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R.I Bishop heated over same sex marriage possibility

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence on Friday denounced as "morally wrong" legislation recognizing same-sex marriage that has been introduced in the General Assembly. "The push to legalize the marriage of homosexual persons is morally wrong and detrimental to the well-being of our state," Tobin said in a news release. Bills to legalize what Tobin described as "gay marriage" were introduced Thursday in the House and Senate by Rep. Arthur Handy, D-Cranston and Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Providence. The bills would recognize "civil marriage" between people of identical gender, while leaving religious institutions the right to refuse to participate. The issue claims Governor Chafee as among its supporters. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont recognize same-sex marriage. There is a repeal effort under way in New Hampshire. In Maine, voters overturned the state Legislature's approval of same-sex nuptials. Tobin said the question should be put to a referendum. "It is particularly disturbing that our new governor, who has trumpeted his desire to bring our state together in unity, would adopt such a very divisive agenda item as one of his first priorities," Tobin said. "His proposal violates the sincere conscience of many of our citizens and inflames passions on both sides of the issue."
He said that state government instead should concentrate on creating jobs.

(In my opinion, what he needs to be concerned about is teaching the true message of god and spirituality instead of creating hate and separation in the church and religious organizations...just saying what an idiot)

Tarik K

Well Damn!!!!

The Dairy Of Ericka Kane

I came across this video and I don't know why but I am interested in this young lady!

Don't Ask Don't Tell doesn't apply to the Transgender community

     The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy now heading toward history does not apply to transgender recruits, who are automatically disqualified as unfit for service. But the military’s long-standing posture on gender-identity has not prevented transgender citizens from signing up before they come out, or from obtaining psychological counseling, hormones and routine health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs once they return to civilian life. So as the Pentagon prepares to welcome openly gay, lesbian and bisexual service members for the first time, Sandeen is not alone in hoping the United States will one day join the seven other nations – Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, the Czech Republic, Thailand and Australia – that allow transgender troops. “There is really no question, it’s just a matter of when,” said former Army Capt. Allyson Robinson, 40, a 1994 West Point graduate who has spoken to sociology classes at the alma mater she attended as a male cadet. “There are active-duty, as well as reserve and national guard transgender service members, serving today.” No one knows how many transgender people are serving or have served. Neither the Department of Defense nor the VA keep statistics on how many service members have been discharged or treated for transgender conditions or conduct. The Transgender American Veterans Association, an advocacy group founded in 2003, estimates there could be as many as 300,000 transgender people among the nation’s 26 million veterans. When 50 TAVA members laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier six years ago, representatives from every U.S. conflict since World War II were there, said former Navy Machinist Mate First Class Monica Helms, the group’s co-founder and president.
Most had spent years, if not decades, as veterans before they could acknowledge the mismatches between their brains and their bodies. Helms, 59, spent four years in the engine room of a nuclear submarine during the Vietnam War, but did not start living as Monica until 1997.
Military regulations state that men and women who identify with or present a gender different from their sex at birth have mental conditions that make them ineligible to serve. Those who have undergone genital surgery are listed as having physical abnormalities. Service members caught cross-dressing on base have been court-martialed for interfering with “good order and discipline,” according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. Until the American Psychiatric Association removes Gender Identity Disorder from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as it did for homosexuality in 1973, that’s likely to remain the case, Sandeen said. The very diagnosis that keeps transgender Americans out of uniform has enabled some to obtain transition-related medical care and other services when they become veterans. Federal law prohibits Veterans Health Administration (VA) facilities from performing or paying for sex-change surgeries. But some VA medical centers provide psychological counseling, sex hormones, speech therapy and other medical treatment short of gender reassignment surgery.
Sandeen said the VA hospital in San Diego made it possible for her to start living as a woman once she retired from the Navy a decade ago.
“As soon as I got an appointment with the psychiatry department, the first thing I said to them is, ‘I have gender issues. I don’t know if I’m a transvestite or a transsexual or if I’m something in between, but I need to work this out with a therapist,’” she recalled.
She eventually received a recommendation to see a VA doctor who could prescribe estrogen to help her grow breasts and hips and diminish body and facial hair. The endocrinologist told her she first would have to try presenting herself as a woman for two-and-half-months. Sandeen, already classified as a disabled vet with bipolar disorder, had lined up a work-study job at the hospital’s patient health library.
“February 6, 2003, my first day of being publicly female, I was working for $10 an hour at the VA helping other vets with health care needs,” she said. “The VA is the organization that helped me work this out.”
The attention Sandeen received as a veteran is not unusual, but not universal, transgender advocates say. In response to complaints that some transgender veterans have been treated disrespectfully or denied care at VA facilities, Helms’ group has lobbied the Veterans Affairs department to issue guidelines on services to which transgender patients are entitled.
San Diego resident Zander Keig, who was a woman during a two-year stint with the Coast Guard, had been on testosterone for a year when he wanted his prescription transferred from a suburban VA clinic. But veterans are not allowed to change their names on discharge papers so he was directed to the women’s VA clinic in San Francisco.
Keig, 44, said a senior physician there “grilled me with questions. Why are you taking T? Do you know what it’s doing to your body? How are you eligible for these services?” “I said, ‘I established my eligibility for VA services in 1988, I have every reason to be here. Am I going to get my shots or not?’” Keig recalled. He did get his injections.
In 2007, the VA complex in Boston became the first veterans’ medical provider to draft a policy designed to assure transgender veterans received consistent and sensitive care.
Department of Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Katie Roberts said the VA is reviewing the Boston policy and others, hoping to create a formal directive in the “near future.”