Showing posts with label jane richey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jane richey. Show all posts
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Values, Traditional Family-Style: "Commander Ousted in Air Force Sex Scandal"
from the Los Angeles Times:
HOUSTON -- A sex scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has led to the dismissal of the top commander overseeing basic training for every new American airman, officials said Friday.
Col. Glenn Palmer was commander of basic training for the 737th Training Group at the base near San Antonio, where more than a dozen military instructors in the last year have been charged with or investigated on suspicion of sexually assaulting recruits.
On Friday, officials confirmed reports by the Associated Press that Palmer had been relieved of duty by Col. Eric Axelbank, commander of the 37th training wing at Lackland.
“Col. Palmer was relieved because Col. Eric Axelbank lost confidence in his ability to maintain a safe and secure training environment for our newest airmen,” Collen McGee, spokeswoman for the 37th Training Wing, told the Los Angeles Times. Axelbank decided that, for the 737th group, “a new leader is required to meet the current needs,” she said.
But, McGee added, “Col. Palmer did not create the environment that resulted in the misconduct.”
No replacement had been announced, she said.
Palmer isn’t the first Lackland commander removed since the scandal erupted last year.
In June, Axelbank relieved Col. Mike Paquette, commander of the 331st Training Squadron, for what a military attorney described as a loss of confidence in his leadership.
Axelbank is also expected to change command next month, a move Air Force officials said predated the sex scandal, according to the AP.
Lackland has about 475 military training instructors, the Air Force equivalent of drill sergeants. So far, six instructors have been charged with offenses ranging from rape to adultery, and investigators believe that more than three dozen female trainees have been victimized.
Last month, Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, the first Lackland instructor investigated last year in connection with the scandal, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of raping a female recruit and sexually assaulting several others.
HOUSTON -- A sex scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has led to the dismissal of the top commander overseeing basic training for every new American airman, officials said Friday.
On Friday, officials confirmed reports by the Associated Press that Palmer had been relieved of duty by Col. Eric Axelbank, commander of the 37th training wing at Lackland.
“Col. Palmer was relieved because Col. Eric Axelbank lost confidence in his ability to maintain a safe and secure training environment for our newest airmen,” Collen McGee, spokeswoman for the 37th Training Wing, told the Los Angeles Times. Axelbank decided that, for the 737th group, “a new leader is required to meet the current needs,” she said.
But, McGee added, “Col. Palmer did not create the environment that resulted in the misconduct.”
No replacement had been announced, she said.
Palmer isn’t the first Lackland commander removed since the scandal erupted last year.
In June, Axelbank relieved Col. Mike Paquette, commander of the 331st Training Squadron, for what a military attorney described as a loss of confidence in his leadership.
Axelbank is also expected to change command next month, a move Air Force officials said predated the sex scandal, according to the AP.
Lackland has about 475 military training instructors, the Air Force equivalent of drill sergeants. So far, six instructors have been charged with offenses ranging from rape to adultery, and investigators believe that more than three dozen female trainees have been victimized.
Last month, Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, the first Lackland instructor investigated last year in connection with the scandal, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of raping a female recruit and sexually assaulting several others.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Study Says: Homophobes May Secretly Be Gay Themselves
People, In A Homophobic Society, At War With Themselves
by Caroline May for The Daily Caller:
Denial can be a powerful defense mechanism. Apparently, homophobia is too — at least according to a new study from researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex, England, and the University of California in Santa Barbara.
Their research concluded that the intense fear and repulsion college-age homophobes feel toward gays and lesbians is likely due to the fact that they see similarities in themselves.
“Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves,” said lead author Netta Weinstein of the University of Essex, according to Science Daily.
The research, due to be published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, took place in four different places in the United States and Germany, with an average of 160 college students in each location.
The researchers tested their subjects on their own sexuality and then measured the discrepancy between what the participants said about their own sexual orientation and how they reacted to timed tasks, including associating themselves with words and images they deemed as “gay” or “straight.”
Quickly associating himself or herself with a “gay” image and slowly associating with a “straight” one implied that an individual was gay.
The study also examined the participants’ upbringing and their own levels of so-called “homophobia.”
Those with discrepancies in how they defined their sexuality and how their sexuality was actually manifest in the study were more likely to be hostile to gays.
“In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward,” said co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.
The study also found that people who grew up in supportive households were more likely to be in touch with their own sexual orientations.
“In a predominantly heterosexual society, ‘know thyself’ can be a challenge for many gay individuals. But in controlling and homophobic homes, embracing a minority sexual orientation can be terrifying,” Weinstein added.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Diane Gramley's Failed Coup Attempt Against the Venango County GOP
Submitted by Dave Martin (3/9/12):
The Venango County Republican Party has been dominated for generations by the Breene family. Martha Breene (right) is presently GOP party chair and her husband, Charlie, is the party committee person. Thus it's been for many, many years. Suddenly this year, it seems that Diane Gramley (below, President of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania) has taken an interest in GOP party politics.
Diane and a few of her followers examined the signatures on the ballot petition forms for GOP committee positions and found minor errors on 10 of them including the petition form of Martha Breene. Diane filed a complaint with the board of elections which ruled in Diane's favor and removed the names of the 10 individuals from the ballot including Martha's name.
Martha and the other GOP committee candidates immediately hired a lawyer, Mike Hadley, and sued to have their names restored to the ballot. The court hearing on Tuesday was noisy and choatic with frequent outbursts not only from those directly involved but from spectators as well.
One interesting bit of testimony was that Diane wished to replace the GOP chair, Martha Breene, and the 9 committee people with members of the local Tea Party headed by Jane Richey, an old ally of Diane's and owner of WAWN which is the local Christian Broadcasting radio affiliate. (The dynamically bumbling duo is pictured here, Richey on left, Gramley on right.)
I just spoke to a friend in the courthouse who tells me that Judge White handed down his decision today in favor of Martha Breene and the other committee people allowing them additional time to correct the errors on their petition forms which will restore their names to the ballot.
Hence, Diane loses not only in her attempted coup but she loses big time in her standing with the "establishment" in Venango County.
The Venango County Republican Party has been dominated for generations by the Breene family. Martha Breene (right) is presently GOP party chair and her husband, Charlie, is the party committee person. Thus it's been for many, many years. Suddenly this year, it seems that Diane Gramley (below, President of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania) has taken an interest in GOP party politics.
Diane and a few of her followers examined the signatures on the ballot petition forms for GOP committee positions and found minor errors on 10 of them including the petition form of Martha Breene. Diane filed a complaint with the board of elections which ruled in Diane's favor and removed the names of the 10 individuals from the ballot including Martha's name.
Martha and the other GOP committee candidates immediately hired a lawyer, Mike Hadley, and sued to have their names restored to the ballot. The court hearing on Tuesday was noisy and choatic with frequent outbursts not only from those directly involved but from spectators as well.
One interesting bit of testimony was that Diane wished to replace the GOP chair, Martha Breene, and the 9 committee people with members of the local Tea Party headed by Jane Richey, an old ally of Diane's and owner of WAWN which is the local Christian Broadcasting radio affiliate. (The dynamically bumbling duo is pictured here, Richey on left, Gramley on right.)
I just spoke to a friend in the courthouse who tells me that Judge White handed down his decision today in favor of Martha Breene and the other committee people allowing them additional time to correct the errors on their petition forms which will restore their names to the ballot.
Hence, Diane loses not only in her attempted coup but she loses big time in her standing with the "establishment" in Venango County.
I'm no fan of the Breene's or the local GOP party but challenging them on technical errors on a petition form in a courthouse controlled by Republicans before an ardent Republican judge is not the smartest move.
If Diane had any credibility locally previously, she lost it with this whacky move.
I very much doubt that she or her followers will have any credibility in giving testimony before councils in Oil City and Franklin and she has damaged the reputations of the election board that did her bidding as well although the chair, Tim Brooks, is also a Tea Party member.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Saturday, May 14, 2011
"Death To Gays" -- To Understand The Religious Right's Agenda In the U.S., Look To Their Meddling In Uganda
This article helps to put the vicious anti-gay work of extremist groups like the Venango county-based American Family Association of Pennsylvania in context. And for more background, see Globalizing The Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches and Homophobia, a new report by Political Research Associates.
"Pulling Out All The Stops To Push An Anti-Gay Bill"
by Josh Kron for The New York Times:
KAMPALA, Uganda — They entered through Parliament’s gates, an eclectic group. Their leader, the Rev. Martin Ssempa, wore sunglasses and long black robes embroidered with matching red crosses and two campaign buttons. One said, “Debate Our Bill Now!” and the other, simply, “No to Sodomy.”
Mr. Ssempa’s mission is to get Uganda’s Parliament to pass a highly contentious antigay bill and eradicate homosexuality throughout the country — or, after more than a year of the law’s languishing in the legislature, to at least debate the proposed law.
To many here, Uganda’s gay population does not represent a sexual minority advocating for its rights, but an underground threat promoting a cancerous vice. They accuse gay men and women of recruiting children in secondary schools, and maybe giving them H.I.V.
In 2009, Uganda’s Parliament tabled legislation calling for the execution of gays under certain circumstances and requiring citizens to report any known act of homosexuality to the police within 24 hours.
The bill drew ire from Western nations and has drifted listlessly in Parliament over the last 18 months. When David Kato, a prominent gay-rights activist, was murdered in January after his photo ran on the cover of a newspaper calling for gays to be hanged, the bill became politically toxic.
But with Parliament closing next month, Mr. Ssempa, a leading religious figure from an independent sect of Christianity, made a last-ditch push last week, bringing a coalition of religious leaders, civil society organizers and two self-described former homosexuals to meet directly with the speaker of Parliament, Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi. They presented him with a petition containing what they said were more than two million signatures in support of the bill.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced in 2009, only a month after a seminar with American ministers about “curing” homosexuality and the dangers of “the gay movement.” Last year, an evangelical Christian from Missouri, Lou Engle, held an event in Uganda at which the bill was promoted (though after he left to travel home, he says).
But Uganda, a poor and heavily Christian nation of 35 million with a large American missionary community, has long held its own conservative views on sexuality. Mr. Ssempa says his movement is about African culture, and while the United States has continued to debate its own societal values, similar conversations are happening here.
Mr. Ssempa, reading from the petition, began the meeting by saying he was “distressed” that the bill was being “deliberately killed” by “undemocratic threats” from Western nations, and called the political bullying “homocracy.”
A bag was passed around with “Debate Our Bill Now!” and “No to Sodomy,” pins, before it came to rest in front of one of the so-called former homosexuals.
“These young people,” Mr. Ssempa said, pointing toward the two young men, sitting stiffly across from him in front of the speaker, “will share their experiences having been recruited into homosexuality and coming out. And that is why we are here.”
Bishop Julius Oyet, sitting beside Mr. Ssempa, tried unsuccessfully to pin Speaker Ssekandi with the two “Debate Our Bill Now!” and “No to Sodomy” pins before speaking passionately on the “dire need” to “save the nation.”
“We are facing a defining moment, Mr. Speaker, in our nation, when we cannot allow one of the top pillars of our culture and civilization to crumble,” the bishop said.
The focus turned to the two men sitting quietly on the other side of the table, Paul Kagaba and George Oundo. Mr. Kagaba, 27, went first.
“For me, I was lured into homosexuality by a headmaster of a primary school, who recently died,” said Mr. Kagaba, speaking of the recently killed Mr. Kato. “He was our neighbor,” Mr. Kagaba said, “and we embraced him.”
Mr. Kagaba said that Mr. Kato offered to pay his school fees, and soon Mr. Kagaba, 17 at the time, moved in. One day, Mr. Kagaba claimed, Mr. Kato bought him chicken and two Guinness beers, and raped him that night. The next morning, Mr. Kagaba says, Mr. Kato gave him $130.
Other gay activists have vouched for Mr. Kato’s innocence, and Mr. Kagaba himself said he became an outspoken gay activist for six years, until his family held an intervention and he met Mr. Ssempa. Now he says he counsels others at the pastor’s One Love clinic in downtown Kampala, where they preach sexual purity and sing a cappella.
Mr. Kagaba accused a number of human-rights organizations, including London-based Amnesty International, of propagating homosexuality. Amnesty International said it was not the first time these accusations had been made, but that the accusations were “misinformed” and “baseless.”
Mr. Oundo, 26, a transgender person who used to go by the name Georgina, went next.
“I used to call myself the Queen Mother and Lady of the City,” Mr. Oundo said. “I was recruited into homosexuality many years back, when I was 12.”
“When I joined Mr. Ssempa, I told him all my problems,” he said. “I had to come out and join the struggle.
“Please help us; let the bill pass,” he said.
But an hour later, in a quiet hotel, Mr. Oundo recanted much of what had been said at the meeting.
“David Kato was murdered; it was a plot,” Mr. Oundo said. “I don’t support the bill.”
As for being a “former homosexual,” that, too, was not true.
“I’ve always been gay,” Mr. Oundo said, in a timid but growing voice. “I didn’t choose it.”
“David Kato was the first one who taught me to protect my human right,” Mr. Oundo added.
Mr. Oundo said that his presence alongside Mr. Ssempa at Parliament had been to “protect” himself and that he had been contacted only that morning by Mr. Kagaba about the meeting and offered about $42 to attend. He said Mr. Ssempa had offered him about $2,000 in 2009 to repent and switch sides in the debate, but later reneged. Either way, Mr. Oundo became a poster-child for Mr. Ssempa’s anti-homosexuality movement.
Mr. Ssempa declined to comment on the allegations.
Mr. Oundo admitted that he had picked up boyfriends at high schools and universities, what the antigay movement calls recruiting. But he said Uganda’s gay population was full of “natural-borns,” like himself.
“If I live or die, I am gay, and if I am buried, bury me gay,” he said.
At the end of the meeting in Parliament, Speaker Ssekandi thanked the delegation but warned that there had been “very different reactions” to the bill, and that it was unlikely to be debated before Parliament’s session ended.
“There are more concerns about what happens in Sweden and what the Americans are saying, but the two million Ugandans are here saying ‘help us,’ ” argued Bishop Oyet. “Democracy demands that the people debate the issues of the people.”
Across the table, Mr. Oundo, wearing a T-shirt with an American flag on it, seemed to have misty eyes, the bag of “No to Sodomy” pins spilling onto the table in front of him.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Hatred & The History of Social Conservatism
By Ron Hill, from Pam's House Blend:
1860: Social Conservatives claim that slavery is supported by the Bible. Churches even split to create the Southern Baptist and the Methodist Church, South; completely separate denominations from Northern churches. Social Conservatives claim that tradition, history and religion are on their side.
Social conservatives lose. Society doesn't devolve into race wars as predicted by social conservatives.
1919: Social Conservatives use the Bible, morality, and family, to argue for prohibition. Social Conservatives win.Violence ensues in many large American cities as gangs fight to bring alcohol to people. Moonshining takes off, creating more crime and unsafe unregulated alcohol poisons many Americans.
1920: Social Conservatives use the Bible, history and tradition to justify why women should be denied the right to vote.
Social conservatives lose. Women get the right to vote. Society doesn't fall apart as predicted by social conservatives.
1933: After seeing the results of prohibition, the country votes to legalize alcohol. Social Conservatives lose. Violence and accidental poisoning drops off as America becomes a safer and freer country.
1955: Social Conservatives claim Elvis and Rock and Roll are evil and will lead to mayhem and a breakdown in the social order. Movies are evil, and playing cards are a sin. Social Conservatives lose; Rock and Roll is still around, Elvis Presley didn't lead young people into Satan Worship. Society continues to function.
1964: Social Conservatives argue that the Bible, tradition, and history justify Jim Crow in the South. They warn that society will fall apart if blacks are given equal rights with white Americans.
Social Conservatives lose, society doesn't fall apart but becomes stronger.
1980's - present: Social Conservatives take over school boards in the South, and insist that "abstinence only" sex education be taught, despite overwhelming research that "abstinence only" sex ed is a huge failure.
Society loses, especially Southern families, as Southerners lead the nation in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, and unwed mothers. Nonetheless, social conservatives claim to be "pro-family".
2000- present: The Family "Research" Council, The American Family Association, and Americans For "Truth" About Homosexuality are used as "expert" witnesses by reputable media despite lacking any academic or scientific credentials that would qualify them as experts on gay issues. Like their predecessors, they use the Bible, history and tradition to defend their positions, along with a healthy dose of lies, distortions and fake research. Eventually, these groups are labeled as "hate groups" by the KKK and Aryan-Nation busting Southern Poverty Law Center because of their repeated lies and distortions of truth. Nonetheless, the media continue to use them as "expert" witnesses and many Republican presidential candidates continue to associate with, and defend them.
Society loses, as social conservatives twist facts to support their own private religious beliefs. American families are directly harmed by these "pro-family" groups who teach Americans lies about their own family members.
Fortunately, the history of social conservatism is one of repeated losses - and each time social conservatives lose America became a stronger, more free society. Of course, as they claimed with ending slavery, allowing women to vote, and abolishing segregation, social conservatives now claim that allowing gay Americans to have equal rights will somehow lead to society falling apart. Their is no logical reason to believe this is true, but they like to claim it nonetheless. Fortunately, polls show that Americans - even Republicans, increasingly see through the lies. It's only a matter of time before gay equality is the law of the land and social conservatives are proven wrong once again.
For the rational wing of the Republican Party
Ron Hill
"And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism'."
- U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, aka "Mr. Conservative"
Monday, May 17, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Fishermen's Net -- From Gay Bashing to Immigrant Bashing
It seems that anti-gay baiting and bashing are not enough for Fishermen's Net, Venango County's self-proclaimed Christian network.
The group's web site, managed by Jane Richey, the esteemed manager of local "Christian" radio station WAWN, is now trying to mobilize support for Pennsylvania State Representative Daryl Metcalfe's Arizona-modeled legislation aimed at providing "Pennsylvania law enforcement with full authority to apprehend illegal aliens" and several other sweeping reform measures.
We kid you not!
Here's a link to the Fishermen's Net web site to see the ugliness for yourself: http://www.fishermensnet.org/oldnews.html
And a recent article about the legislation from The Interfaith Alliance of PA:
Interfaith Advocates Call for Rejection of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and Legislation
HARRISBURG- With renewed fervor in the immigration debate after the passage of extreme legislation in Arizona, The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania today called on state and federal legislators to be part of the solution on immigration and to reject rhetoric and legislation that divides people based on race and ethnicity.
“This is a matter of human dignity,” said Rabbi Carl Choper, the chair of The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania. “We cannot promote laws in this state that demand that certain people be looked upon with suspicion simply because of their race or national origin.”
The organization’s statement came on the heels of a press conference held today by state Representative Daryl Metcalfe and four other state representatives to announce their intention to introduce legislation that mimics Arizona’s new law.
The law in Arizona has drawn criticism from around the country and the announcement of a federal civil rights challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Rabbi Choper noted that there already is too much tension in Pennsylvania around immigration issues, as evidenced by the brutal murder of a man of Mexican origin by teen-agers in Shenandoah only two years ago. “This law will not help,” he said.
“The Arizona law will inevitably lead to racial profiling,” Choper said. “And that’s a betrayal of both American values and the values of people of faith. Why would we want to import a flawed law into Pennsylvania?”
Choper noted that The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania stands with marginalized communities in their civil rights struggles. “We stand for inclusivity in American society. That was the point of the Commonwealth Interfaith Service which we held only last night,” he said, referring to the Second Annual Commonwealth Interfaith Service which The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania convened on Monday, May 3 at Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg. The service included Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Bahais, Unitarians and others of many ethnic and national origins.
“We believe in an America where everyone gets a fair shake,” Choper said. “We stand with those who face discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression.”
The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania is a statewide, grassroots network of people of faith and good will that advocates for social justice and religious liberty and that protests when religion is manipulated for political purposes or to oppress others.
The group's web site, managed by Jane Richey, the esteemed manager of local "Christian" radio station WAWN, is now trying to mobilize support for Pennsylvania State Representative Daryl Metcalfe's Arizona-modeled legislation aimed at providing "Pennsylvania law enforcement with full authority to apprehend illegal aliens" and several other sweeping reform measures.
We kid you not!
Here's a link to the Fishermen's Net web site to see the ugliness for yourself: http://www.fishermensnet.org/oldnews.html
And a recent article about the legislation from The Interfaith Alliance of PA:
Interfaith Advocates Call for Rejection of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and Legislation
HARRISBURG- With renewed fervor in the immigration debate after the passage of extreme legislation in Arizona, The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania today called on state and federal legislators to be part of the solution on immigration and to reject rhetoric and legislation that divides people based on race and ethnicity.
“This is a matter of human dignity,” said Rabbi Carl Choper, the chair of The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania. “We cannot promote laws in this state that demand that certain people be looked upon with suspicion simply because of their race or national origin.”
The organization’s statement came on the heels of a press conference held today by state Representative Daryl Metcalfe and four other state representatives to announce their intention to introduce legislation that mimics Arizona’s new law.
The law in Arizona has drawn criticism from around the country and the announcement of a federal civil rights challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Rabbi Choper noted that there already is too much tension in Pennsylvania around immigration issues, as evidenced by the brutal murder of a man of Mexican origin by teen-agers in Shenandoah only two years ago. “This law will not help,” he said.
“The Arizona law will inevitably lead to racial profiling,” Choper said. “And that’s a betrayal of both American values and the values of people of faith. Why would we want to import a flawed law into Pennsylvania?”
Choper noted that The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania stands with marginalized communities in their civil rights struggles. “We stand for inclusivity in American society. That was the point of the Commonwealth Interfaith Service which we held only last night,” he said, referring to the Second Annual Commonwealth Interfaith Service which The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania convened on Monday, May 3 at Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg. The service included Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Bahais, Unitarians and others of many ethnic and national origins.
“We believe in an America where everyone gets a fair shake,” Choper said. “We stand with those who face discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression.”
The Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania is a statewide, grassroots network of people of faith and good will that advocates for social justice and religious liberty and that protests when religion is manipulated for political purposes or to oppress others.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Death for Gays ?
The following article from the New York Times provides a look at the world as it might be if Venango County extremists Jane Richey (below left) of "Christian" radio station WAWN and Diane Gramley (below right) of the American "Family" Association of Pennsylvania had their way.
Richey's and Gramley's efforts regularly promote one of the anti-gay organizations (Exodus International) and many of the anti-gay tactics mentioned in the article that have led to a call for the death penalty for gays in Uganda!
It's Time To End The Hate!
After Americans Visit, Uganda Weighs Death for Gays
By Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times:
KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.
The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.
For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”
Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.
One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.
Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”
The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.
Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.
“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.
The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.
“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.
“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”
Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.
Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.
“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”
Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.
“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.
Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”
“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”
Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.
During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.
Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)
Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.
“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”
Richey's and Gramley's efforts regularly promote one of the anti-gay organizations (Exodus International) and many of the anti-gay tactics mentioned in the article that have led to a call for the death penalty for gays in Uganda!
It's Time To End The Hate!
After Americans Visit, Uganda Weighs Death for Gays
By Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times:
KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.
The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.
For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”
Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.
One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.
Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”
The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.
Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.
“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.
The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.
“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.
“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”
Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.
Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.
“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”
Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.
“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.
Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”
“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”
Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.
During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.
Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)
Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.
“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Just How Racist Is the Tea Party Movement?
The activists behind the Tea Bag movement in Venango County are the same extremists fighting against the rights and visibility of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people here and everywhere. And they are, you guessed it, the American "Family" Association of Pennsylvania, "Christian" Radio Station WAWN, Fishermen's Net, Lighthouse Ministries of Franklin.
By Bill Berkowitz for IPS:
Are the openly-racist elements within the Tea Party movement an aberration, or are they more firmly entrenched than tea partiers would care to admit?
It began with Apr. 15 Tax Day protests as thousands rallied in a number of cities across the country.
It continued on into the summer with raucous town hall meetings and gun-toting anti-Barack Obama demonstrators, and appeared to reach its apex with a Sep. 12 march on Washington, which drew nearly 100,000 participants.
Now, however, some in the so-called Tea Party movement are turning their attention toward becoming a force during the 2010 congressional elections.
Several reports on the Sep. 12 event noted it was a nearly all-white crowd and some demonstrators carried an assortment of "homemade" anti-Obama posters, declaring that "The Anti-Christ Is Living in the White House", and calling the president an "Oppressive Bloodsucking Arrogant Muslim Alien".
Despite the fact that it doesn't have a clear identity, and serious questions about the movement's character remain to be answered, the Tea Party movement has been one of the most intriguing political developments of the past year.
Is it a grassroots movement, or has it been organised and funded by Washington-based conservative groups? Could it be both? Is it mainly concerned with economic issues (government spending, taxes, deficits) or are the Christian Right's traditional social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) of interest to tea partiers?
Are there several -- possibly competing -- ideological tendencies within the movement?
While tea partiers made a lot of noise this past summer, doing their best to put the kybosh on health care reform, is there a future for the movement?
A recent Rasmussen Poll suggests that there very well might be.
In theoretical three-way congressional races between a Democrat, Republican and Tea Party candidate, the Tea Party candidate outpolled the Republican. Democrats attracted 36 percent of the vote; the Tea Party candidate received 23 percent, and the Republican finished third at 18 percent, with 22 percent undecided.
(According to the Rasmussen Reports website, "survey...respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party. In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the polling data indicates. The rules of the election process - written by Republicans and Democrats - provide substantial advantages for the two established major parties.)
Interestingly enough, in an effort to build the movement, some Tea Party organisers have taken to "studying the grassroots training methods of the late Saul Alinsky, the community organizer known for campus protests in the 1960s and who inspired the structure of Obama's presidential campaign," the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported.
Tea Party groups are also using "Tea Party: The Documentary Film" as an organising tool. In a pre-premiere press release, the filmmakers claimed that the film would deal with the "allegations of racism".
And that indeed appears to be the issue that could stymie the movement's growth.
While Tea Party events have become a safe haven for people carrying racist anti-Obama signs, people of colour have stayed away in droves. Members of white nationalist organisations openly participate in Tea Party events and view the movement as a fertile recruiting ground.
Questions about the overlap between tea partiers and anti-immigration activists might be answered when an immigration reform bill is taken up next year.
Are the openly-racist elements within the Tea Party movement an aberration scorned by most Tea Party participants as John Hawkins, who runs a website called RightWingNews, insists, or are they more firmly entrenched than tea partiers would care to admit?
"The tea parties themselves are made up of a diverse bloc of different political elements, and white nationalists have chosen to make a stand inside the tea parties," one expert, Devin Burghart, told IPS.
For the past 17 years, Burghart has researched and written on virtually all facets of contemporary white nationalism. He is currently vice president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, which monitors and publishes on the activities of white nationalist groups.
"The exact extent of the racist element inside the Tea Parties is difficult to quantify, because they are not a static phenomena, and it depends on who shows up," he explained. "That said, it's enough of a factor to attract the attention of a significant portion of the white nationalist movement."
"It's not a matter of how many African-American or Latino/a folks show up at these tea parties, it's about the content and character of the arguments made at them," Burghart added.
Not only have "tea partiers have turned up with overtly racist signs and slogans" at rallies from coast to coast, he said, but also many participants "cling to the belief that our first African-American president is not only un-American, he was not even born in the country".
Unfortunately, Burghart noted, "There's little evidence to indicate that tea party leaders are doing anything to address the racism in their ranks."
Burghart said that he was not surprised that "tea party activists would deny their racism". After all, "racists have been denying their racism even before pro-secessionist bigots couched their arguments in bogus claims about states' rights".
However, he added, "To anyone with any degree of sensitivity to the issue, the tea parties have clearly shown themselves to be racist, in the lineage of George Wallace - who when he campaigned up North eschewed talk of racial segregation in favour ranting against 'elites.'"
In an article at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights' website, Leonard Zeskind, the organisation's president and author of the recently published "Blood and Politics: The History of White Nationalism from the Margins to the Mainstream", pointed out that the anti-Obama "opposition" contains "many different political elements".
These include "ultra-conservative Republicans of both the Pat Buchanan and free market variety; anti-tax Tea Party libertarians from the Ron Paul camp; Christian right activists intent on re-molding the country into their kind of Kingdom; birth certificate conspiracy theorists, anti-immigrant nativists of the armed Minuteman and the policy wonk variety; third party 'constitutionalists'; and white nationalists of both the citizens councils and the Stormfront national socialist variety."
If Tea Party activists can ferret out racists and white nationalists from their ranks – and not become a mouthpiece for Christian Right ideologues - it could become a legitimate force on the U.S. political landscape.
Meanwhile, a host of groups, operating under assorted Tea Party banners, are working to influence the 2010 mid-term elections.
By Bill Berkowitz for IPS:
Are the openly-racist elements within the Tea Party movement an aberration, or are they more firmly entrenched than tea partiers would care to admit?
It began with Apr. 15 Tax Day protests as thousands rallied in a number of cities across the country.
It continued on into the summer with raucous town hall meetings and gun-toting anti-Barack Obama demonstrators, and appeared to reach its apex with a Sep. 12 march on Washington, which drew nearly 100,000 participants.
Now, however, some in the so-called Tea Party movement are turning their attention toward becoming a force during the 2010 congressional elections.
Several reports on the Sep. 12 event noted it was a nearly all-white crowd and some demonstrators carried an assortment of "homemade" anti-Obama posters, declaring that "The Anti-Christ Is Living in the White House", and calling the president an "Oppressive Bloodsucking Arrogant Muslim Alien".
Despite the fact that it doesn't have a clear identity, and serious questions about the movement's character remain to be answered, the Tea Party movement has been one of the most intriguing political developments of the past year.
Is it a grassroots movement, or has it been organised and funded by Washington-based conservative groups? Could it be both? Is it mainly concerned with economic issues (government spending, taxes, deficits) or are the Christian Right's traditional social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) of interest to tea partiers?
Are there several -- possibly competing -- ideological tendencies within the movement?
While tea partiers made a lot of noise this past summer, doing their best to put the kybosh on health care reform, is there a future for the movement?
A recent Rasmussen Poll suggests that there very well might be.
In theoretical three-way congressional races between a Democrat, Republican and Tea Party candidate, the Tea Party candidate outpolled the Republican. Democrats attracted 36 percent of the vote; the Tea Party candidate received 23 percent, and the Republican finished third at 18 percent, with 22 percent undecided.
(According to the Rasmussen Reports website, "survey...respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party. In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the polling data indicates. The rules of the election process - written by Republicans and Democrats - provide substantial advantages for the two established major parties.)
Interestingly enough, in an effort to build the movement, some Tea Party organisers have taken to "studying the grassroots training methods of the late Saul Alinsky, the community organizer known for campus protests in the 1960s and who inspired the structure of Obama's presidential campaign," the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported.
Tea Party groups are also using "Tea Party: The Documentary Film" as an organising tool. In a pre-premiere press release, the filmmakers claimed that the film would deal with the "allegations of racism".
And that indeed appears to be the issue that could stymie the movement's growth.
While Tea Party events have become a safe haven for people carrying racist anti-Obama signs, people of colour have stayed away in droves. Members of white nationalist organisations openly participate in Tea Party events and view the movement as a fertile recruiting ground.
Questions about the overlap between tea partiers and anti-immigration activists might be answered when an immigration reform bill is taken up next year.
Are the openly-racist elements within the Tea Party movement an aberration scorned by most Tea Party participants as John Hawkins, who runs a website called RightWingNews, insists, or are they more firmly entrenched than tea partiers would care to admit?
"The tea parties themselves are made up of a diverse bloc of different political elements, and white nationalists have chosen to make a stand inside the tea parties," one expert, Devin Burghart, told IPS.
For the past 17 years, Burghart has researched and written on virtually all facets of contemporary white nationalism. He is currently vice president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, which monitors and publishes on the activities of white nationalist groups.
"The exact extent of the racist element inside the Tea Parties is difficult to quantify, because they are not a static phenomena, and it depends on who shows up," he explained. "That said, it's enough of a factor to attract the attention of a significant portion of the white nationalist movement."
"It's not a matter of how many African-American or Latino/a folks show up at these tea parties, it's about the content and character of the arguments made at them," Burghart added.
Not only have "tea partiers have turned up with overtly racist signs and slogans" at rallies from coast to coast, he said, but also many participants "cling to the belief that our first African-American president is not only un-American, he was not even born in the country".
Unfortunately, Burghart noted, "There's little evidence to indicate that tea party leaders are doing anything to address the racism in their ranks."
Burghart said that he was not surprised that "tea party activists would deny their racism". After all, "racists have been denying their racism even before pro-secessionist bigots couched their arguments in bogus claims about states' rights".
However, he added, "To anyone with any degree of sensitivity to the issue, the tea parties have clearly shown themselves to be racist, in the lineage of George Wallace - who when he campaigned up North eschewed talk of racial segregation in favour ranting against 'elites.'"
In an article at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights' website, Leonard Zeskind, the organisation's president and author of the recently published "Blood and Politics: The History of White Nationalism from the Margins to the Mainstream", pointed out that the anti-Obama "opposition" contains "many different political elements".
These include "ultra-conservative Republicans of both the Pat Buchanan and free market variety; anti-tax Tea Party libertarians from the Ron Paul camp; Christian right activists intent on re-molding the country into their kind of Kingdom; birth certificate conspiracy theorists, anti-immigrant nativists of the armed Minuteman and the policy wonk variety; third party 'constitutionalists'; and white nationalists of both the citizens councils and the Stormfront national socialist variety."
If Tea Party activists can ferret out racists and white nationalists from their ranks – and not become a mouthpiece for Christian Right ideologues - it could become a legitimate force on the U.S. political landscape.
Meanwhile, a host of groups, operating under assorted Tea Party banners, are working to influence the 2010 mid-term elections.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
"Intellectual" Architect of the Extreme Right
This article echoes many of the questions and concerns that swirl around the activities of local Venango County anti-gay extremists like Diane Gramley of the American "Family" Association and Jane Richey of "Christian" Radio station WAWN and the Fishermen's Net "ministries."
from Truth Wins Out:
A feature article in this week’s New York Times Magazine refers to Princeton professor Robert P. George as the “intellectual architect” of the extreme right. This is hardly an honor, considering the main competition for “Values Valedictorian” is Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Mike Huckabee. One also has to consider admiration comes from the likes of George W. Bush and FOX instigator Glenn Beck, who calls George “one of the biggest brains in America.”
George’s primary accomplishment has been denying gay couples the right to marry, by forming an unholy political union between conservative Catholics, like himself, and Evangelical Christians. He is the chairman of The National Organization for Marriage, the group that most recently worked to strip marriage rights from LGBT couples in Maine.
Quite frankly, I’m hardly impressed with George’s cognitive abilities. If one looks at the numbers in Maine, his allegedly intellectual arguments against same-sex marriage failed miserably in cosmopolitan Portland and in Orono, home of The University of Maine. His primary talent, it seems, is to trick the unschooled and easily fooled. Given this reality, George is more back woods propagandist than deep professorial thinker.
Indeed, one of the simplest ways to succeed in America is to rabble rouse and scapegoat. It takes no brains to peddle belligerence and play the gay card by pandering to people not playing with a full deck. George exploited an undereducated constituency and fed them red meat, which is no more than a cheap shortcut for those incapable of the more difficult task of bringing Americans together. In a diverse nation paradoxically frightened by diversity, demagogues such as George are a dime a dozen and unworthy of praise.
What George offers is sophistry disguised as scholarship. For example, his opposition to gay people having sex or marrying rests on his version of “natural law”, allegedly based on “practical reason.” In the Times Magazine article, Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali parrots George’s idea of “natural law” at a press conference, with George at his side, cheering on his protégé.
“Sexual relations outside the marital bond are contrary not only to the will of God but to the good of man,” said Rigali. “Indeed they are contrary to the will of God precisely because they are against the good of man.”
The “good” of which men (and women) might Rigali and George be referring to?
Is it the teenage boys who were molested in the Catholic Church because such conservative ideologues insisted on turning gay men into sexually repressed and emotionally stunted shells and then placing them in the priesthood?
Is it “good” for the gay youths who commit suicide in disproportionate numbers because men like George and Rigali tell them their love is inferior?
Perhaps, they can illuminate how such “practical reason” was “good” for Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas who came out of the closet this weekend after hiding his sexual orientation for two decades.
“Sometimes I felt so alone and depressed,” said Thomas. “I’ve stood on so many cliff edges. I used to go to the cliffs overlooking the beach near our cottage in St Brides Major and just think about jumping off and ending it all…I was like a ticking bomb. I thought I could suppress it, keep it locked away in some dark corner of myself, but I couldn’t. It was who I was, and I just couldn’t ignore it any more.”
Maybe George can explain how his philosophy was somehow “good” for Gareth’s wife Jenna, who is about to be divorced?
If “practical reason” has proven one thing, it has shown the closet, particularly for the Catholic Church, to be destructive on so many levels. George has demonstrably failed to articulate how openly gay people harm heterosexuals or how living a lie helps homosexuals be more productive members of society. His entire presentation is a ruse meant to rally the rubes.
Interestingly, George believes in restricting marriage because, in his view, only a husband and wife can experience, “comprehensive unity” and become a “one-flesh union.” He blatantly ignores that millions of people can achieve this state only through homosexual relations. By forcing GLBT people to conform to his views and presumably marry the opposite sex, he is creating the conditions to achieve the polar opposite of what he claims is necessary for a healthy marriage.
George is equally disingenuous in claiming that marriage is based on procreation. These days, the vast majority of people marry for love. Many couples choose not to have children, while others are unable to. To suggest otherwise is to proffer an incoherent and intellectually dishonest view of modern marriage.
George is an intellectual lightweight without an original idea in his head. His claim to fame is organizing like-minded conservatives and providing a veneer of education to mask his goal of discrimination. This is not the pride of Princeton, but a paean to prejudice.
from Truth Wins Out:
A feature article in this week’s New York Times Magazine refers to Princeton professor Robert P. George as the “intellectual architect” of the extreme right. This is hardly an honor, considering the main competition for “Values Valedictorian” is Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Mike Huckabee. One also has to consider admiration comes from the likes of George W. Bush and FOX instigator Glenn Beck, who calls George “one of the biggest brains in America.”
George’s primary accomplishment has been denying gay couples the right to marry, by forming an unholy political union between conservative Catholics, like himself, and Evangelical Christians. He is the chairman of The National Organization for Marriage, the group that most recently worked to strip marriage rights from LGBT couples in Maine.
Quite frankly, I’m hardly impressed with George’s cognitive abilities. If one looks at the numbers in Maine, his allegedly intellectual arguments against same-sex marriage failed miserably in cosmopolitan Portland and in Orono, home of The University of Maine. His primary talent, it seems, is to trick the unschooled and easily fooled. Given this reality, George is more back woods propagandist than deep professorial thinker.
Indeed, one of the simplest ways to succeed in America is to rabble rouse and scapegoat. It takes no brains to peddle belligerence and play the gay card by pandering to people not playing with a full deck. George exploited an undereducated constituency and fed them red meat, which is no more than a cheap shortcut for those incapable of the more difficult task of bringing Americans together. In a diverse nation paradoxically frightened by diversity, demagogues such as George are a dime a dozen and unworthy of praise.
What George offers is sophistry disguised as scholarship. For example, his opposition to gay people having sex or marrying rests on his version of “natural law”, allegedly based on “practical reason.” In the Times Magazine article, Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali parrots George’s idea of “natural law” at a press conference, with George at his side, cheering on his protégé.
“Sexual relations outside the marital bond are contrary not only to the will of God but to the good of man,” said Rigali. “Indeed they are contrary to the will of God precisely because they are against the good of man.”
The “good” of which men (and women) might Rigali and George be referring to?
Is it the teenage boys who were molested in the Catholic Church because such conservative ideologues insisted on turning gay men into sexually repressed and emotionally stunted shells and then placing them in the priesthood?
Is it “good” for the gay youths who commit suicide in disproportionate numbers because men like George and Rigali tell them their love is inferior?
Perhaps, they can illuminate how such “practical reason” was “good” for Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas who came out of the closet this weekend after hiding his sexual orientation for two decades.
“Sometimes I felt so alone and depressed,” said Thomas. “I’ve stood on so many cliff edges. I used to go to the cliffs overlooking the beach near our cottage in St Brides Major and just think about jumping off and ending it all…I was like a ticking bomb. I thought I could suppress it, keep it locked away in some dark corner of myself, but I couldn’t. It was who I was, and I just couldn’t ignore it any more.”
Maybe George can explain how his philosophy was somehow “good” for Gareth’s wife Jenna, who is about to be divorced?
If “practical reason” has proven one thing, it has shown the closet, particularly for the Catholic Church, to be destructive on so many levels. George has demonstrably failed to articulate how openly gay people harm heterosexuals or how living a lie helps homosexuals be more productive members of society. His entire presentation is a ruse meant to rally the rubes.
Interestingly, George believes in restricting marriage because, in his view, only a husband and wife can experience, “comprehensive unity” and become a “one-flesh union.” He blatantly ignores that millions of people can achieve this state only through homosexual relations. By forcing GLBT people to conform to his views and presumably marry the opposite sex, he is creating the conditions to achieve the polar opposite of what he claims is necessary for a healthy marriage.
George is equally disingenuous in claiming that marriage is based on procreation. These days, the vast majority of people marry for love. Many couples choose not to have children, while others are unable to. To suggest otherwise is to proffer an incoherent and intellectually dishonest view of modern marriage.
George is an intellectual lightweight without an original idea in his head. His claim to fame is organizing like-minded conservatives and providing a veneer of education to mask his goal of discrimination. This is not the pride of Princeton, but a paean to prejudice.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Responsibility For What We All Let Come To Pass
We Hope and Pray that the Incendiary Anti-GLBT Rhetoric of Venango County's Own Christian Radio Station WAWN and Locally-Headquartered American Family Association of Pennsylvania Do Not Have Such Tragic Results Here
By Mary Alice Carr
The first time I appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor," in 2004, I sat across from Bill O'Reilly in awkward silence while he shuffled papers and took notes.
Finally, he glanced up and acknowledged my existence. "Thank you for coming on," he said. "Most people don't have the guts."
I said, "Well, you are one of the most-watched new shows on cable."
He swiftly retorted, "The most-watched new show on cable TV."
Let's face it: Bill O'Reilly is not only aware of his power and his reach, he's damn proud of them.
So I went on his show, time and again, even though many other progressives discouraged me. I went because I know what O'Reilly knows: It's the most-watched show, and I thought it was imperative that his audience also hear our viewpoint.
I also know that when you have a bully pulpit, you need to be held accountable for what you preach.
O'Reilly is being incredibly disingenuous when he claims that he bears no responsibility for others' actions in the killing of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday. When you tell an audience of millions over and over again that someone is an executioner, you cannot feign surprise when someone executes that person.
You cannot claim to hold no responsibility for what other people do when you call for people to besiege Tiller's clinic, as O'Reilly did in January 2008. And this was after Tiller had been shot in both arms and after his clinic had been bombed.
O'Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames. Every time I appeared on his show, I received vitriolic and hate-filled e-mails. And if I received those messages directly, I can only imagine what type of feedback O'Reilly receives. He knows that his words incite violence.
That is why I made a personal pledge to no longer sit across from him after he called for people to converge on Tiller's clinic. I realized that appearing on the show with him would only legitimize his speech and that no good would come of my efforts.
So on Tuesday morning, when an O'Reilly producer called and asked me to come on the show to "discuss the reasons why women have late-term abortions," I held fast to my pledge. I told his producer what I thought: that I had had that conversation on air with O'Reilly five years earlier and that he agreed with me at the time that the decision was between a woman and her doctor. That O'Reilly then went on to pretend we had never talked about it and continued condemning women and doctors. That the nation and those of us in the pro-choice community are reeling from the murder of a doctor who helped women. That we hold O'Reilly responsible for helping to create a climate in which hate was allowed to fester. That I refused to dignify his irresponsible behavior, not to mention his deplorable reaction to Tiller's shooting.
O'Reilly had the opportunity to apologize for his words, and he didn't. He had the opportunity to say that this tragic outcome was something about which he felt sorry. He didn't. When restraint and perspective were called for, he fanned the flames higher. In fact, on his June 1 "Talking Points," he played the martyr, saying his critics were seeking to stifle any criticism of "people like Tiller -- that and hating Fox News is the real agenda here." On his show the next day -- the show I declined to appear on -- he again called a murdered man "Dr. Killer."
I admit that after the call from the producer, I hesitated. What an opportunity, I thought, to sit across from O'Reilly and call him out for what he has done and where his responsibility lies. To speak for everyone in America who is hurt and scared and angry. I have never been a Fox News hater; clearly, I've used the show for the benefit of my movement and my organization, and I've answered his questions on some of the toughest issues around. Didn't I have the right to also call him out for his speech?
But then I realized I just couldn't. Because if the murder of a man in a house of worship wasn't enough to make Bill O'Reilly repent, what hope did I have?
The writer is vice president of communications for NARAL Pro-Choice New York.
By Mary Alice Carr
The first time I appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor," in 2004, I sat across from Bill O'Reilly in awkward silence while he shuffled papers and took notes.
Finally, he glanced up and acknowledged my existence. "Thank you for coming on," he said. "Most people don't have the guts."
I said, "Well, you are one of the most-watched new shows on cable."
He swiftly retorted, "The most-watched new show on cable TV."
Let's face it: Bill O'Reilly is not only aware of his power and his reach, he's damn proud of them.
So I went on his show, time and again, even though many other progressives discouraged me. I went because I know what O'Reilly knows: It's the most-watched show, and I thought it was imperative that his audience also hear our viewpoint.
I also know that when you have a bully pulpit, you need to be held accountable for what you preach.
O'Reilly is being incredibly disingenuous when he claims that he bears no responsibility for others' actions in the killing of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday. When you tell an audience of millions over and over again that someone is an executioner, you cannot feign surprise when someone executes that person.
You cannot claim to hold no responsibility for what other people do when you call for people to besiege Tiller's clinic, as O'Reilly did in January 2008. And this was after Tiller had been shot in both arms and after his clinic had been bombed.
O'Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames. Every time I appeared on his show, I received vitriolic and hate-filled e-mails. And if I received those messages directly, I can only imagine what type of feedback O'Reilly receives. He knows that his words incite violence.
That is why I made a personal pledge to no longer sit across from him after he called for people to converge on Tiller's clinic. I realized that appearing on the show with him would only legitimize his speech and that no good would come of my efforts.
So on Tuesday morning, when an O'Reilly producer called and asked me to come on the show to "discuss the reasons why women have late-term abortions," I held fast to my pledge. I told his producer what I thought: that I had had that conversation on air with O'Reilly five years earlier and that he agreed with me at the time that the decision was between a woman and her doctor. That O'Reilly then went on to pretend we had never talked about it and continued condemning women and doctors. That the nation and those of us in the pro-choice community are reeling from the murder of a doctor who helped women. That we hold O'Reilly responsible for helping to create a climate in which hate was allowed to fester. That I refused to dignify his irresponsible behavior, not to mention his deplorable reaction to Tiller's shooting.
O'Reilly had the opportunity to apologize for his words, and he didn't. He had the opportunity to say that this tragic outcome was something about which he felt sorry. He didn't. When restraint and perspective were called for, he fanned the flames higher. In fact, on his June 1 "Talking Points," he played the martyr, saying his critics were seeking to stifle any criticism of "people like Tiller -- that and hating Fox News is the real agenda here." On his show the next day -- the show I declined to appear on -- he again called a murdered man "Dr. Killer."
I admit that after the call from the producer, I hesitated. What an opportunity, I thought, to sit across from O'Reilly and call him out for what he has done and where his responsibility lies. To speak for everyone in America who is hurt and scared and angry. I have never been a Fox News hater; clearly, I've used the show for the benefit of my movement and my organization, and I've answered his questions on some of the toughest issues around. Didn't I have the right to also call him out for his speech?
But then I realized I just couldn't. Because if the murder of a man in a house of worship wasn't enough to make Bill O'Reilly repent, what hope did I have?
The writer is vice president of communications for NARAL Pro-Choice New York.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Help For Those Hurt By "Ex-Gay" Programs
New Landmark Publication Offers Legal Options To Those Hurt By The Type Of "Ex-Gay" Programs Promoted By Venango County Extremist Organizations Such As the American "Family" Association of Pennsylvania and "Christian" Radio Station WAWN.
If You Have Been Harmed By 'Ex-Gay' Programs, 'Ex-Gay & The Law' Is For You
CHARLOTTE - Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal released a landmark publication today, "Ex-Gay & The Law", that aims to educate victims of "ex-gay" programs of their legal options. This work was inspired by the many people who have had their lives damaged by programs that seek to "pray away the gay" or use questionable counseling techniques.
"Ex-Gay & the Law helps survivors of ex-gay programs explore their legal rights if they believe they have been harmed," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. "This groundbreaking publication offers practical legal advice so important questions can be answered."
"We are pleased to help support this publication and to be a part of this effort," said Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director of Lambda Legal. "Groups that proclaim to 'cure' gay people of their sexual orientation lack any legitimate medical backing, cause harm, and sometimes operate unlawfully and unethically. If you have experienced any of the scenarios outlined in the last pages of 'Ex-Gay & the Law', we welcome you to contact or Legal Help Desk."
Each year, thousands of men and women enter "ex-gay" programs. Adolescents are even forced into these boot camps by their parents. While their stories differ, nearly all of these individuals have one thing in common: They are harmed by the traumatizing experience.
The American Psychiatric Association says, "The potential risks of 'reparative therapy' are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior."
Ex-Gay & The Law was released at a press conference in Charlotte to counter Focus on the Family's ex-gay Love Won Out conference. The Charlotte Rainbow Action Network for Equality (CRANE) hosted the event. CRANE is a grassroots coalition of activists and community members working toward civil and social equality for Charlotte's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from anti-gay lies. TWO also counters the "ex-gay" myth and educates America about gay life.
Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full regonition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
Download Ex-Gay and the Law
If You Have Been Harmed By 'Ex-Gay' Programs, 'Ex-Gay & The Law' Is For You
CHARLOTTE - Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal released a landmark publication today, "Ex-Gay & The Law", that aims to educate victims of "ex-gay" programs of their legal options. This work was inspired by the many people who have had their lives damaged by programs that seek to "pray away the gay" or use questionable counseling techniques.
"Ex-Gay & the Law helps survivors of ex-gay programs explore their legal rights if they believe they have been harmed," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. "This groundbreaking publication offers practical legal advice so important questions can be answered."
"We are pleased to help support this publication and to be a part of this effort," said Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director of Lambda Legal. "Groups that proclaim to 'cure' gay people of their sexual orientation lack any legitimate medical backing, cause harm, and sometimes operate unlawfully and unethically. If you have experienced any of the scenarios outlined in the last pages of 'Ex-Gay & the Law', we welcome you to contact or Legal Help Desk."
Each year, thousands of men and women enter "ex-gay" programs. Adolescents are even forced into these boot camps by their parents. While their stories differ, nearly all of these individuals have one thing in common: They are harmed by the traumatizing experience.
The American Psychiatric Association says, "The potential risks of 'reparative therapy' are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior."
Ex-Gay & The Law was released at a press conference in Charlotte to counter Focus on the Family's ex-gay Love Won Out conference. The Charlotte Rainbow Action Network for Equality (CRANE) hosted the event. CRANE is a grassroots coalition of activists and community members working toward civil and social equality for Charlotte's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from anti-gay lies. TWO also counters the "ex-gay" myth and educates America about gay life.
Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full regonition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
Download Ex-Gay and the Law
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