One night Townsend called Young, having recently realized what Young already knew. In the middle of a conversation about schoolwork, she said tenderly, “Every sunflower needs rain to grow. Would you be my rain?”
Young, who had long since given up on Townsend understanding the significance of her appearances at the gym, was confused. She thought, “This has nothing to do with the case” they had been discussing.
That was 12 years ago. They have tattoos on their wrists now: Townsend’s says “Sunflower” and Young’s says “Rain.”
On Tuesday they will have wedding bands as well. Townsend and Young, the first gay couple to apply for a marriage license after the District of Columbia legalized same-sex unions, also will be among the first to be married.
Garner and Holmes have been in an on-again-off-again relationship for more than 14 years. When asked why they took so long to realize they were right for each other, Garner and Holmes joked that their relationship is kind of like the movie, It’s Complicated. Along with two other African-American couples at the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Center, the mothers of four and grandmothers of seven will finally jump the broom, a full 13 years after Garner first proposed to Holmes.
Holmes and Garner, both clergy in the LGBT-friendly Metropolitan Community Church, have been a family for a long time. But today, Garner says, represents “a public and legal recognition that our love can survive anything. We will spend the rest of our lives together in joy, no matter what might come.”
And then there was Rocky Galloway and Reggie Stanley, fathers of twin girls:
“There’s this whole controversy about African Americans; there are no gay African-American couples or what have you,” says Reggie Stanley, who will be marrying his partner, Rocky Galloway, at the ceremony tomorrow. Stanley said he and Galloway wanted to participate in the public ceremony because “we felt an obligation to make it clear that yes, we exist; we’re like anybody else; we’re healthy; we’re strong; we’re a family.”
Yes, they are. Congratulations to all the couples.
If you missed the live stream of the weddings, the Human Rights Campaign will have video up shortly, they say.
Adam Serwer’s piece in The Root (second link above) focuses on the fact that all three are African-American couples. The Religious Right, which is mostly made up of uptight white people, likes to use race as a wedge issue, which is insulting to the many people of color who also happen to be LGBT, as it reinforces the stereotypes Reggie Stanley mentioned, that being gay is a “white thing.” Just yesterday Jeremy Hooper highlighted a typically disgusting missive from the Concerned Women for America which explicitly played the race card:
“This is an issue that reaches across the usual divisions by party or race or income class. In California, 70 percent of African-American voters — of whom virtually all voted for Barack Obama for president — voted for Proposition 8 to protect marriage. Marriage and family are foundational underpinnings of our society, and voters in 31 different states have treated them that way. It is not for legislatures or courts to decide whether or not these fundamental institutions will be redefined. The people of D.C. have yet to speak, and we will ensure they get that opportunity.”
Right. Like CWA’s mission in life is to protect black voters. Here’s what Jeremy had to say about it:
In our years of covering them, we have never seen one — NOT ONE! — African-American on CWA’s staff. Yet they want to tell the D.C. Black population how they should feel, suggesting that supposedly homo-hostile sentiment can monolithically transport itself from coast to coast? They who oppose Barack Obama with every fiber in their socially conservative beings want to go even further and exploit African-American support for the Democratic president? As we said: Gross!
Of course they don’t have black people on staff, Jeremy! Most Christian Right organizations are direct descendants of the days of white supremacism. You see it throughout their movement, actually, when they pen pieces which suggest that, essentially, if African-American voters knew what was good for them, they would vote Republican.
As I always say, well, they don’t vote Republican very much, and maybe (just maybe!!!) they don’t vote Republican for a damn good reason.
Anyway, in this case, polls show that, in the majority African-American Washington DC, marriage equality has majority support, so once they wrap their heads around that, CWA will probably stop race-baiting on the issue.
They only mention black people when it serves their purposes, after all.
Which “concerned man” from Concerned Women for America has such a small, shall we say, sense of his own masculinity, that he thought this would be a good bumper sticker to sell at CPAC?
How sad! If you ever see one of those on a truck (with oversized tires, natch), please don’t get angry. Pity the poor, scared little child that lives inside the body of the man driving the, um, penile substitute. If you’re a spiritual person, say a little prayer for him. He needs all the help he can get, the poor dear.
UPDATE: This isn’t directly related, but right after I posted this, I came across this video of Ewan McGregor on Good Morning America talking about kissing Jim Carrey, on film and off. Instead of letting the situation devolve into childish humor, Ewan sort of made the giggling stagehands and Stephanopoulos look stupid, by, as David Mixner said, giving the moment dignity.
So, as you watch this video, I think you’ll see that my point speaks for itself. Which strikes you as more of a secure man? The pithy scared Matt Barber-esque morons who are so scared of gay people that they would manufacture the above bumper sticker? Or the guy below, who essentially looks around and says, “Yeah, I kissed a man. I’m really not sure why this is an issue for you.”
For a time after its founder D. James Kennedy recently passed away, there was hope that Fort Lauderdale-based Coral Ridge Ministries would go in a new direction.
For decades, the church had been a rabidly anti-gay organization that had employed attack dogs, such as the notorious Janet Folger. The church spearheaded the 1998 “Truth in Love” ex-gay campaign. (It ended badly after two of the campaign’s stars were caught having gay relations) But since Kennedy’s departure, Coral Ridge had been relatively quiet on divisive social issues.
Unfortunately, it seems their new pastor, Rev. Tullian Tchividjian, wants to reignite the culture wars. His General in this fight is Robert Knight, a veteran in these battles. Knight had recently been laid off from the Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute. He had also worked for Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.
Already one can see Knight’s deleterious influence on Coral Ridge. The website’s homepage is packed with shameless lies about hate crime legislation and it also promotes theocracy in America. (This brings us back to Kennedy’s dishonest days when the pastor even flirted with Reconstructionsism – a brand of Christian fanaticism that calls for homosexuals to be stoned to death.)
Knight is best known for his paranoid – if not delusional – rantings about the gay movement’s secret desire to stamp out the free speech of radical Christians. He is one of the right’s most nefarious propagandists and is severely truth challenged. Knight is also known for his sexual immaturity and penchant to make crude anti-gay wisecracks. At one event I attended, he joked about chubby lesbians in beer halls. Knight is also obsessed with gay sex and is closest in tone to Peter Labarbera. The two men worked together in the late 90’s at the Family Research Council and were like bosom buddies.
It seems that preaching the Bible was not enough to sustain the congregation – so Coral Ridge has returned to anti-gay bile. On the sun-drenched shores of Fort Lauderdale, Coral Ridge Ministries is still in the spiritual darkness.
As noted by TWO, Richard Cizik, Washington lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned his post last week because of controversy over his nationally broadcast support of gay civil unions. The NAE and right-wing political organizations are applauding his departure with words both questionable and unkind.
During a Dec. 2 interview on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air,” Cizik told host Terry Gross that he voted for Barack Obama in the Virginia primary and said Christians should not fear supporting pro-choice and pro-LGBT candidates. Cizik also said that his views on marriage were “shifting” and that he supports civil union.
The comments made by the lobbyist — formally known as NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs — caused a huge stir in evangelical Christian circles and the controversy led him to resign his job. In a statement to the organization’s board members, the association’s acting president Leith Anderson explained his departure, saying Cizik’s radio remarks caused “a loss of trust in his credibility as a spokesperson among leaders and constituencies.”
It turns out that Cizik’s views are evolving even more. For years, he has been one of the rare evangelicals banging the drum for addressing climate change. The DC-based Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Mark Tooley told OneNewsNow that “Cizik has been very outspoken and in some ways ‘off the reservation’ for the last five or six years in terms of his global warming activism, which the board of NAE had initially somewhat disavowed — but that had not discouraged him.”
Cizik’s civil-union support was an apparent step too far from the reservation. “The National Association of Evangelicals has official positions strongly supporting traditional marriage and opposing same-sex marriage, and certainly by implication same-sex civil unions,” Tooley said. “So it seemed to be a very clear case where Cizik was ignoring the very obvious and official positions of his own organization, for which he is supposed to be the chief spokesman and lobbyist in Washington.”
Evangelical support for Cizik’s resignation is voluminous, the criticisms harsh.
Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of evangelizing radio show Crosstalk America said, “Those who are at war with God, the author of life, should be publicly confronted by evangelical Christians. Instead, they are aided and abetted in their evil by craven leaders like Cizik.”
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is expectedly meanspirited: “This is the risk of walking through the green door of environmentalism and global warming – you risk being blinded by the green light and losing your sense of direction. How else can you explain enthusiastic support for what will probably be the nation’s most pro-abortion, anti-family president in our nation’s 232 year history?”
Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, takes a broad swipe: “I think, perhaps, my dear friend Rich has been inside the Beltway for too long and has swallowed too much of the NPR and Vogue magazine Kool-Aid.”
I suppose the nasty talk has to be over-the-top. After all, Cizik has the ear of millions of Americans. People listen to him. You can see it in the responses on the FRC blog, where faithful Christians responding to Perkins’ statement wonder why caring about the environment or supporting Barack Obama contradicts their beliefs. Time magazine even named Cizik one of the world’s 100 most influential people this year. That’s a lot of clout to for the evangelicals to overcome.
Consider the response of NAE supporters of Cizik — and there are many of them. According to US News and World Report, “a coalition of roughly 60 evangelical leaders (mostly of the non-Christian right variety) has written to … Leith Anderson pushing for a successor [who, like Cizik, is] not beholden to the Christian right… [one] who embraces more progressive causes like combating global warming.” Read the full letter here.
David Gushee, a college professor and progressive evangelical activist who helped write the letter to Anderson, said this in an interview with USNWR:
I think Leith and the executive committee are going to take their time and let the furor over this die down. I personally think they need to find somebody who can promote all seven of the policy commitments in the NAE’s Health of Our Nation statement. There’s one on sanctity of life and one on climate change and one on poverty. There are always pressures from the right that the two fundamental issues of our time should be abortion and homosexuality. I think there will be pressure to hire somebody to make those the top priority.
I can tell you from some feedback that if the NAE makes the mistake of rolling back to the classic Christian right agenda, they would lose support of a lot of people who are currently happy to be working with them.
Yes, this comes from within the NAE.
The good news for Cizik, if he is sincere in his evolution, is that his message is being heard across the nation. It’s evident in the growing support for legal recognition of same-gender couples and for humane and just treatment of LGBT citizens. It is reflected in the fact that an increasing number of people are realizing that “gay” isn’t something that needs to be prayed away. Even the vote that passed California’s obnoxious and un-American Proposition 8 was a close one. Cizik is but one of many Americans who are slowly but surely understanding that being a Christian does not require denying compassion and equality to LGBT people.
Let’s hope this good man is snapped up by a progressive evangelical organization so that his vast influence — and his personal evolution — can continue. And let’s hope those questioning evangelicals continue searching their hearts and minds.
Ex-gay fugitive from justice Lisa Miller continues to violate Virginia and Vermont court orders that she comply with the visitation rights of former partner and co-mother Janet Jenkins.
As Truth Wins Out has previously reported, since 2004 Miller has worked with religious-right activists to undermine U.S. family law by demanding a special right of ex-gays and religious extremists to move from state to state to escape their family obligations. Had she succeeded, the ability of U.S. states to enforce custody and deadbeat-dad laws could have been damaged.
But on June 6, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld Vermont’s jurisdiction over her former partnership and the resulting child.
The Liberty Counsel vowed to find other ways to sidestep the nation’s laws, but on Oct. 27, Miller’s case returns where it belonged from the start: In Vermont, the state from which Miller fled justice in the first place.
Vermont courts are virtually certain to uphold earlier rulings in favor of Jenkins’ visitation rights.
Now the Liberty Counsel, Concerned Women for America, and antigay activist Peter LaBarbera are launching a scare campaign and a political mobilization. They warn that on Oct. 27, a Vermont judge might strip Miller of custody due to her persistent and continuing violations of family law and court rulings in two states.
Total loss of custody seems unlikely to me. However, even if it were likely, Miller can pre-empt that loss — and end her career as a fugitive — by respecting law, order, morality, and the welfare of her child.
Or, she can continue to act illegally and use her child as a pawn in a religious-right political war against family values. If she continues, then perhaps it is appropriate that Miller temporarily lose custody until she stops using her child as a political pawn — and starts obeying laws which exist to protect children from fugitive and deadbeat parents.
Far from being persecuted victims, Miller and her allies have become habitual offenders against family values and the rule of law. They are not Christian — they are egomaniacs who believe they are above compliance with any law.
One way or another, Isabella deserves better parenting than she has received thus far.
The database reports, for example, that Concerned Women for America’s education and legal action fund collected $14.7 million in gross revenue via for-profit fund-raisers during the decade.
However, CWFA only received $975,000 from its fund-raisers. It seems that more than a million dollars per year, or 93.4 percent of donations collected by for-profit fund-raisers and reported to California, went to the fundraisers, who were primarily:
MDS Communications Corporation, an Arizona/California outfit that also serves National Right to Life, FRC, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (They also serve the global anti-hunger charity CARE — perhaps some polite letters to CARE are in order.)
I understand that for-profit telemarketers don’t just raise funds; they charge fees to non-profits to conduct political advocacy, such as rallying members to call lawmakers about an antigay vote. CWFA donors expect their donations to be spent as described by the telemarketer, but CWFA’s for-profit fund-raisers can spend their majority share of the donated money any way they please. They can redirect non-profits’ fund-raising revenues — via discounts, pro bono work, and fresh donations — into partisan political campaigns. And non-profits can choose to overpay their fund-raising contractors, with the knowledge that the overpayment will benefit allies who use the same contractor.
In fact, there are vague signs of such a redistribution of donor cash at MDS Communications: While CWFA received an average 6.6 percent return from all reported for-profit fund-raisers, its returns from MDS are often negative: CWFA has repeatedly spent more than it received. Meanwhile, Family Research Council has enjoyed a 30.6 percent return on donations and National Right to Life has received returns of up to 50 percent from various MDS campaigns from 1997 to 2006.
In 2007 federal tax filings, CWFA reported $10 million in direct public support. While other organizations conduct their political advocacy in-house to maintain control of their message and conserve cash, CWFA paid its for-profit contractors more than $4 million in 2007 — $2.8 million of which appears have been for-profit political advocacy rather than pure solicitation.
The Los Angeles Times story focuses on excesses of charitable fund-raising, and so it does not report, nor even question, MDS’s fund-raising results for Democratic and GOP committees.
There is a strong and largely unregulated potential for cronyism among religious shell organizations; insiders who double-dip as employees and as contractors; fund-raisers; partisan political interests; and unrelated political causes (such as free trade) that would offend many donors to religious-right shell organizations.
More than 100 charities raised $1 million or more from commercial appeals but netted less than 25 cents per dollar. Fundraisers got the rest.
In 430 campaigns, charities got nothing: All $44 million donated went to fundraisers. In 337 of those cases, charities actually lost money, paying fees to fundraisers that exceeded the amount raised.
In hundreds of other campaigns, charities apparently entered into contracts that limited their share of donations to 20% or less, no matter how successful the campaign.
Groups with strong emotional or patriotic appeal — those supporting animals, children, veterans and public safety workers, for instance — often fared worst. Missing-children charities received less than 15% of more than $28 million raised on their behalf.
What additional restrictions, if any, are needed to prevent religious non-profit organizations from hiring fund-raisers that may siphon off donations for partisan political uses, out of sight of the donors?
And what more must be done to prevent religious organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status?
Concerned Women for America’s policy director for cultural issues, Matt Barber, is leaving the organization to work for Liberty University School of Law and Liberty Counsel. Barber has embraced ex-gay organizations, such as Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). This is an organization that has used the courts to try to force schools to teach scientifically bankrupt ex-gay theories.
“We hope that Barber’s move to Liberty Counsel does not signal an increase in frivolous lawsuits and wasting of taxpayer’s money,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of TruthWinsOut.org. “Barber’s infatuation with ex-gay ministries combined with Liberty Counsel’s use of legal intimidation is a toxic mix.”
According to CWA founder and chairman Beverly LaHaye, “We wish him well as he goes to Liberty for this important next step in his career. We are pleased that he will continue to partner with us on the issues that are so important to him and to us.”
Concerned Women for America and “Citizens for Responsible Government,” a Maryland antigay group connected with PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), have been battling a suburban Washington, D.C., ordinance that aims to reduce discrimination by public facilities against gender-variant and intersexed individuals.
In an interview with CWFA, a representative for the Maryland group admits faking an incident at a public restroom in order to incite public opposition to nondiscrimination.
MARTHA KLEDER [of CWFA]: Well Theresa, I also heard that someone tried to test this. Was there some event where a transgender or a shemale or someone tried to use the opposite sex bathroom?
THERESA RICKMAN: Yes, at Rio Sport and Health up in Germantown. A guy dressed as a girl went into the ladies bathroom. And, ah you know, essentially what uh, that was meant to get some media attention, you know, and the guy left immediately apparently, I mean but there was, this is the Rio Sport and Health Club, you know and Sport and Health has steam rooms, and there are ladies changing in those locker rooms, people in various stages of undress [laughing] all the time, so there’s lots a guy can see.
According to Teach The Facts, a Maryland group of pro-tolerance parents and teachers, Washington-based ABC affiliate WJLA-TV recklessly reported the staged incident as if it were real, and has yet to retract its false reporting.
TruthWinsOut.org expressed concern today over a Reuters news story about a drug-resistant strain of MRSA bacteria that is more prevalent among gay men in urban centers, such as Boston and San Francisco. The organization also slammed extremist groups for exploiting the news in order to smear the GLBT community and advance an agenda of pure prejudice and discrimination.
“The comments by Concerned Women for America is hatred in its rawest and ugliest form,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of TruthWinsOut.org. “These wing nuts wasted no time seeking the spotlight and creating a climate of panic and fear. They are factually wrong, morally wrong-headed and tragically addicted to bigotry.”
Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues with Concerned Women for America, used the news to viciously attack gay people. “Citizens, especially parents, need to stand up and say, ‘No More! We will no longer sit idly by while politically correct cultural elites endanger our children and larger communities through propagandist promotion of this demonstrably deadly lifestyle,’” Barber said. (Read More)
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