Showing posts with label Gay Rights Progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gay Rights Progress. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Alas! A crisis of conscience!

From Box Turtle Bulletin:

Shocking, simply shocking! A new study has determined that some men are attracted to both male and female persons. Or, at least, sexually stimulated by watching them have sex.

This new finding contradicts and earlier one which denied evidence of existence of bisexuals, but was flawed in its population selection. (NY Times)

For many, many years, I’ve been skeptical about discussions I’ve had with certain serial-one-night-stands.

“How can you date/marry her? What’re you doing here if you’re going to be there?”

“I guess I just like you both.”

Skeptical. Mighty skeptical.

Now some researchers tell us that X and Y, and a couple of other less-frequent Alphabet Letters were correct about themselves after all?

Well, after the brachytherapy, it’s pretty much moot. Still, it does give pause.

Do I apologize?

Or do I wait for the next “study” to give us another way to look at ourselves?

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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Great Quip

From today’s New York Times we find this little nugget in a column by Frank Bruni which puts l’affaire Bachmann in its place:

I once tried to pray away the gay. But sometimes a houseguest just won’t leave.

Quel drole!

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Thursday, January 06, 2011

Going, going…

Navy Capt. Owen Honors lost his job this week.  Chief  David Dominguez, of the Palm Springs Police Department is “retiring.”  Touches of politically incorrect references to the gay community played significant roles in both instances.

Cultural atmosphere ain’t your “funny” uncle’s experience any more.

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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Ah, Larry, we hardly knew ye!

Since there are only 7 or so years between Senator Craig's age and my own, I have some residual memories of the sort of urges with which the senator must deal.

If you came to age in the 50's, and your sexual proclivities were anything more than the "missionary position," you had a lot of what have come to be known as "issues." We dealt with them as best we could.

There was a joke back in the late 50's, early 60's, which went something like this: An irate queen, on her first plane ride, in high dudgeon, demands imperiously, "What do you mean, 'This plane doesn't stop at the nearest Greyhound bus station'?!?"

"Tea room" cruising, as delineated in Laud Humphrey's book, Tea Room Trade, was a rite of passage for nascent gays back then.

And there were rituals which were rigidly followed, among which were the tapping toes, and the caress of the bottom of the stall walls, followed by the come-hither-flick of the index finger.

It was exciting. Unfortunately, it was, all too often, the only way to satisfy the drive.

I would have thought we'd all grown out of it, what with the plethora of places in which we might make contact today.

I guess not.

My title is wrong, Larry. We know ye all too well.

We also know there's absolutely no excuse for tea room cruising in the 21st century.

Somehow, in some ways, Larry, you're still stuck in the 1950's. That's too bad. Look what you've accomplished in spite of your sexual drives. Imagine the heights you might've reached had our society been less puritanical.

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Monday, June 18, 2007

A Light at the end of the Ex-Gay Tunnel?

"A hit! A hit! A palpable hit!" (If you don't have to ask, thank an English teacher!)

It didn't make the national feeds yet, but the Los Angeles Times reports on an up-coming "Freedom Conference" to be held by Exodus International. (Those are the "ex-gay" people.)

Here's the on-line title as well as the subtitle: New ground in debate on 'curing' gays. Christian ministries who see homosexuality as a treatable disorder are starting to think that choice may not be a factor.

A leading proponent of tossing "ex-gay" into the trash bin of history turns out to be none other than Alan Chambers the director of Exodus. The money quote from Mr. Chambers: "By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete."

It seems Mr. Chambers, now a husband and father, "...has mostly conquered his own attraction to men..."

The operative word is "mostly," one presumes, which demands of Mr. Chambers more honesty than heretofore he has shown. Good personal progress. His orientation never was, never will be, a choice. It cannot be escaped; it cannot be eradicated. It can be handled, should one choose; that's the only choice.

Discarding the oxymoronic ex-gay is a good step towards eliminating cultural biases against differing sexual orientations.

Let's have more attention paid to precise language.

Good start, Mr. Chambers. Now, get the rest of your organization in line.

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Thursday, December 07, 2006

Remember the "Oral Sex" lamentations of the late 90's?

During the Clinton impeachment brouhaha, Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, lamented, "What will I tell my children?" And that's when we were all sniggering about oral sex being in the news.

Now Slate.com led me to this link where a Washington Post writer, Alan Cooperman, pens this line: "But a third answer allows same-sex ceremonies and ordination of gay men and lesbians, while maintaining a ban on anal sex."

Catch that? Anal sex is now a fit topic for discussion in the nation's newspapers.

It's contained in a story about how "A panel of rabbis gave permission Wednesday for same-sex commitment ceremonies and ordination of gays within Conservative Judaism..." Conservative Jews, it seems, have decided to enter the 21st century.

Bono must really be in a pickle. Except her son is now at U.S.C., and her daughter is in high school. Maybe she won't have to have to worry about that discussion, after all.

I heard the phrase on NPR this morning; I wonder if mothers leapt to turn off radios playing in the kitchen.

Relax, parents. Your kids will find out somewhere else. Or maybe they'll grow up anyway and go to U.S.C.



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