I Should Be Laughing

Friday, August 30, 2013

I Didn't Say It ....

Ana Maria Ortiz, a member of Mexico's right wing National Action Party, on marriage equality:

"Marriage should only be considered as those relationships in which the members have sex facing each other, which does not occur between homosexual couples."

Um, think again, Ana. I mean, you seem so obsessed with the ins-n-out-s of homo-sex and yet you have no real idea how it can be done.

It’s funny when homophobes are all consumed with The Gays and how we ‘do’ it, because most gays could care less how The Straights do it.

Thomas Roberts, MSNBC host, on the GOP and their anti-marriage equality stance:

"Reince Priebus, when I got engaged, congratulated me at the White House Correspondents' weekend. Last year, Sean Spicer congratulated me on getting married to my husband. Yet they incorporate into the platform of the RNC their stance against marriage equality. It's odd, because why congratulate me? I didn't bring it up, I didn't say give me a congratulations, but they offered it. So it's odd, because then they'll go out and drumbeat that they're against marriage equality. It's weird."

It’s the hypocrisy of the GOP. To your face they’re all, Congratulations, and yet behind your back is when they show their true colors.

BTW: Sean Spicer, who is the RNC's communications director, responded thusly: "Believing marriage is between one man and one woman and being polite, courteous and respectful are not mutually exclusive."

But then why congratulate a man on doing something you work so virulently to oppose. You didn’t have to say Congratulations you could have just said Hello.

Like I said, hypocrisy.

Frank Bruni, on the rise in gay bashing:

"After all the education that we Americans have had and all the relished progress we’ve made, being gay does mean feeling constrained in situations where most people aren’t, scared in circumstances that wouldn’t frighten others in the least, self-conscious when you shouldn’t have to be. Like when you’re holding someone’s hand. It’s the sweetest, most innocent and most natural of gestures: to interlock your fingers with those of a person for whom you’re feeling a sudden rush of affection. A person you maybe love. And yet when my partner takes my hand in public in New York City, I look at the sidewalk ahead. I note how many pedestrians are coming our way, and how quickly, and whether they’re male or female, young or old, observant or distracted. And I sometimes take my hand back, wishing I were braver, wishing our world didn’t ask me to be."

So sad to live in a world where holding the hand of the person you love could get you killed.

But that’s a fact, folks.

Masen Davis, the transgendered Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center, on Save California president, and bigot, Randy Thomasson referring to him as a 'lady':

"Thomasson’s attempt to disrespect my own gender identity by referring to me as a ‘lady’ said more about him than me (I’m no lady, and clearly he is no gentleman). I am comfortable in my own skin, and proud of my journey as a transgender man. I have heard, though, from many transgender people and allies who are very upset by his shallow attempt to mis-gender me. Failing to honor the gender identity of a transgender person is a common way for anti-equality zealots to try to undermine our credibility and humanity...I am surprised and disappointed that CNN relied on Randy Thomasson, described by Media Matters as the leader of an ‘anti-LGBT hate group,’ to discuss the passage of California’s AB1266 (the School Success and Opportunity Act). Thomasson’s extremist sentiments exemplify why transgender youth and adults alike need legal protection from discrimination and bias. I urge CNN to engage more reasoned and legitimate ‘experts’ in future segments about transgender issues."

Seriously, CNN, why ask someone who clearly hates LGBT people on to a show and discuss LGBT issues?

It’s just media pandering and trying to put on a ‘show’ rather than tell a story.

Orson Scott Card, former NOM board member, on Obama’s creation of a Secret police:

"Obama will claim we need a national police force in order to fight terrorism and crime. The Boston bombing is a useful start, especially when combined with random shootings by crazy people. Where will he get his 'national police'? The NaPo will be recruited from 'young out-of-work urban men' and it will be hailed as a cure for the economic malaise of the inner cities. In other words, Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama's enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people 'trying to escape' -- people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama. Already the thugs who serve the far left agenda of Obama's team do systematic character assassination as a means of intimidating their opponents into silence. But physical beatings and 'legal' disappearances will be even more effective -- as Hitler and Putin and many other dictators have demonstrated over and over."

Looks like someone is trying to create a new work of fiction.

John Amaechi, openly gay retired NBA player, on the proposed boycott of the Sochi Olympics:

"Asking for a boycott is a very principled thing to do. I am with Stephen [Fry] in that the sentiment is absolutely correct – I just don’t think it’s practical – and I want to be clear…it’s a sad thing that it’s not practical because it means that people with great power have somehow lost sight of their lofty principles. It should be practical because if you look at the Olympic Charter and the seven principles of Olympianism which speak of things like human dignity; which speak of things like not allowing discrimination for any reason – if you look at those principles the Olympics shouldn’t even be in Russia in the first place."

Too true; and I’m still hoping, perhaps in vain, that the Games can be moved to a place where The Gays aren’t subjected to such hatred, on the field or off.

Stephen Colbert, on the controversy surrounding the Sochi Olympics and Russia's anti-gay laws:

"Now this anti-gay legislation has caused outrage and in response the International Olympic Committee has bravely stood up to Putin and said, 'Whatever you want, Vlad'...All the Olympic Committee is saying is that being gay is an act of protest because what are gay men doing but boycotting women. The IOC is just asking gay athletes to knock it off for a couple of weeks. Just like at the '36 Olympic Games Hitler asked Jesse Owens to ease off on the black. Don't be so 'out there!' But to be safe I think they should bring the Olympics back to their Greek roots where nothing gay ever happened."

Word.

Funny, but true.

Sandy Rios, homophobic bigot and radio host, on God and The Gays ... and Obama and the liberals, too:

"I would not want to be in the shoes of any of the left right now. I would not want to be in Barack Obama’s shoes. I would not want to be in the shoes of homosexual activists. I say that with humility and with fear for them because God will even the score, he will sort things out, he will be God and he will not be mocked. Whereas they think they are getting away with breaking all kinds of moral laws and mocking everyone in the process, they just don’t know God, they don’t know who they are up against and we do. And that should bring out some mercy in us because I wouldn’t want to be—what did that old evangelist say: ‘it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.’"

So, Rios thinks God will smite The Gays, oh, and the Liberals, and Obama.

Funny thing, though, is that God is love, not hate.

Hate is reserved for people like Sandy Rios.

Lee Daniels, director of Precious and The Butler, on growing up gay and the stigma attached to homosexuality in the black community:

"Black men can't come out. Why? Because you simply can't do it. Your family says it. Your church says it. Your teachers say it. Your parents say it. Your friends say it. Your work says it. So you're living on this 'DL' thing and you're infecting black women. And its killing us. The black culture and the Hispanic culture have a thing about [homosexuality]"

The saddest thing of all is the harm caused to young Black gay men and women who feel that they have to live in fear and shame and self-loathing. Hopefully, people, young Black gay people, will look at lee Daniels and realize that they, too, can come out, and they, too, can be themselves.

Jeremy Abbott, U.S. figure skater, who plans on staying silent about Russia's treatment of The Gays while competing there:

“Russia is hosting us. I'm not going to go into somebody's house and be like, ‘Um, the way you decorate is hideous, and you need to completely redo this or I'm never coming back.’ It's a little rude, so I don't want to say bad things about a country that's hosting the world, essentially. Maybe I don't agree with their policies, and maybe I don't agree with some things, but that's for them to sort out. My speaking out just makes me look like an ass.”

First off, Jeremy, you aren’t criticizing the way Russia decorates. You’d be criticizing a country that jails people, beats people, murders people, just for being gay. But, if you want to believe that isn’t worth talking about, then I’d ask that you simply not talk.

Your speaking out now does make you look like an ass; an ass who doesn’t care about LGBT Russians who have been brutalized or murdered.

So stay silent, but if some day, someone comes for you because of some intrinsic part of who you are, and when you plead for help, the world has more caring people in it, and less people like Jeremy Abbott.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Random Musings

So, Miley Cyrus at the VMAs. I missed it, but caught the endless run of videos posted online. Was it The Worst Thing Ever? Nope, it was just Plain Awful. The dancing; the flat-assed twerking; the inability to carry a tune; the tongue.

But Miley perseveres and says she rocked more Tweets than the Superbowl, though she fails to realize most of the Tweets regarding her “performance” were of the WTF variety.

My fave Tweet? Kelly Clarkson, who didn’t mention Cyrus by name, but hashtagged her Tweets with #pitchystrippers.

Thanks Kelly!

Ted Cruz was born of one American parent and one Canadian parent, and this raised the questions about his dual citizenship, and Is he American enough to be President — and don't get me started on the question of is he qualified, because he isn't — which had all of Teabagistan a'twitterin' and all the Twitterstan a'teabaggin' last week.

Then Cruz, heckled for his dual citizenship, announced he would renounce his Canadian citizenship and the whole of Canada breathed a sigh of relief, and muttered, He's all yours now, eh?

I’ve often marveled at the ignorance of people on the Right; and don’t get all pissy, I know some folks on the left are playing hockey with a warped puck … have splinters in the windmills of their minds … but it always seems that the Right has the market cornered on stupidity.

Birthers. ‘Nuff said.

But now there’s this: a recent poll by Public Policy Polling found that 29% of respondents in Louisiana blamed President Obama for the poor response following Hurricane Katrina. And just 28% blamed President Bush.

That’s right; more Louisianans think Obama was to blame for what happened after Katrina, apparently failing to realize the hurricane hit a full three years before Obama took office.

And possibly just as stupid: 44% said they weren’t sure who to blame.

Louisiana, you need to sit down.

Taos County, New Mexico began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples this week, making it the sixth county in the state to do so following Doña Ana, Santa Fe, Bernalillo, San Miguel, and Valencia.

That means that more than half of New Mexicans — 56.2% to be exact — now live in marriage equality counties.

The march goes on ….

So, before we left on vacation Carlos and I watched What’s Your Number with Ana Faris on the DVR. Funny, kinda raunchy; we liked it.

Of course, we also loved that Chris Evans appears either nude, in his underwear, or without a shirt quite a bit in the film. But he wasn’t the only Man Candy.

Anthony Mackie and Oliver Jackson-Cohen were also in the film, raising the heat Index a couple of notches.

Just sayin’.

Former Illinois Republican Party Chair Pat Brady, who resigned last May after being targeted by his own party for supporting marriage equality, has a new gig.

He’s been hired by the ACLU of Illinois to lobby state lawmakers — "Republicans and other like-minded folks, but primarily Republicans" —to back the bill.

Brady, who said this earlier this year, "Giving gay and lesbian couples the freedom to get married honors the best conservative principles. It strengthens families and reinforces a key Republican value - that the law should treat all citizens equally," admits it’s an uphill fight because some republicans face reelection next year.

Yeah, more concerned about their own reelection than about equality.

Way to go GOP.

And, speaking of the GOP and Marriage Equality — nice segue, eh? — there is a proposed amendment to the bylaws of the Alabama Republican Party would remove from the Party’s steering committee any member who publicly supports a position contrary to the most recent GOP platform, which was adopted during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Yes, in Alabama, if you disagree with the party platform, you’re out.

Party insiders say the proposed amendment was written as a direct result of comments made by current Alabama College Republicans Chairwoman Stephanie Petelos around the time the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. Petelos posted this to her Facebook page, “We just [love] freedom and fun. That’s all. Don’t hate.” And then encouraged her friends to “Like” a page for a pro-same-sex marriage group called “Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry.”

Petelos joined the group because she believes “all people deserve to be treated equally under the law.”

And now the Alabama GOP wants her out.

That darn GOP! So inclusive!

Ben Affleck as Batman? Oh hell-to-the-No.

Christian Bale is Batman; Affleck will take away the darker, brooding Batman, and make him more the comic cut-up Batman of the Keaton-Kilmer-Clooney years.

Seriously? Ben Affleck?

Y’all remember Daniel Hernandez Jr.? The former intern to Gabby Giffords who is credited with helping save her life when she was shot in 2011?

Now, Hernandez, an elected member of a Tucson-area school board, is facing a nasty recall election in which anonymous opponents are attacking him because he’s gay and because he works on behalf of gun violence prevention. But the tactics being used against Hernandez are sick and stupid, even for Arizona.

Apparently there are two flyers that Hernandez’s opponents are, ahem, ALLEGEDLY handing out to parents when they’re dropping their children off at schools in the district. The first attacks Hernandez for being openly gay, imploring, “Put a REAL Man on the Sunnyside Board...Daniel Hernandez is LGBT...We need someone who will support Sports and cares about our kids. We don’t need someone who hates our values.”

Yes. He’s gay so he’s not a real man; he’s gay so he knows nothing of sports.

Grow the eff up Arizona.

This one makes me giggle.

Fundamentalist Preacher Doug Seahorne wrote a book about child-rearing called Bible Principles of Child Discipline (from the book of Proverbs). In the pre-publication stage of his book, he looked for an image of that so-called wholesome American family to grace the cover and he Googled his search, finding what he deemed the perfect picture to embody the Biblical principles of disciplining one's child: a picture of a loving husband and wife with their two beautiful daughters and one adorable son.

Trouble is that Seahorne chose Modern Family's dysfunctional Dunphy family, who in addition to being the intellectual property of Disney, are probably not the Bible-thumping, praise Jesus, discipline your kids a la God family he intended.

And, when Seahorne learned of his error, he took to Facebook say he didn’t know the picture was from a “wicked TV show involving a gay couple!"

Wicked funny, Rev, wicked funny.

Then he excused himself because he hasn’t watched TV in 35 years and because he assumed results on Google Image Search were not copyrighted.

Perhaps the Pastor should join the rest of us in the 21st century?

Note to readers:

If you try to take that little piece of stonework on a plane with you, the TSA will stop you and search your bags.

Don’t believe me? Ask the still-trembling-as-his-bag-was-searched Carlos.

This past Tuesday on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club bigot, homophobe, idiot and dumbass Pat Robertson said that gay men in cities like San Francisco attempt to spread HIV/AIDS to others by cutting them with a special ring when shaking hands.

It all started with a question from a woman who wondered if her church should inform her that a man she was driving to worship services is “dying of AIDS.”

Robertson, who apparently hasn’t read anything on the topic in some 30 years, admitted that he “used to think it was transmitted by saliva and other things, now they say it may be sexual contact.” Then he added, and rightly so, “unless there’s a cut or some bodily fluid transmission, I think you’re not going to catch it.”

But he didn’t stop there: “There are laws now, I think the homosexual community has put these draconian laws on the books that prohibit people from discussing this particular affliction, you can tell somebody you had a heart attack, you can tell them they’ve got high blood pressure, but you can’t tell anybody you’ve got AIDS.”

His co-host Terry Meeuwsen tried to steer the conversation away from Robertson’s anti-gay paranoia, but then Pat Robertson began talking about the “special rings” that gay people use to spread HIV: “You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff they’ll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger. Really. It’s that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder.”

Yes, Christian Broadcasting Network employee Pat “Conspiracy theory” Robertson said that, and then CBN got to work, not reprimanding their paid Lunatic In Chief, but in removing any sign of the video from YouTube.

Robertson issued a non-apology, saying he “regret(s) that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said.” But, um, yeah, here is exactly what he said:

“I was asked by a viewer whether she had a right to leave her church because she had been asked to transport an elderly man who had AIDS and about whose condition she had not been informed. My advice was that the risk of contagion in those circumstances was quite low and that she should continue to attend the church and not worry about the incident.

In my own experience, our organization sponsored a meeting years ago in San Francisco where trained security officers warned me about shaking hands because, in those days, certain AIDS-infected activists were deliberately trying to infect people like me by virtue of rings which would cut fingers and transfer blood.”

Right in context.

SPECIAL EDITION: Tweets Of The Week

Granted, these were Tweets from last week, but gimme a break, y'all, I was outta town.

Actor Patton Oswalt decided to troll the Twitter-sphere and see what ruckus he could cause, and he caused quite a bit. it's all based on the limited number of characters per Tweet and how some long Tweets need to be split into two separate Tweets.

And how people can't read ....

People read this: