Queer Musings

Houston Teen Beaten With Metal Pipe

A 16 year old Houston teen warned two school principals and a bus driver that he was going to be beaten. Sadly no helped him before he was severely beaten with a metal pipe by classmates.

Luckily the teen survived the attack, but this shows that a long way to hell before children are safe from bullying and beatings from their peers

Texas Governor Talks Secession

I always joke that I have a bag ready to leave Texas the moment the crazies decide to secede from the United States. It used to be a joke until I got home from work and found that Joe. My. God. posted a YouTube audio clip of our one and only Gov. Rick Perry stating that Texas can secede any time it wants.

This honestly makes me nervous. I can't help but feel that as a gay man I would become a target. There's no doubt in my mind that Old Testament justice will become the normal course of life around here. Life in the nation of Texas wouldn't be much different than life in many of the Islamic ran nations.

Maybe it's time my joke becomes a reality and I pack that bag. I guess I should also make sure the cat carrier is readily available so I can run home and grab Baku as well. Now, where did I put my passport?

In the meantime I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that Perry doesn't get reelected in 2010. Damn, I miss Ann Richards. She was one tough old broad that wouldn't put up with this craziness.

Queer Terrorism

For anyone that thought a bomb being planted at Babylon on QAF was just a work of fiction, it is closer to reality than you would think.

Thankfully this fire was set after hours and no one was in the bar. However, what will prevent someone from blowing up a gay establishment in the future? Nothing...

One striking similarity between the QAF story line and the incident in Brownsville is voters will get to decide how we get to live our lives. QAF has Proposition 14, which will limit rights granted to gays and lesbians. We will be voting in November to amend our state constitution denying same-sex marriage.

Chuck Smith, deputy director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, told the PlanetOut Network that the anti-LGBT rhetoric has increased in Texas as voters prepare to consider a state constitutional amendment on Nov. 8 that would deny same-sex couples marriage rights.
 
"It is conceivable that the anti-gay rhetoric that is prevalent can play a factor in that. We will be interested to see whether incidence of hate crimes has increased because of the lies and mistruths that have been spread against us to deny us our humanity," Smith said.

That doesn't make me too happy. I guess given that I'm tired of the "gay scene" here in the DFW area, and living in a large city you sometimes get stuck in a bubble that you don't always remember the hatred directed towards the GLBT community.

Under Texas law, arson is a second-degree felony punishable from two to 20 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine. There could be additional penalties under the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, a bill named after an African-American man dragged to death in Jasper, Texas.

I think instead of classifying the incident as a hate crime, it should be considered an act of terrorism. This is no different that the bombing on Oklahoma City, the terror attack of 9/11, and the recent subway incidents in London. It is simply a way to instill terror in a segment of the American population. I don't see the politicians ever calling this an act of terrorism. This was an act of violence against a segment of the American population that it is politically correct, and sadly politically necessary to discriminate against.