summer_jackel

This one is yesterday's poem. It is a perfect example of what happens when I'm just not in the mood to write a poem, darn it, have agreed to write one daily for a month, said something silly and then decided, ok, well, that's the poem then.

Here it is. It's silly.

*

Afternoon

Watching her, topless and denim cutoffs,
rinse the suds off her collie,
I said---that just looks
so wholesome---you know,
healthy, all-American lesbian erotica.
Like if Norman Rockwell painted cute butches.

She laughed, and didn’t argue.

So, I'm going to vent a bit of frustration regarding gender stuff, because a couple of minor things that happened this week irritated me and are still nagging. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it would be really cool if people regularly noticed and made efforts to curb gender biases as they crop up, at least the really obvious ones.

( hey look, there's a whole totally too-long rant about gender issues under the cut! )

I'm not often pleasantly surprised by the media, but I'm glad that I saw 'Toy Story 3' last night. It's rare that the Rio Theater shows a film I want to see at a time I want to see it, but I love the place for its funkiness. Getting to see it at the Rio was a treat just for that. As for the film, it was cute and fun, about as good as the second, doesn't touch the first.

Plot spoilers are very mild, but you're warned, regardless:

The thing that pleasantly surprised me was the Ken/Barbie subplot, which turned out to have the most interesting character development in the story. When I saw that they were doing a very "gay stereotype" Ken, I was ready to be angry and offended, but in my opinion they actually did a cool thing with it. The Ken character goes from villain to hero in a way that accentuates, portrays as positive and even encourages his "gay or feminine" qualities. I'm sure that one could construct a defensible position that the character was still offensive, but I thought that it provided a comforting and hopeful image for queer kids.

Gender win from Disney. Who would have thought?

For something completely different, take a look at this incredible mechanical/steampunk cheetah , which is one of the most wonderful pieces of sculpture I've ever seen. I LOVE this thing. Want to see it in person.



As long as I'm sharing art links, have this stunning cloth made of spider silk. The best thing about it is that they tried not to harm the spiders. The next best thing, after the fact that this is omg so perfectly beautiful and I want to pet it, is that it involves Victorian spider bondage. No, really. Spider harnesses!

I can add 'ribbon or cravat made from naturally golden Malagasy spider silk' to my list of "Awesome Things I would really, really love to have if I lived in my fantasy world."

Still pedaling at hour three. This is hard.

Article about GLBT youth coming out in middle school that made me go 'awwwwwww' and actually gave me a lot of hope about the kind of progress we've made and are making as a culture. Also, when was the last time you read anything upbeat and positive about middle school? I mean really.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27out-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&hp

A favored quote, which especially as a lawyer is making me snicker gleefully: "Indeed, courts — citing the Equal Access Act, which requires public schools to provide equal access to extracurricular clubs — have consistently ruled against schools that try to block G.S.A.’s from starting. (The 1984 law was the brainchild of Christian groups fighting to allow students to form religious clubs in schools.)" There are probably at least a few of the annoying sorts of Christian who are very nonplussed about that, and at them I laugh, but I am in good enough of a mood to think that perhaps some of them are happy that societal progress works this way. (EDIT: I cry for the punctuation fail, though, especially since this is the N.Y. Times).

I can't say that I had any idea that I was gay in middle school. If the concept had been more culturally present then I might have figured it out, because in retrospect all of the signs were there. No, the conscious realization that I was attracted to girls hit me like a piano falling from a height at about 16-ish. My internal monologue went something like, "Oh no. I'm attracted to girls. Oh no, I'm attracted to this particular girl, I am so incredibly doomed." I then did my level best to ignore the whole issue until I was pushing thirty. Never underestimate the social cluelessness and ineptitude of young Jackel. Of course, I've grown out of all that now. shifty eyes. Sure, of course I have.

Now that I am actually comfortable with my gay, I really am much happier, though I certainly can't say it's made my life any easier.


On a completely unrelated note, I am back from Florida and had a great time. Disney, I have to give it to them, does one damn fine zoo. Friends in Florida, please forgive me for not attempting to be social; the whole experience was just so packed with stuff and overwhelming that I really didn't have time to arrange meetings with people, much as I'd have liked to. But I did enjoy the experience enough that I suspect I may even do it again. There will be pictures later. For now, I'm actually more relaxed and happy than I've been for awhile, so that's a good thing.

But I do it anyway. Meet Whatnot, Random and Oddment.



Blessed Solstice, all! (yeah, I know I'm a day late. I was busy having fun).



( it gets cuter from here on out. )

Well, apparently enough noise has been made (and enough companies pulled their ads from the station) that the radio host I ranted about a couple of days ago---the one who made the horridly offensive call to abuse transgendered children---is gonna apologize.

http://glaadblog.org/2009/06/07/update-krxq-radio-host-rob-williams-declares-failure/#more-9664

Maybe there's hope for the world yet. I remain skeptical.

This bit comes via eclipsegryph. Our governor is apparently coming out against Prop 8. Perhaps not in the most articulate of ways, but...in this moment, I'm really proud.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/09/Calif_gov_We_will_maybe_undo_Prop_8/UPI-22871226279859/

Alright, so I am tired, sick and cranky right now, so this is probably not the moment to go into heavily charged political waters. But. Vis. the Prop 8/gay marriage issue, a couple of points become clearer. Firstly, there apparently exist some issues regarding whether Prop 8 can legally amend our state's constitution. I certainly hope this is true, since legally it seems counter-intuitive and sloppy as hell (what? You mean, we can amend the *constitution* based on such a narrow margin of the popular vote? Somehow this seems far too easy). Mind you, I am not and never want to be a Constitutional lawyer, and I have no expertise here. I plan to research it some because boy am I ever interested in this.

The second point, again as an attorney, is that in my opinion the gay marriage ban violates our Federal Constitution, and significantly. I could do this in a far more detailed way, but here are the bullet points:

We have this thing called the Fourteenth Amendment in our Constitution. It grants equal protection under the law to all U.S citizens, and abolished slavery. Text here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The right to make contracts is protected by the law, one of those things the fourteenth says we all get to do. Contracts are one of the major areas of law, in fact. Marriage is a contract, and a common one. (I ranted on that piece a few posts down). The fourteenth amendment applies. It was applied specifically to marriage contracts in Loving v. Virginia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_vs_virginia, which overturned Virgina's statute banning interracial marriages. And if you want to see how far we've come, and how quickly, go read that one, guys.

The Fourteenth Amendment has been applied to gays in the past, specifically in the large area of employment discrimination law, in which gender is a protected class. Gender in this context is very broad, and includes pregnancy (you can't fire her because she got pregnant, or him because his wife did and he needs leave) and sexual orientation (can't fire you 'cos you're gay). There's a lot of case law on this. Much of it came from California. Much of it was both chilling and exhilarating to read, as was Loving.

Put all of this together, and gay marriages should be protected under the Fourteenth. We batted this around a lot in my Con Law classes (which are not missed, but in some cases fondly remembered. I had a fabulous Con Law prof). My professors were very much of the opinion that the question of whether gay marriage was protected under the fourteenth had to eventually go to the Supreme Court, and that they would have a heck of a time denying equal protection and equal marriage. There is no legal grounds to deny gay marriage that I've ever been shown (legal folk in the audience, feel free to play devil's advocate here and come up with a sound constitutional argument against).

Gays are a protected class, marriage is a legal contract, the line's easy to draw. It seems so damned obvious, but it's going to be a big, emotional thing and an enormous uphill battle, for no other reason than that homosexuality scares a lot of people, and is not the traditional mating structure in our country. People tend to hate that which they think they aren't, or don't know: human tribalism at its worst, and the root of bigotry. That and we've conflated spiritual and legal marriage, which muddies the issue so much in the mind of the average person that half the time neither side even knows what it's talking about.

In my con law classes, there was a lot of speculation and talk about when this issue was going up to the Supreme Court. The Supremes need a conflict at the state level to bring an issue up, and, well, we have one right here in CA right now. If Prop 8 doesn't get overturned as being somehow contrary to the proper way to amend CA's constitution (and I certainly hope so) and decided on those grounds, I suggest that we are about to see this thing go up for decision.

It's not a certain outcome, even though it certainly looks like it should be, and we can't be complacent. But I have hope...I mean, if Arnold, of all people, is expressing regret over the constitutionalized bigotry that is 8, anything can change, right? To look back at the facts of Loving is to understand how incredibly fast social change can happen, and the place of the law in that cultural process. We've just seen some of the fruits of our country's long move away from bigotry in this election. I will be watching the coming process with fear, and excitement, and hope.