Bernie Sanders Condemns Murder of Charlie Kirk

I agree with everything Bernie says:

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Stewart Takes the Cake-Bakers' Side

Sir Patrick Stewart on the Ashers Baking Company lawsuit in Northern Ireland:




What I Say: Your Head Trucker is inclined to agree with Sir Patrick. It is, as he said, a "deliciously difficult" subject: here we are not talking about merely providing a service, but about freedom of expression.

Think about it: would you want to be forced to write or print something that said "No Gay Marriage" or "Vote for Bush" or even "God Hates Fags"?

And how important is a cake, anyway?   I wouldn't want to buy a cake or anything else from someone who despised me.

Today's Quote: "Don't Give a Fuck"

Drag artist Cyon Flare

I love the gays. Always have. I respect the hell out of them. Because at some point in his or her life, every gay person has to look society straight in the eye and say: “I’m gay, and I really don’t give a fuck what you think.” And that isn’t an easy thing to do. If everyone had that kind of courage, there’d be a lot less frowning faces on the subway. There’d probably be more people dancing on floats, half-naked, covered in metallic body paint, and waving peacock feathers in the air. Because you can’t really be free until you don’t give a fuck. And not giving a fuck is just about the hardest thing there is to do. And every gay person has to do it. And I respect the hell out of that. Always have.

--Photographer Brandon Stanton via Americablog Gay.

Where It's All Headed

Everybody in this country, high and low, young and old, on the right and on the left, loves to mouth about freedom.  Which puts everybody in a rah-rah, wave-the-flag, let's-all-march-together-mood; and it just sounds so good, don't it?

But your Head Trucker would like to point out that nine times out of ten, what people really mean when they say the word is something else entirely.  What they really mean might be a number of different things; much of the time it's Obey me, bitch - or else.

As evidence of which, I submit the following stories for you all to think about.  And yes, whoever you are and whatever you do - your turn will come next, and sooner than you think.

Is It Fair to Fine Fat People for Not Dieting?


NYC Condo Tower Bans Smoking

What Might Have Been

From Fortune magazine, "Queer Inc:  How Corporate America Fell in Love with Gays and Lesbians" (2006):

Mike Syers, a 42-year-old partner at Ernst & Young, was coming out in a very big way. About 3,000 partners of the firm had gathered in Orlando for a conference last year. A two-minute video of Syers played on giant TV screens throughout the convention center. He sat in the audience watching himself.

"When I started in public accounting," the onscreen Syers said, "I really didn't think there was a long-term career opportunity for me. Being a gay man, I didn't see gay partners." But things were different at E&Y, he said. He felt comfortable and welcomed.

As the screen went dark, Syers's BlackBerry began vibrating. Messages of support poured in. Afterward a partner came up to him to say that his son was gay, and that he would call home that night to tell his son how proud he was to work at E&Y.

E&Y had asked Syers to make the video because he is a leader of bEYond, the company's GLBT employee group. bEYond is only two years old, but it sent 72 people to this fall's Out & Equal convention. It also sponsored the 2006 Reaching Out MBA conference, a gay and lesbian recruiting event that attracted about 700 MBA students to New York. Courting them were Accenture, Dell, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Bros., McKinsey, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Target and Toyota, among others.

I almost feel like crying.

Back in 1975-77, after dicking around through most of junior college, I thought I'd finally settled on a good game plan:  I'd become a CPA.  I managed to get an associate's degree in accounting at the college by dint of a year spent packing in all the courses I could carry, then transferred to a university that had a great accounting program, well regarded in the corporate world, where almost every graduate got a job just for the asking.  I even got a job working part-time for a CPA, doing the simpler kinds of balance sheets and tax returns.  I thought I was on my way to a successful, rewarding future.

But after I got to university, although I was doing well in my classes - and studying my ass off, attending extra tutorials and study halls - I slowly began to realize that I didn't fit in.  As far as I could tell all the other guys in my accounting and finance classes were straight as a board; most of them seemed to be the jock/fratboy type, and outside of class interested only in baseball, football, Playboy, and Camaros.

The accounting department was run by a gruff-but-kindly old guy who had made a mint in the corporate world, then retired and started a second career as a professor.  He worked us like the devil in those classes, but you didn't mind because you knew you were getting all the right tools and knowledge for a CAREER - only 18 months away if you stuck it out and took summer classes.  But the old guy had set up an internship program where you could get placed with a major accounting company like Ernst & Ernst - now Ernst & Young - for 9 months of on-the-job training.  It lengthened your schooling, of course, but the up side was that most of those interns subsequently got hired by the companies they'd interned for.

It was all but a sure thing, if you studied hard, made good grades, and measured up to expectations.  And a sure thing sounded great to a 21-year-old guy from a broken home, living in deep poverty, with no rich or even mildly affluent parents to help him along.  I reached out and made a grab at the brass ring.

But the feeling that I just didn't belong grew and grew.  One time, seems like it was early spring semester, there was a big do organized by our department chair at his country club, I forget the occasion; but although attendance was strictly voluntary, you knew it was a good thing to show up and have your presence noted.  So I duded up in my best and most fashionable togs, including the platform shoes and wide tie, and went.  Like a fool. 

Continue reading after the jump.

Also, enter to win a prize; see contest rules at the end of this post.

What Would Lincoln Do?

Excerpt from an essay by Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom to Marry, on HuffPo:

Abraham Lincoln may have been the first American to write about a same-sex couple getting married. His 1829 poem recounting the marriage of Nate and Billy was "perhaps the most explicit literary reference to actual homosexual relations in 19th century America." Lincoln's most important early biographer, William Herndon, initially included the poem in his Life of Lincoln, but as so often with gay subjects, it was subsequently omitted and largely ignored by later scholars.

Recently there has been greater willingness to debate evidence that our greatest president may himself have had same-sex attraction and even acted on it, as the iconic Lincoln biographer, Carl Sandburg, intimated in 1924 when he wrote of Lincoln's "streaks of lavender." In 2005, C.A. Tripp's Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln marshaled accounts of Lincoln's relations with men such as Captain David Derickson, including a November 1862 diary entry by the wife of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy that reads, "There is a Bucktail soldier here, devoted to the President, drives with him, and when Mrs. L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!" Like other scholars, Tripp explored Lincoln's singularly intimate relationship with Joshua Speed, who told Herndon, "If I had not been married & happy -- far more happy than I ever expected to be -- [Lincoln] would not have married."

But it's not because of Lincoln's sexual orientation or other "stuff" that February 12, Lincoln's birthday, has for 12 years now been the centerpiece of National Freedom to Marry Week. Lincoln's strongest connection to the freedom to marry cause lies in the values he embodied in his life, and embodies in ours. He was committed to equality, freedom, and lifting people up. He called Americans to the "better angels of our nature," and he combined a deep moral integrity with a determined and strategic focus on achieving what is most important and right.

In the wake of last November's Proposition 8 temporarily halting marriages in California, and with marriage equality shimmering within reach in other states such as New York and New Jersey, gay and non-gay people and organizations across the country will spend Freedom to Marry Week asking our fellow citizens to, in Lincoln's words, "think anew" about how exclusion from marriage harms gay families while helping no one. Freedom to Marry Week in this Lincoln bicentennial year recalls his admonition, "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

Note from your Head Trucker: Nothing is proven about Lincoln's sexuality; read the Wikipedia article linked to the title of Tripp's book above for more insight into the speculations. I can testify from personal experience that bed sharing with a friend or relative - either male-male or female-female - was quite an ordinary custom in the Deep South well into my lifetime, if the necessity arose, and nobody thought a thing about it.

For one thing, people weren't nearly as affluent as they are nowadays; folks had much smaller houses and a lot less stuff, including extra beds. For another thing, although people knew there was such a thing as homosexuality, and regarded it as the most perverted, detestable kind of sin, you never ever saw any homosexuals; nobody at all was "out." So the very strong default assumption was that everybody was straight, and thus not even tempted to get queer in the sheets. Nowadays, I suppose people think differently, but that's the way things were until the 1970's, at least.

The reality, of course, is that some people did have gay sex back in the day, but they would have been very, very careful to keep it covered up; to do otherwise would mean your family would disown you, your friends wouldn't speak to you, and you would be liable to be locked up in jail or sent off to an insane asylum. Homosexuality was, let's not forget, officially a sin, a crime, and a mental illness, and society was not at all slow to punish you for all three.

Despite all that, gay love did sometimes bloom in secret - go read up on all Walt Whitman's lovers, for gosh sakes - but even Whitman was ultra-discreet about his sexuality in public (notwithstanding the allusions in his poetry) all his life. It was a very different world, and all the stuff about Lincoln has to be taken in that context. I'd love to know that he was gay, or bi, but - it's all merely speculation yet.

Insult the King, Go to Jail

No, this is not a story about the Bush administration. The Times of London reports:

An Australian novelist was jailed for three years by a Bangkok court on Monday, the latest in a growing number of Thais and foreigners prosecuted for the crime of “insulting” the family of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Harry Nicolaides, a 41-year old teacher and part time writer was convicted on the basis of a 103 word paragraph about the alleged sexual peccadilloes of the royal family, particularly Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn.

He could have received a sentence of as much as twelve years and his decision to reverse an earlier plea of not guilty persuaded the judge to hand down the minimum sentence possible for the crime of lèse-majesté, or insulting the monarchy.

“He has written a book that slandered the king, the crown prince of Thailand and the monarchy,” the judge told the court.

“The court has sentenced him to six years, but due to his confession, which is beneficial to the case, the sentence is reduced to three years.”

Mr Nicolaides appeared emaciated and emotional as he was led into court in orange prison overalls and leg irons.

“This is an Alice in Wonderland experience,” he told reporters before the beginning of proceedings. “I really believe that I am going to wake up and all of you will be gone... I was aware that an obscure law existed, but I was not aware it would apply to me.”

His offence was to publish a novel entitled Verisimilitude in 2005, containing references to rumours about the “romantic entanglements and intrigues” of the Crown Prince. A few dozen copies were printed and only a few of these sold. But in August last year, he was arrested as he attempted to fly to Australia after several months teaching English at a university in the
northern city of Chiang Mai.

He joins a list of people, including several foreigners, to have been prosecuted for lèse-majesté. The present law was enacted in the 1950s but has never been invoked by members of the royal family themselves.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Speaking to reporters before the verdict was announced, Nicolaides said he had endured "unspeakable suffering" during five months of detention. "I would like to apologize," he added. "This can't be real. It feels like a bad dream."

Nicolaides, who had been an English teacher in Thailand, was detained Aug. 31 as he was about to board a plane home, apparently unaware that an arrest warrant had been issued against him.

"At nighttime he's in a cell with at least 50 other people," Nicolaides's attorney, Mark Dean, said in an interview last month with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "The sanitary conditions, to put it mildly, are basic. People suffer from TB and HIV. There is violence within the cell."

A news release about the novel, posted on a blog called Costa del Gangster, called the book "an uncompromising assault on the patrician values of the monarchy." It said the book was "savage, ruthless and unforgiving" in revealing a society "obsessed with Western affluence and materialism."

Nicolaides reportedly printed only 50 copies of the book - a paperback, with a bright blue butterfly on the cover - and sold just 10. Long out of print, it is not listed on Amazon.com or other booksellers' Web sites.

"I think it's reasonable to say that just writing a simple paragraph in a novel, to expect that would land you in such serious legal trouble, must have come as a surprise for Harry," Andrew Walker, a fellow in the Asia-Pacific Program at Australian National University, said on ABC. "I think Thailand is trying to send a message to international media, to writers, to bloggers, to people who are putting material on the Internet that the royal family is out of bounds."

You can read more about the case in Australian newspapers here and here. A CNN video report is here. There's no mention of a wife or kids . . . but that would be beside the point anyway.

Lèse-majesté sounds so 18th-century to our American ears, don't it? Have no idea how anybody can help this poor fellow, but I'm sure going to include him in my prayers tonight. Bless him.

There's a lot that needs fixing about America right now, but thank God there's a lot that's still right about our country. Not since the Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed has it been a crime to criticize the President in writing or speech. Even Bush didn't dare bring that back.

Good thing too, because half the population would have been in jail the last 8 years, huh?

King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit. According to Wikipedia, "the lèse majesté laws are not really designed to protect the institution of the monarchy. In the past the laws have been used to protect governments, to protect military coups. This whole [royal] image is created to bolster a conservative elite well beyond the walls of the palace." Sound familiar?

Sunday Drive: The Dream Lives On

Today's text: Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

I'm old enough to remember vividly both of the Kennedy assassinations, and that of Dr. King. I wasn't able to comprehend all that they stood for back then, but now, 40 years later, I do. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Equal justice under law. Government of, by, and for the people. All the people.

Which is why I find this video of Ethel Kennedy and her son Max so very moving:

Despite death and destruction, darkness and dismay, the dream lives on:

I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

The continuing trials and tumults of half a century have not effaced those magnificent words, nor erased that sublime dream from the hearts of men and women all across this nation and all over the world. And now, that dream can become more real than ever before: a change we can believe in, embrace, live out in the sunlight of hope.

"Our moment is now. This is our time to unite in common purpose. Let's go change the world":

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Freedom Alert: Why Marriage Matters

A video essay from the ACLU on why the right to marry matters so very much: it's really not about romance or religion, it's about the equal protection of the laws.

And if that's not what this country is all about, I say the hell with it; for the glory of America is not its wealth, its size, its power and might. It's the enduringly radical idea that all men and women are created equal; and that ours is a government of, by, and for the people--all the people, not just the chosen few.

And just in my lifetime, gay people have gone from being scary, shadowy nonentities to visible, flesh-and-blood neighbors. We are people too; and our families are families too. We belong right here: we're not leaving, and we're certainly not going back in the hellhole closet that millions of us grew up in.

At the moment, the chances of defeating the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California are doubtful; I read on other blogs that the No on 8 ads they are running out there are pretty insipid and mealymouthed. They need to be running videos like this one.

Please share with any friends and family you have out there; this is the big turning point for us, and a setback in California would cripple the rights and happiness of millions of gay couples and families for years to come, all across the nation.

In the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Royal Republicans

Clay Risen takes the measure of the Bush Administration in the New Republic, "A Matter of Trust" :

It's tempting to watch today's Senate Banking Committee hearings, with Democrats and Republicans alike tearing into Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and feel pangs of sorrow for the beleaguered duo. There to defend the administration's $700 billion rescue plan for the nation's debt markets, they faced withering charges of having cobbled together an "ad hoc" (in the words of Alabama Republican Richard Shelby) three-page proposal that was "stunning and unprecedented in its scope and lack of detail" (Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd). Paulson could only play defense: Of course it's short on details--that's what we're here for, he told them. Oversight and other details were "the role of Congress." To think otherwise would be "presumptuous."

That's nice of him. But wait ... let's remember with whom we're dealing here.

It's hard to watch the tragicomedy unfolding on the Hill and not see the chickens coming home to roost for an administration that seems to wake up every morning with new ways to be "presumptuous"--toward Congress, taxpayers, foreign leaders, and the Constitution. To be fair, Hank Paulson probably does believe that time and decisiveness are of the essence, and I'm willing to allow that he means it when he says, "I hate the fact that we have to do it, but it's better than the alternative." But, in a perfect distillation of the mindset of the Bush administration, his original bailout plan read, "The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act ... without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts."

Such brazenness is the norm for the administration. Remember, to take just two examples, when it forced Democrats to accept both the Iraq War resolution and the anti-labor rovisions in legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, on penalty of seeming weak on national defense? It's the same thing here--that it can use the rhetoric of crisis to force through a plan granting the executive even more powers. If Bush's power-grabbing tendencies were just for his own political sake, it would be hard to see the worth in making a push this late in the game. The Paulson plan shows clearly that for the Bush team, executive power is more than just political; it's ideological. They really do believe that the executive, whoever it is, should have unchecked power over the economy, in the same way they have pushed for unchecked power over homeland security and the war in Iraq.

It's funny (sad, not ha-ha) how all these good red-blooded patriotic Republicans, if pressed, will confess to some vestigial memory from junior-high civics that the American Revolution was fought over "no taxation without representation"; and of course they are very, very proud, even today, that we detached ourselves from a king in order to rule ourselves. (Cue up tear-inducing patriotic theme music in the background here.) If asked, they would all deny with various and sundry oaths that "the king can do no wrong" has any validity whatsoever in fact or philosophy.

And yet all these millions of hard-working, salt-of-the-earth little-d democrats fall down in blind obeisance anytime His Nibs #43 breathes a word: prostrating themselves and begging for more.

Ruthless arrogance gorging itself on unquestioning ignorance and utterly blind faith in the divine right of the Presidency: that is the Republican Party of the 21st century. And for this filthy perversion of all that is truly sacred about America, the trusting masses offer up unstintingly their lives, their fortunes, and their sons and daughters. But for what, exactly?

This must not continue. It shall not stand.

Judge throws the book at the Library of Congress

Former Special Forces colonel Diane Schroer is probably celebrating her latest mission accomplished right now. Today a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Library of Congress was guilty of sex discrimination for refusing to hire the eminently well qualified Schroer as a terrorism analyst in December 2004--because Diane used to be David, and was in the process of transitioning of from one sex to the other.

The ruling establishes an important precedent: according to the ACLU lawyer who represented Schroer, "The court got it exactly right, sending a loud and clear message to employers everywhere: if you fire or refused to hire someone for transitioning, you are guilty of sex discrimination and may well find yourself liable."

Now, frankly, I don't entirely get the whole trans thing; admittedly I need to do some more reading and study on this topic. I've only ever actually known one trans person, and she was a bit of a mess, mentally speaking; but of course I've been reading news stories in recent years of quite a few well-adjusted, highly accomplished guys who've made the switch, and are very, very happy about it. The movie Transamerica is a good one, btw, if you haven't seen it.

Still, why a successful male, very butch and hot-looking to boot, would want to step out of all that and become, well, a library lady is more than I can relate to at this time. Like I said, I know I need to read up on it all.

But ya know what? Might not be a decision I'd ever make for myself - like with these Texas-size 14 feet I'd ever fool anyone, ha - but it ain't hurting me a bit. And if it makes her happy, successful, and fulfilled, well I say you go, girl! More power to ya!

Freedom's not something to be hoarded for the few. The more you spread it around, the more there is for everybody. Hats off to the judge for making the right decision today.

Wonder Woman says, "Be afraid, be very afraid"

Truth, Justice, and the American Way, oh yeah. Move over, Superman, Lynda Carter's got it all covered here:

Okay, last question. I'm sure you've seen all the comparisons in the media and among Republicans of Sarah Palin to Wonder Woman. How do you feel about that?

Don’t get me started. She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness ... that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she?

No one has the right to dictate, particularly in this country, to force your own personal views upon the populace — religious views. I think that is suppressive, oppressive, and anti-American. We are the loyal opposition. That’s the whole point of this country: freedom of speech, personal rights, personal freedom. Nor would Wonder Woman be the person to tell people how to live their lives. Worry about your own life! Worry about your own family! Don't be telling me what I want to do with mine.

I like John McCain. But this woman — it's anathema to me what she stands for. I think America should be very afraid. Very afraid. Separation of church and state is the one thing the creators of the Constitution did agree on — that it wasn’t to be a religious government. People should feel free to speak their minds about religion but not dictate it or put it into law.

What I don’t understand, honestly, is how anyone can even begin to say they know the mind of God. Who do they think they are? I think that’s ridiculous. I know what God is in my life. Now I am sure that she’s not all just that. But it’s enough to me. It’s enough for me to have a visceral reaction. And it makes me mad.

People need to speak up. Doesn’t mean that I’m godless. Doesn’t mean that I am a murderer. What I hate is this demonization of everybody but one position. You’re un-American because you’re against the war. It’s such bullshit. Fear. It’s really such a finite way of thinking about God to think that your measley little mind can know the mind of God. It’s a very little God that way. I think that God’s bigger. I don’t presume to know his mind. Or her mind.

(Honk: Joe.My.God.)

The Twin Threats to Freedom

Andrew Sullivan hits the nail on the head:

9/11 was a call, in my mind, to defend the Enlightenment from the nihilistic forces of murderous theocratic fanaticism. What it demanded was a rediscovery of secularism and freedom in a war against the forces of Islamism and despotism. I still believe that those who instinctively responded to the attacks by blaming America were morally lost. But I equally believe that those who showed they were willing to throw away America’s values in fighting Jihadism were wrong as well. And those who use religious extremism as a tool to get elected in America are pale reflections of the evil of Islamism - not the equivalent, as I have always insisted, but related. Christianism and Islamism are twin pincers against our freedom and against freely chosen, freely witnessed Christian and Muslim faith. Islamism is far more dangerous. But Islamism will never defeat America’s core values. Christianism has already made a dent.

London, 1802

Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

Wordsworth had his reasons for admiring Milton, who, I’m sorry to say, is not at the top of my list.

But when I substitute Lincoln for Milton here, and America for England, the poem makes brilliant sense in 2008.