A Teacher Speaks

After months of refusing interviews due to overwhelming depression and therapy, Larry King's teacher speaks to the LA Times. King, you might recall, was the foster child who was viciously murdered by his classmate after months of torment over his gender expression. Her tale is simultaneously enlightening and heart-wrenching, telling of the utter devastation such a terrible act of violence has not only on the victim and the victim's family, but on everyone around:

"Look Larry, you can't shove this into people's faces," [Dawn] Boldrin recalled warning the 15-year-old who had a habit of taunting those who made fun of him. "That's as wrong as them saying there's something wrong with you."

That was the last time she felt whole as a teacher, a mother and a wife, Boldrin said in a recent interview at her Camarillo home, the first time she has talked to the media about what happened that day.

Within minutes, one of Larry's classmates, Brandon McInerney, stood up in the lab, pulled out a gun and shot him twice from behind as Boldrin shouted, "What the hell are you doing, Brandon?"

Boldrin was both protective and supportive of King, even giving him one of her daughter's gowns to know that he was loved and that people around him supported his gender. It's hard to make in through the interview without tearing up quite a bit.

Thanks to just about everyone on Twitter today for this.

More Gay Penguins

From the L.A. Times:

Z and Vielpunkt, two male Humboldt penguins at Germany's Bremerhaven Zoo, are the proud new parents of a healthy penguin chick.

"Another couple threw the egg out of their batch. We picked it up and put it in the nest of the gay penguins," veterinarian Joachim Schöne told the German newspaper Bild of the pair's entry into parenthood. Z and Vielpunkt faithfully cared for their adopted egg for more than a month; in late April it hatched. Since then, they've been taking care of their chick around the clock; it's still too young to feed itself, so the dads feed him fish mash, Schöne explained.

"Since the chick arrived, they have been behaving just as you would expect a heterosexual couple to do," the zoo said in a statement.

The Bremerhaven Zoo's same-sex penguin couples (there are three such pairs in residence there, all males) first made news back in 2005, according to the BBC. At the time, the zoo announced plans to "test" the sexual orientations of the six penguins, who'd been seen engaging in mating rituals and trying to incubate rocks as if they were eggs. Gay rights advocates were outraged when the zoo brought four new female penguins into the colony in a bid to encourage the penguins to reproduce, and the zoo later nixed the idea. (In the zoo's defense, Humboldt penguins are classified as vulnerable to extinction, so it does make a certain amount of sense to be concerned about them reproducing. And since Z and Vielpunkt have done just that, everyone wins!)

Sorry, it was just too sweet to not repost. But it leaves me wondering one thing: why, exactly, are we obsessed with gay penguins? Seriously, folks. I prefer my lesbian seagulls, which reminds me of a song:

So inappropriate, and yet so funny. Trivia: did you know that the inspiration for the Hills from King of the Hills came from two sometimes characters on Beavis & Butthead? God, I remember when that movie came out. I went and saw it, and I still don't remember why.

This blog post is like a Simpsons episodes... one topic to the next until we don't remember what we originally talking about.

Gay penguins. (I apparently, per my labels, have written before about penguins. Weird.)

There, now it really is like a Simpsons episode.

Fairfax High School Prom Queen

...is a queen.

Sergio Garcia began his campaign to be prom queen as a sort-of joke, but it took on a seriousness and realness to it as the school began talking about gender and gender roles. In the end, he won. A compilation of quotes from the LA Times article, that treats the issue really well, actually:

• Before prom, on running: I will be wearing a suit, but don't be fooled, deep down inside, I am a queen!From his speech: At one time, prom may have been a big popularity contest where the best-looking guy or girl were crowned king and queen. Things have changed and it's no longer just about who has the most friends or who wears the coolest clothes. Sure, I'm not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye.
• On winning: I felt invincible.
• On gender and what it means to be queen: I didn't really know if the school approved. I thought 'Why can't I do it?' I see myself as a boy with a different personality. . . . I don't wish to be a girl; I just wish to be myself.

I just have one thing to say, Mr. Garcia: You-bettah-work. You may have felt invincible, as one person who beat out all those other women for the crown, but you have made, no doubt, untold numbers of high school queens feel the same... and feel like they, too, can go for their own crown. I wonder who his King was and whether or not they shared a dance afterwards?

Kinda makes me wish I'd thought of this.

California and New Hampshire

In case you've lived under a rock...

... you probably know that California's Supreme Court is hearing arguments about gay marriage again. This time, whether or not Proposition 8 was legal to pass this year. Oral arguments start on Thursday. The only reason I bring it up is this: a piece in the LA Times that does a great job talking about the legal issues surrounding this challenge. I have been decidedly ignorant on the legal issues being thrown around, so it was an excellent and informative primer in case you were interested.

What you may not have heard...

... on the back of the 6 by 12 campaign, and by the multitudes of New England equal marriage bills being proposed, the New Hampshire legislature is considering a bill to open up civil unions to heterosexual couples. Really? "We're going to create a special class for you homosexuals, but not let you into our club, but now we're going to let us into your special class." I don't mind, but, come on.

In related news, I have it from a person in the know, that the likely first state to legislatively pass an equal marriage bill will be Maine, followed probably by New Hampshire or Vermont, and finally Rhode Island. And most of those before then end of 2010.

Single most important op-ed ever on gay marriage

...from the author of the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act. I'm repeating it in full from LA Times:

In 1996, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, better known by its shorthand acronym, DOMA, than its legal title. The law has been a flash-point for those arguing for or against same-sex marriage ever since President Clinton signed it into law. Even President-elect Barack Obama has grappled with its language, meaning and impact.

I can sympathize with the incoming commander in chief. And, after long and careful consideration, I have come to agree with him that the law should be repealed.

The left now decries DOMA as the barrier to federal recognition and benefits for married gay couples. At the other end of the political spectrum, however, DOMA has been lambasted for subverting the political momentum for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In truth, the language of the legislation -- like that of most federal laws -- was a compromise.

DOMA was indeed designed to thwart the then-nascent move in a few state courts and legislatures to afford partial or full recognition to same-sex couples. The Hawaii court case Baehr vs. Lewin, still active while DOMA was being considered by Congress in mid-1996, provided the immediate impetus.

The Hawaii court was clearly leaning toward legalizing same-sex marriages. So the first part of DOMA was crafted to prevent the U.S. Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause -- which normally would require State B to recognize any lawful marriage performed in State A -- from being used to extend one state's recognition of same-sex marriage to other states whose citizens chose not to recognize such a union.

Contrary to the wishes of a number of my Republican colleagues, I crafted the legislation so it wasn't a hammer the federal government could use to force states to recognize only unions between a man and a woman. Congress deliberately chose not to establish a single, nationwide definition of marriage.

However, we did incorporate into DOMA's second part a definition of marriage that comported with the historic -- and, at the time, widely accepted -- view of the institution as being between a man and a woman only. But this definition was to be used solely to interpret provisions of federal law related to spouses.

The first part of DOMA, then, is a partial bow to principles of federalism, protecting the power of each state to determine its definition of marriage. The second part sets a legal definition of marriage only for purposes of federal law, but not for the states. That was the theory.

I've wrestled with this issue for the last several years and come to the conclusion that DOMA is not working out as planned. In testifying before Congress against a federal marriage amendment, and more recently while making my case to skeptical Libertarians as to why I was worthy of their support as their party's presidential nominee, I have concluded that DOMA is neither meeting the principles of federalism it was supposed to, nor is its impact limited to federal law.

In effect, DOMA's language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don't want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the heterosexual definition of marriage for purposes of federal laws -- including, immigration, Social Security survivor rights and veteran's benefits -- has become a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state to choose to recognize same-sex unions.

Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.

In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, "Decisions about marriage should be left to the states." He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.

Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and was the Libertarian Party's 2008 nominee for president.

For reasons of federalism, and to get the federal government out of the rights of the states, DOMA should be repealed. Fascinating. 

Thank you, Bob Barr.

(Via JoinTheImpact.com)

ELECTION 2008: Follow up to the Edwards scandal

Regarding this news bit which stated that the LA Times had "blocked" bloggers from talking about the National Enquirer story regarding John Edwards alleged affair: I got an email about it from someone over at bloggasm. Simon Owens got a chance to interview Tony Pierce, the blog editor at the LA Times, and this is a little bit of what was said:

“The Opinion LA blog had already written about the rumors from the National Enquirer,” he explained. “We knew some of the other blogs wanted to write about it or were thinking about writing about it. And at that point we were like, ‘you know, we already have our metro desk working on a story and before we just kind of write a whole bunch of stuff about the National Enquirer article, why don’t we give our metro desk a chance to see what they can find.’ That’s when they said, ‘OK Tony, why don’t you write this letter to your bloggers.”

When I brought up the argument made by many that they were trying to bury the story, Pierce pointed out that one of the blogs had already written about it. The editors simply wanted to give the metro reporters a chance to dig into it and see if they could find any new information, he said, rather than just having the Times website create a bunch of noise...

“What I should have said is that if you find information — because these are real reporters — if you find any more information, or if there’s something that’s out there that you come across put out by a more reputable source, write it up and let’s talk about it. That’s probably one thing that I wish I could have said.”

For the full interview, go here.

Thanks, Simon, for keeping us in the loop!

I still stand by my original position that, even if the story turns out to be false or we get no other information about it from here on out, Mr. Edwards' rep is tarnished, and, I think, his political career is done. :-( Sad.

Election 2008: Oh, John Edwards, why?

So much for VP choice, or the future of his political career...

The original National Enquirer story about the John Edwards affair -- great source, I know.

The confirmation by that security guard at the hotel that night (from FOX news)

The LA Times has blocked bloggers from talking about it -- for good reasons, I know.

*SIGH* And the criminal suit being brought up that may require Edwards to give an eyewitness account.

Grrrr... Even if it's not true, his rep is tarnished. But he's SO PRETTY! (this picture makes his butt look GREAT)

GAY STUFF: Same-sex... DIVORCE?

HA! Here's an issue that's starting to pop up around the country: same sex divorce!

From today's Electoral-Vote commentary:

While same-sex marriage is a hot-button issue and frequently put on the ballot by Republican-leaning groups as a way of increasing turnout of like-minded people, practically every state has already had a referendum on this already so there is no gold left to mine here. But a new issue is arising: same-sex divorce. Anyone who never considered this possibility is very naive. Only half of all opposite-sex couples manage to stay together. Why should the odds be better for same-sex couples? While a few states and countries allow (same-sex) couples to come in, get married, and scoot out, few of them allow quickie divorces by out-of-state couples. Will we soon see ballot initiatives banning same-sex divorce? The trouble is that people who rally around "family values" don't like either same-sex marriage or divorce. Is it better for a same-sex couple to stay married (bad) or get divorced (bad)? Maybe the best way to look at this issue is as a business opportunity for some enterprising state.

This is the linked LA Times article -- which is really very thorough and definitely worth a read -- listing off some of the problems same-sex couples are experiencing as they go through their divorce:

"They've given us no choice but to be married forever," said Ormiston. "Their worst nightmare."...

Because federal law defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, the federal government doesn't extend many standard divorce benefits to same-sex couples. As a result, say lawyers familiar with the issues, even in states where gay couples are allowed to divorce, they face financial consequences that heterosexual couples don't. Among them:

* If a judge orders a heterosexual couple to divide a pension during a divorce, federal law allows the pension to be divided without triggering early-withdrawal penalties. Divorcing gay couples must pay the penalties.

* Court-ordered alimony payments can be deducted from federal income taxes in straight divorces, but not in same-sex divorces.

* In gay divorces, when a judge orders one party to give money or other assets to a spouse, those assets may be subject to gift or income taxes.

* When real property is transferred from joint ownership to one gay spouse by a court order, capital-gains taxes are often triggered.

Opponents of same-sex marriage say the issues were to be expected.

"These problems illustrate why it is a bad idea to redefine marriage in California in a way that is at odds with the rest of the country," said Andrew Pugno, legal advisor to protectmarriage.com, a coalition of churches, organizations and individuals supporting the California Marriage Protection Act on the November ballot.

Very very strange rhetoric going on around this one. It harkens back to a straight supporter once telling me: Of course I think you guys have the right to be married... you have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.