One of the perks of having liked Lady Gaga on Facebook and being online tonight is getting this:

Merry X-mas Little Monsters! Listen Here to my UNRELEASED SONG “Stuck On Fuckin’ You”: http://bit.ly/t2MVBl

From the You Tube video…

Merry Christmas! Ha ha, although I never publicized it, I used to volunteer for a group that read to children every Saturday, and I very much enjoyed it. Recently, a new little boy has come into my life and I’ve enjoyed reading to him before he goes to sleep when I visit. This is inspired by those experiences. I know you may be expecting something sarcastic or sacrilegious (and I still love doing that, too!) but for this one, I’m reading it just like I would read it to that little boy on Christmas Eve.

From On Top Magazine:   http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=10450&MediaType=1&Category=26

By On Top Magazine Staff
Published: December 24, 2011

A historic homecoming kiss by a lesbian military couple as the USS Oak Hill docked in Virginia Beach after 80 days at sea has been condemned by The Tea Party Nation, media watchdog RightWingWatch.org reported.

Navy Petty Officer 2^nd Class Marissa Gaeta won the right to be the first to exit the vessel and be greeted by her partner, Petty Officer 3^rd Class Citlalic Shell.

The women shared a kiss on the pier as a crowd waved flags around them.

A picture and a link to the story was posted on Obama’s re-election blog (barackobama.tumblr.com) along with the caption: “President Obama signed the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ into law one year ago today.”

The Party Nation’s Alan Caruba condemned the Navy for sanctioning a “sexual aberration.”

“The U.S. military has been used by gay and lesbian advocacy groups as a petri dish to force social change,” Caruba wrote in a message to members.

Continue Reading at:  http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=10450&MediaType=1&Category=26

One of the big advantages those of us who came out young have always had was never having been men.  We may have had abused sissy boyhoods but by coming out before becoming fully adult with adult histories we avoided a lot of the baggage that many who come out later have as part of their lives.

This is why I (and I speak only for myself) have such a hard time relating to the whole transgender culture.  Being a left wing  folkie/hippie bohemian was and still is at the core of what I consider “my identity”, if identity is a group or culture one feels a part of.  Transsexual was something I was born and had an operation for.  Woman isn’t an identity for me, it is just what I am as a result of being adult and female.  Lesbian isn’t an identity for me either,  It is something I am as the result of being an adult woman who loves other women.

I suspect that kids who are able to transition early and  don’t even have teenage experiences in their assigned sex will be even less inclined to embrace Transgender Culture.

Much of transgender ideology and culture is based on the idea that there are highly restrictive gender categories.  It is a product of a highly repressive era and not of the 1960s or 1970s. How can a kid who has never been a different gender and whose parents permitted her or him to naturally develop his or her gender be considered transgender?  Especially since gender isn’t assigned at birth but is taught or develops as a result of the assigning of sex.

So  Here’s to the Girl Scouts of America.  Support them and buy their cookies. 

Boo to the Christo-fascists and their bigotry for pulling several Louisiana Scout Troops out of the GSA.

Girl Scouts troops disband after chapter says it will allow transgendered 7-year-old

From The New York Daily News:  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/girl-scouts-troops-disband-chapter-transgendered-7-year-old-article-1.995573

Leaders resign in protest of Girl Scouts of Colorado’s decision to admit boy

BY Rheana Murray
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, December 22 2011

Leaders of three troops of Girl Scouts quit their posts and disbanded the troops after the organization’s Colorado chapter said it would allow a transgendered 7-year-old to join.

The troop leaders, all affiliated with a Christian school in Louisiana, resigned in protest of the Colorado chapter’s decision to allow participation from any child who identifies as a girl, The Christian Post reported.

Controversy erupted when Felisha Archuleta tried to enroll her son, Bobby Montoya, who identifies as a girl, in a Girl Scouts troop in Denver.

When a local troop leader refused, saying Bobby wasn’t allowed to join because he had “boy parts,” Archuleta appealed to the leadership of the Colorado chapter, the mother previously told the Daily News.

The organization reviewed the troop leader’s decision and opted to enforce its policy of inclusion for transgendered children, The Christian Post reported.

This one goes out to the Catholic Church, a medieval organization that manages to combine pedophilia with misogyny and homophobia for a particularly nasty brand of Christo-fascism.

From LGBTQ Nation: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/12/catholic-church-campaining-against-scotlands-effort-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage/

By Dan Littauer
Filed: Friday, December 23, 2011

The Scottish Government has been conducting a consultative process on its intention to institute marriage equality by legislating to lift the ban on same-sex marriage in Scotland. Such legislation will enable same-sex couples to register as a married couple, whilst today they are restricted to a “civil partnership.”

But the most organized and vociferous campaign against same-sex marriage has been headed by the Scottish Catholic Church — its leader, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has recently said that same-sex marriage will be “forfeiting the trust” of the nation, and “shaming Scotland in the eyes of the world.”

O’Brien has further argued that “all children deserve to begin life with a mother and father, the evidence in favor of the stability and well being which this provides is overwhelming and unequivocal.”

Asked by Pink News UK to substantiate this “evidence,” the Catholic Church of Scotland provided discredited research studies propagated by anti-LGBT hate groups based in the USA.

One of the studies was by Paul Cameron, who argued in a 1998 paid for publication that same-sex relationships “lead to shorter life expectancies” which further compares homosexuality to “tobacco addiction” claiming it “damages health” in a similar way.

Continue reading at:   http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/12/catholic-church-campaining-against-scotlands-effort-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage/

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/catholic-cardinal-warns-gay-pride-parade-could-morph-into-ku-klux-klan/

By David Edwards
Thursday, December 22, 2011

A Catholic cardinal in Chicago on Wednesday compared the gay liberation movement to the Ku Klux Klan.

Appearing on Fox’s Chicago station, Cardinal Francis George complained that this year’s Gay Pride Parade route would mean that Our Lady of Mount Carmel might have to cancel Sunday mass for the first time in almost 100 years.

“You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism,” George said.

“It is,” George agreed. “But you take a look at the rhetoric — the rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan, the rhetoric of some of the gay liberation people. Who is the enemy? The Catholic Church.”

Continue reading at:  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/catholic-cardinal-warns-gay-pride-parade-could-morph-into-ku-klux-klan/

From Fair Warning: http://www.fairwarning.org/2011/12/not-in-my-kitchen-is-easier-said-than-done/

By Emily Dwass
on December 19, 2011

The controversial chemical bisphenol A was not on my radar screen back in 2008, when I ordered a polycarbonate electric food steamer from Target.com. I thought I had purchased a nifty appliance, which offered a clever and fun way to cook dinner.

Not so fun were the news stories I started reading soon after. These articles reported research questioning the safety of polycarbonate in food applications, because that plastic contains BPA. It seemed each week a new study came out, implicating the widely used chemical in potential health problems, including neurological damage, diabetes and cancer.

Determined to get the chemical out of my kitchen, I stopped buying canned foods, because most had an epoxy resin lining containing BPA. I took a closer look at my cooking tools and didn’t like what I saw. Especially worrisome were the polycarbonate ones employing heat, because high temperatures can cause BPA to leach out.

Five months after buying the steamer, I tried unsuccessfully to return it to Target, where customer service would not override the standard 90-day return window, even though I explained my worries about BPA. Target suggested I contact the manufacturer, West Bend.

But I also struck out with West Bend, because the steamer was not under recall and the product materials were FDA approved.

Continue reading at:  http://www.fairwarning.org/2011/12/not-in-my-kitchen-is-easier-said-than-done/

From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/19/womens_progress_marches_backward/

Whether you look at job stats or the pay gap, at the movie awards or Sunday morning TV, it’s been a rough 2011

From Truth Dig:  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/on_to_the_next_bubble_fantasy_20111222/

By Robert Scheer
Posted on Dec 22, 2011

Few journalists have greater influence on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East, than New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But his tortured obit of a column this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner often gets it wrong.

Was the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which he did so much to encourage, a “wise choice”? Friedman hides behind one of his trademark ambiguities: “My answer is twofold: ‘No’ and ‘Maybe, sort of, we’ll see.’ I say ‘no’ because whatever happens in Iraq, even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.”

Aside from the stunning amorality of assessing the cost of war from the standpoint of the royal “we,” Friedman seems wildly optimistic about what the invasion has wrought. On a day when Iraq’s prime minister, a Shiite, demanded that the leader of the Kurds arrest the Sunni vice president, Friedman celebrated the unity of the three groups as “the most important product of the Iraq war.” He blamed the failure of the U.S. occupation to accomplish more, in roughly equal measure, on “the incompetence of George W. Bush’s team in prosecuting the war,” “Iran, the Arab dictators and, most of all, Al Qaeda,” which he seems surprised to report “did not want a democracy in the heart of the Arab world.”

President Bush’s argument for the invasion was not based on democratic nation-building but rather on two specific lies that Friedman has long danced around: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that threatened U.S. security and that it was somehow linked to the 9/11 attacks. Friedman now insists “Iraq was always a war of choice. As I never bought the argument that Saddam had nukes that had to be taken out, the decision to go to war stemmed for me from a different choice: Could we … tilt it and the region onto a democratizing track?”

Continue reading at:   http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/on_to_the_next_bubble_fantasy_20111222/

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/for-transgender-detainees-a-jail-policy-offers-some-security.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

By ADRIENNE LU
Published: December 22, 2011

For as long as she can remember, Maribel said, she has felt that she was different. She was born a boy in Mexico, and came to the United States at 16. Two years later, she started taking hormone pills and later underwent some operations to become physically the woman she always believed herself to be.

Maribel, 40, concedes she has long lived on the margins of society, never holding down a job and bouncing in and out of jail over the years.

In March, she was charged with retail theft and sent to Cook County Jail. Despite her shoulder-length hair, fuller lips and breasts, Maribel (who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that only her first name be used) was housed with male detainees.

“It was horrible,” she said. “Sometimes words hurt more than a punch. People can be very cruel.” After two weeks she was moved to the women’s division, where she remains while awaiting trial.

Also in March, Cook County Jail instituted a new policy for detainees like Maribel, who either identify themselves as transgender or are identified by the jail’s medical staff as having gender-identity disorder, the formal diagnosis for those who feel at odds with their sex at birth.

Under the policy, which covers procedures for housing, clothing, showering, grooming, medical care and other aspects of life in jail, a gender identity committee meets periodically to determine and review plans for each transgender detainee. Among the decisions the committee makes is whether the detainee should be housed with men or women.

Continue reading at:   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/for-transgender-detainees-a-jail-policy-offers-some-security.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all