The end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is quickly approaching. On September 20th the repeal and certification process officially is complete and the sexuality that a person is born will no longer be grounds for discharge. As we approach this historic day that marks the end of seventeen years of institutionalized discrimination former and active duty service members are telling their stories of how they made it through and what it was like to endure.

GQ magazine has collected some of these stories and presents them here.

Like the story of Eric Alva, the first American injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

When Alva signed up, before "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," he had to lie on his paperwork. "I knew I was lying," he says. "But I loved what I did, I loved my job, and I didn’t want to tell anyone. I said, ‘It’s going to be my secret.’ I knew I was not going to be happy in a way, but I knew this was what I wanted." In 2003 he was deployed to the Middle East, and on March 21 he crossed the border from Kuwait. His unit was part of a huge convoy that stopped outside Basra. Alva got out of his Humvee and went to fetch something from the back of the vehicle. "That’s when I triggered the IED. I was awake, my hearing was sort of gone. My hand was covered in blood and part of my index finger was gone. The chaplain was holding my head and I was telling him I didn’t want to die. I was taken off a helicopter in Kuwait—it was estimated that I was only in Iraq about three hours—and carried into surgery. I woke up later and when I looked down I saw that the right side of my sheet was flat. I cried myself asleep, only to wake up hours later and see that it’s true: My leg is gone."

DADT not only affected the lives of those who risked their lives on the battlefield. It also took a toll on those they loved.

"The relationship lasted for about four years, but I always felt like I was disrespecting him, to have to pretend he didn’t exist when I went to work. When I got deployed, he was there with my family when I left. It kind of sucked—to shake his hand and a little pat on the back and ‘I’ll see you when I see you’ kind of thing. And when you’re getting ready to come back, the spouses were getting classes—here’s how you welcome your Marine back into the family—and my boyfriend didn’t get any of that. I had a really hard time adjusting to being home. We tried to make it work for a year but he was getting more and more paranoid about people finding out about us. It killed me that he felt that way because of me. I don’t think we ever really had a chance, ultimately."

For some DADT became the weapon used by haters.

The harassment grew worse. Of a number of escalating events—Rocha was also force-fed dog food and locked into a shit-filled dog kennel—the most abusive and explicitly homophobic was when he was ordered by his commander to act in a dog-training scenario, repeated over and over so that every dog in the unit could be run through it. "The scenarios were supposed to be relevant to what the dogs or the handlers would experience. Like a domestic dispute, or an armed individual who has been spotted on the base, or someone strapped with explosives. This day he chose that the scenario would be that I would be getting caught giving another service member a blow job and, once the dogs came in, I was supposed to jump up from having been in between this guy’s legs. He would coach as to how exactly he wanted it played out, which was the sickest part of it." Rocha says he had to act this out between half a dozen and a dozen times, about fifteen to twenty minutes each time. As they repeated it, his commander ordered Rocha to make the scenario more extreme. "He wanted me to be very queer and flamboyant. He wanted me to pretend like there was stuff on my face. Loving it so much that each scenario was gayer and more disgusting—the introduction of fake semen, that I would have to wipe my face, or that I would have to make slurping noises. The level of humiliation I experienced that day, that’s when I knew I wasn’t safe in the military."

I highly recommend heading over there and reading more http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201109/dont-ask-dont-tell-gay-soldiers-military#ixzz1WAXDJMrl

photo credit: DVIDSHUB

Gay and Lesbian people exist. We always have and always will. Regardless of what NOM, the Ruth Institute, or any of the other discriminatory organizations that continue to turn our own government against us hope to achieve. Sometimes I truly wonder what their goal really is. Is it to try and somehow cure us and eliminate us? I don’t think that there really is a clear answer to that question and frankly if that is the goal, it’s a fool’s goal because it can never be achieved. More Gay and Lesbian Americans are born everyday. Trying to rid America of us makes about as much sense as trying to get rid of everyone with red hair.

So if we aren’t going away what sort of protections do we deserve if not marriage? The reality of the mater is that we do fall in love. We do have children. We do build lives and families together. We buy homes together. We go on vacations together. We worry about paying the bills together just like any other family. Is it right that when one of us dies we have no say over burial or that we have to pay gift taxes on the things we bought together as a couple? If one of us becomes sick do we not have a right to visit our partner? Should we not have any rights to the children we may have spent years raising together simply because the state won’t allow us to adopt our partner’s biological child?

These are questions that can’t be answered by a simple contract other than that of civil marriage. Contracts other than marriage can be and often are challenged in court by family members that may not approve of the same sex relationship.

Without marriage are we just supposed to live a life without love, in solitude, and unhappiness? If you deny us marriage, then what will you allow?

More on Justin at WCCO including a video.

	Billy Lucas was also 15, a student at Greensburg High School in Indiana. His classmates said he had trouble fitting in and he often became the target of bulling because he was ?different.? After a group of students had called him a fag and told him he should kill himself, he did just that. He had gone home and hanged himself in his parents barn. More on Billy Lucas at Fox 59. There is also a Facebook memorial page for Billy.
	13 year old Seth Welsh of Tehachapi California was openly gay. He to was often the victim of bulling by fellow classmates at Jacobsen Middle School. Taunting and ridicule that had apparently gone unchecked for some time. On September 19th Seth?s parents came home to find him unconscious in the backyard after he had attempted to hang himself from a tree. After nine days his parents took him off of life support. There is more on Seth at KGET17.
	Asher Brown was a 13 year old 8th grader at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District when he shot himself in the head a day after students had tripped him down a flight of stairs. Asher?s stepfather found him at home when he came home from work. Asher had came out to his stepfather that morning. Asher?s parents had complained repeatedly to the school about the bulling over the last 18 months. School officials deny that any such complaints were ever made. More about Asher can be found here.
	Bulling isn?t limited to high school students as we learned when 18 year old Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi posted this on his Facebook page. Jumping off the gw bridge sorry His car, wallet, and other belongings were found at the George Washington bridge. His body has not been found. Tyler?s roommate Dharun Ravi used his webcam to stream to the internet Tyler making out with another guy acording to the story from ABC.

Now, I’ll be honest, I haven?t read the text of the resolution, but I find it hard to believe that the NAACP was actually condemning the entire Tea Party Movement, and was instead just targeting the racist fringe elements, elements that tend to exist within all most any political movement. Elements that most Tea Party leaders themselves have been trying to remove.

So, on the 19th, Andrew Brietbart dug up some video clips from an NAACP awards dinner in March where Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development gave a speech, edited them to remove any context, and posted them on his site Big Government in an attempt to prove a point. Using editied video to undermine your political opponents has exploded thanks to the advent of the YouTube era.

Unfortunately, Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and the Obama Administration fall for the charade and Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign and the NAACP also fell for the trap and condemned her and called her racist. Of course if anyone would have bothered to watch the entire, unedited, video they would have seen that Sherrod was telling a story of how, in helping a white farmer save his land, she overcame her own racial prejudice.

Afterwards Britbart went onto Hannity and CNN and confessed that the video wasn?t about Sherrod?s comments at the dinner but it was all about the NAACP?s resolution about Tea Party Racism.

Frankly the whole Tea Party vs. the NAACP and racism stories, just seem to have an air of kindergarten name calling to me. Ever since Obama won the Iowa Caucuses in January 2008 the undercurrent of race that has always existed in America seems to have risen to a boil once again.

There is a tinge of it in almost every discussion about the Administration?s policies and efforts regardless of if it?s dealing with the Great Recession or the BP Oil Spill. It?s brought up every time Orly Taitz and the birther movement get in front of a microphone. It?s brought up every time Megyn Kelly of Fox News airs her obsession with a couple of members of the New Black Panther Party standing out side of a voting place in a predominately African-American neighborhood in Philadelphia. It’s pounded into the heads of every viewer that tunes into the lunacy of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or Jeremiah Wright.

The Civil War ended 145 years ago but racism still infests our political discourse like a plague that we just can?t ever seem to kill. In the 60?s there was real animus towards African-Americans. Now, in the 21st century, It seems that labeling your political opponents as racists has become the new, cool kid, big man on the playground thing to do, just as last summer it was yelling and screaming at town hall meetings.

Yes, there are racist elements with in the Tea Party and the the movement’s leaders really need to stand up vocally and publicly call it out and put an end to it, just as the NAACP needs to do the same to it?s own ranks.

And by the way, we shouldn?t forget that a woman’s life has been ripped apart in order to make a political point. Kudos Mr. Britbart, I’m sure that you won?t care.

Well, there shows the damage they want to do to the institution. If marriage can?t look equally at the interests of all involved in the practice of human mating, then you tell me what can.

Prehistoric humans didn?t marry before they mated, they just found a bush did it. When you look at the whole of human history, marriage is a relatively new creation, only being a few thousand years old. Our very existence proves that marriage is not a requirement or an essential element of the human mating process.

My mother and step-father married well after I was born and I suspect that if you asked them if they were planning on ever having children again they would both laugh you out of the house.

The debate with On Lawn, and also with Chairm, has continued on, evolving and shifting back and forth as most debates do. I?ve actually learned a lot and have found a lot of new resources while researching various parts of the debate.

For example?

The legal definition of marriage in the state of Iowa per civil code 595.1a is?

Marriage is a civil contract, requiring the consent of the parties capable of entering into other contracts, except as herein otherwise declared.

There is no specification of gender or sexual orientation in the state definition. There is also no implication that procreation or even the potential for procreation be necessary, of which On Lawn and Chairm both continue to argue that it does. I attempted to point this out to On Lawn in a recent comment.

On Lawn?s reply was?

Thats because Blacks Law dictionary took care of the reference?

I?m not sure if On Lawn realized that, according to Slate, in 2004 Black?s Law Dictionary added same-sex marriage to it?s definition of marriage. Just as the American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary did in 2000.

Now, granted, in 1999 the Iowa Legislature passed a bill which added to code 595.2 to the state laws surrounding marriage.

Only a marriage between a male and a female is valid.

It was this part of the state law that the Iowa Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional under the equal protections clause of the state constitution. Both On Lawn and Chairm seem to brush off the Supreme Court decision that made 595.2.1 null and void as if it has no legal foundation, and that it was nothing more than the misguided opinion of some folks in black robes.

The Iowa State Constitution specifically states in Article I section 6?

All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.

I can only surmise that they believe that 595.2.1 could be applied equally to all Iowa citizens, but in reality it did not. The law prevented same-sex couples from enjoying the benefits of civil marriage. The law could not be equally applied to both Heterosexual individuals and Homosexual individuals, because under that law the only way a homosexual individual could get married is if they married someone of the opposite sex. To someone who is homosexual, marrying or even having a relationship with someone of the opposite sex is just as absurd as having a relationship or marrying someone of the same sex is to someone that is heterosexual.

I won?t deny that some homosexual people have been able to deny themselves their true identity and form a relationship with someone of the opposite sex in order to be acceptable to the social ?norm?.? There is nothing however that makes that right. That would be like the government telling everyone that had blue eyes that they have to wear contacts to make their eyes green if they want to be treated equally under the law. If the person wants to do that then so be it, but no one, and not the government has the right to say you have to be this way or that if you want equal treatment. That?s what the whole civil rights fight was about in the 60?s. African Americans were told that sure you can have equal rights but only if you do this or that and they couldn?t mix with Whites. I wonder how Michael Jackson would have been treated by the Jim Crow laws of the 60?s. He has basically gone from being Black to White. Sure he is still an African American but if you knew nothing about him and saw him on the street you would hard pressed to make the connection.

The bottom line is, that laws of the states and of the United States are constitutionally required to treat everyone the same regardless of their genetic traits. States that have no constitutional amendment or state statue baring marriage of same-sex couples do treat everyone equally by the book. However when same-sex couples attempt to put that into practice they find themselves bumping up against the social ?norm? which means that they have no choice but to resort to the courts to get the laws enforced as they are written. The mater gets worse when states permit constitutional amendments or state statues to be passed that are designed to specifically bar same-sex couples from enjoying the same happiness and benefits of heterosexual couples.

Side Note: I am working on an Essay detailing the History of Marriage. It?s not much more than an outline at the moment as I am doing a lot of reading and research for it. Also, if you want to read more about On Lawn and Chairm?s side of the argument they both contribute to a blog called The Opine Editorials. While I respectfully disagree with just about everything they write, the posts and discussions certainly give an in depth look at one of the many views of same-sex marriage.

Last but not least, I think it?s important to note a new lawsuit that has just started moving through the court system. Gill et al v. Office of Personnel Management. The case is in essence a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. However it does so in a unique way. It basically claims that the Federal Government, by not recognizing same-sex marriages, is infringing on the right of states to grant such marriages. It?s not asking the fed to make same-sex marriages legal nationwide. It is simply stating that the fed should be required to recognize same-sex marriages from states where such marriages are legal. It will be a fairly interesting case, as it has been the tendency of the US Supreme Court to put family law, of which marriage is a part of, in the sole purview of states rights. DOMA in effect attempts to put marriage under a federal definition which goes against states rights.

Today the GOP put out a Budget Alternative, or at least a blue-print for one. Maybe it?s a rough draft?

After the break is video from Fox News as posted on the Daily KOS.

The President?s 142 page budget blue-print, contains very detailed information divided by each Government Department. Under the section for the Department of Agriculture for instance. It starts out with a 9 point summary and then goes into detail on various programs within that department such as?

Protects the Nation?s forests. The Budget reflects the President?s commitment to protecting and restoring our national forests as a cornerstone of a healthy, sustainable environment. The Budget provides a $50 million increase (plus inflation) for national forest operations to protect natural resources and maintain facilities, including those that are restored with 2009 American recovery and reinvestment Act investments.
Responsibly Budgets for Wildfires. The Budget fully funds the 10-year average suppression costs, establishes a discretionary funding reserve, and ensures fire management resources are used in a cost-effective manner
in high-priority areas. The $282 million discretionary contingent reserve provides funding for firefighting when the $1.1 billion appropriated 10-year average is exhausted. This proposal will ensure that fire management resources are sufficient to allow for other critical Forest Service activities.

One of the first things that jumps out at me from from the GOP?s 19 page document, is the numerous misuses of the term ?Democrat?.

By any reasonable definition, the Democrat budget spends too much.

The popper term there would have been ?Democratic.? But that is a fairly minor thing and now that I?ve gotten it off my chest I?ll leave it alone.

The GOP also uses about 75% of their 19 pages attacking the Democratic budget proposal, and another 2 pages for the pretty blue front and back covers. Now I know what your saying, the President also used 2 pages of his 142 for a front and back cover.

In the brief section on healthcare the GOP makes this statement.

With regard to entitlements, Republicans support the notion that wealthy seniors like Warren Buffett and George Soros can afford to pay $2 per day more for their Medicare prescription drug coverage.

Hello? why is Warren Buffett and George Soros allowed to be part of the Medicare prescription drug program anyhow? You can?t tell me that Buffett?s $62 Billion net worth can?t afford the $4.00 generic bottles of prescription drugs at Wal-Mart or Target like the rest of us have to do.

The next section which is called, creates jobs & lowers taxes, doesn?t seem to include any information about creating jobs except for this small section.

Republicans also propose a new tax deduction that allows businesses with less than 500 employees to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income, ensuring that these engines of growth will continue to fuel our economic recovery and companies can compete with their foreign counterparts, while keeping jobs here at home.

The rest of the section rails against the proposed cap and trade system that is meant to create incentives for utility companies to reduce carbon emissions and from screwing up the environment. Now it is true that the program will increase costs to utilities that will probably be passed on to the rest of us. So the choice seems to be, pay a higher utility bill, or let the utility companies continue to kill the planet.

And of course we can’t forget this gem…

Republicans propose a simple and fair tax code with a marginal tax rate for income up to $100,000 of 10 percent and 25 percent for any income thereafter

So I get about a 4.6% tax break in my pre-deduction tax bracket of $35,150, everyone over $164,000 gets an 8% tax cut and everyone over $354,000 get a 10% tax cut.

(Sarcasm Alert) That seems fair. (End sarcasm alert).

The GOP also uses this section to address our addiction to foreign oil. So what is the GOP?s solution?

Republicans realize that there are better solutions to restore freedom and security in our energy market. Republicans recognize the importance of exploring for American oil and gas in an environmentally-sound manner and support immediately leasing oil and gas resources in the OCS through an expedited and streamlined procedure.

OFF SHORE DRILLING!!! WOO HOO. The next time I want to slap my fat ass down on a California beach wearing a criminally small swim suit, I?ll get a beautiful view of? OIL RIGS. Ok, ok, I know, they won?t actually be directly in view from the beach, but seriously. If we are going to get this nation to break it?s addiction to foreign oil, we have to break our addiction to oil, period.

Look, I understand people, including myself, have been ribbing the GOP for being the party of ?No Solutions.? But just a small word of advise from an average ?Liberal? American. If your going to have a big press conference to put out your alternative ?budget? proposal, shouldn?t it have at least a few details? Even Fox News is asking the question, ?Where?s the budget Beef??

By the way, Thank you Keith Olbermann for the “Fudget” idea.

We have fought wars against almost every major European power, including ones who are now our allies, such as Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, as well as nations that are still not so friendly such as Russia.

America?s conflicts 1798 to 2004

We are currently fighting in two hot wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is also a proxy war with Iran, as it has been proven that they have sent supplies and provided training to some Iraqi insurgent groups. It also appears that we have recently shot down an Iranian UAV over Iraq. We are also technically still at war with North Korea, the armistice that was signed in 1953 being merely a cessation of hostilities and not a full fledged peace treaty. The US also has peacekeepers in many nations, including Bosnia and Kosovo.

With the war in Iraq appearing to have an end finally in sight, even though Afghanistan appears to be falling apart, and a proxy war brewing in Pakistan, many American?s are wondering where we might end up next. Will we ever see true peace?

Some figure the next war will be in Darfur where the Sudanese government has been leading a campaign of genocide for years, while the western nations had the attention on the middle east. Others figure we will be dragged into a shooting war with ground forces in Pakistan in conjunction with the continuing campaign in Afghanistan. We all ready have advisers there and have used Predator drones to attack targets inside the tribal areas. Pakistan is considered to be the number one nation in the world susceptible to sudden collapse of the current government, and they have a nuclear arsenal that while currently is targeted at India, who they have fought many wars with over Kashmir, could be used in terrorist attacks if placed under the control of Al-Qaida.

However, our next war could be a lot closer to home. I?m not talking about Glen Beck?s wet dreams of a second American Civil War, or Stephen Colbert?s Doom Bunker. I am talking about Mexico. According to the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) report put out by the Department of Defense?

In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

?

The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.

War between the United States and Mexico is not new, It happened in the 1840?s and in the early 1900?s. In this scenario we are not necessarily fighting against the Mexican government, but we become embroiled into the growing war that President Felipe Calder?n has been waging against the drug cartels.

Since January 2008, more than 8000 people have been killed, police, solders, and government officials and their families among them. In the city of Ju?rez, just across the boarder from El Paso, Mayor, Jose Reyes Ferriz had to move his family into El Paso after gangs threatened to kill him and the family. But that might not stop them as the gangs have vowed to kill the family even if they are in the US. It is believed that the Mexican gangs and drug cartels have a dominating presence in as many as 230 major cities in the US, stretching as far as Anchorage, Alaska. Warnings have been issued by the state department to tourists, which bites into the valuable spring break tourism that Mexico enjoys.

In the US, we have the Posse Comitatus Act and the Constitution that significantly limits the use of Military forces on US soil for any purpose. In Mexico that limitation does not exist, so the Mexican military has been heavily involved in the conflict with the cartels and gangs. They recently even were able to arrest Vicente Zambada who allegedly is a top member of the Sinaloa cartel.

If Mexican officials can’t get the cartels under control, and/or the cartels start taking out senior government officials, Mexico could find itself on the fast track to collapse. Sharing a boarder with a failed nation would be totally unacceptable to US authority, and would be a serious breach in national security. We would be left with no choice but to act and most likely militarily. Would a fight like this stay within Mexican boarders? Probably not. If the gangs and cartels all ready have the hold over US cities and US gangs, the fighting could become domestic overnight, as gangs turn into armed bands bent on preserving the drug trade.

Related Stories from around the net.

MSNBC:

Lawmaker challenges border security priorities

In Mexico’s drug wars, fears of a U.S. front

Mexico’s fierce drug war looms large for U.S.

U.S. guns arming Mexican drug traffickers

Mexico captures high-level cartel member

Newsweek:

The Age of Innocents

Fox:

Police Find 9 Bodies Partially Buried on Outskirts of Mexican Border City

Hundreds Arrested in Cross-Country Campaign Against Drug Cartel

Mexican Drug Cartels Armed to the Hilt, Threatening National Security

Cross posted on The Pajama Pundit

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?the greatest threat to America?

Everyone that tries to tell me that being a homosexual is wrong is relying on one thing, their religious beliefs. It seems to be nearly impossible to divorce any discussion about the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality from religion, because when you do, the people against it have nothing to base their argument on, and any good debater will tell you that you don?t win a debate by bringing God into it because it?s a cop out. God is all mighty, he can do anything, so any argument against that is moot. It comes down to biblical passages written by men who were ?under the influence of God? and ?can?t be wrong?. Can someone name me one living human being that isn?t ever wrong about something? How about naming one human being that isn?t living that was never been wrong about something, and yes I know that the first answer to that question is going to be Jesus Christ, but then in John 10:30 Jesus says?

I and my Father are one.

Does that mean that Jesus wasn?t human after all?

Some say that being gay is a mental illness, even though the American Psychological Association removed it from their list of mental illnesses in the 1970?s

Is homosexuality a mental disorder?

No, lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations are not disorders. Research has found no inherent association between any of these sexual orientations and psychopathology. Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of human sexuality. Both have been documented in many different cultures and historical eras. Despite the persistence of stereotypes that portray lesbian, gay, and bisexual people as disturbed, several decades of research and clinical experience have led all mainstream medical and mental health organizations in this country to conclude that these orientations represent normal forms of human experience. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual relationships are normal forms of human bonding. Therefore, these mainstream organizations long ago abandoned classifications of homosexuality as a mental disorder.

But as late as 2006, the Pentagon still deemed it as such.

Some believe that the ?Homosexual agenda? is out to destroy the family. I have no such desire and I believe that the biggest threat to the family is poverty, infidelity, and divorce. In fact, I simply want to build my own family, to live out my life with the person I love. Yes I want all the local, state, and federal benefits that marriage brings to a family, but yet I?m supposedly not allowed to because I?m gay. Where in the constitution does it say that all men are created equal? except the gays of course.

In Act 1 Scene 3 of the Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare writes a chilling paragraph about the Jews that became even more poignant during the dark days of World War II.

Shylock:
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that

Those words from nearly 413 years ago could ring true today about any minority.

-David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star

Yes, like every other aspect of human culture, there are extremes. People who cross the line from calling for equality into violence. My sense of morality tells me that is wrong, and makes me choose to not participate in that. But it does not prevent me from speaking my mind in peaceful protest when I feel wronged by people who seem bent on turning America, the melting pot of the world, with all it?s diverseness in culture and religion, into a theocracy that preaches intolerance and hate.

The Rev Peter Mullen, chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, called for homosexuals to be tattooed with warnings about the perils of gay sex in a cigarette-packet-style health warning.

In my own personal experience, the realization that I was gay forced me to painfully examine not only my morality but my spirituality, and it all happened to me while I was in the worst place for it to occur, while serving in the United States Air Force.

For a time I abandoned both my morality and spirituality. Not to indulge in the?

?sexual perversion.

But to attempt to suppress the very nature of who I was, to fit in with my surroundings. I drowned my mind with vodka, and dated women. When my barracks roommate expressed to me that he thought I was hiding being gay and he was going to turn me in to the squadron commander, I went so far into the lie that I proposed to the girl I was seeing. In the early 90?s you could still be discharged for simply being gay, if it became known. After 11 months my marriage, and my military career came to an end, as my now ex-wife spent us into financial ruin and I drank myself into no where. Even after leaving Alaska and returning home to Iowa, I tried to deny who I really was until I ran into an old friend. We hung out together off and on and then one night he came out to me, not only about being gay, but that he had serious feelings for me. We became a couple that night, and have been together ever since (going on 11 years). He helped bring me back to my morality.

I do have moral values. I do believe in God. I believe in the value of family. I believe that war in any form is wrong, and that war in the name of any religious belief, whether it be the Jihadists of the Islamic world, the crusades of the middle ages, or the war of ?regime change? in Iraq, are among the greatest sins. I believe that God would be angry at the way his name has been used over the centuries to foster hate, intolerance, and persecution. That isn?t what God is about. My morality tells me that God is about love, tolerance, and embracing the world in such a way that you leave it better than you entered it. My morality is stronger than ever and I’m proud to be who I am.

BILL PRESS:? Alright, well good for you. You know, we gotta work on that, because they are just shutting down progressive talk from one city after another. All we want is, you know, some balance on the airwaves, that’s all. You know, we’re not going to take any of the conservative voices off the airwaves, but just make sure that there are a few progressives and liberals out there, right?

SENATOR TOM HARKIN (D-IA): Exactly, and that’s why we need the fair — that’s why we need the Fairness Doctrine back.

As B-Diddy has pointed out before, there is definitely a core group of Democrats that seem to interested in bringing the Fairness Doctrine back in some form or another. Fortunately, Obama has gone on the record against it and as Michael Calderone points out on Politico?

It seems that a lot of Democrats talk up the issue, but then there isn’t any legislation that follows.

Just to be safe though, when I get home from work tonight I will be writing a nice long letter to Senator Harkin letting him know that this Iowan is no where near close to supporting a legislative move that I feel is tantamount to censorship, regardless of how much I would love to see King Limbaugh or Bill O? be taken off the air. Radio talk shows and TV Political commentary shows are balanced by their ratings and advertising dollars. The government has no place in dictating fairness against broadcasters any more than it has with saying I can?t get married.

Cross posted on The Pajama Pundit

In 1889 Nellie Bly actually succeeded in making the trip and did it in just 72 days.

Today the Space Shuttle can make the trip in about 90 minuets.

A new plasma based rocket engine system, named Vasimr, has just recently been approved for testing on the ISS in 2012. The new engine could make it possible to travel to Mars in as little as 39 days, making around trip voyage of less than 80 days.

could we finally be on the Brink.

Nasa Web Site