More Reasons Why Homophobia Makes No Sense

I’ve already given eight reasons why homophobia makes no sense, but I am continuously discovering more reasons, as you can tell by the title of this blog entry.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently vetoed (for largely economic reasons) a bill passed by the Arizona legislature to allow business owners to discriminate against people on the basis of religious belief. Senate Bill 1062 would have allowed business owners to deny service to members of the LGBT community on the basis of personal religious faith. (The pro-business Brewer was pushed to her decision largely by corporations threatening to leave Arizona if the bill was passed.)

The bill also could have allowed business owners to deny service to Muslims, pagans, very many women, and others who do not subscribe to the religious doctrines of the business owner. If a business owner passed by a restaurant booth and overheard a conversation by a Muslim woman saying she was seeking or had sought an abortion, the bill, if passed, would have given that business owner the right to deny that woman service (if the business owner could prove their religious conviction in accordance with the re-written law).

This whole fiasco drew opponents to homosexuality out of the woodwork, and they populated social media in force. They hemmed and hawed against religious restrictions, while LGBT advocates hemmed and hawed about equal protection (which is also a constitutional right in the United States).

So, with that in mind, I am going to focus here on the attitudes of people I have encountered in social media who supported the bill because it would have allowed business owners to discriminate against LGBT people. I am going to expose their fallacies and destroy them one-by-one. I cannot connect a single argument with a single person, but I can say I encountered these arguments commonly (and you have probably encountered them, too).

1) ‘Why should I serve people who flaunt their sexuality at the restaurant table?’

Why should I serve people who flaunt their sexuality at the restaurant table? Oh, wait, you are talking about LGBT people, and I am talking about straight people. Why do you think that gay people flaunt their sexuality at a restaurant table any more than straight people? Is it just the fact that you know they’re LGBT? As opposed to straight? How is there a difference? I am confused.

2) ‘What’s next? Allowing swingers and people in BD/SM gear to enter my establishment and demand to be served?’

Wait, what? So you equate LGBT people with swinging and BD/SM more than you do straight people? That’s silly, since straight people probably have just as much interest in BD/SM as LGBT people. If you shun LGBT people because of their scary sexual experimentations, why don’t you shun straight people as much for the same reason? It doesn’t make sense.

3) ‘You can’t compare LGBT rights with black rights.’

This is a false dilemma. You are saying that LGBT rights do not compare with black rights because LGBT people choose to be who they are, while black people do not. First, how do you know that LGBT people choose to be who they are? Give me the evidence. Second, even if they did choose to be who they are, natural does not equal right, and unnatural does not equal wrong. Third, it is wrong to say that LGBT rights and black rights are entirely separate just because LGBT identities are based on sexuality, and not skin colour. No, LGBT and black rights are similar because both LGBT and black people have experienced institutional and/or systemic discrimination based on their status. Obviously their experiences overlap. Ask Audre Lorde.

4) ‘Gays and atheists and what-not will discriminate against me!’

No, they won’t! What they want is a compromise. The gay-theists will take wedding photos of you, because state law says they should, and you will take wedding photos of gay-theists, because state law says you should. Doesn’t it all work out to a magical equilibrium?

5) ‘Religion trumps everybody else’s rights’

No, it doesn’t. True religious freedom means the right to exercise your religion in peace and harmony while also respecting the freedoms of others. It does not mean steamrolling over their freedoms; it does not mean controlling every aspect of their lives; and it is not a free pass to do whatever you want on the grounds of personal faith. Religious freedom ends when it seeks dominion over the basic freedoms of others.

So that is my response to attitudes about the recent decision in Arizona. I know I will not reach the heart of truly devout Christians who believe what they believe, but I hope something like this will make a dent in the beliefs of people who are on the fence. If you truly believe that God made Adam and Eve to procreate, you have to ask yourself why there are post-menopausal women who have sex, women who have had hysterectomies but have sex, sterile women who have sex, and women who simply choose not to have children but have sex. How is that any different from a gay person having sex? Obviously it is about love and devotion toward another human being. How is that wrong?

Valentine’s Day and Stupid Sexist Jokes

Let me make this clear right away: I love Conan O’Brien. He is the funniest late-night television show host I have ever watched. He is refreshingly, self-deprecatingly wacky and off-the-wall. It is fun to watch Irish gingers make fun of themselves, too. Most late-night hosts don’t do that—Conan is uncannily British in his farcical humour, which is probably why he’s so popular in so many countries outside the United States. But he doesn’t write his own monologues—he works behind the scenes with writers and then delivers the final product on stage. He is not entirely at fault for the jokes he delivers in his monologues.

While I normally slap my knee uproariously over Conan’s crazy introductory monologues, I’ve been a little bit peeved lately at the show’s jokes about Valentine’s Day because of their retrogressive direction. One of the jokes was about how McDonald’s has offered discounts to Valentine’s Day couples, and how all the tables will be filled only by one person—presumably a man who was abandoned by his female lover for taking her to such an awful place for the most important date in her calendar. Another joke was about how Valentine’s Day bla bla bla men don’t care bla bla bla women love it bla bla bla therefore punchline about how men don’t care about Valentine’s Day, and just want to get their dicks sucked as payment.

OK. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, and I totally appreciate the overall vibe of the Conan show and other commercial outlets for St Valentine’s Day, but the whole ‘man pays woman with chocolates for sex’ thing is  just kind of annoying because it reinforces several very unfair things that many of us automatically assume about the ritual of love and romance. And it shouldn’t be this way; it should be about romantic love and devotion between consenting partners.

First, there is the assumption that men don’t care about Valentine’s Day as much as women do. Really? What kind of evidence do you have to support this assumption? I’m curious to know. The typical narrative is that the man gives the woman flowers and chocolates in exchange for sex. This suggests that men don’t care as much as women do about romantic love, for that is what Valentine’s Day is all about. It is an incredibly special day in which couples celebrate their love for one another. If you don’t believe the man cares as much about romantic love as the woman does, doesn’t this deserve explaining? Why do you think the man shouldn’t care as much? Men feel romantic desires too, don’t they?

Second, there is the assumption that women don’t care as much about sex as men do on Valentine’s Day. Again, really? Give me hardcore reasons for your assumption. We all know the drill: the man gives the woman chocolates and flowers as an expression of his love and devotion (like some brain-dead, sex-crazed zombie), and the woman rewards him by performing fellatio on him. Or more. This whole scenario suggests that sex is a form of payment to a man by a woman. No. If St Valentine’s Day means anything, it is that couples merge consensually in perfect, harmonic sexual love. There is perfectly good reason to believe that Valentine’s Day should be as sexually pleasing for the woman as for the man. It isn’t her fault that you don’t know where the clitoris is. Maybe that’s why she asked for chocolates.

My intent is not to ruin your joy—there is nothing more precious than true love—but it is to shatter the myth that St Valentine’s Day is an excuse to make a profit off some ill-conceived battle of the sexes. It is not the case that men have to earn sex by giving women flowers and chocolates, and it is not the case that women have to earn love by denying their own sexuality and gratifying a mate. It is far more egalitarian than that. Both women and men acknowledge that they both experience love and lust, and want to share it with one another. How fucking complicated is that? It sounds like a fun time to me!

And with that, I leave you with ‘Welcome to my VD’, by my favourite comedienne, Deven Green:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2746119/welcome_to_vd_comedy_parody_by_deven_green/

9 Reasons Why Anti-Ally Attitudes Make No Sense

I am tired of members of the LGBT community griping about how people who support them shouldn’t support them. It makes no sense. It is embarrassing to much of the LGBT community, and it makes them look like spoiled ingrates.

Macklemore recently performed at the 56th Grammy Awards alongside Mary Lambert (an open lesbian), Queen Latifah, and Madonna. He performed a song you would think all the gays would be grateful for: ‘Same Love’. Well, apparently that wasn’t good enough.

Some gays were up-in-arms over his performance. I can’t even begin to enumerate the asinine reasons why.

Let’s start with this superb piece by Arielle Scarcella:

Um, how can you refute any of these points? Please tell me how.

These are the types of arguments I encountered subsequent to Macklemore’s performance:

1) Straights cannot understand what it’s like to be gay.

Exactly! That is why Macklemore’s statement is so important. He doesn’t know. And yet he is still supportive, because he knows it’s wrong. He shows empathy. Isn’t it a good thing when a non-member shows empathy for a member of a group? Or are you just divisive?

2) I didn’t ask for help.

He didn’t give it because you asked. He gave it out of magnanimity because young people needed it. Nobody is forcing your hand to accept his help. You can take it or leave it. Are you really going to take him to task for such a noble gesture? What is really annoying is that you suggest he’s forcing you to appreciate him. That is just disingenuous.

3) Privilege isn’t a shield.

He isn’t creating privilege as a shield! He is challenging his own privilege, and those of other straight men, by rapping about it! Do you really think he’s leveraging his fame to defend himself against criticism? Of what? Defending you? Now you’re just starting to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

4) He’s white

And? I understand some black people might not identify with his music, but surely we cannot ignore the black people who do identify with it, or invalidate the content of his argument on the basis of his race alone.

5) He’s a man

So, what? He is trying to dismantle gender roles based on sexual orientation. Isn’t that one of the most gender-subversive things a man (or anybody) can do? He is unusual among men for that reason, and that does deserve appreciation.

6) He’s exploitative.

How? He has leveraged his fame to advocate for gay rights. How is that exploitative? It can only be beneficial to the gay rights movement. He could donate to a gay charity, but that wouldn’t have the same visible impact. The mainstreaming of gay rights does require some commercialisation. It really  isn’t a big deal.

7) You have to look at the context.

What context? These are Macklemore’s lyrics. What else are you looking for? A swastika? We are being challenged on so many sides, and occasionally a beam of supportive light shines in through a grand lunette window. It is a ray of hope, and it is from a privileged person. That is our context. How can it hurt, then, to accept the help of an ally??

8) He can’t speak for us queer people.

He can’t? What would you rather he do? Stand on the sidelines and let Pat Robertson take over? Or outright oppose you like Pat Robertson? That is just ridiculous. No, you don’t have to know exactly what it’s like to be queer in order to support queer rights, and, yes, the majority can speak for the minority–out of basic human empathy, compassion, and solid ethical reasoning.

9) I’m just going to couch the terms of my argument in newfangled rhetoric.

This is perhaps the most intellectually disingenuous and disrespectful attitude I have encountered. I don’t know if it is rooted in some queer radical movement or what, but it has no business in honest dialectic. Underprivileged. What does that mean? That you can get away with saying anything you want, regardless of the illogic of your argument, just because you happen to belong to a so-called ‘underprivileged’ group? Because it doesn’t. You still need to abide by the laws of reason and open, honest debate. The fact that you may be less privileged than a member of another group does not automatically make your argument valid. It is just as likely that you are leveraging your own status as ‘underprivileged’ to bitch about people who are actually trying to help you. Which makes no sense.

It is perfectly possible for underprivileged people to begin to assume the position of the privileged by taking their current position for granted (French Revolution).

The point is this: yes, LGBT people are underprivileged. However, being underprivileged does not protect you from being a total, complete asshole. The fact is we do need allies, and we start to look like real shitheads when we refuse to acknowledge our allies’ hard work to redress the crimes of the past. As Arielle Scarcella says in her video above, allies are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Personally, I am shit-holy grateful as an effeminate gay man. I will be damned if I don’t show my allies the gratitude they deserve. If you don’t like that, so be it—but keep in mind, we are not so privileged as you may think.

Oh, and during the Grammy Awards ceremony, Queen Latifah herself performed a mass wedding ceremony for both gay and straight couples, so what the fuck are you motherfuckers complaining about? Hm?

8 Reasons Why Transphobia Makes No Sense

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) was 20 November, but I didn’t post this blog entry in time. Ironically, it has allowed me to cull from the Web information that was only available on the day itself. It has allowed me to calculate the shocking cost in human terms of hatred toward transgender people.

**Trigger warning for graphic description of violent crime**

It has allowed me to acknowledge the horrifying fact that Evon Young, a 22 year-old rapper from Milwaukee, was suffocated, beaten, and shot before being dismembered and set ablaze.

Transphobia is abhorrent in all its forms, but it takes on a new shape when it involves class and race. Many victims of transphobia are poor, black, and utterly lacking in social or financial resources. That’s enough to think about in itself.

Compassion is key to ending transphobia—there is nothing more needed than an understanding soul—but I also find it helpful to challenge transphobes with reason (of which compassion is the keystone). Thus, I offer eight reasons why transphobia makes no sense. If this doesn’t sway you, I don’t know what will.

1. Transgender people challenge gender stereotypes

This is a classic argument used against transgender people by the religious right-wing. Yes, they do challenge gender stereotypes. So, what? What is wrong with a person offending your sense of the way males or females should appear or behave? You don’t have the right to restrict another person’s rights just because of your ideas about gender.

2. Transgender people reinforce gender stereotypes

This is the reverse of the supposedly ‘conservative’ stance. It states that transgender people are sexist because they reify ideas about gender. For example, a transgender man might cut his hair short and wear pants. How is this any different from anything a cisgender man might do? If you can blame the transgender man for stereotyping, you also have to blame the cisgender man for stereotyping. There is no difference. This attitude suggests that cisgender men can get away with being masculine, while transgender men can’t. Vice-versa for transgender women and cisgender women. If a cisgender woman can get away with growing long hair without being seen as sexist, why can’t a transgender woman? As long as cisgender people maintain gender stereotypes, they are in no place to judge transgender people for doing the same. We all live in the same milieu of gender-crap.

3. It’s unnatural

Of course this is bullshit. As I stated in 8 Reasons Why Homophobia Makes No Sense, just because something is natural does not make it right, and just because something is unnatural does not make it wrong. Clearly cutting hair is unnatural, but how many people create an uproar over that? Likewise, not cutting your hair is natural, and few people create an uproar over that. So even if being transgender were unnatural, the appeal to nature argument is a fallacy. A thing doesn’t have to be natural in order to be valid.

4. Transgender people reduce people to their genitals

As opposed to cisgender people?? The argument is that transgender people reduce people to their genitals because they fixate on gender reassignment surgery. First, not all transgender people seek gender reassignment surgery—some transgender men can give birth, and some transgender women don’t want penectomies; second, so what if they did? There’s nothing wrong with wanting different genitals. It isn’t a fucking gender statement; it’s them realising themselves. In addition, some cisgender women undergo hysterectomies and mastectomies, and there are post-menopausal women, but we don’t say they are no longer women. Why should we say the same about transgender women? Why should cisgender women care so much about their anatomy, but not transgender women?

5. Genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation is an horrific crime against humanity in which all manner of mutilations are committed against women and girls for the sake of the virginity, marriageability, social acceptance, and suppression of desire among women and girls, often with dire physical consequences. It is an abhorrent act that no cultural relativist can justify. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gender reassignment surgery. People who seek gender reassignment surgery do so voluntarily—and often at great cost—to fulfil their needs. It is absolutely wrong to equate FGM to transgender people seeking gender reassignment surgery.

6. Transgender women are dicks in disguise

There is this weird idea among some members of what is called the radical-feminist movement that transgender women are really men disguising as women to infiltrate the sacred sisterhood and violate them. Ugh. First of all, if you believe in gender ambiguity, how does somebody who’s fighting for their right to be recognised as a woman threaten you? Second, if a transgender woman has undergone sexual reassignment surgery, how can she do anything to you that any other woman hasn’t?

7. They’re pathologically confused.

No, they are not pathologically confused. You are. They know who they are, even if you don’t. In case anybody has any doubts, the American Psychological Association has not only validated transgender identities as healthy, but has also provided a very helpful booklet of information for those who still don’t understand why transgender identity is good and healthy.

8. What about children and families?

I understand your apprehension. It seems like transgender people can’t or shouldn’t create families. The fact is, some of them do, and all of them have come from one. There are transgender men who bear and nurse children. Why should they be treated differently from other men? Because of their anatomy? Remember the woman who has had a hysterectomy. I understand that this seems silly and abstract, but think about it.

Those are among the many reasons why transphobia makes no sense. After reading about Evon Young’s horrific murder, I was paralysed with horror, but I figured that providing these points might help educate people about the real-life consequences of transphobia. It is not rational, good, or healthy to be cruel. Transgender people need our support, and wherever you meet a transgender person in need, give them the coat off your back.

10 Reasons Why America Sucks and Europe Rocks

1)      Food

America:

Europe:

2)      Health

America:

Europe:

3)      Education

America:

Europe:

4)      Transportation

America:

Europe:

5)      Walkability

America:

Europe:

6)      Urban Landscape

America:

Europe:

7)      Fashion

America:

Europe:

8)      Music

America:

Europe:

9)      Nightlife

America:

Europe:

10)  World-view

America:

Europe:

RuPaul’s Queens Get “Red” for Filth on Their Perfume Commercials

Look! It’s RuPaul smelling “Grandma’s vadge”, as the always meek and subtle Aubrey O’Day put it. I usually hate reality television, and I’m constantly watching documentaries on asteroids and volcanoes, but RuPaul’s Drag Race pumps out some hot stuff, hookers. On Episode 8 of Season 5, the dolls had to concoct their own unique fragrance and make a commercial for it which reflected their personalities.

Well, I was not terribly impressed with the girls’ work. London makeup artist Joseph Harwood himself expressed surprise over the quality of the commercials–and I agree with him. They could have been more polished as actors. Nevertheless, I do think some queens did better than others, and I’ve included their delightfully tongue-in-cheek perfume commercials below. Enjoy!

1) ‘Red…for Filth’

Alaska had RuPaul cackling like a witch with this fine gem. The pun in ‘red’ is obvious, but it’s just so funny and catchy that it hits you out of nowhere like a friendly drunk hooker turning tricks on the street. Alaska’s right up there with Jinkx in terms of high-kookiness, in my opinion. She carried through with the theme of red in her runway look in the same episode, and her fragrance was the only one Aubrey didn’t think smelled like Grandma’s vadge. (Alaska wanted to create a raw, earthy, leathery smell.) So, deservedly, Alaska won this, her first, weekly challenge. Are you read(y) for me?

2) ‘Heroine’

Another clever double entendre. As Lineysha Sparx said in a previous episode, Detox looks like eyes with legs, but she is so posh and polished, and so very refined and committed to her art, that she is virtually unassailable. Her dark, alluring, expertly applied makeup matches perfectly with the message she conveys in her commercial: ‘I may be a drug addict, but, by golly, I am glamourous about it’. The deep ‘heroin’ voice nailed it for Joan Van Ark, one of the judges who critiqued her in this episode and loved her for being so bold. By the way, Heroine is available at the clinic.

3) ‘Delusion’

Jinkx is the queen of glamour-kook. She is a melding of beauty and humour. Tammie Brown has done kooky, but she depended too much on kookiness at the cost of glamour. Alaska is kooky, like Jinkx, but she doesn’t possess Jinkx’s appreciation of vintage drag, which is important when you want to make drag history accessible to modern-day youth. Jinkx is multi-layered and fascinating, always responding to criticisms from Michelle Visage by upgrading her look and growing as a glamour-queen. She is the strange, gorgeous, funny vaudeville surprise. And she isn’t defensive or catty, which is refreshing. Con-vince yourself!

So, while I prefer educational documentaries on asteroids and volcanoes, I have a weak spot for RuPaul’s Drag Race. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be for RuPaul to smell the samples of her minions. It must be like eating poisonous flowers. I am confident, however, that she will make a wise decision about who will take home the crown. And I will let you speculate on who that individual shall be. *hint, hint*

A Gay Man Celebrates International Women’s Day (and a Stupid Jerk Shits His Opinion)

March is Women’s History Month. I want to focus on achievements, but sadly my attention is drawn to shitty American jock humour–which is everywhere. Did you notice how annoyingly stupid the introduction to the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony was? A song about boobs by cut-rate humourist Seth MacFarlane and his tuxedoed entourage?? Oh my goodness, the ice-cold glare launched by Charlize Theron could slice through diamond.

Well, I saw a refreshingly cool comment by psychic and medium Chip Coffey, who, in my opinion, reverberates with respectability, class, and integrity:

Hindu Guru Blames Delhi Gang-Rape Victim for Her Attack

Can anybody be full of more shit than Asaram Bapu?

The Hindu guru recently gave a speech at a ‘Satsang’, a type of gathering with his devotees, in which he remarked that the medical student who was gang-raped on a Delhi bus on 26 December, and who died of her injuries in hospital a few days later, was just as responsible for her attack as were her attackers. I kid you not. The fucker really said this. Or, depending on how strongly you believe the words of his spokeswoman, he said something like this.

According to The Huffington Post, the asshole told his followers that the 23 year-old student (who remains anonymous under an Indian law protecting the names of rape victims) ‘should have taken God’s name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said, I consider you as my brother, and should have said to the other two “Brother I am helpless; you are my brother, my religious brother”‘. He also said that ‘[s]he should have taken God’s name and held their hands and feet–then the misconduct wouldn’t have happened’ and that ‘[t]he accused were drunk. If the girl had chanted hymns to Goddess Saraswati and to Guru Diksha then she wouldn’t have entered the bus’. And the Hindustan Times reports him as saying, ‘Galti ek taraf se nahi hoti hai (mistake is not committed from one side)’. In other words, the old fool thinks the woman made a mistake by letting the men gang-rape her.

Yeah. Well, you know what his spokeswoman, Niam Dubey, did. She came to his defense. ‘Bapujee never made such statements. He just asked his women followers to avoid such situation[s]’, she said, arguing that ‘[h]e was only suggesting that women should try their level-best to come out from such situation[s] by using diplomatic ways‘ but ultimately admitting that ‘[y]es, he said that the girl had made a mistake by taking an empty bus in night. If she had taken “Matra-Diksha”, the God has might save her anyhow’ [sic]. What the mother-fuck? She’s basically confirming what he has already said but simply rendering his words more vague. So, even if there were some media distortion of Bapu’s words, according to his own spokeswoman he still suggested the woman was equally responsible for her attack.

But, while we all agree (hopefully) that the old man is off his rocker, for the sake of argument let’s take a brief look at each of his remarks and show how deeply mired they are in a mammoth pile of steaming cowshit.

First, he suggests the victim should have invoked God and held one of her attackers’ hands–while being raped. Well, by definition, rape is a non-consensual sex act, meaning forced sex, so how could she have held her attacker’s hand while being pinned down and beaten into submission? It wasn’t as though the rapists were giving her leeway to let her grasp their hands and pray with them. Allegedly, the youngest of the accused attackers (a 17 year-old) was ripping out her bowels bare-handed. I wouldn’t be holding my attackers’ hands; I would be screaming from pain. (Whatever you think of that report, the fact is she had to have almost all of her bowels surgically removed.)

Second, he suggests she should have chanted hymns to the gods and goddesses for protection. How does he know she didn’t? For all he knows, she did. And if she did, it obviously didn’t work, because she was still raped, so what then? Even more, he expects her to spend her time praying to the gods rather than poking, stabbing, or beating her attackers (which, granted, is extremely difficult when there are six of them, but just as tenable, if not more so, as praying to the gods). So, you see, Bapu is presuming that the woman did not do things she very easily may have, as if she is inherently subject to suspicion, or else he is expecting her to be patient and hope for the best, or die like a martyr, rather than fight for her life.

Third, Bapu suggests that if she had prayed hard enough, the victim wouldn’t have entered the bus in which she was raped in the first place. So, it is her fault for travelling in a bus, and not the rapists’ fault for raping her? No. She had every right to take the bus wherever and whenever she wished without fear of being assaulted; her attackers had no right to rape her. She didn’t violate their rights when she got on the bus; they violated hers when they raped her. A woman should not have to design her life around those of marauding rapists. So, no, it was the rapists’ responsibility for choosing to savage her; it was not her responsibility for choosing to enter a bus, which she should have been able to do with ease of mind anyway.

This sort of victim-blaming isn’t relegated to one single tradition. We see it in some strains of New Age beliefs too. Some New Age thinkers believe that every soul comes to earth choosing to endure difficult circumstances in order to learn lessons about good and evil. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, the girl who is raped by her uncle chose to have this experience, and meanwhile the man who rapes his niece chose to have that experience, suggesting that both the rapist uncle and the victimized niece are equally responsible for the experience. However, even if both chose their experiences, the niece “chose not to choose” the act, whereas the uncle “chose to choose” the act; moreover, how could the niece know what she had chosen if she has forgotten? Her pre-life alter-ego is committing a crime against her. But more practically speaking, the notion that people choose their experiences before they come to Earth (a handsome speculation) echoes Bapu’s suggestion; it justifies violent crime and victim-blaming when all we know is the victim didn’t choose to be victimized, and, for that reason, it deserves our severest criticism.

Asaram Bapu is obviously full of tired, stale, fly-infested bullshit, but bullshit has a hideous power to lull the masses. What we need to do is call sham spiritual leaders like Bapu on their dung. It is never acceptable to justify rape, because rape by definition is non-consensual sex. If you agree that it is rape, you agree that it is non-consensual, and you agree that there is a perpetrator and a victim. In turn, you agree that the perpetrator, not the victim, is responsible for the crime. I don’t usually condone capital punishment, but I honestly wouldn’t lose any sleep if the monsters who raped the Delhi medical student were euthanised, and Bapu were shamed.

Go Washington State!

This past U.S. election resulted in many victories–from a ceiling-breaking number of women in Congress to the first Buddhist Asian-American woman elected to the senate and the first Hindu elected to the House of Representatives. In addition, Tammy Duckworth became the first disabled woman to be elected to the House. And she’s from Thailand! This is paradigm-shifting news.

As women, religious minorities, and disabled people were gaining ground, so were sexual minorities. Along with the states of Maine and Maryland, Washington state voters legalised gay marriage on election day, 6 November, making it the ninth state to do so (or the seventh state to do so, in a tie with Maine and Maryland, if we forget about time zones and mail-in ballots). In the map below, Washington is the state in the northwestern corner of the United States, just south of British Columbia, Canada, along the fabled Salish Sea.

But Washington voters also prevailed in the fight to legalize cannabis use for recreational purposes. While U.S federal law still treats cannabis use as a grievous crime, Washington state, along with Colorado, has decided that a new approach to drug reform is necessary, and this means anybody 21 years of age or older can possess an ounce of cannabis and smoke it openly on the street, just as they would a cigarette.

As of the 2012 U.S. presidential election, Washington state and Seattle are now on par with the Netherlands and Amsterdam as one of the most liberal, socially progressive jurisdictions in the world. Except for the Netherlands, Washington state is now the only place in the world where both gay marriage and cannabis are legal. Yet you do not hear much about Washington state in the news. It is often confused with Washington, D.C. Do not let that fool you–Americans have a new pioneer in progressive social experiments, and it comes from the Pacific Northwest.

Here is a guide to the use of cannabis and same-sex marriage solemnisation in Washington, from the Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/legalized-gay-marriage-is-complicated/Content?oid=15280033

Why You Should Support Marriage Equality in Washington State

It’s been a while since I wrote a political blog entry, but this issue is so important that I couldn’t ignore it.

On 6 November, Washington state voters will decide whether or not to preserve a law passed by the state legislature back in February to legalise marriage for same-sex couples.

Opponents of the measure have raised several concerns over the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the state.

One of these concerns is that churches and clergy would be forced to perform same-sex marriages. This is false. The law, as reflected in the ballot language itself, explicitly protects the rights of churches and clergy to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages. Same-sex marriage solemnisation would remain an entirely civic proceeding. Hence, churches win, and same-sex couples win.

Another concern opponents of the measure have is that gay marriage will be taught in public schools. This, too, is false. It rests on the slippery slope argument that if gay marriage is legalised, public schools will start teaching about it. The current measure has nothing to do with any public school instruction on anything to do with homosexuality. Hence, to get from point A to Z, you have to jump through hoops to get to your goal.

Finally, people are concerned that the traditional definition of marriage is changing. Honey, it was changing back in 1967 with Loving vs. Virginia, when a black couldn’t marry a white and the Supreme Court decided they could. Besides, that argument is so fallacious in so many ways. It’s an argumentum ad antiquitatem. A thing isn’t right just because it is traditional.

For these reasons, you should support the passage of Referendum 74 in Washington state. It is fair, it is compassionate, and it is humane for all loving, committed families.