links for 2007-03-12
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one of our authors.
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Download them and stick them on food at the grocery store.
Urban Design Indianapolis
While we were exploring downtown Austin, we had an extended discussion comparing Austin and Indianapolis – and how Indy is quite a bit behind on basic urban design and development. Last night, though, a related email landed in my inbox forwarded by my neighborhood association – a link to Indianapolis’s website detailing their urban planning initiatives for downtown.
links for 2007-03-09
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Yay! Also, an adorable picture with the article.
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More adorable monkey pictures. I love the monkeys.
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A solid list of unflattering and even homophobic portrayals of gay and effeminate men on film.Some of these were also covered in the Celluloid Closet.
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Review of the new movie 300 reveals some homophobic stereotypes in the film, with the main villain being an effeminate man. Bad form for a really stylized movie. Why must they ruin interesting film with this sort of thing?
I Am Not An “Activist”
I hate the word activist. Mainly because it’s one of those right-wing propaganda, tar-and-feather, hot button words that Frank Luntz cultivated to brand liberals as crazy folks who are out to burn down your house and roast your kids on the bar-be-que. (Read more about Frank Luntz and his language campaign – it’s important to know if you’re at all interested in politics. It will make you suspicious of how all arguments from the right are framed, and help you recognize spin jobs and Republican astroturf.)
You can see the word “activist” in action in a recent Micah Clark American Family Association message to his Christian support base:
As you can imagine Eric Miller (Advance America) and I are not popular on the homosexual web sites this week. The activists have convinced themselves that legislators actually believe that AFA’s opposition was “nutty”.
Yeah, I’m one of those “homosexual websites” – although he’s probably referring to Gary or Bil – I doubt I’m important enough to be on his radar. And when he’s talking about “activists” he’s talking about me, too.
But seriously – you know me. Most of the people who read my site are my family members and friends. If you were throwing out words to describe me, would “activist” be one of them? Would you characterize me the way that Micah Clark does? Do you think I’m radical? Crazy? Outside the mainstream?
But the other reason I hate the word is because I don’t want to be active in politics. I hate politics. I know – I write almost constantly about politics and show up at the statehouse and city-county council, so that doesn’t seem correct, but it’s true. I really don’t enjoy politics at all, and would rather have nothing to do with it. I really wish my entire involvement in politics was showing up to vote once a year. I find the whole process excruciating; the arguing, the ass-kissing, the public speaking, the obvious lying and animosity. Ugh.
But I don’t really have any choice in the matter. As a gay person in a red state, I have to pay attention to what’s going on and to act because it has a direct impact on my personal life in so many ways – legally, financially, safety and security-wise. I really wish I didn’t have to. There are so many things I’d rather be doing instead. But when I do go off and do other stuff, stuff I really enjoy, I feel horribly guilty, like I’m not meeting my obligations. And when things happen like the Bias Crimes Bill stalling – I feel like its my fault.
And when it comes to politics in general – Bush, the war, Republicans – I can’t shake the feeling that the world is moving in a profoundly wrong direction. And I feel like I have to say something about that, although I’d rather not have to think about it at all.
I know that some people pursue political endeavors because they feel a “romantic hero” sense about it all, but that doesn’t appeal to me. I already have my Dulcinea, I’m tired of tilting at windmills.
SJR-7 and Eric Miller
Due to supervising all the work on my old house over the past few weeks, and the work on our current home (which is still ongoing. Sigh.), and a busy time at work, and preparation to go to SXSW, I’m guilty of quite a few “drive-by” posts: where I mention important things without enough context (or appropriate editing, grammar, spelling, etc.) or worse yet, fail to mention important things. Here’s a bit of a round-up of some Important issues I’ve been neglecting…
SJR-7 – the Marriage Discrimination Bill: got renamed for it’s entrance on the House side of the legislature: it’s now called House Joint Resolution 15 (HJR 15). It had it’s first reading, and will be assigned to a committee sometime soon – probably this week.
Now is an important time to contact your legislators – and to urge your friends and family to do so. Evangelical “Christian” Eric Miller has thousands of people writing to legislators in support of this bill, which will take away rights for all unmarried couples, not just gay ones.
On a side note – While Laura McPhee has written an excellent, must-read article for Nuvo on the very dangerous Eric Miller and how he’s pursuing taking away not just my rights but yours too on a whole host of issues, she fails to give credit to what is obviously one of her key sources on the issue – Gary Welsh from Advance Indiana, who’s published much of this information previously. We know how I feel about not citing sources. Tut, tut!
The Bias Crimes Bill (HB 1459) – got stalled because Jackie Walorski (R-Lakeville) inserted an amendment into the bill to make it a hate crime to have an abortion. Yeah. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Eric Miller got thousands to people to send in letters protesting it. Yes, that makes no sense if you know what the bill actually does – protects every single Hoosier from crime based on a perceived bias – but Miller was able to lie to his followers about the bill, claiming it gave special protection “homosexuals and cross-dressers.” Aside from the fact that this isn’t true, isn’t it a bit odd that Miller and his ilk are so emphatic/public about defending beating up gay and transgendered people? Makes me wonder what they do in their free time.
There are quite a few other things I missed writing about – Matthew Shepard’s mom came to town to speak at the University of Indianapolis on Tuesday night. I had the opportunity to go, but didn’t have time to attend. I’d really like to have seen her speak.
links for 2007-03-08
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Graphic novels of the Heroes tv show.
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Mohinder’s site – with a wiki about the show.
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Of course “effeminate men” were censored.
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Fantastic article on the dangerous and radical lobbyist Eric Miller. A must-read, eye-opening account. It’s overwhelming how many people hate gays in Indiana, and what lengths they will go to to attack our families.
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The purpose of the Center for Inquiry is to promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor.
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The Council for Secular Humanism cultivates rational inquiry, ethical values, and human development through the advancement of secular humanism.
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The ultimate hang-over remedy.
Schoolyard Taunts
“The word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference. It is a schoolyard taunt… It isn’t offensive to gays. It has nothing to do with gays.”
As I’ve said before, there are souls out there in the universe for whom the word faggot was the last word they heard as they were beaten to death.
One of my former roommates was brutally beaten in the alley outside Greg’s Place – and the men who beat him called him a faggot repeatedly while they beat him, before they tried to run over him with their car as they speed away from the scene of the crime.
I was called a dyke and a queer over and over again when I was raped.
These are not simply schoolyard taunts. They are offensive to gay people. That should go without saying, but apparently it doesn’t. They are words of hate, and they have no place in our public discourse. And if CPAC isn’t interested in denouncing Ann Coulter, then they get to take ownership the words of hate she spewed on their stage.
University of Wisconsin’s Loss of Domestic Partner Benefits Loses Faculty
I linked to this story earlier, but the story bears more attention, and I’ve found some addition links with more information. The state of Wisconsin is pursuing a same sex-marriage ban and is refusing to provide domestic partner benefits, and as a result the nation’s leading researcher in nanotechnology, Robert Carpick, left the University of Wisconsin-Madison to go to the University of Pennsylvania – and he took the grant money for nanotechnology with him, basically killing UWM’s entire program.
Journal Sentinel: Researcher, grants leaving UW for lack of partner benefits
Wisconsin State Journal: Let state insure domestic partners
DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS; Out of step, uncompetitive
This is essentially what will happen here in Indiana as well – to be competitive, universities need to attract the best and the brightest, and taking away these benefits will foster an air of intolerance that will keep them far away from Indiana.
Alumni – Contact IU and Purdue about SJR-7
The bill I’ve been writing so much about lately – SJR-7 – will have an affect on the domestic partnership benefits that are offered by state universities. Currently Purdue and IU have these benefits, and Ball State and other universities have been considering adopting them to remain competitive for the best faculty.
Currently, the right-wing sponsors of SJR-7 are lying their faces off to universities and trying to convince them that the bill won’t have any affect on these benefits. Chris Douglas has a really good post about how wrong they are, and Gary Welsh also talks about the legal analysis while talking about the recent Associated Press article on this very subject.
If you are an IU or Purdue faculty member, staff member, student or alum, please contact the trustees by phone or e-mail immediately to ask them to voice opposition to SJR7. Also, please forward this information to any of your friends or acquaintances who are IU or Purdue faculty, staff, students or alums. (At the end of this [pos is a sample letter to the trustees, for your consideration.). Contact information for IU is below the fold. I don’t have info hand on Purdue, but it should be easy to look up.
If you wish to send an e-mail to a single address, the trustees’ secretary Robin Gress will forward messages: rgress@indiana.edu; tel. 812-855-3762; fax 812-855-5959.
If you wish to address all of the trustees in person, here are their e-mail addresses:
Clarence W. Boone, Sr.: cwboone@indiana.edu
William R. Cast: wcast@comcast.net
Jeffrey S. Cohen: cohenj@stifel.com
Casey B. Cox: cbcox@indiana.edu
Philip N. Eskey, Jr.: philannsq@aol.com
Stephen L. Ferguson: bdot@indiana.edu
Thomas E. Reilly, Jr.: tomreillyjr@hotmail.com
Patrick A. Shoulders: pshoulders@zsws.com
Sue H. Talbot: shtalbot@indiana.edu
Their individual phone numbers are listed at: http://www.indiana.edu/~trustees/contact.shtml
I suggest you also copy the university Provost–Michael A. McRobbie–and the director of University Human Resource Services–Dan Rives. Their e-mail addresses are: mcrobbie@indiana.edu and drives@indiana.edu.
Below is the text of a sample letter you could tweak and use, courtesy of John Clower from Indiana Equality.
Dear Trustees of Indiana University:
I am writing to urge you as a body to oppose Senate Joint Resolution 7. SJR7 is a proposed amendment to the Indiana Constitution that would deny rights and legal protections associated with marriage to all unmarried couples, same-sex or otherwise.
Passage of SJR7 would have a chilling and deterrent effect on efforts to attract and retain the best IU faculty, staff and students. It would signal a statewide intolerance of diversity and work against IU’s efforts to create new economic opportunities in partnership with the private sector, particularly in the life sciences.
The quality-of-life issues and family protections that SJR7 could affect extend beyond health-care coverage to fee courtesy, emergency family leave, hospital visitation rights, inheritance decisions, family tax benefits and adoption rights. Moreover, SJR7 violates the spirit of IU’s nondiscrimination policy as well as the proud legacy of equality bequeathed to us by former IU President Herman B Wells.Although some lawyers are apparently counseling you that Indiana’s public universities “might not” or “probably won’t” be affected by SJR7, other lawyers think that public universities would indeed be affected. Playing Russian Roulette with quality of life and family protections for unmarried couples and their children at IU is simply not acceptable.
Please voice your public opposition to SJR7, and please authorize IU’s statehouse lobbyist to carry that message to Governor Daniels and to the leaders of the Indiana House and Senate.
Respectfully,
[Your name]
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