F6 EDITOR'S STATEMENT: We In The Gay Community Need To Put The Brakes On Prop 8! By Lifting Up The Symbol Of Our Suffering, We Will Be Made Whole!

The decision came down from on high, and copied the actions of Hitler in 1935.
"Everything is fine!" they cry, for those who tried; but for the rest, all is denied.

One of the things that we as GLBTIQAS Americans can do to show our solidarity with the Californian members of our PRIDE is to no longer allow intolerance to hide behind our patience! I am asking everyone who reads this blog to place two blue dots vertical to one another on their left brake light to form the outline of the number 8. Every time you stop your car or slow down to change directions people will see the sign of our suffering (Number 21:4-9) and know that you are driving for equality and one day we will be able to love, our children will be free, and our families made whole!

I would also ask those whom are in States where the blue light dots are illegal or highly regulated to find some other form of a metallic or reflective but transparent number 8 sticker (typically at your local Truck Stop or Travelers Center or Hardware Store) and place it on your left brake lamp lens so that you may participate in this silent but visible protest as well. Please remember that in either case (the blue dots or the number sticker), you don't want to obstruct the use of your brake lamps, you want the light to reflect around through the holes in the middle to brighten up the number 8 so that people will see it clearly as you cut them off in traffic. Let us bring awareness of the full effects of intolerance running around this to the Country in the name of patriotism, rather than what it is - religious bias, that doesn't belong in Civil Unions in the first place.

The following collaboration video by Matthew Brown is a response to the Religious Right Wing nuts.
However I must warn you that the speech and some footage could be considered Not Safe For Work.


PHOTO CREDIT
[GAY KISS PARADISE] c/o [BEST GAY BLOGS]

YOU TUBE VIDEOS
[DEREK ANTHONY] [MATTHEW BROWN]

PUT THE BRAKES ON PROP 8!
The poem is still in process of being written. However the first two lines reference to the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 Germany. Jews married to Germans could stay married but no new marriages between the two people groups were permitted after that.
Hat/tip: James Heller-Jackson @geekjames for the reminder and verification of similar thought process.
::POEM AND CAMPAIGN::
PUT THE BRAKES ON PROP 8! is the intellectual property of MRev. Kenneth White, Jnr.
It may be used freely with privilege reserved if credit for the text and idea is returned justly.

REFERENCE: The last F6 post regarding abortion and gay rights as toward the end it explains civil unions and gay marriage in a historical legal and religious context of colonial America and is well worth the refresher.

NUMBERS 21:4-9: Lift Up The Suffering Symbol, Look Upon It, And Be Made Whole!
NEW AMERICAN BIBLE c/o The United States Conference Of Roman Catholic Bishops

All The Arguements Regarding Abortion & Gay Rights Revolve Around The Same Issues & Leaves Us With One Query: What Qualifies As "Fair Minded" Speech?

Over the last several weeks abortion and gay rights have been at the forefront of the American discourse and political angst. It culminated last week, with both President Barack Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame and the Donald Trump press conference over the controversial statements and actions by the Miss America runner up Carrie Prejean of California.

This is now followed by the announcement at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific on Tuesday the 26th by the California Supreme Courts decision regarding Prop 8 and the status of the 18 thousand marriages previously performed in California during the five and a half months it was legal to do so. Since that pointe in history Same Sex Marriage is now legalized or strengthened in even more states Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, District of Columbia, and the Coquille Indian Tribe (which is a sovereign Native Nation located inside the State of Oregon), in fact already three States are talking about Gay Divorce Laws though they don't allow us to wed.

The BILERICO Project has the full text of the speech by President Obama to the University of Notre Dame graduating class of 2009. He rightly pointed out in his speech, "...we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature." I would recommend everyone to read it in full text. To answer his call we could start with some basic questions, like the ones at the bottom of this post below; but I would like to first redress the issue that is normally ignored by law or written off by civil society as chauvinistic, the equal rights of the fathers and men in general.

The Equal Rights Of The Fathers!

One of the biggest issues is the failure of our Federal and State laws to recognize the fact that the donor of sperm contributes not just half of the chromosomal or genetic glop which penetrates the mothers internal game of Chutes & Ladders but succeeds in determining the gender of the child(ren) also, based on which way his pieces are put into play. This lack of legal standing in parental relationships presents a larger problem legally then everyone realizes.

The other aspect that is currently overlooked by the current laws is the psychological damage to fathers whom were forced to allow termination with no legal redress to their own portion of flesh and blood currently gestating inside another persons womb. It takes at least two people for a life to be created, sometimes three or more, and that means that each person from the individual biological parents as well as the surrogate or the future adoptive parents or the new boyfriend all should have some legal standing to determine the best course of action for the future human, not just the person who is gestating the fertilized embryo.

Even today there are cases in multiple jurisdictions regarding which parent has legal standing in situations regarding same sex marriages or multiple partner relationships or previous relationships with persons whom contributed to the fertilization and gestation and rearing of children, which then causes eminence heartache to both the children and to the parents involved and is usually resolved with one or more parents being forced to walk away with no contact with the children they created and/or helped raise from infancy and beyond.

Our parenting laws need to updated on a Federal level not just the State level because now it is an issue of both equal access and legal recognition of all parents, gay and straight, single or married, involved in the formation of our next generations. They all need to have a percentage based legal standing; otherwise you will have to deal with another legal conundrum if we do not assigning legal status to the parent but to the child, at that point, the law will define the child as a sentient being with its own ability to determine its course in life even in the womb at a certain pointe, which potentially could be cited to overturn Roe v. Wade or other abortion provisions indirectly rather than making a principled stand on the issues involved.

Don't misunderstand, I am against abortion completely! I believe as a Libertarian abortion is a violation of the principled and self evident truths established by our nations founding, regardless of any personal religious views or thoughts. Even in the remotest possibility of rape, abortion is at a minimum destruction of evidence and second as a Pastor, an elimination of the one thing that could turn the heart and both judge and redeem the perpetrator of the crime. No child should be held responsible for the crimes of their parent and that is what abortion does. However, to quote Joan Crawford's character in the 1980s movie Mommie Dearest, "No More Wire Hangers Ever!", I am glad that it is permitted under law at the same time only because of the health of the mother, compared to non clinical procedures which predated the Roe v. Wade decision, back in the early seventies. Ironically, I am also one of the first who can say with great ease that abortion is murder because I have witnessed the results second hand and have been placed in the pastoral position of being with someone during the procedure. For my own sanity, what is left of it, the woman miscarried six hours before the procedure was to happen fortunately.

::::BREAKING NEWS OUT OF UTAH::::
Man Charged With Beating Pregnant Teenager

A man in Utah was charged Friday with attempted homicide in the beating of a pregnant teenager who police say asked for the pummeling in an effort to abort her six-month-old fetus.
Deputy Uintah County Attorney Mark Thomas said he filed the felony charge against Arron N. Harrison, 21, who was arrested Thursday and jailed in lieu of $10,000 bail.
Prosecutors are still weighing possible charges against the 17-year-old girl, who is also in custody. Authorities haven't disclosed her name.
"I haven't decided who's more at fault," Mark Watkins, police chief of Naples, 130 miles east of Salt Lake City, told The Associated Press. "She was just as cold as the assailant - we're not going to treat her as a victim."
Thomas said Harrison is expected to appear in court Tuesday and faces one to 15 years in prison if convicted. Harrison pummeled the girl's abdomen in an effort to cause a miscarriage, Watkins said."Her intention was, in fact, to abort the child - to terminate the pregnancy," he said.
The fetus survived, but doctors won't know for certain what injuries it may have sustained until it is born. The girl spent a day in a hospital before her arrest and is being held at a juvenile detention center, Watkins said.
Thomas said the beating took place late Tuesday, and that the girl initially told her family she had been mugged by an unknown assailant. The family called police, who got the girl to speak truthfully about what happened, Watkins said. He said Harrison was an acquaintance of the girl and is not the father of the child.
Neither Thomas nor Watkins knew if either of the two had a lawyer.

(Source: CBS NEWS & AP, 22 May 2009)

The problems hold the answers to the resolution of both abortion and lack of equality in this Country.

The problem now is we have a highly unregulated private industry, which has broken laws in the past, providing the service to line their own pocketbooks and promote a decision that should not be made outside of a hospital, nor without medical ethics review by a panel of doctors, after consulting every social service alternative including adoption and stable homes for both the fathers and the mothers, single or married. Any action be it religious or civil in nature must recognize all parents involved and stop this vicious cycle of repression of emotions and sexuality, and the denial of a fathers right to know his children, otherwise nothing will change and in this day and age the overall situations that our children find themselves will only get worse. We need to diametrically change the way we view the nature of the family in this day and age and allow for alternative family structures that work, like multiple partner relationships and State sponsored group housing scenarios to give our young people the ability to be both successful in life and become great parents with the safety of the children always at the forefront of the discussion, and the rights of all parents not far behind it.

Libertarians regard the individual as Sovereign up until the pointe that they affect someone else's sovereignty and we are generally against anything that addresses a collective group as a special class because we believe that "all are created equal" and therefore to separate individual people by race or by class is in essence unconstitutional. How then do the issues of gay rights intertwine with abortion rights? The same arguments involved in the religious teaching against abortion and premarital sex are the same as the argument and predisposition towards the gay rights issues at a religious level which unfortunately both spill over into civil and political discourse regularly.

Hate Crimes vs. Abortion Clinics

However the nature of Hate Crimes protest of legal protection of sexual minority classes and Abortion Clinic protests and more specifically bombing threats are in fact the same issue. On one hand you have an individual or organization attacking a facility for religious purposes or bias to promote a political agenda and on the other hand you have someone attacking individuals for political/civil reasons or bias to promote a religious agenda in a Country that separates the two ideologies.

In both of these circumstances the attack is not just on one facility or persons but on the collective industry or community that they associate with as a whole. In actuality two crimes were committed simultaneously, once against the facility/individuals and once against the industry/community.

The current Hate Crimes legislation, in my opinion while flawed and in need of a serious modification, is necessary for both the individuals security and the collective groups liberties to be respected under the law of the land regardless of biases or agendas. This concern over flaws in the current field of legislation is given credence by recent actions in the European Union and elsewhere that if not addressed in the beginning it can only lead to a slippery slope with further erosion of free personal thought and the first amendment protections regarding freedom of association/assembly issues regarding principles and beliefs when hiring decisions arise within companies and organizations, be they religious or secular, gay or straight.

Love and Marriage Love and Marriage Go Together Like A Horse A Carriage
This I Tell You Brother You Cant Have One Without The Other....

But you can have it without government interference if we followed the Libertarian Philosophy which acknowledges individual sovereignty and we also believe that,
"Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships."
Anyone who claims that marriage is a historically civil or religious institution between a man and a woman only is not only ignorant of history but also invalid according to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

This commercial interruption is provided by Visit Montreal with complete humor as its intention.


Larry Kramer an Author and Playwright asserts in a recent column @ The Huffington Post, that the very beginning foundations of our country consisted of grouped and partnered male households, as women in the first colony of Jamestown were scarce at the earliest and definitely still under represented even into the next century to come, by quoting excerpts of text from Sexual Revolution in Early America, by Richard Godbeer:

...Jamestown was initially an all-male settlement...in subsequent years...male colonists outnumbered women by roughly six to one in the 1620's and four to one in later decades....
Settlers in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake often paired off to form all-male households, living and working together. ...it would be truly remarkable if all the male-only partnerships lacked a sexual ingredient....

In his own book The American People, Kramer denotes that: "...not only were male-only partnerships quite in evidence, but services were often conducted to join the partners "under God," and that, of equal interest, was their adoption of Indian children to raise as their own." He finally exclaims, "I hope it will not be too much longer before scholars will be able to deal with the fact that Jamestown was in fact not only America's first colony but its first homosexual community."

I would be negligent in my duties as a fair and balanced commentator to also pointe out that Richard Godbeer later modified his stance in the work The Overflowing Friendship: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic to accept the popular culture concept of bromance rather than a undying passion that resounds of an intimacy similar to that with a woman between two or more men, even though in one account alone you see two 27 year old males in the throws of passion exude not just a brotherly bond, but that of an underlying lover:

"Tormented when apart, greedy for more when together....determined we should never part again.... I will give myself up to you, I will go wherever you go and one shall not go without the other. I love you very much. Yours for ever--and ever and ever."

For those who don't know gay and religious lingo the second phrase is a specific desire to be joined spiritually and sexually; which if that covenant bonding were carried out, would involve someone "giving up" their virginity to the other persons, that night without any doubt. I would also be negligent in my duties if I did not stipulate to the fact that Larry Kramer is a controversial author in past historical dramas unfolding as well and so therefore should be reviewed with a wide lens and thorough review by anyone using his works. All that covers the historical aspect of civil society now let us look at the actual laws of the land and practice of the State to regulate marriage based on religious codex and theology.

Austin Cline wrote a wonderful piece back in March of 2006 regarding Civil versus Religious Marriage while reviewing the book Divided by God: America's Church State Problem by Noah Feldman whom explains that the difference between a civil right and the religious rite is truly the cause of angst in America.

Common Law and the Puritans is the origin of the problem and the solution at the same time:

...The source of the problem was that the roots of American law - including marriage law - lay in England, where church and state were united, not separate. Not until 1753 had marriage...been taken away from the religious courts (but) civil marriage was not fully available there until 1836....

The basic legal theory of marriage in England until then was that individual men and women had the legal capacity to marry each other by a simple act of consent, but the church must solemnize the marriage, and the state was entitled to insist on the church performing this role before it would recognize the union as binding....

...getting married without a priest’s blessing came to America with the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony....Massachusetts Puritans in 1646 passed a law making it a crime for anyone other than a magistrate to bring persons together in marriage.... To prohibit clergy from officiating at marriages was a radical move, but the Massachusetts Puritans were radical people, religious experimentalists living in a quasi-theocratic community at the frontier of the known World....

We know who to blame for the intertwining of civil rights and religious rites to marriage. How do we fix it?

In the minds of those who first introduced civil marriage to America, then, it was possible to bifurcate (aka, forked, see below) the formalities of marriage between consenting adults from the judgments of heaven. The legal requirement that a marriage be solemnized before an authorized person, whether government official or minister, simply reflected the practical requirement that the government keep records of who was married to whom, especially for purposes of establishing descent and property ownership.... The state demanded a monopoly on the authority to solemnize marriages in order to ensure that the legal protections of marriage applied - not because the state claimed to have any special authority in matters spiritual.

Austin Cline goes on to argue diligently that the the Civil Union is only in its prohibitions a direct copy to a predominant form of Christian dogmatic stances, and he notes that, religious officials are specifically authorized by elected leaders only to act as the legal agent of the State, not the State acting as the agent of religious organizations.

"What the state cannot do, however, is require couples to seek religious authorization for their marriages. This doesn’t just include direct authorization, like getting the blessings of a priest, but it also includes indirect authorizations, like limiting marriages to only those sorts of couples which religious authorities deem appropriate."

In essence the civil restriction on same sex marriage based on religious bias is not only unconstitutional it was never intended to be there in the first place. Not only was it not suppose to be there but religious authorities were never intended by our founding fathers to have any say regarding whom entered into a civil union. They knew if that were allowed people could be restricted based on both interfaith and interracial protocols which we finally put an end to in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act and other similar laws and policy statements.

So What Does Qualify As "Fair Minded" Speech Concerning Questions On Abortion?

Is abortion murder of a baby or removal of a fetus?
If it is a baby, then when does life begin?
When does the embryo transition from a fetus to a baby?
If it is removal of a fetus, then why do we file murder charges against criminals whom commit crimes which cause the mother a miscarriage? Wouldn't that be a conflict of legal status of the fertilized embryo?
If the birth mother and biological mother are different whom has the right to or not terminate the pregnancy?

And just out of curiosity, What Qualifies As "Fair Minded" Speech Regarding Gay Rights And Equality?

F6 LINKS & RESOURCES

Pro Fatherhood Sites (somewhat conservative)
The National Center For Men
Priests For Life National

Planned Parenthood
Live Action Films: Indiana Scandals: [Website] [You Tube]
Planned Parenthood [Website]
Previous Post on F6 [20 September 2008]

National Libertarian Party & Organizations
[Party Platform] [Libertarians 4 Life]

Dave Does Montreal
Global Travel Industry News [Article]

You Tube Commentaries
James Duke Mason: [Obama/NotreDame] [Trump/Prejean]

Recommended Reading
1. Sexual Revolution in Early America by Richard Godbeer
2. The Overflowing Friendship: Love Between Men
and the Creation of the American Republic by Richard Godbeer
3. The American People by Larry Kramer
4. Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem by Noah Feldman

For Your Information
BIFURCATE: Forked, to fork, to split between; Usage: A fork in the river or road

May all you Mothers be remembered Maybe

Originally I was planning on making Saturdays post all about women and especially focus on mothers for Mothers Day today. I achieved a pretty good lineup of stories going for the part of the blog post about women in general ...Let's see how it goes....!

I was first going to cover the story out of DeTroit, Michigan about how the under wire of a woman's battle ready armor stopped a speeding bullet in its path. Then I was going to cover how a Marks and Spencer's department store in Britain put out a campaign entitled "We Boobed" to apologize for the previous $3 handling fee attached to shopping for bras that exceeded the Double D size and then offered a 25% discount too.

I was then going to segue into something about us bois (gay or straight) love of motor boating and fascination with this particular part of the female anatomy to the pointe of impersonation (this one is for Fetcho) and modification with silicone inserts versus our (gay & straight bois) utter disgust toward the other distinctive portion of female anatomy, a vagina, which we spend hours finding alternative names for on a regular basis.
(Photo: Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy)

The post was then going to close that portion by taking in a quick recap of the FaceBook Scandal regarding an advert for And Then Came Lola [WEBSITE] a threesome lesbian movie produced by Ellen Seidler and Megan Siler of Fast Girl Films, which was finally resolved because of a TWITTER campaign which spilled out across the GLBT blogosphere. (Source: QMUSER)

It was going to be a long drawn out graphic post and then I hit a road block when looking up some history on our Country's founding mothers. There are no songs about America's founding mothers that are not either derogatory towards women or indemnifying of their contribution to the history of this Country. I have looked all over and I dug through volumes of Americana songbooks and have not been able to locate a single song dedicated to the sacrifice that women have made in the founding of this great nation that doesn't degrade them for being a temperamental bitch.

Clementine drowned in a pool;
Dixie has a dissociative and cant tell that she's lost;
Susanna is mourning the loss of her loved one in war;
Dinah is busy in the kitchen giving someone a blowjob;
Kentucky is bipolar and suicidal looking for a glimer of hope;
Kansas is a housewife that has a voyeur fetish for ruminant mamals;
Indiana is a drunk grubby gold digging wench watching your every transaction from a distance.
Georgia is so sweet and evil she is considered a demon who preys on innocent men's brains aka a succubi;
California is waiting for you to tell it to fuck off it likes to be dominated even if it has the largest population;

There is more but you get the basic idea on the basis of each State's song but it doesnt end there. You will find that even the songs that do immortalize certain women's accomplishments is usually in tandem with their less feminine attributes or in direct reflection against their feminine nature. There are not any songs about Dolly Madison "saving a snapshot of Georgie and his wooden dentures as the Executive Plantation Manor burned to the core", during the British burning of Washington D.C. in the War of 1812. Which she then made sure to whitewash six times over to hide the burn marks. In that spirit isn't it about time we made a song for her too?

Virginia Foxx got one in 48 hours for her hatred toward & ignorance of a young gay man left on a fence to die.

What about Betsy Ross?

By creating the first American flag she "bled with our bois in battle as she diligently weaved the banner to which we now yield our hearts toward in honour and our mind in reverence". That banner that always used to give hope to weary soldiers and citizens alike was first created by the sweat and tears of one woman. I did find one (video 6:35 mark on) satirical comedy routine Everybody Wants To Be An Art Director by Stan Freberg from his 1961 Capital Records project Presents the United States of America, Vol. 1: The Early Years which broke into a musical bit between the banter.

I am all for Free Speech and for the Nothing Sacred Rule, unless proven otherwise; but this is proven and true, by all of our young men and women whom have shed their blood into its fabric throughout time and eternity. Every time a flag is burned in disrespect you are allowing the honourable memory to fade from existence, the blood stain to be washed out and hardly recognizable to future generations.

We have garnered so much pomp and circumstance toward the ceremony and take our legacy for granted. How easily do we forget the meaning behind the words by Francis Scott Key to The Star Spangled Banner? Any time We The People allow our Government to grow without accountability we defame the honour that this flag represents. This Country that was established to provide a more perfect union, a Union of People, where all, are created equal and endowed with their rights by our Creator; not entitled to them by Society or assigned to them under law!

That struggle and journey to live that Inherent Truth every day will never be completed. However we cant only just go forward from here either, we've got to remember to look back and clean up our messes and failures every once in a while too. What is really even more sad is the original purpose of Mothers Day that of peace not war has been completely forgotten. May we not forget to love and honour in a lasting legacy our mothers both historical and biological. May our nation find peace so that no ones son or daughter has to die again.

QUESTION: Which historical women should receive the privilege of an American Folk song in their honour?

Why does the Government really want 2 change the name of the Swine Flu? & Other stories surrounding the outbreak of unkosher politics and canned Spam!

So why did the United States Government change the designation of the swine flu to H1N1? Because the Pork Industry was loosing business. Nope! It was because they are afraid of when We The People realized that indeed pigs did in fact fly and what we allowed our Government to get away with in our name.

With new scandals breaking almost every 60 hours if not shorter on both sides of the Congressional isle, and out of the White House, and even in local politics, one would begin to wonder if there is in fact an actual reset button somewhere in the Constitution or one of the other founding documents.

Fortunately there is but it involves the very sensitive topics of congressional apportionment which I covered on a previous post (14th ip, look for the Ford Truck and continue reading) as well as secession on this other post I wrote on the Libertarian Party of Allen County blog. As for now, just watch out for flying barrels of spam (deep fried pork product) coming from both sides of Congress and the White House, and then consider voting for third party (Libertarian or Green, especially) candidates in 2010 when Congress (every House seat and a third of the Senate) comes up for reelection.

ONE HUNDRED DAYS AMERICA!

How do you measure a man? Elton John and Clay Aiken (videos) sing about it in the form of conditional (eg: if this then that) questions or statements that more references the spirituality of the masses rather than providing an answer. But based on the criteria in their songs, how does it make sense to measure a President by his first 100 days in office? The format only started seventy plus years ago under Franklin D. Roosevelt whom managed to get Congress to pass 15 pieces of "New Deal" legislation in the 14 week time frame, and since then the press has usurped that mile stone and just over analyzed it for all other Presidents after him. So aside from trying to assign a grade point average of 81% percent or 60% depending on which poll numbers you read, or more accurately, hear on cable television news we need to take an honest look at what the Administration has and hasn't done.

From a GLBT perspective, especially with recent activity on the White House's website under Civil Rights/Liberties policy statements regarding Don't Ask Don't Tell (Links: Joe My God: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, in order from oldest to newest) amongst other issues, proves that the Administration is performing less then satisfactorily when it comes to keeping promises to Gay and Lesbian Americans and its continuing willingness to minimize the struggle of GLBT Americans in their public policy statements and decisions. Fortunately the offense was modified in the end to both return the original language but also blend it in with the revisions.

This is the seventh time that I can count where the Administration has blatantly put its foot in its mouth regarding GLBT issues and tried to stop choking on it only to leave a trail of drool and dismay from the cover up. There will probably be another press release to brush over the trail of tears and explain it away to the public this week.

Talking about putting ones foot in ones mouth, then leads us to Congress whom also had an eventful week during the 100 Days festivities. The Senate was forced by the outbreak of the Swine Flu to finally confirm Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services, regardless of previous Republican objections due to her record on abortion issues. Meanwhile the House of Representatives, decided to take on the *Hate Crimes Bill, which passed 249-175. This resulted in another outcry against bigotry from and calls for the resignation of North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx who took to the floor of the House and called the consideration of a 10 year old murder of 19 year old Matthew Shepard as a hate crime, "a hoax", with Matthew's mother Judy present in the lobby area above.



Besides being misinformed and insensitive no amount of apology will do Ms. Foxx until you acknowledge that what happened to Matthew was, and what happens to thousands of GLBT persons annually is, a hate crime; and that gays and lesbians deserve equality under the Constitution and Declaration; and personally apologize to both Judy Shepard and publicly to the Queer Community, from the floor of the House under oath with the penalty of perjury applicable, then we can begin to forgive you for your absolute misrepresentation of the facts of record and the insensitive nature by which they were put forth from the floor of OUR Congress.

This also leads me to one other question of ethics and concern. You Ms. Foxx are not allowed to excuse your actions based solely on bad information, We The People elect our Representatives to serve as our voice not just their own bias that ignores the proven facts of history and official record. To insist that your bad information was a result of an incomplete Google Search, is to say that you failed in due diligence of your job duties to find all the information, and instead followed talking pointes which were neither collaborated or researched with any depth. Ms. Foxx it is time to be a woman of character that you claim to be and either apologize from the floor of the House under oath or resign from office based on your incompetence to perform the full duties of the office to which you were elected.



The above video is from O Virginia written by folk artist Lee Waters (links below), which is available in full performance quality download via 7Digital for one dollar, with all money going to the Matthew Shepard Foundation in the name of Virginia Foxx, as part of the growing online petition to censure or oust Ms. Foxx regarding these homophobic and insensitive comments.

I would love to see the look on Ms. Foxx's face when she hears the song for the first time. I also wonder, How much politics in Washington would change if members of Congress had to swear under oath before they spoke from the floor under penalty of perjury? What are your thoughts of how to improve our government?

Top Photo: Dominique Garny in Wedding Trough (1974, Belgium) [IMDB]
3rd Photo: Bad Behaviour Publishing Company [Website]
4th Photo: Virginia Foxx c/o Stephen Rader, Chicago
LEE WATERS: [Website][YouTube]
Matthew Shepard Foundation [Website]
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill aka Local Law Enforcement Protection Act H.R. 1913