RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events The generic Gay thread

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the G-man said:

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Jim Jackson said:
You think advances and changes in medical science have nothing to do with social forces?

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I assumed Pariah meant that social forces should not affect empirical evidence one way or another.

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Military discharges hundreds of medics under gay ban

Among the nearly 10,000 service members expelled under the Pentagon's antigay "don't ask, don't tell" policy over a 10-year period, hundreds have been medical specialists and officers. According to data released on Wednesday by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, 244 medical specialists were kicked out in the period spanning 1994 to 2003, the first 10 years the policy was in effect. The data were obtained from the Pentagon with the help of Rep. Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

Aaron Belkin, director of the center and an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the discharges provide evidence that the ban is hampering military readiness. "The consequences of shortfalls in medical specialists during wartime are serious," he said. "When the military lacks the medical personnel it needs on the front lines, it compromises the well-being not only of its injured troops but of the overextended specialists who have to work longer tours to replace those who have been discharged."

According to the new data, the 244 medical personnel discharged under "don't ask, don't tell" included physicians, nurses, biomedical laboratory technicians, and other highly trained medical specialists. The revelation comes at a time when the military has acknowledged it is struggling with significant shortfalls in recruitment and retention of medical personnel for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to a Senate report issued in 2003 by senators Christopher Bond and Patrick Leahy, hundreds of injured Guard and Army Reserve soldiers "have been receiving inadequate medical attention" while housed at Fort Stewart because of a lack of preparedness that includes "an insufficient number of medical clinicians and specialists, which has caused excessive delays in the delivery of care." The situation created the perception among soldiers that they were receiving care that was inferior to that received by active duty personnel, which had a "devastating and negative impact on morale.

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Jim Jackson said:
At this point, all I can say is that human conceptions of mental illness have been evolving since the Middle Ages.

If Pariah does not see that as any kind of progress, I can't help it. When one knows everything, it's hard to convince that person of anything else.

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Captain Sammitch said:
Are you suggesting Jim have his way with Pariah?

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That's just ugly, Cap'n.

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wannabuyamonkey said:...I just hope I'm not the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

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Naw, your loyal to your party. You'll have nice cushy job lining the rest of us up

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wannabuyamonkey said:
I just hope I'm not the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

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Jim Jackson said:

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wannabuyamonkey said:
I just hope I'm not the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

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You're safe.

It's those of us in the intelligencia who have to be worried.

But nobody who spells as badly as you do will be first up against the wall.

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Church Panel Clears PastorA Presbyterian minister who performed weddings for same-sex couples was cleared Friday of accusations that she had violated church rules.

In a 6-1 decision, a judicial commission of the Redwoods Presbytery found that the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr, 63, had committed no offense and "was acting within her right of conscience in performing marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples."

Spahr was accused of violating the church's constitution when she performed two weddings for lesbian couples, one near Guerneville in 2005 and another in Rochester, N.Y., in 2004.

But the judicial commission in Santa Rosa found that although the Presbyterian Church's constitution defined marriage as between a man and a woman, it did not explicitly prohibit same-sex marriages.

"I would definitely call this a historic decision," said Sara Taylor, Spahr's attorney. "A mainline denomination like the Presbyterian Church said for the first time that an acting minister has the right to perform same-sex marriages."

Spahr was ordained in 1974 and is minister director of a gay-and-lesbian advocacy group in the C Church of the United States called That All May Freely Serve.

"It's an incredible feeling after 30-some years to have this moment," she said after the church commission cleared her. "I can only say I'm grateful to God."

Spahr has performed hundreds of same-sex ceremonies since the 1970s, and in recent years she has officiated at several religious weddings.

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Parents Complain About Book's Undertones

SAVANNAH, Mo. -- A children's book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin has been moved to the nonfiction section of two public library branches after parents complained it had homosexual undertones.

The illustrated book, "And Tango Makes Three," is based on a true story of two male penguins, named Roy and Silo, who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City's Central Park Zoo in the late 1990s.

The book, written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, was moved from the children's section at two Rolling Hills' Consolidated Library's branches in Savannah and St. Joseph in northwest Missouri.

Two parents had expressed concerns about the book last month.

Barbara Read, the Rolling Hills' director, said experts report that adoptions aren't unusual in the penguin world. However, moving the book to the nonfiction section would decrease the chance that it would "blindside" readers, she said.

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WashingtonPost

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the G-man said:
Personally, I'm waiting for the enterprising movie producer who options this book in a bid to combine the audiences for "Brokeback Mountain" and "March of the Penguins."

But seriously.

These type of parents are nothing but a modern version of the idiots who used to want to ban comic books because they decided that "Batman and Robin" were a gay metaphor.

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Like other gay men in their golden years, Jack Norris and Seymour Sirota had heard the horror stories.

An elderly lesbian couple is housed on separate floors of a nursing home and kept from seeing each other. A gay retired college professor feels compelled to keep his sexual orientation a secret after his roommate at an assisted living facility asks to be transferred.

That's how the two New Yorkers, partners for 14 years, landed at Rainbow Vision, a just-completed senior community in Santa Fe, N.M. From the private dining room named after Truman Capote to the cabaret where '60s teen icon Lesley "It's My Party" Gore was scheduled to appear this weekend, everything about the 146-unit retirement village was designed with the comfort of graying gays and lesbians in mind.

As the generation of gay men and lesbians who came out in the 1960s and '70s reaches retirement age, about a dozen specialized senior developments across the country are either up and running or in the works.

In such senior-heavy locales as California, Arizona and Florida, as well as less traditionally gay-friendly places like North Carolina and Texas, builders have found a market in a segment of the gay population that worries getting old will mean going back in the closet.

Besides personal safety, specialists in gay aging issues offer other reasons why the so-called Stonewall Generation, named for the 1969 New York riots that marked the beginning of the modern gay movement, needs and craves places of its own to retire.

Among them are the years of stigma and isolation many gays who are over 50 experienced, that may have left them estranged from their families, financially insecure and childless.

Steven David, a postdoctoral psychology fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles who counsels and researches older gay men, said the concept of gay senior housing gets mixed reviews from his clients. He has spoken to some who think living in a gay environment sounds fun and others who think it sounds awful, "just like some straight people like retirement communities and some don't."

Meanwhile, some in his field oppose the idea of separate communities for gay seniors, which also have taken off in Canada and parts of Europe, as voluntary self-segregation. "There has been an argument of, 'Should we be creating these places in the first place or forcing society to accept us?'" he said.

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Matter-eater Man said:
The gay assisted living thing sounds good for those interested in it. One of my Great Aunts spent years in a regular one & really enjoyed it. I would imagine it could be very lonely being the only gay person in a community.

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magicjay38 said:
Yet another plug for an LGBT story

Transgender Movie on LIFETIME this MONDAY

about Gwen Araujo's tragic assault and her struggle being transgender as a teen.


The LIFETIME MOVIE..., which you might want to ask your friends, relatives, co-workers to check out. MAYBE print LIFETIME AD and post at work on MONDAY or today if your still there.

Gwen Araujo Story

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