Miscellaneous

Charter for Compassion

Posted on December 23, 2009
I have been a fan of religious scholar and author Karen Armstrong for many years, ever since I first read her book A History of God. One of her central messages, particularly apt for our times, is that the religious fundamentalism that is thriving in all three major monotheistic faiths is actually a retreat from God despite adherents' claims of having a white-knuckled grasp of "him...

Ken Hutcherson's Choice

Posted on December 22, 2009
In May 2005, virulent anti-gay Ken Hutcherson said the following:"You tell me what I went through as an African-American, when they talk about discrimination, compared to what gays go through with discrimination - it's the difference between night and day, not even close...

Manhattan Declaration: A Conflict Of Interest

Posted on December 21, 2009
A couple weeks ago was quite a Manhattan Declaration extravaganza here in Fannie's Room! It has been on my mind a bit because of something that happened to me in my real life. You see, my girlfriend has a relative who recently got married. She and I attended this wedding, both of us spending quite a bit of time, money, and energy in helping this man have a beautiful wedding with his new wife...

Odds 'N Ends

Posted on December 18, 2009
1) Lady Umpires in Man SportsI have mixed thoughts about Slate's relatively new "double X" site for ladies. Whenever "women's issues" are ghetto-ized in this way, it lends the impression that issues affecting women are somehow separate from and less important than Real Concerns That Affect Everyone...

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Dudes: Breast Ogling Not Problematic for Women

Posted on December 17, 2009
That liberal and progressive dudemen can be so utterly clueless and dismissive of feminism and the concerns of vagina-humans is not exactly a startling revelation. For a while, I wanted to believe that left-leaning men "got it." Long ago, however, that dream shriveled, dried up, and blew away to that special fantasy dimension where all black people also automatically "get" the struggle for LGBT equality...

Dehumanizing Headline of the Week

Posted on December 16, 2009
I came across this headline last week, at 365Gay no less:"Lesbian teen guilty of school murder"The teenager was found guilty of a shooting a friend after the friend rejected her advances. While this unfortunate case has a sense of Romance Gone Awry, this girl's sexual orientation is no more relevant to the sexual orientation of a man who kills a woman (or women) for rejecting him, or a woman who kills a man for rejecting her advances...

Men's Rights Activist Predicts Violent Demise of Feminism

Posted on December 15, 2009
A men's rights fellow by the name of Paul Elam has, perhaps with the help of psychic powers, recently opined that Men's Rights Activism is poised to overthrow the "feminist hegemony" that rules everything in the entire world.How so?He googled two phrases and came up with these results:"Women?s rights: 48,300,000 hitsMen?s rights: 70,600,000 hits"The argument he poses is that the internet "matters very much" given the incredibly powerful influence that feminism holds over the mainstream media...

Rick Warren Condems Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Posted on December 14, 2009
In a surprising turn from his previous stance of neutrality, Rick Warren has come out forcefully against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would sentence those convicted of the "crime" of homosexuality to life in prison or death.In his words:"We are all familiar with Edmund Burke?s insight, 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing...

In Which the Manhattan Declaration Signees Tell Us "Truths" About Issues Uniquely Affecting Women and Gay People

Posted on December 11, 2009
(Hello readers, I am excited to announce that I will also be contributing to the group blog A World of Progress from time to time. A slightly shortened version of this blog post is my first contribution over there.) A group of mostly male heterosexual, conservative Christians have recently created and signed on to their Manhattan Declaration in which they have informed us about certain "non-negotiable truths...

Attacks on Black LGBT Youth

Posted on December 10, 2009
An organization serving primarily African-American LGBT youth in Chicago has reported seeing an increase in violent attacks on youth served. 17 youth have been attacked this year. According to the Youth Pride Center:"The youth who are targeted tend to be more flamboyant or feminine...

Maggie Gallagher Calls the Kettle Black

Posted on December 09, 2009
Yesterday, we saw how a group of conservative Christians celebrated their own awesomeness by comparing themselves to Martin Luther King, Jr. and imbuing same-sex couples with the power to destroy society. They did this in a document called the Manhattan Declaration...

In Which the Manhattan Declaration Signees Celebrate Their Own Incredible Bravery and Awesomeness

Posted on December 08, 2009
The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience is a manifesto written and signed by Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christian leaders to reaffirm certain "truths" they have deemed to be "inviolable and non-negotiable." During a time in which the US has waged multiple wars, nationwide unemployment rates are in the double digits, and food stamp usage among American families is at an all time high, these self-anointed Christian leaders have taken this moment in our nation's history to "speak out forcefully" against abortion and same-sex marriage...

Dude-Victim Experiences Lady Fear

Posted on December 07, 2009
I first saw this article at Twisty's place. Police in British Columbia believe that a woman is going around kicking random men in the balls for no reason at all. She kicked one man so hard that he lost a testicle.While acknowledging that violence is wrong, I think it is also worthwhile to examine male reaction to this article, as men are not often on the receiving end of this sort of random, overt gender-based violence...

Reimagining Twilight

Posted on December 04, 2009
What if Bella were Buffy? This is one way to imagine it:

Very Important Study About Female Skin Revelation

Posted on December 03, 2009
Scientific experts have finally solved what is perhaps the single most pressing concern of ladies these days "by calculating the exact proportion of the body that should be exposed for optimum allure [to the male gaze]." As the Telegraph notes:"Striking the right balance between revealing too much and being too conservative in how much skin is on show has long been a dilemma for women when choosing the right outfit for a night out...

SpOrTs LaDiEs BeHaViNg BaDlY

Posted on December 02, 2009
The mainstream media and sports news outlets love covering ladies in sports. When they're getting into catfights that is! Unfortunately, sports outlets and the media still don't deem female athletes to be all that worthy of coverage. When female athletes are covered in the mainstream/sports media, at least one of three truths will come into play: (a) The coverage will consist of a gimmicky article about how a particular lady athlete has behaved badly, (b) If the coverage is a feature story, it will be of a Hot Lady Athlete even though she has peers who are similarly, if not more, talented, and/or (c) Following every online article featuring a female athlete or team, male commenters opine upon the general overall suckiness of lady sports...

Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Posted on December 01, 2009
Uganda's parliament is considering a bill that would make life imprisonment the minimum punishment for gay sex and/or same-sex marriage. Under the proposed bill, the accused would face the death penalty if HIV positive, among other conditions. Penalties would also exist for those who "aid and abet" others to commit the "crime" of homosexuality, who do not disclose an act of homosexuality that has been committed, and who promote homosexuality via writings and other media...

Review: Out of the Silent Planet

Posted on November 30, 2009
As a general note, I thought CS Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, was a pretty interesting read, as far as science fiction goes. I do have my criticisms of it, however. Long story short, it is about a man, Dr. Ransom, who is abducted by two other men and taken to Mars in a spaceship...

Gender Odds 'N Ends

Posted on November 27, 2009
1. My Right SelfPhotographer Arthur Robinson Williams exhibit My Right Self was recently on display at a nearby university. The project features five participants who identify as trans or gender-variant. For those seeking to better understand the diversity within the trans community and the experiences of those within it:"My Right Self includes text from the writings of the participants who have been given time to reflect upon and describe how their identities are related to their bodies, their sex, their gender, their sexuality, and further, how their relationships with others and society reflect back how they are perceived in the world and exist in the eyes of others...

Anger and Non-Duality

Posted on November 26, 2009
Words of wisdom from Thich Nhat Hanh:"When we get angry, we suffer. If you really understand that, you also will be able to understand that when the other person is angry, it means that she is suffering. When someone insults you or behaves violently toward you, you have to be intelligent enough to see that person suffers from his own violence and anger...

Review: "Does Gender Matter?"

Posted on November 25, 2009
Thanks to Seda for recently passing along to me Ben Barres' Nature article "Does gender matter?" I believe you need a subscription to read this online. Nonetheless, I have tried to write a review that will be interesting even to those who have not read the article...

From Buffy to Bella: A Review of New Moon

Posted on November 24, 2009
I treated myself to a guilty pleasure and saw the new Twilight movie that all the kids these days are raving about, New Moon. It was probably not a very feminist thing of me to do, I know, but what with all of the movies about serious men and men who stare at goats and so forth, what is a feminist lady to do, really? Of course, just because New Moon was a book written by a lady and a script written by a lady, I was fully aware that the movie came with no guarantee that the film version would include two ladies who (a) talk to each other about (b) something other than a guy...

Catholic Archdiocese Threatens To Take (Our) Toys and Go Home

Posted on November 23, 2009
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to stop doing business with the District if DC's same-sex marriage law passes. Via the Washington Post:"Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings...

Blogging, Marriage, and Monsters

Posted on November 21, 2009
From time to time, I like to take a step back and blog about blogging. I have mixed feelings about these meta posts as they usually mean that something not fun has "happened." But, I think it's important to address issues as they come up with respect to blogging and internet communication...

Sex Integration Fail: Take Two

Posted on November 20, 2009
Previously, I took an article written by our anti-equality friend On Lawn to to task for asserting that same-sex marriage is a "pollution of equality" and that it was heterosexual marriage that caused women to win the right to vote in the US. I raised a number of very clear questions in my piece, questions that any able "marriage defender" and "gender complementarist" should have had no trouble answering...

Children of Same-Sex Parents "Just Fine"

Posted on November 19, 2009
I strongly believe that "marriage defense" is grounded in an ideology of male supremacy. The basic idea behind many people's "defense of traditional marriage" is the idea that men and women are complementary beings who, when they come together in a pair bond, naturally create the institution of marriage...

Book Review: The Mercury 13- The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight

Posted on November 18, 2009
I knew going into Martha Ackmann's historical account The Mercury Thirteen: The true story of thirteen women and the dream of space flight that, due to the content, it would be difficult, frustrating, and infuriating at times to read. During a time when John Glenn and other male pilots and astronauts were national heroes, the physical and mental superiority of white men over women and people of color was simply a given when it came to the dream of space flight...

Police Officer Condones Murder of Gay Man in Puerto Rico

Posted on November 17, 2009
In Puerto Rico this past weekend, someone brutally murdered a 19-year-old gay man by decapitating, dismembering, and burning him. In a world in which the life of a gay man mattered like how the lives of human beings matter, those charged with protecting society would would strongly condemn such a murder...

In Which Carrie Prejean Fails to Fit NOM's Story Arc

Posted on November 16, 2009
It's not often that I would use the descriptor "good" in the same sentence as the National Organization for [Hetersexual] Marriage. However, I will concede that one thing NOM is good at is writing narratives that resonate with people's fears.For instance, after Proposition 8 took away the right for same-sex couples to marry in California and LGBT advocates took to the streets in protest, NOM hyperventilated, "McCarthyism is threatening our free speech and freedom of association?our most basic constitutional rights...

Rules For Servers

Posted on November 13, 2009
I found this article in The New York Times, "100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1)" amusing, and also true, for the most part.I was glad to see some of my pet peeves mentioned, including:"Do not turn on the charm when it?s tip time. Be consistent throughout...

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