These are two of our canine crew members, Alexander and Amadeus. We've been working on a 7 month quest to help them come to terms with their apparent fear of men. Hence ...
MANXPOSURE 2006
Essentially, we ferret out our male friends who aren't afraid of big dogs and invite them over to toss bacon bits and other meaty tidbits to two large barking dogs while trying not to flinch. We reward the men with chocolate chip cookies.
It has been working very well. After about 10 minutes of fear barking, they both end up on the floor begging for belly rubs and petting. Now, we are gearing up for a summer Man Party. Two dogs, two lesbians, our straight female dog trainer and a room full of gay men ... now that's a party!
Miss Mona and her feline companions are not thrilled with all the ruckus, but certainly enjoy the company. They only fear children with sticky fingers.
Same-sex couple Christina Burke (L) and Victoria Burke (R), both from Salisbury, Maryland, pose with Mrs. Bunny and their daughter, Phobe (6 months old), on the South Lawn of the White House during the annual 2006 White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington, April 17, 2006. The Burke's are wearing a rainbow lei to indicate their support of same sex union.
The White House is generously alllowing children in gay families to participate in the annual Easter Egg Roll festivities. However, amid growing controversy about the gays invading a children's event (code for preventing homos from recruiting children), the White House pulled a fast one as Page One Q reports.
The gays queud as early as 24 hours in advance to get tickets which are issued in staggered times. And every gay family in line received tickets. But none of them will be able to participate in the opening festivities when the esteemed Laura Bush is present.
The official excuse is that they gave the early tickets to select groups of youth volunteers. But no one knew this when they sat in line for 24 hours.
Yes, the White House found a way to let the gays in the back door without queering up the main event.
You thought our first post would be about Darryl Metcalfe's PG opinion piece, didn't cha? We'll save that for later when correspondent Shelly joins the PghLesbian team ....
In today's Tribune-Review, the editors whine that homos are trying to steal Easter from the little children. The Family Pride Coalition has organized about 200 gay families to join the annual Easter Egg Hunt at the White House, a long standing family tradition. The families plan to wear rainbow leis to symbolize their pride.
The fine family-friendly folks at the Trib seem to believe that this "politicizes" the event. Ironically, they make this pathetic bleat about 3 paragraphs after pointing out that it took over 75 years for the White House to include African-American children in this family tradition. Hmmm ....could there be a connection between the African-American civil rights experience and the queer civil rights experience? Oh my!
This is yet another pathetic attempt by the wingers to paint the gay community as a threat to children. With NOT A SINGLE MENTION of the children in the gay families. The children who just want to be able to join in a good ole American tradition without having to pretend their families aren't gay. If they just showed up without the gay pride paraphenalia, everything would be okay for the poor breeders who don't want to have to explain tolerance to their spawn.
Do you think Jesus would be hanging out with a bunch of privileged kids rolling eggs at the White House perhaps posing for photo op with the token minority child? OORRRRR would he be down the street at the shelter feeding eggs to hungry children and their families? Hmmmm ....
(Pittsburgh) - The Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA) will hear ACLU national president Nadine Strossen discuss "Taking Liberties" at its Annual Meeting on Sunday, March 26, at 1 p.m. in McConomy Auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University. Highlighting the free public event is the presentation of this year's Marjorie H. Matson Award for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights to Pittsburgh gay-rights pioneer Randal G. Forrester.
Pittsburgh's "Civil Libertarian of the Year", Randy Forrester, has been a definitive leader in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual community since his founding of the first gay and lesbian rights organization in Western Pennsylvania, Mattachine (now defunct), in 1969. He co-founded (with partner James Huggins) Persad Center Inc., a community mental health center for sexual minorities, which since 1972 has helped hundreds of HIV-AIDS patients and delivered mental health services to thousands in the GLBT community. He retired in 2001 after
28 years as Executive Director during which Persad grew to a multi-program agency with a budget over one million dollars. Mr.
Forrester
? a former member and officer of both the ACLU's Pennsylvania Affiliate and Pittsburgh Chapter boards ? also conceived and founded the Lambda Foundation, which funds programs relating to the GLBT community; helped to create the Pennsylvania Governor's Council for Sexual Minorities; served as chairman of Pittsburgh's Human Relations Commission; and famously ran for Allegheny County commissioner in 1979. For these and other accomplishments, Mr.
Forrester was named #53 in Pittsburgh Magazine's 1999 list of the 100 most influential Pittsburghers of the 20th century.
PROGRAM INFORMATION:
The Annual Meeting of the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the ACLU-PA With keynote speaker Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union 1:00 p.m. Sunday, March 26, 2006 McConomy Auditorium, University Center Carnegie Mellon University, Oakland Free and open to the public.
Sunday evening's edition of 60 Minutes included Lesley Stah's report "The Science of Sexual Orientation" in which she explores recent research into sexual orientation.
Today, scientists are looking at genes, environment, brain structure and hormones. There is one area of consensus: that homosexuality involves more than just sexual behavior; it?s physiological.
The show interviewed two sets of male twins to explore issues of nuture vs nature. While overall the piece is interesting, I was somewhat disturbed by how close Stahl danced to the line of stereotyping, such as when she tried to identify gay mannerisms in an attempt to understand how gay men are "feminized" physiologically.
I was also somewhat disappointed that Stahl neglected to clarify sexual orientation from gender identity. One of the younger male twins is very "girly" and clearly said he is like a girl, even that he thought he was a girl in the womb but became a boy b/c his mother preferred boys.
Lesley, wanting to be a girl is not the same thing as being gay.
Other nuggets ...
* Sexual orientation may be more closely connected with hormones than genetics.
* The more older brothers a man has, the greater his chance of being gay.
The Catholic Church strikes another blow for homobigots everywhere. 365gay.com reports that Catholic Charities of Boston will no longer provide adoption services because they choose not to comply with the states human rights law requring them to not discriminate against GLBT parents. The Catholic Church wants a special exemption from the law.
They want to be free to discriminate AND accept state funding. Only in W's America!
Today in Pennsylvania, there are over 21,000 children in the foster care system (I know this from my day job). That is in a state that ALLOWS gays to foster and adopt children.
It is pathetic -- absolutely pathetic -- that the right wing is trying to use CHILDREN as leverage against gays. Vulnerable children are fodder for their latest attempts to paint queers into a corner or back into the closet. They are going to keep these kids in foster care for years longer by turning away gay foster and adoptive parents. That's some family values for ya.
I'm looking forward to Bishop Wuerl's response ....
(Pittsburgh) - The 
