Arnold's bad ideas go down to defeat

The Sacramento Bee reports that Prop 75 is trailing 53.0% to 47.0%, with 95% of precincts reporting, in California. This is the bill that would essentially have stripped public employees' unions of their power to influence state politics - an incredibly mean-spirited and unfair proposal. The teachers' unions, in particular, increased their dues in an extremely expensive campaign against the proposal.

All of Arnold's other bad ideas were defeated, too, as was Prop 73, which would have made it harder for pregnant teens to get abortions.

Letter to Harry Reid

Dear Senator Reid,

I am a gay American and a contributor to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

Having just received a fundraising letter you sent on behalf of Bob Casey's campaign for Senate, I want to thank you for mentioning gay rights prominently in your letter.

Admittedly, I shouldn't really have to thank you for this, since Santorum's views on gay rights are so radically out of step with the mainstream. But given the Democrats' tendency to leave gay Americans to fend for ourselves when push comes to shove, I want to give credit where credit is due.

I hope Senator Kennedy won't be the only member of the Judiciary Committee to bring up the topic of gay rights during the upcoming confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito, as he was during the recent Roberts hearings. And I hope and expect that in the coming years, more of your colleagues will stand up for marriage equality in the coming year than have done so until now.

Please continue to speak up for folks like me.

Massachusetts - where gay marriage is the status quo

I just edited a sentence the Wikipedia entry on same-sex marriage in the United States.

BEFORE: "The same political and legal events also gave rise to
a counter movement to freeze the status quo by legally
defining traditional marriage, the marriage of one woman to
one man."

AFTER: "The same political and legal events also gave rise to
a counter movement to legally define traditional marriage, the
marriage of one woman to one man, thus freezing the status quo
in the 49 states without same-sex marriage and reversing the
2003 court ruling, Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of
Public Health, that legalized it in that state."

Dear Anonymous

Thank you for your interest in my blog. Would you like to share your first name and where you're calling from?

Some quick thoughts:
- The spelling is "Roe."
- My understanding is that while Justice Kennedy won't vote to overturn Roe, and thus in a technical sense you are correct, he would uphold very severe restrictions that would make abortions very difficult to obtain. Many states have various restrictions on access to abortion that are
- Everyone is concerned about Roe because the abortion debate, which has been a major fault line in the past qurater century of American political history, grew up in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's finding that states may not interfere with a woman's right to choose whether to end her pregnancy.

"Rich women will fly to California; poor women will use Cytotec."

That is, if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

But first: Miers Led Bid to Revisit Abortion Stance. The role of Bush's new Supreme Court nominee in leading an effort to change the ABA's stance on abortion is self-explanatory and cause for concern, though she was one of several involved in the effort, and it doesn't by any means make clear her own views on Roe v. Wade or the right to privacy. On the other hand, the more vocal factions of the right wing are pissed as hell. They wanted someone with a track record of fanaticism, and this lady ain't it.

Miers is, like Condoleezza Rice, single and childless, which frankly is a welcome contrast to John Roberts' Leave it to Beaver style. I have to say that having run the Texas Lottery Commission sounds a bit like having run a horse association (though Miers was successful in that job instead of fired from it). Miers apparently was running Bush's search for an associate justice, just as Dick Cheney was running his search for a running mate back in 2000. This guy likes to appoint people he already knows.

I guess my tentative thought about Miers is that we could have done much, much worse. An unknown is realistically not so bad for us. I couldn't help but crack a smile when I read in the Times that the Miers nomination reflects a president "struggling to avoid premature lame duck status." We're not in January 2004 anymore, Toto.

Oh: and I was, on balance, glad to see the Times article "Abortion Might Outgrow Its Need for Roe v. Wade". Yes, it may have minimized the potentially devastating consequences of a reversal on reproductive rights. But at least it's taking that possibility seriously instead of pretending we aren't faced with it. And it's of course true that we would not see a return to pre-1973 conditions simply because of changes in the available drugs and medical technologies. The article quotes an Arkansas abortion provider who predicts, "Rich women will fly to California; poor women will use Cytotec."

Thank you, Bob Herbert

"You never want to say that brave troops died for the mindless fantasies spun by a gang of dissembling, inept politicians. But what else did they die for?"

[please note you now have to be a paying "Times Select" subscriber to view columns]

Honoring elders

Here's me with Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon at the Gerber-Hart annual benefit tonight, which this year celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Daughters of Bilitis.

"For G.O.P., DeLay Indictment Adds to a Sea of Troubles"

"This is not what the Republicans envisioned 11 months ago, when they were returned to office as a powerful one-party government with a big agenda and - it seemed - little to fear from the opposition."

So sorry, but...we deserve this. And they deserve this.

I just went online and gave $100 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. You should too. It's early, but giving early means more credibility for them.

A yes on Roberts is not the only "right vote"

I'm tired of having letters not printed, so here they are.

---

September 24, 2005

To: the Washington Post

While I agree with your view that there should not be a
"strongly partisan component" to the Supreme Court
confirmation process, I think you are missing a critical
factor in the decision of five of the eight Democrats on the
Senate Judiciary Committee to vote against the nomination of
Judge John Roberts for Chief Justice ("The Right Vote," Sept.
24). That factor is President Bush's broader relationship to
the judiciary, a record of genuinely unprecedented partisanship.

Judge Roberts is a qualified nominee with decades of excellent
service to his corporate and Republican Party clients, but he
has limited experience as a judge and simply has not faced a
range of cases approaching that which he will encounter if he
spends the foreseeable future leading the judicial branch.
The current Republican assault on the independent judiciary is
so dangerous to the nation's legal system that I find it easy
to understand the Democrats' reluctance to confirm a candidate
for Chief Justice with no discernible track record and no
professed views on the most important issues.

Your editorial complains that Democrats "will oppose any
nominee from this administration" and that the pressure from
liberal lobbying groups is "truly intense." By contrast, I am
impressed that leaders of nonprofit organizations that work on
behalf of civil rights, consumers, women, gays and lesbians,
immigration rights, disability rights, environmentalism, and
public-interest law have finally managed to persuade our party
to stand up for us. President Bush should not appoint another
stealth candidate for the Court's second opening.

---

Friday, September 2, 2005
To: Time Magazine
Subject: President feels pain...of those overpaying for gas?

You say that Bush "stumbles in his initial handling" of the
crisis in New Orleans, but "has a history of righting itself"
(Sept. 1). That's like saying that Janet Reno "stumbled" in
responding to Waco. President Bush's speech Thursday was
astonishing---with his palpable sympathy toward those of us
paying fifty cents extra for gas, and his profound lack of
basic compassion for Americans living without food, water, or
sanitation. For Bush to say on national television that help
is on the way, "but the private sector needs to do its part as
well," goes beyond abdicating leadership; it is obscene. I
feel ill imagining Karl Rove's efforts to arrange a Friday
photo op in New Orleans.

[That one produced a letter back the next day saying basically "we paid attention to your letter and we are thinking of maybe printing it but we're not sure yet."]

---

Monday, August 29, 2005
To: the New York Times
Subject: Women's peace activism is nothing new

In her timely look at the role of mothers in the resurgent
antiwar movement, Elisabeth Bumiller is right to point out
that in Vietnam, “the demonstrations were largely led by young
men, who were subject to the draft” ("In the Struggle Over the
Iraq War, Women are On the Front Line," Aug. 29). But when
she attributes this “striking change" to events that have
"happened in 40 years," Bumiller would do well to brush up on
her history.

Women were highly influential peace activists in the World War
I era. The first Congressional vote cast by a woman was
Jeannette Rankin’s vote against entering World War I, at a
time before federal woman suffrage. Rankin cast the only vote
in Congress against World War II; she went on, at age 88, to
lead over 5,000 women in a 1968 march on Washington against
the Vietnam War.

Massachusetts lawmakers have changed their minds

Today, 6,500 marriages later, the Massachusetts legislature defeated by a stunning 4-to-1 margin the "compromise" constitutional amendment that it narrowly passed last year, which would simultaneously ban gay marriage and create civil unions. Many legislators who voted for the amendment last year say that they've simply changed their minds in the past year.

Because the measure did not pass the legislature two years in a row, it WILL NOT go to the voters next year. The religious right is now collecting signatures in an effort to get an amendment banning both gay marriage and civil unions on the ballot in 2008 - when thousands of same-sex couples will be celebrating their fifth wedding anniversaries.

Wednesday vote may doom MA marriage ban effort

Same-sex marriage may stay legal in Massachusetts (The Advocate)

A fragile coalition of lawmakers cobbled together to support a Massachusetts constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is falling apart, virtually assuring that for now same-sex marriage will remain legal in the state, according to an Associated Press poll. The survey, conducted September 6–9, found at least 104 lawmakers who plan to vote against the proposed amendment, which would ban same-sex marriage but create civil unions.

Levee funds diverted to Iraq

The following are excerpts from an article by Sheila Grissett published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004:

For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade.

"I guess people look around and think there's a complete system in place, that we're just out here trying to put icing on the cake," said Mervin Morehiser, who manages the "Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity" levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers. "And we aren't saying that the sky is falling, but people should know that this is a work in progress, and there's more important work yet to do before there is a complete system in place."

...

"I can't tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season if we get a major storm," Naomi said. "It would depend on the path and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us.

"But I can tell you that we would be better off if the levees were raised, . . . and I think it's important and only fair that those people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects."

...

The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration's $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn't get paid this year."

...

The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

...

Levee-raising is only part of the flood-related work that has stopped since the federal government began reducing Corps of Engineers appropriations in 2001, as more money was diverted to homeland security, the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.

More articles from before Katrina:

Repair the marshlands or rebuild New Orleans, Rocky Mountain News, July 16, 2005


New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces record $71.2 million federal cut, New Orleans City Business, June 6, 2005

Coastal advocates dismayed by Bush's opposition, The Courier (Houma, La.), sometime in 2004

See also these stories posted since Katrina:

No one can say they didn't see it coming, on Salon, August 31 (this is an excellent article, well worth the commercial required of non-subscribers)

Funding cuts led way to lesser levees, Chicago Tribune, August 31

Intricate flood protection long a focus of dispute, NYT, September 1

And search for the latest on levees on Google News

Bush's vacation and New Orleans' poor

...this seems like the wrong moment to dwell on fault-finding, or even to point out that it took what may become the worst natural disaster in American history to pry President Bush out of his vacation. All the focus now must be on rescuing the survivors. Beyond that lies a long and painful recovery, which must begin with a national vow to help all the storm victims and to save and repair New Orleans.

People who think of that graceful city and the rest of the Mississippi Delta as tourist destinations must have been reminded, watching the rescue operations, that the real residents of this area are in the main poor and black. The only resources most of them will have to fall back on will need to come from the federal government. (NYT)

In a society hooked on access to instant and overwhelming quantities of information, it was remarkable how much was unknown about the scope of the disaster wreaked by Katrina; the storm had simply destroyed much of the information network. More often than not, calls to southern Louisiana were answered by a polite recording saying that hurricane damage had rendered telephone service impossible. In most of the storm-socked area, there was no power to run computers, much less pumps to remove the water. The Times-Picayune, New Orleans's main newspaper, was doing a heroic job of covering the crisis until suddenly, at 9:40 yesterday morning, its entire staff had to evacuate the building to flee the rising waters coming through breached levees. On CNN, harried reporters told their anchors on camera that they didn't know much more than what they could see from the hotel rooftops on which they had taken refuge. (WaPo)

Roberts and civil rights

Today's Washington Post:

In the early 1980s, a young intellectual lawyer named John G. Roberts Jr. was part of the vanguard of a conservative political revolution in civil rights, advocating new legal theories and helping enforce the Reagan administration's effort to curtail the use of courts to remedy racial and sexual discrimination....

He wrote vigorous defenses, for example, of the administration's version of a voting rights bill, opposed by Congress, that would have narrowed the reach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He challenged arguments by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in favor of busing and affirmative action. He described a Supreme Court decision broadening the rights of individuals to sue states for civil rights violations as causing "damage" to administration policies, and he urged that legislation be drafted to reverse it. And he wrote a memo arguing that it was constitutionally acceptable for Congress to strip the Supreme Court of its ability to hear broad classes of civil rights cases.

The Hazards of Being Male

[---the titles of an early-1970s anti-women's lib tract]

I just got back from the FedEx facility in Skokie, where I picked up my new cell phone - replaced under warranty - after three days of phone calls and mutually exclusive explanations from FedEx about why they had not delivered it. Since a signature was required, I had had it shipped c/o the feminist bookstore across the street.

During the final round of phone calls this morning before I decided to get in my car to pick up the damn thing, the FedEx manager in Skokie told me that she "understood," based on her conversation with the first person who answered the phone before she spoke to a manager, that the bookstore "has no male employees." Therefore, she was planning to send the package back to Verizon unless I could give her a plausible explanation of why I was sending the package to the bookstore. I am not making this up.

Granted, the person who answered the phone is partly to blame, and it seems to me that the bookstore's non-hierarchical staffing structure probably did not help ensure that I'd get my phone. But the FedEx person, because I was male, actually made me go across the street while she called up the bookstore and heard them state that yes I am a regular customer and yes they should release the package to me.

Crackdown

The general manager of the chorus was arrested for dealing crystal meth. Yikes.

"I'm coming day and night"

I just watched Pumping Iron, the 1977 documentary that made Arnold Schwarzenegger famous. Here are my favorite things Arnold had to say:

1. "The greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in a gym, is the pump. Let’s say you train your biceps; blood is rushing into your muscles, and that’s what we call the pump. Your muscles get a really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute - you know, it's really tight, it’s like somebody blowing air into your muscle. It just blows up and it feels different. It feels fantastic. It’s as satisfying to me as coming - you know, as having sex with a woman and coming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like getting the feeling of coming in the gym, I'm getting the feeling of coming at home, I'm getting the feeling of coming backstage when I pump up, when I pose out in front of 5,000 people I get the same feeling. So I'm coming day and night. I mean, it’s terrific, right?"

2. "I was always dreaming about very powerful people, dictators and things like that. I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years, you know - or even, like Jesus you know, being for thousands of years remembered."

Calling all Democrats: it's Roe v. Wade, stupid!

***To NARAL staff member: contact me at timsw at uchicago dot edu***

First of all, right this minute, go contribute $25 to NARAL Pro-Choice America. Just do it. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Out of all of the Democratic Party's constituencies, the pro-choice organizations are the only ones who know what they're doing right now. Bush's team chose made such an incredibly brilliant choice of nominee that the top liberal organizations have been scrambling, with remarkably little success, to figure out what the hell he's all about.

Many Democratic politicians seem incapable of actually talking about reproductive rights or about Roe v. Wade, or to say in public the simple fact that 65 percent of Americans are in favor of keeping Roe. They're desperately trying to find some other reason to oppose Roberts, but the pro-choice lobby knows what's at stake. There really is no other reason to oppose Roberts. He has very little paper trail, on the abortion issue or on anything else, but here's a clue: his wife is "deeply involved in the antiabortion movement."

The New York Times talked to one of the other people Bush apparently interviewed for the job, and they make it sound like Bush basically picked him cause he's a swell guy. But the conservatives seem pretty sure they know his politics. Check out JudgeRoberts.com, a website where you can view a new right-wing TV commercial now hitting the airwaves. It proclaims Judge Roberts to be an honest man, top in his Harvard Law class, who deserves a fair hearing. The website was created by a right-wing 501(c)(4) organization called Progress for America, which according to an email I received from the Feminist Majority, has already raised $18 million just to campaign for the confirmation of Bush's Supreme Court nominees. (Did PFA buy the domain names for all of the 11 candidates Bush that were supposedly on Bush's short list?)

For those who "want to know more," PFA has created an ever-so-slightly-higher-brow website, UporDownVote.com. Play Senator - browse Judge Roberts' "resume." Things like that. In dramatic contrast, the liberal Alliance for Justice has only a fairly mealy-mouthed statement on its specialized website SupremeCourtWatch.org:

At this time, Alliance for Justice cannot support Judge Roberts’ elevation to the Supreme Court. While we will be conducting a complete analysis of his record on and off the bench, an initial review has led to serious concerns about whether he will be fair, independent and will protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans.

In a sidebar, AFJ says something slightly more interesting (and, I think, right on the money):

The radical right groups screaming about fulfilling promises and not engaging in consultation are pleased with the outcome--Sekulow has replaced his “don’t consult” petition with a “support Roberts” petition. What do these groups and the White House know about Roberts’ record that we don’t? That’s a question Roberts and the White House must answer. They must be transparent and fully answer questions. We all have a right to know before putting Roberts on the Supreme Court.

You can download a "podcast" for "an in-depth discussion of these issues."

The Toronto Globe and Mail had a lead paragraph that's pretty devastating:

WASHINGTON -- With richly stocked war chests and massive media campaigns planned, the public battle over the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts was brewing yesterday, even as it became evident that Judge Roberts may face robust scrutiny but no real opposition in confirmation hearings.

Christian conservatives expressed hope that the conservative judge would help bring about an end to the "killing" of millions of "pre-borns," a source of bitter controversy since the Supreme Court affirmed a woman's right to abortion in 1973.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Senate's judiciary committee, said confirmation hearings "will be full, fair and complete." They may also be anti-climactic.

While some environmentalists worry over an apparently flip reference to an endangered toad in one of the judge's opinions, wags noted his hard-hearted backing of police who busted a teenager eating French fries on the Washington Metro, whereas the woman he is likely to replace on the Supreme Court voiced regret that U.S. President George W. Bush selected a man.

But everybody knows what this is really about. The pro-choice organizations certainly do. At a panel discussion during a "Counter-Inaugural" held at the University of Chicago on January 20th, George Chauncey said he thought unfortunately that it might possible take the rollback of reproductive rights to generate the next major electoral realignment in this country. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a political scientist, responded by saying that in her view of political transformation, "more oppression" doesn't necessarily lead to "more activism." Thoughts?

(If you want to be additionally creeped out - and I do this periodically in order to see what we're up against with these religious right folks - check out the Family Research Council website. Then go give money.

Bye-bye civil liberties, it was nice to have a few of you for a while

From Salon:

So that leaves two important questions: Will the Democrats insist that Roberts be forthcoming about his personal views on important constitutional questions? And how will Roberts respond if they do?

Robert Bork was defeated for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987 largely because of the extreme conservative views he expressed, views that senators considered outside the mainstream of American legal thought. This has led to the nomination by conservative Republican presidents of so-called stealth nominees, individuals -- like Roberts -- with fairly thin paper trails. But given all that is at stake -- and the Democrats' long preparation for this moment of O'Connor's retirement -- that may not be good enough this time. And Roberts may find himself having to be more forthcoming at his confirmation hearing than he would like.

If Roberts is as conservative as some believe, that could put him between a rock and a hard place. And while the next few days will see deeply detailed analyses of all his writings, there is at least one tea leaf among his judicial opinions that suggests that he may hold such deeply conservative views.

Last year, in Hedgepeth v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Roberts wrote an opinion upholding the arrest of a 12-year-old girl for eating a single French fry in a Washington, D.C., Metrorail station while on her way home from junior high school. As the court described, the "girl was arrested, searched, and handcuffed. Her shoelaces were removed, and she was transported in the windowless rear compartment of a police vehicle to a juvenile processing center, where she was booked, fingerprinted, and detained until released to her mother some three hours later." Except for the time she was being fingerprinted, the girl remained handcuffed with her hands behind her back until she was released.

Roberts concluded that the arrest and detention under a mandatory arrest policy for minors was not an "unreasonable" seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, even though adults found to have violated the same no-eating-in-the-Metro ordinance were simply given citations. For obvious reasons, this decision is likely to be a point of some contention in Roberts' confirmation hearing. But of more significance than the decision itself is a part of its reasoning.

Roberts wrote that the Metro's mandatory arrest policy was not unconstitutional in part because it would not have been "regarded as an unlawful search or seizure under the common law when the Amendment was framed," that is, under the law as it stood in 1791. He described this inquiry as "the usual first step" in assessing Fourth Amendment cases, but really it is not. Instead, it is part of an approach to the law put forward by Justice Scalia, one that has been used inconsistently at best by the Supreme Court, garnering a clear majority's support in only one Fourth Amendment decision. It is an approach that would in essence freeze our rights as they were in 1791. And it is contrary to a great deal of modern Supreme Court case law that is dear to most Americans -- from protection against wiretapping to protection of the right to choose.

Why Roberts chose this approach and whether he indeed supports this narrow type of history-based constitutional interpretation of course remains to be seen. But what his approach is to interpreting the Constitution may well turn out to be the critical question in his confirmation hearings -- not whether he is adequately accomplished. This is largely because of the way in which President Bush has gone about choosing all his previous judicial nominees. And it means the ball is firmly in the Democrats' court.

When museums give you a "vacation" instead of making sure you "have to work"

I just read the Tribune's review of the new Toulouse-Lautrec show. According to their art critic Alan G. Artner, the exhibition's curators display a faddish obsession with the "cafes, dance halls, cabarets and brothels" that Lautrec depicted. For example, his brothel paintings are examined in the context of brothels, when in fact they are "simply some of his greatest works in any medium" and could have been "exhibited as such."

Even though the show includes works by contemporaries Renoir and Degas and trace Lautrec's influence on Picasso and Van Gogh, these artists' works are unfortunately "presented for documentary instead of artistic value." All this social and material context comes at the expense of "formal analysis" and something called "the process that turned his documents into art."

The show emphasizes "popular culture," for example showing how Lautrec's commercial poster for the Moulin Rouge helped make the nightclub famous, and how that in turn transformed Lautrec's own career. In contrast to last year's Seurat exhibition, where the audience was "told it would have to work," this exhibition "promises a vacation of touristic, voyeuristic fun."

By the way, the Tribune wasn't the only big-city daily newspaper to endorse Bush in '04 - there were lots of others, such as the Dallas Morning News, the Indianapolis Star, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

What exactly is a "feminine product"?

1) I spotted this sign in the bathroom at Filter the other day. There's a lot of political graffiti in the bathrooms there, which are both single stalls. They used to be designated male and female, incidentally, but that changed some time in the past year or two. Anyway, on a sign telling people not to put "feminine products" in the toilet, someone has crossed out "feminine" and replaced it with "menstrual," observing, "Trans inclusion, yo!"




I had thought of "feminine products" as a dumb euphemistic phrase for tampons and pads. It's one of those phrases that you see everywhere without it quite occurring to you that it merely reflects the strange fact that it's considered unacceptable to refer with any greater specificity to menstruation in a sign. (I had a similar moment occured this week when I read in the Tribune that former Bears coach Mike Ditka, in testifying against a proposed smoking ban in Chicago restaurants and bars (incidentally: what a jerk!), "drew a strong reaction from the audience when he used an expletive to describe the proposed smoking ban." I mean, what did he say?!)

I had never really thought of the term "feminine product" as a word that marginalizes trans people. Clearly, it does, though - and it makes you notice the implication built into the everyday term that everyone who menstruates identifies with "femininity." It's also one of those situations where accommodating those on the margins has the effect of showing the arbitrariness of the assumptions the rest of us make. I mean, even if you're not trans, is "feminine" really the best way of referring - even euphemistically - to tampons and pads? Wouldn't it be more logical for the phrase "feminine product" to mean, say, lipstick?

The secondary graffiti about "masculine" products, apparently added later seems dumb to me. It's as if, if there's a feminine product listed as unacceptable, plumbing-wise, then there must be an unacceptable "masculine" product, too. It seems pretty unlikely to me that two people would choose this particular public restroom to have sex in, though I admit it's possible. But - most importantly - if we're really going to get into it, what's so masculine about a condom? What if lesbians used the condom on a shared sex toy? It sounds dumb, but frankly it's same logic that gets us the so-called female condom - which was not approved or tested by the FDA for anal use, thanks to sodomy laws then still on the books in many states.

2) Check out a fabulous animation that Basic Rights Oregon has created, reminding voters that when the marriage amendment was being discussed in the fall, the antigay side repeatedly stated that the amendment applied only t. It's brilliant. They're holding a rally on July 20 to demand a vote on civil unions in the Oregon house.

Times bisexuality story recalls 1960s reporting on ex-gay therapy

[See background from FAIR and GLAAD]


July 11, 2005

To the Public Editor:

I urge you to investigate and retract Benedict Carey’s
article “Straight, Gay, or Lying,” published in the July 5
Science section, for three reasons.

First, Carey either did not know about or else failed to
mention the controversy surrounding J. Michael Bailey of
Northwestern University, the senior author of the study on
which the article is based. Carey quotes Bailey as saying
that “in men there's no hint that true bisexual arousal
exists, and that for men arousal is orientation.” He might
have also reported that Bailey’s work has been mired in
controversy, that several of his transgender research
subjects have filed serious charges of research misconduct
against him, and that prominent scholars such as the
Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden have called his work
junk science. While Carey quotes the opinions of more
mainstream scholars, such as Gilbert Herdt, he treats the
two sets of researchers as equally authoritative. I suspect
the Times would be unlikely to report so uncritically on
another scientific article Bailey has recently coauthored,
published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, arguing that if it
were possible to “select” only heterosexual offspring using
genetic markers, it would be morally justifiable to do so.
That Bailey feels qualified to make such a claim suggests
that, in the face of mounting controversy, he has become a
full-time provocateur.

Second, Carey’s article needlessly exploits and exacerbates
longstanding tensions between two minority groups. Instead
of discussing the complex, fraught relations between gay men
and bisexual men, Carey glibly declares, “'You're either
gay, straight or lying,' as some gay men have put it.” Like
lesbians and transgender people, bisexuals have faced an
uphill battle for full inclusion and acknowledgment in gay
communities. For the Times to devote such approving
coverage to a single study that confirms a popular
stereotype is simply bad reporting. For Carey to place his
own assertion in the mouth of “some gay men” is offensive.

Third, Carey’s article shows little sensitivity to the
complex role that science reporting has played in the
history of sexuality. Would the Times devote equivalent
space to fringe researchers who today maintain that
homosexuality is chosen and can be cured? The policy
positions of numerous mainstream professional organizations
would probably keep such stories out of the science section
today, but in an earlier era, the Times gave eager approval
to antigay researchers. In a famous 1963 front-page story,
headlined “Growth of Overt Homosexuality in City Provokes
Wide Concern,” the Times reporter wrote that “the old idea,
assiduously propagated by homosexuals, that homosexuality is
an inborn, incurable disease, has been exploded by modern
psychiatry. It can be both prevented and cured, these
experts say.” The article’s most authoritative source is
Dr. Irving Bieber, longtime advocate of reparative therapy
for homosexuals. And while the opinions of gay people are
quoted, the article gives at least as much weight to what “a
homosexual who had achieved good progress toward cure
recently told his analyst.”


Sincerely yours,
Timothy ***
Ph.D. student, ***
The University of Chicago

UFPJ statement on London bombings

United for Peace and Justice is horrified by the senseless death and destruction caused by the bombings in London on July 7, 2005. Our hearts go out to the people who have lost loved ones and those who have been wounded, as well as the countless people whose lives have been forever shaken by these events. UFPJ opposes terrorism - acts of violence against innocent civilians - in all its forms: bombs on public transportation in London, planes flying into buildings in New York City, or the armies of the United States and Great Britain waging war on the people of Iraq.

As we write this statement, there is no certainty as to who who is responsible for the London bombings. UFPJ hopes that as those who committed criminal acts are brought to justice there is no rush to judgment or assumption of guilt. It is in these moments that smear campaigns against individuals and whole communities can easily take hold, often shaped by and feeding racist stereotypes. We must counter those who will claim that the bombings reflect the supposedly violent nature of Muslims or the religion of Islam.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's comments that this was an attack on our values and way of life echoed much of the language George W. Bush used to justify his war on Iraq. We were told by the Bush Administration that our nation had to go to war in Iraq in order to fight terrorism, to make us and the world safer. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, none of us is more secure since the Bush Administration launched its so-called war on terror. The war on Iraq and the military occupation of that nation has certainly not made the Iraqi people any safer, nor has it lessened the risk of future terror attacks elsewhere around the world. Instead of feeding the cycle of killing it is time for a new direction in our policies. It is time for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, time to end U.S. support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, time to stop supporting repressive regimes in the Middle East and other places, and time to remove U.S. military bases from oil-rich countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Just as we mourn the loss of life in London, we mourn the daily loss of life in Iraq. We use this occasion to re-commit ourselves to doing all that we can to end the war in Iraq, including building a massive anti-war march in Washington, DC on Sept. 24th. We will also be vigilant in ensuring that this new round of violence is not used by the Blair and Bush administrations as an excuse either for new military attacks in foreign lands or for domestic policies that scapegoat Muslims, immigrants and people of color.

FAIR alert - New York Times Science section story on male bisexuality

Here is an action alert from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting about a recent story in the New York Times Science section article. The story uncritically reported a widely disputed finding by Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey, about male bisexuality, under the headline "Gay, Straight, or Lying."

Especially troubling is the way the Times defended itself when approached by GLAAD which sought a retraction.

----------

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Action Alert

New York Times Suggests Bisexuals Are "Lying"
Paper fails to disclose study author's controversial history

7/8/05

In a lead article in the New York Times' July 5 Science section, headlined, "Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited," Times writer Benedict Carey reported that an upcoming study "casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men." In suggesting that men who claim a bisexual sexual orientation are liars, the Times relies heavily on a single study whose senior researcher has a career marked by ethics controversies and eugenics proposals--facts that were not presented to readers.

According to the Times, the study "lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation. People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted. 'You're either gay, straight or lying,' as some gay men have put it."

In leaping to dramatic conclusions from a single study with a small population, Carey echoes the study's authors, who seem equally eager to generalize from scant evidence--and to confuse the study's assumptions with its conclusions. Carey quotes the study's senior author, J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, who acknowledges that bisexual behavior exists, but argues that "in men there's no hint that true bisexual arousal exists, and that for men arousal is orientation."

But that arousal equals orientation seems to be assumed, not proven. The study measured men's self-identified orientation against their physical arousal while watching various kinds of pornography; bisexual men's self-identified orientation did not correspond with their physical arousal, according to the study, with some being aroused much more by on-screen men and a smaller group responding much more to on-screen women.

This finding could just as easily be read as evidence that arousal in bisexual men does *not* equal orientation--that simple measurement of arousal does not predict people's behavior or identity. But the Times reporter himself uses the phrase "true bisexuality," which suggests that people with bisexual behavior and identity might still not qualify as "true" bisexuals.

Well into Carey's piece, some cautionary or critical viewpoints were aired. None of those viewpoints, however, gave readers any hint of Bailey's controversial history. In 2001 Bailey co-authored an article that argued that, if it became possible for parents to determine the sexual orientation of their fetus, "selecting for heterosexuality seems to be morally acceptable…. Selection for heterosexuality may tangibly benefit parents, children and their families and seems to have only a slight potential for any significant harm" (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2001). The fact that a researcher has promoted the eugenic elimination of homosexuality would seem to be relevant background for gauging the credibility of his studies of bisexuality.

Bailey more recently came under fire for his 2003 book, "The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism," which defended the discredited theory that transsexual women are not female-gendered people born with male bodies, but "are extremely feminine gay men or are sexual fetishists who are 'erotically obsessed with the image of themselves as women'" (Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/10/04). Bailey profiled a handful of transsexual women for his book, many of whom filed complaints against him for not getting their consent to be studied (Times Higher Education Supplement, 5/28/04).

The book shares remarkable similarities to Bailey's new study on bisexuality: In both, the researcher denies people's own evaluation of their identities, suggesting that bisexuals and transgender people are lying about who they are.

In fact, the Times' headline could have been taken from the press release for Bailey's book, which was headlined, "Gay, Straight, or Lying? Science Has the Answer." A new study by the same author, peddling a very similar theory, should have been a red flag to journalists, and readers should have been informed of the author's controversial history in order for them to better evaluate the study.

When the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation asked the Times to retract its inflammatory headline, the paper argued that "gay, straight or lying" is "a commonly used phrase among many gay people" (GLAAD.org, 7/7/05). It's unclear why a derogatory stereotype about one group--bisexuals--should be more acceptable in a headline because it is attributed to another group--gay people.

ACTION: Please ask the Times' new public editor, Byron Calame, to examine the Times' report on bisexuality, particularly the lack of relevant information about the senior researcher's controversial background and the headline's suggestion that an entire sexual minority is "lying."

CONTACT:
New York Times
Byron Calame, Public Editor
public@nytimes.com
Phone: (212) 556-7652

As always, please remember that your comments have more impact if you maintain a polite tone.

Read the Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html

See also GLAAD's action alert: http://glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3827

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2573

Stephanie Coontz wrote an op-ed that appeared in Tuesday's New York Times under the headline The Heterosexual Revolution

It's a good column and makes an important argument.

Also, it's not really right in my view to say that "Gays and lesbians simply looked at the revolution heterosexuals had wrought and noticed that with its new norms, marriage could work for them, too." This formulation is problematic in three ways. First, it treats "heterosexuals" (a word she uses over and over again) and "gays and lesbians" as existing transhistorically across periods for which those terms should not be used at all. Second, it ignores the fact that many "gay and lesbian" people lived (and still do) in cross-gender marriages and thus were inside the "heterosexual revolution" rather than outside looking in. And third, relatedly, it denies the ways in which changes in sexual categories themselves, such as the develoopment of hetero and homo, were profoundly constitutive of people's understandings of marriage. Put another way, we wouldn't have gay marriage without gay activism and self-identified gay people. You can't just bracket, as she does, the question of where "gays and lesbians," and "heterosexuals," come from. Finally, giving "Enlightenment thinkers" credit for starting off the decline of traditional marriage seems too generous to me.

All that said, I'm glad this appeared in the Times.

The most deeply moving part of the critical milestones of gay rights in those two countries is the stunning speeches of the two countries' prime ministers, both of which cast gay equality as an integral part of some larger drama of freedom and national purpose. Two powerful heads of government, the kind of men with whom George W. Bush and even Benedict XVI may someday have to appear in public, have declared in effect that the President and the Pope are on the wrong side of history. It is moving because it represents a majority standing up for the rights of a minority, and it is inspiring because it represents a nation attempting to be a model for the rest of the world instead of invading and occupying it.

From Doug Ireland's blog:

SPANISH PREMIER ZAPATERO'S REMARKABLE GAY MARRIAGE SPEECH

When the Spanish parliament yesterday took its historic vote
legalizing both gay marriage and adoption of children by gay
couples, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero (left) -- who put the full prestige of his office
and party behind passage of the gay human rights
legislation -- made probably the most remarkable speech in
favor of full equality for those with same-sex hearts ever
delivered by a head of government anywhere, in which he
quoted two of the most illustrious gay poets in history.
Here are excerpts from Zapatero's speech:

"We are not legislating, honorable members, for people far
away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity
for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends
and, our families: at the same time we are making a more
decent society, because a decent society is one that does
not humiliate its
members.

"In the poem 'The Family,' our [gay] poet Luis Cernuda
(left) was sorry because, 'How does man live in denial in
vain by giving rules that prohibit and condemn?'

"Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people
who, during many years have, been humiliated, whose rights
have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their
identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the
Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve,
recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms
their identity, and restores their liberty.

"It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph
is everyone's triumph. It is also the triumph of those who
oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet:
because it is the triumph of Liberty. Their victory makes
all of us (even those who oppose the law) better people, it
makes our society better. Honorable members, There is no
damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing
two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary,
what happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the
potential to organize their lives with the rights and
privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the
institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: this
law enhances and respects marriage.

"Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in a
profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I
wish to express that, like other reforms to the marriage
code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil,
that its only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless
suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids
senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better
society.

"With the approval of this Bill, our country takes another
step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by
the democratic change of government. Our children will look
at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our
mothers had less rights than our fathers, or if we tell them
that people had to stay married against their will even
though they were unable to share their lives. Today we can
offer them a beautiful lesson: every right gained, each
access to liberty has been the result of the struggle and
sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and
praise.

"Today we demonstrate with this Bill that societies can
better themselves and can cross barriers and create
tolerance by putting a stop to the unhappiness and
humiliation of some of our citizens. Today, for many of our
countrymen, comes the day predicted by Kavafis [the great
Greek gay poet, left ] one century ago:

'Later 'twas said of the most perfect society/someone else,
made like me/certainly will come out and act freely.' "

Sandra Day O'Connor

All in all, Ronald Reagan could have chosen someone far, far worse.

On Friday I received a deluge of emails about the Supreme Court vacancy, and I gave $25 online to NARAL Pro-Choice America. I'm going to try to go to a pro-choice rally in the Loop on Tuesday afternoon.

The other thing I did was sign up to get a text message from MoveOn as soon as Bush announces a nominee.

Spain

"Matrimony shall have the same requirements and effects regardless of whether the persons involved are of the same or different sex." - Spanish law

"I don't like marriage. I am not going to get married. But it is important for this to be called marriage so people know that it is the same thing for everyone." - Pedro Almodovar

"We are not the first, but I am sure we will not be the last. After us will come many countries, driven, ladies and gentlemen, by two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality.....We are not legislating, ladies and gentlemen, for remote, unknown people. We are expanding opportunities for the happiness of our neighbors, our work colleagues, our friends, our relatives." - Prime Minister Jorge Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

HRC's reply (my apologies for the delay in posting)

Hi folks. I should've posted this earlier. It's the reply I eventually got from HRC after I wrote to them last month.



Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 17:21:48 -0400
From: <***********@hrc.org>
Subject: RE: Membership letter from Joe Solmonese
To:


Dear Timothy,

Thank you so much for contacting HRC regarding your concerns about our most recent direct mail package.

Please let me assure you that the sentence in question was unfortunately a complete oversight on our part—and will be rectified immediately. We are truly grateful you have brought this to our attention so quickly. The sentence should have read and in future print will read: We are all connected by a common thread---the simple belief that every American deserves to be treated equally, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. We are also taking the extra step of looking over all materials to make sure that we are being truly reflective and inclusive of all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. So thank you for this reminder as well.

Joe has had the opportunity to meet with several transgender leaders across the country since he's started, including Mara Keisling and Caedan Dempsey in Washington, D.C., Pauline Park in New York, Rachel Crandall in Michigan and others. He's valued the discussions he's had with these leaders and will continue to meet with transgender community members throughout his tour across America.

And we are also grateful that Jay was willing to be highlighted in our staff section. He is one of the most dynamic and valued members of the HRC team. So thank you for acknowledging this.

This unfortunate omission you uncovered is in no way reflective of the organizations sincere commitment to working for transgender rights in this country. HRC’s official position is one of full support for transgender-inclusive workplace and hate crimes legislation. Period.

As you may know, on 8/7/04, the Human Rights Campaign Board of Directors adopted a policy to support a modernized version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The adopted resolution reads: “The Human Rights Campaign adopts a policy that we will only support ENDA if it is inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.” The updated language includes gender identity and expression as well as sexual orientation to ensure that every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender American is protected from employment discrimination.

HRC has long supported inclusive legislation but took this action in anticipation of ENDA’s reintroduction in the 109th Congress. HRC staff will continue to work tirelessly to ensure passage of a comprehensive ENDA. Additionally, HRC meets with leadership of other advocacy groups on a regular and ongoing basis to discuss federal legislation and other issues and has never pressured our allies to not support inclusive language in our legislation.

Our efforts are indeed ongoing and wide-ranging. In several cities across the country, we have held town hall meetings on transgender issues, and partnered with GLBT groups to pass inclusive state laws and local ordinances. Last year, we gave Equality Fund grants to GLBT groups in five states to help them pass transgender-inclusive legislation. We also work with corporations to get company non-discrimination policies to include gender identity alongside other protected classes. We look forward to the day when all GLBT Americans have equal protection under the law and will continue to be a leader in making that dream a reality.

I would also like to provide you with an informational document that also highlights the work and progress HRC will continue to pursue in the transgender community. Please see the Microsoft Word attachment labeled “HRC & Transgender Work.”

Again, please accept our sincere apologies. And thank you for not just walking away, but giving me the opportunity to respond to this issue. Trust that it will be handled appropriately, and it is things like this that will make the organization ultimately better and stronger.

Please don’t hesitate to get back in touch with me if you require any clarification on any of these points, as HRC is more than willing to keep an open dialogue on these issues and welcomes feedback and inquires from the LGBT community. If I can be of any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

And thank you for your membership. Your support is truly valued and appreciated—and I would hate for that to change.


Respectfully,

Laura Dalrymple


_____________________________________________
Laura A. Dalrymple
Member Services Manager
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036-3278
email laura.dalrymple@hrc.org
direct phone 202.216.1525
fax 202.216.1505
web www.hrc.org

working for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equal rights. =

It's Pride weekend!

Tonight, a friend of mine from chorus said the following:

"I think I'm going to have sex with a stranger in order to sleep in air conditioning tonight."

I am not making this up.

Oregon's gorilla speaks

This is really major.

On behalf of Nike, Inc., I write in support of passage of Senate Bill 1000 and Senate Bill 1073.

SB 1000 will prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodation and services and education on the basis of sexual orientation. The bill will also create civil unions and extend a set of rights and responsibilities to same-sex permanent partners. Senate Bill 1073, another bill under consideration by the legislature, contains similar provisions relating to the creation of civil unions.

Nike has a record of leadership in support of diversity and non-discrimination, as recognized by the Human Rights Campaign. Nike is committed to diversity and inclusion and strives to treat our employees equally without regard to sexual orientation or marital status.

The non-discrimination provisions contained within SB 1000 are consistent with Nike's corporate policies and practices and our support of similar legislation at the federal and state level. We strongly support the non-discrimination provisions in SB 1000, as this legislation will extend a set of basic rights to many Oregonians.

Nike also supports the provisions in SB 1073 and SB 1000 creating civil unions and extending a set of rights and responsibilities to same-sex permanent partners, which are consistent with their financial and non-financial commitments. Supporting the creation of civil unions is a meaningful complement to the non-discrimination position Nike has taken previously. And, civil unions promote inclusion by providing all our employees the opportunity to enter into lasting permanent relationships without regard to sexual orientation. As a global company, we have employees in other countries who can opt to register civil unions or an equivalent status.

One of the Nike Maxims is to "Do the Right Thing," which asks our employees not to look for things that make us different, but to look for things that make us better. Many of our employees' lives will be better because of the passage of these bills.

Sincerely,
Wes Coleman
Nike, Vice President of Global Human Resources

Secrets of defensive driving

I'm so glad I've just completed the National Safety Council's online Defensive Driving Course. I am sure it will make me a better, more careful, more courteous driver. In addition, it will erase my recent speeding ticket from my record and keep my friends at the insurance company from worrying their little heads about it.

The Defensive Driving Course is a rigorous, five-part affair. One of its very special features is that you cannot advance to the next screen until the nice man has finished reading out loud the text on the current screen. It makes for a memorable afternoon.

Here are screen shots that show some of the learning experiences that I'll especially cherish.


Seat Belts



Control



What It's All About

Bill and Hill

"I'd like to thank the Gay Men's Chorus. I was back there,
feverishly trying to write down all those lines. If someone
would furnish me with the lyrics to that song, I'd call
Hillary and give her those best lines tonight. I would be
eternally grateful"

- Bill Clinton at the Gay Men's Chorus of LA

next CGMC show: pride weekend

No police liaison to the gay community

“It is the policy of the Chief of Police not to conduct liaison with any group which deliberately engages in criminal actions. In that the laws of the State of California proscribe the kind of activity which would characterize a person as a homosexual, your type of organization falls into the category wherein we do not conduct liaison activities.”

---Chief of Staff, office of the Chief of Police of Los Angeles, in a letter to the Gay Community Alliance, November 16, 1971

Brand-Free (but slightly Politics-Laden)

Photographed tonight, near Silverlake, here in LA.

Just got finished with a conference near LA where some of the hottest members of my department made brief appearances. Now I'm staying on, doin' some research, and stayin' with one of my favorite exes.

Last night someone in the club asked if I could get her cocaine. I'm going with the theory that this is simply because of my highly visible West Hollywood authenticity, rather than any sign that I look like I do a lot of coke.

a-changin.

"Ever since I saw your last name '***-***' on the roster, I've been wondering if maybe you got married in Massachusetts or something."

-- a chorus member

The New Yorker on gay men, crystal meth, and HIV

To the editor:

Michael Specter's vivid account of the current resurgence of risky sex among American gay men frankly addresses the effects of drugs and the Internet on gay men's sexual decision-making ("Higher Risk," May 23). But it leaves out a crucial actor: the Bush administration.

It is remarkable that Specter describes a meeting of Gay Men's Health Crisis volunteers, yet fails to mention the administration's cuts to funding for gay-oriented HIV prevention organizations, under new Department of Health and Human Services guidelines that make it much more difficult for them to obtain federal grants.

The effects are not abstract. In some cities, gay men have noticed that there just aren't as many free condoms available at gay establishments and events as there were just a couple of years ago. The return to risky sex practices is troubling, but so is the return to the politics of the Reagan years. Then, as now, many gay men will suffer.

Two steps forward, one step back in fighting the right

It's hard to know exactly what to think of the Great Senate Compromise and the Return of the Moderates. However, in this situation it is important to remember some things about the context. By we, I mean all Americans who were troubled by the Republican leadership's political attacks on the judiciary and direct attacks on the procedural rights of the minority party in the one place, out of the entire federal government, where it really has any power at all.

The compromise isn't perfect. But one really good thing about it is that seven relatively powerful Republicans said a very loud, formal, public "fuck you" to the religious right. They also specifically stated that it is their opinion that the "advice and consent" clause regarding judicial nominations means that the President should consult with members of the Senate, from both parties, before nominating an individual, and that they thought President Bush should do that in the future.

Let's also remember:

1) what the other side had to say about it. It's true that NARAL sent me emails about how this was a flawed, partial victory that could hurt us in some ways, but let's start off with what Gary Bauer had to say about the compromise:

"This is a sad day for our nation. The desire of millions of Americans to restore balance to our federal courts has been thwarted behind closed doors by 14 senators. Only three of President Bush's appointees are guaranteed an up or down vote under this sell out.

"Under this agreement it is now more likely that radical social change will continue to be forced on the American people by liberal courts committed to same sex marriage, abortion on demand and hostility to religious expression. The Republicans who lent their names to this travesty have undercut their President as well as millions of their most loyal voters. Shame on them all."

2) what Jeremy Posadas had to say about it (forwarding an article in an email, by which I first heard about the compromise):

This is FAR, FAR from perfect, but it preserves the most desperately important things: the right to filibuster itself, and a critical mass of Senators who can block extremist SCOTUS appointees.

3) what Geoffrey Stone had to say about it, which is really smart, I think

4) what the National Association of Manufacturers had to say this week, which suggests that OUR side should be using social issues as a wedge issues:

Some gripe GOP isn't taking care of business

By Jonathan Weisman and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who now heads the National Association of Manufacturers, vowed before the November elections to use his trade association's might to back President Bush's judicial nominees. But as the Senate showdown plays out, the business group is delivering a different message: Judges are not its fight.

NAM's decision to sit out the brawl may be indicative of a broader trend. From Wall Street to Main Street, the small-government, pro-business mainstay of the Republican Party appears to be growing disaffected with a party it sees as focused on social issues at its expense.

5) That's it. Enough congratulating ourselves. Now get back to fighting the right some more. Cause there's more coming, lots more.....

Should women---already banned from direct combat----be banned from combat support roles, too?

This article, and the controversy it describes, is fascinating. It reminds of Ned Rorem's complaint that, as far as he was considered, being banned from military service was one of the few real "perks" that comes along with being gay.

It's pretty remarkable that Republicans are making this proposal - and worrying about whatever problem it's supposed to solve - in the face of the hideous personnel crisis that the Iraq war has created for the U.S. military. The vehemence of the military's reaction is pretty striking, too.

***

May 20, 2005
Chauvinism at the Battlefront

Female soldiers are barred by national policy from direct ground combat in Iraq, but that has not saved the lives of 34 American women killed so far in that lethal battlefield bereft of front lines. In a remedy steeped more in misplaced gallantry than wisdom, House Republicans ran into Pentagon opposition this week with a sudden proposal to protect women by cutting back the jobs they could hold in support units stationed to the rear of ground combat soldiers. The net effect, Army leaders properly warned, would hurt women's careers by shutting them out of more than 20,000 vital support jobs in a military effort that is already hard-pressed to keep its ranks filled with fresh volunteers.

Fighter aircraft and surface warship postings were opened to women a decade ago in a heated but progressive national debate after the Persian Gulf war. The overall policy entrusted to the Pentagon provided larger job opportunities for women in the services. Right now, with a war raging, female soldiers vital to the effort need no demoralizing intrusion into the gender issue by impulsive lawmakers.

As it turns out, the job cutback proposal created such a furor from military professionals and opposition Democrats that Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee had to retreat at the last minute, but not entirely. They approved a face-saving substitute that is less sweeping but would still give Congress excessive power to control future advancements for women in the military.

The amendment would hobble service commanders and deserves to be stricken next week in the House floor debate on the defense authorization bill.

The gruesome truth remains that war is hell, even as its front lines become viciously vague. The daily car bombings, suicide atrocities and insurgent raids show that no area of Iraq, from Humvee patrols to chow halls, is a safe haven for the occupation troops, male or female. Women have volunteered for the full range of opportunity and risk implicit in their military careers. They are proving their valor in Iraq and need no demeaning protections from Congress.

HRC. They are such ****-ups!

Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 7:20 PM
From: Timothy ***
Subject: Membership letter from Joe Solmonese dated May 11, 2005
To: Steven Fisher

Dear Mr. Fisher,

I wrote to you last October to tell you that I had decided to
join HRC because of the Board's change of position regarding
version of ENDA that did not include gender identity.
Although I am a non-transgender young gay man, I had been
upset for years that HRC did not include my transgender
friends and loved ones as full members in a united struggle.

I just received a letter from Joe Solmonese asking me to renew
my membership. In it, Mr. Solmonese states that in traveling
the country, he has realized that "we are all connected by a
common thread---the simple belief that every American deserves
to be treated equally, regardless of sexual orientation." I
am deeply offended by the omission of gender identity-based
equality in this most visible statement of purpose, directed
to the organization's membership, by its new President.

The letter also lists four gay or lesbian individuals and one
heterosexual couple that he met in Middle America, but no
transgender people, to whom "your support matters." While it
is true that the letter mentions transgender people (along
with straight people) in a postscript acknowledging
"collective efforts," and the enclosed profile of eight HRC
staff members includes a staffer in your department who is
identified as transgender (and thanks HRC for "stepping up in
a big way on transgender issues"), I am disturbed that HRC's
leadership apparently do not feel that---given the
organization's checkered past on trans issues---they must go
out of their way to make sure trans people are visibly and
fully included.

If the wording of the letter is simply about pandering to
members who may be transphobic, then clearly HRC has not fully
adopted its new, more inclusive mission. If, on the other
hand, there was an oversight, then I presume that Mr.
Solmonese will issue a formal, public apology for the
non-inclusive wording of his statement regarding the "common
thread" by which "we are all connected." How else can he
possibly avoid giving the impression that HRC's change in
policy was simply window-dressing?

I look forward to hearing from you regarding this matter.


In struggle,
An angry 25-year-old member,
Timothy ***
Chicago, Illinois

* * * * *

Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 14:06:03 -0400
From: Steven Fisher
Subject: RE: Membership letter from Joe Solmonese dated May 11, 2005
To: Timothy ***

Hi Timothy -- Thank you so much for alerting me to this. We're looking
into this now. Please be assured that Joe and HRC are fully committed
to equality based on gender identity and the entire gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender community. Someone from our membership team or
I will get back to you with more information. Once again, thank you
forwarding this to me. Steven

Call moderate Republicans TODAY

Susan Collins (R-ME)
(202) 224-2523

Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
(202) 224-4224

John Warner (R-VA)
(202) 224-2023

"I am calling to urge Senator _____to vote "NO"
on the so-called "nuclear option" that would
prevent the filibuster of nominees to federal
courts."

great lakes naval training station

SRisk1979: i have looked at their station journal from the ww2 era
SRisk1979: which chronicles sailors phoning from chicago to say they were overstaying leave, coming back trashed out of their minds, phoning from chicago to say they missed the last train
*tim’s friend*: hehehe
*tim’s friend*: sailors are hot.
SRisk1979: i'm serious.
SRisk1979: i know i just watched "on the town" with jessica tonight
SRisk1979: (1949) with gene kelly
SRisk1979: about sailors on leave in NYC
SRisk1979: and then we watched the theatrical trailer which was a DVD special feature
SRisk1979: trailers were fucking long in 1949
SRisk1979: like five minutes or something
SRisk1979: and at the end of it it said:
SRisk1979: in bold letters across the screen
SRisk1979: THREE SINGING SAILORS!
SRisk1979: THREE DANCING DAMES!
SRisk1979: TWICE AS GAY AS "ANCHORS AWEIGH"!
SRisk1979: and we just about died laughing

ahhhhhh, biopolitics.

This is so interesting. My friend Corey knows Leland Traiman (quoted in the article) really well. Corey tells me the scientific evidence supporting this regulation is far weaker than that used to keep the ban on gay blood donors. (In college Talia and I organized a petition drive against the FDA's ban on gay men donating blood, but in fact, after learning a fair amount about the AIDS crisis and the scientific arguments, I softened my stance somewhat.)

I must say I love the FDA's statement that "The FDA is very much aware that strict exclusion policies eliminate some safe donors." And would prevent some lesbian couples who want a gay male sperm donor from doing so.

BTW, an attentive reader (care to introduce yourself, Ryan?) brought up in a comment the recent incident at NYU in which a law student asked Antonin Scalia, during a question-and-answer period, whether or not he sodomizes his wife. The student's message to his classmates about the incident was published on the Nation's website, and it's very articulate (and, I think, right).
-tim


May 5, 2005
F.D.A. to Implement Gay Sperm Donor Rules
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:26 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

The FDA has rejected calls to scrap the provision, insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all gay men rather than adopting a screening process that focuses on high-risk sexual behavior by any would-be donor, gay or straight.

''Under these rules, a heterosexual man who had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes would be OK as a donor one year later, but a gay man in a monogamous, safe-sex relationship is not OK unless he's been celibate for five years,'' said Leland Traiman, director of a clinic in Alameda, Calif., that seeks gay sperm donors.

Traiman said adequate safety assurances can be provided by testing a sperm donor at the time of the initial donation, then freezing the sperm for a six-month quarantine and testing the donor again to be sure there is no new sign of HIV or other infectious diseases.

Although there is disagreement over whether the FDA guideline regarding gay men will have the force of law, most doctors and clinics are expected to observe it.

The practical effect of the provision -- part of a broader set of cell and tissue donation regulations that take effect May 25 -- is hard to gauge. It is likely to affect some lesbian couples who want a child and prefer to use a gay man's sperm for artificial insemination.

But it is the provision's symbolic aspect that particularly troubles gay-rights groups. Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal, has called it ''policy based on bigotry.''

''The part I find most offensive -- and a little frightening -- is that it isn't based on good science,'' Cathcart said. ''There's a steadily increasing trend of heterosexual transmission of HIV, and yet the FDA still has this notion that you protect people by putting gay men out of the pool.''

In a letter to the FDA, Lambda Legal has suggested a screening procedure based on sexual behavior, not sexual orientation. Prospective donors -- gay or straight -- would be rejected if they had engaged in unprotected sex in the previous 12 months with an HIV-positive person, an illegal drug user, or ''an individual of unknown HIV status outside of a monogamous relationship.''

But an FDA spokeswoman cited FDA documents suggesting that officials felt the broader exclusion was prudent even if it affected gay men who practice safe sex.

''The FDA is very much aware that strict exclusion policies eliminate some safe donors,'' said one document.

Many doctors and fertility clinics already have been rejecting gay sperm donors, citing the pending FDA rules or existing regulations of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

''With an anonymous sperm donor, you can't be too careful,'' said a society spokeswoman, Eleanor Nicoll. ''Our concern is for the health of the recipient, not to let more and more people be sperm donors.''

However, some sperm banks, notably in California, have welcomed gay donors. The director of one of them, Alice Ruby of the Oakland-based Sperm Bank of California, said her staff had developed procedures for identifying gay men with an acceptably low risk of HIV.

Gay men are a major donor source at Traiman's Rainbow Flag sperm bank, and he said that practice would continue despite the new rules.

''We're going to continue to follow judicious, careful testing procedures for our clients that even experts within the FDA say is safe,'' said Traiman, referring to the six-month quarantine.

The FDA rules do not prohibit gay men from serving as ''directed'' sperm donors. If a woman wishing to become pregnant knows a gay man and asks that he provide sperm for artificial insemination, a clinic could provide that service even if the man had engaged in sex with other men within five years.

However, Traiman said some lesbian couples do not have a gay friend they know and trust well enough to be the biological father of their child, and would thus prefer an anonymous donor.

Dr. Deborah Cohan, an obstetrics and gynecology instructor at the University of California, San Francisco, said some lesbians prefer to receive sperm from a gay donor because they feel such a man would be more receptive to the concept of a family headed by a same-sex couple.

''This rule will make things legally more difficult for them,'' she said. ''I can't think of a scientifically valid reason -- it has to be an issue of discrimination.''

^------

On the Net:

FDA site: http://www.fda.gov

Exceptions

At dinner at a friend's house on Saturday night, I had a conversation with a guy who said, and I quote, "I'm straight, but, you know, every now and then I'll make an exception." It made my night. I told him I wanted to to have a party soon, just so that he could come and other people ther ecould hear him describe himself that way.

Development of Gay and Lesbian Subcultures

I was flipping through the table of contents of a college US History textbook today, and was startled to find a subsection called "Development of Gay and Lesbian Subcultures," within a larger section on "Patterns of Ethnicity, Race, Class, and Gender," itself within a chapter on "Prosperity Decade, 1920-1928."

I've seen US History textbooks that include a mention of the Stonewall Riots in a section on 1960s social movements, but I've never seen anything like the four paragraphs covering this period in queer history.

What's even more remarkable is that they're covering the social history of queers, not just political history:

In the 1920s, gay and lesbian subcultures became more established and relatively open in some cities, including New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and Baltimore. The Captive, a play about lesbians, opened in New York in 1926, and some movies included unmistakable homosexual references. Novels with gay and lesbian characters circulated in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In Chicago, the Society for Human Rights was organized to advocate equal treatment. A relatively open gay and lesbian community emerged in Harlem, where some prominent figures of the Renaissance were gay or bisexual. In the early 1930s, the nation's largest gay event was the annual Hamilton Lodge drag ball in Harlem.....

And then, three paragraphs later:

The late 1920s and early 1930s brought increased suppression of gays and lesbians. New state laws gave police greater authority to prosecute open expressions of homosexuality....In 1929 Adam Clayton Powell, a leading Harlem minister, launched a highly publicized campaign against gays. Motion-picture studios instituted a morality code that, among its wide-ranging provisions, prohibited any depictin of homosexuality....

There are at least three reasons why it's exciting that this stuff appears on p. 737 of Making America, 4th edition, copyright 2006 (!) by Houghton Mifflin. Well...okay...four reasons, since it would be kind of weird if I didn't note the remarkable fact that the textbook's authors - rightly or wrongly - based by far their longest discussion of a queer topic in large part on the work of my advisor. I mean, that's pretty cool.

Beyond that, though, there's nothing remarkable about the standard academic habit of judging broad survey textbooks in terms of how much weight it gives to one's own small subspecialty and by how faithfully it seems to represent it. But it's not a standard academic habit that queer historians have, up to now, generally had many opportunites to exercise. You wouldn't have expected to find anything at all about gay, lesbian, or queer people or experiences. In fact, I would have guessed we'd be struggling to prevent the brief mentions of the Stonewall Riots from being excised from textbooks upon the demands of red-state local school boards. (And, I might add, we are struggling in many places to keep health curricula that don't consist of rhapsodic paeons to abstinence before marriage - or worse, that doesn't "teach" kids about condoms in terms that somehow, mysteriously seem to imply that they pretty much always break and are no protection at all. And, I mean, after all, the best way to get teenagers not to do something is to tell them not to do it. Right? Those religious-right folks sure do have the teenage mindset down pat.)

In fact, up till now I could pick out the "inclusive" textbooks just by looking up Stonewall in the index; if there was a sentence on it somewhere, it was one of the good textbooks, and if there wasn't, it was unfortunate. And while the Stonewall Riots a well-known and important event, of course, but, as Terence Kissack once put it in the Radical History Review, almost the entire corpus of scholarship on the gay and lesbian movement has sought to argue against the idea that gay freedom was born at the Stonewall.

A third reason is that maybe I'll get a job someday?

By the way, at the back of the book, which even covers the country's vocal debate over same-sex marriage in 2004, there is one of those little shaded textbook "boxes" that defines key terms - and the terms being defined are Defense of Marriage Act and civil unions.

Microsoft's reversal on lgbt rights

Microsoft has already gotten some bad press, but it's important that they keep hearing from people. I'm pasting in a list of contacts below.


********** TAKE ACTION **********

1. Call Microsoft's director of Government Relations,
Jack Krumholtz, at tel. 202-263-5900

2. Contact these other contacts for Microsoft and its
public relations reps

- Jim Desler, Microsoft US
425-703-6061
jdesler@microsoft.com

- Dirk Delmartino,
Microsoft Europe
+32 (0)2 550 06 21
dirkdelm@microsoft.com

- The firm handling public policy for Microsoft in DC:
The Glover Park Group
Washington, DC
202-337-0808

- The firm handling Microsoft's "rapid response" to
questions:
Waggener Edstrom Rapid Response Team
rrt@wagged.com
503-443-7070

- Media Relations for Microsoft
Global Communications & Television
(212) 339-9920
mediarelations@gctv.com

- Microsoft Investor Relations
Curt Anderson
(425) 706-3703

- Walt McGraw, Edelman, (206) 223-1606,
walt.mcgraw@edelman.com

- Shon Damron, Edelman, (323) 857-9100,
shon.damron@edelman.com

- Carlos de Leon,tel. 425-703-3824, or
carlosde@microsoft.com

- Katie Goldberg, tel. 206-268-2244, or
katie.goldberg@edelman.com

3. Demand that Microsoft return the award it received
from the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. We don't
give corporate bigots awards, and we don't expect them
to keep such awards under false pretenses. If
Microsoft has now rethunk its position on defending
civil rights, then give back the damn award:

Per Microsoft's own Web site:

"Microsoft has been honored for its pioneering work on
behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
community with the annual Corporate Vision Award of
the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center."

Sex roles - or more bizarre deviant behavior

"When students tell me that they picked the 'wrong'--say, sociology--topic, I related them to the agonies and ennui that fellow candidates who chose 'in' topics on sex roles or more bizarre types of deviant behavior are experiencing."

- David Sternberg, How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation (1981)

NGLTF assails new pope's record of "venomous hatred"

>Tuesday, April 19, 2005
>The Task Force On the Election of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope
>
>MEDIA CONTACT:
>Task Force Communications Department
>Roberta Sklar, Director of Communications
>media@thetaskforce.org
>646-358-1465
>
>National Gay and Lesbian Task Force On the Election of
>Joseph Ratzinger as Pope
>
>"Today, the princes of the Roman Catholic Church elected as
>Pope a man whose record has been one of unrelenting,
>venomous hatred for gay people, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
>In fact, during the reign of John Paul II, Cardinal
>Ratzinger was the driving force behind a long string of
>pronouncements using the term 'evil' to describe gay people,
>homosexuality, and marriage equality. As a long-time
>Catholic from a staunchly Catholic family, I know that the
>history of the church is full of shameful, centuries-long
>chapters involving vilification, persecution, and violence
>against others. Someday, the church will apologize to gay
>people as it has to others it has oppressed in the past. I
>very much doubt that this day will come during this Pope's
>reign. In fact, it seems inevitable that this Pope will
>cause even more pain and give his successors even more for
>which to seek atonement."
>
>- Matt Foreman
> Executive Director

thoughts on friendship

"And yet it is perhaps in the nature of friendship, as opposed to love, that we can think of it as a constancy that requires no nurturing, and from which we can withdraw when we choose, certain that, like the affection of our mothers, it will be there to welcome us back whenever we return. Alas, this is not how it is with friendship...."
- David Leavitt, Martin Bauman

"People don't do right because of the fear of God or love of him. You do the right thing because the world doesn't make sense if you don't."
— Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

my mom is pretty cool

My mom is mentioned in a New York Times article on women in the sciences...and it's a front-page story.

...tyin' up my white tie...puttin' on my tails!

The pope left very elaborate instructions about what everyone should wear at his funeral.

After the millions had filed past the pope's body, his face was covered with a white cloth by his faithful aide Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who was also JPII's closest companion for twenty-five years and the only individual he thanked in his last will and testament.

Later, the pope's coffin was carried by 12 pallbearers wearing white gloves, white ties, and tails.

Where was gay liberation born?

Jason sent me a very interesting article about a controversy that has resulted from a decision by the folks who sponsor Philadelphia's PrideFest, a sort of secondary gay pride event held each spring there for many years. This year, they've decided that the event will honor the 40th anniversary of the annual picket held outside Independence Hall beginning in 1965.

The question of course has become which city is the "birthplace of gay liberation," or something. Within the admittedly ridiculous terms of the question, Philadelphia actually has a pretty strong case. The first commemmorations of the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which eventually became that which we know as Pride, was (as Marc Stein has described) the outcome of a decision by the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) to replace the annual Independence Hall picket (begun in 1965) with the Stonewall observance.

Of course, what's really at stake here is money, at a time when cities are starving. Equality Forum, which was called PrideFest at the time I lived in greater Phila, seems to have decided to hold this big 40th-anniversary party for the 1965 pickets, when they didn't really have a 35th or 30th anniversary party. They basically want to create a new anniversary.

This of course is within their rights. We celebrate all kinds of anniversaries that were long unrecognized; Roe v. Wade didn't make the front page of the NYT when it was decided in 1973. But they shouldn't imagine no one will object.