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GLBT 
Sat Mar 13, 2010 at 02:03:23 PST
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(noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
With the advent of Gay couples gaining the right to legally marry in the Nation's Capitol, the Catholic Charities found it self with a dilemma. They would have to give health care coverage to the spouses of gay employees. Solution, just don't cover any employee's spouse, gay or straight.
Same-sex marriage leads Catholic Charities to adjust benefits
Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers....
Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.
So, just let them get sick and maybe die. What would Jesus say?
h/t Eli @ FDL
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Fri Mar 12, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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 Every once in a while, I try to share news of interest to the trans community with people from outside our community, in the hopes that people will get a better idea about what goes on in our lives. It's all part of that teaching effort that we have been told we must do before we can ever hope to be accorded equal rights.
What else is new? department:
Item: Transwoman killed in the East Hollywood portion of Los Angeles. This was actually last summer. What is really new is that the office of Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti is offering a $50K reward for information as to the whereabouts of Jose Catalan, who has been labeled a "person of interest" in the case. Catalan may turn out to be a suspect or may be just a witness. But currently he is a missing parolee and is considered to be armed and dangerous.
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Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 11:22:05 PST
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(6PM EST - promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Wings 1 |
Every once in a while I get into a rhythm wherein my graphics all stem from the same emotional and artistic source. I make one graphic and keep on modifying it until the emotional impulse seems to have run its course.
This was apparently one of those "once in a whiles", but instead of ending up with the usual 2 to 4 pieces, I ended up with at least 10 (ten as of the beginning of this piece, though more may be created and added by the time I hit the end.
The original piece had the feel of a wing, which of course lead insistently into the theme of flying.
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Fri Mar 05, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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I got into a discussion the other day of the kind I really don't enjoy. I felt required to defend transsexual women against a stereotype of us.
There are many such stereotypes. We are liars and deceivers, according to some. But in the case in point, the accusation was that we are sexually aggressive. And that brings up a difficult topic to discuss for many transfolk: sex.
The instance in question occurred in a DADT diary and was referring to gays in the military already:
I never saw overt, mincing, steriotypical "NOLA Fat Tuesday transsexual type" of behavior, but then there are strict codes of conduct for heteralsexual relationships while in Uniform also.
I still am unsure as to what exactly constitutes "NOLA Fat Tuesday transsexual behavior", but that may be that, while I am indeed transsexual and have been to NOLA many times, it was never during Mardi Gras.
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Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 20:22:48 PST
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There were so many ways to title this but it just wouldn't fit.
Roy Ashburn (R - CA St Sen- 18, Bakersfield) got a DUI after leaving a gay bar in Sacramento on "Latin Night." Of course, he is a FAMILY VALUES Southern CA Republican, well known for his efforts, out there saving heterosexual marriage for all eternity.
Yup. Republican CA State Senator Roy Ashburn, age 55, of Bakersfield decided to have a hot time in Cow Town on Tuesday night in Sacramento.
(If you are from NorCal, you already are roflayao at that opening. Have you ever been to Sacramento, off the freeway, past 8pm on a winter weeknight ? Or to Bakersfield? Hint. If you're going to a movie, eat dinner before. If you're going to a restaurant, get there before dark. They roll up the sidewalks, turn off the lights, and you can't even find a panhandler. It's beyond spooky. )
Ashburn, well known for his scorched earth, global warming denial, immigrant hating, gay bashing family values alliance with then State Senator and now CongressmanTom McClintock, with whom he has shared a staffer, Dan Brennan, as Ashburn's former communications director went on to become McClintock's district director,
(an example of the senate work environment can be found here: http://articles.latimes.com/20... )
was them pulled over by the CHP for drunken driving at 2am. With another, younger man in the passenger seat. After coming from, according to sources, "Sacramento's premier GLBT Nightclub."
It was Latin Night at Faces Nightclub. Ai, aye, cha - cha- cha ! Dancin' Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Hot !
The manager claims she didn't see him, because "we don't see a lot of white guys here on a Tuesday night."
Well, yeah, who's going to admit they served the guy one too many for the lawyers to fight over ?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi...
He's married, of course, and has 4 children.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi...
This isn't karma. It's flaunting it one too many times and losing the bet.
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Tue Mar 02, 2010 at 05:18:16 PST
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(11 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
I'd like for you to try a little experiment for me.
It's a very simple experiment, one that doesn't involve stoichiometry, Bunsen burners, p values, test tubes, or access to hydrochloric acid. It'll be fun, I swear.
Ready?
Fantastic! Let's begin.
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Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 21:02:15 PST
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I'd like to think I am a tolerant man. I like Docudharma partly because of this toleration. There are few rules, and what rules there are are largely sensible. It's not a single mission blog, like some others, and so there's a great deal of freedom to explore what some people might consider the "wacky and crazy".
One of the reasons I spend more time here as of now as opposed to anywhere else in terms of participating on the internet is that I find most or many ideas that aren't palatable, at least tolerable, and that this benign toleration is preferable to constraining conversation and trying to create a community where topics that are "off-mission" are grounds for being banned from a site.
And, being a hermit, online community is important to me. One of the things that strikes me is if you think about it, most of us have people in our own lives who are dear friends and family members who hold views that we might consider crazed.
I once had an eminently accomplished and deeply analytical friend who thought that the Earth was 6,000 years old and that dinosaur fossils were placed in the earth to lure people to Satan.
I have a family member who is a conservative Christian, committed adultery, married the woman he committed adultery with and divorced his wife, and once told me that my being gay was an abomination because it was "selfish" and that I was denying all my manifest charms to a woman. Apparently there have never been any limits on a person with such a history judging others while refusing to look at the "plank in his own eye" to employ a Biblical phrase.
I had a friend who came over unannounced at all hours, and called me up all the time for help, and finally what precipitated the end of our friendship was his trying to introduce me to the joys of crystal meth.
And, as I have said more than once, I have one sibling, a dear brother, who remains dear to me, who thinks among other things that the problem with Democrats is that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are too darn liberal and thinks that gay people shouldn't have certain civil rights because it would "cost the taxpayers money".
So, yeah, I'd like to think I am a tolerant man. The reason for me pointing out the above examples is to posit that sometimes we will tolerate a lot more in terms of bug-eyed battiness from family and the people we care about and adore in person than some people do on blogs. And that is the reason, I believe, that Docudharma cultivates viewpoint toleration as a social good. I know, there are some who believe that Docudharma is a "nutty fringe" website. This, I believe is worth the price, because when you start shutting down discussion you start losing good conversation and good ideas and anything that might result from that.
What I feel most of us realize on Docudharma is that people are more than the sum of their words on a blog. It is the totality of their existence that matters, and further too many other blogs forget that, to the detriment of forming the communities that are going to be the backbone of the liberal movement.
There are on this site people who appear to believe that the Illuminati are real and that the biggest problem we have today is a shadow government that is about to take over the world. There are others who seem to believe that global warming is a hoax and that vaccines cause autism and that 9/11 was a conspiracy.
Honestly, I don't care.
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Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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I've become disgusted the past few days. Actually it has been coming on for several weeks, but the last couple of days have brought things to a head.
My basic thought?
It is difficult enough to fight the conservatives who wish to deny us equal rights, strip away the few freedoms and liberties which we do have, and even deny us the basic necessities of life, like even the freedom to use a public restroom without having to choose between being arrested or being physically and/or sexually assaulted.
We should not have to battle the slings and arrows hurled at us by those who one would think we should be able to rely on as our friends.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
It all comes down to a matter of respect. Who deserves some and who has some to give?
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Fri Feb 12, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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Earlier today, teacherken posted an essay entitled, American, land of opportunity - Not!. It was mostly about the the limits of upward mobility caused by race and class. In fact, the paper he cited discussed downward mobility caused by those factors.
Downward mobility is not strange to people in the trans community. In the news yesterday was this report from the 2010 Creating Change conference, courtesy of Renee Baker for dallasvoice.com.
Numbers. They were preliminary numbers, but numbers nonetheless. And I'm a numbers person in the eyes of most part, so I thought I would share and comment on them.
They are not exactly new. The numbers come from a preliminary report dated in November. NGLTF released an even rougher sketch of the data earlier in last year.
But the question comes up from time to time. Do transfolk really need to be covered by an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act?
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Fri Feb 05, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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We all grow up with a vision of what is right and just in this world. Many, if not most, of us grow up with the idea of pursuing "the American Dream". For some that has meant the pursuit, as when it was first enunciated in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, of achieving a "better, richer, and happier life". In his book, The Epic of America, Adams stated it this way:
that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Oddly, in view of today's circumstances, Mr. Adams was a banker.
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Fri Jan 29, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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I've been watching the Prop 8 trial...except not really, since SCOTUS disallowed us folks who couldn't be in the courtroom to watch what may be the most important court case ever for GLBT people. So I watched the transcripts instead, as they were posted by the people at the Courage Campaign Institute and FiredogLake.
One of the assertions made time and again by the defense was that Proposition 8 was not based in animus.
What? No strong dislike of GLBT people? No enmity? Are we seriously expected to believe that there was no hostile attitude?
I'd like to think that one could discount those assertions as being false on there face. But this was a court of law. I am no lawyer, but as a writer and a mathematician, I know words and logic.
Having followed the trial closely, I have to ask the following.
When you deliberately choose not to learn about people who you wish to discriminate against, what is that if not animus?
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Fri Jan 22, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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 Mr. Tam admits he, at the very least, helped author the fourteen words central to Proposition 8.
| Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. |
Brian Leubitz wrote a piece at Prop 8 Trial Tracker, entitled William Tam: He's like that Cute Ignorant Uncle that everybody cringes at.
No. I disagree. There is nothing cute about Hak-Shing "William" Tam.
I expected at any moment for him to just stand up and say "just kidding! Got you big-time, you don't think I actually believe that garbage, do you? Ha-ha!"
Methinks that let's Mr. Tam off the hook too easily.
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Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 10:25:40 PST
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( - promoted by buhdydharma )
So, if you haven't seen this, it appears that David Bahati, the main sponsor of Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill, believes he is invited and will be attending the Family's National Prayer Breakfast in February.
If you've been living in a cave for the last six months, Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill includes the death penalty for homosexuals.
In addition, the bill provides for sentences for non-homosexuals knowing homosexuals and not reporting them to authorities, and extradition from other countries (presumably including OURS) Ugandan nationals or others who committed the "offense" of homosexuality on Ugandan soil, and long prison sentences for homosexual "tendencies". If this bill were passed in Uganda the way it is, you could literally be imprisoned for looking at a person of the same sex the wrong way, and I quote:
4, Attempt to commit homosexuality.
(1) A person who attempts to commit the offence of homosexuality commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment seven years.
(2) A person who attempts to commit the offence of aggravated homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.
So, apparently, certain questions have been raised about this visit
Did the sponsors of the National Prayer Breakfast actually extend the invitation for David Bahati to visit?
If so, what will be the position of the Obama Administration on this? Will he be permitted to come?
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Fri Jan 15, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST
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I've been "watching" the trial in the 9th Circuit. You know, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, though Perry is only one of the plaintiffs and Ahnold is not, apparently, one of the defendants. More precisely, it might be labeled Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals v. Homophobes.
A keen observer might notice that I omitted Transgender there. Such an observer might ask why. The reason is that transgender people have been made invisible in this trial and the reporting thereof.
It was not unexpected.
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Tue Jan 12, 2010 at 08:27:27 PST
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The second day of testimony challenging Proposition 8 will begin at around Noon EST. The first day seemed to go well for the plaintiffs who are saying that Prop 8 violates their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
There is live blogging from Rick Jacobs at Courage Campaign's Prop 8 Trial Tracker and by Teddy Partridge and David Dayen at FDL
Here are some highlights and observations from yesterday's opening statements and testimony.
Judge Vaughn Walker questions defense attorney Charles Cooper's contradictions
Walker: If the Prez's parents had been in Virginia when he was born, their marriage would have been unlawful. Doesn't that show a TREMENDOUS change in the institution of marriage? doesn't that show evolution? Isn't that correct?
Cooper: Racial restrictions were never a feature of the institution of marriage. (laughter in our courtrtoomm)
Cooper: These restrictions were loathesome, and a detail. "Man and woman" has been universal, across time and all societies.
walker: Is the evidence going to show these racial restrictions are different than the restrictions imposed by Prop 8?
(like a bug pinned to a piece of wood)
Cooper: Naturally procreative instincts....
Walker: Only purpose?
Cooper: Basis of marriage is procreation. It is a pro-child societal institution.
Walker: Many things attend marriage, will your evidence show that those are all secondary to procreation?
Cooper: This is about deinstitutionalizing marriage...
Walker: Yes, you say that. But will your evidence show that?
Up Date From FDL h/t to Dayen
Gay Rights Groups Praise First Day Of Testimony, Call On Obama DoJ To Submit Amicus Brief
Geoff Kors, the Executive Director of Equality California, which led the opposition to Prop. 8 in November 2008. He was excited about the first day of testimony, particularly the words of the four same-sex partners who took the stand, the first time in a federal trial that same-sex couples have testified. "Their testimony was really moving. You heard them say that marriage is not just about rights and benefits but about love and commitment."
Kors also singled out Ted Olson's opening statement as the conservative case for marriage equality. Olson said that allowing certain couples a separate status despite similar rights and benefits creates a stigma without a compelling rational basis for doing so. "To have a conservative legal scholar take that position is very powerful."
Before the trial began, Kors released a statement calling on the Obama Administration's Justice Department to issue an amicus brief in favor of their position in Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
"The time has come for elected leaders to empower all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Once again, we call on the Obama administration to join Equality California and others in urging the federal courts to strike down this grossly unjust law. In doing so, we will bring our nation one step closer to realizing its promise of equality for all. Our country's bedrock principles of democracy and freedom are at stake."
Kors elaborated on that after the first day of testimony. "This is the civil rights trial of the decade," he said. "We're asking the Justice Department to weigh in on a basic principle. This doesn't only apply to the LGBT community, but all minorities. And to be silent is unacceptable." (emphasis mine)
I'm certain Kors isn't holding his breath
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Mon Jan 11, 2010 at 15:18:18 PST
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( - promoted by buhdydharma )
Today was the opening salvo in the arguments to overturn Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that denied legal marriage to same sex couples. You can follow the live blogging of the trial at FDL: The Seminal and Firedoglake Covers the Prop 8 Trial
The Courage Campaign is also following with Prop8 Trial Tracker
H/T to Robyn for the link
Sharp Words Open California Same-Sex Marriage Case
SAN FRANCISCO - In the opening volleys in the federal trial over the fate of California's ban on same-sex marriage, lawyers for both sides were sharply questioned by the judge overseeing the trial, in a case that is being closely watched by gay-rights groups and supporters of traditional marriage nationwide.
snip
Judge Walker set a questioning tone early, repeatedly interrupting an opening statement by Theodore B. Olson, a lead counsel for the plaintiffs - two gay couples who filed their suit in the spring after the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8. The judge asked Mr. Olson why domestic partnerships, which are allowed in California, were not sufficient for gay couples and wondered what kind of evidence would be introduced to show harm to same-sex couples who are not allowed to marry.
Mr. Olson, a prominent conservative litigator whose co-counsel is David Boies, his foe from the 2000 battle over the presidential election, countered that marriage "was a building block of family, neighborhoods and community" in America, and that to deny gays that right was to effectively make them second-class citizens. Proposition 8, he said, "isolated gay men and lesbian individuals and said, 'You're different.' "
snip
Advocates for Proposition 8, who assert that Californians were well within their rights to establish a definition of marriage, were also pointedly queried by Judge Walker.
Charles J. Cooper, the lead counsel for the defense, opened his case by arguing that limitation of marriage to men and women was a tradition "across history, across cultures and across societies" meant to "channel natural procreative activities between men and women" into stable relationships.
But Judge Walker interrupted Mr. Cooper to ask about other marital benefits like companionship and support, and he noted that there were no restrictions on marriage for heterosexual couples who could not or did not want to have children. The judge also questioned the assertion by Mr. Cooper that same-sex marriage would "radically alter" traditional marriage and could decrease marriage rates for heterosexuals.
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Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 11:00:00 PST
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(6 pm. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
Opening |
The other day there was a Kossack who told me that Worker's Rights were what it (presumably the Democratic Party) all should be about:
My point is that we have taken our focus off the core purpose of the Democratic party by elevating fringe interests above the major problems.
Fringe interests? Aren't the people on the fringe also workers? Although numbers about the "least of us" are often difficult to uncover, one source lists the unemployment rate for transgender people at 35% and claims that 60% of us earn less that $16K per year. Another source "more generously" claims rather that 40% of us earn less than $20K.
Both are appalling, if you ask me.
Anyway, the truth is that I would much rather be working on issues more central to the human condition, but someone has to stand firm for the people on the fringe.
If not me, who? If not now, when?
There is a simple way to satisfy those of us who are on the fringe. Give us equal rights. Then we can work wholeheartedly on those "more important issues."
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Wed Jan 06, 2010 at 02:18:44 PST
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(9 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
The American Foundation for Equal Rights is the leading the effort by Ted Olson and David Boies, who are the lead attorneys in the case to invalidate Prop. 8's gay marriage ban, now has a website up.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights is dedicated to protecting and advancing equal rights for every American.
Through its groundbreaking federal court case against California's Proposition 8, The Foundation is leading the fight for marriage equality and equality under the law for every American.
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Tue Jan 05, 2010 at 02:17:07 PST
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In which I extend a comment made to Alec82
which goes like this:
We have a major cultural difference with the people our military and culture otherwise interacts with in the Middle East. This is not sufficiently acknowledged or looked at. In many cases, the way we "interact" with people overseas, borne out of hubris and arrogance, has no chance whatsoever of solving the problems that are described as needing to be solved.
For one thing, from what I understand, killing people at a distance and with no exposure to one's own danger, as is done with Predator drone strikes, is deemed cowardice, not cleverness. It doesn't matter who it's done to or for what reason. It might kill people "we" want killed, but will probably exacerbate, long term, the very problem our military is ostensibly there to "solve", which is global terrorism. For every terrorist we kill, are we not possibly creating ten more?
So, too, our military is seen as a universal hammer with which to solve all of our problems with foreign countries. We try to use them to solve problems that simply cannot be so solved .. but one argument can be made that we simply have no choice. So much of our national resources have been put into our military that one has to ask what is left to apply a more rational sensible solution to our national security and interest issues.
And, see, this is what bothers me about what I call "do-nothing faux-pragmatists". These are people who propose to keep us away from the very bad as opposed to exploring any greater good. It's all about what we must do to prevent Very Bad Political Outcomes, but almost nothing about how to create truly sensible and truly pragmatic change that directly addresses our most pressing problems.
That the political reality is as apposite and opposite world from real world reality -- where such reality is threatening to our continued existence as a country is something I cannot and will not accept. To the extent there is a collision then we have to make the argument that these "political realities" have to be subordinate.
This is the quintessential argument that the go-along, self described "politically pragmatic" left tries to win through cynicism, extortion and dripping disdain, but ultimately will and can do nothing but lose in the long run.
Reality is reality. And true reality does not respect or dip its head to political artifice, no matter how hallowed, entrenched or deemed inviolable. Nothing is inviolable once the rubber meets the road and starts smashing the country. It might be wise to change course to meet these real realities before the smashing begins.
Without a political pragmatism that nods its head to true reality based pragmatism, the Very Bad Outcome cannot be avoided, only delayed.
(Please forgive me for the self quoting, but I am more interactive than in-a-vacuum a-priori creative, and want to use this as a launching point)
For me, this point weaves together a tapestry that I have been informed with and has been growing in my psyche for a while now. Various threads of it are found lying all over Docudharma in various forms.
One thing that struck me in my conversations with people today is what Edger brought up, which is the quote from Ron Suskind:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
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Thu Dec 31, 2009 at 16:00:00 PST
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(10 pm. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
Sparkle Plenty |
Another year comes to an end. To tell the truth, I have trouble discerning what makes this New Year's Eve any better than the last one. Having seen 61 of them, I'll estimate that I've been somewhat politically aware for about 50 of them...and very few have seemed to bring a better year. And when there have been years that have been better, it has only been in some ways, not in all, and the improvement has been best measured by a micrometer.
So we start each year with glitz and glamor, hoping against hope that our dreams for a better world will bear some fruit.
Who am I to break such a tradition?
So herewith is my own attempt at a distracting you from any pains you may feel with shiny objects.
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March on Washington
Saturday, March 20
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