Back to work, and ready to meet the new year head on.
I'm not one to go out on a limb and make predictions for the year ahead. I'll leave that to IGF's own Paul Varnell.
But here are some of the stories that caught my eye this past week as possible portents:
It's nice to see grass-roots efforts within the Episcopal Church to counter anti-gay activists and clerics who would rather ferment schism than accept an openly gay bishop, as the Associated Press reports. But I still say, let 'em leave if that's what they want.
The controversy continues over an Iowa judge who terminated a local lesbian couple's Vermont-obtained civil union with a divorce ruling. If this case goes up the judicial ladder, it could prove precedent-setting.
The bogus "homosexual life expectancy" stats promoted by
anti-gay activist Paul Cameron still have legs, as in this
appearance in a new Walter Williams column.
Here's a
critique of Cameron's "science" by IGF's Mark Pietrzyk, penned
back in 1994, and another critical
look by IGF's Walter Olson, in 1997. The ability of junk
science to pass itself off as the real thing, whether promulgated
by the right or the left (as in so much spurious environmentalism),
is astounding.
The Washington Post looks at Howard Dean's
gay supporters. And here's the Post's
unexpectedly critical look at Dean himself.
Dean's penchant for, shall we say "mistruths," is providing his
critics with plenty
of ammunition. His recent claim that his late brother served in
the military (when, in fact, he was an opponent of the Vietnam war
who never served, but was slain in Laos while visiting that country
as a tourist) is breathtaking in its mendacity. But I suspect that
most politically active gays will continue to embrace Dean, all the
way over the cliff.
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