Queer Musings

Utah Court to Rule on Straight Couple's Marriage

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.

via www.advocate.com

Attention Friends of Dorothy

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.

Sen. Coburn: Government is not the Answer

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.

via: [Joe.My.God.]

Time to Privatize Police, Fire and Schools

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.

My Trip to Care Now

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.

Re: ADVERTISING: And Then Came Lola Ad Rejection

I finally got a response from Facebook about their rejection of the ad for 'And Then Came Lola.' It was very short and really didn't admit any fault.

Hi David,

Thanks for your feedback.  We want you to know take we took this matter seriously and after further review we reinstated the ad in question.

Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

T
Online Sales Operations
Facebook

I guess any response is better than none. I'm just glad that in the end they reconsidered their position on the ad and decided to run it.

Buy 'Music for Matthew' Support a Worthy Cause

While debating the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009," H.R. 1913, better known by many as the Matthew Shepard Act, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R - North Carolina) called the events surrounding Matthew's death a hoax.

In the Congresswoman's own words:

"The hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed. But we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s, it’s really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

In response to the hurtful and shameful comments Foxx made on the House floor, my friend Lee wrote a song that he is using to raise money for the Matthew Shepard Foundation. All the money he makes from his song 'Virginia' will be donated with a note on the check that the donation is "in the name of Virginia Foxx." Lee is selling the track for the bargain basement price of 99¢ be sure to get yours now so he can make a nice donation to a worthy cause.

You can visit his blog to get the listen to 'Virginia' before purchasing it, or you can just visit 7 Digital directly and purchase it from there.

Facebook Changes Mind

The small independent lesbian film And Then Came Lola has achieved a small victory today. According to their blog, Facebook has now approved their ad.

Thanks for contacting us about this. Your ad has now been re-reviewed and approved. We apologize for any inconvenience.

That's a rather generic sounding response to the issue, but I'm glad to see that Facebook was willing to change their mind.

Thanks to everyone that picked up my original post and help spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, and mulitple other sites. I would like to especially thank Bil at The Bilerico Project for featuring my post.

Will Facebook be the Next Target of Twitter Users?

Earlier this month Amazon faced some harsh criticism from Twitter users upset over the apparent banning of sales rankings on LGBT books. They had to come up with a response the Monday after Easter due to the overwhelming outcry from Twitter users.

Will Facebook become the next target of Twitter users outrage? It could happen with the rejection of an ad for the lesbian film And Then Came Lola.

The movie was hoping to target the ad to women who listed themselves as interested in women and over the age of 18. So where's the problem? From my way of thinking, that is the demographic that would want to see And Then Came Lola.

Honestly I see nothing wrong with the picture they wanted to use for the ad. It's not any different than ones I see on Facebook daily advertising gay cruises. At least all three of the women are fully dressed. There doesn't seem to be anything inappropriate happening between the three of them.

Is this a form of homophobia on Facebook's part?

According to the Facebook FAQ for Advertising Guidelines:

"Facebook is committed to protecting our user experience by keeping the site clean, uncluttered, and free from intrusive advertising. We believe that we can help transform existing advertising on Facebook into tailored messages to our users, because they are based on how their friends interact and affiliate with the brands, music artists, and businesses they care about."

Well the ads I see every day look like the one pictured. Everyday I'm treated to the sight of two shirtless gay men advertising what has always been in my mind nothing more than a floating bathhouse.

The reason Facebook gives for rejecting the advert is as follows:

"The image of this ad is either irrelevant or inappropriate. Per sections 3 and 8 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, the image on your ad should be relevant and appropriate to the item being advertised. Make sure your image is directly relevant to what you are advertising. Images that are overly explicit, provocative, or that reveal too much skin are not allowed. Images that may either degrade or idealize any health condition or body type are also not allowed. If you choose to submit this ad again, please use an appropriate image that adheres to all of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines."

I get the overly explicit part. I don't go to Facebook to see advertisements for adult oriented sites. I already know how to find most of those, and those I don't know about I can always Google.

What I don't get is the rest of the response. There's much less skin showing in the movie's picture than the one for the cruise. I don't find it any more provocative than the ad showing a gay couple enjoying themselves on the deck of the cruise ship.

When it comes to the part of an idealized body type, they may have a point. All three women look to be the typical model/actress type of build. It's not any different with the cruise ad. Neither of those men look like me. They have a pretty idealized body type.

Everything they said in their rejection is something I see everyday. I'm hoping that Facebook made an honest mistake, but I don't think they did.

I just don't get the reasoning behind the rejection. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

Encourage Showtime to Greenlight "Hero"

As I mentioned back in January, Showtime is in talks with comic legend and "Hero" author Perry Moore to turn Moore's book into a television series.

In a recent interview, Moore revealed the "Hero" is one of three shows being considered by Showtime. I think "Hero" is a show that really needs to be made. Sure it will satisfy my inner geek, but the bigger issue is GLBT teens need a role model they can identify with. The main character will definitely fill that need.

If you want to see Showtime turn "Hero" into a series, feel free to contact them.

Here's the letter I sent to Showtime.

I've heard buzz around the internet that Showtime was considering making Perry Moore's Hero into a series. I think this would be a great idea for a show.

As it stands today, GLBT teens have few role models to look up to. Moore's character of Thom Creed would make an excellent role model for those teens in need of someone that they can identify with. Someone that is conflicted about being who they are, and who they feel the world wants them to be.

Being a teen is hard. Being an GLBT teen is even harder. Please consider giving "Hero" the greenlight so that these teens will know they aren't the only ones suffering with problems of identity.

Even if Showtime doesn't turn "Hero" into a continuing series, I would like to see them make it into a movie.