Joined by Senator John Kerry, the Democratic junior Senators of the two largest “blue” states, California’s Barbara Boxer and New York’s Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed “The County Every Vote Act” a bill for electoral reform, which would, among other things, allow felons to vote.

My friend Rick Sincere has just posted an excellent piece on his blog showing why, as he puts it, this bill is so bad in so many ways. Rick is particularly suited to write on this topic. Having run for office on the Libertarian ticket, he has learned the hard way about the problems “third-party” candidates face in our electoral system. And he currently serves as chairman of the Charlottesville, Virginia Electoral Board.
(more…)

In my post on the misguided Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy, I promised to forward the post to a lawyer friend of mine for comment. Here’s his response:

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t Harass policy is an amalgam of statutes, executive orders, and military regulations. A comprehensive guide to it can be found in a very lengthy yet very helpful document available at SLDN. The answers to the specific questions raised by your blog post are (a) the policy applies equally to officers and enlisted personnel, (b) the policy has no wiggle room to distinguish between combat and non-combat roles, and no wiggle room to distinguish between “auxiliary” and non-auxiliary roles.

The basic governing statute is 10 U.S.C. ? 654. [reproduced under "READ MORE"] You will probably find its harshness shocking. Unfortunately, there are other documents (executive orders and regs) one must consult for all of the express language of all of the governing legal rules, but Section 654 should tell you what you want to know for present purposes.

. . . . I do think this is one of the truly great injustices and follies of our time . . . . [Y]ou should tout the great work of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

I agree. DADT is one of the truly great injustices and follies of out time.
(more…)

Like every gay man I’ve met, I know about the risks of unsafe sex and how to protect myself against contracting HIV. In the 1990s, I assumed that all single gay men practiced safe sex and that those who became infected during that period had just been plain unlucky. Either the condom broke or some other mishap negated its effectiveness. It never occurred to me, knowing what we know about how the virus is spread, that a gay man, particularly an intelligent one, would not take proper precautions. It made sense to assume that all gay men played safe.

But, at the end of the decade, friends starting telling me about times when they played “unsafe.” And in many cases, the indiscretion occurred not with somehow they knew, but with a random hookup. In some cases, the guys had been high on drugs. Others got lost in the moment. But, in some cases, both men were fully conscious of what they were doing. An online “chat buddy” (whom I never met) confided that he contracted the virus when he allowed a guy he met at a bar to penetrate him without protection; the guy had assured him he was negative.

When I moved to LA in 1999, I soon learned that unsafe practices, while not the rule, were certainly not the exception. A friend related how one man pursued him for several months online, but [the pursuer] stopped chatting with him when he [the friend] made clear that he only played safe. I kept hearing stories of unsafe sex that, at one point, it seemed I was the only man in West Hollywood who had never played unsafe. Thankfully, I have learned that I am not alone. Many, if not most, gay men continue to play safe.
(more…)