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Jan. 25th, 2010
Okay, this is stupid too.
Jan. 25th, 2010 09:25 pm
Listen, D&D does not "promote gang activity". If you have gangs in your prison (or school!), taking away their games/hats/jewelry/whatever isn't going to stop the gangs, it's just going to make them find another way to organize themselves.
Duh.
Duh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/nyregion/25namechange.html
Quote 1:
In the other decision, a Westchester judge made an exception to a general requirement that name changes and home addresses be advertised in newspapers, saying the safety issues for people in gender transition were obvious in a world that can be hostile.
The publication requirement insisted upon by some of the Manhattan judges has fed an eerie subculture of readers, many of them prisoners, who follow the newspaper notices. One man forced to advertise that he was becoming a woman received several seductive letters with prison return addresses. “Hello Angel!” said one of the letters. “I am not afraid to take new roads,” said another.
What gets me about this quote (aside from the odd "help, we don't know whether to say man or woman!" issue) is that Angel is also a man's name. Admittedly, it's a man's name that's pretty much limited to Hispanics (and pronounced differently), but in any part of the country with any sort of Hispanic population it shouldn't be that marked, gender-wise.
Quote 2:
Still, routine changing of gender identification can be startling to some. The Rev. Jason J. McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which helped defeat the gay-marriage proposal in Albany, said the courts might be ahead of the public on gender issues.
“Oftentimes, the courts are used to advance an agenda,” he said, adding that the name changes created loopholes people could use to hide for any number of reasons.
A. Fuck you. You might technically have a constitutional right to be homophobic (in the broad sense of the word, let's not let the poor dear get bogged down in technicalities he's not likely to grasp) but the whole point of a separate judiciary and "balance of powers" is so that the majority (or a small, vocal, and relatively powerful minority of haters) can't keep civil rights from others.
B. Also, everybody is allowed to change their name for any reason unless it is an intent to defraud, and EVERYBODY is entitled to have their name change kept private if the judge rules it is a valid safety concern. So, again - fuck you and your "special" rights.
( Read more... )
Quote 1:
In the other decision, a Westchester judge made an exception to a general requirement that name changes and home addresses be advertised in newspapers, saying the safety issues for people in gender transition were obvious in a world that can be hostile.
The publication requirement insisted upon by some of the Manhattan judges has fed an eerie subculture of readers, many of them prisoners, who follow the newspaper notices. One man forced to advertise that he was becoming a woman received several seductive letters with prison return addresses. “Hello Angel!” said one of the letters. “I am not afraid to take new roads,” said another.
What gets me about this quote (aside from the odd "help, we don't know whether to say man or woman!" issue) is that Angel is also a man's name. Admittedly, it's a man's name that's pretty much limited to Hispanics (and pronounced differently), but in any part of the country with any sort of Hispanic population it shouldn't be that marked, gender-wise.
Quote 2:
Still, routine changing of gender identification can be startling to some. The Rev. Jason J. McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which helped defeat the gay-marriage proposal in Albany, said the courts might be ahead of the public on gender issues.
“Oftentimes, the courts are used to advance an agenda,” he said, adding that the name changes created loopholes people could use to hide for any number of reasons.
A. Fuck you. You might technically have a constitutional right to be homophobic (in the broad sense of the word, let's not let the poor dear get bogged down in technicalities he's not likely to grasp) but the whole point of a separate judiciary and "balance of powers" is so that the majority (or a small, vocal, and relatively powerful minority of haters) can't keep civil rights from others.
B. Also, everybody is allowed to change their name for any reason unless it is an intent to defraud, and EVERYBODY is entitled to have their name change kept private if the judge rules it is a valid safety concern. So, again - fuck you and your "special" rights.
( Read more... )