Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Friday, June 18, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Ode to Billy Joe

Ode to Billy Joe is a legendary song by Bobbie Gentry which told the story of the reaction (or lack thereof) of a small town when a young resident commits suicide.

The reason for Billy Joe's suicide was never given in the song and it remained a mystery.

That is until 1975 when the movie Ode to Billy Joe premiered. It was sad, complex movie which explained the young man's suicide:

Billy Joe McCallister killed himself because he was gay.

Two scenes in the movie stand out in hearbreaking detail. The following scene is Billy Joe (played by Robbie Benson) coming out to the heroine and eventual narrator of the song (played by Glynnis O'Connor).

His "confession" starts at 5:37 and I defy you to watch it without tearing up just a little:

The second scene is the final scene in the movie. Now the only people who knew why Billy Joe killed himself are O'Connor, Benson . . . and the man whom he had sex with who turned out to be Billy Joe's boss (played by James Best). O'Connor's character is running away in an attempt to save Benson's reputation. Apparently the word around town is that Billy Joe got her pregnant and committed suicide so as to not deal with the responsibility. Supposedly that makes him a legend amongst the young men.

On her way out of town, O'Connor meets Billy Joe's boss. All I can say is that the scene proves that the closet is NOT a good place to live. The gist of the scene starts at 1:50:

Sarah Palin endorses anti-gay activist for Congress and other Friday midday news briefs

Palin's Newest Endorsement: Star Parker - take the hint. Sarah Palin don't like gay people. For the record, I don't care about Palin's hair, outfit, cute tone of speech, or how she has that "Lonesome Rhodes squeezed into a tight dress" mentality going on. This woman just endorsed a crazy woman for Congress.

School Board Votes to Bring Back Gay-Straight Alliance - Good news for a Friday.

Norquist Assailed For Supporting Gay Conservative Group - I do love it when those on the right tear at each other.

Malawi president: We need children rights, not gay rights - Silly me. Here I thought the two overlapped at times.

Queen Latifah discusses not discussing her sexuality - Not a celebrity based blog here but I couldn't resist with this one.

Is the lgbt community plotting to make children 'crossdress?' Of course not

An incident is taking place in a private New York school which lgbts are being blamed for.

But the thing is that we had nothing to do with it.

Here is what we know: according to New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser, a private New York school staged a student production of La Cage aux Folles, the famous Tony-award-winning Broadway play about a gay couple and their meeting with the parents of their son's fiance.

Or as Peyser called it:

. . .a cross-dressing, limp-wristed, gay comic romp whose main characters are a pair of "married" men.

Peyser's column in general is ignorant and goes for the jugular from the beginning:

A Manhattan dad nearly choked on his Wheaties when his 14-year-old son timidly asked:

"Dad, do I have to wear a dress to school?"

No joke. These conversations went on in kitchens and living rooms around the city, as a top school that educates learning-disabled and autistic children staged a student production of "La Cage aux Folles" -- a cross-dressing, limp-wristed, gay comic romp whose main characters are a pair of "married" men.

As the show packs in adult audiences on Broadway with campy star Kelsey Grammer and a cast of drag queens (right), the kiddie version of "La Cage" was cooked up by the executive director of Child School, a private institution on Roosevelt Island that takes on youngsters from kindergarten through middle school.

Other than the words of a very nasty columnist, I really don't know what happened here. And if the reports turn out to be as she described, I am NOT defending the school.

The problem I have with Peyer's piece are the comments it encourages, like such:

A big swing back to the right is coming to America because of things like this. Gays, you have the right to do whatever the hell you want to do to yourselves, but now that's not good enough. Kids have to be taught to accept your perversions, and that's not right. Say what you want but being gay is unnatural. Basically it's a crime against nature.

. . . I'm not anti-gay but I don't go nor take my kids to the village gay pride parade every year. I'm not anti- African American but I didn't go to the million man march. This isn't about hate. That's what the left always cries when anyone disagrees with them. This is about standing up for what's right, looking out for kids. Simply put, La Cage is an adult play and not appropriate for 10 to 14 year olds. Hate? This is about Love, loving our kids enough to speak out.

What the hell does the lgbt community in general have to do with this situation other than the fact that the play had lgbt characters? What's with this implication that somehow lgbts secretly plotted to "indoctrinate" children into crossdressing?

I'm sure that - barring what the truth may actually be in this case - there are as many lgbt parents as appalled by the staging of the very mature La Cage aux Folles as heterosexual parents.

And that is what reasonable people in general should be concerned about - a mature play being put on by children.

Again please bear in mind that I say "barring what the truth may be," because Peyser seems to be more about inducing shock rather than telling the real story.

Were parents made aware of the play?

Did the school make participants sign permission slips?

Were there changes made to the play to address the fact that children were playing the characters?

You see these are the types of questions which needed to be asked and they would have been asked . . . by a columnist who is up to her job.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

We call them bigots because they show themselves to be bigots

A hallmark tactic of religious conservative groups is constantly complaining that they are unfairly labeled as "bigots" simply because they are supposedly defending the so-called normal time-honored definitions of morality, family, and decency.

After a good look at one organization - the Family Research Council - and its comments against the The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C., one has to wonder just what values are being defended.

According to People for the American Way:

The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. has unveiled its "Agenda: 2010" which is "designed for educating D.C. candidates for Mayor and D.C. Council on LGBT issues" while also serving as "a resource for journalists, activists, and the general public."

Now to the Family Research Council, this a parlor trick, another plan for the lgbt community to "destroy" America:

Local groups will try to elect more homosexuals to places of power, push in-school gay-straight alliances, support D.C. sex-oriented businesses, defend adult entertainment, grant special perks to cross-dressing prisoners, force same-sex adoption, and legalize sex trafficking. Lots of people in this country mistakenly believe that this community will be satisfied when it redefines marriage. That's not the case. Homosexuals and transgenders won't be happy until they sever every moral underpinning in America. This has never been about "acceptance" or "equality" but about a devastating strategy meant to destroy innocence, the family, local communities, public health, and parental authority.

The group even added a "cute graphic" to emphasize the point.

Now just to be clear, FRC is claiming that any action of the lgbt community is suspect because we are not human beings but willing props in some plot overturn American values.

This means:

a child wanting to get through the school day without being beaten up for being an lgbt,

or an lgbt couple wanting to extend their homes to a child who needs love,

or an lgbt couple merely seeking to preserve dignity and the right to protect each other's interests in the event of one's death are all pieces of a puzzle hatched by the fevered imagination of an international cartel led by some bald man hidden in the shadows who can only be identified by his soft hands which he uses to stroke his pet Persian cat.

The implication would be hilarious if FRC and those who support the group didn't believe this drivel.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a bigot is:

One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

This describes many religious right groups such as the Family Research Council. It's not enough for them to oppose homosexuality per se. They have to take it a step further. To them, we are not people. We are not human beings with feelings and emotions. By their very deeds and actions, they strip us of our humanity.

Unfortunately for the sake of parity and phony objectivity, some - including members of the lgbt community - allow religious right groups an unfair free pass by way of the excuse that their tactics and claims are mere expressions of their faith.

And then folks claim that the lgbt community guilty of the same type of actions.

I think that's unfair. Lgbts are not the ones who distort science to make some claim that Christianity is a "bad lifestyle."

Nor do we chalk all of the actions of religious right groups as an attempt to steadily trap us in a second class style of living, although if we did, we would have more than enough evidence to do so.

We call groups like the Family Research Council bigots because that is simply what they are.

The real question should be if these groups consider themselves moral and Christian, how can they justify their lies and attempts to stigmatize the lgbt community?

Religious right doesn't like interfaith dialogue and other Thursday midday news briefs

Religious Right Paranoia Knows No Bounds - Because there can be NO interfaith dialogue unless it's led by religious right groups and only including religious right groups, etc.

Uganda “Kill-The-Gays” Bill Supporter To Speak In St. Louis - Where he will probably whine about "Christian persecution." Whatever happened to the good old days when you could taking about killing gays with impunity, huh?

Baptists oppose repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" - Oh please. You wanna shock me? Have them saying that they support gays serving openly in the military.

Can GetEQUAL NOW Make the LGBT Rights Movement Less Racist, Transphobic, and Ageist? - Well this conversation about GetEQUAL was BOUND to happen.

Maggie Gallagher Is VERY Sad About the Prop 8 Trial - All together now . . . AWWWWWWWWW!

More trouble for African gays - this time in Ghana

Add the Ghana to the list of places in Africa, such as Uganda and South Africa, where gays and lesbians are having their share of problems:

Thousands of citizens of the West African nation of Ghana attended a rally on Friday which aimed to stamp out emerging gay communities in its biggest cities.

An estimated 3,000 young people in the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis marched in the rain, many wielding placards adorned with anti-gay slogans.

Local news website GhanaWeb reports that the protest was organized by the region’s Muslim community, following reports that gay parties and same-sex marriages had been organized recently in the suburbs.

The protest’s organisers are calling on the government to criminalise homosexuality, calling it an ‘ungodly act’.

“Ghana will suffer more than the experience of Sodom and Gomorrah, should we embrace this practice in this country,” said the rally’s leader Saeed Hamid.

It gets worse. According to the Ghana Web article, Hamid also had this to say:

He said most of the young boys involved in the practise are having health problems and are wearing pampers.

"How would you feel, if someone puts his penis into your anus?" He queried.

Talk about behind the times. Homophobes in the United States stopped linking us to diapers over 30 years ago.

Related posts:

Ugandan anti-gay bill creator wallows in the filth of his own homophobia

Even dead gay men aren't safe in some African countries

African gays and lesbians becoming victims of 'corrective rape'

Lesbians in South Africa getting raped as a corrective measure? What the hell?

Hat tip to Rod 2.0 Beta

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

I still love South Carolina: a love dirge from the pit of a crazy state in the Union

This week, South Carolina’s lgbt community celebrated a huge victory which you probably won’t hear anything about.

Last year state legislators came up with the idea of a bill addressing teen dating violence. It was an excellent idea and a great bill, that is until some legislators wrote in a codicil which would have excluded lgbt relationships, thereby telling lgbt teens that the state of South Carolina really doesn’t care if they suffer relationship violence.

Through quiet tenacity and steadfast devotion, several statewide lgbt groups and their allies caused the bill to die in committee during this legislative session.

For us sensible South Carolina residents, it was a much needed victory because let’s face it: South Carolina right now is a damn embarrassment.

From Gov. Mark Sanford’s dalliances on Argentinian soil, to the alleged affairs of possibly soon-to-be governor Nikki Haley, to “Captain Redneck” Jake Knotts, and culminating with the odyssey of Alvin Greene, this state will most likely be single handedly responsible for the Daily Show receiving yet another Emmy for Best Variety Series.

But such is the history of South Carolina. From starting the Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter to pioneering the practice of lawmakers cane-whipping each other in the Congressional halls, this state seems to be bound and determined to designate itself as the insane cousin whom one lets out of the attic at his own risk.

However in spite of how low we sink, many South Carolinians - be they gay or straight, young or old, black, white, Latino, etc - still love this state

And even though the sensible thing would be for a group of us to put on black wigs and sunglasses, get the hell out of town, and tell inquiring minds that we are from the planet Venus, we are determined to hold our heads high even though we continue to be dragged through new controversies by those whom we have selected to represent us.

Why shouldn’t we? It’s like a circus down here.

In 2004, Gov. Sanford brought two pigs to the State House to express his displeasure in the overriding of his vetoes. And the pigs “expressed” themselves all over him.

He was re-elected with over 50 percent of the vote.

We have a statue on the State House grounds of a man (Ben Tillman) who proudly bragged about using violence to keep African-Americans disenfranchised

And I won’t even mention the late Strom Thurmond except for to say that when many South Carolinians displayed shock over his secret African-American daughter, we were just pretending.

Basically, us sensible folks down here have come to the conclusion that South Carolina is not a state, but a Fellini movie. Therefore it’s best to grab a few balloons and either join the parade of bizarreness or just watch it go by.

Besides, some of us don’t look exactly fetching in black wigs and sunglasses.