Maine churches fighting marriage equality via the collection plate

Even if this legal, I don't think that it's morally right. It's one thing for church members to vote as their conscience dictates, but when the church itself becomes a tax-exempt political machine, we have problems.

From the NY Daily News:

Scores of Maine churches will pass the collection plate a second time at Sunday services on Father’s Day to kick off a fundraising campaign for the lead opposition group to November’s ballot question asking voters to legalize same-sex marriages.

Between 150 and 200 churches are expected to raise money for the Protect Marriage Maine political action committee, said Carroll Conley Jr., executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine evangelical organization and a member of the PAC. Conley is also trying to drum up support for the Maine campaign from religious leaders from around the country.

It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for churches to take up collections for political causes. Maine’s Catholic diocese says it raised about $80,000 with a designated collection in 2009 in its effort to overturn Maine’s same-sex marriage law, which was passed by the Legislature that year and later rejected by voters. The Catholic Church isn’t actively campaigning this time, instead focusing on teaching parishioners about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.

Father’s Day, June 17, seemed an appropriate time to kick off this year’s fundraising campaign because of the day’s focus on family, Conley said. Additional collection-plate offerings at churches are expected in the months ahead.

Read more about the story here

Know Your LGBT History - Bessie Smith

There are so many stories about the life of legendary blues singer Bessie Smith. Let's clear up two. No, her death in an automobile accident was not the result of being denied entry at a white hospital. And yes she was bisexual and, to put it nicely, a bad ass one.

Bessie Smith - (1894-1937):

Bessie Smith was born poor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her parents died when she was eight years old and she began singing to support her family at age seven. She sang on street corners with her brother accompanying her on guitar.

Bessie Smith went on to become one of the most successful Black performers of her day. Her album "Downhearted Blues," released in 1923, was the best selling blues record of its time. At the height of her career, she was making $2,000 a week. Quite a sum for those days.

Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey:

At age 17, Bessie Smith met Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and went on the road with her traveling show. Ma Rainey became a mentor to Bessie Smith. There is some speculation that the two were also lovers, but little to back that up.

Bessie Smith and Jack Gee:

Bessie Smith was married to Jack Gee in 1923. Both Jack and Bessie had affairs with women and these affairs caused many fights between the two. There are accounts of Bessie firing a gun at Jack after learning of one of his affairs and of Jack threatening to kiss Bessie after finding her with a woman.

Bessie Smith ended her relationship with Jack Gee in 1929 after she found out he was having an affair with another singer.

Bessie Smith and Lillian Simpson:

Bessie Smith had affairs with various women through out her life. One that we know about is with Lillian Simpson. According to Bessie's niece Ruby, who traveled with her, Bessie Smith had an on and off affair with one of her chorus girls Lillian Simpson in 1926. At one point when Bessie spurned her, Lillian tried to kill herself and ended up in the hospital. The affair eventually ended when Lillian left the tour, afraid of Bessie's husband Jack finding out.

Bessie's Love of Women:

Bessie's husband Jack found out about her affairs with women when he caught her with a woman at a boarding house in Detroit. He threatened to kill her, but she managed to escape with her troupe and back to her train and out of town before he caught up with her.

'Fake historian - homosexuality should be illegal in spite of the Supreme Court' and other Friday midday news briefs

Barton: 'I Don't Care What the Supreme Court Says,' Homosexuality Should be Illegal - You gotta love those  religious right figures. BTW I don't think St. Paul said what David Barton claims. It sounds like a bad translation to me:

 

 And in other news

 Come on people – enough with stoking the black = homophobic meme - Pam Spaulding is right. It's time for that lie to die. 

 No contradiction: I'm black and gay - Meanwhile, L.Z. Granderson, an openly gay African-American columnist drops some more truth.  

Federal Judge Finds DOMA Unconstitutional - Look what just happened to DOMA (again)  

WHOA! Even the SBC is distancing itself from FRC honoree Ron Baity (and Charles Worley and Sean Harris) - You know things are getting weird when the Southern Baptist Convention begins to distance itself from pastors for being too anti-gay.

 Long Island School Inexplicably Suspends Student For Class Project About Bullying - She was reinstated and the suspension has been taken off of her record. But the entire thing is just weird. 

Religious right hypocrisy on gays raising children

Tony Perkins

One thing which was pointed out to me about Tony Perkins's interview yesterday on CNN was when he said:

"There are some same-sex couples that are probably GREAT parents."

It reminds me of the time where Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage said last year :

"there are some gay people who are wonderful parents."

But both of these figures (Perkins and Gallagher) have gone on record implying awful things about gay parenting.

For instance, Gallagher once said “at least polygamy, for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children.”

And Perkins claimed his children couldn't be gay because he is "teaching them the rights ways that they are to interact as human beings"

 So which beliefs do Perkins and Gallagher hold?

If Perkins and Gallagher think that gays make good parents, then why do they campaign tooth-and-nail on the distortion that marriage equality would harm children? And why do their organizations imply awful distortions about gays harming children?

It's a matter of simply hypocrisy. But as long as no one pushes the issue, they can get away with it.

If the media won't push the issue, then perhaps it's time that we did.

Tony Perkins has another rough interview

Does anyone remember that comedy movie Airplane and the scene with the hysterical woman? The stewardess kept slapping her to calm her down. Since she was unsuccessful, another stewardess took over. And then another one. Pretty soon, a line forms behind the stewardess of people who will take their turn in attempting to calm down the hysterical woman. One man is wearing boxing gloves. One woman has a tire iron in her hand. Another woman has a gun. And so on and so on.

I was reminded of that scene because of an interview that CNN's Brooke Baldwin conducted with the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. Now Perkins has been having a rough time recently during news interviews. He was called to the carpet on his anti-gay distortions by CNN's Soledad O'Brien and then was further knocked on his ass on MSNBC's Hardball by Congressman Barney Frank with a little assist from host Christ Matthews.

And now Baldwin seems to want to get a piece of the action. She not only takes Perkins to task but asks him point blank about his homophobia and the fact that he doesn't know any same-sex families. Of course there was room for some improvement. When Perkins goes on a tangent about what his children are taught in schools and such, I wished Baldwin would have reminded him that gay couples have children also. Still seeing Perkins squirm in the morass of his lies was satisfying.

'SPLC blasts NOM for its anti-gay lies' and other Thursday midday news briefs

National Organization for Marriage Continues to Spread Lies About Gays - The Southern Poverty Law Center blasts NOM for its lies about the gay community. Can a "hate group" designation be next? I certainly hope so.

 Welcome End of a Pseudotheory - The New York Times blasts social conservatives for their need to rely on bad studies.

  Air Force Academy Graduates First-Ever Openly Gay Cadets - Awesome!

 APA President-Elect: Ablow’s Comments Are “Misleading,” “Inaccurate,” And “Potentially Harmful” - Fox News's homophobic doctor in residence, Keith Ablow, gets his just desserts from the American Psychiatric Association.

  Underground LGBT Group Shakes Up Conservative Evangelical University - BAM! 

NPR exposes the complex relationship between the Black Church and gays

Rev. Dennis Wiley

When it comes to gays and the black church, NPR just ripped opened the closet door and all of the bones fell out. An excellent piece which needs more exposure:

Fairly or not, African-Americans have become the public face of resistance to same-sex marriage, owing to their religious beliefs and the outspoken opposition of many black pastors.

Yet the presence of gays and lesbians in black churches is common. And the fact that they often hold leadership positions in their congregations is the worst kept secret in black America.

While many black pastors condemn gays and lesbians from the pulpit, the choir lofts behind them often are filled with gay singers and musicians. Some male pastors themselves have been entangled in scandals involving alleged affairs with men.

"Persons who are in the closet serve on the deacon boards, serve in the ministry, serve in every capacity in the church," the Rev. Dennis W. Wiley, pastor of Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ in Maryland, says of black churches. Wiley is a prominent advocate of gay marriage. "I do believe a certain hypocrisy is there."

. . . Some say pastors' hostility cuts hard against the history of how countless black churches have flourished. The virtuosity of gay singers, musicians and composers has been the driving force in developing popular gospel choirs — even chart-topping, Grammy-winning acts — that make money for a church, help expand congregations and raise the profiles of pastors.

It all happens under an unspoken "don't ask, don't tell" custom that allows gay people to be active in the church, though closeted, and churches to reap the benefits of their membership.

Some say the arrangement is not only hypocritical, but exploitative.

"On the one hand, you're nurtured in the choir but you also have to sit through some of those fire and brimstone sermons about homosexuality being an abomination," says E. Patrick Johnson, an openly gay gospel singer and author of Sweet Tea: An Oral History of Black Gay Men of the South.

Read more of Blacks, Gays And The Church: A Complex Relationship