|
|
 |
|
| | Gay America | | | Saturday, May 3, 2008 (9:10 AM)
(I'm feeling hopeful) | | Census 2000 counts same-sex couples in 99 percent of U.S. counties. Like the distribution of the U.S. population at large, the distribution of gay and lesbian families is far from uniform across the nation.
(From The Gay and Lesbian Atlas, by Gary J. Gates and Jason Ost, Urban Institute Press, May 2004.)
States with the most same-sex couple households
1. California
2. New York
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Illinois
6. Pennsylvania
7. Georgia
8. Ohio
9. Massachusetts
10. New Jersey
Highest concentrations of same-sex couple households...
by state by large metro area
1. Vermont 1. San Francisco, CA
2. California 2. Oakland, CA
3. Washington 3. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
4. Massachusetts 4. Fort Lauderdale, FL
5. Oregon 5. Austin-San Marcos, TX
6. New Mexico 6. New York, NY
7. Nevada 7. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
8. New York 8. Albuquerque, NM
9. Maine 9. Atlanta, GA
10. Arizona 10. Jersey City, NJ
by city/town* by neighborhood (ZIP code)
1. Provincetown, MA 1. Provincetown, MA - 02657
2. Guerneville, CA 2. Castro, San Francisco, CA - 94114
3. Wilton Manors, FL 3. Guerneville, CA - 95446
4. West Hollywood, CA 4. Twin Peaks, San Francisco, CA - 94131
5. Palm Springs, CA 5. West Hollywood, CA - 90069
6. Miami Shores, FL 6. Oakland Park/Ft. Lauderdale, FL - 33305
7. Decatur, GA 7. Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, CA - 94117
8. Key West, FL 8. Chelsea, New York, NY - 10011
9. Northampton, MA 9. Roxbury, Boston, MA - 02118
10. North Druid Hills, GA 10. Montrose, Houston, TX - 77006
*Cities or towns with at least 50 same-sex couples.
| | | 6 Views | 0  Thumbs Up | 0 Comments |  |
|
|
| | Keep Talking | | | Saturday, May 3, 2008 (9:02 AM)
(I'm feeling calm) | | by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on April 28, 2008
Back in the old days, there were those who supported gay rights and those who opposed them—vocally. There was also a third group whose opposition was so deep that they objected even to discussing the issue. For them, to debate gay rights would be to dignify depravity, and depravity merits chilly silence, not invitations to dialogue.
In the last decade or so, a fourth group has appeared mirroring the third. This group’s support for gay rights runs so deep that they object even to discussing the issue. For them, to debate gay rights would be to dignify bigotry, and bigotry merits chilly silence, not invitations to dialogue.
While the above sketch is somewhat simplistic, I think it captures an important shift in the gay-rights debate. Increasingly, one finds people on both sides who object not merely to their opponents’ position but even to engaging that position. Why debate the obvious, they ask. Surely anyone who holds THAT position must be too stubborn, brainwashed or dumb to reason with.
The upshot is that supporters and opponents of gay rights are talking to each other less and less. This fact distresses me.
It distresses me for several reasons. First, it lulls gay-rights advocates into a complacency where we mistake others’ silence for acquiescence. Then we are shocked—shocked!—when, for example, an Oklahoma state representative says that gays pose a greater threat than terrorism—and her constituents rally around her. Think Sally Kern will have a hard time getting re-elected? Think again.
"Dialogue works. Not always, and not easily, but it makes a difference."It distresses me, too, because dialogue works. Not always, and not easily, but it makes a difference. Indeed, ironically enough, healthy dialogue about our issues helped move many people from the “supportive-but-open-to-discussion” camp to the “so-supportive-I-can’t-believe-we’re-discussing-this” camp.
It distresses me most of all because both of the “opposed” camps include families with gay kids. How do we help those kids? How do we let them know that it’s okay to be gay, despite the hurtful messages that they’re hearing from their parents?
True, it is easier than ever to reach such kids directly, through MTV, the internet, and the like. But some of those messages will be blocked or distorted by their parents. And even those that reach them untrammeled will be counterbalanced by painful opposition. I feel for these kids, and I want to help them. Helping them requires acknowledging their important relationships with people whose views I find deeply wrong.
There are those who find my emphasis on dialogue naïve. As someone who has spent sixteen years traveling the country speaking and debating about homosexuality and ethics, I’m well aware of dialogue’s limitations.
Yet I’m also frequently reminded of its power. Recently Aquinas College, a Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, cancelled a lecture I was scheduled to give because of concerns about my opposition to Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Students angered by the cancellation arranged to have me speak off-campus. The event drew hundreds of audience members, including some who had been critical of my initial invitation. The next day I learned that one of those critics, after hearing my talk, had begun advocating bringing me to campus next year. Over time, such conversions can have a huge impact.
Then there are those who wonder whether the silence I’m lamenting really is a problem at all. My Aquinas cancellation suggests that it is: intentionally or not, the cancellation sent students the message that this topic is literally unspeakable. But the problem is by no means limited to one side. Last year I did a same-sex marriage debate (with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family) at another Catholic college. A week before the event, my host told me that a student was trying to organize a protest. “Because he doesn’t want a gay-rights speaker on a Catholic campus?” I asked.
“No, because he doesn’t want your opponent here,” she answered. The student thought that opposition to same-sex marriage should not be dignified with a hearing. On a Catholic campus!
That student, like the rest of us, would do well to recall the words of John Stuart Mill. In his 1859 classic On Liberty Mill argued that those who silence opinions — even false ones — rob the world of great gifts:
“If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
The moral of the story? Let’s keep talking.
| | | | 9 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
|
|
| | The Real Threat Of Same Sex Marriage | | | Saturday, April 26, 2008 (3:59 PM)
(I'm feeling contemplative) | | Jim Burroway
April 26th, 2008
The New York Times Magazine has a very illuminative story on young gays getting married. It turns out that they have a lot of goofy and ordinary similarities to their straight counterparts. They meet, fall in love, and then they start to figure out what that means to them. For many, that means “settling down,” which comes as a surprise to those who had no intention of settling down — just like a lot of straight couples.
And I think that this the real “threat” that social conservatives find in same-sex marriage: it humanizes us.
They’ve established a massive multi-million dollar industry to convince Americans that gays and lesbians are evil monsters threatening western civilization. Focus On the Family has 1300 employees. Think of it: that’s larger than many factories. And they use their massive resources — their broadcast outlets and their print publications — to portray us as being a part of an evil agenda bringing America to its knees. And until now, they’ve had free reign to say whatever they want about gay people. When few Americans were able to see real world examples to counter their false stereotype, it represented a very powerful wedge.
But gay couples getting married and setting up households couldn’t be more conventional. It is tangible evidence that we’re not all that different in many important ways. We get together for all the same reasons — good and bad — that straight couples do. Some of our relationships are long lasting and monogamous (something that social conservatives say is impossible) and some fall apart or experience a series of affairs (just like straight couples’ marriage.) Some should never have gotten together in the first place.
But for many of us, we are yet another household on the same block with dozens of other families. We’re attending PTA and homeowner association meetings. We go to block parties and neighborhood Christmas parties. We go to each others’ homes and play cards or have barbecue. We send graduation gifts, we wave goodbye when people move away, and we call on our neighbors to offer condolences when tragedy strikes.
And nothing could be more threatening to social conservatives than that.
| | | | 18 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
|
|
| | The Lies Continue | | | Saturday, April 26, 2008 (1:04 AM)
(I'm feeling distressed) | | Published: April 26, 2008
The New York Times
As it prepared to invade Iraq five years ago, the Bush administration called up retired military officers to help sell the war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his propaganda team courted as many as 75 retired military officers who could best market the Pentagon line, particularly on television. As detailed in The Times on Sunday, many of these officers used their access to Pentagon bigwigs to promote their private businesses.
All administrations try to spin, or even manipulate, the news media, but this White House has taken that to a new low. The Bush administration has hired actors to pose as journalists. It has produced mock news bulletins to promote its view of the Iraq war. At least one conservative commentator was paid $240,000 to go on television to promote President Bush’s education policies. Now, based on thousands of e-mail messages and other documents, The Times’s David Barstow has outlined how the Pentagon used a “Trojan horse” of former military officers to parrot falsely positive messages.
These willful distortions only undermine any remaining shreds of the administration’s credibility and demean the former officers. They also failed to fool the public.
Mr. Bush’s national security team — and many Pentagon officers — continues to labor under the tragic delusion that negative coverage, rather than the bad news itself, undermined public support for the war in Vietnam. So the propaganda experts created the instant commentariat of decorated retired generals and admirals who could seem to be strong and independent voices.
Too many were not independent at all. One example: a retired Marine colonel and Fox News analyst asked his Pentagon contact to “please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay.”
Worse, some of the analysts had business relationships with the Pentagon that they wanted to preserve. One Pentagon aide acknowledged that the business relationship was part of the formula. Some former military officers were skeptical of the war in private and in public, but doubts were punished by the Pentagon. One former officer reported being “fired from the analysts group” after he said on Fox News that America was “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq.
News organizations bear the ultimate responsibility for using experts. The Times has a system for vetting an outsider’s credentials and conflicts. But news organizations should give viewers and readers as much information as possible about anyone offering expert opinion.
As for the government’s role, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, is calling for an investigation of the propaganda purveyors, especially those with business ties to the Pentagon. That is a start. Candidates for president should also declare their views about how to market policies to the public and the news media. Hint: the Rumsfeld propaganda show is not the way.
| | | | 23 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 1 Comment | |
|
|
| | Patricia Todd: Alabama's first openly gay legislator | | | Friday, April 25, 2008 (3:09 PM)
(I'm feeling optimistic) | | Things are looking up in Alabama! Although the election of Ms. Todd to the Alabama legislature is a small step towards equality and recognition, it is a GIANT leap for the spirits of Gay Alabamians!
Patricia Todd has socially and professionally advocated for public policies relevant to social justice, HIV/AIDS, healthcare and a wide range of issues affecting the entire community in Birmingham for the past twenty years. After a contentious serious of political races in 2006 that garnered state and national attention, Patricia was elected to the Alabama Legislature as the State Representative for House District 54 making her the first elected public official who is openly gay in the history of Alabama.
Patricia’s previous work has included service as the Secretary of the Crestwood Neighborhood Association, as a Board member of Equality Alabama, as a member of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters and service as the former Secretary of Episcopal Church Women at Grace Episcopal Church Woodlawn. In addition, Patricia was the founder of the Alabama chapter of Stonewall Democrats.
In addition to these activities in the community, Patricia was selected as one of the “Top 40 Under 40” by the Birmingham Business Journal in 1992 and was elected in 2004 as a delegate to the National Democratic Convention.
Professionally, Patricia is presently the Associate Director of AIDS Alabama in Birmingham.
Recognized for her tenacity relative to social justice and poverty issues, Patricia is committed to focusing her legislative priorities on public policy issues that affect marginalized and underserved communities.
Born in Richmond, Kentucky, Patricia received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Kentucky, and also holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and resides with her partner, Jennifer Clarke, in the Crestwood Neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama. | | | | 17 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
|
|
| | Homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom | | | Friday, April 25, 2008 (7:48 AM)
(I'm feeling contemplative) | | The Biblical objection to homosexuality is hypocritical, because those who condemn it do not condemn just as vigorously other prohibited behaviors such as wearing clothing made of two kinds of material (Lev. 19: 19), trimming or shaving sideburns (Lev. 19: 27), getting tattoos (Lev. 19: 28), and charging interest (Deut. 23: 19-20). People who condemn homosexuality do so not because the Bible tells them to, but, ultimately, because they want to. People who condemn others should first examine the morality of their own judgments
In 1999, Bruce Bagemihl published "Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" (St. Martin's Press), one of the first books of its kind to provide an overview of scholarly studies of same-sex behavior in animals. Mr. Bagemihl said homosexual behavior had been documented in some 450 species. (Homosexuality, he says, refers to any of these behaviors between members of the same sex: long-term bonding, sexual contact, courtship displays or the rearing of young.) Let me emphasize this again: 450 species.
Homosexuality, it appears, is a very natural act.
| | | | 16 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
|
|
| | Clueless in America | | | Tuesday, April 22, 2008 (2:12 AM)
(I'm feeling sad) | | By BOB HERBERT
Published: April 22, 2008
The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”
Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.
Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades:
“In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”
Many students get a first-rate education in the public schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the whole.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete” and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”
The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled “America’s Perfect Storm,” cited three powerful forces that are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and already shaping the nation’s future. They are:
• The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school-age and adult populations. These skills, which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
• The “seismic changes” in the U.S. economy that have resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts in the relationship of labor and capital, and other developments.
• Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach 360 million. That population will be older and substantially more diverse, with immigration having a big impact on both the population as a whole and the work force.
These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed.
While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.
But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.
We’ve got work to do.
| | | | 25 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 2 Comments | |
|
|
| | Moron of the Year Award: Sally Kern | | | Monday, April 21, 2008 (9:34 AM)
(I'm feeling determined) | | Meet Sally Kern. She is a member of the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. When not preaching the godliness of unregulated capitalism, she believes the government is not doing enough to protect us from the greatest threat of all, even worse than terrorists who wreck planes into our buildings and murder en masse thousands of our citizens--gays.
Here are some of the quotes from this beautiful lady's speech.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Studies show, no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades. . .
I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam. . .
They want to get them into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them . . . They are going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.
You know, Gays are infiltrating city councils. . . Did you know that the city council of Eureka Springs is now controlled by gays? . .
They are winning elections.
We have the gay-straight alliance coming into our schools. . .
One of my colleagues said We don’t have a gay problem in our community… well you know what, that is so dumb. If you have cancer in your little toe, do you just say that I’m going to forget about it since the rest of you is fine? It spreads! This stuff is deadly and it is spreading. It will destroy our young people and it will destroy this nation.
------------------------------------------------------------
And to think those pesky pagan Greeks never lasted more than a few decades--that is, in between buggering members of their own kind for untold centuries, having the time for cultural enterprises like inventing modern Western civilization, democracy, and the sciences. Amazing how Plato found the time in his busy schedule, after creating several intellectual disciplines we follow today, to write about the civilizing virtues of pederasty. It is remarkable how Sappho was able to write about her love of women on the island of Lesbos, which served as a home-away-from-home for interested ladies for quite a few generations. Just a few decades, to be sure.
All of this is important to the state representative because, according to her, gays are secretly taking over. She may be right about that. I mean, all she has to do is ask some of her Republican male colleagues about secret gay infiltration. I am sure they could give her the low down about the down low--for research purposes and nothing else. | | | | 16 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
|
|
| | Relationships | | | Sunday, April 20, 2008 (11:33 AM)
(I'm feeling content) | | It has been my learned experience that there are basically 2 types of relationships:
1. Two people who have a mutual attraction, and who possess similar characteristics. They are equal in status, equal in understanding one another’s needs, and able to see a given situation from the others perspective.
2. One is dominate and self-centered, the other is submissive and on the lower end of the ‘self-esteem’ spectrum.
I fell into the 2nd type for much of my life. I was the proverbial ‘door-mat’ throughout most of my past relationships. I found it easier to submit and take the blame, (even if it wasn’t my fault) then to stand up for myself. I entered into one abusive relationship after another, and put up with the abuse because I would occasionally get ‘sex’ if I were ‘good’! No matter how abased and humiliating the circumstance, if there were sex at the end of the tunnel, I would readily submit to whatever was dealt. Ah yes, sex was the all-important catalyst that motivated me to be a non-entity…a ‘whipping-boy’, if you will. The world is full of those who love to dominate and control others. They are the ones who are never wrong—who always know the better way to do anything! Their opinions are the only ones that count, and yours are just so much drivel. Those individuals often find their selves alone and loveless. There aren’t as many submissive ‘door-mats’ today as there once were. It took me over 40 years to find my backbone, and become my own person.
Today, I am a much more self-assured individual who possesses the ability to balance the urge by both my partner and myself to be an "over bearer". I do not allow him to dominate me and I do not try to dominate him, and we are both happy and content. He is my one and all....
If you are passed middle age, and are living alone and loveless, you had best take a look at who you are, and why you are in that circumstance. Failed relationships can’t be entirely the other person’s fault…. we have to take responsibility for at least a part of why the relationship failed. There are many who will spend their waning years without a ‘life-partner’, simply because they were never able to recognize the error of our own ways.
So, my conclusion is: Don’t walk on others, and don’t let yourself be walked on. If you truly desire a relationship, find someone your own age who is mature and responsible. Be willing to give as well as receive. Respect the others privacy and individuality. Know when to speak…and know when to listen. Go slow. Remember that the same rules that apply to a lover-relationships, apply to friendships too. Be careful when you criticize…..helpful, well meant criticism, can easily turn into hurtful condescension, without even realizing it. Also remember; whether heterosexual or homosexual, your significant other is not an extension of you, but a unique and separate individual, who may or may not always agree with you. Be willing to bend, and also to know when to stand firm. "Do unto others……………………….". | | | | 22 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
