Saturday, May 18, 2013
VA governor pushes for families to adopt, remains mum on same-sex couples as parents
Virginia law, passed in February 2012, allows private
adoption agencies to refuse same-sex couples or gay people to adopt children
based on private or religious beliefs, according to a Washington Blade story in
February, 2012, here.
But on Friday, Equality Virginia pointed out the apparent
hypocrisy in Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s “Campaign for 1000” to find a
thousand more families to adopt children in the Commonwealth.
One out of four foster children not adopted will be
incarcerated within two years of turning 18, and 50% will become homeless.
“Lets Get Real” has a story on the adoption push here.
Will we have (again) a world where there is a presumed from everyone a capability to raise and adopt
children/
Friday, May 17, 2013
President Obama should issue XO prohibiting contractor discrmination; setting an example for the rest of the world
Could an executive order from the President forbidding any
federal contractor discrimination based on sexual orientation pave the way, in
practical terms, to Congress’s being willing to pass ENDA (the Employment N
on-Discrimination Act), introduced in 1993.
So suggests Jeffrey Marburg-Goodman on p. A17 of the Friday
Washington Post. The title in print is “Signing
on to employment equality”. Online, it’s
more specific: “An executive order could end LGBT discrimination in contracts”,
link here.
Wouldn’t the official repeal of the military “don’t ask don’t
tell” in 2011 put practical pressure on the system to end civilian employment
discrimination? We’ve covered he history
of security clearances (especially my own) here before. (The CIA has been OK with openly gay enployees since the early 1990s -- as long as it's "open".) In practice, in commercial settings with
mainframe information technology , I never experienced any real discrimination
after 1974. As an individual
contributor, management was most concerned with whether one did his job, Even in “conservative” Dallas in the1980s
working for a credit reporting company during the height of the AIDS epidemic
publicity, I encountered no problems. I had no direct problems as a civilian employee working for USLICO, a life
insurance company that catered to military officers in the 1990s. (I wonder how USAA was then.) Private industry, in my experience, tended to
embrace diversity, particularly in Minneapolis after USLICO was bought by NWNL
which became ReliaStar, and then ING.
ReliaStar had public diversity meetings within the company.
There have existed libertarian philosophical arguments
against anti-discrimination ordinances, some of them publicized by GLIL (Gays
and Lesbians for Individual Liberty) in the 1990s, in the newsletter “The Quill”
and in press releases (especially an unfortunate one that I recall in
1996). For example, Hooter’s might be
jealous of its aggressively heterosexual image.
On the other hand, it’s common these days to find heterosexuals (men and
women) bartending in gay establishments.
Wouldn’t the lifting of the military ban put a lot of psychological
pressure on the Boy Scouts? Maybe it
has, but there are residual problems, to be sure. In the 1980s, the BSA actually employed
mainframe programmer-analysts and showed up at jobs fairs in Dallas. I didn’t bite.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Gay Anthropology, Part II: Lookism is a karma problem
I just wanted to carry on some thoughts coming behind my “anthropology”
exercise yesterday.
That is to note that I did not have the opportunity to be “desired”
in social situations where lookism drives the action – drives and discos. I did not visit a gay bar for the first time
until March, 1973, at age 29. I remember
walking around the block housing Uncle Charley’s South in NYC twice before
having the nerve to go in and enjoy the “goody line” (the free Sunday afternoon
buffet). I was already balding and less
than “perfect”. So I never enjoyed being
in the position to command the attention from others with personal charisma and
attractiveness from others.
I did, of course, learn the whole body of material about
personal growth and the “polarities” as was taught by Paul Rosenfels at the
Ninth Street Center in the East Village in New York in the 1970s (now, it is,
posthumously, the Paul Rosenfeils Community.
In this line of thinking, selectivity and independence were
considered good. And they are. If you
can do your own thing – today with the help of the Internet – you are more
likely to attract the people you want.
That can present a “chicken and egg” problem, as I noted on my main blog
Tuesday (May 14).
But “doing your own thing” first requires stability – and externally
caused difficulties (natural or hostile) can throw you into interdependence on
others in unwelcome ways. Not everyone
has the opportunity to achieve things on their own, less be naturally appealing
in public venues. So we seem to wind
down to a profound social justice problem.
I haven’t been to clubs as much as usual in 2013, for a
variety of reasons – including increasing content workload. People do approach me in bars. Maybe a little over half of the approaches
are “unwelcome” (but some are). I
realize there is a bit of an attitude about this.
Once, back in October
2001 (shortly after 9/11, when people were a little nervous), in a popular
Minneapolis bar, an African American woman approached me asking when my
birthday was an which birthday it would be.
She was protecting someone else from unwanted interest. You can imagine how that felt.
By the way, not being too “popular” in young adulthood may
have saved my life. I’m still
around. The HIV epidemic, as playwright
Larry Kramer (“The Normal Heart”) once said, enforced a kind of reverse
Darwinism.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Gay character Will Horton on "Days" shows how homosexuality can actually improve a "tribe's" Darwinian advantage: Anthropology 101
It strikes me that the “Will and Sonny” subplot in “Days of
our Lives” says something about “nature” and male homosexuality that, in the
grand scheme of things, makes sense to an alien anthropologist.
Will Horton, supposedly about 19 (Chandler Massey) is
turning out to be the alpha male, almost like one in a lion pride. He had a quick fling with ex-girl friend Gabi
anyway, resulting in her pregnancy, after “ex-con” Nick Fallon (character whom
the show has ruined, played by Blake Berris) fell in love with her and
announced marriage. It got complicated,
but Will also won back the loyalty of his boyfriend Sonny (Freddie Smith), one of
the few “sane” or “steady” characters in the show.
So here Will spreads his own genes, to be around a few
billion years from now when mankind has to move to Mars, Europa, or Titan because the Sun becomes a Red Giant. And he
can enlist two other men besides himself (Sonny and Nick) to help support his
daughter and give his own “genes” a competitive advantage in the millennia to
follow him. The daughter could have
three daddies (although Nickie may well be headed back to jail, given his
behavior). What a beautiful strategy for
giving your own progeny a competitive advantage. Get another man to feel attracted to you and
help you raise your kids, when he won’t have his own.
Will has shown the ability to dominate others before, such as when he went head-to-head and tried to blackmail EJ. Will also might become a chess master. (He needs to play better against the Dragon Sicilian, and maybe the Sveshnikov.)
The bisexual character Nolan Ross in ABC's "Revenge" also offers interesting perspectives on how nature really works. And I guess "Modern Family" gives us some lessons about hidden nature, if we think about it.
Think about it, Most
social mammals have “alpha males” and in many species, not all males
reproduce. Lions, wolves, and some primates prefer that only a few "fit" males reproduce and carry genes forward. The idea of “alpha male” even
crosses species. (In “The Life of Pi”, a
teenage boy convinces a tiger to obey him because the tiger figures out he has
a better chance of surviving and reproducing himself if he takes orders from
the boy when they are at sea.) The boy
can make tools and catch fish to feed them both; the big cat cannot.
Nobody can say this is idea for morality, politics, or
sociology. But it is certainly natural
and happens all the time in the animal world.
In human society, left unchecked, it could encourage authoritarianism
eventually.
We all know that when we feel “attracted” to someone and
that attraction is ratified, it seems like an existential matter, of real
importance. The moral problem comes from
the need to make a relationship permanent, at least long enough for children to
be raised, and now, for parents to be taken care of. It can be a challenge to retain that passion,
not only as the partners age, but when misfortune befalls one of them.
Angelina Jolie’s recent decision illustrates
that point in the heterosexual world. It’s
more likely to be an issue today than it was a half century ago because people
live longer and medicine can catch problems and prevent death in people who
have the emotional support to accept invasive procedures and changes to their
looks. I had a little preview of this
back in 1978 myself.
The "equality" debate used to be not so much about same-sex couples, as it was the tension between the "unmarried" and "childless" (higher taxes, often, but more disposable income) and "families with children" (without the marriage penalty). That was the spin in the 90s. Should the childless set themselves aside to raise OPC, other people's children? It often happens in families after tragedies (the "Raising Helen" problem of raising a sibling's children -- also in the ABC TV series "Summerland"). But it can also happen within same-sex couples.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
North Carolina "Baptist" pastor sounds like a match for Phelps and Westboro in Kansas
Anderson Cooper has a brief report on the anti-gay rants of
a certain Charles Worley at the Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC,
about 50 miles north of Charlotte, oddly a town where Apple has a major data
center.
Cooper interviews a member of the church about the curious
anti-logic of Worley’s prescriptions, and gets nowhere with logic. The link is here. I won’t embed this one. Cooper has said before that he doesn't like to run stories on anti-gay religious extremists, because it gives them the attention they crave. But he did it this time.
Bur the Christian Post ran a story in which Worley “justified”
his rants, that are on the level of Fred Phelps of Westboro, and even Paul
Cameron back in the 1980s. All of this is pretty graphic. It does remind one of the “quarantine” talk
of the 1980s, and worse.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Minnesota House approves gay marriage; likely to pass Senate Monday; recalling my own time in Minnesota 1997-2003
The Minnesota House of Representatives in St. Paul has
approved gay marriage by a vote of 75-59.
The bill is likely to pass the Minnesota Senate Monday and
be signed into law by Democratic (DFL?) governor Mark Dayton.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a detailed story here.
It was not immediately apparent when marriages could occur.
Last November, Minnesota voters turned down a constitutional
amendment banning gay marriage.
This year’s gay pride celebration in Loring Park would certainly
be one of the largest ever. In terms of surface area covered, the Twin Cities Pride
celebration is one of the largest in the country, as just about every major
corporation or non-profit has a booth.
It usually occurs the last weekend of June, with website here. In 2002, the Saturday booths endured
temperatures of 102F.
I lived in Minneapolis from 1997-2003 and became quite
familiar with the community, and with Pride Alive of the Minnesota AIDS
Project.
I’m also somewhat familiar with the State Capitol complex in
St. Paul. The Libertarian Party
sponsored numerous anti-tax rallies on the steps there. And in 1998, when I was injured in a freak
accident in a convenience store in downtown Minneapolis, my own attorney
happened to be a state representative, so I visited the Capitol at least once.
I also remember the night that Gov. Jesse Ventura was
elected as an independent in 1998. I
also met Ventura in person at the HRC dinner in the Minneapolis convention center
just two weeks after 9/11 in 2001. I
remember all those days well.
The Minnesota Senate passed the bill approving gay marriage today.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
New York State agency helps provide care of elder LGBT people; two documentary films on LGBT elders appear
LGBT elderly people in some parts of New York State have a
new resource, HCR Home Care, which has been set up in conjunction with the Gay
Alliance of the Genessee Valley, as related in this Washington Blade story May
1, here.
The local Gannett "Democrat and Chronicle" has a story (paywall) (website url) here.
LGBT eldercare is slowly gaining attention in the media. On
my movies blog, on Sept. 24, the Arlington Agency for Aging (VA) screened the
documentary film “Gen Silent” (by Stu Maddox), which is reviewed on my Movies
blog at that date.
And the Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore will screen “Before
You Know It” by P. J. Raval, about three aging gay men in different towns. This wasn’t convenient right now, but I put
it in my Netflix Save queue. I don’t yet know whether material in these two
films overlaps. The film showed at SXSW.
I don’t see a DVD purchase site yet, but I hope it shows up soon for
home viewing (possibly with Logo?)
LGBT people are likely to wind up caring for parents or
other relatives; older LGBT may lack the experience having raised families of
their own when they are “forced” into this filial duty,
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