Carolina Moosians Oppose Amendment 1

Who's Cary WASP, I hear you muttering from behind your computer screens, and what does she have against Amendment 1? Cary WASP (not her real nickname) is the Older Sister of the Moosians. She lives in Cary, NC (Cary -- Get it?), and she is not in the habit of making signs and carrying them around at festivals in the rain, but she did so Saturday because she is a good sister and a good citizen and she knows the simple truth that there can be no classes among citizens. Amendment 1, like all attempts to grant legal rights and protections to some relationships and withhold them from others, is discriminatory on its face. Since same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, Amendment 1 can't even be justified on the usual stupid grounds of preserving the sanctity segregation of marriage from teh gayz. It goes further, banning any type of "domestic legal union," including civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Yo, Carolina, want to protect marriage? How 'bout making sure this creep never gets a license to wed again? (Cheap shot, I know. Couldn't resist. But, still, srsly.)

The amendment seems likely to pass, despite the efforts of Cary WASP and Bill Clinton, who puts on his sweetest, thickest southern drawl in these charming robocalls that are going out in the state in advance of Tuesday's vote.

Thank you, Cary WASP, and thank you, Big Dawg, for fighting the good fight for equal justice under law. We'd be proud to march with you any day, rain or shine, win or lose. Some days, if you can't be on the winning side, you console yourself by knowing you are on the right side. March on, dream on, fight on, my pretties. And if you live in North Carolina, for dog's sake get out and vote on Tuesday! Peace out.

News, With Lesbian Tendencies

Item One: Bad Story, Funny Headline

Marquette Withdraws Job Offer to Lesbian Dean Candidate Jodi O'Brien

Which means, of course, that the all-important position of Dean of Lesbians remains vacant. Moose would like to apply. For the benefit of the good Jesuits of Marquette, we offer this link to a not-quite-current version of Moose's CV, where you will find, we promise, absolutely no "strongly negative statements about marriage and family" and, regrettably, no "vignettes on lesbian sex." (How did that happen? I said to Moose. Heck if I know, she replied. Blame it on Willa. She was just not into . . . vignettes.) (And, yes, Death Comes for the Archbishop fans, we know that, technically speaking, that isn't correct. Comic license, 'k?)

Item Two: Women's Basketball Coaches Still Prefer to Focus on the Family

We picked this up from Pat Griffin's LGBT Sports Blog by way of Nan Hunter. The Women's Basketball Coaches Association refused to screen the film Training Rules, a documentary about player Jennifer Harris' lawsuit against Penn State's legendary (and legendarily homophobic) women's basketball coach Rene Portland, at its annual conference last month in San Antonio. (The conference was held in conjunction with the NCAA women's basketball championship. Local coverage, from which we've borrowed details of the story, here.) The reason given for not screening the film is that Portland is no longer coaching. She resigned in 2007, after Penn State settled Harris' lawsuit -- Which of course magically resolved the issue of homophobia in women's basketball, so, please, sports fans, let's all just go back to talking about how married and religious and heterosexually reproductive everybody associated with this game is. That's not homophobia, dammit! That's just clean living and good advertising, am I right? Pay no attention to all those big-boned gals on the floor and in the stands. There are no lesbians here, do you hear me? Just, you know, burly girls with incredible strength and ball-handling skills who seem to prefer, um, the company of, uh, well, chicks, but, hey, look at those junior cheerleaders doing their little half-time show. Aren't they just adorable?

People, people, people, let me say it for you one more time, very slowly: Women's basketball would die without the participation and the support of lesbians. Don't disrespect or marginalize your talent pool or your fan base. Silence is homophobia by other means, especially when you go out of your way to promote the "family-friendly" qualities of your program and personnel. You may be a little more polite than the Rene Portlands of the world, but you are still sending a powerfully negative message to queer players and fans. And we think that is unsportsmanlike conduct, plain and simple.

That is all, darlings. Play hard, play fair, and give us a call if the Dean of Lesbians position is available at your school.

(Nuns cheer on the Mighty Macs of Immaculata University, which many consider the birthplace of modern collegiate women's basketball. No lesbians here either, of course. Photo picked up here.)

Land o' Links

Not that kind of links, silly!

This kind:

No time for a proper post today here in the paper-writing factory, but we feel obliged to make sure our readers are up to speed on the unfolding melodrama of The Incredible Numbskullery of the Obama Administration on LGBT Issues. With last week's stunningly insensitive brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act (which the president has repeatedly said he is committed to repealing), the smartest and most pro-gay political team in the history of the republic (Right? Isn't that what they told us?) suddenly finds itself in hot water not just with the Lavender Menace and Light in the Loafers set but with the editorial page of the New York Times! Today, desperate to contain the fallout from its own diffidence and ineptitude, the administration is announcing that the president will sign a memorandum extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees -- but the president will, as the report in the Times puts it, "stop short of pledging full health insurance coverage." Because, you know, who needs that? Oh, and because the (partial) extension of benefits is being accomplished through a memorandum rather than an executive order, the extension will reportedly expire when Obama leaves office. Gosh, thanks, Mr. President. Thanks so very much for the partial, temporary extension of non-equity in compensation.

[Brief pause while the typist bangs her head against the laptop screen and the decrepit old dog covers cloudy eyes with functioning front paws.]

There has been a ton of righteous reaction and thoughtful analysis of the DOMA debacle and its aftermath in the queer and progressive blogosphere and elsewhere. You know we consider Pam's House Blend the go-to place for all things queer and political, though we've also found ourselves giving John Aravosis over at Americablog quite a few clicks lately. This piece by Pam Spaulding on the Times editorial harshly criticizing the DOMA brief has links to lots of other reactions. Here are a few more that you won't want to miss:

The LA Times gets in on the action today with an editorial on "Obama's gay rights gap."

Melissa McEwan, the goddess of Shakesville, weighs in with a piece that is both hard-hitting and deeply felt. We love that Liss can pivot from several paragraphs of trenchant political analysis to a poignant meditation on the wildness and fundamental equality of love. She makes us think. She stirs our souls. And that is fine by us:

See, here's the thing: Maybe the discussion of marriage shouldn't be so goddamned rational. Maybe it should be a little less "maximizing state autonomy and democratic self-governance" and a little more "pursuit of happiness," maybe a little less "scarce government resources" and a little more "abundant love."

Love is not rational. Love is wild and expansive and reckless and unpredictable, and it is one of humankind's greatest achievements — a capacity unique in its magnificence, a radiating splendor which can only be dimmed by the injurious refusal to regard as equal the love between partners on the basis of details that love itself transcends.

To deny love's existence, and equality, in every human heart is to reject our common humanity. We are thus all diminished by anything less than full-throated support for marriage equality, because buried below all the Very Fancy and Very Rational legal defenses of the continued disparity is simply an indefensible avowal that all love is not the same.

Richard Socarides, former aide to President Clinton on LGBT issues, is emerging as the point person on all the Obama administration is doing wrong in its determination to avoid all the mistakes Clinton supposedly made on LGBT rights. (We know the Big Dawg signed off on DOMA and DADT, people. We're just sick of hearing that very different political moment used as an excuse for doing nothing, when Clinton got screwed by conservative Dems the moment he took office.) Anyway, Socarides has an incredibly thoughtful insider's view of how hurtful -- and unnecessary -- the administration's DOMA brief is.

Joe Solmonese, president of HRC, seems to have realized that being a lap dog for an administration determined to find new ways to insult the LGBT community is perhaps not the smartest position to be in if your organization wants to keep raising money in the LGBT community. His letter to the president on the DOMA brief is the best thing we can ever recall him putting out. Solmonese offers a blistering critique of the brief's claim that DOMA is merely "a cautious policy of federal neutrality towards a new form of marriage." "Exclusion is not neutrality," Solmonese contemptuously concludes. Go read it, kids. It'll give you hope that the gutless gay giant among LGBT advocacy organizations has finally found its nerve.

Everyone is saying this, but we think it bears repeating: You don't make change for justice's sake because it is convenient. You do it because it is right and because it is necessary for the health of the body politic. Do it, Mr. President. Now.

With Friends Like This . . .

President Obama tells NBC's Brian Williams he thinks lesbians and gays have a "friend in the White House." Really? Let's go to the videotape (picked up by way of Pam's House Blend):



Okie-dokie, Mr. President. You're right -- These seats in the back of the bus are every bit as comfortable as the ones up front. Absolutely! Separate is equal! Up is down! War in Afghanistan will bring peace to Afghanistan! Thanks for clearing that up.

Any other questions?

Dykes Against Makeup?

Er, wait, could this be a case of a dyke against bad attitude from a player who refuses to listen to a coach's advice on how to improve her game? You decide. Er, nah, let's let a jury decide. That way, maybe the straight girl can make some easy money off her former coach. Honey, maybe when she said you weren't her "type," she meant you were a loser.

From the Associated Press:

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -- Central Michigan and its women's basketball coach are being sued by a former player, who claims her heterosexuality was a factor in losing a scholarship after two seasons.

Brooke Heike said she fell out of favor with Sue Guevara immediately after the coach was hired in 2007. Heike said Guevara told her she wore too much makeup and was not the coach's "type."

That meant she wasn't a lesbian, according to a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Bay City. The former Romeo High School star lost her scholarship after the 2007-08 season.

"I didn't feel that she did anything to improve herself after being told over and over what she needed to do," Guevara told an appeals committee last June.

Heike's lawsuit claims the appeals panel "simply rubber-stamped defendant Guevara's bad-faith decision to deprive plaintiff of her scholarship and dismiss her from the team" for reasons unrelated to basketball.

Central Michigan spokesman Steve Smith said the allegations have no merit and the university will "vigorously defend its position in court."

Guevara, a former coach at Michigan, was hired by the Chippewas in 2007. Heike was recruited by the previous coach, Eileen Kleinfelter. Heike played in 11 games as a freshman but only six in her sophomore season under Guevara.

"I had faith in CMU. I liked CMU. I wanted to give it everything I could," Heike told Guevara during the meeting on her appeal. "I wasn't going to give up. You gave up on me."

Heike has been attending community college since leaving campus, her lawyer, Cindy Rhodes Victor, said. "She was so traumatized by the experience," Victor said Tuesday.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and an unspecified cash award.

A Tax on Straights

One of the all-time funniest stories from the Hilarious Adventures of Moose and Goose was passed down to me by Lily, the transgender tabby who lived with her brother Spike and the moms back in the olden days when they were cat lesbians and apartment-dwellers. According to Lily (and cats never lie), one fine Sunday morning they were all hanging out in the apartment doing Sunday-morning things when a momentary communications breakdown threw the household into a brief state of confusion that was followed by paroxysms of laughter. Here's how it happened:

Moose (from the living room couch, with the Sunday Post spread out in her lap): Goodness, I am reading the most horrible story!

Goose (from the kitchen, with the coffee pot in her hand): Really, honey? What's it about?

Moose (wishing the coffee were ready already): Oh, it's just awful! It's about attacks on gays!

Goose (with her hand on the button of the coffee grinder): A tax on gays???

Moose (over the sound of the coffee grinder): Yes, attacks on gays. You just can't believe how vicious, how terrible --

Goose (angrily banging on the coffee grinder): And how insane! Who would ever come out if they knew they would have to pay a tax?

Moose (perplexed): Wha-a-a?

Spike (licking himself in a pool of light in the middle of the living room floor): Smile

Goose (storming into the living room, coffee pot in hand): Yes! A tax on gays! Who would pay such a tax? Who would propose such a tax? Has this country completely lost its mind?

Moose (now grateful she does not have a cup of coffee in her hand, realizing she would spill it as she falls off the couch laughing hysterically): Yes, dear, the country has completely lost its mind, but I'm not talking about a tax on gays. I'm talking about attacks on gays -- You know, baseball bats, beatings, violent homophobia.

Goose (pausing, mid-rant): O-h-h-h-h, attacks on gays. Well, that's terrible, too.

(Another pause, followed by explosions of laughter, followed by repeated cries of "attacks on gays?" and "a tax on gays!" and a lengthy discussion of the many forms of violence aimed at gay people and other minority groups, followed, at last, by coffee. Meanwhile, the cats went on licking themselves and feeling superior to a species hopelessly dependent on something as slippery and strange as language as a means of communication.)

Why do I offer up this tale of homophones and homophobes to brighten up your Saturday? Well, the moms and other queer Marylanders are still hurting from this week's ruling by the state's Court of Appeals upholding a ban on same-sex marriage. (Wa Po finally had an editorial on the decision this morning, urging Governor Martin O'Malley and the legislature to accept the court's invitation to address the matter of relationship inequality legislatively rather than judicially. Good idea, though Roxie's World is opposed to any compromise that offers same-sex couples anything less than the full panoply of rights and benefits that go along with civil marriage.) I thought a funny reminiscence might help ease the pain, but it also sets me up to offer one of those consoling, glass-half-full stories I like to pass along to readers who have a tough time seeing the silver linings in the gray clouds.

So, call this story "The Upside of Discrimination," or, at long last, "A Tax on Straights."

The legions of my loyal fans who do not live in Maryland may not be aware that the state is trying to figure out how to plug a $1.7 billion hole in its budget. Our telegenic Irish rocker Dem gov Martin O'Malley is launching a series of tax and budget proposals aimed at addressing the problem. Among them is a plan to revamp the state's income tax brackets. (Don't nod off on me, kids. I know tax policy isn't as entertaining as, say, roving bands of pistol-packing lesbians, but this is important.) The plan aims to make the income tax more progressive by adding two new brackets at the upper end of the income spectrum. Under the state's current tax structure, everyone with a taxable income of $3000 or more pays the same top rate of 4.75%. Here's how Wa Po explains the new brackets O'Malley is proposing:

A 6 percent bracket would be applied to single filers with a taxable income of $150,000 or more and to married couples filing jointly with a taxable income of $200,000 or more. A 6.5 percent bracket would be applied to all filers with $500,000 or more in taxable income. Taxable income refers to a filer's income less certain deductions and exemptions allowed by the government.

And here's a pretty graphic from the Post comparing the current and proposed brackets:

Clearly, friends, it pays to be gay. Why? Well, if my moms were married and filing jointly, their taxable income would be darn close to the $200,000 threshold of the 6 percent bracket. (Remember that "taxable income" is income minus exemptions and deductions allowed by the government.) As single filers (and humble state employees) legally enjoined from marrying, however, they are well below the $150,000 threshold for the 6 percent bracket. In other words, Maryland's discrimination against same-sex couples is a great deal for my moms -- and a dumb deal for a state desperately in need of revenue.

My moms, as I have told you many times, are weird. One of the weirdest things about them is that they actually love to pay taxes. They tell pollsters who call our house that they will vote for the candidate who promises to raise taxes in order to fund legitimate public needs -- such as health care, education, transportation, and environmental protection. They would be delighted to help Gov. O'Malley plug the state's revenue hole (Moose wants me to put a finger-in-the-dyke joke here, but I won't do it), but they can't because the state apparently thinks that encouraging heterosexual procreation is more important than balancing its budget. (O'Malley is opposed to same-sex marriage, though he has expressed support for some form of civil union.)

The moral of the story? Discrimination costs -- everybody. In one way or another, all of Maryland's citizens are paying a marriage penalty.

For an example of heart-felt and courageous leadership on the marriage issue, take a look at this video of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders announcing his decision to sign a city council resolution in support of same-sex marriage after having said he could only support civil unions. In an emotional 5-minute statement, Sanders quietly acknowledges that his daughter Lisa and several friends and staff members are gay and that, "in the end I couldn't look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationship, their very lives were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife Ronna." In the end, folks, it really is that simple.

Criminal Gestures

(Image Credit: Matson, St. Louis Post Dispatch)

Roxie's World will shed no tears for the ignominious end of Senator Larry Craig's political career. (He announced today he will resign his office at the end of September, after Republicans abandoned him in droves when his June arrest in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis airport became public this week.) Good riddance, we say, to a hypocrite whose public actions aided and abetted the causes of homophobia and discrimination against LGBT people. As a senator, he helped to enact the ridiculous "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which continues to hound and persecute gays and lesbians who have served with honor in the armed forces of the United States. (William Saletan has an excellent piece in tomorrow's Wa Po which argues that by the standards of "don't ask, don't tell," Craig's conduct would have resulted in his discharge from the military. It's here.) He voted for the mean-spirited federal Defense of Marriage Act, supported a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, voted against prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and voted against expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Check out his sorry record here.)

Bye-bye, Larry. Don't let the (bathroom) door hit you on the way out.

And yet, the sizable gay caucus here in Roxie's World got a little queasy this week when we paused to reflect on the nature of the crime to which Senator Craig pleaded guilty. He was not, after all, charged with having public sex or paying for sex or exposing himself or anything clearly, explicitly, actively sexual. Instead, Craig pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct (gestures that were interpreted as sexual signals) which he "knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment of others," according to his plea agreement. We have to admit that's a pretty low threshold. I mean, gosh, kids, if arousing alarm or resentment is a crime, I could come up with a pretty long list of folks I'd like to see in handcuffs, couldn't you? I'd start with the entire Bush administration and work my way down to all those celebrities who are rich and famous for no apparent reason and still manage to behave badly. I resent that, a lot, and think the amount of attention they get for such behavior is, yes, criminal.

We'll waste no sympathy on Craig, but it is worth pointing out that laws against "disorderly conduct" have historically been used to police a range of non-normative sexual behaviors that pose no threat to anything but an extremely narrow view of sexual propriety. Moose says you should all go read the work of historian George Chauncey to get a sense of how statutes against "lewdness," "vagrancy," and "loitering" have been selectively enforced to punish same-sex sexual conduct, or merely, as in Craig's case, the apparent desire to engage in same-sex sexual conduct. Political science professor Aaron Belkin briefly touches on the sordid history of such statutes in an op-ed on Craig in today's Wa Po.

There is more than a little irony in the fact that the Supreme Court de-criminalized sodomy in 2003 but it's still possible to be arrested for "wishing to engage in lewd conduct," as the officer who arrested Craig put it. If wishing is a crime, then your favorite dog blogger is guilty as can be. As, I imagine, are you, my beloved, desiring readers. Perhaps that's why they say, Be careful what you wish for.

Dykes To Watch Out For

(With apologies to Allison Bechdel for the borrowed title. Image Credit: Southern Poverty Law Center)

Listen up, kids. I don't want you to get all excited by the fact that your favorite dog blog has brand new content two days in a row. You know that isn't the usual pattern here in Roxie's World, and you know that old dogs don't like to learn new tricks. It's just that it's summertime, which means Moose has more time than usual to type while she's ignoring the long list of Things She Was Supposed to Get Done While She Wasn't Teaching. Also, however, a story of mind-boggling significance has been brought to our attention (thanks to a new reader whom I hereby anoint the Official Baby Butch of Roxie's World in the hope she'll accept that title as the high compliment it is intended to be). Since the story isn't getting any younger and is likely to be of interest to some of our most well-armed readers, we figured we better go ahead and toss it up here.

Word on the street is that there is a "national underground network" of mostly lesbian but also some gay male gangs terrorizing America. Yes, fellow citizens, it's TRUE! I mean, it has to be, because it was on The O'Reilly Factor, and you know what a bastion of truth that is. In a segment that aired on June 21, a baffled Bill O'Reilly interviews former DC cop (and paid Fox News consultant) Rod Wheeler about reports of roving bands of armed lesbians terrorizing America, "raping young girls, attacking heterosexual males at random, and forcibly indoctrinating children as young as 10 into the homosexual lifestyle," as a summary of the segment by the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it. Wheeler asserts that these activities are taking place "all across the country," but his focus is on the Washington, DC area, where, he claims, there are "well over 150 crews or gangs or networks or houses, whatever you want to call them" recruiting kids into the gangs and getting them to commit crimes and, of course, forcing them to "perform sex acts with some of these people." Wheeler saves the most tantalizing aspect of the story for last, though, as he reveals in the last few seconds of the piece that some of "these groups" (and "these are lesbians") carry pink pistols -- 9-millimeter Glocks! -- and "call themselves the pink-pistol-packing group!"

Roxie's World insists that you watch the video before you read one more word of this post. You'll enjoy watching Bill feigning shock at the idea that homosexuality might be associated with "a criminal movement" rather than "a social movement," but you just know the old loofah lover is salivating at the idea of finding himself surrounded by a sweaty gang of pink pistol packers. Here you go:



Question One: Do you think a group clever and resourceful enough to arm themselves with 9-millimeter pink pistols would be so lacking in style or imagination that they would refer to themselves merely as "the pink-pistol-packing group?" I mean, please, that's BORING even by lesbo standards!

SPLC does a great job of truth-squadding this "report," particularly Wheeler's claims that there are more than 150 such groups in the DC area alone. If you'd like a serious analysis of the story, by all means please go there. Here's the link again. If, on the other hand, you're in the mood for more knee-slapping sophomoric humor, don't touch that mouse.

Questions Two through Four: Why didn't my moms get the Pink Pistol Memo? What's going on over there at Lesbo Communications Central? C'mon, grrls. We get the Title 9 catalogs! Don't you use the same mailing list when you're recruiting for the gangs?

Question Five: And speaking of recruiting, raping young girls??? Perhaps times have changed, but the moms insist that when they were coming up and out, all recruiting was done through softball teams, women's studies courses, and Take Back the Night marches, where, as you might imagine, not a whole lot of raping went on. Hell, Moose says, I got reprimanded back in those days for using sarcasm, because it was supposedly proof of my male identification and internalized phallogocentrism. (Huh, I said?) And don't get me started on the lesbian sex wars -- all that prescriptivism, all the judgment about penetra- (No, really, Mom, let's not get started on that subject.) I just can't imagine rape is the preferred way to get dates in the lesbian community nowadays. (Uh-oh. Moose is starting to sound old and crotchety, isn't she?)

Question Six: What do you say if you are not Bill O'Reilly and you find yourself surrounded by a burly gang of pink pistol packers? Hm-m-m-m, let's see. . . .

• Chill, ladies -- I've got Mystics tickets!
• Pardon me, do you know where I could purchase a menstrual sponge around here?
• Look, over there -- It's Bill O'Reilly!
• Your guns are really cute with your shoes. "A" for accessorizing!
• Plenty of tofu, grrls -- Let's go back to my place for dinner and consciousness-raising!

Oh, it's a strange, strange world you humans have made. Sometimes this old dog just covers her head with her paws and laughs herself right to sleep. 'Nightie-night!

Top to Bottom

Moose is in a bossy mood this morning. She insists that you watch this You Tube clip of the Most Fabulous Butch in America, Air America's Rachel Maddow, on Countdown the other night discussing the bizarre news, uncovered by the Sunshine Project, that in 1994 the Air Force proposed creation of a so-called "gay bomb" aimed at undermining the discipline and morale of enemy troops by inducing "homosexual behavior." Maddow, according to Moose, is gorgeous, brilliant, and hilarious in her conversation with substitute host Amy Robach, as she unpacks the weird mixture of homoeroticism and gay panic fueling this wacky sci-fi fantasy of an aphrodisiac bomb. The entertainment factor is heightened considerably by the fact that much of the discussion is run over video of Bush in his manhood-accentuating flight suit during the infamous "Mission Accomplished" stunt. He struts around the deck of the aircraft carrier shaking hands with one man after another as Maddow explains the homoeroticism of male activities and social worlds.

Dr. Maddow (she has a PhD in political science), Roxie's World gives you a Five-Paw Salute for your noble effort to raise the discourse and your keen sense of media-butch fashion. Moose thinks the world would be a much happier place if you had your very own late-night TV show. She was even going to suggest her insomnia might disappear if she could fall asleep every night to the sound of your dulcet tones and wry wit, but Goose shot her a look across the breakfast table that made her think better of that idea. Some days, I'm not the only one kept on a short leash in our house.

Also on the gay stack today is more fallout from Bush's nomination of Dr. James Holsinger Jr. to be surgeon general of the United States. You owe it to yourself to go to Slate and read the 6-page report Holsinger wrote for the United Methodist Church in 1991 on "the pathophysiology of male homosexuality" as part of the church's consideration of its stance on homosexuality. (As a member of the church's Judicial Council, Holsinger ultimately voted "with the majority to boot a lesbian from her post as a minister and to allow ministers to deny church membership to gay men and lesbians," according to a Wa Po editorial.) Holsinger's report is truly astonishing for its lurid attention to the details of a range of anal sex practices, notably fisting, and his insistence on the absolute separateness of the alimentary and reproductive systems in humans. (I am a mere dog and not a doctor, but apparently the absence of a cloaca in humans is a strong argument against the naturalness of, um, rear-guard sexual activity. Moose is trying to find her ninth-grade biology textbook to help me grasp the importance of the cloaca.)

It's hard to tell why a report on the alleged "pathophysiology of male homosexuality" would help to justify firing a lesbian minister (though Holsinger acknowledges that fisting is "occasionally practiced by heterosexual and lesbian couples"), but such logical lacunae are common in the discourse of medico-scientific homophobia in which the good doctor indulges. Indeed, Moose says Holsinger's comments on the anatomical "complementarity of the human sexes" bear a creepy resemblance to turn-of-the-century sexologists who relentlessly scrutinized human bodies for markers of deviation from the norms of sexuality. (For a more in-depth look at this fascinating topic, click here.) Not even Moose can explain the comments about plumbing and pipe fittings near the end of Holsinger's report. For that, you need the genius of Stephen Colbert, so we'll let him have the last word today:

A Child Is Born

(Photo Credit: White House [!!!]; Lynne and Vice President Darth Cheney with their sixth grandchild)

Paws up for Mary Cheney, kids. She finally popped her little bun out of the oven. Wa Po reports that Samuel David Cheney was born yesterday at Sibley Hospital in Washington. (Sardonic aside from Moose: What, wouldn't any of the hospitals in Cheney's home state of Virginia allow for same-sex spawning in their sacred delivery rooms?) (Sardonic aside from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann: The state of Virginia was named last night's Worst Person in the World for denying Cheney's partner, Heather Poe, parental rights to the child she and Cheney will be raising together.)

We've been racking our brains here in Roxie's World trying to decide how to commemorate this extraordinary occasion. We don't want to involve ourselves in all the crass speculation about how the child was conceived, though we did notice a fascinating story in the paper this week reporting evidence of reproduction through parthenogenesis in female sharks. When Moose saw the headline, "Female Sharks Can Reproduce Alone, Researchers Find," she thought perhaps the story had something to do with Mary Cheney. Interestingly, news of Samuel's birth broke hours later. Coincidence? We think not!

Having grown up with two moms myself, I should probably offer little Samuel some free advice. Hmmm, let's see. If both moms are going through menopause at the same time, don't just leave the house -- Leave the planet. It ain't pretty. If you're lucky enough to have one mom who is a disciplinarian (or a "Moose," as in "Mussolini") and one mom who is a freedom schooler (or a "Goose," as in "Mother Goose"), then you're in for a lifetime of fun playing them off against each other. It's a great game, Sammy, and you're the winner every time! If the kids at school make fun of you for having two moms, just smile at them and say, "It's okay -- My grandpa's a huge Dick."

On that crude note, let's pause for a moment to imagine Baby Cheney's First Words. What will it be like for this child, growing up in a political family that has sold its soul to a party devoted to denying him the same set of rights, privileges, and legal protections that children born into other types of families have? What will little Samuel have to say when his tender mouth can finally form words? How about something like. . . :

• Wait, Grandpa, don't shoot!
• It's a free country! You can't send me off to Gitmo for refusing to eat my vegetables.
• Wow, Mama Heather has one heck of a pitching arm. I think those years as a forest ranger were good for her upper-body strength.
• Mother Mary, why won't Grandpa stop the war? Everybody says he started it.

Now, that is an excellent question, Samuel. Why won't Grandpa Cheney stop the war? Or, why, if he and the Bubble Boy president can't get out of their delusional states, won't someone else? Why can't anyone put out the fire that was lit by the lies and fear-mongering of this administration? Why can't Democrats stiffen their spines and figure out a way to do what the vast majority of the American people say they want done? (Latest Times/CBS poll reports that 76 percent say that the additional American troops sent to Iraq this year by Mr. Bush have either had no impact or are making things worse there.)

Memorial Day is this weekend, kids. In addition to pulling your white shoes out of the closet and coming up with your own witty contribution to the Baby Cheney's First Words Contest (sure, let's have one -- Why not?), Roxie's World urges you to read the following articles and to DO something that in some small way can move our nation toward peace. How much more blood can you stand to have on YOUR hands?

• Read this powerful story by Wa Po reporter Darragh Johnson on Section 60 at Arlington Cemetery, where 336 men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been buried. It's a touching analysis of how the rawness of the families' grief has transformed the subdued space of Arlington into a messier yet more deeply real space of living, communal sorrow. It brings the war home in vivid fashion.
• Check out my moms' colleague Marshall Grossman, holding forth in Huff Po on the Democrats' reluctance to put teeth in their opposition to the war.
• Keith Olbermann also had a "Special Comment" on last night's show calling Democrats to account for collaborating in prolonging the war. It's hard-hitting and righteous, as usual.
• Join in John Edwards' Memorial Day call to support the troops by ending the war. You can search for local actions going on in connection with this effort. Props are due to Edwards for his leadership on this issue, even if it is motivated by a desire to tack to the left of Clinton and Obama on the war.

That's all for now, folks. Happy grilling and happy hell-raising. If Molly Ivins were here this Memorial Day, she would remind you that citizenship is not a spectator sport. She's not here, so Roxie's World is proud to remind you for her. Peace out.

Memento Mori

Don't speak ill of the dead? Um, can we make an exception when they spoke ill of the living? Peace out, kids, and thanks to Dudley's human and RutgersAlumna for passing along some fun cartoons.

Welcome to Hell

(Photo Credit: Doug Koontz, Lynchburg News and Advance - AP; Falwell, then Liberty University chancellor, hobnobs with a crowd at Liberty's Big South conference tournament basketball game, in which Liberty played Radford in March 1997 in Lynchburg, Va.)

Close your eyes, loyal denizens of Roxie's World. Close your eyes, and imagine with me the Rev. Jerry Falwell's sudden leap into eternity on a Tuesday afternoon in May while alone in his office at Liberty University. (Wa Po coverage of Falwell's death yesterday at age 73 starts here. NY Times coverage begins here.)

It's a warm spring afternoon in Lynchburg, VA. The rev has, per usual, eaten heartily at lunch. Back in his office after the repast, a dull pain grips his chest. He rubs it distractedly, trying to dislodge a pocket of gas. Suddenly, a shot of searing hot pain throws him to the ground. His eyes open wide but see nothing, until, suddenly, he finds himself transported to an even warmer place. It's all, as Tony Kushner puts it at the end of Angels in America, Part One, "Very Steven Spielberg" in its epic scale and melodramatic sound and lighting effects. It's also very, very hot, but the rev is not alone. He is met at the entrance by a sweet-faced young man with a smile as bright as a thousand klieg lights.

Matthew Shepard: Afternoon, Rev. Falwell. Welcome to Hell.

Rev. Falwell: Wha? I was in my office. I needed to burp. Aren't you that. . .boy? Wyoming?

Matthew Shepard: That's right, Rev. I'm Matthew Shepard, and you're in Hell.

Rev. Falwell: And so are you, which I suppose means that demented Phelps fellow is right about God hating fags, but what am I doing here?

Matthew Shepard: (laughing softly). Oh, no, Rev. Falwell. I was just sent down here to welcome you. I don't usually work here but, you know, up in the other place. Actually, it turns out that God doesn't hate fags, but He does have a wicked sense of humor and of poetic justice. So here I am. Welcome to Hell.

Rev. Falwell: But, but. . .why? I was a man of God, a warrior for Christ, a preacher of the Word. How could I have ended up here?

Matthew Shepard: Because you believed in a vengeful, angry God who casts sinners into places like this -- and you did so without grasping that your own venomous rage against those whose beliefs differed from yours was the greatest sin of all against a god who is, always and only, love. This place is the logical outcome of your years of condemnation and cruelty, of promoting hatred in God's name. (For lowlights of Falwell's career, see the archive Carpetbagger has assembled.) As Milton's Satan says in Paradise Lost, "Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell." Your Hell -- Welcome to it.

(Shepard turns to leave.)

Rev. Falwell: Wait -- Please, don't go. I have so. . .many. . .questions.

Matthew Shepard: Sorry, Rev. I gotta get back upstairs. Tea dance starts in a few minutes, and I could use a cool drink. Here, take this -- It might help to explain your predicament in terms you can understand. It's not what the guy upstairs believes, but it's in keeping with your theology. Perhaps you'll take some comfort in it.

Shepard hands Rev. Falwell a crisp copy of the famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," by the 18th-century Puritan divine, Jonathan Edwards. The following passage is underlined:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

As Shepard turns to go, Falwell holds the document in his hands, stares at it, looks longingly at Shepard, and then back down at the piece of paper. As he reads, his hands begin to tremble.

"Myself am Hell," indeed.

"A Moment of Pure Grace"

A special mid-week post from Roxie's World because the fallout from the Imus imbroglio continues--and the lessons of this "teachable moment" become clearer. Today, the glorious women of Rutgers talked back to their tormentor and publicly addressed the tumult that has taken over their post-season. They held a press conference to announce that they plan to meet privately with Mr. Imus to hear his explanation for his reprehensible conduct. Essence Carson was chief spokesperson for the team, and she spoke movingly of the incident and the media firestorm it has generated. She noted that Imus's assault had "stolen a moment of pure grace" from the team, which didn't get nearly as much attention for its prodigious accomplishments on the court this season as it has gotten for being the object of a vicious verbal assault. Her remarks demonstrated a shrewd understanding of the role of money in American culture and of the lingering effects of racism and sexism. Asked to say whether she felt more injured by the racism or the sexism of Imus's remarks, Carson refused to fall into the trap of pitting one against the other. "Both," she said simply, offering a small but astute example of what feminists describe as intersectional analysis--i.e., an analysis of oppression that attends to the multiple, interlocking social forces that contribute to the marginalization of individuals and groups. (Moose had to explain that part to me. See previous post for reference to bell hooks and my point about Roxie's World not being an academic blog.)

Here are a few links to new stuff on the Imus mess:

• For highlights of the press conference, go to MSNBC.
• For video of the full press conference, go here.
  
• For reaction from Rutgers University, which has lovingly embraced its coach and team and righteously condemned the odious Imus, go here.
• For a thoughtful piece by Post columnist Eugene Robinson, go here. The Post also ran an editorial on Imus this morning called "Shocked Jock." It's here.
• Gwen Ifill, who was herself the object of Imus's ridicule when she was White House correspondent for the Times during the Clinton administration, has a short op-ed that appropriately shifts attention back to the women of Rutgers. It's here.
  

Moose is struck by the fact that the homophobia of Imus's remarks--which is so evident in the contrast he sets up between the "rough girls" of Rutgers with their tattoos and the "cute" girls of Tennessee--is getting little to no attention in the flood of commentary that has been unleashed in the past week. She thinks this underscores a broader problem of homophobia in the perception and reception of women's sports. She's even thinking of writing up a little something about it if she gets a break from typing for me or--oh, yeah--doing her day job.

While Moose ponders that weighty subject, I have one thing to say to the extraordinary women of Rutgers:

No one can take that moment of pure grace away from you. It is yours forever. You purchased it with your fierce dedication, your unyielding faith in yourselves and your team, and in the sheer beauty of your athleticism. No washed-up celebrity jerk can steal it or tarnish it or even touch it, for it lives in your souls and in the hearts of all of us who thrilled in your accomplishments throughout the season and in the tournament. You are pure grace--in word and deed. Whatever the score of any game, you are winners--plain and simple.