SwimFinsSF

The Catholic Church

After reading a number of articles and posts (including this one over at Daddy, Papa & Me) regarding the latest statement from the catholic church I had to go and dig up the original text for myself.

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS
TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION
TO UNIONS
BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS

Overall there wasn’t that much that I didn’t expect. The catholic church has a long standing history of discrimination and condemnation of homosexuality which has resulted in violence and discrimination against the gay community. However there was one section of the text that I found particularly despicable:

“… Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. …”

Stating that children raised in gay households are being subject to violence due to the “the absence of sexual complementarity” (i.e. heterosexual married parents) is beyond appalling. I have had experience with many children raised by gay and lesbian parents and these children are being raised in some of the most loving and supportive environments imaginable. Furthermore, study after study has PROVEN that these children have grown to be well adjusted stable productive adults.

In contrast I have also seen many children who have been raised in extremely violent and abusive households where, while they had both a mother and a father raising them, they grew up witness to abuse between the parents as well as abuse to themselves personally.

As a very specific example, a friend of mine and his partner adopted a wonderful little boy from an at risk children’s adoption agency. This little boy was taken from his mother because his mother’s boyfriend was dunking the child in scalding water as punishment and now has permanent scars on both legs. Now he lives with two people who feed him, care for him, love him and protect him. In which environment do you think he is better off?

You be the judge. Personally, I think gays and lesbians have the potential to be just as effective and loving parents as their heterosexual counterparts and, in many situations, better because they have to fight that much harder to become parents in the first place.

For the catholic church to accuse them of violence is not only ignorant and irresponsible – it is ultimately hurtful to many families throughout the world – gay and straight alike.

Lunchtime Radio

If ya want something to listen to as you eat your lunch KQED will have an interesting show on “Day to Day” at lunch:

Fri, August 1, 2003 — 12:00pm

Gays on TV, gay marriage, gay bishops — these are stories that have all been in the news this week. We compare and contrast the Gay rights movement with the struggle for Civil rights by black Americans.

You can get more information here

or just go to the top level page if you want to listen to it online.. there is a ‘Listen Live’ link..

There was also an interesting show on Forum this morning at 10 – I don’t know if they’ll archive it to listen to but you can find information on here

Happy Friday!

Friday 5

1. What time do you wake up on weekday mornings?
Gym days I’m up at 6:15 (thanks Matt)… Non gym days I get up at 7:15… Got a 45 minute drive to work and I shoot to be in by 9 or 9:15…

2. Do you sleep in on the weekends? How late?
Not a whole lot.. usually still up by 8 or 9… I hate it when I miss the morning – love getting up for coffee and the news..

3. Aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?
Honestly? I’m a geek – check the news on my computer and read my mail… Then shower – can’t leave the house without a shower – even if i’m just going to the gym…

4. How long does it take to get ready for your day?
Not long really… 20 minutes or so – shower and everything… or maybe that is long – I dunno… but I don’t go through multiple costume changes like some I know.. 🙂 🙂

5. When possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?
A place called The Metro Cafe. It is the CUTEST little french restaurant in the base of a Hotel.. Great outside patio and wonderful staff.

Ping woes

I FINALLY figured out why MT was having trouble pinging when I saved an entry.. Turns out weblogs.com is WAY overloaded and was almost always failing (and thus failing any pings behind it)… Since I’m pinging folks largely to get folks blogrolls I just switched to pinging blogrolling directly… So the solution was just to quit pinging weblogs.com and just ping ping.blo.gs and http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/ – now it seems to work..

knock on wood…

just in case anyone cares! 😉

All this attention

So I don’t know what to do with all this attention that we (the ‘gays’) are getting these days… I find it all really fascinating and overall I think its a fantastic positive step – even the negative stuff… For example:

– ‘Queer eye for the Straight Guy’ and ‘Boy meets Boy’: These shows are basically the same dreck that is on every other station. Personally, I find queer eye kind of fun to watch largely because I love the interaction between the victim and the guys – the straight guy always seem very open to whats going on and grateful… Boy meets Boy – less interesting.. for the same reason I didn’t like Joe Millionaire and the rest – just a mean manipulation of people’s emotions for money.. But both are just gay stints on formulas.. kinda interesting..

– Supreme Court Decision on Sodomy: FAN-FLIPPIN-TASTIC to hear the supreme court determine that the government has no business passing laws that set gay and lesbian couples apart from straight folks and invade people’s bedrooms. AND – on top of that to hear Scallia himself say that this opens the door to Gay Marriage.

– Dubbya’s and the Pope’s slams on Gay Marriage: This has created quite the furor on both sides of the debate for good reason but I’m not sure why this is surprising to anyone. Georgie was put in office by the christian right and he’s crystal clear on who will pay to keep him there. And the Catholic church is a well known opponent of homosexuality. This is just people drawing lines in the sand.

Why do I put 2 silly TV shows together with these two political milestones? Because the collection of this and all the other stuff going on lately has two important effects – first, it points out some realities about gays and lesbians that people may not have seen before (particularly folks that don’t THINK they know anyone gay). And, second, to force people to think about what their views are and why…. Its to easy for people to go along with what they learn at home and from folks at school without thinking about them. But with this much media and political attention one can hope that people will actually spend some time discussing and thinking about what they believe in rather than just taking things for granted…

Another thing that Elizabeth Birch pointed out in a talk at Apple some time ago is that, while Gay Marriage may be an ideal but perhaps unattainable goal, fighting for such a huge goal adds to the momentum of less difficult advances. Sure, while we may want gay marriage and completely equality for gays and lesbians, this may be something that will meet strong and possible insurmountable opposition. However, by fighting for something that people take this personally and seriously, that same opposition may be somewhat more supportive of things such as workplace non-discrimination laws. After all, their church teaches them that marriage is a sacred institution, it also teaches the golden rule and discrimination in other forms might seem less acceptable..

So we should DEFINITELY go for the gold (Marriage) but don’t forget that even if we don’t get that we’ll be a lot further along than we’ve ever been.

Just a set of observations… I just like the fact that people are thinking and talking these days – even if we don’t always like what they’re saying..

( Not to mention I think the guy that does skin and hair on ‘Queer Eye’ is REALLY DAMN HOT! 😉 )

BuyMusic.COM

I gotta say – I can’t help but chuckle when I see this:

Technical Glitches Plague BuyMusic.com

I mean – I don’t have a problem with competition – thats what spurs great products… But blatant rip offs are something completely different. Have you seen their ads? They’re nearly IDENTICAL to Apple’s ads for the music store..

I would DEFINITELY like to see a solution to this for windows so the recording industry has a legal alternative that is available and can stop their random law suit tactics. But c’mon people – please.. a little creativity PLEASE! 🙂

Guess Apple just needs to get on the windows version of the music store… 😉