Deb Word works tirelessly as an advocate for homeless/discarded gay youth in Memphis, Tennessee. In this video, she’s interviewed at a conference at Fordham University on the Catholic Church and sexual diversity, and talks about her own gay son and how she got into the work she’s doing.

Full disclosure ‘n’ stuff: Deb is a friend of mine, and I’m proud to say so.

(Weekly Column)

Last week, Truth Wins Out caused an international uproar by criticizing a new Catholic iphone confession app that asks users, “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?” The real question the app should have asked was, “Have I been guilty of spiritually abusing a homosexual?”

No one should be surprised by this uproar. The “sin” question is significantly more important and emotional than traditional battles over gay rights. This charged discussion cuts to the core of the prejudice and directly challenges the ugly myth that being gay – or acting on it — is inherently sinful.

The fact is, homosexuality has been with us since the beginning of time and is not sinful. It is the natural and beautiful manner in which tens of millions of human beings experience sexual intimacy and express love. To deny or debase these individuals for their sexual orientation or naturally pursuing it is to place them outside the circle of humanity.

In a humane world that truly “loves thy neighbor”, sin would be defined as an activity that causes harm. Any rational person would reasonably conclude that the religious fundamentalists are the true sinners because they are the ones damaging and injuring innocent LGBT people.

Currently, I am on an 11-state tour of the most conservative regions of America. Each stop brings me into contact with new – mostly college age — victims of spiritual abuse. Allowing the religious hierarchies to mindlessly humiliate LGBT people as sinners without pushback is no longer acceptable. Too many lives have been shattered, families destroyed, psyches cracked, and hearts broken to allow the dangerous status quo to continue.

The stale reaction to the iphone controversy by Catholic reactionaries was predictable and predicated on a series of false premises.

First, the faithful defenders were upset because they did not like losing control of the storyline. For centuries they wore the white hats in the Saints vs. Sinner drama. They elevated themselves by perching on a pedestal of privilege where they get to reject and we must respect. The idea of reversing these “set” roles has them apoplectic.

Second, the apologists falsely tried to portray our attempt at accountability as “anti-Catholic”. They conveniently ignored that Truth Wins Out has objected to all forms of fundamentalist abuse at the hands of evangelicals, Muslims, and Orthodox Jews. Our position is not anti-religious, but pro-life. The “sin” label is toxic and sending too many LGBT youth to an early grave. How many people will religious institutions allow to perish as collateral damage in support of a cruel and failed idea?

Third, our detractors operate under the false premise that they represent unchanging religious truths. Indeed, change is the one constant in religion and once “time-tested” absolutes have been altered time and again. It may have taken the Catholic Church 400 years to apologize for persecuting Copernicus, but they did. Can we afford 400 years of harm against LGBT families until the Church’s inevitable admission to the error of its anti-gay ways?

Fourth, there is the absurd notion that religious ideas shouldn’t be challenged. But, this illusion is belied by the major religions themselves that send missionaries worldwide for the sole purpose of seeking converts. If churches are sincere about not questioning the beliefs of others, let them bring home their missionaries. Until they do, they have no right to whine about having to compete in the robust marketplace of ideas.

Fifth, church warriors have falsely portrayed this as a battle of free speech. We did not question the right to preach anti-gay dogma and never asked Apple to nix the Catholic app. We only inquired whether the app was socially responsible, given the indisputable consequences – from hate crimes to suicide that occur as the result of marginalizing LGBT people.

Sixth, a false refrain we heard was that God treated all sex outside marriage as sin – so gay people were not treated differently. Until there is marriage equality such arguments are mere sophistry made by smug individuals who perpetuate an unfair system where they receive pleasure and others get the pain.

The most intelligent opposition I received was from a gay individual who made the point that he had good friends who thought homosexuality was a sin. However, a bad idea in benevolent hands is still a bad idea, just waiting to fall into the wrong hands where it can be exploited and mutate into something dangerous. And, if the friendship can survive with the gay person labeled a sinner, shouldn’t the Christian friend be just as thick skinned when challenged on this idea?

Gay Catholics don’t need to confess, they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma. Rationality-based churches need to stand up and fiercely confront the damaging belief that homosexuality is wrong.

Fundamentalists like to say that the wages of sin is death. In reality, the emotional, spiritual and sometimes physical death is caused by unfairly labeling a group of good people sinners. The iphone brouhaha won’t go away because it forces people of faith to uncomfortably examine an area where their beliefs have unquestionably done more harm than good.

Just got this press release from Catholics for Equality:

WASHINGTON – Catholics for Equality, a national political group of Catholics who support full civil equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, today voices concern over recent funding from the Dioceses of Oakland, CA and Colorado Springs, CO for the establishment of chapters of the Courage Apostolate, a discredited reparative therapy program. The funding and endorsement of the discredited program reveals the disturbing trend of some bishops to align themselves more closely with anti-gay extremists than American Catholics and the American public.

The Courage Apostolate’s misuse of the 12-step program holds the premise that same-sex attraction is a disease, similar to alcoholism, and should be “controlled.” Its underlying intrinsic disorder philosophy mirrors the “reparative therapy” programs developed through Evangelical ministries – all of which have been discredited by both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

Recently, the Courage Apostolate’s framing of homosexuality was used by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services in the United States of America Services, in opposition to allowing gay and lesbian solders to serve openly in the military.

“As American Catholics we are embarrassed that leaders of our church would embrace such outdated and discredited theories about human sexuality and the human condition,” says Catholics for Equality Executive Director Phil Attey. “We are further embarrassed and frustrated when these arguments are made in public and used to influence civil law in America. Many American Catholics feel like we’re back in the days of Copernicus when we hear our bishops making erroneous statements like these on behalf of the Catholic community.”

“That more dioceses are funding these programs should be alarming for every Catholic in America,” says Joseph Palacios, Director of the Catholics for Equality Foundation. “It signals that our institutional church is further being taken over by the Catholic fundamentalist movement which is working to return the Roman Catholic Church to the pre-Vatican II attitudes that separated Catholics from the modern world. We fear that if American Catholics do not speak out against these trends and this restorationist movement succeeds, our church will no longer be a home for American Catholic families seeking to be faithful Catholics as well as Americans committed to inclusion and equality for all citizens.”

Catholics for Equality calls on pro-equality Catholics nationwide to ask their pastors if their weekly offerings are being channeled into local Courage Apostolate programs. We also ask every American Catholic to contact their state legislators and members of Congress to counter the harmful influences that the Conference of Bishops, the Courage Apostolate and other discredited reparative therapy programs are having on American public policy regarding legal equality for all Americans.

This group doesn’t speak for all American Catholics, obviously, but one of the encouraging things about the American strain of Catholicism is that much of it is moving away from treating the Pope and their Bishops as if they’re infallible, and more and more, they’re vociferously questioning those supposed “moral authorities” in public.

Because, of course, as we all know, Santa is the reason for the season. Cue the world’s dumbest man:

A politically correct West Village YMCA has fired Ol’ St. Nick in favor of Frosty.

Kids who once thrilled at sitting on Santa’s lap at the 14th Street McBurney YMCA’s wildly popular annual holiday luncheon will now suffer the icy embrace of a talking snowman and his sidekick, an anonymous penguin, at today’s event.

[...]

“Christmas is not about Jack Frost; it’s not about snowmen,” fumed Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. “We’re not talking about some secular organization that has no religious roots. If they can’t celebrate Christmas, then they should check out. What a bunch of cowards.”

Noted: The conservative Catholic who defends child rapists on a regular basis is upset that kids won’t get to sit on an old stranger’s lap at the Y this year.

RELATED: Bill is also still very much caterwauling about the Smithsonian and its gay exhibits:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a December 3 statement by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) on the video that was pulled from the Smithsonian last week:

AAMD calls it “extremely regrettable” that the Smithsonian pulled the vile video. Nowhere does it even imply that Christians might rightly be offended by the sight of large ants crawling all over Jesus on the Cross. As such, AAMD has made the case for withdrawing all public support for the arts. If this is what they call art—never mind the pornographic images of gay men—and if this is how they treat Christians, then let them find private sources for their work.

AAMD is also guilty of rank hypocrisy. In 2006, it released a report on sacred objects, maintaining that “art museums should strive to accord equal treatment and respect to all religions in the interpretation of religious works of art.” Does AAMD not regard a crucifix as a “sacred object”? Christians would love to know. Or is their interest in “sacred objects” limited to those found in “indigenous societies,” as their policy seems to indicate?

In a large survey of museum-going households released in April, it was found that they are significantly better educated and affluent than the U.S. population; they are also overwhelmingly white. The time has come, then, to stop funding the leisure of rich white people: all public monies for the arts should cease. Quite frankly, to make the working class pay for the leisure of the rich amounts to class discrimination. In the spirit of social justice, a better case could be made to fund professional wrestling—it’s what the working class enjoy.

First of all, Billiam, crucifixes are really only a sacred symbol to Catholics; Protestants tend to find them morbid. [They are.] Second, Wilhelmina, OF COURSE museum goers are better educated than the rest of the population. That’s why none of your hick followers had brought this to your attention until the exhibit had been up for over a month! But it’s been shown that encouraging and funding a wide range of artistic endeavors is GOOD for the people, as it encourages them to run away from the instinct/temptation, promoted by intellectual lightweights like yourself, to be as stupid as humanly possible from cradle to grave. But of course, that’s kind of a moot point, since the Smithsonian exhibit in question is privately funded, no matter how much you lie and say otherwise.

Note to Smithsonian: Do not, under any circumstances, put Frosty the Snowman anywhere in the Portrait Gallery, because Bill’s little head will explode.

[h/t PZ & Joe]

Oh lordy, let’s watch a wingnut freak-out over nothing.

Conservatives don’t tend to like art.  They feel intimidated by it.  They don’t understand it.  They get their fee fees hurt when art does what art is supposed to do by provoking thought and feeling, by pushing boundaries in order to provide commentary, etc.  Liberals don’t get freaked out in the same way — we understand that, hello, it is art, and if it is Not Your Thing, you are not being forced to look at it or buy it.

So, the freak-out comes to us via Roy Edroso, who brings it to his readers by undertaking the entertaining, if tedious, task of reading Kathryn Jean Lopez’s words at the National Review.  K-Lo is freaked out about this piece from “Penny Starr” [drag name, most likely], a “reporter” for CNS “News.”  You see, there is an exhibit that has been running for a while at the Smithsonian, and will be running through the holiday season and after, and you see, it has naughty GAY stuff in it, and all of this is, of course, part of the War on Christmas, and is, of course, Too Soon, never forget, etc.:

The federally funded National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, is currently showing an exhibition that features images of an ant-covered Jesus, male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show’s catalog as “homoerotic.”

The exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” opened on Oct. 30 and will run throughout the Christmas Season, closing on Feb. 13.

Right on through Jesus’ birthday party!

Penny then goes on to detail what has become the exhibit that’s causing the most [stupid] problems [among people who don't understand or respect art]:

“A Fire in My Belly” was created by David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992). The full-length version of this 1987 video, according to the description at the exhibit, is 30 minutes long. The version viewable in the National Portrait Gallery has been edited down to 4 minutes. The description says, “A Fire in My Belly, a compilation of footage largely shot in Mexico, weaves together numerous images of loss, pain, and death into a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic; it concludes in a picture of the world aflame.”

The description speaks of the video artist’s “poetic, yet furious, condemnation of the way greed, religion, and selfishness conspire to label certain people as outside the scope of our caring.” It also quotes Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS, as saying, “When I was told I’d contracted the virus, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d contracted a diseased society as well.”

The four-minute version of the video shown in the exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery shows, among other images, ants crawling over the image of Jesus on a crucifix, two halves of a loaf of bread being sewn together, the bloody mouth of a man being sewn shut, a hand dropping coins, a man undressing, a man’s genitals, a bowl of blood, and mummified humans.

A differently edited four-minute version of Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” video posted on YouTube shows images of ants crawling over the image of Jesus (as does the version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery), but also shows a man masturbating (an image which is not included in the edited version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, which only shows a man’s genitals.). The YouTube version also carries a soundtrack that is different from the version exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.

Cue the sanctimonious rubes of the new Republican House majority, because it’s CULTURE WAR OUTRAGE TIME!

The Catholic site CNSNews.com brought the exhibit — called “Hide/Seek,” which “contains video of a Jesus statue with ants crawling on it, as well as works of art with strongly sexual themes” — to Boehner and Cantor’s attention, asking what they thought of it. They could have responded, “We have other shit to do before worrying about the aesthetic merit of some art exhibit in Chinatown,” but that would’ve been too easy. Instead we get:

“American families have a right to expect better from recipients of taxpayer funds in a tough economy,” Boehner’s Spokesman Kevin Smith told CNSNews.com. “While the amount of money involved may be small, it’s symbolic of the arrogance Washington routinely applies to thousands of spending decisions involving Americans’ hard-earned money at a time when one in every 10 Americans is out of work and our children’s future is being threatened by debt.
“Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves to end the job-killing spending spree in Washington,” Smith said.

MURRIKAN FAMILIES SHOULD NEVER BE CONFRONTED WITH ART OR EDUCATION, or moreover, with worldviews that are different from the average heartland teabagger, he is basically saying.

So, of course, the Smithsonian caved to the hicks:

The National Portrait Gallery has removed a work of art from a GLBT-themed exhibition after it attracted conservative and religious ire for its images of homosexuality and Christianity. Director Martin Sullivan announced the removal of A Fire in My Belly by artist David Wojnarowicz after conservative news service CNS wrote yesterday that the “Christmas-season exhibit,” which opened in October, used taxpayer money to indirectly fund an exhibition that includes imagery of genitalia, homoerotic situations, and Christ covered in ants.

[...]

Publicist Bethany Bentley says that until the article was published, the museum had not heard a single objection to the exhibition. “On Friday we had over 10,000 visitors to the gallery, and we had no complaints,” she says.

Well, of course there were no complaints. Before the manufactured outrage from people whose idea of “appreciating art” is picking up Thomas Kinkade prints on clearance, the people who were aware of the exhibition were People Who Go To Museums. There is very little overlap between the two groups.

Of course, this didn’t stop the wingnutterie from engaging in a little Muslim-bashing, because you see, Christians are an oppressed minority in Murrika, etc.:

If these “artists” really wanted to be daring and controversial, they’d create an ant-covered Quran exhibit. But the cowards take the path of least resistance and then applaud their own courage in the face of minuscule risk.

[...]

AIDS? Please, stop these BS excuses, it was meant to offend.

Yes, moron, it’s a piece about AIDS. And if it offended, if it was shocking, perhaps there is an artistic point being made that can’t be explained in the two verses, chorus, bridge and key change of a Toby Keith song. Perhaps.

So anyway, the Culture Wars are back, I guess.  The next two years are going to be such a waste of our time.

For the sake of art, the indeed disturbing Wojnarowicz piece, in its modified YouTube version, is after the jump. No, it is not safe for work, which is why it wasn’t exhibited at Your Work, but rather in a museum of art. You may watch it or not watch it. It’s harrowing, especially with the Diamanda Galas soundtrack added.  I will say, though, that the outrage over this piece, the pearl-clutching and whatnot, is simply proof that this piece of art is extremely effective, whether or not you are moved by it.

(Read More)

This is a supremely cool video, and it happens to have been made by a friend of mine.

Though we in the LGBT community run the gamut of belief and lack thereof, it’s so important that we have all of our different voices in play, speaking out in the ways we’re best suited for.

I got this AP report from Rex Wockner:

Citing a shortage of priests who can perform the rite, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are holding a conference on how to conduct exorcisms.

The two-day training, which ends today in Baltimore, is to outline the scriptural basis of evil, instruct clergy on evaluating whether a person is truly possessed, and review the prayers and rituals that comprise an exorcism. Among the speakers will be Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and a priest-assistant to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

“Learning the liturgical rite is not difficult,” DiNardo said before the conference, which is open to clergy only. “The problem is the discernment that the exorcist needs before he would ever attempt the rite.”

Signs of demonic possession accepted by the church include violent reaction to holy water or anything holy, speaking in a language the possessed person doesn’t know and abnormal displays of strength.

The full exorcism is held in private and includes sprinkling holy water, reciting Psalms, reading aloud from the Gospel, laying on of hands and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Some adaptations are allowed for different circumstances. The exorcist can invoke the Holy Spirit then blow in the face of the possessed person, trace the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead and command the devil to leave.

Hmm, just like that — PRESTO — the church reentered Medieval times. How, exactly, is this church still relevant on moral issues? And, do we really need more Catholic priests blowing people…in the face.

If you ask me, I’d say the Catholic Church is in need of a serious exorcism.

The New York Times wrote a piece on Saturday about Eve Tushnet under the headline, “A Gay Catholic Voice Against Same-Sex Marriage.”

Tushnet grew up in a liberal home and was an out lesbian as a teenager. However, she attended a conservative meeting at Yale and then became a Catholic. Bizarrely, she now identifies as an out and proud lesbian who abstains from gay sex and is anti-gay.

It turns out Ms. Tushnet also enjoys all the trappings of gay life, while striking a conservative pose.

Get this. She dresses in trendy clothes, like a Park Slope lesbian. She lives in Washington’s uber-gay DuPont Circle…and she listens to gay synth pop.

“I really think the most important thing is, I really like being gay and I really like being Catholic,” she says. “If nobody ever calls me self-hating again, it will be too soon.

“Nothing is quite as great as getting up in the morning, listening to the Pet Shop Boys and going to church.”

Actually, Eve is self-hating. Imagine a black person choosing to live in Harlem during the civil rights era, dressing in distinctly African-American styles — yet adamantly and outspokenly opposing civil rights — and defending the indefensible by proclaiming, “But, I listen to the Jackson 5.”

Eve’s tired schtick is breathtakingly condescending and transparently patronizing. If she wants to be an anti-gay bigot, she should drop the pretentious poseur performance and refashion herself as Anita Bryant. At lease Bryant was honest in her presentation and did not work so hard to appear trendy and, “like, totally rad dude.”

I don’t really care that Tushnet has elected to remain celibate. If she has chosen to embrace a unimpressive, petty, and puny version of God who is a scold on “hole patrol” — well that is her business. Her loneliness and sexual repression is her choice and I respect it.

However, her blog reinforces the negative message that there is something wrong with gay intimacy. Her solution is that millions of healthy LGBT people adopt her obviously unhealthy sexual hang-ups and religious neuroses. This is a particularly egregious message when young LGBT teens are still committing suicide because they are told that there is something wrong with them. Ms. Tushnet’s work feeds into this bigotry and provides the rationalization and justification for harming people who have done nothing to hurt her.

Given the several century sodomy spree by Catholic priests with underage boys, the reshuffling of these reprobates like a deck of cards at Caesar’s Palace and the Vatican excusing those holding the church accountable as purveyors of “gossip” — the last thing we want or need is some self-righteous, sexually dysfunctional Catholic lesbian doling out advice on sex.

When I hear someone from this church opine on sexual morality, I automatically press the mute button and tune them out. After the raping of an untold number of youth, The Roman Catholic Church has lost its way and surrendered its moral authority to lecture gay people — or anyone — about sex. Particularly, when our relationships are healthy, productive, happy and between consenting adults.

Eve Tushnet would not be so angry and bitter if she — to quote her beloved Pet Shop Boys — ended her ridiculous routine found a nice West End Girl.

Larry King hosts the debate between Sinead O’Connor, the intellectually dishonest, anti-gay Bill Donohue, former CNN anchor Thomas Roberts, himself abused by a priest as a teenager. and a couple of priests. Bill Donohue basically continues his campaign of not caring about the victims and defending the Pope no matter what. He also continues his disgusting argument that raping minors isn’t so bad if they’ve hit puberty.

The only good thing about this scandal is that it’s exposing people like Bill Donohue for the rape apologists they truly are.

There’s an entertaining moment in this segment where Sinead O’Connor says something very sensible, and indeed, conciliatory — she is, after all, a committed Catholic — and Bill Donohue loses his mind. I’m going to guess he’s not accustomed to respecting a woman’s forthright opinion, but again, that’s just a guess.

In this third clip, Bill Donohue hilariously claims that he is “second to nobody” in fighting for victims of sexual abuse. Amazing. The self-aggrandizement is simply amazing:

(h/t Joe.My.God)

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence on Sunday hosted the National Organization for Marriage’s rally for antigay heterosexual Christian couples. The Providence Journal covered the event.

Antigay couples in attendance listened to Christian music, attended a worship service, and “renewed vows” against gay couples and their children.

One couple in particular, Paul and Lori Thomsen, traveled from out-of-state to convey the message that gay couples don’t love God, their families, or their partners:

“I came because I love God. I love my family. And I love my wife,” said Thomsen, a Warren native who now lives in Mansfield, Mass., with his wife of 21 years, Lori.

These couples implicitly declared to about 20-30 gay people in attendance:

“Marriage is for US and not for YOU.”

Some gay couples who attended opted not to bring their children, for fear of the children’s safety. (Read More)