Affected/Infected Dream

So last night I had a dream about a certain someone. It was kind of a weird dream. I don't remember all of it anymore. But I do remember being at this certain someone's place. I remember it wasn't big. But it was his own. And for some reason we were back together. I was surprised that we'd gotten back together. But I was happy. I don't remember too much actual contact with him. Nevertheless I know we were together again. I was somewhat suspicious. I just didn't know why he'd want to get back together with me after hating me all these years. So I remember just kinda glancing at his desk. I don't know where he was at the time. Regardless, I recall seeing some kind of medical report, or test results, or something. And I remember on it, it said he had like gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes. But the one that stuck out was HIV. I don't remember exactly seeing it on the list, but I know it was there, because when I realized that he had HIV, I felt extremely sorry for him. I was sad. I didn't want him to die. I wanted us to enjoy the time we still had together. (Regardless of the fact that these days HIV is not a death sentence). But then I got angry, because I realized (or at least I thought I realized) that he had gotten back together with me just to infect me because he was still angry with me. And that's as far as my feelings in the dream went. I think after I woke up, I started to think that maybe he actually just wanted to spend his last days with me, which would be kinda romantic. So when I considered that, I felt sympathy for him again. Of course this is all just speculative because it was all just a dream after all. But it bothers me that I'm having these feelings again.

Separate But Equal? Not Equal At All

When I was younger, I didn't think gay marriage was that important. Up until the day that the Ontario Court of Appeal legalized same-sex marriage in Ontario back in 2003, I didn't really believe in it, and thought that "civil unions" would be enough. But ever since that day, I realized that nothing less than marriage would be enough. Until we had marriage, we would never be equal.

Even if the only difference between civil unions and marriage was the name, it would still be unequal. Gay rights advocates use the term "equal marriage". It should be equal to a straight marriage in every way. And it is, here in Canada. I can't speak for other jurisdictions, but some people want to "compromise" by giving us only civil unions. That's just not right in my mind. You cant' "compromise" on civil rights. You either have them, or you don't. We want ALL our rights, and we want them to be equal. Having a different word for it just gives them a reason to see us as "the other". And you can always dehumanize "the other". It's exclusionary. And it's meant to divide us. It's not done with good intentions, so it cannot lead to good.

I'm very proud of all those who have fought for gay marriage. Especially groups like Lambda Legal in the United States, and EqualMarriage.ca. What they have done is amazing and should be appreciated by all people, gay and straight, in the entire world. It's amazing progress, and it can be slow work, but attitudes are slowly changing. There are gay rights advocates in the most unlikely of places. Many of whom suffer discrimination (or worse) every day. People have died for our rights, and we should honour them.

New "Rape" Law in Afghanistan

Can someone please tell me why we're in Afghanistan if we can't even prevent a law from allowing men to rape their wives? If we're not going to force them to be more amenable to women's rights, then we should just leave. Propping up a Western-backed government that doesn't even listen to us is completely pointless and a total farce.

At the same time, I think the women of Arghanistan need to rise up and challenge their idiotic warmongering men. If there was an uprising of ALL women, they would be unstoppable. The men wouldn't be able to kill every single one of them, because they'd have a population devoid of women and wouldn't be able to reproduce and the country would just die off. Regardless, we can't turn a blind eye to women's rights in Afghanistan. We cannot allow this law to be passed. Some things are just WRONG. Rape is one of them.

4 Down, 46 To Go

Today the Vermont senate and house overrode their governor's veto of same-sex marriage legislation. Gay marriage there will be legal as of September 1. Last week, the Supreme Court of Iowa declared the law defining marriage as between a man and a woman to be unconstitutional. Gay marriage there will be effective April 24. That brings to four the number of states that have gay marriage. First it was Massachusetts, then Connecticut, then Iowa, now Vermont. 4 Down, 46 to Go. The U.S. might be very different than Canada in some ways, but I'm still drawn to the parallel this recent turn of events has to what happened here. Here's a quotation from the Wikipedia article on Same-Sex Marriage in Canada:

Same-sex marriage was legally recognized in the provinces and territories as of the following dates:

* 10 June 2003: Ontario
* 8 July 2003: British Columbia
* 16 March 2004: Quebec
* 14 July 2004: Yukon territory
* 16 September 2004: Manitoba
* 24 September 2004: Nova Scotia
* 5 November 2004: Saskatchewan
* 21 December 2004: Newfoundland and Labrador
* 23 June 2005: New Brunswick
* 20 July 2005 (Civil Marriage Act): Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut territory, and the Northwest Territories

It is only a matter of time before more states recognize same-sex marriage and those stupid propositions defining marriage as between a man and a woman are thrown out. I'm optimistic, but I also believe we must remain ever-vigilant.

Catholics More Liberal Than Non-Catholics?

Now I don't usually read The Catholic Register, but I was eating this morning and it was on the table, and I need to be reading something--anything, when I'm eating, so that's what I thumbed through. The article that caught my eye was the following (it's on their website as well)

Link: http://www.catholicregister.org/content/view/2928/849/

Catholics at odds with Vatican on moral issues

Written by Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON- Telephone polling of Catholics and non-Catholics over three years shows the degree of difference between the two groups on abortion, the death penalty and other moral issues about which the Catholic Church has spoken.

According to figures released March 30 by the Gallup Organization in Princeton, N.J., only on the abortion issue did a minority of Catholics overall find it acceptable — 40 per cent compared to 41 per cent for non-Catholics.

The only other moral issue which Catholics overall found less acceptable than non-Catholics was the death penalty, but substantial majorities — 61 per cent of Catholics and 68 per cent of non-Catholics — still found capital punishment morally acceptable.

Besides abortion and the death penalty, other moral issues covered by the polling included sex outside marriage, divorce, gambling, homosexual activity and having a baby outside of wedlock. The polling figures were taken from Gallup’s 2006, 2007 and 2008 Values and Beliefs surveys, in which 3,022 respondents were polled. The margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points, which means that Gallup has a 95-per-cent degree of confidence that, were the survey to be repeated, the results would be within two percentage points of the current results.

Even when separated from Catholics and non-Catholics who attend church regularly, a majority of Catholics polled found a majority of the issues raised to be morally acceptable — and, with the exception of the death penalty, declared the issues to be more morally acceptable than their non-Catholic counterparts.

On embryonic stem-cell research, 63 per cent of Catholics overall believe the practice to be morally acceptable, compared to 62 per cent of non-Catholics. Among regular churchgoers, 53 per cent of Catholics approve of it while 45 per cent of non-Catholics do.

How Catholics polled
Catholics tended to be at odds with Church teachings:

* Sex between an unmarried man and woman: 67 per cent of all Catholics and 57 per cent of all non-Catholics said it was acceptable; among regular churchgoers, 53 per cent of Catholics and 30 per cent of non-Catholics said it was acceptable.

* Divorce: 71 per cent of all Catholics, 67 per cent of all non-Catholics; among regular churchgoers, 63 per cent of Catholics, 46 per cent of non-Catholics.

* Having a baby outside marriage: 61 per cent of all Catholics, 52 per cent of all non-Catholics; among regular churchgoers, 48 per cent of Catholics, 29 per cent of non-Catholics.

* Gambling: 72 per cent of all Catholics, 59 per cent of all non-Catholics; among regular churchgoers, 67 per cent of Catholics, 40 per cent of non-Catholics.

* Homosexual relations: 54 per cent of all Catholics, 45 per cent of all non-Catholics; among regular churchgoers, 44 per cent of Catholics, 21 per cent of non-Catholics.
* Abortion: 40 per cent of all Catholics, 41 per cent of all non-Catholics; among regular churchgoers, 24 per cent of Catholics, 19 per cent of non-Catholics.

* Capital punishment: 61 per cent of all Catholics, 68 per cent of all non-Catholics; among regular churchgoers, 52 per cent of Catholics, 69 per cent of non-Catholics.

The Gallup results mirror a poll taken last fall by the Knights of Columbus in that churchgoing Catholics tended to favour the church’s teaching on moral issues more than non-practising Catholics, although the two polls did not always cover the same issues.

The results for churchgoing Catholics, described as going to church every week or nearly every week, are “much more in line with the church’s teachings than are the views of non-practising Catholics,” said a statement by Gallup announcing the results.

“However, even among committed Catholics, a slim majority seem to be at odds with the church’s positions on premarital sex, embryonic stem-cell research, divorce and the death penalty,” it said.

Does anyone find it odd that both practicing Catholics and non-practicing Catholics are more liberal than their practicing and non-practicing non-Catholic brethren? So Catholics have more sex outside marriage, more babies outside marriage, get divorced more, have more homosexual relations, gamble more, and are more supportive of the death penalty.

It would be interesting to see the same kind of numbers for Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. I can imagine a few of those groups would be vehemently anti-gay and just anti-liberal in general. The Jewish and Catholic religions themselves might not be the most tolerant, but the people themselves probably are. I had originally written Christian there. But then I remembered this polling wasn't about Christians, it was about Catholics. And there are a lot of hateful Christians. Especially in the United States. In particular all those groups with the word "family" in there, which is basically just code for "anti-gay". Especially after watching the film "Milk", it makes me dislike those people even more, and realize that we have to fight them at every turn to keep our freedoms and ensure everyone else is entitled to the same freedoms as we are. I was never a big activist in the past, but I truly believe gay marriage is a human rights issue. And anyone who is against it or not fully for it is not fully in favour of equal human rights for all.

Dan's GTA Transit Plan

In light of Metrolinx and GO Transit finally merging, I thought I would talk about transit in the GTA. Let's start with subway lines.

Downtown Relief Line

Going from approximately Pape through downtown via either Union, Queen, or King (my preference is Union) and to Dundas West. This would attract tons of new riders from new developing neighbourhoods and relieve both Yonge-Bloor and the King and Queen streetcars.

Sheppard: Downsview to STC

The Sheppard subway has been criticized by many for not being busy enough. Problem is, it was never finished. Originally it was to end at Victoria Park. We need to extend it at least that far, but preferably to its natural terminus at Scarborough Town Centre. In the west, it should be extended a couple stops to Downsview so that it has connection with the Spadina line.

Eglinton

An Eglinton subway was cancelled by Harris, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't build it. At least build the portion of the Transit City line that is going to be tunneled as subway to start. Then in the future we can extend it further.

Replace the SRT with subway from Kennedy to STC

The SRT was a mistake. We should get rid of it completely, and build a subway along a new alignment through to STC serving Scarborough Hospital along the way.

Yonge to Richmond Hill

Yonge should be extended to Richmond Hill. It would take a lot of buses off the road and prevent the wasting of building a pointless BRT up there.

Bloor to Mississauga City Centre

Peel Region has over a million residents and has yet to have a subway. Bloor should at least be extended to East Mall and Sherway, and if we're going to extend it westerly, it should serve the largest trip generator in the 905.

Moving onto LRT:

Finch

The city is planning a Finch West LRT and interlining it with Sheppard East. To my mind, that makes zero sense. Especially in my plan. Therefore, I believe Finch should be a continuous corridor along it's length as LRT.

Hurontario

Replacing Mississauga's busiest bus route with an LRT would connect Port Credit, MCC and Downtown Brampton.

Jane

Don Mills

I can't say for certain that this is an exchaustive list of lines that should be built, but they are important to me.