My man (?) IOZ offers his take on the nature vs. nurture debate (and I happen to agree!):

But sexuality isn’t the same as race (well, even race isn’t the same as race), and though it, like all human behaviors, has genetic and hormonal antecedents, it is not mere biological determinism that causes me to suck cock. Predilection is not identity. Human sexuality does exist on a spectrum; its characteristics and emphases change even within the individual over the course of a lifetime. Some people have very stable sexual interests; others “oscillate wildly,” as goes the title of The Smiths’ song. The fight against discrimination based on sexual identity is categorically confused: sexuality doesn’t constitute an identity. It constitutes a portion of the totality of each autonomous individual identity, and the reason not to discriminate against those whose sexual tastes and practices diverge from your own is not that minority sexualities constitute a protected class, that like the color of one’s skin, the angle of one’s wrist is genetic and, goddamnit, queers are people too. It’s simply that fucking is none of your fucking business.

That’s Apple’s home page, above – they’re putting their opposition to California’s pernicious Proposition 8 front and center. Pretty ballsy for a big corporation, if you ask me, but totally in keeping with their corporate philosophy. It makes me wonder, though – what are we doing about Proposition 8?

Frankly, I haven’t done squat. I will admit that I personally don’t feel that the marriage fight belongs front-and-center in what used to be charmingly called the Gay Liberation movement. However, when an organized juggernaut of conservative and religious groups attempts to amend a state constitution to prohibit gay marriage, I get my back up.

Andrew Sullivan has been following the Prop 8 question pretty closely, and has a good post here. He quotes Nate Silver of the Five Thirty Eight polling site as putting Prop 8’s chances at 50-50!

I’m curious – any of you Californians involved in the No on 8 stuff?

More sad news out of Iraq this week:

The Baghdad coordinator of Iraqi LGBT has been assassinated, probably by one of the two religious militia .

Peter Tatchell of Outrage! issued the following statement at lunchtime:

This morning, I received news from Iraq that the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad, Bashar, aged 27, a university student, has been assassinated in a barber shop.

Militias burst in and sprayed his body with bullets at point blank range.

He was the organiser of the safe houses for gays and lesbians in Baghdad. His efforts saved the lives of dozens of people.

Bashar was a kind, generous and extremely brave young man – a true hero who put his life on the line to save the lives of others.

As Donald Rumsfeld put it so eloquently, “Freedom’s untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes.”

This one is definitely Not Safe For Work. Hilarious, however…
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Jerusalem mayoral candidate Arcadi Gaydamak, an Israeli-Russian businessman, said “When I’m elected mayor, I would die before allowing the pride parade to be held in Jerusalem.”

(h/t: the Angry Arab)

An interesting article pointed out to me by an old friend from college.  From the article:

You can’t isolate gay men as a puzzle or problem anymore. You have to see them as part of a bigger, stronger, enduring phenomenon.

I’ve always thought that hundreds of thousands or millions of years of evolution didn’t result in homosexuality accidentally.  We get into trouble when you look at single instances of our human population in isolation.  I like to think of humans not as individuals, but as a large organism that exists and adapts over many generations.  Like a forest crawling up the raw slope of a recent mountain landslide.  Each human or tree is quite inconsequential on its own.

 http://www.slate.com/id/2194232/

It appears that George Takei, the actor who played Mr. Sulu on the original Star Trek series, is marrying his longtime partner Brad Altman. Guess who’s invited to the wedding?

The best man:

The matron of honor:

An honored guest:

Guess who’s not invited?

Takei and Altman plan to marry Sept. 14 in the Democracy Forum at the Japanese National Museum in Los Angeles.

Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in “Star Trek,” will be the best man and Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, will be the matron of honor. Castmate Leonard Nimoy will be among the 200 guests, but probably not William Shatner. Takei has said Shatner didn’t treat him and most of the cast very well.

Too bad. I’m sure Shatner could’ve gotten them a great deal on hotels!

Check out this briliant clip of Colbert at his finest up on Crooks and Liars. He asks Perkins why he isn’t “keeping kosher” or supporting adult male circumcision.

Last night on the “The Report,” Stephen Colbert hosted Family Research Council President Tony Perkins to discuss the recent landmark court ruling in California legalizing same sex marriages, and ended up catching the “family values” crusader in some serious contradictions in the way only Colbert can.

Try the Gender Guesser!