this past election i voted no on proposition 8, per my little election guide. i didn’t really look into the proposition, other than what i heard both sides arguing in their advertisements, and i figured yeh, why should i vote to deny anyone rights.

i was surprised that it passed here in such a liberal state, but since the election i’ve started to think more about it, what it is they want and what they are being denied. and in listening to gay activists like ellen and in playing devil’s advocate arguing with some of my politically savvy friends, i’ve kinda flip flopped on the issue again.

in all of these protests and on every picket sign, the argument is about “rights.” they argue how in the past we’ve denied women the right the to vote, we’ve denied blacks and other minorities numerous rights, and we’re on the same path again, denying gays the right to marry. but in califorina we have civil unions for same-sex couples, which affords them all of the rights that opposite-sex couples have in marriage.

from wikipedia:

In California where domestic partnership has been available to same-sex couples since 2000, a wholesale revision of the law in 2005 has made it, like the New Jersey civil union law, equivalent to marriage in every respect at the state level, though neither is recognized by the federal government.

so this isn’t as much a rights issue as it is an argument over the word “marriage.” same-sex couples have all the rights as opposite-sex couples do, they can have their civil union blessed by a church, no one’s going to stop them from calling themselves “married” if they want to, they can refer to themselves as each other’s husbands or wives. it’s just on one document somewhere in the county courthouse it’s checked “civil union” instead of “marriage.”

and here’s the thing, marriage really is defined as a union between a man and a woman, so it’s not like they’re being denied a right, it’s that people aren’t willing to change the definition of the word for them. it’s like if i was adopted by a mexican family when i was a newborn, grew up with mexican culture, speaking spanish and it being the only thing i ever identified with, yet when i fill out some government form, i can’t check “latino”.

anyway, i know that this is the unpopular stance (well, i guess it’s the popular stance, but not among my friends) on the subject. but comparing women who were being denied a right to vote, or blacks who were kept as slave’s for God’s sake, to same-sex couples being denied the right to have a word changed to accomodate them seems like a stretch. i don’t regret voting no on 8, if it didn’t pass and they redefined marriage, i really wouldn’t care. i just think that they’re being misleading about this being a rights issue.

last night i was watching a disturbing documentary on bbc america called my secret female body. the story followed the life of a girl that felt “trapped” in her body and decided she wanted to instead be a man. she began taking male hormones, which caused her to grow facial hair, get a deep voice and stop having a period. but she/he had big breasts that she had to tape down every time she went out. the hormones eventually brought her d-cups to b-cups, but that still wasn’t enough so she went to have a double mastectomy.

when she/he went for consultations, they blurred out her boobs, and after the surgery, they didn’t blur them out anymore. so that got me to thinking… when is a boob a boob? usually, on tv they can show all the cleavage, side, upper and under boob they want, as long as there’s no areola or nipple. but what about when a woman gets her breast tissue removed and still has a nipple, is that really no longer a boob? i mean because of the skin and swelling, they still looked like a-cups, and it’s still a female nipple, so how is that not still a regular, ole’ boob? either way it was disgusting, and for all practical intentions now just moobs, but clinically they were still boobs.

even worse, she/he now wants to get a penis installed. they make it out of pieces of your forearm. they didn’t get into too much detail about it since she/he will have to wait a few years for the psychiatric evaluations required to do this type of surgery, but the one point they glossed over that i was dying to know: will it work?

these two clowns started protesting against homosexuality on the south side of campus this afternoon. they were yelling anti-gay slurs, and quickly drew a large crowd heckling pro-gay slogans back. the best part? about 15 minutes into this, these two semi-hot chicks go right up next to them and start making out to the cheers of the whole crowd of course (sorry, i was too engaged to pull out the camera). the guy in the picture on the right was holding two extension cords and kept showing how you can’t plug in two female ends together, to make his point crystal clear. eventually the cops came and kicked the losers out, but seriously, did they think they were going to get some converts on a liberal campus like csulb?

what kinda fucked up parents leave their 2 year old alone with a pitbull? although my typical fear used to be that it would maul it, not sodomize it :) the article doesn’t make any mention yet of putting the dog to sleep, because dogs hump, that’s what they do… this one just got a hold of something more than a leg.

the mother told Lockport Police that she left her two year old unattended for a short time and after hearing the baby scream, she ran to see what was wrong.

When she got in the room, she told Lockport Police the dog, named “Bear” had sodomized the toddler. The mother screamed, scaring the dog out of the house, but the dog was still attached to the baby.

One neighbor told 2 On Your Side, she heard the mother screaming “the dog is raping my baby.” Neighbors ran to help, but only one man was able to get the dog and child apart.

Anastacio Castillo says “I tried to get the dog away from the baby, the dog was already inside the baby.” When the baby was finally free, he was visibly sick. Castillo says the boy was vomiting and bleeding.

full article here:

http://www.wgrz.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=49447

and damn, there’s nothing better than after having spent a weekend in a hot, humid, public transportation-going city than to have your buddy pick you up from lax at 1am in his convertable and blast down the 405 in the cool night air (thanks eric <3)

i flew into o’hare on saturday morning, after a really crappy flight on jet blue. i got a middle seat between two fat women, my little tv screen was broken and my tray table wouldn’t stay straight. so #1 lesson: fuck jet blue. taka met me at the airport, we checked into our hotel (the embassy suites rule! they had an open bar from 5-7:30p every day for guests so we got plastered) and headed to the row of pubs around wrigley field. lots of good beer and food around that area and the people were super friendly.

it turns out that the reason that flights and hotel rooms were scarce/expensive (more on this in a moment) was because there was a USA vs. Mexico soccer game and a huge gay pride festival on sunday. anyway, 3 different waitresses we talked to on saturday said that the thing to do on sunday was the gay pride festival so that’s where we ended up on sunday. turns out it’s a pretty big event with floats sponsored by nbc and bank of america, and lots of gay dudes dancing and chicks flashing their boobs. we actually ran into some of taka’s classmates as we were walking down the streets drinking booze (which you can do there!)

afterwards we walked around the park and out to the beach to check out lake michigan, which seems as expanse as the ocean. we finally made our way back to our hotel (as good as their public transportation system is, it still takes forever to get anywhere), just in time for the last few rounds of the open bar at our hotel. by the time they closed up, we didn’t have the wherewithal to find a place to eat, so we clumsily had dinner at the hotel’s restraunt and called it an early evening.

on monday morning we headed into downtown to do some more touristy stuff… we ate chicago dogs and chicago pizza at some pretty authentic looking joints, and went to the oberservation deck of the sears tower. i come to find that the sears tower has been the tallest building in the united states since 1973. for some reason i had thought the wtc towers were taller. you can actually feel the building swaying which is a little freaky.

so yeh, everything about the trip was great, except for the flights. my return flight was supposed to leave at 5pm, but because of everyone that flew in for the weekend parade and soccer match, all the flights were overbooked, and poor me was flying standby. after 3 hours of standing inline with bitchy customer service and 3 missed flights, i finally got on the last damn flight outta ORD at 10:25p. so #2 lesson: fuck o’hare airport.

lots of pics when i find my card reader :)

Pentagon confirms it sought to build a ‘gay bomb’

(CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called “Gay Bomb.”
Edward Hammond, of Berkeley’s Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, “One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,” Hammond said after reviewing the documents.

“The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay,” explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

“The Department of Defense is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform,” said a DOD spokesperson, who indicated that the “gay bomb” idea was quickly dismissed.

However, Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged.

“The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed,” he said. “In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider.”

Military officials insisted Friday to CBS 5 that they are not currently working on any such idea and that the past plan was abandoned.

Gay community leaders in California said Friday that they found the notion of a “gay bomb” both offensive and almost laughable at the same time.

“Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction,” said Geoff Kors of Equality California. “So, it’s just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there’s so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed.”

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_159222541.html