thegang:

this is basically a hot, boiling, scorching, torching mess - but it will make you laugh. (via novaslim)

“I think sometimes being anti-fashion leads to a false notion that we can be in bodies that aren’t modified, and that any intentional modification or decoration of your body is politically undesirable because it somehow buys into the pitfalls of reliance on appearances. This critique is true, lots of times what we mean to be resistant aesthetic practices become new regulatory regimes. Certain aspects of activist, queer, punk fashions have fallen victim to hierarchies of coolness that in the end revolve around judging people based on what they own, how their bodies are shaped, how they occupy a narrow gender category, etc. Perhaps it is inevitable that the systems in which we are so embroiled, which shape our very existence, should rear parts of their ugly heads even in our attempts at resistance.” -Dean Spade via Racialicious

In my experience this wasn’t so much true in Madison as it is in Chicago, where sheer number of ‘queer’ identifying people helps expand the visual identity spectrum of acceptance within that community. But I think it’s interesting that even within that community there’s a criticism of identity expression (or a perceived lackthereof), and I partly blame that on the overlap between indie and queer where expression, I think, is held to different standards and have different ends. However, in both cases, I agree with the author that why certain ‘radical’ expressions are desirable and some are not has to be examined in the same critical parameters hegemony is examined. Before we do that though, I think all fedoras should be collected, piled high and set ablaze.

So McCain backed away from his previous consistent opinion that DADT should be up to military leaders, leaders who are now in support of repealing it. Not a surprise that he’d do this as he’s getting competition in Arizona and he lost big time in the election last year, the winner of which he’s going to oppose no matter what the issue. My question is, why is no one challenging them to be specific with why exactly gays pose a threat? Conservatives are either being vague about it:

“At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” [McCain] said bluntly, before describing it as “imperfect but effective.” -WaPo

Effective with what??

Or just fucking ridiculous:

“In my opinion,” [Chambliss] said, “the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk to those high standards.” -TPM

He went on to include some risks: alcohol use, adultery and body art. Shouldn’t they be forced to include research into why this would result from being around homos? There’s a missing step here, at the very least they should be made to say out loud how homo behavior will negatively affect the troops. Like, are we going to seduce them with our homo charms and force them to enter a life of non-stop barracks sex because we always be cruising for same-sex booty? Did they find out turning every soldier gay was #4 on the gay agenda? Of course, women serve in the military too but you don’t see them getting all bothered about their vulnerability to sexual harassment..instead they oppose prohibiting contracted companies from forcing rape victims to stay out of criminal court without calling for ways to stop sexual abuse in the military. I really want them to say it for the record if they’re going to accuse a large group of people of something so serious that our mere presence will diminish the country’s protection from terrorists. Make them say it and make sure they know they’ll be on the record forever so everyone can see how far some people will go to hate on difference. I know it’s not a court of law, but there must be some sort of standard and someone like, I don’t know, the President who called for the repeal in his SOTU, should be calling them out every time they pop up to ensure these morons don’t hijack the debate so that everyone’s arguing over HIV rates in gay men or how much lesbians love piercings and tattoos.

Ted Haggard went on Oprah AGAIN with his wife (she has a new book out) to explain how he builds trust back. With his followers his strategy is to Tweet and Facebook where he is at all times. With his wife he calls her once he gets to the place he is going and calls when he leaves it, ALWAYS. Also, after much therapy he has not had one homosexual urge and there is ‘lots of evidence’ of his heterosexuality. This caged bird is going to explode with song one day.

“No son of mine is going to try to get intelligent design into school textbooks,” Geoffrey Faber said. “And I absolutely refuse to pay his tuition if he decides to go to one of those colleges like Oral Roberts University where they’re just going to fill his head with a lot of crazy conservative ideas.”

He added, “I just want my normal gay son back.”

-The Onion

Firedoglake is live blogging it..which is an amazing feat due to its absurdity. Some excerpts (Cooper represents the anti-gays, Olson the pro-gays, Walker is the judge):

Opening statements:

Olson: Marriage promotes economic, mental, physical strength. It is the building block of our society.

I don’t agree with most of the statements from either side but that’s what the trial is about: gays being unduly harmed from the taking away of a right. ‘Harm’ and ‘right’ is what the pro-gays tried to establish today.

…

Walker: If the Prez’s parents had been in Virginia when he was born, their marriage would have been unlawful. Doesn’t that show a TREMENDOUS change in the institution of marriage? doesn’t that show evolution? Isn’t that correct?

Cooper: Racial restrictions were never a feature of the institution of marriage. (laughter in our courtroom)

…

Walker: You say that extending marriage would result in bisexuality which would lead to group marriage.

Cooper: That is a legal argument.

Walker: No it’s a finding of fact.

Cooper: If expression of love becomes the purpose of marriage, if personal fulfillment is what it’s about, can we really then say to a bisexual, a person who loves two people, one of each sex, that they don’t have the same right to express their love, in order that they may too express personal fulfillment.

Walker: Simultaneously?

Cooper: Modern conceptions of family might permit that.

Walker: Not unheard of among heterosexuals, though? Now, what’s your evidence for this finding that heterosexual young people will be drawn into sexual cults?

Dirty bisexual cults!

…

First witness:

B: Are you gay?
Z: Yes
B: How long?
Z: Forever

…

B: What were some of the things you saw and read?
Z: After school special about a kid who came out to his parents, kicked out of his home, told by his parents not to come home. Remember Ryan Phillipe playing a gay kid on One Life to Live, kicked out by his father.

…

It’s a long read and a lot of testimony is complaints about not having access to aspects of marriage I find annoying like the language of ‘husband’, ‘ring’, etc and the feeling of pride in making sure people know your status..which seems like a gross character flaw to me.

Eventually the right to gay marry is tied to slavery and freedom and it gets a bit bullshitty:

B: Why could slaves not marry?

C: As unfree persons, they could not consent. They could not accept the state’s terms because the master had oversight over the slave’s decision-making.

B: What happened at emancipation?

C: Slaves flocked to marry, it was not trivial. To replace an informal union in which they had formed families and had children, so that the state where they lived could protect themselves. The marriage covenant is the basis for all our rights. Because the history of slavery is happily behind us, there are other ways in which this right of citizenship is a feature of the right to marry.

Dred Scott relevant here because Justice Tawney remarked that Dred Scott as a black man could not marry a white women was a stigma that marked him as less than a free citizen. It was remarked on because this limitation showed that Dred Scott, since he could not marry entirely freely, was not a free man anywhere.

This is a lesson in if-then logic failing upon context. If Dred Scott couldn’t marry a white woman then he is not a free man because free men can marry white women. Fortunately, as was pointed out, slavery is behind us but unfortunately the slavery-marriage-freedom : gay-marriage-freedom analogy is being put out there as if it made sense to compare today’s gays to recently freed blacks during Reconstruction. The concept of ‘freedom’ in each case is massively different. Ex-slaves embraced the right to their labor, to buy property and to marry because it was what made them free citizens in a country that just the other day had them in chains. And needless to say, US courts had ample motivation to restrict the status of a black citizen in any way possible. Their legal arguments against Dred Scott based on their own self-serving ideas of marriage do not reflect what is or isn’t an unalienable right decades later. Granted, being allowed to enter into an institution that has policed, is policing and will continue to police sexuality/gender is hugely symbolic and ripples out to other areas (positively) but these arguments aren’t culturally-exempt. This isn’t to say that Prop 8 is right legally..I think Cooper’s argument is complete bullshit.