A disclaimer to my readers

Since there are only a few of you, I figured I'd make this a direct Democracy and talk to my people directly.

I never intended this blog to be a clearing house of all things gay. It's dawned on me that I've been writing about same-sex marriage, bigots who foolishly bash us in public, and the civil rights implications of today's gay struggles more often than not.

I guess it's just my understanding that what happens now will set the tone for GLBT issues for years to come. We've finally got a "progressive administration" in the white house and congress, except they seem to have dropped the ball. We finally have marriage equality organically sprouting up all over the country, except in the most liberal of places, California. We have a renewed sense of pride and outrage, as a community, yet our increasing use of internet technology is driving the fight out of the streets and into cyberspace, where one can argue it can largely be ignored by mainstream Americans and politicians alike.

It feels like we are at this giant, pivotal, crucial moment.

Our rights are by no means guaranteed. We can't just sit around and wait for the bigots to die off and the new crop of socially progressive youngsters to mature to voting age. You know why? because they are being raised by their bigoted parents and grandparents. They live in places like Biloxi and Little Rock and Boise and Fargo where people still eat red meat and buy American. They watch Bill O'Reilly and read Ann Coulter. They're the same people who are causing gun sales to spike because they think Obama is going to take away their second ammendment rights. They're the same people who still think he's a Muslim Manchurian Candidate, built by Al Qaeda and sent to deliver us to the infidels.

So I'm talking. I'm writing. I'm Facebooking and I'm blogging. Maybe I'll start Twittering.

I'm so hopping mad that I'm viewed as a second class citizen by so many people, I'm going to do my damnedest to shame that belief and behavior out of them. And when all else fails, I'll expose their hateful beliefs to the light of day.

One day we will be equal. But that isn't today, nor will it be any day very soon. Until that day comes, you can rest assured that I'll be talking, and reading, and writing, and blogging, and Facebooking. And maybe even Twittering.

Progress toward Equality: We're allowed to "Exist."

There are days when I'm amazed at all that gay Americans have accomplished. I think about the riots and marches and sit-ins that we resorted to in a time when it was possible to be rounded up and arrested based solely on your DNA. I think about the inspirational moments when we confronted the Anita Bakers and the Pat Robertsons, the Jerry Falwells and the Fred Phelpses.


And then, just when I think we're beyond sexual bigotry, just when it seems we're turning a cultural corner... We have Pennsylvania state Senator John Eichelberger.

He's introduced a bill in PA to ban same-sex marriage, while his colleague, Senator Daylin Leach has proposed an opposing one that would grant marriage equality. They recently debated on WHYY radio on the topic.

Here is a partial transcript.

LEACH: How would he [Eichelberger] want to encourage stability in gay couples?

EICHELBERGER: I wouldn’t. I mean they can practice whatever sexual activity they like to practice, but there’s no reason to give them special consideration. We don’t give them special consideration in Pennsylvania for any reason. Why in the world would we allow them to marry?

LEACH: How would you encourage gay couples to be able to provide for their families?

EICHELBERGER: Well, I wouldn't.

LEACH: What would you expect of them?

EICHELBERGER: There is no reason to encourage that type of behavior in Pennsylvania...That comes back to the definition of family and that’s where we differ. We can call all kinds of things families. I mean, we can say a 3 party marriage is a family, or 7 or 8 people or marrying younger and younger children these days.

HOST: Are you saying that by their very nature homosexual relationships are dysfunctional?

EICHELBERGER: [Pause] Um. I guess I would say that. I would say that.

LEACH: Should our only policy towards [same-sex] couples be one of punishment, to somehow prove that they’ve done something wrong?

Eichelberger: They’re not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist, and do what every American can do. We’re just not rewarding them with any special designation.

...

I think you can tell where I stand on this particular instance of unbridled ignorance, bigotry, and hate speech.

I mean, let's go ahead and make the obvious comparisons. Hitler allowed the jews to exist. Until he didn't. Blacks were allowed to exist in South Africa under Apartheid. Except they were brutally forced into a seperate-and-not-even-close-to-equal caste of society. Back in '94 the Hutus allowed the Tutsis to exist in Rwanda. No, wait, that's wrong. They actually didn't.

I thought I lived in a day and age and place where no one had the power to or right to grant or deny me my big, flaming, open, loud and proud GAY existance. I guess I was wrong. Thank god someone thought ahead and allowed me to exist. Otherwise I'd be one illegal motherfucker. I mean, daddyfucker.

Home video of Prop H8 decision

"I hope someday they realize what they've done."

Enshrined institutionalized legal acceptible and proper DISCRIMINATION.

As many of you by now have learned, the Supreme Court of California has ruled in such a way that Prop 8 will stand.

As such, it has put a legal seal of approval on state-sponsored discrimination.

Far be it for me, a legal nobody, to try to navigate the complexities of the question they were asked. (Most people don't realize that it wasn't Prop 8 they were asked to consider, but whether the proposition system was used in a legal way to effectively amend the state constitution and circumvent the existing protocol of convening a constitutional convention.)

Let me instead cite a different kind of historical precedent.

In the early 19th century, it was illegal for a slave to flee his owner. For him to assert his individual rights. For him even to marry (a woman). There came a day when a reasoned man stood up and decided for everyone, even those who didn't agree wit him, that the concept of owning another human being had seen its time come and go.

In the early 20th century, it was illegal for women to vote. There came a day when women (and men) of every persuasion came together and demanded equal rights. Equal treatment. Equal protection under the law.

In the mid 20th century, a panoply of laws across the country made discrimination against African Americans standard practice. Until with one voice and with great struggle and sacrifice, again equality was demanded.

None of these seminal moments in US history came peacefully, without hardship and tears and setbacks. People looked around, saw they were getting a bad deal, and asserted their equality.

Today, that isn't happening.

As the fragile network of GLBT organizations claim responsibility for victory in Iowa, Vermont, Maine, and other states, these claims are transparently false. For the first time in history, rights and being granted and taken away because the majority has grown to see the error of its past transgressions. Majorities in many states now "approve" of same-sex marriage. (As if we needed approval for desiring the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else.)

Courts and Legislatures are finally shrugging off the tired yoke of religious and moral certitude to accept the premise that was true all along: equal protection under the law isn't an option. It isn't a "social experiment" or a "radical agenda." It won't force our 5 year olds to learn about anal sex in kindergarten. It won't cause men everywhere to leave their wives for lives of homosexual promiscuity. It won't stoke the coals of the AIDS epidemic and infect innocent wives and children with "God's answer to sodomy."

Why, oh why, oh why, then, did the California Supreme Court decided today to take a giant step in the wrong direction?

If ever I was tempted to move abroad...

Today is a dark day for me, for my partner, for my gay friends, and arguably for the straight ones too. If we aren't equally protected, which group is next? What if there was a proposition to take away the rights of women to vote, or to put blacks back into segregated schools? What if a coalition of conservatives lied to the public and caused a small majority of them to vote for such a proposition? Based on today's legal precedent, that ruling would stand too.

Because my rights were taken away, no one's are safe. The legal fallout from this decision will ripple through the justice system with the ferocity of an insatible forest fire, and the extent of the damage won't be seen for a long time. I hope you won't be among the casualties. I fear we all will.

It's either write this, or purposely crash my car out of pure unadulterated rage.

Health care.

We have a love-hate relationship.

It's been my experience, dear readers, that each time I change health insurance plans I have a period of 3-6 months where any insurance company employee I happen to get on the phone has had a recent lobotomy.

Warning- if you don't want to listen to my purely self-centered rant, quit reading now.

As most of you know, I've had a sensitive stomach just about forever, but it began to worry me several months ago that something might be awry down there. I finally went to an urgent care clinic, and was referred to a GI specialist. (I would have gone to my family doctor, but I don't have one in Dayton yet. More on this later.)

The GI doctor basically said, "You probably have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. We can only diagnose that properly by testing you for EVERYTHING else, and if it isn't any of those things, it must be IBS."

So I agreed to subject myself to a battery of tests.

Strolling into the Kettering memorial hospital one Saturday in February, I learned that I could only have my blood drawn as an outpatient until noon on Saturdays. It was 12:23. I had to return at 6 AM the following Monday in order to get in line and have it done without having to miss work. Health care 1, Kurt 0.

A few days later, I began the preparation for my colonoscopy. This involved not eating for about 30 hours, and taking 2 different laxatives to completely drain my colon of ANYTHING that might be in there. At the end I was literally shitting pure blue Gatorade, the only thing I was allowed to consume.

The procedure forced me to take a day off work. Biopsies were collected, along with stool samples. Everything was sent out for testing.

Fast forward to the billing phase. I've received charges from the following: The urgent care clinic, the GI specialist, the center where the colonoscopy was performed, the doctor who read the biopsy results, the lab where the biopsies were prepared, the doctor who interpreted the colonoscopy results, the lab where the stool samples were tested, the hospital where the blood was drawn, the lab where my blood was tested, the special lab in California where one of the blood tests had to go, and the pharmacy where I had the prep prescriptions filled. I've spent money out of pocket for co-pays at each of three visits to the specialist, plus the prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines I was instructed to purchase. Curiously, this felt more like an ass-raping than the procedure did.




There have been no fewer than 4 fuck ups resulting in delayed payments from my insurance carrier to these people. Involving choices of facilities and doctors that were never mine to make. For instance: the doctor who interpreted my biopsies was covered, but the facility they prepared the biopsies in isn't covered. Since they are allowed to bill me separately for their services, the charges from the doctor were paid, but those from the facility weren't. The insurance company explained to me that it was MY responsibility, even though I was sedated at the time, to ensure that the GI doctor kept my tests in-network.

Oh, and as for the family doctor situation: I was recommended by a friend to see a doctor who was known to be sensitive to the situation of gay men. I called for an appointment in January only to discover his first available was in MAY. That would have been this morning.

As I made my way to his office this morning, I was a few minutes late. 4 to be exact. I figured I should call and let them know I would be arriving shortly.

Big mistake.

The nurse I spoke with informed me I would have to reschedule. "Sweetie, you're 15 minutes late now, he's just not going to have time to see you." A.) I'm 4 minutes late, not 15. B.) I would be sitting in that waiting room for at least 30 minutes waiting on the doctor, who schedules 30 patients a day, only has time for 15 at most, and can't seem to grasp the fundamentals of math that would allow him to appropriately treat his patients without overtaxing himself or the office staff. C.) Fuck you.

I've been waiting for this appointment for 5 months, and the doctor can't see me because I'm running 4 minutes late.

The next available appointment is now in July.

FML.