2008 Campaign Donations: The Story So Far...

I agree with the sentiment that it's too early for this information to be more than directional, but it's fun to see it just the same.  Today's Seattle PI has an article that looks at early numbers on donations to Presidential candidates across the political spectrum:

Microsoft employees haven't contributed as much to the major U.S. presidential candidates as Google employees have, but collectively they're more evenhanded in their support. Or maybe they're more divided in their political leanings.

Those are a few of the conclusions to be drawn from a basic analysis of campaign finance reports submitted this month to the Federal Elections Commission.

There is some additional analysis of the numbers in a post on Robert McLaws blog.  It's no secret that as a rule the tech industry skews more liberal and libertarian in thought, but it's interesting to see the comparisons between tech companies.

I identified with some of the comments on Robert's post from British born writers describing how strange a fit the American Political spectrum is for those of us not born or raised here.

Making Government records accessible

Considering the general trend in Washington State to try and keep government actions, lobbying and public advocacy hidden, this is a welcome development.  From an article in the Seattle PI it seems that Google is pitching in to help people discover information in the public record:

By providing free consulting and some software, Google Inc. is helping state governments make reams of public records that are now unavailable or hard to find online easily accessible to Web surfers.

The Internet search company hopes to eventually persuade federal agencies to employ the same tools -- an effort that excites advocates of open government but worries some consumer privacy experts.

Google plans to announce Monday that it already has partnered with four states -- Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia -- to remove technical barriers that had prevented its search engine, as well as those of Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., from accessing tens of thousands of public records dealing with education, real estate, health care and the environment.

These newly available records will not be exclusive to the search engines owned by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Ah, so perhaps this is more about removing barriers to effective web crawling that are search engine agnostic.  As with any increase in accessibility of information, failures in correctly classifying and protecting private information will come to light:

Despite the obvious benefits of the Google initiative for those conducting Web searches, privacy advocates said they are worried about unintended consequences, saying some records may contain personal and confidential information that should not be widely available.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said many public health and financial records shouldn't necessarily be widely available because they often contain citizens' Social Security numbers. Such information should be redacted from records regardless of whether they're viewed online or in person at a government office, he said.

One would hope that government has the records classified by whether they contain information that personally identifies individuals.  SSNs and data that is private (unlisted addresses, phone numbers, etc.) should never be exposed, but data that is available publicly from other sources shouldn't be at issue here:

Officials from states partnering with Google are hopeful that the deal will make it easier for average citizens to navigate agency Web sites.

Hmmm.  This begins to sound like a Google Search scope partnership with these specific state agencies on their web sites.  Regardless, I'm all for transparency in government so let's all hope this goes well.

Good Neighbor 101

I mentioned that something caught my attention among the non-goals that j from CHS talked about at this weeks blogging forum.  Here's the slide:  

I'm glad to see that putting people out of business and making people move are non-goals since that isn't very neighborly at all.

But I remembered reading a post from July 2006 entitled "An open letter to CHS" where I noticed the following (all emphasis mine):

To Henry H. Chin, DDS, nothing personal but we don't want dentists in the neighborhood. We would rather drive to a dentist and walk to something like a good bar, or a book store or about anything other than a medical professional. Please relocate or open up a lounge at night. Thanks!

While I'm sure that this was a stab at upholding Rule 2 ("Be funny") from j's presentation, it sounds like a textbook example of this non-goal and is about as funny as a root canal.  Is there some problem with dentists in general or Dr Chin's practice in particular?  I'm really unclear on the justification for this. 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having a good bookstore or bar in walking distance and would encourage local business people who think they can make it work to give it a go. 

I just draw the line short of telling an existing business in good standing that they are not wanted and asking them to move.

*UPDATE*: After talking to j in the comments, I accept that the post was intended to be "tongue in cheek" since Dr Chin is their dentist and they don't really want him to move.

CHS on Neighborhood Blogging

j from CHS got a chance to speak at a forum on neighborhood blogging this weekend.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend but I was gratified to see from the slides that j might have tackled some of the questions I raised earlier this week. 

I wanted to understand the area that CHS blogs about.  The area below is what j calls the "CHS Zone" and the rule is to stay inside this zone:

Here are the rules that CHS uses although it isn't clear to me whether the "Don't be comprehensive" rule means just in terms of geography or subject matter as well: 

I asked about the mismatch between the naming of CHS and the actual scope that CHS is signed up to cover, and how well CHS can represent the diversity of viewpoints in Capitol Hill.  It seems that j might have addressed these at least in part:

If anyone attended and cares to comment, including j, or has pointers to a transcript, audio or video I'd be grateful. 

One thing that caught my eye was one of the non-goals.  Not because I disagree with it, I don't, but because I don't think it's a rule they stick to.  I'll have more to say about that in an upcoming post.

Menu Blogging - End of April

Last night we had some friends over for dinner and decided to go with three new dishes from two trusted sources and a variation on an old favorite.  Here's the menu:

Villa Carlotti Prosecco from Italy

Chateau Ducasse Bordeaux 2005 followed by
Baron De Rothschild Reserv Speciale Bordeaux 2005

Crispy Prawn Wontons with Sweet Chili dipping sauce

Chili Fish baked in Banana Leaf parcels with
Warm Asparagus, Zucchini and Snow Pea Salad

Citrus Cake with Ginger Sorbet and Grand Marnier custard sauce
Espresso and tea

The wontons and salad came from Kylie Kwong's excellent "Simple Chinese Cooking" and you can find the recipe here at the bottom of the page.  This is the first time I've deep fried in a wok instead of a deep saucepan and I learned some lessons.  The first batch of wontons came out evenly golden brown, but the latter batches cooked fasted and less evenly because the oil temperature kept increasing over the minutes it took to get them done.  Some of them came out darker than I like, but there wasn't too much change in flavor as a result (Note to self - use candy thermometer next time to keep the oil temperature stable).

The fish is from Christine Manfield's "Stir" (which you can get from Amazon used for less than US$5 - incredible value) and is based on a Sambal Bajak paste that I made a batch of a few weeks in advance.  We used fresh halibut and He Who Must Be Obeyed cooked it perfectly.  The sambal is amazingly versatile and my favorite other dishes to make using it are a Green Bean or Asparagus Sambal, which gets much of the character of the spicy green beans dish served at Monsoon, and a Spiced Coconut Fish soup which is more mellow but has lots of complex flavors.

The cake and it's accompaniments came from the creative imagination of He Who Must Be Obeyed and borrowed the Ginger Sorbet I made for Easter Dinner to strengthen the overall Asian flavor of the meal. 

What are you cooking?

Putting words in Howard's mouth

The folks at SameSame.com.au have put together a fun Flash tool. The tool, "Yes Prime Minister", lets you string together a small set of words into a speech, and then have a simaraculum of Prime Minister For Life John Howard make the speech from a podium with your choice of backdrop.

It is far too tempting a way for me to waste hours.  I think I'll just read a few more Australian web sites and blogs to catch up instead. 

Honest.

"Drive" canceled after 4 episodes!

 The mental titans who gave us Firefly and then canned it have done it again.  Variety is reporting that "Drive", the new series from Tim Minear and Ben Queen, has been canceled by Fox after only four of the six episodes got to air.  Hat tip and commiserations to Drivefans.com.

I watched three of the first four episodes and was just getting interested (ahem *Firefly* ahem) when this goes down. 

Who are these clowns?  Are these the same clowns that killed Firefly? 

Episcopal Bishop plans Civil Union

In the wake of Civil Union legislation passing in New Hampshire, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson has indicated that he and this partner Mark Andrew intend to have a civil union once it is signed into law by Governor John Lynch.  Hat tip to Towelroad. 

From the Nashua Telegraph:

“My partner and I look forward to taking full advantage of the new law,” Robinson told The Associated Press on Thursday.

This is wonderful news for Gene and Mark who have been together for  18 years - I can hardly wait to see the announcement in the New York Times.  Talking about the new legislation in the context of the national struggle for equality, Bishop Robinson acknowledged the key role that federal marriage equality will play:   

“I think this moves us one step closer to the American promise to all its citizens of equality under the law. New Hampshire understands fairness and has acted on that value,” Robinson said.

But he said more needs to be done, in New Hampshire and beyond.

“I think this is a huge leap forward, but it is not full equality until we have equality. The biggest piece missing, of course, is federal recognition,” he said. He said gay couples should have full civil legal rights under federal law.

“I don’t think it will happen until we get several more states. It doesn’t have to be a majority, but it has to be a significant number embracing full marriage rights until we can expect that at the federal level,” he said.

Robinson said he believes liberals and conservatives alike “feel in their hearts it will happen.”

“We are only arguing over a timetable,” he said.

Robinson predicted gays would have full equality in 20 years.

If it takes that long I'll be collecting social security or pushing up daisies before I am allowed to marry He Who Must Be Obeyed.  I can't be the only one who feels the injustice of waiting until people's lives are over before they are treated equally.

Sigh.  Are we there yet? 

Update on OIG complaint against Reverend Hutcherson

I just heard back from the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of State. They've determined that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security inside the U.S. Department of State are the right office to follow up on this matter.  Just as well I sent them the same complaint at the same time. 

You'll notice that the OIG managed to mix up the subject of the complaint.  Your government at work... 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: OIG Hotline (State) <oighotline@state.gov>
Date: Apr 26, 2007 3:51 AM
Subject: RE: OIG Hotline ##-####

Dear ... :

Through a clerical error, the first paragraph of the e-mail sent to you was incorrectly stated.  Your complaint concerning Reverend Kenneth Hutcherson, who represented himself as a "Special Envoy" while traveling in Latvia, was sent to the Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security for action.  The other information in your e-mail is correct.

---

Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 7:07 PM
To: OIG Hotline (State)
Subject: Re: OIG Hotline ##-###

To Whom It May Concern,

The complaint that I sent to your department in e-mail and by certified mail was regarding Reverend Kenneth Hutcherson who represented himself as a "Special Envoy" here in the U.S. and while traveling abroad in Latvia. 

That complaint was in no way related to "courier service management in Germany" as this response erroneously indicates. 

Please clarify whether my complaint regarding the claims and activities of Reverend Hutcherson in Latvia is being dealt with by your office, or whether that complaint has been forwarded on to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

Regards,

(...)

On 4/25/07, OIG Hotline (State) <oighotline@state.gov> wrote:

Dear Mr. (...):

The U.S. Department of State (Department), Office of Inspector General Hotline received your letter concerning the courier service management in Germany.

We reviewed your concerns and determined that the appropriate office to address your complaints is the Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Executive Director (DS/EX).  We have forwarded your complaints for action to DS/EX and have asked that they contact you directly for more information, if necessary.  Please refer future correspondence to:                               

U.S. Department of State

Bureau of Diplomatic Security

Attn: Executive Director

2201 C Street NW.

Washington, DC 20520

Should you have any questions, please contact the office mentioned above.

FBI Civil Rights investigations down 66%

In the wake of H.R. 1592 I've posted quite a bit on hate crimes, here and here and here.   The Seattle PI had an excellent article yesterday on the decline in Civil rights cases in the years of the Bush Administration, the decline started in 1999 and accelerated after September 11th, 2001.

The FBI touts civil rights enforcement as a top priority, but the number of investigations into such cases -- from hate crimes to the actions of rogue police officers -- has fallen sharply, raising concerns that victims are left with nowhere else to turn.

Pressed by the Bush administration to beef up counterterrorism ranks, the FBI has pulled agents off civil rights and slashed the number of criminal investigations conducted nationwide.

The bureau has tacitly adopted more-stringent standards governing which cases to open. That move has contributed to two-thirds fewer investigations targeting abusive police officers, cross-burners and other purveyors of hate from 2001 to 2005, according to a Seattle P-I analysis of Justice Department data

As a class of Civil Rights cases, Hate Crimes have suffered too:

Federal authorities are investigating increasingly fewer hate crimes each year, with cases handled by the FBI plunging by 60 percent, records show.

Take a few minutes to read this article and make sure you don't miss the charts at the bottom showing the investigation decline across multiple years.

Capitol Hill Blog Mute on Seattle Pride

Capitol Hill has been the traditional heart of the GLBT community in Seattle for much longer than I've lived here.

This set me to wondering why the neighborhood blog for Capitol Hill Seattle rarely has anything to say about that heritage or the GLBT community. 

Now it's true that to a large degree we write what we know or what we care about.  I spend next to no time writing about parenting or fly-casting or basket-weaving.  I don't know if there are any GLBT folks writing for CHS, but if there are they don't seem to be writing much about GLBT issues.

No posts relating to Seattle's Pride celebrations that I can find.  Only five results with the word "gay".  Only one with the words "lesbian", "bisexual" and "Transgender".  True to other Seattle obsessions,  there are 25 posts with the word "coffee".

It strikes me as odd that in the blog for what is arguably the gayest neighborhood in the 2nd gayest city in all of these United States that there are so few posts reflecting that diversity.

It leads me to ask whether the Capitol Hill Seattle blog really reflects all of Capitol Hill, or just for the "Fancy Pants" part.

The Seattle Pride Cha-cha: On-Off-On

Seattle's Pride celebrations moved from Capitol Hill to Downtown in 2006 with much sturm and drang.  We know that Seattle Out and Proud who ran the event downtown last year are more than $100K in the red but the events of the last few days are dizzying.  I've been following this on SLOG and in the local web/blog scene.

Here's the most recent timeline from SLOG:

April 22nd (12:21pm) - Seattle Center OUT as a venue for Pride 2007

April 24nd (9:49am) - Seattle Out and Proud folds, declares bankruptcy, Pride is OFF

April 24th (10:15am) - SOaP Meeting to decide whether to disband

April 24th (03:14pm) - LGBT Center stepping up to take over Pride

April 24th (10:40pm) - SOaP NOT disbanding, filing for bankruptcy, Pride is back on

It's anyone's guess what will happen next.  Perhaps an alien abduction and a tearful coming out screed from Reverend Hutcherson.  Perhaps not.

Stay tuned.

Washington State Governor signs DP Bill

In this video Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire signs the Domestic Partnership Bill into Law on April 21st, 2007:

The bill becomes law 90 days from the signing date, in this case July 20th, 2007.  My personal thanks go out to Charlene Strong whose testimony on the death of her partner during a recent storm became a compelling narrative putting a very human face on this important piece of legislation.

Now the question is will there be a challenge to this law and if so from whom. 

Disgraced Principal undercharged Antioch Bible Church for School Facilities Rental

When Lake Washington High School principal Mark Robertson resigned from his post in November 2006, he left a trail of complaints from teachers, lax oversight, questionable judgement and outright nepotism in his wake.

The most interesting element of his tenure is his dealings with the Antioch Bible Church and "International Special Envoy of Mystery" Reverend Ken Hutcherson. 

From yesterday's Seattle Times article on Robertson:

Robertson's apparent lack of oversight cost the district tens of thousands of dollars, according to district records.

As principal, Robertson was in charge of rental agreements for groups using school space. The biggest of those groups is Antioch Bible Church, headed by pastor Ken Hutcherson. Robertson is a church member.

Hutcherson said the two agreed it was best for Robertson not to be involved in Antioch's rental agreement. A school staff member handled the contracts.

Still, the schedule Robertson approved for the 2002-2003 school year was not updated for three years, although the district increased fees during that time, said Reith, the district spokeswoman.

In 2005, the district discovered that Antioch had been undercharged by $1,100 to $1,400 a month. The estimated loss: $30,000.

Other groups that rented space also may have been undercharged, but the money lost would have been insignificant, Reith said.

Regardless of who handled the contract, Robertson was ultimately responsible, said deputy superintendent Fogard.

I don't understand why a red flag doesn't go up when a principal decides to rent school facilities to his own church.  It seems to be a serious conflict of interest.  Why wasn't there automatically heightened scrutiny of the financial arrangements?

There have been protests from various groups about use of school district facilities by Antioch Bible Church. In particular it is the discriminatory treatment of gay and lesbian people at church services on district property that has drawn sharp criticism.   From the Seattle PI in June of 2005:

"It is not about the pastor's beliefs but his treatment of people that is in question," said Bates, husband of former Lake Washington Superintendent Karen Bates.

He cited the district's human dignity and harassment policies, which encourage respect and non-harassment of people, regardless of their sexual orientation, among other differences or characteristics.

In an earlier interview, School Board President Doug Eglington said the dignity policy pertains to how the district operates and to its employees, students and stakeholders.

"We don't feel we have the reach" to tell other organizations how to conduct themselves, he said. "We'd rather err on the side of allowing the community to use the spaces to the extent possible," he said.

Several Lake Washington High teachers said they feel like they can't criticize Antioch's presence because principal Mark Robertson attends the church.

Hutcherson said that if Antioch's relationship ever became detrimental to the school, "Mark would be the first to ask us to move. That's the kind of responsibility I expect from him."

There has been a slew of complaints from students and teachers, ample negative press over many months resulting from the presence of Antioch Bible Church at the Lake Washington High School. 

It became an issue for teachers concerned for the reputation of the school, and for students in the Lake Washington High School Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) according to a piece in The Stranger:

Why did the LWHS's GSA—one of the school's most popular clubs, counting dozens of members—spend so much of its first meeting discussing Hutcherson? Because Hutcherson's church meets every Sunday in their school's gym. Their school's principal, Mark Robertson, showed up to talk about Antioch too. Who better to broach the complicated, touchy subject than the school's principal? After all, he's a member of the controversial church.

That the GSA members were put into this situation should have made the "conflict of interest" red flag glow an urgent and pulsing vermilion. 

Despite Hutcherson's protestations, the presence of Antioch Bible Church was and is detrimental.  Yet Mark Robertson did nothing.  He did nothing but ignore the feedback of his teachers and students and fail in his oversight responsibilities. 

Given the stated policy of the school district, does anyone out there doubt for one moment that if Mark Robertson had asked the Antioch Bible Church to move from the school, Reverend Hutcherson would have claimed a breach of freedom of religion and free speech rights?  As with anything involving the attention seeking reverend, a media circus would have ensued. 

In the wake of this slow-motion road accident, the Stranger's Eli Sanders is asking the right question:

Due to the apparently lax oversight of one of his church members, the school district whose facilities Hutcherson uses for his Sunday service lost $30,000. Will Hutcherson offer to repay this lost money?

I've been watching this story develop before posting lest anyone think that I'm all Hutcherson all the time.  In truth I don't go looking for trouble around Hutcherson, it always does seem to find him though.

Associated Press isn't even consistent

I made a complaint to local AP staffers about the misleading language in this AP story and the response I got was that since the rights granted were some of the most important ones, saying "most" instead of "some" may not be considered a factual error.

If AP wants to contend that the error isn't factually incorrect they probably should be consistent in how they talk about the DP bill in all their stories.  But they aren't.

I pointed out that some of the AP stories get it right here and here as well as the story that gets it wrong here.  It looks like someone in the broadcast area is responsible for the inaccurate and misleading language.  I wonder how many local TV and Radio news desks around the country have aired the news that "most" or "many" of the rights of marriage have been awarded to same sex couple in Washington State.  If KUOW can air the misleading information and it's their local beat, the chances that any other broadcaster will notice the error is slim.

I'm expecting a call back tomorrow from Paul Queary at AP tomorrow but by then it will be too late to correct the story.

Washington DP Bill: Media gets it wrong

I am as thrilled as anyone can be that the Domestic Partnership Bill has passed the Washington state house and senate and was signed by the governor yesterday.

But some in the media are presenting the DP bill as though it provides the majority of the legal protections that would be needed to provide true equality to same-sex couples. 

In a Komo4 report on the signing yesterday, the report began with this:

"Today the governor signed a law that gives same sex couples many of the same rights as married couples.  The law let's gay couples register as domestic partners."

The source of the problem seems to be the Associated Press whose article "Washington governor signs domestic partnership bill" begins with:

"OLYMPIA, Wash. A new law in Washington state will give gay and lesbian couples most of the rights married couples have."

A search for the phrase shows this erroneous report is out there in plenty of places. 

Here is a specific example:

NPR repeated the error no doubt like many other radio stations, in a news report during Weekend Edition Sunday earlier today, they said that the DP bill granted same sex couples "many" of the rights of marriage.

There are more than 400 state specific rights conferred by marriage, the domestic partnership bill passed in Washington state gives same sex couples limited rights around health care and end of life issues (updated with the full rights list): 

• health care facility visitation rights;
• ability to grant informed consent for health care for a patient who is not competent;
• authority of health care providers to disclose information about a patient without the patient's authorization to the patient's state registered domestic partner;
• automatic revocation of the designation of a domestic partner as the beneficiary for non-probate assets upon termination of the partnership;
• automatic revocation of power of attorney granted to domestic partner upon termination of the partnership;
• title and rights to cemetery plots and rights of interment;
• ability to authorize autopsies and request copies of autopsy reports and records;
• right to control the disposition of the remains of a deceased person;
• ability to consent to removal of human remains from a cemetery plot;
• ability to make anatomical gifts;
• inheritance rights when the domestic partner dies without a will;
• administration of an estate if the domestic partner died without a will or if the representative named in the will declined or was unable to serve;
• beneficiary rights in wrongful death actions; and
• ability to designate a partner's physician as the attorney-in-fact.
• PEBB if one of the partners is a state employee the other one gets state benefits

Around a dozen rights out of more than 400 under a "separate but equal" construct called "domestic partnership" isn't "most" or "many".

Society doesn't understand how few rights we have and how unfairly we get treated today even before seeing this incorrect AP story repeated everywhere like it is fact.

Let's be clear here, these rights allow us to manage falling sick and dying, they are not the rights that allow us to focus on living.

Associated Press, you screwed up. 

We got crumbs, not cake.

Who would *you* not want to live next to?

There was an interesting study called "Love Thy Neighbour: How Much Bigotry Is There In Western Countries?" completed in January 2007 by Vani K Borooah from the University of Ulster, and John Mangan from the University of Queensland.  Hat tip to The Muriels (bless their pregnant lesbian cotton socks) on this one.

The study aims to illustrate the level of bigotry against certain groups in each country by using an established model used for measuring poverty.  In the countries surveyed for bigotry against various groups, the most bigotry was directed toward homosexuals with 15 out of 23 countries reporting that they were the group that people least wanted to live next to.  (Are they crazy?  I mean, gays next door means fabulous curb appeal and an increase in property values.  And this is bad for the neighbours how, exactly?)

From the introduction to this fine study:

Tolerance of inter-personal differences in behaviour is the leitmotif of Western society: many Western countries are major aid donors; most are high net recipients of immigrants; and all are signatories to a number of United Nations charters which
repudiate discrimination and persecution and guarantee human rights. Yet, despite this reputation for liberalism, there can be little doubt that, in the past decade or so in Western countries, there is an increasing awareness of, and a hardening of attitudes
towards, people who are “different”.  The rise to electoral prominence, in several of these countries, of right-wing parties, with explicitly anti-foreigner agendas, is testimony to this.

Arguments about the Muslim veil in Britain, and the headscarf in
France, are part of a wider debate taking place across Europe – embracing inter alia the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and Switzerland - about the erosion of national identity through the steady drip of special demands predicated
on tolerance for cultural diversity. Added to this, proposals to legalise same-sex marriages and civil unions between homosexual couples are viewed by some (many?) as being contrary to the tenets of the Christian faith and of threatening cherished institutions like the traditional husband-wife family.

As I said, the methodology isn't new and the data from the Human Beliefs and Values Survey.  The goals of the study are succinct:

Instead, this paper derives its raison d’être from the fact that we have little systematic information about the degree of prejudice that exists in western countries against minority groups – in particular, whether it differs by country, and between the groups, which are the target of prejudice? Furthermore, who are the persons in a country most (least) likely to be prejudiced? This paper attempts to answer these questions.

Getting into the how, I'm especially interested in (ii) and (iii) below:

We propose measures for the amount of bigotry in a country. Borrowing from the well known measures of poverty, we propose analogous measures for the amount of prejudice in a country. The values of these measures are derived from individual responses to the following question: “Would you like to have a person from this group as your neighbour?” Values of this index are derived from individual responses to the Human Beliefs and Values Survey’s question: “Would you like to have persons from
this group as your neighbours?” A negative answer is taken to mean that the respondent is prejudiced against members of this group. We use data on the responses with respect to five groups - people from another race, immigrants or foreign workers,
Muslims, Jews, homosexuals – to (i) construct measures for the amount of bigotry in a country and rank Western countries on a bigotry scale; (ii) analyse the available information on the individuals in a country to examine the social and economic
factors which determine whether people are bigoted or bigotry-free or, on a different formulation, whether they are strongly bigoted, mildly bigoted, or bigotry-free; (iii) examine three specific phobias – relating to Muslims, immigrants, and homosexuals – to see whether the strength of the “bigotry-determining factors” varies according to the group being considered.

You can find the full study here, but here is the table with the key insights for me (note that the group who experiences the highest level of bigotry in marked in red for each country):

With the percentage of the population who are homophobic at 24.7%, Australia is worse even than the USA at 22.9%.  It's true that homophobia in the place I was born and the place that I live suck out loud, but it's Northern Ireland that gets the jersey as the most homophobic nation in the study at 35.9%.

Remind me not to trace those Irish roots back to the old country after all.

Hearings on Hate Crimes legislation today

After digging into the hate crimes statistics recently (post to come shortly) I'm amazed that there is even a debate on whether sexual orientation and gender identity should be added to the existing classes in Federal Hate Crimes law. 

Below is a table of the reporting rate for the top four sub-groups under the classes of race, religion, and sexual orientation.  These figures are derived from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program statistics on hate crimes between 1995-2005:

 

Averaged across the last decade, only Jewish people have a higher per capita reporting rate than GLB people.  It also worth noting that hate crimes based on gender identity are not tracked at all under the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990.

In the above table, GLB people are the only ones not protected under current Hate Crimes legislation.  Protecting GLBT people doesn't seem so unreasonable when looking at a decade worth of numbers, does it?

The the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security in the House Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007" (H.R. 1592) (now renamed to the "Matthew Shepard Act" in the Senate) today at 2pm EDT (11am PST).  You can view it live using the link on this schedule page.

I wouldn't recommend watching unless you have a strong constitution and steely self-control.  The kind of people who will be speaking against the bill at the hearing will make any sane person want to gnaw their own leg off.

Soulforce rolls on to Patrick Henry College

The Washington Post has a nice piece on the Soulforce Equality Riders, a group of young gay Christians reaching out to colleges that discriminate against LGBT youth.  Patrick Henry College, established specifically for home schooled Christian students, released a press release that is really worth reading if you want to understand their mind-set.

My favorite part of the article is when the college founder finds out a friend and alumnus of Patrick Henry College is gay:

Soulforce visits often bring gay students and alumni out of hiding, and this was no exception. Three alumni contacted Reynolds during the visit; she said one told her he was gay and that his time at Patrick Henry had been the "hardest four years of his life."

David Hazard, a friend of college founder Farris who had edited one of his books, also told Reynolds he was gay. When Farris heard that during an interview in his office, his jaw fell open, and he stared for a long time. "Oh. I'm so sorry for David," he said. "I think he's deluded." The place for someone like that, he added, "is on their knees repenting of their sin."

"But here's a good reaction for you: I still like him."

He may come from a different world than me, but where I come from saying that a friend and colleague is delusional and telling them that they need to repent for their "sin" in a quote for a newspaper story isn't a reaction that deserves praise. 

Yet Farris finds himself praiseworthy for "still liking him".  Jolly good, well done you! 

There is a news item on the Patrick Henry College web site entitled "Soulforce Equality Ride Passes Peacefully".  What did they expect?  The Soulforce folks are gay Christians after all.  The news item ascribes Soulforce with the motive of attacking 1st amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, and some kind of unconscious guilt and shame over their "sin" of homosexuality.

I've always been curious about home schooling, but now I'm really interested in statistics on people who have been home schooled. 

Dana Perino just messed with my stuff

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the report from CREW that the White House is missing 5 million e-mails in contravention of the Presidential Records Act.

White House spokesperson Dana Perino made a comment today in the press gaggle about their migration from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook where she said that they might have lost mail in the migration process.  She then went on to say that they are investigating the claims made by CREW that e-mail for whole days have gone missing from servers.

Unless something has changed at the White House I don't know about, she just messed with my stuff.   

You see, I worked on the e-mail server software the White House uses and in particular the migration and coexistence tools from other e-mail systems.  The migration tools were specifically designed to allow non-destructive, multi-pass and incremental migrations where the system administrators have total control of when and if data is deleted in the source system.  The tools were designed this way because migrations can be complicated and because of the challenges getting data out of the the Lotus Notes mail storage system files. 

When we were testing the migration tools we found that some messages in Lotus Notes wouldn't migrate into our server.  After some investigation, we found that this was due to corruption in the Lotus Notes mail storage system. 

You see, many e-mail storage systems, like Lotus Notes, were and are internally "very tolerant" of hardware and software problems when they are writing data to and reading data from the storage system.  This results in bad data being written into storage undetected and never being corrected. 

The only way messages don't get moved from Lotus Notes is if a) they are already corrupted and can't be copied via the Lotus Notes APIs, or b) the system administrator performing the migration decides to filter the e-mail to be migrated by mailbox or by date range. 

So unless they had wholesale corruption of the Lotus Notes storage system, Dana Perino is feeding the press a line of bull.

And one other thing, the timeline here is fishy.  I vaguely recall the White House started moving to our product well before I left the e-mail server team. 

That was over 7 years ago.

If the missing e-mails are between March 2003 and October 2005 and Dana Perino is to be believed, that means that the folks at the White House were still migrating from Lotus Notes starting around 1999 to sometime between 2003 and 2005.  

4 to 6 years to migrate from Lotus Notes is ridiculous.

UPDATE: I was just reading the latest on this up on TPM.  Here's what I just posted to the comments thread there:

I worked on the e-mail server software they use at the White House (unless something has changed) and in particular the migration tools they would have used to move e-mail from Lotus Notes.

The tools were specifically designed to allow non-destructive, multi-pass and incremental migration approaches to allow maximum data integrity and control. There are problems that might have prevented some Lotus Notes messages from migrating when there was corruption in the source Lotus Notes message or server files.

In the time I worked on this software, seven years ago now, I presented at conferences and directly to important clients on best practices when conducting migrations from various other competitive products to our server platform. One of the things I would often recommend to organizations (prior to Sarbanes-Oxley) was to use the migration as an opportunity to reduce the amount of data in their online message stores by taking a hard line on what data was to be migrated to the new system.

We originally introduced the date filtering ability in the migration tools to help system administrators with staged and incremental migrations when the old Lotus Notes servers and the new e-mail servers are being run in parallel so that users could verify individually that everything had been migrated correctly. However the date filtering feature also allowed system administrators to draw the line and say “only e-mail from date X onward will be migrated to the new servers”.

Let's assume for a moment that the White House decided to take this hard line approach. They would definitely have been required to maintain full backups of the Lotus Notes source servers to preserve the data that wasn’t migrated to the new servers.

Now let’s assume they did a full migration of all data but that, like just about every Lotus Notes server we tested on, there was data and message corruption that meant some messages could never be migrated with full fidelity to the new servers. Once again, they would be required to maintain backups of any data that didn’t migrate based on detailed information produced in the log files of the migration tool.

Finally let’s assume that you are an experienced IT veteran who has done a migration before. You know that 100% fidelity across 100% of records is highly improbable and you are very aware of the heightened level scrutiny that these records get. Wouldn’t you *still* maintain complete backups of the Lotus Notes servers to ensure 100% recall?  I know I would.

Any way you cut the statements made by Dana Perino on this topic, they defy all the core principles of good migration and record keeping practice. I find it very hard to believe the White House IT people are so lacking in experience or understanding of the migration process that they lost this data through error.

Nor do I believe, as Dana Perino clearly implies, that somehow the tools themselves failed so completely, that more than 5 million e-mails are missing as a result.

The engineers and IT people who work in this area don't deserve to be used as scapegoats in this situation.

Understanding U.S. Hate Crimes statistics

The re-introduction of Hate Crimes legislation (the Matthew Shepard Act [H.R. 1592]) this year and some of the curious arguments I've been seeing from opponents of this legislation have piqued my interest. 

Why hasn't sexual orientation and gender identity been added to our existing Federal Hate Crimes legislation? 

How prevalent are hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender compared with hate crimes against other groups?

The main objection I have been seeing to Hate Crimes legislation for LGBT people in the media is that they just aren't necessary, and that there just aren't enough of them to justify the effort.  We'll look at the statistics in some detail in a moment, but it is a disturbing idea that the frequency of a crime should determine whether or not it is a crime.  By this logic genocide, by virtue of it's infrequency, might not be a crime at all.

Another objection from opponents is that LGBT people aren't easily identifiable like other currently protected classes so it's hard to know when you might run afoul of Hate Crimes legislation.  While that argument initially seems to make sense for existing classes like race, color, and national origin, it makes no sense at all for other classes like disability or religion. 

Of course there are excellent reasons why current Hate Crimes legislation includes phrases like "The incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ..."  There is no way to accurately determine the race, color, national origin, religion, or disability of any individual, yet this didn't prevent protections being enacted for these groups.  Why, then, is it an issue for LGBT people?

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Hate Crimes statistics to better understand the issue.  Here are the official sources I've used: 

• Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990
• FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program
• National Criminal Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reporting - Hate Crime Reported by Victims and Police (November 2005)

Now, to put the numbers you are about to see in perspective there are a few things you need to know about Hate Crimes before we start:

• Only 44% of hate crimes are ever reported to police
• Average of 191,000 incidents reported annually since 2000
• Ergo, Reported + projected Unreported average hate crime incidents could equal as much as 434,091 incidents
• 3% of all Violent crimes are perceived by the victims to be hate crimes

In the current (2004) FBI Hate Crime Statistics in the next two tables there are shortcomings with the breadth of collection and how the numbers are presented:

• Neutral categories hide the specific sub-groups in each that report by far the most hate crimes
  • Race: Black = 67.6% of all reports
  • Religion: Jewish = 69.4% of all reports
  • Sexual Orientation: Gay (GLB) = 97.2% of all reports
• Incident statistics track total counts and don’t account for differing population sizes of these targeted groups
• Gay people report more personal vs. property based hate crimes
• Gender and Gender identity not tracked at all under Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990

With those points made, here are the raw FBI 2004 numbers:

And a percentage breakdown by sub-group:

As noted above, the failure to take into account the actual size of each group in the population makes understanding the magnitude of the problem to each group more difficult. 

Here is a more realistic way of grasping the numbers – population-adjusted incident reporting rates per 100,000 people based on 1996-2001 data from The Real Story of U.S. Hate Crime Statistics: An Empirical Analysis:

Here are the top population-adjusted reporting rates (PARRs) for a broader set of sub-groups using just three months of post-September 11, 2001 data:

The Arab/Muslim numbers have moderated in the 2002 data:

As you can see from this brief three month snapshot after September 11th 2001 and the moderating numbers for the Arab and Islamic groups, GLB people have the highest population-adjusted reporting rate for hate crimes. 

Looked at the numbers over a decade, the recent up-tick in hate crimes for GLB people moves us into second place with 13 incidents per 100,000 people compared with 15 per 100,000 people for Jews, 12 per 100,000 for Muslims, and 8 per 100,000 for Blacks.

I started looking into this because I’m tired of the argument that “we don’t need it, it hardly ever happens”.  This is manifestly false based on simple incident statistics, and that argument posits that the numbers for anti-GLB hate crimes become a de-facto threshold for groups who do not need protection.  Ergo, any groups with a lower reporting rate than GLB hate crimes should also be removed from hate crimes legislation. 

If we took this at the class level, we would no longer protect Ethnicity and National Origin or Disability at all.  If we were to treat each of the sub-groups individually, which seems more equitable, here are the groups that would be removed based on the 2004 numbers (bold):

• Anti-Male Homosexual - 738
• Anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin - 497
• Anti-Hispanic - 475
• Anti-Homosexual - 245
• Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander - 217
• Anti-Multiple Races, Group - 182
• Anti-Female Homosexual - 164
• Anti-Islamic - 156
• Anti-Other Religion - 128
• Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native - 83
• Anti-Catholic - 57
• Anti-Protestant - 38
• Anti-Multiple Religions, Group - 35
• Anti-Mental - 34
• Anti-Heterosexual - 33
• Anti-Physical - 23
• Anti-Bisexual - 17
• Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. - 6

Clearly, we would not remove these protections from these groups or classes.  This argument is nonsense.

Based on the data collection mandated in the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 and the population-adjusted reporting rates, the case for inclusion of sexual orientation and protection of GLB people is among the strongest of any sub-group or class currently being reported on.  

While gender identity is not currently tracked as a motivation for hate crimes and is not reported or included here, it is a reasonable hypothesis that they are also disproportionately affected by bias motivated crimes.  Statistics for people who might be protected under gender identity, including cross-dressers, transgender, and transsexual people are difficult to find. 

"Expert" estimates by psychiatrists of the incidence of transsexuals alone in the U.S., based on purely anecdotal data, is 1 in 30,000 people.  However, the work of Lynn Conway, a computer scientist and inventor, points to a dramatically higher incidence of transsexuals who have had sexual reassignment surgery closer to 1 in 2,500.  This is a largely invisible community who are often treated as outsiders even in the GLBT community.  Despite the paucity of statistics, they deserve protection under the law.

If hate crimes exist at all in legislation, there is no credible argument and no rational basis for excluding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity as classes to fully protect Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people.

Federal Hate Crimes bill renamed

Yesterday the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act was introduced in the Senate.  At yesterdays press conference Senators Kennedy and Smith also announced that the interminably long and obfuscating bill name has been changed to the "Matthew Shepard Act".

This is an very smart move.  Hate Crimes legislation has passed both the house and senate at various times, but has never been signed into law. 

What happened to Matthew Shepherd was an outrage that shocked the American psyche.  Yet it has been more than eight years since his brutal murder and there is still no Federal Hate Crimes bill protection based on actual or perceived sexual orientation.  Opposing hate crimes legislation named in his honor will be a challenge to even the most committed opponents of LGBT civil rights in congress.  

Here is Judy Shepard's quote from the Matthew Shepard Foundation's press release:

''The reintroduction of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA) in the House of Representatives last night marks a very important moment for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community.

For far too long violence motivated by hatred against GLBT individuals has gone unrecognized by the Federal Government as well as many local agencies. The LLEHCPA will provide local law enforcement with the added resources and support needed for investigating and prosecuting serious hate crimes that are not currently included in existing law.

The investigation of Matthew's murder and the trial of his killers cost Albany County in Wyoming more than $150,000. This unplanned financial burden forced the Sheriff's Department to furlough five of its employees. If the LLEHCPA had been the law of the land in 1998, this reduction in vital staff could have been averted, while still ensuring that justice was served for my son.

As citizens of this great country, we have an opportunity right now to ensure that this vital piece of legislation is enacted. Since Matthew was killed in 1998 for being gay, almost 10,000 violent acts of hate against individuals based on their sexual orientation have been reported to the authorities. Whether it is for Matthew or for the victims of the thousands of other violent hate crimes that have taken place over the years, I urge the GLBT community and its allies to make the passage of this bill a top priority.

Please contact your representative today to ask them to co-sponsor the LLEHCPA or thank them if they have already signed up. We all have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of millions, please act today.''

Today, many other groups are already protected by Federal Hate Crimes law while LGBT people, who are disproportionately victims of hate crimes when compared with these other groups in the population, struggle to get the same level of protection. 

It remains to be seen what approach opponents of the Matthew Shepard Act will take from here on. 

Heard over the breakfast table...

Me: [holding my Hate Crimes research folder] "You know, I think this is the first time we've had a Federal bill at this table."

HWMBO: [gesturing excitedly at photos in Sunday's Seattle Times] "Look iPeeps!"

200th post on The Gay Curmudgeon

I just went to post another item and realized that I was about to clock over my 200th post on The Gay Curmudgeon.  Here is an appropriately gay cake to celebrate:

If you are a new visitor, thanks for dropping by.  If you are a regular, thanks for coming back.  Cheers!

Domestic Partnership Bill HB5336 Passes

Just about every local, regional and national blog carried the good news that after its success in the Senate, the Domestic Partnership Bill passed the House on Tuesday and is on its way to Governors desk for her promised signature.  

This is good news, but the work is less than half done.

You know that our opponents are sending e-mail to our supportive legislators berating them for their vote.

You know that our opponents who are challenging the Anti-Discrimination Bill (HB 2661) today, will be challenging the Domestic Partnership Bill tomorrow.  Exhibit A:

Hutcherson is out of step with other conservatives.  From the Seattle Times:

Conservative groups opposed to gay marriage and the domestic-partnership bill said they were disappointed by the House vote but that they're unlikely to challenge it at the ballot.

Instead, they plan to work in the next election to defeat key lawmakers who supported the measure.

"I think we want to go the route of voting these people out," said the Rev. Joe Fuiten, pastor of Cedar Park Assembly of God and a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage.

You know that the urgent set of rights in the Domestic Partnership Bill needs to be followed next year by another set, and then another, and another until we gain the equality that we deserve.

You know that we will be depending on our legislators to support us by continuing to speak out against our opponents.

You know that ultimately we will be asking our legislators to make the leap from basic rights to full equality.

For all of these reasons it is vital that you thank your legislator if they supported the Domestic Partnership Bill.  And if they voted against it, tell them how disappointed you are, and ask them why they voted against it.

In our legislators ears, the sound of our cheers must drown out our opponents complaints.

“The Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act” (HB 1820) introduced by Jim McDermott

I’m behind on my bill rounds and I spotted this headline “Health Benefits Tax Bill Draws Interest” on Investment News.

Congressman McDermott introduced “The Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act” (HR1820) on March 29^th but it hasn’t made it to the congressional web site because of the recess.  Talking with his communication director they have been getting a lot of press calls on the bill.  From the bill, it's intent is:

"To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the exclusion from gross income for employer-provided health coverage for employees’ spouses and dependent children to coverage provided to other eligible designated beneficiaries of employees."

Its grossly unfair that same sex couples have a tax penalty on medical benefits and married couples don't.  I'll be watching this bill carefully.

Giddy-up/Whoa there

This is fascinating stuff. 

It seems that singer songwriter Matt Nathanson is wrong.  Our genitals don't lead us.

An article in The New York Times samples the state of research into sexual desire and arousal and finds that we've been putting the cart before the horse.

Unabashed about acting on their academic appetites, sexologists have gained a wealth of new and often surprising insights into the nature and architecture of sexual desire. They are tracing how men and women diverge in their experience, and where they converge. They are learning how and why people pursue the erotic partners they do, and the circumstances under which those tastes are either fixed or fluid.

Some researchers are delving into the neural, anatomical and emotional mechanisms that modulate and micromanage sexual desire and sexual arousal; others are exploring the role that culture plays in plucking or muffling the strings of desire. The pragmatists in sexology’s ranks are seeking better bedside medicines — new ways to help people who feel they suffer from an excess or deficit of sexual desire.

One recent standout discovery upends the canonical model of how the typical sex act unfolds, particularly for women but very likely for men as well.

According to the sequence put forward in the mid-20th century by the pioneering sex researchers William H. Masters, Virginia E. Johnson and Helen Singer Kaplan, a sexual encounter begins with desire, a craving for sex that arises of its own accord and prods a person to seek a partner. That encounter then leads to sexual arousal, followed by sexual excitement, a desperate fumbling with buttons and related clothing fasteners, a lot of funny noises, climax and resolution (I will never drink Southern Comfort at the company barbecue again).

A plethora of new findings, however, suggest that the experience of desire may be less a forerunner to sex than an afterthought, the cognitive overlay that the brain gives to the sensation of already having been aroused by some sort of physical or subliminal stimulus — a brush on the back of the neck, say, or the sight of a ripe apple, or wearing a hard hat on a construction site and being surrounded by other men in similar haberdashery.

While this insight isn’t wholly new:

Moreover, she said, arousal is not necessarily a conscious process. In other experiments, Dr. Spiering and his colleagues showed that when college students were exposed to sexual images too fleetingly for the subjects to report having noticed them, the participants were nevertheless much quicker to identify subsequent sexual images than were the control students who had been flashed with neutral images.

“Our sexual responsiveness can be activated or enhanced by stimuli we’re not even aware of,” Dr. Laan said.

There are some potentially challenging philosophical and religious questions raised by this kind of research, especially when coupled with other advances in neuroscience.  It goes on:

Researchers have also gathered considerable evidence that the sensations of sexual arousal, desire and excitement are governed by two basic and distinctively operating pathways in the brain — one that promotes sexual enthusiasm, another that inhibits it. An originator of this novel concept, Erick Janssen of the Kinsey Institute, compares these mechanisms to the pedals of a car.

“If you let go of the gas pedal, you’ll slow down,” he said, “but that’s not the same as stepping on the brakes.”

In any given individual, each pedal may be easier or harder to press. One person may be quick to become aroused, but equally quick to stifle that response at the slightest distraction. Another may be tough to get started, but once galvanized “will not lose sexual arousal even if the ceiling comes down,” Dr. Janssen said. Still another may be saddled with both a feeble sexual accelerator and an overzealous sexual inhibitor, an unenviable pairing most likely correlated with a taste for beige pantsuits and the music of Loggins and Messina.

Imagine if a link can be proved from the promotion and inhibition of desire to the actions that people take in response to it.  Where does that take the discussion of mutable vs. immutable characteristics, choice vs. biology, and the concept of sin and sinful behavior as a moral failing? 

In another NYT article “Pas de Deux of Sexuality Is Written in the Genes”  they cover the degree of plasticity and polarization in sexual orientation:

It is no surprise that the male and female versions of the human brain operate in distinct patterns, despite the heavy influence of culture. The male brain is sexually oriented toward women as an object of desire. The most direct evidence comes from a handful of cases, some of them circumcision accidents, in which boy babies have lost their penises and been reared as female. Despite every social inducement to the opposite, they grow up desiring women as partners, not men.

“If you can’t make a male attracted to other males by cutting off his penis, how strong could any psychosocial effect be?” said J. Michael Bailey, an expert on sexual orientation at Northwestern University.

If Bailey seems a little extreme, then consider the comments of Alice Domurat Dreger (pointed out to me by a thoughtful colleague), a prominent medical ethicist at Northwestern University and an expert on the social and ethical issues of intersexed people, writes the following in her article "The Social Construction of Sex and Me":

I’ve also seen a lot of evidence from intersex that prenatal hormone levels correlate with gender-type behaviors, gender identities, and even sexual orientation. (Correlate, not cause! But correlations can be useful clues to causal factors.) I am not one of the people that flips out when the scientist Mike Bailey points out that, statistically speaking, gay men enter feminine-identified professions more than straight men, any more than I flip out when the scientist Bruce Bagemihl points out the tremendous sexual (and gender!) diversity found in the natural world. I’m fascinated, not infuriated, that the scientist Marc Breedlove has found some evidence that prenatal androgen levels seem to correlate with sexual orientation. Species show patterns in sex and gender diversity; we humans are no different.

If gender and orientation are seated in the brain and biologically based, as the research is increasingly indicating, how does Reparative Therapy and the Ex-Gay movement stand even cursory scrutiny?    How does refusal to support transgender rights stand any scrutiny at all?  

Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men. In experiments in which subjects are shown photographs of desirable men or women, straight men are aroused by women, gay men by men.

Such experiments do not show the same clear divide with women. Whether women describe themselves as straight or lesbian, “Their sexual arousal seems to be relatively indiscriminate — they get aroused by both male and female images,” Dr. Bailey said. “I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men.”

This is potentially a minefield.  Look for someone to claim that men have little if any latitude and can’t be blamed for being gay, but women have “sexual preferences”, a coded phrase meant to imply both choice the rejection of “natural law”.  If Bailey's finding is so significant, why is it that women don't have a mix in the gender of their partners?  

Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth. “I think most of the scientists working on these questions are convinced that the antecedents of sexual orientation in males are happening early in life, probably before birth,” Dr. Breedlove said, “whereas for females, some are probably born to become gay, but clearly some get there quite late in life.”

While it is early to be making strong statements about this research, the ground is falling away from people who sit in judgment of  LGBT people because “they made a choice” to be “sinful” or “immoral”.  With the choice argument debunked, it will be intriguing to see if opponents of LGBT civil rights switch to the “LGBT as genetic or biological disease” stance requiring “a cure”.

There are amazing strides being made in this area of research.

Hutcherson on CNN: It's the bible, stupid!

Our friends at the Northwest Progressive Institute blog have some of the transcript of Reverend Hutcherson's recent sojourn on CNN with Anderson Cooper.  There is nothing new in this, really. 

Talking about "curing" homosexuality, he completely sidestepped the important distinction between being straight and acting straight, and compared us to alcoholics and sexual compulsives.  Where are the lepers?  I mean, really, what king of traditionalist are you if we aren't compared to lepers... 

COOPER: Pastor Hutcherson, even those people in Gary's report who say they are cured of homosexuality, admit they have feelings of attraction to people of the same sex. They're essentially just living their lives suppressing those feelings. Is that what God wants?

KEN HUTCHERSON, PASTOR ANTIOCH BIBLE CHURCH: Well, I think anything that the Bible calls sin, Anderson, when a person is cured of alcoholism, does that mean that they are completely set free from ever wanting a drink? No. They are not. Or someone that has a problem with tremendous amounts of lust. If they are cured of that, that doesn't mean those feelings aren't there. Just because the feelings are there, don't make it right or wrong. What makes it right or wrong is what the bible has to say.

I'm happy to take the reverend at his word.  Let me draw your attention to what else the bible has to say summarized in an excellent piece by Lance Christie called "Living by Leviticus".  At the end of the article Christie outlines what a biblically based definition of marriage would look like complete with supporting citations of chapter and verse:

The Presidential Prayer Team is currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles. With any forces insisting on variant definitions of marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be honored by our government."

Any religious person believes prayer should be balanced by action. So here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals, is a proposed Constitutional Amendment to codify marriage on the principles stated in the Old Testament of the Bible. Except for Paul's remark that it is better to marry than to burn, there are no principles concerning marriage in the New Testament and Jesus did not speak on the matter:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Genesis 29:17-28; II Samuel 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives. (II Samuel 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chronicles 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Genesis 24:3; Numbers 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Nehemiah 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deuteronomy 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe. (Genesis 38:6-10; Deuteronomy 25:5-10)

The next time you hear somebody fulminating in favor of a Bible-based theocratic government in the United States, bear in mind that these are the literal Bible-based commandments in question. If the advocate confronted with these principles denies they would implement any one of them, then they are admitting that they will institute principles according to their own human judgment - no doubt claiming divine inspiration - rather than a literal adherence to Biblical rules and laws.

And here are few more choice examples of what the bible says illustrated in a scene from The West Wing that was inspired by an open letter written to Dr Laura Schlessinger:

Let's all agree that no just society can be in favor of slavery, rape, capital punishment for trespassing, ritual filicide, capital punishment for cursing your parents, and the litany of other cruelties and injustices that the bible contains (To learn more about what's in the bible, I recommend The Skeptic's Annotated Bible as a great resource).

Now let's acknowledge that cherry picking things from the bible to push as the infallible word of God is cheating and just plain bad form.  The bible is either the infallible word of God, or it isn't. 

If you want the civil rights of a gays and lesbians to be be abridged because Leviticus says they deserve to be killed, then we must also repeal the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution and claim any Mexicans or Canadians within the United States as biblically permitted slaves (Boy howdy, am I glad I was born on an island continent).

Reverend Hutcherson claims that the bible tells him what is right and wrong.  It is clear from the bible that slavery is permitted and that the children of slaves are born slaves also.  Doesn't that make the African American Civil Rights movement from the Emancipation proclamation through desegregation right up to the present day an affront to God's holy word and law?

No, of course not.  Instead it's ridiculous, inhumane, and a gross injustice.

Just like any biblical argument for abridging LGBT Civil Rights.

Menu Blogging - Easter Sunday

I've been slack about my menu blogging so I'm taking Easter as the time to get back into the swing of things.

We had four friends over for the now traditional Spring and Easter dinner and here's the menu:

Veuve Clicquot

Gravalox Crostini

Joseph Drouhin Chablis (2004/5)

Potage Creme De Cresson (Cream of Watercress Soup)

Apple Endive Salad with Prosciutto and Pistachio Oil Dressing

Carrot and Ginger Sorbets

Penfolds Grange Hermitage (1989)

Leg of New Zealand Lamb with garlic spears and Rosemary Pepper crust
Fingerling Red Potatoes
Aubergines en Persillade, Sautees (Sauteed Eggplant Garnished with Garlic, Bread Crumbs, and Herbs)
Steamed Organic Carrots with Parsley

Lemon Sponge Cake
Coffee

Cheese and Fruit Plate

Gold Dusted Truffles with Chambourd

No major problems with making any of the above although assembling the salad was more work than I expected. The fresh mild sweetness of the watercress soup was a great start. I was especially happy with the Ginger Sorbet but the Carrot had a strange texture more like a granita which I'll have to look into. The leg was lovely and tender and there is enough for a killer Shepherds Pie later in the week.

Having had a dinner party or two where conversation has strayed into challenging territory, it was great to discuss some of the larger social and political trends of the day and see no great ideological rifts emerge across the table.

All up, a very pleasant meal.

Greetings from the Moon...

My brother PG and his family are visiting my Uncle T in Coffs Harbour for Easter this year.  I remember Uncle T's sharp grin and wry sense of humor from when we were kids and we'd visit my Nanna. 

When He Who Must Be Obeyed is baking something in our kitchen it transports me back to my Nanna's with the smells of something fresh baked cooling on a rack and steam from the brewing tea.  Uncle T is woven firmly into that memory; he was the youngest and took such good care of Nanna. 

Goods news doesn't seem to get to me over here.  It's as though I am on a moon.  My life is so far away that I only ever hear from my immediate family with the inevitable time delay. I feel it on holidays and at Christmas - the attenuated connection with my Uncles and Aunts and Cousins.  I haven't seen photos of my cousins children who are probably all working now.  If we chanced to meet I'd just be a stranger with whom they have no context and no connection.  I don't get to hear of all the engagements and weddings and births and graduations and new jobs and new homes and myriad other pieces of good news.  Only bad news can achieve escape velocity to find me here in Seattle.  

Uncle T hasn't been very well. Always an active man, he recently found out that he has cancer and according to my Mum "there is nothing more they can do for him".  Uncle T asked the doctor not to tell him what to expect or when.  I think that's a pretty brave way to go on.

I haven't talked to Uncle T for more than 12 years, at least since I moved to Seattle. 

Tonight I called to wish him a Happy Easter.  His voice was the familiar drawl, but it seemed slowed down a touch like a tape stretched with long use.  At first he mistook me for another uncle from my mother's side of the family as we share the same first name.  Once I got across who I was he told me that he had my big brother there, meaning PG.  Odd, since I'm a year older than PG and the eldest in our family. Maybe its not like I'm on a moon, maybe it's a parallel universe where I was born second - or not at all.

We talked for a few minutes.  He asked where I was calling from, and I told him Seattle in the United States.  After some other chat he asked me "if I had a woman yet."  Startled that he'd ask me such a question, I suddenly realized that he didn't know I'm gay.  I imagined my "big" brother just within earshot doing a spit-take with his drink. 

My Mum feels a deep sense of shame that I'm gay and from the day I came out to her she counseled me never to tell another living soul. In fact, she tried to make me promise.  Having expected something like this, I refused and said that asking for such a promise was selfish. "Oh, but you don't want people to know, do you?" her incredulous horror infusing the question with dread.

Without me back home to speak for myself, that once and always coming out, I was hidden in the corner like the rickety chair that no one knows quite what to do with.

It took a second to process all this and I said what I always say when strangers inevitably ask these kinds of questions.  "No, I don't have a woman.  I do have a great guy that I've been living with for almost nine years now and that's going really well," and moved the conversation along.  It was about then that I realized I had interrupted their Easter Dinner and Uncle T asked if I wanted to talk to PG.  We chatted for a few minutes, I asked if Uncle T seemed well, he admitted that he'd almost choked on his spaghetti bolognese when he heard Uncle T ask the question.

I think Uncle T is brave facing his fate without succumbing to morbid curiosity.  He's focusing on life and on the now. Me too.

I figure anyone that brave can handle the simple truth about my ordinary life on a far-away moon.

Fascism+Cruelty+Technology=I-971

Have you ever *really* looked at the initiatives that get proposed in Washington state?  This is some scary mojo...

Assigned Number: 971
Filed: 02/14/2007

Ballot Title
Statement of Subject: Initiative Measure No. 971 concerns treatment of criminals.

Here is the text of the initiative:

Initiative Part 1
Criminals are accountable for their own judgments in life.
Initiative Part 2
Criminals that cause human physical injury, or death, get NO mercy whatsoever, anywhere, with advanced technology evidence collection (like cell phone photography) and location tracking (with GPS chips).
Initiative Part 3
Shall we modify and make new laws such that (A) probation and early release are eliminated, (B) the limit of DUI is set at zero and pictures from advanced technology cell phones with timestamps of drinking or drug taking is acceptable in any court, and (C) all violent offenders must have Global Positioning System (GPS) chips installed in their body by the government. The ATG must sue if non-conformance exists anywhere.
___ Yes
___ No

I'll be perfectly honest and say I have no problem with Part 1. 

Part 2 says that anyone who kills or physically injures anyone (I guess psychological injury is fine - interrogators and torturers rest easy), regardless of degree or circumstances "get[s] no mercy".  This seems overly vague and leaves no room for judicial discretion. The phrase "no mercy whatsoever, anywhere" is similarly overly broad.  This language means that a person charged in a random bar fight where someone got a bruise or fracture has no reasonable expectation of any sort of mercy, in any situation, anywhere in the state. 

Apart from being stone cold creepy, implanting a tracking device *in* someone seems to violate several parts of the U.S. Constitution - the 4th, 9th, and possibly 5th amendments come to mind. 

Part 3 prevents sentences from ever being cut short and would, if we had the death penalty, undoubtedly remove the option of commutation as well.  Surprisingly, pardons are not mentioned at all.  Next the legal blood alcohol level for driving would be set to zero for, presumably, everyone.  That is going to work just great.  We'd be better off moving it to .05 and introducing random breath testing.  Oops, there is that pesky U.S. Constitution again.

In this initiative sponsors mind, at least, Justice isn't just blind, but a vindictive and omni-present stalker.

Hutcherson defends himself in the Latvian Press

Reverend Hutcherson has sent a letter to the New Generations Church for distribution to the Latvian media. 

Unfortunately I can't locate the complete English version so a mangled excerpt on two Russian language web sites Marantha,org.ua and Baznica.info is all that is available.  Here is a merge of two auto-translated texts with some clean-up:

05.04.2007 16:43:41

Hutcherson asserts that gays slandered him 

The press service of the "New Generation" church has distributed part of a letter written by Dr. Ken Hutcherson to the representatives of the mass media in Latvia. 

"To me it is completely clear that these charges in the fact that 4 impostors, they proceed wholly from a handful of homosexual people somounichtozheniya and they are full of lies. I was granted, and still have the support of the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives.

This support is allowed for activities in the area of adoption of orphans, family values, religious freedoms and medical aid. I will return to Riga at the end of May, this time, with two purposes.

I shall continue to work on the same questions above, as last time, and also I shall bring with me a group of more than 20 physician-dentists to help those who are not in a condition independently to pay for the services of a dentist.

I expect a personal meeting with “Диеной” as we still have not received adequate answers on the caricatures of our Savior Jesus Christ. With impatience I wait for this trip.

Despite the fact that New Generation and everyone that Hutcherson met with in Latvia is now saying he wasn't representing the White House, Hutcherson again claims that he had, and still has, the support of the White House OFB&CI. 

A small group of homosexuals have allegedly slandered him.  It's hard to believe he can make the claim since what is being alleged is exactly what Hutcherson has freely and repeatedly admitted - that he claims he is a representative of the White House OFB&CI. 

Since slander, the spoken word, and libel, the written word, must be false accusations this is nothing more than a fumbling PR posture on his part. 

The e-mail from Scott Lively claiming that Hutcherson is a "Special Envoy" is still posted on the New Generations web site.

Here is the original Russian if anyone can get a more accurate translation:

05.04.2007 16:43:41

Хатчерсон утверждает, что его оклеветали геи (письмо)

Пресс-служба церкви “Новое Поколение” распространила часть письма др. Кеннета Хатчерсона (Dr. Ken Hutcherson) для представителей масс-медиа Латвии. 

«Мне совершенно ясно, что эти обвинения в том, что я самозванец, исходят целиком из гомосексуальной горстки людей сомоуничтожения и полны лжи. У меня была, есть и будет поддержка отдела Церковных и Общественных Инициатив при Белом доме (FBCI-Faith Base and Community Initiative departament of the White House).

Эта поддержка мне предоставляется для деятельности в области усыновления сирот, семейных ценностей, религиозных свобод и медицинской помощи. Я возвращаюсь в Ригу в конце мая, в этот раз, с двумя целями. Я продолжу работать над теми же вопросами, что и прошлый раз, а также привезу с собой команду медиков-дантистов из более чем 20 человек для помощи нуждающимся, которые не в состоянии самостоятельно оплатить услуги дантиста.

Я ожидаю личной встречи с “Диеной”, поскольку мы по-прежнему не получили адекватных ответов по карикатурам на нашего Спасителя Иисуса Христа. С нетерпением жду этой поездки.»

baznica.info