Up Too Late: An Endless Search for Mr.Right & Other Important Things in Life

I recently joined Gay Romeo after reading about it on the Gay Universe pages of Kosova.

First of all, I'm depressed when I read Gay Universe pages - while it's great that Kosovar gay men love sex, it's a little sad when that's all they want out of a guy.

I speak from a perspective of privilege, thousands of miles away from the epicenter, where it all happens, so I have a certain freedom to criticize, which, one could argue, is not fair or just. In a sense, whoever thinks that is right because I am not putting my life at risk by writing about men who do.

I am also not in a situation where being labeled as gay in the community will mean the failure of my life, career, and whatever else I hold dear for my future.

Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, I can keep going with my story. I created a profile on Gay Romeo primarily because I wanted to talk to a fellow gay Kosovar. I did talk to a few, and quickly realized they were all in it for a quick fix of "you do me, i'll do you, we'll all be happy." They were, in fact, so horny that talking about anything else would have been pointless: What were the things I was asked?

[In respective order]

A-Where am I now?
B-Do I have a photo of my body?
C-Do I have a cam?
D-Where do I live that I don't have a cam?

Answering these questions honestly meant that neither one of these men wanted to keep in touch - So I'm left wondering once again if all the men on this page I was lucky to find are in fact, looking for S-E-X.

Time will tell. Until then, I'll read articles on the web about the efforts of the Catholic Church/Muslim Community/ Orthodox Church in Kosova to rid Kosovar gay men's right to marry. Unfair.

Labels: conservatism, Europe, gay, gay rights, Kosova, Kosovo

This Tuesday will be the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Queen signed the document on April 17th, 1982, after we pleaded with her and her politicians for decades, centuries even, to have our own planefull of rights.
In the presence of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, letter H's favourite Prime Minister and French Quebecers' least liked politician, the Queen signed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the Constitution.

This year, the Conservative minority government, which has never been a fan of the Charter ("Rights?? Who needs'em???!!!"), apparently has no major celebrations planned for the day that marks a symbolic breaking away from the strict and controlling mother Queen two and a half decades ago.

Five years ago, when, at the time, the Liberal government was in power, Canadian Alliance, the co-founding group of today's Conservative Party of Canada, said that the whole Charter thing had been overdone by the Liberal government, underlining that its need was exaggerated in a sense, ignoring some fundamental human rights that would never have been challenged had the Charter not been enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. The Alliance said at the time that the Charter went against the will of many Canadians who thought the rights revolution "had gone too far".

This week, on Monday and Tuesday, the University of Ottawa is holding a two-day conference on the Charter. Apparently, all of the invited guests, except for Stephen Harper and his run-alongs, are coming. Stephane Dion, who first declined the invitation, must have changed his mind when he found out about Harper's decision to unofficially boycott the event.

Jean Chrétien, the former Liberal prime minister who initiated the same-sex marriage vote is apparently talking at a $150-per-plate gala fundraiser in Montreal about the importance of having a Charter.Harper must be staying home and enjoying Bill O'Reilly and Fox News.

His government recently (last fall), canceled funding for the Charter Challenges Program, which helped individuals and groups/organizations challenge federal laws on the grounds of equality. The Program, known as the pillar of federal court challenges, has given out funding in the past to groups demanding a change in the definition of marriage, prisoner's rights to vote and, among other things, the limits of the parents' disciplining of children.

Oddly enough, Canadians seem to be turned on by the idea of going conservative. A prime minister who refuses to acknowledge the importance of one of the most important and fundamental human rights documents is gaining popularity, according to polls.

The pendulum is swinging right once again...wonderful. We are already explicitly supporting Israel's so-called anti-terrorist measures that cause thousands of civilians' deaths, Israeli and Palestinian. Every few days, our "anti-terrorist troops" are attacked in Afghanistan. We are going under in our environment policies. Refugee claimants are being deported every day.

At the tennis club, a member sees me typing my paper on racial profiling in Montreal. He asks me what I'm doing and when I tell him what it's all about, he asks me what I think of the Montreal police. I say that I have no personal opinion on it, but that so far, I've only found negative info. on them. He looks at me and says,

"Our Charter was overdone. It gives every nobody, especially the first generation Canadians a chance to claim the race card when a policeman pushes him or treats him like he should, for beating up someone or for sexually assaulting someone else. Frankly, and a lot of lawyers agree with me, the Charter of Rights was overdone." I ask rhetorically, in a curious tone: "But you can't change it, can you?"...he replies, with a sad face: "It's too hard to change it."... Take that, racist millionaires.

In other news, Quebec's ADQ is considering pressuring the provincial government to sign the Canadian Constitution it never signed in 1982. Quebec is the only Canadian province not to have approved the Constitution. The signing would allow the province to finally propose an amendment to the constitution, in order to, according to the Action Démocratique du Québec, achieve greater autonomy from the rest of Canada.

What surprises me is why Quebecers have to go to the most conservative party in the province to get help to make the province sovereign...or autonomous...or whatever.

Sources:

Justice Canada

"Conservatives skip out on Charter events" - The Gazette, Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Labels: Canada, conservatism, human rights, politics, quebec

I am at Starbucks, partly because i'm trying to do something other than just watch old episodes of Mad TV (shhhh, don't tell anyone) and Six Feet Under and partly because i was shaken by something I watched this morning that made me realize how optimistic and naive i am at times.

I'd started watching a documentary called Jesus Camp for weeks now. I couldn't watch it to the end. Somehow, I couldn't accept the reality that in the so-called "secular" world we live in, a religious minority was planning on bringing about a regime of "one nation under God". By the time you will have read the last sentence, you will have figured out I am talking about the Evangelical movement and its influence in American politics. Maybe, just maybe, you didn't get that because you are not aware of the power of the Evangelical Christian movement, which George W.Bush belongs to, as a "born-again" Christian. I won't delve into this issue, as I am sure you can google "evangelical christians & US politics".

I do want to concentrate on how I felt about Jesus Camp.

First of all, kudos to the filmmakers for getting footage of a summer camp that teaches fundamentalism. Most of the time, we see training camp videos with shaky cameras, bad quality images, etc. so it was a break from all that to see this was a good quality doc with some artistic merit.

Second of all, i have to say the music played in this doc is terrible. I understand that the point of the filmmakers was to show the tempting Christian rock music that youth are attracted to, but those youth must really be different from me because I WOULD NEVER, EVER in my life, listen to sad-sounding rock music...ewww...It does go with the doc subject, though.

The doc follows a group of 10-14 year olds who, led by Becky a pastor obviously out of her mind, in a summer camp of "Christian learnings" in Devil's Lake, ND, are filled with hate propaganda. Are you kidding me? DEVIL'S LAKE?? "Hey kids, we met here at Devil's Lake to create an army of God-fearing soldiers who will fight the devil"...you what???

Pastor Becky encourages the parents to send their children to the camp called "Kids on Fire" (oh, God) because, she says, the camp is a camp for training children to sacrifice themselves for God.

(Loosely paraphrased ->) "in Muslim countries, they teach kids from the age of 5 to be ready to sacrifice their lives for God. And they are not afraid to give up their lives for the ultimate reward of serving God. This is how we should be. We should be ready to give up everything we have, including our lives, for God. [This is what the camp is]"

Becky says things like "Take these prophecies and do what Apostle Paul said and make war with them" (them=non-Christians/non-believers) and "This [your dedication to Christianity] means war! This means war! Are you a part of it or not?"

At one point, I expect a break from all the crying and sadness the children are subjected to. The pastor's assistant says he has a fun activity in mind. Instead, fun is a synonym for an activity whereby children are told that abortion has killed 50 million children. To demonstrate this, the organizers tape children's mouths with red tape ,which has "life" written on it. They hear a speaker shout out statistics like "50 million children who were killed" / "one third of your friends won't be with you because they are dead", etc. while these pieces of tape are put on their mouths. Earlier, these poor children are told they will rot in hell if they don't repent for the bad words they use, or for non-Christian shows they watch, including Harry Potter. A boy who looks like Harry Potter is looked down upon. It comes to a point where pastor Becky uses the analogy of little teddy bears as origins of sin. Abortion is quoted often as the evil of all evils, a crime beyond crimes.

In one of the scenes, a patriotic mother invites her children to a meal. As they all gather, she takes out the Bible, they get little flags of North Dakota, US and Israel in their hands and start singing the "Star-spangled Banner".Every now and then, they look at the photo of their father who is serving in the US army Iraq.

At one point, Ted Haggard, an ultra-conservative Bush advisor and Evangelical pastor, most recently implicated in a scandal involving a male prostitute he used drugs with [and apparently had sex with], comes out in front of a huge congregation of passionate Evangelists. He calls on the United States to become one nation under God as it confirms an appointment of the super-conservative judge Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court.

A desperate radio anchor, the only moderate in the whole documentary, seems to be losing hope. As he ponders on whether the American Evangelist Christian movement is gaining momentum in the United States, which may contribute to the end of the world, I wonder, is the world ignoring the creation of another extremist, fundamentalist force, whose sole aim is furthering its own interests? Is there place for "others" in this kind of a world? What kind of a world will this be, if a summer camp indoctrinates evil and negativity in children's minds, the future politicians, average citizens, etc. of the United States?

Labels: conservatism, documentary, evangelicalism, jesus camp, religion, United States