This is not an invitation to get into The Cuba Discussion, but it is good when any world leader looks back on a nation’s past misdeeds against LGBT people and says, “You know what? That was wrong.”
Fidel Castro this week admitted responsibility for the persecution of homosexuals in Cuba in the 1960s, calling their internment in forced-labor camps “a great injustice.”
In the second installment of an interview with the editor of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Castro said that the revolutionary government’s actions represented “a great injustice – a great injustice! – whoever committed it. If we committed it, we committed it. I am trying to limit my responsibility in all that because, of course, personally I don’t have that type of prejudice.”
The interviewer paraphrases him as saying that “everything came about as a spontaneous reaction in the revolutionary ranks that came from the nation’s traditions. In the old Cuba, blacks were not the only ones discriminated against; there was discrimination against women and, of course, homosexuals.”
Was the Communist Party to blame, the interviewer asks.
“No,” Castro responds. “If anyone is responsible, I am. True, at that time I couldn’t concern myself with the subject. I was deeply and mainly involved in the October Crisis, the war, the political issues.
Joe points out that Fidel Castro’s niece, Mariela, has been the de facto leader of the Cuban gay rights movement, and likely deserves some of the credit for this.
Aside from the story of the day, about George Rekers, the NARTH board member, co-founder of the Family Research Council, and BFF of James Dobson, using his lunch money to purchase a male escort to “lift his luggage” (that is what she said), two blog posts struck me as impressive today.
The first is from Lindsay Beyerstein, on the subject of “bigotry” and the labelling of anti-gay marriage activists as such. It was inspired by a minor controversy which erupted when the fantastic Dave Wiegel, who covers the various lairs, sweatshops and basement sex dungeons of the conservative world for the Washington Post, tweeted the following:
“I can empathize with everyone I cover except for the anti-gay marriage bigots. In 20 years, no one will admit they were a part of that.”
Agreed. As you can imagine, though, anti-gay wingnuts were apoplectic over the suggestion that they’re nothing more than bigots. But that’s what they are, for the most part. They hide behind religious language, but at the root of that is pure bias and yes, bigotry. Lindsay explains:
Absolutely! Opposing gay marriage is the moral equivalent of supporting anti-miscegenation laws.
By definition, bigots are people with unshakable baseless prejudices. There is absolutely no reason, besides blind prejudice, to deny same sex couples the right to civil marriage.
You can use religious language to express your belief that gays and lesbians are disgusting second class citizens unworthy of rights that heterosexuals take for granted, but it doesn’t make your position any less bigoted. Logically, there is no reason to put same-sex relationships on a lesser legal footing than opposite sex unions, unless you think there’s something wrong with them.
You can insist you don’t wish gay people any harm. Perhaps not. But there were lots of pro-segregationists who didn’t wish ill upon black people, but still didn’t want to drink out of the same fountains. They too were bigots.
You can point out that discrimination against gays and lesbians is a longstanding tradition, but that doesn’t excuse your bigotry. If anything, it makes it worse. It was one thing to fear what the expansion of gay rights might do when gays and lesbians had no rights. Today we’re decades into gay liberation and none of the dire predictions have come true. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are at least as healthy and well-adjusted as those raised by opposite sex parents–and no more likely to identify self identify as gay.
I think we actually do our movement a disservice when we shy away from calling a spade a bigot, out of some (in my opinion) misguided effort to find “common ground.” This is actually not a conversation between two equally valid sides. There is the side that believes in liberty and equality, and there is the side which wishes to use its religious convictions and asinine, entirely incorrect version of history as an excuse to take rights, freedoms, and responsibilities away from people they’ve never met. They have a right to the opinions, but we have a responsibility to call those beliefs what they are. Any deference to the fact that many of them don’t think they’re being bigoted is simply counterproductive.
Later in her post, Lindsay alludes to the fact that our media has gotten so pathetically lazy, looking as it does for false equivalence in every story, as a possible cause for certain people’s fear of using accurate terminology to describe the people who fight to make our lives worse:
The idea that the word “bigot” should be off-limits to proponents of tolerance is absurd. That would mean that any attribution of bigotry is logically self-defeating. Surely, even Lewis would acknowledge that there are some people out there who deserve the label. Is it unacceptably intolerant to describe the KKK as a bigoted organization? Maybe the language of corporate journalism is so debased that it’s only acceptable to say that “some civil rights groups allege that the KKK is bigoted.”
Indeed.
That brings us to the second post I saw today that I loved, from Simon Sheppard, the self-described “cranky old fag” at Carnal Nation. In his piece, he addresses the weirdness that inevitably occurs when people attempt to debate things as vital as civil rights on the platform of religious faith. We go through this here a lot — some of our writers and commenters are people of deep religious faith, while others, like me, stand proudly among the ranks of the godless. This leads to the employment of very different tactics when one of our fundamentalist chew toys comes along and stinks up the comments section, with the believers arguing on the basis of religious faith, while we godless take the Fundamentalists to the natural dead-ends of their arguments by simply saying “prove it.” Sheppard’s piece really encapsulates why I believe that, regardless of whether any of us does or doesn’t have religious faith, arguing about civil rights in religious terms is a losing game. He starts out by deconstructing the problems with the argument, common among religious people, that “God made me gay”:
The impulse to stake that claim is understandable. If being queer isn’t a choice, then we deserve equal rights, right? And if we’re an intended part of some divine creation, then GLBT rights even has a heavenly imprimatur, like not eating meat on Fridays.
But, but, but…
(…)
First off, it shouldn’t matter why some of us have turned out queer: We should have our fucking rights regardless. After all, religion isn’t an inborn characteristic, but it’s a protected class anyway. Sorry, Pope, but your flock has chosen a Catholic lifestyle, so they don’t deserve civil rights. Nope, Miss Benedict wouldn’t go for that at all. But somehow, we’re all tangled up in debates about genetics and psychology and stuff, when we should just be insisting on our right to be different, even if it’s by choice.
Take a moment to write down the phrase “Miss Benedict,” because you’ll want to drop it in conversation. I know I already have.
The point, though, is that it doesn’t matter whether or not a person believes that God made him/her gay. Not for the conversation that we’re having anyway. That might be a great conversation between two religious believers, where no one is actively working to take away the rights of the other. Note, though, that he’s not saying that it is a choice (I know how our Fundamentalist readers intentionally misread things). He’s saying that it’s simply irrelevant to the argument. And indeed, Sheppard argues that by debating civil rights for LGBT people in religious terms, we’re giving in to our opponents’ premises:
[F]aith is, by definition, impervious to evidence and logic. So by arguing on religious grounds, we’re basically ceding the ground to our foes.
“God made me gay, and He loves me just the way I am.”
“No, He didn’t and He doesn’t and He wants you to change.”
“Prove it.”
“No, you prove it.”
And there the matter sits. Theological standoff.
In other words, when liberal believers argue with conservative believers, they both put themselves in the situation I described above, when we atheists shut down the fundamentalists by saying “prove it” so fast their heads spin. And that’s not a good place to be! Understand, though, that I’m not touching the subject of whether or not religious faith is reasonable or beneficial or anything like that. This is about tactics. And since liberal religious believers do indeed tend to have a better grasp of reality and logic than conservatives do, it’s good to consider which lines of reasoning are the best.
Fundamentalist religious believers will always believe they “won” the argument with liberal religious believers, simply because they’ve had it drilled so deeply into their skulls that they’re the only ones who take their faith seriously. It seems to me that, religious faith or no, those who care about justice, fairness, equality and love would do better to argue more like the atheists.
Later on in the piece, Sheppard describes exactly what tends to happen when religious people knock heads over LGBT equality:
Believers on our side will nod; antigay churchers will point out what grumpy old Saint Paul said; and we nonbelievers (the vast majority of whom are, incidentally, not antigay) will just think Whatever.
You might, of course, point out that the apparently antigay garbage in the Good Book is the leftovers of a benighted, unscientific age, and mistranslated to boot, but that would bring the rest of the Testaments into question, leaving you somewhat adrift, belief-wise. You might point out that, for whatever reason, there have always been gay humans, bonobos, walruses, and rams. You might even try the scientific method, citing research by the bucketful.
But ultimately, none of that is going to make a whole lot of difference to holy-roller homophobes. Because belief doesn’t care about rational debate. The best response to “God Hates Fags” is not “God Loves Fags.” It’s “This Is A Fucking Secular State, You Inbred Morons.”
Amen!
The point is, when it comes to any argument about our civil rights, we have to be clear about where the Religious Right can shove their religious arguments. They are that irrelevant in the secular United States of America.
Now, you may be saying, “But if we’re both Christians, and just see things differently, maybe I can teach the bigot something!” Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. But I’m going to suggest something here: If you are a Christian who believes in full equality for women, men, all races, LGBT people, etc., then you do not share a religious faith with bigots like Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Peter LaBarbera, or any of the rest of the horde of Fundamentalist Christians who waste their precious lives trying to hurt families they’ve never met. Your faith might share a name with theirs, but that’s where the similarities end.
The quicker we all realize this — that the Supreme Court didn’t strike down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving because they believed that’s what God wanted, but that there was no rational reason under our Constitution to deny loving couples the right to marry because they were of different races, just as there is no rational reason to deny loving couples the right to marry because they’re the same gender — the quicker we’ll be done fighting for our full equality.
People of faith who support full equality are being attacked in the same way people of no faith are being attacked, by a group of people who believe they have the right to lord their religious beliefs over the rest of the population.
Well, as those two posts explained, those who would fight against equal rights for LGBT Americans are bigots, and this is a secular state.
This morning I lost my virginity… my TV interview virginity, that is.
Those who know me, know me as a fairly quiet person, so the last place they would expect to see me is on a live TV broadcast on ETV morning news, talking about international matters. Come to think of it, that’s the last place I would expect to see me. Never the less, I found myself there this morning, a bundle of nerves, like a lamb being led to the slaughter. (Read More)
In the first step toward a global index of stigma against HIV/AIDS, a new British report finds that, years after HIV/AIDS education programs were gradually shelved, prejudice and discrimination are returning.
Researchers found that one in five people with an HIV diagnosis had been harassed, threatened or verbally assaulted in the past 12 months. Many reported ignorance and prejudice from within the medical profession, particularly from GPs and dentists. One in five reported being denied medical treatment because they had HIV.
In findings to be unveiled in parliament tomorrow, The People Living With HIV Stigma Index, a two-year research project funded by the Department for International Development and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, found that only 39% of people felt confident that their medical records were being kept confidential, with 18% saying their HIV status had been revealed without their consent.
Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said that the public was more ignorant about HIV than a decade ago. “This research is really important because it’s about people’s perception of the prejudice they face.”
Musician Annie Lennox will be one of several high-profile speakers at a briefing on the subject of HIV stigma at the Houses of Parliament on Monday.
The Stigma Index is designed as a global initiative, but the UK results are the first to be obtained.
It is hoped that the initiative will be both a catalyst for creating and fostering change in the communities in which it is used, by empowering both the individuals and communities most affected by the epidemic.
Is lousy driving the outcome of a genetically determined learning disability? A new study at the University of California, Irvine, says: Maybe.
The study may eventually raise broader questions of social, religious, and political ignorance which leads to bigotry — and whether such ignorance might one day be medically treatable.
According to the Booster Shots health blog at the Los Angeles Times:
Seven in 10 of us carry genetic instructions to flood certain regions of the brain with a neurochemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor — or BDNF — when we’re challenged to learn a new aerobics routine, land a plane or navigate a tricky patch of road. It seems to help us learn to do new things.
But 30% of humans have a small variant in their genetic code that results in the release of smaller doses of BDNF when they’re trying to master a new skill that involves physical coordination. These people have brains that are smaller in some key regions. Researchers have observed that when people with this genetic variant suffer a stroke with loss of motor function, they recover more slowly and less completely than those without the variant.
As a result, these people poorly retain learned information:
In the driving challenge — learning to steer down a simulated winding road without drifting off the center line — the group with the genetic variant made 20% more errors than the larger group, were slower to learn and, when tested again four days later, forgot more of what they had learned than had their peers without the variant in the BDNF gene.
A story last month in Science News indicated that deficiencies in BDNF may eventually be treatable.
The ramifications of these findings may reach far wider than the daily commute, and I wish the news media had asked and explored broader questions:
Do people with this or similar deficiencies suffer from increased difficulty or resistance to learning, especially in regard to difficult or challenging facts, no matter how obvious these facts may be?
Does this deficiency, or others like it, correlate to political and religious affiliation? Does it correlate, in particular, to persons who stubbornly resist the ideas and values of others, or to persons who act out their own learning disability through bigoted statements and actions against others?
As far as I know, none of these questions have been explored — but it seems to me that they are well worth further research.
The House approved a bill (89-58) that would legalize same-sex marriage. The state Senate voted to approve the legislation last week by a vote of 20-15. The measure will now land on Gov. David Baldacci’s desk. As a reporter in Maine, I had interviewed Baldacci and also eaten at his family’s Italian restaurant in Bangor. He was a nice guy, a smart politician and I hope he does the right thing in this instance.
Unfortunately, the day was partially soiled by the remarkably ignorant views of Rep. Bernard Ayotte, a Republican. Ayotte said that he couldn’t support the legislation because it would provide legal protections to people whom he said suffered from hormonal imbalances causing same-sex attractions.
“By all indications, homosexuality in human beings seems to be generated by imbalances in the human body,” he said. “As legislators, it is important that we do not base our statutes on genetic aberrations. Ayotte added, according to the Washington Blade, that his lack of support for the legislation shouldn’t be interpreted as discrimination against gay people.
Even by the low standards set by anti-gay activists, this level of ignorance was shocking. What evidence does Ayotte have to support his unfounded claims? If he does not have proof, why would he use his public platform to spread harmful misinformation?
In a new documentary set to air on HBO next month, a disgraced evangelical pastor comes clean. “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” directed by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra, was filmed with Haggard’s cooperation — and how.
You may recall that two years ago, Haggard stepped down from his post as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was sacked as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs after a former male prostitute alleged that the cleric paid him for sex and used illicit substances.
I have yet to see the documentary, but published reports say that Haggard speaks onscreen, speaks about his new life. The father of five remains in his marriage for the same of his children and apparently has been living with shame. While he doesn’t speak of his sexual improprieties in detail, he does admit to “sexual immorality” and says, “I really did sin.” Haggard tells of his longtime struggle with his same-sex desires, insisting that he never claimed to be heterosexual.
“The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more,” he says in the film.
He also reveals that while he purchased methamphetamine, he never used it.
Haggard’s wife Gayle speaks in the documentary as well, and offers what perhaps is the reason behind the couple’s participation in the production: “I know to restore the honor to our children is to help restore honor to their father.”
That may be a long, hard road. Right-wing Christian leadership isn’t treating Haggard with honor, and most GLBT people probably will say that a man who worked so hard against honorable treatment for us is not worthy of anything resembling honor. Many believe he’s getting his just deserts.
After the scandal broke, the Haggard family fled Colorado for Arizona, where the former preacher confesses thta he is having a tough time making ends meet as an insurance salesperson. “At this stage in my life, I am a loser,” Haggard says.
I suspect Haggard is a loser only if he does not come to grips with his reality and learn to embrace it. If he can emerge from this crisis a better human being, then he will deserve to be honored. He doesn’t have to abandon his family to do it: Many gay and bisexual people end up in marriages with heterosexual partners. (Exhibit A: Me.) Sometimes those marriages work; often they do not. But the real losers are the misguided ones who work to diminish others. The Religious Wrong is filled hypocrites who divide people and spead a message that does not include anything Jesus would champion — things like forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance without judgment.
Haggard could choose to re-up as a fundamentalist Christian soldier — or he could take another road, one that leads to justice for all of God’s children and could help him right the wrongs he committed. That second path leads to honor. At this point in his now-difficult life, the choice is his.
You know what? I hope he makes the honorable choice — and I wish him and his family well.
“The Trials of Ted Haggard” is scheduled to run Jan. 29 on HBO.
While gay-affirming Americans rallied for the freedom to marry in 300 cities last week, ex-gay activist Michael Glatze vented some misplaced resentment and boasted that he was glad to be free of his past desire for sexual honesty and for individual freedom.
Glatze professes joy in his ex-gay freedom-from-freedom. Desensitized by the religious right to the traditional American patriotic appreciation of freedom, Glatze projects his desensitization onto others. And in the person of Sarah Palin — deficit-spending opponent of science, history, basic geography, and critical thinking — Glatze finds “a message of God and love.”
In an article for the far-right WorldNetDaily, Glatze writes:
As I watch 100,000 people pile together shouting, ‘Gay, Straight, Black, White: Marriage is a Civil Right,’ begging to be allowed by law to participate in a life of homosexual behavior, I am impressed by how desensitized we have come as a society.
When I get despondent and feel that the voice of life in our American culture is threatened by what seems to be an avalanche of desensitization and death, I remember Gov. Sarah Palin appearing out of nowhere with uncanny political and leadership skills and a message of God and love. And, I remember how violently I protested — like the 100,000 — for ‘my RIGHTS!’ to freely participate in homosexual activity without any reminder of a conscience only a few years ago.
“I had the intent, without doubt, to silence every last individual whose message might suggest my homosexual activity was anything less than entirely equal to heterosexuality. Anyone who so much as intimated that there could be a health-related, psychology-related or self-worth-related impact to homosexuality that did not exist with heterosexuality was, merely, a bigot who needed my ever-present vigilance to turn his or her backward mind to the “liberated” present.
Glatze redefines “God and love” in terms of one’s choice of mental vacancy and blindness to one’s own amorality. He lashes out at those who defend freedom, as if freedom were an undeserved privilege in a society that ought to be ruled by the iron hand of fundamentalists.
And sadly, he bears false witness against those who oppose real bigotry. Unable to defend his own baseless prejudices against sexual honesty and American freedom, Glatze redefines bigotry and then applies his strawman arguments about bigotry to those who oppose prejudice.
Glatze adds:
That is why these disgusting rallies make me inspired, more than ever, to speak the truth and offer my love and help to the many human beings trapped by flawed viewpoints and incomplete logics. Not because I want to win an argument — God knows, in today’s climate of groupthink, that’s hardly ever possible — but, because I do love every human being equally, and believe we all have the same potential. Some of us have more difficulty, for a myriad of reasons, rising to our fullest potential than others; but, we all have potential.
I believe every human being has the potential to rise out of their confusion, break out of the shackles of groupthink, stand up proud and free, and see things clearly. I believe this is the case, because it happened to me.
Glatze is a practitioner and advocate of the groupthink that he perceives in others. He does not quote a single gay-equality advocate among all his strawman arguments, and he says nothing that has not already been parroted a million times before by other anti-gay, anti-family, anti-faith, anti-freedom fanatics who never take the time to listen to their opponents.
Lost in his own political echo chamber, Glatze conveys a message of shallowness, insecurity, and disgust for others’ freedom.
Coalition To Protest Awards Dinner If Undeserved Award Is Not Rescinded
NEW YORK ‚Äî Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a new website today, DumpDobson.com, that calls on the Museum of Broadcast Communications to reverse its decision to honor Focus on the Family’ James Dobson in its Radio Hall of Fame. Unless the museum withdraws its pledge to induct Dobson, TWO will join Equality Illinois and the Gay Liberation Network to protest the awards ceremony, Saturday, Nov. 8, (5:30 PM — 7:30 PM), at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel.
“There is still time to reverse the reckless and irresponsible decision to honor James Dobson in the Radio Hall of Fame,” said Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is simply unconscionable that the Museum is giving its imprimatur to a demagogue who has profited from divisive and discriminatory rhetoric. If the museum wants to regain its respect and credibility, it will choose to dump Dobson.”
“We believe that you and your associates at the museum must be aware of Dobson’ contribution to anti-gay hate, and yet you chose to ignore, or perhaps even applaud, his harm to our community,” wrote Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network in an open letter to Bruce DuMont, president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. “Museums should be places that celebrate the best of human endeavor, not the worst.”
To fight back against this offensive decision, DumpDobson.com is asking fair-minded people to take four actions.
E-Mail Radio Hall of Fame CEO Bruce Dumont, brucedumont@museum.tv, and urge him to withdraw Dobson’ honor.
Sign our letter to the Radio Hall of Fame urging them to reverse their foolhardy decision to celebrate Dobson’ shameful and ignoble career.
Dobson’ ugly rhetoric is so polarizing that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) said that, “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies.” Focus on the Family co-founder Gil Alexander Moegerle said that, “I believe Dobson-style politics have been inept, simplistic, exclusionary, divisive and alarmingly sectarian…James Dobson’ political style has been one of relentlessly demonizing his adversaries.”
Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman on Oct. 23, 2004 that, “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.” Dobson also told the Daily Oklahoman that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is “a God’ people hater. I don’t know if he hates God, but he hates God’s people.”
In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed on RespectMyResearch.org.
Dobson also profits from intolerance. He founded a ministry, Love Won Out, that promises to “cure” homosexuals — even though the so-called “ex-gay” leader of Love Won Out, John Paulk, was photographed in a gay bar. Dobson continues to promote dishonest psychological theories about gay people that are rejected by every respected medical and mental health association in America, including the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.
Truth Wins Out, which operates DumpDobson.com, is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org. The Gay Liberation Network is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered direct action group
The cynically named “Day of Truth,” organized by the antigay Alliance Defense Fund and planned for April 28, is little more than an excuse to inject “ex-gay” propaganda and a disruptive dose of antigay prejudice in public schools.
Ex-gay survivor Daniel Gonzales, who was inappropriately treated by famed reparative therapist Joseph Nicolosi, has released a new video that itemizes the untruths and prejudices that are promoted by the DOT. Check it out:
This is not an invitation to get into The Cuba Discussion, but it is good when any world leader looks back on a nation’s past misdeeds against LGBT people and says, “You know what? That was wrong.”
This morning I lost my virginity… my TV interview virginity, that is.
In the first step toward a global index of stigma against HIV/AIDS, a new British report finds that, years after HIV/AIDS education programs were gradually shelved, prejudice and discrimination are returning.
Today was a wonderful day in Maine.
In a new documentary set to air on HBO next month, a disgraced evangelical pastor comes clean. “
