I missed the Center for Inquiry Leadership Conference this year… My sister was in town and it was pride weekend. But…I did not actually end up going to a lot of pride this year, just a bit. Friday night my sister, a few of her friends, John, Allen and me all went to Fly. It was packed, hot and sweaty. We wouldn’t have gotten in (HUGE line) but by dumb luck we ended up asking the right person directions on how to get there ending up in the VIP line. Inside there were super buff half naked gay men all over - which I would usually love. However it was so freaking busy you literally couldn’t, breath in most areas, go pee without someone watching or move an inch on the dance floor without getting elbowed all over your body. It was like a Streetlight Manifesto concert, only with more sequence. We mostly stayed in the basement and danced the night away to BritBrit and Gaga then made a visit to McDonalds - an inevitable event when with the two Kish sisters.

I skipped out on the pride festivities on Saturday night and saw a movie - but today I went to the Center for Inquiry to meet up with Emily and a few others to join in on the big event - the gay pride parade. I didn’t actually make it through to the parade (I started feeling *really* sick…mono?…ugh), but I did stand around waiting in the parade line for it to start for over an hour. During that hour I saw what anyone would expect to see… Transvestites that looked like a Fruit of the Loom commercial, a naked rendition of Elvis, at least 8 Michael Jacksons and a few naked 60+ year old men with cock rings of various colors and shapes.

Since I was feeling sick I wasn’t really all up in the whole screaming and dancing and smiling thing, so instead I just stood, watched and observed. My observations can be summed up in these four points:

1. Some people are damned hypocritical. We were all wearing t-shirts that said “Atheist Pride” with a big rainbow flag behind the words. In addition we had a big banner that said “Atheist Pride”…banner:

Thanks to Roy for doing the banner, despite the fact it sort of looks like their doing a “Heil Hitler”…………

Anywho…We ended up getting put between Kijiji and some homosexual version of alcoholics anonymous (who, for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to as “the gay sober guys” despite the amount of nicotine and caffeine they were all sucking back). The gay sober guys saw our shirts and automatically started to laugh. Soon after they finished laughing their gay and sober leader announced that they had a new chant… “We don’t need a whiskey sour, because we’ve got a higher power!” and then laughed and laughed and laughed. This became their new favorite chant to scream out. Every time someone new joined their group to do the parade, we would see them get a whisper in the ear, us get a pointed finger and then BAM the whiskey sour chant. So, there we were… Atheists coming out to support and be apart of the pride festivities. We were there to show our appreciation for the emancipation of the homosexual lifestyle and these gay sober guys decide it would be fun to mock and make fun of us. It’s interesting how quickly people forget how crappy it feels to be made fun of and feel like the odd man out. Preeeeetty lame, gay sober guys, preeeeetty lame.

2. It is one big. freckin’. party. When the pride festivities began they were part of an overall attempt at activism and acceptance for the gay community. Now that the gay community is accepted (in Toronto) - it’s just one big party. I’m not really all up in that. Pride would be better if it were not totally devoid of any sort of intellectual stimuli or activity. There could be education seminars on HIV/AIDs, same sex unions, safe sex talks, lectures on different gay issues around the world… any number of things. But instead it has become an excuse to drink from Friday at 5 pm until Monday at 3 am while being naked, loud or sparkly (or any combination of the three). It’s really great to celebrate the fact that they’ve been liberalized, but there could be activities that didn’t involve Jack Daniel and meeting everyone’s Prince Albert.

3. It perpetuates a lot of stereotypes. I’m not gay, but I have a lot of gay friends. At least 3 of these friends do not attend pride. They want nothing to do with pride. And more than anything they get fuming mad when their lifestyle is associated with what happens at pride. On top of this I know countless numbers of people who only have the view of gay people as they are seen on Church and Wellesley on the last weekend of June. This is not a good thing. Gay men and women are not all sparkly, partying, crazy, naked, inebriated people. I really think this ties in with my last point. The gay community is given this stereotype by a lot of people as being super fun - but if there were other activities it might tone down this stereotype (might, but probably not). I don’t know how to fix it. I just know that it is a problem that my uncle thinks my best friend is irresponsible, promiscuous and immature because of what he has seen at pride.

4. Holy commercialization batman. Toronto makes SO MUCH MONEY from pride. …And after buying a spot in the parade line, I now know why. It costs hundreds of dollars for corporate companies to even just walk in the parade. It costs thousands to get a float. To get a really BIG logo in the parade (without getting kicked out of it) it’s more thousands of dollars. The bars get crowded, cramped and stay open later than they are supposed to, pulling in more money. There are street vendors, sold out hotels, packed restaurants… even H&M was sold out of all male, size small, t-shirts. When we asked about the issue the sales associates answer was “We always sell out of smalls during pride”. Money Money Money. No wonder Toronto plays their pride up so much. It’s one of the biggest simulators of the economy here - and really… it takes so little effort to put on. Bizarre.

Anyway - it was fun. Everyone had fun. I wasn’t there for long, but for the time I was there it was fun. Next year we’ll keep a few things in mind:

- bring the “There’s probably no God” banner so people will recognize us
- bring WAY more people and advertise a lot more
- remind Transnational NOT to hold the Student Leadership Conference on the same weekend!!!!
- bring candy and condoms to hand out
- wear more sparkly clothes
- music.music.music

It was a good learning experience, and thanks to Em for putting it all on. Happy Pride!

I thought that banning gay marriage was bad - but banning homosexuality all together? Wow.

The Nigerian House of Representatives held public hearings last week on a bill that would criminalize all expressions and forms of homosexuality in Nigeria.

Luckily the UN is the tiniest bit put together and they’re calling it a violation of human rights - which it indisputably is.

Voicing serious concern over a proposed Nigerian bill which would effectively outlaw same-sex relationships, four independent United Nations experts have said it would violate international human rights norms, and urged the Government to withdraw it immediately.

So crazy! I’d elaborate, but right now there is music pounding, bosses yelling, a debate going on and someone calling my name. …I am definitely going home early!

But really - damn right it’s a violation of human rights, but so is not allowing people in love to get married.

Expect some blog updates this week. Not just the little ones that no one notices. Biggies.

Oscars
The Oscars were tonight. Little Miss Sunshine only one two awards, but Pan’s Labyrinth won 3; cinematography, makeup and art direction. I sort of expected that, the movie is quite good. Babel won for the best music, I haven’t actually been able to get past the first 20 minutes because of Brad Pitt. But if the music is really supposed to be that good, perhaps I’ll push on.

What I wasn’t so happy about was Gore winning for best documentary. It figures, really, considering the hype surrounding the movie and the nature of the issue. But in all reality, Jesus Camp was extremely well done portrayed a much more thought provoking subject. Grist has Gore’s acceptance speech - he’s actually quite funny.

Non-Gay
Republic of T has a clip of some ex-ex gays. It’s nice to see the "ex" before the first "ex" because really - there is very little that pisses me off more than foundations and people who attempt to change the sexual orientation of a person. (On that particular site, they don’t even call it being "gay" they refer to it as "SSA" - same sex attraction.)

For a lighter take on the subject, I suggest watching But I’m a Cheerleader.

Funny stuff. The main character goes to "True Directions" where "straight is great!"

Boobs
Bitch Phd links to an absolutely fantastic story. …100 years of tracking breasts. I think my favorite section of it is the 50’s. I’m pretty sure I was born in the wrong era.

Religion
I have a few pretty interesting - aka hilarious - religion stories that should be checked out by all.

• A call for a required bible study maybe that’s not all that crazy - err, wait, read the article - having a required religion course. Now that’s not all that crazy. But a required class strictly for the bible would just be… boring and pointless.
• Homeschooling is sort of ridiculous, it can be alright - when the parents are teaching their children exactly what they would be learning in school - not indoctrinating them with religious rhetoric and beliefs. When ever I watch documentaries on scary catholic universities or children that are really christian - they have always been home schooled. And it’s for that reason, that I think home schooling shouldn’t happen.
• …Sometimes, things make me dizzy… a little sick feeling… light headed… things like this…

  But wise old heads believe that we are going through normal cycles of
  heating and cooling that we have seen over hundreds of millions of
  years as the earth heats and cools when the activity of the sun
  changes. The earth is heated by the sun. The sun is impacted by
  magnetic forces creating outbursts called sunspots, which increase the
  heat it imparts. During the coldest period in the Little Ice Age, which
  ended near the end of the 19th century, sunspots almost completely
  disappeared for 70 years. The earth cooled. Sunspot activity has been
  declining for a number of years and is expected decline by 40 percent
  over the next decade. The world is about to enter a cooling period. Be
  prepared to change your lifestyle.
  
  …Dizzy… sick… light headed… … … …so dizzy and light headed I can’t even begin to describe the stupidity of it all — must go pass out now.

I was going to make these next three stories their own separate posts, but I’ve been blogging for a really long time tonight, and blogging a lot. So I will combine them into one post about teh sex in general.

The first is from Shelley, and it’s a PETA ad that makes absolutely no sense. I’m not saying that usually they DO make sense, just this time it REALLY doesn’t make sense.

Apparently - ignoring the fact that your parents have teh sex is like ignoring the fact that animals can think. …Here’s the difference. Sex… is sex. Animals… get eaten. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand PETA, they use guilt far too often for my liking. Yeah - I know that my chicken came from a factory farm. That’s really tough shit because a) its already dead and b) it’s an animal. What would PETA like us to do? Set up a nice big chicken society, build schools for the chickens… so that they can go and use their incredibly developed brains to their full potentials?

…And just as a side note, I accept the fact that my parents had sex at least 3 times.

But at least they didn’t have sex with a partner because then they would just be retarded. Yes, retarded. (Via Dogs 2.0)

The same sex relationships, he said, caused mental retardation, depression and high tendency to commit suicide.

Incredible isn’t it? At least in America they’re using the "it’s against the bible" argument rather than the flat out wrong argument of "it makes you retarded." It’s pretty pathetic when the bible argument makes more sense than the alternative argument.

My last sex link is from Sage, and it’s a real good laugh and a real good read about real bad sex. I have some really absolutely hilarious stories about some of the worst sex in the ENTIRE world. One of them… seriously… would beat any other bad sexual experience story that anyone could whip out. Honestly. But I can’t tell it here - because I have some shred of decency left in me.

Instead, I will just say "amen" to a few things that Sage writes…

I mean I couldn’t imagine getting off, then ignoring the person I’m
with when it’s obvious he’s not done. I really couldn’t imagine being
that selfish or that exhausted. If I’m awake enough for me; I think I
can hang in there for you too.

It seems to me intercourse is an evolutionary fuck-up. 

I know an awful lot of women who’ve told me they fake it regularly. 

But if he’s hard, and I’m still dry, I get one of three responses: stop
to wait for me to get myself going, or just keep on pushing until the
lubing starts out of survival instinct. Or hork on me. Lovely.

Oh man, the things I could get into right now…

Last semester, mondays were alright. This semester they are my least favorite day.
2:30 - 3:30 = The worst class… Ever. aka Cultural geography
3:30 - 6:30 = Intro to religion II
7:00 - 8:30 = Gym (which I like)
9:00 - 10:30 = the radio show that I absolutely despise doing
Then I don’t get home till 11 pm, and have class the next morning at 8:30.

It also seems like mr. I-listen-to-crappy-music-too-loudly doesn’t go to class FOREVER on Mondays, so there is no escape from the shitty base. Also, doing my little round of blog checking I came across posts that didn’t fill me with love at all.

Assault cases not being taken seriously, gay teens trying to cope with the world but couldn’t, a feminist "survival guide" but should it really be that hard for us to be feminists? and jackasses attacking Amanda.

Its sad that feminists need to create "survival guides" when really - everyone should just be a feminist - and I mean the equality kind of feminist. But still, its a good post by Sage. As for the jackasses attacking Amanda - seriously, the one that called her ugly should have about 10 feet kicked up his ass for being such a cowardly asshole. And his post on global warming is literally a joke… and he’s just craving for attention - which I am giving to him now, oh shit. Okay, I’ll stop.

But I guess I shouldn’t leave Monday love with a completely horrible tone, there is some good news… I probably won’t die this week. So that’s nice.

*Update - and my blog isn’t working for me. So if you’re reading this, congrads, your internet hates you less than mine hates me.