Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Friday, November 06, 2009

Know your lgbt history - Mannequin

I HATE it when good actors do insulting roles.

I'm sure that on almost every actor's resume is a role he or she regrets taking.

And I am also sure that in Designing Women alumni Meschach Taylor's case, it's his interpretation of a gay man in the movie Mannequin (1987).

Mannequin tells the story of an artist (Andrew McCarthy) and the mannequin (pre - Sex in the City Kim Catrail) he creates coming to life.

The premise is silly, the soundtrack was awesome, and Meshach Taylor was simply embarrassing as this clip will show:

Carrie Prejean to appear at 'pro-family' function. Will she talk about 'the tape'

UPDATE - Prejean will not be appearing. Pan down to the end of the post for more details.

Based on the above flyer, Prejean will be appearing in front of a so-called pro-family group in New Jersey where she will no doubt feed everyone the same line about her "persecution" and receive a standing ovation.

I bet she won't mention "the tape."

I bet she won't mention "the tape" as she goes around the country during her "I'm a victim of the homosexual conspiracy" tour.

And she hasn't been the only one conspicuously silent about "the tape."

In my post which talked about Maggie Gallagher's failed attempt to pull a "Phyllis Burgess," I failed to mention that when she was asked about the tape, she claimed to not have all of the facts.

That's fair. According to the gossip site TMZ, here are some of those facts:

Fired employee, religious right groups want lgbts to follow different rules at the workplace

One of the most effective tactics of the religious right is to truncate an incident to claim that lgbts are violent and intolerant or that Christians are in danger of losing their rights if pro-lgbt legislation passes.

We've seen it in the case the group Repent America who was arrested at a Pride festival after they wouldn't comply with police. Religious right grous made it seem that they were unfairly arrested.

We've seen it in the case of talking head Matt Barber who claimed that he was fired from AllState Insurance for righting an anti-gay piece "on his own time." Of course Barber and everyone else who pushed this narrative conviently left out that he still used company equipment to write the piece and identified himself as an employee of AllState Insurance in short biography of the piece.

Now from Massachusetts comes a new phony narrative just in time for the ENDA hearings courtesy of the anti-gay hate group Mass Resistance:

A Massachusetts man was fired from a national retail corporation because of his traditional beliefs on same-sex marriage. Peter Vadala was formally dismissed from his job as second deputy manager of the Brookstone store at Boston’s Logan Airport on August 12, 2009, after a supervisor reported him to Human Resources regarding an incident two days earlier.

. . .As Peter described the incident, he came to work on August 10 and began his day normally. A female manager from another store was in the store and began talking to Peter about her upcoming marriage. When Peter asked “where is he taking you for the honeymoon,” she corrected him and said she was not getting married to "he" but to another woman.

Tea baggers compare health care reform to Nazi death camps - and they show pictures to prove it

I told some people that I wouldn't cover this because it's so vulgar. But this needs to be put on as many pages and spread to as many folks as possible.

Congressional Rep. Michelle Bachman invited the "tea partiers" to descend on the Capitol today in an effort to scare (her words, not mine) lawmakers against voting for Obama's health care reform.

True to form, they showed up, though not in as many numbers as in the past.

But what they didn't have in numbers, they made up in crazy. Sorry but I can't be nice to people who have no problem with holding up the following images:

A closer view of the picture is here:

The sign supposedly reads “National Socialist Health Care: Dachau, Germany – 1945”

NOM's Maggie Gallagher goes to gay protest event looking for trouble, gets disappointed

Say what you will about why we lost in Maine, you have to admit that lgbts have learned the lesson from the aftermath of Proposition 8.

After that vote last year, some lgbts allowed their anger to rule their minds, acted the fool, and created a few events that folks like Mike Huckabee, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, and the rest replayed continuously as proof of "intolerant angry lgbts."

Well that didn't happen this time when NOM head Maggie Gallagher showed up at a DC rally protesting the marriage equality loss in Maine:

It appeared to bother some attendees of tonight's rally that Gallagher would appear at a pro-gay marriage event, yet the estimated crowd of 120 mostly left her alone as she observed the hour-long protest.

Gallagher said she had just been at a nearby building and it was by "great coincidence" that she was passing by. She stated that she was not attending the event as part of a professional capacity and did not wish to go on camera for an interview.

Just who is she trying to fool? My guess is that Gallagher went to that event looking to exploit anger as more ammunition for her tired narrative of "gays label people who want to protect the sanctity of marriage as bigots but it is the gays who are bigots."

No doubt she came to that event looking for new stuff to use in television interviews.

I'm willing to bet a paycheck that if someone tossed a paper cup in the trash which may have been next to where she was sitting, within minutes Gallagher would have been twittering about how she "had objects thrown at her."

The folks in D.C. should be commended for not prey to Gallagher's game.

They clearly show how it should be done - harness the anger against the wrongs done to us and not the folks behind it.

Carrie Prejean uses up the last of her 15 minutes

Every now and then I must succumb to temptation and report on "popular" issues.

In this case, I will console myself with the fact that this is a very important issue outlining the hypocrisy of the religious right:

Carrie Prejean, former Miss California who was fired under scandal, has dropped her lawsuit against pageant officials. Both parties have withdrawn their lawsuits and in an official settlement statement reads, “ Carrie Prejean, Keith Lewis, and K2 productions have dropped their claim against each other and wish each other the best in their future endeavors.” Carrie gets no money other than her attorney fees. The reason, as reported by TMZ, Carrie settled the suit is that the pageant officials were going to release a tape of the lovely Miss California masturbating. Yes it looks like the good Miss Prejean had made a little home movie that got into the hands of pageant officials and she did not want it to go public. On a lighter note, Carrie Prejean will get to keep the money she was given for breast implants and her book will hit the stores soon.

I wonder will the National Organization for Marriage call this a case of persecution against Christians?

Really though, while people are most likely tired of the Carrie Prejean saga, it's important to remember just how quickly the religious right embraced Prejean, making it seem that she was the victim of lgbt persecution rather than the words of just one, albeit highly annoying, lgbt blogger and "personality."

They even went as far as to call her a latter-day Queen Esther.

One wonders what the spin will be on this one?

I think I know: "Carrie Prejean didn't commit a sin because Jesus never said a word about masturbation."

Related post:

Carrie Prejean saved traditional marriage - a lie you can't believe even if you were high on acid

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Anti-gay marriage forces getting wrecked in D.C.

To paraphrase one of my favorite singers, Anne Murray, we sure could use a little good news today.

So how about this from D.C.

During the recent hearings about marriage equality, the anti-lgbt forces have been slipping and they have been slipping badly. First comes our friend Sista Hot Mess from last week. Remember her?

Then comes Ruth Jacobs and her fascination with the "anus":

And those are just the preliminaries. Next is National Organization for Marriage head Brian Brown. It turns out that Brown doesn't do that well when faced with someone who will not fall for his silly talking points. Geez, why are the cute ones so dumb:

And for the main event - This is Walter Fauntroy. He is a black minister who is against marriage equality. He is also a former Washington, D.C. delegate and an organizer for the 1963 March on Washington. That last point is important to remember because every now and then, the conservative groups he aligns himself with sometimes try to slip in the notion that he was the main organizer of 1963 March on Washington; a notion that is inaccurate because the main organizer was Bayard Rustin, an openly gay black man.

His testimoy was been labeled as "bizarre" and "incomprehensible"

Transcript:

''I have advocated, where there are contractural relationships between people who, who have same-sex relationships, that they ought to be granted; and provided the contractural that the courts re -- provide everyone. However, on the question of marriage -- you cannot equate marriage with a contract when marriage is nature's schoolroom for teaching people how to care for, protect and defend one another.... That's why across the world, we are in danger, quite frankly, of violating the principle of perpetuation of the species. I have many, many friends, who are -- have, uh, sexual preference to others of the same sex. But they cannot reproduce....

''I just want to make it very clear that we who are most concerned about this issue, are concerned as political scientists, who know that this issue has been used by people who want to deny people five things, and are doing it effectively, in order to win eleven states in 1984 by diverting the attention of the people from the issue which was an ill-advised WAR in Iraq that has wrecked the world.... I've known homosexual couples for years and always advised, 'Protect yourself.' Please, get rid of -- I've married couples -- heterosexual couples who need a contract to make sure, that 'if you rat on me' -- uh, excuse me! If -- if we buy this house and, and you -- you're not gonna have it. You, it's -- as we used to say on the street -- uh, um -- 'It's cheaper to keep her!'''

Two lessons to take out of this:

1. Smile, folks. Things aren't as bad as you think. We will win this.

2. The vast importance of having lgbt elected officials. In the Jacobs, Brown, and Fauntroy clips, the city councilman who basically breaks them down is openly gay David Catania.

It's something to contemplate when one thinks of our city council victories last night.

And if it doesn't cheer you all up, then we could always talk about the "alleged" Carrie Prejean sex tape.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Wednesday, November 04, 2009