Peter's Place

Huffington Post's Healthy Living editor Lindsay Holmes recently published an article advocating unfriending seven types of people from one's social media circles. The premise of the article is that getting rid of the seven types of people she describes will create a healthier life. I disagree. First and foremost, unfriending someone is, in most cases a hostile act. Hostile acts such as unfriending someone require negative energy. This is the exact opposite effect Ms. Holmes purports to achieve in her suggestion of unfriending the types of people she suggests. There are less hostile and non-hostile ways of disengaging with individuals one may consider to be irritating. As I set forth below, I believe that the vast majority of "types of friends" Ms. Holmes suggests unfriending are those one may very well wish to keep in their circles, as such friendships -- whether "in real life" or "through social media" have real value in our lives. 1. T...

In the early 1990s, I advocated pursuing the fight for full marriage equality, in the Hawaii case. Most of the leadership in the LGBTQ community (with the notable exception of Evan Wolfson) nay-sayed the idea, saying that it was too much, too soon. Having studied the civil rights struggles of two notable minority groups in this nation (namely, women and Blacks), it's clear that the minority remained oppressed for centuries because they were appeased with the step-by-step breadcrumbs thrown at them by those in power, those who kept them in second-class citizenship status. I argued that, to break this cycle, we must not accept these small steps, these small breadcrumbs and scraps of rights thrown from the table. We must not have to fight 20 years just to achieve one equal right and another 30 years to achieve another. Instead, we must ask for it all, the whole kit and kaboodle, upfront. Only then will we be able to achieve the equality to which we are legally entitled. Twenty ...

I posted the following as a comment to Ms. Marcus's editorial that appeared in yesterday's Washington Post : Ms. Marcus, I feel your editorial to be misrepresentative of the facts at hand. There are two major issues the LGBT community had with King & Spalding's retention by House Speaker Boehner to defend DOMA: First, King & Spalding has, traditionally, been an ally of the LGBT community, and touted its diversity rating and support of LGBT-issues to prospective clients and law students seeking to work for the firm. Defending a law that denies LGBT people access to over 1,138 federal rights and benefits was an enormous slap in the face to the community and in direct contravention with King & Spalding's long-standing support of the community. Second, the contract into which Mr. Clement entered King & Spalding with the House of Representatives placed illegal (in at least two states) and unenforceable conditions on the workers of a firm the size King...