Last week I read on esrati.com about yet another Dayton mayoral candidate, namely James R. Greene, III, so, as I did with Gary Leitzell, I e-mailed Mr. Greene to ask about his position on Dayton's non-discrimination ordinance and the 2007 addition to it of sexual orientation.

And as with Mr. Leitzell I got an interesting response from Mr. Greene, not one saying, as Mr. Leitzell did, that traditional marriage should be protected—I hadn't asked Mr. Greene (or Mr. Leitzell) about marriage, which is not a local issue—but saying that he thought our laws already provided for protection against discrimination on any basis and that Dayton's law just mirrored that. Lest I be accused of misquoting Mr. Greene, as I was with Mr. Leitzell, here is precisely what he said:

First, as a practicing civil rights attorney for over 20+ years I am firmly convinced that our laws, as presently written, provide that no person should be discriminated against on any basis. Second, Dayton's ordinance merely reflects current law. Third, I do not believe that the discussions on Dayton's non-discrimination ordinance were properly framed. The focus of the ordinance should've been on treating people as you or I would want to be treated.

I was surprised by that. If our state's and nation's laws already prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, then what was all the fuss about getting sexual orientation added to non-discrimination laws? I wrote back to Mr. Greene and said I didn't think he was right and asked specifically if he therefore thought sexual orientation should be removed from Dayton's non-discrimination ordinance.

Mr. Greene replied back, saying that "[he] would not withdraw the ordinance," but that he disagreed with my interpretation of the law:

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation of the law. Under a Title VII (federal discrimination statute) comprehensive analysis, the United States Supreme Court in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. 523 U.S. 75 (1998) held that same-sex sexual harassment may fall within Title VII's prohibition of discrimination. The legal argument was framed this way: "…[a]s some courts have observed, male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was assuredly not the principle [sic] evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII." But statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed. "Title VII prohibits 'discrimination … because of … sex' in the terms or conditions of employment." Thus, a reasonable legal argument can be sustained that a person who is deprived of means of support, employment and such when done on the basis of that person's sex, is impermissible because the US Supreme Court has said that harassment (including, hiring, firing etc., and I quote "must extend to sexual harassment of any kind that meets the statutory requirements." The Supreme Court is basically putting forth the argument that if one can establish that sexual orientation is the basis of discrimination, and that sexual oritentation [sic] has nothing to do with job performance etc., it is impermissible to use sexual orientation as a criteria to discriminate against that person.

I thanked Mr. Greene for his reply and said that I wanted to check with some gay rights organizations to see whether they could find any cases related to the case he cited. The folks at the Midwest Regional Office of Lambda Legal were very helpful. Cheryl Angelaccio actually laughed when I told her about Mr. Greene's position and asked for help in finding cases related to it. She didn't have any cases in which people had tried to use Oncale v. Sundowner for redress for instances of sexual orientation discrimination, but she did point me to a very informative PDF on Lambda Legal's website, "There Ought to be a Law," which summarizes multiple cases involving harassment based on sexual orientation, all of which specifically say that, contrary to Mr. Greene's opinion, Title VII does not apply to harassment on the basis of sexual orientation.

I shared this information with Mr. Greene and asked him if, given that courts have held that Title VII doesn't apply to harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, he still thought that Title VII would be applicable to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and if he could cite any cases in which someone who'd been fired for being gay had been able to obtain redress under Oncase v. Sundowner. His answer to that was:

The direct answer to your question is no. I am only aware of the case I cited being used for same sex discrimination in the employment setting (which is what my law practice is centered around).

Meanwhile in addition to asking Lambda Legal for help I'd also contacted Equality Ohio, thinking that perhaps they could give me some examples here in Ohio. They refered me to Scott Knox, a Cincinnati attorney, who has dealt with a lot of gay / lesbian / transgender / HIV issues, and Scott said what I'd noted above, that Oncale was about harassment not discrimination and that "[t]his case has absolutely no applicability to people who are fired / not hired / otherwise discriminated against in employment because they're gay."

So perhaps Mr. Greene is right and our nation's greatest LGBT legal minds are wrong, but I don't really think so. And, as I pointed out to him, even if he were right, it's important that sexual orientation be included explicitly in non-discrimination laws because our laws reflect what our society thinks is right and wrong and because having it included explicitly might discourage people from engaging in it. He points out that it won't prevent it completely, which is correct, just as having race-based discrimination being illegal hasn't prevented that, but I think it might stop some people.

Now I post all this not as an attack on Mr. Greene for being (in my and others' opinions) wrong about this, but because if he thinks this, perhaps other people do. Lord knows that enough people who aren't lawyers and who have never heard of Oncale think that firing someone just for being gay is already illegal. And even if Mr. Greene is wrong about the law I have to give him credit for thinking that gay people (and everyone) should be "treat[ed] as ... [he] would want to be treated," for not wanting to roll back Dayton's protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and for being willing to engage in dialogue about what he thinks.

At the end of all these e-mails between us, Mr. Greene asked me if I had any concerns other than the anti-discrimination ordinance and if so what they were. I answered him that I do have other concerns, giving him urban sprawl and race relations as two, in addition to wanting a decent grocery store downtown. However, I also told him that plenty of people share my other concerns and ask politicians about them, which is why I don't ask about a long list of issues but focus on gay rights. I have spent time personally working on race relations and spend time through my church's Justice and Witness ministry working on that as well as on the environment, but I don't see tons of straight people asking politicians whether they think it should be legal to fire queers. Well, actually, let me strike that; I do see a fair number of straight people who think that it should be legal to fire queers advocating for that. So, yeah, I'm going to continue to keep my eyes open, and when I see people running for office, I'm going to ask questions about my issue. You gotta love democracy, and the Internet, which makes dialogue with politicians much easier.

The green line in this photo taken tonight is almost a parking spot. There’s some event going on tonight at the Masonic Temple, an event that requires more parking than the Masons’ two decent-sized parking lots plus the parking lots of the Art Institute and the Greek Orthodox Church can accommodate, and thus people have been driving around my neighborhood searching for parking spots, getting to this almost-a-parking-spot and deciding that no, they can’t fit their gihugeous SUVs into it after all.

Click to embiggen

One thing that’s funny is that from my balcony seeing their cars pull alongside the spot I can see that if some of these drivers actually knew how to parallel park, a skill Daytonians in general haven’t mastered, they could in fact fit their cars in this almost-a-parking-spot or that if any of them were driving one of the brand new self-parking cars, their new self-parking car could fit itself into it.

Another thing I can see from my perch high above the potential parkers is just how much wasted parking space there is. People don’t seem to want to pull up. The red lines in the lower photo here point out all the wasted parking space. Makes me glad I have a spot in our building’s garage.

This photo doesn't do the rainbow justice (click to embiggen)

The evening sun against downtown Dayton’s skyline was pretty too

After the rain this afternoon we had a really pretty double rainbow, prettier than my photo really shows.

The evening skyline was pretty too.

What a shame…

that homosexual men and women such as Wesley Hill and Bekah Mason continue, so many years after Stonewall, decades since it's been possible to grow up thinking you're "the only one" around, to buy into the bullshit that the only way to be Christian and gay is to consider a large part of who one is to be temptation towards sin placed in one's mind by Satan, something one must resist lest one imperil one's eternal soul.

There's no point in my trying to refute all the arguments that people such as Wesley and Bekah make. Obviously they have access to the Internet and obviously if they'd wanted to, they could have read all sorts of material refuting the worldview to which they're bound. Both of them, should they ever happen across this post, will probably pray to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that I come to my senses, see the Light and mend my wicked ways.

Here's hoping that Wesley and Bekah don't waste too much more of their lives trying to suppress who they really are and that sooner rather than later they realize that their gayness is in fact a manifestation of the Divine within all of us.

Today’s blog entry is some whining about Packet 8:

You might just want to jump down to the summary if you don’t want to read all of my whining.

Packet 8, in case you’ve never heard of them, is a hosted voice over IP (VoIP) phone service. Kind of like Vonage but oriented towards small businesses, though they do, like Vonage, offer residential service. Because they are a hosted service, you don’t have to worry about being responsible for managing a server or software. Packet 8’s not bad—most of the time their service works fine, and the sound quality isn’t bad, especially with their new 6755i phones (which are rebranded Aastra phones marked up for resale and no, you can’t just buy the Aastra phones yourself, but that’s a price you pay for not having to host the VoIP solution yourself).

However, when we do have a problem with Packet 8, it can be infuriating. Something that comes with their service is Switchboard software that our receptionist uses so she can see who’s on a call and so she can more easily transfer calls. We’ve been using Packet 8 and also Switchboard since November 2007, day in, day out, and most of the time it just works, until suddenly it doesn’t, which is the case today.

Today our receptionist reports that when she tries to start Switchboard, it just sits there with the spash window saying, “Launching Switchboard — Please wait.” No error message. It just sits there. No matter how long she lets it sit there. Now Switchboard is a rather slow program to load, but she’s been starting it every morning for months, so she knows the difference between normal slow and never gonna do anything slow, especially since she gets in at the crack of dawn and I get in at a more comfortable 10 a.m. or so.

So I call Packet 8 and the first annoyance about which I’m going to whine today is that they’ve changed the prompts on their voicemail. For months you hit 1 for business service and 2 for technical support. Then a month or so ago they added another level after that so you had to hit 2 again for technical support as opposed to 1 for trunk service. And now they’ve switched it again so that you have to hit 1 for business service, 1 for Virtual Office service, 1 for tech support. Come on, guys, stop playing with your damned voicemail options. Customers don’t want to have to listen to the entire stupid menu every time we call just because you’ve changed the menus yet again.

I navigate the new menu prompts, get a technician, explain our problem, and he asks, have you installed the latest version of Switchboard? Well, we did the last time we had a problem with Switchboard—is there a new version? And if so, why can’t the Switchboard software check for updates and let us know there’s a new version to be installed or better yet install the new version automatically. He says, software’s complicated and can’t do that. Oh? Just like Adobe Acrobat and Sun Java and Microsoft Windows and how many other pieces of software can’t do that? Right. Oh. Well he’ll put in a suggestion that their programmers fix Switchboard to do that, but for now I’ll have to go download the software and install it, but, by the way, I don’t have to bother uninstalling the old version first. Okay, I’ll go do that and if it doesn’t work, I’ll call back.

Well, lo and behold, the version of Switchboard that’s on Packet 8’s site is dated 09/22/08, which is the same version we’re using. (And by the way, what’s up with not having version numbers?) So I download it again, install it and sure enough, it does not fix the problem.

I call back, navigate the voicemail prompts (more quickly this time since they haven’t been changed yet), get a different technician, and he can’t find us in their system, could I repeat our phone number? Oh, there we are. I guess that should have been the first clue that things weren’t going to go well with this guy. I explain what our problem is and what the first tech told me and that I’d re-installed the software and it still doesn’t work. Did I uninstall the software first? No, the first guy explicitly told me that I didn’t have to do that. Oh, no, he was wrong—you always have to do that. And by the way, software does tend to get corrupted over time, so reinstalling it periodically is a good thing.

Oh? And it just happens that the Switchboard software “got corrupted” on both the receptionist’s computer and on my test computer on the same day? That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? And actually, no, you don’t always have to uninstall the software completely—when we upgraded to the new 6755i phones I also had to upgrade the Switchboard software and I didn’t have to uninstall it first before the upgraded software would work, but fine, I’ll jump through the hoops and uninstall the software first before reinstalling it. Oh and I need to delete cookies in Internet Explorer too.

Fine. I uninstall the software, reboot the computer as prompted when the software’s uninstalled, delete cookies, reinstall the software, launch Switchboard Setup to re-enter our iPBX parameters and our parameters are still there. How’s that possible if I uninstalled the software? What good was uninstalling the software if it didn’t delete the parameters? He doesn’t know. At any rate, I launch Switchboard yet again and the same thing happens.

Hmm, well they did some changes last night on the back end and maybe I need yet a different version of Switchboard, the link to which he’ll e-mail me. I get the e-mail right away, click on the link and it’s a link to MegaUpload.com with a horrible captcha that I have to enter in order to be able to download the software. I finally get past the stupid captcha and MegaUpload informs me that I have to wait 60 seconds since I’m not a premium MegaUpload customer and MegaUpload pops up an ad that somehow gets past Firefox’s popup blocker. To quote Seth from Saturday Night Live, “Really?!” Packet 8 has its own website, Packet8.net, and they have to put pre-release software on a lame ad-supported file transfer site instead of on their own web servers? Really?!

So while I’m waiting the 60 seconds in order to download this other version of Switchboard, I ask the tech why, if Packet 8 knew they were going to make changes on their backend, they didn’t warn customers about that. Because most of the time it goes smoothly and customers don’t know about it. Really?! This isn’t the first time they’ve done this to us. I’ve had to call in for support before on Switchboard and been told to change the IP address of our iPBX server due to changes Packet 8 has made without warning us beforehand. And even if things were to go smoothly, what could it hurt to warn customers about changes? Well, he can note that in our file and maybe someone will read it, oh, no, rather all suggestions are read but they can’t take every one. Whatever.

I finally get this special version of Switchboard downloaded from MegaUpload and the tech tells me, oh, by the way, that in addition to uninstalling the old Switchboard software and deleting cookies again in IE, I should also empty the Recycle Bin, and I actually laugh out loud at him. Empty the Recycle Bin? There's nothing in the Recycle Bin. I can’t empty it. He acts kind of hurt that I laughed at him, poor guy. But I jump through the hoops one more time, and, you guessed it, this special version of Switchboard also doesn’t work. Guess the problem’s not not on our end, huh?

Nope, guess it’s not. He needs to escalate the solution of this and will call me back. Can he get my number? Um, hello, not only did I give you our number when I first spoke to you, but also you’re our phone service provider—you should know our number.

So an hour or two later, the tech does call me back and says that the escalation team is working on this and that it could be a couple days but hopefully today that it’s fixed and he’ll keep me updated. Something to do with a change in their Intraswitch software, the underlying “carrier” Packet 8 uses as their iPBX. Great. Googling Intraswitch, I found this page which says that Intraswitch is a great 100% Java iPBX supporting JTAPI 1.3, MGCP and SIP solution that other VoIP service providers can obtain from Packet 8 if they want. Or you can get it directly from Centile, which developed it.

So, to summarize, here are some suggestions for Packet 8:

1. Don’t keep changing the options on your customer support voicemail.
2. Fix your Switchboard software so that it checks for updates automatically.
3. Put a version number on your Switchboard software.
4. If you have pre-release software you want customers to install, put it somewhere on Packet8.net for customers to download instead of using MegaUpload.com.
5. Warn customers before changing things on the backend, even if you don’t expect any problems.
6. Make sure your customer support technicians are trained well enough to give consistent advice.
7. Get your customer support techs to understand that when they deal with an established customer who’s used your service for some time, they might not want to be so condescending. Hell, they might even want not to be condescending with new customers.

And don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying to run from Packet 8 if you’re looking for a hosted VoIP solution. Most of the time they’re fine. It’s just that their technical support is par for the course. I could tell you similar stories about Dell (where a tech just yesterday asked me to look for the battery charge indicator LEDs on my mother’s Dell Mini Inspiron 910’s battery that wasn’t recharging [hint, batteries for Dell Minis don’t have charge indicator LEDs]), Earthlink, Time Warner, Covad, AT&T, Oracle and others—God, I need to get out of the computer business.

Update 03-19-2008: I heard back from this second tech once yesterday when he called back to say he’d escalated the problem but that it could take a couple days (!) to resolve. He promised to keep in touch, but guess what? Today our Switchboard software worked for our receptionist (without having to jump through any hoops such as uninstalling, deleting cookies, emptying empty Recycle Bins).

Annoying that no one called us back to let us know things were working or what the problem had been, but what’s even more annoying is that when our receptionist then tried to log into Packet 8’s website to change a ring group (ring groups are a means of directing incoming calls), she was faced with a new ring group voicemail password field that has never been there before. Great! Packet 8 made yet another change without informing their customers about it. She had to call Packet 8 technical support to get the password.

When I found out about this, I called Packet 8 technical support to complain about the lack of followup from yesterday and about the lack of notification of the ring group change and to ask to speak to someone at Packet 8 who I could try to make understand that communication with their customers might be a good thing. The tech I got tried to tell me that there wasn’t anything he could do—wrong answer! I made him transfer me to his supervisor, a nice woman who explained that Packet 8’s tech support is a separate call center and that they themselves had not been informed of the ring group change either and thus had been getting lots of calls from frustrated customers. She was in the process herself of drafting a memo to Packet 8’s corporate offices explaining the obvious to them, namely that they need to communicate changes at least with the call center that supports their customers. She’s going to add that customers such as me would like notification of changes. She also gave me Packet 8’s corporate office’s phone number, suggesting I call them directly to complain about this.

It’s not rocket science. Why on earth would Packet 8 think it would be a good idea to make a change that affects customers and just let customers find out about it on their own? Even if it was a change that emergency circumstances required be made on short notice, preventing notification beforehand, notification afterwards could be made.

So the lesson to be learned from all this is that Packet 8 is not a bad VoIP service—their service is fine most of the time—but if you’re looking for a hosted VoIP service and choose Packet 8, realize their customer service is no better than that of most tech companies.

A Financial Times beta site called Newssift.com has terms of service that prohibit linking to their site without getting permission first:

You may be granted a limited, nonexclusive right to create a hyperlink to Newssift.com Web provided (i) you give FT Search Inc. notice of such link by writing to privacyofficer@newssift.com, (ii) FT Search Inc. confirms in writing that you may establish the link...

I didn't ask for permission to link to their site and I'm not going to.

Do you suppose Martina Navratilova would mind if I called her a dyke? I mean, she is one, and a proud one at that, one who’s been the best in her profession, who’s been open about her sexual orientation for almost 30 years, and who’s worked hard for the rights of gay men and lesbians (i.e., fags and dykes). And if I called Navratilova a dyke, it wouldn’t be in a mean-spirited way. I think she should be proud of being a dyke, that she's a great role model for dykes everywhere.

The reason I ask is that I got in trouble on Facebook today for calling a friend a dyke. She’d posted an update about beating her son in a game of H-O-R-S-E (he made it only to H), and I commented on that update. I don’t even remember exactly what my comment was and she deleted it, so I can’t go back to check, but it was not along the lines of “you nasty dyke” but rather something like “just goes to show dykes can make baskets.”^* My friend deleted the comment, she said, because, while she doesn’t hide who she is (and she doesn’t—her Facebook profile has photos of her and her partner along with their son), all her family and co-workers can see her Facebook page, and she thinks of “dyke” as a derogatory word, kind of like calling a gay man “fag.”

I understand and respect her viewpoint and should have been more thoughtful about my comment before making it, but apparently calling a lesbian a “dyke” is not like calling a gay man “fag,” because I am a gay man and I know that gay men, at least some of us, do call each other fag from time to time. One professional faggot whose work I enjoy reading is Dan Savage. Savage is editor of The Stranger, an independent weekly in Seattle, and also writes the nationally syndicated sex advice column “Savage Love”. How do I know that Savage wouldn’t mind my calling him a fag? Because he uses the term “fag” all the time, in reference to himself and others. Savage is a professional spokesfag, appearing on TV programs such as Larry King, Bill Maher and the Colbert Report.

Now it’s not completely true that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Growing up I got called “fag” and “queer” and other names and it hurt (read about one experience here). And when I see stupid breeder kids on Facebook call lame things “so gay” I want to slap them.

But there is truth nevertheless in “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” The truth is that words can hurt us only if we let them. If we can manage to be proud of who we are, to claim being queer, being faggots, being dykes, then the power of those words shifts away from breeders who would use them as weapons, and these words become labels we can wear proudly. Growing up I was not proud to be a fag; today I am. Today if someone calls me a fag, hoping to hurt my feelings by doing so, it doesn’t work. Fag! Yeah, so what? I am a fag. And it’s “Mr. Faggot” to you.

Another complaint that my friend who is lesbian but not a dyke had is that she doesn’t like the stereotypes that come along with the word “dyke.” Okay, there’s validity to that. I was feeding into stereotypes with my dykish basketball comment. And yes, on the other side of the queer fence, seeing the fag stereotypes, even when supposedly well meant (were the Family Guy writers laughing at us or with us when they gave Peter the gay gene) can sting a little. However, there is some truth to stereotypes—I haven’t done or searched for any studies but I think the LPGA probably does have more lesbians per capita than does the NSDAR and I bet that the vast majority of women who trod about in Birkenstocks wearing patchouli and declining to shave under their arms are lesbians. And yes, I know that there are also lots of misconceptions in stereotypes—lots of fags are good at sports and are “straight-acting” (a term that merits its own blog entry).

So while I think my friend was being a touch over sensitive, that’s just my opinion, and I have to respect her choice not to embrace the term “dyke.” But she also has to respect my choice to identify as a big ole fag.

^*Apparently I’m also one faggot who doesn’t know how to play H-O-R-S-E. My friend didn’t beat her son but rather lost to him. The way they play it is you get a letter when you miss a basket. I’ve played H-O-R-S-E with my nephew and we play it that you get a letter when you make a basket, and I never win.

Duck, duck, goose, goose…

I saw some wildlife at Cox Arboretum today.