Babble's Sex & Gender Special Issue has been getting record traffic, and a lot of that is thanks to Brett Berk's eye-opening essay, The Gender Spectrum.

Berk argues that gender is on a continuum, with most kids (even kids who do not live on the coasts!) falling somewhere in between Boy-ish and Girl-ish. (Take Berk's quiz to find out where your kid falls on the boyish-girlish spectrum.)

He writes:

We just saw on Strollerderby that John McCain, an adoptive father himself, recently said the following, as quoted in the New York Times, "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption."

Strollerderby goes into all the reasons why this is ludicrous, and how gay adoption has been shown again and again to produce kids just as happy and healthy as those in straight adoptive homes. If you want to humanize this topic, just check out this amazingly great blog by two men who are foster parents to a toddler.

But it reminded us of something John Edwards (remember him?) said back in the day.

Time magazine has a new article about "the gay brain," illustrated by this sculpture of this gay head fragment. Here's an excerpt:

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute studied brain scans of 90 gay and straight men and women, and found that the size of the two symmetrical halves of the brains of gay men more closely resembled those of straight women than they did straight men. In heterosexual women, the two halves of the brain are more or less the same size. In heterosexual men, the right hemisphere is slightly larger. Scans of the brains of gay men in the study, however, showed that their hemispheres were relatively symmetrical, like those of straight women, while the brains of homosexual women were asymmetrical like those of straight men.

According to the AFP, the California Supreme Court today overturned the ban on same-sex marriage, calling domestic partnerships a poor substitute for marriage:

In an opinion that analysts say could have nationwide implications for the issue, the seven-member panel voted 4-3 in favor of plaintiffs who argued that restricting marriage to men and women was discriminatory.

There's a precedent for California starting a domino effect. David Cruz, a law professor at the University of Southern California and an expert in constitutional law, says in the AFP article:

"In the 20th century California was the first state to strike down laws against inter-racial marriage. They did that 19 years before the US Supreme Court got around to it."

So, soon (er, in 19 years) we could be a nation that grants gay couples the same rights as straight ones. How does it feel?

According to the AP, three residents of the Greek island of Lesbos, whose inhabitants are known as Lesbians, are taking the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece to court over their name.

One of the litigants says, "This is not an aggressive act against gay women. Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the group) to remove the word lesbian from their title."

Their argument: they've been Lesbians for thousands of years. These new lesbians have usurped the name and corrupted it with a sexual connotation.

You'd think opposing bullies would be something we could all get behind, and that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education's anti-bullying policy would be about as non-controversial as you could get.

Nope. According to Charlotte.com, some in the community (some "morons," as certain bloggers have put it) fear the wording of the measure could promote homosexuality. See if you spot the danger here:

It is the policy of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education to maintain learning environments that are free from harassment or bullying. This freedom includes ...freedom from harassment or bullying based on an individual's real or perceived race, color, sex, religion, creed, political belief, age, national origin, linguistic or language differences, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, socioeconomic status, height, weight, physical characteristics, marital status, parental status, or physical, mental, or sensory disability.

Responding to my eulogy to William F. Buckley, some readers noted that Buckley had written a notorious column during the 1980s calling for AIDS victims to be tattooed on their rear ends. For one responder this was eerily reminiscent of Nazi policies.

Actually Buckley was no Nazi. On one occasion Buckley appeared on a late-night program with the writer Gore Vidal, and Vidal accused Buckley of being a "crypto-Nazi." Incensed, Buckley called Vidal a "goddamn queer." Both men ended up suing the other. Buckley won his case, because he was able to show that his opinions were never sympathetic to the Nazis, "crypto" or otherwise. Vidal lost his case, because, well, truth is an effective defense in a libel case.

So what about that AIDS column? Let's remember that not much was known about AIDS in the early 1980s. In particular, there were competing theories about how AIDS was actually transmitted. Little more was known than the fact that AIDS seemed to be concentrated in the homosexual community.

Buckley noted in his column that in previous epidemics, such as the syphilis epidemic of the early part of the twentieth century, America quarantined people who contracted the disease. Buckley argued against quarantining victims of AIDS. Somewhat light-heartedly, he suggested that a better alternative might be to have some insignia warning off potential partners. He came up with the admittedly strange idea of a small tattoo on the AIDS victim's rear end. Not surprisingly, the column caused immediate controversy.

At National Review, however, the controversy was of a different sort. The big question that arose among the editors was not whether there should be a tattoo but rather what the tattoo should say. Several entries were submitted, and the contest winner was my own English professor Jeffrey Hart, a senior editor of the magazine, who proposed the line emblazoned on the entrance gate to Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."

Well, how long would it take for you to become a lesbian?




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The Onion loves to make fun of Mitt Romney, this is the same Onion that earlier revealed Mitt Romney was the candidate voters would most like to get into a bar fight with.

via videosift.com

To listen to some people complain on this blog and elsewhere, you'd think that most of the resistance to homosexuality comes mainly from religion. Nonsense. If a student in any high school in America stands up during the lunch break and announces that he's a homosexual, the jeering from the audience is hardly a reflection of a religious sensibility. When I arrived at Dartmouth as a freshman, a fellow down my hall told me he would pay me $50 to go to a meeting of the Gay Students' Association. "I want you to tell me if my room mate is a homo," he said. I asked him, "Why don't you go and find out?" He replied, "Are you crazy? I don't want people to think that I'm one of them." I don't know if homosexuality is "natural" but it seems quite possible that resistance to homosexuality is also natural.

Even if anti-gay sentiments are natural, however, people can be persuaded to be more accepting toward gays. But how? Recently someone wrote me to suggest that Pascal's famous wager provides an argument in favor of tolerance. Pascal argued that on matters where we don't have certain proof, we have to make an educated guess taking into account the consequences of being wrong. If you believe in God and it turns out He doesn't exist, the downside risk is very small: metaphysical error. If you reject God and it turns out He does exist, the danger is very great: eternal separation from God. On this basis Pascal argued that it is irratonal to reject God. "Let us weigh up the gain and loss involved in calling heads that God exists. If you win, you win everything. If you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate, then: wager that He does exist."

Many atheists and cultural leftists have vociferously protested Pascal's wager. Christopher Hitchens has called Pascal a "hypocrite" and a "fraud." A real pity, since Pascal's wager offers a thoughtful and original basis on which to argue against intolerance toward homosexuals. Here is the argument: Either we can believe that people are choosing to be gay as an alternative lifestyle, or we can acknowledge that we don't know and maybe they don't have a choice. If we believe the former and are wrong, then we have treated people very unfairly when they simply couldn't help being the way they are. If we believe the latter and are wrong, then we are guilty of treating people with greater respect and dignity than perhaps they deserve. Clearly the downside risk in the first case is much worse than in the second case. Doesn't it make sense, under these circumstances, to wager that gays don't have a choice and therefore should be treated with equal dignity and respect?

I think this is a pretty powerful argument for tolerance. But wait: the atheists and cultural leftists could be right that Pascal's entire argument is misconceived. If Pascal's argument is valid, it applies equally well to promote belief in God and tolerance toward homosexuals. If it is invalid, then neither God nor the gay community stands to benefit.

Lord Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, would have been surprised! He wanted his Scouts to be troopers for the British empire. Young British boys and girls, learning the techniques of survival and camaraderie and civilized behavior even in stressful conditions.

Someone put together a list of top ten page views on Wikipedia and top ten page views on Conservapedia (the absurd and insane answer to Wikipedia made up by clownish conservatives). You're not going to believe the top ten most popular pages on Conservapedia. We explain below:

Have You Ever Heard Of Conservapedia?

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These people's obsession is obvious and a little sad. Please, just come out of the closet and be done with it.

Watch The Whole Show Here

In 1989 Microsoft became one of the first companies to specifically state that discrimination against gays will not be tolerated. Today many gays still enjoy a work environment where they are accepted as human beings and treated equally among their straight peers.

Microsoft has been a pioneer in workplace diversity. It was one of the first companies in the world to offer employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners and to include sexual orientation in its corporate nondiscrimination policy. Since 1989, Microsoft has supported and sponsored gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues at Microsoft. In 1993 an organized employee resource group-Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Employees at Microsoft (GLEAM)-was launched. GLEAM now has more than 700 members...Read More at Microsoft...

So that sounds pretty good, there is nothing wrong with tolerance and acceptance..... So this brings us to today's story, Mega-church Pastor and former Dallas Cowboy Ken Hutcherson, who claims his church is "a church for all people, of all cultures, races, backgrounds," is so furious with Microsoft for not discriminating against gays that he wants to bring them down, by flooding the company with evangelical shareholders who will change the system.

An advocate of a "biblical stance" against divorce and homosexuality, Mr Hutcherson, 55, is asking millions of evangelical activists, as well as Orthodox Jewish and other allies, to buy up Microsoft shares and demand a return to traditional values.

Microsoft, he declares, will be just the first company targeted in an escalation of the culture wars between evangelicals and corporate America.

"There are 256 Fortune 500 companies alone pouring millions upon millions of dollars into pushing the homosexual agenda," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"I consider myself a warrior for Christ. Microsoft don't scare me. I got God with me..Read More Telegraph.co.uk....

So there you have it, possibly the Internet's most mind blowing story today, I hope the Pastors flock have better ways to spend their money, but who am I to judge what rich people do with their disposable income. If this zany anti-gay pastor has it his way and gays working in the corporate world are forced back into the closets and/or out of jobs, will the world be a better place?

For additional thoughts on this issue I give you a small segment of "The West Wing." And a link to what Desmond Tutu thinks about the homophobic God.

It's a horrible day to be a homophobic culture warrior like Bill O'Reily. This video is quite amusing for anybody who is familiar with the absurdity of the Bill O'Reilly character. In this particular clip Bill O'Reilly argues with sex educator Laura Berman about the "controversy" brewing at some high school where a lesbian couple was voted the schools "cutest couple."

O'Reilly doesn't like that act of progression because it's not "normal," he backs that up with statistics: gays are only 6% of the population, he notes. Bill O'Reilly cares about the children and apparently he wrote a book "for gay kids" teaching them how to protect themselves from getting bullied (can anybody confirm that his advice includes staying in the closet or choosing heterosexuality?) Bill seems awfully frustrated, not only is this couple not being bullied but they are actually being accepted into "normal" society. maybe Bill is afraid to realize that there will a day when he simply isn't the "normal" one.

Bill O'Reilly is loud and like every O'Reilly clip its much like watching a train wreck - it's so horrible you can't even turn away. I have pasted some the transcript into the post here so you can read part of this debate in your own head; try reading it before watching to maximize the absurdity.

Richard Dawkins has a bright idea: Atheists are the new gays. Is he joking? Not at all. The bestselling author of The God Delusion has been suggesting for two years now that atheists can follow the example of gays. You see, gays have found a good name. Gays used to be called homosexual, but then they decided to pick a positive-sounding name like "gay." Suddenly the meaning of the term "gay" was entirely appropriated by homosexuals. Dawkins cited this example in advocating that atheists call themselves "brights." After all, atheist is a somewhat negative term because it defines itself by what it is opposed to. "Bright" sounds so much happier and, more important, smarter. "Bright" kind of reflects the high opinion that atheists have of their own intellectual abilities. Even the stupidest village atheist gets to pat himself on the back and place himself in the tradition of science and philosophy by calling himself a "bright."

Dawkins has also suggested that atheists, like gays, should come out of the closet. Well, what if they don't want to? I don't know if Dawkins would support "outing" atheists. Can an atheist "rights" group be far behind? Hate crimes laws to protect atheists? Affirmative action for unbelievers? An Atheist Annual Parade, complete with dancers and floats? Atheist History Month?

Honestly, I think the whole atheist-gay analogy is quite absurd. How bright is it for Dawkins to urge atheists to come out of the closet in the style of the all-American boy standing up on the dining table of his public high school and confessing that he is a homosexual? Dawkins, being British, doesn't seem to recognize that this would not win many popularity contests in America. And if Dawkins' public relations skills seem lacking in this area, they are positively abysmal when they come to building support for science. Remember that Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science. He has a chair funded by a Microsoft multimillionaire. If I were that guy, I'd withdraw the support, not because I disagree with Dawkins, but because I think he is setting back the cause of science. Basically Dawkins is saying if you are religious, then science is your enemy. Either you choose God or you choose science. No wonder that so many Americans say they are opposed to evolution. They believe that evolution is atheism masquerading as science, and Dawkins confirms their suspicions. Indeed Dawkins takes the same position as the most ignorant fundamentalist: you can have Darwin or you can have the Bible but you can't have both.

Dawkins is in some ways a terrible representative for atheism, which I'm glad about because a bad cause deserves a bad leader. He is also a terrible advocate for science, which I'm sad about because science deserves all the support it can get.