So you think I’m a loser. Just because I have a stinkin’ job that I hate, a family that doesn’t respect me, a whole city that curses the day I was born. Well, that may mean loser to YOU, but let me tell you something:
Every morning when I wake up, I know it’s not going to get any better until I go back to sleep again. So I get up, have my watered down Tang and still-frozen Pop Tart, get in my car with no upholstery, no gas, and six more payments, to fight traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes on the cloven hooves of people like YOU.
I’ll never play football like I thought I would. I’ll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I’ll never again know the joy of driving without a bag on my head. But I’m not a loser.
‘Cause despite it all, me and every other guy who will never be what he wanted to be are still out there being what we don’t want to be, 40 hours a week for life. And the fact that I haven’t put a gun in my mouth, you pudding of a woman, makes me a WINNER.
--Al Bundy, "Married With Children"
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Hate Crimes and the Gays and Their Crazy Agendas: a.k.a. Dawn's Treatise On Hate Crimes Legislation
I receive political e-mails from my uncle on a semi-regular basis now. My response upon reading one is “What? Really? That doesn’t make sense. ” I have to re-read several times before I get it, because my life is a sheltered and naïve metropolitan bubble of urban bliss that forgets about 90% of America’s Midwestern rural population who refer to the current Presidential administration as “Hussein’s terrorist-loving illegal Totalitarian regime, God’s allowance of the Biblical prophecy of end-times.” I know, right? Here I am calling him “Obama,” silly me. I think Obama’s doing pretty good considering the circumstances; I mean, what do I know?
My uncle, who lives in rural Kansas, believes that the government considers him a “Potential Domestic Terrorist,” along with those who support the Constitution, are pro-life, and are opposed to government control. My uncle doesn’t work. Literally all he does is sit in his recliner, watching monster truck rallies and WWF wrestling matches on the tv. He also occasionally checks his e-mail. I’m pretty sure he only leaves the house once a week to run errands, such as going to the grocery store to purchase Doritos and hot dogs. Therefore, I have my doubts regarding his domestic terrorist status. Government, this is a message to you: If you are monitoring my uncle, YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.
The most recent e-mail was about hate crimes. My uncle wrote, “You can't possibly say anything good about this bill. I don't see how you/anyone could/can.” The bill he’s referring to is the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. New hate crime legislation was initiated following the infamous and horrendous hate-motivated torture-murder of a college student in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Congress has been debating the inclusion of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, gender, and people with disabilities.
My uncle forwarded e-mails about the hate crimes bill from two organizations, the American Family Association (AFA) and Concerned Women for America (CWA). These organizations are tremendously, vehemently opposed to the hate crimes bill, because of its inclusion of homosexuality, more so than for any other reason. That’s my opinion.
THE AFA
The first organization, AFA (www.afa.net), is a Christian group that stands for traditional family values. They don’t hate homosexuals, but are motivated “to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture.” AFA has a whole page devoted specifically to the homosexual agenda, which I find exciting, because this whole “agenda” thing continues to elude me. http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/
The e-mail from the AFA about the hate crimes bill was titled: “Senate Poised to Give Special Protection Status to Pedophiles: Your Calls Are Needed Today!”
It made only one point,
1. “The U.S. Senate is set to give legally protected status to pedophiles and 30 other sexual orientations. The Senate refused to define what is meant by sexual orientation in S. 909, the ‘Hate Crimes’ bill. This means that the 30 different sexual orientations will be federally protected classes.”
THE CWA
The second organization, CWA (http://www.cwfa.org), is a Christian group whose mission is to bring Biblical principles to all levels of public policy. CWA believes that gay people aren’t born that way, but rather exhibit a behavior that can and should be resisted. Also, homosexuals are inherently dirty, unhealthy, and disease-ridden. I don’t exaggerate. http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=959&department=CWA&categoryid=family
One CWA article says, “Despite the clear medical evidence that homosexual behavior is at its very essence unhealthy, many advocates and activists insist that we cannot counsel these people to change their behavior, because it is an innate genetic trait. These advocates make reference to several medical studies that claim to have established a biological link to homosexuality. However, fair evaluation of these studies proves that they are anything but conclusive.” It therefore follows that CWA also feels that people can be counseled out of being gay.
The CWA, being more elaborate than the AFA, had three points to say about the hate crimes bill,
1. “’Hate Crimes’ is an overreach and overbroad . . . Over 30 kinds of sexual behaviors could be covered, including pedophilia and bestiality.”
2. “’Hate crimes’ laws lead to religious discrimination. These laws have been used in Europe, Canada – and even American – to intimidate and punish people who honor natural sexuality and value marriage as the union of a man and a woman. If a person speaks out against various sexual behaviors, they may be accused of ‘hate speech’ and promoting ‘hate crimes.’”
3. “’Hate crimes’ creates special classes of victims based solely upon their ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’ Victims who engage in homosexual, transgender, fetish, or other sexual behaviors would get preferential treatment over victims who are grandmothers, veterans or children. In other countries, it has lead to punishing people for their Biblical views on sexuality.” http://www.cwfa.org/factsheets/thoughtcrimes-factcard.pdf
MY RESPONSES
POINT 1: PEDOPHILES
The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning website, PolitiFact.com, a site managed by journalists from the St. Petersburg Times, is dedicated to fact-checking statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists, and interest groups, and rating them on a “Truth-O-Meter.” The truth-o-meter rates true, mostly true, half-true, barely true, false, pants-on-fire, and full-flop.
The claim that the hate crimes bill will protect pedophiles received a PolitiFact rating of “Pants-On-Fire,” meaning that it’s essentially ridiculous. It elaborates. For one thing, pedophilia and sexual orientation aren’t the same thing. “Sexual orientation relates to the gender to which a person is romantically attracted while pedophilia relates to age, adults who are sexually fixated on children.”
Furthermore, the FBI's Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines currently defines “sexual orientation bias” as "a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their sexual attraction toward, and responsiveness to, members of their own sex or members of the opposite sex, e.g., gays, lesbians, heterosexuals." This is how our own federal government already defines it. It doesn’t include pedophiles.
Additionally, 31 states have had hate crime laws on the books for decades that include sexual orientation, and there hasn’t been a single case ever of a pedophile being involved. Why would the federal government expect it to happen, if it has never happened before on the state level?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/may/14/steve-king/rep-steve-king-claims-federal-hate-crime-law-would/
POINT 2: RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION
To say that it’s religious discrimination to punish someone for committing a CRIME against another human being, someone who violently ASSAULTS an innocent, law-abiding person, is crazy. Sorry. You don’t have to commit a crime to value marriage as the union of a man and a woman. There’s no correlation. People who commit crimes should be punished, because they committed crimes, which leads me my next point.
POINT 3: SPECIAL TREATMENT
This is the surprise ending where I wind up agreeing with my uncle on this one point. A valid argument can be made against the idea of hate crime legislation in general. Hate crime legislation can be considered to be redundant, because legal prohibitions for traditional crime already exist. It’s essentially recriminalizing actions that are already criminalized.
All crimes against all humans are bad, because all individuals are EQUAL under the law. A crime is a crime, whether or not it’s driven by hate or a senselessly random act of violence. Legally speaking, we look at the crime and determine judgment based upon the crime itself. To single out certain groups for special treatment is, perhaps, undemocratic. However, I can understand both sides of the problem. This isn’t a simple, black-and-white issue.
I realize that hate crime legislation was originally based on the belief that hate crimes cause greater individual and social harm, because they attack a person’s core identity and cause severe dehumanization resulting in emotional and psychological problems, and then society suffers from the disempowerment of the group of people. I understand that, but some crimes against people are just BAD, no matter what. Violent assault, dehumanization, and victimization all have damaging effects on everyone who experiences them.
Ultimately my response to, “You can't possibly say anything good about this bill. I don't see how you/anyone could/can,” is that I can appreciate that this bill and hate crime legislation in general have good intentions. If hate crime legislation is going to exist, then certainly, sexual orientation should be a part of it. There’s no reason to ever discriminate against or commit a crime against someone based on their sexual orientation.
My uncle, who lives in rural Kansas, believes that the government considers him a “Potential Domestic Terrorist,” along with those who support the Constitution, are pro-life, and are opposed to government control. My uncle doesn’t work. Literally all he does is sit in his recliner, watching monster truck rallies and WWF wrestling matches on the tv. He also occasionally checks his e-mail. I’m pretty sure he only leaves the house once a week to run errands, such as going to the grocery store to purchase Doritos and hot dogs. Therefore, I have my doubts regarding his domestic terrorist status. Government, this is a message to you: If you are monitoring my uncle, YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.
The most recent e-mail was about hate crimes. My uncle wrote, “You can't possibly say anything good about this bill. I don't see how you/anyone could/can.” The bill he’s referring to is the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. New hate crime legislation was initiated following the infamous and horrendous hate-motivated torture-murder of a college student in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Congress has been debating the inclusion of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, gender, and people with disabilities.
My uncle forwarded e-mails about the hate crimes bill from two organizations, the American Family Association (AFA) and Concerned Women for America (CWA). These organizations are tremendously, vehemently opposed to the hate crimes bill, because of its inclusion of homosexuality, more so than for any other reason. That’s my opinion.
THE AFA
The first organization, AFA (www.afa.net), is a Christian group that stands for traditional family values. They don’t hate homosexuals, but are motivated “to expose the misrepresentation of the radical homosexual agenda and stop its spread though our culture.” AFA has a whole page devoted specifically to the homosexual agenda, which I find exciting, because this whole “agenda” thing continues to elude me. http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/
The e-mail from the AFA about the hate crimes bill was titled: “Senate Poised to Give Special Protection Status to Pedophiles: Your Calls Are Needed Today!”
It made only one point,
1. “The U.S. Senate is set to give legally protected status to pedophiles and 30 other sexual orientations. The Senate refused to define what is meant by sexual orientation in S. 909, the ‘Hate Crimes’ bill. This means that the 30 different sexual orientations will be federally protected classes.”
THE CWA
The second organization, CWA (http://www.cwfa.org), is a Christian group whose mission is to bring Biblical principles to all levels of public policy. CWA believes that gay people aren’t born that way, but rather exhibit a behavior that can and should be resisted. Also, homosexuals are inherently dirty, unhealthy, and disease-ridden. I don’t exaggerate. http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=959&department=CWA&categoryid=family
One CWA article says, “Despite the clear medical evidence that homosexual behavior is at its very essence unhealthy, many advocates and activists insist that we cannot counsel these people to change their behavior, because it is an innate genetic trait. These advocates make reference to several medical studies that claim to have established a biological link to homosexuality. However, fair evaluation of these studies proves that they are anything but conclusive.” It therefore follows that CWA also feels that people can be counseled out of being gay.
The CWA, being more elaborate than the AFA, had three points to say about the hate crimes bill,
1. “’Hate Crimes’ is an overreach and overbroad . . . Over 30 kinds of sexual behaviors could be covered, including pedophilia and bestiality.”
2. “’Hate crimes’ laws lead to religious discrimination. These laws have been used in Europe, Canada – and even American – to intimidate and punish people who honor natural sexuality and value marriage as the union of a man and a woman. If a person speaks out against various sexual behaviors, they may be accused of ‘hate speech’ and promoting ‘hate crimes.’”
3. “’Hate crimes’ creates special classes of victims based solely upon their ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’ Victims who engage in homosexual, transgender, fetish, or other sexual behaviors would get preferential treatment over victims who are grandmothers, veterans or children. In other countries, it has lead to punishing people for their Biblical views on sexuality.” http://www.cwfa.org/factsheets/thoughtcrimes-factcard.pdf
MY RESPONSES
POINT 1: PEDOPHILES
The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning website, PolitiFact.com, a site managed by journalists from the St. Petersburg Times, is dedicated to fact-checking statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists, and interest groups, and rating them on a “Truth-O-Meter.” The truth-o-meter rates true, mostly true, half-true, barely true, false, pants-on-fire, and full-flop.
The claim that the hate crimes bill will protect pedophiles received a PolitiFact rating of “Pants-On-Fire,” meaning that it’s essentially ridiculous. It elaborates. For one thing, pedophilia and sexual orientation aren’t the same thing. “Sexual orientation relates to the gender to which a person is romantically attracted while pedophilia relates to age, adults who are sexually fixated on children.”
Furthermore, the FBI's Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines currently defines “sexual orientation bias” as "a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their sexual attraction toward, and responsiveness to, members of their own sex or members of the opposite sex, e.g., gays, lesbians, heterosexuals." This is how our own federal government already defines it. It doesn’t include pedophiles.
Additionally, 31 states have had hate crime laws on the books for decades that include sexual orientation, and there hasn’t been a single case ever of a pedophile being involved. Why would the federal government expect it to happen, if it has never happened before on the state level?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/may/14/steve-king/rep-steve-king-claims-federal-hate-crime-law-would/
POINT 2: RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION
To say that it’s religious discrimination to punish someone for committing a CRIME against another human being, someone who violently ASSAULTS an innocent, law-abiding person, is crazy. Sorry. You don’t have to commit a crime to value marriage as the union of a man and a woman. There’s no correlation. People who commit crimes should be punished, because they committed crimes, which leads me my next point.
POINT 3: SPECIAL TREATMENT
This is the surprise ending where I wind up agreeing with my uncle on this one point. A valid argument can be made against the idea of hate crime legislation in general. Hate crime legislation can be considered to be redundant, because legal prohibitions for traditional crime already exist. It’s essentially recriminalizing actions that are already criminalized.
All crimes against all humans are bad, because all individuals are EQUAL under the law. A crime is a crime, whether or not it’s driven by hate or a senselessly random act of violence. Legally speaking, we look at the crime and determine judgment based upon the crime itself. To single out certain groups for special treatment is, perhaps, undemocratic. However, I can understand both sides of the problem. This isn’t a simple, black-and-white issue.
I realize that hate crime legislation was originally based on the belief that hate crimes cause greater individual and social harm, because they attack a person’s core identity and cause severe dehumanization resulting in emotional and psychological problems, and then society suffers from the disempowerment of the group of people. I understand that, but some crimes against people are just BAD, no matter what. Violent assault, dehumanization, and victimization all have damaging effects on everyone who experiences them.
Ultimately my response to, “You can't possibly say anything good about this bill. I don't see how you/anyone could/can,” is that I can appreciate that this bill and hate crime legislation in general have good intentions. If hate crime legislation is going to exist, then certainly, sexual orientation should be a part of it. There’s no reason to ever discriminate against or commit a crime against someone based on their sexual orientation.
Monday, June 15, 2009
People Who Live In the Country Will Not Be Excited By This Story
People who live in the country will not be excited by this story, but I live in middle of a city. The country may be replete with exotic wildlife, but the city has different yet equally special features, such as bus stops and fast food restaurants.
This morning I was sitting on the floor of my office, playing with my cat Pickles. It’s the second story of a 1920’s bungalow, a room with seven large windows offering an expansive view of the sky and all that is around me. I was doing this game where Pickles lies on her back, and I reach around to one side and tickle her. She rolls completely over to that side to grab my hand. I quickly snatch the hand away and tickle her other side. Then she rolls completely over to the other side to grab my hand, and I snatch it away and tickle her other side. She’ll continue to roll back and forth in this fashion easily for 15 minutes, and I think it’s the most hilarious thing ever.
All of a sudden, an insanely gigantic hawk landed on my next door neighbor’s roof, right in front of my window, facing me. My neighbor’s house is about five feet away; the houses are very close together. I became totally still so I could watch it. It sat there for quite awhile, mostly looking around. All kinds of birds were flying in every which direction in the sky. I think another big storm is coming. The clouds were ominous. Birds like mornings and storms.
Pickles started making the noise in the back of her throat that she only makes when she sees pigeons. She doesn’t do it for any other kind of bird, just pigeons. It’s a cackling sound, “ka ka ka,” in a low tone. I’m pretty sure she is saying, “Fat. Stupid pigeons. Need to die!”
Slowly she inched toward the window, and jumped up on her window perch spot. The hawk looked STRAIGHT IN AT US. It turned its head ninety degrees sideways and peered in at us. Looking at my cat and my hawk that close together, I could see that the hawk was bigger than Pickles. In a fight between the hawk and Pickles, the hawk would totally rip my cat’s head off and eat it for breakfast.
I said, “No Pickles, that’s not a pigeon. It is neither fat nor stupid. It’s smarter than us, and we should not anger it. We should appease it with offerings of bunnies and chocolate.” Pickles understood and fell silent.
Then the hawk started grooming. It spread out its majestic right wing and reached around to give itself a shoulder massage. With muscles that big, it probably requires frequent massage therapy and spa treatments, no doubt. It might even have a personal Pilates trainer. Then it spread out its majestic left wing and massaged that side too.
Eventually it flew away. The ending is kind of anti-climactic. If I had powers, it would have spoken of wise wiseness to me, and I would be able to impart the cosmic wisdom. Maybe it’ll come back and look at me again. I think it liked me! I’ll have the chocolate offering ready for next time.
This morning I was sitting on the floor of my office, playing with my cat Pickles. It’s the second story of a 1920’s bungalow, a room with seven large windows offering an expansive view of the sky and all that is around me. I was doing this game where Pickles lies on her back, and I reach around to one side and tickle her. She rolls completely over to that side to grab my hand. I quickly snatch the hand away and tickle her other side. Then she rolls completely over to the other side to grab my hand, and I snatch it away and tickle her other side. She’ll continue to roll back and forth in this fashion easily for 15 minutes, and I think it’s the most hilarious thing ever.
All of a sudden, an insanely gigantic hawk landed on my next door neighbor’s roof, right in front of my window, facing me. My neighbor’s house is about five feet away; the houses are very close together. I became totally still so I could watch it. It sat there for quite awhile, mostly looking around. All kinds of birds were flying in every which direction in the sky. I think another big storm is coming. The clouds were ominous. Birds like mornings and storms.
Pickles started making the noise in the back of her throat that she only makes when she sees pigeons. She doesn’t do it for any other kind of bird, just pigeons. It’s a cackling sound, “ka ka ka,” in a low tone. I’m pretty sure she is saying, “Fat. Stupid pigeons. Need to die!”
Slowly she inched toward the window, and jumped up on her window perch spot. The hawk looked STRAIGHT IN AT US. It turned its head ninety degrees sideways and peered in at us. Looking at my cat and my hawk that close together, I could see that the hawk was bigger than Pickles. In a fight between the hawk and Pickles, the hawk would totally rip my cat’s head off and eat it for breakfast.
I said, “No Pickles, that’s not a pigeon. It is neither fat nor stupid. It’s smarter than us, and we should not anger it. We should appease it with offerings of bunnies and chocolate.” Pickles understood and fell silent.
Then the hawk started grooming. It spread out its majestic right wing and reached around to give itself a shoulder massage. With muscles that big, it probably requires frequent massage therapy and spa treatments, no doubt. It might even have a personal Pilates trainer. Then it spread out its majestic left wing and massaged that side too.
Eventually it flew away. The ending is kind of anti-climactic. If I had powers, it would have spoken of wise wiseness to me, and I would be able to impart the cosmic wisdom. Maybe it’ll come back and look at me again. I think it liked me! I’ll have the chocolate offering ready for next time.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
I Found the Homosexual Agenda
Yesterday I attended a Kansas City gay pride celebration. I have friends and family who are gay, so that seemed like a good enough reason to go. I’ve always been curious as to what the “homosexual agenda” is that everyone talks about. My uncle sent me an e-mail about a month ago that said Pepsi sponsored a gay pride event in NYC and therefore Pepsi supports the “homosexual agenda.” The e-mail ended with a call for me to boycott all Pepsi products. I don’t know what the agenda is, but I figured if I were to look for it, the gay pride festival would be the perfect place to find it, right?
From what I could tell, people who have gay pride enjoy buying jewelry, eating food, and drinking beverages. They also dance to booty jams and sometimes wear wacky hats that glow in the dark. They love dogs; there were a lot of dogs. I imagine some cat lovers were in the crowd, but cats don’t really do festivals. The gay pride festival also had carnival game booths where people throw oversized basketballs into tiny hoops or balance bottles in some strange, impossible way in order to win stuffed animals.
Seek and you shall find. Here it is - the homosexual agenda as represented in a stuffed animal: a pseudo Hello Kitty. It has crazy feet and a yellow heart nose. I won it by playing a carnival game that involved throwing darts at balloons. I saw it from across the field and knew it was meant for me. I won’t say how much money I spent to win it. The carnival guy said the pseudo Hello Kitty was worth at least $80, and I was totally getting an awesome bargain. I believe him. She can touch her chin with her toes.
So I present my findings. This is what I came back with. I was chatting with a couple there, and they asked where my friend and I worked. We said we worked at The Nelson. They had no idea what we were talking about. For Kansas City, this is equivalent to going to NYC and not knowing what the Metropolitan Museum of Art is. So I asked them where they were from, and they said Texas. It never occurred to me that this event was important enough for people to travel to. I honestly assumed that everyone there was from midtown.
Ultimately, my conclusion is the fact that people are bound to exert a grand effort to go someplace that celebrates being able to love who you want is sort of laudable in the face of a society that fails to see all people as equal. Isn’t everyone’s agenda the same? Don’t we all just want to be happy?
From what I could tell, people who have gay pride enjoy buying jewelry, eating food, and drinking beverages. They also dance to booty jams and sometimes wear wacky hats that glow in the dark. They love dogs; there were a lot of dogs. I imagine some cat lovers were in the crowd, but cats don’t really do festivals. The gay pride festival also had carnival game booths where people throw oversized basketballs into tiny hoops or balance bottles in some strange, impossible way in order to win stuffed animals.
Seek and you shall find. Here it is - the homosexual agenda as represented in a stuffed animal: a pseudo Hello Kitty. It has crazy feet and a yellow heart nose. I won it by playing a carnival game that involved throwing darts at balloons. I saw it from across the field and knew it was meant for me. I won’t say how much money I spent to win it. The carnival guy said the pseudo Hello Kitty was worth at least $80, and I was totally getting an awesome bargain. I believe him. She can touch her chin with her toes.
So I present my findings. This is what I came back with. I was chatting with a couple there, and they asked where my friend and I worked. We said we worked at The Nelson. They had no idea what we were talking about. For Kansas City, this is equivalent to going to NYC and not knowing what the Metropolitan Museum of Art is. So I asked them where they were from, and they said Texas. It never occurred to me that this event was important enough for people to travel to. I honestly assumed that everyone there was from midtown.
Ultimately, my conclusion is the fact that people are bound to exert a grand effort to go someplace that celebrates being able to love who you want is sort of laudable in the face of a society that fails to see all people as equal. Isn’t everyone’s agenda the same? Don’t we all just want to be happy?
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