Tuesday, August 21, 2007

.. [ day six ] .. You always know when you have been somewhere too long ... you become part of the gossip!

Last night it became increasingly evident that I am no longer just a person in the swarm of the night at the UGM homeless shelter. It appears I have been noticed by one of the residences homeless regulars, and that person dislikes I sit there and write on my BLOG. So he complained and I was put into another room where the King County wireless network doesn't reach.

You always know when you have been somewhere too long ... you become part of the gossip!

I got an email from a person in Bellevue that is considering allowing me to live at her condo. I guess, other than the $800 she is asking for rent per month, I have a concern she is a women. Not that it matters to me on what sex she is but with a conviction of rape is it risky? Irregardless of my innocence or guilt, when you have been convicted of a rape crime, even ROC III on a boy the word "rape" has a huge prejudicial affect on people? When the legislature in '82, or thereabouts, removed the concept of of statutory rape, which it concluded people became too complacent about and it became difficult for prosecutors to get convictions, the change to a just rape with various degrees of that crime, helped eliminate the concept that consent could be used as an inferred defense.

I recently read a very controversial article by David Tuller, that describes the difference in society rules as it pertains to men and female relationships. There is no question that the perceptions of how men deal with relationships is completely different than that of how me do. But, you can not question that the majority of our domestic violence and rape laws are written from the perspective once attributed as being part of a "weaker sex".

In 2002 a Harvard Associate Professor, Kenji Yoshino, writes about the impact of legislation as it relates to Gays in general. It is important to note that the distinction found in Tuller's piece, and not to dissimilar than the conclusion found in Yoshino, piece. In his introduction, Yoshino states, "So it is with great trepidation but greater conviction that I come to do so. For the past few years, I have been working on issues relating to sexual minorities. That work has persuaded me that gays (by which I mean both lesbians and gay men) can proffer a new perspective on the relationship between assimilation and discrimination. I believe that the gay context demonstrates in a particularly trenchant manner that assimilation can be an effect of discrimination as well as an evasion of it."(Covering, Kenji Yoshino, Associate Professor, Yale Law School, The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 111: 769, 770, 2002]).

Both are a must read, if you have any care of civil rights as they concern homosexual men and the law as it is written today.

Peace.

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