The GAY Agenda

Published on Monday, February 20, 2006 by the Middletown Times Herald-Record(New York)

Gay Agenda Revealed Here For First Time!
by Beth Quinn

I've been wondering what's on this Gay Agenda that the charmingly winsome homophobes keep talking about.I've never seen a copy of the Gay Agenda, but I figured there must be a piece of paper somewhere with the massively sordid details. After all, the uptight and sexually terrified radical right has gone all screechy about it again since Brokeback Mountain" came to a theater near you - and a little bit too near them.

Now I guess it's a Big Ole Gay Agenda and that delightful little crowd out of Topeka, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, has stepped up its "God hates fags" activity, too. Now they're picketing military funerals. Phelps claims our soldiers are dying in Iraq because God is mad that Americans have failed to string up every faggot from a nearby tree.

This is the same crowd that showed up in New Paltz a couple of years ago to spread its message of hatred. In New Paltz, as you might know, people have been shirking their duty in terms of killing homosexuals, leaving them to roam the streets and impose their well-dressed gay lifestyle on innocent babies.

Certainly, we have it on good authority from the anti-gay pseudo-Christian leaders that the Gay Agenda includes killing off decent, moral people. According to Pat Robertson, "Gays want to give people AIDS." Also, "Gays want to destroy Christians." James Dobson, who heads the Focus on the Family Blah Blah Blah Group, says the main item on the Gay Agenda is to "abolish all 'age of consent' laws and recognize pedophiles as the prophets of a new order. "Then there's the ethnic cleansing item that Dr. Laura Schlessinger claims is on the Gay Agenda: "They want to permeate sperm banks with gay semen to perpetuate the gay gene," says the good doc.

And of course, the subtext of the Gay Agenda is to destroy the sacred institutions of marriage and family. Tall order, but apparently you can't overestimate what a determined gay person can accomplish, especially if it's a lesbian in comfortable shoes. I find it hard to believe that these boundlessly miserable gay bashers with their mean, bitter God have actually seen the Gay Agenda. I'm not certain they've ever even talked to an actual gay person who has, perhaps, a copy of the Gay Agenda tucked away in his Italian-leather briefcase or her practical backpack. So I decided to talk to a couple of gay people myself to see if they'd reveal to me the Gay Agenda. I confess I did not speak directly to the Head Homosexual, but I did have a chat with some average, everyday queers - friends of mine, actually, but that doesn't mean I have a bias here. I just asked the entirely objective question: What's on the Gay Agenda?" Let me check," said Carl, as he pulled out his gay little Palm Pilot, which is where he keeps his own Gay Agenda. Here's what it said:

6 a.m. - treadmill in basement for 30 minutes
7 a.m. - eat breakfast (bowl of cereal, orange juice)
8 a.m.-5 p.m. - work
5:30 - hair appointment (well, he is gay, you know)
6 p.m. - dinner with Albert at Mom's
11 p.m. - home, watch Jon Stewart

But I wanted to know the LARGER Gay Agenda. So I asked Ted. And Ted, being just so generously Ted-like, pulled the official Gay Agenda out of his back pocket and showed it to me. It was written on Homosexuals "R" Us letterhead with a decorative rainbow across the top. Here's what it said:

Be left alone and not get the crap beaten out of us.
Do normal things, like get married and raise kids.
Hold down a good job and have health insurance for the whole family.
Grow old together and develop a bit of a paunch or big butt from a few too many marvelous dinners.
Stop having whom we share our bed with be of any interest whatsoever to anyone.
Urge those lovable homophobic pseudo-Christians to discover Jesus' true message.

There are 1,070 days 'til Inauguration 2009.

Beth Quinn's column appears on Monday.© 2006 The Times Herald-Record

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong - New York Times

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong - New York Times


Doctors all too often treat symptoms and have little interest in diagnosing causes. As a former IT Project Manager I’m afraid that the software solution would only serve to make doctors similar to the store clerk that can’t give change during a power failure.

From a technical standpoint a computerized diagnostic system is nothing more than a database that associates symptoms with maladies, hardly worth the $800,000 per year per hospital or $795 for the doctor. In my opinion the colleges and universities that are responsible for training these professionals should be supplying them with that information as a part of their education.

Another part of the problem has become the specialization in the medical field. While a GP will evaluate the body as a whole they lack the knowledge of the specialists. Conversely the specialists, well educated in a particular system, view the body as a microcosm.

Chertoff Defends Review of Ports Takeover - Yahoo! News

Chertoff Defends Review of Ports Takeover - Yahoo! News

Well Bush does it again. President Bush and his administration have approved the sale of port operations at 6 ports in the United States of America - New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia will be operated by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business from the United Arab Emirates.

PA Property Tax Reform

Wednesday, February 01, 2006
In regards to: Property Tax HB854 as amended by the senate
Senator Noah Wenger, Chairman
Senate Box 203036 Harrisburg, PA 17120-3036

Senator John Wazniak, Chairman
Senate Box 203035 Harrisburg, PA 17120-3035
Dear Senator Wenger and Senator Wozniak,
I understand that the complete elimination of property taxes is a difficult but not an impossible task. I didn’t want to sit idly by while this extremely important issue is debated. Currently I am residing in the City of York and my school taxes were around $2500 for 2005-2006 and my house is valued roughly at about $100,000. My taxes are paid entirely from my Social Security Disability check and I have no option to earn more income. I perceive my current situation as precarious at best especially with the outrageous increase in heating costs.
After reading the introduction of the HB854 as presented to the senate I’m a bit confused by the need to raise PIT 3.27 percent in order to eliminate school property taxes to replace the current property tax revenue of $10.3 billion. Well let me rephrase that. If I assume, just for arguments sake, that I earned $68,000, the median income in PA, a year and I paid 3.27 ignoring deductions and other adjustments to income that I would be paying $1836 a year which is only $664 less than I currently pay and I consider school taxes in the City of York to be some of the worst that I have encountered. Maybe I’m simplifying this a bit too much but if the tax base is larger, as it would be if there were an increase in the PIT, I would expect that all property owners would be paying a lot less. The numbers just don’t seem to “add-up” so to speak.
But on with my point. If property taxes are not eliminated in their entirety, I foresee that the cities and counties will see this as new found income and start taking advantage by increasing their tax rates and justifying it by saying that we no longer pay school property taxes of course causing our taxes escalate in yet another direction. This is bad business. I don’t know what the percentage of homeowners is to non-homeowners but I would be very curious since these non-homeowners would be impacted the most. It is time that all people that are part of our communities take financial responsibility for the programs and services available to them. This responsibility should not rest only on the property owners. This undo tax on the property owner just serves to cause yet even more blight in our cities by landlords that have no financial interest in maintaining their properties.
I think it is imperative that school funding be shifted to PIT and city and county be shifted to LIT. Although EIT would be more desirable than a sales tax increase, it still only taxes part of the community that receives benefit from the tax expenditure. I also understand that in the late ‘90’s, I believe, there was an attempt to eliminate property taxes and the senior citizens blocked it over concern of having their retirement “nest eggs” drained by taxation. I think that this is an education issue with the seniors. I don’t think they understand that although a PIT increase would tax their “nest egg” interest, and that is the important part to understand that it is not taxed against their savings in their entirety – just the interest, but they would no longer pay property taxes and should actually see a net reduction in their yearly taxes.
So how do we proceed:
§ The impact of the tax shift must be made very clear to the public. It should give specific examples at various incomes and various situations (retirement vs working, etc) and should be mailed to all PIT taxpayers or as an alternative it could be specific to each individual taxpayer based on their last years PIT filing. The same should be done for city and country taxes.
§ An immediate tax freeze on all property taxes.
§ Each year the PIT would increase by some percentage, we don’t want “sticker shock” to cause everyone to panic. And each year the property taxes would be reduced by the increase in the PIT dollar for dollar.
§ As gambling revenue becomes available to the state it should reduce the effective PIT increase dollar for dollar which will serve as a buffer against the increase in PIT making it lower than expected each year giving the taxpayer a mental “it’s not as bad as I thought it would be”.
§ The additional increases in PIT & LIT should be kept as separate line items and in separate funds in order to avoid “dipping” for other programs.
Of course to avoid a spiraling increase in PIT & LIT we need to address some other issues but I’ll save that discussion for now.

Respectfully,

PA Constitutional Marriage Bans

My letter to my state representatives:

Dear Senator Waugh:
Subject: Constituional Ammendment to ban Gay Marriage
Many politicians are out yet again to get votes by spreading their hatred and intolerance of people that have chosen to enjoy same-sex relationships. In an end run to avoid a court decision these politicians are hoping to scare Pennsylvanians into believing that same-sex relationships are not normal and lead to the demise of the family unit and the corruption of their communities. These proponents would have you believe that by not giving same-sex couples the same legal advantages that heterosexual marriages are entitled to that our communities will somehow be enriched.
Let’s not forget that marriage is an artificial condition used in ancient societies to protect royal bloodlines and property rights and as such was sanctioned by governments and organized religions and has matriculated into a moral compass for society. The definition of marriage takes on many forms besides the male/female monogamous version that the constitutional amendment proponents would have you believe is the only acceptable version and includes many other unpopular options such as polygamy, polygyny, polyandry, endogamy and exogamy all of which have been practiced in various cultures throughout time for various reasons. Monogamy is defined as the practice of remaining faithful, sexually, to one person at a time and has no gender roles within its definition.
Regardless if the PA General Assembly is able to get a ban on same-sex marriages or not, gay people will still be living together in various communities and will still be adopting children and will still be serving our country in the armed forces and will still be serving on various charitable and community boards and will still be performing various occupational duties across the commonwealth and still voting.
All that will be accomplished in the end is denying these same-sex couples a legal recognition of love, caring and concern for their partners, the right to participate in legal and medical decisions, possible financial benefits and maybe employer benefits. But even corporations are beginning to realize that all of their employees contribute to their success and many are already rewarding same-sex relationships.
Haven’t we as a society learned anything from Hitler’s hatred of the Jews, the Islamic extremist’s abhorrence of the western world, the disdain of obese people by the physically fit, the intolerance of smokers by non-smokers – where does it end? Do we truly want to destine our society to a bunch of people that think and act alike all in the name of hatred and intolerance? Is it not enough that our children are carrying weapons to school because of hate and intolerance?And isn’t it funny that such large amounts of tax money and time should be spent over denying same-sex relationships when for the most part the only impact will be one that no one will see but those in the relationships? We as a society should put so much time and energy into eliminating hatred, hunger and poverty.

Late breaking news from the New York Times authored by John Fulbrook III:
"The form of marriage that has been approved by more societies than any others through the ages has been polygamy - one man and many women. That family form is the one mentioned most often in the first five books of the Bible. For most of history the main impetus of marriage was getting in-laws and managing property, not love or sex."