LKL - Ann Coulter Against Gay Marriage & Repealing DADT

Via JMG: TEXAS: 13 Year-Old Boy Commits Suicide After Years Of Anti-Gay Bullying

Eighth grader Asher Brown put a bullet in his brain this week after enduring years of anti-gay taunting and bullying at his Texas middle school. His parents say they complained to the school repeatedly. The school, of course, claims no knowledge of such complaints.

Cy Fair ISD officials said Monday that they never received any complaints from Brown's parents before the suicide about the way the boy was being treated at school. School district spokeswoman Kelli Durham said no students, school employees or the boy's parents ever reported that he was being bullied. That statement infuriated the Truongs, who accused the school district of protecting the bullies and their parents.

"That's absolutely inaccurate — it's completely false," Amy Truong said. "I did not hallucinate phone calls to counselors and assistant principals. We have no reason to make this up. … It's like they're calling us liars." David Truong said, "We want justice. The people here need to be held responsible and to be stopped. It did happen. There are witnesses everywhere." Numerous comments from parents and students on the Web site of KRIV-TV Channel 26, which also reported a story about Brown's death, stated that the boy had been bullied by classmates for several years and claimed Cy-Fair ISD does nothing to stop such harassment.

On the morning of his suicide, Asher told his parents that he was gay, but his stepfather says they were accepting of Asher's revelation. "We didn't condemn," he said. The day before, Asher had been tripped and pushed down a flight of stairs at his school. The school claims to have investigated that incident, but says they can find no corroboration.

Texas law does not protect students from anti-gay bullying, no doubt thanks to the work of Christianist groups like Focus On The Family, who lobby nationwide for the right of Christian students to abuse LGBT kids.

Labels: bullying, education, gay youth, LGBT youth, suicide, Texas

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Atheists Know The Most About Religion

A survey testing Americans' knowledge about the religions of the world showed that atheists and agnostics know more than professed believers. Interestingly, some of the questions most frequently answered incorrectly were about the responders' own religions.

Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ. More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four in 10 Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the greatest rabbis and intellectuals in history, was Jewish. [snip]

Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. On average, participants in the survey answered correctly overall for half of the survey questions. Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers, while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15.

The best predictor for religious knowledge, unsurprisingly, was level of education.

Labels: atheism, religion, surveys

reposted from Joe

Via SacBee: NONBELIEVERS DO WELL ON TEST THAT MANY FLUB

SURVEY

  Religious question? Better ask an atheist

  NONBELIEVERS DO WELL ON TEST THAT MANY FLUB

  By Laurie Goodstein    New York Times 
   
Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion.    Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life.     

On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.      
 
Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences.     

“Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith,     a senior researcher at Pew.     

That finding might surprise some, but not Dave Silver-man, president of American Atheists, an advocacy group for nonbelievers that was founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair.     

“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Silverman said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”     

Among the topics covered in the survey were: Where was Jesus born? What is Ramadan? Whose writings inspired the Protestant Reformation? Which Biblical figure led the exodus from Egypt? What religion is the Dalai Lama? Joseph Smith? Mother Teresa? In most cases, the format was multiple choice.       

The researchers said that the questionnaire was designed to represent a breadth of knowledge about religion but was not intended to be regarded as a list of the most essential facts about the subject. Most of the questions were easy, but a few were difficult enough to discern which respondents were highly knowledgeable.     

On questions about the Bible and Christianity, the groups that answered the most right were Mormons and white evangelical Protestants.     

On questions about world religions, like Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism, the groups that did the best were atheists, agnostics and Jews.       

One finding that may grab the attention of policymakers is that most Americans wrongly believe that anything having to do with religion is prohibited in public schools.     

An overwhelming 89 percent of respondents, asked whether public school teachers are permitted to lead a class in prayer, correctly answered no.     

But fewer than one in four knew that a public school teacher is permitted “to read from the Bible as an example of literature.” And only about one-third knew that a public school teacher is permitted to offer a class comparing the world’s religions.       

The survey’s authors concluded that there was “widespread confusion” about “the line between teaching and preaching.”     

Smith said the survey appeared to be the first comprehensive effort at assessing the basic religious knowledge of Americans, so it is impossible to tell whether they are more or less informed than in the past.    The phone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish in May and June. 

There were not enough Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu respondents to say how those   groups ranked.    Clergy members who are concerned that their congregants know little about the essentials of their own faith will no doubt be appalled by some of these findings:     

• Fifty-three percent of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the man who started the Protestant Reformation.    

• Forty-five percent of Catholics did not know that their church teaches that the consecrated bread and wine in Holy Communion are not merely symbols but actually become the body and blood of Christ.      
 
• Forty-three percent of Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the foremost rabbinical authorities and philosophers, was Jewish.     

The question about Maimonides was the one that the fewest people answered correctly. But 51 percent knew that Joseph Smith was Mormon, and 82 percent knew that Mother Teresa was Roman Catholic.   

Via Adam & Andy:

http://www.adamandandy.com/archive.html

Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"Many of us fought for years to construct a conservatism that treated gay people as individuals and as equal citizens. We fought, as GOProud does, to rebut the notion that being gay means being a socialist or a leftist. But we also fought to have core civil equality recognized - in military service and marriage, and we fought against an agenda that placed gay victimology at its center. What GOProud has done, in inviting this woman, is much more than that: it is to invite someone who actively opposes our civil equality - equal rights, not special rights - and whose record of anti-gay bigotry is as plain as the collar bones on her shoulders." - Andrew Sullivan on Ann Coulter's Homocon appearance.

Labels: Andrew Sullivan, Ann Coulter, GOProud, homocons, HomoQuotable, Quislings

reposted from Joe

Stand up to NOM's Shameful Behavior in Minnesota

AC360 - Hate Message From Sen. Saxby Chambliss' Office

A Gay Vet’s Grave

http://iownimages.tumblr.com/post/1184387191/a-gay-vets-grave

Via HRC:

Dear Daniel, Tuesday's temporary set-back on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) reaffirmed two fundamental concepts of American politics: elections have consequences and just one vote can make the difference. Scott Brown's election earlier this year meant that Senate Democrats lost the all-important 60 vote majority needed to break gridlock-motivated Republican filibusters and force votes. The consequence of only having 59 votes is that the Democrats' agenda is virtually always in peril because of the political aims of Republicans; a matter made exponentially worse 45 days from an election. That's where we got caught Tuesday when the Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to break a Republican filibuster and force the consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that includes the repeal of DADT. We learned this morning via the Washington Blade that Republicans' real opposition to the bill was not that Senator Reid had limited amendments as they publicly screeched. Republicans called it an affront to the rights of the party in the minority in spite of the fact that they had done the exact same thing plenty of times when they were in the majority. It turns out that wasn’t the real reason at all. According to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, the reason for their opposition to the repeal of DADT is because it would hurt the turnout of conservative voters in November. Knowing full well that the votes were there to repeal DADT if it got to the floor, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell did what all good cowards do: he figured out a way for the bill not to be voted on by convincing his caucus that it would have election-year ramifications. Absolutely shameless. If there's a silver lining at all in this story, it's that even Senator McConnell believes DADT will be repealed. According to Plouffe, McConnell told senators, "We'll do it in December," when Congress comes back into session following the mid-term elections. So in spite of the fact that we're at war and the bill authorizes important weapons systems and the construction of military installations, and in spite of the fact that the bill contains a pay raise for our troops and that nearly 80% of Americans support repeal of DADT, election year politics won out. Make no mistake about it: this was a setback, not a defeat. As long as DADT is on the books, giving up is not an option. Senator Reid has committed to bring the bill back up in the lame duck session of Congress. We are quite bullish that it can and will get done then. In the meantime, remember what happened to us this past Tuesday when you consider your involvement in this November’s elections. Elections, my friends, do in fact have consequences. Joe Solmonese President, Human Rights Campaign

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