It was a good year for sex (it always is). Whether it was K-Stew’s infidelity or kinky “mommy porn,” we just couldn’t stop talking about it. Here’s a handy guide to what defined our sexual culture in 2012.Infidelity, sex tapes and scandal – oh my!You would think it was 1998 from our shock at the power of sex to take down powerful men. But no, it’s 2012, and we still find ourselves shaking our heads at the thought that David Petraeus could risk his position as head of the CIA by carrying on an extramarital affair with his biographer, that a team of Secret Service agents could put their jobs on the line for a Colombian prostitute or that Chinese politicians could be captured in flagrante at a sex party or fall for a so-called “honey trap.” We’re astounded that Kristen Stewart could possibly desire more than Edward Cullen himself or that 76-year-old Fred Willard could be arrested at an adult theater. And when our upstanding neighbors are revealed to be clients of the “Zumba prostitute,” we still clasp our pearls.Continue Reading… … Read More
Still No Word From SCOTUS on Gay Marriage Cases
Those on both sides of the gay marriage debate will have to wait at least a few more days to learn whether the Supreme Court will take up the issue. The always excellent SCOTUSblog explains. The Supreme Court on Monday released added orders from its Friday Conference, but the list did not… … Read More
Pennsylvania welcomes first openly gay legislators
Rep. Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia), a lawyer and LGBT activist from Philadelphia, will be the state’s first openly gay elected legislator when he takes office in the State House next month. Sims beat long-time Democratic incumbent Rep. Babette Josephs in the primary, and then ran uncontested in Tuesday’s general election. CBS Philly reports that although Sims “says he’s proud to be the first LGBT legislator to be elected in Pennsylvania,” the “distinction will not define him once he is sworn in at the beginning of January.”Continue Reading… … Read More
My AIDS memoir soundtrack
In the spring of 1972, the sexual culture was cracking open. David Bowie released “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust” and Lou Reed released “Transformer.” Openly bisexual, the two musicians infused pop culture with a kaleidoscope of strange beauty. Along with Iggy Pop, they were an androgynous space-age force in silver lamé and black nail polish. Listening to “Ziggy Stardust” and later “Transformer” — on which Reed sang, “We’re coming out … out of our closets” — Dad was energized by the possibilities of post-Stonewall homosexuality. He didn’t see his wife and small baby girl as an impediment to sexual liberation. As the student government president at Emory University in Atlanta, he wrote a column for the student paper in which he publicly came out and urged his straight brothers and sisters to join the cause for gay rights as they had joined to fight the war. My mother supported him. Both took lovers on the side. They were living the revolution.Continue Reading… … Read More
Why Straight People Should Be Insulted by Arguments Against Gay Marriage
The Supreme Court is scheduled to
decide today whether it will hear cases connected to both
California’s Proposition 8 and the federal government’s Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA). In both cases, appeals courts have tossed out
the marriage bans, so if the court refuses to hear them, gay
marriage recognition will become legal in California and the
federal government will have to recognize gay marriages in states
where it is legally recognized. (Personally, I can’t imagine the
Supreme Court not taking up the DOMA case, but Prop. 8 is
much harder to predict)
Anyway, while everybody was focused on these cases, a federal
judge in Nevada bucked the current trend and ruled that Nevada does
have the authority to
ban recognition of gay marriage (full ruling available at the
linked BuzzFeed story).
Furthermore Judge Robert C. Jones has trotted out the more
tiresome social-conservative, big-government arguments to allow for
the ban. Procreation is required for the species to survive. Ergo,
the government has a legitimate interest in controlling whose
marriages are recognized. Otherwise we won’t have families! Without
the government stamp, people will stop getting married and mankind
will be doomed. Doomed!
Human beings are created through the conjugation of one man and
one woman. The percentage of human beings conceived through
non-traditional methods is minuscule, and adoption, the form of
child-rearing in which same-sex couples may typically participate
together, is not an alternative means of creating children, but
rather a social backstop for when traditional biological families
fail. The perpetuation of the human race depends upon traditional
procreation between men and women. …
Should that institution be expanded to include same-sex couples
with the state’s imprimatur, it is conceivable that a meaningful
percentage of heterosexual persons would cease to value the civil
institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into
it less frequently, opting for purely private ceremonies, if any,
whether religious or secular, but in any case without civil
sanction, because they no longer wish to be associated with the
civil institution as redefined, leading to an increased percentage
of out-of-wedlock children, single-parent families, difficulties in
property disputes after the dissolution of what amount to common
law marriages in a state where such marriages are not recognized,
or other unforeseen consequences
I’m gay, so I see the marriage fight in a certain ways. But I’m
also a libertarian, so, isn’t that argument extremely insulting to
straight people? The judge actually suggests that straight people
would be so upset about gay people getting married that they’ll
stop doing it themselves!
What were you straight people doing before the government came
along to tell you how to breed properly?
Why Straight People Should Be Insulted by Arguments Against Gay Marriage (UPDATED)
The Supreme Court is scheduled to
decide today whether it will hear cases connected to both
California’s Proposition 8 and the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA). In both cases, appeals courts have tossed out the
marriage bans, so if the court refuses to hear them, gay marriage
recognition will become legal in California and the federal
government will have to recognize gay marriages in states where it
is legally recognized. (Personally, I can’t imagine the Supreme
Court not taking up the DOMA case, but Prop. 8 is much
harder to predict)
Anyway, while everybody was focused on these cases, a federal
judge in Nevada bucked the current trend and ruled that Nevada does
have the authority to
ban recognition of gay marriage (full ruling
available at the linked BuzzFeed story).
Furthermore Judge Robert C. Jones has trotted out the more
tiresome social-conservative, big-government arguments to allow for
the ban. Procreation is required for the species to survive. Ergo,
the government has a legitimate interest in controlling whose
marriages are recognized. Otherwise we won’t have families! Without
the government stamp, people will stop getting married and mankind
will be doomed. Doomed!
Human beings are created through the conjugation of one man and
one woman. The percentage of human beings conceived through
non-traditional methods is minuscule, and adoption, the form of
child-rearing in which same-sex couples may typically participate
together, is not an alternative means of creating children, but
rather a social backstop for when traditional biological families
fail. The perpetuation of the human race depends upon traditional
procreation between men and women. …
Should that institution be expanded to include same-sex couples
with the state’s imprimatur, it is conceivable that a meaningful
percentage of heterosexual persons would cease to value the civil
institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into
it less frequently, opting for purely private ceremonies, if any,
whether religious or secular, but in any case without civil
sanction, because they no longer wish to be associated with the
civil institution as redefined, leading to an increased percentage
of out-of-wedlock children, single-parent families, difficulties in
property disputes after the dissolution of what amount to common
law marriages in a state where such marriages are not recognized,
or other unforeseen consequences
I’m gay, so I see the marriage fight in certain ways. But I’m
also a libertarian, so, isn’t that argument extremely insulting to
straight people? The judge actually suggests that straight people
would be so upset about gay people getting
married that they’ll stop doing it themselves!
What were you straight people doing before the government came
along to tell you how to breed properly?
UPDATE: The Supreme Court
did not make any announcements on the gay marriage cases it’s
considering. There may be an announcement Monday or the end of next
week.
