Written: 1/12/2012

Rob over at Waking Up Now has a great article.  It’s short, so I’ll just link to it, but first, a thought.

Many who wish to take away my rights, those in the Catholic church especially, love to say they have nothing against gay people, but we should be celibate.

Now, sex isn’t everything.  I have work, friends, random adventures that I find myself off, and well, shit to do.  However, sex is still part of life.

So when someone is told to just ignore their feelings, and their romantic attractions, and to never, ever act on any of them, it’s denying a part of them.  An integral part of them.  What we do in the bedroom is not and should not be public knowledge.  But a good portion of our romantic lives are public: who we date, our complaints to friends, families, co-workers and strangers about those dates and significant others, pictures on our phones, our desks, phone calls from those we love.  All of these create a public dimension to our personal, sexual lives.

To keep that hidden, which I’ve done for so long now, is tough.  It take a lot of work, and a lot of energy.  And a lot of disappointment.  I can’t talk about things I want to with friends, I can’t bitch and cry about rejection (or most likely in my case, unpack it over a few beers). I like to think that I deserve better.  But even sometimes, that’s hard to realize.

So the next time someone says the LGBT community are fine, just as long as they’re not having sex, think about a celibate life for yourself.

But hey, I can just not have sex, right?

Read Rob’s piece here.

All my best,

The King of Spades

Written: 1/12/2012

I’ve never been a kid person (ironic, I know).  I just don’t connect well to young kids.  That’s a whole different blog post, but suffice to say, I’m looking to have kids (at least right now).

However, sometimes, asshats need to be reminded that members of the LGBT community can be awesome parents (just like they can be shitty parents too):

The Williams Institute, a research center on sexual orientation law and public policy at UCLA School of Law, has announced new findings from the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), the longest-running study ever conducted on American lesbian families (now in its 24th year). In an article published today in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were asked about sexual abuse, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior.

The paper found that none of the 78 NLLFS adolescents reports having ever been physically or sexually abused by a parent or other caregiver.This contrasts with 26 percent of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3 percent who report sexual abuse. According to the authors, “the absence of child abuse in lesbian mother families is particularly noteworthy, because victimization of children is pervasive and its consequences can be devastating

Not that science and reason has ever convinced bigots to change their minds though, but it’s nice to see a study like this.

Rob, over at Waking Up Now, takes over in another amazing column, please have a read (it’s also a piece about how those seeking to take away our rights selectively edit research done on the topic)

All my best,

The King of Spades