John Hospers anniversary for gay pride month – first gay candidate to receive an Electoral College vote

John Hospers, an academic philosopher and author on aesthetics, was the first Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1972.

Though the Libertarians were on very few ballots he received an Electoral College vote, becoming the first openly gay man (by 1972 standards anyway) to do so.  His running mate, Tonie Nathan, became the first Jewish American and the first woman to receive an Electoral College vote as well.

The Discrimination Boogeyman – It’s Time to Sue Gay and Lesbian Businesses

It’s interesting to remember, as so called “liberals” try to flay and decapitate any dissenter to their civil rights paradigm — the civil rights industry that leaves African Americans in double digit unemployment and in de facto segregated schools (the latter profit centers where poor children of color are sold to educrat cartels in exchange for donations to Democratic Party candidates) — that the main organization that has denied employment to people for being gay is the federal government.

The Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. continues to unearth papers related to this, that show that the main threat to gay people has always been government.  Long after Fortune 500 companies adopted gay inclusive HR policies, it was mainly the military, intelligence agencies, and government schools denying gay people jobs.

I myself took a cryptology test for the NSA in the mid-80s, passed, and received a large package to fill out for an offer of employment.  But didn’t send it back in since I was afraid I couldn’t be out and an intelligence community employee at the same time.  And thus missed out on being Edward Snowden.

Meanwhile all the people whining about laws that might allow religious people to NOT have their freedom of association violated by being forced to associate with gay weddings etc. don’t realize that these same laws, that will force everyone to associate with everyone else, at least at work, spell the end of all women’s music festivals, lesbian cruises, gay bed and breakfasts, gay bars, and the thing that people were just beginning to investigate, gay senior citizen homes and 55+ communities.  They’ve already made it impossible to run a gay real estate company or apartment building anywhere where sexual orientation is a protected class under local fair housing law, since you can’t ask or tell anything about the sexual orientation of a client, tenant, seller, or buyer.

If we are going to live in a world with no right to freedom of association (at least when we are making a living), where we sue some poor little Christian woman hundreds of thousands of dollars and into poverty and the dole because she doesn’t believe she should bake a gay wedding cake, then please straight people, sue the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Olivia cruises and every gay motel listed in PurpleRoofs out of existence.  (I’ve actually stayed at a clothing optional Ft. Lauderdale gay B&B, a high end one with a spa and a fancy website, and seen them turn away a straight couple who had made reservations.)

How To Read An Ellen Page

Guest commentary from gay Objectivist novelist and playwright Richard Gleaves

Richard Gleaves

To anyone who is “bored” by all the coming-outs lately.

The applause properly given to newly out gay celebrities isn’t meant for them. It isn’t meant for you. It’s a message to a third party. It’s a message to the bigots. And more importantly it’s a message to the closeted.

Let me paint a picture.

See the innocent sixteen year old who loves the boy in trig class, who sits and draws their initials in his book even though he knows somewhere in the back of his head that if he ever acted on his longing he’d be beaten up by the very person he has a crush on. See that kid go home after school and pretend to whistle at the girls on TV so his parents don’t ship him off for electric shock therapy or black both his eyes. See that kid who is innocent of anything but wanting to be loved and of feeling what his body (or psychology) demands. He has no one to speak to, no one to ask questions of, all kinds of self doubt.

Now imagine him being called “c*cksucker” by his own father, or brother, or grandma. See him sitting in a McDonalds, smiling along as his supposed friends make fun of some “sissy” they know, laughing to each other, lisping elaborately. Watch him flip the channels, trying to find someone like himself on television. Watch him sit in church, as his mother nods along to some preacher’s “God Hates Fags” speech. Watch him suppress and repress and hate his own sexuality, just as his body is sending powerful signals to act act act on it. Watch him break down, try to kiss the wrong person, and end up in the morgue.

To my mind, such a boy — who often turns out to be one of the kindest and most productive members of society– IS a hero when he comes out. When the desire to live authentically conflicts with every other value he holds — life, limb, security, family– when integrity demands he speak up and name himself to the world– yes, I think that’s heroism. It’s an act of integrity beyond anything most people ever have to do in their lives. It is an “I Am Spartacus” moment. It is Jean Valjean confessing to being 24601 rather than see an innocent man swing. Unless you’ve had to do it yourself, I doubt you’d see the heroism in the act. But believe me, when you have to do it in the face of decades of hiding and with the real possibility of losing everything, it’s worthy of “Mister Smith goes to Washington”.

So I’m really sorry if the comings-out bore you, my friends. They’re not for you, and the applause we send to the gay celebrity is really directed as encouragement to those boys (and girls) out there who need to know it’s safe to join the human race.

Liberation Ferry – They’re there, they’re queer, get them out!

Do we need Gaylt’s Gulch?

Masha Gessen, the journalist who moved to the US to escape anti-gay violence in Russia (and is the primary author publishing on Pussy Riot), predicts doom for Russian gays who remain there. Would start up cities and seasteading be a solution? With gays giving their money to an Israeli style airlift of Russian (Nigerian, etc.) gays?

(Photo:  Russian-American lesbian journalist Masha Gessen, channeling Ayn Rand?)






“Save them Peter Thiel, you’re their only hope!”  

NBC – Nerdy, Boring Communists?

NBC, which has an exclusive contract with Russia for the Sochi Olympics coverage, has been praising Vladimir Putin and the noble experiment of Stalinism. It also edited out pro-gay, anti-discrimination remarks from its broadcast of the opening speeches at Sochi. No word yet on whether Rachel Maddow and other house gays on the NBC plantation have any comment.

“The towering presence, the empire that ascended to affirm a colossal footprint. The revolution that birthed one of modern history’s pivotal experiments. But if politics has long shaped our sense of who they are, it’s passion that endures. As a more reliable right to their collective heart. What they build in aspirations lifted by imagination. What they craft, through the wonder of every last detail. How magical the fusion of sound and movement can be. How much a glass of distilled perfection and an overflowing table can matter. Discover the Russian people through these indelible signatures. Discover what we share with them through the games that open here tonight.”

Matthew Shephard killed by drug war, not homophobia

New book questions Matthew Shepard killing

By Kyle Smith

September 21, 2013 | 

Modal Trigger

A cross made of stones rests below the fence in Laramie, Wyoming where gay college student Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead.

Photo: AP

Matthew Shepard wasn’t killed because he was gay, a new book says — but that won’t stop advocates from politicizing his murder.

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Fifteen years ago this Oct. 6, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was savagely pistol-whipped by two homophobes for being gay, then pitilessly strung up on a log fence to die. It was a modern crucifixion, the signature hate crime of our era, the inspiration for books and movies and plays and songs and documentaries.

Except Shepard wasn’t murdered because he was gay, contends a new book. He was slain in a methamphetamine frenzy primarily by one man (with an accomplice who perhaps didn’t participate in the actual beating) who initially said that Shepard promised drugs in exchange for sex.

So, not only was Shepard’s primary killer not a homophobe who decided to lure Matt into a fatal trap because he was gay, he was himself likely gay or bisexual, contends gay journalist Stephen Jimenez in “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard.”

The notion that Shepard was murdered for being gay originally came from two friends of his who had no firsthand knowledge of the case but started the homophobia narrative when Shepard was still alive (he didn’t die until five days after the attack) by calling a gay reporter, several gay organizations and the police.

By the time Shepard died, the motive of homophobia was solidly entrenched in the media. Then the leader in the killing, Aaron McKinney, and his girlfriend both cited his gay panic as a motive, apparently in the belief that it would be seen as a mitigating factor.

Now both of them say that story was a lie. And McKinney told a detective the night of the crime that Shepard “said he could turn us on to some cocaine or something, some methamphetamines, one of those two, for sex,” according to the book. From prison, McKinney now says his “original plan” that night was to rob a meth dealer, but when that didn’t work out he decided to rob Shepard instead. Prosecutor Cal Rerucha told the author that the murder was “driven by drugs.”

McKinney’s own father, when asked whether his son had had sex with other men, said “we’ve all experimented one way or another.” A limo driver told Jimenez he saw McKinney and two other men in the back of his vehicle “buck naked” and “playing around.” A manager of a gay bar in Denver told Jimenez he recognized both McKinney and accomplice Russell Henderson as patrons of his place.

A boyfriend of Shepard’s, Ted Henson, who said he went to a gay bar with McKinney and Shepard, said the latter once told him that “Aaron had offered [him] sex for money” and that “McKinney would sell [himself] to other guys.”

McKinney’s friend Elaine Baker said, “The whole thing was a lie and a coverup. Aaron didn’t hate [Shepard] for being gay. They were friends, for God’s sake . . . Aaron was bisexual.” McKinney’s friend Ryan Bopp said that McKinney and Shepard “knew each other. I had seen them at parties . . . I knew Aaron was selling [drugs] . . . him and Matt would go off to the side and they’d come back.”

McKinney, while denying being gay or bisexual, did, in an interview with the author, admit “messing around” with other boys as a youngster, which he dismissed as “the usual kids’ stuff.” He and Bopp said he’d been up for a week on a drug bender the night of Shepard’s murder.

Though the book is largely persuasive, there are oddities in Jimenez’s reporting, which sprang from his work on a 2004 piece for “20/20.” He says a Wyoming law-enforcement official declared flat-out that the murders had nothing to do with Shepard’s sexuality — but declined to go on the record because he said he feared someone might put a hit on members of his family. Jimenez says a police car tailed him while he was reporting the story. He tells dramatic tales of Deep Throat types leaving him anonymous letters or claiming that they risk getting a bullet in the back for talking.

In essence “The Book of Matt” is not about the killers’ culpability but about sloppiness on the part of the media and allied organizations who used the Shepard case in fundraising pitches. (This very article will be used in a similar fashion by groups that win donations by stoking fear and hatred of “right-wing media.”)

But if Jimenez’s somewhat problematic book is correct, it doesn’t make Shepard’s brutal murder any less horrific. It does make it less political, however. Political action groups won’t like that.

The gay magazine The Advocate said in a review that Jimenez “amassed enough anecdotal evidence to build a persuasive case that Shepard’s sexuality was, if not incidental, certainly less central than popular consensus has lead us to believe.”

The magazine went on, “There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.”

Gay DC tires of Obama duplicity

Obama, like most Democrats, has been tapping the GayTM and taking two thirds or more of the gay vote, while not delivering much more than Bush.  He didn’t campaign to stop the North Carolina anti gay marriage constitutional amendment last year, nor did he campaign against California’s Prop 8 when running for office in 2008.  The repeal of DADT was forced on him (Democrats were trying to keep the ban on gays in the military alive as long as possible as a wedge and fundraising issue), until the courts, in a law suit largely sustained by Log Cabin Republicans, was about to overturn the ban.

Now Obama is not issuing an executive order to ban discrimination among federal contractors.  Though I’m sensitive to the beliefs and rights to freedom of association of people who go into business and then find the government has so monopolized their markets it is the main customer, I still favor this executive order (for government contractors only).

Of course the gay political establishment wants the right to enforce quotas and other regulations on all private associations where employment is offered.  My suspicion, given that most Fortune 500 companies have banned employment discrimination, is that the government sector may be worse on this issue than the private sector, and that the private sector is also experiencing more change.  Making all private employers equally gay friendly of course eradicates market signals.  High tech firms and others that are particularly inclusive, and that innovate ways of being inclusive and doing outreach that their competitors and government regulators have never dreamed of, may be reaping rewards in acquiring a superior talent pool.  Government regulation will prevent that, ending salutary evolution of better business practices.

Here’s Sean Bugg in MetroWeekly, both the stereotypes of off the shelf gay mainstream so called “progressivism”:

————

We all have our rhetorical tics and tricks. For example, mine include the excessive use of clauses such as ”however,” ”actually” and ”for example.” I also tend to spend the first couple paragraphs of any column making jokes and references that are only tangentially related to the subject I’m writing about.

However, that’s no guarantee the jokes will be funny.

President Obama speaks at LGBT Pride reception

(Photo by Todd Franson/Metro Weekly)

I was reminded of this last week when President Obama spoke at the White House’s annualLGBT Pride reception. The president’s verbal tics are as well known as old Saturday Night Live catchphrases — every time he says ”Let me be clear,” someone might as well call out, ”More cowbell!”

But Obama’s particular rhetorical trick with the LGBT community is his repeated urging for us not to be patient, followed by declaring that he won’t do the thing we’ve been impatiently asking him to do — in this case, to sign an executive order requiring federal contractors to have nondiscrimination policies that include LGBT employees. This is not a big ask for our community. The president clearly has the authority. He has explicitly said that executive action is an important and necessary part of advancing LGBT and other civil rights issues. He promised to do so when he was running for his first term.

Yet here were are in 2013 and he simply refuses to do it.

The official White House line is that he wants to pursue a legislative strategy, which is why Obama mentioned the legislative repeal of ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” back at the end of 2010. Of course, that molasses-paced legislative process resulted in a lame-duck nail-biter that barely squeaked through before Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) got enough votes to recklessly abuse the filibuster.

The idea that we should be putting our sole hope in a legislative strategy for a transgender-inclusive ENDA – in a Senate that threatened to scuttle immigration reform that even Republicans admit is crucial to their long-term survival as a political party over the inclusion of gay couples – is simply ludicrous. And that’s even before we get to the Republican mad dog caucus in the House.

There is a two-pronged approach to take here: an executive order that reinforces and grows protections for thousands of LGBT employees across the nation, while helping to build increased support for ENDA by demonstrating the positive effect (or lack of negative effect) in the many, many congressional districts that represent federal contractors.

Yet the president insists on pursuing a one-pronged approach, even as that one-prong is the least likely to succeed given the Republican recalcitrance and control on the Hill. It really makes no sense. If there is a logical reason for Obama to not sign an executive order that he previously promised to sign and that fits within his own stated approach to civil rights, someone at the White House needs to explain it. Brushing off inquiries by referring to the ”hypothetical executive order,” as spokesmen have done, doesn’t cut it. Jay Carney rotely repeating that the president believes in pursuing a legislative strategy on ENDA has become insulting.

And President Obama standing before a roomful of LGBT people, telling them not to be patient and then citing DADT repeal as a model for ENDA is, frankly, a finger in the eye.

For a president who has undeniably done so much for LGBT equality, these rhetorical tics and tricks are maddening, and the political strategy on ENDA indecipherable. He needs to explain why he’s chosen only one option when he can pursue two. Or he needs to bite the bullet and sign the executive order.

Actually, I’m getting awfully damn impatient.

Sean Bugg is the co-publisher of Metro Weekly. He can be reached at sbugg@MetroWeekly.com. Follow him on Twitter @seanbugg.

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