Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

What does Britt Hume think about Pat Robertson?

Someone tell me again why Britt Hume feels persecuted for the fallout via his comments to Tiger Woods. Christianity doesn't look good with spokespeople like Pat Robertson hogging up the spotlight.

Related posts:

Cliff Kincaid, Britt Hume, and the descent of Christianity

What Barnes and Noble taught me about being black and gay

I've got electricity again!!!!!!!!!!

In light of recent events, my apartment's loss of electrical power for a night (albeit a very cold night) isn't a huge calamity.

It was a small inconvenience. But I hate inconveniences, whether they be large or small.

Now in order to keep abreast with what's going on during the outage, I went to an internet cafe in Barnes and Noble bookstore. After doing what I do, I browsed a bit to see if I wanted to buy anything.

Maybe I'm getting older but bookstores are starting to depress me. Or maybe it was today's sojourn through Barnes and Noble which has me down.

I learned two things today. President Obama is an evil disgusting demagogue who has curtailed our freedom and will lead us down the path of destruction to rival that of Dante's Inferno is he isn't stopped.

How do I know this? Why because of the myriad of books in the current events section which says so. Okay maybe I'm overstating this point but it seems to me that if this country is in such ugly straits, why are so many people free to make money off of telling us just how bad of a shape we're in?

If President Obama is really as evil as these books say that he is, shouldn't the authors be political prisoners? Shouldn't there be knocks at doors in the middle of the nights and disappearances which leave nothing but shoes on the side of lonely roads?

Only in America do we market speaking out against alleged tyrants.

I bet you that many of those authors voted for Obama and will probably do so again. After all, he is their bread and butter.

Now the other thing I learned is what I feel is a suitable metaphor between the division of the black and gay communities.

In Barnes and Noble, there is a section of books dedicated to African-Americans and there is another section dedicated to lgbts.

But as a black gay man, I couldn't identify with either because both left me out. That idea that somehow being black and gay are somehow separate (which also springs up in gay and black media)reared its ugly head.

Granted, the black section had one of those "Down Low" books, but let's be honest. Giving a black gay men a book on the "down low" is the equivalent of giving sewer water to a person dying of thirst.

It's interesting how both communities have people writing about the complexities of being black or being gay but no one ever wants to write about being black and gay.

Would a book like that sell? That's certainly another bit of food for thought.

And that is especially galling to me when I journeyed to the section on women's studies and saw books geared to lesbian and heterosexual women.

So I guess I learned today that despite all of our talk to the contrary, the invisible idea that being black and gay is somehow ingrained in some of us so-called progressive folks. And that's something which we can't completely blame anyone on the right.

The Seeds of Hatred and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Yes my electricity is still out and yes work is being done to get everything taken care of.

But meanwhile, check out these news briefs

John Moore: The seeds of hatred - An excellent piece about the Ugandan anti-gay bill which also manages to give Paul Cameron a swift kick.

'Pffffft'-OX - PFOX lie on the horizon. Why should anyone be surprised?

CPAC keeps GOProud as sponsor, ignores Liberty U's threat to withdraw. Crybaby Liberty pulls out - This is a hilarious feud. A gay Republican group wants to help sponsor a conservative conference. But religious right groups also participating in the conference objects. This story has more twists and turns than an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Just GLAAD to be nominated, 2010 - The GLAAD award nominations have been announced.

Prop 8 Trial, Day 2: the arguments unfold - A recap of Day Two of THE TRIAL

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Special Know Your LGBT History - Fame

Due to forces beyond my control (long, long, looooong story), I now have no electricity in my apartment. Unfortunately this means there most likely will be no posting until tomorrow around lunctime (at least let's pray).

And I bet something juicy is going to happen while I'm gone.

Damn, I hate that.

But why let it all be bad. I now present a special Tuesday night edition of Know Your LGBT History.

As you all know, I usually do this Friday afternoons, but this is a special condition where I need something to make me smile. And what better than one of my dreamboats featured in this segment.

Fame (1980) is one of my favorite movies. It told the story of a group of students attending the New York School of Performing Arts, giving us an insight into their lives and hope for success.

I saw the movie during my first year in college and instantly fell in love the young man in the clip below, Montgomery McNeil:

The irony is that the first time I ever saw the actor who portrayed Montgomery (Paul McCrane) was in the movie Robocop. He was the bad guy who got turned into toxic waste.

Anyway, if you haven't guessed it yet, Montgomery is gay and he does come out to everyone:

Okay, sue me but I didn't like the scene. And I didn't like what the movie did to the character. He didn't die or get beaten up which is good. But he did nothing. Not one thing. He just sat back and observed as his friends fell in love.

Hell, they could have at least given him a love interest.

But they did give actor McCrane a chance to add two songs to soundtrack of the movie. One which he sings on camera. It's a hearbreaker:

'Fistgate 14' a huge flop and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Hoft builds false Jennings "Gay Bars" claim on "hate group's" distortion - Big Government is up to "Fistgate 14" and it's a huge lie like the other 13.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger: Recapping Day One - Recapping day one of THE TRIAL

Ugandan President To Pressure Anti-Gay Bill Sponsor - Give him hell!

TV presenter told "tone down your gayness" - Okay. No more Bette Davis references.

Fox News VP: We ‘hope’ Palin will be ‘polarizing’ as a Fox News contributor - Not an lgbt issue per se, but I couldn't resist slipping it in. Don't worry, Fox. She will be.

Cliff Kincaid, Britt Hume, and the descent of Christianity

Cliff Kincaid and AIM (Accuracy in Media) continues its descent into abject lunacy.

Last week, Kincaid claimed that the outrage over Uganda's anti gay bill is really a conspiracy to protect the position of Obama appointee Kevin Jennings.

This week, he goes beyond the pale by actually defending the bill in a bizarre paranoid rant:

The Washington Post editorial page has now joined lesbian MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow in blasting the government of Uganda for considering a law to protect children from homosexual predators and the dangerous public health impact of the homosexual lifestyle. Despite its moderate views on some foreign policy issues, the Post has always come down firmly on the side of making homosexuality into a special right that should be protected and even glorified by governmental institutions. Now it wants to impose that view on Uganda's mostly Christian population.

And the piece goes downhill from there (that is if there is a place lower than hell).

Kincaid actually manages to insult new Obama appointee Amanda Simpson and make a dig against gays in the military and against ENDA in the following paragraphs, connecting all of these points in a manner that's worthy of the most creative conspiracy theorists.

At least he didn't mention Kevin Jennings this time.

But Kincaid's piece got me thinking.

The next time that someone wants to push the "Britt Hume is being persecuted because he dared to mention Jesus Christ" meme, I am going to point him to the ramblings of Kincaid.

Hume was mostly criticized (for his advice to Tiger Woods to turn to Jesus and Christianity as a solution to his problems) because he disrespected the Buddhist religion and came across as a presumptuous arrogant jerk.

But some folks weren't reacting solely to Hume's comments. They were reacting to the continued perversion of Christianity.

I hardly think that an anchor criticized for placing his religion above another fits the realm of being persecuted. And neither does not being able to get the government to pay for a license tag which endorses your religion.

But to so many people in this country who call themselves Christians, it is persecution.

It highlights a problem which no one wants to delve into - the fact that Christianity in America is highly tainted.

To some Americans, Christianity has nothing to do with clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, or providing comfort and support.

It's about clandestine meetings with think tanks.

It's about smartly dressed and coiffed men and women appearing on television and spouting phony talk points about "values," "family", and "morality" in an attempt to impose a caste system on just what makes up a family

It's about large groups of people gathering together in the luxury and comfort of mega-churches and prayer conferences while they whine about how they are being persecuted simply because they can't dictate how other people pray or live their lives.

And in Kincaid's case, it's about spinning wild stories regarding how people who just want to live without fear are "imposing their values" on those who seek to harm them.

The sad thing is that Kincaid is not an anamoly. He is indicative of a lot of the Christian thought in this country, from James Dobson to Peter LaBarbera to the rest of those who describe themselves as "defenders of the family."

And while it's true that these folks not indicative of the entirety of Christian thought in this country, I wish those Christians who have an objection to the mess they spew would be more vocal about opposing them.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Self-promotion time - My Kevin Jennings piece makes The Huffington Post

And I thought that it would be a boring Monday.

With all of the wild happenings of today ( the Proposition 8 trial, Sarah Palin joining Fox News, Republicans trying to smear Harry Reid, Mark McGuire and steroids), please forgive me for focusing on a little bit of selfish news.

The Huffington Post ran a piece I wrote about the unsuccessful attempts to remove Obama appointee Kevin Jennings.

I wrote it last weekend and I hope that it will be seen as THE definitive piece of the entire kerfluffle:

Despite a heavy December effort last year by various groups, i.e., Big Government, Gateway Pundit, Fox News, etc., the push to get Obama appointee Kevin Jennings fired died back in October when the charge that he aided and abetted the sexual abuse of a child turned out to be a false accusation and an embarrassment to the right.

When President Obama initially appointed Jennings to be the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education, I doubt he realized that his political enemies would attack Jennings with the unrelenting stridency of the Greeks attacking the city of Troy.

But they did and it made for an interesting part of 2009 as members of the right pored through Jennings' past writing and speeches in an attempt to find reasons to have him dismissed and, by extention, embarrass the Obama Administration.

As the situation progressed, it became less of a campaign fueled by righteous indignation and a desire to protect children (which it never was in the first place) and served as an example of the mad goings on in Washington as well as the depths some people will stoop in order to push a lie.

Not too many people are aware of this, but some on the right had bad blood with Jennings long before his appointment to the Obama Administration.

Jennings, an openly gay former teacher, founded GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Network), an organization largely responsible for gay student awareness in high schools, most specifically through the annual Day of Silence in which participating students take a vow of silence during the day to bring attention to the bullying of gay students.

However to some on the right, specifically the religious right, acknowledging the simple fact that gay students exist is a problem (they like to use the word "recruitment" a lot) and daring to devote any iota of attention to the problems these students face because of an unsupportive environment is akin to the plot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

For years, organizations such as Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and the rest of the usual suspects have unsuccessfully tried to either eliminate or undermine the Day of Silence with the most recent failed attempt being the Day of Truth, in which they encourage students to tell the truth about homosexuality.

Of course the truth to them encompasses either citing discredited Paul Cameron studies or legitimate studies taken out of context.

The fact that Obama chose Jennings, a man whom they have already had negative history with, was probably something that they couldn't stomach from the get-go.

You can read the rest here.

And I would be remiss if I didn't thank Pam Spaulding for her help in getting this published. I owe you big, Pam. When is your birthday again?