Last update: Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
Hi everyone!
Welcome to Social Notes, the sometimes weekly goings-on of Houston’s lesbian community. You can sign
up to receive an email notice every time I update the site, by clicking on the blue box in the upper right
hand corner of this page. Now, let me show you around the website:
- The Calendar page contains a listing of events for the next couple of months.
- To find out about clubs and organizations, check out the Organizations page. This page is sub-
divided to make it easier to find things.
- I know all you kind-hearted pet-loving lesbians would want to know about animals needing a new
home, so I included a Pets page.
- The Jobs Page lists both women in search of jobs, and job openings for gay-friendly positions.
- If you want to support lesbian, women-owned, or just generally gay-friendly businesses, then
check out the Networking Page. This page has also been recently subdivided to make it easier to
find what you are looking for.
|
_____________________________________________________________________
|
Please take 5 minutes to fill our a survey for me!
As many of you know, it is my goal in life to own and operate an upscale dude ranch/wilderness resort for
the GLBT community, to be located in the Rocky Mountains. To help with my business planning, I am
gathering input about gay travel in general and about interest in my specific project. Would you all
please take 5 minutes to fill out a 19 question survey? And since I am asking for favors, would you also
pass this request along to your GLBT friends around the world? For this survey to be effective, I need
lots of responses, from lots of states/countries. This link will take you to the survey. Thanks in
advance for your input and your help!
PS: If the link doesn't work, here is the address for the survey:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225MAXB573C
|
_____________________________________________________________________
|
The Rant
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Well, unless you are living under a bridge these days, you've probably heard that folks have got their
Undies In A Bundle over the idea that a mosque is going to be built at Ground Zero. As Caribou Barbie
tweets: "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation;
it stabs hearts". Gosh, a mosque right at Ground Zero, which Palin calls "hallowed ground" sure does
sound ill-advised. Of course, none of what she claims is true, but then again, when has she ever let the
facts get in the way of a good opportunity to rouse the rabble!
Here's the real poop behind this brouhaha:
• The proposed facility is NOT a mosque - it is a Muslim community center (swimming pool,
meeting rooms etc) that happens to contain a prayer room. And no, a prayer center does NOT
equal a mosque. Otherwise we’d have to classify the Pentagon as a mosque, since it also contains
a Muslim prayer room.
• The location is NOT at Ground Zero - it is two big city blocks away, in a busy commercial
area. You cannot see Ground Zero from the Community Center and you cannot see the Community
Center from Ground Zero.
• The Center's site is hardly "hallowed ground" - it is a vacant Burlington Coat Factory on a
crappy urban street! And speaking of hallowed ground, here are other things within a 3 block
radius of Ground Zero: tittie bars, a gay bar, nail salons, street vendors selling tasteless 9-11
crap and all manner of downscale urban storefronts. Should we also destroy all of them in the
name of hallowedness? For God's sakes, they are currently building a shopping center in the
basement of the Ground Zero construction site. I wonder, is Cinnabon going to be judged
"hallow" enough to put a store in the basement of the towers? And who gets to do the judging?
Oh, you know the answer to that – the right wing has the self-declared Registered Trademark on
Patriotism, 9-11, and All That Is Good About America. After all, the left is too busy revealing its
Communist/Socialist/Fascist self, ramming vaguely progressive legislation “down our throats”,
and in general planning to destroy The Country As We Know It.
• The righties intentionally conflate Al Qaeda with the entire Muslim religion. If we follow
that "logic", shouldn't we shut down churches near the Murrah Building bomb site in Oklahoma
because terrorist Timothy McVeigh, a Christian, blew up a federal building there? The Daily
Show also came up with a great analogy, when John Oliver said “Sure, it’s LEGAL to build Catholic
churches near a playground, but is it WISE?” We all understand that it is unfair to tar the
whole Catholic religion with the actions of its pedophile priests. Why is it so hard to understand
the fundamental unfairness of blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few demented losers?
• Oh yeah, it turns out that there are already at least 2 mosques within a several block
radius of Ground Zero, and in fact a prayer group has been meeting at the Burlington Coat
Factory site for a year. Odd how life seems to have gone on quite nicely with all that potential
terrorist activity so close to the “hallowed site”.
• And here’s the latest monkey poo being flung by those deep thinkers on the right: they
claim that the Imam who is leading the Community Center effort has “deep ties” to terrorism
and has spoken harshly about the US. In fact, he served as George W. Bush’s special envoy in the
days after 9-11, in an attempt to build bridges with Muslims across the globe, and he was invited
to speak at the funeral of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish journalist who was beheaded by Al Qaeda.
Guess he must have been hiding his terrorist tendencies pretty well back then.
Of course, the Bill of Rights makes it very clear that all religions have the right to freely congregate
and worship here in the good ol' U S of A. And make no mistake about it, these are AMERICAN
CITIZENS who want to socialize and pray with fellow believers, not some Al Qaeda underground cell
plotting our demise in the shadow of the fallen towers.
Bible Spice (my new favorite nickname for Palin) and her cronies argue that just because it's legal
doesn't make it right. Well, here are the reasons why I think it is positively crucial to support the
Muslims in their desire to create this center:
• The Bill of Rights protects our freedoms at all times - not just when it is popular and/or
convenient to do so. Indeed, those rights were enumerated specifically to protect the minority
from the tyranny of a rabid majority. I understand that this feels yucky to a lot of people. But
that’s when you need the protections of the Bill of Rights the most – when things are
uncomfortable, unknown, inconvenient or otherwise unwanted by the majority. To bring this
closer to home, opponents of gay marriage say it makes them feel yucky. Are we willing to
abandon our quest for equal rights because it makes some others uncomfortable? I think not.
• After 9-11, I remember a lot of people wanting the "good Muslims" to stand up and
renounce the actions of the bad ones. This cultural center represents the best of the Muslim
world - an effort to reach out to the entire community to build bridges of understanding and
hope. They are doing what we wanted them to do, for gosh sakes!
• By supporting the creation of this center, we make a statement to the rest of the world
that we LIVE by the values we preach. Tolerance and religious freedom are amongst the values
that, in theory anyway, distinguish us from so many other nations. Are we really so ready to
abandon these principles at the first shrill tweet from Sarah Palin? Regardless of how you feel
about Muslims in general or terrorists in particular, this is not about who THEY are – it’s about
who WE are.
• If we force the Center's developers to move elsewhere, aren't we confirming Al Qaeda's
message to the Muslim world - that the US is waging war on their whole religion? That we only
pay lip service to the values we so loudly and proudly proclaim?
Palin and other unhinged luminaries of the far right have latched onto this issue because it is in their
DNA to create "Us vs. Them" scenarios - the better to stoke the fears of their cowering base. And it
isn’t by coincidence that the mid-term elections are only 10 weeks away. The evil brown people are out
to steal your precious freedoms and overtake our country, doncha know. Be afraid! Throw those
terror-loving Democrats out of office! Sadly, the right is playing their hand so well that even
otherwise stalwart Democrats are caving under the pressure. Thanks for nothing, Howard Dean and
Harry Reid! What profiles in courage - NOT!
I personally detest organized religion – ALL of them. When I think of the wars, atrocities, ignorance,
discrimination and evil that have been perpetrated by followers eager to prove that their God is the
bestest, I can only shake my head in disgust. However, I will passionately defend your right to
practice the religion of your choice, because it’s The Right Thing To Do. To me, this is one of our
generation’s tests – can we do a better job than our parents and grandparents did during WWII, when
they turned a blind eye to the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent for the duration
of the war? What a blot on our nation’s history that was. How will the next generation judge our
actions regarding this ginned-up mosque hysteria? Will we succumb to fear, or stand up for the
Constitution?
As blogger Adam Serwer recently posted: "Personally, I think every congressman or senator who
opposes the Park 51 project should write the families of every Muslim service member in Iraq and
Afghanistan to explain how the freedoms they're supposedly fighting for don't apply to them."
Couldn't have said it better myself!
|
|
And of course, the political rant happens right here.
It might seem strange to mix lesbian social info
with political observations, but it works for me.
If it doesn't work for you,
then feel free to skip ahead!
|
|
|
_______________________________________________________________________
If you'd like to receive an email notice when Social Notes gets updated,
please click on the box below:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
