Daddy, Papa and Me

This is an act of terror and murder against an already beleaguered minority, and Warren is an accessory to it. As a powerful figure in distributing AIDS funding in Uganda, he cannot bring himself to oppose a law that would condemn someone in a gay relationship to death, and imprison him or her for touching another human being, and inciting a wave of informing on family members and friends and acquaintances in order to terrify a sexual minority. This alleged man of God cannot speak out on this – except to protect his own p.r. His schtick of actually being the nice evangelical – a schtick that got him to Obama’s inauguration – is a lie. If he cannot condemn this fascist act of violence against a tiny minority of vulnerable human beings, then his position in this struggle is clear enough.

via Rick Warren, Silent Enabler Of Hatred – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

When one has enabled evil and then is silent in the face of evil, and the Ugandan law is evil, then one is a party to it. Rick Warren is a party to evil.

Cool interactive site on the 150th anniversary of the publishing of “On the Origin of Species: Evolution of Evolution – 150 Years of Darwins “On the Origin of Species”.

So, you’ve got a genetic test from 23andMe or deCODEme and want to see what your ancestry is. Well, of course you could rely on their inferences and explanations, but really, what fun would there be in THAT?!

Instead, to the analysis yourself. Go here and read the tutorial, and then use the software “Structure” and determine your own ancestry from your raw data .

Via: DIY ancestry inference from personal genomic data : Genetic Future.

Weekends are nice. We had a great one.

That’s a Bad Cough, Let’s Examine Your Genome – Knome – Gizmodo.

Seriously, genomics is about to invade your life . I’ve been warning you. 23andMe, Navigenics, Knome (cute name, I’d bet on them on the name alone ).. they are the beginnings.

I clearly remember the arguments for and against the Human Genome Project 20+ years ago, I was finishing up my undergraduate degree: too expensive, would never be done in 15 years (projected completion), would crowd out basic science. Well, it came in under projected budget, 2 years early. The technological advances have been amazing (cost and speed of sequencing, etc), a few dozen other genomes have been completed, basic understanding of biology is jumping leaps and bounds, and now the medical and personal effects are about to be experienced (including, as I’ve argued, a huge breaking strain on our current health insurance system).

Currently there are over  Eurkaryote (non-bacteria, which means everything from plants to humans) genomes completed and over a 1,000 ongoing sequencing projects.

But that’s even minor. Companies like those above are poised to start sequencing thousands, perhaps soon millions, of personal human genomes. There is the 1,000 genomes project to deeply research the genetic variation in 1,000 human genomes with an eye to disease characterization, and now the 10,000 genome project to sequence 10,000 vertebrate species genomes to increase our understanding of basic genetic, evolutionary and medical biology.

It still boggles my mind that 20 years ago we were debating the feasibility of sequence 1 genome. Now we are blithely going about sequencing tens of thousands.

If you thought the internet changed your life, you have something new coming. I think Emma is going to enter her adulthood with a whole new world.

 Dustin Lance Black is interviewed by Joy Behar about the recent LDS support of a gay rights ordinance in Salt Lake City.

I have to say, I agree with him in substance. Hopeful, think the reasons are twofold (goodness and political), but somewhat tentative. Though, I would have pushed back on the ‘magic underwear’ ignorance Joy was making fun of.

Wherein Andrew Sullivan is less tentative than I: The Mormon Move – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan .

This is the title of a handout we were handed walking into the GLBT Center for an adoption panel. Act Up started in the 80’s as a more ‘active’ approach to protesting the anti-gay AIDS policies in the 80’s. Apparently it’s morphed into a leftist anti-science hooey group. So, here is my first Hooey Award. I’m giving this a 10 on the Hooey scale, absolute bullsh#$. I believe this is a good place to start because I’m well versed in retroviral biology and evolution. It was my Ph.D. dissertation.

So, let me take this handout on point by point.

Salt Lake City adopts pro-gay statutes — with LDS Church support – Salt Lake Tribune.

Given the recent firesides that Guy and I attended our own area and I wrote about here (understanding my own anger) and here (Sitting by the fire with Mormons), this would seem to be a part of a larger move and  a positive step. Though I can understand those that feel it is a PR step including the makers of 8: a Mormon Proposition who think its to blunt the negative impact they have been and will be getting. Andrew Sullivan is more hopeful than I: The Mormon Move – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan . He makes a point, but still, I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I’m somewhere in between. Why?

The LDS Church has done huge damage spiritually and emotionally to gays and lesbians through it’s rhetoric, support of aversion therapy, public pronouncements and teachings about the evils of homosexuality, and so much more.

The LDS Church did huge legal damage to our families with it’s support of Prop 8 and that campaign.

The LDS Church had a chance to support state legislation to help gay and lesbian citizens, legislation crafted specifically to address the things the church _said_ it would support, and then passed on that chance.

So, that the LDS Church helped and supported this Salt Lake City ordinance aimed at protecting gay and transgender residents from discrimination in housing and employment, is surprising and welcome.

But, compared to where they are, it’s a very minor baby step  (though I’d think the analogy of a baby lifting it’s head for the first time would be more fitting).

I applaud the Church, tentatively.

I am not quite nearly as effusive as some. Jim Dabakis, who helped found Equality Utah (great organization btw) and the Pride Center (and who we know tangentially) said:

“They are really trying to put some of the Prop 8 stuff behind them,” Dabakis said. “The discussions we have had over the last several months have shown what a caring, loving, concerned institution [the LDS Church] is.”

I hope he was misquoted, because though I have seen the caring, loving and concerned part at times, I wouldn’t use those words when it comes to the institution’s treatment of it’s gay brothers and sisters. After all the damage, this doesn’t turn it into a ‘caring, loving, concerned institution’. And saying so is a bit premature.

So, I am hopeful that the Church has lifted it’s baby head here and recently in our own area. But it has a long way to go till it can even just pull itself up.