The Republic of T.

I’m thinking about switching to a different blog editor. I’ve gotten used to using a desktop editor, but I’m finding ecto to be a little quirky, though I’ve been using it for a long time. It does some weird things, and even weirder when I crosspost elsewhere, which means that I have to correct various rrors. On the other hand, I like some of its features, like the way it interacts with Amazon and iTunes. Plus, I’m not willing to go back to editing in the browser and I’m too lazy to code my own entries.

So, does anyone have any recommendations? I downloaded the ecto3 alpha, but of course it’s in alpha so it’s not quite ready for prime time yet. I’ve tried MarsEdit before, and found it alright. I downloaded Bleezer and was underwhelmed. I downloaded TextMate and was overwhelmed, and never got the Blogging Bundle to work. The BlogMate plugin, on the other hand worked pretty well. But thus far, nothing really jumped out at me as the right choice.

Anyone have any recommendations for a Mac blog editor?

Technorati Tags: blogs, technology

Part of the reason I started the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia Project was to make information about the kind of hate crimes that have been committed against LGBT people more widely available, because that I think the facts are the most powerful resource we have in terms of making it clear what the hate crimes bill is really about.

I’m a couple of days late on this one, but I while catching up with my blog reading, I came across a story that underscores another aspect of the hate crimes bill. Jim Burroway posted the full text of the bill at Box Turtle Bulletin a while back. He also challenged the opposition to post the text of the bill on their sites, and point out where it threatens their religious beliefs or religious speech. To date, none of them have taken up that challenge that I know of, but I’ll refer to his post to show how the hate crimes bill might come into play, when police fail to investigate or report a hate crime.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, civil rights, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, politics, race

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“I want to start an organization to save my life.”

~ Essex Hemphill, Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry

Boy, after reading everything about Michael Sandy’s death, do I know what Essex was talking about. (And researching the story of Dwan Prince’s bashing doesn’t inspire confidence either.) Is there a black organization that even cares about black LGBT people? Just as we are? Well, yes.

There may or may not be a third season of Noah’s Arc, but there will be black gay TV, thanks to the NBJC.

Check out their blog or subscribe to their YouTube channel to for monthly news, entertainment, educational videos and other updates!

Technorati Tags: gay, gay rights, politics, video, race

You never know who you might meet. Or what they might do to you. That’s what I thought when I wrote up Jason Gage’s story. That’s true of, well, everybody. But in many of the cases I’ve researched so far, there’s an added wrinkle for LGBT people. The people you meet may intend to do you harm, because you’re LGBT and because they can. Because, as Paul Broussard’s attackers did, they think that you either won’t report being attacked, or that police won’t do anything about it. Because you’re LGBT. And, it follows, you don’t matter and neither does what happens to you.

That’s what Michael Sandy’s killers thought, when they sat in front of a computer, prowling a gay chatroom, looking for gay men they could lure into meeting with suggestions of sexual activity, and then rob. They figured that gay men would be less likely to resist. That they’d be easy to rob. And they met Michael Sandy. Five days later, Sandy was dead. He died trying to escape his four attackers. He ran into the street, where they pursued him and continued to attack him. Michael Sandy ran into traffic and was hit by a car. One of his attackers dragged him to the side of the road, rifled through his pockets, and left him there. Then, they went home and took naps.

When I first heard about Michael Sandy’s death, I thought to myself “That could have been me.”

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, gay bashing, gay rights, homophobia, politics, race

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Jane says that Marcy says that any one of three different investigations could be behind Rove’s sudden decision to step down. Admittedly, Rove’ sudden resignation fits the pattern of Bush administration officials resigning two steps ahead of arrest, indictment, or embarrassment. (Makes it easier to claim that no one in the Bush administration as been indicted or arrested … at least not while they were actually part of the administration. The resignations of Claude Allen and Randall Tobias come to mind, and they’re just small parts of a much longer body count.

That’s why I think there might be more to Rove’s decision to step down. Like the two above, it may be that Rove is stepping down for reasons other than the run of the mill political scandal. Why hasn’t anyone considered the possibility that Rove literally got caught with his, or someone else’s, pants down?

Technorati Tags: books, bush, cheney, current events, gay rights, karl rove, politics

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I tend to agree with Michael over at Gay Orbit, regarding civil unions. But I’ll get to that in a minute. I understand what Bruce (guest blogging over at Sully’s), whose post Michael was responding to, is trying to say, but I think it misses several points.

Civil unions are achievable, but I think full marriage rights for gays will probably not happen any time soon. In my opinion, it is silly to allow the semantics of a word stand in the way of getting what is important for gays: the right for their partners to have the material rights of married couples in areas such as health benefits, inheritance rights, and so on. I think this is a case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Except that the “good” here isn’t all that good. At least not to anyone who’s paying attention.

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Being in the middle of documenting hate crimes on Wikipedia, I couldn’t help noting the news about the Gay American Heroes Foundation and it’s plan to put together a traveling memorial honoring LGBT hate crime victims.

A “Who’s Who” of gay and straight culture have come together to create a national memorial to honor LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people who have been murdered because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The first phase of the Foundation’s plan is to assemble a traveling memorial and exhibition constructed of six individual rainbow-colored, multi-dimensional panels bearing the photos, names, ages and occupations of LGBT hate crime victims. The eight-foot tall memorial will stretch more than 100 feet. Expected completion date for the exhibit is December 2007.

… Once completed, Gay American Heroes volunteers will transport the display throughout the country to college campuses, LGBT events and to communities where anti-gay murders have occurred. An informational welcome tent will include guest speakers and educational materials. At each venue, the volunteers will enlist local community leaders to present informative programs.

“We want to reach out to communities as soon as possible following a deadly anti-gay hate crime,” adds Hall. “We want to support the family and friends of the victim, as well as to work with local officials, law enforcement and service organizations to provide counseling and outreach.”

Of course, It immediately struck me as a great idea since it’s not unlike what I’m doing on Wikipedia. It didn’t occur to me that my own reaction might not be universal.

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After this test, I might just order one of those t-shirts.

You Are 100% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn’t mean you’re a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It’s a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

No big surprise there. I mean, Duh! Who wouldn’t “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” with those questions? OK, OK. I know who. I just don’t like to think about them too much.

Technorati Tags: feminism, gender, memes, politics, web

I didn’t think anything of it at the time. As part of the upgrade and redesign of the blog, I finally got around to installing the Feedsmith plugin for Feedburner. Several people had advised me to install it before, but I put it off out of fear that I’d end up breaking something else in the process. Since the upgrade had the potential to break everything, I figured “What the hell?”, and installed it.

The plugin, BTW, basically reroutes your WordPress generated RSS feeds to your Feedburner feed. The result being a better quality feed for readers, and better statistics on how many people are actually reading the blog. Page views, after all, don’t tell the whole story. Neither do unique visits. If you’ve got a Feedburner feed and a WordPress feed, you don’t have an statistics on how many people are subscribing to your feed. And, well, they’re readers too.

I installed the plugin and forgot about it, until I noticed that post-upgrade my feed no longer carried full content, but just everything before the jump. I’d prefer a full content feed. So, I signed into Feedburner to see if the problem was here. Well, I found more than I bargained for. More readers that I didn’t know about until now.

Technorati Tags: blogs

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Once again, the theme seems to be uncontrollable rage. In the cases of Richie Phillips, Jason Gage, and Glenn Kopitske it was triggered by alleged sexual advances or sexual activity. In many of the cases I’m researching now, uncontrollable rage was triggered when men discovered that the women with whom they’d been intimate consensually were transgendered. Just as murder seems a rather extreme alternative to simply saying “No, thank you,” to allegedly unwanted, alleged advances, so it stands that no one deserves to be murdered if their partner does not know — or they do not disclose — their biological gender.

I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to have to decide, if, how, or when to disclose your gender identity to someone else, just like I don’t know what it’s like to have to struggle with gender identity and finally make the decision to start living on the outside the gender you’ve always felt on the inside. I can only listen to and acknowledge the experience of those who have lived with the reality of being transgender. I do know that no one deserves to die for being transgender, whether their sexual partner knows their biological gender or not. In some cases, I’m as skeptical about what the killers knew and when they knew it, as I am that any sexual advances or encounters in the previous cases involving gay men were unwanted or less than consensual.

In the murders of Jason Gage and Glenn Kopitske, the facts strongly suggest that whatever happened behind closed doors — where only the killer and the victim know what happened—was consensual. The uncontrollable rage that resulted in their murders was triggered by shame and anger on the part of their killers, over their own desires, or that others might find out, and their manhood would be threatened as a result. In some of the cases involving transgender victims, I find myself wondering how much the killers knew and to what degree the murders were driven by shame, guilt, anger, and the threatened manhood of the killers.

I found myself wondering about that as I researched the murder of Nireah Johnson. (BTW, if you’d like to help support the research for this project, you can do so via the PayPal button on the sidebar. All contributions will go to accessing news archives for research purposes.)

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, gender, homophobia, human rights, masculinity, politics, wikipedia

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Holy shit. There are, of course, any number of ways I could have titled this post. I considered something along the lines of it being time to shit or get off the pot, or maybe something about Turd Blosson finally circling the bowl. There are so many ways to respond to the news that Karl Rove will resign at end of August. [Via Bill at Bilerico.] One feels so many things at a time like this.

Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political adviser, will voluntarily step down from his White House post at the end of the month, senior administration officials said Monday.

“Obviously it’s a big loss to us, said deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino. “He is a great colleague, good friend and a brilliant mind.”

Perino said Rove “wouldn’t be going if he wasn’t sure this is the right time to be giving more time to his family.”

The president and Rove are expected to speak before boarding Marine One at the White House at 11:35 a.m. ET. Bush will head to his Crawford, Texas, ranch where he will remain for the rest of the week.

Rove, who has held a top position in the White House since Bush took office in January 2001, is to stand down on August 31.

What can I say? Sometimes, words fail. So I put together a kind of tribute to Karl.

Technorati Tags: bush, corruption, current events, karl rove, politics

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Success! I can continue engage in serial blogging while making it easier to find series of posts, thanks to the Organize Series plugin. It’s a habit I fell into a while back, and I’ve given up trying to break myself of it. Try as I might, I can’t force my brain into the four-paragraph blog format. (Fortunately, according to some experts, that’s exactly what I shouldn’t do anwyay.)

I can’t It took a little while for to figure out how to get it working, but it’s paid off with a series category page. There you’ll find links to each series, along with descriptions of each series. I’m going back through the archives little by little and find posts that were written as series . But the best part isn’t the series page itself. Now, if a post is part of a series, you’ll know as soon as you look at it.

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Actually, more like complete renovation. I put off upgrading to the newest version of WordPress for as long as I could. Mostly because I finally had the blog looking and working pretty much the way I wanted it, and because I knew that upgrading would break my theme and any number of plugins, etc. But time and technology marches on, and sooner or later you realize it’s dragging you along behind it whether you like it or not.

So, when my host upgraded to what I think was new version of PHP, and my old version of WordPress and the WP-Cache plugin started acting loopy, I took a deep breath and started preparing to upgrade. My one problem was finding a theme that would be compatible with the new version of WordPress, and allow me to preserve at least some of the great look and feel Lauren created for the blog a while back.

Fortunately, I’d bookmarked a post from Mashable about 30 3-column WordPress themes. That’s where I found Mandingo, a terrific theme that let me incorporate the banner and background Lauren created. Not only is it a great theme, but according to the Showcase page now have something in common with Björk.

The site is pretty much the same, but there is one new addition. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to keep some posts from getting buried in the 1,000+ posts on this blog. (And that’s not counting the XXXX posts in the October 2003 – June 2006 archives.) Right now the Articles page is my attempt to give some of those posts a chance to see the light of day. (Thanks to the great work of Alex King, BTW.) That page will be updated as I unearth more posts to feature there. I’m also working on a way to showcase series of posts, but haven’t been successful with that yet.

I’ve also added a PayPal button to the sidebar. For now, donations will go to support research for the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia project, and will be used to pay for access to newspaper archives.

Hope folks like the new look, etc. Feedback is appreciated!

Technorati Tags: wordpress

For a while now, I’ve wanted to find some way of featuring the posts I don’t want to disappear into the archives forever. This page is it. It will be updated as needed.

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You ever been in a situation like this? Say you’ve got this friend, who has a real shot at going out with this great guy. He may not have the flash of some other potential suitors, but he totally “gets” your friend. He cares, and it’s obvious he’s sincere. He continues trying to get your friend’s attention, and barely gets the time of day, even though he treats your friend way better than some of their other “people of interest.”

But instead, your friend spend most of his or her time, energy, and money chasing after potential S.O.’s that don’t give back half as much. You sit there and watch and shake your head. Right? That’s kind of how I feel about Dennis Kucinich. His turn on with the panel made me wonder why our community gives candidates like him short shrift, and treat other candidates — who don’t offer us nearly as much — so well?

I guess I understand it, though. I used to do the same thing when it came to relationships. At least until I got therapy.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, current events, dennis kucinich, elections, gay, gay marriage, gay rights, politics, television

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Let me just admit right now that I’ve always been a sucker for a handsome southern boy with an “aw shucks” grin. And Edwards is as handsome and southern as they come. However, time has been my teacher, as this post from the NGLTF blog reminded me.

Still, no major Democratic candidate has made the kind of sweeping statement of inclusion as did Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992, when he declared to a huge crowd of LGBT people in Los Angeles, “I have a vision for America and you are part of it.” His words brought tears to the eyes of the audience and rang out across the United States. Even the most skeptical of us in the LGBT community knew that we heard something previously unspoken by any major political figure.

Yeah. I fell for it then. But, too borrow a line from Big Maybelle, “I was just young and simple. Ha! Ain’t like that no more.”

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, current events, family, gay, gay marriage, gay rights, john edwards, parenting, politics, religion

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Well, the song says “There’s Got to Be a Morning After,” and here we are. Six candidates in on night. The sheets are a mess, but at least there’s leftover OJ and bagels since no one hung around for breakfast this time. And there are six phone numbers on the dresser. So, who made it a night to remember, who would we rather forget, and who — if any — get’s a call back?

Obama? Edwards? Kucinich? Gravel? Richardson? Clinton? Two who support full equality, and four who support … something else. If I’m ever in a room with Obama, Edwards, Richardson, or Clinton, and I have an opportunity to ask a question, I just have one. They all essentially said that the country is moving inevitably towards full equality. So my question for them is this: How can you lead the country on the path to full equality without actually supporting full equality yourself? (Of course, I realize that by saying this I’ve all but killed whatever chance I had of being in a room with any of the candidates and have an opportunity to ask that question.)

I watched the forum, took notes (yes, I’m that much of a nerd), and recorded it so I could go back and review each candidate’s performance in the cold light of morning. So, grab a bagel, schmear on some cream cheese, pour some left over OJ, and lets compare notes.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, civil unions, gay marriage, gay rights, marriage, obama, politics, religion, television

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And tomorrow will be the morning after. For those with some degree of experience, you’ll recognize that as the time period when you wake up, rub the sleep out of your eyes, look around and wonder if putting out the night before was worth it. This time, though, it’s more in the political sense. After tonight’s first-ever presidential forum on gay and lesbian issues, sponsored by HRC and Logo (viewable online here), we’ll wake up tomorrow and — in the cold light of morning, after the excitement and stroking of the night before have faded — whether it was worth it, and just how far we want to take things from there.

I’m not in L.A. to cover this, for a lot of reasons, but I’ll be watching and listening and blogging the morning after. While waiting for tonight’s festivities to begin, I’ve been reading what some of my fellow queer bloggers have to say about tonight and why it’s important. I’m inclined to think, though, that we aren’t going to hear much beyond the same old lines. And given how many times those lines have successfully lured us into the sack with various politicos (see above), maybe this time around we’ll see things in a different light on the morning after.

Or not.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, civil unions, current events, gay, gay marriage, gay rights, homophobia, politics, religion

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It’s encouraging, in a way, to find that the Freepers are upset that Fred Phelps will protest at the funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse.

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

… In a press release issued the day after the bridge collapse, the church called for protests at the funerals and outlined its feelings about the relationship between God’s plan and the sins of Minneapolis and Minnesota, which it calls the “land of the Sodomite damned.”

Reached at the church, Shirley Phelps Roper, who is both the daughter of the pastor and one of the attorneys for the church, said that America, and Minnesota especially, have alienated God by its tolerance for homosexuality, and that the bridge collapse was an act of God’s vengeance. She said:

“The bridge stood in place by the word of God and it fell by the word of God…Each of these little events is just a harbinger of the coming destruction of this American experiment. We are delivering the final call of the doomed nation.”

Minnesota? Tolerant? This in state where conservatives are opposing a bill that would grant same-sex couples  the right to hospital visitation? I guess that makes sense. After all, that means a bill was introduced to grant hospital visitation to same-sex couples.

So, perhaps blaming the bridge collapse on “God’s wrath” (because the people of Minnesota should be putting fags in the hospital, not letting them visit each other in the hospital) isn’t so far-fetched. It may not even be all that extreme. Not everyone who thinks that way is a wild-eye, sign-waving, slogan-screaming maniac. PZ Myers linked to this take on the bridge collapse, from a guy who crossed the bridge on his way to church and crossed it on his way out of town the day before it collapsed.

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That’s what the killer in this case said he was doing when he shot Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder — a gay couple in Redding California — to death. He was “obeying God’s law,” which according to him says:

Benjamin Matthew Williams, the 31-year-old white supremacist accused of murdering a gay couple outside this Northern California town in July, is now admitting that he slipped into the men’s home while they were sleeping and shot them to death in their bed.

He did it, he said, because they were gay and God told him to.

When asked if he had killed the pair, Williams answered, “Absolutely.”

…”The defense that he has is a religious defense, and he is saying the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong and they should be killed and the blood is on their heads,” O’Connor said. “But as a practical matter I don’t think the judge is going to allow that defense, as opposed to one using the laws of the state of California.”

Of course, it’s not that simple. It never is. That’s one thing I’ve discovered as I continue this project of documenting anti-LGBT hate crimes on Wikipedia. There are almost always other elements at play, which fall into place to unleash that “uncontrollable rage” that seems to be a theme in so many of these cases; sometimes just rage that LGBT people happen to exist. But sometimes an attackers rage at himself is simply projected outward. This looks like one of those cases.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, politics, web, wikipedia

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