Confessions of a Dork: Fannie's Internet Meme

Apparently I have been tagged by Fannie, and I have to list 5 reasons why I am a dork.

Well, it took me awhile (not), but I was finally able to think of 5 Confessions.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. I really, really like playing video games. Several times, even in my adult years, I have stayed in to play xbox instead of going out with friends.

2. I've cried at episodes of Little People, Big World, which I watch as much as possible.

3. When I was a pre-teen, I was obsessed with V.C. Andrews books and eventually read every one of them before I was even out of high school. I'm still mildly intrigued by them.

4. I just bought a giant new autobiography of Albert Einstein and can't wait to read it.

5. I love collecting stickers for my longboard.

Hmm, I tag Grace and Brita next. hee hee.

AFA Alert #3: Stop the Gays from Getting Special Rights

I received two polar opposite emails yesterday. One from the Human Rights Campaign. One from the AFA.

The title of the AFA email, from founder Donald E. Wildmon (does anyone else think this is funny?) is "ENDA (H.R. 2015) could enshrine 'sexual orientation' in federal law." Wildmon goes on to say "The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) H.R. 2015 is likely to be voted on this week in the U.S. House. ENDA is aimed at providing heightened protections for a particular sexual behavior- homosexuality. It would grant special consideration on the basis of "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" that would not be extended to other employees in the workplace. That could spell trouble for Christian business owners, churches and faith-based groups. Proponents of the bill quickly point to "religious exemptions" in the bill, but most agree that it is a sham." [emphasis mine]

<---(a-der)

Um, I think calling something a "sham" usually warrants further explanation. But I don't think these AFA nuts are really interested in explanations.

Wildmon's email includes a bulleted list of reasons we should all oppose ENDA, including:

"The issue is not job discrimination: It is whether private businesses will be forced by law to accommodate homosexual activists' attempts to legitimize homosexual behavior"

Yes. I suppose a right-wing religious person would see it that way. Except most homosexuals aren't "activists" per se. I love how this guy attempts to categorize all homosexuals as having this anti-Christian "activist agenda."

And if by "legitimize homosexual behavior," they really mean "not allow decent, honest hard-working, qualified people to get fired from their jobs solely on the basis of their sexual orientation," then sure, I guess he speaks the truth. We "activists" do feel that homosexuals in the workplace should be "legitimized," in the same way every other worker is legitimized. By that I mean, of course, that gay men should be able to have anal sex in their office cubicles once ENDA is passed. It's their right.

I feel for the people who blindly believe in Wildmon without questioning his faulty blanket statements that have no backing and slippery slopes.

He also says "ENDA would approvingly bring private behavior considered immoral by many into the public square. By declaring that all sexual preferences are equally valid, ENDA would change national policy supporting marriage and family."

Sweet! Is that what ENDA will do? More power to us when it's passed if this helps pave the way to gay marriage and helps the already-existing gay families and children of gay parents gain equal rights.

Anyway, it's always interesting to see what the (way to the right) other side believes.

My second email was from the Human Rights Campaign's, Joe Solmonese, urging all of us to take action by contacting our senators to support this Bill (which I did).

FYI, Solmonese says, "Both Sen. Durbin and Sen. Obama are already signed on as co-sponsors of the Matthew Shepard Act. You're calling to thank them for their support and encourage them to stand strong, regardless of last minute right-wing efforts leading up to the vote...
...We cannot allow our Senators to be intimidated, misled, or swayed by an extremist minority. Thank you for making your calls, and thank you for being a voice of reason today."

UPDATE: I had originally written this yesterday. The Act passed in the Senate today! This is an important victory for gay rights advocates and anyone who stands for equality. As the saying goes: Love Conquers Hate. (even when the hate-mongerers are so-called religious group).

I am thrilled about this victory, even though it still has to pass the final stages of legislation and President Bush. I'll keep my fingers crossed. :-)

On a sidenote, HRC sent a thank-you email to all the supporters of the Act and the people who contacted their Senators.

No word from the AFA on this development.

And Why the Apathetic Masses are Just as Bad as Hate Speech/Acts

As I was perusing today's news for article ideas, I came across a story regarding the "Little Rock Nine."

This story is a "Where is She Now" commentary on Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine black students who was supposed to attend Central High after the desegregation laws nearly 50 years ago (next month). The picture is infamous in our nation's history: a young black woman in a white dress, clutching her school books amidst a sea of white kids shouting angrily at her or smirking to their friends. Or just staring and doing nothing.



It has been deemed "the long, lonely walk" by some journalists. While the rest of the Little Rock Nine had planned to integrate the school as a group, Eckford's family had no phone. Thus, she was left to attempt to enter the school alone.


The picture itself evokes powerful emotions for me, I certainly can not even imagine what it must evoke in a black person.

While some students who attended Central High have claimed that not everyone was like this. Or the majority wasn't so hateful towards the black students "yet the world focused on 'problem students—25 maybe, a minuscule percentage,'" the pictures in the news depict more.

For, I know well the tendency of mass crowds in situations like this to be "I just don't want to get involved." Yet, they sit idly by on the sidelines watching innocent Others get hurt. This is otherwise known as the "bystander effect." (ie- the more bystanders there are, the less likely they are to take any personal responsibility for stopping the injustice). I don't know about other people in this country, but I learned in 5th grace that this was wrong.

The black students involved in the Little Rock Nine certainly don't remember "25 maybe" students spouting their hate. What they remember are the hundreds more white kids who simply stood by and said nothing.

"The tone was set by a couple of hundred students engaged in this reign of terror," says Ernest Green, one of the Nine and an executive with Lehman Brothers. "The silence was deafening. We would have appreciated some of them speaking out when all of this harassment was going on."

While we certainly shouldn't dwell on the past when so much progress has been made with racial inequities in the U.S., I also feel that we (white people) also find them too easy to forget. For, if we don't remember things like this, that happened only 50 years ago, then we are doomed to repeat ourselves (Jena 6).

Let's give Elizabeth Eckford a reason to believe her struggle is/was not in vain.

Why I am convinced that if anti-SSMers truly knew, loved, and/or cared about gay people, they would be pro-gay marriage

The following is a transcript of Mayor Sanders' press conference:

With me this afternoon is my wife, Rana.

I am here this afternoon to announce that I will sign the resolution that the City Council passed yesterday directing the city attorney to file a brief in support of gay marriage [with the California Supreme Court].

My plan, as has been reported publicly, was to veto that resolution, so I feel like I owe all San Diegans an explanation for this change of heart.

During the campaign two years ago, I announced that I did not support gay marriage and instead supported civil unions and domestic partnerships.

I have personally wrestled with that position ever since. My opinion on this issue has evolved significantly — as I think have the opinions of millions of Americans from all walks of life.

In order to be consistent with the position I took during the mayoral election, I intended to veto the council resolution. As late as yesterday afternoon, that was my position.

The arrival of the resolution — to sign or veto — in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do.

I have decided to lead with my heart — to do what I think is right — and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.

For three decades, I have worked to bring enlightenment, justice and equality to all parts of our community.

As I reflected on the choices that I had before me last night, I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage — than anyone else — simply because of their sexual orientation.

A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years.

I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's natural, and certainly it is true in my case.

Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed.

The concept of a 'separate but equal' institution is not something that I can support.

I acknowledge that not all members of our community will agree or perhaps even understand my decision today.All I can offer them is that I am trying to do what I believe is right.

I have close family members and friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community. These folks include my daughter Lisa and her partner, as well as members of my personal staff.

I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones — for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life's wondrous adventures.

And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships — their very lives — were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife Rana. Thank you."

I heart Lady Mondegreen

And I heart misheard song lyrics and phrases.

"It's not fair/ To remind me/ Of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me...You You You oughta knowwwww."

I heard it through the great vine that the proper term for misheard phrases are Mondegreens, which is itself a Mondegreen.

Per Wikipedia, American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay, "The Death of Lady Mondegreen." She writes:

"When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques. One of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]
And Lady Mondegreen."

The actual fourth line of this poem was "And laid him on the green."

I believe this topic has sorta come up before on my blog, thanks to my friend Teddy2. I finally got around to googling and wikipedia-ing "misheard song lyrics" tonight while studying. (Yes, this definitely pertains to Primary Care of Infants, Children, and Adolescents.)

Anyway, I found this sweet website: http://www.amiright.com/, which allows one to search through maybe thousands of artists for commonly misheard song lyrics. A lot of them are duplicates, but oh well.

I guess, for all intensive purposes, it's just a doggy-dog world.

The Jena 6, Why Everyone Should Care

Over at Pam's House Blend, she has accused other Progressive bloggers of not blogging about the Jena 6. She sums up their lists of excuses: "It's not my area of expertise" or "It's not my issue," and a host of other lame excuses some bloggers have given.

I'm the first to admit fault in this. I haven't read much about the issue, because a.) I don't traditionally write about "race" issues, and b.) it happened in The South, where I don't live. In other words, it "doesn't affect me."

Much like the male classmate of my girlfriend who thought he didn't have to learn about the HPV vaccine because "it's a women's issue that doesn't affect me."

He's wrong in that it doesn't affect him. I was so critical of this male student who mistakenly thinks that his life won't ever be affected by HPV or cervical cancer. Or that his mother, daughter, wife, friend, aunt, or cousin won't ever be harmed by it. That he may actually be the cause of it. That he can also die from it.

But I, who was so critical before, am wrong, too. The Jena 6, like all race relations tragedies, affects each and every one of us.

Pam is right. Everyone should care about this issue.

We should all be so-called activists and experts on race relations. For, it is only by knowledge that we will build a society that tolerates all who are different. And by knowledge that we build a society where people no longer have to even wonder if they were passed over a job opportunity, ignored at a restaurant, not served at a bar, given dirty looks, been the subject of hate speech, been the victim of a not-so-innocent prank, beaten up, and YES even killed solely because of the color of their skin.

White people don't recognize this because they are white.

As a lesbian, I can relate to this in many ways. Yet as a white person, I can not.

An interesting quote by Alex Weissman sums up the white experience: "To be white is not to be race-neutral; it is to be privileged. I cannot list the number of privileges that I and other white people get because of our skin color, but the one I am most concerned with right now is the privilege not to think about race or racism."

Further, he writes: "...I have been poorly educated. I have not learned about my country; instead I have learned about the white people who have held positions of power for most of its history. In doing so, I was taught not to think about race. After all, what did racism have to do with colonialism? Or Japanese internment? I reject the idea that racism does not affect me because I am white. Racism has shaped my life in more ways than I will ever know. And that is why I, and other white people, do need to step into the Africana Center and enter into conversations about race.
Go to the other culture houses. Remember that race is not just black and white. Read poetry by Gloria Anzaldúa or Audre Lorde. Find out who Vincent Chin was and learn about Leonard Peltier. Walk into the Latino Center and listen. You may be afraid that the people there will reject you, but what you really fear is finding out that you might reject them."

Our country is laced with racism. And to say that black people are no longer affected by slavery today is denialist.

I'm disgusted with the way this has been handled (by the high school, by the white students and their stupid "tree" tradition, by the D.A., and the media). But, I'm even more disgusted with myself for being so focused on things that only concern "me" that I've ignored other pressing issues.

Speaking of gay people,
Joe Solmonese, of the Human Rights Campaign, took the podium today and offered a speech for the Jena 6, as well.

An excerpt from his prepared speech:

"We are here because we know about bigotry. We know about hate. We know the pain in high school of standing apart. Of being taunted. Of standing up, only too often, to be shut down.
I am here -- we are here -- because you have stood with us. Because all of us know that one injustice against any of us is an injustice against all of us."

So true.

I stand by the Jena 6 and, on a broader scale, the elimination of white racism.

Do you?

An Article, Misconstrued

In the latest issue of Mother Jones, Gary Greenberg writes an article titled, “Gay by Choice?” The subtitle says “If science proves sexual orientation is more fluid than we’ve been led to believe, can homosexuality still be a protected right?”

As I feared, this subtitle has already led some anti-gay and anti-SSMers to rush to the lines shouting “Told you so!” to SSM supporters.

One blogger writes: “There's a fascinating article in the far-left magazine Mother Jones questioning the conventional wisdom about the fixed nature of sexual identity. Such C.W. is a studied part of the gay rights movement. Homosexuality as a fixed and immutable trait (like race) must be maintained in order for the judicial/legal theory of same-sex “marriage” and other claims to successfully move forward.”

As if any of our arguments depend on the immutability of homosexuality.

The crux of our argument doesn't depend on science to prove that we are born gay. What matters is that we don't think it's okay to discriminate based on orientation, the same way it's not okay to discriminate based on religion.

Whether you are born gay, environment makes you gay, or choose to be gay, or some combination of the three (most likely) what matters is that sexual orientation is "so deeply woven into a person's identity that it is inseparable from who they are" to quote Jon Davidson, Director of Lambda Legal.

Further, "the capacity for sexual orientation to change—with choice—the ability to change it at will. Trying to change your attractions doesn't work very well, but you can change the structure of your social life, and that might lead to changes in the feelings you experience."

For, if one were to read the entire Mother Jones article, one would discover that the main subject “Aaron,” a “reformed” homosexual, lives a life without any close contact or intimacy with anyone. He doesn't enjoy sex with women, has never had sex with men, has never had a long-term relationship with a man or woman, and he doesn't date. He lives an asexual life. He is 51 years-old. And, let me repeat, has never had a long-term relationship.

So sure. I suppose some people can, in fact, change their sexual orientation. But I would not call that a happy life for most people. Aaron may indeed be happy. But I don't think it's fair to say "gayness is a choice, see everyone! you can all change, too!" When most people would not consider an asexual life a happy one. I definitely would not call the reparative therapy he underwent a "success."

The article explains Aaron's life now post-"treatment:"
"He's dated women, had sex with them even, although "I was pretty awkward," he says.”It just didn't work." Aaron has a theory about this: "I never used my body in a sexual way. I think the men who actually act it out have a greater success in terms of being sexual with women than the men who didn't act it out." Not surprisingly, he's never had a long-term relationship, and he's pessimistic about his prospects. "I can't make that jump from having this attraction to doing something about it." But, he adds, it's wrong to think "if you don't make it with women, then you haven't changed." The important thing is that "now I like myself. I'm not emotionally shut down. I'm comfortable in my own body. I don't have to be drawn to men anymore. I'm content at this point to lead an asexual life, which is what I've done for most of my life anyway." He adds, "I'm a very detached person."

In other words, anyone CAN change their orientation, but like "Aaron" are they going to lead happy lives?

Most of the time, I think that answer is no.

I also have a hunch that most gays and lesbians would not even choose to be straight if they could so choose, because they just can’t imagine being attracted to the opposite sex. The same way straight people say they wouldn’t choose to be attracted to the same sex, if they could so choose. Even truly bisexual people can’t “simply choose” to only be attracted to the opposite sex just to make their lives a little easier. People fall in love with people, not genders, not sexes.

The “choice vs. born-that-way” dichotomy is old hat.

I know strictly heterosexual people. There are strict lesbians with their “gold stars” (never slept with a man), and solely homosexual males. I know women who only date men yet make out with girls when they are drunk (who I think are probably really gay). There are girls who have sex with girls only to please their boyfriends. And gay football players who would never consider entering into a relationship with another man. There are bisexuals. There are even “trysexuals.” There are “hasbians,” (a former lesbian who is now married to a man). And I even know some former heterosexual women who are now Birkenstock-wearing, vegetarian, cat-owning, toaster-oven-collecting, PFLAG card-carrying, full-out lesbians. And there are many more in-betweens. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to find a person who hasn’t at least thought about it once in a while.

In a world with this much diversity, why do we continue to only legally protect one of those types of relationships by marriage (in the U.S.)? If you can find one person in this crazy world that makes you happiest, why does anyone else get to tell you that it is not acceptable? That your relationship isn’t equal to theirs? Those are rhetorical questions. I already know all the opposing arguments by now.

The concept of “fluid” sexuality isn’t a new idea. For our entire argument to hinge on the idea of homosexuality being rigid, immutable, and strictly biological would be insane. People are multi-faceted, in that their behaviors are usually the result of a complex combination of biology, society, psychology, sociology, etc. Likewise, for anti-SSMers to state that homosexuality is a “choice” is also too simplistic.

The point for most of us pro-SSMers is that people should be able to be with the person who makes them happiest, regardless of gender. Any two (non-related, for the incest-obsessed) people who want to get married and have equal marriage rights and protections under the law should be able to do so. Regardless of gender.

For Greenberg to insinuate that homosexuality shouldn’t be a protected right if it is a “choice,” is careless at best and reckless at worst.

He’s feeding right into the greedy, hungry mouths of those who desperately want and need some “authority” to finally tell them they are correct.