He had more integrity as a man, apparently.

LARGO, Florida (AP) -- The City Commission voted to begin the process of firing a top official less than a week after he announced plans to pursue a sex-change operation.

The 5-to-2 vote Tuesday started a three-step process to remove City Manager Steve Stanton from the job he's held for 14 years.

Stanton, 48, confirmed last week that he is a transsexual. With a solid reputation as a forceful and energetic leader, he had hoped to keep his $140,000-a-year job as he underwent the gender reassignment process.

Sad, but not shocking. The happy bit that comes out of this story are the two people who actually voted for him to stay:

"He's done a great job for us," [Mayor Patricia] Gerard said. "He's done what we asked him to do and taken the heat over and over and over again and now we're going to turn on him."

Even more sad is the article written after he first made his announcement. Poor guy sounds so hopeful in the thought that life will be better once he changes his body to suit his identity.

"I want to do this with a sense of dignity and worth," Stanton told the Times. "It's going to take more courage than anything I've ever done."

Largo Mayor Pat Gerard said she supports Stanton."He's a dedicated city manager and puts his job first," she said. "I don't believe he should have to go away and hide out and have to re-emerge. The fact that we do that as a society is pitiful."

Stanton, who is married, said he expects criticism of his decision to go public with his private life, but hopes his example will educate the community about gender reassignment.

"It's not in my nature to flee a challenge," Stanton said. "I can't. I won't."

I think I have a new hero in Largo Mayor Pat Gerard. I found an article (PDF) where the new mayor requested that comments made by citizens at city council meetings be something other than offensive and calling city council members names.

At the beginning of the public comment forum, Gerard asked speakers to "keep your comments on the constructive side, because if you make personal attacks, you are going to be asked to stop."

She's like the moderator in a flame war, how can you not love that? She probably won't get re-elected, but she's doing what's right.

Heroes of the Day? Steve Stanton and Pat Gerard.

Even sadder than all this is the fact that legally there's not much that can be done. The US courts have been historically unsympathetic to transsexual issues.

Idaho, Tennessee, and my home-state Ohio will not change governmental documentation such as drivers licences and birth certificates to reflect gender changes. Other states (New York, Texas, and sigh, Ohio) won't recognise gender reassignments when it comes to marriage. All attempts to include discrimination against transsexuals in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been shot down. This means it's perfectly legal for Largo to fire Steve just because he's transsexual.

This issue should really get people to think about why there's so little legal protection for the transgendered. There's protection for males and females, but not that difficult to define third category. Does it even need to be defined? What's the definition of male and female, anyhow? Genitals, body parts? If a man is defined by his penis and he somehow loses his penis, is he no longer a man? What is he? Is a female defined by the ability to bare children? What are barren women? Does the definition lie in how we act? Effeminate males are actually women? How about how we dress? I'm wearing pants, does that make me male?

This sort of issue makes it clear we cannot define ourselves as men and woman and whatever in between. We're simply people. Laws should reflect that.

Short Takes: The Gay Cure

I view sexual preference like I view any other preference. I like the color green more than the color red, for instance. It's my color preference. I like dark chocolate and not white chocolate. It's my chocolate preference.

Am I ever going to stop liking dark chocolate? Sadly for my ever-widening ass, no, not any time soon.

I can't be cured of my color and chocolate preference. Whatever caused my preferences, be it from birth or from environment and upbringing, these preferences are who I am.

And I'll probably always like boys. Sendhil Ramamurthy in particular. Damn, he's pretty. Look, look at him. I don't care if you like girls, he's pretty. Enjoy that pic of him. I should post him every day.

My point, and I do have one, is that you can't cure your sexual preference. I can't stop thinking that Sendhil is foxy. What you can do is ignore it, suppress it, and deny it. But it will always be there. It's who you are.

With that in mind, Ted Haggard is not cured. His "dark side" is the same as mine: the love of penises. The fact that he has one too really should't matter in the least. He lied to his followers, telling them that God hates Fags. Now that he's "cured" his church is giving him $130,000.

There's still debate over whether or not the Christian God hates homosexuals. But we all know He hates hypocrites.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. -Matthew 23:27-28

Scouting Legal Defense Fund "Poll"

This little gem came in the mail yesterday. It's from an organization called the Scouting Legal Defense Fund, whose parent organization is actually the American Civil Rights Union. That's right, the ACRU. Very tricksy. Just one letter away from their nemesis, the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU. In this case, they're fired up about homosexuals in the Boy Scouts.

Back in 2000, the Supreme Court decided that in the case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, the Boy Scouts, as a private, not-for-profit organization, can in fact discriminate against homosexuals. While this policy of hate and exclusion is undeniably wrong and despicable, the Boy Scouts, as a private organization, have the freedom to discriminate. It's not fair or just, but it's freedom. That I grudgingly have to accept. The old "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it" adage. Sort of like the KKK and the Nazi party. Well, not just like, but you get my drift about the freedoms of private organizations.

Case closed, right? Wrong. Fast forward seven years, when this is received in the mail. Play close attention to the wording.

Boy Scouts of America
v.
American Civil Liberties Union

Nationwide Poll conducted by the Scouting Legal Defense Fund

DIRECTIONS: Please carefully consider each of the following questions on the Boy Scouts v. ACLU National Poll and mark your answers accordingly. Be sure to complete both sections of your Poll Ballot , including the Reply and contribution decision. Please do not delay your response. Your answers are needed at once so as not to delay the final Poll tabulation. A pre-addressed envelope is enclosed to speed the return of your Poll Ballot.

Part I: Poll Ballot

Question 1. Extremist ACLU lawyers claim that the Boy Scouts are biased against homosexuals. But the Constitution guarantees the right to "freedom of association." In your view, does this mean the Boy Scouts have the right to reject avowed homosexual Scout Masters?

___Yes ___No ___Unsure

Let's start at the top. The claim that the BSA is biased against homosexuals. Bias is an unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.

According to BSAlegal.org, "Boy Scouts of America believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word, and deed. Scouting’s moral position with respect to homosexual conduct accords with the moral positions of many millions of Americans and with religious denominations to which a majority of Americans belong. Because of these views concerning the morality of homosexual conduct, Boy Scouts of America believes that a known or avowed homosexual is not an appropriate role model of the Scout Oath and Law for adolescent boys."

So, yes. Because of the prejudice that all gays are immoral and dirty in thought, word and deed, yes, the BSA is biased. Other article I found disgustingly assumes that being a homosexual male is the same as being a pedophile.

But notice they don't ask that. They ask if the BSA have a right to the freedom of association. They do. Supreme Court said so. Here, as a liberal, I'm forced to check yes.

Question 2. Would accepting homosexual Scout Masters damage the Boy Scouts' mission to instill values and morality in school age children?

___Yes ___No ___Unsure

Well, since this is a conservative Christian mailing going out to conservative Christians, this one is a gimme. The answer to this one depends on your personal views of values and morality. I'd personally rather leave my kids with an "avowed" gay man than a Catholic priest, but hey, that's just me.

Question 3. In your opinion is the ACLU campaign to force homosexual Scout Masters on the Boy Scouts really just an attempt to crush and destroy the entire Boy Scout Organization?

___Yes ___No ___Unsure

Wow. Just... wow. Forcing homosexuals on young boys. Nicely worded. Great image, too, thanks.

The latest action (that I could find) from the ACLU and the BSA's discrimination stems from the BSA not admitting atheists. The ACLU successfully brought an end to local governmental funding for troops. This is not about forcing anything on any private organization. The BSA can do whatever they want, the Supreme Court decided that. But a private organization that exercises policies that would not be accepted in a public one should not receive public funding.

BSA wants public funding, they should go public and let in all the gays, girls, and atheists. Somehow doubt that's going to happen. This one gets a NO.

Question 4. Former Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, Ed Meese, once called the ACLU "the criminal's lobby." Do you think the ACLU is qualified to pass judgment on the Boy Scouts of America?

___Yes ___No ___Unsure

The obligatory Reagan reference. We'll be seeing it again in the future. Conservative Christians love them some Reagan. And of course, this reference has absolutely nothing to do with the question they ask.

Is the ACLU qualified to pass judgment? No. But that isn't what they do! The courts pass judgment! Not the ACLU! The ACLU simply helps those who have been wronged when it comes to civil liberties! Argh! One more.

Question 5. Should the Boy Scouts fight against the ACLU and others that with to destroy the morals, ethics and values that have been the bedrock of the Scouts for almost 100 years?

___Yes ___No ___Unsure

And now we're back to the ol' "Gays destroying America!" bit. God hates fags, yeah, we've heard it all before.

We don't want to see the BSA destroyed. Nobody wants that. I love their popcorn. I love that they get boys active, making friends, volunteering, camping, that's all great stuff. But only allowing those considered worthy enough to take part in such a great organization? That's wrong.

So, getting back to the point. Gays in the BSA was settled back in 2000. Why am I getting this in the mail now, in 2007?

The answer would be in part two of the poll: donations to the cause.

The current political climate and increasing hatred and intolerance towards the gay community makes it great timing for getting some cash. Remember not too long ago when gay was still kind of cool? Will and Grace, Queer Eye, the Metrosexual movement? That passed. It's over. Now the cool thing is hating gays, and this "poll" is taking advantage of the fact. Most people will have completely forgotten the Supreme Court Decision by now, and assume this is new news. It's not.

It's propaganda. It wants to get you fearful, angry, and fired up. And it's full of complete and utter bullshit.