Random Musings

Update on the story I posted earlier this week [HERE] about Earl Bullard, the mayor of Latta, South Carolina who fired the police chief Crystal Moore because she’s a lesbian.

It seems the good people of Latta aren’t having this because this week the town council voted unanimously to block Bullard from replacing Moore during the next two months. That followed a vote from last week to hold a referendum on a new structure for government that would enable the town council to hire Moore back.

A standing room only crowd turned out for a council meeting to show their support for Moore.

In Small Town South Carolina of all places!

One thing I hate, and which feels like steel-tipped fingernails slowly sliding down a chalkboard, is when people say “exspecially’ instead of ‘especially’.

Knock it off.

Lupita Nyong'o is People magazine’s ‘Most Beautiful’ woman, marking just the third time in the 25-year history of the ‘Most Beautiful’ issue that a Black woman has graced the cover. 

And she deserves it!

All I can say is that they got it right, and, well, let’s try to see more women of color on the cover, eh?

After coming out last year during a Golden Globes speech, this past weekend Jodie Foster married her girlfriend Alexandra Hedison.

Congratulations to the happy couple.

And congratulations to husband-in-my-head Matt Bomer who revealed this week that he has been married to his longtime partner Simon Halls since 2011.

Married to someone else or not, he still gets to be husband-in-my-head.

After Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady came out in support for same-sex marriage a gaggle of Republicans sought to oust him from his job because, you know, gays and equality and shiz. Brady resigned last May, citing his wife's battle with cancer and his desire to focus on his family after four years as chairman and two as a Republican National Committee member.

Bad news, followed by good news.

When Illinois Republicans voted this week for all 18 state central committee member posts they ousted six of the seven Republican Neanderthals who wanted Brady removed for his support of LGBT rights.

Maybe the GOP is changing, y’all. Maybe.

More good news? Okay … the Kentucky legislature has adjourned for the year without voting on a bill that would have allowed Senator Crazy Rand Paul to appear twice on the 2016 ballot. 

Paul had asked the state to change the law so that he could retain his Senate seat while running for president because even he knows he’ll never be president and he wants that Senate Seat Safety Net.

Brian Wilkerson, a spokesman for Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo: "In Kentucky, you ought to run for one office at a time. The speaker's thoughts haven't changed on that."

And Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, is highly unlikely to call the legislature into special session to consider the measure so that means if Crazy Rand Paul's allies in the legislature want to try again, they're going to have to wait until the legislature reconvenes next January.

And by that time, a number of 2016 White House contenders may already be officially in the race making Paul’s chances slimmer than Oprah fitting into a size twelve.

Boo-yah!

Onto another kind of race, RuPaul’s Drag Race:

This week’s Mini-Challenge was to create “Twerks of Art” and the ladies did so by covering their bodies in paint and rolling all over a giant canvas. It was all kinds of creepy and icky and gooey. Let’s move on …

The Main Challenge began with the queens being teamed up with biologically female brides for a wedding makeover but then came the twist; the queens wouldn’t be making over the women as pretty little brides, they’d be making over the husbands into pretty not-so-little brides.

Let’s dish:

Bianca Del Rio was the week’s big winner. First, she won the ‘Twerk of Art’ mini-challenge, though I’m sure she’ll forget to add that to her resume. But her ‘bride’ was by far the best of the bunch, and she totally rocked the Mother of the Bride runway look. She and her drag daughter actually looked alike on the runway and matched in wedding dress and Mother of the Bride couture. Plus, Bianca is an all out riot, and so quick with the comebacks:  "Don't call me mommy in public."

BenDeLaCreme is also coming on strong. And she really played up the Mother of the Bride act, and also created a unique march down the aisle. I am still Team BenDeLa, but I am leaning toward Team Bianca, too.

Courtney Act is pretty; Courtney Act looked better than her bride. Not good for the Mother of the Bride to wear a sexy, nearly see-thru number while her drag daughter basically wore window dressing and a sheet.

Darienne Lake got the tough challenge: Goth Wedding. But she pulled it off somewhat, at least with her drag daughter who seemed ready to try out for next season’s Drag Race, But Darienne completely missed the Goth Mother of the Bride mark so points off for that.

Adore Delano, I do not adore. She can’t sew, and she apparently can’t apply make-up, either to herself or anyone else. This was a mess from the get-go and looked more like In Bred Cousin F**Ker Wedding than anything else; bad wigs—even her drag daughter questioned the style level of the hair—and bad gowns and bad makeup.

Joslyn Fox got the uncomfortable groom who was a professional, or semi-professional, basketball player who cared only about what his teammates night think when they saw him in a dress. Honey, why go on a show called ‘Drag Race’ if you worried about being seen in drag. And then, puking on the runway? How Willem of you.

Lip Sync For Your Life: Adore v Joslyn. And it was no contest. I couldn’t have cared less which queen went home but watching Joslyn out-of-sync-lip-sync was painful. Adore really mopped the floor with her and Joslyn took her drag on home.

What did YOU think?

Last season on Once Upon A Time — a show that never saw a hot guy and didn’t want to put him in tight leather pants — we met Sean Maguire, who plays Robin Hood. He was hot, and then he was gone. Luckily, for me anyway, the show brought him and his hot Britishness back.

And luckily Devious Maids s also back because, while the show is at times trite, some of the dialogue is whip-smart-funny and there are at least two new hotties to admire this season.

Dominic Adams plays hot bodyguard with a hot body that needs a guard to keep me off it, while Mark Deklin — last seen as the closeted gay husband on Good Christian Bitches — is back as a hot man with a secret past.

Yum.

I got a kick out of the stories that Hillary Clinton planted the shoe thrower so she would look more presidential, like George W, Bush, because here’s George W. Bush being, well, ex-presidential.

Four of the five living presidents — only Daddy Bush was missing — spoke at the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library as part of a summit honoring the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and this is how George W Bush opened his speech:

“Former presidents compare their libraries the way other men may compare their, well … Just wondering how LBJ would have handled that. He was a funny guy at times.”

Yeah, commemorating the Civil Rights Act is the perfect place for a penis joke.

Fucking frat boy asshat.

Over there to the Italy, the city council of Latina voted in favor of a motion to support the recognition of a same-sex couple’s marriage.

Antonio Garullo and Mario Ottocento [above] were the first Italian gay couple to be married more than 10 years ago in Holland, and in 2004 they asked the Ufficio dello Stato Civile of Latina to register their marriage but their application was turned down.

The couple sued the town, and in 2005 the Tribunale of Latina rejected their complaint. They appealed to the Court of Appeal of Rome and were denied a second time. They appealed that denial to the Supreme Court of Cassation who, in 2012, also rejected their appeal but delivered a landmark opinion for LGBT rights saying Italian laws should treat gay and straight couples equally. 

So, Antonio and Mario asked the town of Latina to record their marriage again, and on April 15, 2014, the Council of the Latina approved in a 14-2 vote a motion in support of the record of their marriage.

The motion is addressed to the Italian Government, which will decide whether or not the commune of Latina can register the marriage but I love that the two men never gave up, and won’t ever give up.

Ralph Reed brought his anti-LGBT hate to ABC's This Week to talk about gay adoption and gay parenting and Russia’s anti-gay adoption laws. [the emphasis in the quotes is mine]

Ralph Reed: “The social science on this is clear. This isn’t about Vladimir Putin, this is about what’s best for children here in the United States. The social science is irrefutable: a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present, and they both very unique procreative, nurturing, and socializing roles, they’re nine times more likely to end up dropping out of high school; they’re five times more likely to end up in poverty; and they’re three times more likely to end up addicted to drugs and alcohol.”

Cokie Roberts, host of This Week: “But the social science is also irrefutable that a child raised in an orphanage is in much worse shape than a child raised in a home. And the fact that people are willing to take these children and raise them, and raise them in a loving way, is clearly better for these children.”

Ralph Reed: “I think the social science is just simply not in yet on same-sex couples. I think the law has every right to set an ideal. And the ideal is a mother and a father.”

Love how he contradicts himself within seconds of saying the science is clear, and then saying the science is not in yet.

Asshat can’t even forge a decent anti-gay argument.

So, earlier we talked about Matt Bomer’s marriage some three years ago and I felt sad that he would only and always be just a husband-in-my-head, but then I saw that picture and, well, I’m okay with my fantasies.

Excuse me for a moment …

I'm back. I posted a while back about Mississippi's Don't Serve The Gays Because The Baby Jeebus Said So law, and talked about the group, If You're Buying, We're Selling placing decals into windows of businesses that don't discriminate.

Well, I checked out their website, HERE, and imagine my surprise when I saw my little old blag listed under Press Reports.

How cool is that?

I Didn't Say It ...

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, on Meet the Press, about the Pope's statements this week that seemed to suggest the Catholic Church might support civil unions:

“He didn't come right out and say he was for them. Once again in an extraordinarily open, sincere, nuanced way, he said 'I know that some people in some states have chosen this. We need to think about that and look in look into it and see the reasons that have driven them.' It wasn't as if he came right out and approved them. But in a sensitivity that has won the heart of the world, he said, 'Rather than quickly condemn them, let's see. Let's just ask the questions as to why that has appealed to certain people."

I actually agree with Dolan, and I threw up a little in my mouth realizing that, but Pope Franky isn’t LGBT-friendly, y’all.

He’s simply realizing the Catholic Church is waaaay out of touch and he’s dipping his Prada-covered toe into the waters to test them.

Rachel Maddow, on her documentary Why We Did It, which delves into the reasons for the war in Iraq:

"I think that there is a desire to hear the truth told. Honestly, there are two million Iraq war veterans in this country and there are four thousand families who lost somebody. And when you think about that, when you look at Wounded Warriors and the people that are carrying this for the rest of their lives...I think even the people who were part of it in some ways want to see those people hear the truth, and it has never been explained."

And I wonder if it ever will.

Oliver North, gasbag criminal, speaking at CPAC:

"Some say that we must ignore social issues, like the definition of marriage and the sanctity of life, religious freedoms. I say those are not social issues. They are deeply moral and spiritual issues and they should be a part of America's elections. In the 1850's, a political party was born on the idea of a great moral issue - human bondage, the abolition of slavery in America. If we as conservatives cease to be a place where people of faith and those who believe in strong moral values can come, we will cease to be a political force in America.”

There’s so much to think and say about the disgrace known as Oliver North, but all I can see is that he says “deeply moral and spiritual issues … should be part of America’s elections.”

No, religion should not play a part in elections.

Separation of Church and State. We are a country of man-made laws not God’s laws. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights; we’d just have a Bible.

Paul Ryan, asshat, liar, failed Vice Presidential candidate, and droopy, dog-eyed dick, telling more stories that aren’t true:

"The left is making a big mistake here. What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that. This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my buddy, Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. He told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand."

He says he got the story from Eloise Anderson, the secretary for children and families for the state of Wisconsin.

And then he says, of course, after he told his fable at CPAC, that he'd just learned that Secretary Anderson misspoke, and that "the story she told was improperly sourced."

First off, one cannot misspeak an entire story. You can misspeak about certain facts as part of a story, but when the whole story is blatantly, provably wrong, then what you’ve just done is lied, Paul.

You’re a liar, Paul Ryan, plain and simple.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, again, on Meet the Press, when asked if civil unions make him personally uncomfortable:

"The civil unions? It would. It would in a way, David, because I don't think, um, marriage between one man and one woman forever, leading to life and love. That's not something that is just a sacramental religious concern. You bet it is that. And that's how God is elevated into making a sacrament. But it's also the building block of society and culture. So it belongs to culture. And if we water down that sacred meaning of marriage in any way I worry that not only the church would suffer, I worry that culture and society would."

It’s funny that Dolan doesn’t see how marriage has changed even over the last century.

Just a few short decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic; a Jew to marry and non-Jew; and even closer to home, it was just in the 1960s that interracial marriages became legal.

Marriage has changed Dolan, and society has not crumbled.

Put away the hate.

Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition leader, speaking at on the GOP’s ill-fated and long-running federal marriage amendment:

"Even if you passed a federal marriage amendment, I would assume it would grandfather in anyone who's been married, so I don't know. It was always a very difficult option. I don't think we ever got 50 votes in the U.S. Senate for that amendment. So, we always knew that the amendment was going to be very difficult to pass."

Too bad that many in the GOP still don’t get that and still come out against same-sex marriage.

They need to goose-step faster if they wanna keep up with the changing times.

Tilda Swinton, on The Gays and the closet:

"Well, I think there’s something that gay people have. It is true that to pass through the transitions that gay people have to in order to come out to themselves, to their families when they’re quite young, it’s a grow-bag, isn’t it? And I think that very often, heterosexual people miss out on that. There’s a feeling of development and sometimes, heterosexual people have never had to go through that self-examination and just knowing themselves, and that sense of coming out, coming to your own defense, and being your own best advocate, and going, “No! I’m going to stand by myself and say this is who I am and you can all fuck off.” That is a wonderful transition to go through, and I suppose a lot of straight people miss out on that, and then maybe their relationship choices are potentially less examined. They could be lazier or less thoroughly thought-through."

I love that because I believe we all have “closets” we need to come out of and there not just gay closets, but they’re closets of fear and shame and self-loathing about something.

And whenever someone comes out of that closet, it’s a great thing.

Kevin Swanson, Colorado “pastor”, AKA Pastor Jazz Hands, believing that Disney’s newest animated film Frozen is an attempt to convert children to being gay:

“Man, how many children are taken into these things and how many Christians are taking their kids off to see the movie Frozen, produced by an organization that is probably one of the most pro-homosexual organizations in the country? You wonder sometimes, I’m not a tinfoil hat conspiratorialist, but you wonder sometimes if maybe there’s something very evil happening here. If I was the Devil, what would I do to really foul up an entire social system and do something really, really, really evil to 5- and 6- and 7-year-olds in Christian families around America?”

Gosh, the most sane thing he said in that whole paragraph is ‘, I’m not a tinfoil hat conspiratorialist’.

And if that’s the most sane thing he said, well …..