***
This short NY Times documentary tells the story of a
gay Mormon’s love affair while serving on a mission in Italy.
***
Monday, June 29, 2015
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Friday, June 26, 2015
US Supreme Court Finds Constitutional Right to Same Sex Marriage
***
When I came out 45 years ago,
such a ruling by United States Supreme Court was unthinkable. The progress made
by gay people in America
since Stonewall has been nothing short of astounding.
Gay Marriage Backers Win
Supreme Court Victory
WASHINGTON — In a long-sought
victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled on
Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex
marriage.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. He was joined by the court’s
four more liberal justices.
The decision, the culmination
of decades of litigation and activism, came against the backdrop of fast-moving
changes in public opinion, with polls indicating that most Americans now
approve of same-sex marriage.
Justice Kennedy said gay and
lesbian couples had a fundamental right to marry.
“No union is more profound
than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion,
sacrifice, and family,” he wrote. “In forming a marital union, two people
become something greater than once they were.”
“It would misunderstand these
men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage,” Justice Kennedy
said of the couples challenging state bans on same-sex marriage. “Their plea is
that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment
for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness,
excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal
dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
Chief Justice John G. Roberts
Jr., in a dissent joined by Justice Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said
the Constitution had nothing to say on the subject.
“If you are among the many
Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex
marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision,” Chief Justice Roberts
wrote. “Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity
for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of
new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with
it.”
In a second dissent, Justice
Scalia mocked Justice Kennedy’s soaring language.
“The opinion is couched in a
style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,” Justice Scalia wrote
of his colleague’s work. “Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often
profoundly incoherent.”
As Justice Kennedy finished
announcing his opinion, several attendees seated in the bar section of the
court’s gallery wiped away tears, while others grinned and exchanged embraces.
Justice John Paul Stevens,
who retired in 2010, was on hand for the decision and many of the justices’
clerks took seats in the chamber, which was nearly full as the ruling was
announced.
As in earlier civil rights
cases, the Supreme Court had moved cautiously and methodically, laying careful
judicial groundwork for a transformative decision.
As late as October, the
justices ducked the issue, refusing to hear appeals from rulings allowing
same-sex marriage in five states. That decision delivered a tacit victory for
gay rights, immediately expanding the number of states with same-sex marriage
to 24, along with the District of
Columbia, up from 19.
Largely as a consequence of
the Supreme Court’s decision not to act, the number of states allowing same-sex
marriage has since grown to 36, and more than 70 percent of
Americans live in places where gay couples can marry.
The court did not agree to
resolve the issue for the rest of the nation until January, in cases filed by gay and lesbian
couples in Kentucky, Michigan,
Ohio and Tennessee. The court heard extended arguments in April, and the justices
seemed sharply divided over what the Constitution has to say about same-sex
marriage.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs
said their clients had a fundamental right to marry and to equal protection,
adding that the bans they challenged demeaned their dignity, imposed countless
practical difficulties and inflicted particular harm on their children.
The Obama administration,
which had gradually come to embrace the cause of same-sex marriage, was
unequivocal in urging the justices to rule for the plaintiffs.
“Gay and lesbian people are
equal,” Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said. “They deserve equal
protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.”
Lawyers for the four states
said their bans were justified by tradition and the distinctive characteristics
of opposite-sex unions. They said the question should be resolved
democratically, at the polls and in state legislatures, rather than by judges.
The Supreme Court had once
before agreed to hear a case arising from a constitutional challenge to a
same-sex marriage ban, California’s Proposition 8, in 2012 in Hollingsworth v. Perry. At the time, nine states
and the District of Columbia
allowed same-sex couples to marry.
But when the court’s ruling
arrived in June 2013, the justices ducked, with a majority saying the case was
not properly before them, and none of them expressing a view on the ultimate
question of whether the Constitution requires states to allow same-sex
marriage.
A second decision the same
day, in United States v. Windsor, provided the movement
for same-sex marriage with what turned out to be a powerful tailwind. The
decision struck down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that barred
federal benefits for same-sex couples married in states that allowed such
unions.
The Windsor decision was based partly on
federalism grounds, with Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion stressing that
state decisions on how to treat marriages deserved respect. But lower courts
focused on other parts of his opinion, ones that emphasized the dignity of gay
relationships and the harm that families of gay couples suffered from bans on
same-sex marriage.
In a remarkable and largely
unbroken line of more than 40 decisions, state and federal courts relied on the
Windsor
decision to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.
***
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Why Your Cat Thinks You’re a Huge, Unpredictable Ape
***
Why Your Cat Thinks You’re a Huge, Unpredictable Ape
by Nick Stockton
Oct. 27, 2014
Shingles isn’t my condition;
he’s my cat. I love him like crazy, but he gets under my skin.
I’m not alone as a conflicted
cat fancier. Tony Buffington is a veterinarian at Ohio State University, and he recently told me many
cat owners are constantly frustrated by their feline companions. Even though we
feed them, clean up after them, and pet, hug, and hold them, Buffington says
that few of us know how to listen to our cats. This can make things
more frustrating for them than for us. That’s because no matter how much
we love them, cats are our captives, domesticated aliens with no way
of explaining their customs, or of interpreting ours.
Dr. Buffington (a great name
for your next kitten, by the way) sat down with me to explain how to
listen to cats. These aren’t just tricks to score more cuddle time, but
ways to create a more harmonious home that could improve your cat’s health. For
years, he’s been studying the root causes of interstitial cystitis,
a painful and chronic inflammation of feline bladder tissue. His research
indicates a stressful home environment may cause the condition, and perhaps
other chronic cat diseases as well. He believes the best cure is learning to
listen to your cat, giving him choices, and reducing the environmental factors
that trigger his stress response.
You are a huge, unpredictable ape
You hear
the unmistakable sound of claws on couch. You snap, shout, squirt water,
and maybe even throw a pillow. It’s all futile, because eventually he’s at it
again. Your cat isn’t ignoring you, Buffington says. He just doesn’t know
how to connect your negative reinforcement with his behavior. This is
because cats evolved as solitary hunters with little need for reading social
cues, especially those for behavior modification.
“How the hell is
your cat supposed to know that you’re yelling at him because you want him
to stop scratching the couch?” Buffington says. Without the cognitive ability
to connect your outburst to their scratching, cats see only chaotic aggression.
“To the cat, you’re this crazy primate who is attacking him for no
reason,” he says.
Instead of discouraging the
act, you become an object of fear. What’s more, your cat becomes frustrated,
and eventually stressed, because you constantly interrupt natural feline
activities like raking his claws or jumping on something high. “Cats get sick
when they want to express their natural behaviors and they can’t,” he said, and
will continue to do the thing when you aren’t around.
“The way to train a cat is
through their environment,” Buffington said. For example, put two-sided
tape on the corner of your couch, or tinfoil on the kitchen counter. Then, put
the now-more-attractive alternative nearby: A scratching post covered with
catnip, or the awesome cat tree you built from scavenged driftwood. When
your cat does the thing you want her do to, reward her with a treat,
or affection. “You let the house provide the negative reinforcement, while
you provide the positive reinforcement,” Buffington said.
Feline feng shui
In those few hours each day
where he isn’t sleeping, your cat is a little bundle of energy that wants
to move through your home as harmoniously as possible. But you’ve
disrupted his flow by placing the food dish next to the refrigerator, the
litter box by the dryer, and his favorite cardboard box alongside the sliding
glass door leading to the yard.
You might be deaf to the
fridge fan or the spin cycle. But Buffington says it sounds like a monster
growling at them while they eat or poop. Put the dish and the litter box in
quiet, calm places where kitty has an escape route if he feels threatened
(i.e., not in a closet).
Sights also can
be stressful. Cats are curious about other animals, but if there is no
visual barrier between the dogs, cats, goats, horses, or
alpacas outside, the cat will feel threatened. “Cats don’t understand
glass, but they do understand height,” Buffington says. Give your cat access to
high places, like a cat tree or bookshelf, where she can observe in peace.
Leave Fluffy’s tummy alone
Sights and sounds aren’t the
only things in your house that assault your cat’s senses. Humans are much more
touchy-feely than cats, and we sometimes find their fluffiness irresistible.
But cats, like us, want some say in how they’re handled. “Would you
appreciate it if someone was always picking you up, hugging you, rubbing you?”
Buffington says.
The best bet is to let Fluffy
guide the interaction. If she’s rubbing some part of her body against you,
she’s given you permission to pet that part of her.
Other feline behaviors are
tricky, because they appear to be an invitation for petting. The classic is
when Fluffy exposes her belly. When you go in for a rub, she bites and
scratches you. “Exposing her belly is not a trap the cat is setting,”
Buffington says. “The cat is biting you because they feel violated and
afraid.” A cat’s belly is its most vulnerable body part, and exposing it is the
cat letting you know she trusts you—not that she wants a belly rub.
That’s not the only place
that’s off limits. Have you ever been petting your cat and all of a sudden
she slinks off to the other side of the room, cowers behind something, and
stares at you?
“If your cat is acting weird,
then something probably triggered this behavior,” Buffington says. Perhaps you
kept petting the base of her tail, because she kept raising her butt. This
area is filled with nerves, and being pet there can be overstimulating,
much like being tickled is to us. Also, being cradled is not normal for cats.
If your cat is curled up in your lap, it’s not necessarily an invitation
to be picked up.
What’s that? Your cat is
totally fine with you picking her up, snuggling her, and rubbing
her angel-soft belly? That’s fine. Nobody’s jealous. Just stop
talking about it.
You want your cats to be friends more than they do
Shingles and I recently moved
into a house with two other cats, and my roommate and I have been trying for
months to get them to play. It hasn’t been going well. Time and again, we put
them in the living room and watch as mild curiosity turns into panic and
fighting.
Buffington says we’re
doing this all wrong. Start slow, he says, by rubbing each cat in
turn with the same dry towel to get them used to each others’ scent. Before
introducing them, make sure each cat has eaten, pooped, and received affection
from their respective owners. In other words, ensure they are comfortable. Once
the cats are together, let your cat know you have its back by giving it lots of
affection. Don’t pressure them to mingle, and make sure each has an
unimpeded escape route.
And if your cat isn’t feeling
the play date and decides to bail, let him go. Buffington says one of
our biggest misconceptions is that cats need to be around other cats.
In the wild, cats hunt alone, and they don’t share. Other cats aren’t
friends; they’re competition.
Your cat cares about you
Your cat is not as
indifferent about you as she may seem. She wants to bond, and the best way
to do so are with petting, food, and play. If your cat doesn’t like to
play, you might be doing it wrong. If you’re using a laser pointer, don’t wave
it like you’re at a rave. Move it at natural speeds and let the cat catch it
occasionally. The same rule applies with the feather-on-a-string toy.
Shingles used to cry
incessantly whenever I left for the day, and I worried that leaving him home
alone was making him neurotic. Buffington suggests I create little rituals for
coming and going. “Before you leave, you can call to the cat, give
him some affection and let him know you are saying good bye,”
Buffington says. And he says to have a similar ritual for coming home. “Some
married couples survive on less than an hour a day of contact. Your
relationship with your cat can survive on 10 minutes a day, as long as it’s
really quality,” Buffington says.
***
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