Today’s column from Kerry Eleveld in The Advocate is something that needs to be read, because it spells out where we are, today, on the subject of homophobia:
First off, can we please drop the canard that allowing certain people to marry each other somehow impinges on certain other people’s religious freedoms? No one will be forcing churches or religious leaders to perform same-sex ceremonies against their will, and people will undoubtedly maintain their right to worship as they choose completely free of government interference—as they always have. And for the Post to suggest that recognizing marriage equality necessarily conflicts with the beliefs of all religious groups is completely disingenuous, especially after nearly 200 religious leaders in the district stood with the multifaith group D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality.
But perhaps more to the point, it’s time for mainstream America to realize that endorsing politicians who claim to support “equality” for LGBT Americans but not marriage equality is tantamount to aiding and abetting homophobia; that they are mounting a direct attack on the love shared by fellow tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who want to make lifelong commitments to care for one another; that they are relegating people they work with, live with, and, yes, worship with, to second-class status.
There is no gray any longer, no hair-splitting, no rationalization or triangulation that suffices anymore. If you don’t support same-sex marriage, you don’t support equality and that is quite simply homophobic.
Thank you! There seems to be a mindset among certain people, even among conserva-gays, that the mere fact that somebody doesn’t support marriage equality doesn’t mean they’re homophobic. Whenever I see that, my reaction is pretty simple: this is not 1969. Really, it isn’t. I joked a few months back that gay conservatives are valiantly fighting the battles of the 1970’s, but I was making a serious point. In the year 2010, to not support marriage equality is to not support gay people. Period.
Of course, there are different kinds of homophobia, and wingnuts are quick to assert that viciously anti-gay politicians and leaders hold “the same position as the president” on marriage equality, which is a talking point Obama really needs to stop handing them, since no one in their right mind actually thinks the President is against marriage equality in his heart of hearts. He’s just being a wuss. But, as Kerry says, he’s “aiding and abetting homophobia.”
When I talk to people younger than me (and I’m not that old), I’m always quite taken aback to find out that a young person doesn’t support equality. Usually, my reaction is one of “What planet do you live on, exactly?”, as the consensus among Americans under thirty is so strongly in support of equality.
It’s time for everyone else to get with the program. You either support all of our equal rights, or you’re standing on the side of hatred and discrimination. As Kerry said, there’s no longer a gray area here.
Read the whole column, because she says a lot more than I quoted.
With the Proposition 8 fight, Obama has fallen short in a different way, by his reluctance to join an emerging social consensus. Obama had previously criticized California’s Proposition 8, the ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage, as “divisive.” But his official position — which no one believes he actually holds — is that he is against legalizing gay marriage. Americans are changing their views on this issue with inspiring rapidity. Judge Vaughn Walker’s moving opinion provided an occasion for Obama to embrace the extension of equal rights to gay people. Instead, he slunk mumbling in the other direction. How dismal that America’s first black president will be remembered as shirking the last great civil-rights struggle.
ChristWire has lately reached new levels of popularity, in part thanks to an Aug. 14 column, “Is My Husband Gay?” Written by Stephenson Billings, the piece is a 15-point checklist to help wives detect possibly closeted husbands. “Gym membership but no interest in sports” is one warning sign. So is “Sassy, sarcastic and ironic around his friends” and “Love of pop culture.”
Oh, by the way: ChristWire is all one big joke.
“There’s just rampant idiocy in the media sometimes,” Mr. Kirwin Watson said, co-founder of the site. “People watch their favorite news channels, don’t question it and will regurgitate it the next day at the office. That is no good at all.”
In Saturday’s New York Times, columnist Charles Blow said the flowing:
A Gallup report issued on Tuesday underscored just how out of line we are. Gallup surveyed people in more than 100 countries in 2009 and found that religiosity was highly correlated to poverty. Richer countries in general are less religious.
But that doesn’t hold true for the United States.
Sixty-five percent of Americans say that religion is an important part of their daily lives. That is compared with just 30 percent of the French, 27 percent of the British and 24 percent of the Japanese.
I used Gallup’s data to chart religiosity against gross domestic product per capita, and to group countries by their size and dominant religions.
The cliché goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Even in a America, the more religious states are generally the most backward, uneducated, and poor. The situation would be infinitely worse if such states weren’t propped up by the good fortune of sitting on oil or given tax money hand-outs from the more productive — less religious — states, all the while whining about “big government” and “awful liberals”. (You know, those terrible liberals who are actually coming up with innovative, financially viable ideas that are keeping this nation afloat! Think Silicon Valley, Seattle, New York City etc.)
Indeed, word on the street has it that economic growth in Massachusetts has consistently gone up since the pilgrims liberalized and people stopped burning witches. Oklahoma ought to try to follow in Massachusetts footsteps.
Oh, I kid you Oklahoma! I’ve been there – it’s a fine state with some very nice people who aren’t named Tom Coburn or Sally Kern.
So, as you might already know, Labor Day weekend in New Orleans means Southern Decadence, one of the biggest, craziest gay festivals in existence. Fun is had by all, unless you’re really trying not to have fun, in which case, why are you there?
Anyway, as you might imagine, whenever a certain number of gays are gathered in the same place, another contingent tends to show up: the Christian protesters, with their loving signs! Great fun.
A friend of mine just posted these pictures on Facebook:
In case you can’t read that, here are all the people who are going to hell, according to these dillweeds:
Fake Christians, Abortionists, Jesus Mockers, Fornicators, Rebellious Women, MUSLIMS, Disobedient Children, Masturbators, Sport Nuts [what?], The Prideful, Hypocrites, Crossdressers, Buddhists, Good People [even the Good People?], Thieves, Inventors of Evil, Homosexuals [it took them that long to mention the fags? Do they know where they are? These people are obviously not Westboro-grade professionals], Party Animals [specifically Parker Posey], Idolators, Adulterers, LIARS, Anarchists, Catholics, Murderers, Atheists [can't get me if I don't believe in you], Pornofreaks [that's a cool compound word, I think], Liberals, Satanists, Cowards, False Teachers, Hindus, and Money Lovers.
Idiots forgot the Jews. How the hell did they forget the Jews?
Amateurs.
Also, they have a question for the people there:
Why no, I am not, and neither are my friends who took this, but thank you for axing, have a nice day?
These people. Sheesh. At least they’re entertaining.
As for music this week, I’ve been listening to a lot of The Magnetic Fields lately. If you’re not familiar, Stephin Merritt just might be our greatest living songwriter. I’m not even exaggerating. And, as this is a Gay Website, I should point out that Stephin Merritt is a Gay. The lyrics of the two songs I’m posting couldn’t be more different (Google them, or listen closely), but for me, this week, they’re related for some reason. So we’ll start with “Yeah! Oh Yeah!” and “Papa Was A Rodeo,” and then, if you’re not all weeping after listening to the second song, we’ll hit shuffle on the iTunes (version 10, which is, I agree, ghastly), and see what happens. More videos after the Random Ten and the jump.
One more thing: Have a safe Labor Day weekend, whatever you’re doing. This especially goes for all of those of you that I know and love who are on their way to The Homosexual Olympics Southern Decadence in New Orleans.
Okay, music:
1. Barbra Streisand – “Move On” [Mom, Dad, um, I'm gay...]
2. Wilco – “At Least That’s What You Said”
3. These New Puritans – “We Want War”
4. Phantogram – “When I’m Small”
5. Cale Parks – “Wet Paint”
6. Tori Amos – “Fat Slut”
7. Joanna Newsom – “Soft As Chalk”
8. BT – “Running Down the Way Up”
9. Martha Wainwright – “Hearts Club Band”
10. Elvis Costello & the Attractions – “Clubland”
I love Sam Seder. He went to the Glenn Beck rally last weekend with a camera for his “That’s Bullshit!” series and talked to the attendees about race and racism. This is simultaneously the saddest, funniest, most pathetic video of the event I’ve seen so far. Pay special attention to the guy who thinks Glenn Beck is awesome, except when he says nice things about Martin Luther King, Jr., in which case, he sucks.
It’s always nice when American Fundamentalists decide to be a little bit more equal opportunity when they inflict their poor education and disproven methods on people. Watch out, China:
Booklets produced by Focus on the Family, a Christian ministry based in Colorado, will be distributed to all high-school and university students in Yunnan to teach them how to reject sex before marriage.
[...]
Chinese students will be able to act our roleplays in which the boys say: “It is safe, I have a condom” and girls reply: “You want to bet my future with that condom?” According to a nationwide survey in April of 80,000 Chinese university students, a lowly 14.4 per cent admitted to having sex during their time in higher education.
In other news, the teen pregnancy rate in the Yunnan province is about to go up.
What do I always say about wingnuts? They are never, EVER just insane on one front. Mat Staver and Matt Barber, both of the extremist,anti-gay Liberty Counsel, talked on the radio today about how they believe Barack Obama is positioning himself to become the “global dictator” out of some World of Warcraft scenario spoken about in the fictional Left Behind series. (I won’t even call it “Biblical,” because the weird obsession with Revelation is a fairly new phenomenon, and primarily an American thing.) Here’s what they said:
Staver: When President Barack Obama was running for president, when we became president, I’ve long since stated that his end game has and is not President of the United States of America; that he has a broader worldwide agenda. And that’s why he’s to go to places around the world and down the United States of America, because he thinks that’s going to gain him popularity in some of the other foreign areas. And that’s really where I think his eyes are focused, not on [being] President of the United States.
Barber: Now here’s the scary thing, I believe that that is true, but in order to have a post-American world, you have to have a post-America. And that’s why his policies are pushing us into a post-American world. He is destroying American exceptionalism and is trying to do away with our free market system here in the United States. He’s trying to create the climate where we have a post-American world.
Staver: Well, because America is always going to be, or at least it has been up until now, world player. And for him to be on the world scene, he’s going to have to bring America down to the level of some of the European and some other countries with regards to commonality. And America always had the exceptionalism and you can’t really have worldwide influence if you’ve got the America exceptional nation because you’re going to have to have them all basically on the same level.
So for him to go into this national, or global, leadership – which he wants to do – it’s no wonder why he wants to make America’s economy like the European economy; it’s no wonder why he wants to downplay Christianity so he can up-play Islam.
This man does not respect America. He never has.
Great. Mat and Matt think Obama is The Boogeyman, that Barack Obama wants to take over the world, that he wants to destroy the United States, blah blah blah. He’s The Brain, which I guess makes Rahm Emanuel Pinky.
What the hell?!
Now I understand why Kyle at Right Wing Watch was basically throwing his hands in the air after he posted on this. These people are straight-up DSM-IV material.
I really, really wish they had gotten to argue in the Prop 8 case. It would have been ten times as funny watching the judge tear the Liberty Counsel dinguses apart as it was with the Alliance Defense Fund.
So, apparently some Republican politicians, like John Cornyn and Pete Sessions, are going to be helping the Log Cabin Republicans out with a few things. Marc Ambinder explains:
Suddenly, it’s becoming less of a stigma for bigwigs to associate with gays in the Republican Party. Not only has former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman’s 9/22 fundraiser for gay marriage rights attracted numerous high-octane Republican donors and activists, but Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Rep. Pete Sessions, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee will help the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, raise money for its political action committee.
[...]
The LCR national dinner, which follows the private fundraiser, will include Sessions, Rep. Judy Biggert, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson will serve as Master of Ceremonies.
Even Tucker Carlson! Anyway, it’s good to see that certain corners of the Republican party are starting to move into the realm of sanity on gay issues. But like I said, Peter LaBarbera does not like this, not one bit:
The liberal media just eat it up when a sin movement (in this case, organized homosexuality) officially goes “bipartisan.” Check out this excerpt from (the giddy) The Atlantic. I suspect that The Atlantic’s (and CBS News’) Marc Ambinder — while sympathetic to the Stupid Republican Party’s current pro-homosexuality tack — wouldn’t agree with our description of homosexuality as sinful. Just a hunch, though.
When he says “sin movement,” I imagine some moralistic prude in the 1960’s going on and on about Kids These Days, what with the way they do the Frug and the Watusi, without shame. And no, Marc Ambinder probably doesn’t agree with you that homosexuality is “sinful,” as that is an asinine, unprovable notion put forth by bigots and accepted as “truth” by an ever dwindling and bodily deteriorating segment of the population.
Anyway, so that is what The Peter had to say about that.
Mike A: John Smid, former leader of Exodus' Love In Action boot camp, taught that masturbation can cause homosexuality.
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2008/02/19/1457...
