Sunday Morning: Music and Falsehoods

Chilly out today, but it's not too bad, it's sunny and there's no wind. I walked the dog and he was glad of it -- everybody slept in and there was nobody to pay attention to him. Last night we went out to a place in Silver Spring called the Quarry House and heard a couple of bands. Nice place, in a local-bar sort of way, in fact I really like it there. The place has been there seventy years, since right after Prohibition was repealed. It's in a basement under an Indian food restaurant right on Georgia Avenue, and they have live bands at the end of this long skinny room back around the corner from the door. Place was jam-packed with the most interesting crowd. I can't think of a way to describe the crowd there, they're all ages, all walks of life. To describe them, maybe the word "friendly" works, it's like a place full of friends, and they talk to you the first time like they've always known you.

I mentioned to my wife that it seemed impossible that there would be a place like that in Rockville, where we live. The bars up here are either functional and self-conscious, or they are neighborhood bars where the customers eyeball you suspiciously if you come in for a drink and to listen to the jukebox for a while, there's never been a friendly happy place like this where everybody treats you like a friend. What do you think is the difference? I asked her. Her answer surprised me: "These are Democrats," she said. She's about as political as I am, but she's got a point. Our county stretches from the edge of the city out to farmlands. The parts closer to DC, like where this bar is, we call "downcounty," and it does turn out to be more liberal. Upcounty, like in Germantown and Damascus, it's more country, more like a Red State. I think I prefer to drink downcounty.

Like this bar, I love this. It's called the Quarry House, but on Sunday they change the name to "The Queery House," with the motto, "Out of the closet, into the basement." There were a few gay people there last night, obviously comfortable in a mostly-straight crowd; I guess tonight the proportions will change. As far as I'm concerned, this is how it should be.

If you go, you have to have the tater-tots.

We missed the first band, but the second band, 7-Door Sedan, was really good. It was a nice kind of distorted-guitar, big-fat-backbeat, three-and-a-half-chord rock and roll that you can't help liking. It sounded like all original material, songs with good and ambiguous hooks. You can sing along after the first verse but you have no idea in the world what it means. I think it would be fun to be at a party with that band playing in one room. The last band was probably good, too, but they were too loud, this room is not a place for Marshalls. The lead guitar was too loud so everybody turned up to accommodate, and then the PA kept feeding back because the vocals were too loud and they were echoing off the walls. It's too bad, too, because at one point the guy was playing some really interesting-sounding stuff, some licks that sounded modal or outside the key in a surprising and interesting way, and I wanted to hear what else he was going to do. I've been told to turn down my share of times, I've got nothing against loud music, but in this case the amplifier simply overpowered the room -- this has always been my concern with Fender Twins, they tend to have too much presence at a distance and it's hard to play onstage at the right volume, and this was a Marshall I think (lots of people standing in front of the bandstand, but I thought I saw the logo), which has the same potential problem. We finished our drinks in the other room of the bar and went to go to the pirate bar across the street but they seemed to be closed. Too bad, we'd seen a pirate walking around in the parking garage and that sounded reasonably fun. Especially if they served a pasta appetizer, if you know what I mean.

I am still decompressing from something I read on the Internet yesterday. When I first came across this web site I got angry and banged out a bunch of stuff which I decided later to un-write. Luckily I hadn't posted it yet, so I could do that. I'm usually pretty laid back, but this is infuriating.

A lawyer from the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, did all the talking for the anti-gay groups in the hearing about the MCPS sex-ed curriculum a couple of weeks ago in Rockville. Now they have a web page telling their side of the story. It starts like this:

ANN ARBOR, MI – In oral arguments last week, the Thomas More Law Center asked Maryland state circuit court judge William Rowan III to overturn a Maryland Board of Education ruling that approves of public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, teaching 8th and 10th graders that homosexuality is innate—meaning they are born that way. The schools also show how to use condoms in anal and oral sex.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represents Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, the Family Leader Network, and the Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays. John Garza, of Garza, Regan & Associates of Rockville, Maryland, is acting as local counsel.

Montgomery educators were forced to defend their new sex curriculum that promotes anal sex, homosexuality, bisexuality and transvestitism despite strong opposition from several pro-family groups. The controversial new curriculum was adopted as a result of pressure by homosexual advocacy groups. Homosexuals 'Born That Way' and Erotic Sex Taught to 8th and 10th Graders Challenged by TMLC

Does anybody really think "The schools also show how to use condoms in anal and oral sex?" Does anybody who has seen the curriculum believe it "promotes anal sex" or any of these other things? Transvestitism? Are you kidding me?

You see why I got mad?

For more than three years we have been fighting against our local anti-gay nuts who will repeat any statement that supports their point of view, whether it has an element of truth to it or not. The new MoCo sex-ed classes do not show how to do anything having to do with anal or oral sex. The condom-use video does say to use a condom when you do that, but you have to figure out how to do it on your own. It's good medical advice, for instance, that's why the CDC says:

Use a new condom with each sex act (e.g., oral, vaginal, and anal).

The CDC also doesn't say how to use it for anal and oral sex. The medical consensus is that anal sex is riskier than vaginal sex when it comes to transmitting diseases; since about 40 percent of adult Americans have anal sex, this is appropriate advice for a sex-ed class: protect yourself. Only a nut or a liar describes that advice as showing someone how to have anal and oral sex.

You have to wonder about TMLC's insistence that "homosexual advocacy groups" have pressured the school district into changing their classes. There never is a name of a group, they just hint at this vague conspiracy theory. Can anybody think of one "homosexual advocacy group" that did anything like pressuring the school district? One?

The gay-advocacy groups have wisely watched this one from the sidelines. They didn't have to pressure the Montgomery County school district, because the people who live here -- straight as well as gay -- want to have an objective, fair, and kind curriculum. You don't have to be a "homosexual advocate" to think that the schools should teach facts and that it's good to show respect to people.

Later these guys hit that note again:

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “This is another example of our public school system being used as an indoctrination arm of homosexual advocacy groups..."

I can't imagine feeling so helpless in my life that I have to blame everything on shadowy groups that are secretly controlling the world. It would be different if the More Law guys could show us an example, but no, they just blame "homosexual advocacy groups" in general. Thomas More Law Center readers are told that these groups are using the public schools to indoctrinate people. Please -- think that through. How would they do that? Why would they do that? Why are these paranoids talking about "homosexual advocacy groups" instead of something real, like the Bavarian Illumati, or the CIA/alien plan to put microchips in all our brains? There's really a serious question in there -- why "homosexual advocates," of all things?

Sadly, we know there are people who read this junk and believe it.

Unbelievable -- no regard for the truth. Look at this:

...Initially, a Federal District Court enjoined the county schools from implementing the curriculum in 2005 because the lesson plan criticized religious “fundamentalism.”

However, following the federal court ruling and injunction, the county board merely omitted the anti-religious references, and began teaching the controversial health curriculum to all 8th and 10th grade classes...

Even the CRW didn't think to come up with a lie as bold as this one.

Anybody can look at the news stories, the documentation, and see that every word of the new sex-ed classes was re-written. The entire earlier curriculum was thrown out and replaced. Yet these guys tell their readers the school board "merely omitted the anti-religious references, and began teaching" the same stuff. I don't know how to compute this kind of dishonesty. It's not a mistake, it's a lie. These people will say anything.

Here's another one:

That sexual orientation is innate—homosexuals are born that way—is a theory that has been rejected by courts in several states including Maryland. Maryland’s highest appellate court issued an opinion in a 2007 civil union case, holding the proposition that homosexuality is innate is not supported by credible evidence.

In court they said they were referring to the case of Conaway v. Deane. You can read the ruling HERE. Search the PDF for the word "innate." You won't find it. Nothing was said about innateness in that case. The courts do not rule on matters of scientific theory, you don't ask them to decide between the wave theory and the particle theory of light, for instance, when experiments support both. And they don't tell us how gay people got that way.

Here's their summary of the case:

Thus, the six year battle boils down to two questions posed by Bolling in this latest court skirmish: Can the school board legally teach students that homosexuality is innate despite rulings to the contrary by the state’s highest court? And, can the health lessons discuss sex acts other than copulation?

There is no court ruling about whether homosexuality is innate, in Maryland or any other place. And the health lessons under consideration don't discuss any sex acts, including copulation. It would be weird to teach students how to put on a condom without telling them when you'd wear one. You wear it when you're having oral, anal, or vaginal sex. They want to say that this violates a law against teaching "erotic techniques." The judge will decide what he thinks, but I think common sense takes a pretty clear position here.

I was really pretty mad when I first saw this. I hate it when people lie; I can't even stand to watch some I Love Lucy episodes where she's trying to cover up something so Ricky doesn't catch her, it makes me nervous. A lot of people have put a lot of work into developing this curriculum, and you hate to see idiots like this spreading falsehoods to run it down. You should've seen what I wrote the first time! I wasn't very articulate, you might say, I was just banging on the keys. Well, I've settled down a little bit now.