Rapist of 14 Year-Old Gets 30 Day Sentence

Tweet of the Day: June 17, 2013

Sometimes humanity seems anything but humane.

LGBT Suicide Isn't A Problem...???

The Wrap-Up: April 30, 2012

In news that makes me happy I didn't go to a religious school, a student is being kept from graduating from Bob Jones University because he was caught watching Glee.

Here is the rundown of what you need to know about CISPA (which passed in the House and, as reported earlier, faces a veto threat from President Obama).

Wondering what the Tea Party is up to?

The price of homophobia keeps getting tragically higher.

Some Wisconsinites need to pick their heroes more carefully.

Here in Virginia's Senate race, former Governor Tim Kaine is relying very much on former Governor (and current Senator) Mark Warner in his fight against former Governor (and former Senator) George Allen.

The fact that violence against women was such a partisan issue does not speak well for the Republican Party.

And lastly, with their secrecy exposed, ALEC may be on the brink of destruction. One can only hope.

Lowlights & Highlights: April 28, 2012

This is one of the most despicable things I have ever heard said by a politician...which is saying a lot (especially these days). During a session of the state legislature, state Representative Jeremy Faison (R-TN) stated that the suicides of bullying victims was not because of bullying. Rather, he said it was the fault of bad parenting and improper values. When I learned about this, my head nearly exploded. There are so many ways in which this statement is beyond the pale, but I'll just point out the glaring ones:

-First, ignorance. How many parents of bullying/suicide victims does this guy actually know? To how many of these parents has he spoken? My guess as to the answers to both of these questions is ZERO. He was making a generalization based on speculation rather than an "educated" guess based in fact. 

-Second, what we have here is a clear lack of empathy. If he had put himself in the shoes of these parents, he would have known not to say such a thing. had a child of his committed suicide (for any reason, let alone bullying specifically) and someone told him it was his fault, his reaction would most likely be extreme anger, extreme sadness, or both. 

-Third (and most obvious), it's just plain heartless. These parents are going through something that no one can possibly fathom unless they have experienced first hand. Then for Faison to point to them and say "It's your fault your kid is dead?" It's just an utterly soulless thing to say. I truly have no idea how people like this come to political power and stay there after such an incident. If he had any honour, he would resign.

Faison has since apologized for the statement. I tend to not believe such "apologies" because it is clear that the reason for these apologies has more to do with public backlash and less to do with sincere regret. While I don't know what is in this man's heart, the callousness of the original statement requires him to go further to deserve the benefit of a doubt.

***

After a disastrous primary day this week, it was announced that Newt Gingrich would be exiting the race. For some reason that I still don't understand, he is leaving the race next week despite his departure being announced this week. That's the first thing I don't get. The second (which I've been thinking about for some time now) is why he didn't get out earlier. My best guess is his ego. He only won one state, and one of those was his home state, Georgia, so that barely counts. I can understand why Santorum stayed in as long as he did, but not Gingrich. Maybe if he had dropped out earlier, Santorum would have ended up doing better.

Gingrich's candidacy was at best a joke, at worst a poor indictment on the Republican Party based on some of the things he said. He advocated for children being janitors. There was a video of someone telling Newt that he was a joke, a disgrace, and he should get out of the race before he makes a fool of himself (advice that was not heeded until it was too late). He made a campaign point of talking about permanent Moon colonies (unsurprisingly, that was him pandering before the Florida primary). He went on-record as saying that child labour laws were unconstitutional. As one of his opponents pointed out (I believe it was Santorum) that he was run out of the Speakership by members of his own party. Not exactly the kind of leadership one would want in their party's nominee for the presidency, let alone the presidency itself. And then there is my major personal gripe that he has the audacity to talk about the sanctity of marriage while being married to wife #3 (with whom he cheated on wife #2, with whom in her turn he cheated on wife #1). He's unscrupulous, pretentious, self-righteous, and hypocritical. Wait a minute, that should have made Gingrich the perfect GOP candidate.

Farewell Newt. We won't miss you (apparently that includes many of your fellow Republicans).

Lowlights & Highlights: April 21, 2012

When will this end? Yet another teenager (Kenneth Weishuhn Jr.) committed suicide after anti-gay bullying. Every time these stories come to my attention, it's like the world stops for a split-second and all I can think is "No, please, not again." This actually happened this past weekend, but I've felt it to varying degrees over the course of this week like a shadow following me. And to think that there are people out there who believe this kind of thing isn't a problem. There are others who think that these kids deserve what they are getting.

This won't end until until schools are empowered to deal with bullying of ALL kinds, and parents are engaged with their kids in terms of making sure they aren't being bullied (or for that matter, aren't the ones perpetrating the bullying). Most importantly, it won't end until the culture of this country has drastically changed. There are still massive forces fighting to allow the discrimination that makes LGBT kids aware that people (lots of people) think that they are less than human, undeserving of quality protections under the law and, more to the point, societal acceptance as they are. The assaults made these forces have a high cost and, unfortunately, that cost just got higher.

My heart goes out to the friends and family of Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. Another life snuffed out before its time.

***

I have mentioned this a time or two on the blog, including video of Rachel Maddow talking about this. She describes it at length but I'll just give you the bullet-points here. In 2001, Dr. Robert Spitzer (is is not a Right-wing nutjob, theocrat, or ardent homophobe) published "research" that essentially said one can be cured of homosexuality. Of course, the social conservatives and the ex-gay movement latched onto this and ever since, they have cited this as evidence that homosexuality is a choice, that one can "pray the gay away" and so forth. It was probably the happiest day in many of their lives. This week was probably equally devastating to them. Spitzer has retracted that "research" and condemned the way in which it has been used. Why? The methodology was all wrong. The "research" was primarily anecdotal and his primary source of these anecdotes were from people referred to him by ex-gay organizations. There is obviously an inherent bias in whatever findings come from that. Not only this, but the sample size (aside from not being random) was very small, thus doubly unreliable. The scientific method was not followed in this "research" and as such, the findings mean nothing of substance. Spitzer went so far as to say that he wished the study had never been published. He isn't the only one, I'm sure.

The walls are crumbling in around the ex-gay movement. There is pretty much no empirical evidence to back them up, yet plenty of empirical evidence working against them. This is a dangerous movement that does far more psychological harm than help. This is a huge blow to them and other social conservatives since this is a man that is respected in the scientific community and the work had been published in a peer-reviewed publication (and not some fringe magazine). It's great that Dr. Spitzer had the to admit he had been wrong (would that more people had that courage. This will certainly help the already turning tide on LGBT equality turn a little bit faster.

Lowlights & Highlights: March 17, 2012

First, HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!! I hope everyone has fun, but be responsible folks.

Second, I completely forgot to do this last week. I'll try to get in the groove of doing this on a weekly basis. Now onto this week's stories.

Lowlight

I would have to say it was the Dharun Ravi trial which had the verdict read on Friday. Don't get me wrong, it's not because I disagreed with the verdict, especially since he was found guilty on most of the charges. The reason is that this reminded me of this whole anti-gay bullying (and bullying in general) thing and the far-too-many suicides that result. No matter what Ravi's sentence ends up being, Tyler Clementi can't be brought back, and Ravi's sentence will never compare to the pain suffered by Tyler, his friends, and his family. Some wounds can't be healed, you just learn to live with the scars.

Highlight

Granted this video was posted on YouTube in February, but it just came to my attention this week. As someone who has been through a similar scenario (who hasn't had a thing for someone they couldn't have, gay or straight?), I could relate. It may seem like a bit of a downer, but wait until you get to the end. The end was a good one.

Choosing Sides

This definitely goes for that Minnesota school district where teachers and administrators aren't allowed to talk about homosexuality, which has directly led to so many kids committing suicide.