Religious right blames victim for his own murder and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Exclusive: 'Pro-family' radio host Penna Dexter blames 15-year-old for his own shooting death - An innocent gay child is shot and who do the religious right blame? The innocent gay child.

The 10 Dumbest Maggie Gallagher Quotes - Is NOM's Maggie Gallagher a secret mole agent working for our side?

Moral Scolds Freaking Out As Conservatives Increasingly Abandon Gay Issue - Gives new meaning to the phrase "rats deserting a sinking ship."

Deranged: American Family Radio's Bryan Fischer: 'No More Mosques, Period.' - and speaking of ships, lgbts and the Muslim community may be in different ships in terms of beliefs but we are all in the same boat now when it comes to the religious right.

Innocent picture sparks nasty homophobic reaction

According to one of my blogger buddies, Rod 2.0, this nondescript picture is causing a nasty reaction online and demonstrates not only basic homophobic but how terrible it is for men, especially black men, to show a little affection:

The image was snapped of two young men apparently on Atlanta's MARTA and the Twitpic is entitled "No Excuse: I Don't Give a F-ck How Sleepy You Are." So far, the image has 12,400+ views and has produced  three pages of mostly cruel, homophobic and hateful comments. There are dozens more comments across Twitter and the Twitpic has migrated to gay-baiting black gossip blogs. One perennial gay-baiting blogger has slammed the two young men as "homo-thugs", ranted about HIV/AIDS and complained that "it's become nearly impossible to distinguish heterosexual men from down low thugs." Are "down-low" thugs hugged up on public transit? Probably not ...

It's a very sweet and innocent photo. According to the comments, it seems the young men's primary offense, in addition to seemingly being gay, is that they are "normal looking" and apparently in love. More power to them. It's too bad more people don't have the courage to be themselves.

Amen, Rod. There would be less ignorance and less fear if not only folks chose to be themselves but others didn't give them hell for it.

' Gay families aren't real families' - a NOM supporter further sinks their phony guise of love

One thing that has been deliciously excellent about the National Organization for Marriages' failed marriage tour is it showed NOM supporters in their true homophobic light.

Yesterday, we saw the "state-sanctioned sodomy" guy. Today, its another NOM supporter in Harrisburg.

Watch the entire thing, especially his comparison of gay marriage to pedophilia. But keep a special eye out on his nasty words about gay families and single mother families.

So much for that phony NOM love.

Hat tip to Joe.My.God.

Related post: 
 
A little ' state-sanctioned sodomy' for your Sunday night

National Organization for Marriage lays double goose egg and other Monday midday news briefs

Photo: At his age, my biggest activism involved freeing enslaved princesses - When a child demonstrates more sense and kindness than adults.

A Successful Counterprotest to NOM in Harrisburg, PA (with Photo Gallery) - The National Organization for Marriage bombs in Pennsylvania.

Images From A Sideshow Running Away With The Circus… - The National Organization bombs in Washington, but this time they bring black folks.

Ensign cites harassment in call sign choice - This is a damn shame.

Stop Gay Marriage Or Say Goodbye To Christian Civilization - Shhhhh! Stop giving away our secret plans!

Islamic centers, gay marriages, and the ease of picking electoral scapegoats

Gay marriage has been replaced by the Islamic community as the whipping children of the electorate.

Remember in 2004 when the backlash against gay marriage became a huge election issue galvanizing voters and members of the religious community? That’s nothing compared to what’s happening now.

This controversy over the Islamic center blocks away from Ground Zero has gone into overdrive, which some are hoping will be a huge issue in the fall elections this year.

Never mind that Al Qaeda attacked us and not Muslims in general. Never mind that many Muslims lost their lives during 9-11 due to those awful attacks. Never mind that when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma, no one even thought of blaming Christianity on the whole for his twisted beliefs. Never mind the Islamic center isn’t even going to be located at “Ground Zero.”

Never mind any of that because there is a situation ready made to be exploited. And like in all situations like this, we have so many throwing their worthless two cents into the controversy,  from a failed half termed governor (Sarah Palin) trying to be the “voice of America” when no one really asked her, to an  insane Congressman (Louis Gohmert) spinning tangents about “terror babies.”

Not to mention that there is a lot of fertile, scared, and ignorant minds to be exploited. New York is not the only place where people are fearing the Islamic community. In Tennessee, some residents not only oppose the building of mosques, but were also hinting about digging up the graves and tracking the “community activities” of other Muslims.

It’s sad really and it makes me wonder if the terrorists who attacked on 9-11 did in fact win.

We have been constantly told that they hate us because of our “freedom.” But that’s not totally true.

Some of them hate us  because they think we are hypocrites; that we give big talk about freedom and equality, but with the drop of a hat we abandon both concepts. That one minute, we are waving flags and singing the praises of living in a diverse community and the next, braining  people over the heads with flag poles while justifying a fear of those who are different with the least shred of shame.

Someone tell me, what exactly do you call this controversy other than exactly what those terrorists believe?

Osama Bin Laden is in a cave somewhere laughing himself silly.

A little ' state-sanctioned sodomy' for your Sunday night

This video is from the National Organization for Marriage's abysmal flop of summer tour.

The stop is in Harrisburg, PA. While NOM's Brian Brown is in the background claiming that those on his side of the argument have been "very, very good about the speaking the truth in love," a supporter of his organization and its "summer tour" doesn't mind not hiding behind any pretenses of love. This is just too, too, Freudian in regards to what NOM claims it's trying to do (i.e. "defend marriage") and the mindset of those who support the organization's efforts.

Big hat tip to Matt Algren for bringing this to my attention.

Pat Robertson's correspondent smears lgbts, won't publish correction post

I have been blogging for four years (this month is my fourth year anniversary) and I have discovered that I have serious pet peeve. I hate it when someone pushes bad studies regarding the lgbt community.

So you can just imagine how I felt yesterday when I read, via Pam's House Blend, that Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network war correspondent Chuck Holton posted an entry on his blog,  "Boots on the Ground" detailing just why gays shouldn't be allowed to serve openly in the military. Specifically, it is this part which caught my attention:

1. The military is, by necessity, an environment where members are encouraged to be strong and healthy. The military strongly discourages smoking these days, because anything that hurts a soldier's health ultimately makes him a liability to his unit. The homosexual lifestyle has been proven to lower a man's life expectancy by as much as 20 years - why would we encourage this, then?

2. The Gay subculture is one of the most violent subcultures out there. Government studies show gays are 20 times more likely to be abusive or abused in their personal relationships. This reflects an inherent emotional instability that is not conducive to good order or discipline.

3. Giving Blood: US FDA regulations exclude "men who have had sex with another man even once since 1977" from giving blood at blood banks. In combat, any one of your buddies might be called upon to donate their blood to keep you alive if you get wounded. Gays should never donate blood. End of story.

4. Suicide: The military is already having problems with troop suicides these days. Gays commit suicide, or attempt it, six times more often than heterosexuals. Is this the kind of American we want to entrust with a weapon?

Bottom line: Homosexuals, by their own choices, disqualify themselves from military service. For the pentagon to be even considering allowing them to serve openly only shows an appalling lack of common sense on the part of our elected leaders and military brass.

How is this piece wrong? Oh let me count the ways.

And I did to, in a response to his post which should have been published on the blog yesterday.

But it wasn't. And my guess is that since comments are "moderated" there, it still won't be published.

But this is what I said:

You made many errors in this piece. 

For one, you cited a 1997 study but omitted that in 2001 those same researchers complained about how their work was being distorted to push the false idea that gays have a short lifespan - http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/...
 
Furthermore, you cited a Netherlands study (about gay suicide) without giving more details. Dr. (Theo) Sandfort, who conducted the study, said more work needs to be done and that he was not aware his conclusions was indicative of the gay community in other countries. 

On your claim about "the gay subculture," you take a 12 page study - published 10 years ago - which talked about violence against women (in general) -  and made a poor singular statement which encompassed all gays and lesbians. The way you do this is no different than racists using the study to make the same judgment about African-Americans.

It's apparently that Holton and by extension Roberston has learned nothing from the Prop 8 verdict because they continue to push the same lies about the lgbt community.

But as long as folks like them keep pushing these lies up, the lgbt community needs to continue knocking them down.