The good news – the Senate actually rejected Bush’s proposal of a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriages.

The bad news – they voted it down by a final tally of 49-48.

Not all that comforting is it? If you want to see how they voted, click here.

More good news – the Boston Macy’s store located at Downtown crossing dedicated a window display in support of the Boston’s Pride chapter and Boston Pride 2006. It was designed in collaboration with the Boston Pride Committee.

More bad news – After much harassment from the anti-gay organization, Article 8, Macy’s decided to pull the mannequins from the display.

Not good enough and on Article 8’s website the group says, “Your voices are starting to be heard loud and clear,” the group’s website states, “and Macy’s is starting to back down. But they still don’t get it on their public support of a week of rather raunchy homosexual activity.”

Where are the gay groups rising up against the raunchy heterosexual activity that happens daily at organized sports events, construction sites and in every bar, restaurant, pub where heterosexual, (not to mention homophobic) males have consumed more than 2.5 alcoholic beverages?

I can only speak from my own experience, but I have been fair game for wolf cries and obscenities veiled as come on lines since I was 14.
Where were/are the activists rushing to save me from depravity?

Mind you, I have NEVER had a, or a group of, lesbians cat call at me or try recruiting me on a public or private level.

If I find myself in the unthinkable position of testifying against a man who raped me, I will actually find myself defending myself. Yes, the rape victim must first prove her own innocence before the predator is put in a position to be held accountable.

Back to that window display, depraved isn’t it? Just look at those two male mannequins just standing there, not touching, not in any sexually orientated activity of ANY kind.

Back to the activists, where are they in our malls? Why are they not protecting us from the likes of Fredrick’s of Hollywood and Victoria’s not so Secret?

Seriously though, why are they not protecting us from the likes of, Jerry Buck Inman, the confessed, Bikini Killer, of Tiffany Marie Sours?

Inman is one of 563,000 registered sex offenders living in the United States. Do not even try to tell me that every single one of them is not a repeat offender, (Not to mention we don’t have numbers for the un-registered offenders.) for example; I’m no angel and dabbled in shoplifting in my early teens.

Did I stop at my first dibble? Uhh, no. Did I stop at my second, third, forth? Uhh, no. Because. I. Was. Not. Caught.

So yeah, I shoplifted. No one caught me, no one inquired where these things were coming from at home and eventually the guilt got to be too much and it just wasn’t fun any more, so I stopped.

The only reason I started in the first place was because a friend dared me to. I didn’t have the now famous, “Winona Ryder”, syndrome of taking things and mass denial when caught. Wouldn’t you have more respect for her if she had just stood up and admitted she had some psychological flaw that she just couldn’t help herself, but she’s sorry and is seeking help? I would have.

Here’s the thing though. Without help or incarceration she will be out there still unable to stop herself from doing it. However, no young girls will be missing and turn up dead and buried in Winona’s back garden.

Which brings us to Marc Dutroux, a 47-year-old Belgian pedophile. I’m using him only so we don’t forget that this is a problem that is ours alone here in the States.

In 1989 Dutoux was convicted of raping and abusing five young girls and was sentenced to 13 years but was released in 1992 on good behavior.

Um, well yeah, because there are NO young girls to abuse in prison for him to pray on. Oy. Who makes these decisions?

Shortly after his release, young girls began to disappear from nearby neighborhoods where Dutroux owned houses.

In August of 1996 two girls, ages 12 and 14 were found alive in the basement dungeun of on of Dutroux’s houses. They had both been raped repeatedly. One of the girls had been held for 80 days while the other had been there for 6 days and they were the lucky ones.

They found the bodies of two eight year olds buried in the back garden of one house and the bodies of two more girls ages, 17 and 19, buried in the back garden of another house.
The older girls were repeatedly raped and beaten before they were drugged and buried alive.

Vanity Fair published an interview with actress Teri Hatcher in their April 2006 issue. She had recently published her first book, Burnt Toast, and in it revealed that she had been repeatedly molested by a trusted uncle from the age of five, until she was around eight or nine. She never told anyone until she heard about a 14 year old who put a gun to her head in 2002 and left behind a note identifying the same man as her molester.

If not for Teri’s testimony the man would still be free and moved on to his next young victim.

Recently, Mark Hayward published an article about the studies that have been done to assess the risk of sex offenders repeating their crimes. He found that the studies that have been done often contradict each other in their findings.

In the article, New Hampshire State Representative, David Welch, is quoted as saying,
“… about one in 30 sex offenders are predators that society has to be very concerned about.”

Well, if we do the math with the previously cited 563,000 registered sex offenders, that works out to be 18,767 highly dangerous known sex offenders out on our streets. Divided by 50 states, that’s 375 per state in the union. In our towns. Your neighborhoods.

Are you scared for your children yet?

Well then, did you know that a judge in Lincoln, Nebraska, just last month, chose to sentence a convicted sex offender to probation instead of jail time because the man was 5-foot-one?

10 years probation instead of 10 years behind bars because the man is short and the judge thought he’d be at risk from the larger inmates.

Hold up. Didn’t this man use his size to dominate his young victims?

So that judge decided that this man’s welfare and risk of bodily harm in prison was more important that the risk of the young girls he preys on and their bodily harm and – tad da — he is on the streets, free.

Are you more than pissed off yet?

I am. So forgive me if I think we have better things to be fighting for in this country other than banning gay marriage and petitioning for the removal of harmless Macy’s window displays that are supporting the tolerance of gays in our society.

Gay couples who are working for a living and paying taxes just like you and me. Gay couples who are willing to adopt and raise the cast off children of our society and raise them in loving, safe, albeit differing environments than you may know as, “normal”.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.