Writer’s block! I tried to wait it out for a couple of hours but now my time is getting short. And you know what? There’s only one way to deal with the stymie - dive in as if you were hitting the deep end of a cold pool. 

Part of my problem is the been-there-read-that nature of this week’s news. Yes, I’m pleased that the Vermont state senate overwhelmingly advanced a bill to legalize marriage, sending it on to a house judiciary committee hearing. But we’ve been reporting on the push for marriage rights in the Maple Syrup State for weeks. And we still don’t know what Governor Whatever (Doug Someone?) will do with the legislation once it arrives on his desk.

Actually, it’s Governor Jim Douglas, who has come out in favor of the civil union status quo, but who has not pledged to veto the pending bill. (Exciting update ahead!)

Stand by for marriage debates in the legislative chambers of Maine and New Hampshire as well. I think Rhode Island has already broached the subject, and if you must know, Hawaii lawmakers are still dicking around with their civil union bill, which passed the house but needs a majority to be brought to the floor of the senate.

Brrrrrrr! The problem is, you have the urge to jump out of the water at once and run into a hot shower. You must force yourself to do a few laps.

Meanwhile, this topic makes me crave steamed lobsters. I made a couple the other night, and then cracked them up and shook the pieces around in a pan with hot butter and Italian parsley. I didn’t even bring the heads and legs to the table. The former are too icky, the latter are too labor intensive. My parents, God rest their souls, would frown on this presentation. They ate everything.

These are the small silver linings in the gun metal clouds of losing your parents. Even if I lived a thousand miles away from them, if they were alive I would still feel guilty not eating lobster legs. Now, I know for a fact that wherever they are, they do not care. At most, they’re rolling their eyes.
That was my lap. The stuff about the lobsters.

Worst Person in Vermont
Attention! Breaking News Update! I just learned that Governor Douglas will make a statement about Vermont’s same-sex marriage bill this afternoon, so at the rate I’m going, I should be able to tell you whether or not he intends to sign or veto the measure. Now I’m excited. In fact, the statement is scheduled in about ten minutes, so let’s wait for it together. In other words, I’m going to sit around and do nothing until 2:15 Eastern. (Cue: Final Jeopardy theme.)

God damn son of bitch, putin de merde, excuse my French but this longjohn flapping piece of cow pie has got me madder than a hornet on a stickpin. Jesus Christ, what the hell were they thinking up there when they elected a Republican governor? This is the state with a socialist senator, for crying out loud. Oh yes, you guessed it. Governor Greenjeans has just vowed to veto the marriage equality bill so you can stop cheering that 26-4 senate vote and forget about the house hearings because the bill won’t be worth the paper its printed on once Sap for Brains gets through with it. Damn the man! Why did I even let myself get excited? 

I guess they could override it, right? Hey! I’m excited again!

Gainesville Lives Up To Name
Now what? Do you care that some new NBC cop show (Southland) has a gay character? Have you been following Soulforce founder Mel White’s shenanigans on the Amazing Race? Did you know that the fine citizens of Gainesville, Florida just voted two-to-one against a charter amendment that would have repealed the city’s GLBT rights law? 

Have you heard that Chuck Schumer has come out in favor of same-sex marriage and John Kerry is fighting for a bi-national Massachusetts couple forced to live apart thanks to our anti-gay federal recognition policies? I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I never realized Schumer, the senior Senator from New York, was opposed to same-sex marriage to begin with. I thought he had that liberal Democrat “whatever” attitude. 

As for Kerry, he is pushing the government to grant asylum to Genesio Oliveira, a Brazilian man, who married his husband Tim Coco in 2005 in Haverhill. Genesio, aka Junior, was promptly shipped back to Rio, leaving Coco high and dry in the Bay State. Kerry shot off a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder this week, calling the latest immigration ruling against Oliveria “outrageous.”

And let’s not forget the United Nations statement in support of GLBT human rights, a standard pat on the back for our global community, but one that the Bush administration chose to ignore. This year, the United States is a signatory for the first time ever. 

You know what? I’m going to make myself a pomegranate margarita and blast some salsa music. Be right back.

California Back on Offense
Hola! Much better. I let the pugs in and turned off all the lights. It’s about to pour here, as the weather in Austin takes a cue from the political climate of Montpelier.

You probably already know that we have launched a petition drive to put a Prop 8 repeal on the 2010 ballot. We need 700,000 signatures by the middle of August, which I assume should be easily accomplished. And then?

Do you have the stomach for another 18 months of marriage campaigning? Regardless of your answer, we don’t have much of a choice. The California Supreme Court, I gather, is virtually certain to uphold Prop 8, leaving us with no option beyond the even odds of the ballot box or the gut shot straight of the federal courts. 

I have the stomach for the campaign, but the thought of another long slog culminating in another two-point loss is horrifying. At the same time, I would imagine that the other side feels worse about the prospect. 

Think about it. We’ll be draining our wallets and hitting the hustings until we win, period. But how many times can the Mormon Church and the far right rev up their volunteers and their donors for what’s basically a philosophical cause? They ran a perfect campaign in 2008, while we made mistakes right and left. It seems logical to assume that we’ll do better this time around, while they’ll be hard pressed to match their prior success. I feel better already! I talked myself into a little optimism, or possibly pomegranate margarita-ed myself into a better mood. It’s one shot of tequila, one shot of pure pomegranate juice, half a shot of Rose’s, half a shot of triple sec, and two shots of water. Shake over ice and add a wedge of lime. Salute!

Frank Talk
Speaking of the federal courts, Barney Frank just told 365gay.com that we should steer clear of the High Court as long as “homophobe” Scalia wields such influence. But unfortunately, Justice Scalia is a healthy 73, good for another decade or more. As for his conservative buddies, Alito and Roberts are in their 50s, and Thomas can’t be far ahead. I believe he was 19 when he was appointed.

However, if my second-grade division skills still serve, there are nine Supreme Court justices and you need more than four to get a majority. Plus, the Massachusetts Congressman can’t do much about the new challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act that has just taken its first steps on an arduous march towards a Supreme Court showdown. How long will it take for our case to hit Washington? Four years? Three? Five? Whenever it happens, we’ll still be stuck with Scalia and Thomas, and we’ll still have a gay rights majority on the bench, assuming Obama doesn’t nominate an anti-gay justice.

You can even ask the President about his plans on Thursday, when he’s doing some kind of online town hall at the White House website, whitehouse.gov. at 11:30 EST. By the time you read this will probably be too late to send a question. Never mind.

Mail Call
I’m faced with a couple of violent items, including a teenager who picked up a guy looking for rough sex on Craigslist and proceeded to kill the man. Then there were the two men on vacation at a beach in Oregon, where a group of three white guys asked if they were gay and left them unconscious in the sand when they said yes.

I’m sure I could unearth more stories of this nature with a little trip through the “gay violence” search results. And indeed, here’s a couple of gay café owners in Australia, physically and verbally assaulted after raising the rainbow flag. I guess we can’t count the gang member named Dominique Gay who was killed in an ambush in Providence, but I’m sorry for him too. Or how about the small town gay publisher in Oneonta, New York, who received the following missive from one of his fellow residents:

 â€śDear Mr. Koury, it has come to our attention that not only have you been spreading your heterophobic filth thruout the region but also include your faggoty (expletive) where young children have access to it. ... You WILL stop distributing in these areas and keep this (expletive) in gay bars, etc. We have your name, associates, phone numbers, where you live and where you work as well as your routines. ... you WILL stop if you know what’s good for you. You see Mr. Koury we are EVERYWHERE. ... If you continue in your indiscriminate distribution of your filthy rag someone-an “associate” perhaps will come up to you UNEXPECTEDLY to render you a personal TUNEUP!!!!! IF YOU’RE SMART YOU WILL TAKE HEED OF OUR MESSAGE .THE MAR/APR EDITION WILL BE THE LAST ONE THAT YOU DISTRIBUTE INDISCRIMINATELY. MARK MY WORDS.

“ALSO IF YOU THINK “HATE CRIME” LEGISLATION WILL STOP OUR ACTIONS YOU’RE WRONG.

“DEAD WRONG . In the present economy we can hire almost anyone to do WHATEVER needs to be done. Have a day.

“YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE”

You know, from an intellectual vantage point, I can understand the moralistic Biblical perspective of those anti-gay characters that don’t condone drinking, dancing or kissing on the third date. But where do people like this come from? Whither the bursting blood vessels, the enraged frustration, the eruption of hatred? Or maybe it was written by a couple of 12-year-old boys.

Happy Times
But let’s not linger on such unpleasantness. In order to lift the mood, I will google “gay happiness,” which now defines my personal mood since Mel (my wife) came home from work an hour early. My delight is mitigated only by the fact that she is singing tunelessly with her iPod in a loud voice and she has deliberately typed some nonsense words on my screen page as some kind of sick joke.

Here’s one “gay happiness” entry. A letter to “Miss Conduct” in a West Georgian newspaper begins: “My parents think I’m gay, even after I introduced them to my girlfriend. Over dinner, they kept winking at her and asking what her hourly rate was....”

You have to click for more, but you get the idea. “Are you sure you’re not gay?” Miss Conduct replied helpfully. “Parents tend to over-dramatize these issues, but where there’s smoke there’s usually fire…”

Moving on, the author of a book about happiness, Dennis Prager, is giving a talk on “The Pivotal Role of Happiness in the World.” I read that Prager will address three aspects of the role of happiness: “how happiness shapes world events - more than even economics; how happiness shapes our lives,” and my own favorite: “how we can stay upbeat in the midst of the current economic crisis and the specter of international terror.”

I’m not sure where the gay angle comes in, presumably I would have to click on the entry. But I don’t need a gay angle to appreciate a man who can stay upbeat in the midst of the current economic crisis and the specter of international terror. I can only commend him and follow his example. 

-arostow@aol.com