Gay Parenting--The New Child Abuse
If you are a gay parent you are committing the "
ultimate form" of child abuse. At least that's what a representative of Citizens for Community Values claimed on the Joe Scarborough Show,
Scarborough Country, recently in response to Scarborough's outrage that two lesbians were on the Oprah show during a time when kids could see them.
Two quick points here. First, has Joe ever watched Oprah before? Her topics get way worse than a couple of lesbians chatting about their daily lives. Second, calling gay parenting child abuse is just evil, nothing more. And what's sad is these people know what they are doing, but they don't care.
I'm going to go off topic here, so stick with me. I'm sure many of you have heard about Rush Limbaugh accusing Micheal J. Fox of going off of his Parkinson's medicine or exaggerating his condition on camera for a political ad Fox made. Micheal J. Fox did not respond to the comment, but sources close to him said his appearance on the ad portrayed him accurately, even while on medication.
While I didn't hear any other conservative pundits unfoundedly accuse Michael J. Fox of trying to deceive people, many (maybe even most) that I saw did say that using Michael J. Fox in a political ad with his Parkinson's tremors was a low blow and shouldn't be done because it does nothing but play on people's emotions rather than educate people on the issues. My response to that is that political issues have personal and emotional impacts. People should know the devastation that Parkinson's disease causes. People should know that gay people aren't immoral hedonists. People should know that laws have consequences on the day-to-day lives of others.
But, back to my point--How is using Michael J. Fox in an ad a low blow, but calling gay parenting child abuse is not a low blow? How is showing a man's symptoms caused by a debilitating disease a low blow but constantly referring to gays as pedophiles, immoral and accusing them of trying to destroy civilization as we know it not a low blow? To me it sounds like some people need to get their own values in check.
Possible Ex-Gay Movie
I just heard from a friend and pretty credible source that gay actor Chad Allen is in discussions to star in a movie with an ex-gay theme.
Here's the synopsis:
"A troubled young man is 'saved' by love rather than religion after he returns home to be cured of his homosexuality in an ex-gay ministry."
They're still looking to shoot the trailer for this one, so who knows if it will ever come to fruition, but we can always hope!
"We Don't Work For Homosexuals"
And I don't hire bigots. Fair trade I guess.
A friend of J's just sent him an email about a gardener in Texas (called
Garden Guy, Inc.) who replied to an inquiry about a landscaping job by saying that she could not bid on the job because her company did not work for homosexuals. Here's the whole text of her email response:
Dear Mr. Lord,
I am appreciative of your time on the phone today and gladyou contacted us. I need to tell you that we cannot meet with you because we choose not to work for homosexuals.
Best of luck in finding someone else to fill yourlandscaping needs.
All my best,
Hopefully she's being fair and choosing not to work for divorcees, non-Christians, and other sinners as well. Somehow I doubt it, though.
If the email had been sent to me I would have sent her a very kind response saying that I was sorry to hear that she had been so misinformed about God's word. It probably wouldn't have done any good, but who knows. Since I wasn't directly involved, I'll just tell my friends and family to be sure not to use these guys.
My Post Is Online at The Advocate
When I wrote my
post the other day about how I used to hate being gay, I decided to send it in to The Advocate just for fun. Well, today I was on their site and decided to check their letters section. I figured since I never heard anything back that I hadn't had my letter published. But, sure enough, it was the
first letter in the section. How exciting is that?!
I hesitated to link to the letter because it has my real name at the bottom, but I figured I might as well go ahead and do it. The secret's out now...
And, in case you guys haven't heard, Timothy Kincaid over at Ex-Gay Watch had his
response published as well (he got the high-profile spot, though).
It's National Coming Out Day
I didn't realize it until this morning, but today is National Coming Out Day.
While National Coming Out Day crossed my mind in the past while I was still in the closet, I never really participated in it. I'm completely out now (as of the week before my wedding or so), so I doubt I'll do anything about it today either, but I realize the day has a positive and encouraging message for tons of people out there (it certainly did for me, even if I never participated in the day). Sometimes it's easy to forget that their are lots of supporters out there, especially when you're in the closet.
In honor of the day, you should check out a great
comedy strip by Bruce Garrett about his coming out stories as a teenager in the early 1970's (I can't even imagine how much courage that had to take).
Also,
Pam has a great post up about the day, what it means, and some interesting stats about gay folks.
The
HRC has a bunch of stuff on their website, including a guide for straight folks on how to support their gay friends and the gay community.
Hypocrisy
Pardon me for taking two posts from Randy Thomas' blog this week, but I feel like this needs to be said.
Randy's
post is about hypocrisy--specifically the hypocrisy of the Democratic party for giving Mark Foley a hard time when there have been plenty of Democratic scandals that they allegedly let slide. First let me say that I am all for pointing out hypocrisy. I think it is entirely appropriate for me to point out that Rush Limbaugh has no room to call me immoral for being gay when he is currently in his 3rd marriage. Hypocrisy should be called out.
However, for the Republican party to try to counter the Foley scandal by touting out every scandal they can think of from the Democrats is just a bit too much for me to take. To bring up decades old misdeeds to try to show voters that the Republican party is not worse than the Democrats is just irresponsible and laughable. There's a time and place to point out hypocrisy, but trying to deflect from a scandal by bringing up past scandals isn't the upstanding way to handle this. I'd like to give Randy the benefit of the doubt on this one, but since he doesn't even mention that Republicans have their skeletons too, his post isn't sitting so well with me. It's the deflection that is getting me mad at the Republicans right now, not the scandal itself--only Foley and possibly a couple of others can be blamed for that.
On a related, but separate, note, Randy links to an American Standard
article that accuses Nancy Pelosi of being a hypocrite for marching in the same parade as Harry Hay, a person they claim was a supporter of man/boy love while attacking Foley for his own underage attractions.
Here's the problem. First, while the Spectator claims Hay was a proponent of sex with underage boys, they don't cite any quotes showing this to be true (only saying NAMBLA claimed he said such things). So, for me, the honesty of this claim is surely in question. Second, the man was in the parade as a gay rights founder of sorts. He was not there as a member of NAMBLA, nor did NAMBLA have any role in this parade at all. (This is a big point because even Pat Buchanan just tried to claim that she marched alongside NAMBLA.) Given that, I think it is perfectly possible that if this guy indeed support underage sex (which is not proven in the article, remember), Nancy Pelosi would have had no idea of that, especially considering their were some 300 or so floats in the parade. Even the Spectator admits that when Hay died, none of his obituaries mentioned his approval of illegal sex, giving me further skepticism of The Spectator's claims that he once supported such behavior and further confidence that Pelosi could have very well not known of such actions. After all, she wasn't there supporting him, she just marched in the same parade as him and thousands of other folks.
So, that's that. Take it for what you will.
Oh, and as long as we are talking about hypocrisy, I'd like to point out that both
Gary Bauer and
Pat Buchanan claimed in the last few days that gay organizations and/or Democrats are closely tied with NAMBLA. If the above loose connection is the best any conservative group can come up with to try to tie NAMBLA in with anyone, they're not being honest. That's bad, right?
I Was On the Radio This Morning
Yep, I was on the radio this morning. I'm not quite famous, though--yet.
I'm not sure if I have said this before, but I listen to a lot of talk radio. Most of it is conservative (mainly because conservative shows are easier to come across), but some is liberal.
Anyway, this morning I decided to call in to the local morning talk show that I listen to to comment on the Foley scandal. Caller after caller kept phoning in to say that the Foley issue was a result of his being gay, or if it wasn't
the reason for it, it at least had something to do with it.
I called and said that the Amish school killer admitted to molesting and wanting to molest little girls, and we aren't blaming his molestation on his heterosexuality. The host conceded my point but quickly said that he didn't feel like his callers were blaming all gays--they were just pointing out a possible connection. I brought up the APA's statement that gays do not molest at a greater percentage than straights do, and he simply said that he'd need to do some research.
So, that was it. Fun times for me. Maybe I need my own radio talk show!
Of course, when I hung up the phone the host quickly brought up the worst that the gay world has to offer--George Michael in parks, HIV bug chasing, etc. As nice as he was--he wasn't going to lose an opportunity to do a little gay bashing. God forbid we judge straight people based on the actions of O.J. Simpson, Mark Kay LeTourneau, swingers, etc.--that just wouldn't be fair. At least I admit that.
Is it the Closet?
Question: Is it fair to say that Foley didn't fall into this problem with young pages because he was gay but because he was in the closet?
Think about it--being in the closet means he had to suppress natural sexual attractions, thus leading him to subconciously find an outlet for these attractions, which sadly was underage boys.
I don't really think this is what happened. But, if we are going to blame gays for this, shouldn't we be more realistic and blame anti-gay folks that encourage gays to stay in the closet? After all, Foley was not an out, healthy gay man. How we're now blaming the out gay community for this, which Foley was not a part of, is beyond me.
Answer to the Foley Debacle- Blame the Gays
I'm sure you've all heard more than your share of news about the Foley incident in which the Congressman sent dirty emails and instant messages to several teenage pages. In case you were wondering--I'm joining the chorus to call Foley's actions despicable. Right now the only positive point seems to be that the behavior never went beyond cyberspace. Hopefully that holds true.
Unfortunately, though, the anti-gay folks are using this incident as an opportunity to shamelessly attack gays in general. On the Exodus Blog, I ran across a
letter from Gary Bauer, Chairman of the Campaign for Working Families where Gary takes this prime opportunity to hit gays while a conservative is down.
In the same letter in which Bauer accuses liberals and Democrats of attacking all Republicans for the actions of one person, he himself tries to tie this scandal to all gays, citing gay groups that are attempting to lower age of consent laws and NAMBLA as an organization that has support from gay groups. Bauer goes on to cite two Democratic scandals involving gay folks, in an attempt to deflect anger and disappointment off of Foley and the Republicans and back where it belongs--on the gays.
Let me get this straight--you can't pin this problem on all Republicans (even if several apparently already knew of this activity), but you can blame all gays for this. Interesting.
How sad for someone who claims such a strong belief in "right and wrong" to pin this action on gays--falseley linking gays to NAMBLA and separately to an attempt to lower age of consent laws. Notice he doesn't back this up with evidence. I personally haven't seen any mainstream gay groups fighting for such changes, and NAMBLA is not a participating member of any gay rights parade I'm familiar with (I know for a fact they do not participate in Houston, which is one of the country's largest).
I wonder if Gary realizes that lying and trying to pass blame is actually part of that "right and wrong" dichotomy he holds so dear. Sadly, his followers, and even people like
Randy Thomas, seem to think deflection and false claims are ok. I guess "wrong" doesn't apply when you are attacking gays.
The Heterosexual Agenda
Jim Burroway over at
Box Turtle Bulletin has a great piece of work on his site right now. He's put together one of the best refutations of anti-gay attacks I've ever seen. It's an amazing piece of work.
His report, "The Heterosexual Agenda: Exponsing the Myths" (download your own copy
here) is a parody article written in the style and using the research methods of many of the major anti-gay groups and writers out there (think Paul Cameron, the TVC, Focus on the Family and others). It details the alarming problems of sexual promiscuity in the heterosexual world. It's all parody, of course, but as he says in the epilogue of the paper, "all of [his] 'facts' are accurately quoted," even if they are not all quoted in proper context.
Basically Jim uses the exact strategies that anti-gay folks when they write anti-gay papers and studies. But, he is honest about where he gets his information and how he misreports it. This report is brilliant and very topical, especially the epilogue at the end. If you don't know much about anti-gay research, this paper will open your eyes in a hurry. I encourage you to read it and even download a copy of your own. While you're at it--show it to your friends--it's that good.
Now I'm just wondering how long it will take for anti-gay folks to take this paper out of context and use it for their own efforts--wouldn't that be an interesting turn of events. Hey, it's happened
before.
