Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (August 29, 2008)

Interestingly, he managed to not take a clear positionon same-sex marriage even while acknowledge that "we don't all agree" about it.  But that gays should "be able to visit each other in the hospital and live their lives free from discrimination".  Very subtle. 

I LOVED Obama's speech by the way! McCain will be hard-pressed to respond without turning livid purple and having smoke come out of his ears while doing so.  They're probably going to be pumping Xanax down his throat every few hours for the next week until it's his turn to accept his party's nomination and give a speech.

Obama made his most powerful speech yet.

 Also, it's never too late to go back and add a paragraph on VL, AfterElton!

I just watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention - and while I know all of America doesn't agree with his politics, I know everyone in this community would appreciate how Obama - in front of 84,000 people in the stadium and millions of people watching on TV worldwide - mentioned gay and lesbian rights, and got a huge, positive, loud response in return. He said:

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

Even though this is brief, I applaud him for being so direct - While he is searching for a "middle ground", he's not mincing words and trying to talk outta both sides of his mouth. He's straight-up telling you that he supports gays and lesbians and considers them family, just like he considers every other American. We've progressed a lot in the past few years. Hearing him mention gay and lesbian rights - it just makes me feel safe, and proud, to be gay.

Looooove it!

"Does this cocktail glass make me look fat?"

The Uniform Code of Military Justice for the U.S. Armed Services still criminalizes private, noncommercial, consensual same-sex activity between adults. On U.S. military bases, our people are still criminals. The Code was not impacted by the Lawrence v. Texas case. Without a change to the Uniform Code (section 925, Article 125), repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell is pointless. And in case you are wondering, the U.S. Supreme Court consistently places the military above the U.S. Constitution (without any constitutional justification).

The only GLBT-related law enacted by the Democrat-controlled Congress since they took control, along with President Bush, is the re-authorization of the anti-gay Solomon Amendment (originally passed by the Republican-controlled Congress). The law forces non-discriminatory colleges to accept military recruiters who discriminate or else lose federal funding. This is just one of many discriminatory, anti-gay federal laws. Congress and President Bush also created and presently fund with U.S. tax dollars two foreign national governments that persecute and mass-murder gay people, Iraq and Afghanistan; these U.S. government officials are also responsible for sustaining the non-democratic, authoritarian regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. For instance, the USA government uses the U.S. Fifth Fleet presently stationed in the Persian Gulf as a threat against the regional populace to maintain these oppressive regimes, excusing their actions under the notion of protecting the eastern oil fields and industry of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. (fields that supposedly belong to the very people they are helping to oppress to keep the merchant-disguised-as-politicians/royalty in power). The cost of gas in the USA is the blood and freedoms of gay people in the Mideast.

Newsweek appears to be the only general publication that has bothered to investigate the atrocious situation for gay people in Iraq; our global community has known about it since the invasion. The August 26 Newsweek article is titled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Kill".

And that's the long and the short of it. They missed the boat on the Matthew Mitcham story and they're steaming at A.E. for picking up the ball and running like hell with it.

Cloris Leachman may well surprise us all. That woman has superpowers, eveident from her very first appearance back in 1955 in Kiss Me Deadly.

I quite agree about Grant Show. Where HAS he been? He MAKES Swingtown.

Best cutaway of the convention, gay or otherwise:

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2008/08/we-have-our-differences.html

Future epitaph: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

I thought the days of the guy in the that picture being identified as Brandon Routh were over. When the Superman movie was coming out, it was everywhere, and then people pointed out that it wasn't him and it pretty much disappeared. Just for the record, it's not Brandon Routh. It's a Brazilian model named Dimas Caetano. And you can see a LOT more of him around the web.

Established Disestablishmentarian - You've seen worse 

Have those words become nothing more than flowery 18th Century rhetoric or does the manifesto in which they were first published still have meaning for our lives today?  It is impossible for me to know what it’s like to be Black or Native American or Hispanic… in America today, but I can speak with authority on the experience of growing up gay in a fundamentalist Christian home in the rural South.  I can tell you from personal experience what fear, exclusion, isolation, and discrimination all feel like.  The worst part of that period of my life was being so alone.  There were no sympathetic friends or family members to whom I could turn for support. That was hell.

A previous post in this string suggests that our fight for equality cannot be compared to the Civil Rights movement of the ‘60’s so we should not borrow from the cache of weapons forged during that period of our nation’s history.  With respect to those sentiments I must call, “foul!”  The stakes in our battle against injustice and inequality are no less than life and death so not only should we use any and all means at are disposal, we must.

Today I live an open, honest life free from the fear of loosing my family, home, job, friends, etc.  Having experienced real freedom there is no going back for me and I don’t make that statement for myself alone but also for the thousands of gay kids still living in situations like the one from which I escaped.  If my determination offends anyone then you must and will learn to live with the offence.