December 14, 2004
Alabama Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe. (Associated Press).
Listen, Alabama, we need to talk.
I’ve known you my whole life, and despite the things that everyone says about you, I’ve never thought that you were all that bad. Sure, even I made a few jokes at your expense, but you knew I was just pickin’ on you. When someone seriously criticized you, I always had your back. I was a friend to you, Alabama. I acknowledged your shortcomings, but highlighted your triumphs. I always wanted people to know the good things about you.
But this is about all I can take, Alabama. The parade of nutcases you’re bringing around town is just too much. When you showed the world Roy Moore, and his Ten Commandments fetish, I made sure to remind everyone that Moore was eventually removed from the court—that you did the right thing, and booted him to the curb. I was proud of you Alabama, for not letting some asshole make you look bad. When Gerald Allen told everyone that he was going to purge your libraries of “gay” books, I told people about how your Congress is controlled by the Democrats. I told them how the law would never pass. I tried to convince them that most of your citizens aren’t as bad as Gerald Allen. I tried to make you look good.
But Alabama, you’re going to have to start fending for yourself. Now you’ve got a judge, Ashley McKathan, that’s taken Moore’s Ten Commandments fetish a step further by sewing it onto his robes. This is insane. I can’t defend you, Alabama. Now that’s not to say I’m going to pile on with everybody else. But you’ve got to stop putting yourself in these situations. You’ve got to stop hanging out with this bad crowd you’re running with. You’ve got to show people that you don’t deserve the reputation you have.
You know I’ll always love you, Alabama. But your 184th birthday was today. And it’s time to grow up.
December 6, 2004
I’ve always hoped that some day, I would see someone that I’ve known from real life in a pornographic film. I don’t really care who it is, but I always thought it would be funny to see someone that I’ve known from school, church, or work in such a radically different context.
That hasn’t happened yet, but I did get thoroughly creeped out when I saw a pair of Pottery Barn products in a porn the other day. Paisley Jacquard Pillow Covers, I will never be able to look at you the same way again.
December 4, 2004
Chris Bull, writing for PlanetOut, explores a troubling trend in the media—to ignore, or spin, gay bashings by blaming the incidents on unrelated factors. Factors that, conveniently, are not damning to our society at large.
Bull writes: ”[Scotty Joe] Weaver’s slaying received scant national media attention. In fact, in the six years since Matthew Shepard’s murder, dozens of similar killings have been overlooked. With a few notable exceptions, journalists apparently decided, having established Shepard as a martyr, that they could go back to pretending gay-bashing was no longer a national disgrace they had an obligation to expose.”
Coinciding with the national media’s “ignorance is bliss” work ethic with regard to the killings of Scotty Joe Weaver, Roderick George, and Billy Jack Gaither, the inimitable Elizabeth Vargas—the “investigatory journalist” that is Barbara Walters’ replacement on 20/20—decides that the Sweeps Week is the right time to offer her new theory on the motivation for Matthew Shepard’s murder: drugs. Because, you see, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney didn’t beat, pistol-whip, and leave Matthew Shepard bound to a fence to die because he was gay. They did it because they were just so gosh darn high!
Bull says it best when he states: “That it took a complicated mix of lethal motives to trigger murder in no way made these killings any less a product of savage bigotry. To minimize any part of this equation is to do a disservice both to the truth and to efforts to prevent this deadly cycle of violence and societal prejudice that took the lives of Scotty Joe Weaver, Matthew Shepard and hundreds of more anonymous victims.”
Read the full article at PlanetOut News.
