Tuesday fall out and other gay stuff

Today's post is dedicated to the memory of Alvin S. Glenn. He was a 29-year Army veteran who served in the Korean War and gave his life in 2000 to protect the citizens of South Carolina.

He was my father and a MAN in every sense of the word.

We have gotten all sorts of positive comments from yesterday's press conference. I also noticed a very interesting exchange on SC Politics Today including the following comment:

Being a sodomite is nothing to be gay or proud of. It's an immoral, disgusting chosen lifestyle. They should be classified with all the other sexual perverts and pedophiles and run out of SC.

Of course I had to jump on the responder in a dignified fashion. One cannot take off one's shoes and earrings in every situation.

The lady's comments don't bother me. For one thing, we have supporters who let her know her comments were stupid (for those who watch Designing Women, feel free to channel Dixie Carter's'pronunciation of the word "stupid").

For another, I like the fact that we are getting the state to talk about OUR issues. Debate is the first step in finding solutions.

And on another front . . .

I haven't messed with One News Now in a while (and when I do, it's only because the phony news service makes it so easy), but something caught my eye.

It seems that a popular gospel singer, Ray Boltz , has come out of the closet. Personally, even though I have never heard of him, I support the guy. He is being honest.

Please take a tip from him anonymous black male gospel singers who shall remain nameless.

Anyway, One News Now is all up in arms about this. Particularly offensive to me is the comment by columnist Matt Friedeman:

Boltz' addiction apparently is men . . .

Excuse me? Boltz came out of the closet. That does not denote an addiction.

It is here that we can see the semantics of the anti-gay industry. It is not enough for them to disagree with homosexuality on a religious basis. With their words (including discredited and misrepresented studies), they try to cast the image that being an lgbt is an addiction.

That's why you hear them talk about the supposed "gay agenda" or the "gay lifestyle."

It reminds me of "welfare queen" or "reverse discrimination."

Not a bad idea on a cynically political basis, but very petty when it comes from supposed Christian people.

As usual, Jeremy from Goodasyou.org breaks down the situation better than I ever could:

So let's see here: Molesting a kid, uncontrollably wacking it to porn, boozing it up in excess, hitting a crack pipe, burning down a house, having a crippling addition to intercourse, or -- loving someone of the same sex in the way that others love someone of the opposite sex?! These are all birds of the same feather that deserve similar form of address? Wow, we don't know who should be more offended by that: Gay people who know it's far more apt to compare their orientations to their heterosexual peers, or credible counselors and therapists whose authentic work is far too important to be hampered by biased fallacy!

But hey, why choose? There's enough offense in the "pro-family" community's self-created, self-propagated, highly unscientific views to offend multiple groups of people.

SC Pride press conference goes well

The press conference was over hours ago and it went well. The media was all over the place. We had television news, the State (area newspaper) and the AP there asking questions, filming, and taking notes.

I was going as a supporter and spectator but the chairman of Black Pride called and asked me to read a statement because he couldn't attend.

Talk about a minor shock. I think I did well though. While our president (Ryan Wilson - an absolutely incredible young man who will do a lot of positive things for our community) read his statement, I stood in the background giving off my "I'm security so don't fuck with me" look.

My statement was brief so I was able to go through it without peeing in my pants.

But wouldn't you know it. I was shopping for shoes (yeah, yeah, its a gay thing to do) and missed the newscasts. Oh well. My aunt called and told my mother everything.

At this point, my mother doesn't freak out over any of my community activities. Of course she worries that some dumb ass may take it upon himself to try and be physically homophobic. She has mentioned it slightly on more than one occasion.

But she knows I will be safe. My mother is one of those old fashioned black women from the country, where they have more churches than houses. I know she prays for my well being.

It's good to have a mother like that.

So as you can tell, I am psyched for Pride this year. It's going to be fun.

UPDATE - I was emailed a clip of the press conference. Everyone did well. I especially liked what Harriet Hancock (the founder of SC Pride and PFLAG in Columbia) said.

SC Pride is here - all Mondays should start like this!!!!!!

When I woke up this morning, I was ready to go through another dreary Monday with my spirit down and my dander up. Then this lovely bit from Daily Kos caught my attention.

Can you say "rope-a-dope, bitch!"

Don't count Obama out.

I was fired up and have been all day. And just in time too because tomorrow is a special day.

SC Pride (which I have been a proud board member of for five years) will be holding a press conference on the steps of our state capitol. We will be presenting Governor Mark Sanford with an "award."

Pick your mouths up from the floor. It ain't exactly a good award. We will be presenting Sanford an "award" for his dubious efforts to kill an ad campaign designed to bring more lgbt tourists to the state:

Of course, knowing our governor's penchant for baby pigs, I was going to include that maybe we should give him a few baby sows to go with his award.

But after last week, I don't even want to think about pigs.

Now if tomorrow's press conference is interesting, expect a full report here online.

For more information regarding SC Pride, including RuPaul coming to our festival on Saturday, go to www.scpride.org

One News Now, allies manipulate numbers on referendum count

Apparently the recent decision to stop a referendum against a Montgomery County law that would protect the transgender community have members of the anti-gay industry a bit loopy.

Check out this headline. It's insulting and funny at the same time:

Sexual Deviants Given Green Light in Maryland

Court decides 900,000 petition signers can't challenge the controversial "gender identity" law allowing any man to use the women's shower by just claiming he felt like a woman at the time.

900,000 petition signers?

The blog in question claims to have received the story from the Washington Post. However, if you look at the Post article (feel free to do so by this link) you will see that there is no mention of any number of petition signers.

So where did the blog get the 900,000 number? Why from my favorite phony news page - One News Now:

Baltimore residents have lost their battle against an ordinance protecting transgendered people.

Under the controversial "gender identity" law, a man would be allowed to walk into a women's restroom or shower room claiming he believes himself to be a woman, essentially opening the door for rape or sexual molestation. In July a lower Montgomery County court agreed more than 900,000 petition signers had the right to see it on the ballot to choose whether to overturn it -- but it was appealed.

So much for truth.

Now the reasoning behind the decision has not been published as of yet, but to get a good idea of the situation, I looked at teachthefacts.org, a web page created by those fighting the referendum.
This is what was said before the decision was rendered. As you can say, the number of petition signers are far below 900,000:

The Citizens for a Responsible Whatever were told by the county Board of Elections that they needed 25,001 signatures to get a referendum on the November ballot to relegalize discrimination on the basis of gender identity in Montgomery County. They got that many and a few extra, submitted them on time, and did their victory dance. Opponents of the referendum went through the signatures, found a lot of problems, and sued the Board for not correctly verifying petition signatures. In the process of arguing back and forth in court, it came out that the Board of Elections had given the CRW the wrong number, and now they didn't have enough. The Board had counted only active voters, ignoring the considerable number of voters who are registered but have not voted in a general election recently. Today, even the Board's attorney, Kevin Karpinski, said, "The sponsors didn't get enough signatures." But -- the Circuit Court judge said that the complaint had been filed too late, and so it didn't matter that there weren't enough signatures.

So the court might need to require the Board to enforce the law, if they rule that because the CRW failed to produce 27,615 valid signatures -- the actual target number based on all registered voters -- the referendum should not be on the ballot.

This fudging of the numbers by One News Now doesn't surprise me. Since when has this phony news site ever let accuracy get in the way of a good "those evil people are out to hurt us decent Christians" spin.

Oink, oink - Give me a break

Put your nose up in the air and sniff.

That smell you are taking in is the 2008 election. I was wondering when the mess was going to start.

Who knew it would be pig mess?

It's a real shame that the campaign has come to this. I used to think that John McCain was a man with integrity, but yet during this campaign, I have seen him forsake all forms of decency including resorting to the tactics used against him in South Carolina in 2000.

On September 11, 2008, we will be commemorating the worse attack on American soil in history. On September 17, 2008, I will be commemorating the worse day of my life - when my father was murdered during an attempted prison break.

Therefore, I absolutely refuse to comment further about pigs and lipstick. I will just cite a line from the Boondocks:

This here is some bullshit!!!!

I would rather spotlight a good piece of news out of Florida. A judge overturned the state's ban on gay adoption:

A Florida judge shook up that state’s 31-year-old ban on gay adoption, ruling it unconstitutional. But the ruling doesn’t necessarily mean that the state, one of two remaining that forbid gay adoption, will overturn the statewide ban.

Monroe Circuit Court Judge David J. Audlin Jr.'s decision will allow an openly gay Key West foster parent to adopt the teenage boy he has raised since 2001, according to the Guardian.co.uk.

Florida’s ban on gay adoption has been declared unconstitutional twice before in 1991, but an upcoming gay adoption hearing in Miami, could further challenge the law.

Audlin stated that the adoption was in the 13-year-old, special needs boy’s “best interest.” He also said the law that bars gays and lesbians from adopting children is contrary to the state constitution because it singles out and punishes a group of people.

Victory in Maryland - Anti-gay referendum is stopped!!!!

Everyone is either losing their minds over the election or getting into the act of losing their minds.

Our friend Peter LaBarbera (who never really had that much of a mind to begin with) has been posting sporadically and those posts are attacking the Huffington Post. Apparently Peter is trying to spin a "they are after Sarah Palin because they want to bash Christians" line.

I think he is pissed cause the Hurricane Gustav stopped Southern Decadence from taking place.

Well in the midst of the prognosticating and nailbiting over polls, a bit of good news just took place in Maryland:

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) applauded a Maryland Appeal Court ruling today which dismissed attempts to roll back landmark protections for transgender residents in Montgomery County, Maryland, by way of a November ballot initiative. The court's unanimous ruling ends a campaign by anti-transgender activists to strip the county's civil rights law of protections based on gender identity. The law was amended in November 2007 and, because of today's ruling, will now be enacted to include the transgender community.

"The anti-transgender campaign in Montgomery County was based on bigotry and fueled by misinformation," said Jody M. Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG. "It was being forced onto the ballot with no regard for state law or the fundamental rights of our transgender neighbors and allies. Today's ruling sends a clear message that opponents of equality are not above the law, and our transgender loved ones are not below it. Montgomery County's civil rights law offers important protections to transgender and gender-variant people. We join our allies in Maryland and the transgender community in celebrating its long over-due enactment."

I blogged about this referendum drive before. You will remember that those pushing for it was able to get enough signatures by falsely claiming that the law will allow men to go into women's lockerrooms and restrooms. The proponents said that all the men had to do was say "I feel like a woman."

This was the same group that organized a phony moral panic by claiming that a man dressed as a woman had entered an local lockerroom gym. Of course no one saw the incident but it caused a lot of controversy.

In this crazy world, it's nice to see good triumph over bullshit.

Student GOP leader smears Obama via old reliable racial slur

I defy anyone to say that Obama's race won't be a factor in this election. At least the young man didn't use code words like "reverse discrimination," "welfare queen," or (dare I say it) "community organizer."

Student GOP leader resigns over Obama remark

The leader of a statewide group of college Republicans has been forced to resign after posting racially insensitive comments about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on the Internet.

Adam LaDuca, 21, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, wrote on his Facebook page in late July that Obama has "a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)"

LaDuca, who previously had called Martin Luther King Jr. a "pariah" and a "fraud," also wrote: "And man, if sayin' someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we're ALL in trouble."

The College Republicans asked LaDuca to resign after his remarks were publicized by the Pennsylvania Progressive, a blog written by a Democratic committeeman from Berks County. The group announced LaDuca's resignation on its Web site Friday.


Anti-gay industry tries to shore up its base

Those who have read this blog know what I am about to say:

I hate Mondays.

This Monday has an interesting note to it. I am currently trying to recover from the Republican National Convention. And in the middle of my attempts comes this news:

CHICAGO -- Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

"For so long, there has been this cloud of intimidation over the church," ADF attorney Erik Stanley said. "It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It's not for the government to mandate the role of church in society."

Yet an opposing collection of Christian and Jewish clergy will petition the IRS today to stop the protest before it starts, calling the ADF's "Pulpit Initiative" an assault on the rule of law and the separation of church and state.

Backed by three former top IRS officials, the group also wants the IRS to determine whether the nonprofit ADF is risking its own tax-exempt status by organizing an "inappropriate, unethical and illegal" series of political endorsements.

I am not against churches inviting candidates to speak to the congregation (as long as they extend the invitation equitably) and I am certainly not against objective voter registration drives at churches nor am I against churches organizing carpools to get members to the polls.

But a pastor advocating a particular candidate from the pulpit is dangerous.

Regardless as to how the ADF tries to spin the situation, the only reason why it is trying to overturn this law is so that James Dobson, Rod Parsley, and company can better organize churches to elect their candidates to public office.

I find that sleazy.

Pastors are the leaders of the church, so they don't represent themselves per se, even if they stand in the pulpit and say "in my personal opinion, you should support so and so."

The pastor is still speaking as the leader of the church. Anything he or she does in that role affects more than just themselves.

Futhermore, I don't like the implications behind pastors advocating political candidates.

Pastors are the spiritual leaders in the community. What message are they sending by supporting a particular candidate - "God wants you to support so and so?"

Encouraging pastors to do this reduces the integrity of religion as far as I am concerned. Religion and spirituality has to do with souls and your relationship with God, not electoral candidates and certainly not trying to "win a nation for Christ."

Seems to me that if Jesus wanted this nation, he could take it without any of our help.

But yet in this country, there is this nasty idea that Jesus somehow said, "take up your cross and follow me and I will give you a nice car, nice house, two point five children, and a Republican in the White House every four years."

Humbleness and simplicity are replaced with warehouse sized churches filled with egotistical people thinking that God has blessed them above all others, demagogues waving Bibles as they confuse spiritual completeness with earthly conquest, and words like "morality," and "values" used to create a caste systems ruled by unrealistic characteristics of family.

And on top of all of this, some Christians propagate the lie that they are somehow "second class citizens in America."

I don't think it has come to that. But I wish these so-called Christians remember that "pride goeth before a fall" and sooner or later "you reap what you sow."