Count it, anti-choicers!

Total slam dunk: The Obama team is going to repeal the asshattery known as the "conscience rule" - a tricksy little parting gift from the Bush administration that allows medical professionals to deny patients abortions on moral grounds. As far as I know, this moral decision could override medical necessity or the incidence of rape and/or incest. Once this rolls back, a doctor's personal beliefs cannot affect a woman's health or the difficult choices she must make.

I'm all about personal freedom and responsibility for one's choices. I'm all about being able to air beliefs publicly and to have those beliefs respected. For some medical professionals, the Conscience Rule was a godsend because it allowed them a legal recourse for a difficult personal and professional decision. I sincerely do not envy the pro-life doctor who is asked to perform an abortion, and I hope that someone who disagrees with me out there can say the same thing in some inverse way (maybe, "I don't envy the queer who gets told regularly that she's in the wrong bathroom"). That said, a decision about one's own body is not fundamentally a doctor's decision. A doctor advises and performs their job, but the patient must make their own medical decisions or have an agent or guardian make the decision for them. Doctors don't have the right or privilege to impose their will, generally speaking, and the Conscience Rule was thus unfathomable to me; that affords doctors an enormous amount of power and sets a precedent for all manner of co-opted medical decisions.*

HIPAA (the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, for those who don't have the pleasure of dealing with it daily) gets a face lift, courtesy of the stimulus bill. Ultimately, the rules surrounding protection of health care information will be tightened up, and everything will be made electronic. This is great for protection of patients and efficiency, but it's going to be a short term pain. Pretty appropriate for the stimulus bill, which, if all things go as El Presidente says, will have much the same crunch effect.

*Obviously, there are many exceptions - ER medicine springs to mind - but I'm speaking of planned procedures here.

Utterly petrified about law school

JD to be, suckas!

That's right. I got into my first choice law school, Lewis and Clark. AND they're giving me a monster scholarship. HELL YES!

I have now received confirmation that all of the law schools to which I've applied have complete copies of my applications. Great. Now I just get to sit in my puddle of anxiety (at least I hope that's anxiety) and wait.

For the record, I applied to Lewis and Clark, UW, UO, Berkeley, Temple and Northwestern. Northwestern was very prompt in rejecting me - fully anticipated that, and none too bothered.

Tonight, however, I will dissipate some of this tension with a Blazers game! They're playing the Charlotte Wildcats. Let me just say that I'm pretty well over the whole NBA musical mascots. New Orleans should be the Jazz (Utah?! Come ON), Charlotte should be the Hornets, and Utah can deal with the Wildcats or some other insanely generic mascot. Don't wreck my frame of reference, NBA. Also, I know Seattle's having some hard times, but letting Oklahoma City take the Sonics was just cold. Calling them the Thunder, even colder.

At any rate, I will continue to harbor my illicit straight crushes on LaMarcus Aldridge and Martell Webster. They're adorable, and I'm not apologizing.

Holla: Lilly Ledbetter

Today, the Senate passed (by an astonishing 61-36 margin) the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a landmark case in labor law. The holding is a little difficult to capture in a single sentence, but I'll try: Former employees seeking back pay as a result of a successful pay discrimination suit (race, gender, age, etc.) are now entitled to back pay starting up to two years prior to the alleged discriminatory act. Further, as the Library of Congress summary points out:

Amends the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 to declare that an unlawful practice occurs when a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice is adopted, when a person becomes subject to the decision or other practice, or when a person is affected by the decision or practice, including each time wages, benefits, or other compensation is paid.

This is really fundamental. No, really. Every time an employee gets a paycheck (or tips or what-have-you), it's a throw-back to Ledbetter. It's a legal check mark against a discriminating employer. Rather than look at the entire scope of an worker's employ, the courts must now look at each paycheck as a separate discriminatory act. This, rather than damages assigned as a blanket fix-it, seems like a more accurate dispensation of justice and a protective measure for those who do not get the pay they are owed.

Frankly, I'm stoked. Lilly Ledbetter campaigned and lobbied hard for two years to see this done. She was a plant manager at a Goodyear tire factory who realized way too late that she'd been getting crummy pay on account of her gender. Short version: legal loopholes stood between her and her back pay, so she took her fight to Congress. Props, LL.

ha!

Bill Sizemore, local anti-teacher author of tremendously moronic ballot initiatives, was jailed for contempt of court. His above-linked "non-profit" has been suspected of and investigated for fraudulent practices, and Sizemore blew his fourth chance to file required state and federal tax documents. As such, the judge tossed him in jail. This man, I might add, is a convicted racketeer. Pardon my glee, but I do enjoy watching corrupt folks go down.

let's make one thing perfectly clear

This election was a landmark victory and a long-awaited and much-needed step in the direction of American decency. I don't want to qualify this, as many queer bloggers have, by saying "but Prop 8..." and I won't. For those who oppose GLBTQI rights, that was a landmark victory too. A landmark victory that galvanizes the removal of civil rights, but I suppose it's all a matter of perspective.

Well. Now that the perspective-talk is out of my system, let's talk about why everyone, absolutely EVERYONE, is to blame for this mess. Myself included. Hell, myself especially.

By now, Dan Savage's surprisingly idiotic comments have gained a following among queers who start sentences with, "Now, I'm not racist or anything..." - often, but not always, white. The thrust of his argument cites exit poll data and cultural stereotypes that indicate homophobic attitudes are more prevalent among African-Americans and Latinas/Latinos. What I got out of this is "they're less open-minded than us" - which, in the world of the smug liberal (my world, mind you) - is tantamount to saying "we're just better people than them." Before you accuse me of being reductive, look at Savage's language.

...I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

Are you joking? Of course the love and support aren't mutual. African-Americans still get hassled by the cops for nothing at all. Legal Latinas and Latinos get flak about their immigration status from total strangers. I may be a whitey just like you, Dan, but at least I can see that we are far from the Promised Land of Mutual Love and Support. Furthermore, the fact that Savage feels entitled to reciprocity of this support despite no real indication that he has earned it strikes me as a very (pardon me, but) White Male Attitude. Perhaps Savage has done some major outreach to people of color, and has really been active in advocating for minorities other those pertaining to orientation and gender. That would be news to me, and I'll happily take back my ugly words if so. Near as I can tell, though, Savage doesn't deserve the "love and support" of voters of color de facto, based solely on his status as another sort of minority.

What bothers me most about this is that these comments truly marginalize folks whose identities are not tied up solely in their sexuality or race alone. Whether Savage intended to or not, he drew a line and put queers on one side and people of color on the other. We all know that's absurd, since there are millions of queer people of color. We also know that white people can be homophobic too. Many, many white people are. This is so basic! In this great post by Anxious Black Woman, the author rightfully points out that the people who killed Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena were white. So were the people who keyed my truck when I came out and beat the hell out of a guy I went to high school with. To truly embrace the melting pot means one cannot ascribe valued terms or characteristics to entire identity groups. For crying out loud, can we get away from villanizing identity politics? Please?

On that note, I'd like to point out that demonizing the Mormon church is not going to help matters. Yes, the Latter Day Saints went marching in to California with oodles of cash and may or may not have been a turning point on the Prop 8 front. Removing their tax exempt status will not overturn Prop 8, though. Nor will it do much besides remove the tax shelter for an organization that I frankly don't get but provides community and solace for a bunch of people who think I'm a double sinner for liking ladies as well as this fantastic cup of coffee.

What truly needs to happen, in my humblest, is an effort toward giving everyone a decent standard of living. "Wait," you may protest, "how does that help gaywads get married?" It doesn't, not immediately, but let's look at the biggest concerns facing the country as a whole. Not everyone can eat or afford their housing. Not everyone can get access to basic medications. Not everyone gets a decent education or adequate legal representation. Compared to these, officially and publicly recognizing that you and your partner shop for drapes instead of have sex is pretty pale. Yes, there are legal implications. Yes, I think queers should be able to get married and divorced, adopt kids, and be with each other in times of need. But other, more fundamental issues of equality are where my top priorities lie.

Damn. I think I'm a traitor to the movement.

Anyway, I know this is a novel, but it's been percolating for a while. Also, I haven't been cooking as much and the latest craftery is still in the works.

holla!

check it.

Ben Franklin's In-Grave Rotation Speed Hits All-time High

This just in: We're not quite done with the sacrifice of privacy for alleged security. The retool of FISA lets major mobile telecommunication companies off the hook for releasing consumer information to the government. My own carrier, Verizon, is among these lucky beneficiaries. Before I get too steamed, it's worth mentioning that the retool applies primarily (if not exclusively) to parties "reasonably believed" to be overseas. The blanket protections for the cell companies drives me crazy, but on the whole, Nancy Pelosi called it a "balanced bill" - not bad for a behind-closed-doors, bi-partisan effort. Nothing about this sits right with me.

Also, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of extending rights for employees who believe that they have been discriminated against based on age. Being young and green and new to the workplace, seeing the old hands with ample experience on the chopping block is troubling as is. I mean, that doesn't exactly give me much to look forward to.

Right. Legal affairs segment over. Let's talk about my body. My arm hurts from my first HPV vaccination (hooray for planned parenthood! hooray for Merck subsidizing shots for the uninsured! hooray for spongebob band-aids!), and plants are having sex in my face, to wit, i have mad hay fever. Isn't leaving Eugene and the Valley of Sickness supposed to fix that sort of thing?

I just discovered that Black Sheep Bakery has a bike-through coffee outpost on my way to work - hel-LO blueberry cornmeal muffins. I will replicate you in my kitchen and chow down appropriately. If only they carried better coffee...