Yep, for real. No, not me. Not yet anyway. But the blog is moving. . For more, see The New Bluedog Mobile. The new site is no where near final, but you can get a glimpse of what's coming soon.

UPDATE: I will no longer be posting to LiveJournal. It's redundant and time-consuming. You will note in my link list a link back to this site for any archived and old postings. At some point, my intent is to move everything to the new site, but it will take time. In the next few days, the url bluedogmobile.net will also transfer to the new site for those of you that may have listed it as one of your favorites in your web browser.

The Great Nationwide Kiss-In, an event created in response to a spate of anti-gay incidents that arose out of gay men being publicly affectionate, takes place this Saturday, August 15th. Activists across the country have signed-on to take part, check out this Facebook action page for times and locations in your town.

Is there one scheduled for Mobile? I have no idea, but rather doubt it.

The Human Rights Campaign has stepped into the hornet’s nest of  identity with a new report called “At the Intersection: Race, Sexuality and Gender.” The organization is even having an online conversation about the report today.

The study’s findings are not that earth shattering, especially if you have been paying attention to the “community” chatter since the defeat of Proposition 8. Gays and lesbians  of color experience their lives primarily through the lens of race and gender. LGBT people of color are simultaneously accepted and rejected by their communities. Brown and black gays and lesbians see no difference in racism and sexism exhibited by gays or straights.

The report isn’t all downer. It suggests bridges can be built on work against hate crimes and job discrimination. How the HRC study will be received is any one’s guess. For more, see Withers: HRC looks at race, gender, and sexuality‎ .

The American Bar Association says it's time to make sure same-sex couples are eligible for the same federal benefits as couples in heterosexual marriages.

Meeting in Chicago on Monday, the ABA House of Delegates approved on a voice vote a resolution urging repeal of a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

Proponents say that if Congress eliminated that language it would clear the way for same-sex spouses to get equal treatment in terms of Social Security and other federal benefits. For more, see the story From CBS2Chicago.com.

A report on PoliticsDaily.com suggests that gay and lesbians may be more spiritually active than is publicly perceived.

The survey indicates that not only do a majority of gay and lesbian Americans consider themselves Christian, but the pollster’s anecdotal findings suggest that gays and lesbians who actively attend church may be more invested and committed participants in their church than their straight counterparts.

The article on PoliticsDaily.com states: “A new surveyof 9,000 gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans from George Barna, a well-known evangelical pollster, showed that 70 percent of gay adults describe themselves as Christian and 60 percent say their faith is ‘very important’ in their lives. Granted, those figures are lower than the population as a whole, which register 85 and 70 percent on those rankings, respectively. But Barna, himself a Bible-believing, born-again Christian, points out that the numbers demonstrate that ‘popular stereotypes about the spiritual life of gays and lesbians are simply wrong.’”

Furthermore, while the numbers may suggest that gay and lesbian parishioners may be squeamish when it comes to being officially active participants in institutionalized religious organizations, those who do attend church are serious about it. For the full story on 365Gay.com, see Are gay churchgoers more devout, more active?

Who's gay and who's not is less clear than it used to be among today's young people — and that's complicating how researchers conduct studies on the sexual behavior of teens and young adults, a developmental psychologist who studies gays, lesbians, and bisexuals told a session today at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association here.

"Who's gay? This is not an easy question," says Ritch Savin-Williams of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "There are many different ways of defining sexuality.".

Savin-Williams, a clinical psychologist who is also in private practice, says such definitions affect researchers' ability to choose appropriate study participants and also affect estimates of the percentage of gays in the population.

For example, estimates could range from as few as 1% of the population to as many as 21%, because many young people do not actually say they're gay, even though they talk about sexual encounters with same-sex partners or same-sex romantic attraction.  For more, see the USAToday article, Among teens, who's gay is less clear than in past‎.

 

 

The American Psychological Association declared Wednesday that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.

In a resolution adopted by the APA's governing council, and in an accompanying report, the association issued its most comprehensive repudiation of "reparative therapy" - a concept espoused by a small but persistent group of therapists, often allied with religious conservatives, who maintain gays can change.

No solid evidence exists that such change is likely, says the resolution, adopted by a 125-4 vote. The APA said some research suggests that efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies.

Instead of seeking such change, the APA urged therapists to consider multiple options - that could range from celibacy to switching churches - for helping clients live spiritually rewarding lives in instances where their sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.

The APA had criticized reparative therapy in the past, but a six-member task force added weight to this position by examining 83 studies on sexual orientation change conducted since 1960. Its report was endorsed by the APA's governing council in Toronto, where the 150,000-member association's annual meeting is being held this weekend. For more from CBSNews.com see No Evidence for "Gay-to-Straight" Therapy - CBS News.

Experts agree the temperature of your sleeping area and how comfortable you feel in it affect how well and how long you snooze. Why? “When you go to sleep, your set point for body temperature -- the temperature your brain is trying to achieve -- goes down,” says H. Craig Heller, PhD, professor of biology at Stanford University, who wrote a chapter on temperature and sleep for a medical textbook. “Think of it as the internal thermostat.” If it’s too cold, as in Roy’s case, or too hot, the body struggles to achieve this set point.

That mild drop in body temperature induces sleep. Generally, Heller says, “if you are in a cooler [rather than too-warm] room, it is easier for that to happen.” But if the room becomes uncomfortably hot or cold, you are more likely to wake up, says Ralph Downey III, PhD, chief of sleep medicine at Loma Linda University and one of the specialists treating Roy.

He explains that the comfort level of your bedroom temperature also especially affects the quality of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the stage in which you dream.

While a typical recommendation is to keep the room between 65 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit, Heller advises setting the temperature at a comfortable level, whatever that means to the sleeper. For more, see Can't Sleep? Adjust the Temperature.