HEAR! HEAR!

There Is No Compassion In Conservatism
by Libby Post

In a stunning act of contrition, George W. Bush actually took responsibility for a job done poorly. For the first time in his presidency, he admitted the fallibility of the loose confederation of political cronies he calls his administration.

Poor George. There’s no “Mission Accomplished” photo op for him here. No battleship background with thousands of adoring naval boys cheering him on as he gives the nation a “thumbs up” on our fumbling war on terror.

Now the only backdrop for George is a devastated toxic hot-zone of a city where the mostly African-American poor were left to fight their own war on terror while George, Dick, Donald and Condoleeza all fiddled as New Orleans drowned. With his approval rating at below 40 percent, the nation is giving the Commander a “thumbs down.”

As he scurries to reclaim the dry ground and fend off the Herbert Hoover-type legacy that will be his presidency, Bush looks to neo-conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute for ideas on how to rebuild the Big Easy. These are the same folks who helped to shape his domestic policies-like dismantling Social Security and destroying the environment. But hey, why not leave the responsibility to rebuild in the hands of “private entrepreneurial activity and vision” as the Heritage Foundation’s website says. After all, if there’s a buck to be made, George’s friends will be there with their hands out for no-bid contracts just as they’re with us now to bank our hard-earned paychecks as we pay over $3.00 for a gallon of gas.

The federal response, or lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina exposes the dark reality of compassionate conservatism-it’s an oxymoron. George’s mom, Barbara, defined the contradiction in terms clearly and concisely when she toured Houston’s Astrodome and said “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this-this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

Perhaps Babs needs to spend a day in the shoes of one of the domestic refugees to see how well it’s really working. In fact, perhaps Momma Bush should try on Arpollo Vicks shoes. Vicks is a 20-year old, pre-op male to female transgender person who was arrested for using the women’s shower at an emergency shelter at Texas A&M University’s Reed Arena.

A substitute teacher at a New Orleans middle school, Vicks told officials she felt safer using the women’s showers, I assume to avoid the possibility of harassment and violence if she used the men’s shower. Their response was to charge Vicks with criminal trespass and throw her into an isolation cell in the Brazos County jail for six days. Katrina left her with no money and no way to get any so she couldn’t pay her $6,000 bail. When she was finally allowed to use the phone, she made a collect call to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organization.

Rest assured, the University heard a Texas-sized mouthful from HRC, the National Center for Transgendered Equality and others. Vicks was released Friday afternoon without an apology for making her a two time victim of Hurricane Katrina.

I invite Momma Bush to try on the shoes of any gay or lesbian domestic refugee who is kept out of or mistreated by a shelter or other facility because of her or his sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status. Or walk in the shoes of those who lost a partner and will be denied Social Security survivor benefits because our relationships are not recognized. Or in the small shoes of the child of a deceased l/g/b/t adoptive or birth parent who is taken away from the surviving non-adoptive or non-biological parent because there is no legal relationship between them. The list of possible shoes to fill is quite lengthy.

But instead of really feeling anyone’s pain, Momma Bush, Baby Bush and all the yes men and women who surround him, will continue to feign empathy while trying to blind us all with the brilliance of their new thousand points of light. What they don’t realize is that their brand of light exposes an emperor with no clothes and the nation is ready to change the bulb.

Send Gays to Combat, Then Fire Their Asses!

This shouldn't really come as any huge surprise. Having served 16 years on active duty and 8 years in the reserves, I found this noteworthy. We'll keep gays on active duty if their unit is going to be mobilized/deployed but, after the unit returns, we'll discharge them and, in some cases, they're released WITHOUT an honorable discharge.

I'm sorry, but if we're good enough to stay on active duty and fight and die for this country, then we're damn well good enough to stay on active duty and serve during peacetime, too.

This "regulation" actually came about during the Clinton era...

(Santa Barbara, California) Scholars studying military personnel policy have discovered a document halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized.

The document was made public Tuesday by Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was found during research for a story for the ABC news program Nightline.

The regulation was contained in a 1999 "Reserve Component Unit Commander's Handbook" and is still in effect, according to the Center.

It states that if a discharge for homosexual conduct is requested "prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit."

The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. According to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the country is at war.

Gay soldiers and legal groups have reported for years that known gays are sent into combat, and then discharged when the conflicts end. Discharge statistics corroborate a pattern of rising expulsions during peacetime and plummeting rates during military conflicts, and Pentagon statistics confirm that, as has been the case in every war since World War II, gay discharges have declined during the current conflict in the Middle East.

But the Pentagon has consistently denied that, when mobilization requires bolstering troop strength, it sends gays to fight despite the existence of a gay ban, and some observers have insisted there is no evidence of such a practice. During the first Gulf War, Pentagon spokesman, Bill Caldwell, said the military would "absolutely not" send gays to war and discharge them when the conflict ends.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman said that the military was not modifying its regulations on gay troops. And a May, 2005 study by the Congressional Research Service says that although gay discharges do decline during wartime, the decrease is the result of .random fluctuations in the data," not an intentional Pentagon policy of retaining gays during wars".

Meanwhile, the Pentagon acknowledged Tuesday that it would again fail to meet its monthly recruiting goal and for the first time since 1999 would not meet its goal for the year.

In July, the the Williams Project at the UCLA School of Law issued a report showing that if the ban on gays serving openly were lifted the military would gain 41,000 troops.

Especially in the wake of Katrina, as some have concluded that a National Guard stretched thin by deployments abroad was limited in its ability to respond to a catastrophe here at home, the added strength of more than 40,000 recruits has the potential of making a significant difference," Steve Ralls, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network told 365Gay.com.

"And, as we've seen Coast Guardsmen rescuing the trapped in New Orleans, it begs the question: Did those being rescued really care about the sexual orientation of those men and women who came to save them?

"Now - especially now - the Army needs every recruit it can find. Not only for war operations abroad, but for rescue missions here at home, too. If ever there was a wake-up call about the need for qualified people on the ground, it came last week in New Orleans."

National Guard spread too thin? That's because they're no longer guarding the nation! They're getting their asses shot off overseas.

Pictures of Chimpy

Sometimes pictures just speak for themselves -- A Scottish news broadcast regarding Katrina, or is it REALLY regarding Katrina ?

Excuse me, your stupidity is showing!

Somebody has to tell me if we're supposed to be taking these guys seriously, or if they've got a great comedy team working for them.

Pat Robertson opens mouth, inserts foot...

"Put on an act so we can get anti-gay laws passed"

Focus on the Family is telling anti-gay pastors, ministers, etc. to basically put on an act so that they can get gay rights turned back. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just another form of lying?

(Portland, Maine) Pastors opposed to the state's gay rights law are being advised to tone down their condemnation of homosexuality and focus as much on love and support as on sin and scripture.

Haley and Melissa Fryrear from Focus on the Family have urged a meeting of about 200 leaders from Maine's evangelical community to stop quoting Leviticus, which refers to gay sex as an ''abomination," and to avoid sayings like, ''Love the sinner, hate the sin."

They encouraged "balance" in churches, communities, and public policy debates.

That balance could be key for Maine's Christian conservatives trying to win support for a November ballot question. They hope to overturn a state law that would outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A righteous or hateful tone could steer undecided voters away, while one of kindness and compassion could help win supporters, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine.

''You have to avoid coming off in any way as hateful," Brewer said. ''If they can't do that, they won't succeed."

Gay rights advocates question how much love and support conservative Christians can muster while they condemn same-sex relationships as morally wrong.

Jesse Connolly of Maine Won't Discriminate, the campaign to add sexual orientation to the Maine Human Rights Act, questioned how much love and support exist in an effort by conservative Christians trying to stop a law that would ensure that people can keep their jobs, apartments, or lines of credit.

''If there was compassion in what they talk about, they would be on our side," Connolly said.

Christian conservatives in Maine have swayed voters on the antidiscrimination measure before. Mainers in 1998 sided with conservative religious groups and repealed a law that would have outlawed discrimination against gays. Two years later, lawmakers did not pass the measure, but asked voters to decide. Mainers rejected it in a close vote.

The most recent dispute over the antidiscrimination law started last spring. The Legislature enacted the law, but conservative Christians led a drive that gathered enough signatures to force a vote in November.

Colin Lemont of Calvary Bible Baptist Church in Whitefield said he hopes Focus on the Family's message will help to keep the campaign from becoming nasty and divisive. ''That really needs to become a key component through this whole debate and process," Lemont said

Weld says same-sex marriage "offends New Yorkers"


Former Massachusetts governor William Weld said Thursday that he doesn't want to be addressed as "Governor Weld" anymore—unless he wins New York's gubernatorial election next year. "I plan to run as 'Mister,' if I can make that stick, to emphasize that I've got to earn this," he said after his first meeting with state Republican Party officials vetting the candidates.

Weld said his closed-door session with state GOP chairman Stephen Minarik and several county chairs at a Rockland County hotel was "low-key." But Minarik and Erie County chairman Robert Davis were enthusiastic.

Half a dozen other potential candidates were interviewed, as were all the GOP candidates for U.S. Senate. Weld said the party chairs asked him about his positions on several issues and that his support for abortion rights is "not everybody's dish of tea." But he told them he also favors a ban on what anti-abortion activists call "partial-birth abortion," sees no need to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, and, although he supports "100% equality of rights," he would not favor same-sex marriage because the idea offends many New Yorkers.

The Republican nominee is expected to face Democratic state attorney general Eliot Spitzer, and in the last reported poll Spitzer led Weld 56% to 19%. (AP)

Hmmmm....

I wonder, then, if he supports legislation to make body odor illegal, punishable by heavy fine and possible imprisonment. That's offensive, isn't it?

How about bad breath? Listerine or Leavenworth...

I'm sure he'll support legislation that would make it a punishable offense to drop the "F" bomb in public, as it is truly offensive to Christians and people with small children.

What a putz....

Arnold Vetoed the Bill

Not surprising that the Governator vetoed the bill. I suppose, if I really TRY to stand back and look at it objectively, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. This bill DOES, in fact, go against what the voters put into effect with Proposition 22, but then again, any real American would realize that civil rights have NEVER been won through popular vote. That's the part that I don't get, the part where people think it's okay for the majority of the voters to vote to deprive a minority of ANYTHING, whether it's basic civil rights, or anything else. What the majority has, all should have. That IS the concept behind equality, isn't it? The voting process was never meant for the majority to oppress the minority. It's a sad day when America at large forgets that concept.

In other news, our union ratified our new contract, and domestic partner benefits have been included for health and dental insurance. One has to wonder if the employer was anxious to strike that deal, with our lawsuit looming over their heads. What amazes me is that some people just don't seem to GET IT, when they ask "What's the difference? You've got your domestic partner benefits."

Well, here's the difference. Let's say health insurance costs $500 a month for a family plan. Mr. and Mrs. Smith get that $500 a month paid and the amount of their tax liability on that benefit is zero. When I put Lisa on my health insurance, the amount of MY tax liaibility is going to be on that $500. Yes, that $500 becomes a compensation amount, but the hetero couple's does not.

Our contract is good for 5 years, but what happens at the end of that five years? What if the employer says "Heck, that cost us WAYYYY too much, so we're not going to agree to that again?" Do you think they'd do that for hetero spouses and family members?

This is why it's important to continue through with our lawsuit. Not to mention the fact that there's still the past denial of benefits. In the meantime, we're going to enjoy the benefits that were granted in the new contract. Lisa can go off her employer's plan and her paycheck will go back up. We'll get a 3% pay raise, retroactive to September 1st, and I'm going to "downgrade" our health insurance plan to one with the exact same coverage, but with a higher co-pay for doctor's visits. In the long run, it should save us abot $400-500 in the coming year. That should pay the taxes on the benefit.

Overall, New York State is making some positive strides, but I worry that those strides will be diluted or even canceled out if Chimpy gets his way with the Supreme Court. Talk about setting civil rights back 50 years or so...