Site Re-Design

My old blog template couldn’t make use of all the groovy new widgets and functionality of WordPress, so I dove into a site re-design the other day, and I’m still tweaking.

I’ve kept lots of cool stuff, like my flickr badge and extensive blogroll, but here’s the cool new stuff:

  • more & newer photos in the random photo header
  • a compact category list
  • a tag cloud! this one excites me, even if it means going back & tagging 5 years of blog posts. still, it helps locate more of my posts on specific topics, like crossdressing, or the Gwen Araujo trial.
  • & most importantly for you, dear reader, is the new “share this” button on every post, so you can put my stuff up on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, LJ, and Technorati. But you can also email it to a friend! How cool is that? I feel like The New York Times.

So do explore, and if you have any more suggestions, that’s what the comments section is for. In the next months I’m hoping to update both helenboydbooks.com and Trans Group Blog, but for right now, I’ve had my fill of tweaking code.

Details on CT Ruling

Here is the .pdf of the CT Supreme Court decision, which includes this remarkable language:

Although we acknowledge that many legislators and many of their constituents hold strong personal convictions with respect to preserving the traditional concept of marriage as a heterosexual institution, such beliefs, no matter how deeply held, do not constitute the exceedingly persuasive justification required to sustain a statute that discriminates on the basis of a quasi-suspect classification. “That civil marriage has traditionally excluded same-sex couples, i.e., that the ‘historic and cultural understanding of marriage’ has been between a man and a woman’ cannot in itself provide a [sufficient] basis for the challenged exclusion. To say that the discrimination is ‘traditional’ is to say only that the discrimination has existed for a long time. A classification, however, cannot be maintained merely ‘for its own sake’ [Romer v.Evans, supra, 517 U.S. 635].

Instead, the classification ([that is], the exclusion of gay [persons] from civil
marriage) must advance a state interest that is separate from the classification itself [see id., 633, 635]. Because the ‘tradition’ of excluding gay [persons] from civil marriage is no different from the classification itself, the exclusion cannot be justified on the basis of ‘history.’ Indeed, the justification of ‘tradition’ does not explain the classification; it merely repeats it. Simply put, a history or tradition of discrimination – no matter how entrenched – does not make the discrimination constitutional.”

The boldface is mine. Stunning. The ruling also clarified that civil union is not the same.

Nothing to Fear

FDR’s 1st Inaugural Address, better known as the “Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself” speech, seems incredibly relevant right now:

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

Read the whole thing here, or listen to an excerpt.

CT, CA, & Prop 8

The state of Connecticut has now made same-sex marriage legal! It’s the third state to do so, after Massachusetts & California, although of course Vermont has civil unions and New York is now recognizing same sex marriages that were performed elsewhere.

It’s exciting. It’s human. It’s patriotic.

That said, the forces for Prop 8 in California – which would repeal same-sex marriage rights – have a lot more money & are spending it on ads & whatnot trying to undo last year’s ruling. To get more information, doante, or find out what you can do, try noonprop8.com.

LGBT People in Wasilla

Those books Palin was asking about having removed? Books about gays for children. Why am I not surprised?

Interviews with LGBT Alaskans in Wasilla, who talk about how Palin was very much involved with churches who made anti-gay sentiment a political stand, and who condone ex-gay therapies. Very, very important viewing, especially after Palin let it slide in the debate that she is for same-sex marriage rights (even if she doesn’t call it marriage).

Gendered Dining

I really do love the NYT. They put me in touch with rare tribes of people & exotic types of lives I wouldn’t know otherwise: in this case, the fine dining set, who worry about whether women are served first.

I didn’t even know that was the tradition, prole that I am.

Five years ago, she said, she often had to fight to get servers to let her be the point person for a group of men and women dining together. Servers had a stubborn tropism toward the men.

But lately, she said, that hasn’t been as true, especially downtown, where she has noticed that if she makes the first eye contact with a server and seems the most inquisitive and purposeful, the server notices, and responds to it. “Body language is recognized in a way it wasn’t before,” Ms. DeLozier said. “I think it’s possible for a woman to take the lead now.”

Those nutty folks downtown, treating women & men as equals. Still, a point I’ve made in the past & which this article shores up is that the more formal you get, the more gendered things are. My usual example is formal clothes – traditional tuxes/suits vs. gowns and LBDs – but dining, and wine selection, are apparently other good examples. What interesting to me is that when the restauranteurs have tried to de-gender things, the diners have asked that they serve ladies first. You can lead a snob to water…

re-design(ing)

I’m fiddling with the re-design, so forgive me if for the next several days you can’t quite find everything you’re used to. Eventually I’ll get it all in place, but wow – a website that’s been tweaked for a few years has a ton of tiny stuff in the code.

Cindy McCain

Cindy McCain has said she wants Barack Obama to trade shoes/places with her, so that he would know what it’s like to have a child serving in the US military.

Wow would she be surprised at what it’s like to be black in America.