While Steve Is Away, The Mice Will Play

I'm working on a few different things this weekend but I wanted to put up some links right away for people dropping by.  There is an interesting post up at Slacktivist about one Russian Woman who protests the current Anti-Gay climate in Russia because of her appreciation for, of all things, the Buffy the Vampire spin off: Angel.  There is a very lively discussion of the moral, philosophical, and social implications of this world view in the comment section.





I want to put this together with a very inspiring diary from DailyKos about on-the-ground work against Kansas's proposed, halfway passed, anti-gay law.

 "Over the last few days, I've had a lot of people ask me that, almost as a way to say they secretly think I am gay (I am not).   They use it as a slur, as a way to degrade the argument.   But I don't have to be gay to recognize something is wrong. In order to change civil rights for a group, it is rarely the group impacted that has to change.   African Americans didn't have to say:  "Well, maybe if a few of us STOP being African Americans they will give some ground here."    The change agent, the moment of change has to come from Heterosexual Men & Women accepting those who are gay and lesbian.   It has to be that Heterosexual Men [and] Women get up and say: THIS IS WRONG. Too many straight men [and] women think:  This doesn't impact me, I have other things that matter.  Or, as I see in facebook feeds 'WHO CARES'.    When we stop caring about our fellow man we all lose.   Every last one of us. I see far too often, even when stories about this are shared on Facebook and Twitter "JUST LEAVE KANSAS" and I get the feeling.   But where does that leave those, born gay in the wrong state.   Stuck struggling, contorting their lives to feel accepted because everything around them works to make them feel 'less'. In Kansas, we've worked the last two weeks as hard as I know how.   Phone call trees, letters, ad campaigns, diaries, tweets, whatever we could do to gain any attention.   To force pressure on people.  I've argued with News Directors, with Radio call in hosts, with Newspaper Columnists:  Give us a few inches.  Make this a story.  Whatever it took, if I had someone who would drive there to make the case, we tried our damnedest to get someone to say something, on the record.   To talk to ministers, to talk to elected officials, to sit at home and make phone calls, demanded better not just for us, but for future children born in our state."