My Gay Life

All I have to say is hilarious.

I have a friend with a son who was just suspended from school last Friday. He was suspended because after a year of verbal bullying he took matters into his own hands and got into a physical fight with this bully.

My friend’s reaction was “I am happy for him. I am happy that he finally stood up for himself. I do not care that he got suspended. This has been going on too long.” From most people this type of reaction would have surprised me, but in this particular case it was what I expected. This was an interesting perspective that I had never really considered before, but the more I think about it the more I believe that her reaction is a disservice to her son.

Her son is different. He meets all of the stereotypes of being gay and has always sent my gaydar off, even before I actually knew him. Granted whether or not he is gay, has no actual bearing on this situation. As everyone knows being different in middle and high school will get you bullied, whether it is because you are gay, short, fat, have too high of a voice, or any distinguishing characteristic.

My friend is very naive. She sees her perfect image of her kids even when confronted with a preponderance of proof that they are not perfect. Her older son was a pot addict, and it took 3 years of all of her friends saying he is smoking pot, before she finally accepted that it might be true. I think this naivety gets her sons into trouble.

Her son complained his Freshman year that he was being bullied too much. So rather than trying to address the problem, give her son the tools to deal with bullying, and work with the school administration on the issue, she transferred him to a new school. As both you and I know transferring to a new school is not going to stop bullying, although in some cases it is truly necessary. Even working with the school administration will never truly stop the problem.

We need to equip kids with the tools to deal with bullying, and stop it if necessary. Avoidance is not a solution as bullying at that age is something that can never be completely avoided. And this is where I was disappointed with my friend. I wish she would have had a different reaction.

I wish her reaction would have been “I understand why he did it, I am happy he stood up for himself, but it was the wrong way to deal with the problem. Here is what he should have done.” This would have been a much better message and have helped provide him with some of the tools he needs to deal with the constant bullying.

As anyone who used the internet on Wednesday quickly learned, there was a massive online protest against SOPA/PIPA. First, click here to answer what is SOPA/PIPA?

This site and other including reddit, Wikipedia, and Bilerico shut down for the day showing pages urging you to contact your elected representatives. Now, many are claiming success as both the House and the Senate have postponed voting on the bills.

I did not take the decision to shut down lightly. Many had reservations about shutting down as they were going to lose a day’s worth of advertising revenue. My advertising revenue is so small, one day’s loss honestly is not even noticeable. I hesitated to shut down my site as this is a form of protest that can only be done rarely. If a bunch of sites shut down next month to protest something else it would not be nearly as effective or dramatic. It would be overused. However, I feel strongly that SOPA and PIPA are significantly flawed and had to be stopped.

However, now that the protest is over, was it successful? I would argue it was only modestly successful in accomplishing what it needed to accomplish. First, the bills are not gone, and there is no way to know that the problems in the bills will be resolved before congress decides to act on them again. When the bills come back in a month, how do we know that the problems are going to be fixed?

Additionally, these bills originally had broad support in D.C. Our representatives either truly believed that fundamentally changing the structure of the internet and using “The Great Firewall of China” to stop piracy is a good thing, or they had no idea what they were supporting as they did not bother to do their research. So either your representative wants to censor your access to information or your representative is willfully ignorant and not doing their job.

Finally, despite these massive protests the corporate backers of these bills see nothing wrong with it. These corporate backers believe that your access to the internet should be censored. These corporate backers believe that if I post a link to a site that contains even a single piece of copyrighted material that they should be able to shut this site down as I did not do enough to ensure I was not providing you information on how to get copyrighted material. Even if these companies lose this fight this year, they will be back next year and every following year until they get what they want, or go out of business.

So despite this initial victory the war is not over. Continue to contact your representatives about these issues. Consider who the corporate backers of these bills are and limit the money you give them. Some of the backers are so big you likely have no idea if you are giving them your money or not when you buy something, and that is understandable, but when you do know buy an alternative if possible.

This was too good not to post today. Comic from XKCD.

Every few months I find myself debating whether I should move. But I do not debate if I should move to another city or another state. When I debate moving I debate whether I should move to another country. Another country where I can be myself and not be in a constant fight for equal rights. A country that quite frankly is more modern than the United States.

Today is one of those days that I find myself debating whether I should move to Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, or the Netherlands. These are countries that have taken the significant step and allow gay marriage, gay adoption, and are generally more progressive. I find myself feeling like the Pilgrims and believing that my current government has gotten so bad and out of control that it cannot be stopped and my only option is to find another country to live in.

I always hope that things are going to get better in the United States. I know that eventually gay marriage and gay adoption will be the standard law. However, I also realize that the US has lost its title of true World Leader and probably will never be a true leader again.

I know that things are going to get better in the United States. I know that the grass is not always greener on the other side. But is it going to get better quickly enough?

For today I decide to stay, but I also will continue to do my research and consider if there is no such thing as the American Dream anymore and if I would be better off elsewhere.

I am truly saddened that this is something I have to consider at all, but that is the state of America today.

It is not too late to make your resolutions. In fact, I believe you should make resolutions year round, do not just wait for the new year to get you off your butt and make a resolution.

The problem is most people fail in their resolutions. Most people fail in their resolutions because they are too broad and not specific enough. In my last post I listed my current resolutions; however, before listing them I took my very specific resolutions and broadened them.

Do not resolve to lose weight. Yes set a goal to lose a certain number of pounds, but break that goal into a series of smaller very specific resolutions. For example: I will pack my lunch two times a week instead of going out to eat fast food. Then once you consistently meet that resolution create a new one, I will pack my lunch three times a week.

In my eat healthier and exercise more I promised myself to eat a serving of vegetables at lunch 4 times a week. I am actually doing that right now. On the other hand I promised myself to exercise more. This one is not going so well. I am now changing this one to I am going to spend 30 minutes on my bike 2 times a week.

Additionally, do not resolve to do something you cannot definitively control. For example do not resolve that you are going to get married this year, if you do not already have a wedding date sometime this year. Instead resolve to ask your partner to marry you, or try a new dating site, or get out of the house one night a week and meet people.

Tell people your resolutions. Especially people that you see on an ongoing basis and are going to ask you how they are going. Put reminders on your calendar to remind you to go exercise 2 times a week. Write them down in places that they will constantly prod you so you will feel guilty if you do not follow through.

Finally, do not give up if you are not meeting your resolutions. If you resolved to keep your house clean and find that you are still letting your house become a mess, then take a step back and figure out why you are letting your house become a mess. Then create a specific promise on how you are going to resolve the problem. So if you do not have enough time to keep your house clean because you spend 6PM-10PM in front of the TV, create a promise to yourself not to watch TV from 6-6:30 PM.

Well those are the rules that I follow. I am not always successful, but when I started following these rules I have become much more successful. What about you, how do you make sure you follow through on your resolutions?