Gov. Blunt Legalizes Gay Sex In Missouri

With the stroke of a pen on Tuesday, Governor Matt Blunt legalized gay sex in Missouri. Previously, under Missouri law, consensual gay sex constituted the crime of "sexual misconduct" and was punishable as a Class A misdemeanor.

I wasn't aware that gay sex was illegal in Missouri, but I guess it is (or was).   Since the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, such laws have been considered unconstitutional.  This bill, which was sponsored by GOP Representatives and signed by a Republican governor, may also make it easier for homosexuals to become foster parents.  I wonder if it's a coincidence that this legislation was signed during the same week that there was so much noise in Washington over a ban on gay marriage.  On the one hand, they deserve credit for fixing a bad law, but their timing was good if they wanted their more fundamentalist constituents to be distracted from this move.

At any rate, this post should be a good test of our antispam measures.  Spammers love a post that contains keywords related to their particular wares, so I'm sure they'll hit this one.

Okay, so I know I've been posting a lot of movies stuff lately. Not much is going on right now. We've just been hanging out with friends, ourselves, and the cat. So I guess I'll just post some photos of the cat.

Let's call this series "Pip Doing Everything He Knows He Shouldn't Do".

Pip hanging out in the cabinets - he knocks stuff over and gets himself trapped if we don't notice him going in there.

Pip jumping onto the kitchen counters - to try and eat our food, bat at plastic bags, snoop around the stove and get scared of boiling water, and to have easy access to the TV stand on the other side of the counter so he can bat at the TV.

Pip in the fridge - he can get in there in a split second without us noticing, so if we hear meows and can't tell where they're coming from, it's a curious and cold kitten.

Pip biting - I have way too many scars right now. This photo cracks me up.

Not pictured: Pip trying to get into the toilet.

I heard on the news last week that Congress passed a bill barring protestors from military funerals. The bill was actually written with one man in mind: the anti-gay demonstrator Fred Phelps. The story once again brought national attention to the gay-hating actions of this man, for which I am very grateful. You see, I honestly believe that Mr. Phelps's words and actions are so extreme and offensive that they are actually achieving the opposite effect of what he desires. Let me explain.

Up until recently, Fred Phelps preached his "God hates fags" message mostly at funerals and memorials for homosexuals, including Matthew Shepherd, the famous hate crime victim. For this, Phelps immediately made enemies with anyone who supports gay rights or even a more moderate tolerance of homosexuality. This was apparently not enough, though, because Fred Phelps has more recently staged protests at military funerals for soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. His twisted logic goes something like this: The American government tolerates homosexuality; American soldiers die defending America; therefore, American soldiers die defending homosexuality.

In his idiocy, Fred Phelps has actually found a way to give homophobic bigots a bad name. While he doesn’t have very many followers in his "ministry," there are plenty of people in America who would at least support his "God hates fags" message in spirit. I’ve actually taught a number of them in rural Missouri. But here’s the thing: in general (and I don’t think it’s an unfair generalization), people who hate homosexuals tend to support the military. I’ve actually had some of my students, who would previously have supported Phelps’s crusade, curse the man’s name because of his protests at military funerals. I honestly think some of them have even paused to rethink their own anti-gay attitudes.

Like I said before, Fred Phelps had previously made enemies of most moderate-to-liberal individuals in America. Now he’s gone ahead and made enemies with everybody else. The more he draws attention to himself and angers people of all sociopolitical views, the more I believe Mr. Phelps reveals to everyone the ugliness of homophobic hatred. And for that I thank him.