Andy convinced me. I'm going to see Tim Miller tonight (Saturday) at P.S. 122.

Is anyone else going? Let me know.

The Republicans didn't mean THOSE kinds of homosexuals when they promised to pass SONDA to get Pataki the ESPA endorsement.

So we should make them wait another 30 years? The bill was first introduced in 1971, but the GOP-controlled Senate wouldn't even allow a vote on it until this year.

It reminds me of a scene in a work I saw by Madeline Olnek at WOW Cafe a few years ago, in which two lesbians watching the NYC pride parade are talking to a reporter while pointing out people in the parade, saying "oh, we're not like those people."

I just saw a very cool short: Pyongyang Robogirl (2001).

The next time any of you visit me, ask to see it.

It's on a DVD of queer shorts called Queer as F**k. I originally bought it because it has a short with David Drake as co-writer and star.

For those with the stomach for it, comments are visible now in my archives. The Nov. 20 post that has some people up in arms is here.

I hesitate to link to anyone else at the moment for fear of bringing pool-pah down on others, but the comments by epenthesis on Dan's post are infuriating. I never said I thought her murder was a "good thing", and having to defend myself from homosexuals whose reading skills are on a par with National Review readers isn't something I should have to do.

My posting was sarcastic, and anyone who takes a post titled "Is it good for the gays?" as a statement of my position needs to just calm down. James said "The woman who did such great evil", not that she was evil.

Homos need to stop being such wimps. I shall not beg for a place at the table by swearing my allegiance to God, Apple Pie and the Ten Commandments before I post on such topics. Mr. Benedetto writes:

I think that if gays are going to continue to have any credibility in politics, our sympathies in cases like this are going to have to lie first and foremost with the victims. And that's one upsetting thing about Barry's and James's posts: until the criticism started to roll in, the only sympathy they expressed was for the wrong person.

...

Barry and James could have said what they had to say much better than they did, but they instead let their emotions get the better of them and ignored the most important truths of the case. They brought the outrage on their own heads.

I shall begin to preface my remarks with such niceties as soon as all monotheists (shall I refrain from calling them "sky god worshippers"?) posting on our sites, or writing about their faith, or invoking faith during their political speeches, preface theirs with apologies for:

• Falwell on 9/11
• Use of the "gay panic" defense
• The Catholic Church's silence in the face of the Holocaust
• The behavior of the Catholic Church during Argentina's "dirty war"
• The bishop of Philadelphia lobbying the city council against a domestic partner law
• George W. Bush and the Texas GOP on sodomy laws:

  Gov. George W. Bush has publicly supported the sodomy law, calling it a "symbol of traditional values" and said that he would veto any attempt to overturn the law legislatively. The state Republican Party platform also explicitly opposes the decriminalization of sodomy, stating that "the practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society" and "contributes to the breakdown of the family unit."

• The Catholic preference of death by AIDS over the use of condoms -- shared with most fundamentalists

I could go on posting more examples -- involving birth control, people who say they aren't anti-gay but donate to anti-gay churches every Sunday, etc. -- but people with a brain will get the point.

Don't even get me started on people going to Lebanon, a country that went through a religious-based 15-year civil war, to convert Muslims. If you want to go help the less fortunate, do it. People that tempt poor children with toys to indoctrinate them into their cult are beneath contempt.

Over 200 years ago, a very wise German named Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote a play called Nathan the Wise about religious tolerance. I recommend reading it to remind ourselves of the ideas of the Enlightenment that the forces of religion fight to destroy. A full text in translation is available here.

I don't think I want to stay on this topic any longer. We shall now return to our regular coverage of art, culture, and pretty things.

... laughing, that is. David E on the GQ editor who is worried about whether the magazine is too gay.

Probably not, but maybe it will strike fear in the hearts of a few fundamentalists:

A gay Chicago-area man stands accused of killing a woman who allegedly tried to persuade him to change his sexual orientation.

Friends and relatives of Stachowicz said the idea of her trying to convince Gutierrez to renounce his homosexuality was not out of character.

"Those of us who knew her immediately hear her soft voice saying something like, 'God wouldn't approve of the way you're living your life,'" Mary Coleman, a friend and neighbor, told the Tribune.

Where do I send a check for his defense fund?

Archeologists have found a temple near Roman Emperor Hadrian's villa dedicated to his lover Antinous.

If you haven't read Marguerit Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, go do it right now!

I want to use that phrase for a sign the next time I'm at a queer demonstration, courtesy of French Prostitutes.

From the BBC(!), Oscar Wilde bookstore in danger of closing.

"Progress" is putting businesses like them out of business.

After the teacher-parent council decided to allow a Gay-Straight Alliance to meet at a high school in Boyd County, Kentucky, 420 of the school's 990 students boycotted school.

Those 19 kids in the GSA are very brave.

Here's a another nice bit:

The Rev. Tim York, a Baptist minister and president of the Boyd County Ministerial Association, said the association is planning a community rally against the gay-straight alliance on Sunday.

"The community is really upset," York said about the alliance meeting in the school. "There's a moral issue here that's brought us to a place of discussion."

That's like all of the "religious" people in my home state of Arkansas who couldn't be bothered to help all of the hungry or homeless people that needed help, but they couldn't wait to protest restaurants serving alcohol, or "special rights for queers".

A beautiful post from David Ehrenstein. Don't forget to check the Whoopie Box.

Despite a shortage of qualified Arabic linguists in the intelligence and defense fields, the Army has fired a significant number of trained language specialists from the military’s Defense Language Institute, or DLI, in Monterey, Calif., because they are gay.

Gay Seamen

Nearly 80 percent of heterosexual men have admitted to pretending to be gay in order to achieve something of benefit

Gay fox hunters

Even though I'm posting a lot, I'm still not finding time for everything I want to mention. I was very remiss in not talking about the passing of gay hero and activist Harry Hay. James has several good posts about him.