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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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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Gay Puerto Rican teenager brutally murdered, decapitated and burned.

 

George Steven Lopez Mercado, a 19 year old teenager from Puerto Rico, was found brutally murdered, burned, dismembered and decapitated this weekend in the small town of Cayey, Puerto Rico. George’s body was found off an isolated road and his arms and legs had been removed. According to Christopher Pagan, the individual who filed the iReport, the incident had gained little notice until picked up by the sites Towelroad.com and 365gay.com.

What makes matters even worse is that the police investigator alluded to the idea that George was asking for this to happen to him by claiming, “People who live this lifestyle need to be aware this will happen”. It is unknown as to what he meant by this statement and whether or not he was alluding to George’s sexuality or assuming George was engaging in risky sexual behavior. Currently, individuals are calling for the replacement of this investigator, with someone seemingly unbiased.

This has caused a huge reaction from the gay community here, but its a difficult situation. Never in the history of Puerto Rico has a murder been classified as a hate crime.  Even though we have to follow federal mandates and laws, many of the laws in which are passed in the USA such as Obama’s new bill, do not always directly get practiced in Puerto Rico.  The police agent that is handling this case said on a public televised statement that “people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen”.  As If the boy murdered Jorge Steven Lopez was asking to get killed

We have a gay rights activist in Puerto Rico Pedro Julio Serrano. Who does his best to defend these hateful acts, but the international attention is needed for this local government to wake up and give us the needed rights and proper justice to such hateful crimes.  I You are the biggest beacon of hope in such horrific events to be made known.

More information can be found at TowleRoad.com

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Gay American Heroes, sans the tights.

Gay American Heroes, looks to be a non profit group dedicated to remembering the victims of lgbt related hate crimes. The site has a video that is circulating around the Internet and has popped up a few times today on my Facebook account.

According to their website, they travel around the country with a mobile memorial that contains the names of hate crimes victims. A great and honorable cause… however, I have a few problems with this and they are strictly visual.

Why does EVERYTHING have to be rainbows? As a gay man, when did we all vote that rainbows represented us all? Why not something cool like an alien with lasers shooting out of his eyes, while he is screaming, “FUCK YOU, I AM GETTING MARRIED!”

Sure, we would turn some people off, but wouldn’t that be exponentially cooler than a a rainbow? Rainbows seem weak and ineffectual. Not only are they overly used in the gay community, but in that vein they are used for everything when it comes to design. I long for the day when I can see the word gay and it’s no where near a rainbow.

I hope I am not murdered this year, because I would hate to be involved with such a great project, only to have my face plastered next to a fuchsia wall panel.

Their website needs some major work as well and I am tempted to email  them and offer my services for free, just so that they can look as professional as their cause deserves.

Visual disagreements aside, this seems to be a great cause and there needs to be more attention drawn to anyone murdered or persecuted for their sexuality.

This guy is too good looking to be so sad.

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The internet isn’t gay enough. Less clicks, more dicks!

Oh you silly gays….

Should there be a .gay Internet suffix?

Two for-profit groups are pushing for one. The Dot Gay Alliance (dotgay.org), out of New York City, is being led by a longtime gay activist. And dotGay (dotgay.com) is being spearheaded by a heterosexual German man in Riga, Latvia, who has incorporated a company in San Francisco.

In other words, there could be hotels.gay, provincetown.gay, match.gay and pride.gay Web sites. (Question: What would the popular Web site gay.com have as its .gay counterpart? Gay.gay? Gaydotcom.gay? Or does it not get a .gay counterpart?)

While both groups have left open the possibility of cooperating, they haven’t yet joined forces. Both groups say they plan on starting the application process with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, to create top-level domains, akin to .com, .edu, .org and .net.

Isn’t this the same nonsense that fat girls do when they walk around with shirts that say “Yeah, I am fat. Fuck you!”?

We get it… you are overly sensitive about your weight so you create this persona of someone who is, not only proud of their obesity, but hell bent on making sure you see how much they love it.

I have enough issues already. I really don’t want to feel like a fat girl when I visit my daily websites and blogs.

The problem with this idea is this. What do young gay men and woman do when they want to visit sites that may give them help or resources about homosexuality? If they happen to live with their parents or are searching from a location that considers homosexuality a topic worthy of being banned, they will have no access to these sites. I can imagine what would have happened if my parents had sat down and found out I had been looking at “Help-I think I may be gay.gay”. My mothers eyes would have exploded and she would have convinced herself my sexuality had everything to do with not going fishing enough as a child.

That actually happened…. oh  the shame.

Wouldn’t this kind of domain push revenue away from the non.gay domains? I don’t see how this kind of service will benefit anyone, besides those making money off of the registration fees. Not only does this seem a trivial issue, but it opens the doors for the Internet to become a maze of specialized domains and niche markets. (More so than it already is) It’s bad enough that we have to share the internet with Canada, now this? Two years from now we are going to be doing all of our research and Internet funnery from .fat, . bbw, .blackguy and .fistmeplease. When does the madness stop!

We even have the straights doing it now, as one of the two parties pushing for this, is a heterosexual man from Germany. You know he is just doing this so that he can make a list of all the gays… and you know what happens when Germans make lists of people they consider social deviants. It rhymes with schmallocaust.

Attention gay people, stop the madness! Not everything needs to be about our sexualiy. Let’s tone it down a bit and focus on important matters… we are starting to look more and more like Torrid shoppers everyday.

(I apologize for offending any fat chicks. I too share your shame. Cake?)

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8- The Mormon Proposition

Salt Lake Shitty, Utah

A new film, entitled “8- The Mormon Proposition”, attempts to shed some light on the controversial involvement of the Mormon church and proposition 8. The film was directed by Reed Cowan of David v. Goliath Productions and has already been submitted for consideration at Sundance.

It will probably be many years before we see the full extent of the involvement of the Mormon church, but there is no denying that they are seeing the fruits of their labor at this very moment. There has been an increasing tide of anger and push-back towards the Mormon church and it’s not solely from LGBT camps. Having many Mormon friends myself, I often wonder how these past events will end up affecting them and their places of worship. As history continues to push towards equality, what will its view of such a divisive organization be? It wasn’t so long ago that they suffered a public relations disaster in the form of their racist views on which ethnicities were allowed to serve in the priesthood. Amazingly, in the face of public pressure, they claimed that God realized that being a racist blood fart was a bad idea and was even worse for the church. I suppose God realized how hard it was to fill the pews when they were spiritually lynching people from the pulpit.

It truly is odd how often deities are ignorant, when it comes to compassion for their own creations.

“8 – The Mormon Proposition”

For those of you who are Facebook inclined, there is also a fan page that contains further information. If you wish to see this film, I suggest signing up. I suggest it with much suggestitude.

“8″ Facebook group

We must stay focused and get to the bottom of this. The Mormon church is rolling in money and if any of that freely given cash was obtained or used illegally, we need to show them the hard end of the IRS’ boot. On top of that, have any of you ever been inside on of their churches? Tackkkyyyyy….

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