February 2009 Archives

Wow! Sounds like Colorado Republicans are making some obscenely insensitive gaffes.

If I understand this correctly, Sen. Schultheis is advocating letting infants be born with undetected HIV to teach their moms a lesson. For a party that frequently styles itself as being pro-life, this is perplexing at best. If nothing else, early treatment would probably reduce future health care costs. If not for humanitarian reasons, doesn't testing make sense for economic reasons?

A Republican legislator in Colorado opposed a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV, so that if they are infected their babies can be treated to prevent the transfer of the virus, the Rocky Mountain News reports.
But it was his reasoning that sparked outrage.
Said state Sen. Dave Schultheis (R): "This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part, and I just can't go there. We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. I'm not convinced that part of the role of government should be to protect individuals from the negative consequences of their actions."

Legislator's Promiscuity Comments Cause Uproar
Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:00:52 GMT

Very cool! After some folks falsely accused racial minorities of being the reason that Prop 8 passed in California, this is welcome news! The NAACP obviously gets that civil rights mean everyone.

NAACP Calls for Overturning of Prop. 8

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People announced support on Monday for California's supreme court to invalidate Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that constitutionally banned same-sex marriage in California.

The civil rights group not only wants the court to overturn Prop. 8 -- they want California's legislature to go on record against Prop. 8 as well.

NAACP Calls for Overturning of Prop. 8  | News | Advocate.com

Folding went quite well indeed tonight! James rode shotgun when we were delivering, as is usually the case. We had a nice time chatting.

After delivering, I helped him do his taxes and dropped him off home. He had a few mishaps this past month; car troubles, followed by a big tree branch landing in his driveway just as he was getting ready to go to work.

A few weeks ago, he was doing something in his basement, when he heard a crazed knocking at his door. It continued, and he was afraid to answer the door. He went upstairs and saw the woman, who was on her cell phone. She was still pounding on the door. He wasn't sure what was up.

Then, a fire truck showed up. It turns out that she had seen smoke coming out of the chimney and had dialed 911. Actually, given that James had been lighting a fire in the wood stove in his basement, it really wasn't particularly surprising that there was smoke coming out of the chimney. (Um, I think that is kind of a good sign in that particular situation.)

Eden found a cool site that lets one come up with a superhero persona. The name is randomly generated.

It has been a fairly good, if busy, weekend. I noticed that there was a minor theme that seemed to come up: I chatted with people who knew folks that I have been nude with. Two of the instances were relationship/sexually related and one was a social thing. (I forget if there were any others.) My life is maybe not so dull as I sometimes claim.

Since yesterday was my Mom's wedding anniversary, I called to wish her a great day and catch up. We had a very nice chat. She mentioned that my brother was planning on going to a Koinonia, a weekend-long Christian retreat. It seems to be the Protestant equivalent of Cursillo. Very glad that my brother is working on finding a spiritual path that helps him feel connected to the Divine.

Mom went on to explain that there was a lot of stuff that was revealed and some of the weekend contained some surprises. There was one thing that she asked from me, and I said "It's okay, Mom. I'm Pagan. I know about mystery religions. You folks just do yours clothed, that's all."

It was a fairly busy weekend. Friday night, I went to the Erie Gay Business Alliance G2H2 social thing. I chatted with a few friends.

Saturday was the Pizza and Porn in Jamestown NY, which was fun. Truth to tell, I don't think that I have ever brought anything there or back, but it has always been a great time. Two friends from Erie rode up with me. They also had a pretty good time. There were 3 other guys from Erie and LOTS from the Jamestown area. It seems to me that Jamestown guys tend to be a bit less uptight than some of the Erie guys.

Sunday was the equality legislation meeting, which was surprisingly well attended. It was convened by 3 folks from the other part of the state, and they were pleased to note that we had even more people turning out than the meeting in Pittsburgh that they had the previous day. Go Erie!

When one of the main presenters was speaking, he referred to how much we could accomplish and said, "Do you know how much power is in this room?"

Way back in the early 1990's, when we were first working on Erie Gay News, there was another person on staff for the first year or so. He could sometimes say things that came across as slightly self-important, and there was one time that Deb and I were trying to figure something out, and he said (out of the clear blue sky) "Do you know how much power is in this room?"

So, for the past 15 years or so, that line has been a punch line. One of us will make a silly claim about the huge influence that we wield (yeah, I know - we are just kidding around) and the other will rather pompously make that statement.

When it was said yesterday, Deb and I locked eyes, and I just guffawed. I had to explain the weird history later to others to show them that I wasn't being dismissive.

I believe very strongly that all couples deserve equal rights and protection under the law. Sure, some people don't feel that interfaith or interracial couples should be married. That's okay - the people who think that don't have to marry someone of a different religion or race/ethnicity (or, by extension, someone of the same gender.)

The issue is that folks opposed to those sorts of civil marriages do NOT have the right to force everyone else to conform.

What do you think?

In September a statewide poll showed that more than 70% of Pennsylvanians now support some recognition of same-sex couples in Pennsylvania. There is no legislation currently pending to allow for either marriage or civil unions for gay and lesbian couples in Pennsylvania. What do you think?

Is it time for Pennsylvania's General Assembly to enact equality for Pennsylvania's gay and lesbian couples? Take our poll today.

Keystone Equality | Should PA Enact Equality of Lesbian and Gay Couples?

I happened to overhear one of the other programmers in a nearby cubicle talking with a customer, and there was one point that he said "Let me check with another geek." He then hung up the phone and I mentally counted down "4...3...2.." and then he asked if I was busy. So yeah, the geek was me. Fortunately, it was a relatively small OS issue, and they are fine.

I have a green winter jacket, which apparently recently developed some kind of small tear that I can't find. I got a new one over lunch, which was thankfully marked down.

Gary noticed it at the Pride Picnic yesterday when I went to put it on and noticed that I was sort of molting. I reminded him of the following sketch from Kids in the Hall:

Okay, it has been a pretty crappy winter, so I guess we should expect more of the same.

However, I am always amused by the warning that if Phil sees his shadow that we will get 6 more weeks of winter as of February 2. For those who are counting, that works out to March 16. Does anyone really expect spring before then??? Heck, I would be happy to ONLY have 6 more weeks.

PUNXSUTAWNEY -- The world's most famous groundhog has seen his shadow which, legend has it, means we can expect six more weeks of winter.

Punxsutawney Phil sees shadow, winter to continue
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:40:00 GMT