ZeeGeezer

Despicable

Justices Robert Smith,Susan Read and George Smith of the New York State Court of Appeals all agree that the primary purpose of marriage is to create a stable environment in which to rear children. Justice Read is 59, well past menopause. I trust she is not married, since her child-rearing days are over. Justices Smith and Smith are 62 and 69 respectively. They are both married; I assume that they have put aside the now barren women they married in their youths and have found themselves fertile young women in order to raise a second brood.

Why does the Rev. Phelps do it?

I don't understand. The Westboro Baptist Church claims to adhere strictly to the tenets of Calvinism, in particular to the 5 principles of TULIP: mankind is in a condition of depravity because of the original Fall; God chooses who will be saved; those whom God chooses to be saved cannot resist their salvation.

So I take it that, if you are a sinner, then God has chosen not to save you. Or not chosen you yet (but see below--God doesn't operate in real time). If and when God does choose you to be saved, then you will, whether you want to or not, cease to be a sinner. And there's nothing that you or anybody else can do about that.

So what does the Reverend Phelps and his flock think they are accomplishing by picketing funerals? Do they want us to change our ways? Why should they? Our behavior just shows that we haven't been chosen to be saved. And there is nothing that either we or they can do about that. They can't bring any sinners to redemption; only God can do that. So what is the point? Why spew hatred on us? You would have thought that they, as the chosen ones, would have pity and compassion for the rest of us sinners who are condemned to eternal damnation. And condemned, not because of anything we did or didn't do. No we are condemned just because God didn't choose us.

And there's nothing I can do to change God's mind. Because God has known from the beginning of time that he wasn't going to choose me. Makes you wonder why God bothered to create me in the first place. Guess he just decided to be mean to me.

Picked last for 5th grade baseball; picked last for eternity. Pretty much sucks, eh?

Her Majesty's a Pretty Nice Girl

I had a dream last night in which the Queen came to stay with me for a while in a kind of Roman Holiday escape from her official duties. Somehow during this week she became the design brief for an episode of Project Runway and the winning design ended up being a Fortuny gown . I guess I must have been the Gregory Peck character.

There were all sorts of complications with the publicity and trailers for the episode. The Queen, however, had a good time. The dream didn't go into details about how we managed to co-exist in my one-bedroom apartment.

In other news (as the BBC newsreaders always say), I decided yesterday that the 5 packs of cigarettes I have bought since Christmas constitute me starting smoking again. So I bought a box of Nicoderm Clear, which I will faithfully wear for two weeks.

And I'm enjoying working my way through every romantic gay movie in the Netflix catalog. Last night was Gone, But Not Forgotten. It's very interesting to watch these low budget movies, ones that have good intentions and cute stories. My cinematographic education, I guess. This one had a lot of charm, but the writing let it down in a big way. Only 2 Netflix stars from me. Not a single tear, which means I didn't feel the love. Just a few minutes later I was watching the gay cowboys documentary on Logo. There was a wedding and my eyes filled up. It's romance that makes me cry.

Decisionary

Three dates now with The Rocker. Although Monday's date was more domestic bliss than a regular date. No going out was involved, no spending money. He has Mondays off, so after I'm finished work he came over and we watched Sordid Lives (third time for me). Then I fixed a really basic and rather trailer-trashy dinner (pan-seared salmon and Rice-a-roni, but saved by a salad of baby greens from T-J's). In the middle of fixing it, he got all frisky, so the Rice-a-roni ended up a little scorched. Then he dashed off to his rehearsal. He is nice. Cuddly and very dirty sexy at the same time.

And yesterday while driving home from rehearsal (where the Director gave me the friendliest hug!) I decided that my not calling PharmaJim yet was becoming very rude. So I called. And we arranged to hook up on Saturday. Mind you, he could have called me. Clearly he's not desperate. But then he does claim to have this boyfriend in Toronto.

The question of the day is whether I should buy the new MacBook Pro or not. The alternative is a ThinkPad with the same processor. The ThinkPad will be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper and I am very comfortable with ThinkPads, having used several models of one for the last 10 years or so. But the MacBook is way cool.

And, supposing Sistopher follows through on the car thing, should I ask for an Audi A4 Avant wagon, a BMW 325xi sportwagon, a Volvo V50 wagon or a Subaru Impreza WRX sportwagon? Decisions, decision, decisions.

Oh. I seem to be smoking again. Darn.

Underwhelming majority

You know that Texas election last week where they approved a consitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage?

Well, 76% of voters were in favor of the amdendment. And how many voters were there? 1,718,513. That's 18% of registered voters. Presumably the other 82% were content with the status quo.

Here's an idea - require constitutional amendments to be passed by a majority of registered voters. Sounds like an idea for a constitutional amendment.

Logo in Silicon Valley.

I was channel surfing last night (500 channels and nothing to watch!) and discovered that my local ComCast service now has Logo (channel 149, folks). I had asked them several months ago to add it and got back a say-nothing response about reviewing their offerings all the time and customer demand, blah-de-blah. So you would think they might have let their correspondents know when the started carrying the channel. But no. It's a secret apparently.

Anyway, I watched a couple of shows with the GBF . One thing about a couple getting married (in Canada, of course), which made me (just a bit) weepy. Although I've never liked the host (Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall fame) much. And the premiere of their new soap, Noah's Arc. Which features a quartet of cute/hot guys. Young gays of color. And some of the worst writing I have come across in years. It made me cringe. But, out of solidarity, I will watch it. And the guys are cute. Especially that Noah! My-oh-my.

They could probably halve their production costs by using a bit less make-up, though.

We didn't watch the show in-between those, some reality thing about a guy opening a bar or restaurant in LA. There was a major nookie event instead.

Are Gays a Threat to Children

Looking for Sam has a great piece demolishing the lie that gay men are a threat to children.

Quotidiana

So.

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day, in observance of which I went out to rehearsal and sang my little gay heart out.

And got a little lecture from Our Awesome Director for asking him to give us the notes when we 2nds were suffering from a sight-reading melt-down.  "Not on your nelly", was essentially the reply.  And about 5 goes later we did finally get it more-or-less right.

Ate my little gay heart out yesterday too,  Also today in the office, where there are acres of deep-fried delicacies available.  Mmmm, sugar-laden fat ckes are the Borg.  I will be assimilated!  Resistance is futile!  Ich werde ein berliner.  With gay raspberry jam in the middle.

But the GBF and I are supposed to be going for a training ride after work.  Longish one -15 miles or so.  So that's all right then.  Probably sex afterwards, too.  And dinner.  I'm planning a little chinese something or other.

Which reminds me that I need to memorialize the fact that Iwe participated in my our first organized AIDS LifeCycle training ride on Sunday.  Not an official ride, mind you, but an organized one.  A group of 11 of us rode (slowly!) up the Los Gatos trail and back.  Preceded by a tire-changing demonstration and safety demonstration.  Fun was had by all, except one of the dykes women, who found it to be rather more of a challenge than she had anticipated.  She turned all red, just like The Missus used to when she exercised.  But I don't think she's in training for the ride; her partner is.

I need a new bike.  Which sucks because I'm broke and will be for the time being.  No, don't need so much as want.  Maybe this one

The Queen gives her blessing to gay marriage!

Well, it's now official in Canada - faggots can marry each other. The bill has received Royal Assent and is now the law of the land. L'osservatore romano denounced the passage of the law, saying, according to the AP, "The distortion of God's plan for the family continues."

Yeah, right. Like they know what God's plan for the family is. Because they're such good family-men themselves.

Of course, the Queen didn't actually sign the bill, although one presumes she was informed of it's passage, her being Queen of Canada and all. In fact, her representative, the Governor-General, didn't sign it either, since she's on sick leave. The bill was signed into law by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who's next in order of precedence for signing such things. (actually the Prime Mininster comes after the Governor-General, but he naturally can't sign his own legislation into law). Note that all the people involved in the Royal Assent thing, Queen, G-G,, C-J., are all women.

Blessed be the tie that binds

I'm usually proud to be Canadian. We're just nicer than most people. Today I'm especially proud. Not enough to go back there to live, however. All that snow, eeew.