http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/02/26/the-right-to-choose-your-next-of-kin Comments On: The Right to Choose Your Next-of-Kin by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss When you take a break , go and click some advertises and make some tasks, i use clixsens for 1 hour a day, and I earn about 100 dolars in first week.After you create an acount , invite some friends to join this.you will earn comission from their earnings.
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Posted by Christian87]]> Thu, 28 Mar 2013 05:37:39 -0700 The Stranger Posted by rob!]]> Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:10:49 -0800 The Stranger Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California."
try not to be shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side,
"I'm his brother."
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
"I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.
Sign the necessary forms.
Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.
Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick.
Forgive him out loud
even if he can't
understand you.
Realize the scar will be
all that's left of him.

Over coffee in the hospital cafeteria
say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking
young man."
Hear him say,
"I never thought I was good enough looking to
deserve your brother."

Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,
"I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be
the lover of another man."
Hear him say,
"Its just like a wife, only the commitment is
deeper because the odds against you are so much
greater."
Say nothing, but
take his hand like a brother's.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might
help him live longer.
Explain what they are to the border guard.
Fill with rage when he informs you,
"You can't bring those across."
Begin to grow loud.
Feel the lover's hand on your arm
restraining you. See in the guard's eye
how much a man can hate another man.
Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?"
Hear him say, "You get used to it."
Think of one of your children getting used to
another man's hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,
"He hasn't much time.
I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say,
"How could anyone's commitment be deeper than
a husband and a wife?" Hear her say,
"Please. I don't want to know all the details."

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,
hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,
no longer strong. Wonder how much longer
you will be able to be strong.
Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms
whose arms are used to holding men.
Offer God anything to bring your brother back.
Know you have nothing God could possible want.
Curse God, but do not
abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director
when he tells you he will not
embalm the body for fear of
contamination. Let him see in your eyes
how much a man can hate another man.

Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,
white flowers. Say,
"thank you for coming," to each of seven hundred men
who file past in tears, some of them
holding hands. Know that your brother's life
was not what you imagined. Overhear two
mourners say, "I wonder who'll be next?" and
"I don't care anymore,
as long as it isn't you."

Arrange to take an early flight home.
His lover will drive you to the airport.
When your flight is announced say,
awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please
let me know." Do not flinch when he says,
"Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him
after he told you. He did."
Stop and let it soak in. Say,
"He forgave me, or he knew himself?"
"Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else
to do. Hold him like a brother while he
kisses you on the cheek. Think that
you haven't been kissed by a man since
your father died. Think,
"This is no moment to be strong."

Fly first class and drink Scotch. Stroke
your split eyebrow with a finger and
think of your brother alive. Smile
at the memory and think
how your children will feel in your arms
warm and friendly and without challenge.

~ Michael Lassell

Posted by Sweetlethe]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:39:12 -0800 The Stranger
Sullivan might have been at the forefront on those issues in the U.S., but he's British and must have been aware of what was going on in the rest of the world, at least in Europe - so really he's always been way behind those who were truly leading the way.

Come on, Dan, choose your battles! Sullivan is a major asshole, and you become one by association if you keep defending him.
Posted by Ricardo]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:37:12 -0800 The Stranger Posted by SoapMacTavish]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:12:16 -0800 The Stranger Posted by frankdawg]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:46:57 -0800 The Stranger Posted by smajor82]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:32:33 -0800 The Stranger Posted by lolorhone]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:57:15 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Mugwumpt]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:51:07 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sirkowski]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:32:52 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sirkowski]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:26:05 -0800 The Stranger Posted by dirac]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:01:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by dirac]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:59:28 -0800 The Stranger
My main complaint with Mr Sullivan concerns his delight over the death of gay culture and community, where he appears to have been short-sighted. From what I've been seeing lately, the new young gay men can't stand each other, see other gay men either as threats or at best potential bedmates for a week or a month, and all have almost exclusively straight friends. This kind of assimilation is bound to facilitate a new wave of oppression. I only hope it's better for women.
Posted by vennominon]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:13:55 -0800 The Stranger
He's still the same loathsome toad who spent most of the early aughts licking Dick Cheney's diseased taint, cheerleading for the debacle in Iraq ($2Trillion, a million dead Iraqis, thousands of dead Americans and still counting), and calling anti-war leftists fifth columnists who were de facto in league with Saddam. (He then tried to spin the fact that he was one of the last people to realize that invading Iraq was a bad idea into some sort of great moral self-discovery.) He's still the same wink-wink-nudge-nudge white supremacist who's self-described "proudest moment" as editor at The New Republic was giving puff-piece coverage to Charles Murray and "The Bell Curve." He's still the same "editor" that let Philip Morris and the Manhattan Institute ghostwrite fantasmagorical hit pieces against "Hillarycare" under TNR's masthead in 1994. He's still the person who hired Stephen Glass.

In short, fuck Andrew Sullivan, now and forever. If that makes me an asshole, I will wear that badge with pride.
Posted by Doctor Memory]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:12:00 -0800 The Stranger Posted by SoapMacTavish]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:10:09 -0800 The Stranger Posted by passionate_jus]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:09:36 -0800 The Stranger
He was also a leading—and a lonely—voice for marriage rights for same-sex couples years before anyone else was pushing for it. And he backs rights for all same-sex couples (and opposite-sex couples too), not just gay white male couples. And he was attacked for it from the left and the right. But his message resonated with average gay people all over the country. While gay orgs were selling t-shirts and stuffed "pride bears," average gays and lesbians intuitively understood that we would never be equal until our loves and our families were treated equally. The first lawsuits in Hawaii and Vermont and Mass. weren't filed by big gay orgs backing marriage. They were filed by gay and lesbian individuals and renegade lawyers. The big gay orgs opposed those first lawsuits. Then one day... suddenly everyone is for marriage equality, because they saw that it was a winning issue for us. It was and it is. And all the opposition, all the shit Andrew got, was all stuffed down the memory hole.

And marriage—pushing for marriage—is helping us win in other areas. They used to say, "We have to get ENDA first, then we can move on marriage—maybe, sometime, later." But I believe we'll get ENDA after we get marriage. Pushing for the big thing—the biggest—is going to get us the rest.

Andrew lead on this shit. And you swan around in comments threads shitting on him for this? About this issue? Fuck you. You don't know what you're talking about.

Also: the right hates Sullivan. He's persona non grata on Fox News, he's attacked on The Corner, Jonah Goldberg attacks him. When Fox News showed an issue of Newsweek that Andrew had written the cover story for—they were discussing his story—they blurred out his name on the cover and never mentioned his name. He's a non-person on the right. It's Orwellian. And you call him a "house negro" for the right? You really don't know what you're talking about.

Also, too, you're an asshole.
Posted by Dan Savage]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:02:46 -0800 The Stranger Posted by passionate_jus]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:51:11 -0800 The Stranger
The Executive Committee of the Illinois House is about to debate the Senate's marriage equality bill. If it passes committee tonight, it goes to the full floor of the House for a vote.

Here's a live stream of the debate:

http://new.livestream.com/blueroomstream…


Posted by passionate_jus]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:21:27 -0800 The Stranger
I came out in the mid-1980s, right in the early days of AIDS, before any sort of treatment was available, when a vast majority of gay people were in the closet. It was typical for someone newly diagnosed with AIDS to die within 6 months. It was horrifying. And yes, it was not at all uncommon for a homophobic family member to waltz right in during the final days, and exclude the dying guy's partner from everything, exclude him from hospital visitation or any decision-making, exclude him from the funeral, and take all the deceased's property right out from under the surviving partner. That wasn't the exception. A supportive family that included the lover was the exception.

It makes me angry just to type this. It brings back a flood of viscerally awful memories. Sometimes I feel like I have PTSD for having survived those years with any semblance of sanity intact. While I'm not really a Sullivan fan, I can totally relate to the feelings he is expressing in this article.
Posted by Reverse Polarity]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:47:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by venomlash]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:51:25 -0800 The Stranger .
Posted by Jarz]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:37:59 -0800 The Stranger
So SO proud of my state of WA and all of us who voted for the Freedom to Marry...
Posted by merry]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:34:52 -0800 The Stranger I will never be an advocate of anything but legal, full marriage equality for every US citizen now. DP's and CU's are not equal to marriage...ever.
And yes, until marriage equality, I lost sleep worrying my homophobic father would take everything my husband of 20+ years and I had worked for after I died.
Posted by OutInBumF]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:05:35 -0800 The Stranger