Greetings from NYC

Back in the US  for a 2 week business trip.  New York this week  then  L.A. next week..  Updates  to follow

Thank You Rachel Maddow...

I have not weighed in as of yet on the crisis on Syria  or the potential American military intervention in that country.   Yet  the brilliant Rachel Maddow  reminds us all of exactly who should NOT be weighing in on this issue and why...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

50 Years Ago Today....

Hey WingNuts! We're Still Waiting for the Apocalypse! What Gives?

Well, It's been over a  month.   So I have been diligently scanning all the major news outlets, government websites, and emergency services.  As of today,  I  have discovered something really odd... I was shocked to learn that in the United States, this past month, apparently none of the following things have happened.

·         A mad rush of people marrying their pets...

·         Pandemic Polygamy 

·         All across America,  Kindergarten students taught classes on Gay sex

·         Scores of Clergy rounded up and put in prison for preaching

·         Marriage as a civil institution collapsing and millions of Heterosexual couples getting divorced

·         America as a Nation overrun by godless hordes bent on enslaving our people and destroying our very way of life.

·         A complete stop to opposite Sex couples in America having Children

Which is quite odd when you think about it. Because  recently, I got married. (That in and of itself is not the odd part.) But rather it is the lack of anything odd happing as a result of it, that is strange.   After all, I can't even count the number of times I have heard the cadre of self-proclaimed "Family Values” culture warriors,  spew dire warnings of doom, gloom, apocalypse and general hubbub and brouhaha should Eric and I ever get married.

Well, guess what?  Last month,  on July 9^th  at  1:30 pm  at San Francisco City hall,  Eric and I  got .married.    So.... Where are all the promised apocalyptic consequences? Where are the mass divorces of all the marriages we supposedly "attacked" one month ago, by tying the knot ? Where is all the promised damage to millions of children who are now, (according to social conservatives), so confused as to what a marriage is?    Where are the plagues of frogs, locusts and boils? Where is the collapse of Western civilization as we know it, due to its very foundation being rent asunder by the HORROR of Eric and I getting married one month ago? 

 Nothing? .... Anyone? ... Anybody? ... Really?    How terribly disappointing.  After all,  groups like the National Organization for (some people's) Marriage  went to so much trouble making spooky television ads warning everybody about what would happen...

For years now , whenever the subject of marriage equality comes up as part of our national discourse,  those opposed to equal rights for all Americans have liked to say  it is an "attack" on marriage and the family. So I decided to look up the word `attack' in the dictionary.   The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines it as:

Attack
Pronunciation: &-'tak
Function: verb
1 : to set upon or work against forcefully
2 : to assail with unfriendly or bitter words
3 : to begin to affect or to act on injuriously
4 : to set to work on
5 : to threaten (a piece in chess) with immediate capture

Hmmm… to set upon or work against forcefully huh? Ok, so if we take the James Dobsons, Pat Robertsons  and Bryan Fischers  of the world  seriously,  it would mean that for Eric and I to have the same rights as any other couple;   Not more rights, not any new rights that other couples do not currently have, but only the exact same rights,  it would injure, damage and potentially even destroy heterosexual marriages and families.

Wow….Uh.. ok.. How exactly?

Does the fact of my marriage now mean that other married couples  have lost ANY of the 1,100 federal benefits and protections that they had one month ago? Does the fact that I am now married mean other married couples can no longer file  joint tax returns, have, adopt or raise children, pass on social security survivor benefits, or make medical decisions for each other?Does my being married now mean that people will no longer want to even get married. and if they are married, will now want to get divorced? 

 In short,  has ANYONE's marriage or family changed in any way as result of what happened at San Francisco City Hall last month?

The answer of course, is no. None of the Right Wing talking points on same sex marriage stand up to even basic common sense. But it's pretty clear that common sense isn't something  that the Right Wing likes to deal in very much.      The “National Organisation for Marriage” (NOM)  likes to say  that gay marriage cheapens or lessens the value of the institution of marriage in the eyes of society. But since none of the rights or benefits that a married couple enjoys have changed in any way as result of my marriage; What social conservatives are  really saying is that for THEM , Eric and I getting married has cheapened  THEIR own marriages in THEIR  own eyes.

My getting married means I now have something that, according to  NOM only heterosexuals are supposed to have . And that makes  them mad. It's not just that they wanted to prevent Eric and I from having equal rights,   It was about making sure  that we didn't have any rights at all..  Tony Perkins  and his ilk,  see equal rights for us, as an attack on them. That's interesting...

Let's be honest, for the anti-gay industry,  ( and yes,  it is  an industry)  this was never about  "protecting marriage". It's about  people they  don’t like  having  the same rights as they  do, and that makes them mad.   Even though their lives  clearly have  not changed in ANY way,  these  conservative crybabies  howl about “activist judges” and  firmly believe  that marriage now has less value, lower status, and the institution itself, could come to an end. All because Eric and I were able to get married last Month.

It suddenly occurs to me there is a word for someone who is irrationally fixated on the preservation of inequality, that they feel is in their favor. It turns out, Merriam-Webster's dictionary has the same word for it.

Bigot
Pronunciation: 'bi-g&t
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, hypocrite, bigot
1: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own
opinions and prejudices

Stephen Fry's Brilliant Letter to the IOC

Just read it.. please.
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Dear Prime Minister, M Rogge, Lord Coe and Members of the International Olympic Committee,

I write in the earnest hope that all those with a love of sport and the Olympic spirit will consider the stain on the Five Rings that occurred when the 1936 Berlin Olympics proceeded under the exultant aegis of a tyrant who had passed into law, two years earlier, an act which singled out for special persecution a minority whose only crime was the accident of their birth. In his case he banned Jews from academic tenure or public office, he made sure that the police turned a blind eye to any beatings, thefts or humiliations afflicted on them, he burned and banned books written by them. He claimed they "polluted" the purity and tradition of what it was to be German, that they were a threat to the state, to the children and the future of the Reich. He blamed them simultaneously for the mutually exclusive crimes of Communism and for the controlling of international capital and banks. He blamed them for ruining the culture with their liberalism and difference. The Olympic movement at that time paid precisely no attention to this evil and proceeded with the notorious Berlin Olympiad, which provided a stage for a gleeful Führer and only increased his status at home and abroad. It gave him confidence. All historians are agreed on that. What he did with that confidence we all know.

Putin is eerily repeating this insane crime, only this time against LGBT Russians. Beatings, murders and humiliations are ignored by the police. Any defence or sane discussion of homosexuality is against the law. Any statement, for example, that Tchaikovsky was gay and that his art and life reflects this sexuality and are an inspiration to other gay artists would be punishable by imprisonment. It is simply not enough to say that gay Olympians may or may not be safe in their village. The IOC absolutely must take a firm stance on behalf of the shared humanity it is supposed to represent against the barbaric, fascist law that Putin has pushed through the Duma. Let us not forget that Olympic events used not only to be athletic, they used to include cultural competitions. Let us realise that in fact, sport is cultural. It does not exist in a bubble outside society or politics. The idea that sport and politics don't connect is worse than disingenuous, worse than stupid. It is wickedly, wilfully wrong. Everyone knows politics interconnects with everything for "politics" is simply the Greek for "to do with the people".

An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world.

He is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews. He cannot be allowed to get away with it. I know whereof I speak. I have visited Russia, stood up to the political deputy who introduced the first of these laws, in his city of St Petersburg. I looked into the face of the man and, on camera, tried to reason with him, counter him, make him understand what he was doing. All I saw reflected back at me was what Hannah Arendt called, so memorably, "the banality of evil." A stupid man, but like so many tyrants, one with an instinct of how to exploit a disaffected people by finding scapegoats. Putin may not be quite as oafish and stupid as Deputy Milanov but his instincts are the same. He may claim that the "values" of Russia are not the "values" of the West, but this is absolutely in opposition to Peter the Great's philosophy, and against the hopes of millions of Russians, those not in the grip of that toxic mix of shaven headed thuggery and bigoted religion, those who are agonised by the rolling back of democracy and the formation of a new autocracy in the motherland that has suffered so much (and whose music, literature and drama, incidentally I love so passionately).

I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler's anti-Semitism. Every time in Russia (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian "correctively" raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.

"All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," so wrote Edmund Burke. Are you, the men and women of the IOC going to be those "good" who allow evil to triumph?

The Summer Olympics of 2012 were one of the most glorious moments of my life and the life of my country. For there to be a Russian Winter Olympics would stain the movement forever and wipe away any of that glory. The Five Rings would finally be forever smeared, besmirched and ruined in the eyes of the civilised world.

I am begging you to resist the pressures of pragmatism, of money, of the oily cowardice of diplomats and to stand up resolutely and proudly for humanity the world over, as your movement is pledged to do. Wave your Olympic flag with pride as we gay men and women wave our Rainbow flag with pride. Be brave enough to live up to the oaths and protocols of your movement, which I remind you of verbatim below.

Rule four: Cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the endeavour to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace.

Rule six: Act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement.

Rule 15: Encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education.

I especially appeal to you, Prime Minister, a man for whom I have the utmost respect. As the leader of a party I have for almost all of my life opposed and instinctively disliked, you showed a determined, passionate and clearly honest commitment to LGBT rights and helped push gay marriage through both houses of our parliament in the teeth of vehement opposition from so many of your own side. For that I will always admire you, whatever other differences may lie between us. In the end I believe you know when a thing is wrong or right. Please act on that instinct now.

Yours in desperate hope for humanity

Stephen Fry

When our Heroes Amaze us...

In these early days of the 21rst Century, the concept of "celebrity" has evolved into a very odd thing indeed. In our culture of "reality television" and internet memes , we have the phenomenon of being famous for being famous. Be it the Paris Hiltons, the assorted hoards of Kardashians, or housewives of whatever locale is being filmed this week. People who have done little or nothing of note, being celebrated for nothing more than the fact of their notoriety.

In a way, I suppose you could see it as good thing, if those who become famous for well... nothing, then use that fame for some noble or worthwhile purpose, but alas, that seems to rarely happen.

 So it is always a wonderful thing, when someone who truly is famous for all the right reasons, someone who is so accomplished to the point of being called a "national treasure" in his country of origin, uses fame to give voice to people who otherwise would be shouting at the wind.

As long time readers of this blog  may have noticed,   the past few days have  seen the number of  hits  this modest  little  effort  receives,   fly off the charts.    It  went from  an average  of  65  hits  over a three day period to over  160,000 page views .

There is no way on Earth  I could ever hope to reach that  sort of audience on my own.   So clearly something else had happened..

That "something else",  turned out to be  a long time  hero of mine.  Writer, actor,  journalist and  British "National Treasure",  Stephen Fry.     I have no idea how it happened,  yet  somehow  he found my blog posting on the need to boycott the 2014 winter games  in Sochi, Russia.   Now just knowing that  Stephen Fry  had read something I wrote  is enough for me to die happy,  but he did something more.   He  tweeted it out into the world, and his 6,000,000 plus followers.

For the (I hope very few) people out there who may  not be familiar with Mr. Fry,  here is what Wikipedia has to say:
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Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television and radio presenter, film director, activist, and board member of Norwich City Football Club.^[4]

After a troubled childhood  he secured a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature. While at university, Fry became involved with the Cambridge Footlights, where he met his long-time collaborator Hugh Laurie. As half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.

Fry's acting roles include the lead in the film Wilde, Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, the titular character in the television series Kingdom, a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the crime series Bones, and as Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V for Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his mental illness. He is also the long-time host of the BBC television quiz show QI.

As well as his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot and The Fry Chronicles. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton. Fry is also known for his voice-overs, reading all seven of theHarry Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings, and as the narrator in the LittleBigPlanet series of video games.

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To say I am amazed by this would be  an epic understatement.   Stephen Fry  was a close friend with another hero of mine,  the late great Douglas Adams (in whose honor this blog is named...)   He is a man with a truly  global voice, who this past week  briefly  lent one small part of  that voice to me,   and  for these incredible  past few days,  he enabled my thoughts to  travel across the world  on his virtual coat tails. Something for which , I will be forever grateful.

Thank you Mr Fry.   

The Danger of Watching from the Side Lines...

I don’t have one of those horrific, tragic and ultimately triumphant coming out stories.  My story is actually pretty boring...

Yes like many LGBT people, growing up was not easy, and the  element of living in the closet added stress and pains that many of you reading this know only too well. But the fact is, after graduating from University, life pretty much got better and stayed that way.  I had the luxury of coming out on my terms and in my own time. I have an incredibly patient and  understanding family that reacted with love, acceptance and even relief.  Relief that I had found my way to self-acceptance. For the most part my friends also, proved to be far more interested in my happiness than in labels and stigmas.

Not long after leaving University I took a posting to South Korea. There for the first time I had a circle of gay friends, and found myself part of a LGBT Community made up of American Military Personal, Civilians, other assorted Expatriates, and Koreans. It was an experience that gave me  the time and space to become comfortable with who I am. It is where I had my first serious relationship. Which despite the pressures of having to navigate the minefield of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, was an incredibly positive period in my life. (By the way JD, in case I have never said so before… thank you for that…)   

When I moved back to the United States I found myself living in Chicago. I had my first real apartment on the edge of the Lakeview neighborhood. This area is also known as “Boystown” as it is the center of Chicago’s LGBT community. Here I would make wonderful friends and find my own place in the “Gay World”. Not being much of clubber or even a bar-goer I became involved in groups like Equality Illinois, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates and the Stonewall Democrats. Over the next six years I would stop thinking of myself as coming out, and instead identify myself as being out. I would date, fall in love, get my heart broken and recover all in a pretty safe gay “bubble”.   

After Chicago I would move to San Francisco. Living South of Market, just a few blocks from what is to many people, the gayest place in America , SF’s Castro district. I would live there for 8 years volunteering at seven LGBT pride celebrations, serving on the board of Lutherans Concerned a group working for broader LGBT inclusion in communities of faith, and champion diversity and equality in my job as learning and development consultant.   

Ironically, It was while living in SF, that for the first time I faced discrimination for being Gay. I fell in love  with a man in London, and as has been well documented on this blog, the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) made it impossible for me to sponsor Eric to move to the US. But, as many of you know, Eric was able to sponsor me to move to the UK. While a difficult process, it all ultimately worked out. So much so that now with the change in laws in America, we could move back the U.S. if we wanted to.

So why am I telling you all this…?

This past week as I  read the horrible details of the entrapment and torture of Gays and Lesbians by gangs of thugs in Russia I can’t help but think of how ridiculously lucky I have been. Sitting here in London, a married man with all the same rights and protections as everyone else, I think back on where I have lived. Very safe gay or at least gay-friendly “bubbles” in the world. Unlike people in Russia, many places in Africa, Asia and Middle East, I have never faced the threat of death for simply being who I am.   

I remember Wednesday October 7th, 1998.  I was puttering around my apartment in Chicago, making dinner when I turned on the TV to CNN. The lead story was a brutal attack of a young gay man in Laramie Wyoming named Matthew Shepard. Shepard, age 21, had been lured into going for a drive with two young men, who then beat him into a coma and left him tied to fence along a rural highway outside the city. The news report noted that the victim was not expected to survive.   

I remember walking down into “boystown” There were lots of people standing around outside the bars, and restaurants along Halsted Street, talking about what had happened in Wyoming. A makeshift memorial had been set up on a street corner. I walked into a convenience store and bought a small votive candle, lit it and placed it with the growing number of candles, handwritten notes and flowers that were being placed around a picture of Matthew that someone had printed off the internet. I stayed for a little while talking to people who were gathered there. Some people were angry that people were still sitting inside the bars, seemingly indifferent to what had happened, 1,009 miles away in a field outside Laramie, Wyoming.

As my husband and I walked through London’s West End last night, enjoying a beautiful Summer evening. I found myself feeling some of those same emotions. Are we in our safe London “bubble” indifferent to what is happening in in Russia 1,815 miles away? On an intellectual level you always knew that there were “gay bashers” out there. People who were so conflicted about their own sexuality that they felt the way to “cure” themselves was to attack others for what they feared most about themselves. Yet today we are seeing this behaviour not just from some conflicted , violent closet case,  but from the Government of the one of the world’s most powerful nations.

One of my favorite television moments is from an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, where the crew is subjected to a McCarthy-esqe witch hunt for traitors to Star fleet. There is powerful scene where Captain Picard, played by Sir Patrick Stewart, articulates exactly what is wrong with what is happening.



The issue of whether or not the International Community allows Russia to scapegoat an entire minority for nothing more than political expedience is one that truly does affect us all.   If Vladimir Putin’s Russia is allowed to stand upon the world stage, basking in the glow of the Olympic Flame, unchallenged for the horrific acts of state-sanctioned hatred it is inflicting on its own people;  Then we truly do not deserve the safety and freedoms that those of us lucky to live in the Boystowns, Castros and Sohos of the world enjoy and so often take for granted.  

If we cannot  stand up and defend those who are under attack for no reason other than who they are, then frankly we deserve no better than what they are living with now.

Vladimir Putin's Russia must be held to account.. The ice and snow of Sochi is stained with the blood of the Russian LGBT community. If allowed to stand unbroken, the chains of bigotry being forged in Russia will eventually bind us all.

Current Blog Readership

Apparently  the issue of  the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi  is something a lot of folks are talking about...

And in other news... Water is Wet, and Bears Sh*t in the Woods...

It seems that the Sochi Winter Games are a massive boondoggle of corruption and environmental damage. The Economist looks into the state of the Sochi Games.

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WITH seven months to go before the 2014 winter Olympics, Sochi is a gigantic construction site. Lorries run up and down dusty roads, excavators turn earth inside out, and 70,000 workers from every corner of the old Soviet Union dig, lift, pull and churn day and night. Imagining the finished venue is hard. “This is where bird lakes are supposed to be,” says Svetlana, a local activist, pointing to a pile of dirt.

In many ways Sochi is an odd choice for the winter games. It has a subtropical climate and is one of the very few places in Russia where snow is scarce. The opening and closing ceremonies will be held close to the Black Sea on swampy ground, once infested by malarial mosquitoes. Temperatures there rarely fall below zero. The lower slopes of the Caucasus Mountains are not guaranteed snow, so the organisers have stored last winter’s.

Yet President Vladimir Putin sees Sochi 2014 as his own pet project: a sign of his power over people and nature, and of his international legitimacy. That Mr Putin spends a lot of time in Sochi adds a personal touch. Yet, as Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and opposition leader who has written several reports on Sochi, argues, far from being a model of fair play, Sochi has emerged as a model of crony capitalism, lawlessness, inefficiency and disregard for nature and people. “The Sochi Olympics are an unprecedented thieves’ caper in which representatives of Putin’s government are mixed up along with the oligarchs close to the government,” Mr Nemtsov writes.

Show of hands please...  anyone who is at all surprised by this?

Didn't think so....

When History Repeats...

There once was a country that was due to host  the next  Winter Olympic Games.  This nation had worked very hard  to secure the games.    This  nation's leader saw it a  matter of both national and personal pride.  His nation  was emerging from  period of  economic  and political upheaval  stemming from  the collapse of it's former imperial system and the resulting loss in prestige.

Less than a year  out  from those upcoming games,  this nation passed a host of new laws which specifically targeted  one minority group, painting a picture of this group as a threat to children, the nation, and society at large.   the new laws  stated:

• Marriages for members of this minority were forbidden. 
• Sexual relations for members of this minority group were either restricted or forbidden. 
• Members of this minority group could be fired from jobs for no reason other than for who they were. 
• Members of this minority group were officially branded a security risk to the state.

As a result of these new laws being passed, groups of young thugs were reportedly emboldened into seeking out members of this minority group and harassing, beating and in some cases, torturing and even killing them.

The response from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the time ..... Silence.   Not one word of protest was heard, and a year later in 1936, just a few months after the passage of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, targeting Germany's Jewish population; The Winter Olympics were held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany, under the watchful gaze of Germany's aggressive, charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler.

Funny how history often repeats itself ... Fast forward 78 years to 2013. We are less than a year out from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. An Olympic Games viewed by many as Russia's re-emergence on to the world cultural stage since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and clearly a point of personal pride for Russia's "macho-man" President, Vladimir Putin.

With only months go to before the opening ceremony of these games, Russia has seen fit to pass new laws which ..... specifically targets one minority group for discrimination and even criminal prosecution,  for no reason other than for who they are.
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(From the Guardian.)

Russia's parliament has unanimously passed a federal law banning gay "propaganda" amid a Kremlin push to enshrine deeply conservative values that critics say has already led to a sharp increase in anti-gay violence.

The law passed 436-0 on Tuesday, with just one deputy abstaining from voting on the bill, which bans the spreading of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors. The law in effect makes it illegal to equate straight and gay relationships, as well as the distribution of material on gay rights. It introduces fines for individuals and media groups found guilty of breaking the law, as well as special fines for foreigners.

Minutes after passing the anti-gay legislation, the Duma also approved a new law allowing jail sentences of up to three years for "offending religious feelings", an initiative launched in the wake of the trial against the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot. The two laws were widely criticised by Russia's marginalised liberal and human rights communities and come amid a wider crackdown against independent civil activity in the country.

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Right on cue,  we get this report   from  Eastern European Human Rights watch dog group  Spectrum Human Rights Alliance.: 

President Putin's crusade against LGBT community in Russia took a new turn.

Infamous Russian ultra nationalist and former skin head, Maxim Martsinkevich, known under the nickname "Cleaver" (or "Tesak" in Russian) spearheaded a country wide campaign against LGBT teens using a popular social network VK.com to lure unsuspected victims through personal ads.

  Oddly enough their idea of fighting pedophiles targets exclusively male teenagers who respond to the same-sex personal ads and show up for a date. Captured victims are bullied and often tortured while being recorded on video.  These self-proclaimed "crime fighters" perform their actions under the broad day light, often outside and clearly visible to general public that indifferently passes by or even commend them. 

Video recordings of bullying and tortures are freely distributed on the Internet in order to out LGBT teens to their respective schools, parents and friends. Many victims were driven to suicides, the rest are deeply traumatized.    So far Russian police took no action against these "movements" even though Russian criminal code was clearly violated and despite numerous complaints from parents, victims and LGBT activists.  

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Imagine for one moment if Russia's new laws were targeting Blacks, or Asians, or Women, or even Christians. Imagine groups of thugs using social media to lure any of those aforementioned groups into traps where they were beaten and tortured The global outcry would be deafening. 

The list of nations  boycotting the games in Sochi, would be so long that the IOC would have moved so fast to pull the games out of Russia,  as to make President Putin's head spin.  Yet just like with the Jews in 1935, to target Gays and Lesbians in 2013 garners barely a shrug from the International Olympic " family". Instead we get this:

The International Olympic Committee said Friday that athletes and visitors attending the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia will not be affected by anti-gay legislation passed last month.

"The IOC has received assurances from the highest level of government in Russia that the legislation will not affect those attending or taking part in the Games," according to the statement emailed to USA TODAY Sports.

The IOC also said: "The International Olympic Committee is clear that sport is a human right and should be available to all regardless of race, sex or sexual orientation. The Games themselves should be open to all, free of discrimination, and that applies to spectators, officials, media and of course athletes. We would oppose in the strongest terms any move that would jeopardise this principle."

Did you catch that? The response from the IOC is not that the laws in question are horrific
and wrong, but rather; "Oh don't worry... Putin has promised that he probably won't enforce these laws against people coming to Russia for the Olympics." Not that the brutal targeting and torture of LGBT youth in Russia must stop, but rather all those Gay Olympians and fans from outside Russia needn't worry about their own safety.

Now I hear many of you saying; "C'mon Dave! You are not really equating Russia in 2013 to Nazi Germany in 1935 are you ?"  Yes I am.   Am I equating Vladimir Putin with Adolf Hitler? Yes I am.   Am I saying the skinhead thugs who are attacking LGBT teens in Russia are the same as the Nazi supporters in the 1930's who attacked Jewish homes, shops and synagogues? Yes I am.

When you use the power of the state to scapegoat one minority for no other reasons than bigotry, and political expedience; When you allow a minority group to be terrorized, brutalized and marginalized for no other reason than they cant fight back; When you brand a minority group as less than human, and therefore deserving of inhuman treatment;   When you do these things, you are no different than the Nazi Brownshirts of Krystalnacht and the regime of Adolf Hitler that urged them on.

The IOC owes it to history, it owes it to the memory of those who could have possibly been helped, in 1935 when the Olympic Family was in a position to say this is wrong. The IOC owes it the LGBT citizens of not only Russia, but everywhere, to this time, do what is right, to live up to the words of the Olympic motto and take a stand for human rights.

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games must be moved out of Russia, and these modern day Anti Gay "Nuremberg Laws", must be loudly and unequivocally condemned.

Anything less, is just history repeating.

Authors Note - Special thanks to the incredible Stephen Fry for his support in getting this message out...

News Round Up- Weddings, and Questions in a Post-DOMA World.

Well,  it's been  nearly  3 weeks  since I've posted here, and as is usually the case  with blogging pauses, there has been  quite a bit of news in the interval.   It's hard to know where to begin....

Eric and I took a brief vacation  back to the US over the July 4th Holiday and through the following week.   We went back to  San Francisco  to visit my family.  My parents  flew out to CA from Wisconsin and we were all gathered together to celebrate my Dad's  75th Birthday.    But  as usually happens  with us,  events  took some exciting  and unexpected turns.

After the recent  United States Supreme Court rulings  striking down both Prop 8 in California and Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),  we knew  that  we wanted at some point this year to  get married in the U.S. so we could start  the process for Eric to  get a Green Card.   Some initial investigation  of this  revealed that  getting married in the State of California is two-step process.   First, you need an appointment to go   to the County Clerk's office and apply for a Marriage Licence.  Once you have that,  you have 90 days to get married before the license  expires.  You can either do a church wedding , as many do,  or do a civil marriage at SF City Hall,  for which you need to also book an appointment ahead of time.

Getting an appointment on July 9th  to get a marriage license was no problem,  but there were no open time slots for civil marriage ceremonies  at SF City Hall until October.  (As you might imagine, the change in the law has resulted in something of an increase in weddings in San Francisco!)    So  we figured we would get our license, then  in 2nd week of October, when I would be coming back to CA  anyway for  work,  we would actually get married.  Giving both us, and our friends and family a bit more time to plan the whole thing.   Good plan, right?

Then things got complicated,   Turns out  our Best Man,  our incredible and amazing friend  Rudy Guerrero, was not  available in October due to family commitments back in Hawaii,  also there were no civil ceremony appointment slots open until the end of October  not the beginning.   Time when I was committed  to  business trips to Berlin and Dubai.    

So we  started thinking  of Plan B's  like  getting married  in Oakland at the Alameda County Court House which took walk-in weddings.  If  all else failed my Mother, a Lutheran Pastor could marry us in my Sister's living room if need be.    So  on the morning of July 9th we arrived at San Francisco City Hall, to get our marriage license.

As We filled out the paper work, the  County official behind the counter  casually mentioned that there had been a last minute  wedding  cancellation  for that day at  1:30 pm,  and did we want it that time slot,  and also that we needed to decide right then as there were  hundreds of  couples calling every day to ask if any civil ceremony  slots  were available ....   I looked at Eric, he looked at me,  we both looked at our Best Man,  Rudy who indicated that time worked great for him.    We turned to back and said "We'll take it!".   A frantic phone call back to my Sister's house  then alerted my mostly still sleeping family that they had exactly three hours to get ready for our wedding.

It turned out to be a wonderful celebration with family and  friends that ended up with Eric and I  legally married in the State of California.   In addition to the incredible honor of having Rudy as our Best Man,  our  amazing friends  Julian, Josh and Joan responded to a last minute posting on Facebook, dropped  everything they were doing and dashed over to City Hall to attend.   It was an incredible day.    Yet, we soon learned,  it was a day that would prompt a question we would be asked  repeatedly for the rest of our visit to the US, and  again  upon our return to London the past week...

"So.. When are you guys moving to the U.S?"

That is a difficult question,  for a lot of reasons.  Not the least of which is purely logistic.   The lengthy, and complicated process  of my move  from San Francisco to London two years ago was physically, emotionally and financially  exhausting.  So the prospect of packing up our lives all over again to move  half way  across the world is a bit daunting.   Yet the question  keeps being asked,  don't I want to come home?

Home....  That's a tricky concept.    Yes I am an American  (and always very proud to be one...).  Yet  my life is  here.   My  spouse,  our jobs, our home many of our friends, and some of Eric's family  are all here  in London.   Yet,  my family,  and the vast majority of my friends  are  back in the States.   It is  in many ways  like being  caught between  two  different  lives, trying to live with one foot in each.    So the question of whether or not to move back to America  is hardly  a yes or no proposition.  

Of course I miss the United States, but I also love our life  here, I love  our friends and family  that we have here .   So  in truth  the only answer  I  can give is,  we  have no  plans to move back the United States right now.  But we are  incredibly happy to now have the option to move  back.  Options we didn't have prior to the recent Supreme Court rulings.   Options that  we may well  decide to pursue down the road.  

In the meantime  we say  to all our friends  in both North and South America,  Continental Europe, Australia and Asia,  our guest room here in London awaits you !    You are thought of often and  always missed.

Okay, I admit it...

I am generally a very empathetic and  caring person,  so  I am  not given to bouts of  Schadenfreude.  (For those of you  whose German is a tad rusty...)

But you know what...?   Fine, I admit it,  I am  really really  enjoying the  epic meltdown that is  currently happening over on the Wing-nutty anti-gay political and religious Right  in the United States, in the wake of last week's historic  Supreme Court Rulings, striking down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, and  California's Proposition 8.

It's been more than fun,  frankly it's been a joy to watch.   Last Sunday on Meet the Press, American Taliban  spokesnuts Jim DeMint   and Ralph Reed, were  foolish enough to to think they could come on television and spew their   "think of the Children!!" nonsense.   Unfortunately for little Jimmy and Ralphie  there were grown ups on the panel ...  Cue Rachel with the epic smackdown.

Two interesting sound bytes there.  the first  being  DeMint's  flogging of the talking point that  giving LGBT Americans  equal rights is  somehow "demeaning" to bigots like him, who are angry they are no longer  allowed to  discriminate against Gays and Lesbians.   Oooh... Poor Baby!  

The second  interesting tid-bit  came right at the end of that clip where  Ralph Reed said  he couldn't "just let that go".  Which is one of the few truly honest things Reed has ever said on television.    He, and others like him have made their  considerable personal fortunes stoking fear and hatred of LGBT Americans and then turning that  homophobia in to cash.   Reed, and  his assorted ilk, are now  facing a new reality where  they are staring both unemployment and irrelevance in the face, and boy....  they are NOT happy about it.

You know what...?    GOOD!

The social-political Right Wing in the United States has spend decades demeaning,  demonizing  and attacking  Gays and Lesbians, driving  LGBT youth to suicide and then reveling in those deaths.  They have used the religious pulpit and the political podium to wage a war against an entire group of  Americans,  Men, Women and Children,  all for financial and political gain,  perverting the very religions they claim to profess in the process.

So  yeah,  I  am happy,  actually very happy that these merchants of bigotry and death are now facing  the end of their gravy train of hate.  I am overjoyed that  they feel  that  America has left them behind,  because in fact, it has.   Their day is over.

To be honest,  I am thoroughly  enjoying their pain. In fact,  I  so happy about it ... that I feel a song coming on....

Signs , Symbols and Prideful Assumptions....

Well now... It's been a pretty exciting  couple days.

The two recent United States Supreme Court rulings on the issue of Marriage Equality have prompted intense reaction  from all parts of the  political and social spectrum.    For proponents of equal rights, Wednesday's court victories  marked a historic  turning point in the LGBT civil rights struggle.   The two rulings which  stuck down Section 3 of the so-called  "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA), and upheld a lower court ruling in California , striking down CA Proposition 8 were greeted with joy and celebration in many quarters.  The reaction in my old stomping grounds of San Francisco was jubilant.



Over on the  far right wing  of American social-politics,  there was considerably less joy.... The favorite talking point over the past  24 hours has been how granting equal rights to  Gay and Lesbian Americans is going somehow cause Straight "Christians" to be  "bashed" or taken to court for their beliefs.     Our favorite American Taliban spokesnut, and dementia patient,  Pat Robertson  drives the  Waaaambulance full speed to crazy town...

We will set  aside  for a moment,  the  ridiculous notion at  any straight person has ever been bashed by gay people  for their sexual orientation or beliefs. The death toll  of  LGBT Americans who have been killed in the name of Robertson's  twisted and sick  abuse of religion could fill hundreds of blog entries.   Rather it is  the  idea  that  people who opposed  marriage equality are  now somehow victims of some sort of "judicial attack" that I find interesting,

In response to this, a popular  graphic/meme has sprung up on the internet  making the point that opponents of equality were never able to prove how ending  discrimination against Gays and Lesbians hurts them.

One side aspect of this whole recent  Supreme Court saga has been how various sides have expressed themselves through social media platforms, most notably on Facebook and Twitter.  The Human Rights Campaign started an online trend where their familiar Blue and Yellow  equal sign logo was turned red and white (red for valentines/love and white for marriage)  and urged people to adopt the modified logo as their social media profile picture.   Hundreds of thousands of people, including Eric and I,  did.

While scrolling through facebook today  I  happened upon the profile of an old friend of mine.  He is the younger brother of an old of friend of mine, with whom I am no longer in touch.  The elder of the two, lives and  works in a fairly conservative world and promptly ended our more than twenty-five year  friendship when he found out I was Gay.   As many others  who have gone through the coming out process can attest,  there are friends who you lose as a result of being honest,  I don't fault them,  it's just part of life.

His younger brother, however  while fairly conservative  on some issues,  like the  2nd Amendment and Gun Rights,  had always seemed  more progressive  on  other social issues.  So I was somewhat surprised to see this graphic on his Facebook Profile, with the caption; "I'll see your red equality sign & raise you a blue one.  :) "

The argument being that  where showing support for LGBT rights is okay, to express the same sentiment about heterosexuals  is considered to be bigotry.   Sigh...  Every June, during  LGBT Pride Month, at some point this ridiculous argument  always pops up, and I always amazed to see it put forward by otherwise  rational  people.

It is the idea that  an overwhelming majority point of view is somehow under attack if any other point of view is given any credence.   It is the insane notion that  somehow my marriage  is an attack on his.   That by my having  equal rights,  his rights are diminished.    I have news for my friend.   EVERY month is  "Straight Pride Month".   My friend has never  been  discriminated against because of his sexuality,  he has never been denied any of the rights  and privileges of being an American because he is Straight,   His Marriage ( not his first I would add..)  has never been subjected to public vote.    He  has never faced  having to leave the United States simply to be with person he is married to.     No one has ever said  he should be ashamed of being straight,  or  that  God hates him for loving who he loves.

Yet my friend, and others who have posted the aforementioned graphic,  somehow can't see, how given the reality  of their lives, how the idea of "Straight Pride"  seems as redundant, as ridiculous and as offensive  as  "White Pride" does to many people of color.  

I have blinding flash of the obvious for my friend;  When the entire world is geared to affirm who and what you are, when most every movie, book,  TV Show,  song on the radio and cultural "norm" supports  your sexual orientation;  saying that others who are different from  you are okay too,  is NOT a viscous attack on you.  You are not being discriminated against,  you are not being attacked   you are not  a victim of "reverse bigotry".  

To claim that you are,  just makes you look remarkably stupid.

So we will go to  London's LGBT Pride celebration this weekend.  Because in a world where a straight kid  growing up doesn't need  to be told  that it's okay to like yourself for who you are,  a logo, or rainbow flag  carried in a parade celebrating  these historic court rulings, can send the  simple  message to LGBT people of all ages,  that  you are just fine the way  you are.   

Happy Pride Everyone...