Tuesday, March 26, 2013

When it comes to talking about their families, I hope the LGBT community believes they don't have to live up to stereotypes to be successful before the USA Court system. I mean, what kind of abuse is the community receiving across the country?

NORMAL is not a real word. Sanity or insanity effects everyone regardless of their sexual identity. "Sex Addictions" occur everywhere and have nothing to do with the ability of a couple to love each other.

What the heck goes on because I don't recall any evidence of procreating LGBT couples being presented as a grossly inappropriate understanding of Prop 8 of the community. That would defeat Prop 8 from the moment it was written. It does defeat that discriminatory directive of the law.

The procreation issue is based on the idea a country has to have children to 'carry on' and even to staff the military. Well, hell, in talking to Rumsfeld and his Robo Forces that argument can be thrown out. So, it seems to me that when an argument of procreation manifests to victimize the LGBT community someone needs to rise to the occasion.

One of the very strong bias of the folks seeking power over others through Prop 8 and DOMA is that children are not suppose to be born out of wedlock, whether stated or not. Then they need to get out of the way and allow loving couples marry to conceive their families within wedlock. The country has imposed that lack of status of LGBT communities to conceive within wedlock, not the community.

What goes on that there exists such a misunderstanding of the community? How are the Justices suppose to speak to a minority status in the nation if they don't have the truth before them?


I would expect some of the best proof to the adverse outcomes of the LGBT community and their children are found in ugly custody battles. There are plenty of legal battles to refer to in a legal brief. I am sure there are progressive decisions as well as poor decisions that could be presented as proof of procreation of the LGBT community.

I suppose any Justice could do their own research and should, but, at the same instance they may not focus on this and that would be a debilitating gap in arguing the case.

LGBT couples procreate.

They adopt, but, they also procreate. Gay men have surrogates to carry their family depending on the financial resources and sometimes based on who their friends are. 

Lesbians use donated sperm and artificial insemination or sometimes otherwise if the desire is enough to seek intercourse with a man. It happens. That choice is also sometimes based in financial ability to conceive otherwise.

Why is the conversation about LGBT couples so sterile? It isn't serving the community to have ignorant people draw up laws based in procreation to qualify marriage. The entire idea of limiting couples to marry based on procreation is more hideous than most people like to realize.

There are LGBT couples that also have children from previous heterosexual marriages.

Quite frankly, any delineation of creating a special status on the idea of procreation is nothing more than bigotry. Religious to be exact. Just because LGBT couples are a challenge for some to get their minds around doesn't mean those seeking special status are correct. It simply means they are ignorant.

In all honesty, I don't see the reason for the discussion regarding procreation as necessary if the LGBT community are too modest to discuss it in the first place. But, the LGBT are parents and they aren't necessary adopted. As a matter of fact depending on whom's uterus and sperm are used in the conception sometimes creates custody issues with couples seeking a separation or divorce from each other. Marriage would end that. It would place both partners on the same status to children born to those relationships.

Some of this appears to be an aspiration to build the perfectly religious country. Heterosexual relationships, marriages exclusive rights to procreation, no abortion, no contraception.

DOMA and Prop 8 as well as the NC Amendment are very dangerous laws. Grossly inappropriate and do not reflect the reality of the country's populous.

Genderless

One of the attorneys stated the word genderless in regard to Prop 8, I believe it was. Marriages of same sex couples are not genderless. Even if two people are neutered for whatever reason they might be, that does not preclude a loving relationship that leads to marriage.

I don't like the word genderless in statements before the Supreme Court. The use of the word does not make sense. A same sex marriage does not negate the gender of the couple. So, that 'idea' is troubling. How is it that a LGBT is genderless in the eyes of other Americans. That is strange. Really strange. It is also depersonalizing. Just because a person is LGBT means they lose their gender??????????????

The Prop 8 and DOMA folks have it wrong. They are looking at loving relationships through a very strange lens. I don't like it at all.

I think the word genderless shows an attempt to remove parenting capacity needed to maintain a population called the USA. That is why off base and can be contrived as racist. The USA is a sovereign nation without definition of ethnic or racial status. The USA is quite the contrary. The USA is considered a melting pot. I don't care if the entire country is genderless, there are many other methods to increase the population that lives in the USA.

Could the society become sterile? Sure. Especially if there are leaders that view a limited nuclear war as a real possibility in the world. If that were to occur would the USA still have sovereign status? Yeah. If the USA won the war. But, to say there aren't other methods of populating a sovereign country other than procreation is a hideous reality.

Why do they love being a Justice? I am sure there are days they wonder, too.


My Beloved World (click here)

It is an autobiography of her life up to her entrance to the legal profession. She had a challenging life and not without discrimination. It is unfortunate that tone continues even today.

Updated 5:55 pm, Friday, February 22, 2013

...Sotomayor (click here) is very much the poet-exile herself as she relives her childhood and that of her parents. Born in New York, she returns to Puerto Rico as a child to visit her family and recapture the sights, the blue of the ocean where it meets the sky and the almost sweet taste of coconut milk sipped by a straw through a hole punctured in a fresh green coconut, not one of the "shriveled hairy brown things" sold on the streets of the Bronx. Sonia sips and tastes her "beloved world" - filled with exotic flavors and savored most often in the company of her vast extended family....

Ya got to love it. A Hispanic female Justice asks a presenting attorney a question and she is told to mind her wifely ideas as she has the issue wrong. Then a caucasian male Justice tells the presenting attorney to shut up and answer the question put to him.

It was definitely a legitimate question. It wasn't based in anything except prudent legal purpose.

The refusal of an attorney to answer a question from a USA Justice is attitude. There is no reason for attitude when the arguments are winning arguments.

Harm is a reason to take a legal question seriously and the answer that harm was not an issue as the Justice has the question wrong is so very arrogant. It is a heck of a defense for a law that should never have been written in the first place.


Posted: 02/26/2013 3:57 pm
...We can talk about race and class (click here) in America all we want but Justice Sotomayor describes better than any sociologist or politician just what a different planet you live on if you have education, power, and wealth. And what it feels like if you don't.
She puts us in the Harvard/Radcliffe admissions office circa 1970, where everything from the oriental rug to the white couch to the perfectly coiffed hair of the admissions officer conspire to say: you don't belong here if you're from the Bronx....

DOMA and Proposition 8 have to be struck down. There is no valid argument to maintain their integrity. Every reason to do otherwise.

Let me state the obvious of the wayward demands of procreation to burden marriage in the USA. It is dangerous. That is not a valid definition.

Marriage is not about procreation. A citizen can procreate with and without a marriage license. A citizen may procreate, but, doesn't have to procreate. A citizen can decide to not procreate. Does that mean they don't marry? It is a hideous and dangerous faux face for bigotry.

There are slippery slopes all along the this discussion. If people marry because they have special status and don't procreate, but, yet the Supreme Court of the USA state Proposition 8 is a constitutional law, does that mean a citizen will be have demands to procreate outside their decision otherwise?

What happens then to the North Carolina Amendment which victimizes couples with children but are not married? This entire discussion can lead to 'child harvests' of people not married with children or couples married but not procreating within that relationship.

What if to maintain a married status a couple is demanded to have a child and they don't want children? Adoption, right? Bouy, that might even serve the adoption industry in a way they can only dream about.

The exclusion of marriage to a special status creates all kinds of problems. It is obviously unconstitutional to seek to regulate marriage.

Marriage is a privacy issue. It is no one's business who marries who or if they have a family. That is not the purview of government. Any laws that seek to regulate marriage is bigotry at its worse.

Marriage is not a State's Right issue. Marriage applies to all the citizens. It is not an exclusive focus of only California. 

If the Supreme Court plays politics with Proposition 8 it is incompetent. It is not the place of the Supreme Court to politicize any case before them. That is legal malpractice. 

Deferring to the 'political process' to play out is not a constitutional right. The Vote is a constitutional right. The political process is not a constitutional process.

Politics falls under Freedom of Speech, but, there is no constitutional right to politics in the USA.

For Alito to state this is a new political dilemma is blatant malpractice. The reality of LGBT is as old as the species itself. Alito is showing his bigoted side. Just that simple. There are vast amounts of information about the prevalence of LGBT through history, including ancient history. Alito is biasing his opinion by even raising such bigoted remarks during the hearings.

Marriage is not defined by the Bible. The biblical definition can be interpreted by many denominations of religions for the practice of faith, but, faith has nothing to do with marriage; not at the level of government; not in the USA. 

If the practice of faith discriminates between whom is fit and whom is not fit to marry for the sake of procreation that my be a doctrine of the religion or a dogma of some kind, but, there is nothing legal about that definition. When faiths discriminate based on procreation it is about raising numbers of members based on birth and not participation. The merits of that are interestingly debated, but, are not important here.

DOMA and Proposition 8 carries the question of special status.

Basically, does California and the entire of the Legislative and Executive branches of state and federal government have the right to create a special status of citizens.

I think the implications of this decision go far beyond that of same sex marriage rights.

It is about isolating some citizens away from the right to exist in the same way as citizens within the special status, be it marriage rights or parenting rights or working status. This decision is about creating 'the right to exist' as a citizen in the USA. Why is there any special considerations in the USA for a group of citizens over that of others. Being born a citizen or achieving citizen status through immigration needs to be upheld as the only status to achieve the rights of that citizenship.

There is a lot here to be concerned about. Any adverse outcome to the status of marriage as a 'special interest' to citizen rights at this level opens up a slippery slope that could eliminate more than marriage from 'citizenship' status.


I don't see this appeal to the Supreme Court failing. Marriage is as much a right to a citizen as the right to seek education, employment, health and happiness. If the Supreme Court wants to say marriage is a special status, then does nutrition fall into that same category. Why not eliminate all rights of citizens and qualify them based in special considerations. This is nonsense, this should have been thrown out as an issue at all a long time ago.

If a special status is required for full citizenship then who determines that status. The government? Will marriage licenses now require a psychiatric certification to what a sexual identity is and whom is heterosexual and whom is not. Are you bisexual, transgender? What makes anyone think they can self identify at all? There is that whole closet stuff, too. I mean how do we protect those 'fit' to marry from those that are not? The laws themselves are completely out of line with the definition of citizenship. This entire issue is crazy. It reeks of hatred and religious bigotry. 

Those seeking to pass legislation by POPULOUS vote to challenge the definition of CITIZEN need to get over themselves. Proposition 8 and DOMA are assaults against the definition of citizen. They are legislative initiatives based in political wedge issues defined in discrimination and that is putting it politely.

Proposition 8 and DOMA state, "You can be married if..." No. No. The right of the citizen is "You can be married." End of discussion. Any Supreme Court opinion outside that parameter is simply wrong. Then competency has to be decided on the Justice. Do we as a society allow this level of hatred to exist at the level of the Supreme Court?

There may be a private sector solution to the VA Backlog with sufficient funding.

BULLETIN TODAY | MONEY & SAVINGS
By Kevin Freking of The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Although the number of pending (click here) veterans’ disability claims keep soaring, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Sunday said he’s committed to ending the backlog in 2015 by replacing paper with electronic records....
...Shinseki said that the VA has puts its new computer system in place in 20 regional offices around the country and all regional offices will be on the system by the end of the year....
I realize the problems with assessing a veteran's disability is unique from that of the Social Security Disability services, but, the Social Security folks get it done. There have to be aspects of the SSI system that will apply to the Veterans. 
Additionally, combat Veterans need to be considered 100% credible in their claims. They should have a 'predisposed' determination. No man or woman returning from a combat position should be treated in less than 100% credible. A physical examination and/or psychiatric evaluation is all this should require. Outside the combat veterans the VA and DOD can proceed in a less urgent method, but, the combat veterans should have special status.
..."The (federal) response(click here)  has been slow and has not matched the magnitude of this population's requirements as many cope with a complex set of health, economic, and other challenges," said co-author Dr. George Rutherford. He chairs the IOM’s committee on the assessment of readjustment needs of military personnel, veterans, and their families. The IOM, an independent nonprofit, is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences....
...Among the recommendations within the 500-plus page report:
  • DOD and VA must “boost efforts to reduce the stigma” associated with service members or veterans simply asking for help to deal with mental-health issues or with substance-abuse problems.
  • The tool DOD uses to assess cognitive function following a head injury – Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM) — carries “no clear scientific evidence” to show that it works. That’s key because more than 200,000 U.S. troops have sustained traumatic brain injuries since 2000 — most non-combat-related. On March 5, Congressional members sent a letter to the chiefs of DOD and VA seeking data to investigate a new theory linking TBIs with the military’s suicide crisis.
  • One of the VA’s “first-line treatments for depression” — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — similarly “lacks sufficient evidence” to show its efficacy.
  • Research has found that curbing access to lethal weapons prevents suicides, however, “DOD policy prohibits restricting that individual's access to privately owned weapons” — even if a service member is known to be at risk for suicide.
  • DOD and VA should link their databases so that the health records of all service members are available to track their medical conditions from the moment they enter the service through the day any future treatment is eventually rendered by a VA facility....
General Shinseki has done excellent work to bring about change that will serve our veterans. They can be treated immediately, if necessary, within the VA system and that is important. General Shinseki is correct in focusing first on treatment of dangerous illnesses either physical or mental. He has applied resources to the Department of Veterans Affairs to triage the dangerous our veterans face. 

There is a computer system. This is the first time in all the decades of claims there has been modernization. Like, what? Finally. The backlog is felt profoundly because of the numbers of veterans waiting in line. The numbers make the backlog. I am quite confident General Shinseki is focused and determined. He is dedicated to the best outcomes of our soldiers and he has demonstrated that.

There may be alternatives to standard claim assessment though. There are attorneys that assist veterans in their claims. I can't help but believe if these attorneys could be used in an advocacy manner rather than adversarial relationship with the VA there would be quicker outcomes. In other words, find a way to have our university hospitals and private attorneys process paperwork on a fast track method to resolve the backlog for combat veterans.

If the university systems can expedite the claims based on VA standards it should be valid. I realize this might mean spending resources General Shinseki would use otherwise, but, it might be a reasonable idea for veterans already in the process over 6 to 8 months. 

The justification to spending outside the VA system, focusing first on combat veterans, is the longer the claims take the more likely the VA medical system will be stressed with soldiers in a negative spiral. The entire VA system could achieve a better operational status if the backlog was resolved and soldiers were allowed to improve their lives though support in the face of their disability. The resources available for treatment might increase if so much wasn't used to process a backlog.

General Shinseki cannot guarantee there won't be some fraud in an accelerated process conducted in the private sector, but, oversight would be needed. A reassessment of these claims within the VA system within a year to eighteen months from the date of the decision would reduce continued fraud. That would bring the target date of 2015 online with a less stressed backlog demand and more support for the veteran.