skeltrd

Green Underwear...

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:04:53 -0400

…is hot for so many reasons. Environmentally-friendly and all.

Buddha Pears!

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:44:13 -0400

This is way cool Some farmer in China has spent the last few years perfecting the process of growing pears to look like little buddhas. Apparently, shaping fruits is fairly common, and involves using molds to grow them. Pretty amazing.

Little boys aren't the only thing priests are attracted to

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:37:02 -0400

As someone who grew up Catholic, I found this article very interesting. It is about a priest who carried on an affair with a woman for a number of years, and fathered a son who now has cancer. The Church paid her a lot of money to keep her quiet, and she had to sign some pretty severe confidentiality agreements. And of course, they did nothing to the priest but move him around to different jobs. Kinda like their response to the sex abuse scandals.

This brings up the whole debate about priest celibacy, and whether it is a good idea. It seems that priests have always been having sex, either with women or altar boys, so maybe it’s a good idea to scrap the policy…

No Lesbians in the Yearbook

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:35:40 -0400

So this dashing young lesbian wanted to put the above picture in her high school year book, saying she prefers to wear boy’s clothes and didn’t want to wear a dress. The school won’t let her, and now the ACLU is taking up the case. Good luck to her. Being an out lesbian in high school in Mississippi is hard enough, without this happening…

Gay Vampire?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:32:36 -0400

So Esquire has an article proffering a new theory as to why there are suddenly all these vampire movies/shows/books. I was wondering the same thing, but I didn’t come up with there idea: apparently it’s all because straight women want to have sex with gay men. Does this make any sense to you? They say it’s something about gay high schoolers being really awkward, and having girl friends who want them. I was awkward in high school, but somehow I still don’t see the connection to vampires.

NYC Hate Crime

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:27:55 -0400

I was out of town last weekend, so I missed most of this, but there was a pretty horrible beating of a gay man (who ended up in a coma). The suspect is in custody, but his friend is now speaking to the news claiming that it was not a hate crime, and they didn’t target the man because he’s gay. Sorry bud, it’s kinda hard to take you seriously when you have a GIANT Leviticus tattoo on your arm.

Ken Jennings

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:19:47 -0400

Sooo it looks like the House Republicans are joining the Fox News commentators on this one…I thought this story wasn’t going anywhere, and it was just one of those ideas pushed by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck to discredit Obama.

If you don’t know, Ken Jennings is the ‘safe school czar’ and he was also the former head of GLSEN (gay and lesbian student education network). All the uproar came after conservatives discovered that, twenty years ago when Jennings was a teacher, a student approached him to tell him that he was having a sexual relationship with another man. Jennings, 24 at the time, was flummoxed and told the boy to make sure he was using a condom.

Now, this was clearly the wrong advice, and Jennings admits this now. One response to this situation would be “wow, look how ill-equipped teachers are to deal with students like this. It’s a good thing we have someone like Jennings in the administration to push for more teacher-training on issues like this.” Instead, some conservatives are pushing for his resignation, saying that he is clearly unqualified to lead a school safety initiative.

They also throw in the fact that he has pushed for age-appropriate lessons on the gays, to help end anti-gay bullying and make it easier for gay kids in schools. Makes sense, but of course, acknowledging that gay people exist is somehow evil, and the conservatives are having none of it…

Dumbledore would love it

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:10:02 -0400

If you love Harry Potter, then you know that Dumbledore is a big homo. So the Harry Potter Alliance, a Massachusetts-based group “dedicated to bringing the themes of Harry Potter into the real world” announced an effort to help the fight against Prop 1 in Maine (which would ban gay marriage there). They are planning a concert with Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys (two totally dorky HP bands), and then are canvassing in Maine.

Oh, and Evanna Lynch, who plays Luna Lovegood in the films, is involved. How magical!

Scrutinizing the gays

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:01:00 -0400

I’m a regular follower of the legal fights that gay rights groups are working on, so I’ve been particularly interested in the Perry case. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a challenge to Prop 8 and is led by Ted Olson and David Boies, who are two all stars in the legal world (And opponents in Bush v. Gore). Today, Judge Walker denied a motion to dismiss the challenge, which was a big win for the gay rights side.

The Judge brought up the question of what level of scrutiny to apply to sexual orientation cases. Basically, when the government passes laws that discriminate against certain groups, courts apply different standards of review depending on what group it is. So, if the government is discriminating against a racial group, the court will apply strict scrutiny (meaning that the government needs a really compelling interest to discriminate). For gender, it is a lower level of review called intermediate scrutiny. For most other classifications there is a low level called rational basis review.

The Supreme Court has never stated what level of scrutiny to apply to sexual orientation. The higher the level, the harder it will be to discriminate against the gays. So we’d hope for at least the intermediate scrutiny that is given to gender. As of now, though, it’s never been decided by the top Court. So we’ll see!

DADT

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:47:03 -0400

Great article from a soldier affected by DADT

Oh Meghan

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:17:24 -0400

Meghan McCain is in an uproar and threatening to quit twitter because people are upset over the “spontaneous” picture she uploaded. Apparently she did not realize that posting a close-up of her huge boobs would upset some people. Oh Meghan. Let me speak to you directly:

I think you’re great. You’re a young Republican and yet you speak out for gay rights. You say what’s on your mind and don’t want to see your political party get taken over by crazy social conservatives. And you have lovely boobs. Really, you should be quite happy, those girls look like a lot of fun. But c’mon, put ‘em away before you upload pictures to the internet. You’re just asking for trouble, especially when you want to be a role model for young girls. You’re not a slut, but really. Keep ‘em in check…

Roommate Sex?

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:09:00 -0400

This story went around the news cycle a couple weeks ago, but I didn’t have a blog then, so I’m going to comment now. The story is about how Tufts University instituted a “no sex while your roommate is there” policy. One would assume that no official policy would be necessary, and that the old “sock-on-the-doorknob” would work. Apparently, though, there were enough complaints that residential life actually had to make it official.

Now, I bring this up because I went to Tufts, so I can speak to how inept and crazy ResLife is. It also provides me with an opportunity to share my sex-while-your-roommate-is-present story, which apparently would get me into trouble under the new regime.

When I was a freshman, I had THE weirdest roommate. Seriously. Very socially awkward. The only good thing was that he had a girlfriend who went to another Boston school, so he would occasionally leave for the night. One night freshman year, I brought a boy home. This was very early in my life as a gay man, he was one of the first guys I’d had a crush on, I was pretty experienced, etc…

The boy ends up spending the night (since my roommate was gone). The next morning we both wake up, and are in that “just woke up, kinda groggy, haven’t said much yet, but get on top of me and let’s make-out stage.” Just then my awkward roommate opens the door and discovers I’m gay. And proceeds to walk into the room, drop his things off, hang around, and then finally leave. All the while the boy and I are frozen in embarrassment.

So now I can only assume that he went to ResLife and complained, and that it took them five years to implement the new rule.

You New Yorkers may have seen the Bloomberg/Thompson mayoral...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:42:00 -0400

You New Yorkers may have seen the Bloomberg/Thompson mayoral debate where the candidates were asked whether Obama has done enough on gay rights. Bloomberg responded ‘no,’ while Thompson seemed almost astonished that the question was even being asked, and replied that Obama has only been in office for 9 months, so yes.

As you can imagine, there’s been some backlash, and today Thompson ‘clarified’ his remarks. Apparently Thompson felt that the question was ‘dumb’ because it was supposed to be answered with yes or no. Thompson thinks the question required a longer answer. OK fine, yes or no questions are hard for politicians to answer. But this is simple, either the president, in his nine months, has done enough on gay issues, or he hasn’t. Thompson can backtrack all he wants, and I’m sure he is very supportive of gay rights. But his original answer shows that he is not very concerned/knowledgeable about gay issues, since anyone who pays any attention to gay rights knows how frustrated people are with Obama’s movement on this issue.

Future First Husband?

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:25:00 -0400

CNN has posted a video diary of Jared Polis’ (Congressperson from Colorado) partner. cute.

Check it out