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 (Oh, and while we're on the topic of horribly outdated language, did you hear that the New York Times ran a story with the term "sexual preference" in it yesterday?)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.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
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.
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.
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