A major reason for the push forward in recent months has been the support from powerful conservatives like David Cameron and Meg Whitman. Out of all this emerges an implicit statement, that even conservatives support gay marriage, that even conservatives admit that gay marriage is a good thing. It means that there is somehow a separate left argument to be made for gay marriage.

But there has never been a left case for gay marriage. Gay marriage is a conservative cause.

My shock at what had happened was sadly tempered by my knowledge that this was only one such instance amongst many. Things may not always take such a deadly turn, but the violence of suspicion and outright exclusion is felt by many, especially people of color.

All of which is to state that what happened to Trayvon Martin was horrific, and that we need to work on creating a world where such moments are truly unfathomable. But even as I felt the heaviness of what had happened, I found myself disturbed by the first and enduring inclinations of many of my left/progressive friends and colleagues as they gathered their wits, their pens, and their activism to launch campaigns against the truly problematic ways in which so many blamed the victim.

I gave Victor the Robin doll, and invented a game which involved Batman and Robin fighting to the death. Yelling, "Die, die," "Boom, boom," and "KAPOW!", the vocabulary of warfare I had picked up from the comics, I made them enemies and I made Batman win. Victor, the sweetest playmate I have ever had, took it all in good humour even though he did ask, "Are they really supposed to fight?" At the end of the day, he went home happily with his only slightly battered doll.

This was Kathmandu in the early 1970s, when I was very, very young and lived in a time and place that I have since tended to colour with a tinge of nostalgia. Cat Stevens, who was not yet Yusuf Islam, had popularised the idea of the place with a song that both misspelt and mispronounced its name: it's spelt "Kathmandu," not "Katmandu," and is pronounced "Kahthmandu," not "Catmandu." I was, even as a child, strongly aware of the mystique of the city - how could you miss it, in the eyes of the enraptured and immensely stoned hippies who wandered around like grungy flies floating around the temples and stupas that dotted the landscape?

There have been some concerns and disagreements amongst my friends and I. Many of them feel the same way as I do about Obama, that he is hardly very different from Romney and that an Obama administration has been, in several areas - foreign policy, immigration, women's rights, and education among them - the same as the President that Romney insists he will be.

As I've pointed out in my piece on Obama's shell game and on the Mourdock abortion controversy, there is, in fact, little to distinguish Obama from Romney (remember their jousting over who could say "crippling sanctions" often enough?) and not much to distinguish Republicans from Democrats.

A lot of what I've written or said has resulted in some anger and demands to know why I can't see that the end of the world is nigh with a Romney election. Let me clarify:

I'm less concerned about whom you vote for than that you vote with your eyes open.

This anthology, edited by AE's co-founder and Bilerico contributor Ryan Conrad, takes a critical look at the celebrated passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 in the United States. It includes work by writers and collectives like James D'Entremont, Imani Henry, Liliana Segura, Jason Lydon for Pink and Black, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and me.

LGBT organizations have rallied around hate crime legislation (HCL) in an effort to address the violence faced by queers and trans people. Hate crime legislation ostensibly provides added protections to minority groups and serves as a deterrent against future crimes by extending and enhancing penalties. But, as the writers in Prisons Will Not Protect You point out, HCL only extends the reach of the prison industrial complex.

Hate crime penalty enhancement has no proven record of preventing anti-queer and trans violence. Furthermore, HCL disproportionately targets the poorest populations, particularly people of color, who cannot afford the legal resources necessary to fight back against charges of having committed "hate crimes." Ironically, they are from the very same marginalized communities that HCL is supposed to protect.

Whenever I raise such points with Liberal/Democrat/Progressive/Left supporters of Obama, I am sharply rebuked. In both off and online conversations with them, they raise the kind of hysterical scenarios normally associated with rightwingers, but with a liberal twist. And, inevitably, as soon as I am identified as a woman, they raise the Roe v. Wade bogeyman: Under Romney, Roe v. Wade would be overturned! You will lose all your rights to abortion!

This is, of course, meant to strike fear in my heart. Matters are complicated by recent comments by Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock who, when asked about exceptions to abortion in cases of rape and incest, said, "I believe that life begins at conception and the only exception I have ... in that case of the life of the mother [sic] I struggled with it myself for a long time but I just came to realise life is a gift from God. I think ... that life begins in that horrible situation of rape. And it is something that God intended to happen."

The similarities between Romney and Obama became even more obvious in the third and final October 22 debate between the two men, with Romney merely echoing what Obama had to say. At one point, Obama succinctly expressed the state of affairs while discussing the "crippling sanctions" both men would impose on Iran:

You know, there have been times, Governor, frankly, during the course of this campaign, where it sounded like you thought that you'd do the same things we did, but you'd say them louder and somehow that -- that would make a difference.

And it turns out that the work involved in setting up these crippling sanctions is painstaking. ...It's because we got everybody to agree that Iran is seeing so much pressure. And we've got to maintain that pressure.

Glen Greenwald writes that, "the extreme human suffering caused by US-led sanctions is barely acknowledged in mainstream American political discourse." This explains, in part, why so many Americans are constantly baffled by the anger felt by so many against this country: the inability to understand that seeming abstractions like "crippling sanctions" have real effects upon the bodies of the most vulnerable abroad.

Video of Mourdock's statement has since gone viral, and his comment has caused anger among Democrats and deep embarrassment among Republicans. Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul promptly issued a statement that, "Governor Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views."

In all this, there is a presumption of a deep divide between Democrats and Republicans: the former are seen as supporters of abortion rights while the latter supposedly oppose them. The crux of the coverage of Mourdock's comments relies upon the idea that his words are too much - even for Republicans. This controversy echos the furor over Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, who infamously declared that women's bodies can prevent pregnancy in what he called "legitimate rape."

There remains, however one aspect of this controversy that no one has paid attention to: the views on abortion held by Mourdock's Democratic opponent, Joe Donnelly. When asked for his opinion on the matter, Donnelly, who is Catholic, responded that he was shocked and that "[his] God would never do that."

As it turns out, Donnelly's position on abortion is in fact equally draconian: abortion only in the case of rape and incest. "I'm shocked that he would be so disrespectful to women, to rape victims and to their families," Donnelly continued.

No one seems to question the very fallacy of "only in the case of rape and incest," an intensely anti-abortion and anti-woman rule. And no one seems interested in the fact that both men's views on abortion are nearly identical. The only difference appears to be in the relative benevolence of their gods.

It goes something like this:

A man shows shows you three empty cups on a table, and places a pea under one of them. The objective is to guess which one of the cups is hiding the pea; a correct guess means you win some amount of money. Of course, because this is a scam, the man behind the table also happens to be an expert at sleight of hand and constantly moves the pea around without you knowing it. At first, you win a few dollars, which only persuades you that you've figured out the game or that luck is on your side: such is the eternal spring of hope in the heart of every gambler.

By the end of a few minutes, and with the egging on of several enthusiastic passers-by who are in on the scam, you've lost considerably more than a little.

I was reminded of the shell game as I watched Barack Obama during the October 16 town hall debate.

I hold my breath, waiting. I quietly exhale with relief when she looks back up at me, ticks something off on the sheet in front of her, smiles and tells me to go through the door on my right.

Now, the second checkpoint. This is much more exposed. I am now in front of everyone else, everyone else who looks like they actually belong. We are all waiting for stage two, as personnel step up and call out our names one by one, directing us each to any one of the kiosks staffed by people in blue uniforms. I scan their faces, wondering which ones seem more or less sympathetic to me, which one is more likely to scrutinize my credentials with more or less care. I keep waiting for the ball to drop: "Ah, yes, I see, yes, well, I'm afraid you really shouldn't be here after all."

But it all goes well. I'm home free, and I can have my breasts examined.

On March 1, perhaps filled with rage at the advent of Women's History Month, the popular talk-show host ripped into Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student who had testified before Congress about the need for birth control coverage. Limbaugh berated Fluke, calling her a "slut" who wanted the government to pay for her promiscuous lifestyle, making the inference that her need for birth control signaled an active sex life, presumably with many people.

This is vintage Limbaugh, and it's fairly typical of a man who has made derogatory comments about nearly all groups, including undocumented immigrants, African-Americans, and women.

The recent incident has prompted a cultural backlash on both sides, with liberals decrying his words and conservatives rushing to his defense. To those who declare that Limbaugh has put his foot in his mouth, I would caution that he is one of the most dexterous in manipulating media attention. I would also caution that such manipulation does not imply a lack of belief in the ideology he professes or that, somehow, that belief could be changed - progressives, liberals and lefties love to imagine that arch-conservatives are people like them who've just lost their way.

In the wake of Tyler Clementi's September 2010 suicide, the gay community set about demonizing Dharun Ravi as a cold-blooded killer who committed a "hate crime" against a gay student. Clementi's death spurred a series of public statements about suicides amongst LGBTQ youth.

Regrettably, it also became the occasion for the gay community to show its typical bloodthirsty quest for vengeance. To compound matters, Clementi's death became the excuse for a great deal of racist bile, with various demands that Ravi and Molly Wie, the woman considered his co-conspirator, both with recognizably Asian names, be "sent back to their countries."

Lost in the quest to declare this a classic case of "bullying" was a more complex and nuanced understanding of how such a thing had come to be, and lost also were the complicated intersections of class and ethnicity that surrounded the case. But, finally, Ian Parker, writing for The New Yorker has produced one of the most intelligent and incisive pieces on the case.

The gay marriage (GM) debate is heating up in Australia, and a great deal of it reflects the kind of mainstream politics you might see in the US, as evidenced in that gag-inducing video which went viral a few months ago. If you ever needed proof that GM was a vast right-wing conspiracy, set in place by an international cabal of "messaging" experts who got all their training at Human Rights Campaign, this is it.

But there is dissent.

The Sex and the City star is in trouble for comments to the New York Times, in which she dared to assert that sexuality was, for her, a choice. She used the "C-word" over and over: "And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it's a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn't matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not."

Now, if you know anything about Teh Gayz, it is that they hate, loathe, and despise the "C-word." Suggest to them, however gently and patiently, that perhaps sexuality is not immutable or that, horrors, people might actually choose to be straight or gay or even - deep breath - that it simply doesn't matter either way, and you will be responsible for many hissy-fits along the lines of, "Now look what you've done! All those crazy right-wingers are going to use this against us! If we're not sad, pathetic creatures who just can't help being the way we are, we will have no rights!"

I can't even be sarcastic about this guy. Surely, by now, even his most ardent fans, including the Nevada billioniare Sheldon Anderson, who pumped five million into the Gingrich campaign, recognize that he is, shall we say, conflicted about the morals he espouses.

We already knew that Gingrich, who once berated Bill Clinton's morals, apparently left his first wife just months after she was diagnosed with cancer, and supposedly left his second wife months after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Now, Marianne Gingrich is revealing that Gingrich wanted an "open marriage" where he could remain married to her while continuing his affair with Callista, his current and third wife.

There's a real danger for anyone on the left in discussing Gingrich's marital issues, and that's the easy rush to make exactly the kind of moral judgements about marital fidelity made by the Right. Even if we ignore the infidelity, it's tempting to throw moral scorn at Gingrich for, allegedly, leaving his spouses when they were very ill. But, please, let's just admit that life is not a romance novel, and that not everyone who finds themself tied to a very ill person--let us not forget that disease can be crippling, body-and-life transforming, and just plain ugly and smelly--really wants to or should have to stick around.

Yes, that's a brutal way to put it, but perhaps we might be better off acknowledging the truth: that not everyone is made to be a caretaker. Or that marriage does not have some magical ability to automatically bind people together through sickness, health, and all the rest. Or that perhaps illness serves to highlight the already prevailing discordance between two people. Perhaps, more importantly, instead of rushing to criticize Gingrich for his hypocrisy, we might even reconsider our fetishization of the marital state.

A recent NPR report by Ari Daniel Shapiro was about the confluence of Art and Math at the Joint Mathematics Meeting, recently held in Boston.

Shapiro's piece highlighted the ways in which mathematical formulae are hidden or clearly visible in everyday life, particularly in what we might otherwise consider worlds completely untouched by both. Attendee Stephen Hull, described as New England math professor who "studies the math of origami and how to use origami to teach math" pulls out a piece of origami paper and discusses the use of 90 degree turns saying, "Math is hidden in origami. You just don't see it, but your hands are doing it."

Karl Schaffer, a mathematician at De Anza College co-directs a contemporary dance troupe in California: "I would like the participants to experience creating movement phrases and performing them for each other in ways that deal with mathematical concepts."

Moving through the assembled group of 6000 participants, Shapiro meets Sarah-Marie Belcastro, a mathematician based in western Massachusetts, who is also a knitter and crocheter and who shows him her project: a crocheted hyperbolic moebius band. This is in fact currently a really popular form being explored in the worlds of knitting and crochet, but I'm willing to excuse Shapiro, who may not be part of either, for acting like Belcastro's work is somehow unique and the only one of its kind.

The crocheted band reminds me of the recent craze for yarn-bombing, the act of covering everyday and usually public objects, like trees and statues, with yarn, by crocheting or knitting onto and around them. I'm a recent and even slightly obsessive knitter as well as an embroiderer, so anything that highlights the sheer fun and beauty of needlecrafts makes me happy because it helps keep my beloved yarn and craft stores in business.