In which I am almost a social worker, mention necrophilia (with help from some evangelical Christians), and discuss zombies, both gay and otherwise

Hello again.

So the good news is that I've finished my last assignment for grad school... which means that I should have much more time to update this thing... since otherwise, I have no idea how I'm going to fill the many evenings ahead. The bad news is that it also means that, in less than a week, I'll officially be a social worker.

Honestly, I have rather mixed feelings about the whole situation. As many of you know, I don't particularly have any real desire to be a social worker, which is why I'm currently thinking law school is in my near future (though the Antisocial Lawyer doesn't really have quite the same ring to it. Insert your own lawyer joke here). But I will say that, if you'll allow me one moment to step back from the usual crankiness and misanthropy, I've met some of the greatest people of my life in social work school. And I'm gonna miss them, as they leave both me and this town for bigger and better things.

Anyways. On to the usual shit.

***

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (aka the Matthew Shepard Act) is wending its way through Congress. Last week, it passed the House of Representatives, and now heads to the Senate. Obama has said, repeatedly, that he'll sign such legislation.

So the bill looks like it actually might pass and, you know, help to protect the queers. If you're thinking that would be a good thing, well... you're wrong. At least according to a fantastic organization, Faith2Action. (You know you're a classy group when your name looks like something a Jonas Brothers fan would text. I'm surprised they didn't decide to name it "F8h2Action, OMG LOL Gossip Girl ROKS!!!")

So F2A (as all the cool kids like to call it) has its underwear in a wad over the legislation, for several completely non-insane reasons. Let's go through them together, shall we?

1) Did you know that this legislation would make pedophiles a protected class? It's true! Read about it here, in F2A's handy two-page "fact" sheet. In a nutshell, the argument goes that because the legislation mentions the term "sexual orientation"... and pedophile is evidently a type of sexual orientation... well, you don't need me to connect the dots here. But wait! There's more! Not only would pedophiles become a protected class, but so would: those who commit incest (I didn't know that was a sexual orientation, but if you can't trust the F2A, who can you trust?), necrophiliacs, zoophiliacs (bestiality), and coprophiliacs (I'm gonna let y'all look up that one on your own), amongst others. F2A's lead (only?) employee, Janice Porter, has even decided to rename the act: the "Pedophile Protection Act." Has a catchy ring to it, no? I always wonder, in situations like this one, if these people actually believe that this is what's going to happen? Or are they just so good at lying, so used to spreading misinformation that this kind of nonsense just comes naturally to them? Yes, scare tactics work... again and again... but aren't we getting to a point where this kind of thing just sounds ridiculous? Besides... you would think that a religious organization would think twice about using pedophilia as a weapon, considering what a lot of people think of when the subject comes up.

2) Hey, did you know that "pushing away an unwelcome advance of a homosexual, transgendered, cross-dresser or exhibitionist could make you a felon under this law"? It's true, at least according to Janice Porter. Two thoughts here: First, I rather enjoy the idea that this woman thinks that if a gay hits on a heterosexual, the heterosexual will have to give in to the gay's sexual advances or be guilty of a hate crime. I, for one, think my dating life would improve greatly if this were the case, though it seems like it'd be a difficult thing to enforce. Perhaps all the queers will be issued Hate Crime Air Horns™ for whenever someone turns us down for a date? Which leads to Thought B, which is actually a bit scary. Perhaps Porter is not using the term "pushing away" figuratively, but rather literally. Does she actually think that someone rebuffing the advances of a queer is justified in inflicting physical harm on her/him? Though it may seem unlikely, I have a hard time giving someone who spews so much hate and vitriol the benefit of the doubt. So in advance... bite me, Porter.

3) I'm kind of cheating with this one because it's actually written by someone from WorldNetDaily, but Porter mentions this argument in the article linked in reason #2, so I'm including it. So, by now, we all know that the Matthew Shepard Act would create a "special class for homosexuals and others with alternative sexual lifestyles." And that's bad enough. But what's even worse, evidently, is that the Act has NO protections for "other targeted classes of citizens such as pastors, Christians, missionaries, veterans and the elderly." This is, of course, a huge oversight by the writers of the legislation. As we all know, pastors are constantly assaulted verbally, attacked, and killed, just because they happen to be a pastor. Is this argument for real? Seriously? Not only is it ridiculous, it completely ignores the fact that OF COURSE RELIGION IS INCLUDED AS A PROTECTED CLASS. But unless the legislation mentions Christians by name, it's not good enough? How is that not creating a "special class" for people?!? Even better, I left out the beginning of the linked quote. The actual text from the article reads: "It SPECIFICALLY (emphasis added) denies such protections to other targeted classes of citizens such as pastors, Christians, missionaries, veterans and the elderly." You see that? Now, I had a hard time believing that the legislation went out of its way to specifically deny these protections to those individuals. That it actually said something along the lines of: "These protections are specifically NOT VALID for pastors and Christians and veterans, and etc." But then I went and looked at the bill, and, dammit, it does. Oops. My bad.

***

So in case you haven't heard, the School Violence Prevention Act (aka the anti-bullying bill) passed its 2nd reading in the NC Senate today, 25-22. The final vote in the Senate will be tomorrow. The bill would standardize all bullying policies in public schools in NC and specifically prohibit bullying based on a list of enumerated categories, including sexual orientation and gender identity. If it passes in the Senate tomorrow, it'll move to the House... and if it passes there, it'll be the first piece of legislation ever passed by the NC General Assembly that includes the words "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." Baby steps, right?

Well, the Family Policy Council of North Carolina, an offshoot of Focus on the Family, is, as you might imagine, not happy with this recent development. They've issued a Web Alert!!!, urging people to call their senators and voice disapproval of the legislation. Why are they so upset about it? You would think that an organization that purports to uphold "family values" would be all in favor of protecting kids in school, right?

Nope. Not even a little. Their problem? "This would establish a statewide policy that affirms homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressing and other related behaviors as normal and acceptable." Because we should, in no way, tell our LGBT children that they're normal or acceptable. Certainly not. Instead, we should continue to tell them that they're disgusting perverts whose thoughts and actions are sins against God. And that they could change who they are, if only they tried hard enough. And that they should continue to be marginalized. And, tacitly, that they DESERVE to be bullied in schools, because maybe, just maybe, if they're bullied enough, they'll recognize the errors of their ways. Because that never ends badly.

If you live in North Carolina and are able, call your state senator tomorrow and ask them to support the School Violence Prevention Act. If you don't know who your legislator is, you can find out here.

***

This has turned out to be a somewhat lengthy post, so we'll just tackle one more before calling it a night. A dead man suspected of being a queer (while alive, natch) has twice been dug up from his grave in Senegal. It seems that the locals don't want a gay man hanging around. Even a dead one.

The first time they dug up his body, they left it near the grave. His family reburied the man, only to see the body dug up again and "dumped outside the family house." He has since been buried again, away from the cemetery in question.

How ridiculous is this? Everyone knows that you need a live host to catch "the gay." (I don't mean to make light of a disturbing and disgusting story. Honestly though, this is so over-the-top, I don't know how else to react.)

The only other thing I can think of is that the Senegal locals are so scared of a) zombies and b) super gay zombies that they couldn't sleep at night until the body was moved.

(By the by, I had never heard of that movie either, until I Googled "gay zombie" to find a link to put there. (Yes, I care about your enjoyment of this blog so much, dear readers, that I'm willing to Google things for you.) I'm gonna have to check it out, I think, even though it looks completely and utterly awful.)

***

Speaking of zombies (nice segue, right?), I finally got my hands on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies today. In case you haven't heard of it, or heard me talking about it, it's a novel that tells the exact story of Pride and Prejudice... but with zombies too! Here's a review.

Until next time (which, again... should hopefully be sooner than later)...

Cheers.

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.

***

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.

***

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.

***

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.

***

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.

In which I spend some time on Oprah's message boards, amongst other masochistic activities

So I'm well aware that y'all are enormous Oprah fans who never miss a show. But just in case your DVR broke down yesterday... on the Oprah show, a reverend, in response to a question from a gay man, said that "being gay is a gift from God." According to the linked article, this set off quite a discussion at the Oprah Winfrey show message boards.

And because I have much less of a life than I'm sure you do, dear reader (all 5 of you), I waded through some of the comments. The thread begins with a woman from the UK expressing her disapproval of the statement. It then, as I'm sure you would expect, turns into a veritable clearinghouse for Bible-thumpers, with an occasional reasonable voice poking through.

What almost interests me more, however, is that the 18th post was from one of the moderators of the message board, reminding everyone to respect each others views... and that the terms and conditions of the website prohibit people from defaming or insulting people, or posting abusive or hateful comments. Again, that was post #18.

(The following are a random assortment of comments, helpfully paraphrased by me... unless I use quotes... obviously):

Post #26: Leviticus gets dragged out, queers get called an abomination.
Post #30: More like a gift from satan.
Post #34: Knows a lot of gays, all of them are miserable! Can't be a gift...
Post #36: "Women have a whole [sic]... Men have a stick." Not really offensive, but couldn't resist mentioning it.
Post #61: Lifestyle's a choice!!!
Post #63: "Grave sin."
Post #74: Mentions murderers, rapists, child molesters, cannibals... I have to admit I had a hard time following this one. But abomination was definitely in there.
Post #77: "This is like giving [gay young people] a green light."
Post #78: Queers compared to alcoholics and people with anger management issues.
Post #120: More rapists and child molesters.

I could go on (really, I could... there are like 18 more pages of this), but I think you get the point... and the site keeps crashing anyway.

Ok, so here's my question: In what universe are the above comments not insulting, abusive, or hateful?

And I don't mean to just pick on Oprah... this happens on a lot of other sites that have comment sections and message boards and happen to post something about the queers. But what really kind of aggravates me about this is that a moderator felt the need to reiterate the terms of the site because it was obvious that people were/were about to post unkind things... but since that moderator's post, there's been no enforcement of any kind (at least not that I can tell).

I always find myself coming back to the notion that maybe poster #34's legions of gay friends are miserable because they have to continually see and hear crap like this.

Thanks, Oprah.

***

Moving right along. I have to give this article a mention because one of the author's arguments against giving gays the right to marry is this:

"There is also the danger that misusing terminology long agreed upon in western thought will impoverish the language to the point that it is incapable of expressing nuanced thoughts and concepts."

Gays marrying will destroy the English language as we know it and lead us all to become idiots.

Yeah.

***

Obama watch! Our next president has appointed another gay! This one will serve as the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison.

I like to consider myself a fairly intelligent human being, but I'd kind of appreciate it if Obama would appoint a queer to some position where I could understand what the hell the job is.

***

This has been floating around for a couple days, but from the AP: 9 men in Senegal have been sentenced to 8 years in jail for "unnatural acts and criminal conspiracy."

(That means they're gay.)

While admittedly an improvement over the Gambian president who wants to decapitate all gays, I can't say I'm exactly encouraged.

One of the problems with the LGBT rights movement... wait... One of the MANY problems with the LGBT rights movement (at least in the US) is that it tends to be focused on only the US. Perhaps understandable, but a lot of really bad things are happening in a lot of places, and the fact that no one is aware of it is kind of frustrating to me.

***

And finally, something not gay. So I received my student loan check today, and am somewhat ashamed to admit that my first thought was: What can I buy? I managed to restrain myself somewhat, but did end up downloading "Visiter" by the Dodos. I had been a bit wary of the cd from the snippets I had heard on the iTunes. But enough people recommended them to me that I decided to check it out... and it's all kinds of awesome. Although it incorporates a lot of elements from the music I love, it still manages to sound very different... and I mean that in the best possible way. If you're interested in learning more, here's the Pitchfork review.

Until some other time.

Cheers.