Babes in Transland

Things are getting certifiable over in Trans-land.

TRANSWORLD -- a major cannibalism-site, where you can directly observe the Left eating itself.

For background, newbies might want to read Michelle Goldberg's New Yorker piece from almost 4 years ago, still one of the best summations of the Troubles:

The most dramatic change in the perception of transgenderism can be seen in academia. Particularly at liberal-arts colleges, students are now routinely asked which gender pronoun they would prefer to be addressed by: choices might include “ze,” “ou,” “hir,” “they,” or even “it.” A decade ago, no university offered a student health plan that covered gender-reassignment surgery. Today, dozens do, including Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale, Stanford, and the schools in the University of California system.

As I said, Goldberg's article was written almost four years ago. Transgender is now fully acceptable most everyplace in the West.

As a result, the omnipresence of radical trans postmodern 'theory' has skyrocketed, but they seem to have no real political agenda at all. You'd think health care would bring them out to protest with us about trans health care... but ((crickets)). You'd think they would be demonstrating in droves against Trump, a conservative who wants to roll back civil rights protections... but ((crickets)).

In short, shit has gotten very weird even since that eye-opening article.

For one thing, the split between the trans men (assigned female at birth) and trans women (assigned male at birth) has become almost-explosive, as these two groups continue to embrace very different agendas. Trans men want to blend in unobtrusively and simply be seen as males; by contrast, this new crop of young radical trans women (most of whom call themselves lesbian and "non-binary") pointedly do not.

The main thing trans women seem interested in right now is lesbians. On tumblr, it is a rather embarrassing and all-consuming fixation; they rarely even talk to non-lesbians like me anymore. They are obsessed with young lesbians and "lesbian spaces" (that they claim they are being kept out of) and talk about lesbians seemingly constantly.

One reason trans women are resentful and dislike trans men is that lesbians will sleep with them regardless of whether they are calling themselves men, and will not sleep with the trans women even if they call themselves women. This is because lesbians are attracted to vaginas and not penises. It used to be that the trans women went and got themselves surgical vaginas, but those days are long gone. The current statistic is that only 15-20% of trans women have genital surgery, although a large majority do get breast implants.

That means the new task is to convince lesbians to like penises. Or at least to convince them that they should show equanimity regarding all genitalia ... and let's face it, that is a tall order.

You hear that? No difference.

And if you think so, you are a "terf".("trans exclusionary radical feminist") [1]

For the record, there is no account of any "terf" physically harming a trans woman in any way, yet we repeatedly (daily!) read this scary stuff:

Extremely 'radical'--and yet... they gleefully quote that old dead European white hetero cis guy Sigmund Freud (they are permitted to dabble in misogynist patriarchal theories when necessary--but don't YOU try that, missy!):

And check out the science (or lack of it) ... this insane gibberish is likely what gets to me the most. Kids are being taught that hormones change "every cell in the body"--apparently, despite their ubiquitous Ivy-League educations, they do not even know what chromosomes are:

Read that carefully. If you do not subscribe to this nonsense, you are now "a bigot".

So take a number and stand in line.

Question: Since I have no more estrogen, does this mean "every cell in my body" has changed back to--what? Childhood? Old women are children now? What in the world----????!?

And I learned over on tumblr that simply asking that question, or any clarifying question, makes you an evilll terf who deserves to be beaten. Really. They will tell you that, over and over... if you protest that you are 60 years old and beating up grandmas is not a real good form of PR for your movement, they just laugh and promise you that yes it is, they hate old grandmas the most. One grandma already got slugged over in the UK for showing up at a demonstration; the hulking young trans woman went directly after the old woman, not the young ones, who far outnumbered her.

~*~

OHHHH DAISY you are being alarmist!--say my mild-mannered readers. Most trans women are like conservative activist Blaire White and just want to live their lives, etc. True enough, but I am talking about the activists, who have made "trans activism" their vocation, their life, their entire raison d'être.

BTW, it is notable that Blaire gets misgendered and called names by other trans activists who hate her--so always remember: misgendering is okay if trans people do it. (PS: they've done it to ME repeatedly too!)

In fact, many SJWs/trans activists actively seek to harm Blaire White; she did a whole video on that. Again, remember the rules: threatening violence against trans people is also okay if done by other trans people and social justice activists.

And on that note.. I must share the most recent violent insanity in wacky Transland that inspired this whole post.

BELOW is a tax-supported public library display in San Francisco, all about killing the terfs... when library patrons (of all genders and politics) dared to complain about it (as they would about a display advocating violence against ANY group of people, needless to say) the library staff and PR folks presented their concerns as "terfs attacking the poor trans women" again. Never mind that some parents did not want their children to see violence against women glamorized and endorsed by the public fucking library.

Right wing blogs are all over this (there's the warning, that is a right wing blog)--cackling about how the Left is eating itself, and "maybe the trannies will finally get rid of the feminists for us?" Their right wing dream come true.

Trans activists don't seem the least concerned about how the right wing is orgasmic over their genocidal plans for the terfs.[2]

This "art" is by a gang called the "degenderettes" which is obviously a deliberate play on the word "degenerates"--cute, huh? (Sounds like people who have never actually been afraid of degenerates, doesn't it? Maybe because they know they are the people everyone should fear.)

They claim to be part of Antifa. Of course.

~*~

Here is their library display.

First up, some t-shirts stating intent: "I punch terfs"--well that seems straightforward enough.

The "Your Apathy is Killing Us" slogan was brazenly stolen from ACT-UP, who were fighting the AIDS epidemic and earned the right to use it.

Apathy is not killing trans women since as we see, they are the ones intending to do the killing.

"Femme sledgehammer"--just so you know the person wielding it is a "feminine" trans woman (I guess?):

Check out the "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" barbed wire around that last bat. In case you need to pound some grannies when it really matters!

And did somebody just ask why we might not want to go the bathroom with this individual:

Its those "bloody highlights" that give you pause.

Thank god I live in the South, where they still have library displays about, you know, books.

Remember the famous last line of that movie about Mrs. Bates??? She wouldn't hurt a fly. I am sure the degenderettes wouldn't either.

Photo from Gendertrender, and here is GT's article about this event.

~*~




[1] This word used to have meaning, as I have explained in previous posts, but not now. I am regularly called a "terf" and as regular readers know, I had trans people on my radio show several times--the very opposite of "exclusion". When I say this in my defense I am either ignored or told that it doesn't matter, my "opinions" (that biology matters and is a scientific reality) are what makes me a terf. Further, as readers also know, I am a socialist feminist and not a radical feminist.

Using the correct terms and labels for people (like their pronouns) obviously is not a privilege granted to EVERYONE, right? They demand correct terms while zealously and deliberately mislabeling me, and don't miss a beat. THIS is why "terf" is called a slur instead of an accurate term--they use it to inaccurately-label women who aren't even radical feminists.

Why else would they do this, unless it IS a slur, like "alt right"?

This is why I no longer care about the pronouns. When they decide to label me correctly, I will return the favor, and not one millisecond before.

[2] This interesting fact reminds me of the billionaires at the helm of their movement, with openly-pro-military agendas. Mainly, Jennifer Pritzker, who funds university chairs in transgender studies. Pritzker is a billionaire and a Lt. Colonel, and I find it peculiar that trans SJWs who (like the degenderettes) call themselves Antifa and anarchists, would take the money of someone with such a zealously-fascist military career... and yet, they do.

As far as I know, not a single so-called social justice trans person has denounced this munitions-billionaire inserting their right wing pro-military agenda into the trans movement. Not one. If you have seen ANY trans criticism of Pritzker, please link in comments... as far as I can see, Pritzker is universally accepted, feted and welcomed by the trans movement, as is billionaire Martine Rothblatt. Money changes everything.

When the degenderettes tell the likes of Pritzker to fuck off out of their movement, I might believe they are serious about "anarchism"--but until then, they are posturing, ridiculous liars, greedily using Aunt Jennifer's lucrative munitions profits (made by dropping bombs on brown people of the wrong religion). Hey, a few brown people are a small price to pay for being able to fund your art exhibits, right? You would rather take money from someone who still has hard-ons over the Yom Kippur war.

Antifa, my ass.

~*~




EDIT: Trans activism is excusing & advocating violence against women, and it’s time to speak up (Feminist Current)

There be no shelter here

Photo of Ferguson on fire, from PBS.




We played "Killing in the name" at the end of our radio show last night, which was right before 9pm, the time of Prosecutor Robert McCulloch's press conference in Ferguson, Missouri. In this incendiary (but rather bizarre) press conference, he announced the grand jury had not returned an indictment, and there would be no trial for the murder of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson on August 9th.

All three of us are seasoned activists, and we knew what was coming. Even though 99% of grand juries return indictments... we knew THIS CASE would be an exception.

And so, driving home, I thought of the song we had played ... and then I thought of Rage Against the Machine's "No Shelter"--which I heard in my head, over and over... there be no shelter here/the front lines are everywhere. I wondered, is that really true?

Apparently so.

By the time I got home, America was burning.

I was going to write a post-election synopsis, but I think this post is going to stand in for it. My feelings about Ferguson and the 2014 election are forever entwined. One has in fact brought about the other. You are seeing the results of the election in action: the arrogance of power.

Rarely has an election had such a catastrophic effect on my morale. I have been plagued with self-doubt and disgust at the Left (or what passes for the Left in the USA), particularly the young folks who didn't vote and thus turned over the election to the Republicans. The election of Ronald Reagan left me deeply depressed, and this has been almost as bad. I just have to keep remembering: most people didn't vote, midterms belong to the base, it wasn't an actual mandate, blah blah blah. But right after the election, I was most upset at all the pseudo-radical tumblrites, the kids who talk a good game and do nothing, those people who claim there is no difference between the parties, when the lack of Medicaid expansion here in most southern states means that thousands will die with no health care.

They don't seem to care about that, or at least, not enough to vote.

Now see, when you put it that way, they howl in disagreement and indignation. But that is exactly what they did. They chose to sit out the election, and as David Brooks smugly reminded us on PBS, not voting is a vote, and the Democrats "failed to mobilize the base." Both true.

But see, the youth are all fired up over Ferguson. They tweeted furiously, almost more than I did. What's up with that? Drama attracts attention, but boring elections don't? (Do they understand the election was also a matter of life and death?) I was amazed at all the young people I saw in the Ferguson footage, all races, raising fists in the air and blocking the interstate. I once helped block an interstate highway (at the 1980 Republican convention in Detroit that nominated Ronald Reagan) and it is a powerful feeling. (We delayed Reagan's acceptance speech by almost an hour.) GODDAMMIT, PAY ATTENTION is what these actions scream out loud. It is as if they have decided elections are old school, and yet, the only way to get more minority cops and minority representation, IS ELECTIONS. However, considering all the votes habitually dropped down the toilet, along with gerrymandering and right-wing hijinks, we ALSO see that elections are stolen regularly, and that has created an epidemic of electoral cynicism.

I feel like the country is going down the road described so frighteningly in the (very entertaining, highly recommended) novel California, by Edan Lepucki. She describes a time when "the internet goes dark"--scary but totally believable, since it is obviously a threat to hegemony. People pay to live in "communities" that are safe and protected. If you can't afford to live in one of these, too bad. In Margaret Atwood's trilogy, Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood and MaddAddam, there are likewise "compounds" populated by the employees of the international corporations, and if you can't make it into one of these, you are consigned to the "pleeblands"--which are pillaged, torched and trashed with regularity.

Watching the news reports last night, I momentarily felt like I was in a compound, while Ferguson is a pleebland.

~*~

At left, Curtis McLaughlin on our radio show right before the election. He was the Libertarian Party candidate for congress in South Carolina's 4th district, against Trey Gowdy.

There was NO Democratic challenger.

Gowdy won 85% of the vote. Welcome to the South.

~*~





There is also some good news, as the first gay marriages in South Carolina have now become legal. I went to the demonstration last week at Greenville County Square, to cheer on those couples going in to get their licenses and thereby make history.

A little light in the darkness. A little bit. Some light, but no shelter.


There be no shelter here.


No Shelter - Rage Against the Machine



Comments welcome, but pro-Wilson/pro-cop comments will be dealt with harshly, and possibly deleted. Be advised.

USC-Upstate closing their Gender Studies Center

USC-Upstate is closing their Gender Studies Center. I apologize for my tardiness in reporting this story, since I left town right after the huge hoopla broke out on my Facebook feed. In short, plenty of locals believe it was a waste of money and a good cost-cutting measure.

Others disagreed, and decided to protest.

This action was widely regarded as an act of retribution. From reporter Alison Piepmeier at Charleston City Paper:

On the afternoon of Mon. May 12, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor John Masterson explained to select faculty members that the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at USC Upstate will be closed starting July 1, 2014.

Given the fact that USC Upstate has faced homophobic threats and retaliation from the General Assembly, both for its reading program that offered the book “Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio” (a decision the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies had nothing to do with) and its decision to book the satirical play “How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less,” some faculty do not believe the elimination of the center is simply coincidental, especially since their budget for programming is $500 a year. “In my personal opinion it’s an act of retribution,” one faculty member told me.

We’re in a moment when the legislature continues to attempt to enact budget cuts for CofC and USC Upstate for books they’ve offered their students, books that present characters and nonfictional accounts addressing — among many other things — LGBTQ people and topics. The nation — indeed, the world —has been paying attention to the homophobia and sexism that our legislature has clearly and unapologetically voiced.

In addition to the book USC Upstate offered in the fall semester, in the spring the Center had the Bodies of Knowledge Symposium, an academic conference they’ve been holding since 2007. This is a conference that is based on current research in Women’s and Gender Studies, and they’ve always featured evening entertainment for participants.

This year when the conference offered a satirical one-woman play called How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less, Rep. Mike Fair (R-Greenville) called them out. Rep. Fair, a Christian fundamentalist who leads the legislative fight for creationism, has been very open about his homophobia. “It’s just not normal and then you glorify … same-sex orientation,” he told Greenville TV station WYFF. “That’s not an explanation of ‘I was born this way.’ That’s recruiting.”

State Sen. Kevin Bryant got even more specific, telling The State [newspaper], “If they’ve got extra money sitting around to promote perversion, obviously they’ve got more money than they really need.”

After Fair and Bryant raised a stink, the school’s administration cancelled the performance. At the time, Tammy E. Whaley, assistant vice chancellor for university communications at USC Upstate, said that the move was actually an action in favor of academic freedom: “The controversy surrounding this performance has become a distraction to the educational mission of USC Upstate and the overall purpose of the Bodies of Knowledge symposium.”

Photo of USC-Upstate demonstration at left, from GoUpstate.



The Center for Women’s and Gender Studies has been an important entity on the USC Upstate campus. A faculty member told me that the administration is now “removing the only element of the campus that responds to the needs of marginalized people.” The center offered a host of services to faculty, staff, and students, from professional development opportunities for women in academia to a space on campus where students — from sorority members to trans activists — were welcome.

“To say I’m disgusted is an understatement,” a faculty member told me. “The center was a sign of a positive and progressive workplace for faculty and staff and a safe haven for students, gone now with no input from the faculty, staff, and students it served.” Indeed, almost every faculty member I spoke with referred to the center as a safe space.

The demonstration was on May 21st, headed up by students (and local atheist activist Peggy Dellinger! Woo-hoo! Friends of the radio show!).

From GoUpstate:

USC Upstate’s Center for Women’s and Gender Studies featured programming on a variety of topics, including race, sexual orientation, feminism and religion, and it was women who took center stage during Wednesday’s protest of its closure.

“The center was closed without consulting the women faculty,” said Jennifer Parker, associate dean for arts and sciences. “This was a decision that did not involve the collective voice.”

The protest was in response to last week’s announcement by University of South Carolina Upstate officials that cuts to programs and administrative changes would be made to save $450,000, including closing the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. The cuts would be effective July 1. Closing the center would equal $45,000 in savings.

Protesters first gathered at the fountain in front of the administration building, then moved to the quad behind it. They held signs that stated, “It’s not a good time for women at USCU” and “Closing CWGS = $45K, promoting peace, justice and opportunity for all = priceless” and chanted, “No more margins. We want the center.”

Parker said she was not attacking Chancellor Tom Moore, but asked that he rethink the closing of the center.

“It was a huge blow to the women on campus,” she said. “I hope he reconsiders this decision.”

The Petition is here, if you'd like to sign it.

Online provocateurs are the real thing

When I read Glenn Greenwald's latest leak of the Snowden files, titled How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations--I found it some pretty sobering stuff. (all graphics here are from the article; you can click to enlarge.) Greenwald wrote:

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the [NSA whistleblower Edward] Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

And now it's time to tell another chunk of the story, focusing on my little corner of the net.

On the radio, I had been talking about online-provocateurs (and their carefully-targeted disruptions) only a few days prior to reading the Greenwald piece. I suddenly knew I had to write this. Typically, very few over on Tumblr seem to have read the leaked documents. On Social-Justice Tumblr, despite the okey-doke posturing, politics is basically secondary to self, self, self and the self's many facets of wonderfulness. (sigh)

I knew I might have to name names. And naming names has a tiresome and predictable outcome: The named-persons' friends stream forth to defend them and call me evil names. In this case, the provocateur is a successful and much-enjoyed troll, with literally thousands of followers. In December, after this individual "gave the order"--I was basically Tumblr-blacklisted ... which means it is highly unlikely that this person and their legions of fans will ever read this. Thus, I feel a certain freedom in that I don't have to please anyone and I have already been labeled an enemy (although I am not sure why--it was never fully explained to me). I might as well go ahead and speak my mind.

I am talking about THIS AWFUL PERSON (quoted therein), who shall henceforth be known as TAP for short. She is probably the most well-known leader of the trans women faction at Tumblr. In many ways, she directs the posse and calls the shots; if she was not in a leadership-position, I wouldn't take note of her zealousness in destroying others, she'd be just another meanie. But as a leader who draws a lot of attention, it is pertinent than she is divisive and gives advice to others, that they should be as divisive as she is. TAP is an entertaining writer, fairly outrageous and very good at reducing her detractors to tears; she excels at the personal insult, the creative cussing and take-downs. It is useless to attempt to argue "facts" with her. I know this, because she told me.

In the above link, TAP pointedly called herself an ex-troll, and yet, she is obviously trolling more than ever before. I wrote that piece in 2009, and it was only last year that I learned she was considered the biggest, nastiest and most vicious hell-raiser on Tumblr.

So what happened?

Check out the list of stuff I quoted from TAP in the link, the different types and techniques of trolls... and then check out THIS list:



It's the same, only not as colorful. Same. In fact, I am wondering if TAP is the one who wrote it. (Or maybe she just excelled at the correspondence course?) "Divorce behavior from outcome" = pretty much defines emotionally-manipulative trolling.

And here is where we cut to the chase:

We are not talking about a simple troll, folks. We are talking about someone who is masterful at driving people away from social justice movements; someone tremendously skilled in purposely painting social justice activists in the worst possible light. TAP is excellent in creating and exaggerating discord between two or more factions (as G Gordon Liddy said was necessary for the destabilization of a popular movement). In short, TAP may be a paid provocateur or federal agent. She might be working for the government, the NSA, The Dept of Homeland Security (etc etc) or she might be working for right-wing operations like Americans For Prosperity. She may be part of a "dirty tricks campaign" run by a particular sectarian group or politician. She may be getting nickel-and-dimed; regularly slipped some PayPal contributions in exchange for picking a fight with first this activist, then that one... and she may not know WHO she is actually working for.

Since TAP endlessly talks about being mentally ill and having been manipulated by opportunistic people in the past, it is also reasonable to assume this could still be happening. Certainly, she is far worse than she was in 2009, when I wrote that post.

Who is making her so much worse, and who benefits?



Ask yourself: who benefits?

We see that TAP's last attack was on Ellen Page, a likable and popular young actress who just came out as gay. TAP attacked her, claiming that she was transphobic (since all cis lesbians are transphobic). However, in her coming-out speech, Page pointedly mentioned trans actress Laverne Cox as an inspiration, so TAP's statement instantly blew up into a feud within the LGBT community on Tumblr, not surprisingly. TRANSLATION: A great public-relations moment for the movement, gets the immediate take-down from TAP.

This is a seasoned provocateur-move, and this is what made my antenna go up: Take the last morale-building WIN from a movement, and turn it into a morale-killing LOSS. TAP did this admirably. Although I do find it odd she is changing her name so many times; like a half-dozen times in the last few months. She changed her name again, right before this attack on Page.

And now, since the Greenwald leak, I have suddenly become aware of TAP's habits. Mostly, she tears feminists apart. She is devoted to keeping trans and cis women divided and spends hours and hours online exacerbating the divisions, keeping everybody angry and stirred-up. When things start to die down, she gets them stirred up again in short order, by making pronouncements like the one about Ellen Page. For instance, she tells all cis women that we are ugly, stupid and totally inferior to trans women. (She emphatically says "Ewwww!" about the bodies of cis women.) This kind of thing is calculated to get a response. And although she claims she has a job, she appears to spend ALL of her time insulting people on Tumblr. She deliberately tries to upset and hurt people and proudly succeeds. Usually, after one of her bloody verbal attacks, she invariably tries to milk pity, and suddenly reminds her readers that she is suicidal, mentally ill and popping pills. (Apparently, she doesn't realize that being a constantly-vicious, cruel person makes you feel bad about yourself. As you should, of course.) She then throws in some politically-correct stories, reblogs some crowd-pleasers. Next day, she is right back at it without missing a beat. Dedicated and determined. She is single-minded and relentless.

After all, she has a job to do.

~*~

To those of you who follow this person, stop. You are being used and exploited. She is spreading her poisonous hate to you, and you ingest it willingly.

But even more than garden-variety hate: you are being manipulated. It is doubtful she believes most of what she says. SHE IS TROLLING AS A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY, deliberately trying to bust up several movements at once. And she does it demolition style: accuse cis feminists of raping thousands of trans women (she has actually claimed that, for example) and then scream like a maniac when anyone asks for evidence of such a thing. There is no "evidence" that will satisfy a provocateur, there is only emotional manipulation and extremism. These are their DESIRED GOALS: to make you mistrust feminists and trans women, to make people more likely to avoid face-to-face collectives and/or group-activism, and in fact, likely to drive you away from all political involvement.

Or maybe more likely to come to the conclusion of the right wing: THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL CRAZY.

That is the real goal, since there is no olive branch offered, no dialogue, no efforts to come together or to understand each other. After all, that would STRENGTHEN our movements, not weaken them.

And that is not what she is being paid for.



When she stops this behavior, I will change my mind. Not before. Until she stops, she is dangerous. She is working for reactionaries and effectively doing the work of the right wing. I regard her as the online equivalent of a grenade.

And so should you.

Altruism and Angels

Above, from left to right: Rabbi Mark Wilson, Rabbi Joshua Lesser, Rev. Jerry Hill, Rev. Donna Stroud, and Jayce Tromsness (director of the upcoming ANGELS IN AMERICA at the Warehouse Theatre). As always, you can click the photos to enlarge.

It was really great to listen to ALL of their varied experiences!

~*~

A week ago today, on Martin Luther King day (January 20th), some of us from Occupy the Microphone radio show attended a Warehouse Theatre event, one of a series of community discussions/dialogues titled Altruism and Angels: A Community in Conversation. The one we attended was titled Religion: Blessing, Curse, Irrelevant? A Discussion of the Impact on the Spirit, Advocacy and Vision of the LGBT Community. (This special series of discussions is part of the larger "Year of Altruism" that will be a religious focus here in Greenville during 2014.)

It was one of those evenings that caught me off-guard... one of those things where I thought I knew everything already, but the discussion took me in surprising and unanticipated new directions. The discussion wasn't a modest one, with God-loves-everybody platitudes, but instead went right for the jugular. It wasn't just about the fundamentalists, everybody's favorite whipping-boy, but about the ongoing moral struggle now faced by the "mainstream" denominations, when they grapple with issues like gay marriage and adoption.

For that reason, I didn't know how to write about the event, since I had mixed feelings about it.

To wit: Is religion one of the main causes of pain and anguish in the lives of LGBT people? Listening to some of the stories, it sure sounded like that to me.

Is this fact due to some intrinsically-negative factor about religion/spirituality in and of itself, or a separate thing, religious dogma specifically?

Can we separate the spirituality/comfort of religion, from the dogma that provides its ultimate psychological wallop, as ultimate truth and metaphysical certainty?

Isn't the fact of unchanging dogma one of the things that comforts us when we need it? If not (and I've never found dogma by itself particularly comforting, but I realize others do), then what is it that we grasp for in times of spiritual need?

At left: Some of the discussion participants. It was a lively conversation.


These are the things we talked about. Very intense. I did not necessarily come to the conclusion that religion should be let off the hook, although I did come to the conclusion that it is probably not an unqualified good, which is something I have always believed on some level. Religion done properly, I would say, is a good thing. Done improperly, it's a bad thing.

I am now wondering if that truism (which I never fully realized I subscribed to in the first place!) is simply mythological. One of those just-so stories we tell ourselves so we can get along with all of our religious neighbors.

As I said, intense discussion. So intense, I could not fully deal with it until today, so thanks for hanging around while I try to figure things out.

~*~

I recently went on a bit of a screed over at Tumblr, ranting about the kids who won't do activism. (And like most kids, they shrug, roll their eyes, and go on about their bizness.) But seriously, I do realize this phenomenon is one big reason why people avoid activism... or start like gangbusters and then fade out over time:

People have cherished ideas they bring with them into their activism and then, BLAMMO, something happens (like this discussion) and we end up questioning what we think we know, what we tell ourselves we already believe. And stuff like this can sneak up on you and leave you too winded to deal with what is right in front of you. I probably should warn the kids about life-altering moments like this, if indeed they do ever decide to engage in some real activism.

Then again, nah. Let em all find out for themselves. ;)

BJUnity on Occupy the Microphone

Yesterday's Occupy the Microphone radio show was especially awesome, as we interviewed Jeffrey Hoffman of BJUnity, the 'unofficial' organization for LGBT folks at Bob Jones University, past and present; including students, alumni, faculty and staff.

It was a great show, and you must go listen immediately.

Below: 1) Jeffrey talks about the cultish environment of Bob Jones University; 2) me interviewing Jeffrey; 3) Daisy, Jeffrey and fabulous co-host Double A, the rock and roll diehard.

Broadcasting every weekday from WOLI studios, McAlister Square, LIVE AT FIVE. (You can livestream us daily at 5pm HERE. Friday's show can be found here, here and here.)

Daisy's Duck Dynasty rant (from Thursday's show)

Gregg and Scotty, my amazing producers, made it into a YouTube clip! :) (The whole show is at the radio blog.)

Throwing Stones

What a mess. What a total, complete, unadulterated, absolute MESS. It's hard to come up with anything more descriptive to say about the debacle that is the Republican temper-tantrum, i.e. the current government shutdown, which officially began at midnight. (I keep thinking of the Grateful Dead song that is the title of this post.) Of course, we talked about it at length on Occupy the Microphone today.

The puzzling thing, to me, is that Republicans don't seem to mind being perceived as the party that prefers the American people stay unhealthy and uninsured. "Anything to keep people from having health care!" is how most of the GOP congressional representatives sounded, proudly venting on various news shows late last night. It's worth it to STOP OBAMACARE! Do they know how they sound? Or is their own re-election the primary factor in their decision? Robert at Blue Heron Blast sums up a lot of my thinking:

The problem is that the House Republicans have all gerrymandered themselves into safe seats in safe districts. Any flak they will receive will be from their right in the primaries. Although I am sure that many are concerned with the health of the nation, at least I hope so, the overriding motive has to be getting re-elected. So there is really no hope for common ground.

The optics of this debacle are pretty clear. A CNN/ORC poll found that Republicans in Congress would shoulder more of the blame for a shutdown. Forty-six percent of Americans said that Republicans on Capitol Hill would be mostly responsible for a shutdown, versus 36 percent who would blame Obama and 13 percent who would blame both.

So 25% of Americans polled will blame you more than the other guy and you don't care, because it will play so well for the folks in your district and frankly, what else matters? Bravo!

I went to the outfitting store to get some straps to hitch my borrowed monopod to my camera pack this morning. The vacation to the National Parks between Wyoming and Montana that are scheduled to be closed at midnight tonight barring an unforeseen stroke of sanity barreling down on the beltway, which you should certainly not hold your breath for.

I will make do, lots of nice state parks I am looking at in the area, there are worse prison sentences than spending a week on a bar stool in Jackson Hole. But it sucks. And it even sucks worse for the man helping me in the store, who is in the naval reserve and ferries Navy Seals around on missions. He is now on no pay as are many of the private contractors who aid our defense effort. Awful thing we are doing to them, not to mention furloughing 800,000 civil servants and leaving millions without pay. Oh, I forgot, we hate the government and the people who work for them.

Yes. The party that loves war, does not want to pay their soldiers. Irony!

And such a depressing, demoralizing spectacle.

~*~

While waiting for Republicans to come to their wacked-out senses (might be awhile), we can work on getting us some gay marriage rights, and thus, continue to drive (some of them!) crazy.* From the Advocate, here is a great piece by Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, whom I was fortunate to meet during our local Campaign for Southern Equality demonstration in January.

Op-ed: How Resistance Will Change the South:

Growing numbers of people across the South are finding the courage to stand up to such laws by taking public action. Since the We Do Campaign launched two years ago, I have stood with more than 80 LGBT couples as they have requested — and been denied — marriage licenses in their hometowns across the South, from small rural towns in Mississippi to cities like Charlotte, N.C. To watch LGBT people stand at the marriage license counter, many with their children at their side, is to witness courage firsthand. In the face of a legal system that denies our humanity and tells us we have no right to even approach this counter, these families are expressing powerful truths: We are human, we are equal, this is our home, and we have a fundamental right to marry.

As we continue to grow the We Do Campaign, we are now actively seeking a public official in the South who will stand up with us and issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple as an act of conscience. Marriage license offices in New Mexico and Pennsylvania have recently started doing this, and in years past it has happened in California and New York as well. In Pennsylvania, Montgomery County Register of Wills Bruce Hanes has said of his choice, “I firmly believe that I’m on the right side of history.”

Can this happen in the South? We have contacted marriage license offices in more than 600 counties to pose this question. There may be a Bruce Hanes somewhere in our region. Or it may well be that the power of these discriminatory laws is so great that even those public officials who support marriage equality — and they exist — feel that the risk of acting on this belief is too great.

It's an interesting strategy, and I will be watching carefully to see how it goes.


*I acknowledge there are SOME Republicans who are in favor of legalizing gay marriage, foremost among them Cindy and Meghan McCain.

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: transphobia revisited

Unfortunately, the ongoing brawl over the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (herein known by its nickname, Michfest) continues on for another year.

Each year seems more contentious than the last. Increasingly, there are pro-trans demonstrations at festival, featuring t-shirts emblazoned with "Trans Women Belong Here". QueerFatFemme believes that women should attend specifically to protest the omission of trans women, and believes someday the rules will change, as they eventually evolved to include BDSM and "chem-free space" -- neither of which were initially greeted with kindness. (NOTE: Trans women have attended the festival since its inception, even performing/working there, despite the official rule excluding them. Trans women were already an integral part of Michfest BEFORE the rule became "official" -- so this exclusion can also be viewed as an EXILE.)

This year--in response to a petition--Lisa Vogel, Michfest co-founder/owner of festival land, issued a very confusing statement. She seems to be winking at the presence of trans women, as long as they properly keep their heads down and shut up about it. One might even read the statement as green-lighting the admission of trans women in a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" fashion. Vogel's statement reads, in part:

The Festival, for a single precious week, is intended for womyn who at birth were deemed female, who were raised as girls, and who identify as womyn. I believe that womyn-born womyn (WBW) is a lived experience that constitutes its own distinct gender identity.

As we struggle around the question of inclusion of transwomyn at the festival, we use the word intention very deliberately. Michigan holds this particular lived experience of womanhood as honorable, meaningful, unique and rich. Our intention has always been coupled with the radical commitment to never question any womon's gender. We ask the greater community to respect this intention, and to value the complexity and validity of every gender identity, including that of WBW. The onus is on each individual to choose whether or how to respect that intention.

Huh?

~*~

This whole fiasco seems emblematic of the stand-off between radical feminists and trans women, and it makes my head hurt. We should all be getting along, dammit. I often find trans women to be instinctively feminist, due to their unique experiences, and I want them in our ranks. However, lots of radical feminists don't. Further, the two groups seem singularly obsessed with pissing each other off, creating endless Tumblr pages/blogs dedicated simply to trashing the other side. And these hate-blogs (as Mama Moretti commented here) get TONS of hits, every time they are updated.

Some people spend all their online-time enumerating why the other side is not just wrong, but EVIL. Some people, frankly, seem driven nearly insane over it.

I recently wrote about the incident at Portland State University during the recent Law and Disorder Conference, in which trans activists attacked a Deep Green Resistance display table for selling literature they deemed transphobic and unacceptable (I still don't know specifically WHICH BOOK they were selling that set everyone off)... and I expressed my disapproval of their tactics, which included destroying books, marking people up with magic-markers and throwing burritos. Even though I have written here (at great length) of my crazy-Yippie past (and similar tactics *I* have engaged in), I wrote that I now know (as a radical living in possibly the reddest state in the South) what it is like to be the hapless person on the other end of that behavior... and I have grown to believe that these types of tactics are NOT very effective, even if they are great fun and feel deliciously self-righteous. I think these tactics may even do HARM to a cause, sometimes even bringing sympathy to those who are attacked and accomplishing the opposite of what we intended.

The excitable gang over at Feministe became very angry with me; they wrote several enthusiastic posts announcing that I am a Bad Person and saying "fuck you"--which I found even more alarming. Obviously, discussing long-term strategies and points of agreement is no longer even considered an acceptable goal; the war has advanced to the point that there can be no efforts at Detente that don't appear to be "pandering" to one side or another. (sigh)

And Lisa Vogel's strange, ambiguous statement certainly did not help the situation.

~*~

Still, I gotta wonder, is Michfest (a throwback to feminism's Golden Era) an event that trans women truly want to attend? Most women *I* know have not even heard of it (or are only peripherally aware of it) and show absolutely no interest when you tell them about it. Why is this such a big deal to trans women--just because its off limits to them? (I no longer want to attend, for instance, although I did attend way back in the aforementioned Golden Era.) Why does THIS PARTICULAR EVENT matter so much, when there are plenty of other places/events that are also off-limits to them?

Why do trans women care so much what radical feminists (specifically) say about them?

Why do radical feminists believe trans women (specifically) are such a threat? (And before you answer, "because they believe they are men!"--keep in mind, they seem FAR more aggravated by trans women than they are by men. Many of these hate-blogs do not even write much about feminist political issues, but only cover an issue like abortion when trans women say critical things, or declare it isn't as important to them as radfems believe it should be.)

I admit: I don't get it. And the longer the war continues, the less I get it. It strikes me as patently bizarre.

Yes, the old hippie is pleading for peace. I fully expect to be pilloried, but blessed are the peacemakers.

Buddha told me this would be rough.

~*~

The newest salvo fired at the radfem faction is THIS rather disturbing 2008 Philadelphia Gay News story by radfem Victoria Brownworth. This is OLD news, so at first, I wondered why the trans faction was dredging it up at this rather late date.

Then I read it.

Ohhhh my goodness.

I confess, I was pretty upset and disgusted. This is bad. Like, really really bad. Cristan Williams writes at TRANSADVOCATE:

The reason I chose to do this article is that Brownworth, a self-identified radical feminist, has written extensively about power, privilege, the need for acceptance, boundaries and the well-being of kids. Yet here – even though she felt it was “creepy,” “wrong” and even though she also felt “anxious” about it – she asked this kid to have access to his genitalia (if you believe what she wrote in 2008).

If the power roles were reversed and it was an adult pre-op transwoman who came across a vulnerable 15/16 year old cisgender girl with an illicitly obtained genital body modification, would RadFems (or anyone for that matter!) view it as being okay if the transwoman gained access to the girl’s genitalia for a peek? What if the transwoman then discribed the girl’s genetalia in detail – down to what her cliterous looked like – in newsprint and/or on the internet? What if the transwoman, five years later, tweets that she felt “creepy/wrong” about it but nevertheless defended her actions by saying that the girl asked the transwoman to do it? What would happen? What would be said about that situation?

Take the trans issue out of this. If this was an adult cisgender woman and a vulnerable 15/16 year old cisgender boy with an illicitly obtained genital piercing or tattoo, we all intuitively understand that it’s inappropriate for an adult to deliberately gawk at the kid’s junk while they’re nude, much less detail what the kid’s genitals looked like in print or the web! Yet because it’s transkid, nobody has said anything for FIVE YEARS!

Awful, just awful. I was genuinely disturbed that Brownworth thought it was ever acceptable to exploit this child in this manner. I hope someone can locate this young person (named Devon, who would now be 20 or 21?) and affirm that he is okay.

Regarding this story, Brownworth's various replies to her critics are ... off. Just off. Strange. A lot like Lisa Vogel's bizarre non-statement. It is as if these radfems don't really believe they are dealing with human beings or something. Brownworth seems actually taken aback that you would ask her about it.

Meanwhile, as we speak, the radfems line up and obediently back up Brownworth, even in an instance when she was OBVIOUSLY very wrong.

(sigh)

It all just makes me so ashamed.

DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS

As we say here in Carolina, HAIL YEAH!!!


From NBC NEWS:

Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act, paves way for gay marriage to resume in California
By Pete Williams and Erin McClam, NBC News

In a landmark ruling for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law blocking federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

The decision was 5-4, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. It said that the law amounted to the “deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” In a separate case, the court ruled that it could not take up a challenge to Proposition 8, the California law that banned gay marriage in that state. That decision means that gay marriage will once again be legal in California.

That decision was also 5-4, written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act means that the federal government must recognize the gay marriages deemed legal by the states — 12 plus the District of Columbia, before the California case was decided. The law helps determine who is covered by more than 1,100 federal laws, programs and benefits, including Social Security survivor benefits, immigration rights and family leave.

“DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others,” the ruling said. It added that the law was invalid because there was no legitimate purpose for disparaging those whom states “sought to protect in personhood and dignity.”

President Barack Obama, in a post on Twitter, said that the ruling was a “historic step forward for #MarriageEquality.”

Kennedy was joined in the majority by the four members of the court’s liberal wing, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Dissenting were Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Scalia, in his dissent, wrote: “We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

Cheers went up outside the Supreme Court, where supporters of gay marriage waved signs, rainbow banners and flags with equality symbols.
The ruling comes as states are authorizing gay marriage with increasing speed and with public opinion having turned narrowly in favor of gay marriage. Under the law, gay couples who are legally married in their states were not considered married in the eyes of the federal government, and were ineligible for the federal benefits that come with marriage.

The case before the Supreme Court, U.S. v. Windsor, concerned Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a lesbian couple who lived together in New York for 44 years and married in Canada in 2007. When Spyer died in 2009, Windsor was hit with $363,000 in federal estate taxes. Had the couple been considered by the federal government to be married, Windsor would not have incurred those taxes. Kennedy, in the ruling, said that New York’s decision to authorize gay marriage was a proper exercise of its authority, and reflected “the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality.”

President Bill Clinton signed the act into law in September 1996. A court ruling in Hawaii had raised the prospect that that state might become the first to authorize gay marriage.

At the time, some members of Congress believed that the Defense of Marriage Act might be a compromise that would take the air out of a movement to amend the Constitution to block gay marriage.

LOLGOP just Tweeted: "Life would be so much better if Antonin Scalia just had a blog."

Ain't it the truth. Today, however, he just has to stand aside and DEAL WITH IT. Let the preachers all go cover themselves in ashes and sackcloth and REPENT--because their grandchildren will be as ashamed of them as southern white kids are now ashamed of their racist segregationist grandparents.

We will be covering this on our radio show today, so stay tuned.

The sparkle of your china

Just returned from the local March Against Monsanto meeting. This event will be nationwide on May 25th.




Next meeting before the event will be at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery, next Thursday at 6pm, yall come. In the meantime, please support Vernon Hugh Bowman in his fight against Monsanto's legal abuse.

~*~

As promised on the air today, here is the link to today's show. I started out a little jumbled, since we had some technical issues (we weren't in our usual studio and the acoustics were somewhat off), but I changed microphones, finally got going and tried to make some sense. Our first subject was the confrontation between trans activists and an anarchist group called Deep Green Resistance, while they were selling feminist books at the Law and Disorder Conference at Portland State University this past weekend. I react pretty strongly to defacing books or otherwise rudely rousting politicos at a table because it has happened to me many times; harassed by bikers at outdoor festivals for lefty literature, jeered at by fundamentalists at Occupy, and so forth and so on (in fact, I wrote about one such incident HERE). So, I asked, what IS hate speech and how should we handle it? One's person's hate speech is another person's Gospel (literally!), so what should we do in a pluralistic society that values the First Amendment?

Aside: I used to warn radical feminists that their eagerness to call everything (such as porn) 'hate speech' would some day come back to bite them in the ass, and here we are.

Increasingly, I am puzzled by trans activists' fixation on radical feminists (whom they call 'radscum'). Why not focus on fundamentalist right wingers who are far more numerous and say the same things? More to the point, the radscum do not seek to deny GLBT equal rights or try to keep folks from transitioning; they just argue (endlessly, relentlessly) about the physiological and social meaning(s) of "woman" and "female". The Christian fundamentalist Republicans think trans people should be forced to use their birth names on their drivers licenses and if they don't, locked up in mental institutions and/or arrested for fraud. Who is worse? And who has more power to enforce their prejudices?

Why not go after the REAL scum?

I'm ready when you are.

~*~

Today's blog post title comes from Steely Dan's excellent album, COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY (1973).

As I continuously plow through Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva, I just keep thinking of the lyrics.

Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Can you show me
The shine of your Japan
The sparkle of your china
Can you show me
Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town
Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town
And I'll be there
To shine in your Japan
To sparkle in your China
Yes I'll be there
Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva...

Bodhisattva - Steely Dan

Glenn Greenwald verbalizes my worries about gay rights

Yesterday it was announced by the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, that Wikileaks whistleblower/political prisoner Bradley Manning was selected as one of the Grand Marshals of the yearly San Francisco gay pride parade, considered a high honor in the gay community.

Almost immediately, Lisa L Williams, president of the Board of SF Pride, wrote a statement retracting his nomination:

Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country. We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country.

Yes, you read that right. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is an insult to the military.

Glenn Greenwald (who is also gay, for the record) wasted no time in blasting Williams, calling her statement a "substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials, which has since been decisively and extensively debunked, even by some government officials." Greenwald correctly reminds us:

Indeed, it's the US government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of "actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform."

And then Greenwald underscores the incipient fascism (my label, not his) of Williams warning the organization's members that EVEN THE HINT of support for Manning, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. WILL. NOT. BE. TOLERATED.

Wow.

This certainly is a long, long way from the San Francisco Gay Pride parade I once attended, decades ago, which tolerated (celebrated!) every bizarre, crazy activity and wayward political belief in the world. This had the wonderful result of making everyone feel welcome and giving off a warm, beneficent glow. This event was where I saw the revolutionary Tom Robinson Band, in 1981. (Robinson was an influential, radical gay punk rocker from the UK, who founded Rock Against Racism, a cause I was once allied with myself.) I suddenly realized that me and Tom Robinson probably do not belong in today's gay rights movement, which is now officially aligning itself with the government and trashing a courageous gay man who dares to speak out (and has had his civil rights violated as a result). Tom Robinson and Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald (and me) are OUT... apologists for right-wing warmongering like Lisa Williams are IN... it is the wholesale Lady Gagaization of gay rights; the defanging and neutralizing of a once-radical movement that asked the tough questions. Its all razzle-dazzle and the Bravo Network and Will and Grace reruns... nothing that asks participants to seriously question the status quo. (As it was for me, when I was young.)

Depressing.

Further, it isn't just the Lady Gagaization of gay rights, but the corporate sponsorship of gay rights... Glenn Greenwald ticks off the list of glitzy parade sponsors (HERE is the official list) which include AT&T, Verizon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Clear Channel, Kaiser Permanente... basically the same list of corporate shysters presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Greenwald carefully catalogs their sins against the people, and then sputters:

So apparently, the very high-minded ethical standards of Lisa L Williams and the SF Pride Board apply only to young and powerless Army Privates who engage in an act of conscience against the US war machine, but instantly disappear for large corporations and banks that hand over cash. What we really see here is how the largest and most corrupt corporations own not just the government but also the culture. Even at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of cultural dissent and disregard for stifling pieties, nothing can happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute something even a bit deviant takes place (as defined by standards imposed by America's political and corporate class), even the SF Gay Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non grata at SF Pride, illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and hedge-fund purveyors of the nation's worst right-wing agitprop are more than welcome.

And then, Greenwald starts making some interesting connections. Lisa Williams once worked for the political campaign of ... guess who?! President Hopey-Changey himself!* Greenwald reminds us:

It was President Obama, of course, who so notoriously decreed Bradley Manning guilty in public before his trial by military officers serving under Obama even began, and whose administration was found by the UN's top torture investigator to have abused him and is now so harshly prosecuting him. It's anything but surprising that a person who was a loyal Obama campaign aide finds Bradley Manning anathema while adoring big corporations and banks (which funded the Obama campaign and who, in the case of telecoms, Obama voted to immunize).

And finally, Greenwald voices the worries and concerns I have had for years... which it seems are finally coming to pass:

When I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their mindset. This event illustrates exactly what I meant.

Yeah. And I remember ancient arguments I engaged in, with wacky old reds like the RCP, who warned me that gay rights was cosmetic and would NOT upend the status quo the way I was convinced it would. Were they right, after all?

From Greenwald's piece last month, mentioned above, titled The gay marriage snowball and political change:

If anything, one could say that the shift on this issue has been more institution-affirming than institution-subverting: the campaign to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continually glorified and even fetishized military service, while gay marriage revitalizes a traditional institution - marriage - that heterosexuals have been in the process of killing with whimsical weddings, impetuous divorces, and serial new spouses (as Rush Limbaugh might put it: I'd like you to meet my fourth wife). And these changes are taking a once marginalized and culturally independent community and fully integrating it into mainstream society, thus making that community invested in conventional societal institutions.

Notably, Malcolm X also worried about the "buying off" of the black community, in just this same fashion. Some of us have probably forgotten that this was one of the tenets of Black Nationalism, that integration was also a form of neutralization ... and in the process of integration and assimilation, much intrinsic radicalism and core identity can be compromised.

Is the gay community being bought off and neutralized?

Unfortunately, I think so. Faster than you can say LADY GAGA. Or Bradley Manning.

~*~

*This perfect term for President Obama comes from Mister LarryE, aka Lotus, who has a cool blog you should all check out.

Greenville Candlelight Vigil for Marriage Equality

... tonight at the Unitarian Universalist church.

Candlelight vigils and supportive demonstrations are taking place throughout the nation tonight, and all week long. Legal arguments before the Supreme Court will begin tomorrow, for and against the constitutionality of gay marriage. From NBC:

The U.S. Supreme Court this week takes its first serious look ever at the issue of same-sex marriage, considering two cases that raise a fundamental issue: does the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection allow legal distinctions between same-sex couples and those of the opposite sex?

The greatest potential for a ruling with nationwide implications comes in a case from California, to be argued Tuesday, brought by proponents of Proposition 8. The following day, the court will hear a separate case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.

Approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008, Prop 8 amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. It was placed on the ballot after 18,000 couples had been legally wed there.

A federal judge in San Francisco declared the ban unconstitutional, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling. Once a state grants a fundamental right like marriage, the appeals court said, it cannot later take it away, even by voter initiative.

Photos of our vigil below, and you can click to enlarge all photos.

I hope you will also take part in one locally. Like the signs say, "Equality means everyone."