It's been a couple of days now, and it's starting to sink in that the LGBT community had one win and one loss on election day. On the east coast we had Maine and their attempt to overturn the state's legislatures passage of same-sex marriage; our loss. Then there was the west coast and Washington voting for the passage of their "everything but marriage" referendum; our win.
I think the past two days I've already gone through the five stages of grief over Maine.
Tuesday night while the results were coming in (I was following my Twitter pals to see how we were doing), I experienced denial. I was reading their tweets and thinking, "it's still too close to we'll have to wait a until 100% of the precincts are reporting."
Later Tuesday night on into Wednesday morning I started feeling anger. Anger at the people who would vote to deny my LGBT brothers and sisters the right to enter into a legally recognized union. Anger at our "fierce advocate" President Obama for not making use of his bully pulpit to speak out against Prop1.
Thank you for saying you're a fierce advocate of the LGBT community.
Oh wait, you've really not shown that you're a fierce advocate. If
you were truly our advocate you would have made use of your bully
pulpit to encourage the people of Maine to vote no on Prop1.
Gay marriage has now lost in every single state -- 31 in all -- in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine -- known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate -- and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.
I'm tired and angry, so it's probably a good idea for me to go to bed before saying something like "hey Obama and everyone that voted in favour of Prop1 go listen to Lily Allen's Fuck You."
Any Canadians or Brits want to get gay married? I'm about fed up with this shit hole of a country.
During the time I lived in Oklahoma City I was a victim of hate crime two different times. The first time the police didn't find my attackers. The second time they did. If I would've had the ability to try and get the crime into federal jurisdiction instead of the state I would have been more likely to follow through on pressing charges.
When I was attacked the second time, I got lucky and an off duty police officer saw what was going on, called for back-up and then stopped my assailants. He then reported to the officers that arrived on the scene that the attackers had been calling me faggot while beating on me.
One would think with an officer making that kind of statement I would have pressed charges. Well this was in Oklahoma which is one of the most homo-unfriendly states around. The on duty officer that took my statement actually seemed to be encouraging me to not press charged. He said that at most the attackers would spend the night in jail, get out the next morning and only have to pay a fine.
Given what I knew about Oklahoma, I decided not to press charges.
If I would of had the protection of hate crime legislation I would definitely have pursued prosecution. With the off duty officer's statement about the attackers calling me faggot, I can't help but think that would have moved it from the state level to the federal level. The one attackers that hit me in the head with a beer bottle would have been facing a lot more than just a fine.
So Mr. Savage, just because the hate crime bill doesn't directly affect every member of the LGBT community, it's still an important piece of legislation. Honestly I feel it's much more important than trying to get the White House to move on marriage as you seem to want them to do. I personally feel that the repeal of DOMA is the least of our concerns.
If you want to discuss something that will affect more LGBT citizens then let's talk ENDA. It is currently legal in 29 states to fire an employee simply for being gay. Surely that would affect more LGBT citizens than the hate crime bill.
Maybe you want to talk about something that affects every American citizen. If so let's talk about DADT. During a time when we are fighting two wars, both in the Middle East, it is insane that we are discharging service members that can translate Arabic. Lt. Dan Choi is a perfect example of this. An Iraq war veteran, and West Point graduate that studied linguistics, and is fluent in Arabic was discharged for challenging DADT. Is America safe now that we don't have him translating intelligence reports that could indicate another attack here in the US?
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for marriage equality. That issue, however, is one that I feel needs to be fought on the state level. Once we achieve a victory in more states would it be necessary to pressure DC to repeal DOMA. Sure Obama could come out and say he opposed Proposition 1 in Maine and for the approval Referendum 71 in Washington where you live. I think that would be a wise move for him. After all he did say he was a "fierce advocate" of LGBT rights.
If I was to be 100% honest, when Mr. Savage and other respected LGBT advocates spend so much time in the national press talking about marriage; it makes me feel like a bad queer for not wanting it as bad as they seem to want it.
I will admit that you are probably right that the passing of the hate crime bill affects fewer members of our community. I still feel having been a victim of a hate crime that it is a much needed piece of legislation. I'm glad to see it finally passed, and that we have a President that has stated he will sign it into law.
It makes me sad, and a bit angry that studies have been conducted to see if allowing gays to serve in the military would be detrimental the national security and no such threat has been found. What's worse was in 1957 when it was determined that the military should not move ahead of civilian society in regards to homosexuals serving.
The DoD has funded studies on the impact of gay servicemembers as far back as 1957, when the Navy's Crittenden Report (pdf) found "no factual data" to support the idea that they posed a greater security risk than heterosexual personnel. Straight officers boasting secrets due to "feelings of inadequacy" were a realer threat, it found. Despite these findings, the report recommended no changes to dismissal policies, for a reason that would define the department's stance on open service into the 21st century: "The service should not move ahead of civilian society nor attempt to set substantially different standards in attitude or action with respect to homosexual offenders."
So there you have it. Heterosexual officers were found to potentially be a larger security threat that homosexuals. Honestly I feel anyone that's hiding a secret straight, gay, or bi has the same potential to be a threat to national security, but what do I know?
From the time I spent in the Navy it would seem I know as much as researchers from 1957.
A Mormon couple are now waiting to see if the Utah State Supreme Court is going to say their marriage was valid or not.
Neldon
and Ina Johnson had filed for divorce after a 35-year relationship in
which they shared insurance policies and joint tax filings, according
to the Deseret News.
However,
during divorce proceedings it was revealed that they were never
actually married. Since they split in 2001, Ina Jo hnson claims that
she is still owed alimony, while Neldon counters she is ineligible
because their marriage was never valid. Court papers show they claimed
to be married in Arizona in 1964, and then had their marriage blessed
at a Mormon temple in Manti, Utah, in 1965.
They never had to provide a marriage license when having the marriage blessed at the Mormon temple.
Looking at Wikipedia it doesn't look like Arizona recognizes common-law marriages. If that's truly the case, I don't see how the court can say that their marriage was legal. Just because you had the religious ceremony doesn't mean you're married if you don't have that lovely piece of paper from the state.
See The Wizard of Oz for one night only in high def at a movie theatre. To celebrate the 70th anniversary of this classic film a remastered version will be shown in over 440 theatres across the nation. So mark your calenders for 23 September and see a larger than life Dorthy, Toto, and all the rest.
Check to see if it's playing in your area that night, and have a gay old time with all the other friends of Dorothy.
The neighborly Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma tells a crying woman not to rely on government to help her and her husband. The woman just breaks my heart. She tells the Senator that his insurance won't cover assistance with eating and drinking that seems to be related to a traumatic brain injury.
The Senator tells her to come see him and he will try to see what he can do to help her as an individual. He this goes on to say that neighbors should be helping her out, but not to rely in government help.
Here's my take on neighbors helping out. All of us in the great nation are "neighbors" and by having a publicly funded health care system it will allow "neighbors" to provide the help that is really needed. This woman says she needs help with feeding tubes for her husband. What, are her neighbors supposed to make a casserole to puree and feed to him through a tube?
Most neighbors aren't qualified to provide the type of help needed in a situation like that. With universal health coverage that doesn't deny any claim made, our tax dollars help provide the help that we can't. This is just another tragic story of a how our for profit insurance companies are killing Americans with their "death panels" that deny claims.
I've decided I'm going to embrace the right wing conservative view that health care should only be available to the people that can afford it. I'm only going to embrace this view if the right wing will meet my one simple request.
It's such a small thing really. I just think we should totally embrace the conservative argument that socialized medicine would be bad for the country. However, is doing so we should realize that socialized police protection and socialized fire protection are evil and must be privatized immediately. Also socialized public schools are work of Satan and must be abolished forthwith.
When someone's home gets broken into they should only be able to contact the police if they have the proper insurance, or can pay out of pocket to have the police investigate. Imagine the price of a speeding ticket now. Not only will one have to pay the fine for speeding, they'll have to pay for the police officers time in pulling them over. We will probably need to estimate how much gas was used from the time the officer pulled up behind someone, and they actually pulled over. Probably need to think about the cost of administrative fees to have the ticket processed through the traffic court system.
Is your house on fire? Hmmm, hope you remembered to pay your fire protection premium this month. I would hate for you to call the fire department and have them tell you "sorry you don't have the right coverage for us to come put the fire out for you."
Are your children currently enrolled in public school? Well I hope you make enough money to afford yearly tuition. There really is no economical sense in sending poverty stricken children to a school free of charge. Odds are the child will grow up to be a poverty stricken adult. They don't really need to know too much to flip our McBurgers for us. Anything they need to learn, they can learn on the job.
Now that I've gotten those ridiculous requests out of the way, I hope anyone reading this will take the time to stop and think about everything in their community that is socialized. Our tax money go to the government so they can pay for such things as police, fire and schools. Do you have any parks and community centers in your neighborhood? If so please add them to the list of things that are socialized.
My point is simply this, we've already embraced a system that could be considered socialism for many things. Why should we be so afraid of a government run health care system? Most seniors I know are happy with Medicare. That's a health care system set up and ran by the government.
Health care in this country is such a mess at this point, it's past time that we've taken a look at the system and overhauled it. If we don't overhaul the mess we've gotten ourselves into, then I'm deadly serious. I want my above requests to be considered by the right wing and the Blue Dog Democrats that are doing everything they can to stall, delay, and flat out put an end to health care reform. If health care is only for the rich and powerful that can afford it, then the same should be true of our police, fire and school services.
After all this time of not posting anything, I never thought that I
would be posting from a hospital room. Yep that's right I'm currently
in hospital and have been here since Monday night. Guess I should fill
everyone in on what's happening.
On Monday I decided to go to Care Now to get checked out because I
had a cough that just wasn't going away. I thought it would be no big
deal. I would see a doctor, get a prescription or two and go home.
Things were more or less heading along that path until they did a chest
x-ray and discovered I had pneumonia. Since they aren't really set up to handle something that serious, they asked me to go to the emergency room to be checked out. They said that the ER might want to put me on IV antibiotics which they couldn't do at Care Now.
Well my friend and I trudged over to the ER so we could begin the unbearable wait for me to be treated. After about three hours of waiting and being bored, they finally got me in and did another round of chest x-rays. This is were things took an unexpected turn.
Next thing I know the nurse and the doctor come into the ER room wearing some serious looking masks like I'm infected with something scary and they're afraid of catching it. Turns out the latest round of chest x-rays not only showed the pneumonia, but it also showed an anomaly that is usually associated with tuberculosis. WTF!?! TB??? How could I have come into contact with that?
Needless to say they admitted to me and put me in an isolated room so they can run all sorts of fun tests.
Now I don't think I have TB, and so far all the tests are coming back negative for TB. So the docs are trying to figure out what I have. There's a possibility that I have some type of fungal infection that on an x-ray looks like TB, but we don't have a definite answer yet.
On top of everything else that's going on, when they did a CT scan a blood clot was discovered in on of my lungs. For that they have me on blood thinners.
Tomorrow they doctor is going to do some type of bronchial test. It will require them to all but put me under so they can shove a tube into my lungs to take some biopsies from the site that has the anomaly.
For the most part I'm doing okay. I am a bit overwhelmed by everything that's going on, but I guess that's to be expected.
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