Category: Rambling

It seems that there really and truly is one. Not the joke one (which I found a looong, quite Queeny version and finally the shorter, better version) but a real one.

I started some research because I once again saw that phrase “gay agenda” and wanted to know more about it.

I did a Google search. There’s a news clearing house place called Gay Agenda, by the way.

Next was Wikipedia with an article titled “homosexual agenda“. That’s where I hit pay dirt. It was first used in 1992 so it is a fairly new term and has been used a lot since then. But I was really intrigued by this:

In 2003 Alan Sears and Craig Osten, president and vice-president of the Alliance Defense Fund, an American conservative Christian non-profit organization, offered another characterization:

It is an agenda that they basically set in the late 1980s, in a book called After the Ball,[15] where they laid out a six-point plan for how they could transform the beliefs of ordinary Americans with regard to homosexual behavior — in a decade-long time frame…. They admit it privately, but they will not say that publicly. In their private publications, homosexual activists make it very clear that there is an agenda. The six-point agenda that they laid out in 1989 was explicit:

1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible(…)
2. Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers(…)
3. Give homosexual protectors a just cause(…)
4. Make gays look good(…)
5. Make the victimizers look bad(…)
6. Get funds from corporate America(…)[1]

After the Ball[15] is a book published in 1989 by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. It argues that after the gay liberation phase of the 1970s and 1980s, gay rights groups should adopt more professional public relations techniques to convey their message. It was published by Doubleday and was generally available.

According to a Christian Broadcasting Network article by Paul Strand, Sears and Osten argue that After the Ball follows from “a 1988 summit of gay leaders in Warrenton, Virginia, who came together to agree on the agenda” and that

“the two men (Kirk and Madsen) proposed using tactics on ‘straight’ America that are remarkably similar to the brainwashing methods of Mao Tse-Tung’s Communist Chinese — mixed with Madison Avenue’s most persuasive selling techniques.”[16]

(source)

There is a real agenda. A 6-point list and everything! How cool is that!

But there’s a problem. If that is “our” agenda, it is kinda boring. I mean, isn’t that what religious groups have been doing for eons? Can’t we come up with something more original? Replace ‘gay’ with ‘Christian’ or ‘Baptist’ and you’ve got what I was being taught by the Baptist Student Union way back in ’85. (golly, that was nearly 25 yrs ago! i am so old)

I have a theory. Ready for it?

I think that as long as we LGBTQ folks keep being wusses, we ain’t ever gonna get civil rights. We keep trying one state at a time, quietly, somberly, accepting defeat after defeat. Sure, there’s civilized protests, there’s crying, there’s bitching and moaning. But there’s no real action. We need to be uncivilized. We need to stop crying, bitching, and moaning and DO something.

What if folks had voted to take blacks’ right to vote away? What if they were given that right only to lose it again, gain it again, lose it here and gain it there? Do you think for one single second they would be raising money for the next attempt? Making YouTube videos and Twitter-ing? Hell to the no! There’d be riots, protests, screaming anger in the streets. Blacks gained their rights because they truly believed they were entitled to them. As a group, they’d had enough and fought. Where’s the gay version of King? Of Rosa Parks? Of even Malcom X? Where’s our Maya Angelou? Our Jackie Robinson?

We queers need another Stonewall. We need another riot in the streets. We need to stand up and shout. Loudly. We need to come out of the closets and make our real numbers known. If every person who was truly gay were to wake up in the morning with purple skin, I betcha there’d be some changes. We wouldn’t be able to hide anymore. Our Clark Kent Cloak would be gone and we’d be forced to DO something. With hiding comes the luxury of civility and silence. We can’t afford either of those anymore.

There are groups out there who are Doing. There’s Soulforce but, bless their hearts, they are just too polite even while being arrested. UFMCC had great potential to do more but lacked the initiative gumption care balls/ovaries. (noooo, I’m not still bitter and angry)

Our agenda is wrong. If it is true that they come up with this Great Plan, then they must be have thought it would not take this long. ‘Cause it ain’t working. It is too gentle. It set the stage for us to continue to be gentle and polite and oh so civilized. We need to stop doing that. We need some queen to smack a cop with her purse again. We need a dyke to get fed up with being screamed at by women in the ladies room thinking she’s a guy. We need to put down the Wall Street Journal and take up the On Our Backs. We need to turn the television off of L Word and go outside to the Real World. We need to stop planning and be spontaneous. We need to stop blending in and stand out.

We need another Stonewall.

Got another one today from a well meaning friend. I like her a lot which is why I am gentler with her than I am with other people who send me such stuff.

You get an email that says “X is free if you…” or “send this to everyone you know!” or “send this to X # of people and…”. And it sounds good. Real good. Something in you wants to hit the FWD button in your email program. If this is you, STOP.

First thing you do is go to Snopes.com and look it up. Or do a simple Google search. In this case, I searched for “Ericsson T18 & R320 laptop promotion“. Yes, I already knew it was a hoax but I needed linkages. Oh, and both the “free” laptops? They’re cell phones. Old ones, too.

A few seconds will save yourself embarrassment and will help stop spam.

In the email I got today from my friend, there was even a statement that said “I did check it with Snopes and it is legit”. Don’t believe it. If a promotion needs such a statement, then it probably is false.

You know an email’s claims are a hoax if:

1. There are more than 2 FWDs in the subject line.
2. There are more than 3 exclamation points in the subject line and more than 3 in the post itself. (Unless they are really excited to get an A on that math test, delete it.)
3. More than 2 words in all caps. THIS IS REAL!!!! THIS IS NOT A HOAX!!!!!!!!
4. Tells you to send it to everyone you know.
5. Tells you to send it to X number of people and something great will happen.
6. Tells you to “keep this email going!!!!!!!”.
7. Offers you something free or something free will come to you if you do what the email says.
8. Says some sick kid wants X number of emails/cards/phone calls so he can get money to cure him of his cancer.

Just keep in mind that no business will give away free things based on number of emails you send; there’s no way to trace how many times or how long or how often an email is sent in order for something to happen to you or for you; and while our hearts go out to sick kids, puppies, and veterans, they gain nothing from forwarded emails.

Two final things: if you absolutely cannot resist forwarding an email, leave my name off of it and/or delete all the other forwarded addresses in the body of the email.

I see gender as one’s physical design. I see sex as being, well, what we do with that physical design. However, I also see gender as a thing of society, not a more simple thing of science.

Male is a gender with a penis, scrotum, and a ton of testosterone. Female is a gender with ovaries, uterus, and a lot of estrogen. Basically. But like gender and sex, male and female are not always that well defined.

I bring this up because of Caster Semenya, the 18 yr old African athlete who is going through something no 18 yr old should have to face. Her gender is being publicly examined, twisted, ridiculed, and discussed across the globe.

It all started when Semenya won the world championship for the 200m race. Several other athletes decided that the huge margin in time (I think it was nearly 2 minutes) meant that Semenya was actually a male. Not that she is an extraordinary athlete, no, that would have been too much into the spirit of the true competition.

And she’s just 18.

When babies are born, doctors look at one place on the body and announce boy or girl. The parents take that infant home and raise it according to what the doctor pronounced. Pink vs blue. Sometimes, a doctor looks and sees something different, something that is part one and part the other. If the infant’s anatomy contains some of this and some of that, the term is “intersex” (hermaphroditic is considered an incorrect term and is no longer used).

There’s a wonderful article on Medhelp.org that refers to another in Semenya’s shoes, María José Martínez Patiño. The article describes, in decent English, how a fetus becomes male or female. It also mentions a syndrome called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Maria Patino isn’t the only female athlete to face this condition. With a statistic of 1 in 20,000 births, it is not *that* uncommon. In 2006, Santhi Soundarajan, an athlete from India, faced the same scrutiny. The article says this (bolding is mine):

Since testosterone helps in building muscle and strength, an AIS case would not give an XY female athlete any kind of competitive advantage.

Seven of the eight women who tested positive for Y chromosones during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics had AIS. They were allowed to compete.

We can hope that this is what will happen to Semenya. That she will be allowed to keep her medal. But whether or not she will be allowed to compete again? Who knows. I hope they choose well.

Oh! Almost forgot!

Caster Semenya won the 800 metres race in style. The defending world champion came in second, and a full two minutes behind the speedster, Semenya. Semenya got the gold and some tongues began to wag. First they tested her for drugs and discovered to their chagrin that she was as clean as an unused whistle. Next they decided to confirm whether she was actually a woman.

(…)

At this point I expected women rights group to be up in arms, fighting for Semenya and stopping men from laying claim to one of their own. Whatever happened to the women who proclaimed in the streets and on the hilltops that whatever a man can do a woman can do even better? Here was Semenya trying to prove that, and the wicked men stopped her. And the women yawned and looked idly away.

Now take the case of Usain Bolt. Like Semenya, Bolt left the other men in the 100 and 200 metres races gasping for breath and looking at the back of his head. Even Michael Johnson, an Olympic medalist, has described him as a freak of nature. Bolt was tested for drugs and he came out clean. And the old school folks in IAAF rested the matter there and went their sloppy way.

And this sucks plenty because the treatment of Bolt is not fair (not fair at all) to Semenya. Have they thought of testing Bolt to see whether he is half animal and half man? No. Yet if you look at Bolt very closely, he would remind you of the last time you saw a horse. Why have they not tested him to find out whether he is more of a horse than a man? My submission is that the man has dual -species status ” he is part horse and part man. Yet IAAF is minded to allow this horse -man keep running and stop Semenya from running.

(source)

Okay, here I go.

First we have Michael Vick who was a quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons. As a side note, I’ve never liked Vick and have never ever liked the Falcons. No real reason why for the Falcons but I’ve not liked Vick’s showoffy style or the concept it was a good thing that quarterbacks have almost as many run yards per games as their best rusher. But back to the topic: Vick spent 18mos (1.5 yrs) in prison for animal cruelty (or whatever the final charge was). He spent SIX years funding dog fights as well as torturing and killing dogs that did not win. Did I mention he was in this business for SIX years? He did not admit guilt until every available finger had pointed to him. None of the statements I have read mention that he knows TORTURING and KILLING the dogs was a bad thing. I’ve gotten the impression he thinks funding the dog fights was wrong. From the Wikipedia article, he gave conflicting information to the feds as well as never admitted to torturing/killing dogs. Did I mention he was doing this for SIX years? Vick was suspended by the NFL while he was in prison but has been allowed back on an allegedly tentative basis. The Philadelphia Eagles has signed him to a one year contract. Vick based his initial bankruptcy plan on being picked up by a team. I was thrilled when the first judge said “Nope, come up with another one that includes, say, selling things that you have like cars and a house or two.” To Vick, it is all about money. Who cares about the dogs he tortured and killed for SIX years. It’s the money. Funding dog fights is a big business as is any gambling trade. He had to have made a lot of money during those SIX years. He says he made a mistake and I say that surely to shit in those SIX years you didn’t once sit back and say “Ya know, I make more money in the NFL and if they find out about this, I could lose that money….” But I’m thinking that if it did occur to him at any point, he continued the self-conversation with: “Nah, I’m Mike Vick! I’m the best quarterback ever! The great Tony Dungy will wipe my ass for me if I am caught so it’s all good. Hand me the cattle prod.”

Next up is Donte’ Stallworth who is (was?) a receiver for the Cleveland Browns. (I’ve never forgiven the Browns for refusing to build a new stadium, losing their team because of it, then building a new stadium in order to get another one. And I’ve never forgiven the NFL for letting them have another team) Stallworth has plead guilty to a manslaughter charge of hitting a pedestrian with his car. Stallworth never left the scene, never tried to get out of the charge, settled with the family out of court, admitted on the scene to have been drinking, and basically has done all he can to face his mistake. He is currently suspended by the NFL.

Next up is Plaxico Burress, formerly of the Giants. Burress is a mess and is now about to start 2 yrs in prison on a gun possession charge. His base idiocy is first revealed in that he goes to a nightclub with a Glock pistol tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants. Not in his pocket, but tucked into the waistband. Second, the gun starts to fall down (imagine that!) and the idiot grabs the gun, hits the trigger and shoots himself in the leg. So not only did he have a gun tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants (you know, those things held up with a string?), he didn’t have the fucking safety on! Burress was released by the Giants back in April.

So there’s 3 players. You can guess on my feelings of Vick’s reinstatement by the NFL. It’s all about money. And given the attitude he had when he got out of prison, I’d bet money he got a lot of special treatment while in prison. He had all that time with a captive fan base. I feel very sorry for Stallworth. One mistake has one guy dead and another guy that probably should be put on suicide watch. But that’s the thing with drinking and driving. It only takes that one time, that one second less of response time, and someone is dead. As for Burress, he’s an idiot. A big heavy pistol in your sweatpants? Maybe he thought since cops do it on TV all the time, then he could, too.

It all comes down to money and players in the NFL are being paid too much, especially rookie players. Unlike other jobs, it isn’t often that an NFL player has to work their way up to get the big bucks. A kid fresh out of college with their BA in accounting isn’t hired to run a Fortune 500 company. They’ve not learned true responsibility, learned how to live in the world (such as pay bills on time and be how to spend responsibly), or gotten experience. But the NFL allows teams to pay kids big bucks when they’ve not proven their worth to the team or to themselves.

In Newport News, mentors and others working with underprivileged youth sought to identify lessons to communicate to those who had seen him as a role model. “It’s difficult, because Mike (Vick) is someone who we held up as doing it right,” Bernard Johnson told the Newport News Daily Press. Johnson, who has coached kids, including Vick, in the Boys and Girls Club football program for 28 years, said the lesson to kids now is all about responsibility and accountability.[144]

After he apologized to the judge, his family and his children at his federal sentencing hearing on December 10, Judge Hudson stated:

“I think you should have apologized also to the millions of young people who look up to you.”[145]

(source)