Thanks to GP reader Liz for bringing this interesting take on the Pope/Muslim jihad angle to my attention…

Muslims and gays have the same problem. Who is doing the talking. The crazy ones. Whenever there is a gay issue who is doing the taliking some freak in pants with the ass cut out and nipple clamps. Most gay people aren’t like that why domn’t they tell that freak to sit down and shut up. Most Muslims don’t think burning churches and stoning women is a good idea. Why don’t they ever stand up and say shut up you backwards ass cave dwelling freaks. You don’t speak for us.

Liz agreed and emailed me her thoughts as well.

As a gay women in her 40′s I often think that many in the community go about getting recognition for gays and lesbians the wrong way and that the publicity we get for outrages behavior is not good.  Am I endorsing this behavior because I don’t say that I disagree with it publicly in the same way I believe Muslims are endorsing radical Islam by not speaking out against it?   My problem of course is what forum do I have for speaking out against the outrageous behavior of gays and Lesbians in my community, but then what forum does your average Muslim have for speaking out?

I have to concur.  The messenger and those who stand next to them, and those who stand by in silence, are sometimes just as important as the message.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

First it was the NJ Governor Codey’s office handing out Homeland Security grants based on which towns voted Democrat…

Then, it was the FBI problems of US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), making NJ Dems thinking about “political switcheroo” again….

And now the powerful NJ Senate Budget Chairman shows serious symptoms of Democratus Corruptionitis…. (hat tip: PatriotPartner!)

A powerful southern New Jersey politician was paid for a no-work job at a scandal-ridden state university while helping the school garner millions of dollars in new state funding, according to a report released Monday.

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey paid state Sen. Wayne Bryant, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, $35,000 a year “to lobby himself in his capacity of state senator,” according to the report of a federal monitor who had investigated the school’s finances.

The report said all Bryant appeared to do at the university’s School of Osteopathic Medicine was show up for three hours most Tuesdays to read newspapers.

I do believe the continuing collapse of the NJ Dems from top to bottom is a leading political indicator for November 7, 2006.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In its e-newsletter Liberty Line yesterday, the Liberty Education Forum referenced a Washington Post article on a support group for young HIV-positive men. A number of things struck me about the article, notably the number of gay men who continue to engage in unprotected intercourse. If it’s true, as we’re told, that this virus is one of the most difficult to transmit, why is it that so many gay men refuse to take the simple precaution to protect themselves?

The article notes that a Center for Disease Control “study of men who have sex with men released last month reported that out of 10,000 men surveyed, 47 percent said they’ve had unprotected anal intercourse with men in the previous year.”

Marsha Martin, head of D.C.’s AIDS office, makes sense when she says “the urgency of the HIV prevention messages we’ve been sending — safe sex only! use a condom! — has worn off.” She, however, also tries to politicize gay men’s unsafe practices:

And if you think about the political and social climate we’ve been in and we’re still in, what message is that sending to gay men? ‘No, you can’t get married as gay couples.’ ‘No, you can’t be openly gay in the military.’ ‘No, you don’t have equal rights.’ Those things produce a lack of self-esteem, a kind of self-loathing, and in that environment is HIV.

I don’t think the absence of state-sanctioned gay marriage causes gay men to practice unsafe sex.

Rather than listen to the jargon of a government bureaucrat, we might better listen to the words of a young gay man who got infected by “playing unsafe.” After chatting with a guy online, he went to the man’s place “and had sex. He was lonely. He didn’t use a condom.” He was lonely and felt closer to that man “without” protection.

He was lonely.

Sometimes when we seek a human connection, we go to great lengths to secure that bond. Ms. Martin’s jargon about self-esteem doesn’t help us understand the number of gay men who have unsafe sex, even while knowing the risks. This young man’s words, that he was lonely the night of his unfortunate encounter, however, go a long way to understanding the risks some gay men take. And help us see the very human aspect of their (seemingly) irrational behavior.

In many cases, those who “play unsafe” seek a human connection and forego the latex so as to feel closer to another human being. Now, we need to find ways to to help them — to help all of us — find such connections without risking their health. That is, perhaps, the biggest challenge confronting our community — to help us better connect to one another so we feel less alone and less isolated from our fellows.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Some of you may note the new category, (Gay) Male Sexuality & the Monogamous Ideal, in the header to this post. In a few days, I will talk a little more about it.