Sugar's Rainbow: Bite-Sized Pieces

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution which ensures equal protection under the law applies to everybody except gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons.  Back in March, the Republican homophobe told the state's colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing that the schools had no legal authority to adopt such statements.  He has also called same-sex relationships "intrinsically wrong."

Jeremy at Good As You provides an exhaustive report connecting the National Organization For Marriage with Louis Marinelli, a conservative strategist so extreme in his hatred for gays that NOM's Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher are trying to distance themselves from his outlandish rhetoric.  The group's touchy-feely "Summer Marriage Tour" stands to be discredited if this toxic association is picked up by main stream media.  (That probably won't happen, though.)  

It's been a year since the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth was raided by local police and TABC thugs, leaving one patron hospitalized with a serious head injury.  The incident made a lasting impression on the community - but bar owner Dave Schrock and Police Cheif Jeff Halstead have apparently buried the hatchet at an outdoor barbecue attended by some of the town's gay citizens and law enforcement officers.  From the Star-Telegram:  David Schrock, Rainbow Lounge owner, said he could not have predicted last year the unity that the gay community and the police showed Monday.  Back then, "all I could see was the war, the battle," Schrock said. "I never would have believed that it would have turned out this way."  Halstead said he was seeing a "new togetherness" and "a new respect for one another."  (He also said it "wouldn't be appropriate" for him to talk about pending criminal cases against the bar patrons who were arrested that night. It wasn't mentioned whether the guys who were roughed up and jailed made an appearance at this bridge-building shindig.  Halstead has admitted that his officers were "disrespectful and overly aggressive.")

In 2008, Hakim Scott and Keith Phoenix saw two brothers walking along a New York City street and mistook them for a same-sex couple. They assumed that because the brothers had been drinking and one was leaning against the other for support.  So they attacked them with aluminum bats, all the while yelling gay slurs, and beat Ecuadorian immigrant Jose Sucuzhanay to death.   After seven hours of deliberation yesterday, a jury convicted Phoenix of murder with hate crime enhancements.  Scott was convicted in May of manslaughter.

Over at the ultraconservative Townhall website, elderly Kung Fu star Chuck Norris praises the Boy Scouts' discriminatory policies and takes potshots at the Obama administration. The irascible action icon grouses:  "Hasn't America reached a particular low in its history when the White House distances itself from the Boy Scouts of America but invites the Secular Student Alliance to participate in its faith and college missions?"  (For one thing, the Secular Student Alliance doesn't discriminate.  Norris can't resist bringing scriptural references into his argument, such as it is:)  "Just as Pontius Pilate washed his hands of any buy-in to Jesus' execution, the White House continually is whitewashing its connection and responsibility to the BSA. And just as Pontius Pilate's actions prompted us to question what good came from his position, President Obama has caused us to wonder what good has come from his role as honorary president of BSA."  (Chucky should be grateful that Obama didn't turn down the designation, as a true progressive leader would have.)

Stephanie Chen has written a rather interesting piece for CNN Living called:  "The last person out of the closet? The bisexual male."  Philadelphia physician Robert Winn, who has been married to the same woman for eighteen years, is profiled in the article.  Chen doesn't dig deep, but she manages to shed some light on the unique problems faced by bisexual males.  She asserts that females who swing both ways have an easier time of things.  Can you guess why?

Fiction containing gay themes geared toward younger readers is becoming increasingly popular as more teens come out of the closet.  Leanne Italie writes on the Hudson Sun:  She was an avid writer, he a voracious reader.  They headed to their school library in search of stories that spoke to their lives: gay, gay in the South, gay and fearing stereotypes like 'disgusting' and 'worthless.'  "There were tons of books about gangs and drugs and teen pregnancy and there were no LGBT books. I asked the librarian about it and she was like, This is middle school. I can only have appropriate books here," said Brent, now 15 and heading into his sophomore year of senior high...  (Worth a click.)

From Channel 3000:  The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expect to rule this week on the state’s gay marriage ban.  The court will decide if the 2006 constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions was properly put to voters. A lawsuit claims the measure violated the constitution because it asked two questions at the same time: whether to limit marriage to one man and one woman, and whether to outlaw any similar legal status for unmarried individuals.  According to the state Constitution, all ballot questions should be limited to a single subject.

Virulent homophobe Tony Perkins of the virulently homophobic Family Research Council is being summoned to testify at the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.  Blog Rottweiler Pam Spaulding shakes the innards out of that stuffed toy, and supplies a vintage photograph of Perkins cozying up to White Supremacists.  Meanwhile, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is trying his damndest to paint Kagan as pro-gay and anti-military.  To conservative fundies, a federal judge cannot be one without being the other.  Right-wing minds are sadly limited in this respect.

Lavender Magazine, a bi-weekly publication for Minneapolis's gay and lesbian community, is being criticized for outing an anti-gay preacher who attended a 12-step program conducted by the Catholic group Faith in Action.  The program teaches LGBT folks that they are "disordered" and the only way to stop feeling ashamed of their "tendencies" is to forgo sex.  Pastor Tom Brock is a hypocritical closet case.  In 2009, he notoriously blamed gay-friendly Lutherans for a tornado that struck the area.  Elizabeth Jenson at Media Decoder reports that after his outing, Brock was put on leave from North Minneapolis' Hope Lutheran pending an Holy Inquisition internal investigation:  The magazine, meanwhile, is embroiled in a journalism ethics debate for sending its reporter undercover into the confidential support group.  Many Lavender Web site commentators applauded the story.  But among the critics was an unidentified advertiser who wrote she would pull her ads, because "12 step programs, regardless of what is at issue or who attends, are sacred."  (What about a 12-step program that helps people escape the bonds of religion?  Are those sacred too?)

Referring to pop singer Ricky Martin, comedienne Joan Rivers says that any male celebrity who announces that he's gay is "an ass."  At least that's what we think she said.  The skin around her lips is stretched so tight it's hard to tell.