Now THAT'S one HOT ROD!

As a mere 5 year old, I never realized how phallic Peter Perfect's drag racer, the Turbo Terrific, was in the Wacky Races (1968). One almost expects hot, viscous fluid to come gushing forth from the front end. Now that I'm mangrown, I'd love to get his motor running with a jiffy lube and rotate his big, swollen tires.

Spider Bite Causes Erection

A Brazilian spider delivers more than a painful bite that sends most victims to the hospital - its venom stimulates an hours-long erection.

In Brazil, emergency room staff can immediately spot the male victims of a bite from the Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria nigriventer): patients sport an uncomfortable erection.

"The erection is a side effect that every man or boy who gets bitten by this spider will experience along with the pain and discomfort," said study team member Romulo Leite of the Medical College of Georgia. "We're hoping eventually this will end up in the development of real drugs for the treatment of erectile dysfunction."

(Without the pain and discomfort, one hopes!)

"LET US NOW PRAISE NELLY MEN!"

Let Us Now Praise Nelly Men!
tribes.tribe.net/praisenellymen
A tribe for celebrating the hotness of gay-acting, gay-appearing men and for us butchier guys who love 'em. You don't have to be a nelly man to join, just nelly-positive*. I'm kind of a big butch lug, myself, and I started this tribe. In my case, opposites definitely attract!

Are you over all that tired "straight-acting, straight-appearing" nonsense? Sick of "real men," gay or straight, who think there's only one narrow, frightened way to be a man, and who perpetuate all that hateful old homophobic bullshit? It's takes a hell of a lot more guts to live your life as a sissy man than as a macho dork.

This is a tribe for queer men who love being men and who aren't afraid to be their fabulous gay-acting, gay-appearing selves. It's for men who can't "pass" as straight and don't want to! It's a tribe to applaud their courage and their strength, their softness and their sensitivity. It's about that amazing, sexy blend of butch and femme in a yummy male package. And it's for all fags, wherever you fall on the butch/femme scale, to appreciate and celebrate your inner and/or outer queen!

*Girls who adore sissy boys are welcome, too :)

The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

On Sat. Feb. 14th, a rare astrological concentration brings together a number of planets together with the North Node - denoting higher purpose - in Aquarius and energizes and inspires the possibility for transcendental breakthrough in some seemingly intransigent situations.

At dawn on the 14th, the day dedicated to St. Valentine, the patron saint of Love, the Moon in Libra enters the 7th house of relationships and Jupiter and Mars are aligned in Aquarius in the 12th house of spiritual transformation.

"When the Moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then Peace will guide the planets and Love will steer the stars."

At dawn on Feb. 14th, the Cosmos actually embodies this perfect alignment to support our collective manifestation of love and peace and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

On Feb. 14th at 7:25 am (Greenwich Standard Time) - and for the 18 minutes of the alignment - I invite you, in the universal heart, to add your own intention for love & peace to that of the Cosmos & co-create the dawning of the Age of Aquarius in whatever way feels appropriate for you, energizing a wave of intention that will surge around the Earth.

(I copied the above from Facebook. For us Californians and West Coasters, it happens TONIGHT, 2/13 @ 11:25 Pacific Standard Time. No need to get up early ~ whew!)

Silly Ditty*

There are three states of matter ~
Liquid, Solid, Gas
One comes from your bladder
They all come out your ass!

*I wrote the words but you'll have to make up your own melody :)

WAAAH!! Whiney Right-wing Crybabies Can't Get Their Way ;)

PROP. 8 CAMPAIGN CAN'T HIDE DONORS' NAMES

Proposition 8 proponents' complaint that a California campaign-finance disclosure law has led to harassment of same-sex marriage opponents failed to sway a federal judge, who refused Thursday to throw out the law or shield donors' names.

"If there ever needs to be sunshine on a particular issue, it's a ballot measure," U.S. District Judge Morrison England said after a one-hour hearing in his Sacramento courtroom.

A lawyer for the Prop. 8 campaign said it would ask an appeals court to modify or overturn the law, which requires disclosure of all contributors of $100 or more.

Prop. 8, approved by voters Nov. 4, amended the state Constitution to recognize only marriage between a man and a woman, overturning the state Supreme Court's May 15 ruling that gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry.

Same-sex couples and local governments led by the city of San Francisco have filed suits to overturn Prop. 8, a case that the state's high court could hear as early as the first week in March.

The federal lawsuit, unrelated to the validity of Prop. 8, was filed Jan. 8 by the ballot measure's sponsoring committee, Protect Marriage. The suit said Internet disclosure of donors' names and other identifying information in state-mandated reports has led to consumer boycotts, picketing and even death threats.

By requiring disclosure, "The government is getting in the middle (of the issue) and saying, 'Here are the people to go after,' " Richard Coleson, a lawyer for the committee, told England.

He argued that the $100 disclosure requirement - adopted by California voters in 1974 - should be struck down, modified to raise the dollar limits, or at least not applied to Prop. 8's contributors. As a first step, Coleson said, the campaign should be exempted from the state's post-election contribution report, due Monday.

Otherwise, he said, in future initiative campaigns "you will have donations dry up, and one side will be able to overcome another by intimidation and not by persuasion."

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld campaign disclosure laws in 1976 but ruled in 1982 that the Socialist Workers Party in Ohio could shield its donors' names because of a history of attacks and reprisals.

Protect Marriage argued that it was entitled to the same exemption because of retaliation against some of its contributors, but lawyers for the state said the two cases weren't comparable. They noted that the Prop. 8 campaign raised nearly $30 million from 36,000 donors.

If the Prop. 8 campaign was exempted from disclosure because of reports of harassments of individual donors, said Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini, the same case could be made for any controversial initiative. Courts would have to "keep the entire California electorate in the dark as to who was funding these ballot measures," he said.

England agreed.

He noted that some of the reprisals reported by the Prop. 8 committee involve legal activities such as boycotts and picketing. Other alleged actions, such as death threats, mailings of white powder and vandalism, may constitute "repugnant and despicable acts" but can be reported to law enforcement, the judge said.

Even if there have been illegal reprisals, that would be insufficient reason to grant a wholesale exemption for a multimillion-dollar initiative campaign, England said. He also rejected the Prop. 8 campaign's argument that the $100 disclosure limit established in 1974 should be increased for inflation, saying some states require reports of contributions as low as $25 and the Supreme Court has never invalidated them.

Any desire by donors to remain anonymous is outweighed by the state's authority to require "full and fair disclosure of everyone who's involved in these political campaigns," England said.

Protect Marriage still has a request pending before England to require the state to remove its past disclosure reports from the Internet. But the state says such an order would be futile because the reports have been widely distributed on private Web sites.

Coleson said the campaign would take its case against the disclosure law to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Referring to the donors whose names will appear in Monday's public report, campaign spokesman Frank Schubert said England's ruling "puts 1,600 people in harm's way."

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel :D

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam hosted a Christmas celebration for its gay community on Sunday featuring a nativity tableau with a male Mary in drag that church organizations denounced as an affront to traditional values.

Organizers said the event was meant to raise Amsterdam's profile as a gay capital at a time when homosexuals feel threatened.

Christians for Truth, an independent religious group, had asked the city council to cancel the "Pink Christmas," event, saying it made a mockery of Christian tenets. The city did not comment.

A male entertainer known as Wendy Mills posed as Mary in a blonde wig and high-heeled black boots and holding a plastic doll. Another man played Joseph in black leather trunks and a silver shawl.

To see the article or the unperverted picture (I added the caption myself :) go to: www.azcentral.com/offbeat/a...stmas.html

The five-person manger scene was staged off the street, in the courtyard of a nightclub. Visitors were invited to be photographed with the group. The first was 3-month-old Lily Pink Albers, Mills' niece.

"By portraying Joseph and Mary as homosexuals, a twisted human fantasy is being added to the history of the Bible," Christians for Truth said in a statement ahead of the event.

A few dozen visitors wandered through the 100-yard (meter) long Pink Market past stalls selling leather goods and Christmas cards with gay themes on a downtown street known for its gay nightlife and popular restaurants.

Frank van Dalen, chairman of Pro Gay, which organized the event, said gays were not satisfied with being tolerated, but wanted to be "socially accepted as an indivisible part of society."

He said the Amsterdam city council sponsored the euro15,000 ($21,000) event, which he hoped would become a regular event, like the annual floating summertime gay pride parade through the city's canals that attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

"Our objective is not to be offensive. This is about visibility," he said.

Van Dalen pointed to a report last month that said homophobia was an ingrained problem in Amsterdam, despite the city's freewheeling reputation.

The study by the University of Amsterdam reported 67 violent attacks against gays in 2007, which police said was about average.

Van Dalen said gays were feeling increasingly uncomfortable in public in recent years, and that they perceived Dutch society as more assertive about "classical values."

Daddy's Gay Job

Little David was in his 5th grade class when the
teacher asked the children what their fathers did for
a living.

All the typical answers came up -- fireman, policeman,
salesman, doctor, lawyer, etc. David was being
uncharacteristically quiet and so the teacher asked
him about his father.

"My father's an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret and
takes off all his clothes in front of other men.
Sometimes, if the offer's really good, he'll go out to
the alley with some guy and have sex with him for
money."

The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement,
hurriedly set the other children to work on some
exercises and took little David aside to ask him, "Is
that really true about your father?"

"No," said David, "He works for the Bush
administration, but I was too embarrassed to say that
in front of the other kids."

VICTORY! You may now kiss the Grooms!

On May 15, 2008, the gay community was given a tremendous victory. Not only did the California Supreme Court strike down a ban on gay marriage but also it issued a ruling that went to the core of the gay rights movement – that we are equal under the law in every way.

Here are excerpts from the 171-page ruling that highlights the general tone of the court’s opinion. Read through this compelling argument in favor of equality, then raise your hands in victory and do your part to maintain the momentum of equality for all because the battle is far from over...

~Gays Are Capable of Loving Relationships as Much as Heterosexuals~

In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

Under the current statutes, the state has not revised the name of the official family relationship for all couples, but rather has drawn a distinction between the name for the official family relationship of opposite-sex couples (marriage) and that for same-sex couple (domestic partnership).

One of the core elements of the right to establish an officially recognized family that is embodied in the California constitutional right to marry is a couple’s right to have their family relationship accorded dignity and respect equal to that accorded other officially recognized families, and assigning a different designation for the family relationship of same-sex couples while reserving the historic designation of “marriage” exclusively for opposite-sex couples poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect.

We therefore conclude that although the provisions of the current domestic partnership legislation afford same-sex couples most of the substantive elements embodied in the constitutional right to marry, the current California statutes nonetheless must be viewed as potentially impinging upon a same-sex couple’s constitutional right to marry under the California Constitution.

~Offering Marriage to Gays Takes Nothing Away From Heterosexuals~

First, the exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage clearly is not necessary in order to afford full protection to all of the rights and benefits that currently are enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples; permitting same-sex couples access to the designation of marriage will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage because same-sex couples who choose to marry will be subject to the same obligations and duties that currently are imposed on married opposite-sex couples.

Second, retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples.

Third, because of the widespread disparagement that gay individuals historically have faced, it is all the more probable that excluding same-sex couples from the legal institution of marriage is likely to be viewed as reflecting an official view that their committed relationships are of lesser stature than the comparable relationships of opposite-sex couples.

Finally, retaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite-sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise — now emphatically rejected by this state — that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects “second-class citizens” who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples. Under these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest.

~Importance of Marriage in Society~

Society is served by the institution of civil marriage in many ways.

Society, of course, has an overriding interest in the welfare of children, and the role marriage plays in facilitating a stable family setting in which children may be raised by two loving parents unquestionably furthers the welfare of children and society.

In addition, the role of the family in educating and socializing children serves society’s interest by perpetuating the social and political culture and providing continuing support for society over generations. It is these features that the California authorities have in mind in describing marriage as the “basic unit” or “building block” of society.

Furthermore, the legal obligations of support that are an integral part of marital and family relationships relieve society of the obligation of caring for individuals who may become incapacitated or who are otherwise unable to support themselves.

The ability of an individual to join in a committed, long-term, officially recognized family relationship with the person of his or her choice is often of crucial significance to the individual’s happiness and well-being.

Further, entry into a formal, officially recognized family relationship provides an individual with the opportunity to become a part of one’s partner’s family, providing a wider and often critical network of economic and emotional security.

This constitutional right also has the additional affirmative substantive effect of providing assurance to each member of the relationship that the government will enforce the mutual obligations between the partners (and to their children) that are an important aspect of the commitments upon which the relationship rests.

~Advances in Gay Rights~

There can be no question but that, in recent decades, there has been a fundamental and dramatic transformation in this state’s understanding and legal treatment of gay individuals and gay couples.

California has repudiated past practices and policies that were based on a once common viewpoint that denigrated the general character and morals of gay individuals, and at one time even characterized homosexuality as a mental illness rather than as simply one of the numerous variables of our common and diverse humanity.

This state’s current policies and conduct regarding homosexuality recognize that gay individuals are entitled to the same legal rights and the same respect and dignity afforded all other individuals and are protected from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation, and, more specifically, recognize that gay individuals are fully capable of entering into the kind of loving and enduring committed relationships that may serve as the foundation of a family and of responsibly caring for and raising children.

The capability of gay individuals to enter into loving and enduring relationships comparable to those entered into by heterosexuals is in no way dependent upon the enactment of the Domestic Partner Act; the adoption of that legislation simply constitutes an explicit official recognition of that capacity.

~Procreation as Reason to Limit Marriage Between a Man and Woman~

The Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund and the Campaign agree that the constitutional right to marry is integrally related to the right of two persons to join together to establish an officially recognized family, but they contend that the only family that possibly can be encompassed by the constitutional right to marry is a family headed by a man and a woman.

Pointing out that past cases often have linked marriage and procreation, these parties argue that because only a man and a woman can produce children biologically with one another, the constitutional right to marry necessarily is limited to opposite-sex couples.

This contention is fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons.

To begin with, although the legal institution of civil marriage may well have originated in large part to promote a stable relationship for the procreation and raising of children and although the right to marry and to procreate often are treated as closely related aspects of the privacy and liberty interests protected by the state and federal Constitutions, the constitutional right to marry never has been viewed as the sole preserve of individuals who are physically capable of having children. Men and women who desire to raise children with a loved one in a recognized family but who are physically unable to conceive a child with their loved one never have been excluded from the right to marry.

There is, however, no authority whatsoever to support the proposition that an individual who is physically incapable of bearing children does not possess a fundamental constitutional right to marry. Such a proposition clearly is untenable.

A person who is physically incapable of bearing children still has the potential to become a parent and raise a child through adoption or through means of assisted reproduction, and the constitutional right to marry ensures the individual the opportunity to raise children in an officially recognized family with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life.

~Strike Down the Ban on Gay Marriage~

In light of the conclusions we reach concerning the constitutional questions brought to us for resolution, we determine that the language limiting the designation of marriage to a union “between a man and a woman” is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples.

(All material was taken directly from the California Supreme Court Ruling on May 15, 2008.)

I ♥ DOLLY!

"When I talk to a man, I can always tell what he's thinkin' by where he's lookin'.

See, if he's lookin' at my eyes, he's lookin' for intelligence.

If he's lookin' at my mouth, well, he's lookin' for wit and wisdom.

If he's lookin' anywhere else except my chest...he's lookin' for another man."