Asterisk

I’m sitting here with fire in my eyes. You know the feeling? Like you could just explode at any second? Like your heart’s about to leap out of your chest and tap dance across the floor?

Very few things make me feel this way. Oh, I have a temper, and I can be a bit of a dick, but it’s rare for me to feel like this.

Earlier tonight, hours after New York City Mayor and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg ordered Zuccotti Park raided, journalists arrested, and the Constitution pissed all over, a security guard for Brookfield Properties, which owns the park, …wow this is the longest run on sentence ever. This is what happens when I’m mad.

Anyway, the security guard called comedian (?) Joey Boots a “faggot.” On camera. While trying to look tough before running away when Joey didn’t just stand there and take it.

Here are a couple shots of the bigot rent-a-cop who couldn’t control his bigotry with a camera in his face. (Uppity faggot doesn’t know his place, so he’s going to tell him.) He wouldn’t give his name, you know, because bigot tough guys hate it when people know their names.

Anybody know who he is? Send me an email or comment on the post. I want his name plastered all over the internet so future prospective employers know who they’re getting.

P.S. Who wears sunglasses like that? Bigots, apparently.

(h/t Scott Wooledge, via towleroad)

I stumbled across the most poignant piece of film this afternoon. More Than Ever, directed by Anthony Osso for The Devotion Project, debuted this past summer, but this is the first time those of us in fly-over country have had a chance to see it. The award-winning short film is about New Yorkers Bill Campbell and John Hilton, a couple who have been together for 54 years.

Watch it here in its entirety. (Have a box of tissues handy.)

Stay tuned for more from this wonderful series; word is that the second short film for The Devotion Project is nearly finished, with several more in the works.

Here’s a moment from a debate between Gore Vidal and William Buckley back in 1968.

To be fair, I’d probably shout an insult too if someone called me a “crypto-Nazi.” Even if I were one.

Every once in a while I pull this video back out to puzzle over it. It’s an interview President Obama gave with NBC News’ Brian Williams on October 30, 2008, just five days before the election. I have it cued up to the relevant portion (1:38 – 2:01), but the entire question regarding Supreme Court Justice nominations is embedded if you want to see the context.

I mean, the— the right to marry who you please isn’t in the Constitution. But I think all of us assume that if a state— decided to pass a law saying, “Brian, you can’t marry the woman you love,” that you’d think that was unconstitutional. Well, where does that come from? I think it comes from a right to privacy— that may not be listed in the Constitution but is implied by the structure of the Constitution.

I’m not the only one who sees the direct contradiction between this and “God is in the mix,” am I?

Incidentally, I’ve long thought we should be using the “right to privacy” argument instead of the “love is love” one when talking about the right of civil marriage. It doesn’t hit people’s emotions as well, though, so we’ll just struggle along with “love is love.”

By now, you’ve probably seen the news report from Chillicothe, Ohio (about 75 miles from me) that rocketed across the internet yesterday (hat tip to Equality Ohio) about a 15-year-old student who was brutally attacked in school this week because he’s gay. (Trigger warning, just to be safe.)

See Dan Savage’s column for my reaction to this story. Cosigned, 100%.

Coincidentally, the school had a big assembly (screencap) about online and offline peer abuse just last Wednesday. Speaker Josh Gunderson addressed the students, ending his presentation by directly addressing suicides caused by peer abuse. Here is Gunderson’s It Gets Better video:

See Gunderson’s Youtube channel to get an idea what he does. It looks like a good program, and we need more of that kind of thing to reach students, but the abuse won’t stop until the adults in charge recognize that this is a real and urgent problem, not one you can just talk about for an hour and then forget for another year.

It’s important that adults treat peer abuse and the accompanying physical attacks without kid gloves. These are serious life-and-death issues. Zach has a concussion and is in a danger zone for self-harm and suicidal ideation right now because of this attack by a peer.

In fact, his attacker is probably back in school today, potentially sitting in the same classroom as his victim. Obviously, this will only exacerbate the attack’s long-term effects.

Union-Scioto School officials must act swiftly, both to make Zach whole and to make it known throughout the community that peer abuse, specifically peer abuse against LGBT people, are not accepted in their schools. Local officials in the sheriff’s and prosecutor’s office must treat this attack seriously and seek real penalties in order to rehabilitate the attacker.

Failing to do that will send the opposite message that attacking and abusing LGBTs is okay, and that’s a message we can’t afford for them to send.