About Last Night...

I told you I wasn't worried. The chess match played out as I expected. But to be honest, even after reading Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog in the closing days and watching President Obama's chance of winning go from about 73 percent on October 29 to 91 percent early yesterday, I was a bit concerned. Not to a great extent, but just enough. I wasn't so worried about the polls -- I find it impossible to take them seriously on an individual basis, the polling criteria are so varied, but summarizing them and determining the trends and such, the Silver calculus works for me. (This will not change my mind about the baseball stat geeks and their Moneyball junk, however.)

My biggest concern was that the GOP would try to steal Florida or Ohio again. Well, if they did try, they failed.

But beyond the Obama victory, other events offer signs of hope. The asinine GOP extremists who opined that there's such a thing as "legitimate" rape and rape that "God intended to happen" both got their asses kicked. Beyond the win in Wisconsin by Tammy Baldwin, making her the first openly gay U.S. Senator, California sends to the House the first LGBT person of color in Congress. And Arizona -- Arizona!?! -- may  have elected a bisexual woman to Congress (the race is still too close to call).

What really stunned me, though, was the results from the four states where marriage equality was on the ballot. The last 32 or so times that voters had their say on the issue in some way, the pro-equality side lost every single time.

I saw a comment from a pundit saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that it would be helpful/important to have two victories out of the four. I guess that would constitute a trend. I was honestly hoping for just one.

My Recent Comics 2-8-12

With my procrastinating and lack of rest time and such, I actually went to the store(s) on three different days for these. I can't remember exactly when, but I've had them a while. They've been sitting on a table waiting to get their day in the blog spotlight. So, for the sake of getting this out of the way once and for all, I'm only going to touch on a few of these.

Simpsons Comics 183, 184, 185
Simpsons Winter Wingding 6
Simpsons Super Spectacular 14 -- The story of the musical "Radioactive Man: Turn Up The Silence." Sound familiar?
Futurama Comics 58
Veronica 209 a.k.a Veronica Presents: Kevin Keller 3 (of 4) -- As with the first two issues, I actually found this at a bookstore -- Barnes and Noble, now that Borders is gone. I never picked up issue 4, however, which is too bad because it actually had a bit of a cliffhanger. Plus they actually mention Snooki and plug her book, "A Shore Thing." Wait -- did I just plug it too? And that Barnes and Noble is also where I bought...

Prop. 8 Mania!

Just a quick comment in a desperate attempt to keep at least some content flowing here...sigh...

When the ruling came down today declaring California's Proposition 8 -- the ban on same-sex marriages in the state -- unconstitutional, there was, as you might expect, great joy on my Twitter timeline. Some flat-out declared Prop 8 to be dead. Well, it's not. It's not dead until the U.S. Supreme Court kills it, and there's no real guarantee of that. The court's ideologically split. People can guess all they want and read the tea leaves and so on, but until the court rules there's no real way to know how it will go. It'll be a 5-4 vote either way.

Or will it? Check out this bit from the linked article:

But the appeals court did not address whether marriage was a fundamental right available to same-sex couples as well as heterosexuals, focusing instead specifically on Prop 8.
Some lawyers predicted that the narrow ruling would lead the Supreme Court to limit itself to deciding on the California measure or to refusing the case altogether.

So, in theory, the court could get rid of California's law but other states would still be free to enact or enforce similar laws, at least for a while? Hmmph.

Thus, I found some of the reaction today to be just a little over the top. Sure, it's good news, but let's not get carried away. After all, there are still lots of people eager to vote for Despicable Dick Santorum. (Speaking of whom, here are more links, just because we shouldn't forget this...)

Phillies Will Finally Make It Better

In response to my scathing editorial regarding the lack of good news on the local LGBT/pro sports front (while other teams' current and former players support marriage equality and other cities' MLB teams make "It Gets Better" videos, Philly teams have done nothing and DeSean Jackson drops anti-gay slurs on radio), the Phillies have committed to making an "It Gets Better" video to help stop bullying.

Okay, it really had more to do with the "Ask the Phils to make an It Gets Better video" petition gaining publicity via a mass email from Change.org after Jackson's idiocy became known, and Philadelphia Weekly's adding to that publicity by profiling the petition's creator, followed by (I assume) the PW writer asking the Phils for a response, which led to the Phillies finally joining the cause -- as I explained in this blog post on Outsports.com. Still, I'm happy that it's finally going to happen.

Now, can we get the Flyers to do so as well?

I Want To Marry You

On this blog a while back I mentioned that, once upon a time, I became an ordained minister online, but never did anything with it. I suggested that, as marriage equality continues on its inevitable path to becoming the law of the land, I could begin marrying same-sex couples to relieve other ministers of some of their workload. (This isn't to say I wouldn't marry straight couples, of course.) As it turned out, after I posted that I went to their website and couldn't log on. I sent an email and got a reply that said their databases have been moved and updated over the years and, long story short, they couldn't find any record of me. I was told I'd have to go through the process again.

So I did, and I'm once again an ordained minister, with a church whose beliefs on same-sex marriage widely diverge from many other religions.

Today I was talking with my friend Kurt and he suggested that, since I need money, I should start advertising my ministerial services and begin marrying people. Of course, there's a little bit more I have to do to even begin to perform weddings or other ceremonies. For one, I'd need some credentials to prove that I'm ordained, credentials that they'll happily provide...for a price, of course. And seeing as how money is not falling from any trees around my house, I'm not going to pay for such credentials unless I actually need to use them.

Besides, I have no idea what the going rates are, although I will say that I'm happy to undercut the competition, within reason. ;-)

So, while I'm not going to post an ad on Craigslist or anything, I'll just say that if you need any services performed and don't mind hiring someone who's never performed any services before, and if you're not in a real hurry or you don't need to see actual credentials (so if we're talking weddings, plan ahead), keep me in mind. Remember, I'll undercut the competition's rates.

And if you read the title of this post and thought I was proposing to you, and you're a man, and you're interested, well, you should get in touch with me right away.

Losing My Religion (DeSean Jackson Edition)

If you have some working knowledge of Philadelphia's pro sports teams and their fans, you're aware that there are certain teams that we Just. Don't. Like. And there are players on those teams that we Just. Don't. Like. So a comparison of recent events involving Philly players and those from the Do Not Like category is distressing.

In the last couple of months we've had the New York Rangers' Sean Avery speaking out and even lobbying state legislators to get the same-sex marriage bill passed in New York. He's spoken on gay issues in the past and continues to do so even after the marriage victory in New York. Avery is one of those obnoxious, edgy, nasty hockey players that everyone hates, unless he's on their team. And the fact that he plays for the Rangers, still a major rival of the Flyers even though they haven't been all that successful since their last Stanley Cup win in 1994, makes it worse. But in the world of pro sports, speaking out on LGBT equality is, while not as rare as it used to be, still rather controversial.

This week, our attention focuses on NFL Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin, who played his entire career with the NFL's Evil Empire, the Dallas Cowboys. Obviously he was a talented player, but also unlikable, a loudmouth who got into trouble off the field (suspended after arrested on drug charges, both by the NFL during his playing career and by ESPN after he became a broadcaster). But he, too, has spoken out on LGBT issues recently, and now he's on the cover of Out magazine. In the accompanying story (written by Cyd Zeigler of Outsports), he speaks about his late brother, who was gay, and how he also supports full marriage equality and wants the NFL to be supportive when the day arrives that an active player comes out.

Two disliked players from hated rivals, now doing great stuff to help gay people. As you can imagine, I'm a little conflicted. I'm not comfortable with Sean Avery and Michael Irvin giving me reasons to actually, you know, like them.

But I'm also disappointed, because while these opponents are doing these things, what do I have, representing my teams, the teams I love and passionately root for?

DeSean Jackson. And silence.

The Eagles' wide receiver

Why I'd Be A Bad Husband

Sure, New York state now has marriage equality after the state's Assembly and GOP-controlled (really? Really!?!) Senate passed legislation to allow same-sex marriages and the bill was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo last night.

It's a great day, it's annother step in the right direction, and it'll make for a helluva fun Pride parade tomorrow in New York City. But I've learned that I am not good marriage material. Why?

It seems I'm capable of forgetting to acknowledge anniversaries.

Such as the two-year anniversary of the creation of this very blog.

Even though I have a calendar nearby and "blog 2 yrs." is written on the box for the 22nd.

Once again, as the kids say, SMH.

Happy anniversary to me. Thank you for reading. Thank you, New York state, even though clearly I won't be taking advantage of your new law any time soon. (Although perhaps, if you're planning to get married, I can help. A long time ago I went through the process of becoming an ordained minister online. I never did anything with it, but I figure that, as same-sex marriage becomes more and more common, all the other ministers might be too busy and need my help...)

NY Rangers' Sean Avery For Marriage Equality

Obnoxious on the ice, but great off it. I guess that's the way to describe New York Rangers forward Sean Avery, who just filmed an ad in support of marriage equality in New York:



Here's a link to the New York Times article, in case you pay the Times for access or haven't hit the monthly limit of 20 free articles.

Avery has spoken out previously about how he'd support an openly gay player in the NHL. He also got naked for a t-shirt for a campaign to fight skin cancer and raise funds for cancer research at NYU:

Still don't ever want him to play for the Flyers. Then again, considering the weak end to their season, maybe they need an attitude adjustment.

God Bless America

On the same day that California's Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional and equality won, it's entirely appropriate and fabulous that my friend Kurt got to sing "God Bless America" at the Camden Riversharks game. Enjoy! And celebrate -- for now, because the bigots and teabaggers and other assorted scumbags will keep fighting against same-sex marriage, so we'll have to keep fighting all the harder.
(YouTube is having issues, so I had to post it to Facebook. Also, that's me screaming "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" at the end.)