Gay World Report

Amazon screws over gay publishers -- how to get even.

2009-04-13T00:41:00.000-07:00

Amazon has created a firestorm with its treatment of books with a gay theme to them. Publishers of gay-themed novels and romances noticed that their books had vanished from Amazon’s ranking system.

Publisher Mark Probst contacted vendor services (a nightmare in itself) and asked them about this. The reply was shocking. He was told: “In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adults materials must also be excluded from that feature.”

Please note that this is the typical, evasive answer that one gets from Amazon. The truth was that much of the material that was vanishing from listings wasn’t “adult” material except in the sense that it contained big words. But if by “adult” they mean “erotic” or “sexual,” then the material was neither. Probst also noticed “there is a multitude of ‘adult’ literature out there that is still being ranked—Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, come on! They are using categories THEY set up (gay and lesbian) to now target these books as somehow offensive.”

When this all got some negative publicity for Amazon they changed their story. I’m told that some vendors who deal with Amazon will get contradictory stories from Amazon about specific policies on the same day. Others complain that dealing with Amazon is like dealing with the Kremlin, except they aren’t as friendly or transparent in what they do. Publisher’s Weekly, the big boy in the publishing news world, says “titles like James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain are among the titles who have lost their ranking.”

By the time you finish reading this you will know how to get the cheapest books possible using Amazon but without actually buying from Amazon. Amazon doesn’t want you to know this. Amazon makes it as hard as possible for you to do this. But here is how you can purchase the same book at below Amazon prices (which aren’t as good as people think they are).

I’m going to tell you how to get the most out of Amazon without ever buying from them. Amazon is not just a book vendor but also an outlet for “shops," which are book vendors. I suspect the only reason they allow other vendors on their site is to avoid any anti-trust problems. But, to steer customers to their usually higher priced books, they make the links to these other vendors rather small and more difficult to see.

When you search for a title on Amazon you will see huge type with their “discount” price and links to order directly from them. If you do that then you will pay more for the book than you need to do. For example, here is one book I just looked up. I get large type promoting the link to buy from Amazon. (See below.)

You will notice they sell the book for $14.40. In smaller type, and a bit farther down the page you will see this link:
This second link is easy to miss. It’s designed that way intentionally. If you want a new copy of the book then click on the word new. This will open up a page of vendors selling the book. The list is usually ranked according to price with the cheapest vendors at the top. But again Amazon is deceitful here as they usually list themselves first, even if they are the more expensive vendor. Just look down the page a bit further and you will see numerous vendors with cheaper prices than Amazon; rarely will this not be the case. Amazon is almost never the cheapest source of books on Amazon, but most people don’t know this. In the case of this book, going that extra step, about two seconds of your time, just save you an extra $3.

You will now have an array of vendors selling you the same book. You want a good price but you want decent service as well. Don’t fall for the trick of automatically buying a book because it is one cent cheaper, or even $1 cheaper. Check out the vendor rating. That is easy to do. You will see the name of the bookstore along with their rating. Here is an example.
My advice is to avoid any vendor with a rating lower than 98%. For instance, this vendor, whom I know nothing about, has a rating of 88%. That means 88% of their customers were happy and 12% had some problem. Twelve percent doesn’t sound like much, but that means one out of about every eight customers had a complaint with their order. They could all be bitchy customers, but not likely. I figure that a small percentage of people just like to bitch and I figure the 2% margin takes that into account. Still don’t buy the book yet. When you order from this vendor he is likely to lose the bulk of his profit to Amazon.

Vendors take all the risks. They buy the books and are required to ship within two days. Amazon has no such policy for itself, only for the vendors. A typical bookstore discount is 40% off list price. Amazon will take about a 20% commission on the book from the vendor. But the vendor has to replace books lost by the post office and take responsibility for any problems, even problems within Amazon’s own system.

Let us say that you accidentally click twice to order a book. You think you ordered once but Amazon sees it as two orders. The vendor is obliged to ship within two days. His only recourse is to send you a message. But Amazon forbids you and the vendor from directly dealing with each other. He must go through Amazon to reach you. The vendor sends a message but has no idea if you received it. Often these messages get lost of other generic messages from Amazon. The vendor is required to ship the second book or be in violation of policy and might lose his shop listing if he doesn't. You get two books and you are pissed off. The vendor has to accept the returned book and credit your account. All the postage, etc., are his losses. Amazon lost nothing. I would guess that it is typical for Amazon to make more money on the sale from a vendor than the typical vendor makes from the same sale.

The way to order is to contact the vendor. But, as I said, Amazon blocks their contact details. There is a way around this and it only takes a couple of clicks. Look at that rating again, you will see that it is actually a link. Click on the rating itself and that will take you to a vendor’s page. On the bottom right of the page you will see Vendor Help:
Now click on “Contact this seller.” You will now sign into your account and you get a screen that will allow you to send a comment to the vendor. You will be stopped from putting in a phone number or your direct contact details so don’t try. Ask any question or tell the vendor you wanted to ask some questions and could he contact you. At this point your email goes into the Amazon system. But when the vendor receives this query it will have your email address on it. He can now contact you directly and probably will.

Often, with the name of the vendor and their city, you can Google them and find their contact details on line. That is even faster and far more reliable than trusting Amazon to get your email to them. So I’d first try an on-line search for the vendor. Only if that doesn’t work should you email via Amazon. The more you leave Amazon out of the process, the more likely it is that things will go smoothly.

If the vendor contacts you directly, and you reached them through Amazon, ask if he will take a direct order from you by email or will call you for a credit card order. Ask about shipping costs and options. You may find the shipping is cheaper as Amazon overcharges grossly in some areas (this is true if you order more than one item from a vendor through Amazon and even worse if you live in Canada or overseas). Tell the vendor you want to order directly from them only and not through Amazon. Most vendors can take your order and process it. You will get faster service and you can pick the kind of shipping you want—options you don’t get through Amazon.

I may browse Amazon for titles and information but I have stopped ordering from them and ordering through them. Not long ago I needed some software. I found a vendor on Amazon offering the same item cheaper than Amazon. I Googled them and found their contact details. I then placed the order directly with the vendor. This was faster actually. Vendors tell me that Amazon sometimes has glitches where orders can be sat on for hours, if not a day or two. Suddenly the problem resolves and they get a bunch of orders. I also got the option of downloading the software directly, so no shipping was required. And I liked knowing that the vendor got the full profit.

If you order directly you know that the order was received and that it is being filled. You can also ask vendors if they can offer a better price. Remember that since they aren’t paying a 20% commission to Amazon they may be more inclined to grant your request. You will get cheaper books this way. You will get better service this way. You are in direct contact with the people supplying the book and can find options that Amazon won’t offer you. I also think it is important to help these individual book sellers, they are what keeps the market competitive and competitive markets are better for consumers. Do yourself a favor and start buying from the vendors directly. It’s a win-win situation for you and for them. Sure, Amazon won’t like it. But frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Notice: This post is hereby released from all copyright claims. Reprint it if you want, anywhere you want. You are not required to even link to the site on which it originally appeared. Spread it around freely.

Labour Party Gets Gay Shock

2009-04-06T02:22:00.000-07:00

A recent poll in Great Britain shows a monumental shift politically, if not for the nation as a whole, at least for the Conservative Party. In the poll 1,800 gay men and lesbians were asked whether they would support Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. For the first time the plurality of gay men and lesbians have said they intend to vote for the Conservatives.

The poll showed that 30% were behind the Conservatives while Liberal Democrats and Labour tied at 18%. Those saying they would not vote at all were 17% and 9% said they are unsure. Labour has always considered the gay vote a safe bet. The marks a big shift for gay voters in England. In 2005 they went for Labour with 33% while the Conservatives attracted 21%.

I think there are two reasons for the shift. One is that the Labour governments of Blair and Brown have been openly authoritarian. As bad as the tendency toward a police state has been in the United States it is far worse in the UK. Secondly, the Conservative Party has not been gay adverse, like Republicans in the United States. England does not have a significant number of fundamentalist nutters such as infest the GOP here.

Tory leader David Cameron told gay voters: “I want the Conservative Party to be an open and inclusive Party which speaks for everyone in Britain regardless of their race, background or sexuality…” It is not likely that any major Republican is yet willing to say even that. Tory party chairman, Francis Maude, says that the party regrets their previous positions.
The Conservatives have also said they want more gay candidates to stand for office. Nick Boles, director of the Policy Exchange, and a former Tory Parliamentary candidate said: “There doesn’t need to be much intervention to ensure there is a good selection of openly gay people in winnable seats. I have always been openly gay. I hope to get on the list and to get a seat.”

If you want to see the difference between the British Conservatives and American Republicans below is a video of the Conservative Party Humanist Association being held at the Conservative Party national conference. The speaker, as you will see, is Richard Dawkins.

When Liberty Kisses Justice: Equality

2009-04-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

The Iowa Supreme Court set the cat amongst the pigeons with their ruling on whether or not the state can ban gay marriage, based on the state’s constitution. Their decision, I believe, is the correct one. Iowa’s state constitution has an equal protection clause. One of the principles of American justice, a principle that religion-besotted conservatives have intentionally swept under the rug, is that legislation is not the supreme law of the land. Above legislation are the constitutions of the various states. It ought to be that way at the federal level as well, but too often isn’t, hence runaway big government.

The god-botherers out there scream when a court rules as this one did. They exhibit their own ignorance by bleating that the justices are legislating from the bench. But what these justices are required to do is judge whether or not legislative law is consistent with, or in violation of, constitutional law. That is their job! They are not usurping powers but judiciously engaging in their primary job.

Members of God’s Own Party (GOP) in Iowa pushed through legislation that explicitly banned gays from having the same marriage rights as straights. The Iowa constitution promises equality of rights before the law. There are exceptions to the concept of equality of rights (more than I think acceptable). With the legislation saying one thing, and the constitution promising another, the Supreme Court is then brought in to resolve the conflict. This means they have to decide, based on the evidence presented to them, whether denying gay couples equal protection qualifies as a legitimate exception or not.

What the Iowa court did, in this case, was issue a very conservative ruling. They upheld constitutional law, and some of the best constitutional law, that Americans have. The radicals in the courtroom were the plethora of religiously-inspired special interest groups demanding that constitutional principles be ignored because they imagine that some supernatural being has demanded that one class of people be treated badly. The Justices were respecting the law, not making law. They said:

The Iowa Constitution is the cornerstone of governing in Iowa. Like the United States Constitution, the Iowa Constitution creates a remarkable blueprint for government. It establishes three separate, but equal, branches of government and delineates the limited roles and powers of each branch. See Iowa Const. art. III, § 1 (“The powers of the government of Iowa shall be divided into three separate departments—the legislative, the executive, and the judicial: and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any function appertaining to either of the others, except in cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.”). Among other basic principles essential to our form of government, the constitution defines certain individual rights upon which the government may not infringe. See Iowa Const. art. I (“Bill of Rights”). Equal protection of the law is one of the guaranteed rights. See Iowa Const. art. I, § 6. All these rights and principles are declared and undeniably accepted as the supreme law of this state, against which no contrary law can stand. See Iowa Const. art. XII, § 1 (“This constitution shall be the supreme law of the state, and any law inconsistent therewith, shall be void.”).

The ruling noted that: “This court, consistent with its role to interpret the law and resolve disputes, now has the responsibility to determine if the law enacted by the legislative branch and enforced by the executive branch violates Iowa's Constitution.” Conservatives, who are wailing in distress over the court’s action, ought to remember that the prime cause of over-reaching government today is the result of Courts not checking legislators and executives when their actions violate Constitutional guarantees.

The justices also noted that public opinion matters not one bit. “A statute inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution must be declared void, even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion.” Jefferson addressed this when he said: “What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.” Popular prejudice, even if widespread, in itself, is not sufficient cause for making a minority less than equal. The Iowa justices wrote that “the very purpose of limiting the power of the elected branches of government by constitutional provisions like the Equal Protection Clause is [according to Justice Robert Jackson] ‘to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.’”

The idea that law should reflect popular viewpoints, which is implicit in the conservative view, and explicit in many cases, is not even a conservative viewpoint. What today’s conservatives are promoting is a Left-populist view held by some of the more Left-wing justices of the past. During the Progressive Era, the political Left was stymied when they wished to push through legislation that inhibited property rights, freedom of trade, freedom of contract, and such similar “economic” issues. Such laws, while popular with the public, violated various constitutional provisions as they had been historically interpreted. This became most apparent in the early days of the New Deal, where Roosevelt’s anger with the Court overturning popular legislation reached a crescendo with FDR threatening to push through a change on the number of justices on the bench so he could pack the court with fellow “progressives.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the Left-leaning justices pushed a new theory of Constitutional interpretation. He said that Constitutional provisions should be interpreted in light of “the felt necessities of the times, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed and unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow men.” He said, “What proximate test of excellence can be found except correspondence with the actual equilibrium of force in the community—that is, conformity to the wishes of the dominant power? Of course, such conformity may lead to destruction, and it is desirable that the dominant power should be wise. But wise or not, the proximate test of a good government is that the dominant power has its way.”

Holmes explicitly stated that constitutional principles of the Founders should be ignored. He claimed: “Everyone instinctively recognizes that in these days the justification of a law for us cannot be found in the fact that our fathers always have followed it. It must be found in some help which the law brings toward reaching a social end which the governing power of the community has made up its mind that it wants.” Conservatives have adopted this left-wing view rather explicitly, at least when it comes to the equality of rights of homosexuals. Mention the gay issue and conservatives, who cling to constitutional principles on property and economics, suddenly become raving Progressives demanding that the rights of the one be subjected to the approval of the majority.

But what of the claim that the Founders did not explicitly mention the legal equality of homosexuals when they designed our Constitutional principles? Clearly that is true. After all it was a bit over two centuries ago. What the Founders intended to do was set out some basic principles; principles which they knew were not being applied consistently, across the board. For instance, while some Founders were quite opposed to the issue of slavery, they did not write a Constitution explicitly forbidding it. Such a Constitution could not be ratified, given the prejudices of the Southern states on the matter.

The Founders were aware that the expansion of liberty, and equality before the law, was a long-term project, perhaps an unending one. Future generations would each fight their own battles for the extension of these libertarian principles. At no point did the Founders attempt to enumerate all the rights held by the individual. As James Wilson said, at the time, “Who would be bold enough to undertake to enumerate all the rights of the people?” The Ninth Amendment quite explicitly acknowledges that such an enumeration is not possible and that the failure to list specific rights in the Bill of Rights does not mean the right does not exist. What the Founders gave us was a list of precise, enumerated powers of government and broad, unspecified concepts of individual rights.

Each generation faces new questions about rights not faced by previous generations. The Founders did not believe that their list of rights was exhaustive. So they did not try to enumerate such rights. They said they were offering future generations the broad principles with which they should work when facing new controversies about individual liberty. Jefferson’s said that the “most sacred” duty of government is “to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.” That principle was enshrined in the Iowa Constitution, as it was in most state constitutions. Jefferson said our principles of government “secure to all… citizens a perfect equality of rights.”

But today, conservatives are leading a stampede to undermine the concept of equality of rights before the law. They are arguing that their religious sentiments and imaginations require the law to explicitly embrace an inequality of rights. This is precisely what Prop 8 did in California and what many other such “constitutional amendments” have been intended to do. They have radically rewritten a basic constitutional principle, that of equality of rights, and substituted for it one that demands inequality of rights. Such a revolutionary change to a founding principle is hardly conservative in any sense of the word. It is a shockingly revolutionary attempt to overturn the founding principles of the Republic.

The classical liberal views of the Founders were not static. Liberalism itself is not static, but dynamic. It is not that the foundational principles change, but that they are applied to new situations in new times. Even the Founders were captives of their own time and culture, as far-seeing as many of them were. The application of constitutional liberal principles to African-Americans was simply not something that the political culture of their day could accept. But those principles were eventually accepted, albeit it after much hardship, debate and public outrage, somewhat similar to the sort of reaction we see today as these principles are slowly being applied to gay people as well.

Hayek said that true liberalism “wants to go elsewhere, not to stand still.” By this, he meant that liberals accept change when that change is consistent with foundational principles. He warned, “one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is fear of change, a timid distrust of the new, as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence of the preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead.” Hayek said that conservatives are not afraid of state power at all and thus is unconcerned “with the problems of how the powers of government should be limited” but are worried about “who wields them.” He warned that the conservative “like the socialist” “regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people.”

Lord Samuel Brittan once argued that: “Many of the classical ideas of nineteenth-century liberalism [i.e. classical liberalism] did not come on the statute books until the 1960s. The battle is still far from won, as can be seen from the sentences still passed on ‘obscene publications’ or the hysterical and vindictive attitude adopted by so many authority figures towards the problem of drugs.”

The classical liberalism of the Founders is always going to move us into new territory. And when it does, there will always be conservative forces, fearful of change, finding excuses to cling to previously held, but erroneous, conclusions. The Iowa court said that their responsibility “is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time.” They wrote:

The framers of the Iowa Constitution knew, as did the drafters of the United States Constitution, that “times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” and as our constitution “endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom” and equality

One of the great things about liberalism, properly understood, is that it doesn’t ask us to cling to the conclusions of the past, just the principles. Those principles embrace a free society, based on individual rights and one that respects the equality of rights before the law. The justices in Iowa did not overturn those principles at all. They unanimously embraced them. And for that they should be applauded.

[Note: this post only covers basic principles as I see them in regards to this case. I urge people to read the entire decision for themselves. Much of the decision discusses why the justices rejected claims that homosexuals, as a class, ought to be denied marriage rights.]

Success is sweet revenge.

2009-03-17T00:44:00.001-07:00

Last year we reported on the injustice inflicted on college wrestlers Paul Donahoe and Kenny Jordan. Both men were thrown off the wrestling team at the University of Nebraska by a moralistic coach, Mark Manning. Their "crime" was that each had posed for nude photos for a website that specialized in male erotica.

Remember that both men were of legal age. Neither had hurt anyone. Coeds across the nation routinely pose for similar nude photos without any punishment being inflicted on them. But apparently because the coach saw this as "gay porn" a double-standard existed.

Sadly Jordan decided he was finished with wrestling. But Paul Donahoe wasn't going to let some antiquated throwback decide his future.

With the help of his former high school coach Donahoe transferred to a new school, Edinboro Universtiy and rejoined the wrestling team there. This year Donahoe is unbeaten (32-0) and is number one in the nation in his weight class.

Donahue is rightfully unapologetic. He says: "I didn't do anything illegal. I didn't hurt anyone. I don't think I did anything wrong. Who should I apologize to?"

Because Donahoe's photos were marketed to a gay audience it was perceived that he was gay. And he says one result was that he was the butt of many antigay jokes. His reply: "I'm not too concerned, They can talk about me all Hethey want, it doesn't matter. If a guy wants to be with a guy, who cares?" For the record, Donahoe is not gay.

More of Donahoe's story has come out as well. His parents divorced and finances became a major problem for him. He told the press: "I've basically been on my own since I was a freshman in high school." The wife of his high school coach, Jennifer Hall, said: "He's a great kid, but complicated. He'll do whatever it takes to survive." Donahue did the photo shoot and video because he needed the money. He was flown to LA and paid several thousand dollars for the shoot. He said, "What the heck? People do worse for money."

Donahoe criticized the double-standard at the University of Nebraska. He said:

I believe it was unfair for Nebraska to dismiss me from the team. For one, there's plenty of athletes throughout the University of Nebraska who have had DUIs and who have been in fights and are still playing. But I guess that's OK. Posing nude, I guess, is worse than someone drinking and driving and risking someone's life, in their eyes.

Fellow teammate Gregor Gillespie told the Boston Herald that when Donahoe first transferred a lot of people were speaking badly about him. "Right now, he's proving people wrong. He's had to switch coaches, schools, friends, that had to be a pain. He's heard people yelling stuff like 'homo,' but none of that bothers him, he just brushes that all off."

Donahoe says that lots of people left him encouraging words on his Myspace page. A year later he's number one in the nation. Yes, success is the sweetest revenge.

Westboro hate group met by silence.

2009-03-17T00:43:00.001-07:00

The fanatics from the Westboro Baptist Church took their hate message to Lexington, MA. They showed up at the Lexington High School and started shouting their hate at the school as it was letting out. Some 200 students and 200 members of the community gathered across the street in silence. The held hands in silence and then turned their backs on the Phelps family. The local paper reports:

As members of the church shouted and sang familiar songs like “Jingle Bells” with alternate lyrics laced with anti-gay sentiments and expletives, about 200 high school students joined in the counter-protest, lining up on a large snowbank. They, too, held hands and turned their backs to the protestors.
One student’s T-shirt read, “Love Unites. Hate Divides.”
Except for a few intermittent shouts, the counter-protest was quiet. There were no altercations and no conflict between the two sides.

When the Baptists packed up their van and left, only as they turned the corner, was the silence broken as 400 people applauded their depature. Here is a video of the incident.

Guantanamo and Utah; the common link

2009-02-20T02:00:00.000-08:00

Recently I was reading the testimony of Brandon Neely, a former guard at the US concentration camp at Guantanamo. I thought of it again tonight when reading an article in the New York Times regarding opposition to the play Rent being shown in a toned-down version at America high schools. I thought I saw a link. To explain that link let me explain each story first.

Much of what Neely said is highly disturbing. It is clear that the United States has lost any moral high ground it once held. Our government is acting in ways that our nation has always opposed. President Bush changed that. Funny how a moralistic bumpkin managed to destroy morality at that level.

Neely spoke of being at Guantanamo the first day the prisoners arrived. He says: “I went back to my tent and laid down to go to sleep. I was thinking ‘those were the worst people the world had to offer? Now what I expected.” I guess I was expecting people who looked like monsters or what-not.”

Neely spoke of the abuse that was heaped on some of these prisoners, including abuse he helped with. But he also spoke of how these individuals often seemed to him merely scared and frightened. Individuals told to drink something feared they were being poisoned and refused – for that they were physically assaulted. One man was forced to his knees. This man had seen members of his family executed this way and started quivering and feel to the ground in terror. Neely responded. Here is what he said:

He was instructed to go to his knees, which he did. My partner then went down and took off his leg shackles. I still had control of his upper body, and I could still feel him tensing up. Once the shackles were off my partner started to take off the handcuffs. The detainee got really tense and started to pull away. We yelled at him a couple times "Stop moving!" Over and over. Then he stopped moving, and when my partner went to put the key in that first handcuff, the detainee jerked hard to the left towards me. Before I knew it, I threw the detainee to the ground and was on top of him holding his face to the cement floor. At this time my partner had left the cage. The block NCOIC (or Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge) was on the radio yelling code red which meant emergency on the block. Before I knew, I was being grabbed from behind and pulled out of the cage by the IRF team. They grabbed this man and hog-tied him. He laid there like that for hours that day before he was released from that position. A couple days later I found out from a detainee who was on that block that the older detainee was just scared and that when we placed him on his knees he thought he was going to be executed. He then went on to tell me that this man had seen some of his friends and family members executed on their knees. I can remember guys coming up to me after it was over that night and said "Man, that was a good job; you got you some". I did not feel good about what I did. It felt wrong. This man was old enough to be my father, and I had just beaten up on him. I still to this day don't know who was more scared before and during this incident me or the detainee.

Neely’s perception of these men, many of who are clearly innocent of any wrong doing, changed in the time he interacted with them. The more he knew the more troubled he was by what he was doing to them; the more troubled he was by what our government was doing to them.

The New York Times story on Rent seems a world away from Guantanamo. The musical Rent “centers on a group of artists, straight and gay, living in the East Village. Some are H.I.V. positive; some are drug addicts, some are in recovery.”

Some of the music was risqué but it was removed for the high school version of the play that was released. In all the play was toned down for the audience.

When Ron Martin wanted to do the play with his pupils at Corona del Mar High School the principle, Fal Asrani, protested. She said that she was unhappy with the “prostitutes” and the “homosexuals” in the story. There are no prostitutes in the story so that leaves, well it just leaves the homosexuals. Asrani tried to blame Martin for cancelling the show, which he says, is absurd. In fact, he’s still trying to get her to allow it to be produced (with all this publicity it would be standing-room only).

In Bridgeport, West Virginia, drama coach Charles Dillon proposed putting on Rent and told principle Susan Collins about it. The Times reports, “when he told Ms. Collins there were two gay couples in the musical, ‘she got flustered and worked up and expressed concerns.’”

The play was proposed for a high school in Rowlett, Texas and the same thing happened. “Even though the play has been edited (by committee, no less) to exclude such things as same-sex kissing, parents and an unnamed local minister still consider the project objectionable and don't want the play to be staged in their local school auditorium.”

One of the parents bitched that the play might teach tolerance. Michael Gallop said: “I don’t think its the school’s place to each my child diversity or tolerance of a lifestyle that I don’t accept.”

Now let me bring these two stories together by the common thread. Familiarity breeds respect. Neely was shocked that when he met the actual inmates at Guantanamo that he didn’t find them to be the monsters he expected. He became friendly with some and was convinced that many were clearly victims of the war and not terrorists at all.

What horrifies the people like Michael Gallop is that even a portrayal of gay people on stage undermines the bigotry they are trying to instill in their kids. It is easy to hate an imaginary monster that you create entirely in your head. When that monster becomes a human being things change. Bigotry rests on the ability of the bigot to convince himself that the object of his hatred is “the other”. Bigotry requires a belief that the hated are somehow so different that perhaps they don’t even qualify as human. The more the bigot can convince himself that “the other” is alien and strange, the easier it is to engage in cruelty and violence toward them.

Every social movement that promoted bigotry and hatred did so by first building an image of the group that was being targeted that made them “different” from everyone else. If you believe, as the Marxists and Nazis taught, that Jews were money-grubbing parasites exploiting the working masses, it become easier to shut down their businesses, force them to wear yellow stars, round them up and imprison them, and send them to their deaths.

Convince the world that some group of people is really “different” than everyone else and you convince them to engage in unspeakable acts.

When Mormons in the Utah legislature were voting against the right of gay people to visit their partners in the hospital a Right-wing group named America Forever was running a full-page ad in the Mormon owned Deseret News which say that gays are guilty of “anti-species behavior” and that they “should be forced not to display” their sexual orientation (this means do anything that might tell someone they are gay).

The ad argues that people have the right to use force to evict gay people “in common living areas”. Note they speak of common living areas not private property but “in our streets, shopping centers and in our lives.” Hysterically this incredible bigoted ad says another reason to use force against gay is because “they are intolerant and do not emulate any Christian ethics.”

This sort of demonization is what bigotry thrives upon. Lie to people about any group or class of people, get them to believe your lies, and you can convince people to act in the most inhumane way. What messes that agenda up is when people start to see others as being pretty similar to themselves.

The reason the Religious-Right doesn’t want gay characters in movies or television is not that such things convince young people to turn gay. That “vampire theory” is so absurd that I doubt even the fundamentalist loonies believe it themselves. What worries them is that visibility shows gay people to be like other people. They love like other people. They hurt like people. They have the same aspirations and wishes for themselves that is common to all of us. In the end gay men and women are pretty much like straight men and women.

But that is precisely what threatens the bigoted agenda. Brandon Neely got to see the people in Guantanamo as human beings, not monsters. When people get to know gay people, either in person or depicted on the stage, they start to see them as human beings, not monsters. That undermines campaigns that are rooted in fear. Familiarity does not breed contempt, it breeds tolerance. And that is why the fear mongers need to present people as alien to us, as “the other”.

It's the media's fault, really it is.

2009-02-16T02:30:00.001-08:00

You may remember that I reported on the herd of Theopublicans who were so outraged that the "chaplain of the day" for the Oklahoma state legislature was a gay man that they voted to exclude his opening prayer from the record. I'm inclined to say they shouldn't have a chaplain of the day and it shouldn't be in the record. But if they do have such a thing then I don't see the rationality of banning prayers based on the sexual orientation of the minister. But rationality and Republicans just don't mix.

Various clergy in Oklahoma were horrified to find that these Republicans wanted to ban the prayer from the record and have voiced their disgust. The man who started the ruckus is the Republican caucus leader in the Oklahoma house, John Wright. When told that various ministers thought it was best for Wright to apologize he made it clear that he won't. After all he is speaking directly for God who voted for him in the last election.

One would expect that a brouhaha would erupt over Wrights demand that the prayer be stricken from the record. But Wright doesn't see it that way. He said that the incident is only getting attention because of the media reporting on and if they just didn't report on what he did then no one would be upset. A unique view of the role of the press held today by such luminaries as Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe and Vladamir Putin. One must say the Republicans in Oklahoma are finally traveling in circles where they belong.

Photo: John Wright, advocate of free speech -- not!

Guilty of praying while gay.

2009-02-15T00:34:00.001-08:00

I have to admit that now and then the Religious Right absolutely astounds me, rarely in a good way however. The depth of their irrationality is mind-boggling. Take this absurd question: Does the Religious Right love praying more than they hate homosexuals? On the face of it you would think that was an absurd question that can’t be answered. But in Oklahoma a bunch of Republican theocrats in the state legislature managed to answer the question.

When the state legislature convenes they bring in some minister who is asked to pray. After the prayer a member of the legislature rises and asks that the prayer be put into the official record of the session. This is routinely done.

Recently Rev. Scott Jones of the Cathedral of Hope from Oklahoma City was asked to give the prayer. Jones was new at this sort of mixing of church and state and asked about the protocol. He was told that before his prayer he could recognize the individuals who came to the legislature with him. This came from the Speaker of the House, Rep. Chris Benge. Rev. Jones mentioned his “loving partner and fiancé, Michael” along with others as being with him. And then he prayed. That was all he did.

At the end of his prayer it was moved that the prayer be put into the record of the day, as is usually done. But this time Theopublicans in the House started protesting. They wanted the prayer stricken from the record, not because the prayer itself was particularly offensive but because the man who prayed happens to be gay. Twenty members of the legislature voted to ban the prayer and another 17 were just too cowardly to vote. The vote to remove the prayer failed but still about a third of the legislators voted to ban it or refused to vote at all.

Jason Murphey, a Republican who represent Guthrie and God, in the House said: “For him to show up and not just pray; that would be one thing. But to introduce his fiancé and then have his fiancé be a guy – and then pray – that was an attack on the beliefs of a lot of Oklahomans and it was entirely inappropriate.”

Try to get a handle on what this man is saying. As far as I can see the fact that gay man prayed is now considered “an attack on the beliefs of a lot of Oklahomans”. I presume that having a black man pray is an attack on the beliefs of a lot of Oklahomans as well, especially those in the Klan. Rep. Murphey seems to be upset in part because he the word fiancé “got everybody thinking it’s his future wife”. Murphey was asked if the mere fact that Jones was gay was offensive to him and he replied that he’d have to give it some thought and refused to answer.

The move to strike the prayer from the record was led by Rep. John Wright from Broken Arrow (and heaven). Wright is also the leader of the Republicans in the House. Wright has been pretty quiet on the move but did say: “My actions were motivated by the faith.”

When the objection was made Jones says that members of legislature seemed confused and some rushed over to read his prayer trying to figure out what was so objectionable in it to cause this unprecedented move by the Republicans. Scott reports that when legislators were reminded that if they were in the room they had to vote yes or no on including the prayer “some of them fled” in order to abstain. He also printed his precise words before his prayer:

Mr. Speaker and esteemed representatives, I thank you for the opportunity to be present with you today as chaplain for the day. I want to thank my representative and good friend, the Honorable Al McAffrey for the invitation. I would also like to acknowledge guests who are present in the gallery – members of my congregation, the Cathedral of Hope, United Church of Christ. Joining them are dear friends, my wonderful parents, and my loving partner, Michael Cich

Well, I certainly can see what got the members from God’s Own Party (GOP) upset. It’s practically blasphemy. Here are the list of Oklahoma politicians who clearly hate homosexuals more than they love praying.

Rep. Gus Blackwell • Republican
Rep. Lewis Moore • Republican
Rep. Mike Christian • Republican
Rep. Jason Murphey • Republican
Rep. Ann Coody • Republican
Rep. Leslie Osborn • Republican
Rep. Rex Duncan • Republican
Rep. Pat Ownbey • Republican
Rep. John Enns • Republican
Rep. Mike Reynolds • Republican
Rep. George Faught • Republican
Rep. Mike Ritze • Republican
Rep. Dennis Johnson • Republican
Rep. Mike Sanders • Republican
Rep. Sally Kerns • Republican
Rep. Randy Terrill • Republican
Rep. Charles Key • Republican
Rep. Todd Thomsen • Republican
Rep. Guy Liebmann • Republican
Rep. John Wright • Republican

If Jonah Goldberg can’t get it through his thick head why decent libertarians can’t ally themselves with the modern conservative movement this demonstrates it well. All twenty of the morons in this case were Republicans. That is one third of all the elected Republicans. Remember another 17 fled the chambers in order to avoid a vote. Unfortunately I don’t have the names of those individuals but I suspect they were mostly Republicans as well. UPDATE: I was able to find the vote and compared the names of those absent to their party affiliation. Only five of the 17 absent votes were Democrats, the other 12 were all Republicans. Suspicion confirmed.

This incident just indicates how deeply the modern Repubican Party, as an arm of the Religious Right, is motivated by visceral hatred. If Republicans can’t understand why Obama won so easily all they need do is consider the image they present when they allow religious fanaticism to dominate their party.

Photo: Rev. Jones: guilty of the crime of praying while gay.

Sex, freedom and censorship.

2009-02-12T00:14:00.001-08:00

An hour long discussion of the shifting sands of censorship in America over the last 50 years from our friends at Reason TV.

If it doesn't sell in Kansas it won't sell anywhere.

2009-02-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

The old and demented god-monger, Fred Phelps, and his ragtag band of family members, decided to picket the Shawnee Mission East High School in Prarie Village, Kansas. Fred is like the last Nazi standing, still spitting venom about the evil Jews taking over the world. Of course the “Jews” in Fred Phelps' imagination are gay people.

What got Funky Fred into a dither was that the senior class of the high school voted for Matthew Pope as their homecoming king. And they did so knowing full well that Pope is a gay student. They didn’t care and felt he deserved the honor. That was last year but Funky Fred is pretty slow -- in every way imagineable. Pope, now a university student, returned to the high school today to stand with his former classmates.

Fred managed to rally about a dozen of his fanatical followers, several of them children dragged along by their insane parents. But word of Fred’s picket line spread and 450 people, largely made of students from the high school, held a counter-demonstration.

You know the bigots are losing a battle when they are having to fight for their demented world view in places like Prarie Village, Kansas, a suburb south of Kansas City. This is what the pundits call “Middle America”. This is as mainstream as you can get. And simply put: people are getting tired of the religious-inspired bigotry.

Several of the students took up donations for AIDS research and one student just reported: "It was a huge success and we raised thousands of dollars for AIDS research, there were many graduates, parents, students and kids from other schools there to support us." Aanother student reported: "Someone told me today, 'I'll never feel scared to come to school anymore because I'm gay. Now I know that I've got the whole school behind my back."

Here is a short clip of part of the counter-demostration as recorded by one of the students at the school.

Since we are the topic here is a video that was put together regarding the Prop 8 case in the California Supreme Court. If you remember the heavily Mormon-financed campaign has filed suit in the Supreme Court to force 18,000 couples to divorce against their will -- literally. In the name of "family values" they want to separate 18,000 families. It is madness that can only come when you think you speak for some deity.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

A response that says a lot.

2009-02-01T14:05:00.001-08:00

One of the most astounding features of the Proposition 8 battle in California was the way that the religious moralists running the campaign routinely lied and twisted facts. I don't simply mean that they interpreted things different. I mean that they consciously and openly lied. You might remember how they lied about students from a charter school going to greet a teacher who had married her same-sex partner. The students were taken by their parents but you wouldn't know that from the press statements from the Yes on 8 campaign. They spread the story, which the Right-wing picked up, that the kids were forced to go by the evil school. That was just a blatant, bald-faced lie. And since the Yes on 8 campaign used an original news story as their source, and since that story included the facts, that the Yes on 8 campaign then changed the facts shows that they intentionally decided to lie to the public. Even when the kids parents said it was lie and asked Yes on 8 to stop using their children in television commercials the Prop 8 campaign maliciously ignored those requests and continued the campaign of lies.

Now we discover, as reported yesterday, that the Mormon Church has filed new "amended" reports on the money spent to help pass Proposition 8. In the past they whined that they had done very little for Prop 8 and were being targeted for protests merely out of bigotry. It turns out that they under reported their donations by at least 99% -- that is they only reported a tiny sliver of what they actually contributed and had hidden the rest.

I thought it would be interesting to see how the Yes on 8 campaign responded to the Mormon admission that their previous returns were false. Now the liars behind the Prop 8 campaign have issued a statement. Jeff Flint, who help forge the deceptive Prop 8 campaign, dismisses the news about Mormon deception: "I don't think anybody beyond rabid opponents of Proposition 8 will consider it newsworthy to find out that leaders of the Mormon church spent time on the campaign."

Actually the question was never whether Mormons spent time on the campaign. That was known and never denied. Mr. Flint is being deceptive again. The question was about how much money the Mormon cult directly poured into the campaign. They claimed it was a paltry $2,078 and others said that was a lie. Now the Mormons admit that what they reported was only 1% of the truth and that they had hidden at least 99% of their spending. So the issue was Mormon money going from the church to the Prop 8 campaign not Mormon time spent.

If a Mormon bishop, or someone else who holds an office in the church far in excess of anything Jesus ever accomplished in his lifetime, spends 10 hours pushing a bigoted agenda that is his business. If the Mormon Church pays him a salary to spend those 10 hours then it is a campaign contribution that is supposed to be reported. When I donated to the No on 8 campaign I was specifically told that any donation over a certain amount had to be reported and I was required to list my name and address.

Nor was the question actually about whether the Mormons gave money to Yes on 8 campaign work. That the church was doing that was widely known which is why there were protests outside the Temples where the Mormons conduct their "secret" rituals meant to turn their members in gods themselves. What was at question was whether or not the Mormon leadership had been lying to the public when they pretended to have spent only $2,078 on the Yes on 8 campaign.

Now there is no dispute. The Mormons admit they lied through the "amended" report which apparently discovered 99 times more spending then they previously reported. In fact, I believe that is still only a fraction of what they really spent and that a large amount of spending is still being hidden. For instance this Mormon run website told Mormons to print campaign literature for use in their area. And urged church members to fund the printing if the amount was too substantial for the person doing the printing. What they didn't tell Mormons was that any in-kind donation, such a printing literature, over $50 had to be reported. It is possible that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of unreported spending was being encourage by the Mormon wing of the Prop 8 campaign.

Mr. Flint had to know that the Mormon sect was directly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to push his campaign. And then they spent millions more indirectly through their membership obeying the "prophets" to donate to the hate campaign.

What was always the issue was whether the Mormons lied about their involvement, not the amount of time they spent on it as Mr. Flint pretends. At this point there is no question that the Mormons lied. But that is par for the course and I don't expect Flint to condemn lying --- after all it worked for him and his campaign.

Mormon lies exposed.

2009-01-31T23:50:00.000-08:00

It’s official, the Mormon Church lied. When I say it is official I am going straight to the source itself. The Mormon Church has now basically admitted that they publicly lied about their role in pushing Proposition 8 to remove marriage rights from gay couples in California.

The role of the Mormon sect in this anti equality crusade was heavily reported on at the time. The Mormon leadership feigned shock and said they were being victimized and discriminated against because it was just a bunch of lies. They claimed that they spent only $2,078 in support of Proposition 8. And obedient Mormons posted that claim on web sites and in letters to newspapers all across the country. The litany from Mormon apologists was that Prop 8 campaigns (pro and con) spent millions while the Mormon Church spent a paltry $2,078. Based on that to single them out as a major factor just shows prejudice and bigotry. Mormons love to play the victim card.

The problem was that there was plenty of evidence that the $2,078 figure was a lie. It was clear that the Mormon Church had spent much, much more than that and was illegally hiding those donations. It was proven that the church had operated telephone banks to get Prop 8 volunteers recruited from Mormon ranks. It was also known that a satellite link up was used to broadcast a top level Mormon speaking to hundreds of Mormons churches urging their members to volunteer for Prop 8 and to contribute money. All these “in kind” donations were left off the reports of what the Mormon Church had spent in the campaign.

Some Prop 8 opponents filed complaints with the state that the Mormon Church had been deceptive about the funding they gave to the measure. And with enough evidence to back them up the state was investigating the matter. Facing this investigation, which was going to show the church had lied, the Mormon leadership decided to file a new, updated report which admitted they had filed misleading financial reports before. They are now saying that that previously neglected to report 99% of their actual spending. When you neglect to report 99% of what you spent in a campaign you are not being forgetful. To neglect 99% of your contributions requires premeditated, intentional action on your part. While one might accidentally forget to mention an expense here or there it stretches credibility for anyone to think that 99% of spending was left off the reports due to an error.

The new report filed by the Mormons admits to spending around $190,000. Even when the complaint against their deceptive reporting was originally filed the Church insisted that they had reported everything that was required. But the new, amended report now admits that their previous denial was false. They say that the church spent $96,849 alone on church staff members who, while paid by the Mormon Church, were working for Prop 8. Dozens of air tickets were purchased for top officials from the Mormon sect to fly to California to rally the local Mormons behind the measure

I strongly suspect that this is still a fraction of the total that was actually spent by the Mormon Church. As a Church they have long history of secrecy and playing fast and loose with the truth when it comes to their public statements. And there are areas of spending which I have reported on this site which I doubt are included in the amended figures which the Church reluctantly filed.

I also suspect that the reason they filed this report was that any investigation into their activities would easily prove these expenditures by the church. I have little doubt that Church officials are hoping that this admission will end any investigation and leave uncovered a even greater level of spending by the sect.

Even if this were all the contributions from the official church it is still misleading. What is critical to remember is what they did with the $190,000 that they now admit spending. What the Mormon leadership did was used this money to raise significantly more money from the Mormon faithful. Church leaders spent these funds sending messages to other Mormons to fund Proposition 8. Estimates have Mormons contributing $20 million in total to this campaign.

So the money spent was used to finance a fund-raising effort that ultimately provided the lion’s share of the revenue used in the anti equality campaign. The New York Times accurately reported that Mormon support “tipped the scales” for Prop 8. Considering how close the vote was in the state it is safe to say that without the $20 million in Mormon funding that Prop 8 would have failed.

So even if the $190,000 is the full amount the Church spent it directly lead to the raising of millions of dollars. The $190,000 spent by Mormon leaders surreptitiously was pivotal because it lead to millions more in campaign funds which were enough to turn a losing percentage into a narrow victory.

It is no surprise that the media is now reporting that Mormon officials were “unavailable” to comment on this admission by the Church. The fact is that the Mormon leadership lied about their role in Proposition 8. They lied about the money they spent and they knew they were lying. Only the impending investigation of their lies forced them come clean and admit they had reported only around 1% of the true figure. And I still alleged that there is a lot more hidden spending that can be uncovered. If the California state government goes ahead with their investigation I expect some new “amended” reports to suddenly be filed by the Church. And even then I wouldn’t bet that those would cover it all.

So what sort of credibility does this church have? They lied about the money they spent on the campaign. When they were called out on the lies they made accusations against those who caught them, and continued to lie Only when faced with an investigation that they couldn’t control did they suddenly discover that they a hell of a lot more then they previously admitted.

Trevor: a short film

2009-01-30T00:31:00.003-08:00

Short Film: Trevor
Uploaded by nonightfan

Different: a short film

2009-01-30T00:26:00.000-08:00

Different - Gay Themed Short Film
Uploaded by doyler1985

Some of the best "gay" commercials

2009-01-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

Gay penguins marry, Mormons mobilize.

2009-01-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

I’m not making this up. A Chinese zoo has had some issues with a same-sex penguin couple. While same-sex coupling is relatively common among penguins the zoo was unhappy since the two males had a tendency to steal eggs for their own nest. The zoo decided to try something different and they started giving the male penguins eggs that had been rejected by their mothers.

It turned out that the male couple were ‘the zoo’s best penguin parents” The zoo was so happy with the results of allow the same-sex couple to adopt that they decided to reward them by having a marriage between the two. They even dressed the couple up in some traditional Chinese outfits, played the Wedding March for them and served a wedding meal of fish, of course. Apparently the wedding photographer snapped this photo of the happy couple.

Two days later the Mormon Church raised $40 million to spearhead a campaign to pass legislation in China banning same-sex weddings for penguins. Rev. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, said that allowing the couple to raise rejected eggs would cause “gender confusion” issues for the chicks and urged an immediate ban on the practice. Rev. Dobson assured his listeners that if the penguins would just “accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour” they could be “cured of their affliction.” Ted Haggard has issued a press statement denying that he ever met the penguins.

Note: Okay, I made up that last paragraph but it sounds so right. The rest of the story appears to be the truth.

The End of the World

2009-01-27T16:04:00.001-08:00

The scandal that just won't die.

2009-01-26T23:51:00.000-08:00

The Ted Haggard scandal simply won’t die -- nor can it. As much as the fundamentalists want to believe the scandal is his fault, it isn’t. The true cause of this scandal is the absurd views that fundamentalists hold and their steadfast refusal to let reality have any role in their appraisal of life.

You may remember that Haggard ran a fundamentalist “megachurch” in Colorado Springs but it was revealed that he was a drug user who hired male prostitutes. Haggard lied about the whole thing and then admitted it was true. He was using crystal meth but then one purpose of that drug is to lower sexual inhibitions. So a guilt ridden fundamentalist, convinced he is doomed to hell for being gay, but who is nonetheless gay, might find this drug an easy means to being true to his own nature.

Haggard, of course, was not just a self-hating homosexual but one who expressed “Biblical” contempt toward other gays in public. That was the reason his prostitute friend decided to “out” Haggard to the media. And Ted’s house of cards came tumbling down.

One safe assumption to make about this was that the scandal wasn’t over. I say that because it was highly likely that Haggard had other same-sex partners in his history as well. While it was possible that the prostitute was the totality of his “experimenting” it was unlikely, not for someone his age.

Now, a 25-year-old church member has come forward and confessed that he had sex with Haggard as well. (See video above.) This young man is clearly another victim of fundamentalist theology. He is gay and also can’t accept himself. He had been a student at Moody Bible Institute, an ultra-fundamentalist school in Chicago (oddly located next to the main area for male prostitution in the city). This young man made the mistake of the telling the school that he thought he might be gay.

He says he had been class president for two years running. He had excellent grades and was just one semester away from graduating. But the guilt over his sexual orientation was eating him away and he went to the school for help. He asked them to help him deal with this and the school said they couldn’t help him and basically told him to leave. What lovely people, they wouldn't even let him finish his degree because he came to them for help. (I should note that any help they would have given would probably have been destructive anyways.)

Moody told the young man to go to Colorado Springs were various fundamentalist groups pretend to be able to “cure” homosexuals. And when he got to Colorado Springs he started attending church: Ted Haggard’s church to be precise. As the president of the National Association of Evangelicals Haggard was one of the most prominent fundamentalists in the country.

Haggard meet the young man and asked him what brought him to Colorado. The young man first lied to Haggard as to why Moody Bible Institute had kicked him out but then told the truth. The young man stupidly thought that the “Holy Spirit” was compelling Haggard to help him.

This young man and Haggard both suffered needlessly because of their religious beliefs. And it is clear that Haggard, while coming on to the young man one day, was horrified about it the next. Back and forth they spun from one emotional extreme to another, tortured because they sincerely believe their church was right.

Eventually Haggard was revealed and stepped down from the church. The church then sent Haggard off to “be healed” by some ministry that promised cure. Church officials proclaimed the healing was a success, something Haggard says is not factual -- although he still suffers from religiously-induced self-hatred.

This young man went to the church and told them what happened, how Haggard, instead of counseling him, masturbated in his presence. Of course, because this young man is infected with the same self-loathing, Haggard’s actions only made them both more miserable and disturbed.

The church then offered the young man a large sum of money for “counselling” provided he promised to not reveal the truth about what happened. All in all they were to pay him $179,000 for his silence. The young man said: “I really felt the church staff did what they could to get me to move to a different city, to get me to stop going to the church, to make these promises to do whatever they could to help, but their main focus was to cover it up.”

What is astounding is that the church played up how Ted Haggard had lied to them in order to appear the victim. But then they were quite happy to engage in public dishonesty themselves by attempting to cover up another incident which they knew about. And from what I understand there are yet more such incidents that may yet come to light.

The church still can’t tell the truth and insists that they gave the young man the money “to help him” so he can “get on with his life.” They call it “compassionate assistance... certainly not hush money.” Yet they insisted that the young man agree to silence in order to get the money. He wasn’t required to “get on with his life” or to use it for “assistance”, he was only required to stay silent. That sounds like hush money to me. It is also clear that the church leadership knew of this incident at the time that the male prostitute made his story public. So they consciously choice to hide the facts from the members and the public.

The young man, only named as Grant, says he tried to kill himself four times. Clearly this was, and is, a young man traumatized by the beliefs of his own faith conflicting with the facts of his own sexual orientation. What fundamentalists refuse to see is that they are creating mental cripples, they are destroying people. Hundreds of thousands of young people, raised in this toxic faith, are having their minds warped to such a degree that many of them will attempt to kill themselves. Many will succeed. This same hatred inspired millions of other fundamentalists to mount campaigns to strip people of their rights. Grant tried four times to kill himself -- precisely where did he learn that it is better to be dead than to be gay?

Look what happened when he turned to his faith for help. They could do nothing -- of course not, but they can’t admit the reason they can do nothing: their faith is in conflict with truth. Fundamentalists try to force reality to conform with their beliefs instead of their beliefs conforming with reality. And when you do that you commit psychological treason and there are consequences.

Christian fundamentalism is toxic. It is a mental poison. Ted Haggard took this poison, so did Grant. They imbibed it, they believed it and it turned them into sad, pathetic individuals who may never learn to accept reality. Even now many, many more such scandals are being carefully incubated by these beliefs.

Fundamentalist Islam creates individuals who terrorize others. Fundamentalist Christianity creates individuals who terrorize themselves. While it clearly less deadly to innocent people, it is destructive and utterly evil to those who embrace it, and to those nations where it flourishes.

2009-01-23T23:36:00.001-08:00

This is just a reminder to my readers to try and watch the Lifetime movie Prayers for Bobby, based on the true story of Mary Griffith and her son, Bobby Griffith. The Boston Globe says this film "takes on Christian fundamentalist intolerance of homosexuality with point-blank directness."

Mary Griffith, now 74, says that parents "have to know that it's OK to challenge their religious beliefs and church doctrine, especially when the health and welfare of their child is one the line."

Mary says that her campaign to "cure" her son of being gay "wasn't something I did out of malice" but because "I was truly ignorant."

A somewhat shocking review of the film is that from Joanne Ostrow of The Denver Post. She says: "It may be helpful to remember that this true tale of religious intolerance occurred in the 1970s. Keep that in mind, view this as ancient history, and you can perhaps forgive Mary's ignorance." Ignorance, I fear is an ever present reality. The sort of religious intolerance portrayed in this film is not "ancient history" by any means. It is alive and well in the pews of the hundreds of thousands of fundamentalist churches that blight the American landscape. It is an intolerance that infests the hearts of tens of millions of believers. It is the kind of prejudice that inspired Mormons to empty their wallets and go door-to-door in California to strip one group of people of the right to marry. Anyone who thinks ignorance is ancient history is themself proof that it is alive and well.

Prayers for Bobby airs on the Lifetime network, Jan. 24 at 9 PM ET/PT. It will repeat on Jan. 25 at 8 pm and Jan 27 at 9 PM ET/PT.

Mormons say no to gay equality again

2009-01-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

Because of the prominent role played by the Mormon Church is stripping California’s same-sex couples of their marriages the issue of same-sex relationships has heated up in Utah, home for the cult. The Salt Lake Tribune has polled the public on the matter of recognizing the equal rights of gay people and what it found shows a profound difference between Utahans in general and Mormons.

Without exceptions the Mormons are far less tolerant and far more likely to demand that gays be treated as second class citizens.

A plurality of non-Mormons in Utah support a measure to allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions. In the general public this breaks down to 48% in favor and 43% opposed. But when it comes to Mormons only 12% will even allow gay couples a civil union, let alone marriage equality.

A majority of non-Mormons say that gay couples should be allowed to adopt or be foster parents, only 30% oppose equality in this matter. Among Mormons 67% want gays at the back of the adoption bus -- actually they think they should be kicked off the bus.

So what about issues like allowing visitation rights in the hospital for gay couples? Half of the Mormons surveyed said that the same-sex partner of someone in hospital should not be allowed to visit. This is astounding. But when asked about issues like the right to inherit from their partner, or visit them in hospital, half the Mormons would deny even those rights to gay couples. Only about a quarter of the non-Mormons felt the same way.

One Mormon told the pollsters expressed the views of many Mormons: “I don’t believe they should have any rights at all,” said Maureen Johnson of South Jordan, Utah. Indeed, stripping people of their rights, in order to conform with the wacky theology of Mormonism does seem to be high on the Mormon agenda. Of course, even the Mormons have progressed. At one time in history they slit the throats of sinners now they just treat them like dirt. More amazingly the Mormons then whine when people protest this treatment.

In defense of Sam Adams or Fuck the Media

2009-01-20T21:00:00.001-08:00

Here we have another example of America's Puritanical hysteria regarding sex. The bigot brigade is braying for the head of Portland's new mayor, Sam Adams. Adams, who is gay, is in the crossfires because a few years ago he had a relationship with a young man. The young man was 18 years old at the time, above the age of consent. The relationship was consenting. There was no coercion used. Nor did Adams have any professional relationship with the young man to muddy the waters.

That isn't stopping the hysterics from demanding that Adams step down from office. For what? Being sexual?

Here are the facts. Adams, was not the mayor in 2005 when this relationship began. Nor was he in a relationship, as he is now. He was single. Adams was a city commissioner. The young man, Beau Breedlove was an intern working in the state legislature for a Republican (now that's kinky). Breedlove already knew he was gay and approached Adams, who he knew was gay and struck up a conversation.

The newspapers, in order to fan the hysteria, now refers to Adams as a "mentor" to Breedlove, which generally implies a professional relationship. However, that is a distortion of the facts. They both worked in two different areas and had no professional relationship at all.

Breedlove was just under 18-years-old when he met Adams but no relationship started then. However, conservatives spread the lie that this was the case during the last election when Adams won office. Adams had attended Breedlove's 18th birthday party with a date, which also indicates no relationship started. But the papers, if you can trust them, report that aides had joked to Adams that Breedlove had romantic intentions.

Breedlove has issued a statement to blood-thirsty press saying that:

Sam Adams has always been a positive influence and friend to me. He has many outstanding qualities to bring to his position as Mayor of the City of Portland and I wish nothing but the best for him. I hope this subject can ultimately be put to rest and I sincerely believe in Sam Adams and what he can do for the city of Portland as Mayor.

The media began asking Adams if he had a relationship with Breedlove when he was campaigning. The one thing that Adams did, which might be wrong, was deny it. My view is that since they were asking Adams who he was dating, and since there was no question that his date was below the age of consent, then the media had no business asking. It is the sort of prurient interest that busybodies have in the sex lives of other people. Adams faced a dilemma. An honest answer would have made a total irrelevancy into a major issue just because some scummy reporters can't get over other people having sex lives. To tell the truth faced immediate disaster. To lie postponed the disaster. Adams chose the later and Breedlove himself lied to the press about it.

Adams apparently believed that certain political forces would use any admission to press the claim that the relationship began before Breedlove was legally an adult. This sounds plausible to me. Adams thought that it would be assumed he had seduced an underage youth and it would needlessly destroy his political career. Whether there are other reasons why Adams shouldn't be in office I can't say, but this surely isn't one.

The two men dated for a couple of months and Breedlove moved out of state. Since then he has returned to Portland and is clearly unhappy that his private life is being used to crucify someone he clearly believes to be a friend.

Had Adams used a position of authority over Breedlove to instigate a sexual relationship there would be problems. But, in spite of the media calling him Breedlove's mentor, the two were friends. Adams had no professional relationship with the young man. Since there is zero evidence the relationship violated age of consent laws that also eliminates a reason for the media being all over this "story". In other words this is non-story except for purely prurient purposes.

All reporters have is that Adams didn't tell them the truth when they started prying into his sex life. There are just some things that the media has no right prying into. By that I mean no right in terms of morality and decency. The media certainly has the legal right to publish trite, unimportant, salacious material. That is a right that they engage in with great relish. But when the media bastards start prying into relationships between consenting adults then they aren't reporting the news, they're writing pornography. Under those circumstances it is the right of all decent individuals to lie to the buggers. Considering how the media regularly twists facts there is a certain justice inherent in all lies told them.

Apparently two legal adults can't have a private sex life without the media hounds thinking they have a right to pry into things. Does an elected official always have the obligation to answer any question the media puts to him? I can't see how anyone can argue he does. Personally I would have turned the question on the reporter. Adams should have demanded that reporters asking him such questions provide him with a detailed listing of their masturbatory fantasies. Of course the reporters would scream that is an invasion of their privacy. And it would be. But it would be no less an invasion than what they were doing to Adams and Breedlove. And we must remember that while Adams was a minor public official at the time, Breedlove was not. He was just someone that wanted to date someone he found attractive. The media couldn't pry into Adams' bedroom activities without prying into Breedlove's private life as well. And there is simply no justification to do that to him.

Why is the media doing this? There is one main reason. It sells newspapers or boosts the ratings. There is a constituency of antigay types who will eat this up just because this supposedly proves one of their bigoted theories right -- though how it is hard to see. Add in the antisex types to this mix and it means the story will attract a lot of attention.

One thing I've discovered over the years is that the antisex types are actually rather obsessed with the subject. The reason they tend to get so hysterical about sexual issues in public is usually because, in private, they have a lot of fantasies or activities, that they are deeply ashamed of. For many of them that shame is with good cause. The typical Puritan is most often guilty of the very sins he preaches against the loudest. And when others "sin" (and they consider all sex outside marriage to be sin) the story gives them an excuse to feed their own fantasies. They can't wait to read about the sex lives of others as a form of pornography. They get off on it.

The media knows these people are out there. And, under the excuse of the "public's right to know" these reporters become amateur pornographers detailing the private lives of others. I don't know which group disgusts me the most? Is it those who want the details about the sex life of Mr. Adams, because of their own sexual pathologies, or the greedy reporters who think nothing of dragging someone through the mud in order to sell a few newspapers?

Actually I find all this far worse than any real porn. Porn is produced with willing performers or models who produce materia to give other people pleasure. The media "porn" like this is done with unwilling individuals. And the main intention is to hurt some people so that others can get their jollies. In cases like this I have far more respect for the Larry Flynts of the world than I do the bott0m-feeding media types who are eating this story up.

The bullet is still smashing down doors.

2008-11-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

My friend Amy and I went out for dinner and a movie tonight. I have to admit it was something of a strange, as well as nostalgic evening for me because of the film. And it may be difficult to explain all this here.

It is not unusual to have lived someplace, or near someplace, that appears in a film. But in this case the film takes place almost entirely in my old neighborhood. More importantly it mostly takes place on my old block. Many of the people depicted in the film were neighbors, people I would pass on the streets.

The film we saw is Gus van Sant’s Milk starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. I have to say that Penn captured the character of Milk almost perfectly.

My apartment in San Francisco has long topped the list of the places where I loved living. San Francisco was, and is, a city I love. I have always said that everyone should live in San Francisco once.

My flat occupied the third floor. On the first floor was a restaurant.To the left of the restaraurant was a door leading to some winding stairs to the second floor where you faced two doors. On the right was the door to some offices used by one of the local businesses. The door on the left was my door. It was deceptive; this door didn’t directly enter my apartment at all. Instead it opened up to a long staircase that made a sharp right turn at the very top. This stairway and hall at the top was just the foyer to the apartment.

At the top of the stairs there was an old large radio from the 1930s and the entire wall, from the second floor up the stairs, was a collection of old film posters which I eventually sold at auction. If you turned left at the top of the stairs you went into another foyer with the bedroom off to the right and the kitchen, pantry, bathroom and porch straight ahead. To the right of the main foyer was my lounge and next to it my library. These two rooms had massive bay windows looking onto Castro while the back faced toward Twin Peaks.

If I sat in my library I could read and watch that continuing soap opera that was Castro Street. Across the street and a bit to the right was what had been Harvey Milk’s business, Castro Camera. Above the shop, facing my side of the street was Harvey’s old apartment.

Seeing this film brought back a flood of memories of my old neighborhood and how it had been a epicenter of a social movement that is still changing America today -- I believe for the better, for the most part.

This films depicts Harvey Milks relative short political career before he was gunned down by the conservative ex-cop politician, Dan White. White snuck through a basement window into city hall and murdered the Mayor Moscone and Milk.

What I didn’t realize, until recently, what that White wanted other victims. One of whom was Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver. That surprised me. While Carol and I differed on many issues we had a strong common ground on defending Second Amendment rights which allowed us to work together on that issue.

Carol Ruth once said that for her a handgun was “a necessary piece of household equipment.” Had White run into Silver, before he killed Moscone and Milk, things may have turned out very differently. Silver was a contributer to a book edited by SF ACLU lawyer Don Kates, Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out. Kates, like Silver was another ally on self-defense issues.

Milk shows an America lurching to the Right as Anita Bryant and Senator John Briggs push their antigay agenda. Milk was a major opponent of those campaigns in California.

During this time period I was a young writer working for a publication in the Midwest. But I paid attention. And when Anita Bryant came to the area I spent the day with her, and her then husband Bob Green, for an article I was writting. It became clear to me that she and Green were not in a harmonious relationship. She spent so much “saving the family” that her own fell apart. By the way they fought in front of me I could see a divorce was coming.

Bob Green struck me as an upleasant character and Kathy Lee Gifford, who had done babysitting for Bryant, said that Green was emotionally abusive. This fit well with what I witnessed. Anita eventually left him, went bankrupt, admitted to a pill addiction and eventually remarried. That was followed by further bankruptcy filings by her and her husband. Of course all this means she is now running a fundamentalist “ministry” out of Oklahoma City.

In the film Harvey tells a rally against Bryant that the audience ought to thank Anita Bryant. He noted that Anita’s hate campaign didn’t destroy the gay community but unified it. And that was tue.

This is precisely what I’ve been saying about the short-sighted Proposition 8. The parallels are intriguing. The antigay campaign that Bryant and Briggs led, Proposition 6, did unite a lot of people and radicalized a whole generation of gay people. And this is what I believe the Mormon sponsored Proposition 8 has done.

I saw Milk in a realtively conservative state in a very conservative town. Yet the cinema had moved Milk to the largest theater they had. The show before the one I saw had a large attendance and so did the showing we attended. What I noticed was the large number of young gay people, in their teens and twenties, who had come out to see this film. Most of them were not even born when Harvey Milk was gunned down.

Yet I can assure you that this film hit them where they live. They are all aware of Prop 8 and the Mormon Church. They saw this film about the Prop 6 campaign run by fundamentalist churches. And they reacted to the message of Harvey Milk.

It is important to contrast their expectations in life to those of gay people from Harvey’s generation. Virtually all gay Americans from Harvey’s era, grew up in a country where it was a crime to be gay. They faced arrest merely for having drinks with friends. The police, even in San Francisco, didn’t mind engaging in some “fag bashing” themselves.

Many of the young people in the showing of Milk have never lived under governments that would arrest them for merely being out with other gay people. Harvey’s generation knew the constant fear of losing a job, being evicted from their apartments just because they were gay. Today’s young gays know little of that. In the time of Milk full grown adults were terrified to be open about their sexual orientation. Many of today’s young gays came out to their parents and friends in junior high school and have always been open. They haven’t always been accepted, and often faced bullies, but they don’t know the closet the way Harvey Milk did.

The gay people of the Milk era were satisfied with token acceptance. It was considered something of an accomplishment just to get the police to stop assaulting you. The idea of full legal equality was just a fantasy. When people are satisfied with “don’t hit me so much” they aren’t likely to ask, “When can I have the same rights you do?”

Today’s young gays have different expectations, so the Prop 8 vote was a real shock to them, it was a wake up call. I’m betting that hundreds of Harvey Milks were born in the Prop 8 defeat. If the Mormon theocracy thinks that they won a victory they will find out precisely how wrong they are. In just this one showing, in one town, on one night, the story of Harvey Milk energized several new young activists who won’t rest until they live in a world where they are treated as equals. That is not what the Mormon leadership intended with their campaign. The young people in the cinema were ready for the message that Harvey Milk had to give them.

There is no doubt that Harvey and I were miles apart on many issues. But neither is there any doubt that I have immense respect for what he did and appreciate his contribution toward legal equality. And while I will fight Harvey’s legacy where he was wrong, I will applaud his legacy where he was correct. And I appreciate that his message, through this film, is reaching a new generation. I fully expect to see the day, in my lifetime, when full legal equality for gay people is achieved.

Conservative victories, such as Prop 8, can not extinguish the desire for equality before the law. In truth such conservative wins may not even slow down the drive for equality but speed excelerate it. Prop 8 recreated unity in the gay community, something that had vanished in the years since Milk was campaigning. Prop 8 made lots of gay people angry. And it put a fire under young gays who were less interested in activism than their older counterparts. Satisfied with many of the gains achieved since the 60s the gay rights movement was moribund; the Mormons and the Prop 8 campaign changed that.

Days before his murder Harvey sat down and recorded his thoughts, thoughts he said he wanted made public only if he were murdered. On that tape he said:”If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” I can’t see today’s generation of gays ever accepting the closet as an acceptable place to live. They are demanding a place at the table. They aren’t asking, they aren’t requesting, they are demanding. And I believe they will succeed.

Those who fought this battle with Harvey are growing tired, weary from the journey. Many of the brave pioneers have died, some like Harvey had their life stolen from them by the very hatred they fought. Until Prop 8, these baby boomers of the gay community were watching political activism fading away. So much had been accomplished, so much had changed, that many of the young didn’t see the need to do the “Harvey Milk thing”. Now they see. In one short campaign the conservatives created tens of thousands of new activists. Tonight the cinema was filled with many of these people. One of the lines Harvey liked to use at his political rallies was: “I’m Harvey Milk. And I’m here to recruit you.” With the wake-up call conveniently provided by the Mormons I suspect that thousands of young people who watch Milk will respond to Havey’s recruitment drive.

For more information on Harvey Milk you might read The Mayor of Castro Street by Randy Shilts. In another of those odd overlaps of life I worked with Randy’s brother, Gary, on some political projects of common interest. Gary Shilts is an active libertarian in Illinois.

Why the Prop 8 battle is far from over.

2008-11-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

If the Mormon Church thinks the battle over Prop 8 has ended they are sadly mistaken. Let us consider what is happening and likely to happen.

First, the Mormon cult has made a huge mistake in regards to their public relations. American culture is divided between rational secularists and faith-driven fundamentalists. That is the main divide with many Christians falling into the rational secular category by practice, even if not by self-identification.

The problem for the Mormons is that they don’t fall into either group. They can be faith-driven fundamentalists, but of the Mormon kind,. And Mormonism is well outside traditional Christian thinking. They were trying to impress antigay Christians by matching them in prejudice. But that doesn’t remove the fact that most fundamentalists know that Mormons is not Christian in the theological or historical sense of the word. Mormons want to convince everyone they are because the use similar words but naming a pig Fido doesn’t make it a dog.

So while they might impress fundamentalists with their antigay bigotry they won’t win them over. And the rest of the country will be even less likely to look favorably on this weird sect and their polytheism, secret Temple endowments and celestial polygamous marriages. In other words, the one group they sought to impress will continue hating them and the secularists will resent their intrusive attempts to create a theocratic legal system.

Mormons also played this badly. They wanted the Christianists to know they were funding the campaign while they wanted to pretend to the secularists that the Church wasn’t involved. This is typical Mormon duplicity and deception. The Church had an expensive, but off-the-books, campaign to get their members to fund Prop 8. But they told their cult members to donate directly to Prop 8 so the funds didn’t go directly through Church hands. Then, when they are asked about their campaign to strip gay people of rights, the Mormon leadership feigns innocence and uses as proof, the fact that they didn’t contribute directly to the campaign.

But opponents know who was actually the funders of Prop 8. They know the Mormon leadership told members to fund the campaign and provide manpower. They know that church meetings were held where this was done. So today, angry people gathered to protest Prop 8 and they chose the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles as the target for their protests. So the secularists are pissed off at the Mormons and the fundamentalists hate them. All the Mormons have done is piss off a lot of people without changing the the minds of the Religious Right which accurately perceives them as being a strange cult. The Mormon leaders stupidly put the church in a lose-lose situation.

In addition, this “victory” for the antigay Right is, at best, temporary. This issue won’t go away. If they honestly believe that gay Americans are going to become resigned to second class citizenship they are either very mistaken or very stupid. I’d bet on the latter before I would the former. They may think this is the gay agenda but they don’t know the facts, again.

The gay marriage issue did not arise from what is called the “gay leadership”. The gay rights groups did not set this agenda. They didn’t want it. They were worried about bad legislation like hate crime laws, which they naively want to pass. Marriage was not a priority to them. It was gay couples, in long-term relationships, living with the problems of second class status who pushed the issue. The gay leadership and gay organizations only jumped on the issue after they realized it wasn’t going to go away. This was one of those issues where gay “leaders” saw the crowd moving in one direction, ran to the front of the parade, and then pretended to be leading it.

More importantly the issue is moving in the right direction. The original measure to ban gay marriage in California passed quite easily. Not this time. They barely managed to secure a majority of voters. And it may not be possible to do it again. There were numerous things that had to be done this time just to get a bare majority.

First, they benefited because of the high Black voter turnout. Black voters are even more bigoted than fundamentalists. A higher percentage of Christians voted no on Prop 8 than Africa-Americans. The reality, which the political Left dare not admit, is that African-Americans are a deeply bigoted lot especially when it comes to the rights of gay people. But that huge turnout was because Blacks saw their first chance to elect a “black man” as president. I put that in quotes merely because Mr. Obama is as black as he is white when it comes to his race. If the Prop 8 supporters think they will have that happen each time this comes up again they are wrong.

The question is who has the incentives to keep up the campaign, year after year. While hate can be inspirational to some it is not sustainable. I predict that religious groups will give up their efforts long before their victims do.

And these groups already know the trends are against them. One reason for their desperate measures to enshrine bigotry in state constitutions is because they perceive the tide moving against them. If you look at the vote in California, and compare it to the last vote against marriage equality there, you will see that support for marriage apartheid has subsided substantially in a very short period of time.

Without the Mormon church pushing members to pour millions of dollars into the campaign it is unlikely they could have pulled off their proposition. Last time they won easily without spending much money. Last time they didn’t have to resort to the horrific, dishonest television advertising that they used to push their cause this time. In other words, they operated under unusual favorable circumstances (the high turn out of antigay African-American voters), had to spend far more money than before, and had to resort to blatant dishonest on the air. With all of that they managed a narrow victory.

And there is one final issue which the antigay crowd will have to deal with: whether or not the initiative itself is legal. As I understand it Californians may make small changes to the Constitution by majority vote. But, if the change is substantial, then the requirements are different.

The California State Supreme Court ruled that state laws treated gay couples unequally and that the Constitution specifically guarantees equality before the law. So what happens to that Constitutional guarantee if another amendment specifically denies it? Can a Constitution contradict itself and how is that contradiction resolved?

Opponents are arguing that the new amendment effectively repeals the equal protection clause and thus changes the structure of the Constitution itself. Those sort of changes are reserved to the legislature -- which has twice approved equal marriage laws. At best the Mormons have only delayed the inevitable. And long-term I suggest they will regret their role in this assault the rights of others. Outside the utter moral hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, if there is one church that can’t stand much scrutiny, it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Addendum: Actor T.R. Knight, of Grey's Anatomy, was a poll worker fighting Proposition 8. He spent the day at polls in Southern California and describes the vitriolic hatred that was exhibited toward him, and other opponents, by Prop 8 supporters. "Every single supporter of Prop. 8 was so filled with anger and bile as they voiced their "support" to us, with the exception of one older gentleman, who engaged us in a very civil conversation. One person in over 13 hours." Knight wrote: "I hope I can muster the patience and keep my anger focused so I can continue to fight. Fight clean. Fight with just the truth. And never let myself spew the kind of hate I encountered on that Tuesday in November as we peacefully fought for our civil rights."

How the Left helped the Right mug gay rights.

2008-10-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

There are issues where the Progressives, from the classical liberal view, are on target, or close enough for government work. Social freedom tends to be that area. They deserve thanks for leading the battle to expand the rights of gay people until they are coequal to those granted heterosexual. Liberalism, that is true liberalism, as Hayek noted is always ready to expand liberty into new areas which terrify conservatives. So true liberals and Progressives have some common ground in those areas.

And many Progressives are disturbed by the well-funded campaign of religious zealots to strip gay couples of marriage rights in California. As am I. But what our Progressive friends don’t realize, recognize or, perhaps even know, is that Progressives were the accomplices of the Religious Right in this campaign to strip people of their rights. They made this antigay campaign possible. To understand how let us look at some history.

America’s founders were not advocates of democratic rule. They worried that people’s passions were too easily riled up by demagogues and that mobs could easily be persuaded to strip individuals or minorities of their rights. The Founders tried to avoid the tyranny of the majority. They created a government that was inherently anti-majoritarian in many ways -- certainly it was openly antidemocratic. The president was not elected directly, he was elected by electors not by the people. And while most people still don’t understand the Electoral College that is pretty much how it is done today.

Secondly, the Founders had the Senate representing the states not the people. They were appointed by each state legislature not directly elected.

The third branch of government was the Supreme Court where justices were appointed by the president (himself not directly elected) and approved by the Senate (which was not directly elected). To give it an even stronger antidemocratic nature they made sure the Justices were appointed for life and couldn’t be removed by popular vote.

The reason they did this was simple. They were not establishing a democracy but a free society where the rights of all people would be respected -- at least that was the goal whatever failings they had in achieving it. They didn’t want the rights of minorities subjected to popular vote. Thomas Jefferson said, “It is ridiculous to suppose, that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or, indeed, than all of them put together.” Even a unanimous vote of everyone but the person being targeted is not a legitimate reason for denying rights. The Yes on 8 people don’t understand this and keep harping about previous popular votes to deny rights to gay couples. Rights, properly understood, should not be subject to popular vote,

Jefferson said that when the rights of individuals or minorities are subject to majority approval, “This would be slavery, not the liberty which the bill of rights had made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.” The writer Frank Chodorov warned, “the idea that a number of people, acting together, have a right, which supersedes the rights of the individual is pure fantasy, and one which as experience shows, has been invented for no good purpose.”

We shouldn’t vote on which churches should have freedom of religion. We shouldn’t vote on which minorities have the right to attend schools and which don’t. The rights of minorities do not rely upon majority approval. That was what the Founders were attempting to accomplish. Subjecting the rights of individuals to majority approval leads to social warfare, to conflict between groups and individuals. It increase social instability and breeds violence. Oscar Wilde once described pure democracy as “the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.” He was right. When rights are subject to majority approval people get bludgeoned. And in California what is happening is nothing short of electoral gay bashing.

So how did we reach the situation where minorities must come begging to the majority for equal protection before the law? Was it some crusade by Religious Right fanatics? Not at all, the religious fanatics exist and are using the law but they didn’t set it up.

The advocates of the ballot initiative process were the Progressives -- or socialists. Hiram Johnson was California’s governor and in 1911 he and local Progressive put through a series of reforms to give the majority more say in politics. Johnson went on to be a founder of the national Progressive Party and was the party’s vice presidential candidate. He was also a supporter of the racist Alien Land Law of 1913 which stripped Asian immigrants of the right to property--a law overturned by the California Supreme Court. Presumably something the Yes on 8 people would resent -- damn activist judges going around protecting rights.

One of the things that stymied the Progressives was that the Constitution limited government powers and the socialists wanted government to have more power. They believed that ballot initiatives would allow them to bypass the legislatures and push through measures that promoted socialism. They believed that the majority would use the power to confiscate wealth from the rich. And they would when they can, and have done so -- see rent control and the measures to mandate lower insurance costs as an example.

But it wasn’t the poor versus the rich. It was a majority of people against a minority of people. The wealthy were, and are, a minority. The socialists were using a method they believed would attack the rights of a minority, the well-off. So majorities tend to favor passing costs on to people other than themselves and focusing the benefits on themselves. That is what majoritarian initiatives tend to do.

The initiative was created so that majorities could strip minorities of rights. The socialists thought it was okay to do this because the minority was wealthy. But, once that process exists, all minorities face problems. If there is sufficient hatred for one minority, say whipped up by religious crazies, then that minority may be stripped of rights barring other Constitutional protections enforced by judges.

In California, the Progressives allowed the Constitution to be changed by majority vote. So voters in California can, in regards to matters that are under state control, such as marriage, impose their own biases on that document and strip a minority of their rights.

One of the things I have harped on, repeatedly, to the exhaustion of some readers I suspect, is the matter of expanding state power. I have argued that when the Left expands the powers of the state to do what they consider to be good things, they create a situation where their opponents can then win office and use those expanded powers for what the Left would consider to be bad things. That is precisely how gay people are being stripped of their right to marry in California.

It was understandable that this process was pushed through but short-sighted. The California government was corrupt and in the back pockets of certain business interests. But this is only a problem when we have government with massive powers. If government has few, clearly delineated powers and no ability to redistribute rights and wealth from majorities to minorities (which is what tends to happen in the legislative process) then few corrupt business interests would be interested in owning the legislature. It is the power they wish to purchase and when the power is limited the value of corraling the legislature is very low.

But the Left believed that the goals of liberalism, such as expanded rights, greater wealth, more equality, could best be achieved by conservative means -- the use of state power. So their dilemma was keeping the power in place for their own use and removing the corrupt businessmen from the arena. And the initiative process was one way they came up with for doing that.

The Left created a process called ballot initiatives. That allows majorities to vote for the redistribution of the rights and wealth of minorities. It does more than allow it, it encourages it. The result is being seen today. More state power is never the answer. It will always be grabbed by the powerful and used against the powerless. In this case the majority is using it against a small minority. And the only recourse the small minority has is to beg the majority of people to please not let it happen. A right should depend on majority approval but the Progressives set up a system where that was inevitable.

Expanded state powers never stay in the hands of those who first created them. Eventually their enemies get hold of the reins of power and then those new state mechanisms get used for purposes very much in opposition to their original intentions. As much as I support sex education for the young I long felt that having such programs would eventually backfire. We have now had millions of federal tax dollars used to change the courses into anti-sex education. The same is true with the initiative process in California. The Progressives didn’t see it as a means of stripping minority groups of their rights (though they were then fairly weak on the topic), they wanted it to hurt the business interests. But the powers created for one purpose are easily diverted to contrary purposes.

The great conflict between the classical liberal and the socialist has been over precisely this issue. The classical liberals warned that the use of illiberal means (state power) to achieve liberal goals will eventually be perverted into the means for the destruction of liberal goals. That is what we are seeing with Proposition 8. True liberals know that both means and ends must be consistent. A true liberal wants Proposition 8 defeated but then ought not rest until the initiative process itself is abolished.

PS: I do see one role for initiatives, to veto legislation passed by the state assembly. As the nature of legislative law is to pander to special interests to confiscate rights from majorities to minorities, a people’s veto would allow the repeal of laws that do this. But the majority should not be allowed to reverse the process, that is to strip minorities of their rights or wealth. By acting as a break on legislative tendencies to pander to organized interests a people’s veto, as opposed to an initiative process, helps restrain the evils of government.

Intolerence breeds hate, hate breeds violence.

2008-10-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

This story didn’t get much play. In fact the only report I’ve seen in the local paper, the Kankakee Daily Journal. Even there is was a brief article, only a few sentences. But it is mind-numbing.

A grade school bus driver, Russell Schmalz apparently decided that a young boy on his school bus was gay. Whether or not he is doesn’t matter, just that Schmalz thought he was. This grown adult, Schmalz is 42, ridiculed the 10-year-old boy as gay and taunted him. Chief Deputy Ken McCabe of the local Sheriff’s department reported what happened then:

When the boy got off the bus the driver encouraged several other students to go after him and tackle him. Our investigation shows that occurred.

Police are investigating the claim that Schmalz also got off the bus and physically grabbed the child. This is a 10-year-old child who was assaulted merely because someone said he was gay.

In Salt Lake City a 20-year-old was just arrested for assault. His victim was an 18-year-old who was attacked because the attacker believed he was gay. He was helped in the attack by four other men.

A few days ago Jordan Smith was walking holding hands with his boyfriend. For that offense Michael Kandola started calling Smith and friend names and then began assaulting Smith. Jordan’s jaw was broken in three places. (see video below)

Just a couple of days ago two men were arrested in Washington, D.C., for assaulting a 23-year-old medical student because he was gay. They hit him with a glass bottle.

Just hours ago a man in New York was convicted for murdering Edgar Garzon, a 35-year-old gay man. Garzon had left a gay club and was walking home when a car with his killer, John McGhee pulled up. McGhee jumped out and attacked Garzon from behind, crushing his school with a baseball bat.

Each of these news stories is recent. I didn’t go searching the records for months past, just stories from the last few days. Earlier, when I was talking to the people promoting Proposition 8 the one I identified as Angry White Guy made a remark about the Matthew Shepherd murder in Wyoming. He was dismayed that this brutal killing got publicity.

He assured me that he didn’t engage in “fag bashing”. I wasn’t impressed that he thought thaT not beating people up was some sort of accomplishment. “Anyway,” he said, “that sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.”

What I didn’t tell him was that earlier today I had been re-reading the information on the Matthew Shepherd murder. The sheer brutality of it, all because this boy was gay, shocked me at the time. It still disturbs me greatly. I have watched the excellent docudrama on the impact that killing had in Laramie, Wyoming, The Laramie Project. The film is sitting here but I can’t bring myself to watch it again. I’ve seen it twice and each time I end up an emotional wreck.

Matthew was A 21-years-old student at the University of Wyoming. Two young men, one holding priesthood in the Mormon church, had planned to attack a gay man. In court their girlfriends said they spoke of the crime before they committed it. According to the prosecution the two men pretended to be gay and befriended Matthew, who was known to be gay. They offered him a ride home but Matthew never made it home that night, or ever again.

Matthew Shepherd was taken to a hill overlooking the city of Laramie and beaten mercilessly. This was not just a common assault. They were unrelenting as theY used a pistol to smash in his skull and face. After beating Matthew into a coma they tied his body to fence so he couldn’t get away -- as if that were possible in the shape they left him. They helped themselves to his money and his shoes and left him there.

The next morning a cyclist rode past the sight and saw what he thought was a scarecrow tied to the fence. He went closer for a better look and realized it was the limp body of a young man, still alive, but barely. Matthew was rushed to intensive care in Colorado Springs but he couldn’t survive the brutality of that night.

Now Mormons will tell you that they oppose violence against gays, they just spend millions to deny them equal rights before the law. What they don’t talk about is that Mormon “Apostle” Boyd Packer published a pamphlet entitled “To Young Men Only” which the First Presidency of the church has published and distributed.

In this talk this Mormon leader praised a Mormon missionary for assaulting a missionary companion who was homosexual. In this lecture, which mainly tries to convince Mormon boys that masturbation is incredibly evil, the Apostle referred to “physical mischief with another man”. He said that there are some who “entice young men to join them in these immoral acts” and that if that happens “it is time to vigorously resist.” (The video above is Ellen discussing the murder of a young boy in California, earlier this year, because he was gay. The two videos below are a dramatic presentation of the reality of fag bashing from the show Queer as Folk.)

The Mormon leader tells the story of when he was on mission and a young Mormon missionary came to him with something to confess. He admitted that he “floored” the other young missionary with his punch. This “Apostle” then writes:

After learning a little more, my response was “Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn’t be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way.

So, the one boy makes a pass at the other boy. The second boy assaults the first boy in response and the Apostle’s response is to thank the boy for engaging in violence and then tells him “Somebody had to to it.” Apostle Packer then says, “I am not recommending that course to you,” but immediately adds a further comment making it quite clear that is precisely what he is recommending, “I am not recommend that course to you, but I am not omitting it. YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF.”

The Mormon fanaticism against gays is well known. Mormons believe in a very sexy afterlife where Mormon men, and their multiple wives (they still believe is polygamy in the afterlife) will be screwing throughout eternity producing spirit babies to populate planets. By the way, this is necessary to attain godhood -- Mormons are not Christians at all, not in any historical or Biblical sense. They believe that the secret rituals of the Mormon Temple (much of which Joseph Smith stole from his local Masonic lodge) will allow a faithful Mormon to become a God. They are polytheists. When they talk about “Father” they mean the god of this world only. They play down their claim that they turn into a God through their secret rituals, but they believe it. Since one has to be heterosexual to become a God you can see why they are so viciously antigay.

Stuart Matis believed the Mormon theology and so he fought being gay. He would punish himself for having gay thoughts. He hid his orientation from his family in fear. The only person he told was his missionary companion, Clay Whitmer. Clay confessed that he too was gay.

Eventually Stuart’s family asked him if he was gay. He said he was. His family actually supported him. His church didn’t and Stuart was a very loyal Mormon who was trying to “cure” himself. He got very depressed as he fought and fought his natural tendencies. One night, his mother heard him pacing around because of worry. She sat down and wrote a letter asking the Mormon church to reconsider their views.

Stuart also wrote a letter that night but she didn’t know it until she found it the next morning. It was a suicide note. Stuart took a gun and went to the local Mormon headquarters. He pinned a note to his clothes asking medical personnel to not resuscitate him under any circumstances then he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. (The video below is a vlog by a 16-year-old Illinois boy discussing the difficulty in learning self-acceptance for gay youth.)

Clay Whitmer says he tried to persuade Stuart not to do it. He wanted to cheer him up but arrived too late. As Newsweek describes it: “A few weeks later, anguished at his friend’s death and tormented by his own long-term depression, Whitmer put a gun to his own head.”

When will the Mormon church learn that they are destroying people? This antigay campaign they are on is deadly. They are pouring millions of dollars into a crusade to write bigotry into the state constitution while their own young people are dying--while their own young are becoming killers. Apostle Packer might think it was cute and funny to tell young Mormon males that he thanked someone for beating up a homosexual but I wonder if that Mormon boy in Wyoming who helped beat Matthew Shepherd to death had read that pamphlet. It was addressed to young Mormon males like himself. After all, you have to defend yourself from these faggots.

The Religious Right has been engaging in a long-term campaign to dehumanize gay people. They have called them every name under the sun and accused them of being the most dangerous threat to civilization, morality and children in the world today. If you continually dehumanize one group of people the consequences are inevitably deadly. Some will take their own lives because they can’t stand the torment, others will have their lives taken from them by moralistic thugs doing God’s will.

What these religious zealots are doing, or trying to do, is create a climate of hatred aimed at gay people. They are obsessed with this hatred and they can’t let it go. They drum it into the minds of the young and those hateful ideas spread around and people act on them.

These are not typical crimes. These are not attacks based on a desire to steal or to secure sexual satisfaction. They are inspired by one thing only -- contempt and hatred for someone for who they are. And the Mormons, Catholics and fundamentalists are out there telling the world that this sort of contempt is alright, it is God’s will. And God wants you to strip these people of certain rights because of who they are. Once people buy into this sort of view of a class of people it becomes easier and easier to inflict pain and suffering upon them.

I want to end this post with a video someone created. Elton John wrote a song about the Matthew Shepherd murder. Someone connected that song, American Triangle, with clips from The Laramie Project. Watch it, listen to the words and think. We need to end these tragedies, too many lives have been lost, too much hatred has already been unleashed in the name of God. I can’t speak for God but I can say, in the name of humanity, end the hatred.

PS. The Yes on 8 campaign is spending $25 million to push hatred of gays and portray them as threat to people who love their families. Now, won’t you please contribute to the NO on 8 campaign to fight the hate.

My encounter with antigay Yes on 8 campaigners

2008-10-18T01:22:00.003-07:00

I was out shopping earlier today and ran into some Yes on 8 people standing at the shopping mall with their signs for this proposition to strip gay people of marriage equality. The one sign said “Protect Parental Rights”. So I parked and walked over to asked them how gay marriage violates parental rights.

The man pulled out a campaign brochure and I said: “No, I’d like to hear why you think gay marriage violates parental rights.” He looked dumbfounded for a moment, having to think for yourself is hard work especially when you’re not used to it.

He then started to repeat what the Yes on 8 people told him. He started with: “In Massachusetts....” I interrupted and pointed out that we live in California and Massachusetts state law doesn’t apply in California.

He responded with a claim that in sex ed classes in California kids will be taught gay marriage. I pointed out to him that under California law all parents are free to remove their children from sex ed classes if they wish and thus no child will be taught this without parental permission. His reply was: “Well, that won’t be the case of Prop 8 doesn’t pass.”

Actually 8 does nothing about parental permission for sex ed courses and, while gay marriage is legal now, the law still stands. Obviously the legalization of gay marriage had no impact on that law at all. Just because Jewish marriage is legal that doesn’t mean kids are taught Judaism at school. The whole argument is absurd.

At this point another Prop 8 person came over to play interference. The old guys job was to wave silly signs at the public. This guy was your basic angry white guy who hasn’t a clue what is going on. Really, not a bad guy, just pissed off and someone who doesn’t know what is happening -- in other words, pretty much uninformed.

He started complaining how “one federal judge” could over rule millions of voters and how that was unfair. Of course there were no federal judges involved at all. This was purely a ruling of the California Supreme Court based on the California constitution. He insisted it was federal interference, even the old guy interrupted him and corrected him. As I said, he’s basically uninformed.

This guy doesn’t like gays, but then he doesn’t like immigrants, free trade and a host of things. We discussed them briefly. I asked him what happens with the US dollars that go to China for the shoes we buy here (he was worried about American produced shoes for some reason). Don’t those dollars have to come back to America eventually if someone wants to spend them? He seemed convinced that some of it does come back to Hillary Clinton and Diane Feistein. Really, I’m not making this up.

I pointed out that billions of dollars in trade go overseas and surely it doesn’t all go to politicians. He wasn’t sure at this point but complained about cheap foreign products and how it destroys jobs. Again he seemed unaware that the US has among the lowest unemployment rates around. I asked him how it was that trade was destroying our jobs if our unemployment rate is so low? He said he didn’t know. But he blamed the problem he was sure existed on the NAFTA/NAMBLA agreement! (I’m not making this up -- that is precisely what he said!)

At this point he accused me of wanting to take away his guns! I was very amused considering I’m a passionate defender of the 2nd Amendment (all ten amendments, in fact). I corrected him and he said: “Well, at least your consistent.”

The old guy chimed in again and told me that allow gay marriage rewrites the Bible. I asked him how and he couldn’t explain but he said gay marriage is against the Bible. I pointed out that the United States is not a theocracy and that US law isn’t based on the Bible. His response said it all: “It should be.” He very explicitly said it was his right to impose Biblical law on America.

Angry White Chimed in and pointed out that Leviticus wants gay men killed but said he was surprised lesbianism wasn’t covered. I noted that was correct but that was Biblical law. Old Guy said he didn’t want to kill gays. I pointed at him and told Angry White Guy: “See, he’s a liberal who doesn’t want to obey God’s law.” They both laughed. I told them I had to go as I had groceries in the car.

I said: “I won’t say, it’s been fun.” Old Guy said, “We’ll at least we’re friends.” I said: “No, not really.” I can’t be friends with someone who wants to use state power to take away rights from people.

My second encounter with Prop 8 supporters was on line. Some conservative was spreading lies about the school field trip in San Francisco. That’s the one where some parents wanted their kids out of school to greet their teacher after her wedding to another woman. The Prop 8 people called it “indoctrination” and purposely deleted the fact that the parents were behind this. This fellow basically repeated the same claims. He said it was “blatant indoctrination” meant to “war the children’s sense of normality”. He said was a “criminal abuse of children.”

Someone noted that the parents approved this and he attacked the parents and claimed: “I’m pretty sure the parents didn’t come up the with the idea.” I commented that it was parent who came up with the idea and other parents approved it. I asked how it was “indoctrination for parents to teach their values to their children”.

He admitted that the only thing he read didn’t mention the parents but he didn’t care. Now he sees parents were “warping their child’s perception of sexuality, marriage and family.”

I noted that basically he just confessed to posting his article without bothering to check the facts first. And asked why the Yes on 8 people were so deceptive and left this information out. I noted that when people are allowed to make choices which we don’t necessarily approve of -- its called freedom. But more importantly we were not getting to real reason he wants Prop 8 and it doesn’t have anything to do with parental choice and control. He said gays are unnatural, immoral, unhealthy, self-destruction and a whole string of other negative traits. His campaign isn’t about protecting parental choice -- he just wants to hurt gay people.

He finally came out of the closet and admitted he was doing what he was because he was “a follower of Christ”. Now, in all my time in seminary I never found that Bible verse about Jesus passing ballot propositions. It must have been in the Revised Standard translation and we used the King James translation.

But here are two incidents and in both, after some debate, the Prop 8 supporters finally came out of the closet and cited their religion as the motivation for their attack on the rights of gay people. Jenny Roback Morse is running around California talking against gay marriage and then hiding the fact that she does so, not based on the arguments she gives, but on her rabid Catholicism. I have no problem if she wants to sit in adoration of a cracker that she thinks literally becomes the body of Jesus. But when her worship of a magic cracker becomes the foundation of a campaign to strip people of rights then I have problems with it.

We know the Proposition 8 campaign is dominated by Catholics, Mormons and fundamentalists. That’s where the money comes from. And when they talk in their churches they invoke God and the Bible (well, the Mormons invoke the Book of Mormon and their God). When they come into the light they change tunes. Suddenly they are protecting parental choice, even if no parents rights are being violated.

For all their talk about morality they are not above deception. Why don’t their commercials tell the public the real reason they want to pass Prop 8? Why don’t the commercials say: “Vote Prop 8, put God’s law into practice.” They don’t say it because they know the public won’t buy it.

I’m open about why I support Prop 8. I don’t believe the state has the right to discriminate. And this is state discrimination since the state regulates marriage. Get the state out of marriage and it is not an issue to me. The Prop 8 people don’t want the state out -- not at all. They want state protection and the monopolization of marriage because they want their religion to have the force of government behind it.

The Prop 8 people are deceitful on numerous levels. They won’t tell the public why they wrote the amendment and what they are trying to accomplish. Since they won’t tell the truth about their real motivations they are forced to come up with alternative explanations. And to do that they resort to inventing lies, distorting the truth and scaring people.

Once again I urge my readers to make a donation to the No on 8 campaign, they are still being outspent by the forces for theocracy. I don’t care if you’re gay or straight. That isn’t the main issue here -- even if it is the excuse. The main issue is whether or not California law ought to be based on facts and reality or on theological beliefs. This is as much about separation of church and state as anything. Stop the theocrats here and it will be a blow to their entire campaign to use the law to impose theocracy on America.

This is an issue they want to win badly. This is the one issue they still think they have a chance on winning. This is like first base for them, its easy to get there. But if they don’t get to first, then can’t go to second or third. Put a stop to the theocrats on gay marriage and it helps undermine their efforts to impose prayer and creationism in the schools, impose censorship at the state level, restrict reproductive choice, etc. All these matters are tied together because it is secularism versus Biblicalism. If you want to fight the Biblicists and don’t want them in your backyard, then defeat them here.

Contribute here. Please! I’m going to make my second donation and this is hardship but important.

Note to my readers: I suspect that I'll be blogging on Prop 8 a bit more. This blog is very event driven and about the issues of the day. And since the religious fanatics are heavily attacking the rights of gay people I'm going to be taking my stand here, for what it's worth. If this were 1933 I would be spending a lot of time talking about the situation of the Jews in Germany. I honestly believe this is an issue we should all worry about. Theocracy is dangerous and these people will be as cruel as the God they believe in. Please help stop them. The video is a commercial that Ellen DeGeneres has put together and which she is funding to televise. I always liked her. Please do your part as well.

P.S. Watch this space. I'm trying to write a very difficult, very emotional piece for me. I want to get it right and it is very difficult. My problem is that as I research the matters my emotions so overwhelm me that I find it emotionally wrenching to talk about it. I will try to do it and post it soon. Please watch for it, read it, think about it.

A wise voice.

2008-08-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

He's got his head screwed on right. I was impressed by the maturity that he shows at his age.

HATE CRIME: a film review.

2008-08-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

How do you find justice when the authorities are unable, or unwilling to do their job? That is the question that Robbie Levinson (Seth Peterson) faces in Tommy Stovall’s film, Hate Crime.

Levinson and his partner Trey (Brian Smith) are living a rather peaceful life in the suburban Dallas when the neighborhood changes. Their new neighbor is Chris Boyd (Chad Donella), a hate-filled, tormented fundamentalist who is youth pastor at his father’s church. Tension mounts as Boyd makes his hatred for the gay couple clear.

So, when Trey is severely beaten with a baseball bat while taking the couple’s dog for a walk, all signs point to Chris Boyd as the culprit. His history in antigay religious causes seems only to confirm his guilt.

But a new detective (Giancarlo Esposito) is brought in on the case and he has other ideas. Unable to find sufficient evidence to convict Boyd, and harboring his own dislike for gays, he instead directs his attention on Levinson.

Levinson, with his partner’s mother (Cindy Pickett) and a neighbor woman who warned him about trusting the police, concoct a plan to find the justice which the police are denying them. As the neighbor woman puts it: “Screw the justice system. It ain’t never about justice.”

It would be relatively easy to plot out a story of this genre that is predictable though interesting. But Stovall, who both wrote and produced the film, avoided that trap. There are enough surprises in the film to keep the viewer interested.

It would also be easy to present the terrified Levinson as arming himself, while also presenting the usual PC message about the dangers of self-defense, or suggesting that victims are better off disarmed. Hate Crime doesn’t fall into that trap either. The Pink Pistols would be pleased.

The story raises a lot of interesting questions. But even mentioning them will spoil the film for those who haven’t seen it.

Hate Crime is well worth a watch. With a title like Hate Crime the viewer is already clued in on part of the plot. But the plot development is not at all hindered by this knowledge. The real story only begins after the awful crime has already taken place.

The characters are believable. There are times that the Chris Boyd character seems too tormented and a tad bit overacted. But generally the level of acting is excellent, particularly Bruce Davidson who plays Boyd’s minister father. And the dialogue fits the story without long sermons about justice or injustice.

The trio seeking justice do not attempt to justify their actions to the audience -- another pitfall common in such films. Instead of explaining the actions, which is the cheap and easy way, the film shows the actions within a context that makes them understandable.

All in all I found Hate Crime to be well-worth watching. The story keeps one interested and it raises important ethical questions that are well worth considering. Here is a preview of the film.

Nude wrestlers give Coach a hard time.

2008-08-13T22:34:00.000-07:00

I am shocked by the moralistic boob, Coach Bob Manning, who is the wrestling coach for the University of Nebraska. This throwback to the Dark Ages suspended two wrestlers from the university team permanently because they posed for some erotic photos.

The two men were Paul Donahue, the 2007 national wrestling champion in the 125-lb class and Kenny Jordan. Both men are of legal age. Neither man broke the law. And while the news media is harping about them appearing on a “gay porn site” the reality is not quite as sensational as it sounds. Neither of the men were engaged in sex with anyone. They were alone in the photos, which were not different than those that appear in Playgirl every month.

But Coach “call me stupid” Manning says the men “have been permanently dismissed from our wrestling program. The history of behavior of these men, including the current matter, does not reflect the standard of excellence we aspire to on and off the mat.” Gee, that last bit sounds a bit odd in this context. And from the photos floating around news circles it appears that both men excelled at the task at hand -- so to speak. Regardless, they hurt no one.

Apparently the morons in the media can’t understand that male nudity is not sufficient reason to call something “gay porn”. A nude photo of a male is not automatically gay, as the media seem to believe.

This so-called “incident” is basically harmless. The men didn’t hurt anyone, though they have been humiliated by the media and this moronic coach. They allowed some erotic photos of themselves to be taken. What’s the big deal? If the coach didn’t like the photos he shouldn’t look at them, If he did like them then he needs to deal with it. But I see no reason to throw these men off the wrestling team from something as innocuous as some nude photos.

And I think Coach Mark Manning ought to know he’s being stupid. He can be contacted at 402-472-0652. His email is mmanning2@unl.edu. As always keep it polite. Tell him he overstepped his authority and that a victimless activity, such as some erotic photos, is not justification for the actions he took. Personally I think that the one person acting like a real ass in all of this is the Coach. He needs to get his head out of the Dark Ages and realize that this is not an issue.

Also note that coeds across the nation have posed in Playboy for decades now, all without running into silly university officials punishing the. Playgirl has run photos of university athletes before as well. Let's be honest here. Because the blogger who started this mess claimed the photos were "gay photos" I suspect Manning had a heart attack. Athletic coaches tend to have masculinity problems and are often extremely antigay. Nothing in the photos indicates they young men are gay. Each had posed alone and if what they were doing in the photo makes them gay then the coach should realize all his players would be gay by that criteria. My guess is that the Coach is action like a fool because he has visions of gay things dancing around in his wee tiny brain. The photo studio in question says that almost all their models are straight as were these two young men.

More importantly this story only became a national story when the Coach acted like a idiot and suspended the young men. It had no news value until he acted as he did. He is the one who spread the story far and wide. So it is the Coach who made the university look silly. I think the young men should be brought back and the Coach should apologize. If he can't do that, perhaps it is time for him to retire. After all, he must be approaching 300-years-of-age, since his mind is clearly stuck in the 1700s.

I’m half tempted to post the photos of these two wrestlers but the company that shot them is actually trying to protect these young men and have voluntarily removed them. That is descent of them. In reality the only true indency I see here is the way this coach has acted. So let him know. I did.

By the way, if you really feeling energetic you can write a letter to the campus newspaper as well here.

Seriously deranged.

2008-08-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

This blog received a comment that I wanted to share with everyone. And so I’m giving the comment its own posting here. it is from one of those insufferable religious fanatics who is so overflowing with the love of God that they can’t quite decide who to hate first or most.

The begin by saying: “I’m a child of God, and God makes me as good and goodly as anyone else, at all things by His grace.” Okay, so they are just a good as anyone else “at all things”. That would be pretty impressive I’d say. Usually when someone starts out with such comments I assume they are pretty much a failure at everything. Millionairs rarely brag about having money and people with actual talent don’t have to write to others about it.

We then get the obligatory: “Jesus Christ IS Almight God manifest in the flesh, and He saves by His grace.” I really hate typing this crap -- so many capitals in one sentence. Hey, dude, if you want to believe that it is most certainly your right to do so. Mickey Mouse cures cancer and the Easter Bunny is real. Have fun.

Of course, after all this glorifying of their deity they eventually get down to their real message, which is glorifying to no one and shows they are motivated more by hate than anything else.

In this section they left out the capitals. “you really shouldn’t talk. why gay people are so ‘lousy’ when it come to sex is... they are fucking GAY (ooops, found the shift bar again). they are disgusting men having sex with me, that is LOUSY.” Whatever you think of them they sure do go out of their way to prove how articulate they are.

The logic is wonderful. He says gay people are lousy because they are gay. That gay people are gay is hardly news to anyone. But I do wonder how this individual knows gay people are lousy at sex. Normally it would take a representative sampling to support such a statement. Of course, given the moral hypocrisy among these fundamentalists, anything is possible.

What is really astounding, and I think indicative that the individeual is seriously off his rocker, is that he signs his name as “Women = Shit”. This guy, and clearly he is a guy, has some serious mental problems. Of course in fundamentalist circles he’ll fit right in. But this is the type that can easily turn dangerous -- if he hasn’t done so already.

A father to be ashamed of.

2008-07-20T03:18:00.000-07:00

In spite of the Biblical injunction of honoring one's father and mother the reality is that some parents don't deserve honor, respect or even love. Take this story from the theocratic republic of South Carolina.

According to the police in Anderson, South Carolina a man assaulted his teenage son because the youth, 18, had attended a gay pride parade. The father allegedly "yelled, cursed, swung a baseball bat, prayed and tried to 'cast the demon of homosexuality out" of the son.

The son says his father punched him when he tried to return to the house to get his close and sai that his father "has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat on Sunday" according to the police incident report.

I presume the baseball bat was used because the man had little confidence in his praying. If this report is accurate someone ought to take a baseball bat to this man's skull -- not that it could do much damage, seeing he apparently is brain dead already. Shame on any parent who would do this. And I don't give a damn what they imagine a deity is whispering in their ear. My advice to the son is to get a gun and let dad know he's packing. Fag bashers seem to lose their bravado under such circumstances.

Photo: While the father in this story is not identified I suspect the above photo is not entirely inaccruate as a depiction of the man.

Diving into the new world.

2008-07-06T00:57:00.001-07:00

There is a new world out there, being born as we speak, and it terrifies the forces of conservatism. Consider just two examples that I read recently.

British actor John Barrowman plays the ambisexual hunk hero, Captain Jack Harkness in the British hit sci-fi series Torchwood. He told the story of a young boy who came up to him for an autograph and said: “I don’t care if Captain Jack likes boys and girls. He’s still my hero.” Barrowman, who is gay, said: “He epitomizes how kids don’t care. Adults are afraid.”

Barrowman had a civil union with his partner of 15 years and is openly gay and it hasn’t hurt his career one bit. If anything he’s more popular today than ever.

Matt Mitcham, 20, is a top contender in the Olympics representing Australia in diving. He was being interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald and the reporter, Jessica Halloran, asked him if he was living with anyone. Without giving it much thought he said he was lived with his partner, Lachlan. The newspaper headline saye he was “declaring his homosexuality”.

Other publications said similar things. The whole story was that he “came out of the closet”.

Mitcham is perplexed. He wants to know why the press thinks this is a big deal since he wasn’t in the closet to begin with. Mitcham told his family and friends that he was gay when he was 14 years old. He said: “I came out years ago. All that happened was that I was doing an interview with the Herald and there was a pretty innocuous question, ‘Who do I live with?’ and I just said ‘my partner Lachlan’. And the journalist was really excited -- she thought it was absolutely wonderful.”

The journalist is part of the old world. Mitcham is part of the new world. In the old world being gay is something unusual. In the new world it is rather mundane. In the old world the reaction to the news is surprise, maybe even horror. In the new world the reaction is, “yea, so what.”

The reality is that the young, in most enlightened parts of the Western world, simply don’t find being gay particularly odd or noteworthy. Many young people have gay friends that they grew up with. Instead of hiding their sexuality for decades more and more gay adolescents are open about it right from the start.

For many young people there is no such thing as a closet. And that is what scares the conservatives who try to instil shame and fear into anyone who is gay or different.

What this means is simple. The world has changed.

So what about things like gay marriage bans in various states and other antigay legislation. Such measures are dinosaurs lumbering along toward extinction. They already feel a chill in the air that tells them they are doomed. They only cling to life barely. But as more and more of the old generations die off they are replaced by people who don’t have their manic fears and paranoid illusions.

The laws will change eventually. And when they do people will look back at them and think what fools we were to be upset by such things. And they will be right.

Anyone hear a closet door slamming?

2008-07-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

The odds that Florida Governor Charlie Crist will be nominated as the Republican vice presidential candidate has just increased rather dramatically.

Crist was already a hot pick because of two factors. One is that is the governor of Florida and the Republicans need a Florida win in this race. Second, is that he represents a Southern state that is largely within the Bible belt. Republicans still want the Southern jihadist votes of the Religious Right.

But poor Mr. Crist had a major problem. He’s been battling rumors for decades much the way that Larry Craig was battling rumors for decades.

Mr. Crist had failed to marry. There was a very, very brief marriage when he was in college and nothing since then. No indication of a serious relationship on the horizon either. And there were all those stories which indicated that Mr. Crist might be gay. Crist said his lack of female companionship for three decades was due to his being selective. A lot of others were thinking there were other reasons.

Crist started being seen with this woman in recent months and just popped the question. If I were the lady in question I would have had a few questions of my own before saying yes. Crist also said they are looking at a Fall wedding --- how convenient!

The rumors going about where a bit specific. For instance, it was claimed that a Republican wannabe type, Jason Wetherington was bragging to his close friends that he was having an affair with Crist. Wetherington, who previously admitted being gay, is now on dating sites claiming to be looking for women. At a dinner party Wetherington had spoken openly about his relationship and he told the others present that Crist had a long term gay relationship with a man named Bruce Jordan, who was also a Republican campaign worker.

A woman, Dee Dee Hall, who was friends with Jordan says that she tried to set him up with a male date but that he rebuffed it at the time, telling her that he was involved with Crist. She says they discussed the fact that “Charlie was apparently having some issues with that [the relationship] and trying to keep it under wraps and just trying to deal with it in general.”

At least one other individual involved in Republican circles, Jay Vass, says that Jordan confirmed to him his relationship with Crist. Vass was a pilot who frequently flew top Republican officials around the state. In that capacity he meet Jordan who was rather open about his relationship. Vass says he also saw emails that were exchanged between the two men. Vass said, “Everybody knew that Charlie was gay and what absolutely floored me about it was they made no attempt to hide it or disguise it.”

Apparently the moral hypocrisy of the Republican Party is not going to abate. One good thing about a McCain/Crist ticket is that the rumor mills will keep us entertained. One has to wonder what the future Mrs. Crist thinks of this. Perhaps the person to ask is Larry Craig’s wife.

Photos: Left, Crist's alleged last main interest. Right, Crist's alleged current main interest.

Suffer the little children.

2008-06-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

Now I want to make something clear, right off from the start, this post is not about defending social security. I happen to think the evidence is overwhelming that social security is a rip off for almost everyone and that few groups or individuals wouldn’t be better off investing their social security payments in private annuities. I just want that out of the way because this does deal with social security and a recent case. Unfortunately you have to get to the end of the story to find out what is that really disgusted me.

The case in question dealt with a lesbian couple, Karen and Monique, who have a civil union in Vermont in 2002. In 2003 Monique gave birth to Elijah. On the birth certificate Karen was listed as “2nd parent” and on other document is listed as “civil union parent”.

In 2005 Karen was found eligible for disability benefits. She then applied for child’s insurance benefits for Elijah. That is when a parent is disabled and receiving benefits because of this disability the child usually receives benefits as well since the child is wholly or partially reliant upon the parent. This is not uncommon when a disability benefit is given to someone with dependent children.

What complicated the matter is the disgusting Defense of Marriage Act. Under DOMA the federal government is forbidden to recognize a same-sex relationship in regards to anything. So the question that the Social Security Administration was trying to decide was whether or not Elijah was ineligible for insurance benefits because the parent who was disabled was in a same-sex relationship.

The SSA people ruled that Elijah was qualified. They argued that child’s insurance benefits go to the child regardless of the marriage status of the parent. That is, even if the parents of a child are unmarried that does not disqualify the child from insurance benefits. What is being recognized is the legal status of the child Vis-à-vis the parent and not the related to the marriage of the parents at all. For instance, the child may even qualify if the parent is not biological parent of the child -- a grandparent raising a child who is disabled may mean the child qualifies for some benefits as well. Elijah’s benefits were derived from his status as the legal child of Karen and not from the the civil union status of his parents.

Of course, had Karen been deceased then Monique, her partner, would not be eligible for anything. This would be the case whether or not she was entirely dependent on Karen for her income. DOMA mandates that gay couples pay into the system equally but are that benefits be given out unequally.

Since I think the SSA did the right thing in recognizing Elijah as Karen’s legal, dependent child then what precisely about this case has me upset.

While SSA saw this as an issue of the child’s relationship to a parent and not about same-sex marriage the lovely Christians over at the Family Research Council are upset. Peter Spring, from this hateful gaggle of fundamentalists says that this ruling allowing Elijah to have benefits is “disappointing”. He noted that the Department of Justice, which made the ruling “could have and should have taken much more firm pro-family positions.”

I’m curious why people allow these bastards to get away with such rotten and dishonest language. To them the “pro-family” thing to do would be to say that a child with a disabled parent is ineligible to collect insurance benefits merely because the parent of the child is gay. In other words, because they are obsessed with a hatred for homosexuals, they feel that government must act in a manner to punish children for the sexual orientation of their parents. And this is called “pro-family”. Sickening.

Of course this rot about “pro-family” is a lot of rubbish. I’ve known these people up close and personal and they are often vicious to their own family in the name of their religion. The fact is that their hate far exceeds their ability to love.

When conservative Alan Keyes discovered that his loving daughter, Maya, was gay he threw her out of the house and stopped paying for her college education. Sweet. Religious Right leader Randall Terry found out his son Jamile was gay. He issued public statements attacking and insulting his son in some of the most vicious language I have ever seen a parent use.

Sadie Fields, the leader of the Christian Coalition in Georgia found out her daughter was gay. She showed up at the daughters job screaming at her. She told her daughter that she was now “dead” to the family. California state senator Peter Knight was famous for his antigay legislation. He found out that his son, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, was gay. He rejected his son with the same viciousness that he rejected his gay brother.

Rev. Jimmy Swaggart cheated on his wife with prostitutes. His “family values” was exhibited when he tried to convince a hooker to bring her underaged daughter into the sex scene that Swaggart was seeking. Rev. Ted Haggard, leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. was using drugs with a male prostitute and having sex with him. Rev. Jack Hyles ran the largest fundamentalist church in America for decades, while having a blatant affair with his secretary -- something he flaunted int he face of his wife. Jack’s son followed in daddy’s footsteps but didn’t stop when he had an affair with one woman. He had affairs with dozens of them. He dumped his wife to marry a “swinger”. And it got worse after that, leading to the death of one infant. Rev. Bob Gray pastored one of the largest fundamentalist churches in America as well. He also preyed on small girls sexually and had been doing for almost half a century before he was finally caught. And how did “moral majoritarian” Rev. Jerry Falwell deal with the actions of Rev. Gray. He went to Gray’s church and told the congregation that it was a “bump in the road”. “That’s all it is. You’ve got to move on.” But as one activist put it: “When 22 people report having been sexually abused as kids by a church’s founding pastor, it cannot rightly be minimized as a mere ‘bump in the road.’”

These are all prominent figures in the Religious Right and all of them are viciously antifamily. Look at how they treated their own family members. If you think about it you will realize that what they are doing is trying to make the law as vicious as they are. What upsets them is that most Americans would not treat their own family members this badly and certainly not in the name of being “pro-family”. So these fundamentalists are manipulating the laws in order to make the government punish these people because their own families aren’t.

In this case they wanted the federal government to punish a five year old boy because these Christians don’t like the fact that boy’s parents are lesbians. And they say they want the child punished to save the family. Apparently the relationship between this child and his parents aren’t “family” to these people. I have nothing but contempt for such cruelty and viciousness. Such cases are a good example as to why so many young people are walking away from the church. And I’m glad they are.

My monument is bigger than yours!

2008-06-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

If you want to drive the Far Right insane, admittedly a redundant exercise if there ever was one, just mention homosexuals. The topic alone is a litmus test for the fanatical religionists and crazy side of the conservative movement.

One of the best examples of those driven insane by their god addiction is Michael Medved. He was once a film reviewer but then became a Far Right hack. He was one of the most vocal defenders of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, insisting that old Mel was no anti-Semite. His record on that was about as correct as on other issues. Mel later launched a drunken tirade about how Jews manipulate all the wars in the world. Of course anyone paying attention knows that Mel’s father is a leading speaker in the world’s neo-Nazi movement and a vicious anti-Semite. But then Medved apparently wasn’t paying attention.

Medved is one of those who worked hard on the political Left until he discovered the value of being a turncoat and joined the lunatic Right. And that means he has to bash homosexuals on a regular basis in order to prove his bona fides to the bigots that dominate conservative politics.

His latest tirade was about the very small memorial to gay victims of the Holocaust that recently opened in Berlin. Medved calls the memorial a “misleading attempt to depict homosexuals as prime targets of Hitler.” Medved says that Jewish victims “outnumbered gay victims by more than 500 to 1.” Apparently this is a numbers game. And he says “it’s wrong to exaggerate the extent of victimization for politically correct P.R. purposes.”

How did this one small monument “exaggerate the extent of victimization”? Medved never answers that but then he doesn’t have to. The purpose of his piece is not to prove his point but to prove that he can gay bash like the best of the them.

Now let us put the actual two monuments into perspective with one another. If you look at the first photo you will see the actual memorial to gay victims of the Holocaust. Notice that it is taller than one man. In fact it is 4 meters high. Based on the photo and the relationship of the man to the monument I would estimate that it is no more that 3 meters long by 2 meters wide, probably a bit less. At most this is 6 square meters of space dedicated to the homosexuals persecuted by Hitler.

Now consider the actual size of the other memorial -- it is 19,000 square meters or 4.7 acres in size. That one took 21 months to construct. There is one concrete slab in the gay memorial and 2,711 slabs in the other. I don’t know how we compare such things. Most normal people wouldn’t. But in Medved’s warped mind this is important.

While he says that Jewish victims outnumber gay victims 500 to one we should note that the Jewish memorial is 1,166 times larger than the gay one. Apparently the exaggeration went in the wrong direction. If size of monuments is some indication of the victimization, as Medved seems to think, then the gay monument should have been doubled in size. Would Mr. Medved say that the other monument is exaggerating “the extent of victimization for politically correct P.R. purposes”? I suggest he would not.

Israel Gutman, a spokesman connected with Israel’s Yad Vashem Institute whined about the small memorial to gays as well. He insinuated this was evidence that the Germans don’t understand the Holocaust. He said that the memorial was “an error” and that they two shouldn’t be near each other. He claimed it would confuse people into thinking “there was not a great difference between the suffering of Jews and those of homosexuals....” Apparently being killed is worse when it done to Jews than when it does to homosexuals. Gutman said a memorial to gays being killed is a “scandal” and that “a sense of proportion must be maintained.” I doubt he was suggesting the Jewish memorial should be reduced to half its size.

The fact is that the Nazis singled out and persecuted various groups. Jews were the largest group but not the only group. And it is not groups that suffer and die but individuals. The memorial is not scandalous or inappropriate. And the very suggestion that we have to measure monuments to get some “sense of proportion” is obscene. Shame on Guttman and double shame on the meshuggener, Michael Medved.

Antigay panic story spread by Religious Right

2008-01-22T18:31:00.001-08:00

The headlines were scary. Supposedly a flesh-eating virus was ravaging the gay community. Right-wing theocrats were in a dither. The crazed "Americans for Truth" group demanded to know why schoolchildren weren’t being taught that being gay was evil -- as if that would make any difference in the number of people who are born gay.

Christian groups called this “another homosexual disease” as if diseases have a sexual orientation. A rather young researcher, Binh Diep, seemed to encourage this hysteria. He warned: “Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable.” Of course the religious Right jumped on that claim. The Conservative Voice crowed: “Those who denigrate the biblical data regarding God’s abhorrence of homosexual activity thereby aid in the furthering of widespread, deadly diseases.”

They claimed that “homosexual men are 13 times more likely to contract the potentially deadly, drug-resistant strain of staph infection, but the fear is that, because the infection is spread via skin-to-sking contact, homosexual men may soon spread it to the general population.”

What’s wrong with these panicky statements? Almost everything. They are just flat out wrong and wrong on several levels. But since the Christian Right hates homosexuals with an irrational intensity the facts don’t matter. They are happy to lie in order to slander the gay community.

The stronger version of the staph infection does exist but it is not exclusive to the gay community by any means. In fact, long before it appeared in the gay community it cropped up in other locations. Newsweek reported: “Once restricted to hospitals, these virulent forms of staph have increasingly afflicted day-care centers, schools, gyms and other public areas in the last decade.” If you read that carefully, something the conservatives aren’t doing, you will see that this infection has been around for a decade and is only now showing up in one section of the gay community, a small number of cases in the Castro area of San Francisco. In other words, this disease was found in the general community long before it was found in the gay community. The gay community isn’t infecting the general population but the general population was the source for the virus that infected a small number in the gay community. The Christian Right typically has everything backwards.

Newsweek notes that this strain of the infection, USA300, “has been around since 2002 and has appeared in at least 38 American states.”

Researchers said gay men were more likely to become infected but that is based on a rather limited study. They said that only one in 588 residents of the Castro have this variant of the infection. I’d like to see the actual numbers of infections because the Castro is not that big an area. I was just there recently at the Castro Theater for a concert. Depending on how widely defined “the Castro” is we are talking a neighborhood of a few thousand to maybe 10,000 people.

Certainly the heart of the Castro is mainly businesses and restaurants. But just outside that central business district it is residential. But these are mostly single homes or Victorians that at most have three apartments. A typical block could have between 12 and 15 buildings. They wouldn’t average more than 2 people per housing unit. Many of these building are single dwellings. If we average two units per building and two people per unit we are talking about between 96 and 120 people per block (counting both sides of the street). Even that may be high. Some of the blocks, such as Collingswood only have residential units on one side of the street with parks and schools taking up the rest.

A quick look at Google maps indicates that the Castro most likely covers about 4o blocks of area being nestled between Diamond Heights and the Mission area. Of course the study may have used different parameters for defining the neighborhood. But if it is 40 blocks then I’d estimate the total population of the area at between 4,000 and 5,000 people. Now if the infection rate is one in 588 that would mean the infection rate is based on less than ten cases of infection. Even if the number of residents were twice what I’m estimating then the number of infections would be less than two dozen. This is hardly a representative sample.

Before version of staph, MRSA, was found in the Castro it was also found in other parts of the country. For instance MRSA was detected in two day care centers according to a study from 1998. In one 3% of the children were infected and in another 24% were. For comparison the infection rate in the Castro was 0.0017%. I don’t remember any fear-mongering being done by the Right about the threat to the wider community posed by children.

In this study it was shown that 7 members of a high school wrestling team were infected. This included “persons whose MRSA-positive infection were identified at a hospital laboratory from January 1, 1993 through February 28, 1994. The “attack rate for the team was 21.9%.” This is well in excess of infection rate in the gay community yet again there were no Right-wing reports about the dangers of wrestling. And note that this infection took place almost 15 years ago. So it is difficult to see how people can claim the “wider community” is threatened by gays who have the infection today considering that the wider community had the infection first.

Six years ago the University of Southern California football team experienced an outbreak of MSRA. All the infected individuals were “healthy college-aged males who were active participants on the football team.” In 2003 “17 football players from a team of 107 (15.8%)” were diagnosed.

In each of these cases, and there are many more, the infection hit a segment of the wider community and did so at rates far exceeding the rate that caused the panic about gay men in the Castro. Compared to similar outbreaks at day care centers or sports teams the infection in the Castro is very low. And these other cases prove that the infection can’t spread from the gay community to the “wider community” because it was in the “wider community” before it was in the gay community.

What we have here is another politically motivated panic. Politics is ripe with such panics. A small bit of information that is factual is exaggerated, intentionally, by an organized political force in order to stampede the public and politicians into supporting measures which the special interest groups wishes imposed.

In this case the fear mongering is targeting the gay community. The goal is to scare the shit out of Christians and Right-wingers in order to keep them dedicated to the antigay jihad. This blog has repeatedly argued that much of modern politics today is fear-based and built around exaggerated, or completely bogus, threats. It is my firm belief that this is true with terrorism, immigration, drugs, global warming and a host of other issues. The perceived threat is vastly more scary than the reality. This appeal to fear is intentional. And it is engaged in by both the Right and the Left. The prophetic H.L. Mencken warned: ““The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Almost a century after H.L. Mencken issued his warning things haven’t changed much.

Politicians destroy Castro Halloween party.

2007-10-31T07:26:00.001-07:00

The most famous Halloween party in the world has been cancelled. The party was held on Castro Street in San Francisco. San Francisco is considered the gay capital of the world and Castro Street the epicenter of the capital.

The reality is that the area, while heavily gay, was never exclusively gay and I would say that a third of the residents were heterosexual even within the Castro itself -- with the number of straights rising quickly if one moved a few blocks in any direction.

Some years ago when I moved to San Francisco, the first apartment I found was on Castro, though it was slightly outside the “epicenter”. The apartment was small -- much too small but I loved the Victorian building. Shortly after that I discovered a very large apartment which was on the top floor of one of the buildings in the very heart of the Castro. The rent was rather reasonable, for San Francisco at least, especially since the flat occupied the entire floor. The lounge was double the size of most and had a huge bay window looking down on the street. And off that was the room I used as my office which also had a bay window that butted out over the street below as well.

So the Halloween party in the Castro wasn’t exactly something I could avoid. Well over 100,000 people would descend in various costumes and party, perhaps double or triple that.. And each year it seemed to get bigger. Even with the bedroom at the back of the flat the noise from the party filtered through easily. The street was far too compacted with people to go down, at least not for long. But I didn’t need to. I could watch all the festivities from my front window with no problem. And admittedly every Halloween I got little sleep due to the noise.

Because the party was where it was it has also attracted people from outside the neighborhood who wanted to come in and cause problems. Various gang types would descend in order to win some stripes by attacking people they assumed were gay -- often assumed wrongly I might add. On the other hand that was not relegated to Halloween alone. Two bus routes, the 22 and the 24, ran through the area and both went through some pretty rough areas of the cities. Thugs from those neighborhoods would hop on the bus and sit there in waiting until it got closer to the Castro. They would wait until someone they believed was gay got on the bus and the group of them would pounce. The bus driver usually tried to pretend he didn’t see anything and often the gang just remained on the bus while the victim staggered off seeking protection and medical assistance.

The city always tried to cope with the problem but was typically unable to do much without getting heavy handed. One Halloween I was headed to the flat when I found the surrounding streets had roadblocks with police at each of the main entrances. They were frisking everyone who entered and going through anything they carried.

I only had a briefcase but my view was that I had not committed a crime and their right to search my belongings was dependent on either “reasonable cause” or a search warrant. They had neither. I explained to the officers that they had a problem. They wanted to search me without cause and were preventing me from returning to my home. I also pointed out the obvious: they wanted to make sure I had no weapons that could harm others and I had an apartment that had butcher knives, hammers, screw drivers and other items that could easily inflict harm. In other words what good is it to search people who actually live on the street and can obtain a weapon from their home -- which was still immune to warrantless search -- George Bush eat your heart out.

The police were reasonable about it that evening. One of them figured out an easy solution. One officer would accompany me to the entrance of my building. Since I had the key to the entrance, and since there was only one apartment in the building (the ground floor was a restaurant and the second floor were offices) it was obvious that I lived there. When he saw me unlock the door and enter he was satisfied. The Bill of Rights was preserved, that night, at least for me.

Last year two gangs of youths from outside the Castro were in attendance and it seems they brought their own neighborhood conflicts to the party. They were yelling insults at one another (such class) and threw bottles at one another. One of them pulled a gun and started shooting. Nine people were wounded though none seriously. And the police were unable to do anything. The gunman is still free. At the time the Sheriff Michael Hennessy described it as “just one jerk with a gun who had an enemy there.”

The police didn’t check people for weapons because they said too many people were coming in and it would have added to the congestion.

This year the city just cancelled the celebration entirely. From downplaying the event to overreacting seems to be par for the course, when it comes to politics. Politicians either ignore a problem or switch into panic-mode and use sledgehammers to swat at flies.

This year the sledgehammer came down. Not only did the mayor cancel the party but the politicians did everything they could to shut down the Castro. First the subway lines will stop running at 8:30 p.m. and the BART station will close at 8 p.m. Next the streets will be open for traffic though the police seem to understand that traffic won’t get through as people will turn up anyway.

Next a petty politician, Bevan Dufty, started putting pressure on the 110 businesses in the area with liquor licenses to “voluntarily” close down. All the bars in the area, but one, will be closed. And the city plans to send in 600 law enforcement officials to control everything and everyone. As I said: killing flies with sledgehammers. The Democrats like to think Bush got hysterical. He did. But this is a Democratic administration in San Francisco that is literally closing down the Castro.

For decades the San Francisco police have yearned for the ability to shut down the Castro. I’ve seen that myself. I remember one night suddenly finding the police lined up across the street with batons ready to bash skulls. They marched down the street forcing everyone inside buildings and demanding they be locked in or face a beating. The excuse was an incident that book place elsewhere in the city.

When Dan White, a former cop, received a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for assassinating Mayor Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, riots broke out at city hall. The police responded by swooping into the Castro, several miles away and peaceful, beating in heads and attacking gay bars.

So it is a bit disconcerting to see this mayor doing precisely what the police have tried to do for decades without success. Since Mayor Newsome is perceived as being supportive of gay rights he can trample on the Castro as much as he wants and the toadies to the Democrats, in the community, will praise him for it.

What had started as a neighborhood party did become an event that attracted people from outside the area who often wanted to cause problems. But between the sledgehammer approach and turning a blind eye to violence there is a lot of territory.

One possible solution would be to turn the event into a private party with tickets. That could be done easily as the main party was in a small area with four main entry points. Residents of the street, and actually there were never more than a few dozen people who actually had apartments on the top floors of the buildings right on Castro, could be given passes for themselves and maybe a few extra if they wish to have friends over. Tickets could be sold in neighborhood shops leading up to the event with the number of tickets limited to the capacity of the area. The reality is that 100,000 people crammed into that small area was a problem.

Using the pricing mechanism to ration access works for movie theaters so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for the Halloween Party. If the price is sufficient to discourage low-life thugs (almost any price would do that) most the problem would be solved. Policing the entry points by admitting ticket holders only would allow the neighborhood to have its traditional party while keeping out trouble. And the proceeds from the sale of tickets could be used to fund the event with any left over going to neighborhood charitable causes, of which there are many.

Instead of thinking like entrepreneurs politicians think like bureaucrats. And the Halloween tradition in the Castro is a victim of that bureaucratic mentality. A few police officers at the entrance could handle the situation. And others would be stationed in the surrounding streets enforcing the normal laws. That would keep crowds from gathering on the streets leading into the Castro instead.

Certainly allowing the market to work makes sense. Having an entrance fee would allow the party to return to what it was meant to be -- a local celebration. It is unnecessary to cancel the event and if handled properly, which probably means having it privately run by a residents association or local businesses, it could generate enough revenue to cover the costs of the event and possible contribute to worthy causes. The local businesses would not need to close on one of the most profitable evenings of the year either.

Sometimes a fly swatter is all you need to kill flies.

Harry Potter character outed as gay by author.

2007-10-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of books, was speaking to a full house of fans at Carnegie Hall yesterday and taking questions. One fan asked if Dumbledore ever had found “true love.” Rowling suprised the audience by saying: “Dumbledore is gay” and revealed that in her imagination he was previously in love with his rival Gellert Grindelwald.

Apparently after a few seconds to think about it the young audience started applauding. Rowling was a bit surprised and said: “I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy.

Rowlings said that one of the film scripts she was shown referred to Dumbledore having been smitten with a female but she made sure the director was informed about how she saw the character.

Rowlings said that she sees her novels as a “prolonged argument for tolerance” and as a plea for fans to “question authority.”

She acknowledges that Christian groups have targeted her as evil, claiming the books promote Satanism and says this will just give them one more reason to dislike her. She doesn’t appeared worried.

The kids are just the excuse: you are the target.

2007-09-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

One of the last legacies of the disastrous Bush Administration is an attempt to close down most adult web sites through new regulations that fly in the face of the First Amendment. But considering this man hasn't respected any of the other amendments, why should he worry about this one?

Let us look at some changes pushed through previously by the odious Attorney General Ed Meece in the 1980s. First, the age of consent for adult material, at that time, was 16 years of age, which is consistent with the dominant age of consent for sexual activity throughout the US and consistent with the ages set in Europe as well. Meece argued that some 16-year-olds looked younger making it difficult to prevent 15-year-olds from engaging in sexual performances. To stop individuals under 16-years-of-age from doing this he proposed the federal government raise the limit to 18.

It was long after that they were arguing that some 17-year-olds look 18 so the limit should be raised to 21. That time the argument didn’t fly as easily. One result of this new age limit is that some erotica, that was previously legal, became illegal quite literally over night. Most people were unaware of the change in the law and millions of new criminals were created instantly and unknowingly (to them). In addition a lot of publications from Europe, that were legal when they were ordered became illegal in transit.

The Meece police announced there was a spike in child pornography offenses and that the feds had to increase their powers to deal with it. In fact the spike was the creation of the redefinition of the offense. If you redefine speeding to driving faster than 10 miles an hour you will quite easily find that there is more speeding.

One way of dealing with the definitional problem was U.S.C. 18 Section 2257. This law required the producers of erotica to keep detailed records regarding the names, addresses, pseudonyms, etc of anyone who performs in, or poses for, erotic material. This included copies of two forms of photo ID. And this information was to be kept in one location, that is announced, and open to public inspection.

Now Section 2257 has been changed under the “Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act” -- which was pushed by John Walsh, the authoritarian who is reacting to the murder of his son 25 years ago. That abduction had nothing to do with pornography or any of the issues that Walsh campaigns about and has built a lucrative career over.

The new legislation drastically expands the burdensome regulations that are mandatory. And remember, that while this is all allegedly to stop child pornography, the actual target of 99.99% of the regulations is legal, adult erotica. Nor would the absence of these regulations open the door to child porn which would remain illegal regardless.

The purpose of this sort of legislation is to regulate erotica to death. This tactic is used by moralistic politicians frequently. For instance, it is a violation of the First Amendment to ban adult shops entirely. So petty politicians pass zoning regulations which regulate where they can be located. With a few provisions they can then accomplish the ban they wish to impose without calling it a ban. One can first forbid them within 1,000 feet of any church, school, park, or playground -- to protect the children. Next you can forbid them from being within the same distance of any residential area. Just those regulations alone would accomplish the ban in most places. And many towns have done this. If that isn’t sufficient you can forbid any adult business from being within 1,000 feet of any other adult business including bars. You can toss in bus stops as well. With a few minutes of careful planning you can find zoning restrictions that accomplishes an act, which in its raw form, would be illegal. Welcome to backdoor censorship.

The same thing is happening in the U.S. with erotica. The Theopublicans, and no small number of Democrats I should add, are pushing for an intricate web of regulations that make it difficult, if not impossible, for someone to engage in publishing erotic material.

The main target of this new regulation is the internet. Let us say that you operate a blog or web site of some kind. Let us say that this includes some sort of erotic visual depiction on the site. Since it can included “simulated sex” it need not be explicit. Most such web sites or blogs copy photos from other sites. You can now be jailed for doing this, and knowing the morons in the Bush Administration it wouldn’t surprise me if they decide they can torture you in the process. (Sarcasm for the brain dead Bushites who will take that literally.)

If a photographer takes erotic photos he must have forms filled out and filed regarding each model. These are open to warrantless inspections by government agents anytime they wish and must be available without notice. This law only applied to the primary producer. Under the new law “secondary producers” are required to keep the same records and make them available to federal agents and police the same way -- without a warrant and without notice.

So let us say that you post an image from one of your favorite erotic publications on a blog -- again it need not be explicit sex just simulated sex. The producer of that magazine would have the records which federal agents may inspect whenever they wish but you wouldn’t have them. Under the new legislation you are deemed a criminal (perhaps a child pornographer) because you don’t have copies of those records on your premises. If you don’t have these files, and you won’t have them, you can go to prison.

If you are one of millions of adults who has posted an erotic image of yourself onto a site, like a dating site or XTube, then you must keep these records, regarding yourself, on your premises.

You may not think this is difficult or problematic. But remember those records are open to inspection, on the premises, by federal agents, anytime they wish, as often as they wish. There is no need for probable cause or a warrant to conduct such searches. In essence this means that everyone who has posted an adult image or video of himself on the net has forfeited his constitutional rights to avoid unreasonable search.

The only way around this, that I see, is if you maintain a separate office to conduct you “erotic” business. You would have to maintain an office, with staff to admit federal agents, in order to post your own images online. If you don’t have said office then you will be required to keep these records in your home. If you keep them in your home (or fail to do so) the feds have the right to demand immediate access to your home anytime they wish. They would have no need for those pesky search warrants and won’t need to have a reasons to search your premises.

There are some things here which I’m unclear about. While the law covers digital images what does it mean to distribute them? If you send an erotic photo of yourself to another person is that distribution? Does that require you to keep these records and forfeit your Constitutional rights? I suspect if it doesn’t explicitly require this, that it is implied and power hungry prosecutors will make this claim at some point.

There is no doubt that child porn is a real problem but it is only a tiny part of the erotica industry. But child porn is not the real target here. Child porn is the bin Laden of erotica -- it is the excuse used to launch a war that targets more than the excuse. As noted these regulations don’t make child porn any more illegal than it already is. The target is all erotica of any kind. These regulations are an end run around the Bill of Rights by an administration that has proven, over and over, that it has utter contempt for the Constitution or any limitation on its powers. The great tragedy of politicians is that they use real problems as excuses for power grabs. This happens both on the Left and the Right. And rarely do these power grabs actually solve the problem that was was used to justify them. The kids are just the excuse -- you are the target.

You can take action (which I suppose will be ignored). You have until September 10 to protest the expansion of Section 2257. Send those protests to Admin.ceos@usdoj.gov and say it regards Section 2257 Docket No. CRM 104. I suggest you keep it brief and to the point -- simply tell them you oppose the revisions of section 2257.

Right wing group appears to have invented fake "hate" attack for sympathy.

2007-09-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

Here is the original story that the fanatical fundamentalists are spreading through the internet. According to the Mullahs at Focus on the Family a peaceful group of Christians, witnessing as to how their prayers can cure homosexuality, were set upon with a “barrage of verbal abuse and one man was reportedly assaulted by a gay activist.” This supposed at a county fair.

According to Regina Griggs this “cured” homosexual was standing there mind his own business and: “They walked by him and hit him in the back -- attacked him.” Focus on the Family says that police “kicked the gay activists out of the fair and encouraged” the poor, persecuted Christians to press charges, but they chose not to do so. One should know that Griggs has been on an antigay vendetta ever since she found out her son was gay.

The Christian “news” service Lifesite, never one to pass up an antigay rumor, reported on the story but added their own unique, fanciful touch. They described “angry homosexual activists “ who “harassed and assaulted” these peaceful, loving Christians.

They also claimed that police “ejected” the violent activist and that the victim of this assault “declined to press charges citing the example of Jesus Christ.” Oh, how sanctimonious. Another Focus on the Family outlet described how a “cheerful day at a Virginia county fair ended in chaos” after an attack by “homosexual activists.”

The folks over at Ex-Gay Watch were skeptical. First, they tried to find out what gay group had a booth at the fair, since they were the ones which Focus on the Family and others accused of the assault. They found it was the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance and they contacted the president, Daniel Hays, who was perplexed. He said:

I worked several evening shifts at the Arlington Gay & Lesbian Alliance booth. I did hear one, what I would call “heated” discussion, but never saw any thing beyond raised voices. Our organization purposefully did not do anything to even interact with them, but I cannot speak to what individual fairgoers may or may not have said or done when I was not there.

Next they contacted Denis Roller, event manager for the fair. She said that if there was an incident nobody bothered to tell the fair about it. She said she was at the fair almost the whole time it was open and knew of no such altercation.

Next Exgay Watch decided to check with the Arlington police. After all the police supposedly evicted a violent homosexual activist and urged his victims to press charges. Police media Relations officer, John Lisle, said he knew nothing about the alleged attack. He asked around the police department and couldn’t find anyone else who knew of such an incident either. He read the report issued by Christian groups and he spent another two days trying to find anyone who knew about such an attack. He came up empty handed. There was no police report on such an incident and no police officer could remember such an incident.

What are we left with? The religious group won’t name anyone as the attacker. In spite of the prevelance of cell phones with cameras no one photographed the assault that allegedly took place. The gay group in question says they know nothing about it. The fair organizers know nothing about it and were there most of the time themselves. Police have no record of the incident either and, so far, no police officer has recollection of such an attack.

The anti-gay religious group in question conveniently refused to file a formal complaint against the attacker thus assuring that no record would exist to verify their story. They say they were following the example of Jesus. So instead of filing a complaint against the attacker they spread the story around the internet to smear the entire gay group at the fair. I would have thought that if they were turning the other cheek they wouldn’t be broadcasting this story around the net so heavily.

The antigay hate group, Americans for Truth (a sure sign they are distorting facts), repeated the claim. They quoted the group in question as saying: “As happens every year, gay activists disrupted our booth activities.” Every year! And no one knows about it -- talk about stealth attacks.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Focus on the Family has invented, or reported, false stories. Maybe it happened but no evidence for the attack seems to exist. And since the victims were supposedly being so holy, as to not press charges, we have nothing but their word to go on. And that’s not much. So what are the odds they were lying? Substantial, I would think.

Interesting thing about these religious fanatics. They are so quick to quote Scripture. Yet, I have to wonder what they would think about: "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Proverbs says that "a lying tongue" is an "abomination" to God. Matthew wrote that among the things "which defile a man" is "false witness". Revelations said "all liar shall have their part in the lake which burnest with fire and brimstone." Since they are so quick to use that book as weapon to bash people over the head with I have to wonder why they ignore it when it comes to their own vicious, smear campaigns.

Why Republicans are so lousy when it comes to sex.

2007-08-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

Larry Craig is a top Right-wing, Theopublican Senator from Idaho. He is also one of those Theopublicans who happily joined the villagers with the pitchforks and torches who were out chasing the gay monster. Now, Mr. Craig has been arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer in a toilet at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Actually, I should say he was arrested in June and had managed, until now, to keep his arrest quiet. Craig says his actions were misconstrued and that police had misunderstood him. He did, however, plead guilty to the charges at the time but says he did this to keep things quiet, and to handle them as quickly as possible. He paid a fine and is on a suspended jail sentence.

This is not the first time that Senator Craig has had issues of this type. In 1982 a former Congressional page claimed that various member of Congress plied male pages with drugs and alcohol and solicited sex from them. Please note that while the news report below claims the pages are “under age” this is not necessarily true. The media stupidly and incorrectly uses “under age” to mean anyone under 18 years of age. While 18 is the age of majority, age of consent for sexual activity is 16 in Washington, D.C., as it is in many states.

It should be noted that today the minimum age to become a page is 16 which is why, despite the media hype, Republican Congressman Mark Foley was not involved in sexual misconduct with minors. Actually, one of the main incidents took place with a former page who was 18 years of age and the only sexual liaison that is known took place with an ex-page who was 21 years old at the time.

But this change was instituted in 1983, after the first scandal. In the following report you will see that, while no names were specifically mentioned, that Larry Craig held a press conference to deny it was him. So it is possible that in 1982 under aged pages were involved. However, given the media’s sloppy reporting it could mean either under 18 years of age, or under the age of consent, which is 16.

What was shocking in the 1982 case is that the hypocrites in Congress were using illegal drugs. Yet, none of these Senators or Congressman are willing to legalize the drugs they used. And many bash gays while secretly having gay sex -- or in some cases, not so secretly having gay sex.

Last year one blogger specifically named Larry Craig as a Senator who regularly sought out male companionship. This year old article from USA Today notes covers that. (This report also incorrectly claims that the two congressman who admitted having sex with pages in 1982 did so with under aged pages. That is false. Both pages were over the age of consent and one of them, the male page who had an affair with Congressman Gerry Studds, publicly defended Studds and stated that they were both consenting adults. But the media still prefers the sensationalism of exaggerating the facts. The media doesn’t mind a little gay bashing by distorting the facts to sell papers or up their ratings.)

USA Today noted that a “gay rights” blogger exposed Craig last year. The blogger, Michael Rogers, did so because Craig had an antigay agenda. However, Rogers uses the term very broadly to mean any view contrary to that of the Left agenda of some gay political pressure groups. In some cases the label applies, and in others it does not. Unfortunately the Left can’t distinguish between the two and conflates them into one category. Most Leftist, like most Rightists, have no coherent theory of rights. Rights are whatever they like. That said, Senator Craig did support legislation that denied equal citizenship to gay people.

Craig has bought into the Theopublican Religious-Right agenda and proclaimed himself a defender of “traditional family values”. The media reports he is married and has three children. It is usually left out that this marriage took place rather late in Craig’s life and that none of the children are his own but were born to his wife during her first marriage. Rumors regarding Craig’s sexual life were floating around long before the marriage. The film clips above make clear that Craig only married after he was publicly denying any involvement with male pages since he mentions that he came forward because he was single and suspected he would be implicated.

The question for the media is when does a private life become a matter of public interest. Bill Clinton’s sexual unfaithfulness to Hillary (which may have been mutual) was private except that Clinton was charged with sexual harassment. He was supporter of the very laws which netted him -- as was Foley, by the way. In both their cases they were harmed by legislation they endorsed.

Clinton, however, also lied while under oath. And it appeared that he was easily blackmailed by Monica Lewinsky, who was able to use her affair to pressure him into giving her positions apparently in exchange for the positions she gave him or, by implication, for her silence. Once Clinton lied in court, and was open to this sort of improper pressure, the matter took on a more ominous nature. At that point his private live became public concern. Unfortunately the Republicans were so horrified over sex that they never got to anything of substance.

Foley’s problem was that he was stupid and he proposed legislation that he was happily violating himself. In addition he was supporting political policies that denied equal rights to gay people. That doesn’t change the fact that Democrats used crude gay stereotypes to hype the Foley incident for their own benefit and that they falsely accused him of being a pedophile even though the rude messages he sent were to sexually mature individuals above the age of consent. I thought the Foley incident showed how seamy the Democrats could be and how they would use antigay stereotypes just as quickly as the Republicans, if they see a clear benefit in doing so.

My view is that a politician who doesn’t make himself out to be some defender of “traditional values” or isn’t legislating the sex lives of others, ought to have his private, sexual life respected and kept private. Larry Craig was willing to make the sex lives of others a matter of public concern. He was caught soliciting a male police officer in a toilet -- the cruising spot of the closeted, something which the Theopublican agenda of pushing gays into the closet encourages. Craig also denied gay people equality before the law. I would not have outed him myself, as did the one blogger, but I can’t be too upset he was caught either.

His actual arrest changed the facts sufficiently that it is worth reporting. And it should be noted that this is not the last Theopublican moralist who will be hoisted with their own petard. Their desire to regulate the sex lives of others means they are willing to turn the private affairs of people into public business. How they expect their own sexual lives to stay private I don’t know. If the sex lives of the citizenry are the affairs of legislators then the sex lives of legislators are the affair of the voters. But political officials who haven’t tried to make private sexual activity a focus of state intervention ought to have their privacy respected. Larry Craig was not that kind of elected official. And his party represents the organized forces of state control of sexuality.

According to the police report, which I have read, Craig appears to have attempted to use his political office to avoid arrest. After his arrest he was asked for his driver’s license. Craig, however, handed the officer his U.S. Senate business card instead. He said: “What do you think of that?”

I should also note that there is no clear indication that Craig was planning on engaging in sexual activity in a public location. He supposedly used gestures to indicate that he was willing to engage in sex. The location was never indicated or discussed. If indication of willingness to engage in voluntary sexual conduct is “lewd conduct” than 99% of the American people would have been arrested at some point in their life and the other 1% are lying about it.

If a man had indicated to a woman that he was interested in sexual activity, I suspect that it would not normally be considered a criminal matter unless he did so in an especially graphic, offensive, or aggressive manner. Craig seems to have been a victim of the double standard -- one standards for straight activity and another for gay activity. But then Craig has done a great deal to encourage that sort of standard of inequality before the law. Anti-gay fundamentalist minister Lonnie Latham had been arrested for exactly the same thing -- suggesting to a police officer they go to his hotel room for sex. The officer was hanging around a hotel where gay men sometimes meet other men. Latham didn't offer money nor did he suggest sex in public. But he was arrested anyway -- this is not an unusual way for police to harass gay people. Latham, was acquitted because the sex act itself was legal as was his suggestion to the officer. Chances are good that Sen. Craig would have been acquitted had he fought the charges. But he, like many gay men, copped a plea to try to avoid the trauma of being publicly outed in a culture where being gay is still a social handicap.

I should note that one way Senator Craig differs from many on the far Right of the Republican Party is that he doesn’t engage in the shameless, racist attacks on immigrants. His analysis of immigration has been sound. And his knowledge of the economic benefits of immigration can’t be disputed. So, at least, on that issue, Senator Craig is heads above the many fake “free market” advocates who want to restrict immigration and bash immigrants. On that front, at least, he was not a bigot though he did pander to the Religious Right on the antigay campaign.

Craig was a victim in some ways. The worst he did was indicated a willingness to engage in sex and that is not “lewd conduct” except to the homophobes who think anything that indicates sexuality, especially homosexual sexuality, is automatically lewd. Craig did not offer money so it wasn’t solicitation for prostitution. He merely indicated a willingness to engage in legal, sexual activity. And since the issue of where one would have sex was never raised it was not a matter of public lewdness either.

So Craig was arrested on charges that normally are not applied to people other than to gay men. He was the victim of the uneven view of rights that permeates the law when it comes to homosexuality. But he was also a victim of the Religious Right ideology that he willingly promoted -- one that required him to be closeted and seek out such activity in a manner that was meant to be furtive and secretive, one that relied on “cruising spots” with hand gestures or foot tapping to indicate willingness. His own ideology, and that of his political party, made it impossible for him to be open about who he was. And that sort of closeted attitude distorts one’s sexuality.

What happened to Senator Craig was, to a large extent, self inflicted. The fault lies in a legal system which Craig endorsed and promoted. It lies in a belief system that is based on mythology, lies and wishful thinking and opposed to the facts of reality. As long as the Republicans continue to embrace the destructive values of religious fundamentalism they will churn out the tortured examples of people like Ted Haggard, Senator Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Rev. Coy Privette, Rev. Lonnie Latham, State Rep. Bob Allen, Senator David Vitter, or Young Republicans leader Glenn Murphy.

The tale of Miss Swallow and Mr. Sprigg.

2007-08-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

PBS has an interesting story about how young people are coming out as gay earlier in life than in the past. I can believe that. Certainly the gay people I’ve met, who are younger, are much more open about their sexuality than individuals of my generation.

What I found curious was that PBS, to give balance to the story, interviewed the religious fanatics. I notice they never interview Nazis when they do something about the Holocaust -- maybe because there aren’t any Nazis in the White House. Oh! Right!!! Never mind.

One of these loonies from a so-called ex-gay ministry was quoted. She was all upset that kids who are gay are told that it’s okay to be who they are. She wants hell fire and brimstone, self-loathing, self-pity, disgust, maybe a little vomit and loads and load of depression -- the way homosexuals are supposed to be. Though I had to crack up when seeing that her name is Barbara Swallow!

This reminds me of the time I was watching one of the phony exgays on some Christian television station -- a waste of valuable airwaves. This clown was from something called “Be Whole Ministries.” Now the born-again types aren’t the brightest of the bunch. And they were still trying to get used to the subtitling on the screen. But I almost fell out of my chair laughing when they put up the name of the ministry as: “Bee Hole Ministries”. Talk about kinky -- a bee hole! I cringe to think what they would do with Miss Swallow.

Then PBS quoted some twit named Peter Sprigg -- don’t ask me where these names come from. Mr. Sprigg is with a Right-wing religious group. In other words he lobotomized himself with a Bible, not a functioning brain cell left -- a perfect Christian.

Mr. Sprigg says: “Young people have no business committing to a sexual identity until they’re adults.” See -- not a functioning brain cell left, not one.

This is stupidity on a multiplicity of levels. It takes practices, and lots of faith, to concoct a single sentence with so many fallacies crammed into it.

First, one does not “commit” to a sexual identity. This is not like adopting children or buying a house. One doesn’t sign on the dotted line and get enlisted as a new “gay” for the rest of one’s life. People are. It’s not really complicated. It just is. It is not a commitment, a choice, a decision, it just is.

But the perpetual solicitors of Jesus can’t understand anything that doesn’t come with recruiting others. They assume that because they go door to door, annoying people into coming to church with them, that gay people do something similar.

There must be secret “revival” meetings in big tents outside the high schools where unwilling young men are dragged in and harangued about the evils of heterosexuality until they are willing to confess their evil ways, give up the demon of straight lust, and commit themselves to “the gay agenda” where they live “the gay lifestyle”.

What a perfect example of fundamentalist projection. They have an agenda, so anyone they hate must have one as well. They have a lifestyle -- wel,l very light on the style part -- so they assume everyone else does as well. They all have to look alike, believe alike, think alike, offend alike, so they naturally assume that all gays are the same way. They think gay culture is a monolithic lifestyle just because they work so hard at stamping out individuality.

The fundamentalist Christian is the perfect collectivist.

Next, the very idea that teens can’t know their sexuality when they are teens is silly. Straight kids know they are straight and gay kinds know they are gay. Some might feel conflicted but most don’t.

And, if teens are too young to commit to a sexual identity, is Mr. Sprigg actually saying that straight teens shouldn’t be allowed to date? Should schools cancel dances? Should going steady be a crime?

Now I can assure old Sprigg that there will be unintended consequences if he wants to prevent teens from committing to a sexual identity. Let’s be realistic. A typical high school is full of hormones.

But we don’t want teens committing themselves to a sexual identity. So lets stop the girls and the boys from dating and interacting -- that is where most the “committing” goes on, isn’t it? So all those boys can’t date girls. All they can do is hang out with each other, maybe shoot some hoops, change clothes in the locker room, take long, lingering, steamy showers. I’m not sure this would lead to the results Mr. Sprigg wanted.

If you think it would work just ask the Mormons about all those sweet young men with the bad haircuts on the bicycles who are forbidden to to have female companions and spend all their time together. Well, lets just say it’s not a good idea if they are trying to actually prevent homosexuality.

And if teens have “no business” committing to a sexuality exactly why did Sprigg’s Jehovah flood them with hormones so that they can’t think of anything else? Here is this know-it-all deity who can foresee the future. He designs the male of the species and determines they must never have sex outside of heterosexual marriage, when they are adults.

Then he takes them, years before they are actually adult,s and baptizes them in a sea of hormones that make it so that the only thing they can think about is sex, sex and sex. And then when they are heavily sexed up God pulled another dirty little trick. He designed them so they can’t hide it! If that is “intelligent design” what would stupid design look like?

Considering these facts I’d drop the intelligent design nonsense and embrace evolution if I were them. If that is intelligent design then Jehovah wasn’t that bright was he?

So what’s a fundy to do? You can’t leave the boys with the girls or they commit to a sexuality. You can’t leave the boys with the boys, or more committing takes place and its even more sinful! Leave them alone and they commit to themselves repeatedly. Maybe this is why so many fundamentalists are into home schooling. On the other hand that also has problems, but I guess where these people come from a roll in the hay with yoru sister isn’t that unusual. I guess we should be thankful most of them don’t live on the farm anymore. If they did I don’t think I could eat another steak in my life.

Bigot mother uses antigay laws to separate son from his partner of 25 years.

2007-08-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

I wish I could tell you precisely how angry I am right at this moment. The rage is boiling up like you wouldn’t believe. It is almost 5 am and I should be going to bed. I can’t. The very, very ugly head of hate and bigotry has reared itself again and harmed innocent people and destroyed the beauty of loving commitment. I want to tell you about two of the cruellest, most vicious, bastards I have ever heard of. And I sincerely hope that both of them are struck down dead soon. These people are monsters for what they did. These vile people are Thomas and Jeanne Atkins of Carmel, Indiana.

Now, let me tell you about their son, Patrick. Patrick was raised by these two “parents” who were ultra-religious and still are. Patrick went off to Wabash College in 1978 and there he fell in love. His parents hated the idea. The person he loved was Brett Conrad.

For a quarter of a century Brett and Patrick lived, loved and struggled together, to establish their lives. After 12 years they were able to buy a home together. They shared their bank accounts and their entire life. The bastards of parents hated every moment of it. But the lengths they would go to astounds me and I don’t expect much humanity from fanatics.

Patrick was on a business trip in Atlanta when he collapsed from a ruptured aneurysm and then, while still in hospital, he had a stroke. Brett rushed to Atlanta to be with his partner. The vile parents had flown down as well and asserted legal control over their incapacitated son. They hate homosexuals and homosexuality. And they don’t want Patrick to ever be allowed to see Brett again. You can see why I think these people are walking pieces of shit.

According to court documents Patrick’s brother said “that Brett’s mere presence in the hospital was ‘hurting’ Jeanne and offending her religious beliefs." The court also said that " Jeanne told Brett that if Patrick was going to return to his life with Brett, after recovering from the stroke, she would prefer that he not recover at all.” Any woman that would wish this upon her own son is not fit to be called a mother, unless one were to insert a very rude word immediately thereafter.

Jeanne is a fanatical Catholic. The picture above is of her leading employees, at the company her son used to run, in daily prayer sessions. On top of that she attends Catholic Mass every day. We are talking hard-core fanatic. It takes a lot of faith to inflict this much pain on others.

At first the family would allow Brett 15 minutes with Patrick but only after they had left so that they wouldn’t have to be religiously offended by the FACT that Patrick is gay. But then the cruelty of righteousness got the upper hand and they banned the visits altogether. Only “family” and clergy were allowed in by the family’s orders. The court reports, with seeming approval, that “hospital staff defied the family’s instructions and allowed Brett to continue to visit with Patrick in the morning and in the evenings, outside of regular visiting hours.” Good on them.

Patrick is pretty much incapacitated. He can do basic things with help but can’t understand most of what he reads and can only engage in simple, short conversations. Brett has been fighting to bring Patrick back to the relationship and home they built together. The “parents” refuse to consider it. It’s a sin, is all they can snarl. I don’t quote this guy often, but didn’t someone these people allegedly worship supposedly say: “As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me”?

Brett went to court but Indiana doesn’t recognize gay relationships in any form. Thanks to the Republicans they have a constitutional amendment specifically forbidding legal recognition of gay couples. The court was sympathetic but their hands were tied. The court said: “We are confronted here with the heartbreaking fracture of a family. Brett and Patrick have spent 25 years together as life partners -- longer than Patrick lived at home with his parents -- and their future life together has been destroyed by Patrick’s tragic medical condition and by the Atkinses’ unwillingness to accept their son's lifestyle.” The court said that given the parent's rabidly antigay views that it was skeptical they could properly care from Patrick’s emotional needs but their hands were tied by the law.

The best the court could do was grant Brett visitation rights . What god-damned awful people are these parents from hell. But these bastards weren’t finished. They are going back to court to deny even this much. The argument is that Brett has no legal standing and that they, as the so-called parents, are guardians and that means they can determine anything they want about who is allowed to visit their son. What perfect little Hitlers they have become.

First, the parents stuck their son in a nursing home. Brett would come by after hours to spend time with his partner so the parents wouldn’t see him. Staff at the nursing facility said that Brett’s “visits had a positive impact on Patrick’s recovery.” An observer from the court testified it is “evident that Patrick loves Brett very much and it is evident that Brett loves Patrick.

A neuropsychologist told the court that a long term relationship is beneficial to recovery. Normally he would try “to reintegrate the patient into that environment so that they can participate in activities and situations with which they’re familiar.” He said spending time with Brett would be beneficial. The family argued in court that any visitation “poses a risk of diminishing Patrick’s chance for normalcy of life.” I suspect they are referring to his homosexuality and not his illness. These parents apparently would prefer their son to be incapacitated than for him to be gay. Lovely people!

When Brett filed for guardianship, which the courts denied because of the law, the parents suddenly had Patrick transferred to their home even though they were told this would negatively impact Patrick’s recover. They have prevented Brett from coming on the property and won’t even let him speak to Patrick by telephone. They also grabbed what assets they could. And they admitted that regardless of what the court ordered they would never allow Patrick to see his partner again. All of this pain just because they believe that a deity has told them to act this way.

Under guardianship laws in Indiana there is no provision to recognize gay partners, no matter how loving or how long they have been together. Parents, no matter how cruel, have superior rights. The court document is heartbreaking. It lays out the facts that these parents can’t stomach.

It acknowledges the men have, for 25 years, “lived together and have been in a committed and loving relationship” but that the parents “vehemently disapprove”. The court quoted a letter Patrick had sent his parents begging them to accept Brett. “I want you all to know that Brett is my best friend in the wold world and I love him more than life itself. I beg all of you to reach to him with the same love you have for me, he is extremely special and once you know him you will understand why I love him so much.” The parents refused that request.

The court says that Jeanne is so hateful of homosexuals that Brett’s family, which is accepting of the couple, were called “evil” and “sinners” because they refused to condemn them. Jeanne “testified that no amount of evidence could convince her that Patrick and Brett were happy together or that they had a positive and beneficial relationship.” By the way this horrid woman can be contacted through this email address: latkins@atkins-intl-foods.com. I have a home address and phone number but since poor Patrick is kept there by these parents I won’t give it out. Please note that this email goes to Lisa Atkins, who I believe is a daughter, not directly to the mother who doesn't give her email on the company website. But at atkins-intl-foods.com you can find a company phone number.

Also note that these people sell their deserts, a company that Patrick helped start with his investment and with his efforts, all over the U.S. and Canada. You might wish to avoid purchasing any of these products and encourage others to do so as well. You can also find the contact details of sales reps who cover the area you live in. You might wish to contact them and tell them you are boycotting their product and why. And you might wish to encourage others in your area to do the same. If you do contact these horrible people try to remain polite. Simply express your feelings as non-obscenely as possible, don't issue threats or harass.

The parents are also trying to take the home that Brett and Patrick lived in together and apparently are having some success. The court says that the home must be split equally between Brett and the horrid God-botherers. The parents can sell the property if they wish. The parents took two-thirds of the bank account that Patrick and Brett shared. They are taking half of all household goods

Conservatives say that legally recognizing gay couples will destroy marriage. The only destruction I see here is being done by fanatical parents with the help of the law.

Boycott Atkins International Foods, the cheesecake made with hate.

BOYCOTT UPDATE: One fellow blogger has said that he has found that Bloomingdales in New York City carries the Atkins line of food, helping fund Jeanne Atkins in her campaign, although they don't know it. He suggest people contact Bloomingdales and protest this. You can file an on-line complaint about them stocking Atkins here. If you wish to call them do so at 1-888-593-2540. Or do both. I hope the gay media also picks up on this topic. And I urge other bloggers to push this issue. This is too horrible to let slide.

Exgay nonsense book for kids.

2007-08-16T12:14:00.001-07:00

When the book Heather Has Two Mommies was released the Religious Right had fits. Rarely have they frothed at the mouth so much as over that book. The book was a children’s story about a girl who was being raised by a same-sex couple. That was considered evil and wicked and sinful.

The Religious Right said that children shouldn’t be told that that same-sex couples exist because they are too young to be exposed to that topic.

At the same time they endorse a farcical group often called “the exgay movement”. Groups like Focus in the Family pour money onto these groups in order to give the impression that religious therapy can turn gay people into straight people. That movement has spawned another movement: the ex-exgay movement”. That is made of up people who were previously “cured” through a dose of prayer but apparently preferred other things when upon their knees.

So far there has been no sign of an ex-ex-exgay movement.

Closely connected to these exgay “ministries” is NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. These are mostly religious therapists who are rather obsessed over the sexual partners of other adults. I always find it a bit bizarre when someone is really, really obsessed the sex lives of others. And one person who was close, both to NARTH and the exgay ministries, was Richard Cohen.

Mr. Cohen has personally produced a children’s book, Alfie's Home, which explains the exgay view of homosexuality in terms that, well, in terms even a child could understand. And it includes illustrations including a young boy lying naked in bed with a full grown adult male. Heather having two mommies was too advanced but apparently showing boys in bed with men is acceptable provided you are pushing an antigay agenda. If you don’t believe follow the rest of this post as we go through what Cohen is saying and show you precisely what he concocted to show children.

And perhaps you will learn precisely how to create a homosexual, according to the exgay movement. You can order it on line if you think this is really just a sick joke.

Step 1. Daddy is distant, Mommy is loving. Poor Alfie says his daddy works a lot and is never home. And when he is home he fights with mommy and yells at Alfie. Alfie want’s daddy to spend time with him. He says that mommy, “holds me” and talks about her problems and “it makes me feel very uncomfortable and strange.”
Step 2: Evil Vampire Homosexual. Now that Alfie feels too comforted by mommy and too distant from daddy along comes his Uncle Pete who just can’t get enough of holding little Alfie which makes him “feel loved.” Of course Uncle Pete then jumps into the sack with little Alfie and “started touching my private parts” and “taught me to touch and play with his”. So little Alfie and Uncle Pete bonk like rabbits “for several months”.Step 3: Alfie is called names at school. He became a teenager and “started feeling different” because he was called “Faggot” and “Queer” and Alfie “didn’t know what they meant.” Apparently Alfie was a very dumb teenager, about the only one who didn’t know what those words meant.
Step 4: Alfie decides he must be gay. But lucky for Alfie a nice exgay kind of therapist is able to set him straight, literally. He says Alfie just wanted love from daddy.
Because the evil gay uncle took advantage of Alfie feeling unloved then Alfie got confused and started dating boys because he was really looking for daddy’s love. The same way men date women simply because they never felt loved by their mothers. (Okay, that last bit isn’t in the book but it would follow, wouldn’t it?)
Step 5: Therapists confronts the family. Our nice multicultural therapist (they made sure he is black) gets hold of the evil Uncle Pete to make him seek help. And mommy and daddy come in to get their lives straightened out as well.
Step 6: Healing! Mommy and daddy are all better and happy because the therapist helped them. Uncle Pete cries and begs for forgiveness and Alfie feels much better because of it.
Step 7: The Final Solution. Alfie suddenly realizes “I’m not gay”. Spending time with daddy and having daddy touch him was all he needed. Now he is really home.
I can’t wait for the sequel. Alfie Knocks Up a Girl!

Surely when the term psychobabble was invented Richard Cohen was in mind. It is hard to believe that sane people think this way. It is even worse to think they want to get small children to believe these things. This seems to be a mixture of the old Freudian hocus-pocus about distant fathers and loving mothers added to the vampire theory of gay recruitment that the fundamentalists just lap up. But I would think that even they would have problems with drawings showing little Alfie and Uncle Pete snuggling in bed.

This stuff is just too weird. And I should note, scary as well. No doubt there is a market for all sorts of such titles. We could put out: Sara Burns a Witch; Mommy! There's an Islamofascist Under My Bed; Homeland Security is Our Friend; Invasion of the Taco Eaters; and Billy Bans a Book. All are sure to be favorites and they would make such lovely Christmas presents. On the other hand is there anymore more likely to cause the kids to appreciate more underware from grandma?

Church cancels funeral at last minute because deceased was gay.

2007-08-12T14:52:00.001-07:00

Cecil Sinclair served in Desert Storm. Recently he needed a heart transplant. He had some surgery to prepare him for that transplant and contracted an infection during the process. That infection killed him. He was also a gay man in a long-term relationship with another military veteran, Paul Wagner.

Wagner says that a member of High Point Church, an evangelical megachurch, offered the church for the funeral because Sinclair's brother, who is mentally challenged is a member of the church and a janitor there. The grief struck family accepted. And the night Sinclair died a minister from the church came to the hospital and Wagner was introduced to him as the partner of the deceased.

Wagner prepared to bury his partner, and Sinclair’s sister was helping. Together they prepared a loving collection of photos to be shown at the funeral to highlight Sinclair’s life. And they ran an obituary which mentioned Paul Wagner as Sinclair’s partner. That is when they were in for a shock.

After the obituary appeared the church announced it would not conduct a funeral for a gay man. Rev. Gary Simons, leader of this church, said it was not the obituary that was the problem but alleged that the video tribute of photos showed men “engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing.”

Kathleen Wright, the sister of the deceased, was shocked by this claim. She helped prepare the photos for the video and insists the church is lying. She said none of the photos showed kissing or hugging. And Wagner backs that up:

...we gave the church a total of 83 various pictures of Cecil that were forwarded to us by various members of his family. Of those, not a single one showed a man hugging or kissing another man, nor were there any overtly homosexual references. Cecil’s sister Kathleen sat and worked with the two people preparing the video and went through all of the photos with them. There was only one photo which would be considered offensive, as it was a picture of him in his early 20s making a rude gesture at his best friend who was taking the photo. We removed it and never asked that it be included. It was just overlooked in the rush to get things done. These individuals went through all the other photos, which were pictures of family gatherings, birthday parties, vacations, etc. At no time was anything expressed to her or us that they had a disagreement with any of the other photos.

Rev. Simon's kept up the charade about the photos as being the primary cause for his throwing out the funeral. He piously said that if a mother in the church lost a son who was a murderer that the church would conduct the funeral. "But I don't think the mother would submit photos of her son mudering someone. That's a red light going off." Actually, Reverend, that's the bullshit detector going off. Even if one accepts the absurd comparison of being gay to murdering someone the family says that no photos of kissing or hugging or gay affection were included.

Whatever the Reverend claims, the family insists that no such photos were used or shown. Ms. Wright sees the last minute cancellation of the funeral as a “slap in the face” saying they wouldn’t bury her brother only because he was gay. And Rev. Simons basically confirms that. “Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it -- yes, we would have declined then.” Wagner says he was introduced the first day as the deceased’s partner.

Simons says that to bury the dead man would have been an endorsement of his “sins”. Apparently only those who have never sinned get funeral services at this church. Simons claims that “the church” offered to pay for another site for the funeral. Wagner says that is not the case. It was the church member, who originally offered the church for the funeral, who offered to pay “with money from his own pocket, not church coffers”.

And while the church eventually found the will to say they were doing this because the dead man had been gay they were first reluctant to tell the family the truth. The family was called and simply told “a mistake was made” and the church could not help them. No other explanation was given.

A niece of the deceased then called the church demanding to know why they were canceling a funeral with so little notice. This was when “a very long string of excuses began to form.” First, they were told it was because they planned to bring in food from outside. Then it was blamed on nearby construction work that would be obtrusive. Then she was told there was a conflict with another event. When she asked what event was conflicting the church hung up on her.

Rev. Simons offered a explanation that is a bit muddled. “We did decline to host the service -- not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle.” Actually to say they declined the service is not correct. They cancelled it. A decline would have come up front not at the last second. It is what happens when you refuse something from the start. What they did was pull the plug on a man’s funeral with no warning. That is more than just declining. It was only the night before the funeral that Rev. Simon had the funeral forcing the family to find a new venue for the next day and spending hours calling the approximate 100 mourners who would be attending.

Second, no one ever acts “based on discrimination”. Discrimination is the act itself not the reason for the act. And one can discriminate on the basis of their “principles”. Most racists, for instance, have “principles” regarding race which they act upon. Whether or not said principles are humane and decent is another question.

I see no other reasonable explanation for this action except the fundamentalist obsessions with gay people. Even if one grants their premise that it is a sin to be gay they would admit that everyone else they bury are sinners as well. In fact they argue that “all have sinned”. But only one class of “sinner” is denied a funeral at the last second.

It is not that a church doesn’t have the right to decline a funeral. That is their right and one they should be free to practice for any irrational reason they wish. Had they declined the funeral from the start there would be no unnecessary pain inflicted on a grieving family. But canceling at the last minute is just cruel. It is their decency I question not their rights.

Paul Wagner showed a decency that far surpassed the church in question. He said he understands “the church’s right to deny us the use of their facilities”. He wrote that he joined the military to “defend their freedom of religion and freedom of choice”.

Wagner says that if they had been told upfront the church refused to bury gay people “the entire issue would have been avoided” and they would have made other plans. His problem was “with the method in which they did it.... If they had told us right away, or even on Tuesday that they were not comfortable with the service we would have been more than willing to try and come to some sort of compromise, or we could have changed venues. We were never given that option. Someone in a position of power made the decision to cut us off, and didn’t even have the moral courage to tell us the truth to our faces.”

I have never seen funerals as rituals for the deceased but for the living left behind. I do not believe the dead can be insulted, they are dead. What this church did was to the living, grieving friends and family. I fully agree with Mr. Wagner. The church had the right to rfuse the service. I, too, think they are wrong for doing so but that they have the right to make that choice. And I agree that their cancellation at the last minute was unnecessarily heartless and cruel.

If they had made a mistake they should have learned to live with it and not inflict pain on people already in pain. They should learn from the experience and made it clear, in the future, that they refuse to perform funerals for gay people. Whatever one make think of the vile Fred Phelps, and his deranged family, at least they are honest and upfront with their hatreds.

High Point Church made a mistake but instead of taking responsibility for that mistake they hurt a mourning family. Their actions are a clear indication of just how bigoted and intolerant they are. They may call their beliefs “principles” if they wish. I’ve never met a bigot who wasn’t overflowing with “principles”. But the people they imposed suffering upon were not, for the most part, gay. They were mostly heterosexual friends and family who were in mourning and then, not Mr. Sinclair, were the ones who were hurt.

My feeling is that incidents like this will not drive the culture war but end it. Most Americans are decent people and they feel for anyone who has lost a loved one. When they see this sort of unnecessary cruelty they are repulsed. The culture war will end because fundamentalist can’t hide their true nature under the cloak of being “pro-family”. It was precisely the family, in this case, that they hurt. The family and friends of Mr. Sinclair have all learned something first hand about fundamentalism. And what they learned will cause many of them to defect from the cause of “cultural conservatism”.

When something this insensitive happens word spreads. As it spreads more and more people have their eyes opened. The culture war will end because the Religious Right will lose the bulk of decent people. Their power will diminish because more and more people will be repulsed by what these people do. The Religious Right will decline because they will be seen as indecent, inhumane, intolerant and cruel. And most Americans don’t share those values.

It's all because the gays are getting married.

2007-07-26T07:22:00.001-07:00

Tammy Faye's last message: gay minister performs funeral

2007-07-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

Tammy Faye Bakker Messner broke the rigid line in fundamentalist circles about their treatment of the gay and lesbian community. And now it has been revealed that she took one last step down the path of reconciliation between two cultural forces that have been at war. Her family says that her funeral was done precisely according to the instructions she left. And that meant having a gay minister, Rev. Randy McCain, from the Open Door Community Church, conduct the funeral for her.

Like Tammy Faye, McCain started in the Assemblies of God. He attended an Assemblies of God college, Evangel College and then transferred to their Western Bible College. He was associate pastor of a church in Sherwood, Arkansas when he entered into a committed same-sex relationship. Church leaders advised him to keep the relationship a secret. After some time he decided he couldn't live like this and informed the church elders who promptly sacked him. McCain and some friends then started the Open Door Community Church. Tammy Faye's son, Jay Bakker, has preached at the Open Door Community Church and said they helped open his eyes on gay issues.

To read a more detailed report on Tammy Faye's unique links to the gay community go here.

Just because it's worth watching

2007-07-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

An interesting short film with a gay theme that is well done and interesting.

A Harry Potter film promotion you aren't likely to see.

2007-07-22T08:36:00.001-07:00

Tammy Faye: A different kind of fundamentalist.

2007-07-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker were the first couple of televangelism. They ran the PTL Network and built a multimillion dollar religious empire than came crashing around their feet in scandal. In the crash they lost virtually everything they had, Jim Bakker went to prison and Tammy Faye lost her marriage. In recent years she remarried an associate of the ministry, Roe Messner. On Friday morning Tammy Faye Bakker Messner died of cancer.

On Thursday night she appeared, via satellite, on the Larry King Show. I must say that anyone who saw any of that appearance would have been shocked and horrified at her condition. The cancer had spread throughout her body and she was a walking skeleton.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a strong critic of American fundamentalism. But, for the record, I will say that the major criticisms I have of fundamentalism today did not apply to the Bakkers. Although I do not share any of their beliefs in the supernatural, the Bakkers were the major exception to the rule. Where other televangelists and fundamentalist leaders were intolerant, bigoted, mean-spiritied, cruel, vindictive and theocratic, the Bakkers never seemed to be any of those things.

I first started writing about the dangers of fundamentalism in the late 1970s, well before it developed into the creature it has become today. I followed all the major figures in American fundamentalism (and fundamentalism is largely an American phenomenon). Over the years I met many of the people I criticized: Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, for instance. I never had a chance to meet either Jim or Tammy Faye. So I only watched them from afar, but they were different. That is not to say I thought they were right, only that they were different.

While the other prominent fundamentalists were damning people systematically and viciously from the pulpit, Tammy Faye and Jim avoided this. When AIDS struck, and the others used it as an excuse to smear and degrade the gay community, the Bakkers talked about the disease not about those inflicted with it. I can not think of a major fundamentalist preacher who followed a similar tactic.

Nor were the Bakkers seeking political power over others. When the power-hungry forces of fundamentalism were storming the capitol seeking legislation to impose their will on the American people, the Bakkers were noticeably absent. If they had theocratic tendencies they kept them well hidden.

The world they had built for themselves came crashing down around them. Jim Bakker was caught in an affair with a church secretary, Jessica Hahn, who was, in my opinion, blackmailing him for cash to keep silent. She was no minor, but an adult who knew what she was doing. And since Bakker never spent much time attacking the peccadilloes of others, I took no comfort in his humiliation. That scandal was engineered by competing Assemblies of God evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, ever the hypocrite and theocrat that he was. Swaggart later was caught visiting prostitutes himself.

The federal government went after Bakker for over selling time shares at his resort. When airlines over book it is legal, but they claimed that for Bakker, this was fraudulent. I don’t remember them actually showing one person who was defrauded, that is who didn’t get the time share they paid for, until the government stepped in. My impression was that Bakker was being falsely victimized by the state because he was a high profile figure and the bureaucrats love to prosecute the famous to put the fear of the government in the hearts of masses.

After Swaggart’s manipulation of events Bakker turned to Jerry Falwell for help. He handed his empire to Falwell for safe keeping, until he could clean up the mess he was in. But Falwell quickly stabbed Bakker in the back. Why Bakker thought Falwell could be trusted was something I never understood. After Falwell had control of the ministry he openly attacked Bakker as “the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history.” If the vile actions of Falwell and Swaggart weren’t enough the IRS retroactively stripped the ministry of it’s tax exemption and then placed financial leans against the Bakkers for back taxes. If it isn’t one vampire, it’s the other.
(Continues below the video.)

Video: This video shows some of the ways that Falwell was dishonest and vicious in his dealings with the Bakkers.

Tammy Faye broke with many fundamentalists though she kept her faith. She says that during her crisis she found support in an usual place. “When I went... when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that.” Tammy Faye explained that her relationship with the gay community began in earnest during the days immediately following the downfall of the Bakker ministry. “When my husband was in prison and I wasn’t getting any presents for Christmas, it was the gay community that gathered around me and saw that. They gave me beautiful bathrobes with my initials on; they gave beautiful leopard hangers and leopard shoe bags. And I had the most awesome Christmas I’ve ever had. ...they cared about me more than the Christians cared about me, and that says something to me right there.”

The New York Times reports that in response Tammy Faye “began attending gay pride events, and in 1996, she became the co-host of a syndicated television talk show with Jim J. Bullock, an openly gay actor.” Tammy Faye says she attended at least half a dozen gay pride events, maybe ten in total. She said the response was: “Overwhelming love from everyone. Both ways. I love them and they love me. It’s just unbelievable. I’ve never felt such warmth in a group of people. That’s the truth.” She said that the gay communities “treat me like I’m family and that means more to me than anything could ever possibly mean.”

Bakker says she and her husband saw things differently than other Christians. She was the first Christian host “to have a gay man on my show. And so I think they remember that. They knew that we accepted them. Many of them watched PTL because they felt accepted by us and they were accepted by us. PTL loved everyone. We didn’t turn anyone away. And I think the gays appreciated that. We accepted the gay community when most religious elements did not.”

Her son, Jay Bakker, who pastors a church in New York City, said that during her last days, when it was well known Tammy Faye was dying, prominent Christian leaders were more concerned that Jay’s church was “gay affirming” than that his mother was dying. He said that no one was asking him about his mother or asking if there was something they could do to help during those awful times. Instead, they were only interested in telling him why they no longer wanted him to preach for them because he refused to reject homosexuals.

If more fundamentalists were like the Bakkers the culture war would be a thing of the past. While I have no inclination toward their faith, I respect their decency. It is a tragedy that Tammy Faye suffered the way she did and died the way she did. And this non-believer is sorry she’s gone.

UPDATE: To read how Tammy Faye requested that an openly gay minister perform her funeral go here.

Clarification: the term "fundamentalist" has two meanings. One is a theological meaning based on the series of books "The Fundamentals" that appeared almost eight years ago. The second meaning describes a temperment of intolerance. The second meaning came about because people who were fundametnalists, in the original sense of the word, were also intolerant. So when I use the word fundamentalist here it is the the original sense of the world.

Sometimes the best in America still comes out

2007-07-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago the San Diego Padres, a US baseball team, were playing a home game. As is customary, the game opens with the national anthem. For this occassion the team invited the Gay Men's Chorus of San Diego to open the game with their rendition of The Star Spangled Banner.

A small band of fundamentalist assholes (I know it's redundant) were outside protesting. But reports are that most fans attending the game ignored the Bible bashers. The chorus was greeted by cheers and applauded well afterwards.

Now and then, in spite of all that weighs it done, the best in America comes out. This is the first time, in a very long time, that I felt some pride in my home country.

The video is a short, amateur film of that moment. Unfortunately it ends too abruptly. You hear the full rendition but the cheers and applause from the crowd are cut short.

Focus on the Family editor lies to her readers.

2007-07-04T10:47:00.001-07:00

Here is a question. What makes a lie a lie? Two things: one is it intentional and does it conflict with reality or the facts.

I say intentional because if someone gives you directions but misunderstood where you wanted to go they didn’t lie to you they made an error. A lie is when you have information that one thing is true and say the other.

And that brings me to an editor over at the Theopublican outfit Focus on the Family. They run a website called citizenlink.com. At that site a editor, Jennifer Mesko, told an outright lie. They lie a lot and the make a whole lot more mistakes as well. I ignored Mesko’s first lie. If I wrote about lies told by fundamentalists I wouldn’t have time for anything else and still not even scratch the surface.

But now Mesko repeats the first lie and then doubles it. But she brags that she’s a “Christian journalist” who adheres “to truth and accuracy.” I have no doubt she’s a Christian. I don’t know if writing for Focus on the Family makes her a journalist. But I do know she is a bald faced liar.

The fundies at Focus on the Family are vehemently anti-gay but that’s no surprise. And they push a series of fraudulent ministries that claim to be “ex-gay”. That is their right. If people are screwed up enough to get involved with them there is little I can, or would, do about it. That is their problem. A gaggle of these misfits were holding their annual convention where they spout the fundamentalist line. Except they were unhappy because this year a lot of their former “cures” were gathering across not far away to denounce their previous ministries as fraudulent.

So you have the picture. A group of “exgays” are on one side and a group of “ex-exgays” are on the other side. Not real exciting. But Jennifer claimed in her article the ex-exgays conference only attracted 100 people versus an alleged 1,000 at the exgay conference. (For the record a large percentage of the people at the exgay conference were just people who hate homosexuals or fundamentalist parents who can’t understand how one of their kids could be gay.) Now on the surface this is even more boring. Who cares who had what number of registrations? It proves nothing. The problem is that Jennifer invented her claim. How do I know this? Simple: she published her claim about the ex-exgay conference one full day before it actually started. If you go to the Focus on the Family site you will see the article is dated June 28th. The ex-exgay conference began the evening of June 29th. Any claim as to actual attendance at that point would be fraudulent.

Clearly Jennifer knew nothing about the attendance at the conference in question since it had not yet started. She claimed she did. And various blogs and websites noted her claim and questioned how she knew this figure before the conference actually took place. Of course because her dishonesty was question Jennifer claims she is under attack by “gay activists”. She ignores the fact that she wrote an article about the results of a conference before it took place.

Was this intentional? Of course, I don’t know how one could write that unintentionally. She could not have a source for the number since no one in the world knew what the attendance would be in advance. Without a source for her claim she could only have made it up. And since the conference did not yet start she knew any number she put down would be dishonest.

Now we go to Jennifer’s second lie also published by Focus on the Family. She wrote:

The article I wrote on Thursday included this line about the Exodus conference: "The meeting, which began Tuesday and wraps up Sunday, has drawn close to 1,000 people – and no protesters so far. Across town, a counter-conference drew about 100 people."
Apparently miffed at the reference to "100 people," Roberts accused me of "supplying attendance figures seemingly out of thin air." But I got the numbers from reliable people who attended both conferences – although their thinness is not a matter of record.

Note how she leaves out the fact that her article was published in advance of the actual ex-exgay conference. And she claims “I got the numbers from reliable people who attended both conferences”. That is actually two lies in one. No one gave her those figures based on attending the second conference since no one had yet attended it. She never tells her gullible readers at Focus on the Family that she published her claims BEFORE the actual event in question.

The starting date of the conference is not in question. The publication date of Jennifer’s article is not in question. And anyone can see she published prior to the event. She covers that up and then makes it out that she is under attack by nasty gay activists. Actually she is under attack because she lied to her readers and is now lying about the lies. This seems morally acceptable to Focus on the Family.

10 simple steps to reverse the "gay lifestyle"

2007-06-25T03:30:00.001-07:00

When you get a newspaper headline like this one you have to laugh. It is from The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. The headline:

Reversing gay lifestyle focus of new Baptist job.

It is about a minister the Southern Baptists have designated as their point man in their “ministry” to (or against, depending on your point of view) gay people.

What does it mean to reverse the “gay lifestyle”?

So here are some suggestions as to what these Southern Baptists might do to “reverse” the “gay lifestyle”.

1. No more hair stylists. Back to flat tops and bad barbers the way God intended.

2. No cats, only dogs as pets. Poodles or any dog small enough to sit in one’s lap are not acceptable and should be treated like cats.

3. All walls in the apartment or home must be painted basic white.Under no circumstances are pastels or vibrant colors to be used. Wallpaper is acceptable provided it clashes with the upholstery on the furniture.

4. The only label on one’s underwear that is acceptable is a label with your own name not the name of a designer.

5. Ties, preferably clip-ons, are required on Sundays. Ties never match the socks since the socks are always white, just like the shoes.

6. Unless a “little woman” is cooking food options are as follows: TV dinners (any kind), International House of Pancakes, any restaurant with a drive-through window, and Denny’s. Exception: subject is allowed to cook for himself provided he does so over an open fire, in the backyard with large slabs of meat. Please note: sauces that are not red in color are not permitted at any time.

7. Subject must vacate any of the following locations: New England down to and including New York, the region from Silicon Valley north to the Canadian border, Miami or Key West, Los Angeles, Madison, Wisconsin, the north side of Chicago beginning at the Loop, the French Quarter of New Orleans and any small town described as an “artists colony”. Europe is strictly off limits. Preferred living locations: anywhere in Texas, except Austin and any state that voted for George Wallace in 1968.

8. As a general rule of thumb clothes purchased from any store ending in “mart” are acceptable such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart.

9. The following entertainment must be avoided: all films with subtitles; any film produced in the last 30 years that is in black and white; live theater and cabaret shows.

10 Fishing is allowed as is any sport where animals die. Baseball is permitted but not softball. Football (except touch football) is allowed. Any sport popular in England or Europe is forbidden. Golf is allowed (except miniature), tennis is not. Badminton and croquet are strictly forbidden. Checkers is permitted, chess is not. Diving and swimming are forbidden but boxing is encouraged.

I supposed by now the whole venture looks a little silly doesn’t it? I find that the term “gay lifestyle”, along with the equally absurd “gay agenda”, are terms that have no meaning whatsoever, not even to the people who use them -- who themselves are rarely gay. If one spoke of “the heterosexual lifestyle” we don’t know if one is speaking of Pat Robertson, Hugh Hefner, Bill Clinton or the Pope. In reality there is no heterosexual lifestyle nor is there a gay lifestyle.

But the idea that such a lifestyle exists is a necessary component of the creation of a scapegoat. The idea that there is some “gay agenda” allows the bumpkins to find an easy target on whom to pin their problems. The successful rallying of a political lynch mob requires that the participants in the mob see their victim as “the other”, someone who is clearly not them. The more alien the better. The term “gay lifestyle” is supposed to constantly remind people that “those people” just “aren’t like us”. And when people aren’t like us then many people conclude they are legitimate targets, sometimes literally.

The reality is that the Religious Right has been engaged in this sort of enterprise since the earliest days of the Republic.

In 1800 they warned Americans of the dire consequences of electing someone as immoral as Thomas Jefferson, a man they said was a leader of the secret Illuminati plot to destroy America. A few decades later they were screaming about the Masonic threat. Then it came time to attack Catholics, immigrants, liquor, “bobbed hair”, pants suits on women, Hollywood movies, Jews, immigrants again, liberals, the Civil Rights movements, etc.

The wonderful writer H.L. Mencken wrote that the common man is difficult to educate “but it is always easy to scare him.” And that task...

....is the daily business of the evangelical pastors of the Republic. They are specialists in alarms and bugaboos. The rum demon, atheists, Bolsheviks, the Pope, bootleggers, Leopold and Loeb—all of these have served them in turn and in the demonology of the Ku Klux Klan all have been conveniently brought together. The old stock company of devils has been retired, and with it the old repertoire of sins. The American peasant of today finds it vastly easier to claw into Heaven that he used to. Private holiness has now been handed over to the Holy Rollers and other such survivors from a harsher day. It is sufficient now to hate the Pope, to hate the Jews, to hate the scientists, to hate all foreigners, to hate whatever the cities yield to. These hatreds have been spread in the land by rev. pastors, chiefly Baptists and Methodists. They constitute with their attendant fears, the basic religion of the American clodhopper today. They are the essence of the new Christianity, American style.

Mencken wrote that 82 years ago. Things haven’t changed very much in the meantime. It is true that, on a whole, the Methodists have since joined Western Civilization. In the process they lost a lot of their members who were still baying for a good old fashioned lynching. The would-be social exorcists switch demons now and then just to keep the crowd, with their notorious short attention span, interested. But the sniffers and snoopers frequently return to the same old demons for the sake of tradition.

Today it would be difficult, if not comically, for them to try to get people riled up about dancing, miscegination, or “mixed bathing” (swimming pools). And the hullabaloo about “bobbed hair” is, in retrospective, rather funny. Perhaps all their devil sniffing and witch hunting would be equally funny if, in the process, they didn’t hurt real people.

Bravo MA: Politician from polygamous family upset.

2007-06-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

Now and then are moments that make me proud of my country. Admitted they have been few and far apart in the last few years. I think there are some basic principles of life that ought to be upheld. I believe in maximum freedom for the individual in both his economic and his social life. I believe in limited government that protects all people equally. And I believe in equality before the law. No special privileges for one class of people over another.

And that is why today I’m proud of the Massachusetts. Gay marriage has been a contentious issue for some people particularly those who believe their religious definition of morality must be set into the rock of law. And for some years now opponents of marriage equality have been working to overturn the law.

But the legislature wasn’t particularly keen on the revoking the marriages of thousands of decent citizens. In the last four years since gay marriage was legalized people in the state have seen that the sky didn’t darken. Society didn’t fall apart. The much ballyhooed claim that gay marriage would somehow destroy straight marriage seemed completely unconfirmed. With none of the hysterical disaster predicted by the Religious Right materializing support for repeal was dropping almost as fast as support for George Bush.

The Theopublicans got desperate and hired people to go out and gather signatures for a referendum. People started complaining that the zealots with clipboards had lied to people in order to get signatures. Several petitions would be circulated on different issues and people asked to sign on one issue were then handed the anti marriage petition instead. Lots of money was poured by the Theopublicans into the state to try and end marriage equality.

Eventually enough signatures were gathered and the next step in the legal process began. Two sessions of the state legislature had to vote on the matter. At this point you would think it would be a cake walk for the Theopublicans. They only needed 50 legislators to approve the measure. That is only 25% of the legislature.

If two sessions passed the measure with 25% approval then it would go to a public referendum. At this point the plan was for the fuming fundamentalists to inundate the state with millions of dollars to drum up a hate campaign against gay people. A gay person to a fundamentalist is like a Jew to a Nazi. The same sort of irrational, visceral hatred comes out.

The last session of the legislature voted on the matter giving it just 62 votes in support. That was a safety margin of 12 votes over the very low threshold set by law for such referendums.

And in the last few months the lobbying got intense. Catholic cardinal Sean O’Malley spent his time lobbying for the ban on gay marriage. O’Malley said it was an issue of fairness. Pardon me while I laugh.

The argument has been that the public should vote, it’s only fair. Why? Why is it fair for majorities to vote on whether or not minorities should have the same rights as them? Should a town with a majority population of fundamentalist Baptists be allowed a vote on whether Catholic marriages would be recognized? When it comes to equality before the law, on any issue, is it ever proper for the majority to have the opportunity to deny this equality of rights to a minority? Could a majority white state deny rights to black people? O’Malley’s political lobbying statement would seem to indicate he’d support that.

Of course he wouldn’t. He would argue it’s different. Why? Because his church doesn’t say it is a sin to be black but it is a sin to be in a gay relationship. Acknowledged or not the real issue here is whether or not certain theological views about people ought to be the basis of law in non-theocratic state.

Representative Paul Kujawski is a Catholic. And he voted against gay marriage the last time. Since then, he says, he has met a lot of gay couples and spoken to them about the problems they faced before the law was changed. With each person he spoke to he found himself more sympathetic to legal plight imposed on gay couples. The Boston Globe reported:

Kujawski appeared to be heading toward a change of heart. He talked about the gay partners who were not allowed to see one another in the hospital after a near-fatal accident, because they weren't yet allowed to marry; about how the daughter of a former conservative lawmaker begged him to vote for the amendment on behalf of her lesbian daughter. He kept thinking, he said, about how it would feel if he couldn't get married or if one of his sons couldn't.

In other words he was thinking about the real fairness issue not the twisted sense of fairness promoted by Cardinal O’Malley. Today Kujawski went with his own sense of fairness and changed sides. He joined eight other legislators, 7 Democrats and two Republicans, who changed their minds to support gay marriage. About two-thirds of Republicans legislators voted against marriage equality. In the end only 45 legislators supported the ban with 151 opposed and it was defeated. This makes it unlikely to rear its ugly head again.

The voters of Massachusetts knew this matter was coming. They knew their legislators would be asked on whether to drag out the gay marriage issue for another year to hold the referendum in the 2008 election. And last year in the election voters chucked out anti-marriage candidates all over the place. Over and over the voters replaced antigay marriage candidates with candidates who were supportive. Had that not have happened the previous vote would have been much higher than 62.

Perhaps the most predictable response of all came from that master political chameleon Mitt Romney, the man who never met a principle he hasn’t changed. This man, who’s faith was created by confirmed polygamists, whined about “our efforts to defend traditional marriage.” Romney now wants to strip states of their traditional control over marriage by nationalizing the institution through a Constitutional amendment.

Romney’s great grandfather, Miles Park Romney had five wives and one great-great grandfather had 12 wives. Miles Romney married his fifth wife 30 years after the US government banned the practice and 6 years after the Mormon church said they discontinued the practice (the ban was for PR purposes and to gain Utah statehood, it was not taken seriously by the church for several more decades.)

His great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt had 12 wives and it was Parley’s brother, Orson Pratt, who was the first church official to publicly defend polygamy as being the will of God. And Romney’s father, George Romney the former governor of Michigan, was actually born outside the US, in Mexico, where family had fled in order to continue practising their traditional rite of marriage. And while Romney takes gay marriage very seriously he finds polygamy a joke. He has been known to jest that “marriage is between a man and a woman... and a woman and a woman.” So the first federal marriage ban was directed at Romney’s own family.

It’s nice Romney wants to defend “traditional marriage” but whose “tradition”?

Creationist's Adam in a sexy, hot water.

2007-06-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Creationist “museum” set up by fundamentalist lunatics has run into their first minor scandal. They hired the male model Eric Linden to appear as the mythical Adam in a film depicting the equally mythical Garden of Eden.

Admitted it was just a 40 second video but the creationists are worried. Apparently Mr. Linden doesn’t live up to their high moral standards -- but then who does?

Apparently Mr. Linden has flaunted “his sexual exploits online” and ownes a sexually graphic site called Bedroom Acrobat where he posed besides a drag queen. The website now says that LInden is “not affiliated with the content of this site in ANY way”. The odd thing is that the site doesn’t allow you in at all but will send you to Linden’s personal website if you wish.

Editor & Publisher says that Linden claims he gave the domain name to someone else but that the name was register to Linden 18 months ago. The so-called Creation Museum says they are “investigating the veracity of these serious claims of his participation in projects that don’t align with the biblcal standards and moral code upon which this ministry was founded.” Note they are a ministry not a real museum. Their museum is a fraudulent as their beliefs.

And, to make it worse, there are rumors that Mr. Linden was more into Steve than Eve.

Screened Out: Gay Images in Film

2007-06-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hopefully you can see this. The morons have made this trailer on this new documentary on early gay themed films unavailable to anyone with a Mac because they can't block the trailer from being copied. It is just a trailer and not the entire film and they are waiting to promote the show on TCM. If you ask me they are cutting off their nose to spite their face. Stupid, very stupid.

Lawsuit could threaten gay dating services too.

2007-06-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

A lesbian has filed a law suit to force eHarmony, a match making outfit, to admit gay and lesbian clients. The service is run by fundamentalist nutters and tries to appeal to evangelicals and Christians as their client base. I think the woman filing the suit is being short-sighted and I think she is in the wrong.

First, if the clients of this service are evangelicals and fundamentalists who are attracted to their right-wing, moralistic views then exactly what sort of partner does she expect to find there? None, obviously. If anything eHarmony does gays a service by removing such morons from the dating pool of other services. Concentrating fundamentalist losers in one service improves the client base of every other dating service around. And they know it.

The plaintiff is not seeking a date here. She is merely trying to punish this company. And do we want a precedent that could close down the many gay only services that exist? It is common sense that when it comes to dating that people do discriminate. They have to. Every gay man discriminates on the basis of gender when he picks a male partner over a female one. The radical egalitarianism that this woman is promoting is destructive to everyone. It helps no one but her own ego.

We ought to have gay only services. We need them. And that means we need to allow straight only dating services as well. And it is fine to have ones that only allow people of certain religious affiliations to join as well.

This woman did not face a monopoly service provider. She has many other dating services at her disposal including many that cater specifically to the kind of partner she is allegedly seeking. I say allegedly because I don’t believe her law suit is about finding a partner at eHarmony at all. The fact is that the free market in dating services offers many outlets. And since these are on line outlets she could access them immediately and easily. She was not harmed in any way.

Chemistry.com is going out of its way to advertise to attract the people who don’t meet eHarmony’s test for admittance. It is one of their commercials which you can see above. They advertise that they are looking for clients who want relationships on their own terms and not on the terms imposed by the company -- as is the case with eHarmony.

And MyPerfectPartner.com

“is the most comprehensive gay relationship site and the only one focused exclusively on today’s gay man.” So what would happen if these woman wins her lawsuit? She would probably line her pocket with money as would her ambulance chasing attorney. But she would open a can of worms that could financially devastate companies like MyPerfectPartner. Since they don’t offer dating services to fundamentalist heterosexuals wanting monogamous females for breeding purposes then every evangelical bigot with a hatred for homosexuals has the chance to file a lawsuit against gay dating services for not catering to them.

Freedom of association is important especially in relationships. People must be free to pick their partners on their own terms and that also means rejecting unsuitable matches. Their is efficiency elements in services that cater only to Mormons, gays, or any discernible group especially when people are seeking partners of similar characteristics.

The dating market for gay people is inherently small compared to the straight market. Our search costs are rather high in comparison. So having gay only clubs or dating services allows us to more efficiently find partners. The radical egalitarianism that says everything must be open to everyone harms those with high search costs the most. A gay man might win access to a straight club but for each gay man who now has access there then 25 straight men can enter the gay club. The minority will always find itself outnumbered so even if all the straight men were pleasant and gay supportive the search for a partner is much harder.

The search costs for straight people will only go up a slight bit if straight-only clubs disappear. The search costs for gay people will go up significantly if gay only clubs disappear. When it comes to relationships and institutions that cater to help people find those relationships the right to focus exclusive on niche markets is important one that is beneficial to everyone. I hope this law suit fails. It does no good for the gay community and the potential for harm is great.

Meanwhile, if you are looking for a dating service to find a partner I suggest you try the gay services that exist before your right to do so is stripped away by this law suit.

Can you spot what's missing?

2007-05-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Mary Cheney gave birth to a son. Her father is Dick Cheney, the man who is the boss of George Bush. Now we know this White House is faith-driven and gay-hating. The two go together so well.

And we all know that Mary Cheney is gay and has a same-sex partner.

So with the birth the White House releases a photo for the press showing the happy family. There is Mrs. Cheney, and the vice president and the baby. Now this is more of a miracle than the virgin birth story. From this photo you would think the child was born without even a mother. What an odd photo? Mary, and her partner Heather, are simply not there.

I bet the White House would be thrilled if they could make the rest of the gay community disappear just as easily.

The comment King George made was indicative as well. He said: "The vice president took me aside and gave me the good news. He and his wife, Lynne are very happy for Mary. I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her." Again what is missing?

Try saying this instead: "...are very happy for Mary and Heather. I think Mary and Heather are going to loving souls to their child. And I'm happy for them." Can't do it can you George?

Stand by your man.

2007-05-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Clinton: Stab gays in the back

2007-05-30T01:49:00.000-07:00

The typical politician is almost always willing to stab people in the back in order to secure power. The more successful he or she is the more people they have stabbed on the way up. Which is why it is hilarious that the gay community is so enamoured with Democrats (not that I’m suggestion Republicans have any virtue).

Ben Smith, at his Politico blog, discusses how Bill Clinton comes off in Robert Shrum’s book No Excuses in regards to the gay community. Shrum’s book is the one which revealed that John Edwards said he was uncomfortable being around gay people -- presumably gay men in particular.

But it also discusses Clinton’s advice to John Kerry regarding the gay vote: stab them in the back. Clinton supposedly said that Kerry “should consider defying Democratic interest groups by endorsing the Bush proposal for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.” Clinton’s advice was based on the belief that this would undercut Bush with cultural conservatives. And it explains why Clinton was the president who signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

The book specifically mentions that similar motivations were behind Clinton’s public attack on rapper Sister Souljah for advocating violence against whites -- something he did before Jesse Jackson’s group, the Rainbow Coalition. The location is picked to maximize publicity for the denunciation and win Clinton the maximum support as a result.

One problem the gay community has is that it is so securely voting for Democrats that these politicians know they can do almost anything and still receive the pink vote. It is an abusive marriage. Every time a Democrats smacks the gay community around a bit they come running back for more. On the other hand the Republican Party today is the representative of orgranized hate making it unworthy of support.

This abusive relationship is exacerbated because so many gay politicians themselves are beholden to the Democrats and the various gay “lobby” groups are staffed by individuals who act as full-time shills for the Democrats with it appearing that often they will put the good of the Democratic Party ahead of the good of the community they purport to represent.

There is a solution to this but it is one that the party hacks, who claim to be “leaders” of the gay and lesbian community simply won’t like. For example assume a close race between a Democrat and a Republican in California -- it does happen. The gay community in the major cities should very publicly campaign for the idea that gay voters abstain voting in that one race.

A difference of a few hundred thousand votes in a close race will mean defeat for that one Democrat but without the gay voters actually voting for a Republican. And one extra Republican is unlikely to do too much damage. This tactic would send shivers through the Democratic Party and give them the message that gay votes matters and can’t be taken for granted. Abuse continues in a relationships when the abusive partner assumes their spouse will come running home no matter what happened the night before.

Poland to investigate sex life of Teletubbies

2007-05-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Holy Inquisition in Poland has begun and the first target they are investigation is the Teletubbies.

Now many people will remember when the insane television evangelist Jerry Falwell had one of his seizures and started attacking the annoying Teletubbies as being gay propaganda. Most the world was laughing at him at the time.

Apparently a few of his fellow Bedlam inmates were listening and have since come to power in Poland. Now the government appointed watchdog for “children’s rights” Ewa Sowinska (my great grandmother was Polish, if I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, Ewa Sowinska in English means “brain of cow excrement”) says she has begun an investigation to find out if the show is a secret gay plot of somekind.

She has asked psychologists to help determine if this is the case. She says she noticed that Tinky Winkin has a purse but “didn’t realize he’s a boy.” I must admit I’ve never known how to tell if a Teletubby is male or female myself. I rarely look at the genitals of stuffed puppets. Apparently Sowinska does examine the privates of television fictional creatures. How else would she know Tinky Winky’s gender -- its not on his (I presume) driver’s license.

Sowinska says she thought that carrying a purse would be a burden for a Teletubby but later “learned that this may a homosexual undertone.” Now, I’m worried. My grandmother had a purse. Could it be? No, but maybe I should start an investigation. In fact she lived in a very Polish part of town, even the shop signs were in Polish, and all the women there carried purses. No wonder Poland is worried. It’s an epidemic but obviously started long before the Teletubbies.

In the show the “purse” is actually referred to as a magic bag. But never mind facts. With a watchdog like this one in Poland for “children’s rights” I suggest people avoid having children until a new government is elected. These people are nuts. Really, folks, I'm not making this up. Anyway I heard Tinky Winky was involved with on the sly with Minnie Mouse, this has Mickey in a rage and he is threatening divorce. But there are rumors about Goofy and Donald Duck which I won't repeat here as I understand they are vacationing in Poland at this time and I don't want them deported.

Photo: The Teletubbies.

Nazis and Russian police attack gay petitioners.

2007-05-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

When the cruel communist regime in Russia collapsed it was thought that freedom might come to Russia. Unforutnatley nothing like that is happening. Russia is galloping back into a new Stalinism under the corrupt regime of Putin. Putin includes the Stalinist centralized control of the economy with nationalist bigotry more akin to fascism. And this mixture of evil is permeating the Russian nation.

One telling example of this was the attack on various individuals from the West, including members of parliament, who tried to deliver a petition to the fascist mayor of Moscow begging for permission for gay people to have a public parade. The mayor has out-Falwelled Falwell on this issue.

Various individuals, including elected officials from Germany and Italy, tried to deliver a petition to the thug in city hall. The petitioners were attacked by crowds urged on by the Russian Orthodox Church. Historically the Russian Orthodox Church counts as one of the most corrupt religions in the world. It was in bed with the Tsars when they ruled Russia with a iron fist. They rolled over and cooperated with the Communists when they controlled Russia and now they pander to the most authoritarian segments of the Russian society. And just recently the Russian Orthodox churches in the West put themselves under the “discipline” of these authoritarians again -- something they ended when the church was playing footsy with communists.

Russian politicians are supporting this antigay prejudice and encouraging it. And the Russian police stood on the sidelines allowing the attacks to take place mimicking the corrupt socialist regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. When Marco Capatto, a member of the European Parliament was attacked he demanded protection from the Russian police. They instead arrested him.

Russia is not a free country. It is not ruled by decent men but by thugs. And the rest of the world needs to realize this. Putin deserves no respect and Russia no support or aid from any international body. But don’t expect that to happen. After all they are only beating up a bunch of faggots.

Of course I'm waiting for that moron, Scott Long, of Human Rights Watch to argued that Russian police attack gays only because the inequities they suffered from the West during the Cold War. (See this article to understand what I mean.) Film of the attack can be found on the BBC by following the link provided here.

Update: More information on the attack on gay petitioners by Nazis, churchgoers, and Russian police has come out. The Russian police, still used to the KGB methods of lying, claim that arrest German member of parliament Volker Beck to protect him from being beaten. Beck said that when the police arrested him it was the police who beat him.

Associated Press reports that there were at least 100 police present who did not act to prevent the mob of skinheads and religious groups from attacking the small group of individuals who had gone to city hall to present a petition to the mayor to allow freedom of assembly. An official spokesman for the government of Moscow praised the police for the attack saying that what they did was a “coordinated and polite” action “in strict accordance with the law.” Things haven’t change since the antigay Communists ran Moscow.

Associated Press confirms that in addition to the neo-Nazi groups there were individuals who “carried icons or other isignia of the Russian Orthodox Church and one man wore the garb of an Orthodox priest.” The reporter for AP says that one attacked well-known gay rights activist Peter Tatchell of England and then a man being punching him. Police ignored both of them and arrested Tatchell. They also report that none of the people who actually did the attacking were arrested only the victims.

Richard Fairbrass, the singer from Right Said Fred was also attacked at the scene who spoke to reporters with blood dripping from his face.

The German Green Party has asked Chancellor Angela Merkel to raise the issue of human rights at the upcoming G8 meeting with the leader of the Russian regime,Vladimir Putin. I suspect Merkel is going to be too busy trying to upstage the US about carbon dioxide emissions to worry about such things.

Dutch gay man assaulted by youths

2007-05-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

A gay man in Amsterdam was assaulted by three Moroccan youths. Jeroen Bulterman reports that his partner and he had been having dinner together at the home of Jeroen's mother. His partner Alexander stayed there for sometime after Jeroeen left. He was on his way home when the gang attacked him.

He was knocked to the ground and then three youths, speaking Arabic to one another, dragged him to Rembrandt park and threw him into a lake. They spent two hours on the shore taunting him and throwing things at him trying to hit him. Only when a car drove into the park with bright headlights did the youths run away. Dutch police have confirmed the incident and say that the victim was very traumatized by it.

Comment: What I find interesting about this Expatica article on the attack is that while it tells us the gang were Moroccan and spoke "Arabic" that it never mentions the word Islam. Why ignore the fact that Islam may be involved here due to its demands that homosexuals be killed? Can the media forget that when Theo van Gogh was murdered it in Amsterday it was by an Islamist intent on punishing him for his criticism of the bigoted nature of Islamic fundamentalists? It's not politically correct even if it is factually correct.

Consider this story at Expatica. The editor of the gay newspaper The Washington Blade, Chris Crain, was visiting Amsterday when Moroccan youths attacked him. Crain had previously praised Amsterdam for its tolerance but learned that tolerance didn't carry over to the Islamic community. Henk Krol, editor of Gay Krant, says he later told Crain that it is now "safer in the countryside for homosexuals than in the large Dutch cities." A survey of Dutch gays showed that a third said they are afraid to hold hands in city. And the article quotes a gay immigrant saying: "it is known that homosexuality is difficult to harmonize with the Arab mentality."

The world "Muslim" only comes up in the article to imply that anyone concerned about Islamic values is racist. The article says there is "a culture clash with the predominantly Christian ethnic Dutch" when in fact most Dutch are secular. The article, in masterful understatement says "immigrant Muslims have been reported to view homosexuality with disdain." See, it is only "reported" they hate gays. It says that: "This view and differences over the treatment of women, concerns of immigrant crime and issues of integration hae sparked a backlash against immigration from ethich Dutch." Forced marriages and subordination of women is just a "difference". How quickly the Left is willing to allow bigots to go on the rampage as long as they are a racial minority.

But the real asshole in that article has to be Scott Long, who is supposed to be director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Rights Project of Human Rights Watch. Long blames the whole attack on gays, not on Islamic hatred of homosexuals, but on the racist Dutch (some of the least racist people around). "There's still an extraordinary degree of racism in Dutch society. Gays often becomes the victims of this when immigrants retaliated for the inequities that they (Muslims) have to suffer." See because people are racists the poor, peaceful, normally gay-loving loving Islamists "retaliate" and run around bashing gays. It's not the Islamic culture at fault it is Dutch racism. This is how Expactica reports on gay bashing. Talk about PC crap. And I only hope that Long ends up swimming in a lake in Rembrandt Park in the middle of the night. With advocates for gay rights like this who needs enemies!

Photo: The photo is of Chris Crain three days after the assault by Islamic bigots in Amsterdam. So you can imagine how much worse it was when it happened. I repeat: Scott Long is an asshole and the Human Rights Watch is a joke unworthy of support for hiring this apologist for bigotry. By the way this moron is still on the staff of this organization. If these are the people watching out for human rights no wonder rights are going down the toilet.

Gay threat bigger than terrorist threat

2007-05-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

So exactly how much of a threat is terrorism? Apparently not much, at least not as much as the threat from being gay. That is how the Neanderthals that run the US military see things. Recently three more Arabic language interpreters for the military were discharged for being gay. It is more important to the Bush administration to get the anti-gay message alive than to interpret information about potential terrorist attacks. I know the "gay threat" issues is entirely bogus and I suspect that most of the "terrorist" issue is overblown considerably.

One former interpreter who was discharged, Stephen Benjamin, says his work was so vital that his supervisor tried to persuade him to sign a statement saying he was straight. But if he did he could later be prosecuted for lying so he refused. Benjamin did not violate the phony "Don't ask, Don't Tell" policy imposed by Bill Clinton. Instead the military actively investigated the matter. He did not tell but they did ask. Like most government "contracts" the bureaucrats feel they have the right to change the terms anytime they wish while you are bound to strict letter of the "contract". That's not a contract. It's more akin to blackmail.

Now you know how serious the terrorist threat really is.

2007-05-23T03:11:00.001-07:00

Falwell follower arrested with bombs.

One of Jerry Falwell's followers, a student at Falwell's Liberty University, has been arrested. Mark Uhl, 19, was apprehended with six explosive devices. Police say he told his family he had made the bombs and that he planned to attend Falwell's funeral. But the police insist that the funeral was not a target for disruption by Uhl.

The police also say there are indications that others were involved with Uhl in the bomb making and investigations continue. ABC News reports that the targets for the bombs were anti-Falwell protesters. ABC says Uhl "reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service." Three other suspects are currently being sought by police.

Jerry Falwell wasn't a big fan of free speech either. And the Right tries to tell us that American Fundamentalists don't use bombs! Uhl isn't the first either. I have to wonder if Alberto Gonzales is going to recommend that Bush authorize the use of torture on Uhl in order to secure more information about the bomb plot.

Update: I suspected as much and news accounts now confirm that the protesters who would have been the object of Uhl's bombs were the cult members from the odious Westboro Baptist Church -- a truly sad lot of people. It is also revealed that Uhl and the three other suspects who are being sought were all together in an ROTC program (Reserved Office Training Corps) which the military sets up in schools to recruit kids into the military. One of the suspects is currently in the military.

Uhl was also a member of the ROTC program at Falwell's school and was planning to become a military chaplain. The military has been a prime target of fundamentalists in recent years causing numerous problems. The Air Force Academy had a major investigation because fundamentalists had apparently taken over and used their positions there inappropriately to recruit people into their churches. At a VA Hospital another fundamentalist chaplain is lying low after a Jewish soldier complained of constant harassment. The orthodox Jew was also denied kosher food and staff refused to call his rabbi for him to bring kosher food privately.

What is shocking is how many on line news stories have headlines implying that there was a bomb plot against the funeral of Falwell. This is false. Actually it is dishonest. AOL News says: "Bomb Plot Thwarted at Falwell's Funeral"; Lynchburg News and Advocate says: "Arrest made in Falwell funeral threat. Australia The Age: "Falwell funeral bomb plot". True, the articles do mention the bomber was a student from Falwell's own school but many people never read past headlines.

2007-05-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

Arrest in Porn Producer's Murder
Intrigue, lust and greed

This blog has previously reported on the murder of gay erotica producer Bryan Kocis. Two men, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes have been arrested for the brutal murder and details are coming out that ought to make this the biggest story in gay porndom.

As the story goes the two men ran a competing porn web site and also ran an male prostitution service.

These two wannabes went to a gay porn convention where they met the porn actor Sean Lockhart, a.k.a. Brent Corrigan. They wanted to make a film with Corrigan but at the time Corrigan was in a messy contract dispute with Kocis. He had signed a contract with Kocis and the name “Brent Corrigan” belonged to Kocis not to Lockhart. Lockhart had continued to use the Corrigan name and was in legal hotwater over it. So he was reluctant to make a film with the pair.

But they had a suggestion. Cuadra said to Lockhart: “What if Bryan left the country?” Lockhart complained that the man would only return so it was useless. Then Kerekes explained to him: “Harlow knows someone who would do anything for him.” Now it was clear. And just a short time later Kocis had been brutally murdered.

The two men and Lockhart met again in California and spent the day at a nude beach where Cuadra admitted he was in the Kocis house at the time of the murder. Cuadra told Lockhart: “Don’t worry, he [Kocis] went quick.” Lockhart’s blog only says: “I have been advised by my attorneys and law enforcement officials in charge of the investigation not to make public comments or statements regarding this very sad and senseless crime.”

Cuadra apparently sent emails to Kocis using a psuedonym asking for an interview to do modeling for his company. And this is how he and Kerekes gained entry. After the killing Cuadra apparently called Lockhart and suggested he check out a news website reporting on the murder. Lockhart did and Cuadra told him: “I guess my guy went overboard.” Supposedly Lockhart became upset by this.

Photos: (1, 2) Corrigan and Cuadra at Black's Beach, San Diego. (3) Corrigan and Cuadra with Corrigan's business partner.

2007-05-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

Gays in the Military?
No Big Deal

The New York Times took a look at the big contentious gay issue in England of a few years ago -- whether or not openly gay individuals could serve in the military.

The arguments there, were pretty much the same as in the US. It was said that gay people openly serving would destroy unit cohesion, reduce morale, etc.

But that was seven years ago. And the moral conservatives lost that one. So what happened? Not much of anything. No decay, no lack of cohesion, no reduction in morale. It just didn’t happen.

No could find any problmes that arose out of this policy. So what does it mean?

Should we assume that the gay men and women of 2007 are vastly different from those of a few years ago? Is the reason there are no problems because homosexuals have changed?

No. What has changed is the views of the people who serve. Gay men and women today are not vastly different of those who came of age in the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, etc. So if there are no problems today it is because the social views of straight personnel has changed.

This ought to be encouraging to gay people. Whether the Religious Right nut cases like it or not they have lost the culture wars. They might as well run up the white flag and retreat to their revival tents. No one is going back into the closet. Even polls of evangelical Christians show that a good number of them are no longer anti-gay and that younger evangelicals simply don’t share the obsession about homosexuality that gripped the leaders of the Religious Right.

All along the reality was that the problem was not created by the gay man or lesbian. It was created by the bigot. It was prejudice that was always the problem.

There is a downside to this as I see it. Previously homosexual exempted one from compulsory military service as well. And I just don't trust the government enough to say they won't coerce people into joining the military involuntarily (slavery) if they get involved in another stupid war.

2007-05-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

Theocratic leader Jerry Falwell dies.

Jerry Falwell, one of the founders of the modern “Religious Right” has died. He was 73 in spite of apparently having been born in the Dark Ages. A fundamentalist Christian Falwell advocate big government in the realm of personal life. When the terrorists attacked on 9/11 Falwell claimed that “abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU” anyone who supports a secular state “helped this happen.” He then backtracked on the statement after he was severely criticized.

Falwell was one of the men who helped covert the Republican Party into a theocratic movement that has culminated in the George Bush White House.

I had met Falwell on a couple of occasions. The last time I saw him was some years ago when he was the featured speaker at a rally to pass the “Right to Decency” bill introduced by in the state legislature by fellow fundamentalist Republican Don Boys. The bill would have mandated imprisonment for homosexuality by making it a felony punishable by law. The legislation would give an automatic 2-to-21 year prison sentence for anyone convicted of being gay. Only days later I saw Falwell being interviewed at a press conference where he was asked about his groups position on the rights of gay people. Falwell claimed he has never advocated stripping gays of their rights this in spite of appearing, only days earlier, as the main speaker at a rally calling for the incarceration of homosexuals. Apparently honesty was not high on the list of “moral” issues.

Falwell claimed he had “a divine mandate from God to go right into the halls of Congress and fight for laws that will save America.”

Falwell began his career as a televangelist with a radio show The Old-Time Gospel Hour where he regularly featured extreme racists like Lester Maddox and George Wallace. Falwell later dropped these positions and instead focused on scapegoating homosexuals, a topic that obsessed him. In 1984 he had a television debate where he was charged with calling the pro-gay Metropolitan Community Churches ‘brute beasts”. Falwell publicly denied ever saying such a thing and promised his opponent $5000 if he could prove he did. The man had a video tape of Falwell saying this. Falwell then refused to pay up and was sued for breach of promise. The court ruled Falwell did indeed break his word and did owe $5000 to his opponent. Falwell appealed that ruling claiming the judge was biased and he lost that suit as well. But Falwell’s views on the matter are illustrated by his remark: “Thank God for these gay demonstrators. If I didn’t have them, I’d have to invent them. They give me all the publicity I need.”

Falwell supposedly died of heart problems.

This man needs a therapist.

2007-05-12T03:39:00.000-07:00

Joseph Nicolosi heads an anti-gay group called the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuals. It is inspired by a theological condemnation of gay people more than a scientific one.

If you go to their website promising "therapeutic" cures of something that isn't a disease you will find Nicolosi whining. The poor baby feels persecuted and misrepresented. Talk about pot calling kettle. He bitches that when TV shows deal with his version of "therapy" they don't "invite a therapist on their shows to explain it." Note that by "therapist" he means one of his anti-gay allies. Most therapists dismiss Nicolosi's "therapy" as a religiously motivate sham. Cry baby Nicolosi says:"If the mainstream media has any interest in accurately reporting on our therapy, they should invite real reparative therapists to tell their stories."

Gee, I would think that the stories that need telling are the victims of witch-doctors not the witch-doctors themselves. But that aside what happens when the media actually does what Nicolosi demands? Below is a video of one such attempt, when CNN tried to speak to Nicolosi himself. Now remember Nicolosi claims he conconcted this new "therapy" so when it comes to driving out the gay demon he ought to the top expert to interview.

When CNN approaches him to ask for an interview his immediate response is "I don't think so." He complains when the media doesn't interview him and his fellow Svegalis of "reparative therapy". Yet, his first response to a request for an interview is to reject it. Finally, after some persuasion he agrees to an interview. But the man walks into the interview with a chip on his shoulder and brimming over with attitude, anger and a host of his own issues. Nicolosi becomes unhinged and angry over the mildest of questions. Watch his mental meltdown yourself. This has to be one of the shortest interviews on record and it shows Nicolosi for what he is. And yet this man has the audacity to commit therapy and bring "psychological wholeness" to people! What a laugh.

It should be noted that while Nicolosi attacks the CNN reporter for mentioning artistic in this context that, in fact, Nicolosi does precisely that himself. In his book Nicolois describes the traits of boys doomed to homosexuality unless he is unleashed on them to cure them. And he says "A number of them had traits that could be considered gifts: bright, precocious, social and relational and artistically talented." Here are some other quotes from this maniac.

At this early stage, generally before the age of three, Ralph Greenson observed, the boy decides that he would like to grow up like his father. This is a choice. Implicit in that choice is the decision that he would not like to grow up to be like his mother. According to Robert Stoller, "The first order of business in being a man is, 'don't be a woman.'"

Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

Baby step for Marriage Equality.

2007-04-05T13:40:00.001-07:00

There has been another “baby step” for marriage equality. The New Hampshire House voted on a bill that would give same-sex couples the same rights as married heterosexuals. The vote in favor of marriage equality was rather impressive: 243 in support and 129 opposed.

The Right-wing Marriage Alliance rallied outside the legislature and then packed the gallaries. At one point when Republican Steve Vaillancourt rose to speak in favor of marriage equality they booed and shouted at him. Several Right-wing protestors had to be removed from the gallary for their actions.

Typical of the double-speak of the Religious Right a spokesman for the Cornerstone Policy Research Centers, Karen Testerman, said that granting marriage equality makes “the homosexual community a special class.” How downright Orwellian the logic. If the right to marry is defined to exclude gays that is equality but it it includes gays then it’s special rights.

The Republican Party, still acting as the lap-dog of the American Taliban, in Indiana had public fits because an anti-equality law they were attempting to push through the legislature failed.