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After 9 months of being in office and no significant advances in LGBT rights from Obama, I was starting to lose faith. However, at this year's Human Rights Campaign dinner, Obama pledged to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the military policy that does not allow homosexuals into the military. If he actually does follow through on this, it means a huge victory for gay rights. I, personally, have faith that he will do it, but the real problems are what will happen after that ends. Will openly gay members of the military face discrimination? While I'm sure any changes in the law will also protect homosexuals and prevent discrimination in job placement in the military, I'm afraid there will be a lot of marginalization from other service members. However, these problems cannot occur until DADT is actually repealed.

Obama also promised to end DOMA, the "Defense of Marriage Act" which denies same sex couples the right to marry. Unfortunately, he offered no timeline for these actions. He has 3 years left-- let's make sure he remembers his promises, okay?

Also, thank you to all who participated in the March for Equality in DC this year! I wish I could have been there. In any case, I hope this march helps to show Obama that there is a lot of support out there for LGBT rights.

Well, everyone, despite the fact that there are real issues going on in the world that I could talk about...such as Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, or NASA's moon "bombing," or...well, anything, really. But instead, we're going to talk about an important issue to ME.

I went to Johannesburg's Pride Fest this weekend, and while I considered it a bit small (at least, compared to Milwaukee's), it was apparently the largest Jo'burg has ever had, and I applaud them for that. They haven't been having Pride Festivals as long as the US has, so I'm sure their events will grow as time progresses. One positive thing was that I saw no protesters like I have at US events. :)

Anyways...I encountered a problem there. Not from anyone, because everyone was quite nice. Well, to be honest...I don't know how to pick up a chick. Or how to let her know I'm interested or...any of that. With boys, I have plenty of experience (well, not THAT much). When it comes to girls...what do I do?! I saw a few girls that I was interested in, but I was too shy to go talk to them. Now if you know me, you'll know that me feeling shy is an extremely rare situation. But it's true, I felt like I was back in 6th grade, just feeling awkward!

It sounds silly, but I feel like I'm starting over...it's a bit nerve-wrecking! Granted, Pride is one place where you can usually assume someone's sexual orientation, but what about elsewhere in the world? How do you know someone is gay? How do you differentiate flirting and just being friendly without being a super creeper?

Do you have any advice? How do you know if someone is gay, if they aren't overtly obvious? How do you convey that you're interested? How do you deal with it if you hit on someone and then realize that they're straight?

I'm new to this whole "actually being open with my sexuality" thing, so any help would be appreciated. :)

Remember six months ago when Glenn Beck went on his Fox News show and tearfully lamented how partisan and divided we had all become, and expressed his sincere and innocent and completely selfless wish that we all come together like we were the day after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks? He challenged us to remember how united we all were after that terrible day eight years ago, and to put aside our political and philosophical differences and get to work doing what’s right for the country — not for our own parties or movements, but for all of us. “It’s six months until 9/12,” Glenn told his audience back in March. “I’ve got some things I’m working on that should take me about six months.”

Ooooh! That’s . . . a little terrifying coming from Glenn Beck. He promptly put up a website for his newly christened 9/12 Project, and published a mission statement that reads in part,

This is a non-political movement. The 9-12 Project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created.

That same feeling — that commitment to country is what we are hoping to foster with this idea. We want to get everyone thinking like it is September 12th, 2001 again.

At the origin of America, our Founding Fathers built this country on 28 powerful principles. These principles were culled from all over the world and from centuries of great thinkers. We have distilled the original 28 down to the 9 basic principles.

So, how do we show America what’s really behind the curtain? Read The 9 Principles. If you believe in at least seven of them, then we have something in common.

(In the interest of full disclosure, let me note that I wrote this piece three years ago to mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on my blog, Steve Likes to Curse. In publishing it here, I have gone through and updated a few things, mostly references to “five years ago,” things like that. It still represents how I felt about 9/11 at the time, and how I feel about it today, and so I wanted to share.)

I woke up expecting to drive to Canada that day. Dana and I had made plans to attend the remainder of the Toronto Film Festival. I had asked off work for the rest of the week, and driven up to Dana’s apartment in Manheim, Pennsylvania the night before. I drove her to Lancaster around eight that morning to work half a day at Dr. Deibler’s office. After I dropped her off, I returned to her place and went back to sleep. I got up a few hours later and took a shower, checked my email and watched a movie. Dana didn’t have cable, and had a very small DVD collection. I don’t remember specifically, but I may have watched Galaxy Quest for the seventh or eighth time.

She called me a little after eleven. “We might not be able to go to Toronto,” she said. “Someone hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the twin towers in New York, and the Pentagon. Both the twin towers have completely collapsed. They’ve grounded all commercial air traffic, and I think they closed the border to Canada, too.” I got off the phone with her and signed back online. The news was pretty useless at that point, just distilled confusion. Terrorists, planes, Pentagon ablaze, a block of Manhattan reduced to a smoking crater, a cloud of dust that obscured half the island.

I called my apartment in Hagerstown, but Mike and Kelly weren’t there. I left a message: “Looks like we’re not going to Toronto after all, what with everything that’s going on. Apparently they closed the border. This country, man – knock a couple of buildings down, and we fold up like a tent.”

I drove back to Dr. Deibler’s office to pick up Dana. There was a black and white television in his office that must have been thirty years old. It had a white plastic housing and round knobs for the channel and volume controls, and rabbit ears. It was on, and while I waited for Dana I watched a fuzzy image of Tom Brokaw try to explain what had happened.

Two flights originating from Logan International Airport in Boston, bound for Los Angeles, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were hijacked sometime after 8:00 a.m. At 8:46, American Flight 11 crashed into One World Trade Center (the North Tower), impacting between the 93rd and 99th floors. Sometime shortly before 9:00, a third flight was hijacked, American Airlines Flight 77, flying from Washington Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. At 9:03, United Flight 175 flew into Two World Trade Center (the South Tower), impacting between floors 78 and 84. At 9:28 a fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, originating from Newark International Airport in Newark New Jersey, bound for San Francisco, was hijacked. American Flight 77 crashed into the western wall of the Pentagon at 9:37. At 9:59, the South Tower collapsed.

United Flight 93 crashed into an empty field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania that had once been a strip mine, at 10:03 a.m. At 10:28, the North Tower collapsed. New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani ordered lower Manhattan evacuated at 10:45, roughly the same time a mass evacuation of Washington, D.C. was taking place. At 10:50, five stories of the Pentagon collapsed. At 10:53, it was announced that New York’s primary elections, to be held that day, were officially canceled. There was yet no count of the dead, but estimates were as high as 30,000, depending on how many had been able to escape the towers before they fell. As Brokaw spoke, they cut to video of the twin towers, upper floors aflame, thick black smoke pouring out from the sides. On that black and white TV it looked like a newsreel from some war long ago concluded. I felt a sense of unreality that lingered for weeks afterward.

When we got back to Dana’s apartment, she called her parents to let them know she was okay. Shanksville, where United Flight 93 had gone down, the nearest to us of the three crash sites, was nearly three hours away. Still, at the time it seemed like a rational thing to do. Dana had made an appointment to get her hair cut before we were to leave for Toronto. She called to make sure they were still open: “I just wanted to make sure,” she told the woman on the phone, “with everything that’s happened.” I drove her to the salon. I sat in the car and waited on her. I turned on the radio and listened to Dan Rather try to explain what was happening. “If you’re just joining us,” he said at one point, apparently proceeding from the ludicrous premise that some of the people watching or listening to him had no idea what had taken place, “hijacked aircraft were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., in what appears to have been a deliberate, calculated assault on the seats of American financial and military power.” After her haircut, Dana and I drove to Barnes and Noble and I bought Ben Folds’ first solo album, Rockin’ the Suburbs, which had come out that day.

I didn’t really see what it looked like until I got back to my apartment the next day. I watched that big TV that sat on the floor of our living room and saw the towers burn and fall in living color. I heard the words “al-Qaeda” for the first time, and the name Osama bin Laden. They said there was reason to believe that the passengers aboard United Flight 93 had heard about the first attacks and had fought back against their hijackers, had caused their plane to crash in Shanksville in order to ensure it didn’t find its way to its intended target, possibly the White House or Capitol. At some point I went to the answering machine and erased the message I had left.

My first day back at work I went into the office to talk to Joe, and he jokingly asked me, “Where were you Tuesday morning?” We had this other manager working there, T.J. I was sweeping up and had stopped in front of the TV in front of the diesel desk to watch the endless continuing coverage, which Fox News had christened “America United.” I saw T.J. approaching and resumed sweeping, but he pointed at the TV and said, “You can watch this if you want.” He was standing next to me some time later when we and a small crowd of customers gathered around and watched President Bush address a joint session of Congress.

Roger Ebert was in Toronto for the film festival, and he posted a piece on his website within a day or two of the attacks. He said the remainder of the festival had been indefinitely postponed, the border was closed, he had no idea how or when he was going to get home to Chicago to see his family. He wrote something else that has stayed with me ever since: he said the 20th century was over.

Ten days after the attacks, all the TV networks aired a special called “America: A Tribute to Heroes.” Bruce Springsteen played an extraordinary song called “My City of Ruin,” and Jack Nicholson helped answer the phones to accept donations for the victims and families of those lost in the attacks.

A few weeks later, I was at work again when they showed a video of Osama bin Laden that had been sent to al-Jazeera, which was apparently an Arab television network. He was speaking to the camera, addressing the world. I watched it on one of the little TV’s we had for sale. He said that America would never again know peace. It was like something out of a comic book.

The time started to pass quicker. First it was two weeks ago, then a month ago, then three months. At six months, the ruins of the World Trade Center, long since nicknamed Ground Zero, were still smoldering. The death toll had dropped from the 30,000 estimated that first day to around 3,000. Three thousand people were dead, and yet it was almost a relief that the number was so small. Over 100, maybe even over 200 people had jumped to their deaths from the upper floors of the twin towers before they fell, desperate to escape an agonizing death by fire and asphyxiation. In the North Tower, no one on the floors above the impact zone survived. In the South Tower, 18 people from the upper floors had been able to escape through a single passable stairwell. For weeks afterwards, they persisted in calling it a rescue operation. By the time the six month mark rolled around it had been redefined as a recovery, and the police and firemen who were still combing through the rubble 24 hours a day had to admit that they were now merely looking for body parts.

This was all eight years ago. Thirteen months after September 11, 2001, Dana and I ended our relationship. In late July 2004, I moved out of my apartment and went back home to live with my parents, and haven’t spoken to Mike since. In December 2004 I ran into Ashley at a grocery store while I was there with Granny. In March 2005, Ashley and I started dating. In April 2006, I quit my job at Pilot and enrolled in Hagerstown Community College. Now, in September 2009, I am a student at Shepherd University. Life is different now. A lot has changed in eight years. The Pentagon has been repaired. The wreckage of United Flight 93 has been cleaned up from that field in Shanksville, although the medical examiner says there are so many tiny pieces that they will probably never find them all. There is still a hole where the twin towers once stood, though the ruins have been picked up and taken away.

At some point the final death toll was announced as 2,973, with 24 still officially classified as missing. I knew no one killed in any of the attacks that day. I have no personal connection. I have not been to the field in Pennsylvania, or the Pentagon, or the former site of the twin towers, though perhaps I should go. Perhaps we all should. The longest human life is only a blink of the universe’s eye, but that is the time we are given. All I know is I am here. I can walk outside, I can write, I can play baseball, I can laugh, I can love and be loved. Life will go on a short while. For the moment, I am one of the lucky ones.


Other notable events on September 11:

In the year 1297 William Wallace led an army of Scots to victory against the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

In 1786 the Annapolis Convention, which eventually led to the abandonment of the Articles of Confederation and the drafting of the current United States Constitution, convened in Annapolis, Maryland.

In 1918 the Boston Red Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs in Game 6 of the 1918 World Series, winning their fifth World Championship, their last of the 20th Century.

In 1962 the Beatles recorded “Love Me Do,” their first single.

In 1985 Pete Rose hit safely for the 4,192nd time, breaking Ty Cobb’s Major League record for all-time most base hits.

D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885.

Astronaut Robert Crippen, who piloted the space shuttle Columbia on its first orbital flight, was born in 1937.

Legendary animator Max Fleischer, who made classic shorts featuring Popeye and Superman, and in the 1920’s also made films about Einstein’s theory of relativity and Darwin’s theory of evolution, died today in 1972.

Lorne Greene, star of Bonanza and the original Battlestar Galactica, died in 1987.

Actress Jessica Tandy died in 1994.

Actor John Ritter died in 2003.

Among the 2,397 casualties of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 was David Angell, co-creator of the television shows Cheers and Frasier. Angell was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 when it struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Also killed when that plane crashed were flight attendants Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney, who maintained telephone contact with the ground during the hijacking, and are responsible for much of our understanding of the events of that morning.

Via Chino Blanco…

Christine Lutz was traveling down Interstate-30, just east of Fort Worth, when she came face to face with a billboard containing a pro-gay message. "I cringed. I was disgusted at the same time," she said.
The billboard angered Lutz so much, that she fired off a stern e-mail. "I said how dare you take the scriptures and twist it to fit your needs," she recalled.
There are four billboards with similar pro-gay messages along I-30 that have started a debate among Christians in North Texas.
Rev. Jon Haack, with Promise Metropolitan Community Church, said, "If we go back to the gospel readings, we don't find anything within those texts that discriminate or exclude against gay and lesbian people. Gay and lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people are part of God's creation too."
Rev. Haack is with one of five local churches sponsoring the billboards that advocate gay acceptance by all Christians.
One billboard reads, "The early church welcomed a gay man." Another one reads, "Jesus affirmed a gay couple."
The billboards were put up a week ago along I-30 between Grand Prairie and Fort Worth and the negative e-mails are already coming in. "There are people who have told us to reread our Bible which is the very question we're asking others to do," explained Rev. Colleen Darruagh, with Metropolitan Community Church of Greater Dallas. "We've had people say, 'How dare you take the name of God in vain' and that God hates homosexuals."
Pastor Sam Dennis, of Parkway Hills Baptist Church in Plano, says Christians shouldn't hate gays. He disagrees however with the billboards' use of scripture to back a pro-gay message. "I'm hard pressed to find that scripture advocates that it's alright to live in a gay lifestyle. Just like I'm hard pressed to find that scripture advocates that's it's alright to live in an adulterous relationship or as a wife abuser or as a murderer."
The five local churches sponsoring the billboards are part of the Worldwide Metropolitan Community Church which has a predominantly gay congregation.

Jeremy Hooper over at Good As You posted this video and we thought we would repost it here to share with you, but all credit to Jeremy for finding it. The video shows an anonymous caller, phoning different Church of Scientology office locations asking about a quote from a Dianetics that talks about homosexuality. The part in the book says homosexuals are very physical ill. The first time the caller tries to connect to an office, he is hung up on several times and then the women on the other end refuses to answer. Finally at another location he gets an answer. Watch below.

Ellen Degeneres! That’s right, our favourite daytime lesbian is going to be the newest fulltime judge on American idol, filling Paula Abdul’s spot after she left the show. Degeneres (website) made the announcement on her television show yesterday. She said she has been in talks for the position for weeks, dying to share the information, but unable to. She hopes to bring a different type of judging to the show. She won’t be judging like a music producer does, she’ll be judging like someone whose going to buy the music would. Hopefully like someone watching from home would. Either way, I bet she’s hilarious. Watch her announcement below, thanks to TowleRoad.

I found this video in my inbox from The Courage Campaign and MoveOn. It’s a touching video about why the United States needs healthcare reform and a good public option. No matter what the right wing says, no one in the United States of America should go without healthcare. No one should die from a preventable cause because they can’t afford insurance or don’t qualify for it. Maybe it’s because I live in socialized Canada, but healthcare is and should be not just an American right, but a universal human right. As the Courage Campaign says, a “trigger” option is no good, simply a delay tactic. Watch below and please share.

Via Examiner.com…

A TV show host in India who claims homosexuality can be cured through yoga is opening up a camp on a remote island, with a little help from his multi-millionare friends.

Swami Baba Ramdev of India recently challenged the Dehli high court when it decriminalized homosexuality, claiming homosexuality is a "congenital defect" that can be cured with yoga.

Ramdev also claims yoga can cure HIV/AIDS and cancer.

According to Pink News, Sam and Sunita Poddar purchased a small Scottish island called Little Cumbrae, and they are renaming it Peace Island.

Ramdev is extremely popular in India.  His television shows are watched by 20 million people every day.  The couple are devotees of Ramdev, and have built a yoga center on the island just for him.

Apparently he can do no wrong in the minds of India's people.  In 2006, when lab tests discovered human bones and powder from human skulls in Ramdev's herbal remedies, only four percent of Indians believed it was true.

Mohammed Abbas of the Indian Medical Associaion told the Daily Record that Ramdev's claims are "false hope for ill people."  Sanal Edamaruki of the Indian Rationalist Association calls Ramdev's practices "illegal" and "peddling quackery of the highest order."

Notice how the spokesman from the Indian Medical Association says gays are ill. I just have to remind myself, progress is slow.

While no one knows for sure if closeted gay athletes would attend, or if they would become a paparazzi spectacle, but organizers are trying to set up a pride house for both gay athletes and the public. Via The Globe and Mail…

For the first time in Olympic history, a Pride House will be set up for gay athletes and the public.

The pavilion has sponsors, a swank address - off the lobby of the Pan Pacific Hotel at the foot of Blackcomb Mountain - and organizers hope it might turn into a social hot spot at the mountain resort town next February.

Mr. Nelson, who organized WinterPride celebrations at Whistler, hopes the rainbow-themed lounge might even change a few attitudes. "Homophobia is still so prevalent in the sporting culture," he said. "Here in Canada for the most part, we can live our full authentic lives, but a gay athlete in Canada doesn't really have that same liberty."

Despite positive buzz in Vancouver and Whistler, some athletes have expressed doubts about the usefulness of a pride pavilion plunked into the most important, pressure-filled weeks of an amateur athlete's career.

Some online gay chat sites have suggested it could become a beacon for paparazzi. Others say closeted gay athletes wouldn't be caught dead near a pride pavilion, reducing the venue to a nicely-decorated information booth that dispenses brochures on gay rights.

I think it’s a positive start.

Via The Associated Press…

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A judge on Tuesday refused to block a proposed ballot initiative on expanded domestic partnership benefits for gay couples in Washington state.

An appeal was considered likely, however, with just a few days remaining before officials need to begin printing materials for the Nov. 3 general election.

The case involves Referendum 71, which would put the Legislature's latest expansion of domestic partnership rights for gay couples on the November ballot.

The measure, sponsored by a conservative political group called Protect Marriage Washington, would ask voters to approve or reject the "everything but marriage" domestic partnership law that state lawmakers passed earlier this year.

The lawsuit seeking to halt the vote was filed by Washington Families Standing Together, a gay-rights group. It claims Secretary of State Sam Reed improperly accepted thousands of petition signatures that supported putting R-71 on the ballot.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee rejected those arguments.

The new law would add more legal rights to the state's established domestic partnerships for gay couples, putting registered partners on par with married couples under state law. Unmarried heterosexual couples also could register as domestic partners.

A "yes" vote on R-71 would put the newest law into place, and a "no" vote would reject it. The underlying laws laying out domestic partnerships — enacted in 2007 and broadened once already in 2008 — would not be affected.

Washington Families Standing Together's previous attempt to block R-71 was turned away last week in King County for technical reasons. But King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector said she was concerned Reed may have accepted tens of thousands of invalid signatures.

Reed certified R-71 for the November ballot last week. Election officials revised the number of accepted signatures downward Tuesday, after an audit showed some signatures had been incorrectly accepted.

The latest official tally of accepted petition signatures for R-71 was 121,780 — about 1,200 more than the minimum required to qualify for the ballot.

A separate federal lawsuit brought by R-71's sponsors is seeking to keep those signed referendum petitions secret.

The petitions are considered public records under state law, but R-71's sponsors claim they could face harassment by political opponents if the names of petition-signers are released. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle is expected to rule in that case this week.

The domestic partnership expansion was supposed to take effect on July 26, but the referendum campaign put it on hold. If the referendum does appear on the ballot, the law would take effect only if approved by voters Nov. 3.

As of this week, more than 5,900 domestic partnerships have been filed with the state since the law took effect in 2007.

I wanted to let you all know about a new site I discovered which is counteracting the rightwing argument that it’s ok to deny gays their rights because the bible tells them so. The site, godhatesshrimp.com, is a parody of Fred Phelps “godhatesfags.com”.

The point we're trying to make is that by using the Old Testament (specifically the book of Leviticus) as a basis for protesting gay marriage, you run into a couple of problems. The first is that in the New Testament, Jesus established the New Covenant, which stated that the old Mosaic laws about unclean things were invalid (Jesus in his own person said nothing specifically against homosexuality, although Paul later attributed some remarks to him). The second reason is that if you still want to quote from Leviticus, despite Jesus' doing away with Mosaic law, then you better be prepared to enforce the whole thing, not just the parts you like. This includes not only the injunction against shellfish and mussels and such, but also against wearing fabrics made of blended fibers, cutting or shaving your beard, sowing mixed seed in a field, and a slew of other things nobody but Orthodox Jews take seriously anymore.

Visit the site HERE.