Blue Corner of Texas

The El Paso City Council voted 7-1 yesterday to allow unmarried couples the right to receive health benefits. That means the partners of gay city employees can now receive equivalent care to the partners of married heterosexuals. According to an El Paso Times article:

The decision means that live-in partners of unmarried municipal employees will

qualify for city medical coverage for the first time.

More than 40 people spoke

before council members voted 7-1 in favor of the benefit program. Northeast city Rep. Carl L. Robinson

dissented.

City Hall was tense as the crowd of speakers formed

to try to lobby the council one last time. Mayor John Cook warned visitors

against using hateful terms or inflammatory language.

Of course people are arguing that it's just a reaction to the recent bad publicity about an incident at Chico's Tacos. But who cares? If the "915" city council does the right thing, it doesn't really matter why.

Albania!

Via Big Gay News:

According to an Associated Press article yesterday, the Albanian government has proposed a law that would legalize same-sex marriages. From the AP:

Albania's governing Democrats have proposed a law allowing same-sex civil weddings in the small, predominantly Muslim country.

An announcement on the government Web site Thursday said the bill "may spark debate" but was needed to stop discrimination against gay couples. Current law only recognizes heterosexual marriages.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha said the move followed requests from rights groups. His Democrats, who control 74 of parliament's 140 seats, are expected to easily pass the law.

Sure, the move may have a great deal to do with Albania's desire to join the EU. Sure, the law may shock and appall the rather conservative and traditionally majority Muslim people of Albania. But when it comes to civil rights, doing the right thing shouldn't really be left to popular vote. (Civil rights legislation for African Americans would have never survived a popular vote in the U.S.) If Albania of all places can see the value of protecting the civil liberties of its people, you'd think the rest of the civilized world could follow suit.

Uh Americans, I think it might be your turn...

MOW

Via Joe. My. God.:

I unfortunately won't be in the country. But the March on Washington needed to happen:

Proposition Hate Upheald

Advocates of same-sex marriage in the United States suffered a blow today when the California Supreme Court ruled to uphold Proposition 8. According to a Los Angeles Times article:

The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists said they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.

At least they had the human decency to leave the 18,000 marriages between same-sex couples that had been performed between May and November of 2008. Those lucky people won't have been surreptitiously divorced by the tyranny of the majority. 

I know the there's not much point in me weighing in on the U.S. political stuff. You've either already read it somewhere else or you don't care. But this just pisses me off. You would think Californians would know better. You would think that with the tide moving toward civil rights for LGBT people in the U.S. a state as generally forward-thinking as California would be on the forefront of this issue. 

Don't Start Spreading the News Yet

Thought I might throw my two cents in on the whole gay-marriage in New York issue. 

The New York Times reported a couple days ago that Governor David Paterson planned to introduce legislation today that would make it legal for same-sex couples to marry in New York. It sounds like good news riding on the wave of Vermont and Iowa, of all places. 

But then LGBT groups started complaining about the timing. Apparently nobody was ready for this. It's beginning to look like there's no way the legislation could possibly get through the Senate. And some of the bill's supporters have indicated they might prevent it from getting to the Senate floor until it earns enough votes to pass. Others have decried Paterson's actions as just trying to garner votes for reelection. 

From the New York Times:

The fact that Mr. Paterson is introducing a bill does not, however, mean that action in the Legislature is imminent. It could take months — even longer — before the bill makes its way through the appropriate committees and onto the floor of the Senate and the Assembly.

“This is not a guarantee of anything,” said Assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner, a Democrat from the Upper East Side who noted that it took two months for legislation legalizing same-sex marriage to get through the Assembly in 2007 before it ultimately stalled. The Senate never acted on the bill.

The legislation is likely to have an especially bumpy ride in the Senate, where more lawmakers oppose same-sex marriage than support it. Gay rights advocates are now actively seeking more senators, both Democrats and Republicans, to vote for the bill.

The impression I get is that Paterson is trying to make a statement. He seems to be getting a message out there without really thinking through what his message would ultimately say. He probably shouldn't have moved without the support of some of the many LGBT organizations in New York. 

But Ultimately he may be right. With the right kind of motivation from the Governor, legislators and activists might get out there and make gay-marriage happen for New Yorkers. Who knows, backlash from the newly throned anti-gay Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan might even help the cause. Naysayers can moan about poor timing and questionable motivations all they want to. If the governor's move leads to more civil liberties for LGBT folks. Who cares?

Via Joe. My. God. another excellent video with the truth behind the whole marriage equality debate:

There's a Web site. It's worth checking out.

It's true I've heard the same examples he talks about in this video over and over. This robtish guy is another bright star in my personal heaven. He tackles the lies and bigotry with a calm and clarity that I'm lack. I get the impression he's not at all anti-christian. In fact he may have some affiliation with the Hollywood United Methodist Church as some of his activism has taken place there. 

It's a little difficult for me to imagine a church where all people are accepted and loved. I wish my experience with a certain United Methodist Church involved acceptance and love. Well, actually I felt a lot of love from people at the church in which I grew up. But I also saw a lot of hate. And I knew that if I had been out to those people, that love would have been withdrawn. 

It was the kind of place where African Americans we're encouraged to visit (in fact I can remember one example of a minister being fired in part for inviting Black people). Another minister was run out of town on a proverbial rail for being accused of seeking sex with another man. 

Yes, I knew to keep my mouth shut in that environment. And even that didn't stop all of the abuse. What can you do when suspicion equals sin? Is it any wonder that many gays reject religion?

Same-sex Kiss Day

Via Gossip Boy:

Same-sex kiss day is Wednesday. What is same-sex kiss day? you ask. Well it's an organized effort to get all up in the hetero's faces with your homosexual tendencies. It happens on April 15, tax day. The idea is to go to Starbucks (I'm not sure why Starbucks) at certain times of the day and kiss someone of your own gender in order to show everybody that lesbians and gays deserve the right to be taxed equally. From samesexkissday.org:

THE PLAN
Show up at a Starbucks on Tax Day at 7:15 AM, 12:15 PM, 5:15 PM, or 8:15 PM , buy a cuppa joe, then share a kiss with your sweetie, or a friend, or even a long-time crush! RAWR!

INFO
LGBT couples have yet to be granted the same rights to file our taxes jointly on a Federal level, and we can still be fired for being openly gay in the workplace. That's why you're encouraged to be seen onTax Day, April 15, 2009, spreading your love with a KISS!

Don't have someone to kiss? Go to our Facebook page, click on "Confirmed attendees" and find someone cute in your town.

Sounds like a good idea. I wonder if it'll take off. Oh by the way, the buttons as well as other stuff are available at Cafe press.

Monday's Minute of Hate

"...by force of law, now, every school child in every state school in Iowa by force of law will be forced to be taught that homosexual behavior is the equivalent of heterosexual behavior. Every school child will now be told that it's not a mother and a father. It's a significant other or a spouse."

The disdain in this guy's voice is pure sweetness. I know, I know. If you've been paying attention you've already seen this, but I think it's just lovely. Especially the guy with the mustache to the right who grunts sadly every few seconds. They seem to be having a very, very, very bad day. 

The fundamentalists are out there already crying unconstitutional. They're whining about protecting children. What are they protecting children from exactly? The terrible knowledge that a couple of fags can do just as good a job at raising kids as a man and a woman, if not better? The horrible possibility that two women might love and care for one another for the remainder of their lives? Sheesh people.

And to think this happened in Iowa of all places. Not in the fancy un-American Yankee wasteland of New England. Not in the tofu-eating toffee-nosed den of iniquity that is California. No. Civil rights have come to the homeland. Some conservative judges have looked at this issue and seen through popular opinion to what's right. 

Maybe this marks a shift. Maybe Americans will realize that if we relied on popular opinion to make the right decisions, we wouldn't have anything like civil rights for African Americans or votes for women. The simple truth is that Americans have tended to follow some pretty silly ideas in the past. And don't tell anybody, but they've used the Bible to justify their hateful ideas in those cases too. 

Hooray for Iowa! And thank goodness Iowa's legislative system is set up so it'll take two sessions to put a constitutional amendment to the people. That means a vote shouldn't be able to happen until they've had a while to recognize that squirrels aren't going to start marrying cockroaches and the world isn't going to fall apart. 

P.S. Some of the comments below this video on the Youtubes are worth seeing for their hilarity. Like:

Have each and every one of us looked at the way a great percentage of these Homosodomites DO NOT believe in God?
Well I am starting to recognize this...........What is my point? Gee lemme see.. they wanna preach love and tolerance but don't believe in God? Hmmmmm......Satan is working his magic people wake up here......

Satan is working his magic people? WTF? I wish I could work some of my magic people. Speaking as a Homosodomite (sic), I don't go to church because those people are crazy. They don't know how to use ellipses. They end paragraphs with random collections of words and periods. And they believe in invisible magic beings. What is my point?

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Things are going so well in Iraq now that the government has the time, money, and other resources available to get down to the extremely important work of ridding the country of the most threatening, most horrible, most heinous group of individuals carrying out their evil works on Iraqi soil. Yes, more than 100 prisoners are scheduled to be executed so that Iraq can be the safe place it needs to be for all its citizens. Their crime? Homosexuality. 

From an article in Page One Q:

According to Ali Hili of Iraqi-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week. There is, said Hili, at least one member of Iraqi-LGBT who are among those to be put to death.

And the London-based group, which believes that a total of 128 executions are imminent, is calling on the UK Government, international human rights groups and the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to intervene "with due speed" to prevent "this tragic miscarriage of justice" from going ahead.

Next week the executions will begin in batches of 20. Last year they racked up 34 executions. In 2007, 33. And in 2006 at least 65. Of course officials won't release the names of the individuals to be killed, sparking fears that the Iraqi courts may not have met international standards for fair trials. Amnesty International has called for full disclosure regarding the details of the trials. Who wants to take bets on weather or not that's going to happen?

Progress

Ugh, I need some positive energy to work against that terrible, terrible story I posted earlier. 

Via Big Gay News:

A step in the right direction. The AFP reported Friday Japan is changing its rules regarding same-sex marriage. They're not legalizing it like Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada. But they are allowing officials to give Japanese citizens a document that indicates they are free to marry so that they can obtain same-sex marriages overseas. 

From the AFP:

Under the change, the justice ministry has told local authorities to issue the key certificate -- which states a person is single and of legal age -- for those who want to enter same-sex marriages, the official told AFP.

Gay activists praised the move.

"This is one step forward," said Taiga Ishikawa, who leads a gay support group. "Gay Japanese have suffered a disadvantage... although they should be able to marry in some countries overseas."

Of course same-sex marriage will remain illegal in Japan, but this is a nice little glimmer of hope. Surely some will remember Japan has a history of same-sex union. The practice of Shudo in Samurai culture is a prime example. And male love was often practiced by kabuki actors and tea-house prostitutes.

Hateful AND Crooked?

Via Good As You:

Don't you just love it when bias-pedaling miscreants turn out to be the thieving crooks you know them to be? According to an article from Out & About the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has arrested former State Senator Jeff Miller. This is the same Jeff Miller who sponsored the Marriage Protection Amendment in Tennessee in 2005. He also sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. These two pieces of legislation banned same-sex marriage and defined marriage as between a man and a woman respectively. 

Incidentally, Miller's then-wife of 15 years also did her part to spread his message of marriage sanctity by divorcing him, also in 2005. Smart woman. 

From Out & About:

A press release from the TBI says that Miller, 46, was indicted on one count of Official Misconduct, one count of Conspiracy to Commit Official Misconduct and one count of Conspiracy to Commit Aggravated Perjury. April Miles, 28, was charged with one count of Aggravated Perjury, one count of Conspiracy to Commit Official Misconduct and one count of Conspiracy to Commit Aggravated Perjury. Miles was Miller’s secretary.

The TBI opened the investigation at the request of the District Attorney General on January 25, 2009 after there were allegations that Miller was overbilling the county while he served in the appointed position of Delinquent Tax Attorney for Bradley County. When Miller was removed from office, he was ordered to turn over title search records. He did not have the records that showed he performed the required title searches even though he received payment for these searches. TBI executed a search warrant on Miller’s office on January 28, 2009 as part of the investigation. 

See? Good things come to those who hate.

Kerry Advocates for Brazilian Man

Via Queerty:

Genesio Oliveria asked for asylum in the US back in 2002. He told the judge he had been raped as a teenager and attacked by a physician in his home country of Brazil. Judge Francis L. Cramer, who heard his case believed him. He even said he understood Oliveria's fears of having to return to Brazil. But he ruled against his case and sent him back. Oliveria is legally married to Tim Coco, an American citizen in Massachusetts. 

Now Senator John Kerry has written a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. asking the Obama administration to grant Oliveria asylum. 

From a New York Times article:

In a letter sent Thursday to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Mr. Kerry said that Immigration Judge Francis L. Cramer had found Mr. Oliveira’s testimony to be credible and his fear of living in Brazil genuine. However, the judge denied the asylum claim, saying he “was never physically harmed” by the rape, the letter said. Mr. Kerry called the ruling “outrageous.”

[snip]

In an interview Friday, Mr. Kerry said: “Nobody’s asking to overturn or change the federal law. This is really a humanitarian situation that deserves an appropriate focus.”

[snip]

Immigrants can apply for residency if they marry American citizens, but the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages under the Defense of Marriage Act, and Mr. Oliveira’s request to remain in the United States based on his relationship with Mr. Coco was denied last month.

Not physically harmed by rape? Not harmed by RAPE? What kind of moron can even think about thinking that someone isn't harmed by rape? I haven't read any recent statistics, but the one I remember from high school was 1 in 4 women is raped at some point in her life. That means someone that judge knows has had or will have that horrible experience. She needs to talk to him. Someone needs to talk to him. Someone needs to set him straight. 

Senator Kerry isn't calling for the repeal of DOMA, but I am. When are we going to stop allowing people to get hurt just because some religious nuts are afraid the sanctity of their marriages will be somehow sullied by someone else's marriage? 

Lesbian Student Allowed to Wear Tux

Lebanon, Indiana school Superintendent said the district would back down from its biased policy of forcing students to wear "gender-based" formal attire at prom. The Indianapolis Star reported yesterday an unidentified 17-year-old lesbian senior would be allowed to wear a tuxedo to prom after the school board changed its policy in a meeting last night. 

From the Indianapolis Star:

"School policy for this year's prom will be that all attendees shall wear appropriate formal attire with no gender-based attire requirements imposed," the statement [from Superintendent Robert L Taylor] said. "Female students will be permitted to wear tuxedos if they choose."

Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and the student's attorney, said his client is pleased with the decision and will attend the April prom in a tuxedo.

"We think this is what the decision should have been all along, that there was never any justification for the policy," Falk said. "It's unfortunate that we had to go this far."

Indiana is making progress. Similar cases involving biologically male students wearing dresses to prom have had mixed results. One district received a court order to allow a student to wear a dress in 1999. Another case from 2006 involving a transgendered student is still pending. 

Not Looking Good

Via PageOneQ:

The case of a Colorado man Allen Andrade, 31, accused of murdering a transwoman got a boost from a judge who ruled Tuesday that Andrade's confession is inadmissible. 

According to a USA Today article the confession can't be used against Andrade because he stated he was finished answering questions. Prosecutors also are unable to use evidence of Andrade's gang affiliation. 

From USA Today:

Judge Marcelo Kopcow issued a ruling Tuesday that threw out a July 30 confession to police by 31-year-old Allen Andrade of Thornton.

Andrade is accused of killing 18-year-old Angie Zapata, a transgender woman found dead July 17 in her southeast Greeley apartment.

And they say LGBT issues aren't civil rights issues. They say we aren't persecuted or treated unfairly or beaten or even murdered because we're different. Tell that to the family of Angie Zapata. Explain exactly why she was beaten to death after Andrade discovered she was "biologically male" if it had nothing to do with her trans status. 

Update: Monday's Minute of Hate

I wrote Monday about Kentucky SB68, which sought to ban gays from adopting by making it illegal for anyone to adopt or foster a child who wasn't legally married. Well ladies and gentlemen and the rest of you, it is now looking like that hateful bill is dead. 

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

The measure's sponsor, Republican Sen. Gary Tapp of Shelbyville, said Senate leaders will not bring Senate Bill 68 to a vote in the final four days of the legislative session. Tapp said Wednesday that he plans to file the bill again next year.

The bill would have made Kentucky the second state to prohibit gays from adopting children. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe such measures have been ruled unconstitutional in every case except in Florida. So, for the time being at least, FL remains the only place where gays can't adopt. With thousands of children needing homes in every state, these hate-laws are ludicrous. 

Oh, and if you know anybody in Shelbyville, can you please ask them to get rid of this moron?

Vermont is the New California?

Via PageOneQ:

While Californians are floundering in and out of the social acceptance closet, the Vermont chapters of four professional organizations Monday endorsed same-sex marriage and dispelled hate-mongers' claims that children in single-sex families fare worse than their peers from traditional nuclear families. 

From a Burlington Free Press article:

Same-sex marriage rights got an endorsement Monday from four Vermont professional organizations who cited research findings that “children of lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents to flourish.”

They also said gay and lesbian parents are as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to provide healthy environments for children and that “there is no credible scientific evidence” relating parenting effectiveness to sexual orientation.

Their statement, which comes as the Vermont legislature prepares to consider same-sex marriage legislation, was released at a news conference called by the Vermont Psychological Association, the Vermont Psychiatric Association, the Vermont Association of Mental Health Counselors and the Vermont chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

The professional organizations did acknowledge that relevant studies have drawn from small research samples. But the implication is not that the research is insufficient. Rather, more research needs to be done to prove the claims hold true on a larger scale. 

The article also points out that the claims touted by fear-mongering groups that children raised in single-sex households often suffer are actually based on research on the children of divorce and NOT on the children of gay parents. Of course organizations opposing pending gay-marriage legislation argue that the research cited by the professional organizations is inadequate and that research would have to include a generation of evidence and large numbers of children to be sufficient. 

Fine, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health councilors, and social workers need to get going on that research. They need to prove once and for all that the argument against raising a "class of motherless or fatherless children" is just the fear and hate-mongering that it is. 

Alphabet Stewing

Via Joe My God:

So, L's, G's, B's, T's, and Q's like E's, N's, D's, and A's together. But we don't like D's, A's, D's, and T's together, is that it?

In a recent PageOneQ article House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quoted as saying that anti-hate crimes legislation and ENDA held priority over the repeal of DADT. Pelosi had a breakfast meeting Tuesday where she met with "progressive bloggers and writers" according to the article. The repeal of the 1993 Don't Ask Don't Tell law has been on LGBT activists' radar lately after Representative Ellen Tauscher introduced a bill to reverse it. In case you've been living under a rock DADT is the bill signed by by Bill Clinton where the military is not allowed to ask you if you're gay and you're not allowed to tell if you're gay. All very separate but equal. 

In my own humble opinion, I tend to agree with what Pelosi seems to have been implying. Laws protecting LGBT people from hate crimes and discrimination should take precedent. Of course I believe an inclusive military would be lovely, but those signing up to join know they're getting into an organization with a long history of intolerance. Yes, I think all that's going to change eventually, but homosexuals in the military ought to know they've got a long uphill battle ahead. And there are huge gaps in civil rights protections out there in everyday America. 

For instance ENDA. As Pelosi was quoted by PageOneQ: 

The priorities have been Hate Crimes and ENDA, fully inclusive legislation in those two areas, so we'll have to have our strategy work around on how we can get those passed, as well as move forward on Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The struggle to get some employment protections into law has been going on since the 1970s when they tried to tack "sexual orientation" onto the Civil Rights Act. And the Employment Non-Discrimination Act has been batted around since the 1990s. But a couple of things keep getting in the way. 

One problem is that issues like marriage rights (as evidenced by the whole Prop. 8 debacle) and DADT tend to get more media attention. These issues stay in the spotlight because they elicit heavy emotional reactions from both supporters and detractors. 

The other problem is that activist groups can't get along when it comes to supporting ENDA. The biggest issue is transgender inclusion. Because many of ENDA's opponents use the whole pervert-in-the-little-girl's-room argument some have been quick to drop transpeople from the whole thing. What these people don't realize is that such opponents are never going to give in. In fact, when we stop fighting together and start turning against one another the right-wingnuts win. Not only does our legislation not get passed, but now we represent a smaller, divided force. 

As Pelosi indicated now is the time for us to pursue inclusive legislation. Lest we forget, the Stonewall Inn was a popular hangout for a mixture of people, most significantly transwomen. The modern LGBT rights movement was sparked by a bunch of angry "trannys" (a term too many of us throw around without discretion). To drop transgendered people out of our struggle for civil rights will not only weaken the movement as a whole, but will reveal an underlying weakness of character. If we can't stand up for each other, no one is going to stand up for us. 

Oh, By the Way

I just wanted to share a bit of good news. 

This suburban Georgia boy is planning on tying the knot again. This time to a man. Yes, ladies and gentlemen and the rest of you, I'm getting gay-married. Although I live in one of the most traditionally religiously oppressive countries in the world (lest we forget the Spanish Inquisition), Spain has equal rights for gay couples. So all of you still preaching the freest country in the world bullshit about America can sod off. It's not. Sorry to have to tell you this but Spain is freer than the US. As are a growing number of countries, none of which has collapsed into incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and other various forms of moral ruin. 

Granted, the process of arranging a marriage is a bit of a Herculean task, especially if one of you is a US citizen. I can't tell you what loops I've had to jump through to get all my documents together. But honestly, the worst hoops were trying to get documents certified in the US for use outside the country. 

But at last we've got all of our paperwork together and turned in. A couple days ago we finally were told a date when we can get married. YES married -- fully, legally married with all the rights and privileges of a gender discordant couple. 

The Shame in Your Grandchildren's Eyes

Better than his "You commie homo-loving sons-of-guns" comment. Sean Penn's speech should be recognized and remembered for an excellent point he brings up. Despite all of the arguments being bandied about by the religious right right now, one fact about the so-called culture wars should be noted. All the hate and fear-mongering about trying to suppress Christianity is really moot. The simple fact of the matter is the people of the future, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will look back on the bigotry of this age with as much shame as we look back on the slavery and Jim Crow supporters of our past. And no, I'm not saying that the struggle for equality that LGBT people are going through is in any way comparable to that of African-Americans. But it is, however, just as much a struggle for civil rights. 

And by the way, everybody knows they only gave Heath Ledger the Oscar for Dark Knight because they scorned him after Brokeback when he REALLY deserved it.

School Safety

A choir teacher in Henderson, Nevada was found dead in his home just before Christmas. On Top Magazine reported Friday that two brothers aged 17 and 18 have allegedly confessed to the murder. Or, more accurately, the younger of the two confessed that he and his brother strangled the teacher, Matthew Cox, 32 after he "got sexual" with his student. According to the boy, Cox made advances that made him uncomfortable while he and his brother were visiting Cox's home to hang out and play video games. 

Number one, any teacher would have to be a great fool to invite students into his home. Although Cox's mother seems to think he had the students there to help "straighten them out," it's never a good idea to be alone with a student, not even at school. Unfortunately in our current social environment the accusation of molestation is as damaging as the act itself. But even if Cox was foolish he didn't deserve to die. (What does the Catholic church do to priests suspected of molesting children? Oh yeah, they send them to rural Alaska.) 

Here's some news ladies and gentlemen and the rest of you, homosexuals are not pedophiles. I know all your child-raping, whore-hiring, money-laundering preachers out there use a lot of fancy hate speech and emotional language to encourage you to "protect traditional marriage." But the truth is it's just a lot of empty rhetoric. You know the adage, "If you can't dazzle them with dexterity, baffle them with bullshit?" In this case dexterity is any truth as proven by real evidence and bullshit is the whole "the fags want to take away our right to be Christians" line. Keep feeding that crap to America's youth and you get kids arraigned on charges of "murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, burglary, and auto theft."

Because ladies and gentlemen and the rest of you, those kids killed Cox to rob him of his wii, ipod, and laptop. And they'll get away with it because they cried "fag."