Halloween’s Over: The Bats Want Their Guano Back
Hide & Seek – Now that President Obama has signed the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law, we no longer have to tolerate the abuse heaped upon members of the LGBT community by bigots and worry whether or not law enforcement will take the necessary actions to prosecute these crimes and hopefully prevent them in the future, right? We should feel safer knowing that we are protected and be less fearful about participating in our communities, right? Yes and no. The law, the first positive piece of federal legislation directed toward LGBT people, modified existing hate crimes law to include …
Halloween’s Over: The Bats Want Their Guano Back
Hide & Seek
Now that President Obama has signed the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law, we no longer have to tolerate the abuse heaped upon members of the LGBT community by bigots and worry whether or not law enforcement will take the necessary actions to prosecute these crimes and hopefully prevent them in the future, right? We should feel safer knowing that we are protected and be less fearful about participating in our communities, right? Yes and no. The law, the first positive piece of federal legislation directed toward LGBT people, modified existing hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. With all that it promises, though, it apparently didn’t provide enough comfort to those who attended a reception after Obama signed the law – the White House is refusing to release the names of those in attendance. The affair was hardly private, with cameras and members of the press there, but so far no one can speculate as to why those who were invited to celebrate the passage of a law that has been ten years in the making are being protected. Is that part of the new law, too?
NARTH (In)Vaders
No, it’s not a misspelling of Dick Cheney’s nickname or a spoof of the Star Wars franchise. National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a non-profit organization that offers reparative therapy for those with “unwanted homosexual attraction,” which I thought would be very useful when your can of Trick-B-Gone fails to do the job. Alas, that’s not what they mean. In spite of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation determining that there is “insufficient evidence that such [reorientation] treatments work,” they’re still determined to believe they can cure us. What’s worse is that they’re coming here; NARTH will be holding their 2009 Convention and Training Institute at the West Palm Beach Marriott in West Palm Beach November 20th through the 22nd. Let’s get together and give them a good old-fashioned south Florida welcome!
At least NARTH tries to hide behind the mask of intellectualism…
Blanche Devereaux Made Me Gay
ChristWire.org recently posted an article titled, “The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals.” Yes, they’re serious. At least I think they are. Author Stephenson Billings claims, “Many studies have been done on why the gays love The Golden Girls,” which he substantiates by providing a link to the web site of the author of “The Q Guide to the Golden Girls.” Although science and “studies” could not find the answer, Billings has. According to Billings, we gravitated toward “Golden Girls” because we were left of out of “the fun militarism of the Reagan years” and were drawn to “the subversive undercurrent of masculinity in these aged matrons.” (I think he meant Dorothy.) Billings later proceeded to dissect the flaws of each of the characters and explains how they contributed to our shallowness and sexual promiscuity. In the case of Blanche, she is blamed for teaching us that we should have a different boyfriend every week. “Sadly, with the Golden Girls in weeknight syndication, the youngest gays have confused this timetable to mean they need five new boyfriends a week.” I generally hate to contribute to the delinquency of self-righteous homophobes by recommending content on their web sites, but my brief commentary here has just scratched the surface of their comedic content and the jury is still out as to whether or not this entire website is satirical. As one reader put it, “This website is hilarious. Does The Onion [TheOnion.com] put it out?”
In a strange twist of timing, the article was published the same week that Bea Arthur’s donation of $300K arrived at New York’s Ali Forney Center, a shelter for homeless gay youth.
“Hiking the Appalachian Trail”
South Carolina is in the news again, this time with the man who was, until last week, South Carolina’s assistant attorney general. Roland Corning added to South Carolina’s string of embarrassments, which include Governor Mark Sanford “hiking the Appalachian trail” trip to Argentina to see his mistress, the allegations that Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer is in the closet and state Republican Party officials recently praising U.S. Senator Jim DeMint for being miserly like a Jew. Unlike Sanford, Corning wasn’t able to claim he was in to some exotic location, largely because he was pulled over by police in a cemetery. Corning was better prepared for his field trip, though – he had all the necessary “hiking” equipment: an 18 year-old stripper, a bag of sex toys and Viagra. Corning reportedly had a prescription for the Viagra; the sex toys were in the car “just in case.” In case his Viagra kicked in and he was alone?
