'President Obama commemorates World AIDS Day 2014' & other Monday midday news briefs

 NOM can't even keep its holidays straight - Siiiigh! NOM's not even trying anymore.

Federal Judge Overturns Mississippi’s Ban On Same-Sex Marriage - I know you heard about this but there is more to the story.

 In Mississippi Marriage Ruling, Judge Gives History Lesson on Anti-Gay Discrimination - THIS is the more to the story and it should be required reading instead of that junk conservatives are pushing on our kids via their version of history books.

Alan Turing's Biographer On The Truth About The Troubled Genius And His Tragic Death - Alan Turing helped to save the world from the Nazis and this is how they paid him back. Tragic.

Fox news personality Erick Erickson distorts story of Atlanta fire chief

Fox News personality Erick Erickson show skill in lying.

Unfortunately it's not just anti-gay groups and spokespeople who will lie about the lgbt community and situations concerning us.

Other conservatives sometimes jump in with tactics and omissions as noxious as that of groups such as the Family Research Council or the National Organization for Marriage. Last week, Fox News personality (I refuse to call him a journalist) and blogmaster of the site Red State, Erick Erickson raised the alarm about a controversy in Atalanta:

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle,

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran is suspended for one month without pay after publishing a book that says homosexuality and having multiple sexual partners is “vile,” “vulgar”, and “inappropriate”.

The 162-page paperback titled “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” is being sold at Amazon.com.

 . . . Chief Cochran is an evangelical Christian who has not shied away from his faith in the past. He left the Atlanta Fire Department to take a job in the Obama Administration. He returned, however, to the city he loves to head its Fire Department. But the gay mafia is loudly complaining that Chief Cochran, by writing this book, will suddenly now not put out the fires of gay homes, or something like that.

Specifically, the accusation is that by being honest about his orthodox Christian views on sex and marriage, Chief Cochran is undermining the public trust in him. You’d think the government would appreciate Kelvin Cochran being a role model to young black men in Atlanta, but they are instead much more focused on not offending the gay rights community.

What Mayor Reed and the gay rights community are saying is that if you work for government you cannot be open about your Christian faith. Again, you will be made to care.

That "you will be made to care" phrase is one Erickson coined a while back. It's his way of claiming that marriage equality will cause people's rights to be compromised.

It's a ridiculous theory, much like Erickson's rendition of Cochran's story.  For one thing, he is being extremely flippant of Cochran's claim about lgbts.  The man is a public servant and, like it or not, lgbts are members of the public. We have a right to get angry when it is discovered that someone paid to serve us has such an awful view of our community.  Would Mr. Erickson defend police officers who were fired for being members of the Ku Klux Klan?

Also, Erickson omitted other parts of the story. According to WSB-TV channel 2 in Atlanta:

In the book based on Christian values, Cochran identifies himself as Atlanta's fire chief and says his first priority as chief is to run the department "to cultivate its culture to the glory of God."

He also has critical views on homosexuality, at one point equating it to bestiality.

City officials say Cochran violated city policy by publishing a book without permission.

"One of the most alarming things is that we did not know about the book when it was published," city spokeswoman Anne Torres said.

City officials want to know how often Cochran distributed the book at work to colleagues.

To recap: Cochran involved his place of employment in the book, claimed that his first priority in his job was a religious one (instead of keeping the community safe), and there is a strong possibility that he may have distributed the book to subordinates.

In other words, this is not a case of Cochran being discriminated or targeted by some fictional "gay mafia." Instead it is a case of Cochran being merely suspended while an investigation is underway to see whether or not he violated rules regarding his employment.

If anyone is "made to care" about the situation, then the fault lies solely with Cochran. Any idea that the lgbt community should roll over and be disrespected or that Cochran's faith gives an exemption from rules everyone must follow is simply ridiculous.

Gary Bauer - the anti-gay talking head who undermined the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Reagan Administration

Gary Bauer

The late President Reagan gets a lot of deserved flack for his negligence in the early days of the AIDS crisis. Today, we learned that there needs to be some flack dispensed around because Reagan isn't the only person in his Administration who needs to be called to the carpet.

According to Right Wing Watch:

Anyone who is familiar with Gary Bauer's anti-gay extremism will not be surprised to learn that his bigotry goes way back. Just in time for World AIDS Day, we now know that when Bauer was working in the Reagan White House, he fought hard to keep gay people off the nation’s first AIDS commission.

Right Wing Watch published part of a memo he sent to Reagan regarding this:

 3. Millions of Americans try to raise their children to believe that homosexuality is immoral. In many states homosexual practices are illegal, including sodomy. For you to appoint a known homosexual to a Presidential Commission will give homosexuality a stamp of acceptability. It will drive a wedge between us and many of our socially conservative supporters. 

4. While it is true that homosexuals have been major victims of AIDS, they are also responsible for its spread. Recent students show the average gay man with AIDS has had over 150 different sexual partners in the previous 12 months. 

Bauer proposed instead appointing a relative of someone with AIDS, or a caregiver, or as a last resort, a “reformed” homosexual: “that is, someone not currently living a gay life style. We have identified several individuals that meet that criteria.”

 In the end, Reagan ignored Bauer’s pleadings and appointed Frank Lilly, an openly gay geneticist, to the Presidential Commission on the HIV Epidemic.

Right Wing Watch also goes on to say that Bauer undermined the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Reagan Administration by keeping then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop from gaining access to the Reagan and the cabinet after the president asked Koop to prepare a report on AIDS.

Bauer’s role as an anti-gay zealot in the Reagan White House was also revealed in "Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite" by D. Michael Lindsay.

As Kyle reported back in 2010, the book says Bauer interfered with the efforts of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop when he was tasked with drafting a report on AIDS for President Reagan:

 [In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers who shared Koop's evangelical convictions. As Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer [Reagan's chief advisor on domestic policy] ... was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them." 

It is also worth knowing that after leaving the Reagan Administration, Bauer became the first president of an anti-gay group we all know well - the Family Research Council. Under Bauer's leadership, the organization created an ugly catalogue of homophobic lies and cherry-picked science which eventually led it to be designated in 2010 as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Bauer is presently involved in the  Campaign for Working Families and Our American Values; two organization which supposedly works for "family values and faith."  Bauer is also looked upon as one of the leading voices of the conservative evangelical movement.

In my eyes, Bauer has taken his place amongst such notables as 'Bloody Mary' Tudor, Tomas de Torquemada, and others whose manic religious zeal and self-righteous mindset caused untold chaos to a host of innocents.

To some folks, maybe I am being a bit hyperbolic. Perhaps, but then again perhaps not.  I remember when HIV/AIDS came on the scene and began knocking down members of the lgbt community like a goddamn hurricane. I remember the ugly things people said about those affected by HIV/AIDS, such as when columnist Pat Buchanan said that nature was reaping retribution on the gay community.

And I remember, even though I was too young to take part in, the demand that Reagan address this issue. No one knows what would have happened had Reagan addressed the HIV/AIDS crisis sooner than he did. But it is rather nauseating and disturbing that there was someone in his cabinet who worked to undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS because he felt that those affected "deserved" what they got.

So what can be done with this knowledge of Bauer's "activities?" Just a simple word of mouth. Don't let it be forgotten. Tell the story. Repeat the story. Shine a spotlight on the story every chance you get. 

History will not be kind to Gary Bauer, so long as we have something to do with it.

'Atlanta fire chief suspended over anti-gay book' & other Tuesday midday news briefs

The Perfect Ex-Gay Christmas Gift - A gag gift guaranteed to make you "gag."

Clerks object to issuing same-sex marriage license - Someone needs to do their jobs or move out of the way. 

 Atlanta fire chief suspended over book controversy - Don't give me any crap about "personal opinion" or "the First Amendment." If you are in a position like this guy, one of the main things is trust. You have to have the trust of your lgbt employees and lgbt constituents you serve. And I don't trust anyone who compares my life to bestiality or pedophilia. 

Read: ADF creates fake 'victim' superbook; misapplies business matters to churches - Speaking of fake victims, enjoy this book full of them.  

Thanksgiving Arguments: How To Talk To Your Evangelical Uncle About Marriage Equality - I would have said bash him over the head with the turkey but apparently we don't do things like that . . .

Gay men have over 20,000 sexual partners? Really?

One of the saddest things about fighting stereotypes is no matter how much you achieve, said stereotypes don't go away. In fact, they get repeated with force and volume.

As an African-American, I've dealt with being called lazy, criminal-minded and stupid more times than I can count.

As a gay man, I've had to deal with the following, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Lord Christopher Monckton, a columnist for the far-right WorldNetDaily, today came to the defense of an Australian politician, Rosalie Crestani, who is trying to pass a law to prevent her local government from mentioning LGBT issues and holding diversity trainings. Monckton, who derisively refers to the LGBT community as “QWERTY,” like the keyboard layout, said that Crestani discovered during a consultation with “an expert in non-heterosexual lifestyles” that “homosexuals had an average of 500-1,000 partners in their sexually active lifetime, and that some had as many as 20,000.” “One wonders how they found time for anything else,” Monckton quips, adding that gay people lead “short, miserable lives” as part of their “deathstyle.

Regardless of what Monckton implies, if gay men did actually have up to 20,000 sex partners, no matter how long or short our lifespans would be, we would NOT be unhappy. I can assure you that. Seriously though, the idea that gay men are oversexed and have an enormous amount of sex is repeated by members of the anti-gay right, even if this idea contradicts a lot of the other things they say about gay men, as Monckton demonstrates as he continues to ruminate about alleged gay sexual habits:
 

As the experts she has consulted have pointed out, the QWERTYs – who represent about 0.5 percent of the population – have brilliantly promoted themselves by carefully shifting the debate away from what homosexuals actually do to each other (just ask any proctologist: all of them are heartily sick of trying to repair the gross damage caused by deviant sexual practices) and on to “celebrating” what is misleadingly presented as a “valid alternative lifestyle.” 

How in the world can gays be 0.5 percent of the population and be having all of this sex? And just what proctologists did Monckton consult? The man is lying through his teeth. And he proves something awful about anti-gay stereotypes. No matter how many times they are refuted, they are constantly repeated. The following is from an anti-gay comic published in the 1980s, which I have featured several times.  It pretty much says the same thing Monckton does:

It's easy to laugh at this stuff now. But don't. Though, with the exception of folks like Matt Barber, Linda Harvey, Peter LaBarbera,  Brian Camenker, and Bryan Fischer, the vast majority of the anti-gay right wouldn't dare to overtly repeat this mess, we should remember how successful such stereotypes were decades ago when they were repeated openly and we should also remember how successful they are now when repeated in places like Uganda and Russia when enterprising homophobes exploited religious beliefs to attach such awful images to the idea that homosexuality is a sin.

That's why when we read things like what Monckton wrote, we can't be quick to laugh or be nonchalant about it. Stereotypes are generally used to hurt people and they aren't hurting you, you can bet they are hurting someone else.

Related posts:

 All of the 'evil and dirty' things that the gays do

How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right  War on America - Scribd or Wordpress

' Anti-gay #DefendtheDuggars twitter campaign backfires' & other Monday midday news briefs

Religious Conservatives' Attempt To #DefendTheDuggars Backfires Hysterically - And the moral is if you are known for conducting boycotts, your defending something against a boycott by labeling your opposition as opponents of free speech will bite you in the ass. 

In prep for Pope's 2015 visit, World Meeting of Families readies gay stigma, exclusion - Mercy! Give us all strength!  

For Most Gays, The Golden Years Are Looking Something Less Than Golden: VIDEO - Which is an issue we need to address.  

Evangelical 'Kingmaker' Working To Vote 1000 Christian Pastors Into Political Office - 'Bloody Mary' Tudor and Torquemada would be very proud.  

Fischer: Impeachment Campaign Should Copy The Gay Rights Movement - What?!

'Religious freedom' bills will be next chapter in anti-gay discrimination

In the 50s and 60s, they said we were perverts who ought to be jailed.

In the 70s, they said we recruit children.

In the 80s, they said we were diseased freaks who run around catching AIDS.

In the 90s, they said we wanted "special rights."

In the 2000s, they said we wanted to redefine marriage.

Now they claim we are trying to put Christians out of business and jail them.

According to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, those against marriage equality aren't wasting any time plotting their next move. In fact, they see the victories for marriage equality as a gateway to allow discrimination against gays on  larger scale:

Most state legislatures don’t come back into session for a few months, yet legislators are already announcing their intent to introduce so-called “religious freedom” bills for 2015. These bills would introduce identical or even broader versions of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)—the law that was distorted to allow corporations like Hobby Lobby to use religion to ignore the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Legislators are advocating for these bills by claiming they will create broad religious exemptions from nondiscrimination laws.

AU strongly believes in religious freedom and appropriately tailored religious accommodations. Despite the fact that these bills claim to protect religious freedom, in reality they are a threat to civil rights. The language in these bills is too broad and unclear, and could open the door for serious and even harmful unintended consequences, including nullifying discrimination, public safety, and health laws.

Several states pushed RFRA bills in 2014, but experienced passionate backlash from civil rights groups and the business community: even the NFL threatened to change the location of the 2015 Super Bowl if the RFRA bill passed in Arizona. The bill still passed the legislature, but Governor Brewer thankfully vetoed it.

At least five states have announced religious freedom bills for the upcoming session: Georgia, Michigan, Texas, North Carolina, and Utah.

Read the rest of the article to see the progress of those laws and count on the number of states to grow. This will be the next chapter of the so-called culture war and if the lgbt community is smart, we won't be caught napping . . . this time.