Semi-update on Prop 8 and DADT

Very quick political update:

Some elements on Obama and DADT.

The California Supreme Court will hear the Prop 8 case on March 5. It will hear arguments both to repeal Prop 8 because the measure was invalid, and to annul all the same-sex marriages that were performed between May and November. A decision won't be issued that day, though, it will take several months.

On that note, watch this wonderful video:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
Considering I have very little interest in marriage myself and I'm critical of normalizing images and all that, I really wish that stuff wouldn't make me cry so easily. There's just something about the feeling of hope and community - and I look at all those crowds of people and wonder where are the people who voted yes to Prop 8 and how can they not see love and a human attempt to be happy that doesn't hurt, just brightens faces?)

“One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are, when you don't come home at night.”
- Margaret Mead

Savage, sex and abstinence ed

Helping me procrastinate these past couple of days has been Dan Savage's column. I don't agree with everything he says but as far as sexual stuff is concerned he's a pretty amazing (and amazingly honest) sex columnist. I really enjoy some of his more political rant, too, so here are a couple. Read them through - they're hoot and he's painfully right. (Both are related to abstinence ed.)


First one:
And, hey, here's another interesting study: While straight kids are busily boning each other's butts—the better to preserve their virginities!—gay teenagers are knocking each other up. According to a study out of the University of British Columbia, lesbian and gay teenagers are seven times likelier to get knocked up than their straight peers. How the hell does that happen? Well, gay teens are having straight sex in order "to prove they are heterosexual to avoid harassment and discrimination" by their parents and peers. In other words, gay kids are still having heterosexual sex under duress. This is where abstinence education and homophobia have gotten us: Gay kids are having vaginal intercourse and straight kids are having anal intercourse. Good work, sexphobes!

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And the second one, longer but worth every word:

The 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice-presidential nominee, is pregnant. The news was released by the McCain camp during a busy week—a hurricane, the Republican National Convention, Dick Cheney getting us into a war with Russia—so it didn't receive the coverage it deserved. To recap:

Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin got her ass knocked up five or so months ago by 18-year-old Levi Johnston. Among the hobbies listed on Levi's since-yanked MySpace page—"fishing, shoot some shit, and just fuckin' chillin'"—was this revealing tidbit: "I don't want kids." But Bristol, says her mom, "made the decision on her own to keep the baby," and is now engaged to Levi "Shootin' Shit" Johnston.

As the adoptive parent of a child born to a pair of unwed teenagers, I'm certainly not in favor of abortion in all circumstances. But I believe that it's a choice teenagers should be able to make for themselves—with input from their families whenever possible—and, so it seems, does the GOP's VP nominee. Sarah Palin is pleased that her daughter made the decision—on her own—to keep the baby.

But Sarah Palin doesn't believe that other girls should be able to make their own decisions. Sarah Palin believes abortion should be illegal in almost every instance—including rape and incest. So Bristol Palin is being celebrated for making a choice that Sarah Palin would like to take away from all other American women. Apparently, today's GOP believes that choice is a special right reserved for the wayward daughters of Republican elected officials.

Oh, and Sarah Palin also believes that birth control shouldn't be made available to teenagers, she opposes medically accurate sex education, and she backs abstinence-until- marriage sex "education."

Sigh.

The GOP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence "education" programs during the Bush years. I believe this enormous investment of public funds begs the obvious question: Is our children abstaining? Sarah Palin's aren't. Despite this massive outlay on the part of the American taxpayer and the example set by her Christian parents, Bristol Palin became sexually active while still in high school. Excuse me, but if abstinence education can't keep the daughter of the evangelical governor of Alaska off the cock, what hope is there for the daughters—and some of the sons—of average Americans?

I'm a cad for writing this, of course, because shortly before Bristol and Levi were paraded before cheering throngs at the Republican National Convention, the Palins asked the media to respect their daughter's privacy.

Another special right: When it comes to respecting your family's privacy, Palin and the GOP see no need. They want to micromanage the most intimate aspects of your private life. And if their own kids fail to live up to the standards that Palin and the GOP seek to impose on your family, well, that's a private matter between the Palins, their daughter, their God, and the thousands of screaming imbeciles in elephant hats waving McCain/Palin signs on the floor of the Republican National Convention.