Friday, September 17, 2010

Via JMG: CALIFORNIA: Denny's Waiter Stabbed For Being Gay, Cops Rule It A Hate Crime


A waiter at a Denny's restaurant in Santa Maria, California is hospitalized with neck and throat wounds after being attacked by a customer who first demanded to know, "Are you gay?" When the waiter replied that he was, the customer stabbed him with a knife. The 24 year-old assailant fled the scene but was later apprehended and charged with attempted murder as a hate crime. The waiter is expected to survive.


reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Catholic League Nutter Bill Donohue: Atheists Should Apologize For Adolf Hitler


"The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to 'reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century.' Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of 'a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.' The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities." - Catholic League nutjob Bill Donohue.

FACT CHECK: As Donohue knows, Hitler was in fact a Catholic JUST LIKE BILL DONOHUE and sang in the choir at the Benedictine monastery he attended as a child.

Hitler publicly denounced atheism as inherently communist. "For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."

The Catholic Hitler also denounced secular education. "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."
Here's your precious fucking Pope, Bill!


reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Andrew Sullivan On Christine O'Donnell


"A mischievous thought: when will someone ask O'Donnell, as a single woman, if, since her conversion to Catholicism, she has ever masturbated? She cannot have had any sex, right? And that includes sex alone. Since she has made this a public stance, and since, apparently, she cannot lie (even if it would mean handing over Jews to Nazis), she has made the question perfectly legit." - Andrew Sullivan on Christine O'Donnell, who has said if she knew where the Jews were hiding and the Nazis asked, she'd have to tell them because she cannot tell a lie.


Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle: Earth-touching Buddha



One of the most recognizable and poignant images in Buddhist iconography is the "Earth-touching Buddha," the Buddha seated with the fingertips of his right hand gently touching the ground. At the moment of his enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, the Buddha was challenged by the demon Mara to prove the claim that a human being could become an awakened one. In reply, the Buddha touched the ground and called the earth to be his witness.

Nepal, 13th century gilt copper alloy, 17.5 x 15 in. © 2010 Rubin Museum of Art (HAR 65687)

Via Utne: The Angry Monk


Shozan Jack Haubner shows that Zen practice stirs up energy and emotion, and it can be downright ugly.

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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Via JMG: Rachel Maddow- Vice President Biden supports Dont ask_ dont tell- repeal

Via JMG: Christine O'Donnell Has A Long Sordid History Of Demonizing LGBT People


Wade Richards, a former member of Christine O'Donnell's "ex-gay" group who has since come to terms with his sexuality, tells all in a report published today by the Daily Beast. According to Richards, O'Donnell has a lesbian sister, whom he credits with helping him accept himself. The article lists some of O'Donnell's track record in her long campaign to demonize LGBT people.
Toward the end of the Clinton administration, she protested the appointment of James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, a posting the religious right opposed because Hormel was gay. “The SALT was concerned about Hormel’s ties to the pedophile-rights movement,” her website said, though there was not a shred of evidence behind the slur. In 1997, in a clip recently unearthed by Talking Points Memo, she appeared on C-SPAN, where, looking fresh, lovely, and innocent, she objected to AIDS sufferers being called “victims” because the disease is the product of their own actions. In an appearance on Fox in 2000, she exclaimed over the horrors of New York’s gay pride parade: “They’re getting away with nudity! They’re getting away with lasciviousness! They’re getting away with perversion!”
After working with O'Donnell's group, Richards went to work for Peter LaBarbera, going undercover at International Mister Leather.
Richards was unnerved when he went into Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s “media room” and found copious hard-core porn—for research, naturally—as well as leather bondage gear for undercover work. “The sad thing was, there’s that 80-year-old grandma in Wichita, Kansas, thinking she’s donating this money to a good cause, and it’s going to who knows what kind of ‘research,’” says Richards. “As someone struggling with same-sex attraction, I thought, this is really not a place I need to be hanging out in.”
Richards eventually became an ex-ex-gay after reaching out to Wayne Besen at Truth Wins Out. Read the entire story at the Daily Beast.
reposted from Joe

Liberal Hopeful Goes Against Popular Anti-Gay Christian

Via JMG: DADT Repeal Vote Set For Tuesday


The Washington Post reports:
The U.S. Senate will hold a key vote Tuesday on a defense bill that includes language repealing "don't ask, don't tell," the Clinton-era policy banning gays from openly serving in uniform, Democratic and Republican aides said Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid earlier this week vowed to hold a vote next week, even taking to Twitter to respond to gay rights advocates.
NOW is the time to call your Senators (both of them).


reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Bedroom Ants (Lady Gaga "Bad Romance" parody)