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...that reading this made me tear up a little. I find it hard to believe, or understand why, the county could simply take everything those two had and sell it. It's inhuman, and it's practically stealing.
I'm tempted to exploit Godwin's Law at this point. Out of respect, I will not. But in all seriousness, as an American, I find myself completely ashamed. Heck, last Friday, my high school held a Day of Silence in protest to the way homosexuals are being treated. I didn't think much of it at the time, and I didn't participate, but reading this made me realize how poignant their message was. On a day-to-day basis, I don't really think about these kinds of issues, because my school is extremely diverse, and with that diversity comes a certain level of liberalness. One of my best friends is openly, and unapologetically homosexual. I literally can't imagine anyone looking down on him for it, because everyone finds it pretty much impossible to dislike him.

*takes off glasses, wipes eyes, and steps down from her soap box*

Anyway... now I'm all depressed again.

I am mostly reading at the pit, and the warnings help me avoid these types of stories: "Characters A and B had been dating and making public displays of affection toward one another while at work in their jobs as officers in the US military.(even though, Character B doesn't even make public displays of affection in his het canonical relationships) And now our story begins." Or this type of story: "Yes we are 15,000 words into this story, and no, I haven't so much as mentioned that Characters A and B are in a relationship, but this entire chapter is a lemon that has nothing to do with, and was not foreshadowed by, the plot." (Actually, I would expect a warning for either slash or het in that case.) Or this one, and the one that I really like the warnings to be there to help me avoid, "Character A is a strong, mature, masculine guy. Because Characters A and B are dating, I am going to completely emasculate him and turn him into a simpering, needy shell of himself."

Really, now that I think about it more, I use the SLASH. DON'T LIKE--DON'T READ type warnings as part of the code that tells me this is most likely going to fall into one of those story types above that I want to avoid, and not some well thought out, well written, treatise on what canon failed to show us. I take them as a convenient Pit shorthand that indicates that the likelihood of this story being badly written is even higher than normal for the pit. Stories that are well written tend to have a summary that is well written and makes their relationship choices obvious, so they don't require a SLASH warning for people who don't want to read slash to be able to avoid the story.

As long as it continues to serve that function as pit shorthand for me, I am going to continue to appreciate its presence.

A link to the original fic. Wish I could edit.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2595136/1/DoYouBelieve

So, I've been doing MSTs and decided to go for Permission.

These are my agents:

Caroline Asleif: http://terrofen.livejournal.com/3221.html

LJ Silverblade: http://terrofen.livejournal.com/3412.html

Here's a sample mission, so you guys can get my writing style:

http://terrofen.livejournal.com/2916.html

So, fingers crossed!

I can't believe people would do something like this. They did everything they could, and still this happened. This is just... I don't even have the words.

As flattered as some people might be at a paean to the Good and Mighty PPC, I for one feel uncomfortable with it. It's one thing to correct someone's ideas about us when you perceive that they're wrong; it's quite another to paint the PPC as some great and noble calling and attempt to...well...defend our honor. Although I see some glimpses of the former, your essay does the latter in abundance. Only someone taking the PPC far too seriously would do that.

We make fun of bad fanfiction with an organization headed by sentient flowers and punctuation. Let's move back toward silliness, shall we?

Must get you a comfier soapbox if you're going to use it this well. I applaud you.

That's a point, but the thing is, how many characters are actually, specifically stated to be exclusively straight? (Putting them in a heterosexual romantic relationship does not count, and if you say it does the bisexuals of the world would like a word with you. Obviously there needs to be a plausible explanation of why the love interest isn't present, though.) Also, it's not really "very differently" to portray them as gay (unless the author is adding in gay stereotypes, mannerisms, etc, in which case they are doing it wrong). It's just an extension to who they're attracted to.

Also, on some sections of the Pit, slash warnings can be pretty redundant anyway. "Character A: Johny McMasculine. Character B: Harry von AlsoMale. Genre tag: Romance. Hmm, I think it's totally het." On LJ or something (I think, I'm less familiar with it), it's of course a different story.

Welcome! Very glad the recent chaos hasn't scared everyone away. Have a very big chocolate cake (absent of Agent Lux) and an infinite-capacity purse.

We as a community need to give the elderly more respect. Generalising again, but a lot of older people have given a lot to the world and yet we do not acknowledge this.

It is horrible, forcing these men who clearly care a lot for each other to live apart against their will. I feel so sorry for the pair of them and I hope Clay wins his lawsuit. He deserves that much, at least.

Whatever your moral stance on their lifestyle, no one should be treated like they were. Maybe the story left parts out, stories usually do, but really, I see this incident as a commentary on the legal situation of most elderly people, regardless of their lifestyle.

It isn't only homosexual couples who are living together unmarried either. There are heterosexual couples who did not want to re-marry due to loss of income, or attachment to a deceased spouse. There are even instances of couples forced to have their marriages legally dissolved to be able to qualify for needed government assistance. Then there are sibling groups who have lived together for many years, because their spouses are gone. I knew a set of twin sisters who lived together for 30 years after their spouses died. They were the only person the other one had due to the early deaths of their children.

Maybe if these men had been a het married couple, the county would have allowed them into the same nursing home, but I have even seen elderly married couples split up due to differing levels of care needed. And even a married couple would have most likely faced the same forced entry into the nursing home and the loss of possessions.

I'm sure there is an exception to this that someone can point out. I am generalizing--Nursing homes in general are truly appalling places for the residents and the caregivers. Unless there is outside family actively involved-as in random near daily visits-the elderly patient is very unlikely to receive good care. As far as the caregivers go, those in the lowest rungs who are actually giving the full body care that the neediest patients require, are paid minimum wage and assigned so may tasks that it is impossible to do more than just basic assembly line personal care. Until there are rules set up to require that adequate staffing be maintained (and turnover will always be high at minimum wage, think of the work actually being done by these people), the owners will continue to exploit both ends-the patients by taking everything they ever owned and the lowest level workers by under-staffing and under-paying.

This is an awful situation, made worse by the lack of humanity shown to these men, but it should bring the focus not just to elderly gay couples, but to all the elderly who are just a fall away from loss of all their legal rights. It is a situation that defies all ethical bounds, as far as I am concerned, and I'm glad Bronwyn pointed it out. Awareness of a problem is the first step to solving a problem.

I feel so sorry for those poor people. From how that sounds, they have been treated very unfairly and unjustly.

One moral stance is that it is wrong for homosexual people to marry or even be homosexual.

Another moral stance is that it is good for them to marry and even be as they are.

Etc.

Ethics is somewhat different. Something can be right ethically but wrong morally, and the other way around.

Whatever way you spin it, this isn't about political statements and what the county did was definitely unethical.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

For sure, things were done and handled wrong by that county. But at the same time, I'm wondering what the article left out because it feels like there are important details missing.

On all counts. What happened there is completely outrageous. I can't put it any better than that.

And yes, it is okay to post about this sort of thing on the Board. I refer you to rule seven in the Constitution:

7. Serious discussion is ALSO welcome here. Odd, ne?

~Neshomeh

So you know, thinly veiled insults and extra helpings of cliche don't help make an impressive response.

...but I don't see this as political, but more legal. Legally, the two gentlemen had gone through all the necessary channels to ensure that this sort of thing didn't happen. The county trampled their rights and ignored their legal authority. I would hate to think that a county government can just stick me in a nursing home and confiscate all of my worldly possessions without even considering the law.

No one should ever be treated like this. I don't care who they are.

I know, but it's not a political statement (or, at least I'm not trying to make it one) but more of a 'how can this have happened?' one.

I'm sorry if it came across as a politics.

...is this board really the right place for political statements? Not trying to offend, just asking.

http://www.bilerico.com/2010/04/sonomacountycaseparateselderlygaycouple_and.php

Words cannot describe how I feel at this moment. Perhaps you guys can better word it out. I, on the other hand, will go sit over here *points her Comfort Corner* and wonder how much 'humanity' our species actually has.

If I were there to read about characters in a canonical homosexual relationship, I would not expect a warning. Since I am there to read about characters who are canonically very heterosexual, I expect a warning that they will be portrayed very differently than they are in canon.

I did not include slash under my examples for squick. There are times when I enjoy reading slash, even about the characters I was talking about earlier. Some of the stories that are on my favorites list are slash of those characters. However, in canon, they are portrayed pretty strongly as het. I expect the slash warning to let me know that this story is going to be trying to do a good job of convincing me that canon was missing something. If the characters were in a homosexual relationship in canon, I would expect warnings if the author put them in het relationships.

I didn't mean to imply that I think we must always give concrit, or that any time we do it should become a project; just that we shouldn't be afraid of it in situations where we might otherwise want to--and that includes here on the Board. If you don't want to because you don't want to, that's fine.

~Neshomeh

I actually hate slash warnings. I find them to be inherently homophobic, or at least support homophobia, because of the implication that homosexuality is something that needs to be warned about. It shouldn't be. A romance story is a romance story whatever the genders of the characters involved, and I hate that people treat slash as different from het in any way.

I, also, am new. (Well, ish.) Here, have a piece of cheese and a yellow kite.

'cause there's no tellin' whether that's actually WATER in my balloons.

Eh heh heh heh heh...