Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Wednesday night news briefs

I can't always be the loud, vivacious Truman Capote/Sherlock Holmes wannabe. So allow me to present various newsbriefs and articles about things that you may or may not be aware of:

Michigan ruling protects kids adopted by gays - I love these slow steps forward. They can never hurt. Big props to Detroit News' Deb Price for covering lgbt issues the way she does.

The Base That Cried Wolf - I was wondering where that crazy Matt Barber was. I haven't seen him since I smacked down his ridiculous points on lgbt parenting.

Colbert mocks Glenn Beck's crybaby patriotism, mercilessly - Okay this is not necessarily an lgbt issue but it's too good not to share. From my buddies and Americablog, a denunciation of Glenn (we surround them - what the hell does that mean anyway) Beck.

EHarmony launches gay matchmaking service - I love it when we win lawsuits. I wonder if EHarmony can find me a harem?
American Family Association wants us all to 'teabag'

My fellow lgbt brothers and sisters, we seem to be getting replaced.

In the past few days, American Family Association's One News Now has written very little slanted articles against us.

What gives? I always looked forward to reading about the newest diabolical plot we have thought up to take over American society. If it weren't for these articles, I would never know what's going on. National headquarters still has not sent me the "Radical Homosexual Agenda" manual. They claim it was lost in the mail but I still think it's a racial issue.

It appears that a lot of One News Now's attention seems to be devoted to undermining President Obama. The American Family Association in general has focused on supporting teabagging parties.

For the benefit of those who don't know, some conservatives around the country have been holding teabagging parties where a lot of them gather together in a public place and hold up signs blaming President Obama for various things (the country's economic situation, Paula Abdul's behavior on American Idol, the destruction of Atlantis, etc.).

This is supposed to culminate with folks mailing tea bags to the White House, or something like that.

These protesters want to channel the spirit and spontaneity of the Boston Tea Party and the protests of the 1960s, but if you ask me, it's not working out all that well.

Not only is the entire thing too coordinated but I wonder about the intelligence a few of the participants. I mean if you are carrying a sign calling President Obama a "socialist," you should spell the word correctly.

Otherwise, you are only proving President Obama's point about more money being needed for education (i.e. his stimulus package.)

And the worst thing about the entire situation is the verbiage. I mean isn't teabagging a sexual term (look it up, you perverts)?

With that in mind, it brings a nice feeling to my mind whenever I say "the American Family Association supports teabagging."

Still it stands to reason that if some of these protestors actually teabagged in the appropriate sense, we wouldn't have to hear from them. And maybe some of them wouldn't be so uptight.

But I doubt it. These are some of the same people who think that President Obama was created in a Kenyan laboratory using the DNA of history's most evil dictators (or is that the plot of some G.I. Joe cartoon).

At any rate, we lgbts need to get on the ball if we are to make it back to the top of the American Family Association's list of phony moral panics created to scare the hell out of Christians.

I wonder if our operative, Sponge Bob Square Pants is busy?
A lie about hate crimes legislation courtesy of the Family Research Council

I wish the following batch of lies were an April Fools Day joke:

Please help FRC Action persuade conservatives and centrist Democrats in the Congress to stop a proposed federal "hate crimes" law that could lead to the criminalization of the biblical view of homosexuality in sermons and elsewhere.

. . . Many members of Congress are simply unaware of how dangerous the proposed "hate crimes" law is. FRC Action will warn them that this could lead to simple expressions of religious faith-including sermons and radio broadcasts-being prosecuted as "hate."

. . . A "hate crimes" law is really a "thought crime" law that punishes a person's beliefs-part of the Left's intolerant agenda to silence the voice of Christians and Conservatives in America and eliminate moral restraint.

How would it happen?

A federal "hate crimes" law prohibiting "bodily injury" could be construed by many law enforcement officials and judges to include words that inflict emotional or psychological distress.

That means an "offended" homosexual could accuse a religious broadcaster . . . a pastor . . . Sunday School teacher . . . or other individual of causing emotional injury simply by expressing the biblical view that homosexual behavior is morally wrong and unhealthy.


This abbreviated message came to me courtesy of a Family Research Council (FRC) email. I guess them refusing to take me off of their list is revenge for my report last year on their inaccurate studies.

This lie about hate crimes legislation has been refuted many times but one more time won't hurt.

Hate crimes legislation covers action, not words. Unless those words are expressly telling someone to physically harm someone else. That means that a pastor or Sunday School teacher is in no danger of getting arrested for stating a belief that homosexuality is a sin.

The pastor or Sunday School teacher would be in dangers of getting arrested if he or she expressly tells someone to physically harm gays or lesbians.

Hate crimes laws already exists in cases of race and religion. All this new legislation would do is add sexual orientation to the list of categories. This means if (and let's hope this never happens), a heterosexual man is attacked by a group of gay men for his orientation, those gay men could be prosecuted under hate crimes legislation.

I was surprised that FRC did not include any of those inaccurate anecdotes (i.e. incidents that happened in foreign countries, etc.) that usually lends an aura of phony immediacy to its ramblings.

But this constant lying about hate crimes legislation is a classic example of a "headless monsters," or an idea that, despite being refuted consistently, continues to be repeated as fact. This happens generally because the people repeating the lie is either ignorant of the truth or will ignore the truth because it doesn't suit their purposes.

I'll let you guess which category the FRC falls under.