Category Archives: Right Wingers

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Family, Gay History, Health, History, Homophobia, Politics, Religion, Right Wingers

Yank the Tax Exemption for the NY Archdiocese!

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 Marriage Equality Would someone please explain to me… why the new, pinhead, Archbishop of the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese gets to comment on specific legislation being considered in the NY State legislature? Specifically the bill introduced by the Governor for Marriage Equality.

If I am not mistaken aren't 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations specifically forbidden to lobby or act on behalf of specific legislation or candidates? Here's the relevant passage:

"An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation."

So if Archbishop Dolan…or any other church…follows through on this threat, shouldn't the IRS yank the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese's tax exemption?

There are too many ways to count the ignorance (and make no mistake about it…they are ignoring reality in favor of dogma) of the Catholic Church and it's pointy-headed old men, but here are four things the Archbishop doesn't know about Marriage Equality:

1. There are few biblical verses that address homosexuality at all, and most of those are not directed at homosexuality per se. Opponents of same-sex marriage routinely cite seven verses in the Christian Bible as condemning homosexuality and calling it a sin. But when taken in context, these lessons speak not against homosexuality itself, but rather against rape, child molestation, bestiality, and other practices that hurt others and compromise a person’s relationship with God.

2. Jesus never said one word against homosexuality. In all of his teachings, Jesus uplifted actions and attitudes of justice, love, humility, mercy, and compassion. He condemned violence, oppression, cold-heartedness, and social injustice. Never once did Jesus refer to what we call homosexuality as a sin.

3. The Bible never mentions or condemns the concept we call same-sex marriage. Although opponents of same-sex marriage claim that lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender unions violate biblical principles, no verses in the Bible explicitly address gay marriage or committed same-sex relationships.

4. Those who claim a “biblical definition of marriage” as a model for today ignore various marital arrangements in the Bible that would be illegal or condemned today. The Bible is filled with stories of polygamy and husbands taking concubines. In accordance with the culture and laws of the past, women were often treated like property that could be traded or sold into marriage. Today we understand that these examples of marriage reflect the cultural practices of the time rather than a spiritual model for today.

Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Homophobia, Politics, Right Wingers

Response Ad to Hatred

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A right-wing smear merchant, the "National Organization for Marriage" (!?) recently released a new fear mongering (if not over-blown and dramatic) ad against marriage equality full of lies and propaganda. This is by far the best response I've seen.  The creator uses bits of the ads and snippets from the audition tapes of the actors for this commercial to reveal what a pack of lies this whole thing is.  Bravo!

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Fellow Travelers, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, History, Homophobia, Men, Politics, Religion, Right Wingers

Julian Bond on Gay Rights

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This is a little long, but well worth the investment of time:

It does not matter the rationale: religious, cultural, pseudo scientific —
no people of goodwill should oppose marriage equality, but oppose it they do.  As we saw here in California last Fall.  So we all have work to do in terms of education and enlightenment and at the NAACP, we pledge to do our part.

Now two years ago we celebrated the 40th anniversary of a case aptly called  "Loving versus Virginia," which struck down anti-miscegenation laws and many, many years later allowed my wife and me to marry in the state that declares "Virginia is for Lovers."

Then, as now, proponents of marriage as is, wanted to amend the United States constitution.  Introducing a constitutional amendment in 1911 to ban interracial marriage, Rev. Seaborn Roddenberry of my former home state of Georgia, argued:

"Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and adverse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant. It is subversive to social peace.  It is destructive of moral supremacy."

Sound familiar?

Then, as now, proponents of marriage as is, invoke God's plan.
The trial judge who sentenced the Lovings said that when God created the races he placed them in separate continents.  The fact that he separated the races showed that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Well God made plans for interracial marriage and he, or she, will no doubt do the same for same-sex marriage."   – Julian Bond

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Gay Health, Health, History, Homophobia, Nature, Religion, Right Wingers, Science

Papal Rectal Cranial Inversion

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It's gratifying to see a scientific journal with the intellectual heft of The Lancet taking on the pope and his recent idiotic rantings in Africa and how condoms "contribute to HIV/AIDS":

Pope_condom_hat "Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear. But the comment still stands and the Vatican's attempts to tweak the Pope's words, further tampering with the truth, is not the way forward. When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide."
 

But they're being nice. Or tactful. Or something. I'm sorry, but is it really "unclear" if his intent was to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology? Really? Unclear to whom? 

Note to Galileo: About 1.7 million people, mostly women, in sub-Saharan Africa became infected with the HIV virus in 2007, bringing the total number of infections in the region to 22.5 million, according to the latest report by UNAIDS, the United Nations program that deals with HIV/AIDS. That’s two-thirds of the global number of people living with the virus.

The pope's comments are nothing short of an outrage, and frankly are as much a "crime against humanity" as any genocide. Medieval rot.

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time…and the Vatican's record on astronomy would be enough to give anyone pause when it came to listening to papal science (which, interestingly, if you Google "papal science" the first thing that comes up is Paypal. Somehow perfect.) 

"Papal science"…Is that an oxymoron? Or just a moronic?

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Entertainment, Friends, History, Humor, Men, Politics, Right Wingers

Mark Morford Rocks

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Mark MorfordI only wish Mark Morford, a regular columnist for the SF Gate, part of the probably soon to be bankrupt San Francisco Chronicle, wrote for White Crane. This morning's offering is so on the money it makes me want to cheer. 

The piece isn't particularly about anything LGBT, though he is always sure to reference our community and always in the most favorable ways. He has never failed to urge the passage of Gay rights, never failed to support equal rights for LGBT people, and is precisely the kind of sex-positive, straight-not-narrow ally we love.

Jews have The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. Maybe it's time for LGBT people to have some similar recognition for our straight allys? 

I nominate Mark Morford.

Community, Current Affairs, Gay History, Homophobia, Jesse Monteagudo, Men, Politics, Right Wingers

Jesse’s Journal

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 STOP THE ARRESTS!

Stonewall                      

It is hard to believe, but almost forty years after the Stonewall Riots Gay men are still being harassed by the New York City Police Department. Since 2004, the NYPD has entrapped and arrested 52 Gay or bisexual men on trumped-up prostitution charges in eight adult video stores in Manhattan. In each case, an attractive young man would approach an older man who is minding his own business in the sex shop and proposition him. Once the older man agrees to the proposition, the younger man would offer his partner money for sex, and then proceed to arrest him for “prostitution.”
 
Though police entrapment is bad enough, it is not the whole story. In fact, most of the time the men are not convicted of prostitution. Instead, at the advice of their lawyers, the men plead guilty to “disorderly conduct,” pay a fine, attend a health course for “sex workers” and agree to keep their mouths shut. The NYPD then proceeds against its real target, Manhattan’s Gay or Gay-friendly adult video stores. Using its 1977 “nuisance abatement” law, the City would sue the porn shops, asking the courts to close them down for allegedly “allowing” prostitution to go on in the premises. This, of course, is part of the decade-long campaign by NYC’s former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his successor Michael Bloomberg to turn Manhattan into a Disneyland for tourists.
 
All this would have gone undetected, even by the GLBT community, if it wasn’t for the hard work of two Gay men. The first one of this dynamic duo is Duncan Osborne, associate editor of New York’s Gay City News, who exposed the whole sordid campaign in a series of hard-driven news stories. The second man is Robert Pinter, who was one of a dozen men arrested last year at the Blue Door Video in the East Village. Though Pinter also pled guilty to “disorderly conduct,” he refused to go away quietly. Instead, Pinter decided to fight back. He started a new group, the Coalition to Stop the Arrests, “in response, not just to my arrest, but to this whole pattern of arrests.” Pinter hopes the Coalition would “take some kind of legal action and create awareness in our community that these arrests are happening.”
 
It wasn’t long before Pinter’s activism, combined with Osborne’s journalism, got Gotham’s queer community to stand up and take notice. New York’s LGBT Center joined forces with the City’s Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence (AVP) to host a Town Hall Meeting at the Center on January 15. A crowd of over 300 heard statements by Pinter, Osborne, the AVP’s Jennifer Ramirez, Joey Nelson of the Queer Justice League, and Sienna Basin and Andrea Ritchie of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center. According to activist Jim Eigo, who was present, the crowd “was fired up and angry that a full generation after Stonewall and a few years after the striking down of sodomy laws in the US we still had to contend with the interference of NY law enforcement with our basic sexual rights.” Eigo, Pinter and other activists hope that the Town Hall Meeting was just the beginning of a new era of queer activism that at least would put a stop to the NYPD’s arrests and harassment of gay or bisexual men. On Valentine’s Day Pinter, Bill Dobbs and other activists picketed outside Mayor Bloomberg’s home, demanding that the mayor put a stop to the whole sorry business.
 
For too long, the GLBT community has been passive, thinking that our rights would be given to us on a silver plate. The passage of Proposition 8 in California and Amendment 2 in Florida led to a wave of community activism unheard of since the days of ACT-UP and Queer Nation. But there is more to the GLBT movement than the legal rights of same-sex couples. The recent wave of arrests and entrapment of queer men in New York reminds us that for all that we do to be “just like them,” we will continue to be persecuted because we are, in fact, different. Even the established Gay media failed to do its job, and it took Osborne and the Gay City News to tell us what we should have known all along. And anti-Gay police entrapment is not limited to New York City. Over five years after the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, GLBT communities everywhere must continue to fight any and all attempts to “recriminalize” homosexuality.
 
For more information: Coalition to Stop the Arrests
Robert Pinter, Coordinator STOPTHEARRESTS@aol.com
Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Gay History, History, Homophobia, Malcolm Boyd, Politics, Religion, Right Wingers

A Victory in California

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Episcopal_church Once again, the courts have dealt a blow of constitutional reality to religious bigots.

Word from California has been, at best, mixed, lately. But yesterday, we got word from our friend Mark Thompson, confirmed today in the NY Times, that the California State Supreme Court ruled that three parishes that left the Episcopal Church over its ordination of Gay ministers cannot retain ownership of their buildings and property…no small loss. And it was a unnanimous decision. We can only imagine it's only a matter of time before this gets kicked up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The full details are at the NY Times site, but the parishes are located in some high rent districts in Southern California: Newport Beach, Long Beach, and North Hollywood.

I guess the bigots are just going to have to move to some old abandoned drive-in.

Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Friends, Gay History, History, Homophobia, Music, Poetry, Politics, Right Wingers

A Great Voice Silenced

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I woke up this morning to hear the sad news of the death of a great woman, one of the single name wonders in the world, Odetta. I have no idea of Odetta's sexuality, but I know her, personally, from many years ago when we were fighting another anti-Gay initiative in California, the one in the new film about Harvey Milk, Prop. Six. One of the many ways we raised funds for that fight (including an art auction and a state-wide Hair-cut-athon) was a fantastic concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary) performed and so did Odetta.

I honestly don't remember what she sang that day. But it is impossible not to remember her voice, her incredible voice that was like a force of nature itself. I remember her devotion to civil rights.

I remember, even then, how her presence was a blessing on a campaign we were none too sure was going to go our way.

I remember, when she agreed to come, I offered my profuse thanks to which she responded "Where else would I be?"

Indeed. Once more, the LGBT community has lost a friend and ally.