Written: 10/04/2011

The LGBT community are kind of used to being outcasts.  We’re the underdogs, even if we make the world function from behind the scenes (to say nothing of the so called “glitterati” that conservatives are so afraid of).  But we can more and more acceptance as people realize they know, are friends with and are related to gay people.

The same I think can be said for the kinksters.  The more open they are about their lives, the more accepting the world will be.  And for the record (I think I’ve posted it before), I wish more people would follow the simple advice that I picked up (probably from Dan Savage) along the way:

It doesn’t matter what goes on between my ears, what I have between my legs or what I do between the sheets.  Live and let live, my sex life doesn’t affect you (as I add with snark, ‘but thanks for thinking either that I’d be interested in you or somehow obsessing about me naked’).

ANYWAY…a New York DA lawyer was fired.  Not because she was bad at her job, not because she lost a case, or did something unethical, but because her bosses found out she is a kinkster.  One of my favorite bloggers, who happens to be a gay kinkster, covers it here.

Slog has a great article about kinky celebs here, and Tynan discusses that article here.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/04/2011

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how to get the embed code (and I’m still fighting with my site software, so I’m not sure if would have worked anyway).  So click over here and listen to Patton Oswalt as he solved the Gay Marriage “debate.”

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/04/2011

Slog has a fantastic piece, although, it’s mostly talking about activism, and different progressive groups.  I’d like to pull a small bit out:

Maybe it’s because we were tired of paying the same taxes and not being able to pursue our happiness with equal fervor. Maybe it’s because for decades we had been told by Democrats, “Elect us and we’ll help you,” yet we had only seen discriminatory measures like “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act enacted into law. Maybe it’s because once your intelligence has been insulted flagrantly enough and your humanity denigrated deeply enough, you’ve got nothing left to lose. Whatever it was, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans had had enough.

To me though, it’s the first sentence that means the most.  I’m not being able to pursue my happiness: I’m a second class citizen.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/04/2011

A couple items of note.  First up, the Presbyterian Church is set to ordain it’s first gay minister, which is wonderful news.

Bishop Righter, a pioneer in the Episcopal Church, and a member and celebrant at my church, died recently.  His work (after a change of heart) led to the ordination of gay deacons, priests and bishops in the Episcopal Church.

And lastly, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case, letting the previous verdict stay: Humanitarian Organizations (even those who take public funding) may discriminate in their hiring based on religious views.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/04/2011

“I believe that marriage is between a man and woman,” Gingrich said, the Des Moines Register reports. “It has been for all of recorded history and I think this is a temporary aberration that will dissipate. I think that it is just fundamentally goes against everything we know.”

Well first off, that’s not true, the definition of marriage is very, very fluid.

But as Slog points out, he’s also right.  All of his marriages are temporary aberrations.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/03/2011

I finally found the quote I’ve been looking for.  Although something in the back of my mind is saying that I found it and posted it before, so if this is a repeat, I apologize.

Anyway, for those who think being gay is a choice, here’s the best response I’ve ever found:

THE CHOICER CHALLENGE: Last week, the leader of British Columbia’s Conservative Party, John Cummins, told a radio interviewer that gay people shouldn’t be covered by the BC Human Rights Act because being gay is “a conscious choice.”

Like truthers (9/11 was an inside job!), birthers (Barack Obama was born in Kenya!), and deathers (Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in West Hollywood!), choicers would appear to be just another group of deranged conspiracy theorists who can’t be dissuaded by science or evidence or facts. And John Cummins isn’t the only choicer out there. We have lots of choicers right here in the United States (Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum, Stephen Colbert, et al.).

But what if the choicers are right? What if being gay is something people consciously choose? Gee, if only there were a way for choicers to prove that they’re right and everyone else is wrong… actually, there is a way for choicers to prove that they’re right!

I hereby publicly invite — I publicly challenge — John Cummins to prove that being gay is a choice by choosing it himself.

Suck my dick, John.

I’m completely serious about this, John. You’re not my type — you’re about as far from my type as a human being without a vagina gets — but I have just as much interest as you do in seeing this gay-is-a-choice argument resolved once and for all. You name the time and the place, John, and I’ll show up with my dick and a camera crew. Then you can show the world how it’s done. You can demonstrate how this “conscious choice” is made. You can flip the switch, John, make the choice, then sink to your boney old knees and suck my dick. And after you’ve swallowed my load, John, we’ll upload the video to the internet and you’ll be a hero to other choicers everywhere.

It’s time to put your mouth where your mouth is, John. If being gay is a choice, choose it. Show us how it’s done.

Suck my dick.

Eloquent as always, thank you Dan.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/03/2011

I try not to dwell on the negative too much, but this story made me really sad.  I can’t imagine what this would be like:

“I went over to take the keys out of the ignition and all the sudden I hear someone say ‘sick’em,'” said Gibson County resident, Jerry Pittman Jr. Pittman said the attacked was prompted by the pastor of the church, Jerry Pittman, his father. “My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request. My uncle smash me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back,” said Pittman. He said bystanders did not offer assistance. He said the deacon yelled derogatory homosexual slurs, even after officers arrived. He said the officers never intervened to stop the deacons from yelling the slurs.

To be attacked by your uncle, at your dad’s orders.  How horrible.  I certainly don’t have it as bad as others, but it still makes me angry that parents would hate their children so much, and that there is so much hatred in the world to begin with.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 10/03/2011

I wanted to share a chart with you.  Just remember, my marriage would destroy the beautiful sanctity of biblical marriage:

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 09/25/2011

I’ve been writing as “The King of Spades,” for a few different reasons.  So I thought I’d search online to see what else is out there under the same name.

First up, King of Spades Online…who makes…spades!  You know, shovels!

Next up, The King of Spades…the MMORPG!  Looks interesting, but I don’t have enough time to play any more games, so sadly, I’ll have to pass on this one.

And then I went to Wikipedia.  Here is the description of the King of Spades:

It is representative of a person who is intelligent and authoritative in judgment, and is not easy to get along with. In the art of card fortune telling, the King of Spades is viewed as a dishonest lawyer

Maybe I should have called myself the King of Clubs instead:

The King of clubs has the meaning of good character and loyalty and the realization of ideals. The card is said to be one who has great power, but one who is not aware of this, and is outwardly cheerful but inwardly reserved.

All my best

The King of Spades

Written: 09/25/2011

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell ended on Tuesday.  I’ll have a lot more to write about this, I have some amazing videos and articles to share about it.  This post is going to be all over the place as I try to grapple with what’s going on in the military, in the Boy Scouts and in my head.

I’ve been trying to figure my own emotions about this, and I’ve found that I’m conflicted, and I shouldn’t be.

Of course this is fantastic news.  The world hasn’t ended, soldiers can serve their country openly, and the world actually is a better place.

I find myself wishing for more, and selfishly, wishing that I could have the same freedoms.

And then of course, I beat myself up because I’m feeling that way.  I’m a human being and deserve the same dignity and respect that others are given.  So part of me gets mad at myself for feeling what I’m feeling.  But they are my emotions, and I need to own them.

Like I said, it’s a whole lot of craziness going on inside my mind right now.  It’s kind of turmoil in there.

I’ve been waiting for some sort of horrible reaction to reach me, either on Facebook, or at work, but so far nothing has.  Granted, the GOP debate filled that hole, and I’ll be writing about that later, but personally, I’m thinking either the people around me are actually thinking rationally, or I’ve done a good job hiding all my bigoted acquaintances from my Facebook feed.

I wasn’t supposed to be at work on Tuesday, the first day without DADT, but due to a board meeting, and the apparent necessity of a presentation, even though I was dead tired (as was the whole team), so the day passed by unnoticed by me, as I think it did most people: The sky didn’t fall, the seas didn’t boil.  As the British are keen to say (now at least, since it’s trendy), everyone kept calm and carried on.

Do I wish better for me, yes.  Do I wish we didn’t have to fight for basic rights, yes.  But by the same token, I can appreciate the fact that we have fought and won for what we have.  That nothing has been handed to us and that we have picked ourselves up and demanded equality.  So we keep fighting, we have to.  I think the struggle wears me down.  Probably more often than I want to admit.  But the fight also keeps me going.

For now, my mind will keep reeling, as I try to understand now only the world around me, but how I fit into it, and how I see it.  I’ll be back with more, I  have a lot more to talk about this subject.  But for now:

All my best,

The King of Spades