Here's something sad and pathetic about the abuse of police pwer ...

An officer who ordered two women to put on a "sex show" in a jail cell will be fired. 

Norberto Cappas, 32, was found guilty by a police tribunal of conduct unbecoming an officer and lying during a departmental investigation and will lose his job following a 30-day suspension, the department said.

Internal Affairs investigators found that Cappas ordered the two women to kiss and touch each other and expose their breasts in September 2003.

The two had been picked up on suspicion of drug possession, but they had no drugs and were not charged with a crime.

It took FOUR YEARS for something to happen.  And it only happened after the Philadelphia Inquirer started asking questions.  In the meantime, a civil suit was settled, but even that didn't get the police brass off their asses to do something about this "unbecoming" conduct and the idiot behind it all. 

Sends a really good message to the entire female population of Philadelphia, the entire LGBT population and most of the heterosexual male population who probably find this repulsive. 

What is it about police culture that attracts these sick power-mongering fucks? 

I was busy today at the City Council hearing on the promotions of three police officers with domestic violence histories (or allegations).  I live blogged for the Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society.  You can start here and scroll back through nine posts.

While local LGBT activist Billy Hileman showed up to testify, I was somewhat stunned that no other LGBT leaders were there to at least put the issue of same-sex intimate partner violence on the table.  In the usual scenario, victims of same-sex domestic violence are hesitant to contact the police for fears stemming from perceived homophobia ... they won't be believed, they won't be treated fairly, etc.  Imagine the deeper chilling effect upon LGBT couples living in Zone 2 where Commander Trosky now presides?  Or having someone show up at your door who is in the news for assaulting his own daughter? 

So, I wonder why no one from Persad testified at this hearing? 

Gay is a bad word.  This I discovered after Maria pointed out that her blog was rated R for adult content.  So I just had to see where the lesbians ranked.  And guess what?

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• gay (24x)
• lesbian (12x)
• queer (2x)
• bomb (1x)

What's up with that?  They missed all the really creative bad words I've used.  Like spokesfag, one of my all-time personal favorites.

However, this is still a more risque site than just about any other blog in the Burghosphere, except for MacYapper.  That or the other sites aren't talking about gays and lesbians often enough to warrant an adult rating.  Hmmm?

I haven't been feeling especially bloggy lately, which usually means I scour the Internet for interesting gay tidbits that don't require a lot of commentary.  This is today's version ...

Russian Christians have attempted to purge the Moscow River in the wake of a gay cruise that sailed those very waters. 

[O]ne of the action's aims was "to purge the Moskva River after a large group of gays, who hired a similar ship to have a party going the same route last night."

Participants included state Duma member Nikolay Kuryanovich, who in February introduced legislation to recriminalize homosexuality.

Joining him were members of Cossack groups and assorted religious believers. They sung a prayer as they passed the Novospassky Bridge, then listened to a Christian rock band, Interfax said.

Huh.  That's an interesting approach.  Because I'm sure the very worst impurity involving the Moscow River is that it touched a boat that touched gay people.  No need to trifle with pollution or anything like being a steward of the earth or such nonsense.  Let's get rid of gay cooties instead.

In other news, the UK Gay News provides a transcript from Persian of an interview with an exiled lesbian Irani woman. She describes the torture she endured during years of imprisonment as well as her exile both from her home country and her entire culture.  It is very moving and disturbing.

What is your current situation?

I am alone.  Even here I am afraid, and I think it is this fear that isolates me.  A strange fear is my constant companion.  If I were to write the torments I have suffered on a piece of paper the reader would surely go mad.  Everyone has suffered pain in one form or another.  Have you heard of someone being tied to a car and pulled over the ground?  In Kashan, they tied me to a car and pulled me across the ground.  What should I say, who should I say it to?  If there was a God who would punish these criminals…

Why must I, at the pinnacle of freedom, even fear myself?  Why doesn’t anyone listen to us?  Where is this ‘human rights’?  Which Islam?  Which God?

You'll be amazed to learn that  <gasp> gays are less safe now than ever before in Iraq.

And, finally, Orthodox Jews did some big time damage to the city of Jerusalem during a destructive temper tantrum over the gay pride parade.  To the tune of $100,000.  City council members are calling for the money to be repayed.  Good for them.

The Newark city school district redacted this photo from the high school yearbook after labeling it "illicit" even though the book featured multiple heterosexual kissing couples.  So the district blacked it out. After a brouhaha erupted, the school district offered to provide an "unredacted" version to anyone who wanted it.   Huh.

Elizabeth Edwards supports gay marriage.

“I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me,” Elizabeth Edwards said at a news conference before the parade started. “I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage.”

She made the remark almost offhandedly in answering the final question from reporters after delivering a standard campaign stump speech during a breakfast hosted by the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, an influential San Francisco political organization. California's presidential primary is Feb. 5, one of the earliest contests in the nation.

She conceded her support puts her at odds with her husband, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina who she said supports civil unions among gay couples – but not same-sex marriages.

“John has been pretty clear about it, that he is very conflicted,” she said. “He has a deeply held belief against any form of discrimination, but that's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town.”

No serious presidential candidate from either major political party has publicly supported gay marriage.

Cool. I'm still saying Edwards is the man.