Wednesday Male Beauty

Divorce Wars - Part 3

I will not be doing my usual posting tomorrow/this morning because I need to leave early for yet another show cause hearing brought by the former wife (and in my opinion her unethical attorney) in her apparent quest to either drive me to suicide or perhaps get my mother to advance funds to pay her off and get her out of my life. I will confess that the new meds are helping some and I'm not on the verge - at least yet - of checking myself into a inpatient facility as I thought might well be the case a week or so ago. I WILL be dosed up with meds for the hearing tomorrow.

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Fortunately, the boyfriend - pictured with me at left at a friend's retirement party last weekend - has been wonderfully supportive and will be in court with me tomorrow for moral support as well as a possible witness on various issues. I am truly blessed to have him in my life. hope and pray that the Court will see through the former wife's harassment tactics and send her and her attorney packing.

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FYI - this post has been published via delayed publishing options.

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Children Can Meet Dad’s Gay Friends

The Georgia Supreme Court has reversed a ruling by a homophobic lower court judge who had forbidden a gay father to allow his children to be around any of his gay and lesbian friends. This is a major deal simply because time and time again in divorces the straight parent tries to depict the LGBT parent as a sexual pervert and either (a) restrict visitation or (b) take custody from the LGBT parent. Just recently I spoke with a gay man who was experiencing this nightmare in front of a local Circuit Court judge. Ironically, the - in my opinion - sleazy attorney for the wife advertises himself as "gay friendly" even though he obviously is not. Here are some highlights from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution:

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The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday threw out a judge’s order that prohibited children in a divorce case from having any contact with their father’s gay and lesbian friends. The ruling was hailed by gay rights groups who said the decision focuses on the needs of children instead of perpetuating a stigma on the basis of sexual orientation. The state high court’s decision overturned Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards’ blanket prohibition against exposing the children to their father’s gay partners and friends.

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“Such an arbitrary classification based on sexual orientation flies in the face of our public policy that encourages divorced parents to participate in the raising of their children,” Justice Robert Benham wrote. The Fayette County judge’s prohibition “assumes, without evidentiary support, that the children will suffer harm from any such contact,” Benham wrote. But there is no evidence that any member of the gay and lesbian community has engaged in inappropriate conduct in the presence of the children or that the children would be adversely affected by being exposed to members of that community, he said.

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The ruling stems from the 2007 divorce of Eric Duane Mongerson and Sandy Kay Ehlers Mongerson, who had been married 21 years and had four children. The visitation order prohibited the three youngest children, whose ages ranged from 8 to 16 at the time, from being in contact with their father’s gay and lesbian friends. The oldest child was already an adult.

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Beth Littrell, staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Atlanta, said the visitation order was the most sweeping of its kind she had seen in Georgia. “Placing a blanket ban on children’s association with gay people not only hurts this father’s relationship with his children, it is blatant discrimination,” Littrell said. “The court has done the right thing today by focusing on the needs of the children instead of perpetuating stigma on the basis of sexual orientation.” The ruling, she added, ensures that visitation decisions are “not based on the prejudices of individual judges.”

Another "Family Values" Republican Admits to Sexual Affair

I am continually baffled by the way some of the loudest anti-gay members of the GOP either are secretly seeking gay sex on the side like Ed Schrock or having affairs and cheating on their wives with other women. The latest case in point is Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada (pictured at left) who wants to protect marriage from us gays, but has no problem trashing his marital vows for another women. No doubt he will make a tearful act of contrition and the sheeple of the Christianist far right will give him a free pass. The hypocrisy is simply mind boggling and note how the cuckolded wife takes the guy back. Here are some highlights from CNN:

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Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada Tuesday admitted an extramarital affair with a woman who had worked for him. Ensign would not identify the woman, but said both she and her husband had been "close friends." Her husband, he said, also worked for him. "Last year I had an affair," the senator told reporters outside his office in Las Vegas. "I violated the vows of marriage. It's absolutely the worse thing I've done in my life."

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The senator's office also released a statement from Ensign's wife, saying, "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation and we have come to a reconciliation. This has been difficult on both families. With the help of our family and close friends our marriage has become stronger. I love my husband."

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Ensign's spokesman, Tory Mazzola, told CNN that Ensign and a campaign staff member carried on the affair from December 2007 through August 2008. Her husband was an official Senate staff member for the senator.

Tuesday Male Beauty

HRC Belatedly Blasts Obama

In my view too many of the major LGBT Rights organizations approach making demands of our elected politicians like frightened children who fear reprimand and as a result beg for crumbs rather than upset those that WE helped elect. The sad reality is that if LGBT Americans patiently wait for elected officials to dole out equality, we will never secure full equality under the civil laws. And why should politicians do anything for us if we continue to give our money and talents to them even as they more or less thumb their noses at us? Maybe, just maybe, the Obama DOJ brief supporting DOMA has finally been enough of a slap in the face to wake our supposed leaders up to the fact that playing nice often gets one nothing in politics. I am happy that HRC is finally stirring, but we will have to wait and see if it continues. Here are highlights from HRC's letter to Obama, the full text of which can be found here:

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Dear Mr. President: . . . Last week, when your administration filed a brief defending the constitutionality of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,”[1] I realized that although I and other LGBT leaders have introduced ourselves to you as policy makers, we clearly have not been heard, and seen, as what we also are: human beings whose lives, loves, and families are equal to yours. I know this because this brief would not have seen the light of day if someone in your administration who truly recognized our humanity and equality had weighed in with you.

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Reading the brief, one is told again and again that same-sex couples are so unlike different-sex couples that unequal treatment makes sense. But the government doesn’t say what makes us different, or unequal, only that our marriages are “new.” The fact that same-sex couples were denied equal rights until recently does not justify denying them now.

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The government does not state why denying us basic protections promotes anyone else’s marriage, nor why, while our heterosexual neighbors’ marriages should be promoted, our own must be discouraged. In other words, the brief does not even attempt to explain how DOMA is related to any interest, but rather accepts that it is constitutional to attempt to legislate our families out of existence.

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DOMA is not “neutral” . . . It is not a “neutral” policy toward the minor child of a same-sex couple, who is denied thousands of dollars of surviving mother’s or father’s benefits because his parents are not “spouses” under Social Security law. Exclusion is not neutrality.

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I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones. . . . If we are your equals, if you recognize that our families live the same, love the same, and contribute as much as yours, then the answer must be no. We call on you to put your principles into action and send legislation repealing DOMA to Congress.

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The time for playing nice is long past. We need to make it very clear to Obama and Congressional Democrats that we will no longer quietly remain second class citizens in our own country as a result of what is in reality religious based discrimination which is after all illegal under the U.S. Constitution.

More Monday Male Beauty

How to Setup a Proxy for Iran Citizens

My thoughts continue to go out to the brave opponents of the Islamic dictators in Iran. As Andrew Sullivan has reported for several days now, many Iranian protesters are using twitter to get news out as to what is happening in Iran. The problem is that the Islamic dictatorship may well seek to shut down Internet access and shut off the news outflow. Here are the points being circulated by the opposition to the mullah's regime via Andrew's blog which I am sure are not welcomed by Ahmadinejad:

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This list was being passed around among the resistance in Iran today:

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1. Remove Khamenei from supreme leader because he doesn't qualify as a fair supreme leader

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2. Remove Ahmadinejad from president because he took it forcefully and unlawfully

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3. Put Ayatollah Montazeri as supreme leader until a review group for the ghanooneh asasi ( "constitution" ) is set up

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4. Recognize Mousavi as the official president

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5. A goverment by Mousavi and start a reform of the constitution

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6. Free all political prisoners without any ifs ands or buts, right away

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7. Call off any secret organization such as "gasht ershad"

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Obsidian Wings has more on this issue - some of which is technically way over my head when in comes to computer savvy. If this information is correct and one has the know how, it is possible to set up proxies to help by pass Iranian restrictions. Here's an overview:

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From my tentative understanding, Iran's network is a lot like China's in that it's very centralized. This post explains (and illustrates) that the Iranian Internet traffic passes through a centralized bottleneck. (Imagine if the Holland Tunnel were the only way into Manhattan). With this bottleneck in place, it's easy to filter traffic. Just like the post office could theoretically block every envelope going to San Francisco, Iran can block packets going to the IP address for "Facebook" or "Twitter." (Great NYT article on these basics here).

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So here's where "proxies" come in (and techies, please help me out here if my understanding is off). Let's say you want to send a letter to San Francisco, but the post office doesn't allow it. Well, if you know that some dude in Kansas would forward your letter on to San Francisco, then you could go ahead and mail your SF-bound letter, but it would appear to the post office like it's going to Kansas.

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So that's how tweets are getting through. They're essentially being sent to "middlemen" proxy servers -- which, in turn, allows the information to pass "in disguise" through the filter. It's like a digital Underground Railroad. (Great overview of proxies and services like Tor here).

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For those with the technical know how, instructions on how to set up a proxy can be found here. I admit that it is beyond my capabilities. Without a simple platform like Blogger, this blog would not exist.

Employee Reprimanded For Facebook Post

The question has been posed as to where exactly do our personal social media rights stand in light of our employer’s right and/or desire to know and their ability to dictate what goes on our personal Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or YouTube accounts accessed on our own private personal time. The question is relevant because many employers – particularly in states like Virginia which is an employment at will state where employees can be fired for no reason at all – need little or no justification to fire an employee as long as it doesn’t run afoul of prohibitions against discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other statutory protected class. A recent event brings this issue into focus. In this instance an Associated Press reporter was reprimanded over an innocuous comment on his Facebook page. Fortunately, as a union member, his union has come to his defense. Most of us do not have that luxury in an increasingly non-unionized work force.
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True, all of us as American citizens have our First Amendment right to freedom of speech. This protection does not, however, extend to private employers where contract rights govern relationships as opposed to prohibitions against government actions to restrict speech. While censoring employees’ rights to freedom of speech is in my view morally wrong, the reality is that this type of behavior happens virtually every day. In my own case, a letter to the editor in opposition to anti-gay legislation in 2004 likely set the stage for my being forced out of a law firm where the powers that be were more worried about not offending ultra conservative clients than the rights of their employees as citizens of an allegedly free country. Or the rights of LGBT citizens.
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The consequence is that employees need to use caution in what they post and how much they reveal. Unless you are self-employed or own your own business, it’s important to know the mindset of your employer and act accordingly assuming that anything you write may well be seen by your employer. I am not arguing that any of this is right, but it is a legal reality. Here are some highlights from Wired.com on the AP reporter case and others like it:
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Richard Richtmyer, a Philadelphia-based newsman, set off Tuesday’s tempest with a seemingly harmless comment posted to his Facebook profile late last month criticizing the executive management of newspaper publisher McClatchy, whose stock plummeted following a 2006 acquisition of San Jose-based Knight Ridder. “It seems like the ones who orchestrated the whole mess should be losing their jobs or getting pushed into smaller quarters,” Richtmyer wrote on May 28. “But they aren’t.”
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McClatchy, like countless other newspaper publishers, happens to be a member of the AP’s newsgathering cooperative. Had the comment been uttered in real life, it likely would have dissipated into the rank air of a Philly journo bar. But Richtmyer had some 51 AP colleagues as Facebook friends, some of them higher up in the AP food chain. One turned out to be a “mole” — Richtmyer’s description — and the reporter was given a firm talking-to by AP management, who put a reprimand letter in his employment file.
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The minidrama is an increasingly familiar one as companies and workers navigate the landscape defined by sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Firings and reprimands over postings to social networking sites have become commonplace over the last year.
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A stadium employee with the Philadelphia Eagles was fired in March after a Facebook post calling the team “retarded” for trading a star player. A North Carolina teacher was suspended in November for posting on Facebook, “I hate my students.” Three Harrison, New York, police officers were suspended in February after making untoward Facebook comments about their mayor.
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And two New Jersey restaurant workers are now suing their former boss after they were fired for their rumblings about the restaurant management on MySpace. The federal suit accuses the manager of logging onto the online discussion using another employee’s credentials.
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Private-sector workers have little, if any, protection from being fired or reprimanded for what they say online or off, said Wendy Seltzer, a First Amendment lawyer at American University. “If you put it onto a Twitter stream or a Facebook page, if they get word of that, they can fire you,” Seltzer said. “Electronic communications are more persistent, and more likely to find their way into the boss’ hands.”

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Federal employees, she said, generally have a First Amendment protection against being fired for their speech, unless it “impedes the ability to do the job,” Seltzer said.

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As is often the case with the law, what is legally permissible and what is morally right are two different things. Employees need to remember this unfortunate reality.