Random Musings

They’re Number 10!

Rhode Island has approved marriage equality in a 26-12 Senate vote. The House passed the bill in January, and it must get another, basically procedural, vote there again, but then it heads to the desk of Governor Lincoln Chafee who has said he will sign the bill. Once signed, same-sex marriage will become legal in August.

Governor Chafee issued this statement after the vote:

I am always proud to be a Rhode Islander, but never more so than today.

After yesterday’s Judiciary Committee vote, I expressed my hope that the full Rhode Island Senate would pass a bill that chooses tolerance and fairness over division and discrimination. In passing the Marriage Equality Act, they have done just that.

I thank the Senators who have taken a stand to move Rhode Island forward and commend the Senate President for calling the roll. Great credit should go to Ray Sullivan, everyone at Rhode Islanders United for Marriage, and the countless volunteers who knocked on doors and participated in phone banks. Finally, I want to applaud the pioneers, such as the late Julie Pell, who for decades have fought for the fundamental rights of gay and lesbian Rhode Islanders. This day would not have been possible without their efforts.

Pending the final vote by the House of Representatives, Rhode Island will no longer be an outlier in our region. We will have the welcome mat out. We will be open for business, and we will once again affirm our legacy as a place that is tolerant and appreciative of diversity.

Brava Rhode Island, the Little State That Could!

The French National Assembly has voted to approve marriage equality in a 331-225 vote. France now joins New Zealand, Uruguay, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, and Denmark as the 14th nation to offer its citizens nationwide marriage equality.

And here we sit, in the back seat twiddling our thumbs as the rest of the world progresses.

Senator Rob Portman has seen a loss of support from Republicans since he came out for marriage equality last month.

His approval rating has fallen from 44% to 40%, while his disapproval ratings have climbed from 34% to 31%.

He lost my support when he voted against gun background checks last week.

We have one movie theater in Smallville, a dusty crusty relic from the last century that once had a Negros Only balcony back in the day. But they rarely show anything other than G-rated kiddie films, so we usually drive the 25-miles to a Regal Theater.

Maybe we won’t be doing that anymore, though.

See, Regal Entertainment Group has announced in a company memo that it's cutting the hours for thousands of nonsalaried employees to avoid providing health care insurance under Obamacare. Yup, deny them healthcare coverage and then cut their hours so they can’t afford to even see a doctor without insurance. Nicely done Regal.

And this is from a company that posted a hefty $334 million in 2012 profits, and whose shares rose by 17%. This is a company that gave its chief executive a 31% pay increase:  Amy Miles earned $4.45 million in 2012, up from $3.4 million in the previous year. But they don’t wanna pay for healthcare because it’s too expensive.

Shame on you Regal.

But Regal Cinemas might be at the receiving end of one of the worst consumer backlashes yet. See, others have tried to do the same thing—like Appleby’s and Denny’s—and seen their own stocks take a tumble. Maybe, if that happens to regal, Amy Miles might take a pay cut? I laugh, because her greed apparently knows no bounds.

Regal is also facing pushback from employees; after getting their hours cut by 25% or more, some full-time managers have resigned.

Carlos and I love The Borgia’s on Showtime—even with Jeremy irons and his idiotic stance on same-sex marriage and incest—but we’ve also started watching Da Vinci’s Demons on Starz.

It’s really more of an Indiana Jones Da Vinci kind of show, but, well, as I like to do in my shallow moments, drool on some of the new hot mens on the show.

Blake Ritson plays the evil, really evil, so evil that when he’s done with you he has someone cut off your head, Count Girolamo Riario. But he does so with a smirk that is both, like I said evil, and kind of hot.

Then we have Elliot Cowan, who plays Lorenzo Medici. He does wear the really bad sideburns, but he also oozes some of the sexy.

As does Tom Bateman who plays his drool-worthy brother, Giulino Medici. He has a kind of Henry Cavill thing about him, and, of course, leather pants.

The show is mildly entertaining but becomes better when these three appear onscreen, especially Blake Ritson, who looks a little like Carlos, without that whole 'Off with your head' thing..

Just sayin’.

Y’all know that I’ve yet to meet a curse word I didn’t like, but even I know when it’s appropriate to talk like a longshoreman and when it’s not.

AJ Clemente, however, does not.

On his first day, FIRST DAY, on the job as news anchor for KFYR, an NBC affiliate n Bismarck, North Dakota, he opened the broadcast with the words “gay … f**king … sh*t”. His co-anchor Van Tieu stumbled as she heard what he said, though she maintained her composure.

I might have gone all, “You f**king a**hated dipsh*t! What the f**k were you thinking?”

But then we’d both be out of a job.

Clemente, for his part, Tweeted on his, now closed, account, "That couldn't have gone any worse!"

Clemente was suspended and then fired from his one day, first day f**k up.

But, he did try to explain that he wasn’t say ‘gay’ but that he was trying to pronounce Tsegaye Kebede, the winner of the London Marathon, panicked, and began cursing.

Either way, he’s up sh*t creek without a motherf**king paddle, eh?

Good news on the equality beat …

Nevada's Senate took the first step toward recognizing same-sex marriage this week when, by a vote of 12-9, passed the Senate Joint Resolution 13, which repeals a constitutional provision passed by voters ten years ago to ban same-sex marriage. The legislation also declares that Nevada recognizes all marriages regardless of gender and, if the measure is passed by the Assembly this year and again next year, it will go to the voters for ratification in 2016.

Time moves slowly in politics, no?

But, of note, is that one, just one, Republican joined with Democrats to vote in favor of the resolution, and then one other lawmaker, Democratic Sate Senator Kelvin Atkinson publicly declared for the first time that he is gay.

"I’m black. I'm gay," Atkinson said, after describing his father's interracial re-marriage that would have been banned earlier in American history. "I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male."

Atkinson went on to rebut the argument that gay marriage threatens any other definition of marriage: "If this hurts your marriage, then your marriage was in trouble in the first place."

Nicely put, Senator Atkinson, and Welcome Out!

Of course, here at HOMO HQ, we’re already shipping out your copy of The Gay Agenda and a Coming Out Toaster Oven.

Welcome Out!

Well, if you don’t follow Princess, at the Palais de Steff, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Fabulous fashion design, a view of life from Down Under, and a bevy of beautiful arses.

Seriously, it’s a lovely place to stop into and see what’s happening.

And, well, I’m flummoxed, because Princess has awarded me the coveted "Reality" award...and I don’t know why! This award is, as Princess said, a "mini meme" and since I haven't bothered to do one for a spell, I thought I'd give it a little go...

1. If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?

Oh, I loathe these questions because I am quite off on this topic. See, I could change a million things, I guess, right some wrongs, maybe make some better choices, but, and it’s a big but, would I be who I am, and where I am, and with Carlos, if I changed a thing?

If that’s the case, then, No, I wouldn’t change anything. All that I’ve done and said, and not done and said, the good, the bad, the horrific, has kinda made me who I am today and I’m okay with that.

2. If you could repeat any age... Which would it be?

I feel like I’m sort of dodging the questions, but I wouldn’t want to live any age that I’ve already lived, over again. Been there, done that, have the scars to prove it.

But I am fascinated by the years I haven’t lived and am interested to see what they bring. I liked my 20s—boy, did I like my 20s-and loved my 30s and 40s, but, yeah, done it. No need to rehash. I prefer to look ahead to 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and well beyond.

3. What really scares you?

Ignorance, a general lack of intelligence; a lack empathy; selfishness. I am always the one to point out, whenever someone is fighting with someone else, that old Rodney King mantra, Can’t we all just get along?

That’s what I fear, and what scares me, is that we can’t all get along.

4. If you could become someone else for the day... Who would you be?

Just for a day? Well, I could do this though I have so many options.

I’d like to be Rosa Parks, that day on the bus. That would be huge.

I’d like to be a friend of Harvey Milk’s. To be in that man’s space, open and honest and so so far ahead of his time; I’d like to be around that and drink it in.

I’d like to be Cher, just for the fun of it all.

I’d like to be myself on the day my mom died and make sure I said all the things I wanted to say before she left.

Well, then, there you have it. I don’t think I’ll nominate anyone for the award, but it would be interesting to see if any of you might like to play along and open the door to your inner self and show us all who you are, want to be, or were.

Any takers?

TWEET OF THE WEEK: It's a tie!!!

Jim Roth Was Called Anti-Gay Slurs While Being Beaten, But In The OKC That Isn't A Hate Crime

I’ve tried explaining this before, but, well, in light of the police comments in this case it bears repeating:

A man is walking down the street and he is beaten and robbed at gunpoint. It’s a crime, no? And a hateful one, at that, but it isn’t a Hate Crime.But, a man walking down the street who is beaten and robbed, because he’s gay, or perceived to be gay, is hateful and a Hate crime.

It really seems quite simple, but not to the police in Oklahoma City.

See, Jim Roth, one of Oklahoma’s first openly gay politicians was assaulted by three men outside an Oklahoma City bar earlier this month; he got by with a few scrapes and bruises.

But police seem to say, even after talking to Roth, that it’s hard to classify these kinds of assaults as hate crimes, so let’s see what we have here.

According to a police report, Roth and some friends were at Grandad's bar in Oklahoma City for a birthday dinner when a man started making anti-gay comments. Roth and his party tried to ignore the comments but eventually decided to leave.

They were followed out of the bar by the man who made the comments and two of his friends, who attacked Jim Roth when he got outside. Roth told police the men yelled anti-gay comments as they punched him in the head and pushed him down.

Now, police admit that Jim Roth got into a verbal altercation with a man who had made some anti-gay comments about him, though they seem quick to add, as if it makes a difference, he wasn’t “seriously hurt”. But the fact that the men yelled anti-gay epithets as they punched and kicked Jim Roth doesn't seem of any interest to local police.

But Grandad’s posted a Facebook rant, which read, in part:

“We will not tolerate bigotry and hate. You don’t have to love everyone who walks in the door like we do but you do have to tolerate them. Gay, straight, black, white, plumber, politician, whatever… let’s just all have a drink and be cool.”

The bar owner identified the suspect to police but no arrests have been made , and yet Oklahoma City police say that they cannot classify what happened at Grandad’s hate crime. “It’s definitely an assault case Oklahoma City police Master Sgt. Gary Knight said. “That’s what we’re working is an assault.”

“Often local law enforcement is simply not equipped to deal with hate crimes,” Scott Hamilton said, with the Cimarron Alliance—a nonprofit political action group promoting LGBT issues. He said the incident is part of a growing trend, as the fight over LGBT rights gains more attention. “As minorities gain rights, there can be an increase in violence and sadly we’re seeing that in Oklahoma City.”

Makes it sound all the more like a hate crime and yet the police in Oklahoma City can’t even be bothered to arrest the man identified as one of the suspects. How can we fight hate, anywhere, if the police are sitting on their hands?

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Architecture Wednesday: The Armour-Stiner Octagon House

Not one of the normal ISBL architecture features, but Carlos saw this home on Aerial America and I found it on the interwebz, so here it is via Joseph Pell Lombardi:

"The Armour-Stiner (Octagon) House is one of the most visually unique homes in the world. It is the only known residence constructed in the eight-sided, domed colonnaded shape of a classic Roman Temple.

The Octagon House was originally built in the 1860s following the publication of The Octagon House, a Home for All by Orson Squire Fowler, a phrenologist, sexologist and amateur architect. Fowler advocated octagonal instead of four-sided houses on the supposition that the shape enclosed more space, created rooms which received twice as much sunlight and had greater accessibility to each other.

In 1872, the house was purchased by Joseph Stiner, a prominent New York City tea merchant. His alterations created the present lyrical structure. The exterior embellishments are extraordinarily festive with floral detailing in the cast iron cresting and railings and elaborately carved wood scrollwork and capitals – all painted in shades of rose, blue, violet and red. The interiors are equally decorative with painted and stenciled ceilings, trim with gold, silver and bronze leaf and unique 8-sided motifs in the plasterwork, woodwork and etched glass.

Subsequent owners of the house have been imaginative people. In the 1930s it was occupied by Aleko E. Lilius, a Finnish writer and explorer who had lived with a female pirate who plundered ships off the coast of China. Carl Carmer, the celebrated author, poet and historian, resided in the house from 1946 to the time of his death in 1976. The house plays a role in a number of his published tales, including stories of a resident ghost.

Shortly after the death of Carl Carmer, the house was acquired by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Unstable and in need of restoration, it was the first house to be resold to a private citizen. Joseph Pell Lombardi, the owner, is a Preservation Architect who has conserved the house, interiors, grounds and outbuildings."

as always ... click to emBIGGERate

The Entry Hall

The Salon

The Library

The Dining Room

The Kitchen

The Solarium

The Egyptian Revival Music Room

The Master Bedroom

The Dance Room

The Observatory

The Observatory from Outside

The Veranda

The Veranda Lamps

The Garden Stairs

The Foxglove Garden

Inside The Foxglove Garden

The Well House

The Carriage House and Barn

From the Northeast

The Dome in Winter

The Basement Plan

The 1st Floor Plan

The 2nd Floor Plan

The 3rd Floor Plan

The 4th Floor Plan

The Observatory Floor Plan

If He Has His Way, Alan Gendreau Will Be The NFL's First Openly Gay Player

With all the former, and current, NFL players saying that they’d be fine with an openly gay teammate, you know that it’s going to happen, sooner rather than later. But, what if, instead of a current player coming out, a future player, who’s already out, goes into the NFL?

Well, that could happen if Alan Gendreau, a former kicker, and leading scorer in Sun Belt Conference history, for Middle Tennessee State, gets his way; he wants a shot at an NFL team and he’s already out. But, as I’ve said time and again, because he’s gay isn’t why he wants to join the NFL; he doesn’t want to be the first gay player, he just wants to play.

“I’m a kicker that happens to be gay. It’s a part of who I am, and not everything I am. I just want to be known as a normal kicker.”

Gendreau has been openly gay since high school and says he never hid his sexual orientation at Middle Tennessee State. In fact, as a freshman, he told his story to Outsports, though, to be fair, he did so anonymously, concerned about the effect the disclosure would have on his family and afraid that it might have hurt his NFL chances.

“My whole thing in this is just to help anybody who is struggling with coming out. I want people to know that I didn’t have a problem with it, and they shouldn’t, either.”

In his first two years on his college team, Gendreau made 28 of 34 field-goal attempts, the longest from 55 yards. As a sophomore, he was one of 20 semifinalists for the Lou Groza Award, given to college football’s top kicker. But then, as a senior, he missed four of his first five kicks for a team that went 2-10 and interest in his abilities kind of vanished.

“I took that as my sign to hang it up.”

After college, Gendreau moved to Washington and began working in real estate, though when he coached at a football camp last summer, other coaches started encouraging him to pursue a career in the NFL. He decided that he might be ready for the NFL and the NFL might be ready for him.

“If that were to happen, I’d love to be that role model to anybody struggling. I know that’s a lot of pressure, but that’s the life of a kicker.”

Let’s hope he gets that wish, and gets to be that role model, and gets to be that player. It is, after all, about time.

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Joe Bell Is Taking A Walk In Memory Of His Son

Jadin Bell, an Oregon teenager, was another one of those kids, targeted for being gay or perhaps just seeming to be gay—whatever that means—until he got to a point where he could no longer take it. One day, he went to the playground at an elementary school, climbed to the top of a jungle gym, and hanged himself. A passerby saw his body and tried rescuing him; Jadin was taken to Doernbecher Children's Hospital where he was put on life support. After several days, and still no brain activity, his family decided to let him go. [See post HERE]

Another one.

Shortly afterwards Jadin’s father, Joe Bell, made a decision. He could have been angry, he could have been distraught, he could have been a lot of things, but he decided, after burying his young son, that he would just go for a walk.

And Joe Bell is walking all across the United States to help spread the message against bullying. He says it'll take two years to walk the 5,000 miles—at a rate of 15-25 miles a day—and make it to the East Coast; Joe Bell resigned from his job to take that walk, and he’ll be doing it on two artificial knees; he had replacement surgery in 2010.

"I needed a break. I was ready, I was looking for something different. I just wish, however, that I was doing this under different circumstances."—Joe Bell

And as he walks from one coast to the other, he’ll stop to speak at schools and other venues about bullying, about the need to report it if it happens to you, or if you see it happening to anyone. He has even set up a foundation, Faces for Change [HERE] to promote anti-bullying programs.

See, Joe Bell understands that we don’t need another suicide, like that of  Jadin Bell, or Lance Lundsten, Tiffani Maxwell, Eric James Borges, Teddy Molina, Jamey Rodemeyer, Josh Pacheco,  David Hernandez Barros, Brandon Elizares, Joel Morales, Zachery Gray, Jay 'Corey' Jones, Jack Reese, Kenneth Weishuhn, Rafael Morelos, Phillip Parker, Jacob Rogers, Nicholas Kelo Jr., Brandon Bitner, Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Phoebe Price, Jaheem Herrera, Jeremiah Lasater, Megan Meier, Eric Mohat, Carl Joseph Walker Hoover …. Those are just the ones I’ve talked about on this blog, but there are so many, many more.

Joe’s walk will take him through Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, before he moves north through Pennsylvania, New York and his destination of the Delaware coastline. He’s most looking forward to the New York stop because that was where Jadin wanted to live one day.

If, by chance, Joe Bell walks through your town, why not go out and meet him, and thank him for not only honoring his son’s memory, but for getting up and doing something about bullying. And, if he doesn’t pass your way, why not stop in at Faces forChange and see what you can do to help.

Before we have “Another One”.

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Mark Sanford Is Truly Ridiculous

In the interests of openness and honesty let me say that, while I love-love-love the title of this post, it’s actually the exact title of an article from the Washington Post that details the complete and utter delusions of South Carolina’s globe-trotting, trail-hiking, booty-calling ex-governor,. Marky Mark Sanford.

A little history:

• Sanford called himself a fiscal conservative then billed the state of South Carolina for first class airline tickets—some used to fly him to the afore-mentioned booty calls—for his travel arrangements.
• Sanford disappeared from the state, advising his staff to tell his employers, AKA the people of South Carolina, that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, when he was later5 discovered to have flown to South America for a conjugal visit with his mistress.
• Sanford, in his divorce decree  from his wife, Jenny, who didn’t take kindly to his booty-calling adventures, was ordered to stay away from Jenny Sanford’s home, but then was discovered walking in the house, using his phone as a flashlight. His excuse was that he wanted to watch football with his son, but then why was he walking around in the dark? And where was the mistress-soul mate? Sanford will answer charges of trespassing next month.

click to emBIGGERate

But the latest height of stupidity, of arrogance, of delusional asshattery on Marky Mark is the full-page ad he recently took out in the Charleston Post and Courier newspaper. The ad, which came out last week on the heels of the Boston Marathon bombings, where four people died and nearly two-hundred were injured, and just after the explosion of a Texas fertilizer plant that killed thirteen people and injured hundreds more, told the people of South Carolina what a bad week “he’d” had. You know, because of the trespassing charge and all. What a bad week for a truly ridiculous man who apparently has no empathy for the people of Boston or the people of West, Texas.

Sanford explains that he broke the law, and violated a divorce decree “because, as a father, I didn’t think [his 14-year-old son] should sit alone and watch [the Super Bowl].” He then explains that there “are always two sides to every story, and time will tell as to whether I made the right call in that instance as a father.”

You didn’t, Marky, as usual you did what was the best thing for you and basically, once again, gave a big F-U to everyone else.

Now, it would be lovely for a father to want to spend time with his sons, and nice that he acknowledges that, but this is the same father who skipped out on celebrating Father’s Day with his boys back in 2009 because he went to Buenos Aires to schtup the mistress. This is the same father who thought it appropriate to introduce his sons to his mistress, now fiancée, Maria Belen Chapur, for the very first time on-stage in front of an entire audience at the runoff election victory party earlier this month.

Yes, he’s been, um, “dating” this woman for years, left his wife for this woman a few years ago, but didn’t introduce his sons to her until three weeks ago at an election event. Perhaps it was best he missed Father’s Day because he has no idea what that even means.

But, back to his full-page, Feel-sorry-for-me-I’ve-had-a-bad week ad, Sanford whined about what’s happened to him—like the fact that the National Republican Congressional Committee has publicly come out and said they no longer support him—and beg for money: “I’d like to take all I have learned and apply it to fixing things, but I’m outgunned, outmanned, and outspent by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee [DCCC] and Nancy Pelosi’s PAC.”

Truly ridiculous, that man is, but what might be more truly ridiculous is the fact that he might win the election if the people of South Carolina don’t remember that while he was f**king his mistress, he was also f**king the state.

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So Sorry To Hear Your Mother Passed Away But, You're Fired

Carla Hale teaches, er, used to teach, at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio. But last month, after taking time off when her mother passed away, Hale returned to work to find the administrators waiting for her with a letter from an anonymous parent. This, for lack of a better word, ‘parent’ was apparently distressed that Carla Hale had listed the name of her female partner in her mother’s obituary, and decided to write to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

Carlos Hale was fired because she is in a gay relationship.

The story could end there because this was a Catholic school and the Catholic Church hates The Gays and blame The Gays for everything, but then the students and other supporters at Bishop Watterson High School created an online petition at change.org to seek Hale’s reinstatement; as of this morning there are nearly 8,000 signatures including mine. You can add your name HERE.

The petition states, in part:

The diocese claims its mission is to teach its students about love, acceptance, and tolerance, and yet it did none of this in the way it treated Ms. Hale. That is why we all have to stand up together and let it be known that this decision is unacceptable. If we do not fight this issue now, it will happen again, and that is not something we can allow.

And there are all kinds of responses from current and former students of Carla Hale, asking that she be allowed to continue doing the thing she loves so much. Past and present students say it was known, or at least suspected, that Carla Hale was gay, but she never discussed her personal life with her students.

Lindsey Perkins, a 2001 Watterson graduate, called Hale a “wonderful teacher and amazing role model” whom Watterson should be proud to have on staff: “It’s just a very poignant time for something like this to happen, and hopefully for people to start realizing that we need to practice acceptance and humility to all people.”

Peter Clark, a 2011 Watterson graduate, said Hale was a compassionate, understanding teacher who was fired for something that “has nothing to do with education”: “It’s a disgusting display of hypocrisy by the education system that I was once so proud of.”

Ian James, co-founder of the FreedomOhio, is concerned that Carla Hale’s privacy had been violated: “But for the fact that she is in a committed relationship and it’s in her mother’s obit, no one would know. It seems so inherently wrong and callous ... to say, ‘In addition to losing your mother, you lose your career.’  ”

For her part Carla Hale is astounded by the support:  “It’s amazing that they’ve come together and rallied around this situation. I’m in awe of them.”

Now, to be fair, the contract between the Columbus Diocese and the Central Ohio Association of Catholic Educators, does say that teachers can be terminated for “immorality” or “serious unethical conduct” but, seriously, in 2013 are we still going to say that being gay is immoral or unethical? After 19 years on the job, the mention of one name in a newspaper obituary is enough to erase nearly two decades of service as a teacher?

George Jones, a spokesman for the diocese, has no comment, other than saying personnel matters are confidential. Not personal lives, mind you, like Carla Hale’s.

Hale, who is not Catholic, but Methodist, has filed a grievance under the terms of the contract, seeking her job back and says she hopes the reaction to her dismissal spurs Catholic leaders to reconsider their stance on gay relationships.

I’ve a feeling it won’t, but we can always hope.

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The Boy Scouts Seem Poised To End Their Ban On Gay Scouts, But Not On Gay Scout Leaders

The Boy Scouts of America; what a mess. After decades of being virulently anti-gay, they tease us with the idea that they might … they’re thinking about … they maybe will … one day … someday … think that gay Scouts are okay, but they don’t wanna make that decision just yet because, well, it’s a decision about treating all people with respect and it deserves months and months of thought, and speculation and panels and discussion.

But then, as of last week, the Boy Scouts of America [BSA] has proposed lifting their ban on gay scouts although they would like to maintain their ban on gay scout leaders. See, you can be young and gay and be a scout, but you can’t be a gay adult and be a scout leader.

That’s gotta be welcome news to any gay scout who has worked his way up from joining the BSA to becoming an Eagle Scout to maybe leading other scouts and then, oh, um, yeah, no, you can’t do that, you can’t be a leader, because you’re gay.

The biggest organization in scouts, the anti-gay, Prop H8 funding Mormon Church, says they would like to “study” the proposal, while A.J. Smith, president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting—a double whammy of anti-gay if you will, Baptists and Scouts—said, "The general feeling is that this is a bad move. This is about a concerted effort to bring down a cultural icon. We must brace ourselves for the long haul on this one."

How about looking at it like this: there have been gay scouts, and gay scout leaders, since the BSA began in 1910, but the idea of letting gay scouts and scout leaders simply be open about their sexual orientation is just plain wrong? How? How?

I wonder how the Baptists would feel if the hate was on the other foot? If some gay group decided to disallow any members who were Baptists because of the ‘effort to bring down the cultural icon” that is the Baptists Church?

And then, as if to annoy me further, I heard that some gay rights groups have said that, while the ban on gay adults is unacceptable, they like the change for the gay youth. How is that acceptable? To say, we welcome a young gay man into the scouts, but once he becomes a gay male adult suddenly it’s wrong and he has to leave?

The fact is that more and more people, and more and more members f the BSA, want to end the discrimination; they want the Boy Scouts to be current, to be open and accepting and tolerant. The world has changed, the world is changing, the Boy Scouts of America needs to follow suit, or be left behind.

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