Tag: Dan Savage

Matt Drudge is still hyping the “NYT probes Judge Robert’s Adoptions” story. Apparently-and I’ve only seen this on Drudge, so it could be entirely bogus-a reporter for the NYT asked if Roberts’ adoption records would be made available to the press for inspection. I’m glad the right wing thinks that politicizing legal adoptions is outside the pale. Drudge quotes from a statement released by the National Council for Adoption that slams the NYT for questioning “the very private circumstances, motivations, and processes by which” people adopt children. I couldn’t agree more-no one should question the private circumstances, motivations, and processes by which qualified, screened parent-wannabes become parents through adoption. As an adoptive parent myself, I look forward to the right adopting this sensible position and ceasing to harass gay and lesbian adoptive parents.

-posted by Dan

NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR ADOPTION:
I’m not sure what this group’s position is on gay adoptions. I’ve been digging around on their website and haven’t found anything-which seems odd, since gay adoption is such a hot topic. If anyone can dig up the NCfA’s take on gay and lesbian parents, I’d like to see it. If they group is committed to “serving the interests of children through adoption,” they ought to be pro-gay adoptions.

-posted by Dan

Oh, another note about my stint on AndrewSullivan.com: I live in Seattle, Washington, which means my life runs on West Coast time. Ahem.

-posted by Dan

From Saturday’s NYT: “Mr. Blair’s announcement [of plans to toss foreign-born Muslim radicals out of Britain] was immediately condemned by Muslim groups here, who warned that the moves would be seen as discriminatory, driving Muslim radicals underground…”
Excuse me? Were the four Muslim radicals who bombed the Tube and a bus in London on July 7, and the four who attempted to pull a repeat on July 21, operating “above ground”? Did they hang a shingle in front of a storefront that said “Ye Olde Muslim Radical Shoppe”? Were they selling nail bombs from lemonade stands on street corners?
Why do mainstream Muslim groups insist on making themselves ridiculous? The kind of “radicals” (too nice a word-I prefer “murderers”) who blow up buses and trains and discos in places like London, Madrid, and Bali are already operating “underground.” They don’t carry business cards or maintain office hours, for Christ’s sake. The further “underground” they’re driven the better-the deeper underground you go, the harder it is to plan and stage terror attacks. If I was a sensible British Muslim, or non-Muslim for that matter, I would be furious with Muslim “leaders” who suggested that Blair’s move to “close down mosques and bar or deport clerics deemed to be fostering hatred and violence” was an attack on their civil liberties. As on 9/11, Muslims died on 7/7. Blair’s move will protect everyone in Britain-Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

-posted by Dan

The Catholic Diocese of Oakland is paying out $56.3 million dollars to settle 56 cases of sexual abuse of children. The long, sordid tale of Catholic kids abused by Catholic priests has been picked over here and elsewhere, and I don’t want to dwell on it. (Like Andrew, I was raised Catholic. Unlike Andrew, I’m not practicing-and, no, I wasn’t molested when I was an altar boy. The priests I encountered as a child were, so far as I know, all good guys. Or maybe the fact that my dad was a cop and carried a gun acted as a deterrent?) Like other Catholic dioceses (dioci?), the Catholic Diocese in Oakland plans to sell church-owned land to cover the debt. Settlements in the Church sex-abuse scandal are going to reach into the hundreds of millions, if not the billions, of dollars. Like most adults my age, I’m obsessed with real estate. So with shitloads of real estate being sold off by the Church I can’t help but wonder what kind of an impact all of this property returning to private, secular ownership is going to have on property tax receipts in places like, say, Boston and Oakland and Chicago…

-posted by Dan