SGL Café

Rainbow Flag Burning: free speech, hate speech, or a teachable moment?

Free speech, when it incites negativity, is worrisome. [Queerty] I'm not quite sure what "appropriate action" means, but Albion College in Michigan insists it took just that after confirming a rainbow flag was burned by students on campus. Apparently desecrating the fag flag yields no punishment. Albion President Donna Randall won't discuss specifics of the case citing privacy laws, but confirmed in a statement Campus Safety officers investigated the incident. And then …? And then told the three students it found responsible they wouldn't face any punishment. While administrators won't discuss the incident further (that includes Campus Safety director Ken Snyder), the students who burned the flag, interestingly, are speaking. The "college doesn’t condone this action, and they know people will be upset but it wasn’t public, it wasn’t targeting one person and no one saw it happen," explains one about why the trio didn't face punishment... Most of the comments on the above article held free speech as the ultimate in this matter. Free speech rules. We know. We get it. But while advocating some tweaking of "free speech" laws to be more along the lines of 'your rights end at the tip of my nose', we understand that its a slippery slope. It's Bill O'Reilly's free speech right to call Dr. George Tiller "Tiller the Baby Killer" endlessly on his FOX show. But in our fanatical world, is it so unexpected that someone ultimately took it upon his unhinged self to carry a gun into Dr. Tiller's church and blow his brains out in the name of Jesus? Was the resulting murder of Dr. Tiller a stretch of our collective imaginations? The analogy that you can't yell fire in a crowded theater needs to be updated to reflect our current, cyber-connected information age - what Jon Stewart calls our 24hr news cycle "Conflictonator" - when a lone fanatic exercising free speech can illicit actual real-time violence. Of course, where would it end? Would suddenly calling Maggie Gallagher from the rabidly anti-gay org National Organization for Marriage (whose sole purpose is to oppress gay Americans) "a stupid cow who just needs a little dick in her life" end with one defending the statement in court after some loon actually rapes her? Possibly. Should we be willing to let the courts and juries parse intentions and actual consequences? Certainly. Bill O'Reilly should be facing that same jury right now. Back to the students burning the rainbow during Pride. They shouldn't be kicked out of school, let alone arrested. However, the University should do something that implies they understand the gravity of the situation, the consequences of anti-gay sentiment however innocently expressed. That they understand the possible domino-effect of provocative acts, however unexpected. Maybe hold a student assembly where the offending students debate their actions with a local GSA or some such group. This would be a teachable moment for everybody. Something. Anything that says ACTIONS, even free speech protected ones, sometimes have unseemly and unwanted consequences.

Fifteen Days ...

This is the rewind. An old look for a new me. I stupidly deleted my entire blog template. I thought I'd saved the file, but I'd saved an old one - this one. *sigh* Oh, well. Everything old is new again. Those who've peeped SGL Café.com over the last few years know my 'Lasciviously Political' tag-line. Well, I retired that some time ago, got tired of it really, along with the politics that I used to rant about. I'd campaigned for Obama, made friends, lost friends (who never could except Hillary Clinton didn't win), but after Obama and all the hoopla, I was over politics. I needed a breather. I needed to do me for awhile. I'm still as lascivious as always (and proud of it), just less political. But that's what I'm doing now - me. I don't concern myself with activist causes that once made my blood pressure rise and caused me to get into a bar fight or two. Yeah, little gay boys tormented into suicide still make my head explode, but the best way to make a difference in this fucked up world is to do me, do what I do best, and take it from there. By being successful at what we do (critics, homophobes, and haters be damned), that's how we make change happen. I know I promised to talk about the difficulties of taking DANCING WITH THE DEVIL from the page to greater places (first stop on this journey, the LeX Leonard Gallery Oct. 3rd & 4th noon-6)... but there is no time to whine. And since the passing of The Man, my idol, E. Lynn Harris, there's a hole in the heart of black gay artistic expression. We all have to step out of our little boxes in order to fill it. So let's do this. Fifteen days to go. Damn. ~ "Dancing..." on MySpace Press from across the pond ... "Dancing..." on ka-os | theory

When I was Eleven ...

When I was Eleven... © 2009 Taylor Siluwé I wanted to be a scientist. While other boys played with sports, I played with bugs. Though my attempts at creating Bugzilla by injecting them with all sort of junk always failed, I never gave up. For me, creating something new and wonderful - like a fifty-foot Potato Beetle – was infinitely better than practicing getting little balls through little holes, or down field without breaking my glasses. The other boys thought I was weird and loved telling me so, hourly. Through all the getting suddenly shoved into the lockers, mocked for getting A’s without really trying, laughed at for doing anything more outgoing than just standing quietly in a corner, I never once thought of wrapping a rope around my neck and hanging myself. But then again, maybe if it were all the rage at the time, I would have. Maybe. ~ Another Bullycide: Jaheem Herrera, 11, Kills Himself The Bullycide & Same-Sex Marriage Apathy Connection Whence Cometh Evil? Why Visibility is Da Bomb UPDATE: Anderson Cooper addresses Bullycide as prosecutors ponder criminal charges in the Jaheem Herrara case.

Loving Christians Piss on the Carl Walker-Hoover Tragedy!

Today is the National Day of Silence to honor those who have fallen prey to LGBT violence; like the recent tragic Bullycide of Carl Walker-Hoover. Here is quick video honoring the day. Now, below ... is the response ad by the Illinios Family Institute, one of the many, lovable, Christian family organizations who's only desire is to protect the children. **Oh, that would be children without a hint of difference or deviance - because, obviously, the odd fish are fair game to be bullied, beaten, and subjected to all manner of Hell because that's how God wants it.** What a glorious display of Jesus' love for his fellowman. It harks back to a recent related post - Whence Cometh Evil? And from Huffington Post: Homophobia is Killing our Youth

The Bullycide & Same-Sex Marriage Apathy Connection

I got this note recently in a same sex yahoo group: "Plain and simple men should not marry men and women should not marry women. Another waste of time when we as gay people should be worried about more important issues right now. Gay marriage my ass! IT IS NOT IMPORTANT!" Sadly, this is the attitude of many in the gay communtity. This issue reminds me of a line from the musical Funny Girl, the track Sadie, Sadie: "...oh how that marriage license works, on chamber maids and hotel clerks..." Barbra Streisand's character believed (as did all women then) that being married was the ultimate, being married meant something, it carried a powerful punch, it opened doors. So I agree that we have issues to worry about other than marriage equality, or, as I like to say, just equality -- because its really not about that "simple wedding band". For as long as they can deny us this basic right of human existence, and justify it for whatever reasons, it sends the unspoken message that: ...its OKAY to look down upon gay Americans, its OKAY to deny us an apartment or medical treatment, it's OKAY to fire us from our jobs, and its OKAY to kick the shit out of kids on the playground who are only suspected of maybe, possibly, being gay one day. By saying we don't deserve the right to [ fill in the blank ] shouts to the world that we're different, we're "less than", and opens the floodgate to discriminate, abuse, and even kill. That's unacceptable. That's why this seemingly unimportant issue is so very important. Some gays say they don't want to get married. Cool. Neither do I. But that's also aside from the point. And to even think that we can't work for EQUALITY and at the same time tackle all those other issues effecting us is pretty silly. Like Obama said, we have to be able to handle more than one thing at a time. And while we bicker over whether we should fight for this or that right, people, children, are dying. This heartbreaking story of an 11 year old who was bullied and called "gay" so much that he hung himself is becoming all too common. "Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanged himself by tying an electrical cord around his neck that was fastened to a support beam in his home after enduring another day of being taunted at New Leadership Charter School." And yet, many of us STILL sit by while we are marginalized, and while our youth are tormented so that they hang themselves. It's truly sad what self-loathing homos will allow to be heaped upon their bowing and scraping heads. Thank God, I'll never be one of them. ~~ Visit XJW Net

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