A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: people are people

Jun 15 2012
Mark Twain, probably

U.S. Boy Scouts board member speaks out against gay ban

U.S. Boy Scouts board member speaks out against gay ban

David Adams, Reuters:

Jim Turley, chairman and chief executive officer of Ernst & Young and a board member of the Boy Scouts of America, has joined calls to end the group’s exclusion of gays.

…

The group, founded 102 years ago, has so far resisted calls to change its policy on homosexuals. “While the BSA does not proactively inquire about sexual orientation of employees, volunteers, or members, we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA,” the Boy Scouts said in an earlier statement…

It’s a start, but it’d be nice if something substantive happens at some point.

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Jun 01 2012
Mark Twain, probably

NY comptroller pushes transgender corporate rights

NY comptroller pushes transgender corporate rights

The Associated Press:

Texas-based oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. stockholders will vote Wednesday on a proposed company policy to ban discrimination against gay or transgender workers, a shareholder resolution pushed by New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Using the $150 billion state pension fund’s stock portfolio as influence, the comptroller’s office said it has helped persuade 27 other big corporations to agree to new nondiscrimination policies, though several previous attempts at Exxon Mobil have failed.

Blah blah free market, blah blah already sufficient antidiscrimination policy, blah blah. Good on DiNapoli for throwing some weight around for the cause of treating people like people.

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May 27 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Asshole of the Week: David Pickup

Asshole of the Week: David Pickup

Steven DuBois for the Associated Press:

David Pickup, a Los Angeles-area counselor who specializes in reparative therapy, said he has helped many clients “maximize their heterosexual potential,” when they have come to him because they believe there is a cause-and-effect reason, such as sexual abuse, for their same-sex attraction.

“It’s a very tough, very emotional journey,” he said.

Emphasis added by myself to highlight an exceptionally reprehensible quote by Mr. Pickup. I gagged when I read those four words in the paper.

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May 07 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Biden (mostly) endorses same-sex marriage

Biden (mostly) endorses same-sex marriage

Nice to see the Obama camp coming out swinging like this. My hope is that this is to draw a strong contrast between Obama and Romney — basically campaign on social issues and not let Romney make the election a referendum on the economy.

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May 03 2012
Mark Twain, probably

This photo by Jeff Kowalsky for the European Pressphoto Agency shows some modern pieces at the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Michigan. MSNBC’s PhotoBlog has several more photos and a short article on the museum and its founder and curator, David Pilgrim.

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May 03 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline

Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline

handbecomesclaw:

Weird, a school starts trying to actually help their children and finds it works. Life is strange.

I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again: treat children and teens like people, and they’ll act like people.

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Apr 01 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Group sought wedge between blacks, gays to fight same-sex marriage

Group sought wedge between blacks, gays to fight same-sex marriage

CNN:

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies,” another memo states. “Find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.”

You assholes. Man up and be your own bigots instead of making other people bigots by proxy.

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Mar 19 2012
Mark Twain, probably

A gay jock takes off the mask

A gay jock takes off the mask

Heartwarming piece in the Ottawa Citizen about a teenage hockey player who came out. Don’t miss his daily Youtube videos that documented the process.

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Mar 17 2012
Mark Twain, probably

A Child’s Reaction to a Gay Couple

A Child’s Reaction to a Gay Couple

It’s a talking point so overused it’s almost a trope by this point. “How will I explain this to my children?” Obviously that’s a question parents have to answer for themselves. Unless they don’t explain anything and let the children work things out for themselves. What would that look like? It might look a little something like this classic video, where a young boy named Calen meets his first gay couple — without knowing what “gay” could be.

Absolutely adorable.

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Mar 08 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Harvard group seeks degrees for expelled gays

Harvard group seeks degrees for expelled gays

Denise Lavoie, Associated Press:

Students and faculty at Harvard University are calling on the school to award posthumous degrees to seven students expelled nearly a century ago for being gay or perceived as gay, and they’re timing a rally for their cause to coincide with a visit by Lady Gaga.

But Harvard says it doesn’t award posthumous degrees, except in rare cases where students complete academic requirements but die before degrees have been conferred.

The university apologized a decade ago, after a student reporter found a file marked “secret court” in the university archives and wrote about the expulsions.

Wait, Harvard did what?

The group wants Harvard to formally abolish the secret court, a tribunal of administrators that investigated charges of homosexual activity among students at the Ivy League school in 1920. The tribunal remained a secret for decades and only became public in 2002 after the report in the Harvard Crimson magazine.

Mother of fuck.

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