23 Responses to “Day Without A ‘Day Without a Gay’”

1. Badda Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 9:07 am

   I don’t know if it actually fizzled… at least in these terms: No one at work got over-dramatic and hyperbolic and called conservatives hate-mongers, bigots, while spitting in people’s faces.

   So, it accomplished something. Thanks gays!

2. Badda Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 9:10 am

   If only we could encourage Peev to give us “A Week Without a Geek”.

3. LearnedFoot Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 9:38 am

   My workplace was only about 1% less fabulous than usual yesterday. I was expecting it to be more around 2 to 5%.

4. swiftee Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 10:17 am

   How would you know, Foot? Did you call in to check? heh.

5. billhedrick Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 10:20 am

   Well the theatre group I am in had a full compliment of cast members and crew last night so I think that A day without Gay failed. I suspect that if you can’t get the theater community to respect this, you’re full of fail.

6. LearnedFoot Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 11:21 am

   Oh Swiftee you silly Brokeback biker, you! I have to much to do at work to call in gay. However as this headline suggests, one of your other friends did participate:

   http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081211/D9506RO81.html

7. swiftee Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

   Better be careful. If you suggest the Splutty is a secret gerbil packer, he will be forced to SLAPP you with a cornhole tort suit.

   (But splutty, isn’t gerbil packing per se a cornhole tort?)

   Don’t be impertinent, sandflea. Just be a good little figment of Splutty’s hubris and play along. Let’s go see which of Splutty’s neighbors have better light displays than Splutty…we’ll videotape them tonight.

8. Badda Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

   Spotty is without a shadow of doubt a fat dullard with sweaty dew-flaps.

   …the most obnoxious, trumped-up, farty little smeghead that has ever been my misfortune to encounter.

   …the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the AD31 Best Disciple Competition.

   …a snide little boor with as much capacity for creativity as black-masked “anarchist”.

   …and a small-minded, hateful, litigious fascist.

9. Badda Says:
   December 11th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

   I think you can quote me on that. 😉

10. swiftee Says:
    December 11th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    “Sweaty dewflaps”; “farty little smeghead”??

    *blink…blink*

    Wow, Badda. I’m impressed!

11. Badda Says:
    December 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    I actually quoted other folks. 😉

12. Bill C Says:
    December 11th, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    If only we could encourage Peev to give us “A Week Without a Geek”.

    Hey, don’t insult geeks like that. I EMBRACE my geekness!

    There is a difference between a nerd and a geek, btw. A geek is a nerd with a life and social skills.

13. Badda Says:
    December 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pm

    But Week Without a Nerd doesn’t rhyme.

14. Kermit Says:
    December 11th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

    Spotty is without a shadow of doubt a fat dullard with sweaty dew-flaps.
    Do not mention He Who Must Not Be Named!

15. Dog Gone Says:
    December 12th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    The day without gay may not have had a large participation, but the Newsweek cover story on the Bible and homosexuality is getting a lot of response. An interesting article.

16. Terry Says:
    December 12th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    Dog Gone, that Newsweek piece is awful.
    Miller is the kind of writer that sectarians would choose to cover religious topics. She will never, ever, move them out of their comfort zone.

17. Dog Gone Says:
    December 12th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    I have a problem with comfort zones on the topic of homosexuality.

    I agree with Miller that one has to very selectively cherry pick to use the bible as a justification for anti-gay positions, particularly legislation. The other justification I’ve heard all my life for an anti-gay point of view is that homosexuality is ‘unatural’ or against the laws of nature because same gender sexual activity doesn’t result in reproduction.

    I’ve had a very serious interest in the scientific aspects of animal reproduction for some years now. From that perspective, I have encountered a lot of ignorance about just how widespread same gender sexual activity is among animals. There are a lot of wrong assumptions actually about a lot of reproductive behavior in animals by those who don’t work with this field.

    For those who don’t want to read through a whole book shelf of rather dry scientific treatises, there is a very good summary of more recent information in Wikipedia under animal sexuality.

    I think that it is a mistake to try to deny reality in favor of idealogy.

18. Terry Says:
    December 12th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    Surely it is a mistake to deny reality in favor of ideology. I don’t think religion puts one in that camp any more than materialism does.
    One of the problems I have with Miller’s piece is that she trots out old arguments. Does she really think that religious thinkers have never noticed that the Old Testament commands us to do things which we now clearly see as wrong?
    There are probably fundamentalists somewhere who are convinced that there are anti-homosexual passages in the Gospels, just as there are people who believe that Christ renounced violence in all its forms.
    The key to understanding the Bible as a set of instructions (if that is what you want it to be) is exegesis.
    I could go into this in further depth, but really . . . the article reads as though it was written by someone who learned about religion from popular culture. For example, Miller says “Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices;” which is correct but misleading. There are large, successful communities of Orthodox Jews who do cut there hair in the the style commanded by Leviticus. The reason the followers of the three great monotheistic religions no longer engage in ritual sacrifice are because of their religion, not in spite of it. Jews have not had a temple fit to perform a sacrifice since 70 AD. In Christianity the death of Christ made all further animal sacrifice unnecessary. In Islam the surrender of the will to Allah takes the place of animal sacrifice.
    You would never learn any of this by reading Miller’s article. In fact you would be left with the impression that animal sacrifice was given up as some sort of effort to fit into modernity.

19. swiftee Says:
    December 12th, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    “I have a problem with comfort zones on the topic of homosexuality.”

    Oh, so you are anti-Vaseline. That’s more than we really needed to know, and I’m not sure the gerbils would agree, but thanks.

20. Mr. Shirt Says:
    December 13th, 2008 at 1:23 am

    I myself have been an observer of animal reproductive behavior. When I was in High School, we had a male German Shepard named Chuck.

    Once Chuck “became of age”, he was an unstoppable force. We had a 4’X6′ throw rug that became his “best friend”, so to speak, Like most other dogs, he was into human legs as well, both male & female. We had a cat named Fluffy, and despite the outrageous size difference, Chuck often spent much of his day trying to mount the cat! In short, Chuck would attempt to hump anything he could, & I’m sure if another male dog were in the area, he would have given that a try too. FWIW, he eventually did happen to find a real bitch in heat & pass on his genes.

    I’m not sure that all this means I had a bisexual dog. Only that he had a very carnal drive to get the deed done, & not a lot of judgment skills to ascertain where to best apply himself.

    Now if you could show an animal species that bonds with a mate for life & there’s actually a significant percentage of homosexual lifetime monogamous pairings, you might have something to stand on. However fruit flies, dogs, chimpanzees & any other animal that is just going around to get its rocks off is really not evidence of much.

    So lets say you found these gay monogamous lifetime parings… They can’t get married either. The natural state for them is a civil union of sorts.

21. Terry Says:
    December 13th, 2008 at 2:16 am

    Swiftee, I do not think you should assume that Dog Gone rides a Sportster.

22. Dog Gone Says:
    December 16th, 2008 at 4:27 am

    Mr. Shirt writes:

    Now if you could show an animal species that bonds with a mate for life & there’s actually a significant percentage of homosexual lifetime monogamous pairings, you might have something to stand on. However fruit flies, dogs, chimpanzees & any other animal that is just going around to get its rocks off is really not evidence of much.
    ”

    The problem is with the definition of the term monogamous. In animal sexual behavior, there are several kinds of monogamy – socail, sexual, and genetic. Even the species that are frequently defined as monogamous like swans and wolves are not sexually exclusive, but still maintain a pair relationship as defined by sharing the rearing of offspring and sharing a common territory. Incredibly few species have all or even most individuals behaving monogamously.

    Which is a problem in human supposedly monogamous relationships, as a species too. A very large proportion of those marriages which are being legally defined as between one man and one woman seem to not be very sexually exclusive. That is a legal fiction that tries to direct behavior into conforming to an idealogy strongly influenced by religion.

    Apparently a recent poll by the Wall Street Journal indicates that affluent men are spending significantly less on their mistresses in the current stressed economy.

    But MARRIAGE is a sexually exclusive relationship between just one man and one woman…at a time. So we also have serial monogamy, where one has a series of spouses.

    Or maybe, married or not, monogamy is a great ideal to strive to achieve, but not reality.

    I think the greatest tragedy is that the gay couples who are good and devoted parents, providing stability and nurturing home life, are being denied the rights to be parents. I’ve seen some heterosexual married couples who are AWFUL parents, and some gay couples that are devoted, conscientious and loving parents. Sexual orientation doesn’t determine parenting competence.

    Bad assumptions can cause people a lot of pain and disrupt lives.

23. Dog Gone Says:
    December 16th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    Mr. Shirt Says:

    December 13th, 2008 at 1:23 am
    I myself have been an observer of animal reproductive behavior. When I was in High School, we had a male German Shepard named Chuck.

    Once Chuck “became of age”, he was an unstoppable force. We had a 4′X6′ throw rug that became his “best friend”, so to speak, Like most other dogs, he was into human legs as well, both male & female. We had a cat named Fluffy, and despite the outrageous size difference, Chuck often spent much of his day trying to mount the cat! In short, Chuck would attempt to hump anything he could, & I’m sure if another male dog were in the area, he would have given that a try too. FWIW, he eventually did happen to find a real bitch in heat & pass on his genes.

    I’m not sure that all this means I had a bisexual dog. Only that he had a very carnal drive to get the deed done, & not a lot of judgment skills to ascertain where to best apply himself.

    ****

    Shirt, respectfully your observations actually rather proves my point in a way.

    Where you see an over sexed dog displaying some kind of excessive libido, I believe there may be other more correct explanations for Chuck’s behavior. Chuck would be exactly what a dog breeder would NOT want in a stud dog. Competent stud dogs are able to demonstrate a very directed libido, without the excitement you describe. Dogs that are trying to hump or breed everything in sight are prone to enlarged prostates and poor sperm counts, with poor morphology and low motility. This makes semen much less suitable for collection and storage. While Chuck may have sired a litter, over multiple breedings in a career his reproductive record would not be as successful as a more focused srtud. Additionally behavior like Chuck’s can be associated with heart problems, gastric problems including torsion and bloat (frequently fatal), splenic torsion, testicular torsion, prostate problems, and impaired immune function.

    You see Chuck’s behavior as inept in finding the right object for relieving his sexual urges. Based on my successful experience in resolving problem dog behavior (humping legs is not the behavior of a polite well adjusted dog) for which I get paid quite well, I’d be looking at ways to determine if what Chuck was demonstrating was actually stress, not a reproductive urge.

    Given the opportunity, I’d be curious to look for stress indicators in Chuck’s bloodstream, along with possibly Oxytocin. While Oxytocin is more frequently associated with females, in uterine contractions associated with birth and milk let down, and maternal bonding to offspring, it also occurs in males under certain circumstances. It has more recently discovered effects in conjunction with fear, stress and anxiety, including current experimentation with repetitive behaviors in autism.

    If my hypothesis is correct, even absent access to lab work, employing the behavioral cues pioneered by the extraordinary Norwegian canine behavioral scientist Turid Rugaas would cause a change in behavior.

    There are a surprising number of dogs that do not respond to punishment to discourage humping and other behaviors mistakenly identified as arising from sexual impulses. Even castration is often ineffective in limiting or eliminating the behaviors, because the root cause is not testosterone or reproductive drive. Where you see some kind of doggy love machine, I see a dog who could have been a happier and healthier companion animal. The first step in working with any problem dog is correcting the erroneous assumptions of the owners; all success is contingent on that step.

    In Europe until fairly recently, spay and castration solely to prevent accidental pet reproduction was regarded as medical mutilation. Responsible pet ownership meant not having dogs that roamed around marking and randomly mating and reproducing. It is dangerous to the dog as well as annoying, even hazardous in some cases, to others.

    Spay/castration has consequences that are potentially very serious including risks to urinary system health, and significant effects to bone growth plate closure on long bones – significant for those of us concerned with maximizing functional dogs.

    Because the majority of the U.S. population cannot manage an intact dog or bitch (or tom or queen in the case of cats), dogs like Chuck, there has been a sharp increase in mandatory (not optional) spay and castration laws as well as draconian breed specific limiting legislation.

    Such laws drastically interfere with the responsible, informed enjoyment and use of our animals as property – something which I hope conservatives would see a cause to resist.

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