Motley Moose – Archive

Hello, I know a lot of people here at MM, but maybe not everyone, so I should introduce myself.Here’s a picture of me last fall at the AIDS Walk, with the Director od AIDS Services of Austin (who is movie star handsome) and a gorgeous sash they made me for having done the AIDS Walk every one of the 25 years it has been in existence:

I live in Austin & besides progressive politics, the most important thing in the world to me is the AIDS Walk that is in October & the Hill Country Ride for AIDS, in April. The Ride is really my love & my heart. Because it takes training to get ready for, you get to know people better & I have come to know many people involved with it, including many people who are HIV+. Some of the people I love best in this world – people who have done so much good I can’t even tell you – are HIV+ & I want them to have the care they need. Even more than that, I want total strangers, who may not have done great things, to have the care they need. They need more care, the people who don’t have the support networks. So that’s why I work so hard to raise money for this cause, so everyone can get the care they need.

This April, I’ll be doing the Hill Country Ride for AIDS once again. The Ride is a beautiful, magical, wonderful event. If you are in the Austin area, I highly recommend participating. There are ride distances varying from 11 to 100 miles, and this year there is a train run/walk, also – with 5K, 10K & half-marathon options. It is super family-friendly, with lots of stuff for kids to do. and the food — cyclists know their food & this event has really amazing food. If you can’t participate, maybe you could donate — here’s my the Hill Country Ride for AIDS page. If you want to participate, when you sign up, please join Team RunTex, as I’m the captain & I need team members! (any MM people in Central Texas — free training groups for riding or running, on Saturdays & Sundays, and free yoga, too!)

Today I wanted to tell y’all what your donations do.

This was originally posted in Orange.

I got the idea for this diary from Denise’s diary over on GOS Silence is still deadly. Denise’s sig line is

“If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition” Bernice Johnson Reagon

Let’s get uncomfortable, shall we?

Let’s make a big coalition.

Remember ACT UP?

Actually, you don’t need to remember them, they’re still around; you can find them online.

Silence does equal death.

But what if we ALL Act Up?

Not just regarding AIDS, and certainly not just people who HAVE AIDS or HIV; not even just their friends and lovers and relatives.

Of course, we are ALL related to people with AIDS. Just a question of how closely related. And even if it isn’t very closely (and how would you know? Do you know the HIV status of all your second cousins? At age 50 I discovered some second cousins I didn’t know I had.  Those are my great grand parents great grand children. That’s pretty close).  But everyone is related to everyone. But, as I said, even if we aren’t that closely related, we should be concerned. If you’re only interested in the health and welfare of your closest relatives …. well…..

But it’s bigger.

Let’s make a big coalition.

You know. With all sorts of people in it. All the people who make OTHER people feel uncomfortable, bad or icky. They might even make some of US feel uncomfortable, bad or icky.  Heck, some people make ME feel that way.

But they don’t make me feel like they are sub-human or unworthy of care.

I, personally, feel uncomfortable watching some public acts of affection (between two men, two women or one of each).

That’s my hangup, not theirs. And it’s OK. Everyone’s got some hangups.

One of the groomsmen (Ellen) at my wedding was a lesbian; I found out, years later, that one of the maids of honor told Ellen not to hold her hand. Oy. That’s not OK. That’s letting her hangup hurt someone else. Not OK at all.

So, let’s get uncomfortable.

When I see people with tons of body piercings, it makes me uncomfortable. Dunno why. Just seems weird to me. But that’s OK. That’s my hangup. Not theirs. Everyone’s got hangups.

But some people let their hangups hang others. That’s not OK.

Me? I’m a learning disabled atheist with glasses who likes to eat all sorts of food. Each of those traits makes some people uncomfortable.  (Food? Yes, some people feel uncomfortable with people eating jellyfish, for instance).

I’m a geeky nerdy guy who likes to spend a lot of time alone. Those traits make some people make uncomfortable too.

Let’s get uncomfortable.

Remember “Revenge of the Nerds”? It wasn’t a gem of film making, but it had one good line:

There’s a lot more of us than there are of them

Add up all the people who make someone else uncomfortable. There’s a lot of us. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them.

Let’s get uncomfortable.

Let’s make a big coalition.

Let’s Act Up.

Together.

Because silence = death. For all of us.

The first briefs will be filed in Edith Windsor’s challenge to Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), United States v. Windsor, on January 22 and 24. Edith “Edie” Windsor is an 83 year old widow from New York. She met Thea Spyer more than 40 years ago; they started dating after two years and got engaged shortly thereafter. During that time there was no possibility of two women marrying: it was during the era of the Stonewall riots, and right around the time that two men attempted to get married in Minnesota, only to have their case, Baker v. Nelson, reach the Supreme Court and earn a one-sentence summary dismissal before any arguments or briefing.

~much more below the fold~

The label “Republican woman” has always seemed, to me, to embody a certain amount of inherent self-loathing. The same goes in my mind, I suppose, for “African American Republican,” “Hispanic Republican,” “gay Republican,” and the list continues… Truly, the only people I believe have any real business being Republicans these days (and by that I mean, the only ones who should find conservatism to be in their own self-interest) are rich white dudes who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes, or maybe even poor white bigots who have nowhere else to go because they would meet the sort of people they hate at every turn under the rather diverse “big tent” of the Democratic party. But nowadays the blatant self-loathing certain groups of Republicans are displaying is becoming increasingly pronounced. Two examples I’ve come across in the last week, which I just couldn’t help commenting on…

Good news for the LGBT community. Traditionally, many gays and lesbians who choose to have/adopt children have not had the option of taking long leaves from work to care for them. While the Family and Medical Leave Act — which allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually to care for loved ones or themselves, and has been applied to heterosexual adoptions — has been in place since 1993, these protections have not previously extended to gay and lesbian couples seeking to start families. Now the Obama administration is changing that, based on a new interpretation of the law.

This was posted on the Moose in November, 2008. I decided to repost it after reading about today’s announcement of President Obama’s mandate on hospital visits. Hopefully, the scenario in the story will now be a thing of the past.

Friday, April 16, 2010

President Obama mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients’ choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

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The Death of a Love Story

Life is often like a smooth flowing stream. Day follows day with only small ripples to disturb the surface and then, unexpectedly, a large rock breaks the current. Sometimes that rock is more like a surging rapid and at other times, it takes a sudden plunge over a waterfall. We have little control over the current. We can only ride out whatever the stream brings our way.

When Jim and Reggie awoke on that quiet Wednesday morning, life seemed tranquil and serene. As on any other weekday, Jim prepared for work while Reggie set the table for their shared breakfast routine. There was little to indicate that this day would be any different from the days that had come before it. Unfortunately, unknown to this loving couple, a waterfall loomed ahead.

Reggie, as a self-employed writer, spent the day in front of a computer while Jim went to work as an accountant at a large corporation. The two loving partners had played out this same routine for nearly thirty years. They both agreed that life had been good to them.

Ramping up teh krazy once again, Minnesota token lunatic Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has provided us with a slew of asinine creative catchphrases to laugh derisively at adopt for personal use. I think most of us would agree that there’s no one on the national scene quite like Bachmann. Sarah Palin is probably dumber, but that could be said when comparing her to pretty much any nationally known politician. So beating Palin out on brains (if only someone would actually beat their brains out — it wouldn’t take long) is really not much of an accomplishment on Bachmann’s part. But when it comes to pure, unfiltered, unadulterated KRAZY… Bachmann may indeed take the cake.

I’m a coward.

I’m also a liar — but only due to my cowardice.

I am a bisexual deist liberal lying coward living in a smallish city in southern Alabama.

I always thought I was pretty brave, actually. I was born and raised in Alabama, though not in this particular city, so I am no stranger to conservatism. There’s not a single Democrat or Independent in my family (aside from myself), and I have a ton of Republican friends. I think I get along with conservatives pretty well, all things considered. I have a lot of practice. I talk politics with the ones (like my dad) who can stomach a bit of spirited debate and not walk away sore about it, and I gear conversations toward other topics around the ones who can’t (or simply won’t) handle it. But despite all my experience in expressing myself amongst conservatives, I now find myself consistently struggling to hide my true self from those surrounding me.

President-elect, now President Obama has been taking some flak from the LGBT community for his actions and words about gay rights during the transition period. Perhaps the most controversial was the inclusion of the pro-Prop 8 minister Rick Warren in the inauguration festivities.

It is easy to understand the frustration and doubts those actions caused in the LGBT community and among supporters of equal rights for all people. Balancing the expressions of outrage from some were calls for patience from supporters, like myself, who felt it was unfair to make judgments until Obama took office. Those calls for patience seem to have been vindicated on the day Obama took office.

The Internet savvy Obama team continued to show they are on top of their game when it came to the transfer of power from Bush to Obama. The White House web site (www.whitehouse.gov) changed at the same moment Obama took office. What I found on that site gave me great satisfaction.

There is a page on the site that addresses civil rights. On that page is a section dealing specifically with LGBT issues. There are many encouraging subjects listed in that section. I’ve included the complete section below.