03/12/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Iowa State Researchers Warren Blumenfeld and Robyn Cooper have found something that many in the LGBT Community are fairly well aware of. In a study that they have recently released, they discovered that many gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and allied youths are the targets of cyberbullying. According to them, roughly half of all “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and allied youths are regular victims of cyberbullying, which causes psychological and emotional distress to victims — producing thoughts of suicide in some who are repeatedly victimized.”

Of course, it is not just LGBT youth and our allies who are the victims of cyberbullying, as anyone who visits LGBT websites can attest. Unfortunately, it is often the teenage victims of cyberbullying who have the hardest time with it.

The survey of 444 high school and college students, including 350 LGBT youths) reported that fifty-four percent of them had experienced cyberbullying within the thirty day period prior to the study being conducted. Forty-five percent of them replied that they had been made to feel depressed because of the bullying. Thirty-eight percent felt embarrassed by the harassment, and twenty-eight percent felt anxious about going to school. Twenty-six percent, just over one in four, responded that they had suicidal thoughts because of the bullying.

According to Blumentfeld, “one of the biggest things that the participants are talking about is that this is a youth leadership issue. [Young people] want to see more training developed so that the peer leaders in the schools can be the ones who can act as positive role models to interrupt this kind of behavior in the schools and within the communities and to show in terms of ‘norms theory’ that this is not acceptable and this is not proper behavior and for the youths themselves to take more responsibility. . .[There] are a lot of actors in the drama of bullying … the perpetrators, those who erk on the perpetrators and those who are the bystanders who know what’s going on and do nothing. There also are those who are the “potential allies, those who for one reason or another don’t feel comfortable yet to interrupt the behavior.” He added that ‘there are the actual allies who interrupt the abuse and there are the targets of the abuse.”

Larry Magid, who wrote this up for Huffington Post noted “On a personal note, Blumenfeld was a childhood friend of mine. We were both bullied in school for, among other things, our last names. Kids called him ‘Warren Blubberfeld’ and me ‘Larry Faggot.’ Ironically, he was the one who was gay and I was the one who was overweight.”

On my own personal note, I was bullied in school almost all the time largely due to my being overweight, having red hair, being too smart, and behaving outside my societally assigned gender norms. Many of those who bullied me attacked me for being, they though, gay. They were only slightly wrong.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Cyberbullying Rampant For Lesbian And Gay Teens (huffingtonpost.com)
• Larry Magid: Gay & Lesbian Youth Likely Victims of Cyberbullying (huffingtonpost.com)
• Cyberbullying of LGBT teens (bilerico.com)

Earlier this morning, Sen. Dick Durbin announced that he and Sen. Jeff Sessions had reached a "compromise" in the Senate gym over Durbin's bill, which would have eliminated the 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine.

"If you ever wonder if anything good ever happens there, it appears something good might have happened there," Durbin said, which may or may not have been an oblique reference to former Congressman Eric Massa's tale about being lobbied by Rahm Emanuel in the House gym. "Senator [Orrin] Hatch was there to witness it."

The compromise was that Durbin would accept Sessions' amendment to change the disparity from 100 to 1 to 20 to 1. In return, Sessions offered to withdraw his amendments that would have narrowed the circumstances under which a judge could reduce penalties for offenders who acted with "fear, impulse or affection," and would have imposed a 10-year mandatory maximum for simple possession rather than eliminating the five-year mandatory minimum for simple possession entirely.

"My position is for one to one, equity and equality in sentencing, but in order to get things done you have to be prepared to make mutual concessions," Durbin said. "That's what we have done."

In a statement, the ACLU Legislative Counsel Jennifer Bellamy urged Congress to eliminate the disparity entirely, saying, "We finally have the political will and momentum to end this unconstitutional disparity. We should not miss this opportunity to effect real change and ensure fair sentencing for all Americans."

The Judiciary Committee passed the bill, which will go to the full Senate for a floor vote. Instead of eliminating the crack/powder disparity, which practically everyone in the committee acknowledged disproportionately affects black Americans, the senators opted to make the law one-fifth as racist as it used to be.

The senators on the committee spent the rest of the markup complimenting each other on all they had achieved with their bipartisanship.

-- A. Serwer

03/12/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
When Pope Benedict was still Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, his office approved the rehousing of a known pedophile. According to his deputy, vicar-general Gerhard Gruber, the incident that happened in the early 1980’s was not the direct action of now Pope Benedict, but rather his own actions with regards to rehousing this man who is accused of having forced a boy to perform sex acts upon him. The man was sent to a Munich vicarage for “therapy” before being sent back to the active priesthood.

In 1985, the man, known only as H, was removed from his position when more accusations of child molestation arose. At the time, he was given a suspended sentence and a fine for unspecified acts of sexual molestation.

“The repeated employment of H in priestly spiritual duties was a bad mistake. . .I assume all responsibility. . .You have to know that we had some 1,000 priests in the diocese at the time. . . The cardinal [Joseph Ratzinger] could not deal with everything, he had to rely on his vicar-general [deputy],” stated Gruber. Of course, in Ireland and the United States, the transfer and treatment of pedophile priests was often handled exclusively by the Archbishop directly and was not handled by their deputies. In fact, the reason why the four Irish bishops were forced to resign earlier this year is that they were complicit in the sexual abuse of minors by not pursuing the cases handed to them in greater depth. Instead, they were passed off to the Archbishop, if they were reported at all.

Prior to 1980, the man known as H was suspected of sexually molesting an eleven year old boy in the city of Essen. While he was confined to the vicarage between 1980 and 1982, no incidents were reported to have occurred, and he was transferred to the town of Grafing. In 1985, H was removed from the priesthood and charged and later convicted of sexual molestation. He was given an 18-month suspended sentence and a fine.

The Vatican and the diocese that Pope Benedict use to oversee have refused to name the priest. This is par for the course since, in Ireland, they fought tooth and nail to prevent the names of the priests who had molested children in that nation from being made public.

Pope Benedict, then Archbishop Ratzinger, served as archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, and left just before H was returned to his position in the priesthood. His replacement in the position, Archbishop Fredrich Wetter would serve in that position until 2007, and removed H from the priesthood.

Pope Benedict’s former diocese rehoused abuser priest

Work outside the house today was a clusterfuck of ridiculous proportions. The debit machine died twice, and then the receipt printer died, and then our regular printer stopped communicating with the computer, and then eleventy billion customers rampaged through the store while we painstakingly wrote out paper receipts and explained that their debit cards were no good here, and then I pinched a...

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A Catholic advocacy group says it is satisfied by the abortion restrictions in the Senate bill.

By GottaLaff

There's this group, The Iowa Family Policy Center. They oppose stuff like, you know, equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, that kind of stuff.

They sound like a reasonable, open minded bunch, don't they? Of course they do. You can tell by this, from Chuck Hurley, their president:

“The Iowa Legislature outlawed smoking in an effort to improve health and reduce the medical costs that are often passed on to the state. [...] The secondhand impacts of certain homosexual acts are arguably more destructive, and potentially more costly to society than smoking. [...] Homosexual activity is certainly more dangerous for the individuals who engage in it than is smoking.”

There now, nothing wrong with that... if you're a small-minded, despicable little bigot.

Apparently, his "logic" stems from this report saying gay men have higher rates of HIV and syphilis.

Or from the fact that he's a small-minded, despicable little bigot. How're those family values goin' for you, Chuck?

Newsflash: Heteros spread disease too. In fact, you're spreading some nasty stuff yourself, there, Sparky.

Here's an idea: How about addressing the STD issue rather than condemning your fellow man. Shouldn't you be loving them or something?

It is your hateful attitude that is "more dangerous than is smoking". And just as costly.

People matter. Who they love is none of your damn business, and comparing people who love each other to death sticks makes me want to... offer you a cigarette.

It’s been three months since Princess started her “Kids Helping Kids campaign and I am proud to report, with the help of neighbors, friends and online donations she has raised $135 so far.  We still have a few more months until the hospital “might” let her in to make the delivery (stinky flu season) and she still has a few more ideas under her belt to gather funds for more arts & craft kits.

Thanks to everyone who has given their support so far and as always, you can find a “Kids Helping Kids” donation button on the left sidebar.

Nada here.

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One of the best aspects of science has always been its readiness to admit when it got something wrong. Theories are constantly being refigured, and new research frequently renders old ideas outdated or incomplete. But this hasn’t stopped some discoveries from being hailed as important, game-changing accomplishments a bit prematurely. Even in a field as [...]

SALT LAKE CITY -- As a powerful Utah businessman and lawmaker who sat on a legislative ethics committee, Kevin Garn has lived with a private dilemma that has dogged him for decades.

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this guy is possibly the biggest drama queen on the planet.

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