So, Vermont. Wow. Honestly, I’m surprised a state legislature made it happen this quickly. I had figured it would be several years. It was a squeaker, and it’s in the state that’s had some form of legal recognition for by far the longest, but wow. I am so very pleasantly surprised.

On the other hand, there’s this, currently running in Iowa:

Yeah. With our evil gay weather-control machines we have blocked a Massachusetts’ mother’s right to tell her kid she believes differently. Where the hell were these gay-friendly schools when I was a kid? Jeez!

The one that really chaps me, though, is the doctor. Here’s the thing: if you don’t want to work with the public, don’t put yourself in a position where you invite the public to come to your work and ask for your services. The same thing pisses me off about anti-birth-control pharmacists. If you don’t want to fill prescriptions, don’t go to fucking pharmacy school. How hard is that? What next, a Mormon bartender who’s really annoyed at all the alcohol he has to serve?

In my current position I have to do a lot of things I don’t like. I have to block people’s access to queer-related websites, as a matter of fact, when the client asks for it. Does it make me feel great? No. But you know what? It’s not my firewall, my network, my user or my business. I find workplace internet censorship filtering an offensive and condescending concept in general, to be honest, but it’s what pays the bills. I used to have a real problem with the idea of file-sharing on which I’ve since mellowed a great deal, even though I don’t participate in it myself (I do cling to the belief that if I like a work of art and entertainment that I should reward the artist/entertainer) but in my new job I’m probably going to be busting people for it. Oh well! If I weren’t willing to do the job asked of me, why show up? That’s part of why I left Ma Bell when I did and part of why I’m leaving This Company now. Showing up for work is, itself, a compromise for most of us; if it weren’t, they wouldn’t have to pay us to be there.

Well, whatever. It’s a losing battle they’re fighting and they know it. They are watching society welcome and assimilate yet another class of persons they found useful as targets for their bullying. I have to wonder where they’ll go next. What minority can they find to blame for everything? My guess is the immigrant community. Lou Dobbs is already over there swinging his bat and the moneycons won’t balk as long as the immigrants they target are poor and can’t read the sale papers. It must be hard, though, to be a conservative these days. It must be hard to have so much poison and hate pent up inside and to have fewer and fewer targets on whom to vent it. It must be hard to get up in the morning thinking storm clouds have to gather for the sun to shine on anyone else.