Happy New Year and Soy to the World

It's a new year, and like many I have resolved improvement in several areas for 2007, including eating less junk food, drinking less soda, and exercising better "portion control".

But one thing I am NOT doing is eliminating soy products from my diet because I'm worried they are making me gay.

Irrational as this sounds, a news commentator for World Net Daily is attempting to link soy products to an increased likelihood of becoming homosexual. "Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality," the article asserts. "That's why most of the medical blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products."

What's sad is that radical, out-there hypothesis like these get lumped in with reasonable and credible ones and then they all get catagozied, and dismissed, by some as being from the "right wing extreme."

Well, you can count me as one who chooses not to partake of soy products ... not because I'm worried they are making us all gay -- but, because they typically taste down right nasty. And my kids agree.

A couple years ago when it was determined that one of our kids had a very mild dairy allergy, we briefly switched to soy-based milk. Yikes. Milk intake plummeted to almost zero until we switched back to the real deal. Therefore ... oy, no soy. At least, not in our house.

Do Colorado dogs really moo?

The pro-gay organization Born Different (BD) recently launched a campaign of billboards and TV spots that assert that 3% of the population is "born gay." The campaign is built around a mooing dog named Norman, who is different because, well, he moos ... and that is supposed to be analogous to those who are "born different" and are gay.

I don't know about anyone else, but the next mooing dog I see will be the first. It seems to me, that if you want to build a campaign around an icon such as a "mooing dog" that you'd actually want it to reinforce your message. But since mooing dogs don't exist, the effort actually counters the very point the BD folks are seeking to make.

Speaking of which, the site No Moo Lies offers a humorous counterpoint the nonsensical mooing dog effort. In this campaign, Sherman the dog reminds us that dogs, in actuality, only bark. The site also humorously counters other Born Different icons, such as two purportedly gay penguins that are put forth as further "born gay" evidence.

"Meet Roy and Silo ... two penguins living in Manhattan's Central Park Zoo. A few years back, they started spending a lot of time together — and became celebrities as Manhattan's 'most famous gay penguin couple.'

"Then something happened that messed it all up: Silo met Scrappy, a female penguin from California. Silo ditched Roy and built a nest with Scrappy. They've even started trying to have kids. It just goes to show: Penguins can change."

Be on the look out for the next phase in the BD campaign: Unicorns That Bark.