OK, kiddo! Here are all the fantastically amazing posts tagged with United States

Gay Pride Float Possibly Hit By Arsonist

July 7th, 2010

Bystander mistake a charred pride float as modern art.

The annual gay pride float was a little different this year at Anchorage, Alaska’s fourth of July parade after it burned down in what is being treated as possible arson.

Just a day before the Independence Day parade was set to begin, a suspect was seen fleeing from a residential driveway where the float was parked, as weeks of hard work burned to cinders. Neighbours fear that the fire, which also scortched a nearby garage and attic, could be a hate crime.

The float’s construction team had a great idea, though. Christening the charred float “Phoenix Rising,” they rebuilt it from its ashes and burned remnants using donations from the community. After just one day, the float was finished, entered into the parade as planned, and won the Grand Champion trophy.

What a great display of unity and community pride. It’s an inspirational demonstration of exactly why the gay community should be proud of its accomplishments, and why hateful people should feel ashamed.

Woman Sues Church For Holding Same-Sex Ceremony

June 30th, 2010

WWJS: Who would Jesus sue?

Here’s a bit of oddness. Yvonne Moore, a southern Baptist in Washington, D.C. sued her church for performing a same-sex union ceremony back in 2007.

Moore, who is clearly not down with gay rights, attended the ceremony for some reason, found it “totally disgusting,” and then sought $250,000 in compensation—the amount she estimated she had donated to the church over her 40 years as a parishioner. She later dropped the lawsuit after talking to her pastor (and presumably her lawyer).

While the whole thing is pretty amusing in its sheer craziness, it does a pretty good job at illustrating how fearful and misinformed some people are about gay relationships; to actually turn her back on her parish of 40 years and file the paperwork to sue it for $250,000 shows an irrational and deeply emotional reaction to what’s ultimately not a very big deal. After all, this ceremony had nothing to do with Ms. Moore in the first place, but years of casual—and societally supported—homophobia results in exactly these sorts of actions. Unless people stand up to casual homophobia, otherwise kind people are capable of astonishingly crass bigotry.

CIA Almost Produced Fake Saddam Gay Sex Tape

May 28th, 2010

Actor auditions for the Sadam gay sex tape, but doesn't understand his motivation.

The United State’s Central Intelligence Agency’s Iraq Operations Group had proposed creating and circulating a fake gay sex tape depicting Saddam Hussein with a teenage boy. The idea was that Iraqis would be so shocked with the grainy camera footage that the entire Saddam regime would become destabilized and easier to invade.

Thankfully—very, very thankfully—higher authorities at the CIA rejected the idea before it was put into action. A CIA operative, speaking on the condition of anonymity dismissed the plan as having “no resonance in the Middle East.” “Nobody cares,” he said. “Trying to mount such a campaign would show a total misunderstanding of the target. We always mistake our own taboos as universal when, in fact, they are just our taboos.”

Interesting perspective, but with all due respect to this CIA guy, I think having sex with Saddam Freakin’ Hussein was taboo pretty much everywhere.

Senator Moves To Disallow Gay Families From Campsites

May 12th, 2010

Gay people go camping while a senator is alarmed that they've pitched a tent and have now taken out their wieners.

A Republican senator from Iowa is severely irked over the idea that gay couples should be allowed alongside heterosexual families on state campsites.

Lawmakers in Iowa have proposed updating the books so that gay couples will qualify for a family permit when camping. This would allow gay families to set up two tents on the same site so children and other state-defined dependents can join in on the weenie and marshmallow roasts. This, of course, sent state Republican Merlin Bartz into fits.

“A lot of the advocates of gay marriage in Iowa has said ‘It doesn’t affect anything; nothing has changed’,” Bartz told the press, “but the reality of it is that everything is changing.”

And, gosh, what a change this is. Gay parents are bringing their families to camp sites! That’s one of the signs of Armageddon, isn’t it?

(Thanks to Slap reader Kevin for alerting me to this one!)

US County Separates Elderly Gay Couple, Sells Their Stuff

April 21st, 2010

We asked a genetic hybrid of 7 literary villains and Sarah Palin what it thought of this story:

Evil queen in throne says: That's messed up, y'all!

Clay Greene and Harold Scull, an elderly gay couple in Sonoma County, California, thought they had all their inheritance and legal paperwork sorted out. They couldn’t legally marry, but they had named each other in their wills, giving each other powers of attorney, and granted themselves control over medical decisions should something happen.

According to a lawsuit filed by Clay and the NCLR, things couldn’t have gone more wrong.

Tragically, Harold, aged 88, was hospitalized after falling on the front steps of the couple’s home. Not only was Clay (age 77) barred from seeing his partner of 20 years in the hospital because they weren’t legally family, but health workers forcibly placed the two in separate nursing homes. The County of Sonoma, deeming Harold incapable to care for himself and dismissing his relationship to Clay as “roommates,” seized and auctioned off the couple’s property and possessions.  Harold died three months later, without Clay by his side. Clay is now without his partner, home, or any of the possessions that they had accumulated over their lifetime together.

Same-sex marriage is very, very important.

The case goes to court on July 16th.

California To Strike Down Gay “Cure” Law

April 7th, 2010

Gay researchers can finally stop.

California is advancing a bill that will repeal a bizarre “gay cure” law from 1950. The law states that “the State Department of Mental Health shall plan, conduct and cause to be conducted scientific research into the causes and cures of sexual deviation, including [...] the causes and cures of homosexuality.”

A bill to strike the ancient law advanced on a 4-0 vote, with three abstentions from members who supported the removal of the homosexuality reference, but would still like the law on the books to research sexual predators.

No word on whether or not the state will next stop its investigations of crop failures due to witchcraft.

Oklahoma Passes Bill Discriminating Against Wrong Group

March 31st, 2010

Too many prejudices to track.

The U.S. State of Oklahoma has accidentally passed a bill that eliminates all hate crime protections from people based on their race or religion instead of their sexual orientation, the bill’s original intent.

Bill 1965 (named, most likely, for the attitudes of that era) was supposed to essentially reverse the Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd Act, a federal law that added sexual orientation to the list of minorities protected from violent hate crimes. While states are not allowed to override federal law, Oklahoma found a strange workaround, mandating that local law officials simply not enforce a specific section of the U.S. Code under Title 18. Due to a clerical error or typo, however, the bill identified that section as 245 (which deals with race and religion) instead of 249 (which deals with sexual orientation).

Now, it’s actually a worthwhile exercise to substitute religion or race for sexual orientation to see how crazy anti-gay arguments sound, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen lawmakers do it themselves… to their own legislation… and actually pass it.

Or who knows, maybe they just wanted to exercise the golden rule and seek to be treated the way they treat others?

Either way, the intent of Bill 1965 is exactly the same, no matter which group of people it applies to. With that in mind, I’m sure the legislators who supported the bill in the first place will see no problem keeping it on the books as it stands, right?

US General: Allowing Gay Soldiers Lead to Massacre

March 22nd, 2010

Glowing skull energy destroys Earth.

John Sheehan, a retired army general from the United States, has blamed the lifting of a ban on gay troops in the Dutch army for the 1995 Bosnian massacre.

Serbian forces overwhelmed Dutch peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia fifteen years ago, leading to one of the largest genocides in Europe since World War II. Approximately 8,000 men and children were killed by Serbian forces.

Sheehan, speaking to a senate committee currently discussing a proposal to end the country’s ridiculous policy banning openly gay men and women from serving in the military, said that the Dutch would have prevented the Bosnian catastrophe if only they hadn’t “made a conscious effort to socialize their military,” adding “that includes open homosexuality.”

Roger Van de Wetering, a spokesperson for the Dutch Defence Ministry, dismissed the comments as “total nonsense:”

The whole operating in Srebrenica and the drama that took place over there was thoroughly investigated by Dutch and international authorities and none of these investigations as ever concluded or suggested a link between homosexual military personnel and the things that happened over there.

Well, duh!

School Cancels Prom Rather Than Allow Gay Dates

March 19th, 2010

A school in rural Mississippi has cancelled the school prom rather than letting a lesbian student bring her same-sex partner.

Constance McMillen said she approached her school’s administration about taking her date to the prom and wearing a dashing tuxedo, but was told that the two must attend separately, be accompanied by “guys,” wear dresses, and refrain from dancing together. When McMillen refused these conditions, the school cancelled the prom altogether—for everyone.

Say, this is just like the time back in grade 1 when I took my ultra-gay He-Man dolls action figures home rather than let my friend Matthew play with them. Except now it’s over a prom with an entire school board’s administration staff, some formal written policies, harsh sanctions, and a pending lawsuit from the ACLU. Other than that, it’s pretty close though.

As for what Constance McMillen thinks of the whole thing, here’s what she told the media: “I want my prom experience to be the same as all of the other students—a night to remember with the person I’m dating.”

Good on ya, Constance!

U.S. Senator Warns Of Man-Horse Marriage

March 17th, 2010

J.D. Hayworth, Senator John McCain’s primary challenger in the United State’s upcoming senate elections, is trying to ban same-sex marriage nationwide. Rather than offering any reasons why gay marriage is bad (they are awfully hard to come by, after all), he had this explanation:

You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage—now get this—it defined marriage as simply “the establishment of intimacy.” [...] I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It’s just the wrong way to go, and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support.

Quirky!

Hayworth is essentially declaring that if marriage is all about love, then it is impossible to legally deny marrying other “lovable” things—like horses.

The problem here—as if such an argument deserves any dissection—is that marriages aren’t one-way; they involve two people that love each other. Does a horse have the capacity to consent to such a partnership? Can it sign the necessary state documents? Can it uphold its legal responsibilities involving property, decision-making, taxes, etcetera?

The answer, of course, is neigh.

And with that, have a great Wednesday, kids!

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