Author: MAJeff

[Crossposted at CultureKitchen]

File this one in the “What the Fuck?!” file:

The bill is HFC004 (pdf file) and here is what it covers:

Here’s my favorite part.  The bill actually defines sexual intercourse:

I didn’t know it was possible to penetrate clitorises.

The bill sets up a series of procedures that “intended parents” must go through, and says who is allowed to become a parent–heterosexually married people only, thank you.  The really, really mean that:

It also bans non-heterosexually married people from entering into surrogacy agreements.  The eligibility pre-screening includes gathering such information as the values of the parents and their religious engagement, their financial status, and an evaluation of the safety of the community (sorry to you folks who can’t afford to live in the nice, safe suburbs). People whose criminal background checks come back with certain crimes are not allowed to become parents.

Beyond the outrage behind banning certain people from utilizing services that are available, this is also an incredibly invasive law in the types of information it requires and the judgements it makes based upon them.  This is troubling as hell, and I’m not sure how parts of it will stand up in Court.  But, damn, they’re really getting serious about forcibly maintaining heterosexual marriage.  They’re trying to fuck over everyone.

The bill is currently before the joint Health Finance Commission.  

Nota Bene
The following statement has been cross-posted at the blogs of the undersigned. If you would like to add your blog to the list, please leave a comment at CultureKitchen.

***

To members of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate:

We are a group of writers who are passionately committed to supporting women’s basic freedom as citizens of the United States. We are appealing to you as free citizens dedicated to political growth, fairness and the spirit of Liberty guaranteed in the US Constitution.

We are not paid pundits or political operatives. We are concerned citizens who represent the diversity of the United States: women and men, straight and gay, single and married, religious and atheist, of different races, religions and ethnicities. Some of us are even parents even after having abortions. And we all blog because we have to.

We have taken to this citizen media to create communities of hope. In our blogs people rant and rave, discuss and debate to share the one thing we all agree about : The United States Constitution is about creating common ground among the many, not limiting freedom for the benefit of the few.
Yes, the battle for the Supreme Court is about the right to privacy.

Yes, the battle for the Supreme Court is about civil rights.

Yes, the battle for the Supreme Court is about state rights.

Yet what is at stake in the the reconfiguration of the Supreme Court, is the fundamental right to freedom for all peoples living under the Bill of Rights and unenumerated rights retained by the people. Roberts’ has consistently opposed the interests of the people in his career. The decisions, dissents and legal documents that have been released for scrutiny point to the man’s willingness to find ways to use technicalities to curtail freedom and not expand it. Although it would be easy to demonstrate this willingness through his involvement in cases dealing with reproductive rights, it is the following three cases that show a road map to what could happen to the US Constitution under a Chief Justice Roberts :

Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)

Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, 334 F.3d 1158 (D.C. Cir.2003), cert. denied, 124 S. Ct. 2061 (2004)

Hedgepeth v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 386 F.3d 1148 (D.C. Cir. 2004):

In defending a religious minority’s demand to impose their religious customs on the majority (1), in attacking Congress’ right to regulate commerce under national standards (2) and in stating that using the full extent of the law in cases involving minors is necessary to promote “parental awareness of commission delinquent actsÓ (3); John Roberts has advocated positions which

(1) are skewed to the ideology of religious extremists,

(2) balkanize the country into a loose mesh of little republics

(3) use a restrictive fundamentalist view to coerce a moral outcome through legal means

The extremist religious minority in this country have used the excuse of states’ compelling interest in children’s welfare as a reason to seek limits to the Constitution. Parenting rights are being used to impose unfettered limitations of reproductive rights on the state level. All across the country laws have been passed curtailing the movement of minors from one state to the other in search of abortions. Some states have even made it a capital offense punishable with the death penalty to aid a minor with no parental consent. This is appalling.

These laws have been passed as an affirmation of parents’ right to choose in private what is best for their families. Some of us are mothers and fathers and we would most certainly want the government to uphold our rights to choose how to parent our children without intervention of the government. But laws protecting parenting rights should do no harm nor become precedents in the limiting of individual rights.

These laws impose a view of parenting that may actually be harmful to many underage women in need of an abortion. To restrict their individual rights and define them as extensions of their parents or guardians endangers not only endanger young women’s lives but are an attack on the very idea of individual rights and personal freedom.

Judge Roberts’ rulings can become a weapon for extremists who would impose their reproductive agendas against the will of their underage yet sexually mature daughters. It exposes young women in abusive or coercive situations to further abuse and physical danger.

We advocate Freedom.

The right to determine one’s own sexual and reproductive behavior is a fundamental aspect of liberty. A woman’s ability to control her reproductive options has a profound effect on her health and on every aspect of her life. It can affect her educational opportunities, her career and is the single most profound change that can occur in her life. Pregnancy is a life-altering and potentially life-threatening experience. Consider these statistics:

• The United States ranks below 20 other developed nations in the rate of maternal deaths.
• The maternal death rate has not gone down since 1982.
• The Rate of maternal deaths for black women has been three to four times that of white women since 1940.
• Complications of pregnancy include ectopic pregnancy, premature labor, hemorrhage, blood clots, high blood pressure, infection, stroke, amniotic fluid in the bloodstream, diabetes and heart disease. Poor women suffer disproportionately due to lack of prenatal care and inadequate health insurance.
• The number one cause of death in pregnant women in America is murder.

The choice to have a child must be made by an individual, without coercion from any external source or influence, if the individual is to be considered truly free. The current anti-choice movement has revealed itself repeatedly as uninterested in preventing unwanted pregnancies or reducing the number of abortions performed in this country. If this were truly their goal, they would be anxious to make “Plan B” contraceptives readily available. We know it is not an abortificant, and merely prevents pregnancy from taking place. If the goal was to protect young women’s lives, they would encourage educating women about the use of condoms in preventing the spread of HIV and other venereal diseases, and the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.

Women are more likely than men to contract HIV through sexual encounters and about 42 per cent of all persons infected with HIV are women.

Cancer of the cervix, the most common form of cancer in developing countries, is often linked to the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus. There are already moves to block the availability of a vaccine being developed which could prevent this form of cancer.

To withhold this information to young women is to literally condemn some of them to death. Those who oppose women’s reproductive autonomy oppose all of these things that could make having a child or even having sex a safer experience. It is clear that they are not interested in the healthy births of healthy children, but in controlling sexual behavior of women by codifying a particular, restrictive religious view in the laws of our country. It is not the place of government to legislate morality for its citizens. It is the place of government to insure the health and well-being of its people. It is clear that if women’s reproductive freedom is restricted that women will die needlessly and many women and their children will suffer unnecessarily.

Opposing women’s reproductive autonomy is to oppose the unalienable right to Liberty with which each individual is naturally endowed. Freedom to live as we choose, freedom to love whomever we love, freedom to pursue happiness in our own way, without coercion from our neighbors or the state. This is why we oppose John Roberts: We believe it is not the place of government to legislate morality for its citizens. We know that a woman who cannot control her own person is not free.

If Congress is to appoint conservative jurists, We The People demand they are mainstream conservatives that will uphold the Constitution as a common ground for all, not the playground of the few. It is the place of government to insure every single person in this country has an opportunity to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Moreover, as Congress comes together to consider the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, it has to ask how two years on the bench can possibly make a person qualified to be the top jurist in the land. We are deeply disturbed that Judge Roberts attempted to conceal his membership in the Federalist Society, and his role in Bush V. Gore.

We have seen the tragic consequences of George W. Bush’s patronage appointments in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We must be more vigilant in vetting the qualifications, experience and abilities of the nominees put forth by the Bush administration.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court must be a seasoned judge with a record that can be openly and completely examined. The White House’s refusal to release all documents pertaining to the nominee is further cause for extreme caution in this matter. Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. This choice will affect the lives of all Americans for decades to come. We must have transparency in the process, and it must be rigorous and thorough.

We oppose the nomination of John Roberts, and ask that our Congressional representatives stand firm in insisting that the people chosen to fill the two vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States of America be people on whom we can rely to uphold the ideals that make us uniquely American –equal protection under the law, justice for all citizens in equal measure, equal opportunity, and true Liberty – the right to personal and individual autonomy.

Anything less cannot be allowed to exist if we are to call ourselves the descendants of Jefferson and Adams, or Washington and Franklin. Without a secular government and equal treatment for all, we cannot call ourselves Americans anymore.

Lorraine Berry, culturekitchen
Chris Bowers, MyDD
Mary Beth Crocket, Our Word.org
Greenboy, Needlenose
Jeff Langstraat, culturekitchen
MediaGirl
Lauren, Feministe
Professor B, Bitch PhD
Renee Marie, Our Word
Maryscott O’Connor, My Left Wing
Liza Sabater, culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham
Stephenie Schultze, Packed in Saccharin
Nichelle Stephens, Nichelle Newsletter
Morgaine Swann, The-Goddess
Susan Mandrak, Suburban Guerilla
Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon
Lynn Siprelle, Dean Speaks For Me
Sheelzebub, Pinko Feminist Hellcat
Liane Allen, Rhetoric 101

An updated list of the signers can be found in this post.  Please leave a comment at CultureKitchen if you would like to be added to the list.

Yesterday was my 37th birthday.  Today, I’m feeling older: when I got off my bed from watching TV to play with my cat last night, I was struck by a fairly intense lower back pain (it’s fairly dull now)–I haven’t really been able to bend over since then.  But, my cat, Harriet, is actually the lead-in for this piece.

Tonight, I’m having a birthday party.  One of the things I’ve been doing when throwing parties for myself out here in MA, is to bring a piece of Minnesota to the folks here.  My parents shipped me a bunch of bratwurst from Schmitt’s Meat Market in Nicollet, MN and I’m making my killer German Potato Salad (I posted that recipe a couple years ago–it’s undergone modification since then). This is definitely an artery-clogging party.

The other thing I try to do at these parties is raise a little money. In the invititation to the party, I sent people a link to this post, which was before Hurricane Katrina–otherwise the post would have included organizations like Noah’s Wish and the American Red Cross.  Last year, I passed the hat for the Kerry campaign.  This year, I’m doing it for Noah’s Wish:

With all the devastation along the gulf coast, it’s easy to overlook the animals affected by Hurrican Katrina, especially companion animals.  I sat at my computer and cried as I watched this piece.  I could completely relate to the young man who refused to leave without his dog. No one would be able to get me to leave Harriet behind…NO ONE! (The picture to the right is Harriet in our Minneapolis apartment.)  She’s my baby.

My favorite time of the day is what I call “Kitty lovin’ time.”  Before I leave for work and in the evening, I just spend time with Harriet.  We play or I scratch her tummy or behind her ears.  There have been times when I’ve had her purring so hard she starts to wheeze.  Other times, when it’s time for bed, she’ll lay on her back, cradled in my armpit, and fall asleep–when she starts to snore, I melt.  She gets fussy with me if I leave town: last summer, when I got back from a week in Minnesota, and while I was talking with my roommate outside, she stood on the balcony above me and, yes, screamed at me.  It was a “Where in the fuck have you been?! Get up here NOW!!”  She then followed me around the house for a week.  Harriet is more than merely a pet.  She’s my family.

I think of how I would react if I were to lose her.  I would be devastated.  I know a hell of a lot of other people who feel the same way about their companion animals, and there are thousands of people along the Gulf currently feeling that devastation.  It compounds the other losses.

If you can, please help.

[Note, the top image is from this Yahoo slideshow.…also crossposted at CultureKitchen.]

[Update: Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes. That was more of a point of entry into the donation thingy (hint, hint) but I do appreciate them…and if you get a chance (and actually eat pork) try the salad–it’s marvelous…Turkey bacon might work, but you need something that actually gives off grease, so I’d add some butter if you’re using turkey]

As it’s simple IF you ignore the complexity noted, the Massachusetts General Court, convened in Constitutional Convention, yesterday defeated a proposed constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage and creat Civil Unions by a vote of 157-39.  So, marriage equality in Masachusetts is safe….for the time being.

The defeat of this amendment was caused by four interrelated factors.  The first is electoral politics.  In the general election last fall, every single marriage equality supporter who ran won re-election, while a couple of marriage equality opponents lost.  Additionally, our supporters have won a few special elections since the general.  Not only did we pick up votes via elections, but those elections also showed people who were closet supporters of marriage equality that a backlash for such a vote was unlikely.  The legislature itself is different than it was during the 2004 ConCon:

Second, marriage equality supporters organized and acted even when the issue wasn’t on the front pages:

Our life stories are one of the most effective tools queer folks bring to debates over gay issues.

Time and experience have been a third factor.  Over 6000 same-sex couples have now wed in Massachusetts.  It’s not a hypothetical situatin in this state, it’s a reality, and that has had effects, on the state and its politicians:

House Speaker Sal DiMasi put it another way:

Additionally, as I noted on the anniversary of the first marriages in the Bay State, a poll (pdf) conducted by MassEquality found that:

• Massachusetts residents support allowing gay couples to marry by a 62-35 margin.
• Thirty-six percent believe marriage equality has improved the quality of life in Massachusetts, while 13% believe it has made the state worse.
• Fifty-six percent of the Bay State’s residents are proud of our first-in-the-nation status.

The trends are on our side!

Finally, and this brings me to the “looking ahead” side of things, opponents of marriage equality withdrew their support from yesterday’s amendment.  The only real affect of that withdrawal yesterday was making the vote more lopsided (again, we had enough votes to kill it).  

Marriage equality opponents came out against this amendment, which they supported last year, because they are trying to push through a different amendment which would ban same-sex marriage without creating civil unions.

Here’s hot that process will play out:

• Sponsors of the amendment will need to gather around 66,000 signatures to bring the amendment before the General Court.  Signature gathering is beginning this month and will end in November.  
• If they gather the requisite signatures, the amendment must be approved by two consecutive legislatures.  A major issue, though, is that rather than the 101 votes required to pass a legislatively initatied amendment, a citizen-petition amendment requires 50 votes in both of those sessions to move to the ballot.
• If they amendment passes those two consecutive legislatures, it will appear on the 2008 ballot.

I can’t remember which article it’s in, but supporters of this new amendment believe they have 60 votes, enough to ensure that same-sex marriage will be a campaign issue in 2008, if nothing changes.

This new amendment may still be killed by the Courts.  GLAD has challenge Attorney General Reilly’s certification of the amendment.  (The GLAD site’s top story has links to legal memos they filed with Reilly arguing against his certification of the amendment.)  Reilly may have kissed the gay vote goodby for his gubanatorial campaign.

If the courts reject GLAD’s challenge, we already know when the first vote on the amendment will take place.  The Legislature has set the date for it’s next meeting as Constitutional Convention as May 10, 2006.

Our opponents are also trying out a new strategy; they’re trying to find an alternative way to grant marriage benefits to gay couples, among others:

This way, they’ll be able to say, “See, they’ll still have this rights if our amendment passes.”  

I’m actually torn on this new legislation.  I do recognize that it’s a cynical ploy to tear support away from full marriage equality, to cloud the issues for upcoming campaigns.  However, it would also extend real material benefits for those currently not eligible.  I’m in favor of a menu of options, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all approach of marriage only, so I sort of support it.  The cynicism behind it, and the use to which our opponents will put it, and the fact that it’s legislative and could be repealed at any time–and don’t think lots of folks won’t try to do so, at least as it concerns queer folks–make me wary of supporting it.  And that’s part of their point–if they can get gay folks to come out against the provision of benefits to others, they can make us appear selfish, concerned only with ourselves, and drive a wedge between marriage equality supporters.  

As I said above, time has been our ally.  In the long term, I’m optimistic about retaining marriage equality in Massachusetts.  Three more years of same-sex couples marrying will have an effect on the state.  Because we haven’t seen the kinds of social calamity resulting from this, the fear-based arguments against it will likely be less effective.

However, it will be ugly.  The right hates the fact that Massachusetts allows same-sex couples to marry.  They’re going to throw everything they have at us.  Anti-gay rhetoric will be ramped up, and anti-gay violence will likely increase (it almost always does when gay issues are the subject of political controversy).  Gay folks will continue to be subject to humiliating debates over whether or not we’re entitled to the full rights of citizenship, indeed, whether we’re full human.  While I honestly believe we can kill the amendment in 2008, I don’t want to face it.

We won yesterday.  We won big.  It’s going to take more work, however, to keep that victory.  So, if you want to help us keep this victory, please consider contributing to the folks doing the organizing and legal and legislative work (links to donation page):

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) is the legal organization that has been doing amazing work in New England.   These are the folks that brought Baker v. State, resulting in Civil Unions in Vermont, and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, resulting in marriage equality in Massachusetts.  They are also currently challenging the infamous “1913 Law” that Reilly and Governor Willard Romney (R-UT) have been using to keep out of state couples from marrying, and are pursuing full marriage equality through the Connecticut Courts.

MassEquality are the folks who have been doing much of the grassroots organizing.  They’ve been doing incredible work, putting people in touch with legislators, assisting with electoral campaigns, developing media, lobbying….

There’s work yet to be done.

[Crossposted at CultureKitchen and DailyKos.]

We can only hope that the rest of the country follows the University of California’s lead here (via the Panda’s Thumb):

It appears that yet another creationism-related lawsuit is in the works. This time, the venue is in California, and it is the Creationists who are doing the suing. Apparently, the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murietta are no longer satisfied with being able to teach their students creationism instead of real biology. Now, they also want to make sure that their students will not have to suffer the consequences of this decision, and they are suing for that “right”.

The University of California System, quite reasonably, requires that the students that they accept have a certain educational background. Several courses, including biology, offered by Calvary Chapel were determined to be insufficient to meet the UC standards. According to the LA Times article cited above, UC directed Calvary Chapel to instead, “submit for UC approval a secular science curriculum with a text and course outline that addresses course content/knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community.” Typically, the creationists don’t see this as a university excercising it’s duty to ensure that its students are properly prepared for admission. Instead, they see it as yet more evidence of the anti-Christian “bias” that they see anytime they do not get things their own way.

Students who have received creationist narratives as a substitute for science are not academically prepared for the admission to a university.  That seems like an eminently reasonable position to me.  Maybe those of us who work in the academy should start taking a look at similar actions.  

The Utah Board of Education steps up to the plate as well, calling ID the pseudo-scientific bullshit it is:

As a fundamental scientific concept, evolution is a necessary part of science classroom instruction, and it will continue to be taught and progressively refined as a key scientific principle,” the 1 1/2-page document states.

“Teachers should respect and be nonjudgmental about (student) beliefs, and teachers should help students understand that science is an essential way of knowing. Teachers should encourage students to discuss any seeming conflicts with their parents or religious leaders.”

The document also defines the weight of theory in scientific context, cites evidence that the universe and life have changed over time, and notes other ways people glean understanding, such as historical analysis, art, religion and philosophy, which rely upon “other ways of knowing, such as emotion and faith.

“While these ways of understanding and creating meaning are important to individuals and society, they are not amenable to scientific investigation and thus not appropriate for inclusion in the science curriculum,” the document states.

The whole “controversy” over Creationism/Intelligent Design really has very little to do with science, even though science has been drawn into it.  The real story is a group of feable-minded people who claim that the creation myth of a nomadic tribe who lived thousands of years ago must be taken as the actual Truth of what happened or all of reality will collapse.  They attribute any and every disagreement to disagreement with that position.  I disagree with that position, but that’s not why I know (I don’t believe it, I know it) evolution occured (and continues to occur).  I disagree with their position because of the evidence of evolution (as well as the evidence of civilizations existing prior to the “date” of creation).  I reject their position not out of some animosity, but because of the evidence. (The animosity comes from what they’re trying to do.)

The folks pushing this tripe have been incredibly effective in their publicity.  They’ve managed to take a point of scientific consensue  and create a political controversy.  In their reality, everything flows from political position.  Here’s something I wrote along these lines a few months ago:

The partisan political framing of academic knowledge production is highly problematic, especially for many of us in the social sciences and humanities. Some of the foundational principles of sociology make us particularly good targets. For instance, our emphasis on inequalities flowing from social causes based in power relationships isn’t exactly amenable to a perspective that proposes atomistic individuals who “make it” or fail to based on sheer willpower and effort. Our emphasis that the meaning of any action is contextual and not inherent doesn’t sit well with moral absolutists. The call of one of our discipline’s founders, Max Weber, to maintain a “respect for inconvenient facts” is one the wingnuts willingly ignore. I wouldn’t say that sociology is “liberal” so much as I would say that the ontological assumptions upon which sociology rest have political implications. If you want to study asocial actors making rational choices, study economics or law at the University of Chicago.

Anyone who cares about knowledge should be outraged by the attacks on evolution.  Those of us who work in the academy, even if far afield of the biological sciences, has cause for concern.  The ontological underpinnings of all of our disciplines are to be tossed aside in favor of liberal/conservative positions on any issue.  Questions of methodology become useful only insofar as they uphold a conservative orthodoxy.  Epistemology is to be tossed out the window.  In their world, only ideology matters.

[Crossposted at CultureKitchen]

Well, we finally have a date for the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention to vote again on whether or not to do away with marriage equality in Massachusetts.  It’s September 14.  Here’s some background.

Late in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down its ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.  They ruled that the Bay State’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage violated the Commonwealth’s constitution.

Last spring, the General Court met as a Constitutional Convention to debate an amendment to the Constitution that would bar marriage equality.  After four days of maneuvering, debating, and voting, stretched out over a couple of months, the General Court passed an amendment that would ban marriage equality but create civil unions by a vote of 105-101.  We lost, but the most odious amendments were all defeated.

Last fall, pro-marriage equality candidates picked up two seats in the general election.  Since then, equality candidates have won two special elections, taking seats previously held by marriage equality opponents.  Additionally, at least two legislators who voted for the amendment last year have publicly vowed to vote against it this year.  If things stay that way, we will defeat the amendment.

Something else that makes the defeat of this amendment more likely is the efforts of our leading homohaters.  They’ve decided to pull their support from the current amendment, and go through the initiative process to place a different amendment on the ballot.  The difficulty behind that amendment is that it only requires the approval of 25% of two consecutive legislatures, instead of the 50% required for legislatively initiated amendments.  These folks are hoping to have the amendment on the ballot for the 2008 election (barring some kind of legislative maneuvering, it will probably be on the ballot).

Here’s how you can help:

Donate to MassEquality. Ambassador James Hormel has agreed to match every dollar donated with fifty cents of his own money. So, your gift will be worth 150% of what you give.

If you live in Massachusetts, contact your legislators.  There has been a major lull in political activity over this issue, and many legislators probably haven’t heard from constituents since last year’s ConCon. They need to be reminded that marriage equality is good for Massachusetts.

If you know people in Massachusetts, have them contact their legislators.  There has been little coverage of the issue here in the Bay State since the one-year anniversary of the first marriages back in May.  Most people probably aren’t aware that equal marriage rights can still be taken away.

We can win this.  The majority of Bay State residents now support marriage equality.  Winning will require outworking the homohaters, though–and those fuckers are driven!

[Ed: Ok, I changed the title.]

The War over Amanda’s vagina, actually everyone who has one’s vagina (and penis), got me thinking about an earlier dustup Amanda had with the purity fetishists.  I don’t feel like going back through all the comments in all the threads, but one of the reasons for the PF’s objections to both the PP ad and the playful, mocking way that liberals responded, was that they “take sex seriously.”  The reason we liberals joke about sex, talk about it openly, hell, enjoy it is because we don’t take it seriously.  I’d offer this in response:  The reason we’re able to joke about it, talk about it, and have a hell of a good time doing it is because we take sex seriously.

Taking sex seriously means recognizing its complexity.  Sex is messy, intimate, threatening, intimidating, intimate, spiritual, profane, exciting, mundane, pleasurable, awkward, intense…and funny. (C’mon, y’all know you have stories where somebody fell off the bed or pulled a muscle or farted at an inopportune moment or made the ugliest face you’ve ever seen or woke your parents…)  In order to understand this complexity, to deal with it in our own lives, we must first recognize it. We simply cannot give sex a singular meaning without doing violence to it.
Taking sex seriously means placing it within the context of actual people’s lives.  People have sex for lots of reasons.  It isn’t always the perfect ending to an intimate and romantic evening.  Sometimes you do it because you know your partner will go to sleep sooner.  Sometimes, it’s because you’re feeling lonely.  Sometimes it’s because you’re just horny.  Dressing sex up in romantic fantasies and tossing Fabio on the cover might make you some money, but it’s not a very good representation of the ways most people experience sex.

Taking sex seriously means being realistic about our bodies.   We exist as embodied selves.  The bones, blood, muscles, tendons, organs, nerves and brains that constitute our bodies are frighteningly fragile and immensely pleasurable.   Contrary to what some may think, it is possible to hold both of these bodily potentials–and many more–in our minds at the same time.  Actually, a serious approach to sex would probably demand it.

I’d like to delve into this by looking at a comment in another skirmish in the Vagina Wars, as well as an anti-masturbation, (er, anti-auteroticism) post by Bonnie.

First, the comment itself:

Fucking is fun

Fuck, yeah!! Let’s all just fucking blow common fucking sense to fucking hell for the fucking sake of fifteen fucking minutes of fucking pleasure. Caution to the fucking wind, baby!

And if the fucking sperm penetrates the fucking egg, then just swallow a fucking load of fucking RU486 to get rid of the little fucker.

No fucking worries, mate!

Just fuck, fuck, fuck to your fucking heart’s content and never mind about fucking HIV, herpes, warts, crabs, or the fucking clap.

No need for fucking marriage! Who the fuck fucks with matrimony these fucking days, anyway? Just fucking shack up and save on your fucking taxes.

Have a nice fucking day!

OK, then.  Big assumption here that the recognition that Fucking is Fun! forces the recognition that sex is also risky out of people’s tiny little minds.  The engorgement of penises and clitorises must cause shrinkage in our brains.  Sex causes the body, physical and social, to decay.  We can see the purity fetishists taking such an approach constantly.  It’s in the lies they tell (pdf) in abstinence-only education.  It’s in their speech about remaining “pure” until marriage.  Sex is a contaminent.

That’s really the amazing thing about this attitude, though: sex itself is the pathogen.  Sex will give you a disease.  Sex will leave you with regrets.  Sex will lead to negative consequences.  

Sex is all-powerful as well.  We can see it when Paul Cameron says, ” if all you are looking for is orgasm….It’s pure sexuality. It’s almost like pure heroin. It’s such a rush.” To proclaim that Fucking is Fun is to lose all self-control to the omnipotent orgasm.

Those of use who openly declare that Fucking is Fun also tend to be folks who support a more effective approach to sexuality education than what the FPs offer.  Maybe, just maybe, the reason we don’t imbue sex with quite as much danger as the purity fetishists–as though actually saying “masturbation” will cause an angry God to strike us dead (see below)–is that we take the risks for granted and don’t feel the need to emphasize them at every opportunity.   We take them so seriously that we try to ensure that sexuality education includes information on them and how to avoid them.  We even include not having sex in our curricula.

Flat out telling people, “The best way to avoid contracting a disease or having an unwanted pregnancy is to not have sex” is not enough of the PFs, though.  Because some sex can lead to babies, all sex must be of that sort.  Every other sort of sex contaminates.  This means every other sort:

Fundamental to the morality of autoerotism are two issues: ownership of the body, and the purpose of sex. Since one’s body and accompanying personhood have been created by God for God, then they belong to God. They are not one’s own. The body is a living temple to be used in service to Him (Romans 12:1-2 and I Corinthians 6:12-20.) Though sexuality is clearly God-given, it can be perverted in many ways (some of them subtle) as can the view and use of other functions of the body. An awareness of ones God-given sexuality is to be distinguished from exploration of and indulgence of it in the wrong context. The wrong context would be anything outside of the sexual union of a man and wife.

Here’s the bumper sticker form: Sex is Dirty. Save it for someone you love.  Even something as simple as listening to your iPod could be a moment of infection.  A condom is no prophylactic for this disease.

In the realm of cultural morality, to say that something dark is light is to say that morality is relative. When sexuality is relativized (when a merely personal view is taken, or one that confuses spirituality with intense feeling, both physical and emotional), values such as pleasure, gratification, and expression become higher purposes of sex than marital relationship and family-building. In our brave new world of the sexual free-for-all, emphasis is on the present, temporary situation in which adults and children may engage in sexual behavior unrestricted by anything except an absence of mutual consent. There is precious little attention paid to the importance of maturity or the value of continuity and long-term relationship (which usually involves the creating and long-term nurturing of a family, though it may not in the case of infertility).

God did a pretty bad design job for expressing his purposes.  If the only purpose of sex is to make babies and the only form of sex is that which has the potential to make babies, why did God make so many other parts of our bodies capable of providing sexual pleasure?  And if masturbation defeats the “purpose” of sex, why is it good for you? Not very intelligent.

The Bible doesn’t address it specifically, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that autoerotism is not sin. The Bible expresses the importance and exclusivity of the marital sexual union and of the heritage and blessing that children are, which sheds light on the purpose of sex. Sin is that which separates one from God. Can it truthfully be said that autoerotism brings one closer to God, or, at the very least, does not separate one from God, if it indeed represents a use of sex for which it was not designed?

I can honestly say there have been a few nights of flogging the bishop when I have felt a little closer to the divine.  I always let it know how grateful I am for the design errors.

Being a sexual being and having related thoughts is different from using that sexuality for oneself by exploring, developing, or otherwise using it on one’s own. Sexuality is meant to be shared. To whom is one making love when one manipulates oneself?

The married person’s body belongs to his/her spouse (I Corinthians 7:4). A person’s sexuality is not for him/herself, it’s for the spouse, and vice-versa. This is not to say that one’s own sexual satisfaction is not important, but such concern belongs to the spouse. It’s also not to say that a person may have no sexual life of mind outside of sex with his/her spouse; mental awareness is a major part of one’s sexuality. Yet it needn’t proceed into fantasy, nor serve/indulge the self.

Here’s the heart of it.  We do not own our own sexual pleasure.  If your spouse isn’t providing sexual pleasure, it’s none of your concern.  You probably shouldn’t even raise the issue; it’s not your concern.  Your pleasure has nothing to do with you.  Vaginas belong to husbands and penises belong to wives.  Clitorises belong to…well, they’re not important.  To use those body parts without them is to infect that which your spouse owns.  Acknowledging that Fucking is Fun implies that each of us has a claim to our own pleasure.

Regarding the elements of the performance of a sexual act, it’s what these elements are connected to that’s most important. We are sensory beings, and sex is obviously very sensual. If one is unleashing one’s sexuality with and within oneself, there is sensual connection occurring with one’s thoughts, one’s environment, and one’s self. This is the problem, because sex is meant to be a duet, not a solo.

Well, I’d say that, like good jazz, good sex can involve solos or combos of various sizes.  Bonnie doesn’t really see it that way, though.  Underlying her apologia lies a disgust for pleasure, for existing as a sensual being.  Pleasure is to be denied (it’s not your concern) unless taken by your spouse.  Unless, of course, it is the pleasure of writing about sexual pleasure in such a way that sucks all the pleasure out of it.  Bonnie’s “analytic” tone, her use of “autoeroticism” instead of “masturbation” (or any other fun variation), her seeming reluctance to even speak of such a thing , all point to a desire to distance herself from the subject, while still being compelled to write about it (But she must because she’s troubled by the fact no one else seems to be adequately discussing the dread topic).  This compulsion is disease of sex.

Under every claim that Fucking is Fun, they see a world of sexul chaos.  It’s not just that people will be enjoying themselves, but that society will collapse.  Instead of going to work, we’ll fuck.  Instead of taking care of our children, we’ll fuck.  Instead of cooking dinner, we’ll fuck. The omnipotent orgasm of the purity fetishists’ fantasies is what makes them so unserious.  It is in this fantasy realm where mystified, otherworldy, detachable genitalia become the property of others…and even learn to write letters.

As I said at the top of this thing, sex is complex.  Taking it seriously means that we treat it as a real-world phenomenon, in all of it’s complexity.  Investing it with diseased phantasms is not taking it, or its risks, seriously.  Yes, even as we proclaim that Fucking is Fun we recognize that sex carries risks.  We queers are acutely aware of the risks.  We also recognize that the getting people to engage in lower risk behaviors doesn’t come from preaching.  It comes from taking the ways that people have sex, and the roles that sex play in their lives, and talking explicitly about how to reduce their risk of contracting a disease.  

In his book The Trouble With Normal, Michael Warner writes:

In those circles where queerness has been most cultivated, the ground rule is that one doesn’t pretend to be above the indignity of sex….

The rule is: Get over yourself.

p. 35 of the hardcover edition

By disembodying genitalia and giving control over their use to another; by purging concern over one’s own sexual pleasure; by conflating sex with disease and defilement; and by investing the orgasm with the fantastic ability to obliterate rational decision making and destroy society, the purity fetishists are setting themselves apart from and above sex.  Despite their hushed protestations that the seriousness of sex requires modesty in describing sex–even (especially) that sex which shouldn’t be described–their approach to sex is quite unserious.

Talking frankly about sex, joking about it, admitting that Fucking is Fun isn’t giving license to do the nasty in the middle of the street.  It’s being adult enough to talk about sex honestly and realistically becaus, let’s be honest, sex really is funny.

Crossposted at CultureKitchen.

[Note: I’m posting this upon my arrival home in Somerville, but I wrote it last night in the Vancouver airport.  I’m not changing the tense of the piece because I want to retain the immediacy of what I was feeling last night.]

I’m not the type of person who usually cries at weddings.  (I often avoid weddings altogether.)  Today, tears were rolling down my face.  Part of that was, of course, happiness for my aunts.  They had had a rough couple of weeks.  A friend of theirs died recently after a long and difficult struggle with cancer.  Additionally, prior to leaving for this trip, they had to put their dog to sleep.  Her own nine-year struggle with heart problems–Sweetie wasn’t supposed to live more than a few months when they got her–along with breathing problems had finally become too much for her to bear.

Today, though, was a day for celebration.

Thanks to the “good” citizens of Ohio, Ruth and Roxanne’s marriage will have no  legal standing when they return home.  Despite that, though, they are now legally wed.  They had planned to go to both San Francisco and Portland to marry last year, but marriage equality in both those locations were put to a stop less than a week before their planned trips.  So, when the minister said today, “By the power invested in me by the Unitarian Univerasalist Council and the Province of British Columbia I pronounce you married” it carried a bit more emotional weight.

Love and joy filled the sanctuary today, community and family.  My parents walked Ruth down the aisle and Roxanne’s brother and father did the same for her.  All of us who were in attendance took part in the ceremony.  (I had a reading and was in charge of the CD player.)  Their motto is “Life isn’t sure, have dessert first” so we had champagne and cake before going out to dinner.  When we got to the Restaurant, the staff had placed a wedding card on the table for them, which surprised all of us.  It was such a happy day.

This was also a political wedding.  Over coffee this morning (Starbucks is taking over the world), one friend of theirs asked (I’m paraphrasing), “Since this marriage won’t have any legal standing, why not just have a commitment ceremony at home?” Their response was that this was a statement they were making, that those who desire to marry should be allowed to.  Good citizens should be eligible for the full rights of citizenship.  This was also a symbolic statement of how much further ahead Canada is of the United States, of the hollowness of the United States’ commitment to “freedom” and “equality.”  For most gay Americans, those promises are empty, words void of content.

I couldn’t have afforded this trip on my own.  My parents bought my ticket because the thought it was important that I be there, for Ruth and Rox and for me.  I am so happy I was able to be here.  My folks know about the long days I spent at the Massachusetts Statehouse fighting, in my own small way, to keep marriage equality in the Bay State, as well as my dozen years or so of queer activism at varying levels.  Memories of those activities also came flooding back today (another source of the tears).  After the years of frustration, of pain, of fun, of fear, today, in a very small way, I won.  (My parents have no idea how deeply grateful I am for this gift.)

As a wedding gift, I’m making a donation in Ruth and Roxanne’s name to the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.  I’m also going to make a request.  If there’s a gay couple you care deeply about and want to see treated equally, make a donation in their name, to Lambda, to the ACLU or to whatever organization doing this work that you like.  (Or, you could make it in Ruth and Roxanne’s names…)

The struggle for marriage equality will be difficult and long, but we will win.  After all, as today demonstrated, we have something our opponents totally lack: We have the power of love!

Congratulations Ruth and Roxanne.  I love you.

Crossposted at DailyKos and CultureKitchen

[From the diaries by susanhu.] I didn’t see last night’s report on Paula Zahn Now, or this morning’s Good Morning America, but I did catch this evening’s report on Love in Action, a homosexuality extirpation program. I’m fucking pissed.

From what I gather from John’s report at Americablog (link above), this evening’s report was somewhat better than last night’s. At least this evening, the opposition of the APA and AMA to “reparative therapy” were brought into the report, and there were bits of an interview with a psychiatric opponent of this practice. However, there was still an overwhelming heterosexist bias within the story. For instance, while she was interviewing the program’s director, John Smid, Deborah Feyerick asked about the “dangers” people would face upon leaving the “safety” of the program. The teens who have been committed to these programs were referred to as “straightening out.” The overall tone of the segment was highly sympathetic to the homohaters at Love in Action.

Zahn’s interview with a “graduate” (I forgot to write down his name) of the program was even more disappointing.  She did ask, near the end, whether such programs contribute to overall homophobia.  When the Graduate said, “Oh, no. I think it’s just the opposite” she let it slide right by (as she did with his claim that “hundreds of thousands” of people had been helped in the same way he had…there is zero empirical evidence for this claim).  

How does the extirpation of queers not contribute to societal homophobia?

While the “ex-gay” movement has become more sophisticated in its framing (“We’re only trying to help people live in accordance with their faith” and “We don’t get rid of desire, we just alter behavior”) their goal is the eradication of homosexuality.  Their tight links with the anti-gay industry were completely absent from the report.  Indeed, the report itself treated the whole issue as a “controversy.”   The homohaters’ support for the annihilation of my community is, apparently, just one “side” in the debate.  And make no mistake, they are out to eliminate us.  John Smid has makes that quite clear in his final indoctrination to program inmates:

Yup, that certainly is love in action.  Better dead than gay.

The heterosexist assumptions underlying not only the program, but also the report are clear.  Feyerick’s use of “danger” and “safety” in describing leaving the program bring this to the fore.  It’s not just that there may be “temptations” upon leaving the “isolation” of the program, but there are “dangers” around every corner.  The old trope of predatory homosexuality can be very easily inferred to such rhetorical deployments.

Beyond that, however, treating this as merely a “controversy” doesn’t deal with any of these issues.  Instead, it elevates this abusive segment of the anti-gay industry to a respectable position it is unworthy of.  The overwhelming power of heteronormativity remains invisible.  Questions surrounding a failure to abide by the strictures of compulsory heterosexuality are rendered unaskable.  Heterosexuality remains natural.  The means by which heterosexuals are trained and shaped? Well, we needn’t address those.  

To illustrate this, I’ll turn to Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick:

How natural is heterosexuality when it requires so many institutional supports to make sure people are molded into straight adults?  What would happen if we didn’t, from birth, mold children with heterosexual reproduction as the only valued option in life?  What would we say of a parent who tried to raise their children gay? We can see the power of heteronormativity in arguments over gay parenting; somehow, the fact that gay parents are no more likely than straight ones to raise gay kids is a positive aspect of queer parenting. Somehow, trying to raise gay kids would make those parents suspect; the fact that they raise the same number of straight kids as heterosexual parents makes them acceptable.  Molding heterosexuals is good; molding homosexuals, not so much.  Even gay and gay-positive folks fall into these heteronormative traps.

But, here’s something to chew on, there would be no heterosexuals without us Queers.  We’re needed to ensure other people’s “normality.”   Queerness is absolutely necessary to the existence of straightness.  Heterosexuality isn’t some natural category existing on its own; it’s a relational category (as are all social categories).  Without us, you don’t exist.  Our destruction is yours.

Crossposted at CultureKitchen.

I started a new job yesterday and I was going to write about that, but this post of Jesse’s really got me thinking.  (The first day at work wouldn’t have been worth writing about anyway; I left work at noon, the migraine I woke up with at 4:00 having become too much to bear.).  Basically, the Broward County Diversity Committee has nixed use of the “We Are Family” video (the one got James Dobson all hot and bothered).  Via the Miami Herald:

Here come the Helen Lovejoys.

After the 1992 Hatefest in Houston (also known as the Republican National Convention) Susie Bright wrote:

Bright’s analysis is spot on.  The rhetorical deployment of “The Children” has only increased since 1992.  It’s been an effective tool, even if it gets used in some ridiculous ways.  The Children become a reason to restrict adequate health information, contraception, sexual information, sexual devices, sexual images….all because The Children might somewhere, somehow be exposed to it.

It’s not only children’s exposure they want to restrict, but everyone’s.  The whole enterprise, it seems to me, is based in a pre-modern way of thinking that is even deeper than just the anti-science approach of Creationism.  It’s a mindset that sees society in terms of an organic whole.  (Everything is connected, but not in a sociological sense.) Sexual deviance is a cancer that eats away at the social body.  It’s not only homosexuality, although that seems to be a primary target.  When Rick Santorum or John Cornyn compare homosex to bestiality, or when the “good Christians” in Broward County  or at the Family Research Council or Concerned Women for America make a link to pedophilia they are, of course, failing to make distinctions that to many of us seem quite commonsensical–issues like adult/child or human/animal distinctions, or consent.  For folks in this realm, evil sex is evil sex.  None of those other “nuances” matter.  If it’s bad, it’s bad.  And it’s bad if it don’t make babies.

These sexual deviations are, again, pathological to the body social.  The toleration of their presence, like the medieval Lustseuche, is an infection eating away at that body.  Eventually, society’s immune system will wither, the vengeful, jealous Father-God removing his protection or invoking his wrath.  Or, as Jerry Fallwell put it after 9/11:

Our sexual behavior must be controlled lest it eat away at the core of our society.  The evil of non-procreative sex brings disease to the body and the collective.  Sex that doesn’t lead to babies is a perversion of the “purpose” of sex.  It is also, as I have discussed, a sin against the collective. It places self and society in jeopardy.

[UPDATE] Somehow the text below didn’t get put into the original post–something went wrong with the cut-and-paste–so the full conclusion didn’t come through….read on…

This happens because we live in a world where spirits battle for control. The forces of God are in constant battle (and yes, the militaristic themes run deep) with the forces of Satan. Our souls are the prize, so we must be on constant alert for those things that might lead one to Satan, and frustrating nature looms pretty large.

This is a worldview I can’t help but reject. It completely removes any relational aspects from ethical considerations. Arbitrary rules and false “naturalist” ontologies about gender and sexuality should send this approach to history’s trashbin, but it probably won’t. It hasn’t to date, after all.

Getting back to The Children, I’m gonna get a little Biblical (probably for the first and last time):

And that’s the point. These folks have not put away childish things, childish understandings, childish thoughts. Their inability, nay refusal, to engage in anything other than either/or and good/bad categories is the height of simplistic childishness. Maybe Susie was off a little. The Children may not be us. It’s more likely to be their own childish selves they’re trying to protect.

Crossposted at CultureKitchen