first genderless person, also known as a neuter. Norrie was born a man 48 years ago, but had a sexual reassignment surgery at age 28, only to change hirms mind and become classified as genderless. I really am not trying to be obnoxious with all the pronoun jokes, but I have no idea what the proper English word would be in this case. Considering Norrie is now classified as a neuter, I will use the term “ner” in place of him or her. Hurrah! Politically correct and proper English… kinda.

Norrie resides in South Wales, Australia and has asked state officials to change the information on ners birth certificate to reflect ners gender reassignment. When asked why ner had the change legally recognized, ner said it was to preempt any legal or passport issues that may arise when ner traveled abroad.  Norrie had this to say,

If I need to show identity documents, I certainly don’t want details that are false, for this will only cause trouble when officials realize I don’t match my documents.

If my passport, for example, states that I am female, I may be detained when traveling if the local jurisdiction classes me based on the gender assigned at birth, or if my physically noticeable masculine aspects (for example, my Adam’s apple, or my broad chest) are noticed.

If the passport states male, again there is a dissonance with my physical form, castration having had a feminizing effect, and I am usually moving and talking in a feminine manner.

This entire article asks the question,  ”Just what is gender identity and what does it mean to us?”.  Considering that no two genders are exactly alike and we only share genetic markers that are classified as male or female, it puts an interesting twist on human sexuality and gender.  I don’t know how I feel about this, mainly because I don’t understand it, but as long as Norrie is happy, more power to ner.

Live and let live I say. That being said, I could never say good bye to my penis. I love ner too much.

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Adam Lambert to America, “I am not your babysitter.” CBS gets boner from lesbian kiss.

Adam Lambert sat down with some white woman on the Early Show and was impressively mature and intelligent. Not that I would think he would be anything other, but for as much as I post about him on here, I know very little about the man off  stage.

Adam held his own, in what appeared to be, a situation where the interviewer was attempting to push an agenda or hoping to make him feel guilty for his AMA performance. Once you watch the video, her bias is hard to ignore, but that could just be me paying attention and using my ears.. who knows?

When pressed about the issue Adam stated that he wasn’t a babysitter and that it was the job of the parents to be watching their own children, especially considering his performance appeared at almost 11 o clock at night. Parents in America are notorious for blaming television for the things that are being shown to their children, rarely taking responsibility for their child’s viewing habits.  This blame game reaches well beyond the gamut of live television or even sitcoms. Family Guy is often bombarded with this kind of lazy parenting and the show even references this from time to time.

Other than coming off non apologetic and intelligent, something else happened in this clip that you may have missed.

CBS blurred out the male on male kiss from Adam’s performance, but had no issue showing the Madonna/Britney incident from years earlier. This is even more noteworthy considering Adam draws attention to the apparent double standard in television and pop music, during his interview. CBS had responded to the double standard with this.

“We gave this some real thought. The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences.”

The logic behind this is questionable, simply being that if it was the act that was inappropriate and not the amount of times it was viewed, both images should have been deemed inappropriate. Homophobia is alive and well, no matter how often people attempt to paint Hollywood as a liberal bastion of gay sex. Trust me… it’s not. I lived there and I was rarely offered free homosexual sex… and you know I tried!

Gross.

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Jennifer Vanasco: How Adam Lambert Is Hurting Gay Marriage

In her article, which you can read here, Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief of 365gay.com and Huffington Post.com contributor, takes aim at the former American Idol contestant and discusses the hypocrisy seated within Lambert’s AMA performance as well as his personal views on his sexuality.

“You told Out Magazine that you didn’t make a big deal out of your sexual orientation during American Idol once pictures of you kissing a man had been exposed because:

“I don’t understand why it has to be about my sexuality. I’m just not going to talk about it one way or another. . . . And then when those pictures came out, I was like, you know what? I thought maybe I’ll just own it and say, ‘Yeah, I’m gay.’ But I didn’t want to label myself.”

That’s interesting, Adam Lambert. When you were worried about winning a contest, you didn’t want to openly attest to being gay. (And, in fact, your people were worried that you would seem “too gay” on Out’s cover.) BUT, when you wanted to make a splash in public, when you wanted to get noticed – suddenly you were all about gay sexuality.”

Vanasco goes on to criticize Lambert for his timing and lack of responsibility as a pop culture figure during a period of political uncertainty for the LGBT community.

Personally I don’t agree with everything Vanasco says in her article.  I think she comes off a bit irrational and her article’s title doesn’t hide her disdain for Lambert as a public figure either, but she does have some valid points.  For ABC to even acknowledge the measly 1,500 complaints about Adam Lambert’s performance and then cancel his Good Morning America performance the following day, when the entire show was loaded with acts from straight, female performers shaking their beef baskets in front of the masses, was not only incredibly hypocritical but nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to a situation that needed no handling.

No matter what your views may be on the situation, one thing is clear.  It’s a telling sign of our society that a badly choreographed song and dance by a boy in eyeliner has more political sway than all of the elected representatives and grass roots campaigns combined.

I’m depressed now.  I need a little cake.

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Bakersfield has the cure for gays and it rhymes with schmull-shit.

Let me preface this article by saying I, in no way, intend to portray both sides of this argument with a neutral eye. I believe it does a great disservice to truth when we attempt to be objective about every subject. There is no more journalistic integrity in portraying the “positives” of reparative therapy than there is in being neutral on the subject of  segregation.

A recent news piece from KGET channel 17 delves into the myths about “reparative therapy“, that is, the idea that homosexuality can be cured through faith and any other number of unproven and potentially dangerous methods. The idea of repairing or changing someones sexuality may seem as comical as praying for lighter skin or changing ones ethnicity,  however,  in the world of abject stupidity, there are few fields that are not staffed with an army of professional extremists.

Phillip Lee, of His Way Out ministries will tell you, that not only is changing ones sexuality possible, but that he is living proof of it.

“I spent 17 years in what many refer to as the gay lifestyle,” Lee said. “I found out, like so many others, that to call homosexuality gay is a contradiction.”

No more of a contradiction than claiming faith is fact though, or so it would seem. I am sure I am just splitting hairs at this point… right.

Phillip runs his service out of a downtown Bakersfield office and claims to be working with 100 individuals dealing with identity issues and “sexual brokenness”, which isn’t an actual clinical term anymore than Taco Bell could be considered fine Mexican food. A quick search engine query will pull up several sites that link the creation and use of the term with churches and Christian ministry groups. The message here is pretty simple.

“When reality lets you down, make shit up.”

The problem with this type of activity is that these individuals are often dragged into these situations against their will, by poorly educated and ill informed parents. These “conversion therapy” procedures often do irreparable harm to their patients, causing immense self doubt, self hatred and shame. The process is so dangerous and controversial that the American Psychological Association has gone on record to oppose and discourage it, adding that no evidence has shown any such thing is possible, but plenty exists to demonstrate the harm it causes the patient.

Scientifically, there’s not enough evidence to measure the counseling effectiveness, said CSUB counseling psychology professor Kathleen Ritter, who says sexual orientation is a complex topic.

“The longest time that any population was followed in any study is six months so we don’t know if that initial ‘Oh I changed’ held.”

Ritter helped review the American Psychological Association’s guidelines http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/guidelines on sexual orientation and efforts to change it.

Through the guideline, the APA resolved homosexuality is not a mental disorder and mental health professionals should avoid telling clients they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments.

Ritter doesn’t suggest conversion therapy for her patients in her private practice, but says it would be unethical to persuade someone from using of it.

“We don’t want to look like we have the religious people on one end and psychologists on the other and that we’re fighting each other. Because that’s not true.” Ritter said.

I will take Kathleen Ritter’s last statement and expand upon it a little more. While this may not be about religion versus psychology, it has everything to do with reason and logic versus blind intolerance and ignorance. There is little point in arguing against that, but it still warrants being said.

Later on in the segment, Whitney Weddel, chair of the Bakersfield LGBTQ organization was introduced and offered another counter argument to the junk science that was being peddled.

Whitney goes on to say…

“For years in schools, people were forced to not be left handed. We know now these are wonderfully diverse ways of being normal,” said activist Whitney Weddell. “The 100 kids that come in with their parents, I wonder how many parents drag them in and are being forced to this therapy that is just a waste of time.”

There is currently a poll on the KGET website that asks its visitors to state whether they believe people can become “straight” through reparative therapy. The poll has gone up and down over the night, but there is still a dangerously high percentage of people who believe it’s possible. It is very unlikely that any of those people will be reading this, but in the off chance, let’s have a quick look at one of the many forms of this “healthy” and “loving” spiritual therapy.

If you can stand to watch the video long enough to get past her butchery of the English language, maybe you can answer me this. Is it wrong for me to find it so comical, that a people once bonded into slavery through the use of the Bible, are now using that same book to bond others?

If you visit, “His Way Out” ministries you will find a website that is in much need of a redesign and apparently money. The good lord seems to have the power to undo the mistakes he supposedly made, but lacks the ability to give his followers the money they need to continue. On closer inspection, there is plenty of false information on the website, as well as vague and conveniently shadow like speak about the actual process or outcome of these therapies. Outside of “working within the holy spirit of the lord”, there is little information on the actual process of turning one against their inner nature. It has long been believed that these therapies change no one, but are successful in shaming the individuals into denying their true identity.

It would seem to me that the Lord needs to worry less about homosexuals and more about those in need.

Might I suggest these people?

In the end, there is little to be said about this topic that is not already surrounding us. Discussing the pros and cons of these therapies is akin to weighing the downsides and upsides of being burned alive.  Sure, you may survive the process, but you will never be yourself again.

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ABC gets 1,500 complaints about Adam Lambert, no one notices the rest of the peash-tacular night.

Apparently Adam Lambert has caused a “moderate” controversy at ABC, provoking the hand of sexually repressed Americans to call the network and complain. ABC stated that around 1,500 calls were made to the station to complain about the racy and inappropriate nature of his performance, all the while seemingly forgetful that the rest of the night had been loaded with skin tight vaginas and sexually explicit acts by several other performers. However, it seems that in America, female pop stars can be freely objectified and openly sexual, but a man (let alone a gay man) can not.

I wrote an extensive post about the event last night and while I didn’t care for his act and found the over the top nature boring, I don’t think it warrants calling a televisions network. If you are stupid enough to watch a pop music show and expect to see Jesus and Bob Dole, you’re an idiot. Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes and a short term memory can tell you that pop music is nothing more than sex, plastic and shit. Hell, Helen Keller has a firmer grasp on reality than these twits. No, you know what? Twit is not nearly strong enough a word for them, I say we create a new term. A term that broadly defines sexually repressed people, working under the assumption that theirs is the only acceptable view of life, all the while hypocritically calling out certain individuals and leaving others alone.

I say we call them cunt knucklers.

America needs to get over their fear of sexuality, but Adam better hope he has another chance at a solid career. I have not read this many bad reviews for a performance since Britney Spears did that half assed dance a few years back.

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