Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Monday, February 22, 2010

Will the South Carolina Legislature abandon gay teens?

As you all know, there has been a small brouhaha in my state of South Carolina regarding a teen dating violence bill.

In May of last year, a bill was introduced in the SC Legislature that that required schools to create teen dating violence prevention policies. Rep. Joan Brady sponsored the bill. Another rep, Greg Delleney created an amendment requiring the bill to pertain to only heterosexual relationships.

Delleney said that he was afraid that the bill without the amendment would "force" schools to teach about same-sex relationships.

Because of this ridiculous amendment, a large group of gay and lesbian South Carolinians and their allies raised hell and held a press conference at the State House, leading to the bill being tabled.
However, the bill is not only back but recently came up for in discussion in the Senate Education Committee last week. The education sub-committee voted 3-2 to keep the discriminatory anti-gay language in the bill.

This coming Wednesday, the Teen Dating Violence Bill is one of six bills which will be discussed by the full committee (17 senators total).

And the situation gets more interesting, so to speak.

According to SC Pride Movement President Tamera Tedder, a representative of the SC Pride Movement spoke with Sally Coffin in regards to this meeting. Coffin handles K-12 legislation for Senator John Courson, who is the Chair of the Senate Education Committee. The representative learned from Coffin that comments from the public will NOT be heard at this meeting. Comments are only taken when the sub-committee meets, which occurred last week.

In other words, no one will be allowed to voice their opinion about the bill.

However, according to Tedder:

"While we cannot speak at the meeting, we can still show our disapproval by showing up at the hearing. We would like to have as many people as possible there to oppose the discriminatory language that is being used in this bill. The hearing will take place at 10:00 am in room 105 of the Gressette Building on the capitol grounds. There are 90 seats in the hearing room. Standing is not allowed and seats will go quickly."

Wednesday is going to be an interesting day at the State Legislature. And though I am not going to be able to make it, I will keep you posted on what happens.

Related post:
Press conference justifies my faith in South Carolina

DADT repeal moves forward? and other Monday midday news briefs

Lieberman to Introduce DADT Repeal Bill - How's this for a positive kick in the teeth?

General Petraeus: “I’ve Served With Individuals Who Were Gay And Lesbian” - That should piss off the right.

Stopping Gay Marriage Lowest Priority For CPAC Conservatives - A bit of sanity from the zanies.

Santorum Suggest Military Was 'Indoctrinated' Into Supporting DADT Repeal - And now a little santorum from Rick Santorum.

Family Research Council echoes Paul Cameron on DADT

No matter how they try to disassociate themselves from him, no matter how they try to pretend that he has no influence on their claims about the gay community, some religious right groups seem to find it difficult to completely "quit" discredited researcher Paul Cameron.

Over a week ago, Cameron was interviewed on Midweek Politics Radio regarding a "new study" which he claimed proves that allowing gays to serve openly in the military is a bad idea.

According to Cameron, gays are four to seven more times likely to rape their fellow servicemen. He even says that some perpetrators of heterosexual sex assaults can be termed as gay because apparently some gay men "like women too."

Now due to Cameron's dubious history of bad studies, no one has paid attention to his "new study" and it hasn't been cited, at least not by name.

Has it been surreptitiously referred to by the Family Research Council?

This came from a recent fundraising email by FRC head Tony Perkins:

As a veteran of the Marine Corps, I believe the President's timing on this issue shows he is willing to jeopardize our nation's security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby. We can't let that happen.

Our military exists to fight and win wars, not engage in radical social engineering. Forcing soldiers to cohabit with people who view them as sexual objects would inevitably lead to increased sexual tension, sexual harassment, and even sexual assault.

And just so you know, it was FRC who made put that second paragraph in bold letters. So now the organization is outwardly saying that allowing gays to serve openly in the military will lead to sexual assault over a week after Cameron claimed that he has a study proving this.

Coincidence? Maybe.

But knowing FRC's past history of citing Cameron's discredited work or bad theories, maybe not.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Black History Month LGBTs of color - James Baldwin

I confess that I have been a little lax on this series. I blame it on the religious right. But anyway, let's talk about one of my special heroes:

James Baldwin

When James Baldwin was an infant, his mother, Emma Berdis Joynes, moved to Harlem, New York, where she married a preacher, David Baldwin, who adopted James. The family was poor; and James and his adoptive father had a tumultuous relationship. James Baldwin attended the prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where he worked on the school magazine together with Richard Avedon.[2] At the age of 14, he joined the Pentecostal Church and became a Pentecostal preacher.

When he was 17 years old, Baldwin turned away from his religion and moved to Greenwich Village, a New York City neighborhood, famous for its artists and writers. Here, he studied at The New School, finding an intellectual community within the university. Supporting himself with odd jobs, he began to write short stories, essays, and book reviews, many of which were later collected in the volume Notes of a Native Son (1955).

During this time Baldwin began to recognize his own homosexuality. In 1948, disillusioned by American prejudice against blacks and homosexuals, Baldwin left the United States and departed to Paris, France.

In Paris, Baldwin was soon involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank. His work started to be published in literary anthologies, notably Zero, which was edited by his friend Themistocles Hoetis and which had already published essays by Richard Wright. He would live as an expatriate in France for most of his later life.

On November 30, 1987 Baldwin died from stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. He was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, near New York City.

James Baldwin's candor about being gay is why I admire him the most. The following is a small clip about his life:

Past Black History Month lgbts of color posts:

Nell Carter

Sylvester

Paul Winfield

Barbara Jordan

Friday, February 19, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Blacula

Let's bring down the craziness of the week a bit with this entry of Know Your LGBT History:

In spite of its name and reputation for being a blaxploitation film, Blacula (1972) is actually a good movie with genuine scares in some places.

The movie is about an African prince who is cursed with vampirism by Dracula after an attempt to get him to stand against the slave trade. He is awakened in the 20th century where he causes extreme mayhem while searching for the reincarnation of his true love.

A big plus of Blacula is the portrayal of the title role by Shakespearean actor William Marshall, which is another example of how talent can take a bad movie and make it into something more.

You actually feel sorry for him in some scenes, especially at the end. And this could probably be a first. How often do you feel sorry for a bloodsucking creature of the night?

But for the purpose of this blog, the following scene shows how Marshall's character (who is not named Blacula, but Mamawaulde) is awakened by two gay men. No they don't try to have sex with him. They bought his coffin with other antiques during a rummage sale:

More anti-gay insanity courtesy of CPAC and other Friday midday news briefs

Elaine Donnelly and pals 'inform' CPAC about the dangers of DADT repeal at presser - After the Stephen Baldwin dig at Obama (see below), I think that I'm done with CPAC.

Stephen Baldwin On Obama: 'Homey Made His Bed' (VIDEO) - Nothing says "intestinal disorder" quite like conservative Christian implied racism. I said it once and I will say it again - Stephen Baldwin was sooo much more useful to the universe when he was showing his bare ass in B-rated movies.

Turns Out Everyone Who Opposed Bob McDonnell Was Right - A certain governor seems to have declared war on the rights of gay citizens.

Frank: House on track for ENDA passage, ‘less sure’ about Senate - The Beach Boys said it best - "wouldn't it be nice."

Why This Black Gay American Still Supports President Obama - Good perspective from Earl Fowlkes. Everyone need to read this.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

World Net Daily writer evokes Martin Luther King, Jr. in support of Ugandan 'kill the gays' bill

The above video is the essence of the term "going too far."

This video by World Net Daily writer Molotov (and believe me when I say that the name fits) Mitchell has been around for months. It was shocking when I first saw it and when I view it now, I am still repulsed.

In this video, Mitchell criticizes Rick Warren for speaking out against the infamous Ugandan "kill the gays" bill.

And just so that no one mistakes his position, Mitchell goes into detail as to why he thinks Uganda is correct for pushing this bill, which goes as far as punishing gays and lesbians with the death penalty.

Amongst Mitchell's points:

The Bible is totally on Uganda's side,

Uganda is merely reacting because an "evil homosexual king, Mwanga" raped young boys and murdered a group of them who would not have sex with him (never mind that this incident took place between the years of 1885-1886),

Uganda "doesn't want to kill homosexuals, they just want them to stop practicing homosexual acts,"

If gay Ugandans don't like the law, they can leave,

and the Founding Fathers would have agreed with Ugandans. I believe his words were (at 2:51): "Ugandans are making decisions that our very Founding Fathers made so long ago but we are terrified to touch today."

But the most offensive item from this video comes at 3:00 when Mitchell actually evokes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to justify not only this bill but his labored defense of it: "Like the great Dr. King told us, 'the moral arm of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.' Ugandans, stay on the right side of history."

Mitchell's diatribe is probably the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and the fact that he actually evokes the words of Dr. King, a man who died for the causes of justice and nonviolence, to support a bill which would create genocide is beyond foul.

And it further illustrates the futility of the argument taking place between the gay and black communities about whether or not the civil rights movement of yesterday is the same as the gay rights movement of today.

Both communities need to recognize that while they are playing a useless game of position, people who share both identities (gay and black) are getting wiped out.