Christian

DC was always better about that sort of thing than Marvel, until Axel Alonso went to Marvel.

 

Rogan's posting wasn't altered at all? Context, people! Was that a "very special issue" of Incredible Hulk?

 

"Where did you get the letters Christian?"

I bought the original back-issues that those letters appeared in off mycomicshop. I've been reading back-issues of Peter David's run on the Hulk to see what all the fuss was about.

 

I agree with Mojo about the "Peter David tackles social issues in the Hulk". There was a period in the early-90s when Marvel was trying to be relevant, and every 3rd issue of Hulk dealt with a different social issue (homosexuals, AIDS, abortion), and every time it came across very weakly. It was like David was writing a story about the Hulk and his life, and all of a sudden he'd come across a girl who was planning to have an abortion, so David would stick that in the background of his plot. It was nice that Marvel wanted to tackle these difficult issues in a manner that children could read. But, I think it just would've been better to avoid the subjects entirely since they seemed so forced into the Hulk's story.

A life time of.....

Trying to fit in at high school, because I was tired of being an outcast. I hung around the misfits and stoners, still only managed to make two friends.

Around the other kids in that clique, I tried to pretend I wasn't as intelligent. We were taking SAT tests and I was rushing through the test, it was all so easy, writing out long essays for the History section. So easy. Kids at the table with me, "Dude, how are you doing this so fast?" I reply, "Oh, I'm just making stuff up."

 

Teachers in high school saying, "You're so much more intelligent than the other students, but you just don't seem to care."

 

Students in college coming up to me, "Wow! You're really intelligent!" Going home every night to rip my hair out, thinking "yeah, I'm so intelligent, but you don't want to speak to me". Only made one friend in college.

I think she looks like Conan playing his mother for a skit.

:lol: -You noticed that too, eh?

Someone messed up their cover-story!

 

Also, it's amazing how they take someone to task when they say, "I won't buy your books anymore" versus how they react when someone says, "Do this differently, or I might stop buying your books". Hell, Marvel don't care if you're racist, sexist, a homophobe, a Nazi or what as long as you're buying their books!

I did have my IQ tested (and other tests) as a child, because some people thought I might be autistic.

I was put in the private school in elementary school, and it was a pretty fun time for me, because it was my chance to be around other kids.

But, the assignments were all very easy (except Math, I don't do well in Math). I never had homework because I finished all the assignments so quickly. School was about hanging out with my friends in elementary school, and no one ever bothered to follow up on the fact that "hmm, he's got an incredibly high IQ, maybe we should do something about that for him".

Instead, I just got an insulated childhood, where my grandparents only allowed me to listen to Classical music and I was given books to read all the time for fun, while the other kids played outside.

Thank goodness I met William (my cousin & best friend I was talking about) who introduced me to G.I. Joe, video games, comic books, New Wave music....

I agree with you 100%, Jay.

Right now, I'm highly in a loner phase of my life....and I'm not sure if it's the right thing or the good thing right now, but it's the circumstances of my life right now. I try to make the best of it.

Oh, there are a lot of people on this message forum that I would love to live close to. I think a lot of us on this message forum would probably have a lot of fun together, in real life, and probably end up happier in the long run too.

There's people on this Forum who'd love to sit around in some coffee shop and talk comics all night, or talk politics all night, or talk literature all night.

There's people on this Forum who'd like to spend the day at a museum just for the hell of it.

Unfortunately, for me, it's not that easy to make friends in real life. It's not that I don't want friends, per se.

There are times where I pine to have someone to do anything with, but then I usually end up getting down and thinking, "nah, if I had someone to do something with, I'd never end up doing anything with them anyway".

I just had a wonderful bond with Terri. She never really went out. She had friends, but she tended to be a solitary person. I had fun going to the store with her. She liked hanging out a book store. She enjoyed spending the night in bed, reading or watching TV or talking all night on the telephone.

 

I do have a great fear of ending up like my mother. After my father left her, she never dated ever again. She put up walls bigger than China's, and took the attitude that she hated everyone before she even met them, because they couldn't hurt her if she hated them. She doesn't have any friends. Her only real friend is her sister, and she'll get angry and not talk to her half the time. She goes to work 6 days a week, comes home, and sleeps. That's her life, and has been for over 20 years.

Just in case anyone thought I was serious in my last post, we had a play in elementary school called the "Punnys in Punsville", a whole play built on the premise that a family who speaks constantly in puns tries to settle into a suburban neighbourhood. It was the most awful play and I hated it.

What the hell are you talking about? What the hell does this even mean? Is this supposed to funny? Who the hell do you think you are, jaynova? Fuck this!

(at first I figured it must be someone's idea of a sick joke, but as the letter goes on you realize, sickenly, that is surely not)

I have been reading your publications for nearly 20 years, but no single publication has ever disgusted me as much as Incredible Hulk #388. Hulk has always been my favourite title and I collect over 30 titles a month. I am totally against your sympathetic portrayal of homosexuals. This comic is read by children and is supposedly approved by the Comics Code Authority. I cannot understand how homosexuality can be shown when nudity and swear words are banned. This is like jailing someone for theft and pardoning muderers and rapists. I can understand you wanting to cover AIDS, but you would have been more tasteful to show an innocent victim who caught it from a blood transfusion instead of the scum who started the whole disease. AIDS, and thereby homosexuals, have killed more people than communism. If yoy wish to put homosexuals in your comics, make sure the hero despises them and preferably kills them quickly and painfully. Never again destroy the good name of a Macho hero like the Hulk by having him help a homosexual. This letter may be worded harshly, but I care about the characters I read about and I do not want them destroyed by unnecessary plots. Gove me a comic I will be proud to show my offspring and my next letter may not be so derogatory. It would be a shame to ruin Marvel's normally high standard with further trash like this issue. If you want to keep your readers, never repeat such a horrible mistake.

-John Daniels

 

(here is Marvel's weak response, as they attempt to not offend a customer)

John, AIDS was first documented as a heterosexual disease in Africa. As for the rest of your letter, which was the only negative response we received, you are entitled to your opinions, but we cannot find the words to respond to it.

 

(follow-up letter in a later issue by a homosexual fan)

I am appalled at the vapid response you have given to a homophobic reader in the letters column of HULK #393.

In allowing such inflammatory comments to go unchallenged, you are undermining the benefits of the HIV story-line used in this book. Marvel had the courage to print Peter David's story about HIV, the editor of the letters page should have shown the same courage in responding to such a hateful condemation of gay people.

"Silence=Death" is an often used phrase when dealing with AIDS; I believe it extends to crimes of hate: against gay people, people of other colour, or women. Marvel's silence, without any form of editorial response to the issues raised was unforgivable in view of the number of timely issues that have dealt with realistically.

I am a 38 year old gay man, who has supported Marvel for 28 years of my life. I have read and enjoyed this magazine since its inception as "Tales to Astonish". Like John Daniels, Hulk is my favourite comic character. I, however, will not allow such venomous comments to pass unchecked. You have lost a long-time reader.

 

(Marvel's response, in which they take this writer to task far more than the last letter)

Richard,

I hope you're continuing to read, if only to see this response. I think it would have been unforgivable for us to print only positive mail written in response to our issue dealing with AIDS. A certain cross-section of readership responded negatively, and we printed what we felt was an even ration of good to bad responses. I hope that you, especially since you are a gay man, do not condone censorship in any form.

The letters we print in no way reflect our viewpoint.

Ah, I understand. This was all about girlfriends and relationships, so I misunderstood.

Yeah, living full-time with a partner is a good way to end that relationship! :D

George W. Bush.

Domestic Spying Program.

Patriot Act.

Googlebot.

Coincidence?

"I've spent the past 4 months living by myself having never done it before and I have to say that I love it and can't imagine sharing my place with anyone."

Wait, for four months?! I thought you'd been single for years!

 

Pooka-I'm with you. I feel a lot things the same way you do. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that it's quite impossible for me to live with another person.

I don't want kids. I don't want to ever get married (as I don't believe in the institution of marriage).

At the same time, it's a scary thought of living the rest of your life alone.

"if there is prostitution, it should be good for the ladies."

What does this mean? If there are male prostitutes? :lol:

 

It takes a....um...."special" mentality to be a prostitute. Obviously, there are exceptions to this, if one is raised into the job or sold into it, then this doesn't apply.

But, I've known tons of men and women living in destitute conditions, heavily in debt, no job, no money in the bank, some with children; and I haven't know one of them to start selling their bodies to make money. I've known many who go to work at shite jobs with long hours, little pay, no prospects; sometimes 3 jobs even. A lot of the womendo talk about wanting to find a man they can live off of, but they don't talk about selling themselves out to a random man, just a wish to find a family....this is especially true of the younger women or the ones with children;it's an obvious mentality.

But hey, it's still a "free world", baby, and it's none of my business what people do!

I love rodents and rodents love me! It's always been my one safe place. If you start telling me rodents are against me, it'll mean everyone hates me!

 

"I still can't relate to or be around other people.

why do you think this is?

------------------

I mean, I used to feel a lot like I just didnt fit in around people as I was too serious and thoughtful or whatever - and now, despite being more or less the same person I'm more comfortable in my skin really dont give a shit about what others around me think.

You seem very thoughtful and serious and intelligent - I can understand you not being able to relate to others.....but what makes you unable to be around others"

 

Well, obviously this isn't all people, as I had a relationship with one woman for nearly 5 years. I had an incredible bond with her that quite frankly is shocking to me even to this day.

I am intelligent, I can be quite funny, I'm good looking and dress well, and I am very loving when I want to be, so sometimes I have a hard time figuring out why I don't relate well to other people.

 

But, if I think about it, it goes all the way back to childhood. I was abandoned by my father and pretty well abandoned by my mother at a young age and left to be raised by my grandparents. I'm sure this built a fair amount of distrust for other people.

I've never had many friends. I usually am able to keep one very close friendship going, but have trouble keeping any other contacts going.

One problem is I grew up in an area without any children, so the only time I ever saw kids was at school or when my best friend would come to visit on the weekends. I went to a private school, he lived about half an hour away from me. Eventually, we had to leave the private school (due to funding issues with the school) and my best friend went to a local public school while my grandparents put me in a Christian school. I didn't get to see my best friend very much anymore.

I didn't get along in Christian school, I eventually made one friend, an overweight kid who was obssessed with "Star Trek". We were both bullied.

So, I have this history of not having many friends. I'll leave my childhood history here. Suffice to say, I've spent most of my life alone; have a history of being abandoned by the people closest to me.

 

I think a big reason why I'm like I am is

A.)I have a very high IQ. A lot of times, people who are intellectually smarter than other people have a hard time blending in. No one ever bothered to say that maybe I should be given special treatment due to my high IQ. I was just left to flounder my way through school. I was a fairly quiet person who loved being around books more than other people. It was just easier for me that way.

B.)I've suffered from depression my whole life, that was undiagnosed until I was a Juniour in high school and untreated until very recently. Actually, I shouldn't say my depression is being treated, as everything has failed. I also have a history of anxiety. Obviously, knowing I'm "different" than everyone else, but not having any reasons for why I feel so different could led to me feeling alienated from other people.

Israel is the "watch dog" of the "Middle East". They don't have oil, or even water, but they have great military strength for the region. They single-handedly repelled the most powerful States in the region, and if you look at foreign aid, you see HUGE increases from America to Israel after this event.

Of course, it depends on what you mean by "slave to oil", but if look at the countries who do get the majority of their oil from the "Middle East", these are countries that are a threat to America's hegemony. If America can keep a strong presense in the "Middle East", it gives them the advantage against, say, China. Not only with oil, but it is also keeping easy access into neigbouring countries through military bases.

Israel is so important because the Iranian Revolution led to America losing the Shah, and Hussein quickly became unstable in Iraq, America knows how tenuous a bond it has with countries like Saudi Arabia, so that leaves Israel as the one ally America can depend on in the area. The huge failures to control Afghanistan and Iraq after the initial invasions just reinforce America's position.

If you look at any American policy statement,and they are readily accessible, they continually outline how control of the "Middle East" is the most important strategic region in the world.

 

There's the "Cold War" influence, where Israel was used as a pawn by both the U.S. and Soviet Union, the only reason Israel became recognized by the U.N. in the first place.

Also, we can't forget the power of the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington or the power Israel conjures in the mind of religious people.

 

"or blaming everything on "colonialism" or "imperialism" is to ignore the vast history of the region."

Of course blaming everything on imperialism isn't realistic, but not looking at the conflicts in the area and connecting them to the history of colonialism in the area is to ignore history. The "Middle East" and Africa have been under the influence of colonial and imperial power for such a long time now that it's hard to think of the history of the region BEFORE the colonization of the areas.

Marx had the idea of historical materialism, that history was in a process of evolution, concerning changes in the modes and relations to production.

The societal mode existing before Capitalism was Feudalism, and according to Marx and a large portion of the world, Capitalism was a great improvement over Feudal society.

OK, by saying that Capitalism had "good elements", I'm not using Marxian speech. Marx did not see Capitalism are being either good or bad. It just happened. To Marx Capitalism was inevitable as society evolved from Feudalism, it was the next evolutionary step. It was just something that had to happen. Under Capitalism, the world has seen great industrial developments and more freedom offered to people. Without these developments under Capitalism, it would be impossible for a Communist society to exist. It takes a large degree of technological development for a Communist society to be possible, and only under the tenets of Capitalism would those technological improvements ever be created.

 

I found an article on Cuba that you might enjoy:

Winning the ‘Battle of Ideas’

By Gloria La Riva

 

Cuba is doing more than just surviving the U.S. economic blockade and the difficult legacy of the post-Soviet era. The Cuban revolution—the people and its leadership—has been actively engaged in a strategy for the last six years known as the “Battle of Ideas” to strengthen the socialist revolution.

 

Cuba’s economy is expanding and returning to socialist norms of production.

Photo: Bill Hackwell

 

Among the latest efforts in the Battle of Ideas is a massive investment in health, education and cultural development as well as a revival of socialist economic methods. In addition, there is a major effort to combat corruption and theft of social property.

 

Underlying the battle is the Cuban economy’s accelerating growth. This growth has enabled the Cuban state to increase its role in the economy, for example in socialist norms of distribution, to benefit the workers as opposed to the small-scale entrepreneurs who gained immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

Revival of socialist methods

 

Before its destruction in 1991, the Soviet Union provided essential economic support for the Cuban revolution. After 1991, Cuba was faced with severe shortages and economic disruptions. In the desperate struggle for sheer survival, the Cuban leadership was forced to resort to capitalist-style stimuli of the economy. But President Fidel Castro and other Cuban Communists always looked forward to the day when such reforms would cease to be a driving force of economic development.

 

That day has come.

 

Cuba’s gross domestic product grew 5 percent in 2004. The tourist industry grew by 7 percent.

 

This year, it is estimated that Cuba’s economy will grow by 9 percent. Unemployment has been reduced to a mere 1.9 percent.

 

With every economic gain, all relevant institutions are engaged in calculating how to reassert socialist economic measures, rather than the capitalist-oriented methods of recent times.

 

Beginning with a surprise notice to the world last May that the U.S. dollar would no longer be accepted as currency, a series of banking measures gave Cuba’s currency new strength.

 

Cuban bank account holders have voluntarily reduced their dollar holdings by 57 percent. Savings of the Cuban convertible peso grew threefold, and the national peso savings grew by 35 percent.

 

In the 1990s, the Cuban government had to implement income-generating reforms during the severe economic downturn in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Those included private employment, foreign investment, development of international tourism, remittances from families abroad, the introduction of the U.S. dollar and allowing unrestricted farmers’ markets.

 

The government and Cuban Communist Party made clear that the reforms were not building socialism per se, but were concessions aimed at reviving the economy in order to preserve socialist gains until such a time in the future when the country could return to the “building of socialism.”

 

On July 26, 1993, on the cusp of those economic changes, Cuban President Fidel Castro gave a major speech to explain this turn.

 

“We have to search for hard currency income, through different means we are doing that. [A] measure towards that objective is an opening to foreign capital investments. … We who were so doctrinaire and who fought so against foreign capital investment, see it now as an urgent necessity, with the disappearance of the socialist camp, from which we received factories, credits, a ton of things and from which we receive nothing now, not from a now non-existent socialist camp nor a Soviet Union. Nor do we receive anything from international financial institutions, which are all absolutely dominated by the United States.

 

“Now our country has a primary task, as we have defined it: … Today we have to save the Homeland, the Revolution and the gains of socialism which is the same as defending the right to continue building it in the future.”

 

Today, Cuba’s party—along with the mass organizations of workers, women and youth—is guiding the society towards the strengthening of socialism as the economy recovers.

 

Youth brigades fight corruption

 

Cuban President Fidel Castro has recently raised a thought-provoking question to the Cuban people: whether the Cuban revolution can be defeated internally from failure to guard against privilege and bourgeois influence.

 

“We have seen how heroic revolutions in great countries fell or collapsed precisely because of corruption, bureaucracy, lack of consciousness, bad methods of working with the masses and other failures,” Castro said in a Dec. 6 rally to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Battle of Ideas’ launching.

 

The youth of Cuba are playing a principal role in the revolutionary renewal. Leagues of tens of thousands of newly graduated medical workers, art instructors and social workers are engaging all of Cuban society to strengthen socialist consciousness.

 

A Cuban social worker helps fight corruption.

Photo: Pastor Batista Valdes/Granma

 

For instance, social workers—a new occupation requiring specialized training and a college degree—are organized into youth brigades to help people requiring assistance in resolving their problems. From the time they were first started in 2000, there are now 28,000 graduates of the social workers schools, along with another 7,000 currently studying in the schools.

 

The role of these youth organizations is to actively engage with people in their neighborhoods and homes, to survey and document the demographics of the population. They learn the specific issues facing each individual and family, especially in the poorer segments of the population, whether retirees, the unemployed, single mothers or children neglected by their parents. Then they help solve the problems at hand.

 

A recent national door-to-door survey by the social workers showed that 37,000 retirees were living alone and in need of personal attention. It led the government to decide that pensions were too low for seniors. Pensions were increased for all seniors, and 100 social programs were instituted.

 

Now the social workers are engaged in a new campaign: fighting against the theft of critical energy resources. Gasoline was being pilfered through bribes at gas stations, resulting in loss of state income for social spending. But exactly how much was not known.

 

Then on Oct. 10, in an innovative move, 10,444 social workers were dispatched to the gas stations of Havana and the provinces. The youth pumped the gasoline at 2,000 stations for weeks. They accompanied each delivery truck and monitored the refineries, keeping close watch on the precious fuel.

 

With the youth present, employees could not sell the fuel “under the table.” In two months of vigilance, the country’s income from gasoline sales more than doubled. The government is now instituting changes to keep closer control of the gasoline.

 

The social workers have become very popular. Coming primarily from working-class backgrounds, the young workers are seen as defending the interests of the people against the “new rich.”

 

“Just how many ways of stealing do we have in this country?” President Castro asked students at University of Havana on Nov. 17. “Why is it that we read every day in the opinion polls that people are asking about when the ‘kids’ are coming to the dollar stores, to the drugstores, or to all the other places? Everyone is full of admiration for these ‘kids,’ I mean the social workers, who came out of economically disadvantaged environments and are now highly prepared and trained.”

 

Castro: Don’t let the revolution fall apart

 

He explained one of the lessons that must be drawn from the collapse of the Soviet Union: that internal negligence can help lead to the disintegration of the revolution.

 

“I believe that the experience of that first socialist State, a State that should have been fixed and not destroyed, was a bitter one,” Castro explained. “You may be sure that we have thought many times about that incredible phenomenon where one of the mightiest powers in the world disintegrated the way it did; for this was a power that had matched the strength of the other super-power and had paid with the lives of more than 20 million of her people in the battle against fascism.

 

“Is it that revolutions are doomed to fall apart, or that human beings cause revolutions to fall apart? Can either humanity or society prevent revolutions from collapsing? I could immediately add to this another question: Do you believe that this revolutionary socialist process can fall apart, or not?” (Exclamations of: “No!!”) “Have you ever given that some thought? Have you ever deeply reflected about it?

 

“Were you aware of all these inequalities that I have been talking about? Were you aware of certain generalized habits? Did you know that there are people who earn forty or fifty times the amount that one of those [Cuban] doctors over there in the mountains of Guatemala … earns in one month? It could be in other faraway reaches of Africa, or at an altitude of thousands of meters, in the Himalayas, saving lives and earning 5 percent or 10 percent of what one of those dirty little crooks earns, selling gasoline to the new rich, diverting resources from the ports in trucks and by the ton-load.”

 

In addition to saving gasoline, an extensive program of replacing energy-sapping appliances like refrigerators and light bulbs is underway throughout the whole population. Small-scale private entrepreneurs like owners of the 12-seat “paladares” restaurants and others in self-employment will have to pay higher rates of electricity than workers.

 

The driving principle is that workers and retired workers must now be given priority as the bulwark of the socialist revolution.

 

During his Nov. 17 University of Havana speech, Castro commented on the 60th anniversary of his life as a revolutionary and the outlook of Cuba’s revolution:

 

“Those who work and produce will receive more, and they will be able to buy more; those who worked for decades will receive more and will have more. The country will have much more, but it will never be a consumer society. It will be a society of knowledge, of culture, of the most extraordinary human development imaginable, development in art, culture, science but not for chemical weapons, with a breadth of liberty that no one will be able to dismantle.

 

In another speech on Oct. 28, Castro said, “What those thousands of social workers, which are only a small, active part of the social workers we have, are doing is fighting to achieve Cuba’s economic invulnerability, and the principle they are striving to make a reality is the principle of giving the most to those who work, to those who receive a salary or a pension as workers in factories, professionals, teachers, doctors, workers in any walk of life. Yes, those should be the ones who benefit the most.”

 

Socialist consciousness

 

One fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism is that socialism must develop through consciousness and solidarity of the people—especially in an imperialist-dominated world.

 

Capitalist ideology still dominates and influences the working class and less class-conscious elements within the socialist countries. Societies like the United States may seem at first glance to be superior, with vast displays of wealth and unlimited advertising. But basic needs like education, health, housing, and jobs are increasingly unmet for tens of millions of people.

 

Former Eastern European countries and large parts of Soviet society were influenced by the siren song of capitalism in the 1980s. Cuba was expected to go the way of the socialist camp.

 

It was revolutionary consciousness, communist ideology and the conviction of the Cuban people and its leaders to defend socialism no matter the cost, which enabled Cuba to weather the anti-communist storm.

 

Cuba has emerged as a powerhouse of socialism, despite blockade, shortages and U.S. aggression.

 

The ability of the Cuban revolution to examine and solve the problems of the most vulnerable in society, to critique the shortcomings and fight privilege, are hallmarks that will guarantee its survival.

It was like Silver Surfer and Gah Lak Tus! (see, his name is alien now instead of silly like Galactus)

This cover looks misplaced and the first cover looked really rushed (especially the girl), but I really don't mind the look of these covers. They're something different for now, and remember, they could've been glow-in-the-dark, foil, gatefold, monochrome embossed, 3-D, with 4 variants....so, we should all be thankful!

"And that archive story, if it ever gets into print, has John at the pub telling tall tales to his mates - a note that otherwise I tended to skimp on."

Oh, it's a shame this didn't see print.

 

"Marvel pay that low?"

Marvel better have paid handsomely for "What If the Fantastic Four were Communists?" :lol:

Sad? It was like reading about my childhood. What are you saying?

This might interest fans of the "Question for Americans" thread.

It made it to the front page headlines of AOL News.

 

"OLYMPIA, Wash. (Jan. 16) - A pastor has called for a national boycott of Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and other businesses that have come out in support of a gay civil rights bill, saying Monday that the companies have underestimated the power of religious consumers. (See? they tell us right here!)

 

Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in the east Seattle suburb of Redmond - also home to Microsoft - said he would officially make the call for the boycott Thursday on a national conservative talk radio show, Focus on the Family.

 

"We're tired of sitting around thinking that morals can be ignored in our country," he said. "This is not a threat, this is a promise. Check out the past presidential election. We made the moral issue the No. 1 issue." (once again, he'll tell us all about it!)

 

Last week, several companies, including Microsoft Corp., Boeing Co., Hewlett Packard Co., and Nike Inc. signed a letter urging passage of the measure, which would add "sexual orientation" to a state law that already bans discrimination in housing, employment and insurance based on race, gender, age, disability, religion, marital status and other factors.

 

Microsoft's support comes a year after it was denounced for quietly dropping support for it.

 

Hutcherson, who has organized anti-gay-marriage rallies in Seattle and Washington, D.C., was at the middle of the Microsoft controversy last year on the gay rights issue. He says he pressured Microsoft into dropping its support of the measure last year by threatening a boycott.

 

The company, which took heat from gay activists across the country, insisted it decided to take a neutral stance to focus on other issues but later came out saying it would once again support the measure in future years.

 

Asked about Hutcherson's threat Monday, Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said, "Our position is well known, as we said in our letter last week, and we stick by it." He declined to comment further.

 

Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said the company had no plans to withdraw its support.

 

"The position that we have taken is one that we do feel strongly about," he said. "It is entirely consistent with our own internal practices and policies."

 

Other companies did not return phone calls on Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

 

Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, who has sponsored the measure for more than a decade, said he wasn't concerned that Hutcherson's move would have any impact on the companies' bottom line.

 

"The American people and citizens of Washington state aren't going to buy into his line of bigotry," he said.

 

Hutcherson said he has the support of several national organizations, including the Family Research Council, Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family. Several of those organizations' offices could not be reached after hours Monday.

 

Dr. Joseph Fuiten, a Bothell pastor who is chairman of Faith & Freedom Network, an organization that opposes the bill, said the boycott is a signal "that we're out here too."

 

Fuiten said that Christian consumers "don't like to see companies use their financial muscle to promote what we view as immoral."

 

"These companies should stick to their business, make their widgets," he said. "Why are they trying to engineer social policy for America?"

 

Hutcherson said he's not telling companies to change their own internal policies on gay rights. He just doesn't want them influencing lawmakers with their support.

 

"Don't step in our world, we won't step in yours," he said.

 

Supporters of the bill said that that the groups don't represent the state's citizens.

 

"It's sad that on the day we remember Martin Luther King Jr., that a small minority of people believe it's OK to fire someone or deny them housing simply because they're gay," said Fran Dunaway, executive director of Equal Rights Washington, a group formed to support the gay civil rights bill.

 

The bill has been introduced - and rejected - annually for nearly 30 years in the Legislature.

 

The state House last year passed the bill 61-37, with six Republicans joining 55 Democrats in favor. But it lost by one vote in the Senate, where two Democrats, Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam and Tim Sheldon of Potlatch, joined 23 Republicans in defeating the bill.

 

The measure is believed to have a better chance of passage this year because Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, announced last week that he would switch his vote to yes.

 

A House committee planned a public hearing on the bill on Tuesday.

 

The gay civil rights bill is House Bill 2661."

Ah yes....What mood was in at this time?

Actually, I hardly show up at all!

And, I'll be staying well the fuck away from this thread this year!

 

I see Rogan was playing the part of Anon.

Wow! Talk about the victories of propaganda! It is astounding that learned individuals still take the stance that a society without class would somehow be LESS independent and creative than a society set upon the idea of classes.

 

This isn't a shot at you by any means Kinki, so please don't take it that way. There are professors of history and economics at prestigious universities who have this idea.

That sounds really complicated.

Is it on Game Show Network after "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"?

God the original was an awful series.

 

You making a movie about it?