David Parker ruling reveals something very interesting . . .

When not working to finish my book, I have been trolling through various blogs and web pages to gather information about the David Parker case.

Yesterday, a federal judge threw out Parker's lawsuit against his son's elementary school for "daring" to mention same-sex households.

Of course all of the pro-Parker sites have been screaming bloody murder and calling the ruling a travesty. They have also been distorting the case. Check out two various headlines:

MASS. FORCE FEEDING of HOMO AGENDA

Judge orders 'gay' agenda taught to Christian children

But that's not the only questionable thing I found today. I looked on the webpage of Mass Resistance, the group behind Parker's lawsuit and various other anti-gay industry endeavors in Massachusetts. Naturally, the group isn't exactly happy over the ruling. It even gives an "analysis" of the ruling. By "analysis," the group means ways to whine about how evil the ruling is.

I found this interesting comment on the page. It may not mean anything, but you be the judge:

(Federal Judge Mark) Wolf also makes the point that must NOT be allowed to opt out! He echoes the homosexual movement's propaganda, that allowing religious freedom would send a bad "message" to children whose parents engage in homosexual behavior, so therefore schools must teach homosexuality in a positive light to EVERY student:

An exodus from class when issues of homosexuality or same-sex marriage are to be discussed could send the message that gays, lesbians, and the children of same-sex parents are inferior and, therefore, have a damaging effect on those students. Cf. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 494 (1954).2 It might also undermine the defendants' efforts to educate the remaining other students to understand and respect differences in sexual orientation. [p. 7]

Wolf claims that the flawed and badly argued Brown decision is now the "law" of the United States. Did Congress pass this? No, it didn't. It's merely a ruling in a case. This ruling is full of use of "case law" from obscure decisions, as if it were real law:

Brown not only remains the law of the First Circuit, it has also been found to be persuasive in every other circuit that has discussed it in defining the scope of a parent's right to raise his or her children. [p. 18]

Is it just me or did this anti-gay industry group just claim that the Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education (the case that led to the desegregation of American public schools) is "flawed" and "badly argued?"

Just food for thought.

So many things to be happy and upset about on this Friday . . .

Shirley Q. Liquor is not funny

I began the day highly pissed.

Or as the late comedia Robin Harris would say, "pissed off to the highest level of pissivity." And it wasn't the anti-gay industry that got me angry. It was my own community.

GLAAD gets a lot of flack for their stances. Some of it may be deserved, but I have to give the group credit for standing up for lgbts.

One stance they took seems to have gotten some gays upset. The group spoke out against comedian Charles Knipp.

Knipp, or as he is known, Shirley Q. Liquor, has an act where he puts on blackface and pretends to be a welfare mother with 19 children. Subsequently, many lgbts of color have protested clubs where he performs and he is beginning to lose bookings. GLAAD recently spoke out against him.

An editorial today in the New York Blade asked what in the world is GLAAD doing in this fight:

We commend GLAAD for condemning racism, but we question whether the organization’s goal is best attained by joining this particular fight.

It sounds like to me that the Blade feels that GLAAD shouldn't be in this fight because Knipp isn't insulting gays.

But yes he is. The editorial said glossed over the fact that many lgbts of color find him offensive. The editorial also made it a point to say that RuPaul (described as an icon) thought his act was funny.

I hope you all can see why I was upset. I have heard Knipp's act and as a black gay man, I am insulted. And I am not alone in this mindset. Many lgbts of color don't find Knipp to be funny. A white man in black face disrespecting black women with children (this includes lesbians because lesbians of color have children) is not satire. He is perpetuating the same type of nonsense that has kept black folks, Jewish people and gay people in bondage.

Just like some black heterosexuals want lgbts of color to ignore our homosexual orientation, some lgbts want us to ignore the fact that we are black. The New York Blade's stance on this issue just goes to prove how so many in the gay community can't seem to get with the fact that not all of us are club hopping, skinny white men with fashionable clothing. Some of us are fat, some of us are skinny, some of us are black, some of us are white, some of us are young, some of us are old.

But all of us deserve dignity and if we can't get it from within our own community, then lgbts in America has bigger problems than the anti-gay industry.

My 'friend' writes another letter

I received another comment from the guy I wrote about last night. This was about the anti-gay lecture series in Charlotte. He continues to assert that the lecture series is a dialogue. He also asked me:

Is everyone a gay basher who respectfully questions the homosexual movement?

Let me expand on what I told him because it illustrates how the so many people of faith are taken in by the anti-gay industry.

I don't think opposition to homosexuality makes one a bigot. I respect people who don't agree with or understand homosexuality. The commentator's question is flawed because the lecture series is not about "respectfully questioning the homosexual movement" nor is it about establishing a dialogue. I showed the press release and an article that quoted one of the organizers of the lecture series. The language in those two news items clearly showed that establishing a dialogue was the last thing the organizers in the lecture series want to do, right next to "respectfully questioning the homosexual movement."

And just because they are talking out of both sides of their mouths doesn't mean that I have to listen.


David Parker loses

This item brought my glee factor up. A year ago, David Parker caused a controversy in Massachusetts. His son brought home a "diversity bookbag" that contained a book showing a same-sex family.

Parker got upset and demanded that his son be taken out of class when someone mentioned a same-sex family situation, even if it happens spontaneously. The school tried to assure Parker that "learning about homosexuality" was not a part of the kindergarten curriculum. The school also told Parker that the state opt-out policy was not relevant because talking about different families didn't constitute a talk of human sexuality.

Parker persisted until he got himself arrested. He and the anti-gay industry tried to frame the case as a parent just trying to raise his child according to his values.

Parker's actions led to a lawsuit. Today, the federal judge threw it out.

Of course the anti-gay industry is going to try to frame the issue as schools teaching kindergarteners about homosexuality. According to some of their web pages, they have already begun.

Just par for the course.

By the way, I go into detail about the David Parker situation in my upcoming book.

It's all about presentation and language

I very rarely get comments opposing my blog so I was surprised when I got this one today:

You write: "These lectures are not about establishing a dialogue. These lectures are about scaring people, people who are ready and willing to be scared..."

Have you been to the lectures? I think you should come to at least one of the lectures before you make such a statement... These lectures are ALL about dialogue! And so far we have had some good ones... Come tonight (thursday) at 7 or tomorrow (Friday) at 7 :)

The commentator was talking about a post I wrote on February 14th about a group of Charlotte church leaders getting together for a lecture series about the Human Rights Campaign.

Now in all honesty, he did have me at a miniscule point. I hadn't been to any of the lectures, but I have a good reason to believe that they are not about establishing a dialogue due to the press release issued about them:

Charlotte Church Leaders to Discuss the Radical Agenda of Homosexual Activists at Weeklong Lecture Series

News Conference: Thursday, February 15, at 10:00 AM in front of the Booth Playhouse at the corner of Trade and Tryon

Contact: Kris Bennett, Coalition of Conscience, 704-782-3760CHARLOTTE, Feb. 14 /Standard Newswire/ -- Three years ago, the Human Rights Campaign, the world's largest homosexual advocacy organization, moved its annual Carolina's dinner to Charlotte. While local gay activists have applauded the HRC's presence in Charlotte, not everyone is pleased with this development.

Dr. Michael L. Brown, director of the Coalition of Conscience and a nationally known Christian leader and best-selling author, is convinced that now is the time to speak up."We have no desire to enter in a rhetorical battle with the HRC. We simply want to raise public awareness about who the HRC really is and what the HRC really stands for, demonstrating that they cannot legitimately be called the 'Human Rights' Campaign."

Does this sound like an attempt to establish a dialogue? Hardly. Seems to me if you are trying to establish a dialogue, you would approach the party you want to dialogue with rather than issuing a vitriolic press release.

Also, in new issue of One News Now (the publication taking the place of Agape Press) is the following article:

The director of a pro-family group says it's time for Christians in America to stop being complacent when it comes to threats posed by homosexual activists, and stop tolerating what he calls the "moral freefall" taking place in the U.S.

Michael Brown is director of the Coalition of Conscience, a network of churches, pastors, and business leaders who work for moral and cultural change through the gospel. He says homosexual activists are gearing up for a major assault on pro-family values this year.

"It's already happened in limited form here in America," says Brown. "[As Christians] we're to simply speak what the Bible speaks is true, without attacking people or calling for violence against people or without being bigoted hatemongers -- simply speaking the truth of the Word." But he cautions that one could "potentially go to jail for that."

While he acknowledges that Christians should be willing to risk everything for their faith, Brown says they do not have to be silent about efforts to silence believers' voices. "There's no reason for us to tolerate what's happening in society -- except that we have preached a man-serving, complacent gospel for so many years," says the Coalition leader. That, he contends, has resulted in self-centered believers, a barely existent call to commitment and sacrifice in the Church, and an attitude that says "we just don't believe things are going to get any worse."

Brown is hosting a weeklong series of lectures in Charlotte, North Carolina, about the true agenda of homosexual activists. The Coalition of Conscience is based in Charlotte.

Again I ask the question, does that sound like an attempt to establish a dialogue?

I stand by my comments in the February 14th post. The lecture series in Charleston is not about establishing a dialogue. It's about gay bashing.

And I find that comment from Mr. Brown about being thought of as a bigot as very ironic as well as Freudian.

A word to the wise, Mr. Brown, if you don't want gay people to think of you as a bigot, then you shouldn't make phony claims about gay people.

Seven days . . . .

My post is going to be short today mainly because of my work on my book, hence the title.

In seven days, I will finally go to press. After over two years of research, I will send my book to the publisher. And what I hope to be one of the definitive books on the lies of the anti-gay industry will be in motion to be published.

For years, I have wanted to see something like this; a book that analyzes the deceptions of the religious right as they pertain to the gay and lesbian community.

This book will not be a fast food, cookie cutter deciphering of homophobia. We know that when people like James Dobson and Peter LaBarbera speak against our community, they are masking their homophobia behind slick language and propaganda techniques.

I intend to prove it.

There is nothing (except for two brief comments) in this book about Mr. God Hates Fags Fred Phelps. He is too easy a target. His stridency makes him p0werless.

The ones who give us trouble are people like a concerned mother who hears about a gay/straight alliance forming in her child's school. She has a personal fear and disagreement about homosexuality, so she looks up data about it.

And she goes to the Focus on the Family web page or the Family Research Council web page or the Traditional Values Coalition web page. It doesn't matter where she goes because in all of these locations she will find "scientific proof" for her opposition to the gay/straight club forming in her child's school. The fact that what she will find is junk science is not known to her.

She will take what she finds and use it to rally other parents against the gay/straight alliance. She will stand in front the school board and repeat the lies she has read. She will solicit the advice and help of the anti-gay industry groups whose web pages she got her information from.

Calling this woman homophobic is wrong. Saying and proving that she and so many others like her are misinformed will be what wins this battle for us.

I really hope that my upcoming book will be the first step in this process.

Are we finally catching on?

I'm not one for direct action campaigns. I respect the need for them but I don't like to participate in them.

And I don't believe they should be undertaken if the only goal is to "get attention." Trying to get attention without any idea as to what will be done with the attention is wrong. Too many times, I think that my lgbt brothers and sisters invest too much time and effort in direct action campaigns, enjoying the transitory empowerment. In the long run, direct action campaigns can be counterproductive if there is no cohesive plan as to what is to be done when one gets the attention.

What's the use of shutting down a business or getting arrested if all you get are outrageous pictures or given 30 second soundbites that no one pays attention to because they are too transfixed by the wildness of your actions.

Having said all of that, I would like to commend SoulForce for their recent actions at Focus on the Family headquarters. It was exactly what a direct action campaign should be. Two members of the group were arrested for not leaving the headquarters and demanding that Focus on the Family stop giving out misleading information regarding gay families.

I liked the fact that the two women didn't do anything outrageous that would take attention away from the reason why they were at Focus on Family headquarters. They were focused on why they were there.

I especially liked this part of the article:

Dobson and other Focus spokespeople frequently discredit LGBT parenting with references to "more than 10,000 studies that have showed that children do best when they have a mom and a dad."

Last year the American Psychological Association said that such claims rely on "studies that simply do not address gay and lesbian parents and their children." The APA also said that "no credible evidence shows that children raised by lesbian or gay parents differ in any important respects from those raised by heterosexual parents."

My question is why hasn't this fact been trumpeted by our side from day one? I may be wrong in saying this, but reading the article today was the first time I ever saw our press going into detail about the anti-gay industry distortion of gay families.

And I want to see more of it. I want to see it everywhere. I want to see it posted on as many blogs as possible. I want lgbts to be encouraged to write letters to the editor about the distortion. I want it to be a cover story in The Advocate.

I love you Ellen Degeneres, but this is more important. Tammy Lynn, you are my girl, but you have been on too many covers.

Is my community finally focused on what we need to bring attention to? I certainly hope so.

Talk about beating a dead horse

It's been one day and some certain individual is trying to use the Tim Hardaway story for his own purposes.

That's right, our friend, Peter LaBarbera had something to say and of course none of it was good.

Now he said that Hardaway's comments were wrong, then he threw in a "nice" caveat:

And Hardaway does have a point about homosexuals in the locker room: we don’t let men shower and dress in women’s locker rooms, so shouldn’t men who define themselves as sexually attracted to other men be relegated to an alternative space? Ditto for lesbians: parents of athletic daughters should be concerned about lesbian coaches and girls with in the girls’ locker room.

Peter didn't say he hated gay people, but he threw out stereotypes and lies, just like Hardaway did.

I would venture to say that LaBarbera's comments are worse than that of Hardaway's. Hardaway's comments were blatantly mean spirited and homophobic. LaBarbera is articulate and pretends to be concerned with the well-being of children.

It is comments like LaBarbera's that play excellently in front of a bunch of homo-ingorant Christians. If Hardaway spoke to them, they would call him out for his nastiness. LaBarbera gives them justification for their ignorance without them having to face the fact that what they believe is ignorance.

And then comes LaBarbera's coup de grace. He mentions the Pam Spaulding incident. A commentator made a threat to him on her blog. When Pam found out, she deleted the post and got banned the commentator.

One would think the situation would be over.

Of course the matter won't die as long as Peter and another friend of ours, Matt Barber from Concerned Women for America, can squeeze just a little bit of traction from it:

Here’s the problem: the same media and liberals who rush to condemn Hardaway’s comments look the other way when homosexual activists like Pam Spaulding (who runs the “Pam’s House Blend” blog) spew abject hatred against Christians or anyone who speaks out against homosexual behavior. As my friend and former AFTAH Corporate Outreach Director Matt Barber describes in a column below, you don’t have to search very hard on Spaulding’s website to find evidence of her anti-Christian bigotry and hate-mongering.

Pam has never spouted hatred against Christians. Pam has never said she hated Christians and Pam has never advocated hurting Christians.

No doubt by Peter's definition, I hate Christians and I spout hatred towards them.

The problem here is people like Peter who seem to think that their religion makes them infalliable to criticism.

When you spout such nonsense against gays and lesbians, we have a right to make noise. When you do other things like freely cite discredited researcher Paul Cameron, we have a right to make noise. When you continuously lie and exploit people's fears and ignorance of the gay and lesbian community, we have a right to make noise.

And bear in mind, I didn't say threats. I said noise.

Peter, you have it twisted. You claim to be of God and that is a matter of opinion. But one thing is not a matter of opinion:

You are not God and you are not infalliable.

Good grief, Tim Hardaway!

By now, I am sure everyone has heard of the nonsense that came from ex-basketball player Tim Hardaway regarding gay people:

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people," he said while a guest on Sports Talk 790 The Ticket. "I'm homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."

Sir bigmouth's comments are going to be dissected over and over again so I won't talk about them too much.

Rather, I am going to roll my eyes and batten down my hatches. Here we go again with yet another reason for the gay and African-American community to go to war. When the shock of what Hardaway said goes away, someone is going to analyze his comments and actually try to find some good in them.

No doubt, someone like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck will talk about how Hardaway's comments were a bastardized version of how strict the African-American community is regarding homosexuality. In short, his comments were nasty but they reflect a positive degree of morality.

The cynic in me kind of hopes this does happen. Maybe those two will give Senator Barrack Obama a break and stop trying to attack his "lack of blackness" for a change.

Then there is enterprising ignorance in the gay community. Don't get me wrong because I love my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. However, in situations like this, many gays and lesbians will go for the easy, visceral parts of this controversy and not even attempt to hold their tongues before fully analyzing the situation.

In other words, I can be sure to hear all sorts of comments of "how can a black man put down gay people like white racists put down black people" until the cows come home, so to speak.

Want to know what I see in the Tim Hardaway situation?

Yet another reason why lgbt African-Americans will be put in the middle of a controversy between the white gay and lesbian and heterosexual African-American community. Both are going to be pulling us but neither will be acknowledging us.

So I am angry at Tim Hardaway having such an ugly idea of gay people. But I don't get too angry at him.

I have a feeling that I am going to have to save some of my anger for other parties: a little bit for the African-American community which creates circumstances for Hardaway's comments to be allowable and a little bit of anger for the gay and lesbian community whom I know will not use this opportunity to see how us lgbts of color are caught in two worlds of dual invisibility. This is because many of them will be exploiting their time to have "righteous indignation."

I swear, if something like this happens again, I am going to hide under my bed with a baseball bat.