South Carolina doesn't want gay tourists, but it will take pigs and "I Believe" license plates
And I thought I wouldn't have to post today.
But my home state is in the news and it involves the lgbt community:
South Carolina’s top tourism agency has canceled an overseas advertising campaign targeting gay tourists.
The campaign, tied to gay pride week celebrations in London, included ads that proclaimed “South Carolina is so gay.” A handful of other U.S. destinations joined the campaign, including Atlanta, Boston and New Orleans.
After learning last week the state had agreed to spend tax money on the campaign — and spurred by a post on The Palmetto Scoop blog — the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism said Thursday it would not pay the tour operator.
Parks, Recreation and Tourism director Chad Prosser said an agency advertising manager signed off on the contract, proposed by the agency’s London advertising contractor.
To me, this is a story of an advertising manager making a possibly unauthorized business deal. However since it talks about the gay community, leave it to our lovely legislators to not miss this sterling opportunity to bloviate about "values:"
Some lawmakers were shocked to learn about the campaign, with state Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, calling for an audit.
Joel Sawyer, spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, said using tax money to support a social or political agenda is inappropriate.
I get it: an ad campaign to generate tourist money is a part of an "agenda," but passing legislation regarding "I Believe" license plates is a-okay.
Geez.
Please bear in mind that this is the same governor who, in 2004, walked into the State House carrying two pigs.
He wanted to get back at the legislators who overrode his budget veto by symbolizing a protest against "pork projects."
The pigs symbolized things much better than Sanford hoped. In fact, they symbolized all over Sanford and the floor of the State House.
From what I hear, the smell was especially symbolic.
So in this talk of values, who do you choose: gay folks or the Governor who was once covered in pig droppings.
I'm choosing my lgbt brothers and sisters. At least I won't have to hold my nose when I hug them.
Box Turtle Bulletin exposes a hot mess
One of my favorite sites, Box Turtle Bulletin, has exposed an unfortunate incident involving an insurance company and anti-gay industry lies. It demonstrates how difficult it is to kill anti-gay junk science:
Insure.com is a publicly traded company with an advisory board ranging from a former US Senator to executives with various companies, including AT&T. The company is a major sponsor of Bill O’Reilly’s radio talk show and Bill gives voice to their commercial.
In addition to selling insurance, they provide information about the insurance industry. Joe White, an employee and company blog contributor, wrote two pieces in which he claimed that “being gay” was a health risk, and not just a minor one.
In an article on the business website entitled Top five ways to kill yourself and get away with it, White lists the number one way to kill yourself:
1. Being gay. A gay lifestyle is by far the biggest risk to life expectancy that goes unrecognized by insurance companies. The question has been considered by multiple studies, and the gay lifestyle is universally acknowledged to decrease life expectancy. A conservative estimate is that a gay lifestyle takes away 8-20 years from the average lifespan.
In other words, living a homosexual lifestyle has health risks at least as severe as smoking (by some estimates even more), but due to the sensitive nature of the issue, life insurance companies don’t charge different rates for gays. So gays save money on life insurance at the same rate they die young.
It turns out that Mr. White made this claim based on the distortion of the 1997 Canadian study (which I have talked about ad nauseum on this site) and the "research" of the discredited Paul Cameron.
It's like a horror movie. We just can't kill the monster.
But Box Turtle Bulletin is on the case, including contacting the CEO of Insure.com.
I commend them for their work.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
One News Now 'journalist' gets taught a lesson in truth
I am watching (and taking part in) an interesting war of words on a blog site.
But first a little background:
I have talked about Ken Hutcherson many times on this blog, especially that so-called protest he organized against the Day of Silence at Mount Si High School in Washington.
But as it is, the war between Hutcherson and Mount Si goes back farther than the Day of Silence.
It began when Hutcherson was invited to speak at the high school during Martin Luther King Jr. Day. His anti-gay reputation got some teachers and students upset at the invite. One booed him during the assembly (that wasn't good taste and the teacher was reprimanded).
Another teacher questioned Hutcherson's opposition to lgbt rights.
Needless to say, Hutcherson's ego was hurt and he has had it in for the Mount Si High School ever since.
A group of concerned parents began a blog to support students and the teachers at Mount Si High School. It is called Mount Si Parents and is a very informative site.
Hutcherson, meanwhile, has continued to pursue action against the teachers of Mount Si High School. He recently complained to Rosalund Jenkins, the executive director of the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs.
Apparently he didn't get what he wanted from her because he has now accused Jenkins of making racist comments.
It boggles the mind, doesn't it.
But I am getting the crux of this post.
One News Now in their familiar biased fashion published an article regarding the situation. I would link the article but One News Now has banned any linkage from me.
The Mount Si Parents blog published a post accusing One News Now of biased reporting. The blog also clarified several issues.
And now comes the rub.
Allegedly, the author of the One News Now article, Jeff Johnson was very, shall we say, offended by what was said. He took it upon himself to say so. You can read his entire post if you pan down to it.
In part, it said:
Anonymous #1 said "One News Now is known for spinning incorrect and biased stories." Really? We report news from a biblical perspective and clearly advertise that fact in the "About" section on our site. If you reject the Bible as the infallible Word of God, you're not going to agree with our perspective on stories involving homosexuality. Similarly, if you are politically conservative, you're not going to agree with the perspective from which The New York Times reports political news. All news outlets report from a perspective. The difference is, we admit ours.
Anonymous #2 wrote: "Just in case there's any doubt about the credibility of One News Now as a legitimate news source, check out this PI Big Blog post about their story which identified sprinter Tyson Gay's name as Tyson Homosexual in stories about his record-setting run at the Olympic Trials."
Yes, we set up an automated filter to catch the politically correct word "gay" in reference to people who choose to have sex with others of the same gender, who are more accurately referred to as "homosexuals." And, yes, we forgot to take into account that there are some people whose first or last names are "Gay." The error has been corrected.
The Associated Press uses the word "gay" instead of the word "homosexual" because that's the word homosexual activists prefer. Those activists prefer the word "gay" because it's a very positive word that takes the focus off the fact that the issue under debate is their choice of sex partners.
By that reasoning, the Associated Press should refer to people who oppose abortion as "pro-life" because it is the term that group prefers and it's a positive term that takes the focus off their advocacy for restriction access to abortion.
But the AP is biased in favor of homosexuality and in opposition to restricting abortion. So they use the positive term "gay" to refer to those they support and the negative term "anti-abortion" to refer to those they oppose.
OneNewsNow tried to automatically write the AP's obvious pro-homosexual bias out of their stories as published on our site and the initial way we chose to do that didn't work out so well. Another News Flash: We're human. We made a mistake. The difference between us and the "mainstream" media is, when we became aware of the mistake, we admitted it and corrected it. Try to get that kind of response from a major newspaper or television news network. . .
But I will challenge anyone who uses the word "lie" to describe my reporting. You may not agree with the biblical perspective from which I report the news. That is your right and I am thankful that we live in a country where we can agree to disagree on that issue. But I ALWAYS endeavor to report the truth as accurately as possible within my human limitations of gathering information and discerning who is and is not being honest with me.
A "lie" is an intentional misrepresentation of the truth. There are no lies in my reporting, unless I quote someone who is lying, and I will not knowingly report even that kind of statement.
Needless to say, Jeff got his ass handed to him. Various returned comments said the following:
No one is accusing YOU of lying, you are merely printing Hutchersons LIES!
Any good reporter would actually fact check their sources before making such allegations.
All of the facts are readily available to anyone who wants to be informed.
Tell me Mr. Reporter man, did you contact Dr. Potratz for his side of the story?
Have you read through the archives of the local media covering this story for the past six months?
Of course not! You just take the word of a blow hard bigot like Hutch as the truth!
Do some research and pretend you are a journalist!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This isn't the first time you have printed falsehoods because you failed to research. Here is just one example;
As previously reported, one of the teachers who booed Hutcherson sponsors the school's Gay Straight Alliance -- and also happens to teach his daughter's advanced placement British literature class. According to the pastor, his daughter has continued to suffer emotional stress in that classroom since the school assembly. But his requests to have the teacher removed from the class have been denied, forcing him to enroll his daughter, who is a senior, in an online class with the University of Washington.
This is NOT true.
Dr. Potratz booed the blow hard, NOT Kit McCormick who is the GSA advisor in question.
FACT CHECK, it's not hard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for you ONN apologetics, you folks are nothing like the New York Times, they make an effort to report the truth, you folks "report" pleasing spin for your fundamentalist audience.
As for your rewriting of AP stories to conform to your version of Political Correctness, just where was your published correction on the Tyson Gay debacle? I must have missed it, from what I saw you merely corrected the story and pretended that the error never happened. Unlike a real news source (e.g. the NYT, which publishes a correction when they make a mistake.)
So maybe you didn't intentionally misrepresent the facts in your story, but for someone, who labels himself a reporter, you showed an appalling disregard for the accuracy of your reporting. Where is your interview with Potratz to get his side of the story? Did you even bother to speak to him? Or did you just accept Hutcherson's version of events because you knew it would be pleasing to your readers (and undoubtably your bosses as well)?
Another thing journalists do is investigate, rather than just regurgitate one sides talking points. Your story reads like a Ken Hutcherson press release from a conservative activist(a fairly common thing on ONN).
Your work may not be intentional lies, but it is dishonest and disingenuous, just like your defense of it here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
dear jeff,
A lot of times, One News Now articles are just one-person interviews with someone who takes their point of view.
If you doubt me, take a look at their site now. There are several Barack Obama articles present but none of them have any comments from the Obama campaign.
Being Christian is no excuse for bad journalism.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and let's not forget when one news now (when it was agape press) used to freely cite paul cameron as a pro-family expert without filling its readers in on his history of distortion, censures and organizational rebukes (like from the APA for example)
This discussion is still going on. Of course there are some people who are actually trying to defend Johnson. My favorite is the following:
where in the Bible (the guide for a Christian’s life) does it say “Thou shalt not be biased”??? I don’t seem to see that anywhere and since you obviously can’t accept that two people can see the same situation differently (which I alluded to in an earlier post), let me remind you of the MOST biased of all Christians, Jesus Christ Himself, when in the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 6 He states: “I am the way and the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me.”
But I have noticed that Johnson has not posted anything else as a response.
It must be hard when you have to deal with the real world instead of the world of Dobson and Wildmon.
I am watching (and taking part in) an interesting war of words on a blog site.
But first a little background:
I have talked about Ken Hutcherson many times on this blog, especially that so-called protest he organized against the Day of Silence at Mount Si High School in Washington.
But as it is, the war between Hutcherson and Mount Si goes back farther than the Day of Silence.
It began when Hutcherson was invited to speak at the high school during Martin Luther King Jr. Day. His anti-gay reputation got some teachers and students upset at the invite. One booed him during the assembly (that wasn't good taste and the teacher was reprimanded).
Another teacher questioned Hutcherson's opposition to lgbt rights.
Needless to say, Hutcherson's ego was hurt and he has had it in for the Mount Si High School ever since.
A group of concerned parents began a blog to support students and the teachers at Mount Si High School. It is called Mount Si Parents and is a very informative site.
Hutcherson, meanwhile, has continued to pursue action against the teachers of Mount Si High School. He recently complained to Rosalund Jenkins, the executive director of the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs.
Apparently he didn't get what he wanted from her because he has now accused Jenkins of making racist comments.
It boggles the mind, doesn't it.
But I am getting the crux of this post.
One News Now in their familiar biased fashion published an article regarding the situation. I would link the article but One News Now has banned any linkage from me.
The Mount Si Parents blog published a post accusing One News Now of biased reporting. The blog also clarified several issues.
And now comes the rub.
Allegedly, the author of the One News Now article, Jeff Johnson was very, shall we say, offended by what was said. He took it upon himself to say so. You can read his entire post if you pan down to it.
In part, it said:
Anonymous #1 said "One News Now is known for spinning incorrect and biased stories." Really? We report news from a biblical perspective and clearly advertise that fact in the "About" section on our site. If you reject the Bible as the infallible Word of God, you're not going to agree with our perspective on stories involving homosexuality. Similarly, if you are politically conservative, you're not going to agree with the perspective from which The New York Times reports political news. All news outlets report from a perspective. The difference is, we admit ours.
Anonymous #2 wrote: "Just in case there's any doubt about the credibility of One News Now as a legitimate news source, check out this PI Big Blog post about their story which identified sprinter Tyson Gay's name as Tyson Homosexual in stories about his record-setting run at the Olympic Trials."
Yes, we set up an automated filter to catch the politically correct word "gay" in reference to people who choose to have sex with others of the same gender, who are more accurately referred to as "homosexuals." And, yes, we forgot to take into account that there are some people whose first or last names are "Gay." The error has been corrected.
The Associated Press uses the word "gay" instead of the word "homosexual" because that's the word homosexual activists prefer. Those activists prefer the word "gay" because it's a very positive word that takes the focus off the fact that the issue under debate is their choice of sex partners.
By that reasoning, the Associated Press should refer to people who oppose abortion as "pro-life" because it is the term that group prefers and it's a positive term that takes the focus off their advocacy for restriction access to abortion.
But the AP is biased in favor of homosexuality and in opposition to restricting abortion. So they use the positive term "gay" to refer to those they support and the negative term "anti-abortion" to refer to those they oppose.
OneNewsNow tried to automatically write the AP's obvious pro-homosexual bias out of their stories as published on our site and the initial way we chose to do that didn't work out so well. Another News Flash: We're human. We made a mistake. The difference between us and the "mainstream" media is, when we became aware of the mistake, we admitted it and corrected it. Try to get that kind of response from a major newspaper or television news network. . .
But I will challenge anyone who uses the word "lie" to describe my reporting. You may not agree with the biblical perspective from which I report the news. That is your right and I am thankful that we live in a country where we can agree to disagree on that issue. But I ALWAYS endeavor to report the truth as accurately as possible within my human limitations of gathering information and discerning who is and is not being honest with me.
A "lie" is an intentional misrepresentation of the truth. There are no lies in my reporting, unless I quote someone who is lying, and I will not knowingly report even that kind of statement.
Needless to say, Jeff got his ass handed to him. Various returned comments said the following:
No one is accusing YOU of lying, you are merely printing Hutchersons LIES!
Any good reporter would actually fact check their sources before making such allegations.
All of the facts are readily available to anyone who wants to be informed.
Tell me Mr. Reporter man, did you contact Dr. Potratz for his side of the story?
Have you read through the archives of the local media covering this story for the past six months?
Of course not! You just take the word of a blow hard bigot like Hutch as the truth!
Do some research and pretend you are a journalist!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This isn't the first time you have printed falsehoods because you failed to research. Here is just one example;
As previously reported, one of the teachers who booed Hutcherson sponsors the school's Gay Straight Alliance -- and also happens to teach his daughter's advanced placement British literature class. According to the pastor, his daughter has continued to suffer emotional stress in that classroom since the school assembly. But his requests to have the teacher removed from the class have been denied, forcing him to enroll his daughter, who is a senior, in an online class with the University of Washington.
This is NOT true.
Dr. Potratz booed the blow hard, NOT Kit McCormick who is the GSA advisor in question.
FACT CHECK, it's not hard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for you ONN apologetics, you folks are nothing like the New York Times, they make an effort to report the truth, you folks "report" pleasing spin for your fundamentalist audience.
As for your rewriting of AP stories to conform to your version of Political Correctness, just where was your published correction on the Tyson Gay debacle? I must have missed it, from what I saw you merely corrected the story and pretended that the error never happened. Unlike a real news source (e.g. the NYT, which publishes a correction when they make a mistake.)
So maybe you didn't intentionally misrepresent the facts in your story, but for someone, who labels himself a reporter, you showed an appalling disregard for the accuracy of your reporting. Where is your interview with Potratz to get his side of the story? Did you even bother to speak to him? Or did you just accept Hutcherson's version of events because you knew it would be pleasing to your readers (and undoubtably your bosses as well)?
Another thing journalists do is investigate, rather than just regurgitate one sides talking points. Your story reads like a Ken Hutcherson press release from a conservative activist(a fairly common thing on ONN).
Your work may not be intentional lies, but it is dishonest and disingenuous, just like your defense of it here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
dear jeff,
A lot of times, One News Now articles are just one-person interviews with someone who takes their point of view.
If you doubt me, take a look at their site now. There are several Barack Obama articles present but none of them have any comments from the Obama campaign.
Being Christian is no excuse for bad journalism.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and let's not forget when one news now (when it was agape press) used to freely cite paul cameron as a pro-family expert without filling its readers in on his history of distortion, censures and organizational rebukes (like from the APA for example)
This discussion is still going on. Of course there are some people who are actually trying to defend Johnson. My favorite is the following:
where in the Bible (the guide for a Christian’s life) does it say “Thou shalt not be biased”??? I don’t seem to see that anywhere and since you obviously can’t accept that two people can see the same situation differently (which I alluded to in an earlier post), let me remind you of the MOST biased of all Christians, Jesus Christ Himself, when in the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 6 He states: “I am the way and the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me.”
But I have noticed that Johnson has not posted anything else as a response.
It must be hard when you have to deal with the real world instead of the world of Dobson and Wildmon.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
What happens in Arkansas may happen elsewhere
Something is presently happening in Arkansas that could negatively affect lgbts in the future:
The Little Rock, AR based organization largely responsible for placing a constitutional ban against gay marriage in Arkansas in 2004, is back in 2008 with an anti-gay adoption ban.
On Monday, the Family Council Action Committee (FCAC) met a deadline to submit 61,974 signatures to the Secretary of State to place a proposed law banning unmarried couples from adopting children on the November ballot. While the initiative bans both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, the organization's website lists banning gay and lesbian couples from adoption as a goal of the law.
The Arkansas Adoption Act makes it illegal for adoptive and foster care children to be placed in homes with individuals who cohabit with a sexual partner. Single people, living alone, would be free from the restrictions.
Arkansas did initially bar gays from adopting or becoming foster parents before the state court struck down the law. Then the legislature wouldn't pass a law prohibiting lgbts from adopting or becoming foster parents.
So now some folks are taking the "let the people decide through a vote" route. And while they have tried to word the law to make it seem that its not an attack on lgbts, they freely admit that it is:
“[The Arkansas Adoption Act] is about two things. It's about child welfare, first of all. Secondly, it is to blunt a homosexual agenda that's at work in other states and that will be at work in Arkansas unless we are proactive about doing something about it,” FCAC Executive Director Jerry Cox told Fox16 News.
This attempt is nothing new. After their success in banning gay marriage, the anti-gay industry have long had their sights on making it more difficult for lgbts to be foster or adoptive parents. It is obvious that Arkansas is a testing ground. If they are successful there, then they are going to try the same thing in other states.
What gets me is this part:
The FCAC lists three primary reasons for the law: For the safety of children, to increase the number of prospective homes, and to “blunt a homosexual agenda.”
Increase the number of homes? How can you increase the number of homes that will take in children by prohibiting potential foster and adoptive parents?
Sadly, that question is not answered by the FCAC in the article.
And that is the crux of the fallacy involving denying lgbts the right to be foster and adoptive parents.
According to the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice and Permanency Planning:
510,000 = Number of children in foster care on September 30, 2006
129,000 = Number of children waiting to be adopted on September 30, 2006
51,000 = Number of children adopted from the public foster care system in FY 2006
And according to the Department of Health and Human Services' s Administration for Children & Families, 984 Arkansas children were waiting to be adopted in 2005.
But I bet the FCAC law doesn't address that point.
What we get from them is the same talking point the anti-gay industry shovels about children in foster care:
Children have a right to a mother and father.
But (and here is the rub) the FCAC potential law does not guarantee that children in foster care will be placed in this type of home. In fact, it does not guarantee that children in foster care will be placed into a home at all.
You see, this talking point is not designed to do anything but create the premise that somehow two-parent heterosexual households are being discriminated against for the sake of same-sex households.
And according to national figures, this notion just isn't true.
Children don't necessarily need a home that appeals to someone's limited view of "family.
Children need homes where they can receive love and support.
And there are no studies that say they cannot receive love and support from a same-sex home.
But thanks to FCAC, Arkansas children in foster care may not get any home at all.
Something is presently happening in Arkansas that could negatively affect lgbts in the future:
The Little Rock, AR based organization largely responsible for placing a constitutional ban against gay marriage in Arkansas in 2004, is back in 2008 with an anti-gay adoption ban.
On Monday, the Family Council Action Committee (FCAC) met a deadline to submit 61,974 signatures to the Secretary of State to place a proposed law banning unmarried couples from adopting children on the November ballot. While the initiative bans both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, the organization's website lists banning gay and lesbian couples from adoption as a goal of the law.
The Arkansas Adoption Act makes it illegal for adoptive and foster care children to be placed in homes with individuals who cohabit with a sexual partner. Single people, living alone, would be free from the restrictions.
Arkansas did initially bar gays from adopting or becoming foster parents before the state court struck down the law. Then the legislature wouldn't pass a law prohibiting lgbts from adopting or becoming foster parents.
So now some folks are taking the "let the people decide through a vote" route. And while they have tried to word the law to make it seem that its not an attack on lgbts, they freely admit that it is:
“[The Arkansas Adoption Act] is about two things. It's about child welfare, first of all. Secondly, it is to blunt a homosexual agenda that's at work in other states and that will be at work in Arkansas unless we are proactive about doing something about it,” FCAC Executive Director Jerry Cox told Fox16 News.
This attempt is nothing new. After their success in banning gay marriage, the anti-gay industry have long had their sights on making it more difficult for lgbts to be foster or adoptive parents. It is obvious that Arkansas is a testing ground. If they are successful there, then they are going to try the same thing in other states.
What gets me is this part:
The FCAC lists three primary reasons for the law: For the safety of children, to increase the number of prospective homes, and to “blunt a homosexual agenda.”
Increase the number of homes? How can you increase the number of homes that will take in children by prohibiting potential foster and adoptive parents?
Sadly, that question is not answered by the FCAC in the article.
And that is the crux of the fallacy involving denying lgbts the right to be foster and adoptive parents.
According to the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice and Permanency Planning:
510,000 = Number of children in foster care on September 30, 2006
129,000 = Number of children waiting to be adopted on September 30, 2006
51,000 = Number of children adopted from the public foster care system in FY 2006
And according to the Department of Health and Human Services' s Administration for Children & Families, 984 Arkansas children were waiting to be adopted in 2005.
But I bet the FCAC law doesn't address that point.
What we get from them is the same talking point the anti-gay industry shovels about children in foster care:
Children have a right to a mother and father.
But (and here is the rub) the FCAC potential law does not guarantee that children in foster care will be placed in this type of home. In fact, it does not guarantee that children in foster care will be placed into a home at all.
You see, this talking point is not designed to do anything but create the premise that somehow two-parent heterosexual households are being discriminated against for the sake of same-sex households.
And according to national figures, this notion just isn't true.
Children don't necessarily need a home that appeals to someone's limited view of "family.
Children need homes where they can receive love and support.
And there are no studies that say they cannot receive love and support from a same-sex home.
But thanks to FCAC, Arkansas children in foster care may not get any home at all.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
It's Tuesday - oh boy
Well it's Tuesday and I'm all alone.
My mother has gone to Pennsylvania to participate in my uncle's wedding. That leaves me home alone until Monday. This means that I can indulge in two of my favorite guilty pleasures - butter almond ice cream and porn.
Just kidding. Butter almond ice cream is so fattening.
Seriously though, last week I alluded to the fact that I can no longer link from One News Now. Is it just me or does the site see me as a hinderance to their message?
My linkage now takes one to a Rick Astley video on Youtube. But the joke is on One News Now. I happen to like Rick Astley.
Redhaired men are my weakness.
Who am I kidding? Men with a pulse are my weakness.
However I won't be using this time alone to catch up on my quota. And when I say quota, I mean the following - according to the anti-gay industry, gay men have over 500 partners a year . . . or is it 1,000 partners in a lifetime . . . or is it 1,500 partners on Judy Garland's birthday.
Really though, just who is so damned egotistical to count sexual partners? And just what is the criteria for an official sex act. Does heavy petting count?
More importantly, why can't I find any of those slutty gay guys?
Whatever the case may be, I am waaaay behind on the quota. If I don't get some soon, then national headquarters is going to come and get me for re-education.
From what I understand, it involves being locked in a small room somewhere in the Castro and being forced to watch Barbara Streisand movies for 48 hours.
And not the good ones but the ones she made when she was blatant about wanting the Oscar for Best Director.
Something that I haven't talked about is the American Family Association's boycott of McDonalds.
Apparently because McDonalds donated $20,000 to the Gay and Lesbian National Chamber of Commerce and because the company has the audacity to protect its employees against discrimination, Donald Wildmon and that bunch has branded it public enemy number one.
You know the vernacular - "McDonalds has signed on to the radical homosexual agenda." "McDonalds is no longer for families." "Ronald McDonald and Grimace are secret lovers."
Well McDonalds has gained a loyal customer because of the boycott - yours truly.
Lastly, if you all are still here and not thinking that I am insane, I want to let you in on something that I realized last week.
Some members of U.S. Senate are pushing for that dreary marriage amendment. Not only that, but two of the sponsors are Larry "wide stance in the toilet" Craig and David "hey, prostitutes need to pay the bills too" Vitter.
Craig is a hot mess himself but doesn't the fact that Vitter is sponsoring this bill goes to prove that a lot of the things the anti-gay industry says about gay men aren't true?
They like to claim that we have so much anal sex that we end up wearing diapers.
If this was the case, then wouldn't Vitter be our ally, with his love of diapers and all?
Think about it.
And hopefully by tomorrow, I will be in a normal frame of mind.
Well it's Tuesday and I'm all alone.
My mother has gone to Pennsylvania to participate in my uncle's wedding. That leaves me home alone until Monday. This means that I can indulge in two of my favorite guilty pleasures - butter almond ice cream and porn.
Just kidding. Butter almond ice cream is so fattening.
Seriously though, last week I alluded to the fact that I can no longer link from One News Now. Is it just me or does the site see me as a hinderance to their message?
My linkage now takes one to a Rick Astley video on Youtube. But the joke is on One News Now. I happen to like Rick Astley.
Redhaired men are my weakness.
Who am I kidding? Men with a pulse are my weakness.
However I won't be using this time alone to catch up on my quota. And when I say quota, I mean the following - according to the anti-gay industry, gay men have over 500 partners a year . . . or is it 1,000 partners in a lifetime . . . or is it 1,500 partners on Judy Garland's birthday.
Really though, just who is so damned egotistical to count sexual partners? And just what is the criteria for an official sex act. Does heavy petting count?
More importantly, why can't I find any of those slutty gay guys?
Whatever the case may be, I am waaaay behind on the quota. If I don't get some soon, then national headquarters is going to come and get me for re-education.
From what I understand, it involves being locked in a small room somewhere in the Castro and being forced to watch Barbara Streisand movies for 48 hours.
And not the good ones but the ones she made when she was blatant about wanting the Oscar for Best Director.
Something that I haven't talked about is the American Family Association's boycott of McDonalds.
Apparently because McDonalds donated $20,000 to the Gay and Lesbian National Chamber of Commerce and because the company has the audacity to protect its employees against discrimination, Donald Wildmon and that bunch has branded it public enemy number one.
You know the vernacular - "McDonalds has signed on to the radical homosexual agenda." "McDonalds is no longer for families." "Ronald McDonald and Grimace are secret lovers."
Well McDonalds has gained a loyal customer because of the boycott - yours truly.
Lastly, if you all are still here and not thinking that I am insane, I want to let you in on something that I realized last week.
Some members of U.S. Senate are pushing for that dreary marriage amendment. Not only that, but two of the sponsors are Larry "wide stance in the toilet" Craig and David "hey, prostitutes need to pay the bills too" Vitter.
Craig is a hot mess himself but doesn't the fact that Vitter is sponsoring this bill goes to prove that a lot of the things the anti-gay industry says about gay men aren't true?
They like to claim that we have so much anal sex that we end up wearing diapers.
If this was the case, then wouldn't Vitter be our ally, with his love of diapers and all?
Think about it.
And hopefully by tomorrow, I will be in a normal frame of mind.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Jesse Helms - Life, Death, and the Inability to Stop Evolution
One of the most anti-gay individuals in the United States, former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, passed away during the Fourth of July holiday.
Some of us are probably dancing in joy over his passage. The mainstream media is slowly tiptoeing over his controversial history as an anti-gay Senator.
The anti-gay industry is treating his death like the passage of George Washington.
But I want to take another tack.
In the past year and a half, the lgbt community has seen the passing away of three of our most persistent opponents.
There was Jerry Falwell, who will always be defined not by his influence on politics but the bad choices he made.
During the beginning of the AIDS crisis, he could have ministered to the sick. However, he took advantage of the calamity to enhance his own reputation. Through rhetoric and brochures designed to scare and inflame ignorance, he exploited and grew fat off of the suffering of those who stricken with the disease.
Worse than that, his actions served as a blueprint. Like some female monster out of mythology, his efforts sired offspring either equally or more determined to demonize the lgbt community; i.e. Paul Cameron, Peter LaBarbera, the LaHayes, James Dobson, Janet Folger, etc.
Then there was James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, who wrapped himself up in Biblical doctrine and demanded that others repented while he spun untrue stories of ACLU and homosexual boogeyman and secretly worked to convert America into a theocracy.
Then comes the third party in the triumvirate: Jesse Helms.
Helms was a man who claimed that this country needed a "spiritual revival," while freely and openly feeding on fear.
He was a shining example of not only the underside of this country, but of human nature in general. Hateful, homophobic, and racist, Helms was so stewed in the self-righteous juices of his own rhetoric that he was immune to its bad smell.
He was like that dog in the Aesop fable; the one who was so unruly that he was given a bell as a badge of shame. In his ignorance, the dog mistook the bell as a symbol of pride.
Such was Helms when he heard himself being described as a bigot.
I group those men together to emphasize a point. No matter how many lies they spun, how offensive their words were, or how many people they swayed, in the great scheme of things, Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms are pretty much irrelevant.
Why? Because while they hindered lgbts, they did not stop us. We are still here and we are strong. In fact, we continue to get stronger every day.
Lgbt children are coming out at earlier ages, same-sex families are beginning to be acknowledged as they should be, and slowly but surely, the entire community is evolving past being punchlines, past secret encounters in public places, and into the mainstream.
We are rejecting the lies spun by folks like Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms that our sexual orientation somehow disqualifies us from having substantial lives.
And most of all, we are rejecting the lie that God did not create us to be the proud lgbt people that a vast majority of us are.
In the long run, Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms served their purpose. Every successful hero needs a villain to triumph over. Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms were our villains.
And we defeated them.
Not by voting them out of office or exposing them as liars (although those things would have been nice.) We defeated them by simply enduring.
So while some may think what I am saying is in bad taste, just think of Helms (not to mention Falwell and Kennedy for that matter) as footnotes in our struggle for equality.
Let our successes be their epitaphs.
One of the most anti-gay individuals in the United States, former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, passed away during the Fourth of July holiday.
Some of us are probably dancing in joy over his passage. The mainstream media is slowly tiptoeing over his controversial history as an anti-gay Senator.
The anti-gay industry is treating his death like the passage of George Washington.
But I want to take another tack.
In the past year and a half, the lgbt community has seen the passing away of three of our most persistent opponents.
There was Jerry Falwell, who will always be defined not by his influence on politics but the bad choices he made.
During the beginning of the AIDS crisis, he could have ministered to the sick. However, he took advantage of the calamity to enhance his own reputation. Through rhetoric and brochures designed to scare and inflame ignorance, he exploited and grew fat off of the suffering of those who stricken with the disease.
Worse than that, his actions served as a blueprint. Like some female monster out of mythology, his efforts sired offspring either equally or more determined to demonize the lgbt community; i.e. Paul Cameron, Peter LaBarbera, the LaHayes, James Dobson, Janet Folger, etc.
Then there was James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, who wrapped himself up in Biblical doctrine and demanded that others repented while he spun untrue stories of ACLU and homosexual boogeyman and secretly worked to convert America into a theocracy.
Then comes the third party in the triumvirate: Jesse Helms.
Helms was a man who claimed that this country needed a "spiritual revival," while freely and openly feeding on fear.
He was a shining example of not only the underside of this country, but of human nature in general. Hateful, homophobic, and racist, Helms was so stewed in the self-righteous juices of his own rhetoric that he was immune to its bad smell.
He was like that dog in the Aesop fable; the one who was so unruly that he was given a bell as a badge of shame. In his ignorance, the dog mistook the bell as a symbol of pride.
Such was Helms when he heard himself being described as a bigot.
I group those men together to emphasize a point. No matter how many lies they spun, how offensive their words were, or how many people they swayed, in the great scheme of things, Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms are pretty much irrelevant.
Why? Because while they hindered lgbts, they did not stop us. We are still here and we are strong. In fact, we continue to get stronger every day.
Lgbt children are coming out at earlier ages, same-sex families are beginning to be acknowledged as they should be, and slowly but surely, the entire community is evolving past being punchlines, past secret encounters in public places, and into the mainstream.
We are rejecting the lies spun by folks like Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms that our sexual orientation somehow disqualifies us from having substantial lives.
And most of all, we are rejecting the lie that God did not create us to be the proud lgbt people that a vast majority of us are.
In the long run, Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms served their purpose. Every successful hero needs a villain to triumph over. Falwell, Kennedy, and Helms were our villains.
And we defeated them.
Not by voting them out of office or exposing them as liars (although those things would have been nice.) We defeated them by simply enduring.
So while some may think what I am saying is in bad taste, just think of Helms (not to mention Falwell and Kennedy for that matter) as footnotes in our struggle for equality.
Let our successes be their epitaphs.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Matt Barber returns to spin another distortion
Matt Barber may have left Concerned Women for America, but he still continues to distort research.
One News Now (your favorite phony news source and mine) published a piece by him entitled: Children in the 'gay marriage' crosshairs .
This piece follows standard anti-gay industry talking points that include: "marriage presents the best way to raise children" and "children deserve a mother and a father."
For the record, children deserve a good home where they have love and support. This doesn't necessarily only come from a home that features a mother and father. It can come from a home that features only a mother or only a father. Or two mothers or two fathers for that matter.
In fact in this country, families that don't fit the "traditional definition" are raising children and are doing it quite well.
They just don't matter to the anti-gay industry.
But I deviate from my point. Barber's column features the following:
While standing before the Courts of Justice Committee of the Virginia Senate in 2005, Robert Knight, former director of the Culture and Family Institute, testified to the following:
"In 2001, a team of pro-homosexual researchers from the University of Southern California did a meta-analysis of 'gay parenting' studies and published a refreshingly honest article in American Sociological Review, '(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?'
"The authors concluded that, yes, studies show that girls are more likely to 'be sexually adventurous and less chaste,' including being more likely to try lesbianism, and that boys are more likely to have 'fluid' conceptions of gender roles, and that researchers should stop trying to cover this up in the hopes of pursuing a pro-homosexual agenda. The researchers said, in effect: Some of the kids are more likely to turn out gay or bisexual, but so what?"
Of course this is a blatant lie, but typical of Robert Knight. Before Knight joined another group, the Media Resource Center, he was involved with Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.
While with these groups, Knight freely cited discredited researcher Paul Cameron, as well as distorted credible research in order to paint a negative picture of the lgbt community.
The example Barber used is just par for the course.
The study cited, (How) Does Sexual Orientation of the Parent Matter, was written by Timothy Biblarz and Judith Stacey.
My guess is that Barber intentionally omitted the authors of the study because, you see, Stacey has gone on record complaining as to how her work has been distorted.
But let's look at the "horse's mouth," so to speak.
A look at the Stacey/Biblarz study shows that what was said is more complex than what Barber and Knight claim.
Here is what the passage (page 171) actually said:
Tasker and Golombok (1997) also report some fascinating findings on the number of sexual partners children report having had between puberty and young adulthood. Relative to their counterparts with heterosexual parents, the adolescent and young adult girls raised by lesbian mothers appear to have been more sexually adventurous and less chaste, whereas the sons of lesbians evince the opposite pattern—somewhat less sexually adventurous and more chaste (the finding was statistically significant for the 25- girl sample but not for the 18-boy sample).
In other words, once again, children (especially girls) raised by lesbians appear to depart from traditional gender-based norms while children raised by heterosexual mothers appear to conform to them. Yet this provocative finding of differences in sexual behavior and agency has not been analyzed or investigated further.
The gender-based roles that Stacey and Biblarz alluded to is in this passage on page 168:
For example, lesbian mothers in R. Green et al. (1986) reported that their children, especially daughters, more frequently dress, play, and behave in ways that do not conform to sex-typed cultural norms. Likewise, daughters of lesbian mothers reported greater interest in activities associated with both “masculine” and “feminine” qualities and that involve the participation of both sexes, whereas daughters of heterosexual mothers report significantly greater interest in traditionally feminine, same-sex activities (also see Hotvedt and Mandel 1982).
Similarly, daughters with lesbian mothers reported higher aspirations to nontraditional gender occupations (Steckel 1987). For example, in R. Green et al. (1986), 53 percent (16 out of 30) of the daughters of lesbians aspired to careers such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, and astronaut, compared with only 21 percent (6 of 28) of the daughters of heterosexual mothers.
So it sounds like that Stacey and Biblarz were actually saying that children raised by lgbts don't necessarily conform to the "traditional" gender roles. This point is alluded to throughout the entire study.
But Knight and Barber took passages out of the study to extrapolate the following incorrect stereotype: gays and lesbians raising children will lead to girls being lesbians and sluts and boys putting on dresses.
It's sad how these supposed Christians will lie. I think that the following point Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes made at a teleconference call says it all:
Those who oppose civil equality for gays and lesbians are actively distorting, cherry-picking, and misrepresenting the social science research in their attempts to justify discrimination . . . and unfortunately, the media often reports these distortions without investigating and fact checking them. Politicians and legislators then use that misinformation to pass bans on marriage equality, as well as foster parenting and adoption by same gender parents.
So my question to you all is: how do we stop it?
Matt Barber may have left Concerned Women for America, but he still continues to distort research.
One News Now (your favorite phony news source and mine) published a piece by him entitled: Children in the 'gay marriage' crosshairs .
This piece follows standard anti-gay industry talking points that include: "marriage presents the best way to raise children" and "children deserve a mother and a father."
For the record, children deserve a good home where they have love and support. This doesn't necessarily only come from a home that features a mother and father. It can come from a home that features only a mother or only a father. Or two mothers or two fathers for that matter.
In fact in this country, families that don't fit the "traditional definition" are raising children and are doing it quite well.
They just don't matter to the anti-gay industry.
But I deviate from my point. Barber's column features the following:
While standing before the Courts of Justice Committee of the Virginia Senate in 2005, Robert Knight, former director of the Culture and Family Institute, testified to the following:
"In 2001, a team of pro-homosexual researchers from the University of Southern California did a meta-analysis of 'gay parenting' studies and published a refreshingly honest article in American Sociological Review, '(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?'
"The authors concluded that, yes, studies show that girls are more likely to 'be sexually adventurous and less chaste,' including being more likely to try lesbianism, and that boys are more likely to have 'fluid' conceptions of gender roles, and that researchers should stop trying to cover this up in the hopes of pursuing a pro-homosexual agenda. The researchers said, in effect: Some of the kids are more likely to turn out gay or bisexual, but so what?"
Of course this is a blatant lie, but typical of Robert Knight. Before Knight joined another group, the Media Resource Center, he was involved with Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.
While with these groups, Knight freely cited discredited researcher Paul Cameron, as well as distorted credible research in order to paint a negative picture of the lgbt community.
The example Barber used is just par for the course.
The study cited, (How) Does Sexual Orientation of the Parent Matter, was written by Timothy Biblarz and Judith Stacey.
My guess is that Barber intentionally omitted the authors of the study because, you see, Stacey has gone on record complaining as to how her work has been distorted.
But let's look at the "horse's mouth," so to speak.
A look at the Stacey/Biblarz study shows that what was said is more complex than what Barber and Knight claim.
Here is what the passage (page 171) actually said:
Tasker and Golombok (1997) also report some fascinating findings on the number of sexual partners children report having had between puberty and young adulthood. Relative to their counterparts with heterosexual parents, the adolescent and young adult girls raised by lesbian mothers appear to have been more sexually adventurous and less chaste, whereas the sons of lesbians evince the opposite pattern—somewhat less sexually adventurous and more chaste (the finding was statistically significant for the 25- girl sample but not for the 18-boy sample).
In other words, once again, children (especially girls) raised by lesbians appear to depart from traditional gender-based norms while children raised by heterosexual mothers appear to conform to them. Yet this provocative finding of differences in sexual behavior and agency has not been analyzed or investigated further.
The gender-based roles that Stacey and Biblarz alluded to is in this passage on page 168:
For example, lesbian mothers in R. Green et al. (1986) reported that their children, especially daughters, more frequently dress, play, and behave in ways that do not conform to sex-typed cultural norms. Likewise, daughters of lesbian mothers reported greater interest in activities associated with both “masculine” and “feminine” qualities and that involve the participation of both sexes, whereas daughters of heterosexual mothers report significantly greater interest in traditionally feminine, same-sex activities (also see Hotvedt and Mandel 1982).
Similarly, daughters with lesbian mothers reported higher aspirations to nontraditional gender occupations (Steckel 1987). For example, in R. Green et al. (1986), 53 percent (16 out of 30) of the daughters of lesbians aspired to careers such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, and astronaut, compared with only 21 percent (6 of 28) of the daughters of heterosexual mothers.
So it sounds like that Stacey and Biblarz were actually saying that children raised by lgbts don't necessarily conform to the "traditional" gender roles. This point is alluded to throughout the entire study.
But Knight and Barber took passages out of the study to extrapolate the following incorrect stereotype: gays and lesbians raising children will lead to girls being lesbians and sluts and boys putting on dresses.
It's sad how these supposed Christians will lie. I think that the following point Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes made at a teleconference call says it all:
Those who oppose civil equality for gays and lesbians are actively distorting, cherry-picking, and misrepresenting the social science research in their attempts to justify discrimination . . . and unfortunately, the media often reports these distortions without investigating and fact checking them. Politicians and legislators then use that misinformation to pass bans on marriage equality, as well as foster parenting and adoption by same gender parents.
So my question to you all is: how do we stop it?
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