R.P. Andrews's Blog, page 19

The Land That Jennie Craig Forgot

The Land That Jennie Craig Forgot

Forgive me my PA friends but …

Thirty per cent of the world’s population is obese, and l think Northeast Pennsylvania or more particularly Milford, PA.,  where l’m staying with my ex till Labor Day in our summer home, is the epicenter. For every hottie and smokin’ chick, there’s three guys or gals who look like they spent the winter in their refrigerator and now that it’s summer and sweaty, decided to continue vacationing there in their frozen ice cream section.  I mean how BIG can one person get?? Shit, if l gain five fucken pounds I go anorexic. These folks must have a funhouse mirror in their bedrooms, and specially designed toilets to sit on that use GPS to find their shitholes.

I guess there’s something to be said for living in a year-round summery climate where we’re almost feel compelled to look good, and not hibernate for six months out of the year in sweats and winter coats. Though that’s no excuse.

Hell, some of these guys, especially the six foot four variety, look like their own zip codes, and a few are working on being their own counties.  And the women – excuse me you lipstick lesbians out there – look like they’re members of a bull dyke brigade, and these are the ones with three kids in tow at Walmart, where fat people party. In fact l wouldn’t be surprised if some of them have more testosterone flowing through their veins than a lot of our Fort Lauderdale muscle bound hotties.

Which leads me to an interesting hypothesis: if the guys actually fuck these gals who look like truck drivers, could it be that the guys are actually closet cases acting out their deep seated homo desires?? And who knows, maybe their women are strapping it on and fucking them? Or fisting them? (After all they probably keep their nails short.)

All l know’ when l see the mythical country boy come alive before me, tall, lean, and bearded, and he’s trailing some broad who could occupy one of those Tiny Houses (catch the series?) all on her own, my inner lustful sexual being wants to shout out in the middle of Walmart’s Super Snacks aisle:

“What the fuck are you doing with her? You can have me!”

All joking aside, avoidable health issues like obesity which leads to high blood pressure, heart attacks, diabetes and even cancer cost all of us more in health care expenses and premiums because these $$$’s are averaged out among the entire population.

So ditch the funhouse mirror and lose the weight!

“Loving”: Waiting for Love

“Loving”: Waiting for Love

After almost a lifetime, l finally met two guys who l could say “l love you” to and mean it. I expected reciprocation from neither of them; one gave it, the other didn’t, but how they truly felt about me mattered less than the fact l was able to say those words to someone before l die.

Even though my ex George and l officially had a forty-two year old relationship, l don’t think we ever really loved one another in the true sense of the word. Infatuation and lust became reasons to escape our respective realities at the time, in George’s case his schzio sister, with me my overbearing parents. But by the time we realized that we weren’t IT to one another, we had signed a three year lease on a beautiful apartment overlooking the Verrazano Bridge on New York City’s Staten Island, l had secured an entry level public relations job twenty minutes away at one of the Island’s major hospitals which would eventually lead to a thirty year career in the field, almost all of them at that same facility, and George could grab the express bus to Wall Street where he worked in the back offices right in front of our building.

Even after sex – with one another – had gone out of our lives we continued the charade because it was comfortable. Without talking about an “open” relationship we drifted into homoburb domesticity. He spent weekends the couch potato jock, l spent them in the bath houses and sex clubs and leather/levi bars of lower Manhattan when I wasn’t traveling around the world – alone. (George had a phobia about eating foreign food – yes.) Our relationship became increasingly antagonistic as we realized this was not exactly what either of us wanted, but George refused to talk about it. We bought a home on the other side of the Island (for tax write-off purposes), a country home in Pennsylvania where we could take our ever changing brew of dogs on weekend romps, and eventually as retirement for both of us neared switching time between the house l bought for myself in Fort Lauderdale where G would spend the winters and our new, much more spacious home in Northwest PA where l would spend the summers.

Why didn’t we hang it up, you say? We got too lazy, too comfortable with the status quo.

A guy who should have married a woman and have six kids, George was never enamored with gay culture nor do l honestly think he fucked around outside of the one brief affair he admitted to. Me, on the other hand, had thousands of sexual encounters, including a trio of fuck buddies in Manhattan, but because l never got fucked l survived the Gay Genocide of the Eighties and Nineties while most handsome guys of my generation ended up six feet under. Remember too, since my life of deceit forced me to spend what precious time l had on finding sex not finding love, l never gave myself the opportunity to meet a guy in a strictly social setting who may have been more on my nerdy wavelength. Looking for love in all the wrong places – that was my life in a nutshell.

After a violent argument last spring down in Lauderdale which almost landed me in prison for murder, we both realized that it was time for splitsville, George living up in PA in a house l still pay half the carrying charges on – that’s why l call him my 80 year old boy – while l live alone here in Fort Lauderdale where l have become increasingly disenchanted with the aimless life of a gay bachelor though the gay God has blessed me with a second career as a daddy.

But three years ago, l met Rob, the kind of guy who l had been waiting for all my life, short like me with not an ounce of fat on his mid-fifties frame, hairy and ruggedly handsome, a regular guy, intelligent, seemingly stable with a good professional job in advertising. But l knew when l told him l loved him a few months ago while we swam naked in my pool, his response was predictably polite. We had both been down the rocky road of trainwrecked relationships and wanted no part of another emotional roller coaster ride. Yes, l knew that when l told him l loved him and told him l expected no reciprocation, just the opportunity to say that to a guy once in my life and mean it

Even if what I thought was true – that I was his only sexual outlet – wasn’t true, and he had some lover or three other Rays hidden away somewhere, the sex got more lustful each time we met which was almost every week. But more and more I was bothered by the reality that  l was compartmentalized in Rob’s life like some soap opera back alley mistress. Rob had his house and his dogs and his job and his friends and all the rest. And then he had me, somewhere out there like an adverb in a sentence you diagrammed when you were in third grade.  Or better put, like a standby no-pay rentboy available at a moment’s notice when he wanted me. When I  attempted to bring the subject up of going beyond the bedroom, like take a weekend road trip or even just go for dinner, all I got was a lot of patronizing and “we’ll see.”

It’s difficult in any relationship, let alone a fuck buddyship, where one party has feelings about the other that the other doesn’t have about him.

Last month in a torrid of texts, the whole thing came to the surface, and when Rob neither acknowledged nor apologized about my view that I was marginalized in his life,  I figured I had two choices – pull out before I suffered any more emotional angst, or settle for our “relationship” on his terms. Since emotional angst was something twenty somethings are supposed to suffer, not someone who gets discounts as a senior citizen, and since I don’t mind being alone and don’t look like Woody Allen’s older brother, I pulled the plug. And as I said on Wednesday, I really believe that the demise of our twosome had a lot to do with Rob’s Catholic guilt about being gay.

You can’t take it to the bank or cuddle up with it at night but without self-respect, you’re less than a person.

Sean, on the other hand says he loves me and for once in this seventy year old jaded faggot’s life, I believe it.  An Irish alien, Sean recently married an older guy – five years younger than me – to stay in the U.S and who he now lives with.  Sean has money and property back in the old country and though his hubby loves him, health issues prevent him from having sex. At 42, almost thirty years my junior, with a lean mean 5’ 10 furry body and handsome bearded face that makes him look ten years younger, Sean is no way ready to hang it up sexually. Then he met me – he claims there is no one else – and well, the rest as the cliché goes is history.

While Sean claims that he and his hubby have an open relationship, l have my own encumbrance, George, who l call almost every day and who despite our separate lives l would never be the heartless faggot to abandon with his multitude of health issues at the twilight of his life.

And so my Irish lover and I  meet when we can, older brother and younger brother,  naked in bed. As I said many times, life is of the moment.

It might sound strange but l count myself blessed. Many if not most guys never have that chance to say “I love you” to another guy and mean it.

I have had that chance twice.

“Loving”: Was I A Victim of HIS Catholic Guilt?

“Loving”: Was I A Victim of HIS Catholic Guilt?

l’m a Protestant and when l knew there were guys out there like me, l said to myself, show me the way. For the last three years l had been seeing a fuck buddy almost every week who l grew to love although those feelings were not reciprocated.  Okay, I can buy that, but even when l tried to turn our bedroom affair to a friend with benefits who did other things besides screwing around, l got nowhere. When that happens, you either settle for things on his terms which is awkward at best, or pull out. Instead the relationship came to an abrupt end in a torrid of ugly text messages. Rob had kidded a few times about ‘Catholic guilt.’ Now I realize the joke was on me.

l believe you go through a grieving process when relationships end for any reason just like any loss, and letting Rob go was certainly a loss for me. And frankly still is. You see, he was the closest thing to my type of guy that I had ever met in my life. In his mid-fifties, short like me with a lightly muscular trim body, nice fur, and a rugged, handsome face, he had a professional job just like I had had, the house, the dog, a seemingly normal life unlike the losers l had met up to then and still meet, so yes it was rough to call it a day. He was in financial straits and I was so fond of him that I was willing to give, not loan, but give him the money he needed to the tune of thousands of dollars, but when even that carrot in front of the donkey did not change his behavior towards me and I remained a footnote in his life, there was no turning back. lt ended.

But as I reviewed in my mind the things that turned me off, l began to wonder if at least part of the problem was that Rob suffered from Catholic guilt and l was its victim.

So for those of you who suffer or have suffered from Catholic guilt or are confronted with it, I like to know what you think (by the way if Catholic guilt is for real, the Catholic Church wins top honors as the world’s ultimate brainwasher). Or as others have suggested and passed through my mind a few times, did he have a partner, even a legal hubby and three other Rays on the side? It certainly would have been easier to explain what happened.

But you decide.

The first time Rob, who l met on Adam 4Adam, came to my house, he stormed in like a bull in a china shop, totally plastered, and threw himself on me. I told him to get the fuck out, and it was only after a week later when he contacted me that I said let’s give it another try, but that he needed to slow down. That seemed to work, in fact though one sided, l had some of the best, lustful sex in my life with Rob, but almost every time after that that we connected he was always just a little drunk. (The one time and only time we actually went out to eat, he had two margaritas in the space of 20 minutes, knowing that we would hit my bedroom afterwards.)

He was either drinking wine at home or had just come from a “dinner with friends.” a phrase that l came to loath since if he had more time for them than me, what the fuck was I? Towards the end, I felt like his free standby rentboy available almost at a moment’s notice anytime he wanted me, or l should say, sex. And he always looked for the meth pipe when he arrived. I strongly believed we were aroused by one another and certainly the drug put us in an even higher sensual mood, but did he need first the liquor, then the drug to loosen up to have sex with a man? Or with me?

In my bedroom he became my private leatherman and we would wear my harnesses and other leather paraphernalia to horn up. Yet when l mentioned about visiting our local leather bar, his response was: “I don’t want anybody to see me there.”

So was this all due to his Catholic guilt? Did he marginalize or compartmentalize me in his life so that the evil side did not enter his normal side? Was the one sided sex so that he was not committing the act, I was? Was the fact that he never wanted to have sex with me in his home mean that he wanted to keep his home clean of evil? Did he never contribute to the meth fund because that way I was the one providing the drug, not him? Was his very little notice and the need to loosen up to drop his Inhibitions all have to do with some deep-seated religious guilt?

Several times over the course of the three years we knew one another I mentioned about dropping the meth altogether and even admonished him once for showing up drunk. While he agreed going “sober” as he put it, a term used by recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, would be good in his mind, that also meant no sex. I even countered him on this interpretation but he played mum.

Yes, for all our commonalities, we were different in many significant ways. I am a realist, he the idealist. It’s not that I don’t believe in change but there are certain things that you need to live with. For example, his participation in anti-Trump protests to me were a waste of time. He also was only half-joking when he mentioned that the tooth fairy would fix the transmission in his car since he did not have the $2,000 to get it repaired. (That’s why I don’t buy the theory Rob had a partner unless the partner was broker than him.)  But just because we had different views on life did not mean we could not have good sex together and did not mean we could not be friends outside the bedroom. But I think his Catholic guilt would not permit that.

It was one of the saddest chapters in my gay life to say goodbye to Rob, but when you’re dealing with such a deep-seated psychosis, let’s call a spade a spade, because that’s what it is, I really believe there is no hope. And sad!y in my mind there is no justification for such guilt. Bottom line, putting organized religion aside, God created all of us and that includes our genes, and it was He who chose to make a few of us different from the rest. But He did not mean for us to pay for that difference, a difference He was responsible for, by leading a guilt-ridden existence.

Or hurt others in the process.

“Loving”: Fuck Buddies

“Loving”: Fuck Buddies

At first blush (and I don’t blush easy), a fuck buddy is just what it says it is. A buddy you get together with now and again on a regular basis to get one another’s rocks off. No hearts and flowers. No Godiva chocolate on Valentine’s Day. No walks on the beach. No emotional roller coaster rides. Or arguments about your mother. Just slam, bam, thank you ma’am, and see you in a few weeks for more of the same, Jake.

I had a trio of them in New York but it took me years down here in Teflon One Fuck Wonder Fort Lauderdale to develop my stable of hot guys – all hairy, humpy and younger than me – that I could count on for regular, lustful encounters.

But those who have or have had fuck buddies know that these fellow playmates are much more than a hard dick or ass you get to know as good as, or even better than your own.

First, many guys turn to fuck buddies when sex has gone out of their own “LTR’s.” That’s why it’s good that at least one buddy in a fuck buddy duo has his own place. Sleazy motels can add to the experience, but they still cost $$ and mean logistical pre-planning.

But, unlike tricks that might prove dangerous to a relationship that otherwise has something else going for it, fuck buddies are safe like a warm kitten. In fact, many a fuck bud has actually saved a “marriage” by giving the guy an outlet to let off his sexual steam, so to speak.

A good fuck buddy is also a good listener. He’ll listen to shit about your job your partner won’t because a FB doesn’t want anything to spoil that next hour of hot, unbridled sex. He can play marriage counselor of sorts, even if all you do is vent, at least for those ten minutes of conversation before the two of you do what you met for. Sometimes these conversations can include topics like new sex toys, or reviews on new play spots in the scene that only two sluts without any agendas could engage in.

A good fuck buddy is also reliable and convenient. You know exactly what to expect from him and him from you. No uncomfortable surprises like with a trick with whom you haven’t had the chance to go over your sexual do’s and don’ts check-off list. Plus, you pretty much know one another’s schedules and so can predict and anticipate (isn’t hot sex half anticipation anyway?) when you’ll get together. Guaranteed, satisfying sex at 4:30 in the afternoon on the way home from work. What more could a boy want? It beats having your lover pile your shit on the curb if you came home at 3 in the morning from a loser trick.

At the same time, fuck buddies are the perfect sex partners to experiment with, things you’d be afraid to try with your love partner who might accuse you of straying (“where did you learn that?”). Hey, and if those shoe laces and fish sinkers don’t work, no big deal. You already know one another’s tried and true hot buttons.

And do I need to remind you that FB’s are also great for NSA threesomes that a member of a love two-some might feel uncomfortable with or even threatened by?

Where some fuck buddy relationships go sour is when one begins to take the other for granted. While you’re breaking your ass trying to hold onto those three pack abs, he’s decided to live in the fridge. This usually happens when one is content to get most or all his sex from the other and doesn’t feel he needs to keep his marketable edge, the same shit like two straight marrieds or gay partners. A relationship is still a relationship, whatever its premise. You still have to work at it.

Drugs frankly can also bring some fuck buddyships to a sudden firey end. When I told three of my FB’s no more Tina, suddenly their interest in Daddy Ray evaporated. Hey, I kinda knew that the meth was the carrot in front of the donkey and was ready to see them disappear when I had decided their hot bodies weren’t worth it, even after i tolerated a torrid of texts where their fondness for me turned ugly and even vicious.

Another problem is when one member of the  fuck buddy duo starts developing feelings for the other which the other doesn’t want. Awkward situations like this can spell the end of the hook-ups as it did for me and Rob who I honestly think suffered from Catholic guilt for which I became the victim. More on that Wednesday.

But on the other hand, if both players are on the same page, a FB can turn into lover as Sean has for me. More on that Friday.

But getting back to your basic, no frills fuck buddy, when things are going good and you’ve had a shitty week at work, your partner is up your ass again (figuratively that is) or prefers watching an eighty year old Bette Davis movie over sucking your cock, or you’re box office poison that week in the bars or baths or on the web or apps, it’s great to know you can rely on a buddy with benefits to make it all right again.

At least for one and a half uncivilized hours.

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Rite of Passage

Rite of Passage

When we hear the phrase, “rite of passage,” we think of some young kid undergoing a life changing, crucible-like experience through which the boy becomes a man. But there’s another rite of passage that this youth-obsessed society of ours doesn’t want to face up to – the rite of growing old and the vulnerability this creates.

When we’re young, don’t we all think we’re invincible? Those of us from the Baby Boom “don’t trust anyone over 30” Generation never want to think we will grow old like our parents.  And when you’re gay, old age is positively something that happens to, well, old fags, not you.

Then, one day you wake up, look in the mirror, and realize you’ve crossed that line too.

Tomorrow I turn 70.

Now I may be a child of another age but I’m still in shape, pretty healthy, look younger than my true age, on good weeks  have more sex than a Manhattan bachelor, and even if it’s harder and harder to cover the gray with Just for Men, think, like many of us, that I’m still 35. My problem is so many of my peers, my contemporaries are falling apart around me.

Or worse, acting their age.

My petite sister, five years my junior, smoked all her life and, no longer able to walk more than a few yards without her legs giving out, finally went to a doctor who told her that circulation to her legs was virtually non-existent. So, a few years ago, I flew to Long Island to be with her and my brother-in-law as she underwent a four and a  half hour Frankenstein operation to replace her aorta with Teflon.

You think she would have thrown her cigs down the toilet 8 years ago when her husband (the two of them were high school sweethearts) who also had smoked all his life, ended up with three heart attacks in just 24 hours and quadruple bypass surgery. But no.

Last spring, a spot was discovered on her right lung. She got zapped with radiation to eradicate or at least shrink it. Instead, a PET scan last month revealed TWO spots and Spot A had gotten bigger. Now she is facing major lung surgery next month. Being up in Pennsylvania for the summer with my obstinate ex at our house in the country, I plan to visit her and my brother-in-law later this month via Metro North and the Long Island Railroad..

I’ve been at the side of my ex through just about every one of his health crises. There  have been quite a few of them but I  dragged him to the doctors like he was my 80 year old boy.  The most pressing one he now lives with is that he is as a potential victim of cardiac death. I got him a medic alert system since he lives alone – no way can we ever live together again – but he refused it.

The last time I saw George before this week was this past February when I went up to  comfort him on the death of his dog Sammy who waited to die til I got up there to say my own goodbyes. ( My three act play about that experience, “Ode To a Dying Dog” is now making the rounds of gay producers both in Florida and both Coasts thanks to some good contacts.) When I looked at this tired old man, I searched for a glimmer of the hot Arab-American I fell in love with so long ago.  Strangely he looks better today maybe because the weight of his dog dying is over though he still speaks about Sammy as if he were still alive. Meanwhile my own aging trio, two doxies and my terrier mutt keep us company.

As far as having partners in your hour of need,  I went through sinus surgery in 2015, back surgery in 2016, and am now dealing with an inoperable major rotator cuff tear – alone.

Then suddenly I look on the bright side. I’ve had my share of fuck buddies of late, all old enough to be my younger brother or my son , a few traumatic romances, and currently a 42 year old lover at an age when most men – gay or str8 – have long exchanged reality for reminiscing. I touch on all of this next week in my min-series, “Loving.”

Yes, life is, indeed, of the moment.

And if I last long enough to pee in my pants, there will always be places like Tropics, Lauderdale’s piano bar- restaurant where May-December marriages are made every night over 2-for-1 drink specials and $17.99 prime beef dinners. I’ll just walk in there, age 92, my Depends on snugly, and  my investment portfolio neatly tucked in the side pocket of my walker and I’ll have some humpy thirty or forty something wheeling me to my car in no time at all.

Like my mother said to me as she lay dying of a brain tumor in her apartment, surrounded by nurses and aides, “Isn’t this what you save money for?”

Friends, Vacation and Fucking

Friends, Vacation and Fucking

It was classic. Three of us were at Haulover, the nude beach just outside Miami, in from Lauderdale for the day. There we were, one with nature, three kinda hot guys (on the Dickter Scale of 1 to 10, I’d classify us as 7.5’s), our pretty dicks just laying out there in the sun. And getting looks. A few yards away were the four guys on vacation from some God forsaken town in Michigan.  One was cute (a 7), another was hot (a 9.5), the third could be hot if he lost 50 pounds (a 6), and the fourth was a 4 and that’s being nice. Anyway, I’m walking back after taking a leak, my shorts in my hand, when the cute one with the faint goatee walking towards me gives me a wink and quips, “nice porn star look you got there, man.” (You see, I did having something on: my black demi-boots.)

OK, later on he and the could-be-hot guy comes to our spot and begin admiring our trio of packages and making the usual read-between-the lines overtures. We could see the other two still on their blankets watching the negotiations intently. A practical queer, I just blurted it out, “So you and your friends wanna fuck around?” Goatee’s response was, shall we say, underwhelming. “Well, ah, we’ve got dinner plans and, ah, Roger wants to do some shopping in South Beach, and ah, we’re supposed to meet some other friends later on for drinks. Maybe we’ll see you guys later at the Ramrod.”

Now, they were renting a condo on Miami Beach 15 minutes away. We could have followed them over, and had a fuck/suck orgy for ninety uncivilized minutes that they could have told their grand children about (if they had any). No, instead, THEY HAD TO GO SHOPPING.

Another time, a cute bear from Denver E’d me on one of the sites, interested in connecting. I asked him when. No response until two days later when he reached out to me a second time. O.K., I asked one last time (because frankly my dear I didn’t give a damn), “Do you wanna fuck?,” to which he replied, “Id like to – you’re real hot – but today’s my last day and my friends have just been keeping me too busy.”

Huh?

My reply: “Friends can get in the way of sex, can’t they?”

I don’t get it. Guys spend thousands of dollars to come to Lauderdale, littered with gay boys, and end up leaving with not one cum stain memory. Come on, you may lie to yourself that your vacation is all about sun and sand and bar hopping but, really, when you’re on vacation, isn’t it everyone’s secret quest to get laid?

Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Well, friends don’t let friends not fuck while on vacation. As one smart tourist who I had just finished playing with put it to his friends when they called him on his cell about being late for dinner, “Fuck dinner, I’ve already had dessert.”

 

The End of Civilization As We Know It?

The End of Civilization As We Know It?

Many Americans are wrapping up an extra-long July 4th weekend, and l’m ready to re-watch for at least the sixth time a 75 year old movie classic, one the most over-the-top patriotic films to come out of World War II, James Cagney’s “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and here we are on the brink of the end of civilization as we know it.

North Korea, the size of Kentucky, has the capabilities to launch a nuclear missile that even if it just touches Alaska which is United States territory, will lead us and the rest of the world into The Final Conflict of Mankind. Russia and probably China will side with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and most of the Asian region will be toast, and the rest of us will be done 27 minutes later or contaminated for the next ten millennia.

Certainly little me has no answer to the problem nor does it sound the world leaders who keep talking more sanctions – huh? – but we better do something quick cuz we are dealing with a nut job that makes our President sound like Mother Teresa. Maybe we need to nuke the son of a bitch with unfortunately his people as collateral damage or it’s Gone, Baby, Gone for the rest of us.

Oh, as for the origin of the phrase “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” yankee is a corruption of the common Dutch name Jan,  which was an ethnic slur by the British during the Revolutionary War against the Dutch who had originally founded New York City as New Amsterdam; and  dandy was a foppish – effeminate – jerk.

Let’s hope the origins of that phrase don’t kick us in the ass now.

Or maybe, just maybe, one of North Korea’s “friends” will obliterate them first rather than see themselves go down the drain. Or what Darwin called, “Survival of the Fittest.”

Reading Between The Lines

Reading Between the Lines

When you’ve played the web as much as I have, you begin to get the subtext behind guys’ responses.

You compliment a guy – “You’re hot!” – and he comes back with a “Thanks, man.” That means, “thanks for catering to my ego but I still ain’t gonna let you suck my dick.”

You and a guy think one another is mutually hot, you try to pin him down on when and where and he answers, “look for me here.”  That means: “If I’m on when you’re on next time and I’m horny and nobody better has come alone, maybe, just maybe if you’re willing to drive ten miles to my place at 3 a.m., I’ll let you suck my sorry dick.”

“Wanna connect?” you ask a guy. His response: “Sure.” or “Cool” or “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Can you get any more non-committal than that?

Have a Great Fourth of July – Chat with you next Wednesday the 5th.

 

Another Casualty of Not Going After Equal Rights Under Obama: Gay Adoption

Another Casualty of Not Going After Equal Rights Under Obama:  Gay Adoption

I mentioned in a recent blog on Equality in our times that we missed the boat by not achieving the whole package when we had a chance under Obama. I hypothesized that a law allowing individuals and entities to discriminate against us because of their religious beliefs would bring an abrupt end to our fight particularly if such a law went before a conservative Supreme Court. That could happen with Trump’s or Pence’s next Court appointment.

I’m not alone in that thinking. In a national poll, eighty two per cent of gays indicated that they feared a rollback in LGBT gains in equality under the Republicans.

But we don’t have to wait for that: pending legislation in Texas and North Dakota would permit stated funded adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples or singles who l guess they assume are gay from adopting, again because of religious beliefs. And legislation sitting in Congress could make such discrimination go national.

Despite the fact the number of gays who have adopted doubled from 2013 to 2015, the year gay marriage became legal – 28,000 same sex couples raising 44,000 kids – many faith based adoption agencies will not even consider gay marrieds or individuals, or are letting their applications whistle in the wind without saying why. And they are getting away with it.

ln those areas of the country where it is against the law to discriminate, some Catholic based adoption agencies have actually shut down rather than be forced to comply.

Back to our being half a citizen like when to placate the South the writers of the Constitution allowed slaves to be counted as three fifths of a person. And what about all that school tax l paid and still pay as a single person, or paying higher federal income taxes as a single  to subsidize str’8’s fucking when l’m actually using less resources, that’s okay huh?

The sad part is the real loser are the 100,000 foster children currently up for adoption, and stats show that gays are more likely to adopt the least desirable of them, the developmentally challenged, the multi-racial and those “aging out.”

I said it before and I’ll say it again: individual rights usurp anyone’s religious beliefs and our activists picked the wrong battle to fight when they focused on gay marriage at a time when much more could have been accomplished.  If we had gotten full equal rights, everything else including gay marriage, adoption by gays, and even more important to most of us, anti-discrimination in housing and employment would have all been part of the package. Already the Department of Commerce has removed sexual orientation and gender identity protection from its Equal Employment Opportunity statement. And the Republican version of the new health care bill will eviscerate care for HIV and the poor, many of whom are gay.

An ex-fuck buddy of mine whose overly idealistic views really began to irritate me, the realist, would go to every anti-Trump rally or Equality gig. lf it wasn’t for fucking up some good sex, l often wanted to say to him:

“Why are you wasting your time?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Casualty of Not Going After Equal Rights Under Obama: Gay Adoption

Another Casualty of Not Going After Equal Rights Under Obama:  Gay Adoption

I mentioned in a recent blog on Equality in our times they we missed the boat by not achieving the whole package when we had a chance under Obama. I hypothesized that a law allowing individuals and entities to discriminate against us because of their religious beliefs would bring an abrupt end to our fight particularly if such a law went before a conservative Supreme Court. That could happen with Trump’s or Pence’s next Court appointment.

I’m not alone in that thinking. In a national poll, eighty two per cent of gays indicated that they feared a rollback in LGBT gains in equality under the Republicans.

But we don’t have to wait for that: pending legislation in Texas and North Dakota would permit stated funded adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples or singles who l guess they assume are gay from adopting, again because of religious beliefs. And legislation sitting in Congress could make such discrimination go national.

Despite the fact the number of gays who have adopted doubled from 2013 to 2015, the year gay marriage became legal – 28,000 same sex couples raising 44,000 kids – many faith based adoption agencies will not even consider gay marrieds or individuals, or are letting their applications whistle in the wind without saying why. And they are getting away with it.

ln those areas of the country where it is against the law to discriminate, some Catholic based adoption agencies have actually shut down rather than be forced to comply.

Back to our being half a citizen like when to placate the South the writers of the Constitution allowed slaves to be counted as three fifths of a person. And what about all that school tax l paid and still pay as a single person, or paying higher federal income taxes as a single  to subsidize str’8’s fucking when l’m actually using less resources, that’s okay huh?

The sad part is the real loser are the 100,000 foster children currently up for adoption, and stats show that gays are more likely to adopt the least desirable of them, the developmentally challenged, the multi-racial and those “aging out.”

I said it before and I’ll say it again: individual rights usurp anyone’s religious beliefs and our activists picked the wrong battle to fight when they focused on gay marriage at a time when much more could have been accomplished.  If we had gotten full equal rights, everything else including gay marriage, adoption by gays, and even more important to most of us, anti-discrimination in housing and employment would have all been part of the package. Already the Department of Commerce has removed sexual orientation and gender identity protection from its Equal Employment Opportunity statement. And the Republican version of the new health care bill will eviscerate care for HIV and the poor, many of whom are gay.

An ex-fuck buddy of mine whose overly idealistic views really began to irritate me, the realist, would go to every anti-Trump rally or Equality gig. lf it wasn’t for fucking up some good sex, l often wanted to say to him:

“Why are you wasting your time?”