The Daily Show nails Massachusetts situation

Y'all (I used to say "folks," but I noticed that Peter LaBarbera has stolen the word), I'm trying to write on lgbt issues but today I can't.

All I can do is throw out this very appropriate clip of The Daily Show featuring Jon Stewart talking about the Massachusetts election.

He is very on point:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mass Backwards
www.thedailyshow.com
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NOM involved in Massachusetts vote and other Monday midday news briefs

Hey Brown supporters: Don't shoot NOM, shoot the stances that spurred them into action! - NOM is involved in the Massachusetts vote. But do Brown's supporters want them there?
Uganda: Anti-gays launch campaign against US, UK, Canada... - Proceed at your own risks, guys.

Gay rights group targets Sen. Kean - This is interesting.

Liberty Counsel: Still Silent On Lisa Miller - This one slipped under the radar.

Martin Ssempa talks about 'poop' to demonize lgbts

You want to know how Martin Ssempa, a proponent of that awful Ugandan anti-gay bill, tries to convince people regarding the so-called evil of homosexuality?

Ariel Rubin of the Huffington Post gives us a clue. On Jan. 15, Ssempa held a conference to announce a Feb. 15th "million person march" in support of the bill.

That in itself is bad enough. What Ssempa did at the conference is even worse:

A captivating speaker and natural performer, (he was once the East African breakdancing champion), Ssempa clearly knows how to work a crowd. When a reporter asks why he is persecuting adults engaging in consensual acts in the privacy of their own bedroom, he quickly takes out his laptop to expose just what these acts are.


A pornographic slideshow of black and white photographs of men engaging in scatological fetishism is revealed. "I want to show you from their website", he proclaims, a devious smile forming. "I've taken the time to research what homosexuals do in the privacy of their bedroom. It is inhuman, it is animalistic, and it cannot be right. I want to show you these pictures." The audience lurches forward, leering at the pictures and groaning in disgust. Ssempa, enthusiastically goes on:


I want to say homosexuals eat each other's poop. Homosexuals stick their hands into their rectum. Homosexuals stick all sorts of deviant sexual things into their rectum. I want to show you this is from their website. So the first picture that I want to show you, you can see this man has just eaten the other person's poo poo and is rubbing it on his mouth, and I'm going to ask that we print for each of you a photocopy of this story so you get it fully.


Then, of course, they are grabbing each other's gentials, that is level number one, touching each other, grabbing each other. Then number three, now they are licking eachother's anus and are licking poop. And they call poo poo, chocolate. You see it is a change of words. I want you to see, Sheikh please forgive me but I want these people to see, they say a picture is worth one thousand words. This is a man eating the other person's poo poo, can you see that one? Please from BBC, I want you to tell them, we know what they do.

Point of fact - you can easily find the same outrageous sexual behavior on heterosexual webpages devoted to the sort of thing that Ssempa is accusing lgbts of. Strange and deviant sexual behavior is not indicative of the lgbt or heterosexual orientation.

What Ssempa is doing is the equivalent of pointing to the mugshots of African-American criminals (while ignoring the mugshots of criminals of other nationalities) to make the case that black people are inherently more violent.

Now people may want to laugh at Ssempa's behavior but to do such would miss the point.

We can't laugh at Ssempa. It would waste much needed time that should be devoted to exposing him.

In the early 1980s when the AIDS crisis struck and people were panicked, discredited researcher Paul Cameron came to prominence with junk science designed to demonize the lgbt community.

Psychologically, Uganda is at a place now where the United States was then - ignorant and totally susceptible to any demagogue or phony eager to exploit fear and religious beliefs.

I wonder how many of us laughed at Cameron.