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

Tammy Faye: A different kind of fundamentalist.

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

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.

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"

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

Clinton: Stab gays in the back

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.