DKStories

It's painful to see these stories and to know that something could have been done. I am also grateful that we live in a school district and our kids attend a school that takes bullying of any form very seriously. What is even better is how they work to create a positive environment that doesn't automatically just punish the bully but rather tries to work through the problems on all sides. In other words, ALL of the students are important.

the main difference between this group and many other religious sects is that they are just more honest and upfront...

I need catchers! What is it with kids these days? None of them want to catch...although shortstops that can actually understand when to cover 2nd come a close 2nd. :)

I never made it past the first night of a cub scout meeting when they tried to make me take an oath that included "God" in it. Kind of embarrassing for the Pastor that his son refused to swear to God, but I always held the belief that if God is truly omnipotent, he already knew my intentions. Now, as a manager for a little league team and a board member of the local little league I often have to stand on the basepaths and recite the little league pledge which starts with "I trust in God". I don't recite that line of the pledge - and yes people notice it big time. Half my team stopped repeating it by the last game of all-stars - but they weren't kicked off the team, removed from the league or ineligible to play the game. Some organizations have a little more respect for their members than others. No, I don't think little league should remove that first line of the little league pledge - it's an important part to many members and has historical, intrinsic value to the organization. Nor do I think they should kick out people who don't recite the line. In fact I like the approach they take, leaving it up to the individual to choose to recite that part, but everyone is up there standing on the basepath. It's a compromise that respects diversity while supporting sportsmanship and teamwork. Oh, and yes, my local little league does include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy. The boy scouts should take a lesson from little league baseball on this subject.

-deleted big long post about how this idiot made multiple wrong choices lowering his body count and the dangers of living in a country with such lax gun laws that can turn any place in its borders into a shooting range, I'll just say this: Guns don't kill people - people WITH guns kill people.

I've chosen to never eat there since I first heard about the social beliefs of its founder - just like we've finally managed to find a brand of toilet paper we like that isn't made by the Koch brothers. Sometimes it really is a pain in the butt to be picky with the wallet when it comes to supporting/opposing stances on social issues - but it is worth it in the long run. Just look at Coors. I still remember going into a gay bar and asking for a Coors and being lectured by the bartender one why I would NOT find Coors in any self-respecting gay bar. Now Coors is one of the most pro-gay companies and their beer is sold in gay bars everywhere. Meanwhile you see occasional stories of small bars in places like Idaho refusing to carry Coors products because it violates their christian values - but for some reason those things don't bother Coors the way the gay boycott did...

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/05/maryland-polling-memo.html PPP has issued a new poll in the state of Maryland. Last March they showed support for keeping same-sex marriage leading opposition 52-44. Their new poll shows support for marriage equality has now shifted 57% to 37%. Yes, that's nearly opposite of the final vote that took place over Amendment 1 in North Carolina. What's the difference? SInce the March Poll, national leaders like Joe Biden, Arnie Duncan, and Barack Obama have voiced their support for marriage equality. President Obama's change in tune was mostly symbolic because it did not change any legislation or executive order. The direct result of his symbolic change can be seen in this Maryland poll Maryland is poised to become the first of 33 states to publicly vote in FAVOR of allowing gay people to marry. It might do so in a stunning margin the likes of which have only been seen in conservative areas voting against us. Remember this the next time you hear symbolism doesn't matter. (While the impact in North Carolina would likely not have been enough to change the outcome of the vote, it would likely have been a much closer vote. Even in 2008 California his support wouldn't have been enough to defeat Prop 8, although it likely would have made it a 50.3% to 49.7% vote instead of 52-48. There are just too many white Christians voting against same-sex marrage in the end.)

Texas is one of those states I wish WOULD leave the union. We'd be a better nation without them.

I'd say it's refreshing to see the hate and anger up front and honest instead of closeted and hidden like it is with most people similar to this man.

There is a real problem with a lack of support from strongly religious black congregations when it comes to gay marriage. Just like there is a really big problem with lack of support for gay marriage from the white, or the hispanic religious community. Conservative religious institutions, no matter the race, have a big problem with not only gay marriage, but the existence of gay people, period. More secular black leadership, like President Obama, like rapper Jay-Z and many others are making some inroads in their communities but that isn't enough - it has to change in all communities. If you think it's just about the word 'marriage' though, I urge you to open your eyes and get real. Take a look at what's happened in Colorado this week - where Civil Unions were discarded because they gave all the rights of marriage, just used a different name. That was too much for that state's conservatives who felt gay people should not have rights that were given to straight couples. This has happened in many other states recently as well - where they are revealing that the problem isn't about what you call it, the problem is that they don't want gays to have any of these rights. We have to stop giving in to the false boundaries our opponents want to use. Their end goal is to get rid of gay couple by pushing us out of the mainstream and back into closets or to camps where we can learn to be straight or at least celibate. The underlying message they push and don't want to be called on is that they believe it is NOT okay to be gay and gays must be forced to live their lives as straight. That is the end game for them. They'll do anything they can to mask it, but it shows up loud and clear at times. As for the current President, I challenge anyone to show that any previous US President, or all previous US Presidents combined has done as much to help gay people as he has since he took office. Still, that's not enough and he needs to be pushed to keep on doing more. Employment protection is actually higher on my list than marriage since he's already moved strongly against DOMA and that's the most appropriate avenue for federal action. Failing that he needs to keep doing what he did when he stated his support for gay marriage - speak up and be counted.

I'll take your cynical blather and counter with one incontrovertible fact: As President, Barack Obama has done more to protect, encourage, and help gay people than all of the other Presidents before him in the history of the United States. His announcement this last week tops off a history of putting gay rights at the front of his administration's goals. Has he been perfect? Oh hell no, but the fact remains he has done more for the gay community than all the Presidents who came before him. Here's a neat timeline: https://s3.amazonaws...a_wlm6b5ril.pdf His campaign website has an exhaustive list as well: http://www.barackoba...accomplishments Meanwhile Mitt Romney is firmly against not only gay marriage, but civil unions as well. http://content.usato...barack-obama-/1 (By his definition of rights equivalent ot marriage in all but name, he means domestic partner rights here in California and elsewhere. So it's okay to be able to visit your loved one in the hospital, but you can't inherit their property by law when they die.) I know that may not be enough for some people, but then there are some people that will never vote for him because he's black, or he's a moderate. What can never be changed though is that for the first time ever, a sitting President of the United States of America has said publicly that I should be allowed to marry the man I love, the man I have lived with for seven years, and with whom I raise two kids. Worse, in the eyes of some, he has affirmed yet again that yes, it is okay to be gay.

I know you're in England, but comments like that about a US Presidential candidate aren't smart and can get a visit from authorities on behalf of the Secret Service. Action words such as 'shot' should never be used in regards to a sitting president or presidential candidate - even if you're just talking about fecal matter. Let's see, we have a sitting President running for President who today says gay people should be allowed to marry. His opponent says he might not be opposed to hospital visitation rights but opposes civil unions that are marriage in all but name, and he opposes marriage period for gay people (unless they're ex-gays marrying a person of the opposite gender). There are conservative gays who will tell us we should be happy with Mitt Romney for his willingness to let us visit each other in a hospital.

OSC is a board member of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) who helped pass Prop 8 and the Maine Prop to stop gay marriage. It's the same organization Mitt Romney funneled $50,000 to back in 2008. By this time it should be no surprise he's written this article. Sometimes we just have to walk away from people we respected. I've not picked up one of his books since 2008 and won't do it again, nor attend his movies. It's for the same reasons why I don't go to Wal-Mart, non-union hotels, or any number of other businesses. I gotta eat, sleep, and get things but I almost never have to go to one of those places or support businesses that work against my best interests (okay, I recently had to go to Wal-Mart but it was only after having checked every other business in the area for a specific item that Wal-Mart had and I could not get locally nor could I wait a day to get in the mail. It was the first time since early 2005 that I went to Wal-Mart).

Thanks to the fact that we're raising my niece and nephew, we now live in suburbian - and are enjoying the heck out of it. My husband is running for the HOA board, we're both members of the PTA, and I'm not only a Manager for a little league team, I'm also on the League's Board of Directors. It's fun and we're always busy. For the most part our sexuality isn't an issue. We don't throw it in people's faces but we don't hide it either. Some of the parents are very conservative, others less so. Only one parent has even given a hint of a problem about the whole 'gay' thing and all he did was pull his kid from the team. Unlike the boy scouts though, I don't have to hide anything or worry about being removed from my position because of my sexuality. THIS little league has sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy, making it abundantly clear that kicking someone out because they are gay, or straight for that matter, is not an option. Nor will the league reassign a player to another team because a parent has a problem with my sexuality. The parent can either let their kid play on the team he was assigned to, or they can pull their kid. What they care about is if I can do the job I volunteered to do and whether I can be a good coach or if I'm not a good coach. Since I have kids from other teams begging to play on my team or get drafted to my team for next year, more kids committing to fall ball than ever before, I think I've done a good job. That's what matters to the league, and it's all that should matter. Yet, you better believe that if there wasn't a policy in place stating explicitly that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not allowed, there would be more problems from the more conservative elements. The policy tells all of us we have to get along. It works for more than being gay, too. We have a kid on our team who is Mormon and some of the kids were ganking on that religion. I shut them down and told them that was wrong and could get them removed from the team. When the Mormon kid had to miss a game because of religious activities, he got the exact same response from me that the kids missing a game for a track meet got. "Make sure you have a good enough time that it's worth missing a day of baseball." While I might have that reaction naturally because I believe in equality and nondiscrimination as a guiding principle of my life, it's good knowing the League's policies protect this player as well as protecting me. Proper nondiscrimination policies protect people when there is a history of discrimination based on characteristics of people. For legal purposes the term 'class' or 'group' is often used, but in the end it boils down to the individual discriminating and the individual being discriminated against. Religion, race, gender, age, physical ability, and sexual orientation are the most common characteristics used in discrimination. It's been this way for thousands of years, but hopefully, bit by bit it won't be this way forever. As a society based on laws, it is through our laws that we can make the biggest changes through the ages. Look at interracial marriage as an example. Around sixty years ago, it was illegal in most places throughout the nation. One court decision forcing the states to change their laws changed that. Nowadays instead of 90% of the people saying it is wrong, you have a super-majority saying there's nothing wrong with interracial marriages. Interracial couples are becoming more common, now making up more than 10% of the population of married couples in total. This change didn't happen because people mounted a publicity campaign or because they went door to door asking people to change their minds. Nor did it change because they just went about living their lives. Public opinion changed because the LAW was changed. Some might see laws like the one that was the topic creator's post as being unnecessary, but they are more than necessary. They are vital to changing the public opinion and to making this nation a place where gay people can go live their lives without worrying about all this crap. It is through laws like this that enforce the notion that yes, it is okay to be gay.

Parents are the answer. No wait, parents are the problem when we find the starved body of child in a ditch where the parents dumped it a year ago. Oh, wait, maybe the problem is that humans are humans and flawed by their very nature. Sometimes it is the teacher that will be the problem, the priest, the politician, or the parent in the home. We have to strive to the best human beings we can be, each and every one of us, each and every day. Instead of looking for who to blame how about looking to improve and make things better so we can find and eliminate these problems quicker? This parent took a step to finding out what the problem was so he could deal with the issue at hand. His example is a solution that others might find works - or find themselves in prison for doing it because it is illegal in their state. The second link about the cyber-bullying is a good example of doing the best you can to fight back - but it also shows the weaknesses of the system and the problems of a legal society.

I would like to point out that the need to pass laws like these is as old as history of laws themselves. Human nature is such that in any gathering of people you will have those who use deception, strength, force, or guile to have their way and control others. The use of laws to limit such tactics has been common for millenia, but never so frequent as it is today. Look at the founding of this country - it took an armed revolution to implement the idea that the government cannot force you to quarter soldiers in your home, feeding them out of your own pocketbook (add a long list of all the items in the Declaration of Independence and more here). Looking at your suggestion there appears to be no real difference other than wording changes to appeal to your sensibilities. Whether worded your way or the way of the current and proposed laws, the goal is the same - to stop people from harming others. Whether you say protection laws or intolerance laws, they serve essentially the same purpose and are just more semantic games.

I live in a relatively new California subdivision of the state capitol. This area happens to be one of the most racially integrated areas in the entire state. There are no majority populations - only minority and we have a broad cross-section of African-American, Latino, Asian, Caucausian, European, Eastern European, Indian, Arab, Filipino, well you name it we have it in this area. Our income spread runs from the lower middle-class to the upper middle class with gated communities and man-made lakes. There are a couple of gangs, and even in the 'best' schools you have a variety of problems that crop up. Our kids attend a K-8 school and we've had problems with bullying, and we've had problems with a borderline autistic kid grabbing the breasts of our girl. Every single time, the school staff has handled the situations fairly well. The weakest link has proven to be the yard-duty staff. The strongest link has been the administration of the school. On tight budgets and with minimal support they've handled these situations with tact and care - never resorting to corporeal punishment or 'easy' solutions. If their first attempt at correction doesn't work, they escalate the case. Warnings become detentions, then they move to suspension, and they move to expulsion when it's necessary. The mildly autistic boy who grabbed our girl's breasts? He was pulled from school for two days while his parents and therapists worked with him on understanding why what he did was wrong. When he was capable of understanding, he was moved back into the classroom. Before he came back, school staff sat down with our girl and discussed things with her and what she should do if the boy behaved badly again. Since then there haven't been problems between them - because the school took the time to manage the situation and approach it from an avenue that met the needs of BOTH students. Now they're able to do it because our community was planned to have a large number of smaller schools that could handle these situations better. We pay for it with property taxes, but that's money well-spent in my mind. In the end there is only one solution for the problems we face in school - and that's spending the money and the time necessary for adults to interact and work with the kids that will one day take our place. We, as a nation, do not spend the time nor the money to make this happen. What use is making all the money in the world when we leave the world to kids who are uncivilized brutes because we never spent time with them? Since becoming parents my husband and I have spent at least 2-3 hours each night directly interacting with the kids, dealing with homework, taking them to sports, really talking to them and getting into what's going on in their lives. We still have problems with them (like a certain young man only getting B's with one C instead of A's and B's), and we have to accept that I will have fewer clients and less income while spending more time with the kids - but it's a good tradeoff. They may never be the next President of the United States or Babe Ruth, but whatever they are I'm fairly confident they will be decent adults and human beings. It takes time, OUR time to raise kids right and until we approach these problems and issues ready to make the investment of our time, our schools and society will only continue to erode.

He was on tonight with James Dobson of the hugely anti-gay Focus on the Family discussing family values right after 'suspending' his campaign. Go figure

You might have seen these already - but so many of them made me laugh I have to share: http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/ my favorite is:

More news on the NOM front: http://www.huffingto..._n_1391867.html Not only did Mitt Romney support Prop 8, he gave $10,000 to one of the main organizations fighting to support that ballot measure - the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). As we've seen in above posts and links, these people are not all that nice. Edit to add: When he made the donation, he laundered it through the PAC "Free and Strong America" in an attempt to hide the fact that he gave the money to NOM.

Tonight I got to go see a wonderful musical workshop video. The play is in production to start performance at San Diego's Old Globe theater in September and October. After that it's off to broadway in NY. If you have a chance, go see it - the subject matter is something to remember about our history and has echoes that come through today. http://www.allegiancemusical.com/ http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=3252141274890&set=t.1607780615&type=1&theater

Cole, There's a poll for that...http://www.gallup.com/poll/114022/state-states-importance-religion.aspx Being a person that works in politics as a campaign consultant, I read polls and help conduct them like mad. (In fact before writing this post I just finished sendin a file off to be matched to phone files from list sellers in preparation for doing a poll in Utah). From this poll we see 65% of Americans saying religion is an important part of their lives - that's a lot. While there is a lot of correlation between the map further down showing levels of 'religosity' of various and maps of conservative areas they are not totally compatible. Some states like Nevada and Idaho have very low levels of religious participation but tend to lean conservative thanks to a heavy presence libertarian-leaning people who tend to not be religious. (Never forget Ayn Rand was an atheist).

There are dozens of theologians like you describe Brit. Very few actually listen to them and the vast majority of american population don't want to hear what they have to say. Some do listen to them, and one of them made decent progress with Jerry Falwell towards the end of that man's life, but it never really changed anything. For some reason people don't like liberals telling them what the bible means, only conservatives. Edit to add: Reading over the above, it sounded a lot more dismissive than I intended. Gay friendly clergy provide a place of safety, good guidance, love, and acceptance for gay people of faith. Their impact outside of our community is far less than what we could all wish it would be.

This video of George Zimmerman arriving at the police station on the night of the shooting has now been released. http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/george-zimmerman-police-surveillance-16024475 Remember, he claimed Trayvon Martin attacked him, slamming his head on the sidewalk, breaking his nose. Does this man look like he was just beaten severely with blood flowing from his nose and the back of his head? Every time I've seen the video so far, I've grown more ashamed that this is the country I live in. The fact that his father is retired judge only makes this even more reprehensible.

I came across this site today: http://louisjmarinelli.com/posts/nom-strategy-docs-release Louis Marinelli is every campaign/organization's nightmare: trusted employee/volunteer turns and reveals what they know. Honest campaigns get mostly embarrassing crap aired publicly, but what this guy is revealing is devastating to NOM in that it shows their true agenda and backs up everything else that is becoming public. When people talk about groups like NOM as being 'pro-traditional values' and 'not really anti-gay', remember all the stuff that has come out - the true agenda is coming through loud and clear.