YASSSSSS, Virginia, LGBT Kids Should Be Treated Equal!

Last year, Andrea Lafferty, the president of those Hate Groups with the sweet names—this one being the Traditional Values Coalition—and a student identified as “Jack Doe,” filed a lawsuit against the Fairfax County School District after the school board voted to add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to its non-discrimination policy.

Clearly, Lafferty and “Doe” are not fans of non-discrimination; they argued that the policy is unlawful because such protections aren't included in state law.

Well, last week the Virginia Supreme Court basically told Andrea and “Jack” to take a seat, because the court upheld a lower court ruling dismissing the lawsuit. The Supreme Court said Lafferty and “Jack Doe” lacked standing to bring the challenge, saying the student's "general distress" over the non-discrimination policy isn't enough to allow him to bring a lawsuit against the school.

In the Age of _____, the age of people who are different, either in orientation or gender identity, being treated as “less than” this is a big win.

Equality; acceptance; understanding.

Andrea Lafferty’s little Hate Club was represented by the Hate Group, Liberty Counsel, and it’s Bigot-In-Chief, Mat Staver, who whined in a statement:

“While the Fairfax Country School Board temporarily dodged the issue, new developments in the application of this unlawful policy may result in a new suit. There is no doubt the school board intends to enforce this policy. Liberty Counsel is not finished fighting for the safety of Jack Doe and public school students in Fairfax County. We are exploring all possible avenues to further challenge these policies and are confident that we will prevail when the courts reach the merits of these challenges.”

Take a seat, Mat, and chalk this loss alongside the Kim Davis fiasco.

You are not going to take us back to Hate no matter how hard you try.

We are not going back.

US News

Jessi Dye Was Fired After Her Boss Asked, "What are you?"

Jessi Dye was pretty thrilled when she got the job at Summerford Nursing Home in Alabama. She filled out all her paperwork, she attended the training workshops required of her, and was vaccinated as per company policy, and most of all, she was excited that Summerford was going to pay for her training to become a certified nurse’s assistant [CNA].

However, when she showed up on the job, Robert Summerford, the manager, called her into his office at lunch to discuss her paperwork, and the minute Jessi walked in, before even having the chance to sit down he asked:

“What are you?”

Jessi was caught off guard, to be sure, but she was used to awkward — though I call them stupid — questions when a new employer noticed the identity on her driver’s license doesn’t match the one she presents in person.

Jessi is a trans woman. And so she answered Summerford’s question by explaining her situation — that she was born male and is transitioning to female — and he asked:

“What am I supposed to do with you?”

Then he fired her on the spot because, well, trans.

So, with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] Jessi filed a workplace discrimination suit and, rather than see the case taken all the way to federal court, Summerford settled with Jessi. Part of the settlement requires Summerford to institute a new  official policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and to conduct sensitivity training seminars regarding LGBTQ people.

This is one of those rare, lucky cases, when a company, and their lawyers, realized that the times are changing and that there need to be new understanding about trans people, or people of any sexual orientation or gender identity, in the workplace.

But what Summerford didn't do, however, was actually break the law. Alabama, and federal law, is still vague on the issue, and with the failure of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] to be passed, there are no clear-cut workplace protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Jessi was also awarded a cash settlement from Summerford but says:

"It was never about money. It was always about the education, letting other trans people know that they have a right, that they are protected under the law."

And so maybe now she can go to school and become a CNA after all, and we can hope that when she does, and when she finds a job, the times have changed enough so that no one will question Jessi’s identity ever again.

And maybe, one day, and one day soon, when Jessi Dye, and others like her, apply for jobs, are accepted to the position, go through training, and show up for work, they won’t be fired immediately because a driver’s licenses identity doesn’t match the face in front of the boss.

And that means we also need to work for our trans brothers and sisters to make sure that they can have their licenses and identification papers changed to their correct gender as they transition so that they can be seen as who they truly are, and not as anything else.

The march goes on …

LGBTQ Nation

Random Musings

Out in Indiana, anti-equality GOP Governor Mike Pence — who might make a run at the White House in 2016 — issued a memo ordering state agencies not to recognize the hundreds of same-sex marriages that took place in the brief period when marriage equality was legal and before a stay was ordered.

Asshat. And I cannot wait for what he’ll say, or how he’ll spin it, when the courts order equality to stand. How quickly might he change his tune in his bid at the presidency?

Flip-flopping asshatted tool.

Speaking of marriage ….

Last weekend I updated my Facebook status to tell friends and family that Carlos and I would be getting married this October:

Well, after fourteen looooooooong years together, Carlos and I have decided that, in the words of the immortal Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, "Enough is enough is enough is enough is enough is enough ... it's enough" and we will be getting married this October. Who would ever saw that coming, eh?

And we received some lovely wishes from friends and family all over the globe, but there was one message that was, well, unexpected and eerie.

I noticed that I had a couple of personal messages and checked them out. One was from a friend just wanting to chat, but the other was just a smiley face ,,, from my sister.

Now, to be clear, the simple smiley face was sent by my sister as a sign-off to a chat we’d had back in December, two months before she passed away; and I had seen it back then, but how wonderfully eerie and sweet that, for whatever reason, it was once again listed as a new message right after I announced that Carlos and I were gettin' hitched?

My big sister is still looking out for me …

Oh geez, won’t this woman ever go away?

It seems that after The View fired Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd, the Mama Grizzly Bore™ weighed in the topic suggesting that she would be a good addition to the program.

Asked by a reporter — possibly from the lame-stream media she says she loathes — if she had any interest in doing a "political talk show," MGB™ replied, "I hear everyone recently got canned from 'The View,' maybe a show like that needs a punch of reality and a voice of reason from America's heartland to knock some humble sense into their scripts. You know, someone willing to go rogue."

By rogue she means, put the final nail in the coffin of a show that should have died years ago.

I am a goofball. I like to make jokes all the time, about anything and everything; sometimes cute little jokes and sometimes the most offensive things imaginable just to get a reaction out of people.

Carlos, on the other, while he has a fabulous sense of humor, isn’t so keen on being a goofball and the other night I tried to break him out of that shell.

See, there’s a commercial for Tropicana orange juice where you hear Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor sing “Good Mornin’” from  Singing in the Rain  and I always, always, sing along with it, adding some jazz hands for effect.

The other night I asked Carlos to sing it with me and he refused. I begged, pleaded, cajoled, threatened and he still said ‘No.’

I accused him of being uptight, and he uttered, in a somewhat high-pitched voice tinged with an English accent:

“I am not upt-i-i-i-i-ght.”

“Who are you supposed to be? Dame Judy Dench?”

“Maybe.”

“Sounds more like Dame Judy Clench.”

PS I’m still waiting for him to sing to me.

Last week Pope Frankie met with six victims of pedophile priests; his first such meeting since becoming The Head Cheese last year. He said that Catholic bishops "will be held accountable" for failing to protect children from sexual abuse, but made no move as to how this would work, leading many, including myself, to think this was just a media moment and means nothing in the long run.

Sure, I’m cynical about the Catholic Church protecting children from priests who rape them, but that’s because they haven’t shown any action at all in that area. It’s all lip service, though I am hoping Pope Frankie proves me wrong.

Madonna was called to jury duty this week in New York and appeared an hour late — some say she was told to show up late to avoid the crowds and the sensation that a fading pop singer who fails to act her age, might receive.

Madge, who had been excused in May thanks to a doctor’s note :::coughcough::: plastic surgeon :::coughcough:::  was surrounded by her security team as she entered the clerk’s office and not the regular jury assembly room. She was immediately excused because there were ‘ample jurors’ and she was also bypassed because her presence was causing a commotion.

Watch her licking her armpits again? Calling her son the N-word? Posting a dozen or some Photoshopped pictures to Instagram? Because that would be Madge on jury duty; it would be all about her.

So, I watched some of the World Cup these past weeks, though without the fervor of most in the world, and many in this country; I do, however like, all the man-on-man groping and kissing and tugging down of the shorts, making the games seem almost soft-core porn.

Speaking of which …

I often caught ESPN’s panel of experts talking about the games and the winners and losers and there, right in the middle, was one gorgeous man, whom I assumed, because of his coloring was Latino—and you all know how I feel about the Hispanic Mens.

Michael Ballack was his name, and he was a former soccer player from Germany. Yes, he looks Hispanic but he’s German.

And oh so delicious.

Enough with the actual games, give me more recaps.

Julie Bindel — don’t worry, I never heard of her either — wrote a book called  Straight Expectations in which she argues that sexual orientation is a choice.

Well, except for her, I guess, because she said this …

“All I know is I’ve never been convinced by a scientific argument, or seen any evidence that is compelling that there is something innate about our sexuality. What I’m suggesting is, there are people who could go one way or the other and happily choose to be lesbian or gay.”

And then she said this about her choosing to be gay …

“Because I needed to leave home – there was nothing there for me in Darlington – and pursue my feminist possibilities, that meant starting a new life and all that was open to me. I fell in with a crowd [in Leeds] who spoke about lesbianism as part of women’s liberation. I never chose to be attracted to women.”

Huh. So she says I chose to be gay because there is no proof that it could be any other way and then says she didn’t choose it at all.

Siddown asshat.

District Court Judge C. Scott Crabtree on Wednesday ruled that Colorado’s 2006 voter-approved ban violates the state and federal constitutions. He immediately put his ruling on hold pending an appeal.

Welcome to equality Colorado.

The march goes on …

This one makes me laugh … because, well, dumb.

Liberal Democratic Russian Parliament Member Roman Khudyakov has asked Russia’s Central Bank to change the 100 ruble note because, according to him, it “clearly” shows Apollo’s genitals and that runs afoul of Russia’s ban on exposing children to The Gays.

Khudyakov  complained that “intimate parts of the body” were visible on the banknote, which he says should have an “18+” rating under the anti-gay law.

I thought this was the height of stupidity, thinking that a statue on a piece of money would make the children gay but then I learned that in 2011 the real statue of Apollo, at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, was also censored when the exposed genitals were covered by a fig leaf.

Khudyakov doesn’t seem to think that Apollo’s microscopic penis on the currency might encourage lesbians to go straight.

Seriously.

In Louisiana You Can Be Denied Housing Because You're Gay

I have been saying that, while we can take great gay pride in the advances the LGBT community has made in this country towards becoming fully equal under the law, that sometimes we suffer great anti-gay setbacks.

I mean, we have seen everything from Don’t Serve The Gays, here in this country, to Kill The Gays in Uganda, Gays Are Criminals in India, and finally Stone The Gays in Brunei, depending on where the Sultan stands on stoning today.

And so I am not all that surprised at what’s happened in Louisiana this week when lawmakers rejected a measure that would have made it illegal to refuse to sell or lease property to same-sex couples in the state solely because they are gay.

Let’s say that more queerly; in Louisiana you can be denied housing because you’re gay; if a seller doesn’t like The Homosexuality, well, you don’t get the house; if a landlord has a case of The Homophobia, you don’t get the house.

And there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.

And sadly, three Democrats — Gene Reynolds, Katrina Jackson, and Stephen Ortego —joined nine Republicans on the House Commerce Committee in rejecting the measure though not one of the cowards would say why they did so. The committee had previously rejected a similar proposal that sought to protect gays from housing discrimination.

This new bill, by Representative Pat Smith, a Democrat, would have added sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran’s status, source of income, domestic abuse victim status and conviction record to the list of characteristics a property owner could not use to deny someone housing.

Opposition to the bill naturally came from one of those conservative wingnut groups — the Louisiana Family Forum — whose representative, Kathleen Benfield said characteristics like race and sex deserve protection, but not sexual orientation because some property owners are religiously opposed to homosexuality.

Look, Kathleen, you dumb f**k, discrimination is discrimination and if you want to discriminate against “anyone, anywhere any time, ever” — shout out to Claire Huxtable for that quote — then why not rid ourselves of every single anti-discrimination law? I mean, maybe I want to run a business where dumb f**ks like Kathleen Benfield and the Louisiana Family Forum should be denied service because, well, I don’t believe in you?

That sound okay, Kath?

Still, there was at least one voice of sanity in the discussion, and that was Democratic Representative Herbert Dixon who reminded folks that it wasn’t all that long ago that people used religion to justify racial discrimination, and that this was no better.

And when Benfield countered that using the Bible to condone racial discrimination was irrational, Dixon asked, “But this is rational?”

No, it’s not; it’s religious based fear and discrimination and, even though I am no Bible thumper, I know that the Bible doesn’t say anything about discrimination. It does say, Judge not lest ye be judged, so maybe we should all use our judgments to deny Kathleen Benfield, the Louisiana Family Forum, and those 12 asshats on the House Commerce Committee any rights.

Sounds good to me; I mean, what’s good for the bigot …

Sidenote; yet another bill seeking to protect gays from discrimination by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to a variety of anti-discrimination statutes across Louisiana law was pulled from consideration in a second House committee.

Like I said, every step forward requires a step back it seems, but the march will go on. 

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When BYU Asks About Sexual Orientation, LGBT Is Not An Option

Out there Utah way, the folks at Brigham Young University — fully owned and operated by the Mormon Church — distributed a survey to students so that, ALLEGEDLY, the school might better understand these “Millennial’s” attitudes regarding The Gays and same-sex attraction.

Trouble is, nowhere on the questionnaire is there a place to mark if you’re a gay.

The survey begins: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [LDS] is conducting a focus group to better understand your views on marriage and same-sex attraction … ”

But, while the short survey asks basic questions — Are you intimidated by people you are unfamiliar with, or Do you enjoy participating in new situations; Are you open to new ideas and experiences; Are you comfortable expressing your opinion to others — the survey also asks students to rate their “stance on social and moral issues” on a scale of 1-5 scale: “Traditional / conservative” to “Progressive / liberal.”

Simple, basic questions, no? Sure, until you get to that question; the one where Brigham Young asks the students: “What is your sexual orientation?”

The students have three options:

I am heterosexual, but I struggle with same-sex attraction.

I am heterosexual and do not struggle with same-sex attraction.

Other, please specify.

So, it seems that the Mormon Church, which has recently created a website called “Mormon and Gay” does not believe people can be gay; they can either be straight, or straight and “struggling with a same-sex attraction" but not gay, never gay. of course, you could check ‘other’ and then specify, but why is it so hard to ask folks if they’re gay, even for the Mormons?

Seriously, LDS, get ye olde arses into this century; there are gays everywhere, even sitting next to you in church, even in your family, in your classrooms, on your job site, and when you make it clear that ‘gay’ is not an answer to the question What is your sexual orientation, you are continuing to deny our existence.

We’re here, we’re queer and, some of us, are Mormons.

via The New Civil Rights Movement

Random Musings

Chick-fil-Antigay.

My final word. I hope.

See, here’s my deal: Dan Cathy can be anti-LGBT. He has the right. He has the right to speak that thought and he has the right to give his money to groups that promote that thought, no matter how hate-filled I think they might be…and they are that hate-filled.

So, we protest right? We use our voices to tell people that Chick-fil-Antigay takes the money we spend on chicken and donates it to hate. That’s the good fight.

The bad fight is a kiss-in. What the hell did that do, except make it look like The Gays just wanted to go all kissy in the restaurant? What did the spraying of graffiti on a franchise do except make us look like vandals?

You wanna make a difference against a company that takes your money and spends it on hate? Stop.Eating.There. Stop giving them your money. Tell your friends and family and co-workers about their homophobia, but when you do kiss-ins and spray-paint their buildings all you do is give them more press.

Just stop.

Funny Tweet:

So there’s a new study that says homosexuality is in the eyes.

What?

Well, the study says that sexual orientation can be detected by looking at the pupils of our eyes:

For the first time, researchers at Cornell University used a specialized infrared lens to measure pupillary changes to participants watching erotic videos. Pupils were highly telling: they widened most to videos of people who participants found attractive, thereby revealing where they were on the sexual spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual.

Let me get this queer. This study found that they could tell I’m a big old queen because my eyes get wide when watching male-on-male porn?

Um…..duh.

Dan Vickery

Okay, I said I would probably never recap HGTV Shopping Design Star, and I will be holding true to that. 

But then HGTV goes and broadcasts something called Design Star: All Stars and, while I won’t be recapping I will be watching.

But….Hilari from the season that just ended is an all star? How does that happen? Bitch came in third place so how does that make her an all star? 

Sparkle Josh is an all star? Just by the fact that he calls himself Sparkle Josh means he shouldn't be on TV.

I think HGTV just sent out a mass mailing to anyone who’d ever been on the show and asked them to come back and the first six respondents got the invite.

Tom Vecchione

Still, Dan Vickery, who just missed winning in season four is back, and HGTV is kind enough to focus a great deal of attention, and camera time, to his cute little butt. It’s like they read my mind. And then they go and add some Mad Men-esque, Tom Vecchione, from season 5, and suddenly I cannot look away.

Little, muscular Tom and tall, lanky, sexy Dan.

Must see HGTV.

Must see Hot HGTV.

Funny Tweet:

The hot mess GOP convention. The Ron Paulettes threaten all sorts of fun, and now the party has come up with their list of speakers.

The good news? No Sarah Palin, because even her own party knows she a dimwit and an asshat and basically an illiterate fool. But, they have asked Grampa John McCain, who was oh-so-not successful four years ago against Barack Obama, so I expect he’ll do a little whining, and little backtracking on his Mittsy loathing.

And they’ve even offered a top spot to our own little Tea Party darling, South Carolina Governor, Nikki ‘I’m So Transparent’ Haley, who never met a lie she didn’t want to repeat, and Mike ‘Batshit Crazy’ Huckabee, one of the biggest rightwingnuts in the group; if you don’t count Florida’s Governor/Criminal Rick Scott.

It’s the GOP convention, people, or as I call it, Pander-To-The-Tea-Party-Palooza.

The Illinois Family Institute, the former home of Peter LaBarbera, has issued a call for parents to pull their kids out of the classes of liberal, or gay, teachers.

I see nothing wrong with that. I mean, years back my parents went to the school and pulled me out of classes taught by conservatives—

Oh, wait. That didn’t happen. See, my parents simply wanted the teachers who were best at teaching things like readin’, writin’, and arithmetic.

Gay or straight.

Thanks Mom and Dad for not being bigots.

OKC Votes For Nondiscrimination Policy That Includes Sexual Orientation

When I first read this story, I thought, "Well, here's a bit of good news from the land of Sally Kern." And, don't get me wrong, it is good news, welcome  news, and about time news. But, it's also slightly troubling. Really troubling. Very troubling. What people will say when fighting equality and calling in the name of God in their fight.

The good news first. The Oklahoma City Council voted 7-2--quite a majority--to add sexual orientation to the city's employment nondiscrimination policy. See, now The Gays are just like everyone else....who's a city employee in the OKC.
But the debate over the issue is the troubling news.

Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid, who sponsored the measure:

“I would propose that we let the city be the employer, and let God be the judge. Let God sort this out later, and let us act objectively based on somebody's job performance, and that's it.” 

Ward 3 Councilman Larry McAtee, who was one of the two dissenting votes:

 “Oklahoma City has shown it is a thriving municipality with much to be thankful for. It would be foolish to jeopardize our success without a proven need for doing so.” 

And now, for those citing 'religion' as an excuse for inequality.

Paul Blair, pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond:

“Why are we creating a special class of protection for someone's behavior? We're not talking about civil rights. This is not a gender, or this is not a race.”

Eric Rogers, just a Regular Joe....asshat:

“This proposed law could be construed to help those that would look to animism, polygamy, transvestite ... or even later, if you want to get crazy, convicts, molesters, liars or any other behavior choice.”

But the worst of all was one little man of god, little g, one Pastor Tom Vineyard of Windsor Hills Baptist Church, spoke against the measure and actually cited a New York judge in saying more than half of murders in large cities are committed by gay people.

'Pastor' Asshat failed to mention the name of the judge, or the study, or the statistics, He simply said that more than half the murders committed in large cities are committed by gay people, and then received the longest standing ovation of the day after his remarks.

Like this one:

Tom Vineyard, 'pastor':

“Many homosexuals openly admit that they are pedophiles because they cannot actually reproduce. They resort to recruiting children. ... Folks, you're making a decision that will bring down God's judgment on your city if you vote in favor of this.”

Of course, though, not all pastors are such narrow-minded, hate-filled, lie-spewing, homophobes. In fact one such pastor, Scott Hamilton, of the Church of the Open Arms said:

“To couch in Christian terms these so-called statistics, I'll call them what they are. They are lies.” 

This is a perfect example of the Separation of Church and State. While everyone, even people like Tom Vineyard and Eric Rogers, are entitled to their viewpoints, be they religious or not, logical or not, factual or not, they cannot be allowed to impose their religious convictions on the laws of this country.

But then, as I want to do, to lower my blood pressure, and remove the remnants of these morons from my mind, I will once again focus of the good news, because, and it bears repeating, the Oklahoma City Council voted 7-2--quite a majority--to add sexual orientation to the city's employment nondiscrimination policy. 

Take that, 'Pastor'.

Source

Just A Thought

blatantly stolen from Ivan at Queer Iv

Boehner Boner

Edie Windsor is challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] and is seeking a refund of the federal estate taxes paid by the estate of her late wife, because The Gays, even those who are legally married, are not entitled to the same federal benefits as their heterosexual counterparts.

And now she has responded to House Speaker John Boehner's claim that her homosexuality was a 'choice'. Yes, Boehner thinks being gay is a choice. Lawyers for Boehner's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group [BLAG....which is the exact sound my stomach makes when I hear, see, or speak, about John Boehner] called homosexuality a choice in a brief filed last month. saying, “a significant percentage of gays and lesbians believe they exercised some or a great deal of choice in determining their sexuality.”  

Edie Windsor argued just the opposite, in fact, in her affidavit, stating that it was her marriage to a man, one Saul Weiner, that demonstrated the opposite. “I understand that BLAG argues in its papers that my first, brief marriage to Saul Weiner in 1951 demonstrates that I had a ‘choice’ about my sexual orientation. As I explain below, that is certainly not the case. What my marriage to Saul Weiner shows is that although I tried to make a ‘choice’ about my sexual orientation by getting married to a man, I was simply unable to do so.”

You can't do it, because it isn't a choice, though one wonders if Boehner, who seems to think that sexual orientation is a choice, remembers exactly where he was, and what he was doing, and with whom he was doing it, when he made the 'choice' to be heterosexual.

All major medical professional organizations, and anyone with an open mind and more than half a brain, agree that sexual orientation is not a choice and cannot be changed, from gay to straight or otherwise. The American Psychological Association describes sexual orientation as “a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors.” There is considerable evidence to suggest that biology, “including genetic or inborn hormonal factors,” plays a significant role in a person’s sexuality.

Still, John Boehner, Weeper Of The House, seems certain that the entire gay community was given a choice on their sexual orientation.

What a boner.

What a boner.

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