Tuesday Male Beauty

Press Secretary Gibbs Dodges Question on Obama’s Past Support for Gay Marriage

Video tapes and past press coverage can be a bitch for politicians who like to play games and waffle on past positions - if not totally back track on them. Barack Obama is a case in point when the issue involves same sex marriage. Back in the mid-1990's Obama went on record in support of gay marriage. Now he's "wrestling with the issue" which is simply another way of saying either he was lying in the past or that he's lying now. Obviously, our faux :fierce advocate" cannot have it both ways and his disingenuousness on the issue shows either a dismaying political cynicism or out right indifference to LGBT Americans except for when votes and the LGBT ATM are involved. Here are highlights from Chris Johnson's piece in the Washington Blade after Obama's mouth piece Robert Gibbs bobbed and weave to avoid answering questions on Obama's inconsistency:
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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today dodged a question about whether President Obama has “backtracked” from his earlier support of same-sex marriage. In 1996, while campaigning for an Illinois Senate seat, Obama indicated his support on a candidate questionnaire for the Windy City Times, writing, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”
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Asked today about the questionnaire by the Washington Blade, Gibbs declined to address it directly.
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In the 1996 questionnaire response, Obama unequivocally stated his support for same-sex marriage, which is different from his current position on the issue. His position since has been that marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman. Still, the president has suggested his position could “evolve” on the matter and said last month he’s “wrestling” with the idea of marriage rights for gay couples.

“Like a lot of people, I’m wrestling with this,” Obama said in an interview last month with The Advocate. “I’ve wrestled with the fact that marriage traditionally has had a different connotation. But I also have a lot of very close friends who are married gay or lesbian couples.”
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A number of gay rights supporters have called on Obama to declare support for same-sex marriage during the State of the Union address. On Sunday, the New York Times published an editorial from gay political pundit and sex columnist Dan Savage, who urged the president to address marriage rights for gay couples during the speech.

Conservative Christians Divorce More Than Others

One goal of this blog is to point out the lies and hypocrisy among the opponents of LGBT equality under the civil laws and few groups exhibit more hypocrisy (and fear of engaging in rational thought) than so-called conservative Christians who claim the Bible is inerrant and want a handful of carefully selected passages applied to gays and others in society that they dislike but then utterly ignore whatever passages that are inconvenient for themselves. No Bible prohibition is more flouted by these hypocrites than the bans on divorce that per the Bible come from the mouth of Christ himself. Worse yet, many act as if being "saved" gives them a license to lie, cheat, abuse and denigrate others with total abandon. Sadly, too few in the news media have the balls to openly confront these folks and call them out for their hypocrisy. As the Daily Texan reports yet another study has confirmed that notwithstanding the Bible's bans on divorce, conservative Christians divorce more than other segments of society. Here are some highlights:
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Divorce is more common among conservative Christians and young people, according to a recent study. University of Iowa sociology professor Jennifer Glass presented her study on skyrocketing divorce rates in regions highly populated with conservative Christians to an overflowing crowd in Burdine Hall on Friday.
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“Politically and religiously conservative states, especially in the Deep South, exhibit higher divorce rates than politically and religiously liberal states in the Northeast and Midwest,” Glass wrote in her study. The average divorce rate in the United States is 47.9 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
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Factors that lead to high rates of divorce among Christians are the prohibition of sex before marriage leading to marriage at an earlier age and teachings against abortion and birth control, which lead to “shotgun weddings,” she said.
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Another reason divorce rates are higher in conservative Christian regions is because residents of less religious and more liberal areas are more likely to live together for extended periods of time, she said.
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Yep, it's a case of "do as we say, not as we do." Would that more of these folks were challenged to their faces when they launch into anti-gay rants that cite the Bible as justification for their anti-gay tirades. Under their own supposedly "deeply held religious beliefs," they are all adulterers and per Leviticus as they would apply it to gays, they deserve death.

Monday Male Beauty

2011 Key West Retrospective

UPDATED: A sincere thank you for my daughter, Victoria, who did a wonderful job keeping the law office running and coordinating the work I did from Key West. Tori, you are a sweeyheart

We head back to Virginia this afternoon - our original flight was canceled and now we don't leave until almost 6:00 PM which puts us back in Norfolk at 11:35 PM assuming we have no delays. The following are a few sample photos from an overall wonderful trip.

Tea Dance at La Te Da's

The Audubon House

The launch to Sunset Key and lunch at Latitudes

Sunset from the top of La Concha

The Oasis pool complex

What Will Obama Have for Gays in His SOTU Message?

They is always speculation of what a president will say in the State of the Union speech each year. Obviously jobs and the economy will be topics as will the ongoing fiasco in Afghanistan and Iraq where unfortunately Obama has continued Chimperator Bush's failed policies and listened to generals who will always claim progress no matter what objective reality says otherwise. And for LGBT Americans, what will Obama have to say to us. Will we get more mealy mouthed talk about supporting our equality even as he has his justice department continue appeals in cases that would overturn pro-equality district court rulings? Reportedly, Daniel Hernandez, the gay intern who is credited with helping save Rep. Giffords' life after the Tucson mass shooting, will be seated with First Lady Michelle Obama at Tuesday's State of the Union address - but is that the sole crumb to be thrown to our community? Dan Savage has an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times that calls on Obama to get on board the push for gay marriage. Will Obama do it? My guess is no because it would involve leadership and by now we know too well that Obama is a follower and not a leader. Here are highlights from Dan's column:
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I’m not an idiot: Now that the Republicans hold the House, only wishful thinkers and the deeply delusional expect to see any movement on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender legislative agenda this year or next. Nevertheless, President Obama should address gay rights in his State of the Union speech this week, and he should tackle the biggest, most meaningful right of them all: the right to marry.
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The president — perhaps after introducing Daniel Hernandez Jr., the openly gay intern credited with saving Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s life — should declare that the trend is clear: this country increasingly believes that Mr. Hernandez and other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans should have all the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens.
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Gay Americans are eventually going to win on marriage just like we won on military service, the president should tell Congress, so why not save everyone on both sides of the debate a lot of time, trouble and money by approving the entire gay rights agenda? Send the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Student Non-Discrimination Act, the Uniting American Families Act and the repeal of the odious Defense of Marriage Act to his desk for his signature.
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Social conservatives long to raise their children in a country where they don’t have to hear about homosexuality every time they turn on the news. I’d like raise my son in a country like that too. And guess what? In countries like Canada — where the fight over gay rights is essentially over, where there is gay marriage, open military service and employment protections — homosexuality hardly ever makes the front pages of newspapers. There’s nothing much to report.
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Conservatives can’t get rid of us, but they can hear less from and about us. They just have to bend toward justice.

Sunday Male Beauty

Justice Thomas Failed To Report Wife's Income

I wrote the other day about the conflict of interest problems swirling around U. S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia that raise questions about their participation in certain cases before the Court. Now the Los Angeles Times has more disquieting news about Thomas who I personnally believe needs to either resign or be removed from the Court. It seems that Virginia Thomas earned over $680,000 from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation over 5 years, but the Supreme Court justice did not include it on financial disclosure forms. Call me cynical, but I suspect $680,000 is more than enough to influence one's mindset on a number of issues. Add to this income the money Virginia Thomas' far right organization has received from large anonymous donors and it is difficult to not believe that Justice Thomas is at a minimum guilty of the appearance of impropriety, if not far more. Here are highlights from the Times story:
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.
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Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed.
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Virginia Thomas also has been active in the group Liberty Central, an organization she founded to restore the "founding principles" of limited government and individual liberty. In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as "none." Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.
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Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law. Thomas' omission — which could be interpreted as a violation of that law — could lead to some form of penalty, Gillers said. "It wasn't a miscalculation; he simply omitted his wife's source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission," Gillers said. "It could not have been an oversight."
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Without disclosure, the public and litigants appearing before the court do not have adequate information to assess potential conflicts of interest, and disclosure is needed to promote the public's interest in open, honest and accountable government," Common Cause President Bob Edgar wrote in a letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States.
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Clarence Thomas has been the lone justice to argue that laws requiring public disclosure of large political contributions are unconstitutional.

Christianists Begin to Mobilize Against Maryland Marriage Bill

With a potential gay marriage bill in the works in neighboring Maryland, the Christofascists are mobilizing to bring their phony "protect marriage" lies to that state and intimidate elected officials into subverting the U.S. Constitution and the Maryland Constitution each of which claim to guarantee freedom of religion to all citizens. The Christianists, however, true to form want special rights that would inflict their religious views on marriage on every citizen of Maryland. By definition, this is an effort to subvert the aforesaid constitutions and any politician who joins the "protect marriage" bandwagon ought to be forced to resign from office on the basis that they have breached their oath to support constitutional government. The image below depicts some of the bullshit already being disseminated by the Christofascists. Meanwhile, here are highlights from the Washington Blade on legislative developments in Maryland:
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Equality Maryland announced today its anticipated timeline for moving two key pieces of LGBT rights legislation in the coming months, including a marriage equality bill.
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The marriage bill is up first and has already been introduced in the Senate; it will be introduced in the House on Jan. 25. Sources said a Senate hearing will likely be held either Tuesday, Feb. 1 or Thursday, Feb. 3. Then, observers expect a three-day fight on the Senate floor during the week of Feb. 7, culminating with a cloture vote, which requires 29 votes. Twenty-four votes are needed to pass the Senate bill; there are 18 co-sponsors.
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Senate leadership reportedly wants to wrap debate and voting on the marriage bill before budget legislation is considered on Feb. 21. The measure would then move to the House for consideration in March, where it is widely expected to pass. Final passage is expected in early April.
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The other bill, a measure barring job discrimination based on gender identity and expression, is expected to be introduced first in the House during the week of Jan. 24 and see a hearing in the House Government & Operations Committee in mid-February.
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[T]he National Organization for Marriage is now active in the state in opposing the marriage equality bill. NOM hasn’t yet aired TV ads opposing marriage equality, but has begun an online and telephone campaign against the bill.
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Obviously, if Maryland joins the District of Columbia in allowing same sex marriage, additional pressure will be put on Northern Virginia in the competition for affluent same sex couples and progressive businesses that may prefer to relocate to Maryland where all citizens will be treated as full citizens should the marriage bill pass the Maryland Legislature. I hope the Maryland marriage initiative succeeds and that it makes Virginia pay a price for its anti-gay bigotry and the special rights it grants to theocratic bigots who would undermine freedom of religion for all.

Further Reflections on Death, Families and Parental Acceptance

While I have been enjoying myself in Key West, I have remained haunted by the loss of my mother and, indeed, at times I simply cannot believe that she's gone. Intellectually, I grasp it, but emotionally I have a long way to go. I lost a sister in 2001, my dad in 2006 and now my mother. Maybe the difficult comes from the fact that I was there at the hospice with her when she died. For her it was a dignified and peaceful exit. For me, it is something seared into my memory as I watched the life force ebb out of her. If she was conscious somehow that I was there with her, I am glad that I was there for her. By the same token, it is something I never want my own children to go through - better I die totally alone than they be put through the soul wrenching experience. With the Norfolk memorial service approaching next Saturday, I am thinking a great deal about what to say, what readings to select and so forth. One thing I will note for sure, however, is that despite her sometimes conservative Catholicism, she "got it" when it came to parental acceptance of a gay child. A piece in Out Front Colorado underscores just how lucky I was with both my parents, but my mom in particular when contrasted with what Ryan Kendall, who testified as a fact witness in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, experienced - and so many other LGBT individuals sadly experience at the hands of their parents. Here are highlights from that article written by Kendall himself with an editor's note for background.
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Editor’s Note: On January 20, 2010, Ryan Kendall testified as a fact witness in the landmark case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal trial to overturn California’s discriminatory Proposition 8. Kendall took the stand to speak to the immutability of sexual orientation, living proof that you can’t “pray away the gay.” Kendall, a Colorado Springs native, was subjected to “reparative therapy” beginning when he was just 14, when his evangelical Christian parents discovered he was gay. Now, a year after his testimony, in this OFCB exclusive Kendall reflects on the trial, the terrifying and true scenarios that filled his testimony, and what the Perry case means not only for marriage equality, but for all LGBT kids still suffering from intolerance and hatred.
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The random, interconnected series of events that led to my testimony in Perry v. Schwarzenegger has always seemed purposeful to me. It comforts me to know that in some small way my experiences served a noble purpose.
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I was asked to tell my story. It was an unpleasant story with details that I didn’t care to remember. While each call lasted an hour or more, I rarely made it more than a few minutes before my voice was contorted with pain. At times I would sob almost inconsolably. Throughout the process the attorneys were always kind and concerned with my emotional well-being. They repeatedly asked me if I was certain that I wanted to proceed – after all, they knew this was difficult.
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“Yes,” came my emotional response.”People have to see this. They have to know what happens to us.” It wasn’t my story that the world needed to know, but the story of all LGBT youth who have suffered without need.
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I was 14 or 15 when it happened. The previous year or so of my life had been a living hell. After my parents discovered that I was gay, they rejected me. On a daily basis I was told that something was wrong with me, or that I was disgusting or repulsive. I was just a kid – I didn’t understand why my family had turned against me. I didn’t know how to process their cruel words – words that burned right into my soul. I was living in a constant state of fear and anxiety.
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I was alone with my mother in our dinning room. I will never forget that moment. I was looking my mother in her eyes as she spat out the words, “I would rather have had an abortion than a gay son.” It was an awful moment and I was desperately hurt.
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My family was torn apart because of anti-gay attitudes that condemn people without a cognizable reason, solely for being who they are. Mine is not the main injustice of this story. It is the needless destruction of a family that I find unforgivable. I needed my family – we needed each other. All I wanted was to heal my family, and for my parents to love me again. I failed in that task; it required the impossible. I couldn’t be what I wasn’t. The only choice left was to fight for my soul, so I did.
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My heart goes out to Ryan Kendall and the countless LGBT youths who experience such needless and cruel rejection. In contrast to their experience, my mother put her arms around me and said she loved me and wanted to protect me from being hurt because of who I was. That's the message EVERY LGBT child should be hearing from their parents and other family members. The fact that so many do not is a terrible indictment against religion as a whole. It is the cause of so much abuse and hatred. And to my mother, I say "Thank you."