Blogger.com Issues

I have been having a terrible time trying to upload posts and keep having the effort fail and wipe out my work. I may try later to see if the problem is corrected. Otherwise, I will post more tomorrow.

Monday Male Beauty

"Fearless" - Out LGBT Student Athletes

“Fearless” is the name of the photography series Jeff Sheng (pictured at left)started almost 5 years ago about “out” high school and collegiate athletes who openly self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. While these individuals are only a small segment of the LGBTQ community, Sheng wanted to photograph them and give them visibility because they exemplify a particular courage and self-confidence in being “out” at a very young age while also competitively participating in the often-times homophobic world of sports. More importantly, these individuals do not let fear stand in the way of being true to themselves and enjoying what life has to offer. This is a lesson that is universal. Here is a link to the "Fearless" website. Sheng further describes his goal as:

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"What I hope people get when they look at the images," Sheng said, "is that they see pictures of people that they recognize. Images that look like their friends, maybe even people in their family, like their sons and daughters; and that they begin to look at the gay and lesbian community in a different way--perhaps with more empathy and respect."

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I know from my own personal experience that just being "out" professionally has resulted in a number of my clients finding themselves having to re-think their image of gays and stereotypes. Thus, the more that can be done to show members of the LGBT community as typical members of all walks of life in society, the easier it will be to defeat the misinformation deliberately disseminated by Christianists and other anti-gay groups. A portfoli o of the students photgraphed by Sheng for the exhibition can be found here. Other goals of “Fearless” and FearlessCampusTour.org include:

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- To use photography and the visual medium to effectively educate the public and eliminate prejudice and discrimination
- To increase acceptance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth in high schools and colleges
- To decrease homophobia in athletics
- To give LGBTQ youth an online resource for support, particularly at risk youth who feel isolated from their peers
- To help educators, administrators and coaches meet the needs of LGBTQ youth in their schools, teams and communities

More Sunday Male Beauty

Romance Front Update and This and That

Since a number of readers are asking in their e-mails, let it be known that my brief dating trend that I reference briefly with one particular guy that started a month or so ago has ended - I think in essence, we were just too different and not all that compatible. However, all is not lost. :) There appear to be some possible prospects on the horizon. It's still way to early in the process to know for sure where things will lead, but I remain optimistic and - if things move the way that I hope they will - I will report at some future point to satisfy "inquiring minds."

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Meanwhile, I went to a great birthday party last night for one of my fellow HRBOR board members up in the Ocean View area of Norfolk. Good food, good adult beverages, and good music contributed to make it a very good time. A couple of "eye candy" quality guys did not hurt either. I did find myself chuckling to myself a few times, however, since the crowd was mostly lesbians, but they surely did not fit the straight world stereotype of what lesbians look like. Many were so-called lipstick lesbians who were knockouts. The Christianists would have had their narrow-minded bigotry blown away. On the way home, I stopped at The Wave and got an aerobic workout dancing.

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As for today, I'm not sure what the day will bring. It's not even 11:00 AM and I've been up for hours thanks to my dog who decided he just HAD to go out early this morning. I've had plenty of time to read the news online, search for some new "male beauty" photos, do this morning's blog posts and I will probably do yard work in a bit (it's been very dry, so mowing the grass will be mainly cutting down spotty weeds and self-seeded plum trees that spring up from pits spead all over the yard by birds who always get the ripe plims on my plum tree before I do). Why is it what you don't want to grow always seems grow far faster than the grass. After that, I may just sun in the backyard rather than journey to the beach. Once again, the waves are flat and surf conditions are poor, which seems to be the usual weekend drill of late. If I am lucky, I may hear from a certain someone later in the day. :)

McCain's Vietnam Bunker Mindset

Frank Rich has an interesting take on the place of the Iraq War in the 2008 elections and in the mind of the American public. Even in this area with its large number of military personnel, most of the members of the military that I know - and a number have served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan - feel that the USA needs to get out now. No matter what the USA may try to do in Iraq, the Chimperator and his hubris has created a senario where a disastrous outcome is possible if not likely. The Chimperator's crusade has become as much of a debacle as the Crusades of centuries ago. I can only hope that John McCain and the lunatic base of the GOP - which secretly loves seeing non-Christians killed - continue to fail to recognize the reality of the public's mindset on Iraq. Here are some highlights from Rich's column:

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In America, the war has been a settled issue since early 2007. No matter what has happened in Iraq since then, no matter what anyone on any side of the Iraq debate has had to say about it, polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans judge the war a mistake and want out. For that majority, the war is over except for finalizing the withdrawal details. They’ve moved on without waiting for the results of Election Day 2008 or sampling the latest hectoring ad from moveon.org.

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The good news for Democrats — and the big opportunity for Barack Obama — is that John McCain and the war’s last cheerleaders don’t recognize that immutable reality. They’re so barricaded in their own Vietnam bunker that they think the country is too. It’s their constant and often shrill refrain that if only those peacenik McGovern Democrats and the “liberal media” acknowledged that violence is down in Iraq — as indeed it is, substantially — voters will want to press on to “victory” and not “surrender.” And therefore go for Mr. McCain. One neocon pundit, Charles Krauthammer, summed up this alternative-reality mind-set in a recent column piously commanding Mr. McCain to “make the election about Iraq” because “everything is changed,” and “we are winning on every front.” The war, he wrote, can be “the central winning plank of his campaign.” (Italics his.)

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But reminding voters of his identification with Iraq, no matter how he spins it, pays no political dividends to Mr. McCain. People just don’t want to hear about it. Last week, the first polls conducted in Pennsylvania and Ohio since the ad began running there found him well behind in both states. The G.O.P.’s badgering of Mr. Obama about the war is also backfiring.

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Should voters tune in, they’ll also discover that the McCain policy is nonsensical on its face. If “we are winning” and the surge is a “success,” then what is the rationale for keeping American forces bogged down there while the Taliban regroups ominously in Afghanistan? Why, if this is victory, does Mr. McCain keep threatening that “chaos and genocide” will follow our departure? And why should we take the word of a prophet who failed to anticipate the chaos and ethnic cleansing that would greet our occupation?

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Mr. McCain’s sorest Achilles’ heel, of course, is his role in facilitating the fiasco in the first place. Someone in his campaign has figured this out. Go to JohnMcCain.com and, hilariously enough, you’ll find a “McCain on Iraq Timeline” that conveniently begins in August 2003, months after “Mission Accomplished.” Vanished into the memory hole are such earlier examples of the McCain Iraq wisdom as “the end is very much in sight” (April 9, 2003) and “there’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shiites” (later that same month).

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To finesse this embarrassing record, Mr. McCain asks us to believe that the only judgment that matters is who was “right” about the surge, not who was right about our reckless plunge into war. That’s like saying he deserves credit for tossing life preservers to the survivors after encouraging the captain of the Titanic to plow full speed ahead into the iceberg.

Barack Obama - Hate Groups' Newest Target

It is a sad commentary on this country, but Barack Obama's victory as the nominee of the Democratic Party is bringing out the bottom feeders and low lifes of the white supremacist circles who are reporting increased traffic to their posionous web sites. Personally, I have never understood the mindset that requires someone else to look down on and discriminate against in order to have some sense of self-worth. These folks are seriously screwed up emotionally and psychologically, if you ask me. It seems that rather than better themselves, they devote huge amounts of energy towards hating others. Perhaps if their energies were better directed, they would not need to look down upon/hate others to find a measure of self esteem. These individuals truly make one ashamed to be an American and are true losers. Sadly, what the article does not address is that if one regularly reads the websites of the major Christianist organizations - e.g., Family Research Council, Concerned Women, Focus on the Family - there is also a subtle anti-non-white bigotry being disseminated. Here are highlights from new Washington Post story:

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Sen. Barack Obama's historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.

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Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination June 3. His success has aroused a community of racists, experts said, concerned by the possibility of the country's first black president. "I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."

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The truth is, we're finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net, and it's a growing problem," said Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate group activity. "There are probably thousands of Web sites that do this now. I couldn't even tell you how many are out there because it's growing so fast."

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Earlier this month, Obama's campaign launched a Web site to defuse the false rumors that hate-mongers spread on the Internet. The site lists a series of untruths about Obama -- that he is Muslim; that his books contain racist passages; that his wife, Michelle, used the word "whitey" -- and discredits them. "The Obama campaign isn't going to let dishonest smears spread across the Internet unanswered," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. "We have to be proactive and fight back."

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The past few months reflect a recent trend of hate group growth, watch organizations said. Fueled primarily by anti-immigration sentiment, white supremacy groups have increased by nearly half since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. The KKK has diversified regionally and now has about 150 chapters spread through 34 states.

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There is also another possibility, of course, one that makes white power leaders despise Obama even more. "What you try not to think about is that maybe if Obama wins, it will create a very demoralizing effect," Doggett said. "Maybe people see him in office, and it's like: 'That's it. It's just too late. Look at what's happened now. We've endured all these defeats, and we've still got a multicultural society.' And then there's just no future for our viewpoint."

Sunday Male Beauty

Gay Marriage Backers Seek to Remove Marriage Ban from California Ballot

In an interesting story in the San Francisco Chronicle, gay rights supporters are seeking to remove the gay marriage ban initiative from the November ballot arguing that the ban's consequences are such that a mere initiative is not in compliance with the existing requirements fro amending the California constitution. The basic argument seems to have some merit. It seems unconscionable that a simple majority vote can be used to wipe away the rights on any minority group that may be unpopular from time to time. It sounds like a therory that Hitler would have loved. If this initiative goes forward EVERY minority group in California is at risk. I would also add that from my reading of legal briefs filed in many of the major gay rights cases, the pro-gay attorneys generally out class the wingnut attorneys every time. I'd even go so far as to say that in Lawrence v. Texas, the amicus briefs filed by the gay haters were not only of very poor quality, but they probably went some distance in convincing the majority of the justices that the anti-gay element were down right nut cases. Some of the briefs were so bad that I'd have been embarrassed to sign my name to them. Religious fanaticism does not equate with legal competence as an attorney - it seems to usually trend in exactly the opposite direction. Here are some story highlights"

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Gay-rights advocates asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to remove a proposed state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage from the November ballot, saying it would destroy fundamental rights that cannot be legally altered by a voter initiative.

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In papers filed four days after the legalized same-sex weddings began around the state, advocacy groups argued that the measure would change the state's Constitution so profoundly that it would amount to a revision. Under the law, the Constitution cannot be revised by initiative alone - a two-thirds legislative approval is also needed before the measure goes to the voters. "If enacted, (the November initiative) would eviscerate the principle of equal citizenship for gay and lesbian people and strip the courts of their authority to enforce basic constitutional guarantees," said Stephen Bomse, lawyer for the groups. He said the measure would "destabilize our Constitution and our basic government plan ... by establishing that any group may be deprived of equal protection and fundamental rights through a simple majority vote."

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Backers of the measure quickly denounced the suit. "Equality California and its allies are desperate to evade democracy," said attorney Glen Lavy of the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund. Prop. 22 was the 2000 ballot measure, approved by 61 percent of the voters, that declared same-sex marriages illegal, reaffirming a statute passed by the Legislature in 1977.

70 Percent In Jamaica Oppose ANY Rights For Gays

For some time now I have argued that gays need to really start using their immense financial clout to punish anti-gay businesses and tourist destinations. Based on a recent poll, Jamaica should be at the top of the list of targeted destinations. I truly cannot understand the violent dislike of gays that seems to have swelled to huge proportions in that country. This attitude - despite all the advertising trying to depict Jamaica as a wonderful destination - to me shows a general populace that is more than alittle bit f*cked up. With the poverty and many problems that the average the Jamaican lives with daily, it would seem that there would be much more pressing things to get emotionally over wrought about. Who and what - besides gangster Reggae performers - is feeding this extreme and violent hatred. Any gays that travel to Jamaica or makes any expenditure that helps the Jamaican economy is a fool in my opinion. Such hatred needs to carry a severe financial price and LGBT individuals should exercise a 100% boycott of Jamaica and Jamaican products. Moreover, they should encourage others to do likewise. Note that this poll isn't about gay marriage - its about gays having ANY CIVIL RIGHTS. Here are some highlights from 365gay.com:

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Kingston) There is little chance laws against homosexuality will be repealed in Jamaica if a public opinion poll released Friday is any indication. The survey found that 70 percent of Jamaicans do not believe gays and lesbians should have any civil rights.

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Last month Prime Minister Bruce Golding condemned Britain and other Commonwealth countries for criticizing the treatment of gays in the Caribbean nation. ''Jamaica is not going to allow values to be imposed on it from outside,'' he said during an interview broadcast on the BBC. (story). Jamaica has been described by human rights groups as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians. . . . . More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 J-FLAG says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial.

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In 2004 Brian Williamson, Jamaica's leading LGBT civil rights advocate was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25 year old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder. In December 2005 Lenford "Steve" Harvey who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life was killed. Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. (story) His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later. In 2006 the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught.

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In February, 2007 three men in "tight jeans" and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of "kill them" along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out "to face justice". Police had to fire teargas into the crowd to rescue the three. Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia. Reggae star BujuBanton's hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye which threatens gay men with a "gunshot in ah head".