Well, our Virginia boycott site launched Monday, and so far it’s gotten over 8,000 hits. I’ve gotten some great mails from supportive readers, angry homos, and embarrassed Virginians. Oh, and at least one seriously scary guy. Anyway, check it out if you haven’t.

I’m seriously wondering if the number one threat to my health and well-being is knowing what’s going on in government these days. Now congress wants to hold anyone who throws a concert where people might use drugs accountable for a federal crime. So basically, half the bands on tour should just go home.

You know, I half don’t blame Bush anymore. It would be nice to be as blissfully ignorant of the real world as he is.

We’ve been a bit obsessed of late about the fate of the gay boys (and girls) but Pam wisely pointed out that the whole female half of the country (and world) have plenty to worry about too. In the jeering voice of Gwen Stefani, and the interests of equal time, we offer a new category for tracking these issues: “I’m Just a Girl.”

Take this pink ribbon off my eyes
I’m exposed
And it’s no big surprise
Don’t you think I know
Exactly where I stand
This world is forcing me
To hold your hand
‘Cause I’m just a girl, little ol’ me
Don’t let me out of your sight
I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don’t let me have any rights
Oh…I’ve had it up to here!

You go Gwen, and all the rest of you girls, too!

I’m curious about how things will go with Muammar Gaddafi: will he continue to play nice with the West, will it bring him trouble from Africa or the East, will Libya become a significant source of trade and vacation locales?

I was delighted to read about his visit to Europe being so lavish. From correspondents in Brussels:

• Gaddafi’s two-day visit was marked by scenes of his supporters dancing and singing in the streets.


• He had a huge white limousine flown in specially.


• He received businessmen in a vast Bedouin tent that he had specially erected in the grounds of the Val Duchesse chateau.


• He was flanked at all times by a bevy of female bodyguards, clad in distinctive black uniforms with blue trim.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court hears the case about “enemy combatant” rights. The issue at hand?

“…whether in the war on terrorism President Bush can order American citizens held indefinitely in a military jail without charges, a hearing or access to a lawyer.”

A young friend of mine has been studying the Constitution as part of her home schooling program. I was honored to be asked to help put together some of the course materials. Every now and then I like to throw something over the wall to her to see what she thinks. I sent her a bit of about the upcoming Supreme Court hearing of the Guantanamo Bay case. She had this to say:

In the Constitution, the articles, it says that all people in the US have the ‘Writ of Habeas Corpus’, which is that you can’t be detained for more than 24 hours without sufficient evidence. Now, if this was the only thing, I could see an argument for the other side, that these people aren’t US citizens, so that wouldn’t apply.

But in the 14th amendment, that all people who can be punished by US law, also get to have the protection of the US law. Since it seems as if we are intent on punishing these people, it seems like they should also have the protection of our laws.

To which I say this: Will somebody get that gal a robe?

The two in question, Hamdi and Padilla, are both US citizens, a trait they share with a young man named John Walker Lindh. Lindh’s lawyer said this:

“He was a soldier in the Taliban. He did it for religious reasons. He did it as a Muslim, and history overcame him,” his attorney, James Brosnahan, said in July.

It’s possible that Hamdi and Padilla, if given legal counsel, might cite the same reasons. What’s the difference between them and Lindh? Why was Lindh given a lawyer and a trial and even given the chance to “serve out his term in a facility closer to his family, in Northern California” when Hamdi and Padilla have been in the hole, only allowed to receive counsel as the case reaches the Supreme Court?

Please don’t mistake me for thinking these guys should get off the hook. But this clearly selective application of justice smacks of racism. Of fascism, even. A 13 year old girl can look at the Constitution and see that something is not quite right in Guantanamo Bay. Let’s hope the court doesn’t let down my young friend.

With so much information to wade through about the election, I thought I’d pick out the most salient issues and list them to guide further discussion about this year’s political scene.

The easiest way to do that is to list the main reasons why W should not be president.

10. He lied about his military service
9. He needs to take a complex problem like national security and reduce it to a Candyland board in order to understand it.
8. He’s always been more interested in attacking Iraq than doing anything to stop terrorism.
7. He thinks of reality as more an annoying distraction than anything else.
6. He hates gay people.
5. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the environment.
4. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the middle class.
3. He wants to impose his religious views on your body.
2. He’s trying hard to do away with our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.
1. He’s easily the most inarticulate sonofabitch on TV.

So tell me why an article like “Bush’s flight from the guard,” published in Salon today doesn’t get the same kind of front-page hullabaloo that Kerry’s supposed protest tossing of his service ribbons (and not his medals) from Vietnam made yesterday.

Please, someone tell me why, with the mounting evidence that Bush lied about about his Guard service, and had people toss the evidence of it, the Washington Post can’t even get up the backbone to call a spade a spade and instead takes the wishy washy approach of asking if the story has legs?

Can people tell me why the people of this country were clamoring for every detail about Bill Clinton’s personal indiscretions and yet no one seems overly angered that we can’t even find out whether the president served out his term in the military or why he was grounded as a pilot?

Or why it was more important to know who helped set up rendezvous between Bill and Monica than it is for any of us to know anything about the development of the president’s energy policy and expert advice?

In today’s Post, :
“The White House is framing the case as a major test of executive power, arguing that the forced disclosure of confidential records intrudes on a president’s power to get truthful advice.”

Ok, fine. My points are kind of all over the place today. But that’s because there are so many good targets, and the stupid mainstream media doesn’t care. They seem to think there is something inconsistent in John Kerry symbolically protesting a war by throwing away an award from it, while keeping a personal memento he earned and had every right to keep, but that the president lied (I’ll say it in bigger letters) THE PRESIDENT LIED about his own military service record, is not such a big deal.

From Salon again today:

According to Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who was a strategic planning officer for the Texas National Guard during Bush’s gubernatorial administration, James ordered a cleanup of the Bush Guard files in 1997. Burkett said he was waiting outside James’ office when he heard a speakerphone conversation between the commander of the Texas Guard and Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s chief of staff in Texas. Recounting the conversation, Burkett said he heard Allbaugh tell James to “clean up the governor’s files and remove any embarrassments in case he wants to run for reelection or something higher.”

Sigh. I want ABC, CBS and NBC news to devote the entirety of their broadcast to this tonight. But I don’t see anything on their front pages indicating that they have any intention of discussing this.

Just for the record, I’ll be working on John Kerry’s campaign at some point this year. Hell, I’m even considering taking a leave from work in the fall to do something full time for a month or two. I’m not sure in what capacity, but if there’s one thing I do believe at this point, it’s the responsibility of any citizen who values what this country stands for to do everything they can to get that putz out of the oval office.

This entry isn’t really more than links to some articles I’ve enjoyed in the last several hours from the Washington Post. Three articles in a series, plus a chat transcript (that I recommend reading, too), that profile both the evident division in this country, as well as profiles of two familes, one Republican, and one Democratic.
Read the rest of this entry »

Update Jun 14 2004: virginiaisforhaters.org has been forced offline. For the time being, you can still see the front-page content at the Google cache.

If you missed the news (which we first mentioned here), Virginia sunk to a new low in the anti-gay-marriage fight last week, banning ALL contracts between same-sex partners that aim to approximate any of the rights and protections of marriage.

This is the most punitive and dangerous bit of backlash we’ve yet seen, and I felt viscerally that it couldn’t go unchecked. It may be unconstitutional, but overturning it could take years. In that time, same-sex couples with face illness, death, and other life changes without the benefit of the legal arrangements they painstakingly made in the past. David and I just did this last year, at great cost, and it was galling how little protection it offers compared with civil marriage. But Virginia is attacking even this slim recourse.

So this weekend, with a little help from David, I launched Virginia is For Haters … check it out. I’m still working out some of the style issues—it’s just another blog and none too pretty—but it’s up, just a few days after HB 751 was passed.

Basically, we’re going the boycott route, starting with every homo’s favorite source for preppiness, J. Crew. Our first activity is just to get people to cancel their catalog subscriptions. We’ll be looking for other good Virginia-based targets to add to the list—and of course we want people to skip any travel to the state. (Virginia’s decades-old “Virginia is for Lovers” tourism slogan is, of course, the cognitive-dissonance inspiration for the site’s name.)

Longer-term and more strategically, we’re going to ferret out companies being courted by Virginia’s economic development department and let them know what’s up. (I have friends the other states’ economic development offices, they will be more than happy to share what companies Virginia is actively courting.) Virginia’s governor was against the bill, but was overridden by a 2-1 margin in the Assembly. We think a little more ammunition might make them reconsider.

This is obviously a lousy time (wedding-wise) to launch a new site… but duty calls. Of course I’d ask all of you to forward the site around via email and blog posts.

Hmm…Do you think mine’s a good likeness?