The Republic of T.

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This is without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. We are finally home. We arrived late Thursday night. But we have come home without Lauren. (Which is what we called her.)

We lost her.

At 10:00 a.m. Thursday morning, we received a call from our adoption agency.
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OK. I know that round-up posts like this are a sign of lazy blogging. But, it’s been one week since we walked out of the hospital with our baby girl. Before that, it had been well over four years since we last had a new born in the house. There are things you take for granted in four years. Like uninterrupted sleep. And not having an almost-five-year-old to take care of at the same time.

I started this blog when Parker was about a year old, so I didn’t know how newborns and blogging mixed. Now, one week in, I have an idea. After a week of trying to keep up I’ve decided to take a day off and just post the best of what I’ve been reading between bottle feedings and diaper changes.

Technorati Tags: atheism, atheists, blogs, current events, gay rights, politics, religion

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It might seem like I’m jumping on the “Bash Britney Bandwagon” here, but I think the reference is valid and the point relevant. Or at least I did when I was standing in line at the grocery store a couple of days ago. And, no, I’m not talking about her VMA performance. (But, as long as we’re on the subject, that’s not something any real diva would ever have done. Can you imagine Madonna doing that? Never. Way too much of a control freak.)

I know I called a moratorium on Britney jokes, because girlfriend clearly has problems she need to work on, but I’m not so much poking fun as I’m still venting over the Maryland Court of Appeals gay marriage ruling, which effectively married the right to marry to the possibility of procreation. I’m remembering that Britney once got married as a joke.

And, by all accounts, her second marriage was a joke, but it produced two babies. That’s bottom-line criteria for marrying in Maryland. There’s got to be at least a possibility of sperm meeting egg for there to be even the possibility of a wedding license. Britney’s met more than met that requirement. But what’s happened after conception and delivery is what’s making news now.

Technorati Tags: celebrities, child abuse, children, current events, family, gay marriage, gay rights, parenting, politics

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I guess I don’t need to say it, given the three previous posts, but “Poisonous Parenting” has morphed into a series at this point. And while I’ve heard the criticism about posting these stories in this context, I stand by the point I made in the previous post.

The point is that there are people who put me and other gay parents in the same category as these parents. The point is that there are people who believe that being heterosexual makes someone an inherently better candidate for parenthood and that being gay makes one an inherently inferior parent, because gay parents are abusive and selfish by definition. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do to your kids. Being heterosexual doesn’t automatically make you a good parent, but you can’t be a good parent and be gay, according to their logic.

…But because I’m a gay dad, it doesn’t matter what I do. Because of the reasons mentioned above, I supposedly belong in the same category as some of these parents; and maybe even a step or two lower, because at least they’re heterosexual. If they clean up their acts, they can still be good parents. Better than me, even.

There’s something actually a bit deeper going on with this line of thinking, but it didn’t occur to me until I re-read “…you can’t be gay and be a good parent.”
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Ramone is asking “When was your first gay kiss?”

The world as I knew it completely changed after my first gay kiss. I mean, I’d kissed girls before, but my first kiss with a guy confirmed all of the feelings I’d had buried inside for so long. It was almost like a fairy tale, especially since the guy was someone I’d had a crush on for a very long time. It was after that special moment with him at 17 that I started to dream of building a life with another man—a home, kids and all kinds of pets.

When was your first kiss?

Does it have to be the first time? Why not the first best time? I guess I ask because I’m one of those people who doesn’t have the fondest memories of the first guy I ever kissed.

Technorati Tags: gay, sex, sexuality

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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still fuming over the Maryland Appeals Court gay marriage ruling. When I read the decision, it was a full 20 minutes before I could speak in more than one word at a time. The rest of the family got monosyllabic answers from me for a while.

Well, all except for the baby. But even she doesn’t take my mind of of it, because I keep remembering this paragraph from the decision.

Looking beyond the fact that any inquiry into the ability or willingness of a couple actually to bear a child during marriage would violate the fundamental right to marital privacy recognized in Griswold, 381 U.S. at 484-86, 493, 85 S. Ct. at 1681, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510, the fundamental right to marriage and its ensuing benefits are conferred on opposite-sex couples not because of a distinction between whether various opposite-sex couples actually procreate, but rather because of the possibility of procreation.

And every time I think about that paragraph I’ll think about stories like this one.

Technorati Tags: courts, current events, gay marriage, gay rights, homophobia, marriage, maryland, parenting, politics

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Can a gay person be anti-gay? Can a gay person be a gay basher? Can a gay person commit an anti-gay hate crime? That’s similar to the often-asked question “Can a Black person be racist?”; similar, but quite different. That question could be asking can a Black person be racist against whites, or it could be asking if a Black person san be racist against other Blacks. But a gay person whose anti-gay is whole other thing.

The initial answer to the first question is “yes.” We’ve seen far too many examples of people who are probably, at the very least, same-sex oriented in their private lives but either anti-gay or quietly complicit in their public lives and careers. Larry “Toe-tappin’ in the Men’s Room” Craig is a prime example, if you believe where there’s smoke there’s fire, given his fine voting record with organizations like the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America. Mark “Into SMS” Foley, who had so absorbed the anti-gay rhetoric of his party that he could no longer see himself — and, by extension, the rest of us — as deserving equality, is another. And let’s not forget Ted “Praise the Lord and Pass the Meth” Haggard, and whatever it was he needed Mike Jones to massage.

But these guys are nothing new. In fact they’re nothing more than pale shadows of Roy “Sure, I take it up the ass, but I ain’t no faggot” Cohn. Still, the all came rushing back at me when I caught up the news this week (having a newborn can cramp a blogger’s style), and realized I had to update the Michael Sandy entry on the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, when I read that one of Sandy’s attackers now claim to b gay.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay marriage, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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One of the reasons I started The LGBT Hate Crimes Project was to document hate crimes that didn’t make national headlines, or get much notice beyond the local areas where they happened; the ones that tend to disappear into newpaper archives that no one can see without paying for the privilege. In fact, I’ve tried to make those cases a priority. That’s why I’ve yet to write up entries on Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena, or Gwen Araujo. Not because what happened to them is less important than others, but because you don’t have to go very far to find information about them and the crimes against them. Entire movies have been made about them — The Laramie Project, A Girl Like Me, and of course Boys Don’t Cry.

But who’s going to make a movie about Daniel Fetty? Like some others, the story of what happened to Daniel Fetty — how he ended up beaten, stripped naked, and tossed in dumpster (like so much garbage) — was one I hadn’t heard until it was brought to my attention by Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin. When I read Jim’s account of Fetty’s murder, and why it was missing from FBI hate crime statistics

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

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Parker and I found a really cool playground yesterday, out here where we’re camped out waiting for the paperwork to be done so we can take the baby back home. In fact, it’s such a cool playground that we’re taking the whole family there for a lunchtime picnic. (Parker’s idea. Daddy & Papa approved.) So, while we’re having some family time, here’s some outstanding stuff from the blogosphere. Or, at least, stuff that stood out to me.

Let’s start with Wapo’s Marc Fisher on yesterday’s Maryland Court of Appeals ruling on marriage.

Here’s where you can hear the structural foundation of the anti-gay marriage argument starting to creak toward collapse. If marriage is solely a matter of giving legal sanction to procreation, then what to make of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in a Missouri case granting the right to marry to prison inmates who had zero prospect of procreating? In that 1987 case, the court said marriage was a fundamental human right–kiddies notwithstanding. The majority in the Maryland case acknowledged that the prison case blows something of a hole in their procreation argument but took refuge in a simple declaration that they just don’t care: The Missouri case just “does not persuade us,” the court ruled.

Technorati Tags: children, civil rights, civil unions, courts, current events, family, gay marriage, gay rights, marriage, politics

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“Looking beyond the fact that any inquiry into the ability or willingness of a couple actually to bear a child during marriage would violate the fundamental right to marital privacy recognized in Griswold, 381 U.S. at 484-86, 493, 85 S. Ct. at 1681, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510, the fundamental right to marriage and its ensuing benefits are conferred on opposite-sex couples not because of a distinction between whether various opposite-sex couples actually procreate, but rather because of the possibility of procreation.”
-Judge Glenn Harrell, Jr.

One week ago today, our daughter was born. One week ago today, we were waiting at the hospital and I was standing in the delivery room waiting to be born. We were there because her birthmother chose us, from 20 or so families, to be her adoptive parents. We were there because, when she chose us we said yes. We said yes to raising, loving, and caring for a child that we did not and could not conceive. I don’t know all of the reasons why our daughter’s birthmother chose us. All I know is that the biological parents who conceived her were not able to raise her. Their circumstances were less ideal than those they want her to grow up in. So, they chose us and, before she was even born, we said yes. And we will continue to say yes to loving her, caring for her, protecting her, teaching her, guiding her, and giving her every opportunity we can to help her grow into a happy, healthy, successful (however she defines success for herself) adult.

Now the Maryland Court of Appeals is telling me that because the hubby and I did not biologically produce the son and daughter we are raising that we do not deserve the protection and benefits of marriage, and that our children do not deserve the protection and benefits of having legally married parents. It takes very little time to conceive, nine months to bring to term, and many hours to deliver an infant into the world.

Technorati Tags: courts, current events, gay marriage, marriage, maryland, politics

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The Electronic Village has a post listing the top 10 black bloggers, according to Technorati, and this blog is on it.

While floating through the blogosphere I came across a listing of the 50 most influential bloggers. I noted that there were no bloggers of African descent on the list. Of course, there are millions of bloggers out there so I understand why Black bloggers might be overlooked. But, the point of creating The AfroSpear was so that we can learn from one another. As such, I propose to publish a monthly list of the Top Ten Black Bloggers.

The only qualification is that the blogger needs to be of African descent. The blogger does not have to be a member of The AfroSpear or the Afrosphere Bloggers Association. Of course, we invite all Black bloggers to join either (or both) of those fledging organizations. These Top Ten Black Bloggers are influential role models for the rest of us out here in the afrosphere.

Yeah, i saw that list of the 50 most influential bloggers and, just as I suspected, I wasn’t on it. And I don’t think I made the cut for D.C.’s new young blogging elite either. I have been called many things and will be called many more, but influential and elite haven’t often been among them.

Technorati Tags: blogs, current events, politics, race

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How much of a man are you? A better question would be how much time (and lives) are wasted trying to answer that question, guys, to our own satisfaction, not to mention others. Right? Well, if you needed a handy yardstick, Popular Mechanics has kindly supplied us with a list of 25 skills every man should have?

Here at PM, where we at least try to do everything, we spent weeks fine-tuning our list of “25 Skills Every Man Should Know,” debating over whether certain items were too basic, too challenging or just too obscure. You can find a full how-to rundown of each one in the October issue of Popular Mechanics, which just hit newsstands. But for now, check out our carefully selected list below, then offer your own arguments and suggestions in the comments section below, or tell us how to perform your must-know skill by writing to us here…

How many do you have? I’ve made bold the ones I can claim.

Technorati Tags: current events, gender, masculinity, memes

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Remember how people either didn’t understand the big deal about having a “10 commandments” monument outside of a courthouse, and how even some Democrats thought the objections to such displays might be a just a little alarmist, and that some of us need ease up on our vigilance church/state separation? I caused me to ask this question.

As a gay man, for that matter, should I expect to be treated fairly in the courthouse if I have to walk past a monument to the ten commandments in order to get in?

Basically, by which law am I going to be judged (and perhaps even sentence) when I enter that courthouse? The laws of the state, or someone else’s understanding their God’s laws? I may be hoping for the former, but what happens when someone brings the Bible into jury deliberations?

Technorati Tags: courts, crime, current events, gay marriage, gay rights, marriage, parenting, politics, law, race, religion

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Just looking at the picture of Zac Efron in that last post made me feel like a “dirty old man.”

So maybe a shirtless Vladimir Putin is a safer bet.

Technorati Tags: celebrities, civil rights, current events, gay rights, humor, politics

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This is a shameless ploy for more search engine traffic. Some time ago, I noticed that a number of people came to this blog searcing for “zac efron shirtless”. Now, I didn’t know who Zack Efron even was at that point, but I did some research, and after tracking down how this blog was coming up in that search (because I never posted about and knew almost nothing about Zac Efron) I thought it would be cute to actually post Zac Efron shirtless.

Well, I did. I, I might as well face it, I got what I asked for in terms of search engine traffic, and more than I asked for in terms of comments. Zac’s fans showed up, argued with one another, and read me the riot act for posting a picture of some shirtless dude they swore up and down was not their idol. Someone claiming to be Mr. Efron’s manager even chimed in. One even managed to somehow read the post and mistake me for Zac Efron, or at least wrote her comment as if she thought that’s who she was leaving it for.

Well, I’ve now at least know who Zac Efron is, and though I haven’t seen High School Musical, it still seems like a good time to correct my previous error and post what actually appears to be a shirtless Zac Efron.

Technorati Tags: celebrities, current events, humor, web

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Pop quiz. Does this phrase refer to the present or the past?

“The United States government wants its citizens to be liars, and to be unaccepting of themselves rather than, say, gay or homosexual. Be invisible and shut up.”

Would the speaker be talking about the Larry Craig affair? Or, for that matter the Ted Haggard and Mark Foley affairs?

Would they be talking about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Arabic linguists discharged from service in the middle of a war in which their skills are extremely valuable?

Or would they be talking about World War II, and how the U.S. government looked the other way when it needed warm bodies in uniform and patriotic queers rushed to sign up just like everyone else, and then began dishonorably discharging those gay & lesbian service members once the war started winding down? (And, inadvertently, contributing to making San Francisco and some other port cities the gay meccas that they are today?)

Technorati Tags: civil rights, current events, discrimination, gay rights, homophobia, military, war on terror

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How does a night out with friends and a late night dinner at Denny’s end up putting you in the hospital? Well, it can happen, if you happen to be gay.

I blogged about the gay-bashing of James Maestas in March of 2005, shortly after it happened, and followed up in a fit of pique when the two main bashers got 90 day sentences. It seemed outrageous to me at the time. (Particularly after another brutal gay bashing in New Mexico, which is now also on my list of hate crimes to research and document.) After all, Maestas wasn’t doing anything more than standing outside enjoying a cigarette with friends, when he happened upon the men who would change his life in ways he’ll no doubt live with for much longer than 90 days.

And all he did was answer a question. And touch one of them in a way the attacker decided was “flirtatious.” As with the cases of Dwan Prince, Roberto Duncanson, or even the “gay panic” related cases of Jason Gage and Richie Phillips. And what kind of touch was it?

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

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Am I wrong for laughing at this?

Because I did laugh at it yesterday, and I would have laughed longer if the hubby hadn’t reminded me that we were sitting in the middle of a military hospital.

But can you blame me? I mean, now they decide they need linguists who speak arabic?

Technorati Tags: current events, gay rights, homophobia, military, politics, war on terror

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Ed. Note: For reasons I’ll explain later, I wasn’t able to post yesterday, the anniversary of 9/11. Rather than attempting to write another take on the obligatory 9/11 post, I decided to repost this one from last year, because it resonated withe a lot of people, and it still pretty relevant on this anniversary.

I suppose that, being a political blogger (or a blogger period) it’s almost obligatory that I do some sort of post related to the 5th anniversary of 9/11, about where I was, what I saw, what I felt, and what changed for me after that day. It was, in a sense, a queer day. The events of 9/11 brought two things came into sharp focus for me. One, that my husband was the first person I’d called. We’d been together just over a year, and just a month earlier we moved into our first home together. Two, that America was under attack in a way that I’d never seen before, and in a way that brought home not just my own vulnerability, but the vulnerability the man I love and the vulnerability of our relationship in the face of the new reality that we were all plunged into on that day.

As an American, my life became a little less secure. As a gay man in a committed relationship, our life together became even less secure, in a way that differed from most people. So, while it was and probably still is impolitic to view 9/11 and the aftermath through the lens of my identity as a gay man, that’s a necessarily a part of the context of that day for me. And today it seems appropriate to acknowledge how much gay & lesbian Americans were a part of the events on that day.

Technorati Tags: current events, gay marriage, gay rights, marriage, politics, terrorism, war on terror

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It looks like there’s yet another attack to add to the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. Not only do I end up discovering old cases during my research, but new one’s keep happening. Like the anti-gay attack on former Top Chef contestant Josie Smith-Malave, which I just read about via the LGBTPOC listserve.

A former “Top Chef” contestant from Brooklyn was beaten in an anti-gay attack outside a Sea Cliff bar, and her lawyer said yesterday that she is disappointed in the police response to the crime.

Josie Smith-Malave, who was featured on Season 2 of the Bravo channel show, was one of three women asked to leave Partners, a Sea Cliff bar, the night of Sept. 1 after two of the women danced together, their lawyer, Yetta Kurland, of Manhattan, said yesterday.

Kurland said her clients told her that about 10 or 12 young people from the bar, some of whom appeared underage, followed the women out and began screaming anti-gay epithets, throwing debris and spitting at them, then beating them.

Nassau County police said they were investigating but said they would not provide additional information because it might impede their investigation and ability to make arrests.

Not only are police providing no additional information, but it sounds like this didn’t provide much help at the scene of the crime either.

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

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