In which I visit Africa, talk about my "lifestyle," and bitch at Huckabee. Again.

And hello.

No excuses. Y'all know how busy I am. Let's just enjoy this while we can.

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Ten to twenty THOUSAND Burundians held a march last Friday protesting their Senate's decision NOT to criminalize homosexuality. That's right. Upwards of twenty thousand Burundians are, I don't know, so scared of catching "The Gay" that they want to force their government to lock up the queers.

According to one of the leaders of Burundi's ruling party, "[Homosexuality] is a culture which has been imported to sully our morals and is practiced by immoral people."

This is one of those arguments I see pop up from time to time that I just don't quite understand. Why do people think that we queers "import" ourselves into their countries? We're not frakking Wal-Mart. (Besides, I would argue that Wal-Mart sullies a lot more morals than the gays.)

It's such a weird notion to think: "We're so moral and great. We don't have the homos in our country. They must be infiltrating our borders." Let me tell you something: If smug, unfounded superiority based on "morals" and religion actually prevented homosexuality, the US wouldn't have a single goddamn queer in it. For serious.

I'm going to pause here for a moment so that we can all imagine homosexuals in camouflage sneaking across borders to sodomize innocent locals.

Picturing it? Good. Let's move on.

***

I'm pretty sure I posted something about this to the Facebook awhile back, but for some reason, it's back in the news. The good people conducting the U.S. Census in 2010 plan to change the status of any married same-sex couples to "unmarried partners." The reason? Our old friend DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. Since DOMA prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions, the Census won't count 'em. Even those couples legally married in the states that will let them.

But don't worry. U.S. Census spokesperson Cynthia Endo wants to reassure you. "This is all about the numbers. This is not about lifestyle or anything else."

Lifestyle? Seriously? Is this 19-fucking-75? (Oh, and while we're on the topic of horribly outdated language, did you hear that the New York Times ran a story with the term "sexual preference" in it yesterday?)

But perhaps I'm overreacting. Maybe I should just be content to know that the Census doesn't care about my lifestyle. They only care about the numbers.

Implicit in that statement, and the overall decision, of course, is that it means the queers aren't important enough to be counted... because why would anyone need to know something silly like how many of us there are? How many of us are married or coupled? How many of us have kids and families? How many of us live in poverty? How many of us are military veterans? How many of us live with a disability or are caregivers? Why would there be ANY reason to know any of that?!?

Indeed.

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Hate crime round-up!

Gay man assaulted in Atlanta.

Gay man assaulted at DePaul University.

Two gay men stabbed in London, one dies.

Gay man assaulted in Seattle.

...all in the last 2 weeks or so.

Good things the gays aren't getting their "skulls cracked"... right, Mike Huckabee? Otherwise you might have to call it a civil rights movement.

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Milk comes out on DVD tomorrow! If you missed it, here's Dustin Lance Black's, the screenwriter of the film, Oscar acceptance speech. I cried like twice during it, PLUS he's adorable as all hell.

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And, before I take my leave of you again...

I've pimped this out like hell on the Facebook, but if you like awesome, awesome music, check out Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion. It's so good it hurts a little.

Oh, and if you haven't already, sign up to come to Equality NC"s Day of Action! Tell your legislator to his/her face why it's totally uncool to be a homophobe and/or a transphobe.

Cheers.