Written: 2/17/2012

Here’s what’s been going on on the law side of the LGBT debate:

Kansas decides once again to leave it’s anti-sodomy laws on the books, even though they’ve been ruled obsolete by the Supreme Court.  Thank goodness they won’t repeal those laws, we might think we’re real people.

An essay about ENDA, the employee non-discrimination act.  Because it’s not on the books (and since any version would probably include a non-profit exclusion), I can be fired for coming out.  And that’s what happened when a Church’s music director married his husband.

Update: The Obama administration is going to stop defending laws that discriminate against same sex spouses of military members.  This is awesome, and where DOMA will really start to fall.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 2/17/2012

It’s hard being gay in the United States, but I have to remember that it’s much worse elsewhere.

A gay man was forced by his employer to marry a woman or else lose his job (this also broke up with woman’s first marriage, by the way).  All because he was asking for equal rights.

And in Sweden, the government is castrating members of the transgendered community.  This is heartbreaking, infuriating and evil, all wrapped into one:

It’s bad here, but it’s worse elsewhere.  Always good to put things in perspective.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 2/13/2012

Mercy is the closest hospital to work.  It’s also a Catholic hospital.

Although, sidenote, during the G20 conference, even though Mercy was closer, the hospital designated for the conference was AGH, across the river.  Although I guess by helicopter it may have been a little closer, and I know Mercy had a lot of overflow work.  But anyway…

AMERICAblog has a great op-ed, worth a read, here is a bit:

So where does it stop?  Does the Catholic church think their hospitals can refuse to respond to 911 calls from transgender people?  That’s what happened in DC a number of years ago, the emergency medical guys freaked out when they responded to a call and found out the victim was trans.  They let her die, not before verbally mocking the dying woman, rather than offend their delicate sensibilities by treating her life-threatening injuries: 

Injured in an automobile accident, Hunter died shortly after a firefighter stopped treating her when the firefighter realized that Hunter was a man dressed in women’s clothes. Rather than assisting Hunter as she lay dying, the firefighter harassed her by making homophobic jokes to his fellow firefighters.

So don’t tell me it won’t happen. It has happened. And it’s what the Catholics, and the religious right, are arguing for.

I don’t want to take my chances with Mercy, although, one of my best friends sometimes works at Mercy.  And if I have the choice between my best friend and someone who may be inclined to not help me as much since I’m a “sinner” in their eyes, I’m going to go for the better medical treatment, who would be ready to probably kill for me will have to visit me elsewhere.

Update: Sadly, he doesn’t work at Mercy anymore, although it’s better for him, so it’s a good thing.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 2/13/2012

I’ve been thinking about religion a lot lately.  One of my best friends called the other day, we went to school together and have had lots of conversations about faith.  We also have a great joking relationship going with it, which I appreciate it, because if you can’t laugh at religion, you’re doing it wrong.

He thought he had offended me (long series of events barring me from getting to my phone, sorry), his wife and him were discussing gay rights in the Church and how many churches relate to the LGBT community and how they should relate to the LGBT community.  And I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, it was great, we came to the conclusion that we were all right, he described how churches should relate, while his wife commented on how most do.

Which brings me to the asshatery of Virginia:

The Virginia Senate today advanced a bill which passed the House last week that allows private adoption agencies to discriminate based on religious or moral beliefs

Which again, would not be a problem, except that this includes adoption agencies that take tax payer money.  So once again, we’re all paying for discrimination.

However, there is some good news out of Maryland where the Bishop of the Episcopal Church said this in a recent op-ed:

  However you interpret the seven texts used to argue against marriage equality, they pale in comparison to the over-arching biblical imperatives to love one another, work for justice, and recognize that each of us is created in the image and likeness of God.  Jesus, for Christians, is God incarnate. He not only shows us how to live, but reveals to us that God loves us unconditionally. Indeed, gay and lesbian Christians often speak of the overwhelming experience of being assured that they are loved by God as they are

            No matter how devoted to the scriptures of our faith we may be, few of us shape our moral opinion based on holy texts alone. If God is at work in the world, then our experience is a kind of scripture, and we must pay careful attention to what it is teaching us.

             Jesus said, “you will know people by their fruits.” St. Paul wrote: “The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Many of us in the Episcopal Church, which I serve as a bishop, know same-sex couples whose relationships can only be described as holy, and thus we have come to support the blessing of such unions. They stand in stark contrast with many exploitative and casual patterns of sexuality that both heterosexual and homosexual Christians are right to reject.

It’s always nice to see rational thought applied to faith, which is one of the tenets of the Episcopal Church.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 2/7/2012

Slog has a guest piece up about the problems with marriage equality:

The flaw at the heart of “marriage equality” is that, in purporting to institutionalize (normalize) gay sex/partnerships, it produces but another universe of legally codified restrictions that excludes millions of other peoples. It legally codifies prejudice against people who are single and justifies it through the veneer of “gay rights.”

While gay relationships are not so different than straight relationships, I guess that in many ways they are different.  The gay culture is different.

And there is a point that maybe we shouldn’t try to emulate everything from the rest of the society, lest we lost some of our own identity.  But of course, I’m for marriage equality for the strength it brings families, the stability it brings children and the rights and responsibilities it brings members of society.

But it’s an interesting thing to think about.

And I guess it’s been on my mind more lately.  I’ve always been more of a loner, and I’ve always been happy to be single.

Although that’s been changing lately, and I know that that’s been making it harder to stay closeted at work.

I can’t stand clingyness, and I would not be able to be in a codependent relationship.  But the more I think about it, the more I think about how it would be nice to have someone to share life’s adventures with, to lean on, and something I think I’ve mentioned before, someone to help me learn to let myself be helped (grammar gods help me).

I was talking with a good friend a few weeks ago and I was kind of hinting at that feeling.  She’s always thought that I should be with someone and more importantly, she’s always pressed me to be more open to the possibility, for which I am thankful.  I told her it was her fault that I was opening myself up to these thoughts more, and of course, she was happy for that.

The Good Men Project has a heartbreaking article about a set of brothers, and while the article goes off into territory unknown to me (abusive father), the first part, where the author describes his brother being more of a loner and happy by himself, felt connected to me (although usually I tend towards more adventure type things instead of a weekend on the recliner watching tv, let alone sports).  It’s a good read, check it out.  And I’m going to try to dig out some stuffed animals.

But who knows, it’s easier to keep my job and not make waves without a boyfriend, but I know that’s not something I can keep up forever, while I also know I wouldn’t be able to be in a relationship and keep this job.  So I keep moving on I suppose, one day at a time.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 2/6/2012

I have a strange news feed on Facebook.  I have a few that sneak through that are rabidly anti-gay and Catholic.  So the current kerfuffle about the changes to health care have been causing them some anxiety.

I have seen people argue that it is religious persecution that Catholic employers (aside from Churches, so hospitals, colleges, etc) comply with healthcare guidelines and cover contraception and reproductive health.

Let’s take a step back and realize something:

Some 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women in the United States have used contraceptive methods banned by the church, research published on Wednesday showed. A new report from the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit sexual health research organization, shows that only 2 percent of Catholic women, even those who regularly attend church, rely on natural family planning. The latest data shows practices of Catholic women are in line with women of other religious affiliations and adult American women in general.

So right there, we can just stop the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

And no one is saying they need to be forcing any of these services on employees, the government is just saying that if you are taking tax-payer money, you need to offer a minimum level of care, which includes reproductive health.  You know, since it’s a part of health.  Mother Jones sums it up beautifully:

I’m tired of religious groups operating secular enterprises (hospitals, schools), hiring people of multiple faiths, serving the general public, taking taxpayer dollars — and then claiming that deeply held religious beliefs should exempt them from public policy. Contra Dionne, it’s precisely religious pluralism that makes this impractical. There are simply too many religions with too many religious beliefs to make this a reasonable approach. If we’d been talking about, say, an Islamic hospital insisting that its employees bind themselves to sharia law, I imagine the “religious community” in the United States would be a wee bit more understanding if the Obama administration refused to condone the practice.

I can understand compromising over a very limited number of hot button issues. Abortion is the obvious one. But in general, if Catholic hospitals don’t want to follow reasonable, 21st century secular rules, they need to make themselves into truly religious enterprises. In particular, they need to stop taking secular taxpayer money. As long as they do, though, they should follow the same rules as anyone else.

I care about these issues because I’m a human being.  Because I can care about other people’s health without judging them, and because it always seems like certain groups are always opposed to the march of equality and progress.  And maybe it will continue to pay off and we’ll all keep standing up for each other in the face of adversity.

Update: The connection between any minorities rights is clear-cut.  So fighting for women’s rights, is a no-brainer.  Hopefully it is for you as well.

 All my best,

The King of Spades