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.

Self-righteous indulgent tripe coming out of Charlotte

Part of the reason why the anti-gay industry is so successful in duping Christians in this country is because of the egos of the Christians themselves.

Case in point, this upcoming event out of Charlotte:

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, 704-782-3760

CHARLOTTE, 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."

Translation: A series of lectures where they will no doubt invite anti-gay industry spokespeople who will scare ignorant Christians about the so-called agenda of HRC and the gay and lesbian community at large.

Or: a group of lectures for people who are so wrapped up in their idea of what Christianity is that they have negative preconceived notions about gays and lesbians, preconceived notions that can be eradicated if they took the time to establish a dialogue with the gay and lesbian community in their midst rather than sit on their behinds and have their fears and egos stroked.

Am I making too much out of this? I don't think so. I am willing to guess that the only thing the Christians coming to these lectures know is that homosexuality is wrong, according to their beliefs. This is fine. They have that right to believe this.

However, since they think that homosexuality is wrong, they set themselves up to believe any negative thing about the gay and lesbian community.

How long will it be before the dreaded headless monster (i.e. the constantly refuted but repeated as truth notion) about the "gay life span" come up in these lectures?

Or how about the other headless monster that gays molest children at a high rate? I am sure that one will come up also.

Or maybe the misuse of the Netherlands study (that was compiled before same sex marriage was legalized in the Netherlands) to make the case against marriage equality.

Or if the lectures really get good, I am sure the Paul Cameronesque lies about feces and gerbiling will come up too.

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

"The HRC is not fighting for equal rights for all people. Instead, it wants to impose its agenda on others, including how we define marriage, how we run our businesses, how we teach our children, and even how we interpret the Bible. We feel that now is the right time to air our differences with the HRC in a rational and respectful manner. I am hopeful that they will respond to us in the same spirit with which we exercise our human right to differ with them."

After all, how can you establish a dialogue with a group of people who seem to want you to kiss their wannabe holy asses?

Yet another headless monster!!!!!!!!!!

I am off this week! Yaaaaay! So now it's time for serious work. I have to finish my manuscript before March 1.

But in my last post, I neglected to mention something. You may remember I was talking about how Peter LaBarbera took an unfortunate incident of a commentator threating him on Pam Spaulding's web page to recreate the execution of Joan of Arc with him as the star.

His supporting player in the drama, a blogger named George Archibald, took Pam to task, claiming that she attacks Christians. He listed several people she criticizes, including:

ALAN E. SEARS, president, CEO and general counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, who Spaulding’s Web site describes as “a foul, fundie legal group that is sponsoring The Day of Truth, to be held on April 27th, as a ‘counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective."’ What ADF is countering is The Day of Silence, a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the United States Student Association.

So how does the Allied Defense Fund and its Day of Truth combat the Day of Silence? By spreading lies about the gay community, of course. This time, the anti-gay industry wants school children to log on the Allied Defense Fund site and repeat the "headless monsters" they find there. The following is from my upcoming book, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters:

Case in point is the handout, The Ten Biggest Myths of Homosexual Behavior:
The handout claims that "homosexual behavior is at much higher risk for many sexually transmitted diseases, including not just HIV, but also syphilis, gonorrhea, human papilloma virus (HPV), hepatitis, chlamydia, and a whole group of infections called ‘gay bowel syndrome.’ But as shown in chapter one, "gay bowel syndrome" is an obsolete medical term that medical practitioners do not use.

The handout also makes the following claim:"The Centers for Disease Control have found that 60 percent of new cases of HIV infection are men who have had sex with men, and also that the number of homosexual men who admittedly neglect to use condoms is rising. Homosexual victims of AIDS, they found, had an average 1,100 sexual partners in their lifetimes. They estimated that 30 percent of 20-year-old homosexual men will be HIV positive or dead before they reach their thirtieth birthday." This claim is a blatant lie. CDC spokespeople have said that agency does not collect statistics on the life span of gay men. The claim is a Paul Cameronesque lie.

Just a little food for thought as to how the anti-gay industry continues to lie. One more point: please notice that the Allied Defense Fund claim that gays catch HPV at a high rate. The Allied Defense Fund is affiliated with the same right wing groups who don't want the HPV vaccine to be mandatory for school children.

Talk about your contradictions.

Oh Give Me A Break Peter and George! Stop Picking on Pam!

Apparently Peter LaBarbera and the so-called Americans for Truth About Homosexuality never met a situation they didn't try to milk for all it's worth.

This week, there was an unfortunate situation on Pam Spaulding's web page in which a commentator threatened Peter LaBarbera. Pam was alerted about it and took the post down. She also made it clear that posts like that are way over the line and should not be allowed. She was not aware of the post until it was brought to her attention, by the way.

You think the situation would be over? Come on! You know how Peter is. Today he is continuing to talk about it, even linking to another blog by someone by the name of George Archibald. Archibald says this about Pam:

She has a right to be an announced practising lesbian, but she does not have a right to be hateful against Christians and heterosexuals, which is evident throughout her Web site.
She links to Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay Lesbian Straight Educators Network (GLSEN) that pushes for acceptance of homosexuality in elementary, middle and high schools across our country.

Then on her Web site, Pamela Spaulding has a link called AmTALIBAN – meaning American Taliban – where she attacks by name 20 leaders of American Christian groups and makes spiteful, sexist, and hateful statements about their religious and cultural beliefs.

Now Archibald gets hypocritical because of what he says later in his blog:

Well, you get the tone of the crazies in this homosexual attack against heterosexuals and leaders of conservative Christian groups.

People like Pamela Spaulding, Kevin Jennings, and other homosexual activists want condoms given to everyone as part of their effort to promote gay sex. But maybe they all need diapers, as they obviously are intolerant and wetting themselves a lot over the fact that Americans mostly are actually a heterosexual religious culture that firmly rejects intolerance and promiscuity.

So calling Pam Spaulding a "crazie" isn't attacking her? Hardly.

That seems to be the new game the anti-gay industry is playing: whining that their "beliefs" are being attacked when they are called on their lies and hypocrisies. Catholic League for Religous and Civil Rights President William Donohue this week caused many problems with Sen. John Edwards using that same tactic. I still wait for his apology for his Anti-Semitic comments.

And the Family Research Council is getting in the act. This group is led by the same man, Tony Perkins, who thought it was okay to associate with the racist Ku Klux Klan and Council of Conservative Citizens.

I always wondered why there were no images of black people on the FRC site. Maybe now I know.

Now I am not one for making attacks. I like to use logic to make my case, and then go for the jugular. But in all honesty, I refuse to feel sorry for Peter LaBarbera or any of these "phony Christians (that's right, I said it). A man who has a web page that has a link called "Victims of Homosexual Murderers" does not get my sympathy.

I find it ironic that people who make it their life's work to use junk science and propaganda about gay people are now whining because they aren't getting a free pass for their nonsense.

Peter really should have not been threatened, but if you create a storm and then get caught in it, who should you blame other than yourself?

The anti-gay industry seems to want to play the victim now. I don't think so. I might remind them of just how ugly they were when President Bush won re-election in 2004. Their cocky bragging about how they "won the election" was disgusting. And as equally disgusting was the ways in which they attempted to move against the gay community, from plotting new ways to take away our rights to Paul Cameron thinking that it was okay to announce new lies about our life span and so-called propensity for dangerous behavior.

Don't even think about it, boys. You started this. And the vast majority of us who are trying to tell the truth about the lgbt community and how you have demonized us are not stooping to threats to get our point across.

We are the ones who you should be concerned about. Of course it really doesn't matter because we aren't going to stop until everyone knows how you lie.

Deal with that!

The kids are alright

An article today says that gay teens are coming out at earlier ages:

Gay teenagers are "coming out" earlier than ever, and many feel better about themselves than earlier generations of gays, youth leaders and researchers say. The change is happening in the wake of opinion polls that show growing acceptance of gays, more supportive adults and positive gay role models in popular media.

This means that slowly but surely we are winning this war. But what happens next is up to us elders. What we are dealing with is probably the first generation of the gay community who will define what it means to be lgbt rather than having society define it for them.

It is important that we give them as much support as possible. Exposing the anti-gay industry is only part of what needs to be done.

We also should make sure they have positive role models to look up to. The "Queer As Folk" mentality ain't gonna cut it anymore. In the past, we had to hide who we were and pick up habits that, while they meant our transitory survival, were mentally and spiritually destructive in the long run.

"Cruising," basing the value of our lives on our possessions and clique of friends, and masking our human emotions under guarded cynicism is no longer an option.

Not just for ourselves but for those who will take our place, we have to take stock assessing ourselves as a community, embracing our diversity, and looking beyond materialistic ideas of beauty and success. How us older ones carry ourselves will serve as a blueprint for those who come after us.

Let's give them a reason to be proud of being an lgbt.

100 posts later . . . no rest for the 'wicked'

First thing's first. A couple of you alerted me to an error I made on the last post regarding the Ted Haggard situation.

The guy speaking for Exodus International is Alan Chambers, not Alan Sears. A correction has been made.

Of course I should also point out that Alan Sears is with the Allied Defense Fund, another anti-gay industry group. It's so hard to keep up with those folks.

Also, there has been a bad situation brewing at Pam's House Blend. Apparently a commentor threatened our friend Peter LaBarbera, as well as posted his address.

As soon as Pam was alerted to this, she deleted the comment and made it clear that violence will not be tolerated in the fight to expose the lies of the anti-gay industry.

I would like to reiterate that point. When I say we must be aggressive in our fight for equality and the right to self-determination, I mean with our brains and our mouths, not with our fists and certainly not with guns. Despite what the anti-gay industry says about us, we are a people whose lives and loves should be celebrated. We are kings and queens and therefore should never have to stoop to the lowest common denominator to have our voices heard.

Now in the category of "there he goes again," but in a good way, Wayne Besen has a video from Dr. Kyle Pruett saying just how exactly did James Dobson misuse his work to make the case aganst gay parenting in a recent issue of Time magazine. Check it out.

In the category of "there she goes again," but in a bad way, Janet Folger is on WorldNetDaily whining about how Christians are going to be persecuted.

Her example of this is the recent Repent America situation. Of course Folger bypasses the truth that a judge threw out the lawsuit by Repent America. The group claimed its first amendment rights were violated when the group was arrested for disturbing a Pride festival in 2004.

Instead, Ms. Folger is attacking the heart strings by focusing on the fact that two of the Repent America members are elderly grandmothers.

Nice try, Janet but you really should ply your fear tactics on somewhere else. The fact that these two women were arrested is their own faults. They had no business trying to disrupt the festival. Sorry if I sound heartless but it is apparent that they was old enough to know better.

To quote the judge who threw the case out:

“There is no constitutional right to drown out the speech of another person.”

And for that matter, Ms. Folger should know better. The Repent America members were not "witnessing." They were being rude and disruptive and got what they deserved.

End of story.