pessimistically optimistic about today's gay rights victory

IMG_2321 copy, originally uploaded by LCC Torch Newspaper.

First, today is a great victory for Oregon gay rights. Governor Kulongoski signed domestic partnerships and discrimination protection into law. The seven-month wait for the laws to take effect sucks. And I'm a little concerned about the religious organization exemption concession that was made at the last minute. Regardless, this is great progress today and gay rights activists should be proud.

Okay, here is the "BUT": (it doesn't take much to for these victories to be overturned by voters.). According to a conservative Christian news website, anti-gay groups are quietly contemplating their response to the laws and seriously considering the initiative option to stop the them:

"Under Oregon law, once the governor signs a new law, citizens have a 90-day window to collect signatures for a possible statewide vote to overturn it.. A total of 55,179 signatures would be required to place such a measure on the ballot of the next general election, in November 2008."

In response to the 2004 Multnomah County gay marriage stunt, anti-groups managed to collect 244 thousand signatures in a mere 41 days (according to their website). So these gay rights laws are far from certain and I'm sure Republicans would love to have another gay issue on the 2008 ballot.

But for today, I'm happy and cautiously optimistic about Oregonians' sense of fairness.

At least these victories demonstrate the importance of voting and validate my nerdy analysis of the ballots.

Jesus Christ's Blog

Everyone has a blog -- even Jesus Christ. As a Christian, I should probably find this blog from the Portland Mercury offensive, but it's really cute and funny.

jesuschristscoolblog.blogspot.com

Spider-Man 3: D

Scott, Jay, and I saw Spider-Man 3 (IMDB.com) on Saturday and ran into Kevin's Kevin, Mark, Dan, David, Julie, Nick, etc. in the same theater.

Where to start? It just seemed like it tried to do too much -- and none of it well. Depending on how you count them, there were three or four one-dimensional bad guys. There were numerous subplots -- none of which I really cared about. I'm really not a movie snob. I understand Spider-Man is a comic book movie and much of the story is be going to unrealistic or unbelievable. However, this movie just had too many unbelievable coincidences.

As I understand it, Stan Lee's Spider-Man is suppose to be about how a young, ordinary man deals with extrordinary power. S-M3 was promoted as being about Peter Parker's dark side. Unfortunately, Parker only taps into his dark side after an asteroid of black goo just happens to crash lands next to him. Apparently, it would be too realistic or ordinary for Peter Parker to just become a jerk without extraterrestial influence.

Maybe it's just me, but it seemed to me that Tobey Maguire played Peter Parker as mildly retarded in this film. While Parker is supposed to be young and innocent, it's hard to reconcile how oblivious he is toward Mary Jane and how inept he is at landing a real job or even manage to get a cell phone (he has to use his apartment building's pay phone?).

I was surprised to discover that the movie was only two hours and twenty minutes long. It felt much longer. Worse, it had at least two false endings. In fact, people were leaving the theater before the actual end. I audibly groaned during the completely unneeded third ending scene.

Barely DVD-worthy, maybe worth seeing an edited verson on basic cable. Possibly Grade C (average - not great, not terrible) if not for its length.

an evening with Alison Arngrim aka 'Nellie Oleson'

Scott, his co-workers and I saw Alison Arngrim's Confessions of a Prairie Bitch on Friday night. I was never a big fan of Little House on the Prairie (IMDB.com), but I did grow up watching the show and am familiar with the evil Nellie Oleson. Arngrim's hilarious stand-up act is all about her character and her behind the scenes experiences. She believably claims that someone has called her a "bitch" everyday since she began playing Nellie Oleson in 1974.

At 45, Arngrim looks terrific and still resembles the child actor we all know and were a little terrified of. She is very aware of herself and how we all know her. She even made her famous bug-eyed glare and wore a curly wig with bow just to scare us. She never complained about carrying the burden of 'Nellie Oleson' -- she said she even paid tribute to the real Nellie's gravesite in Forest Grove, OR, that day.

We had a great time, although the venue, the gay bar CC Slaughters, had a disgusting smokey atmosphere that made us leave as soon as the show ended. I thought smoking was banned from bars, but maybe not yet. While the show was a for a good cause, CAP, it seemed to be at the expense of another cause.

"In the Jet-tow"

Well, this posting is really for Scott who I annoyed with my rendition of Dina Martina/Cartman singing In The Ghetto (or "Jet-Tow" as Martina would say):

Real lyrics: -- In the ghetto On a cold and grey Chicago mornin' A poor little baby child is born in the ghetto -- In the ghetto And his mama cries 'Cause if there's one thing that she don't need It's another hungry mouth to feed in the ghetto -- In the ghetto

as opposed to: -- In the jet-tow mmm-mmm-mmm ummm-ummm-ummm In the jet-tow -- In the jet-tow

Poor Scott. He puts up with so much.

---

Here's a full version which I've never really heard:

05.01.2003: "mission accomplished"

bushmission2
Originally uploaded by stephendare.

Savage Love: Of Ex-Straights and Ex-Gays

This week's Savage Love column is about an straight man dealing with his ex-straight lesbian wife. Interestly, the article mentioned a resource I've never heard of before, Straight Spouse Network (SSN).

Savage also included a excerpt of an interview with ex-gay and former lesbian magazine publisher Charlene Cothran. It's a thorough and bizarre interview. Cothran speaks in the typical fundamentalist Christianese and admits that she still has mainly same-sex attractions.

She also implies that Venus Landin, the late founder and namesake of the African American lesbian magazine Cothran now publishes, Venus, would (or should) approve of the magazine's ex-gay transformation. Cothran believes the magazine's founder became a Christian during the last moments of her life (she was apparently shot by a lover) or is eternally suffering in hell and would want readers to know how to be saved.

%&#@ THE TRAM

neighbors of the tram
Originally uploaded by jiminyshiznit.

It's already an old news story and the homeowner has voluntarily removed the sign, but I have to admire the form of protest. Among the many even more obscene broken aerial tram promises was the plan for the tram cabins to have wings that would have blocked passengers for seeing such scenes.

Exeter International: "goodbye gay, helloooo vagina"

The clip is apparently from ThisJustIn.com, but it's really slow to load. Someone posted a faster-loading version on YouTube.com too.)

(Hat tip: Ex-Gay Watch)

follow-up: Exodus prez no fan of Sawyer (update)

So far, Exodus has not directly responded to the ex-exgay segment on Monday's GMA. They seemed to have backdated a press release that omits any reference to the main ex-exgay focus of the segment. Now, Exodus President Alan Chambers has posted a comment on his personal blog about the segment's presenter:

Seems like a really weak way of responding to a controversial story.

---

04/26/2007 UPDATE: Alan Chambers responded to my allegation that his catty comment was in response to Monday's GMA. He admits that he heard that Sawyer "gushed over the story of Christine Bakke", but denies his comment related to Monday's show or that he even saw it.

Isn't it odd that his ministry would promote a show he hadn't seen? At least he is sticking to his story.