I will be appearing on the 'Gay Agenda' and other news briefs
Tomorrow evening, I will be interviewed on the Gay Agenda, a progressive internet radio show. I will be talking about my blogs, book, and life in general as a gay man of color.
Wish me luck and hope I don't pull a Bobby Jindal.
Tuesday news briefs
Nazi-enabling Pope tells Africans not to use condoms - God I miss Pope John Paul already
Children of same-sex couples tell their story - This needs to happen as often as possible
Indiana School District Allows Girl to Wear Tuxedo to Prom - Sometimes, the small victories are the sweetest.
AFA AIDS Solution: Gov't Action Against Homosexuals - The lies start regarding the HIV situation in Washington, D.C.
Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
LaBarbera helps us even if he doesn't mean to
I talk a lot about Peter LaBarbera and his group, Americans for Truth for good reason. He can be, at times, our biggest help in this so-called culture war.
His idiocies make us look good.
A perfect example is his defense of Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively's attendance at an anti-gay conference in Uganda as well as Uganda's anti-gay laws (which sentences gays to life imprisonment):
At AFTAH, we preach Christian mercy and have denounced Talibanesque capital punishment for homosexuals in countries like Iran. But we also believe that if states and localities here in America (and governments abroad) wish to ban sodomy, they have every right to do so . . .
I wonder if that cover Jamaica, where groups have been known to hunt gays down in the streets.
No one is so naive to not realize that LaBarbera means gays when he says "sodomy." And this isn't the first time he has stood in the corner of someone who doesn't deserve any defense:
We find it sad that more scientists have not joined Paul Cameron in assessing the extreme health risks of homosexual behavior, just like the scientific establishment researches obesity, smoking and other serious health issues.
Illinois Family Institute would support a nonpartisan federal research campaign into the health risks of homosexual behavior to further investigate Cameron's work.
Both Lively's and Cameron's organizations have been deemed as official hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center not because of their stance against homosexuality, but because of how they lie to stigmatize the lgbt community.
Which brings me back to Peter. We are always talking about famous people and movements in history but sometimes we forget the "foils," or the folks whose stance against these people and movements actually benefitted them.
The African-American civil rights movement had Bull Connor, Bill Clinton had Newt Gingrich, and now we have Peter LaBarbera.
With James Dobson gone, the best thing for our community would be for LaBarbera to get a more active role in the religious right. Dobson evoked an image of the morally straight grandfather. LaBarbera evokes the image of the strange uncle who can't keep his mouth shut.
I did not agree with Dobson but at least he had a certain style in his attitude- a certain methodology that demonstrated an intelligent mind.
LaBarbera doesn't seem to care who he supports or what it makes him look like.
And that can only be a plus for us.
Because right now, LaBarbera is the living embodiment of the anti-gay movement and the religious right in general - spiritually empty, psychologically bloated, and willing to subvert reality and truth to make his own position more palpable to the American public.
But sooner or later reality has a habit of coming through. The flowery language of traditional values and the sweet rhetoric of faith and family is permeated by an odor of corruption, arrogance, and hatred.
And no matter how you try, you can't cover stink.
More on Scott Lively and the Uganda conference is at Box Turtle Bulletin.
I talk a lot about Peter LaBarbera and his group, Americans for Truth for good reason. He can be, at times, our biggest help in this so-called culture war.
His idiocies make us look good.
A perfect example is his defense of Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively's attendance at an anti-gay conference in Uganda as well as Uganda's anti-gay laws (which sentences gays to life imprisonment):
At AFTAH, we preach Christian mercy and have denounced Talibanesque capital punishment for homosexuals in countries like Iran. But we also believe that if states and localities here in America (and governments abroad) wish to ban sodomy, they have every right to do so . . .
I wonder if that cover Jamaica, where groups have been known to hunt gays down in the streets.
No one is so naive to not realize that LaBarbera means gays when he says "sodomy." And this isn't the first time he has stood in the corner of someone who doesn't deserve any defense:
We find it sad that more scientists have not joined Paul Cameron in assessing the extreme health risks of homosexual behavior, just like the scientific establishment researches obesity, smoking and other serious health issues.
Illinois Family Institute would support a nonpartisan federal research campaign into the health risks of homosexual behavior to further investigate Cameron's work.
Both Lively's and Cameron's organizations have been deemed as official hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center not because of their stance against homosexuality, but because of how they lie to stigmatize the lgbt community.
Which brings me back to Peter. We are always talking about famous people and movements in history but sometimes we forget the "foils," or the folks whose stance against these people and movements actually benefitted them.
The African-American civil rights movement had Bull Connor, Bill Clinton had Newt Gingrich, and now we have Peter LaBarbera.
With James Dobson gone, the best thing for our community would be for LaBarbera to get a more active role in the religious right. Dobson evoked an image of the morally straight grandfather. LaBarbera evokes the image of the strange uncle who can't keep his mouth shut.
I did not agree with Dobson but at least he had a certain style in his attitude- a certain methodology that demonstrated an intelligent mind.
LaBarbera doesn't seem to care who he supports or what it makes him look like.
And that can only be a plus for us.
Because right now, LaBarbera is the living embodiment of the anti-gay movement and the religious right in general - spiritually empty, psychologically bloated, and willing to subvert reality and truth to make his own position more palpable to the American public.
But sooner or later reality has a habit of coming through. The flowery language of traditional values and the sweet rhetoric of faith and family is permeated by an odor of corruption, arrogance, and hatred.
And no matter how you try, you can't cover stink.
More on Scott Lively and the Uganda conference is at Box Turtle Bulletin.
Julian Bond tells it like it "T.I." is!
from HRC Back Story
National NAACP Chairman Julian Bond gave such a powerful speech in support of LGBT rights at HRC’s Los Angeles Gala Dinner on Saturday, March 14 that we knew it important to give proper to highlight his speech .
Here are a few choice statements from his speech:
When someone asks me, “are gay rights civil rights?” my answer is always, “Of course, they are.” Civil rights are positive legal prerogatives: the right to equal treatment before the law. These are the rights shared by everyone. There is no one in the United States who does not, or should not, enjoy or share in enjoying these rights. Gay and lesbian rights are not special rights in any way. It isn’t “special” to be free from discrimination. It is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship.
People of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others. That, it has been, that our movement has been so widely imitated. That our tactics, our methods, our heroes, our heroines, and even our songs, have been appropriated or served as models for others.
Now, no parallel between movements is exact. African-Americans are the only Americans who were enslaved for more than two centuries and people of color carried the badge of who we are on our faces. But we are far from the only people suffering discrimination; sadly, so do many others. And those others deserve the law’s protection and civil rights too….
Like race, our sexuality isn’t a preference. It is immutable; it is unchangeable. And the constitution protects us against prejudices and discrimination based on immutable differences.
In particular, Bond’s response to many of the biblical passages used by Christian conservatives to condemn homosexuality (including those favorite scriptures in Leviticus) is must-see TV. His humorous refutation of “cafeteria Christians” begins about 15:25 in the video above. (You can see the video from the webpage)
from HRC Back Story
National NAACP Chairman Julian Bond gave such a powerful speech in support of LGBT rights at HRC’s Los Angeles Gala Dinner on Saturday, March 14 that we knew it important to give proper to highlight his speech .
Here are a few choice statements from his speech:
When someone asks me, “are gay rights civil rights?” my answer is always, “Of course, they are.” Civil rights are positive legal prerogatives: the right to equal treatment before the law. These are the rights shared by everyone. There is no one in the United States who does not, or should not, enjoy or share in enjoying these rights. Gay and lesbian rights are not special rights in any way. It isn’t “special” to be free from discrimination. It is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship.
People of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others. That, it has been, that our movement has been so widely imitated. That our tactics, our methods, our heroes, our heroines, and even our songs, have been appropriated or served as models for others.
Now, no parallel between movements is exact. African-Americans are the only Americans who were enslaved for more than two centuries and people of color carried the badge of who we are on our faces. But we are far from the only people suffering discrimination; sadly, so do many others. And those others deserve the law’s protection and civil rights too….
Like race, our sexuality isn’t a preference. It is immutable; it is unchangeable. And the constitution protects us against prejudices and discrimination based on immutable differences.
In particular, Bond’s response to many of the biblical passages used by Christian conservatives to condemn homosexuality (including those favorite scriptures in Leviticus) is must-see TV. His humorous refutation of “cafeteria Christians” begins about 15:25 in the video above. (You can see the video from the webpage)