Equality

Arg.

Meh, I'm trying to think of a way to keep this short. Bottom line: it's much, much nicer to be an out gay man, today, than it is to be an out gay woman or transperson. It... annoys me that I have to dispute this, even at popular gay blogs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing anyone at this post or blog or in particular. I just don't think I should have to argue that. And I doubt most of you care! And that's fine! But as intra-PC wars that no one cares about go, this makes me crazy. Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...

Not necessarily Christmas-y, but somehow, sadly, seasonal from Elizabitchez.

Rich and poor all have the same right to steal from a vending machine to survive. Read below the fold...

Jesse speaks for me. Read below the fold...

New Study Shows Prop. 8 Success “Not Personal” --

If you live in California and are a Republican, attend church at least once a week, hold socially conservative views, and are 65-years-old or older, you most likely voted "Yes" on Proposition 8 to repeal marriage equality for your gay and lesbian neighbors. In addition, you are most likely male and probably even know someone, or are related to someone, who is gay or lesbian—but you still supported Prop 8.

Read below the fold...

Violet at Reclusive Leftist starts
"pulling together some of our thoughts about the new feminism we’re building, what I think of as the Fourth Wave." Very interesting list -- and great comments/discussion.

This comment especially struck me: "Women need, desperately, cultural permission to be selfish, to put ourselves first without apology and without trying to spin it as good for other, more important people, too. Because even though I do believe feminism is good for the whole Human community, it really wouldn’t matter if it weren’t. Women have a right to demand what’s good for us." Read below the fold...

the first openly-gay person to be elected to Congress--ever (Baldwin and Frank came out while already in office). The article takes stock all around the country.

“Jared Polis is the first openly gay man to be elected to Congress as a non-incumbent, and he joins Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank as the three out members,” said Denis Dison, a Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund spokesperson."

“a bittersweet election for gay people.” Read below the fold...

"... the Obama campaign next week will kick off “Barack Obama: Faith, Family, and Values Tour,” designed to woo the votes of left-leaning Catholics, progressive Evangelicals, and some conservative mainline Protestants. If LGBT people find the tour eerily reminiscent of the South Carolina gospel tour the campaign arranged last year with antigay "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, their instincts may not be far off.

CBN names Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec as one of the religious surrogates who will hit the road stumping for Obama. Kmiec wrote a June 13 op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle supporting California's Proposition 8, the ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage ..." Read below the fold...

45 years ago today, in Washington, DC -- I have a dream

for Bayard Rustin -- and all the rest of us who remain "Brother -and Sister- Outsiders" -- who still don't have the opportunities, equality, and rights that others have -- and that we all deserve. Read below the fold...

Bill Pucko today gets something right in comparing accredited basketball referee Michelle Campbell to suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and lauding the actions of Darin Putthof and Fred Shockey, a couple of male refs who refused to join a Kansas school's misogyny at a recent game. Read below the fold...

Congressman Ron Paul is running on the wonderful ideal of “liberty.” And who among us would not like more liberty? – The freedom to choose any personal path, freedom to do whatever it is that sparks our fancy. We’d be free of governmental impediments; who needs all these laws anyway?

The problem is, that when I gain the liberty to do X you necessarily gain the liberty to do Y. And what if X and Y are philosophically or practically in conflict if not incongruous? Read below the fold...