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Marriage Equality in Iowa

An Iowa district court ruled Thursday that same-sex couples can marry based on the state constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment, court documents show.
art.marriage.gi.jpgAn Iowa district judge ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.The ruling was in response to a December 2005 lawsuit brought by six same-sex couples seeking to wed. They were denied marriage licenses and claimed such treatment violates equal-protection and due-process clauses in the Iowa constitution.The court also struck down a state law declaring valid marriages are only between a man and woman.

Always good to hear about a positive advancement in the fight for marriage equality, but there’s something beyond just this one case in this story. I checked most of the major news sites, and while on the front page, this story is merely a footnote mixed in with other miscellaneous headlines about what is going on in the world (even FoxNews whose entire focus is on the issues that rile up the GOP base!). What does that mean? Well, it could simply be a matter of this being a district court decision not a high court decision so it will certainly be appealed. But think back a couple of years. Had a state begun granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, even if the ruling was not necessarily a permanent fixture, it would have been splashed all over the front page in bold headlines with colorful rainbow and wedding band graphics.

I’m thrilled by the decision, but I think the most telling part of it is the lack of interest by the general public. It may be early to be thinking this way yet, but it’s looking like straight America is no longer so scared of marriage equality. It’s been a fact of life in Massachusetts for almost 4 years and none of the right-wing predictions of doom have come to fruitation. Fear is no longer working, and people are getting bored with the idea that marriage must be “protected” from other loving couples. THAT is good news indeed.

Update: In a move that surprised no one, the judge has put a stay on his ruling until the appeal has been resolved. One couple managed to squeak through however, so there is one married same-sex couple in Iowa.

On Larry Craig

CNN seems to be running nearly round the clock coverage of Republican Senator Larry Craig’s sex scandal.  Am I the only one feeling that wrinkly old Republicans having gay sex isn’t exciting enough to warrant that kind of attention?  Maybe if it were some hot young liberal guys (or conservatives, just so long as they are hot), maybe I’d reconsider (I kid, sorta).  Some Republicans are gay, the only people who refuse to admit that are Republicans.

Anyways,  I just happened to catch a snippet of this coverage in which the speaker (I presume an “expert”) was saying, “The most surprising thing is that the vast majority of these men [who seek same-sex sexual encounters in public restrooms] are in long-term heterosexual relationships.  Many of them married, many engaged.”  And that surprises who exactly?  Openly gay men simply don’t need to hang out in public restrooms to satisfy our sexual desires.  Unlike the married “straight” men this “expert” is so surprised about, many of us gay folks are in our own long-term homosexual relationships that actually do provide us with the opportunity to satisfy our sexual needs (among the many other things a relationship provides, but this topic deals with sex).  Those that aren’t at the very least (by virtue of not having to hide their sexuality) are not so repressed as to have some great desire to do turn to bathroom stalls.  Most openly gay men are out looking for other openly gay men to date and develop a relationship with, not some quick discreet fuck by a toilet.  Even those who are just looking for a quick lay can generally take their one-night stands HOME.

This is what should be getting the attention when a story like this breaks.  The immorality isn’t gay sex but rather public lewdness, hypocrisy, adultery, etc.  But above all else, the real story here is that all of those are symptoms of the greater problem which is forcing people to live a lie, through policy that makes it difficult to be honest with oneself and others.

Is There a FaceBook Anonymous?

I had never signed up at FaceBook because the first (and previously only) time I had looked at it, it was still aimed sole at the college crowd and required you sign up as either a student or staff member of a school. At that time I was actually BOTH, and couldn’t really decide which I’d rather sign up as and figured I was on MySpace, so what was the difference. A week or so ago, I noticed that Kat from Just Another Pretty Farce, had placed her FaceBook information on the side bar of her blog. Well, I’m fairly certain that Kat is currently neither a college student, nor a staff member, so I figured the “admissions policy” had changed and thought I’d check it out, so I signed up.

Before I dig into my FaceBook experience let me preface with this: I have never understood the social networking phenomenon. Maybe that means I’m old and out of touch already (I hope not). I have a MySpace account simply because several friends wanted me to get one. I thought it might be neat to get in touch with some long lost friends but found MySpace’s search feature to be seriously lacking in functionality (either 0 results or 4 million). Combine that with MySpace being ugly (and not very customizable despite being able to edit the stylesheet, because nothing is labeled in the html so you can only style incredibly broad elements), and inefficient (hello? I shouldn’t have to click through 3 screens to do one simple task) and if you’re not (and I’m not) one of those who enjoys collecting 3 trillion “friends” whose pictures and names appear on your profile page but the vast majority of whom you have never met or even spoken to, then there’s just not much left to it. I get on MySpace about once a week to see if anybody has left me a message or invited me to some event (since this seems to be the only way my friends invite people to anything, picking up the phone is sooo 20th century).

That said, FaceBook is completely different. They need to put a big warning label on the front page: “This website may be addictive.” It’s not visually customizable, but it’s an attractive site in its own right and at least you know more or less what you’re going to get when you visit a friend’s page so you’re not searching all over. What makes the biggest difference is the search tools actually work. I’m finding people from as far back as ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, and because you can search via graduating year/city/etc. I’m finding people who I’d never even remembered their names if I hadn’t run across them browsing. Here’s where it gets dangerous though. In the time it took me to send out 50 friend invites to all these people from my past, 3 responded. So for the last couple of days I’ve been sitting around not getting work done because every five minutes or so I’m compelled by some invisible force to check to see if anybody has answered in the last five minutes.

A few observations I’ve made as I browse through the friends from my childhood:

• The majority of the friends I grew up with have their political views marked as “Conservative.” What the heck happened there? I’m used to having conservative friends now, but I’ve chalked that up to living in the Bible Belt where even the liberals are conservative. However my hometown leaned a little leftward (not sharply, but slightly). I wouldn’t have expected so many of it’s children to have joined the darkside taken on a conservative world view.
• For the first time in seven years, I’m finding myself concerned about people finding out that I’m gay. Why? I’m not really completely sure. I think it has to do with the fact that when I meet someone today, they are meeting me knowing that I’m a gay man. If they don’t mind that, great. If they do and they can’t be my friend over it, fuck ‘em. I don’t really know them enough to care at that point anyhow. In this case, I do know these people (at least as well as you can know someone you haven’t talked to in 7 years or longer) and they know me, but they know a me who is “straight.” It’s like having to come out all over again, and seven years of everyone knowing (surprisingly) doesn’t make it much easier.
• When learning about what your friends have achieved since last you spoke, how do you avoid mentally making notes and keeping score? When I tracked down my absolute best friend from middle school and it turns out he’ll be graduating from medical school this academic year, that old competitive spirit that used to exist between us with regards to grades in middle school just started burning. It’s especially silly because, for whatever it’s worth, our grades in middle school were always equivalent so it’s not as if this shows he’s “smarter” than me (he may or may not be but the difference is probably minimal either way), he just chose a different path. I love my job and would almost certainly hate being a doctor. Why the bit of jealously?
• The flip side of that is the people that aren’t quite living their dream. Like a high school buddy who everyone thought was destined for Broadway. He IS performing but cruise ship entertainment is a far stretch from the lights of Broadway.

Alright, well it’s time to go check FaceBook get some work done.

Thong, Th-Thong, Thong Thong…

Warning, this post may not be for the prudish.

Ever have one of those incredibly random and bizarre ideas that get stuck in your head and won’t leave until you do something about it?  I did about a week ago when it occurred to be that I’d never worn a thong.  Silly as it may be, I had a great deal of difficulty pushing the thought from my mind so I next time I was in Wal-Mart (for other things, I didn’t go specifically to buy a thong), I picked up a pack of thongs to try out.

For those who’ve never worn one, I have to say first that having what amounts to a string riding up your backside is surprisingly not particularly uncomfortable.  I mean I probably wouldn’t wear one to Jiu-Jitsu class or on a hike through the woods, but sitting at a desk all day?  Not a big deal.  In fact I think I was more keenly aware of my bare bottom being in contact with the inside of my pants than I was with the back of the thong.

The front is a different story.  I’m sure not all thongs are created equal and the Wal-Mart, try-it-on-a-whim brand I got is not the highest in quality (and probably about the lowest in cost), but I think the manufacturing team for this particular brand must be made up entirely of lesbians.  Really, never having seen a man nude is the only acceptable reason to design a male thong with a flat front.  I know the material is somewhat stretchy, but there should not be a half inch (or more) gap between the band of the leg hole and my actual leg.

Of course, being in a thong will make you feel sexy.  That is of course if you avoid mirrors like the plaque until your thong is safely tucked underneath a pair of pants.  One look in the mirror will quickly remind you that feeling sexy and looking sexy are different things entirely.  If you’ve got the body of the guy on the packaging, grab the closest mirror.  If you don’t, just enjoy feeling sexy without taking the risk of actually looking at yourself.

Feline Friday

Sigyn Stalking¹

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1. More cats at Carnival of the Cats, Weekend Cat Blogging, and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos. All kinds of animals at Friday Ark. [↩]