Thursday Male Beauty

My Own Experience with Discrimination

Employment is not the only area in which gays are subjected to discrimination. As I have noted, Virginia has no anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT individuals. Therefore, it is surprising that the Canons of Judicial Conduct for the Commonwealth of Virginia contain the following provision:

"Canon 3.5. A judge shall perform judicial duties without bias or prejudice. A judge shall not, in the performance of judicial duties, by words or conduct manifest bias or prejudice, including but not limited to bias or prejudice based upon race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status, and shall not permit staff, court officials and others subject to the judge's direction and control to do so. . . ."

Like so many things, however, the devil is in the application and enforcement of such provisions. As I have intimated, my divorce process has been a nightmare. While two of the Circuit Court judges that have been involved in my case have clearly followed the directive of Canon 3, the judge presiding over the last and most important hearing did not. Or at least not in my view. Therefore, I have filed a complaint with the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission against this judge who in my view, allowed his personal views of gays to prejudice the handling and out come of the hearing. My Complaint, among other things, states that:

"Judge **** displayed prejudice and lack of impartiality against Complainant in respect to Complainants sexual orientation in violation of Canon 3 of the Canons of Judicial Conduct for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Judge **** failed to disqualify himself as required by Canon 3 and deprived Complainant of a fair and impartial trial and ruling."

Will I get proper relief? I have no idea and certainly will not be holding by breath. This is, after all Virginia, which has a terrible track record on its treatment of gays and LGBT individuals. The recently enacted "Marriage Amendment" to the Virginia Constitution and previous legislation clearly make gays second class citizens. Some members of the Virginia General Assembly have even remarked that they would be pleased if all gays packed up and left the state. Only time will tell if the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission will actually enforce Canon 3 in may case. God only knows what fall out will be forthcoming.

Barney Frank's Statements in the House of Representatives Yesterday Evening

At this link (http://www.house.gov/frank/enda%20special%20order%20101007.html) is the full text of Barney Frank's statement to the House. As I have indicated, I believe that we must push for the most inclusive version of ENDA that can be passed. However, at some point it is necessary that reality be factored in so that SOMETHING as opposed to NOTHING gets enacted. To those who say, "well Bush will veto whatever is passed by Congress," my response is let him do so and let's hang that around the neck of the GOP. Poll after poll reflects that a significant majority of Americans believe that GAYS should not be subjected to job discrimination. Note, it is GAYs that have this massive support. The polls do not specifically include transgendered individuals. I.e., there IS a difference in the minds of most Americans and elected officials. In pushing for ENDA's passage, political realists understand this, sa does Barney Frank:

I am convinced that the votes are there to pass a bill that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment. I am also convinced that if we were to put up a bill that included people of transgender, that part would be stricken on a vote, and, unfortunately, a fairly heavy vote. Because what happens is when a tough issue, and the transgender issue is a tough political issue now, and if I have fought with colleagues, it is for not being honest enough with people. And people who would mislead you, I would say, Mr. Speaker, to those who come before us as advocates, people who would mislead you and let you think your task is easier are not your friends. They are undercutting your ability. Underestimating your enemy is the surest way, not only to lose, but to lose so bad it is hard to come back.

Now, the notion that you do not pass an antidiscrimination bill protecting large numbers of people until you can protect everybody, in my judgment, is flawed, morally and politically. It is flawed morally because I am here to help people in need. That's why I serve in this job.

If we can get a sexual orientation ban enacted, we will be protecting millions of people in this country who live in States where there is no such law. There are laws in some States and not others. The States that have the laws are probably the place where prejudice is most active.

I do not accept the argument that I am somehow morally lacking if I say, you know what, I would like to protect everybody, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, I am only at this point able to get a vote passed that protects the millions of people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual; but I will withhold from them that protection until I do anything. Because any time you insist on doing everything all at once, you will do nothing.

Just yesterday afternoon I spoke with a young gay individual who works for a company that allegedly has a 100% rating with HRC who is undergoing harassment because of his sexual orientation and is in fear that he is being set up to be fired. This is happening notwithstanding the company's alleged non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation. Sadly, without the passage of ENDA, this type of occurrence will continue to happen every day in states like Virginia. The LGBT community needs to wake up and listen to Barney Frank before we lose the whole ball of wax. Let's not let idealism stop the achievement of real progress.

Final Wednesday Male Beauty

Barney Frank is Right

This report from the San Francisco Chronicle shows that, to my mind, Barney Frank understands political reality and would rather have millions of gays protected from job discrimination as opposed to remaining "pure" and losing the whole ball of wax. HRC, NGLTF and similar groups need to wake the Hell up and smell the coffee (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=21034):

Sparks are flying on Capitol Hill between gay rights activists and their leading champion, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. As gay lobbyists work frantically to stop Frank's plan to drop transgender people from a landmark bill forbidding job discrimination, Frank is fighting back, announcing a press conference tomorrow to discuss the matter in no uncertain terms.

"The subject will be the obligation of the Democratic Party to govern responsibly when confronted by a demand to react emotionally by a deeply committed, single-issue faction insisting on putting ideological purity over achievable advancement of our values," Frank's press release announced.

"The specific example discussed will be the current demand that the Democratic leadership kill the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which has been the prime legislative goal for gay and lesbian people for over 30 years, because we do not have the votes to include people who are transgender," the missive stated.

Frank's move has infuriated gay rights activists, who face the prospect of dropping the "T" from the GLBT moniker they adopted to represent gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender interests. The issue has split the gay community and now opens a major breech between liberal Democrats and one of their chief constituencies.

If ENDA gets killed for all gays because of the efforts of HRC, NGLTF, Lambda Legal, et al, it will be a cold day in Hell before they see another penny of my money.

In the Name Of Religion

This Op-Ed from the Falls Church News-Press (http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1878&Itemid=35) has in my mind a very accurate assessment of what is going on in the minds of the Christianists and what they fear the most: knowledge, ideas, innovation. Here are some highlights:

With knowledge, ideas and the benefits of an equal justice-based civil society for all its participants, religion will not disappear from the species, for the reasons of the boundaries on how each of us experience life in the very personal ways we do. But it will tend to be more inclusive and respectful of the prior evolution of its many forms, and in greater coherence with discoveries of the actual processes that make the universe tick.

Now, when some seek to abort this, to rip certain religions away from this process and to insist they remain fixed in their older forms, we see not the continued enhancement the human condition as the motive, but the assertion of the age-old ways in which religion was used to exploit human vulnerability and send special interests to war.

Fist-pounding, so-called fundamentalism and insistence on the special divine nature of ancient texts or traditions involves, behind its demagoguery, little more than manipulation and coercion. Under this sway, some people, seeking religion’s comforts, are convinced to willfully close off their minds’ access to knowledge, ideas and the benefits of civil society in favor of the fantastic claims and demands of moral bullies.

But it is the task of civil society in light of this to cause such tendencies, and the dangers they bring, to wither away by intensifying the universally-positive benefits of knowledge, new ideas and solutions to many grievances of the human condition through production, nutrition, medical cures and an enhanced distribution of abundance.

Humanity cannot sit on its hands and allow retrogressive forces to rally vulnerable minions to do the bidding of the petty self-interests of a few in the name of religion. It must aggressively challenge them by articulating a better way, not in contrast to the spirit of religion and the answers it seeks, but by better combining the benefits of its progress with those strivings for a better appreciation of ultimate things.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Mentally Ill Shift From Care to Jails - There are more behind bars in Virginia than are in mental wards

As with gay rights, the need for mental health care is something Virginia would prefer to simply sweep under the rug and ignore. This article from the Richmond Times Dispatch (http://www.timesdispatch.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-10-10-0117.html) should be a state wide embarrassment. Sadly, most Virginians, especially those preaching "family values," do not seem to care or be embarrassed. Perhaps the family values crowd is once again literally applying the Bible and, therefore, believe that those in need of mental health care are sinners and possessed by demons? Hence, why take care of their needs. Virginia likes to think of itself as moving into the category of at least somewhat progressive states, but these figures prove sadly otherwise. Here are some story high lights:

Almost four decades after Virginia began emptying the mental wards of its state hospitals, jails across Virginia now house more people with mental illness than state and private hospitals combined. Of the 6,350 mentally ill people in hospitals or jails on a single day two years ago, 60 percent were in jails. And 43 percent of jails responding to a state commission's query said regional mental-health agencies do not provide mental-health services.

In 1936, only one person with mental illness was in jail for every six in state hospitals. In 2005, that ratio had gone to five people in jail for every two in a hospital. Those are among the statistics compiled in a 200-page report released yesterday by the General Assembly's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

Virginia has 40 cities and 95 counties. Seven of the state's localities have more than half the roughly 1,500 psychiatrists in the state. Forty-seven localities have none; 87 localities don't have a child psychiatrist. The sobering analysis yesterday left legislators with few questions and state mental-health officials with few answers as evidence continues to mount about the state's system of mental-health care. Most of the issues have been festering for years and have been brought to the forefront by the mass killings at Virginia Tech in April by mentally ill student Seung-Hui Cho.

[T]he report found vast disparities in the quality of care from one jurisdiction to another and a failure by state agencies and local mental-health agencies to follow state laws mandating how patients are to be assessed and singled out for care. JLARC found that a decade-old state law requiring public hearings and regulations to set payment rates for temporary detentions has never been implemented. The rates are set unilaterally by the state Department of Medical Assistance Services.

Nor have state laws enacted 25 years ago been followed that require regulations for pre-screening procedures for patients entering state hospitals. As a result, some state hospitals have simply declined to admit some groups of patients who once received care. Those people include patients with dementia, substance-abuse problems and traumatic brain-injuries, according to JLARC.

In sum, it is NOT a pretty picture. Small wonder that Seung-Hui Cho did not receive proper mental health treatment and that he was allowed to be on campus with no one knowing how potentially dangerous he was.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Iraq Troop Withdrawal - Support Growing for Iraq Troop Withdrawal

The American public continues to be ahead of the politicians - and certainly the delusional Chimperator Bush - when it comes to addressing the Iraq War fiasco as shown by this new Rasmussen poll (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/iraq_troop_withdrawal). When are the Democrats in Congress going to get the courage to use this public mandate?

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 64% of Americans would like to see U.S. troops brought home from Iraq within a year. That’s the third straight weekly increase in support for troop withdrawal and a 6-point increase from mid-September. Those figures include 28% who want the troops brought home immediately. That’s up from 20% four weeks ago following Congressional testimony by General David Petraeus.

All questions concerning Iraq reveal stark partisan differences. Eighty-three percent (83%) of Democrats want the troops to come home within a year. Sixty-three percent (63%) of Republicans believe the troops should remain until the mission is complete. That latter figure is down from 71% two weeks ago. As for those not affiliated with either major party, 69% want the troops home within a year. Only 29% take the opposite view and say they should remain.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) of American voters say that the economy is the top issue for Election 2008. Eighteen percent (18%) say the War on Terror is most important while 13% believe the War in Iraq is tops. Democrats are trusted more than Republicans on nine of ten key issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports.