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Prayers for Boston

Apr 15, 13 10:22 PM

I was at work today on a call when someone mentioned that the news said a bomb had gone off in Boston. As soon as I could, I turned on the news. TWO bombs were detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Here at gayconservative we are not joining the speculation and we ask that our readers and friends respect that. Nothing is set in stone; there are a lot of rumors swirling about, but we do not really know yet what happened. When something concrete is released, we will comment on it.

Until then we offer prayers, support and love to the families of the three who have died and the 140+ who have been injured. Let our focus remain on them for now.

Comments (3)

Hating Rick Warren

Apr 9, 13 11:55 PM

On Saturday, April 6, Pastor Rick Warren – famous for writing The Purpose-Driven Life and pastoring SoCal megachurch Saddleback – announced that his 27-year-old son Matthew had committed suicide. Today it was revealed that Matthew shot himself.

I don’t necessarily agree with Pastor Warren on a number of things, but I do have respect for him. He doesn’t pull a huge salary from his church. He doesn’t live an opulent lifestyle, at least not that I know of. My heart broke when I heard that his son had taken his own life after struggling with severe depression since childhood.

What has come out of some members of the gay community, however, is beyond the pale.

Twitchy and The Blaze both reported social media movements directing breathtaking hatred at Pastor Warren and his family after Matthew’s death. They suggested that Matthew was gay and killed himself because his father was a supposed hatemonger. They brought up his support for Prop 8 and literally said that Pastor Warren “hanged his own son”. They said that “with all the gay kids dead, this was a small price to pay.”

Shut up. For once in your over-privileged, self-indulgent lives, shut the hell up. I’ve lost four of my friends to suicide. As an EMT, I’ve run countless suicide calls and I always leave with the feeling that I have done absolutely nothing to help the family. It is nearly impossible for me these days to run those calls without breaking down myself. It has gotten to the point that child drownings are less difficult for me, and that’s a significant statement for me to make. I know how dark those days are after you find someone you loved in that position.

At the same time, I also know suicidal depression. My entire life, I’ve been hated and made fun of. I’ve always been the butt of someone’s joke. I believe it is only by the grace of G-d that I am a stronger person now, because I have been down that black hole where it felt as though there was no escape. Maybe G-d has used those calls to open my eyes to the reality that suicide leaves behind; if so, I am thankful for that, even though I’m not sure my presence was much help to those left to pick up the pieces. Each and every one of you aiming your vitriol at Pastor Warren, accusing him of “killing his gay son”, have directed the same vile stupidity at me at one time or another and you do not know or care how much that hurts. Who the hell are you to preach about caring for the hurting? You can’t even do it yourselves!

I am beyond appalled. I am furious. Pastor Warren is a much more gracious and forgiving soul than I am in praying for these people. I cannot understand celebrating someone’s death, not for any reason. I have never in my life felt happiness upon hearing that a human being has died, no matter how much I may have disliked them. Yet as angry as I am with the gay community right now for their intense hatred, intolerance, and hypocrisy, I still cannot wish this kind of pain upon them.

What astounds me, though, is Dan Savage. Usually the first to make an inappropriate comment or attack a conservative, when asked for his opinion he said, “My only comment is this: As a parent, my heart aches for Rick Warren and his wife. They have my sympathy.”

Thank you, Dan, for not hating Rick Warren as so many others have.

Comments (14)

Poor Jodi

Mar 4, 13 3:29 AM

I tend not to comment on a case while it’s still in the trial phase. Often I believe we don’t know enough about the case from what the media has said because the media will report on every little twitch, giggle and fart – truth be damned. They will report on rumors as though they are fact. This time, however, I don’t need a trial to tell me what I can tell from professional intuition. I tend to be very protective of women who have been abused. I deal with them professionally and have, more times than I can remember, watched them go back to their abusers because they don’t feel they have a way out. I know when I’m talking to a victim. I also know when I’m being strung along; not all women who claim to be victims are, and they frustrate me the most because they are the reason the true victims have such a difficult time getting help. The drama currently playing out in Phoenix is easy to figure out.

Jodi Arias is a complete sociopath.

We know what the facts are, and when you put them together they’re chilling on a level that most people don’t want to believe is possible. Jodi Arias met Travis Alexander during a conference for the company he worked for, Prepaid Legal Services, in Las Vegas in November 2006. Arias moved to Mesa (a suburb on the East edge of Phoenix proper, just East of Tempe) to maintain a relationship with Alexander. She lived with a roommate because Alexander was Mormon and living together before marriage is forbidden. By June of 2007, Arias began telling friends that she and Alexander had broken up. By April 2008, Arias moved back to Yreka, California, where she lived with her grandparents. At this point Alexander had already told his friends that Arias had been stalking him – hacking his Facebook page and slashing his tires. On June 9, after he’d missed several important appointments, co-workers and friends went to his home to check up on him. His two roommates, thinking he’d gone to Cancun, said he was out of town. Among those who had showed up to find him was one of the women he was supposed to have gone with, so they forced their way into his bedroom. Pools and trails of blood led to the master bathroom, where he was found dead (and practically mutilated) in his shower. His throat had been slashed, he had been stabbed 29 times, and he’d been shot in the face with a .25 caliber gun. He had been dead for five days. A bloody handprint was discovered on a wall and his brand-new digital camera was found in the washing machine with heavy damage.

Suspicion was immediately turned on Arias. All of Alexander’s friends agreed to give DNA samples – Arias complied as well, though she strangely began calling the lead detective on the case repeatedly to ask how the investigation was going and promising to help in any way she could. That detective discovered that Arias had also been accessing Alexander’s voicemail over the past several days and calling repeatedly, leaving multiple messages, beginning on June 4 (shortly after he would have been killed). She told the lead detective that she didn’t know anything about the crime, even said that she had last seen Alexander as she was leaving town back in April. The investigation turned up quite a trail of curious incidents.

On May 28, Arias’ grandparents called police to report a burglary. It was peculiar because the bandit took exactly one item from each room in the house, including a single .25 caliber handgun in a safe containing four guns, and cash and jewelry were left untouched. Somewhere around May 30-31, Arias asked a friend, Darryl Brewer, if she could borrow two five-gallon gas cans for a trip; on June 2, she rented a white Ford Focus from Budget Rent-A-Car and claimed the rental would be for local use only. Her credit card was used to buy several items at a Wal-Mart in Salinas, CA (including a third five-gallon gas can) and just over 20 gallons of gasoline (a Ford Focus typical to rentals only has a 12-gallon tank) on June 3. Salinas is just less than halfway between Yreka and Phoenix, a trip that would total 1013 miles according to Google Maps.

After the stop in Salinas (still 675 miles from Phoenix), her credit card wasn’t used again until June 6 – she used it in Sparks, NV, fully 737 miles from Phoenix. By then, however, she had gone to Utah to visit her new love interest – a man named Ryan Burns. He said that she was a day later than they had planned to meet and that, despite the heat, she wore long sleeves and had a bandage on one hand. She excused it by claiming she’d injured herself at work. After meeting with Burns, she drove back to Yreka. The Ford Focus was returned with more than 2800 miles on it (how’s THAT for local use?), the floor mats were missing, and the return report stated there were “kool-aid stains” on both the front and back seats.

Here’s where it gets really creepy. Mesa police were able to recover deleted images from the digital camera found in the washing machine. Whoever had run it through a wash cycle had first deleted several pictures; they wanted to be doubly certain that the images would be forever lost. Those pictures were of a sexual romp between Alexander and Arias on June 4. Both of them looked like they were having fun. Arias was even wearing pigtails during the encounter. The very last image, taken at 5:30 p.m., was of Alexander lying on the floor, bleeding profusely.

A DNA match was also made – it was Arias’ blood mixed with Alexander’s in the bloody handprint on the wall. By the time this evidence was discovered, Arias had lied to police multiple times, lied to Alexander’s family (even going so far as to send his grandmother flowers), and had gone to great lengths to throw off any evidence that she could have possibly committed the crime.

Is anyone else shivering yet?

Not even 24 hours after murdering Travis Alexander, Jodi Arias was cuddling and making out with another man in Utah. She gave no hint that anything had gone wrong. After her arrest for the murder, Arias appeared on 48 Hours to make her case to the public. Again, she lied. She admitted to being there, but that two intruders broke in and killed him – yet she had no explanation as to how she knew this and didn’t report the incident to police. Once cornered on that story, she changed the story yet again: she arrived at the new excuse she’s been using in court, that Alexander was abusive and forced her to engage in “uncomfortable” sex acts.

In my experience, a woman who has been abused to the point that she kills her abuser in a fit of blind terror isn’t arriving at that moment without there first being some kind of evidence. There are usually police reports of neighbors calling to report violence (and Alexander had two roommates), friends and relatives noticing bruises or other injuries (such as broken bones or burns), even hospital records. There was nothing on Jodi Arias. I’ve also never seen an abuse victim who didn’t live with their abuser continue to engage in a relationship with them over a period of over a year – or come back two months after moving away to have sex with them and brutally murder them.

Victims who kill their abusers don’t usually realize they’ve done it until the act is done, and it doesn’t include the extreme method that Jodi Arias used. It’s usually a single stab wound, one or two gunshot wounds, something simple and quick. It doesn’t involve heavy planning, renting a car, finding methods for purchasing gas and food well out of the way to make sure your credit card isn’t being used within hundreds of miles of the city where the crime was committed and going to play tonsil hockey with a man you’ve never met…all while claiming that you deeply loved the man you’ve killed.

Jodi Arias is a classic sociopath. She has no conscience. She feels no real emotion; emotion is a second language to her, one she has likely learned over her three decades of life to mimic. She’s proven that she is very good at turning it on and off at will to get what she wants. She is capable of telling a multitude of lies, and every time she’s caught in one lie she concocts anther set of them to cover her tracks. Now that she’s cornered yet again, she is putting on a grand show of weeping in court. I was there the day prosecutor Juan Martinez began his intense questions, yelling at her to look at the picture of Alexander’s dead body. It was an act that deserved an Oscar. It’s an act I’ve seen before and was just as unsettling in court as it is to witness in real life.

I only hope the jury is able to see through poor little Jodi’s stage act. Travis Alexander deserves justice, and victims everywhere deserve better.

Comments (11)

Best Served Cold

Nov 11, 12 1:43 AM

How did conservatives react when Bush was re-elected in 2004 over uber-liberal John Kerry?

Thank God, Kerry won’t pull a Winter Soldier on our troops overseas!

How are the liberals reacting now that Obama has been re-elected?

Take that, Mitches!

No kidding. Pop superstar Beyoncé took to Tumblr to throw it in our collective face, setting the tone for everyone else who would have something to say the day after the election. I visited the homepage of one friend who voted for Obama to find several of her friends had tagged her in a theme photo of Beyoncé’s quote. That friend was willing to agree to disagree with me but none of those I know who voted for Obama have called out those who are behaving like juvenile delinquents. They’re celebrating with them. Relatives who are liberal weren’t willing to admit that the behavior from Democrats on election day was unacceptable; I was literally told to “quit whining” and be more graceful, as Romney was in his concession speech.

Sorry. I fail to see how I’m wrong for pointing out just how callow some people are being about this.

Not one of my relatives or friends who are liberal ever once tried to stand up for me or anyone else when accusations of racism began being tossed about carelessly. Not one of them, who all know many people like me who are conservative and know what kind of people we are, ever raised a single question when we were attacked as hatemongers and homophobes. None of the people who knew me as a child, watched me grow up, and know my heart have ever once stopped to tell others who didn’t know me as well that their outrageous comments were unfair. NEVER. Not a single time.

Where were they when Bill Maher made multiple unutterable remarks about Governor Palin? Where were they when David Letterman made tasteless jokes about her children? Where was such sentiment about being civil when the shooting in Tucson was politicized, and conservatives were branded as being at fault for the tragedy? None of them, not a single one, stopped to think that their side was being hysterical – not even when it was discovered that Jared Lee Loughner wasn’t political at all, but was genuinely koo-koo for Coco Puffs. They certainly didn’t speak up for us. They either let it go or, in some cases, joined in. None of us on the right side of the political spectrum lives in a vacuum. We all have liberals in our lives. How many of them bothered to stick up for us? We called Ann Coulter out for calling the President a “retard” because she was wrong – how many of the liberals in our lives would stand up to Keith Olbermann calling us the worst people in the world?

I love all of my family. I think the ones who are liberal are wrong, but I don’t think it’s up to me to change their minds (and I couldn’t even if I wanted to). Some of my liberal relatives, however, have no respect at all for me. They’ll put on a nice face when the family comes together, but they think I am out of my mind for supporting the one political ideal that they have decided is anathema to everything I am as a lesbian in America. They’ve never asked me to explain my beliefs, but they have no problem spitting out incredibly insulting things (such as remarks about how the troops are all rapists and murderers) in front of me, then looking at me for a response.

I’m sick of it. I’m tired of doing this back-and-forth with liberals, listening to them talk about how evil I am and wondering why the liberals who really know me never had my back. I’m tired of being called a traitor, a collaborator, a quisling, and a self-loathing closet case because liberalism makes no sense to me. I understand mathematics and basic economics, the rules of which say quite plainly that if you keep taxing the people responsible for the jobs in this country to give to people who won’t work for a living, eventually you’ll run out of rich people to tax and everybody is miserably poor.

I believe in charity – I just happen to see the basic truth that charity cannot be forced upon people. If my neighbor, who frequently gushes about how nice my truck is, decides one day to steal it, he’ll go to prison if he’s caught. If he breaks into my house and steals my computer or my guitars, same deal – he goes to prison. It doesn’t matter if he tells the judge that he needed transportation or if he needed to hock my things to eat. The judge will still ask him, “did you know that it was wrong to steal?” If it’s illegal for my neighbor to steal my physical possessions, how is it acceptable for the government to tax me half to death in the name of altruism?

The phrase “revenge is a dish best served cold” has been in use since the first half of the 17th century. Nobody knows exactly where it came from, but the phrase is often misunderstood. What it means is that revenge works best when it is exacted through calculated planning and emotional detachment. When the one seeking revenge plans every step, carries it out, and then walks away without another word, it bears far more profoundly than the oaf who takes a wild swing at your nose and guffaws when you hit the floor.

Most liberals today don’t understand that. They can’t just get their revenge – they have to gloat afterwards, making certain to twist the knife after burying it in our backs. They’ve spent the last five years calling us all racists, homophobes and hatemongers while those who know we’re none of those things sit and let it happen. The propaganda is slowly killing us.

Who are the Nazis, again?

Don’t retreat, reload – and keep your powder dry.

Comments (14)

Twist And Shout

Aug 23, 12 11:44 PM

There’s nothing like a little bit of media bias surrounding a tragedy. We’ve been dealing with it for so long at this point that I’m pretty sure I’d miss it if they weren’t doing it anymore. Such has been the case since August 12, when an off-duty Chicago cop was attacked and had to shoot one of his attackers in self-defense.

The officer has not been named publicly, but there have been vigils held for the 26-year-old father who was killed that night. The officer was riding his motorcycle when a small child darted out into the road; he intentionally laid the bike down (biker parlance for deliberately wrecking it to avoid hurting someone while moving at a high rate of speed) to avoid hitting her, but the bike clipped her anyway. Her father, Christopher Middleton, came tearing out of the restaurant they were visiting in a rage and, along with his cousin, 18-year-old John Passley, began viciously beating him.

If it were me, I would be more concerned about my daughter than angry at the person who hit her. As soon as I made sure that she wasn’t bleeding profusely and was still conscious, THEN I would want to find out what happened. I sure as hell wouldn’t run outside, right past my injured child and immediately start beating someone. It would only make a bigger mess of things.

It resulted in a bigger mess when the off-duty cop had to pull his handgun and shoot Middleton. According to the victim and witness testimony, the beating was very brutal. The victim felt himself beginning to lose consciousness and believed that his life was in imminent danger. He pulled his sidearm and fired a single round right into Middleton’s upper thigh/groin area, clipping his femoral artery. He died at the hospital.

What’s more incredible than the story itself is that Middleton’s family is claiming that he was a great father and didn’t deserve to die – that he was just “going crazy” over his child. A great parent will be more worried about their child after an accident than they are about getting back at the other person involved. Middleton had no idea what happened. He didn’t stop to ask whether his daughter had run out into the street. Hell, it sounds as though he didn’t even stop to look at her. He barged out and attacked someone without knowing what happened, and he had no intention of stopping his rampage until his target was either maimed or dead.

The family claims that the officer never identified himself as a police officer. Actually, multiple witnesses say he did tell Middleton that he was a cop – Middleton reportedly said, “I don’t give a f***” and smashed him in the face. Even if he hadn’t, why should it have mattered? Would he have done worse to someone he knew wasn’t a cop? Does it excuse the fact that he attacked a man who appeared to be unarmed without knowing what happened? Is it supposed to somehow absolve him of his role in the tragedy?

The family is also demanding justice. For what? A man sees a kid jump out into the street in front of him, pulls off a very dangerous maneuver to avoid hitting her and unfortunately ends up clipping her anyway. He did what he could. After that, two men he doesn’t know attack him, knock him to the ground and beat him until he starts to pass out. What was he supposed to do? Would it have been better if the cop had fought back and killed him with his bare hands? What would you have expected him to do in that situation? It’s clear that the family was not only not trying to stop him, they were actively helping him.

The whole situation could have been avoided. Rather than admitting that he was an idiot, they’re claiming he didn’t overreact and the cop he attacked should be the one going to jail. Middleton’s mother has even sworn to get a lawyer and do whatever she can to get back at her son’s victim.

The press hasn’t addressed this ridiculous story except to turn everything back around on the man who could have died trying to avoid hitting a child. British publication The Daily Mail worded their entire article in an accusatory fashion. Other articles linked here talk about the vigils for Middleton, but no mention is made of the mental state of the off-duty cop who had to kill another human being. I promise you, he’s not taking it lightly. I’ve known cops who had to kill and not one of them ever slept well afterwards.

It’s always sad when a child is hurt. I hate those calls; even when the child is crying and responsive (which tells me that the child is breathing and conscious, not in shock), it breaks my heart. I cannot, for any reason, excuse the actions of Christopher Middleton. If his family has an ounce of intelligence, they will stop blaming the victim and set a better example for the children in the family. Keep close track of small children. Teach them to NEVER enter the street without looking carefully.

More than anything, however, don’t ever attack someone blindly. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. If you do attack someone in a blind rage, you deserve the negative outcome – no matter how tragic the public may think it is.

Comments (2)

Fake It

Aug 22, 12 2:48 AM

About a month ago, an acquaintance emailed me about a hate crime in Lincoln, NE. His only commentary was, “when are you going to wise up?” That remark was followed by a link to a blog post about the attack, including photos that couldn’t be posted by major news outlets. According to the story, an unnamed 33-year-old woman was viciously attacked in her home as she slept by three masked men who stripped her naked, bound her hands and feet with zip-ties, carved homophobic slurs into her arm and her stomach, spray-painted similar slurs on the walls, poured gasoline on the floor and lit the house on fire.

As soon as I read the story, I smelled a stage act. I didn’t want to immediately post about it because there wasn’t much info in the news reports I was able to find. The spray-painted slurs were on the inside of the house, not the outside – in the basement, no less. The slurs cut into her skin were on her stomach and arm, places she can easily reach. I’ve studied the psychology of people who commit hate crimes, and none of that makes any sense.

A person who would go so far as to attack a person for their sexual orientation or their race or religion is doing so in an attempt to humiliate and intimidate that person AND all of the people in the vicinity who are associated with that person. When a hate crime involves defacing property, they’re trying to publicly identify that person as gay, lesbian, black, Hispanic, Jewish, whatever the bias may be against. They want everyone in the neighborhood to know what they see that person as being. When a hate crime involves arson, they’re usually trying to destroy evidence; whether it be DNA, footprints or blood spatter, there’s a purpose to trying to burn the home down and they make sure that the fire gets rolling (meaning they don’t just pour gasoline on the Formica in the kitchen and run away). Hate crimes rarely involve mutilation – that’s typically something that a jilted lover does when they’re killing the object of their affection, and it’s not usually superficial. It’s brutal.

If this were a genuine hate crime, any of these things could potentially have been done. All three together, and all very superficially? Extremely unlikely.

Today, it was announced that 33-year-old Charlie Rogers, formerly #33 for the Nebraska Cornhuskers women’s basketball team, was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of false reporting to the police. Among the evidence police released were inconsistent statements from the victim, gloves (with Rogers’ own DNA inside them – she told investigators they were not hers and were left by the perps), zip ties and a utility knife, and no blood on the bedspread where Rogers was allegedly attacked.

At first, Rogers didn’t want her name or face publicized. Then, when a handful of people questioned whether the attack might have been staged – it was never questioned by the MSM, and the major players in the conservative blogosphere still haven’t picked up on it – she suddenly decided to talk to the press. In the entire interview, I didn’t hear her talk about herself once. She makes statements about “my world” and feeling like “a pawn”, but she largely only talks about everyone else.

According to Lincoln police chief Jim Peschong, Rogers had written the following online: “So maybe I’m too idealistic but I believe way deep inside me that we can make things better for everyone. I will be a catalyst. I will do what it takes. I will. Watch me.” Beth Rigatuso, the president of Heartland Pride, said, “If in fact she did do this to herself, it points to a much larger issue of self-hatred. It doesn’t diminish the fact that hate crimes happen all the time all across the U.S.”

Rigatuso is wrong on both counts. This had nothing to do with self-hatred, and to claim that kind of thing is an enormous cop-out. She’s making excuses for Rogers’ behavior in the hopes of not having to accept responsibility, and the gay community should take some. She’s not the first to stage a hate crime or falsely claim a hate crime took place, yet the gay community, rather than calling these people out, pretend the incidents didn’t happen.

Joseph Baken claimed that he was attacked in the street outside a gay bar, even posted photos of his facial injuries – except he got the injuries while trying to do a back flip off of a curb outside the bar. Aimee Whitchurch and Christel Conklin called police over the words “kill the gay” being spray painted on their garage door and a noose being hung on their front door, but it was determined they did it themselves. Quinn Matney claimed that a complete stranger walked up to him on his college campus, said “here is a taste of hell”, called him a derogatory name and then branded him, leaving third- and fourth-degree burns on his hand – but he did it to himself. Ryan Grant Watson claimed he was attacked by a black man who called him a homophobic slur, but it was invented, too. Alexandra Pennell claimed that someone was stuffing anti-gay threat letters under her dorm room door at Central Connecticut State University, but that was also determined to be a hoax.

Rigatuso is correct – hate crimes do happen. Only it seems that these days there are far more fakes out there. We all know the stories of Mathew Shepard, Brandon Teena and Gwen Araujo, but here in the United States those stories are few and far between. In the interim, we’ve just had a major upheaval over comments made by Chick-Fil-A CFO Dan Cathy – I think that has a lot to do with this recent spate of staged anti-gay hate crimes. The purpose of these incidents, I think, is twofold: first, these are people who want attention. Second, they want to find some way, any way, to prove that we need to put a stop to these right-wing hatemongers.

They think if they have to fake it, the ends justify the means. The problem with that belief is that none of the people involved in beating, raping and killing Mathew Shepard, Brandon Teena and Gwen Araujo ever claimed to be Christians or right-wingers.

I’m at a loss as to how we’ve determined that Christians and conservatives are responsible for crimes committed largely by non-religious rednecks. I’m at even more of a loss to excuse the intolerance of the gay left; of the Quinn Matney incident, Jeff DeLuca said, “He still needs our support. It’s a different kind of support than we originally anticipated having to offer. He’s still a valued member of our community and we want to make sure his health, safety and peace of mind are at the forefront of what we’re doing for him.”

When was the last time a gay leftist was so compassionate to any conservative, let alone a gay conservative?

Comments (11)

Sexism Will Never Die

Aug 17, 12 12:39 AM

When I was in high school, a vicious drama played out between three of my classmates. A popular boy, the stereotypical football player with a lot of talent on the field who was in love with his own legend, cheated on his cheerleader squad captain of a girlfriend with a girl who was widely panned as the school skank. The plot has become ridiculously familiar in today’s high-school-themed movies: big man on campus has the perfect girlfriend and screws it up by sleeping with the town party favor. The movies aren’t nearly as ugly as real life. There was no happy ending when the jilted cheerleader picked a fight with the girl who stole Mr. Wrong. As is always the case, the cheater was far more street wise and had been in fights before, while the cheerleader was just really pissed off. Suffice to say, the cheerleader couldn’t shake her pom-poms anymore when the dust settled. In time, everyone forgot that the fight was over a boy. The girl who stole him for a one-night stand, however, was never forgiven. My former classmates remember what she did even now.

It was then that my dad told me a story about his Navy days when women first began serving on US ships. Two sailors, a man and a woman, both married, had an affair during a major deployment. They were eventually caught (impossible not to get caught on a Navy destroyer – if you’ve ever been in one of the berthing compartments, you know why). When they were, everyone castigated the woman as being a whore – the man, however, got high-fives and his name was eventually forgotten. It was the same thing that happened when I was in high school.

Fast forward to today. Kristen Stewart, the sweetheart of the Twilight films, has been in a relationship with on-screen partner Robert Pattinson for a few years. She didn’t actually admit their relationship until she was caught cheating on Rob. Naturally, all hell broke loose – Twilight fans posted YouTube videos reminiscent of Chris Crocker’s crying rant, screaming “how could you” at Kristen over the internet. People have gone absolutely insane over this whole thing. Interestingly enough, the same tired storyline is playing out: everyone is mad at Kristen, but not one person in my office could name the man she cheated with, nor could they say for certain if he had a family.

For the record, his name is Rupert Sanders. He is technically still married to actress Liberty Ross, who played Snow White’s mother in Snow White and the Huntsman. The pair has two children together.

I’m sure Rob is torn up and feels deeply betrayed. Anyone who’s been cheated on feels a hurt that is unique to that particular act. I have to wonder, though – why in the hell has Rupert not been publicly shamed? Why hasn’t his apology been entered into the current quotable vernacular? Why hasn’t he been screamed at? He was actually married. He has two children with a woman he vowed to remain faithful, ’til death do us part. He’s the one who’s gonna have to explain to his kids why Christmas has to be split between mom and dad’s house. Why isn’t he the one everyone is targeting?

For the same reason that my classmates all forgot the guy in that love triangle. The same reason all the men on my dad’s ship gave their two-timing buddy a slap on the back and congratulated him while the woman he screwed was branded an adulteress: sexism will never die.

Women have always been held to a different standard than men. You can see it in the way Hilary Clinton was treated as soon as Barack Obama entered the presidential race. You can see it in the way Sarah Palin was skewered in John McCain’s place. We have long since answered the question of whether America is ready for a black president, yet we’re still asking if our nation is ready for a woman in the White House. We’re not ready because we still haven’t moved past the centuries-old idea that a woman is always the seductress and the man is unable to withstand her wiles. You can see it in our subconscious in the way Jodie Foster has to stand up for Kristen Stewart because almost nobody else will.

(Jodie brings up one very good point – our society has grown into an animal that eats alive any celebrity who doesn’t live up to our unspoken expectations, and it’s unfair to subject a kid to that these days. I’m glad now that I didn’t get fame when I wanted it.)

As long as things like this are coupled with White House staff salaries proving that women still aren’t equal in the workplace, we’ll never move forward; but sexism will always remain that dirty little secret that nobody talks about. It will never change because the liberal feminists will only point at abortion rights and conservatives refuse to speak loudly enough to be heard.

Comments (2)

Tragedy at the Sikh Temple

Aug 5, 12 9:15 PM

I have yet to offer my thoughts on the Aurora shooting, mostly because I know cops and firefighters who were there and I’d be walking a fine line when I do say something about it.

Today, though, I’m stunned at the news that a gunman walked into a Sikh temple near Milwaukee and opened fire with a single handgun, killing six and wounding three (including a police officer) before he was taken down by police. What we’ve heard so far that the attacker was a former military member in his 40′s and he had a 9/11 memorial tattoo on one arm. There are rumors the he mistook the Sikh temple for a Mosque.

I have never met a Sikh whom I did not deeply respect. Sikhism is the polar opposite of jihadist Islam; they believe in peace and genuine equality, that men and women of all races are completely equal in God’s eyes. Sikhs are supposed to be saint/soldiers who live to help others and defend those who have suffered injustice. Like the Shaolin monks who have taught me, Sikhs have good hearts and are very giving people.

My heart goes out to the victims, their families and their friends. Today is a very sad moment. I will not condemn the shooter just yet, as we don’t know what his actual motivations were. Like the Sikhs, however, I pray for peace and justice, and I hope the public can gain greater understanding of who the Sikhs are through this.

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Chik-Fil-A: The Great Flap

Jul 31, 12 1:18 AM

If you’re listening to the hard left, you’d believe that the boycott of chicken chain Chick-Fil-A is working and the brand is being dealt an irreparable blow.

Unfortunately for them, this is pure fantasy. There’s a CFA restaurant right next to my loft, and these days the place is absolutely packed. The dining room is stuffed to the gills and the drive-thru line quickly wraps around the building. Every CFA in the country seems to be getting more business these days.

We all know what the kerfuffle is about. Dan Cathy, the company’s CEO and the son of founder S. Truett Cathy, recently said “guilty as charged” when asked by the Baptist Press if he supported traditional family values. He never specifically singled out gay marriage; he did single out divorce quite specifically, but the way things have gone you’d think Cathy held a forum in support of Fred Phelps and called for us all to be rounded up and herded into concentration camps.

Roseanne Barr said that everyone who eats at CFA deserves to get cancer. After then saying that people who feed their kids at CFA are guilty of child abuse, she went on another nazi-cursing tirade against the chain. Non-celebs went completely bats as well, commenting that CFA sandwiches are “deep fried in hate” and called traditional marriage “a sacred bond between two consenting bigots”.

The really frightening thing about all of this, however, is what elected government officials are doing now. It began with Boston mayor Thomas Menino declaring that CFA was banned from Boston and he would see to it that it was nearly impossible for the company to get proper permits to operate. As soon as he did that, actress Eliza Dushku promptly tweeted, “That’s right, B!” (Eliza, you’re breaking my heart here…I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and SMG is still my celeb girl crush, but I once had a crush on you, too!) That was followed by Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno swearing to block CFA from opening a new restaurant in his district. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel backed him up, saying that “Chick-Fil-A values are not Chicago values” (strange, since gay marriage is illegal in Illinois and nobody in Chicago politics has moved a finger to change that). San Francisco mayor Edwin Lee then tweeted that the nearest CFA restaurant was 40 miles away and “I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer.” DC mayor Vincent Gray has now said that “I will not support #hatechicken”.

Calling them a bunch of lunatics is being too nice. They’re outright violating CFA’s First Amendment rights, and frighteningly so. Their reason is that they strongly disagree with Cathy’s beliefs, and they think that because they disagree and can claim that CFA discriminates because of Cathy’s beliefs they have the right to stop the chain from growing, opening new stores and creating more jobs. Our tax dollars hard at work.

First of all, let’s clear the air here: being against the legalization of gay marriage does NOT equal being anti-gay. It certainly does not deserve the title of “hatemonger.” I know a few gay people who don’t believe in legalizing gay marriage. That does not make them hatemongers, they simply want to live their lives in peace and not have to worry about who might be offended. Second, I routinely go to CFA. My item of habit is their grilled chicken sandwich deluxe. I have never, not once, EVER been discriminated against by any employee. In fact, most of them know me by name and chat with me while I’m waiting. They all know I’m gay and not a single one of them cares. CFA employees have frequently been the most gracious I’ve encountered.

Third, it is beyond comprehension that any government official would dare to infringe upon the rights of any person. What would these same people say if a conservative mayor forced a gay-owned-and-themed business out of their city because of religious objections to their beliefs and/or lifestyle? I can tell you now, they’d all be howling for the DOJ to investigate. It’s perfectly acceptable, though, when liberals want to do it.

Boycotting isn’t un-American, and none of us have claimed that it was (Fox News certainly hasn’t, and you’re lying through your teeth when you claim they have). If you want to personally boycott the place, that’s your right. You may not, however, tell them that they’re not allowed to open or expand in your city because of your disagreement with the owner. I will be the first to stand up for their rights, because if I sit back and let you violate their rights, then mine will be next.

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Ghosts

Jun 24, 12 1:47 AM

What I’m about to write is difficult to the point of being agonizing, but I think it’s still important, even if only a few people read it. Maybe sharing my experiences as a kid will help me find some modicum of peace. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier to write than it will be to say it out loud, regardless of who I’m talking to. Believe me…I’m sitting here with a glass of single-malt scotch as I write.

The whole world saw a video this week that stunned them. The video was of four junior high school students brutally mocking their 68-year-old bus monitor, Karen Klein. They were so vicious in their taunts that they brought her to tears – then made fun of the fact that she was crying. The kid who shot the ten-minute video wanted to submit it to a Comedy Central show because he thought it was funny.

I got exactly a minute and a half into it and couldn’t watch anymore.

Less than one minute into that video, I was in tears. The things those kids were saying to Karen were almost identical to the things that my classmates used to say to me on the bus. When I was at CD Landolt Elementary in Houston, I walked to school every day. Bullies would target me and a couple of other kids on that route. Kids at school would make fun of the way I dressed, the way I talked, the way I sang (a small group of girls liked my singing but even some of them were absolutely cruel about everything else). They’d ask me why I pulled my socks up to my knees. They’d ask me why I acted like a boy. They’d joke that I was going to have a sex-change operation and gave me disgusting tips on how to do it. Those were the nicer things they did – I was frequently pushed around, beat up, even spit on. I was 12 when Jared Close announced to everyone that I was such a loser that I’d give free blow jobs just to have a friend, then pantomimed the act. I had to ask my teacher what a blow job was. When we all went on to Webster Intermediate (which has since been sold to a private alternative school), it only got worse.

PE was always a nightmare. I still remember the far corner between bays of lockers where a chunk of concrete was missing from the floor. I remember it because I was tossed into that corner on multiple occasions. I still don’t know why some of the kids at school hated me so much. I don’t understand why Theresa Baylott would call “big girl!” out to me from across the quad in a dragged-out falsetto voice and later scream just inches from my face that she was going to tear my effing head off.

I don’t understand why the kids on the bus, many of whom I didn’t really know, always targeted me. My parents would tell me to ignore them, but the more I ignored them the worse the abuse got. I once tried to put my head back and pretend to be asleep, but they all roared and started making fun of my nose – one kid even sneaked up to me and stuck a pen up my nose. And, just as the kids in New York did to Karen, they’d tell me I was fat. They’d “joke” that I took up the whole seat. I tried to sit in the only single-seat bench on the bus to avoid having to sit with the bullies (who loved to sit down next to me, then throw themselves into the aisle and yell at me for being too fat). The funny thing was that I really wasn’t very overweight back then. They convinced me that I was, though.

In high school, there was a running joke among most of my classmates that my nickname was “O.G.” I never knew what it stood for; they tried to tell me it stood for “original gangster” but I was never into rap and they always said it when I did or said something that appeared or sounded masculine. The more “manly” my actions, the more I’d hear, “1-2-3, this is O.G.!” Eventually someone told me that I was right – it was their inside way of making fun of me for being too butch. Someone started a rumor that I was a Satanist despite my heavy involvement in church.

Oh, church. I was bullied there, too. In Houston, my family went to Grace Community Church. The building they used to own now belongs to another congregation (most people on the East Side would immediately recognize the huge red-brick and white-pillar building with the ginormous steeple). One kid from our neighborhood also went to church with us, and he and his friends treated me like dirt. Nathan Scott Hutchison may never be forgiven in my mind for the things he did to me. His mother thought he did no wrong and no amount of challenging by other parents in the neighborhood ever convinced her that he really was a violent bully. He’d beat me to a pulp and then lie to my mother and tell her that I started it – when my mother would keep me home from church, he’d go and brag to everyone in our youth group that he’d beaten me up.

Church didn’t change until my family moved to Louisiana. Church in DeRidder didn’t change the fact that I was bullied at school, though. I just had actual friends for the first time in my life who I could stay close to so I didn’t get beaten up as often. Not that it stopped jocks in the hallway from picking me up and bodily throwing me into the lockers. Demopolis, Alabama was only marginally better, and I think only because everyone liked the fact that I could play guitar. There I had classmates calling me “church lady” after a character on Saturday Night Live. Pretty soon, though, they also started calling me “Pat”, also after a character on SNL. I wasn’t allowed to watch the show so I had no idea what it meant; someone told me it was a sketch about a character who never said if she was a man or a woman. Years later, when I finally did see a Pat sketch, I was horrified. I can’t watch anything on SNL now.

Seeing Karen Klein reduced to tears as the kids on that bus tormented her brought all of that rushing back as if it were yesterday. I’m one of those freaks who remembers every detail of everything; I can’t forget this crap no matter how hard I try. I can barely scratch the surface of the things that were said and done to me as a kid because most of it doesn’t bear repeating in polite company. There are a few facts that strike me, though, every time I go over this stuff in my head. First of all, not one of the kids who bullied me based their abuse on anything in the Bible. The kids who would walk up to me in the cafeteria and loudly ask, “are you a lesbian?” so everyone could hear didn’t go to church. They were just bullying me because I was different. When I was that age, even if you knew you were gay you did not admit it. Doing so invited disaster. The kids who bullied me at church weren’t Christians, they just had parents who either didn’t believe their kids were bullies or didn’t care. Not one of the punches, kicks, gobs of saliva or hurtful words I ever took was delivered by a person who believed it was their Christian duty to do it.

The bullying didn’t stop when I reached adulthood. I was working as a corrections officer for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections when I finally came to the realization that I was gay (something I staunchly denied all my life up until about age 24). I was just hitting that depression when my unit got a new lieutenant – a former sergeant named Paul Rivas. This guy had serious anger management issues, to the point that he would yell and throw things at the drop of a hat when things didn’t go his way. I was his target. When something went wrong, I was always to blame. One night, I was the only officer on my unit and I had been tasked with entering incident reports into the computer (never mind the fact that I still had to do rounds and make sure all the delinquents were sleeping and not attempting rape or suicide). The system was down, so I was never able to get it done. When he arrived the next morning to find the reports still sitting in the bin on his desk, he pulled me into his office and ripped me a new one at the top of his lungs. He didn’t want to hear about the system issues. After screaming at me for ten minutes about how completely inept I was, he told me that he would get rid of me the next time I failed. Trying to tell his boss, Lorene Petta, about the situation changed nothing.

It was Rivas’ bullying that pushed me over the edge. I was already in my own private hell over the dichotomy of being a lifelong Christian who was a lesbian. Rivas had me convinced that I was useless as an officer and that I was going to lose my career. I couldn’t handle the fact that, from childhood to age 24, I had been a complete loser; now, as a grown woman, I still couldn’t do anything right. One day in November of that year, I put my gun to my head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The round never discharged. I immediately told a couple of fellow officers who helped me check into a hospital. I never did tell them just how close I had come to killing myself. Dr. Petta, Lt. Rivas and the assistant director used their knowledge of what I’d been through (limited as it was, since it was another officer who told them) to fire me. I later went back to corrections with a very different perspective on things.

While I refuse to be a victim – I refuse to play the specialty card to get what I want – those experiences still haunt me. I’m still hurt by all of that. I’ve never revealed the details until now, but they have always been with me. Unless I live long enough to develop Alzheimer’s, they’ll always be with me. I still feel like a loser, even now. I hate that I feel that way, but I don’t know how else to feel. I still feel like that kid who wanted to be part of the in-crowd and is being humiliated in the attempt. It has kept going that way. After my parents divorced, I stayed with my mom to try to help her out but I had to move on at some point; in 2005, I moved out on my own. I met another lesbian who had bought a home and needed a roommate because she and her girlfriend were about to break up. She was a very attractive girl and we became very fast friends, but it didn’t last. When she eventually told me she didn’t want me in her life anymore, several years after I’d moved out of her house, the only reasons she was able to give me were very superficial – the way I dressed, the music I liked, the fact that I was too butch.

I rarely, if ever, let anyone new in now. I feel as though I have been useless my entire life. I’m no angel…a long time ago, I was an honest-to-god pious little jackass. I would never try to blame my actions on my childhood because no matter what I went through, I still knew right from wrong. I don’t think I ever deserved to feel the way I do now, though. I don’t deserve to fear that everyone around me is secretly thinking about how much they can’t stand me. I don’t deserve to be afraid to go out and meet people because I don’t believe I’ll ever feel worthy of being loved. I sure as hell don’t deserve to hope that I’ll get the chance to die in some heroic act so my life will make sense to somebody.

The kind of people who say that bullying is no big deal have never had to wake up with those ghosts.

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