Promised Land: A Modern Fairytale of same-sex true love

When a young Prince and a farm boy meet in the forest, a growing friendship between them blossoms into love. However, when the Queen re-marries, her sinister new husband seeks control of the enchanted forest and the land the farm boy’s family are responsible for protecting.

In a Kingdom where all are considered equal regardless of what they look like or who they love, Promised Land is a brand new fairytale about friendship, responsibility, adventure and love.

Written by Adam Reynolds & Chaz Harris the book features 32 stunning illustrations by Christine Luiten & Bo Moore sure to delight kids young and old.

You Love Trump - Jesus is Weeping

FUCK YOU, AMERICA!

45% of the electorate is embracing racism, bigotry, ignorance, tax-evasion, draft-dodging, hatred, arrogance, religious dogma over science, destruction of the planet we all live on, pride in rape and sexual assault, homophobia, philandering, lying, meaning marriages, cheating, scamming, inciting violence, calling for murder of opponents, bankrupting small businesses, nakedly declaring to let the poor starve and die - 

ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE WHAT DONALD TRUMP HAS DONE AND CALLED UPON YOU TO DO - AND 45% OF YOU EMBRACE THIS!

45% OF YOU ARE IMMORAL TURDS
WHO HAVE DECLARED YOUR LOVE FOR THE DEVIL!

JESUS IS WEEPING.

(image source - 2016-1103 - 9:30 AM PST)

Gay Away the NRA

Okay, so lots of LGBT activists are calling to rainbow the NRA HQ and things like that. I'm all for that.

And let's face it, the current board is mostly rich white men.  Duh.

Did you know that lifetime members can vote for the NRA board of directors?

But, did you know that you can buy a Lifetime membership to the NRA for only $25 every 3 months, as long as you commit to the 60 payments (that's $100 a year, every year, for 15 years).

Let's gay the NRA away.  I mean, seriously, those queens get shit done.

It's your child unless you're gay

So let me get this right. In America today, a hetero rapist can block his rape victim from having an abortion, and the rapist can sue for (and win) visitation rights to the bastard offspring, but a gay man cannot legally be listed as the biological father of his genetic offspring? I wonder if he could if he'd raped the woman instead of using a laboratory to artificially inseminate her...

Texas Judge Denies Two Gay Dads Parental Rights to Their Biological Twin Sons

America today is such a fucked up mess of irrational contradictions based on inconsistent self-righteous non-rational morality.

I mean, seriously, we've been waging a battle since the 1980s to hold biological fathers financially accountable for the children they bring into the world. And we throw in the moralizing about being a man, being a father, and children with two parents turn out better adjusted, and blah, blah, blah.

Let's be real, the moralizing is really about reducing the financial burden on the nanny state, and those "welfare moms" are such sluts, anyway, so now we cut the financial aid to help poor children, so those dads better fucking pony up, right?  Yeah, there's a pile of irrationality in there, with a kernel of good sense (children really do better in two parent homes, there's no argument there, and any man shoving his dick into a woman does have a responsibility for the consequences) (but let's not elaborate too much on either of those two points, or we're back to splitting hairs in useless ways.).

Anyway, some judge in Texas decided two men - who are the biological sperm donors, and therefore 30 years of law says they are responsible for being the fathers are now suddenly denied the right (and obligation) to be the fathers they are supposed to be.  Okay, contradiction much?

It's interesting the article doesn't address the issue of whether this judge denied them parenthood because the laws of Texas are so fucked up, or if the judge was legislating from the bench.  Given that Texas has been owned by the GOP and "conservatives" for more than 20 years, this judge is probably a "conservative," and therefore probably moralizing from the bench.  Both of those last two points may be wrong, since as I said, the GOP and "conservatives" have been screwing up the laws in Texas for decades, so it may simply be the  law put the otherwise reasonable and rational judge into this absurdist position.

Fictional Friday - Albus Dumbledore's secret life

Let me get this straight, 

Albus Dumbledore is

• A completely fictitious person, who doesn't really exist;

• A wizard who uses magic instead of technology for everything. I mean, hey, can't be bothered to use a flashlight?

• Wears dresses all the time;

• Keeps a flaming bird in his office and expects it to die and rebirth itself;

• Puts his memories in a bowl instead of keeping them in his head, like normal people;

• Has been known to trick young boys into reliving the memories he put into that bowl;

• Machinates in the background, with this huge plot;

• Waves his magic wand about in public;

• You caught the part about using magic right?

And people have their panties in a bunch because he likes to cuddle with other grown men?

Oh, good grief.

Theological Thursday: Jesus Loves Fags

Two important messages here:

 

1. Just as you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot force it to drink. So, too, you can try to teach the ignorant, but you cannot force them to learn. It has to be a two-way effort;
2. Jesus loves everybody. Everyone says so, there are even songs about it.

Right-O. So, we've established that Jesus Loves Everybody, right? That includes homosexuals.  And black people. And Muslims. Yeah, see, Jesus was Jewish, but he said "everyone is a child of God, and God loves all His children," right?  Yeah, see that includes Muslims, even  those black Muslims, and you just know those are the worst kind, right?  I mean "dark" and "Muslim."  I shudder to imagine it.

Jesus Loves Everybody. Even the fuckwits who insist on being ignorant, petty, selfish, bigots.

Yep, Jesus even loves them.

.

So you're gay: I still don't care

If someone says to you "I'm gay (or lesbian)," or "I'm bi-sexual," is it rude to say "I don't care"?

My initial impulse was "No," but context is everything.

When I say "I don't care," I mean it in a neutral voice. I just don't care. 

If you're a woman and trying to hit on me, I'm very flattered, but you're barking up the wrong tree, and we only have a problem if you push it. However, in that case - same as if you were some man who might think he's God's gift to women - the problem isn't your sexuality, it's your aggressiveness. (Unless you're also Angelina Jolie hitting on me - everybody gets a pass if it's Angelina Jolie.)

However, there is a contextual element to be considered: for many people who are gay or bi-sexual, the realization and public admission is very threatening, and the act of saying something can make the person both emotionally and physically vulnerable. (It's a sad commentary on human nature that it makes them physically vulnerable, but that's a different rant.)

So, maybe I should say: "Thank you for sharing that with me, I'm sure it has added some real challenge to your life that straight people don't suffer (and no one should have too), and I empathize with that, but otherwise I just don't care."

I don't care. The only impact it has on my life is because a bunch of twisted-up titwits use it as an excuse to discriminate against others, and a bunch of fuckwits use that discrimination as a launch platform for all manner of power-grabbing political shenanigans. Click on the "class warfare" and "gay marriage" labels below to see how much these shenanigans piss me off.

So, I guess the morale of this tale is that rudeness is context sensitive. Even the kindest-sounding sentence can be the height of rudeness when delivered with a scornful tone, or at totally the wrong time. So, as always, think before you speak, and only be rude by deliberate intention, and not by careless accident.

Bigot Baker Goes Broke, Oh Boo-Hoo

So, let's be clear:

1) If you want to run a business, and have a license to serve food, you are not allowed to discriminate against human beings. There are provisions for safety and sanitation, e.g. if the person is carrying a knife, or "No shoes, no shirt, no service," but black, gay, short, whatever, not allowed to discriminate;

2) Melissa and her husband CHOSE to refuse service, in violation of the law, and CHOSE to shut down the business office;

3) Apparently, despite running a business in violation of the law, they are trying to dodge the law by baking out of her home kitchen. Okay, this is dodgy because there are sanitation and food preparation laws to protect people. The laws are not meant to screw "mom & pop" shops like these two bigots, the laws are meant to prevent McDonalds-Mega-Corp from selling you even lower quality, e.g. barely-fit-for-animal-consumption, food than they already do.

So, basically, I have no sympathy for these bigots, and I resent their efforts to play for pity and sympathy. In fact, I have no tolerance for bigots of any strip.

And no, this does not "make me a bigot," as the strawman argument goes. Failing to tolerate intolerance makes me a moral, ethical person, who understood the words of Jesus: "We are all children of God," and "What you do to the least among you, you do to me." I.e. "When your petty bigotry leads you - literally or metaphorically - to spit on someone, it means you spit on me."

March 2016 update:  Found a new meme recently, and thought it just fit this so bloody well.

Marriage defined in the real world

"Defenders" of "traditional marriage values" like to cite religious scripture to say that marriage is a "union of one man, and one woman."

Funny thing is, in the real world, marriage is just contract law. No, really, end of discussion.

How do I know?

Well, in the real world one man and one woman can form a union, and raise children, and do everything together without ever filing legal contract law paperwork.

In the real world, one man - or one woman -can sign marriage contracts with multiple partners, as long as they only do it sequentially and not concurrently, since the contracts are exclusionary.

In the real world, said contract law provides binding legal rights and privileges to the partners, which are independent of any union the two might have. The contracted couple could even live wholly separate lives and never contact each other, and still have binding legal privilege over each other.

in the real world, people look at said same holy scripture and ask "How many wives did that Solomon guy have, exactly?"