Sex & Politics

Gay Or Irish? Parade Organizers Force Choice

“Buy some corned beef,” my local butcher smiled this morning. “Today, everybody’s Irish.” Well, apparently not everybody. In New York City–home to 2 million Irish-Americans, half as many as in all of Ireland–organizers of the huge Fifth Avenue parade have once again banned Irish-American gay groups from marching. And so the city’s most powerful Irish-American politician, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, is boycotting the parade. As every Irish person, gay and straight, should. Unless, of course, hatred, exclusion, and obsession with others’ private lives is truly what it means to be Irish. How anti-Irish is being gay? Last year, John…

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Newt: Hypocrite, or Opportunistic Hypocrite?

Newt Gingrich now admits he was having an extramarital affair while he led Congress in impeaching President Clinton for getting a few blowjobs from a consenting adult Ho hum, another “family values” hypocrite. Ted Haggard, Ralph Reed, Mark Foley, Lou Sheldon, Bill O’Reilly, Paul Crouch, Rush Limbaugh, Randall Terry, Robert Livingston (who was supposed to succeed Gingrich as Speaker of the House)—the list of “family values” leaders whose family values include divorce, infidelity, gambling, and embezzlement is getting so big, they could form their own political party. Oh wait—they already have. Republicans really face a dilemma this Presidential season: three…

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Censoring the Internet Won’t Protect Kids

What could unite the PTA, Christian Coalition and American Library Association? The goal of protecting kids–from a law that supposedly protects them.

Just weeks ago, former President Bill Clinton signed the Child Internet Protection Act into law, requiring any library receiving federal funds to install filtering software on its Internet-access computers. Ostensibly to make computers “safe” for young children, the federal government has just fired the latest shot in the nation’s culture wars.

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Shall We Cover Miss Liberty’s Eyes With A G-String?

The Phoenix, AZ City Council recently decided to eliminate sex clubs for adults. Do you feel safer now?

The Council says that government has a right to protect public morals, and that having sex in front of (consenting) others is by definition immoral. They don’t need proof that nude dancing leads to harm, they said; it’s enough that the majority of its citizens allegedly “knows” it’s wrong. They also claim that sex clubs spread “disease,” although no legislator, public safety officer, or public health professional could produce any evidence to support this.

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Harassment or Bullying? Apparently, It Depends on the Target’s Gender

I’m very much against people being mean or violent to each other. But although I’ve spent my entire career promoting gender equality, current efforts designed to protect people from others’ sexual energy feels misplaced, even dangerous to me.
These days it seems that people are looking at gender relationships, being reminded of sex, and reacting as if all unwanted attention men give women is best understood as sexual–and therefore damaging.

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