South Carolina license plates will celebrate gay equality

There are so many directions I can go today whether it be the Roland Martin controversy, the Prop 8 decision coming down tomorrow, or that awful anti-gay bill in Uganda.

But I decided that I don't focus on my own state of South Carolina enough. Something good is percolating down here and I think folks should know about it:



The point is that it's not always about New York, California, or any metropolitan city. South Carolina has an awesome, thriving lgbtq community that doesn't get its due. A lot of it has to do with regional cliqueness. The South is not an ignorant place to be nor are we all backwood yokels.

We are actually very progressive.

By the way, if you want to vote in the poll mentioned in the video, go here. We are winning but more favorable votes never hurts.

One more thing - I hope you enjoy the scenes from SC Pride. As seen, we KNOW how to party!

Go to scequality.org and click on the license plate to get instructions on how to purchase your very own.

'NOM's Brian Brown does badly in debate against Evan Wolfson' and other Monday midday news briefs

Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson debated the National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown yesterday on NYC's WABC 7 and annihilated his arguments. It's like I have been saying before. Our side speaks truth from the heart while Brown's side speaks like robots programmed with talking points. This is better than sex and chocolate.


And in other news:


CNN's Roland S. Martin apologizes via Twitter for Super Bowl Tweets that angered LGBT community - Mr. Martin should look at this as a cultural lesson. I know many African-Americans who got incensed on a personal level at the photo of Arizona governor Jan Brewer putting her finger in President Obama's face. In the case of the lgbtq community, words advocating violence against the lgbtq community gets us incensed, no matter how lighthearted they were meant to be. But now that we are on the subject, how about more lgbtqs of color on your show, Roland . . . .

New York City Council Balks At Resolution Endorsing Churches In Public Schools - I can just hear the whines about "religious liberty" now.


No surprise: NC anti-gay Pastor Patrick Wooden pimps his ‘life-earned,’ non-academic doctorate - Well, well, well, the "diaper pastor" Patrick Wooden has false credentials. He should fit right in with the religious right on that score.

REPORT: 16 Million Employees Could Receive Nondiscrimination Protections From Executive Order - Go for it, Mr. President!

Washington state group pushing anti-gay junk science

Joseph Backholm - a "new" leader pushing same old junk science.

When the news came that the Washington state Senate had passed the bill allowing marriage equality, opponents began rallying to put the possibly soon-to-be law on a referendum before voters.

One group that will most likely be in the forefront of this effort is the Policy Family Institute of Washington. According to Equality Matters:

One of the most prominent anti-gay groups currently working to defeat proposed marriage equality legislation in the state of Washington is the Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW). Led byJoseph Backholm, FPIW has played a central role in organizing anti-gay efforts in the state over the past several years, including opposing efforts in 2009 to expand domestic partnerships to include same-sex couples.

Last week, Backholm testified before a Washington Senate sub-committee, urging senators to put the issue of marriage equality to a referendum and have voters to decide if “moms and dads do matter.”

Although FPIW presents itself as a typical “pro-family” organization, the group openly promotes anti-gay propaganda has ties to some of the country’s most notorious anti-gay hate groups.

According to a local Washington newspaper, The Herald Net, the 33-year-old Backholm has been called a new type of leader for the religious right:

What's made Backholm's voice stand out in the chorus of gay marriage opponents is its tone. There's less fire and brimstone and more stoic argumentation, a product of his training as a lawyer and toils as a policy wonk.

"He's not a flag waver, Bible waver or stomp around kind of guy," said Pastor Joe Fuiten of Cedar Park Assembly of God in Bothell, who served on the Family Policy Institute board of directors when Backholm came on board. "He's not a hired gun. He believes in what we're all about. It's always good for our side to be represented by someone like that."

This could present a problem because it would seem that the so-called new stoic voice will be repeating the same discredited information. Equality Matters also pointed out an article on the group' resource page:

Also included in the “Resources” page is an article by George Dent – Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University – titled “No Difference?: An Analysis Of Same-Sex Parenting.” The article contains a number of anti-gay smears, including the myth that homosexuals molest children at higher rates than heterosexuals:

The claim that living with a same-sex couple does not affect a child’s sexuality is implausible. “It would be surprising indeed if . . . children’s own sexual identities were unaffected by the sexual identities of their parents.” Even young children may sense, or be told by others, that their guardians are unusual--queer--thereby initiating their sexualization at an unusually early age.There is evidence that children raised by homosexuals are more likely to engage in homosexuality and to feel confused about their sexual identity. [...]

Further, “gay men tend to be even more preoccupied than most straight women with their bodies, physical attractiveness, attire, adornment and self-presentation.” They may choose to marry only when they no longer feel attractive enough for the promiscuity of the homosexual “meat market.” [...]

Does Dent's article sound familiar? It should. Dent's article is being used by the lawyer hired by the House of Representatives - Paul Clement - to defend DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act).

In writing about this last year, I pointed out a number of huge errors in “No Difference?: An Analysis Of Same-Sex Parenting.”

On page four, Dent cites both Paul Cameron and George Rekers, both discredited researchers. Cameron has been censured or rebuked by several organizations for his bad methodology in his studies and Rekers lost a lot of credibility two years ago when he was caught coming from a European vacation with a "rentboy."

Black gays and lesbians you should know about

I ran these videos a while back but in celebration of Black History Month, they deserve another look:









Theses lists are awesome but there are so many others out there who we need to know about. And let's especially not forget our transgender brothers and sisters. I searched for a suitable video  to represent them but could not find one. If someone knows of one out there, please send it to me and I will post it. No one should be left out of our community or the celebration of our community.

Know Your LGBT History - James Baldwin

Words can't do James Baldwin proper justice, so I hope that these two videos can. I especially like the second one. It's why he is one of my role models:







Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

'Will Virginia discriminate against gay taxpayers?' and other Friday midday news briefs

Opponents of Marriage Equality in Washington Gear Up for Ballot Referendum Before It's Even Law: VIDEO - Well we knew this would happen. And check out the list of organizations behind this mess. The usual cast of "characters."

Virginia House To Approve Anti-Gay Adoption Bill - This will probably end up in the courts. If you don't want to abide by the rules regarding non-discrimination, then don't take the money. It doesn't matter if you are a religious organization. "Faith-based" adoption agencies want to take gay taxpayers' dollars while telling them "you are too evil for us to allow you to adopt children."

‘Ex-Gay’ Conference To Be Debunked in Atlanta on Feb. 16 - Awesome!

Sit-Ins for Stacey - The smallest violin in the galaxy plays for "poor" Stacey Campfield

NOM's clumsy heavy hand finds its next 'they' - and NOM lies AGAIN.

Parents angry at 'ex-gay' group for pushing false information to children

As if our lgbtq children don't have enough to deal with:

Flyer On Gay Choice Stirs Controversy: MyFoxDC.com

I did note a silver lining to this story. As the video noted, it was a parent who complained and other parents were not happy either:

Karen Yount-Merrell, a licensed, clinical social worker, got one of the flyers when her son came home with his report card from Einstein High School.

"I don't like it," Yount-Merrell declared. "Everything in this flyer make its sound like the goal is to be [an] EX-gay, [or an EX]-lesbian. It is not embracing of a different orientation. It reiterates a societal view that there's something 'wrong' with you, if you're not in the norm. If you aren't heterosexual. And teenagers have a hard enough time dealing with who they are and feeling good about themselves."

The video also notes how those pushing the flyer are also pushing that "we just want tolerance for our point of view" hogwash argument:

Supporters of the flyer say their literature simply calls for "tolerance" of a different viewpoint on homosexuality.

"If people were to actually read the content of the flyer that we're distributing, they will see there is nothing in here that is insulting or even critical of homosexuals,” said PFOX board member Peter Sprigg. “All it is telling kids [is] that you don't have to be gay if you don't want to be."

And therein lies the heart of the deception. Sprigg says that the flyer is not insulting or critical of gays, but then he implies that there is something wrong with being gay with his statement "you don't have to be gay if you don't want to be."

Also please note the fact that the parent in the video has expertise as a licensed, clinical social worker. Sprigg has no expertise other being anointed as an "expert" by his organization, the Family Research Council. As demonstrated by his flawed testimony in Maryland this week, he doesn't deserve that title.

Furthermore, please don't be fooled by Sprigg's false show of innocence. As Right Wing Watch points out:

The PFOX board [pdf] is also composed of some of the most stringently anti-gay voices in politics today, including Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel, who claims gay youth are more likely to commit suicide because they intuitively know homosexuality “is wrong and immoral;” Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union, who thinks there is a conspiracy among gay Hill staffers to control Congress; Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, who has called for gays to be deported from the U.S., and of course, Greg Quinlan, who was once married to a fellow “ex-gay” woman until she divorced him. As Amanda Hess of the Washington City Paper notes, very few people serving on the PFOX board are actually “ex-gays,” but that hasn’t stopped them from promoting dangerous “ex-gay” reparative therapy to children.

Right Wing Watch also notes that this is not simply an issue of  PFOX as a group with a "differing point of view."  PFOX is a group which peddles dangerous lies:

. . . the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Social Workers and the American Psychiatric Association all deny the effectiveness, safety and ethics of reparative therapy. While Religious Right groups have sued for the right to distribute literature in Montgomery County schools, like the PFOX flyer which propagates discredited and harmful misinformation about sexual orientation and gender identity, they have also sought to deny this right to groups they disagree with.