2009 June « Gray Lenses for Dark Days.

Stonewall

Today’s the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. If you’re not familiar, I’d encourage you to read here.

It is from these riots that today’s gay pride events originate.

Take a moment to do something fabulous today.

June 28, 2009 Posted by Josh | Gay, News, Politics | | 1 Comment

Well I thought I would have a nice quiet June but there’s been so much shit going on in the world here lately that I just couldn’t resist offering comment. So, I’m putting down my mojito and having my swarthy Cuban man-servant bring me my laptop so that I can muse upon the strange happenings over the last few days.

Carrie Prejean gets shitcanned. Well, imagine that, I thought Trump had already forgiven the dumb bitch for riling up the gays. Turns out she couldn’t live up to her job expectations and regularly cancelled her speaking engagements. Huh! A capitalist exercising personal accountability in his employees… you’d think the conservatives would like that shit, wouldn’t you? But nooooo, take some time to visit the conservative blogosphere or (if you’re extra-bold) the Fox News forums, and the vast majority of asshats at those places still think this was a *nudge*nudge*wink*wink* kind of appeasement deal, that the real reason she was stripped of her title was due to her belief only in “opposite marriage”. “Nice try,” they say to the Donald, “but we see what you did there.” WTF you bunch of paranoid losers. GET OVER IT and accept that your anointed one, your blessed messenger of God with the state-sanctioned titties was fired for failing at her job, not for any other reason–and if someone can’t keep up with the duties and responsibilities of being eye candy who makes token appearances and offers scripted messages… maybe McDonald’s would be more their speed.
David Carradine was a kinky old goat, which led to his demise. First of all, I loved David Carradine, he was one of my favorite actors. Weird as hell but still a badass, and he had one of those voices that just immediately lent authority to what he was saying, like some sage from some half-forgotten place and time. When I heard they found him hanging, I immediately expressed my grief to my friends via text message–that’s how us jutes communicate en masse these days–and I was really bummed out. But as details emerge, it looks less like suicide and more like accidental suffocation via autoerotic asphyxiation. Apparently his wife walked in on him attempting it some 25 years ago and had to intervene to save him. I will never understand the kinks of some people–call me an old fogey, but I don’t have to put myself in risky situations and/or border between life and death to get my jollies. *sigh*
Iranian elections–exciting until they actually happen. So here was this Mousavi dude who captured the Iranian public’s fascination leading up to the elections. Opinion polls had him running neck and neck with Ahmadinejad, and everyone thought that finally, here was a chance for Iran to redeem itself and shed its crazy, megalomaniacal leader. But then the actual elections occur and SURPRISE! A landslide victory for Ahmadinejad (something like a 2-to-1 margin), as blessed and decreed by the Ayatollah and his minions. Insiders in the country’s government reported getting orders to doctor the election results. Is anyone surprised? I actually don’t blame Ahmadinejad for this outcome–most thinking Iranians can see through his aspirations and through his election ploy of giving out cash to people to get them to vote for him. The fingerprints of the theocracy are all over this bitch, and until Iran can establish true separation of church and state, the country’s Muslim overlords will continue to place their favorite pawns into influential positions.
Adam Lambert admits to being gay. For fuck’s sake, why does this even matter? He’s a skilled entertainer–who he likes to sleep with is no one’s business. People ought to be judged by their merits and not by some aspect of their person. This is, by the way, the reason why Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert in American Idol–it ended up being a vote between “the (self-professed) Christian guy” versus “the gay guy.” And we all know who “mainstream America” is going to vote for. Like any kind of election in America, it’s never the issues or the merits of the candidates that matter–people always vote for the person they see as more likeable. And guyliner is still too much for most of the country.
Obama fires two opening salvos against the gay rights movement. That’s right folks, the guy who declared during the election that he would be a “fierce advocate” of the rights of the LGBT community has been silent on gay rights until this past week, when the administration has actually sided against the gay rights movement in two very important ways. For starters, there was the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the challenge to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”–in the legal brief filed by the Department of Justice, the administration argued that the policy is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion,” and that until legislation is filed that will repeal the policy, the administration will defend it. (The legal brief actually went on to explain, in very unflattering terms, why it was in the government’s legitimate interest, and at one point, the concept of incest was used in an attempt to make a, *ahem* suitable comparison.) That was the first knife in the back. The second knife in the back came when I learned that the administration is taking a similar “we’re going to enforce it and champion its validity until legislators can repeal it” stance on the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to not recognize the same-sex marriages of other states. (Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution be damned.) In this case, the administration argued that it is actually a “good law”, and that the supposed “financial savings” are “helping to preserve scarce government resources.” Really, Obama? Really?? You are going to use a financial argument to deny my civil liberties, when your own administration has no qualms about spending $787 billion in taxpayer money, just because you thought the economy needed it?
Ray Nagin got shanghaied. On a lighter note, it was pretty damn amusing to hear about Ray Nagin getting quarantined in Shanghai when a passenger aboard his plane started exhibiting the symptoms of swine flu. He’s finally back home now… thank God. Don’t know how we would have gotten by without him. I wonder if he found Shanghai to be a “moo goo gai pan” city, just as New Orleans is his own “chocolate” city…
A far-right extremist nutjob shot up the Holocaust Museum in DC. Earlier in the week, an 88-year-old white supremacist asshat took it upon himself to shoot as many blacks, Jews, and black Jews as he could. So he loaded up his car with notebooks full of his craziness, went to the Holocaust Museum, and did just that. While the act itself probably merits more attention, I’m more interested in the background of this man. He was staunchly conservative and evidently one of the wackjobs who believes that Obama is not a natural born US citizen, and that the state of Hawaii and the government are hiding this fact. He of course is a proponent of other crazy right-wing theories too–his notebooks are full of paranoid ramblings about the government taking his guns, how taxes are unfair, etc. The most telling thing about this story is that, while it unfolded, there was virtually no commentary on this offered at Fox News. Other news stories prompt the creation of new forums so that the loonies can spout their beliefs, but this wasn’t the case here–probaby because someone realized that this man fits the same profile as 75% of the people who post on the Fox News forums, and they didn’t want to run the risk of people defending his actions (which they most certainly would). No, rather than talk about that, there were about two or three new forums (to add to the existing 5 or 6 forums) for the discussion of the true motives surrounding the firing of Carrie Prejean. (Eventually they did open up *one* forum on the subject, to complain about how the evil liberal media is twisting the Holocaust Museum shooting into conservative bashing.) I’d also like to point out that Fox News stirred up tons of outrage amongst its base regarding a report issued earlier in the year by the Department of Homeland Security that said that right-wing extremists were a rising threat in the country. Looks like there was some truth to that report after all, eh Mr. Murdoch?
A 72-year-old granny got tasered in Austin. I’m going to withhold commentary on this one except to say that at first, I was worried that this might have been Jackie Sue since the clip shows the woman telling off the officer, but then I realized that if it had been Jackie Sue, she’d probably have kicked the ass of anyone attempting to taser her. No one tasers YDG and lives to tell about it.