Via JMG: The 2010 Peter LaBarbera Hate Challenge

"The folly of the SPLC’s expanding 'hate' dragnet is that it threatens to engulf all religious/moral opposition to homosexuality. Indeed, it would be revealing to query the top 25 'GLBT' activist across the nation and ask them if they would also label, as Matt Barber pokes fun HERE, the following as 'hate groups': Family Research Council, AFA, the Roman Catholic Church, Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention and ADF. Wayne Besen, Evan Hurst, Joe Jervis, Jeremy Hooper, Rea Carey: take up the challenge!" - Peter LaBarbera, in his seventh consecutive post whining about being named a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Since you asked, Petey, yes, I do consider your named groups to be hate-centered. Therefore I accept your challenge to help you expand the SPLC's list. It's clear that you want more company on that list in order to take the sting out of your having been singled-out, so let's try to make the hurt go away. In alphabetical order and just off the top of my mind, here are some asshat groups whose campaigns of oppression and hate are just as evil as yours.

The 2010 Peter LaBarbera Hate Challenge!

The following evil and hate-filled organizations devote a large amount of their time and resources to thwarting the civil rights of LGBT people in the United States. They do this through lies, slander, buying politicians, and the demonizing of LGBT Americans in the public's mind.

Alliance Defense Fund
American Family Association
Americans For Prosperity
Catholic League
Center For Military Readiness
Christian Coalition
Concerned Women For America
Eagle Forum
Exodus International
Family Policy Network
Family Research Council
Family Research Institute*
Focus On The Family
Heritage Foundation
Illinois Family Institute
Maine Family Policy Council
MassResistance*
Morality In Media
NARTH
National Organization For Marriage
Parents & Friends Of Ex-Gays
Parents Television Council
Protect Marriage
Liberty Counsel
Repent America
Republican National Committee
Roman Catholic Church
Traditional Values Coalition*
(*Already listed by SPLC.)

I'm sure I've made a few glaring omissions for this list. Readers, feel free to suggest others.

a repost from JMG

Via JMG: Animals Are Gay

This weekend's feature article in New York Times Magazine deals with homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Here's an excerpt:

Various forms of same-sex sexual activity have been recorded in more than 450 different species of animals by now, from flamingos to bison to beetles to guppies to warthogs. A female koala might force another female against a tree and mount her, while throwing back her head and releasing what one scientist described as “exhalated belchlike sounds.” Male Amazon River dolphins have been known to penetrate each other in the blowhole. Within most species, homosexual sex has been documented only sporadically, and there appear to be few cases of individual animals who engage in it exclusively. For more than a century, this kind of observation was usually tacked onto scientific papers as a curiosity, if it was reported at all, and not pursued as a legitimate research subject. Biologists tried to explain away what they’d seen, or dismissed it as theoretically meaningless — an isolated glitch in an otherwise elegant Darwinian universe where every facet of an animal’s behavior is geared toward reproducing. One primatologist speculated that the real reason two male orangutans were fellating each other was nutritional.

In recent years though, more biologists have been looking objectively at same-sex sexuality in animals — approaching it as real science. For Young, the existence of so many female-female albatross pairs disproved assumptions that she didn’t even realize she’d been making and, in the process, raised a chain of progressively more complicated questions. One of the prickliest, it seemed, was how a scientist is even supposed to talk about any of this, given how eager the rest of us have been to twist the sex lives of animals into allegories of our own. “This colony is literally the largest proportion of — I don’t know what the correct term is: ‘homosexual animals’? — in the world,” Young told me. “Which I’m sure some people think is a great thing, and others might think is not.”

Wingnut logic: Homosexual acts are not natural! Then why do so many animals do it? What are you, an ANIMAL? Well, yes.

a repost from JMG

Via JMG: Everywhere But Here

The percentage of people saying homosexuality is "never justifiable" is diving in all the countries surveyed. Including here, until starting around 2000, thanks to Karl Rove and the Bush II years. Still, I suppose we should at least by heartened by the overall change since the survey began.

(Via - Andrew Sullivan)

a repost from JMG

Via AccessHollywood: Ricky Martin: 'I Am a Fortunate Homosexual Man'

Posted Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:48pm PDT by Access Hollywood in Stop The Presses!

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- After years of keeping quiet about his personal life, pop star Ricky Martin has announced that he is gay.

"I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man," Ricky said in a message posted on his offical Web site. "I am very blessed to be who I am."

make the jump here to read the full article

Via JMG

Tales Of The City Musical To Get San Francisco World Premiere

The musical version of Armistead Maupin's Tales Of The City will see its world premiere in San Francisco next summer.

"Tales of the City," a new musical adaptation of Armistead Maupin's famed stories - created with veterans of "Avenue Q" and members of the rock band Scissor Sisters - will receive its world premiere in the American Conservatory Theater's 2010-11 season. Bill Irwin, Harold Pinter, and a new take on Sartre's "No Exit" are also featured in the ambitious lineup to be announced today by Artistic Director Carey Perloff, along with the previously announced, three-theater staging of Tarell Alvin McCraney's "The Brother/Sister Plays" trilogy.

"It's a wonderful valentine to the community in which we live," Perloff says of "Tales," noting that Maupin began his opus as a series of columns in The Chronicle. It's the kind of San Francisco story, like her own "The Tosca Project" this season, "that's a big part of the kind of work we want to make at ACT." Perloff acknowledges that "Tales" has Broadway aspirations, with the participation of "Avenue Q" librettist Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore, and Scissors songwriters Jake Shears and John Garden. But the premiere "is an ACT production for ACT's audience," she says. "Clearly it's an extraordinary team, and it would be surprising if it didn't have a longer life. But that isn't the first imperative, which is to do a fantastic production for a fantastic city."

Like uncountable thousands of gay men, I decided I needed to live in San Francisco once I read the first volume of Tales In The City. And in 1994 I practically tackled Armistead Maupin for an autograph in the middle of Fifth Avenue as he lead the television cast of Tales Of The City to their place in the Stonewall 25 Pride parade. He kindly introduced me around and to this day I can't even remember meeting anyone else. Laura Linney? Olympia Dukakis? Who knows? Today's bonus cool points: Both Maupin and Avenue Q's Jeff Whitty are JMG readers. another repost from JMG

From JMG: Minister Faces Church Court For Performing Same-Sex Marriages

Retired Presbyterian minister Jane Spahr may face a church court trial for officiating same-sex marriages. Even though the marriages were legal at the time. This is the second time Spahr is facing church sanctions.

Spahr, who lives with her son and 6-year-old granddaughter in San Francisco, freely acknowledges the church's allegations that she married a lesbian couple in June, 2008, and 15 other same-sex couples that year. “This is what we are called to do,” Spahr said, asserting, as she did before, that she conducted the marriages as a “matter of conscience.” But there is a new twist to the case. The 16 marriages that allegedly violate Presbyterian church law were conducted during the five-month period in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in California. Spahr's defender in the case, Scott Clark, said the church is “trying to sanction a minister for performing legal marriages. This is unprecedented.” JoAn Blackstone, who is the prosecutor, said the distinction is immaterial. The marriages may well have been legal under state law, she said, but were “expressly prohibited” by the same ruling that acquitted Spahr in 2008. Blackstone said the case hinges on “a narrow issue of church law” and is unrelated to the public debate over same-sex marriage.

Interestingly, it appears that the church's "prosecutor" in the case is also a longtime gay rights advocate, something she says is irrelevant to the issue.

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via JMG

Sassy Gay Friend: Othello

Via JMG

A Major Whoopsie For Oklahoma's Haters

Remember when Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill declaring the state exempt from the Matthew Shepard Act? It turns out the asshats cited the wrong federal bill number in their legislation and Oklahoma is actually now exempt from federal laws about reporting racial and religious discrimination.

In trying to strip gays and lesbians of their rights, the Oklahoma State Senate inadvertently cited the wrong section of the U.S. code. The bill stripped protections under Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245, but protections for sexual orientation and gender identity is actually under Section 249. From the bill:

Section 24A.12. Except as otherwise provided by state or local law, the Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma and agency attorneys authorized by law, the office of the district attorney of any county of the state, and the office of the municipal attorney of any municipality may keep its litigation files and investigatory reports confidential, except they shall keep their litigation files and investigatory reports confidential upon request of any federal agency when such request is made for the purpose of an attempt to investigate or prosecute an individual or individuals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 245, except for those records of any individuals convicted pursuant to Section 850 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes.

Section 245 of the Code refers to race and religious protections. Therefore, Oklahoma actually passed a statute allowing state law enforcement officials to keep information about crimes motivated by race or religion out of the hands of federal authorities.

via JMG

Priest Off

Via JMG: Obama Recess Appointment To EEOC For Open Lesbian Chai Feldblum

Despite months of strenuous opposition from the right, openly lesbian Chai Feldblum has been appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly reports:

Feldblum was nominated by President Barack Obama on Sept. 14, 2009, more than six months ago. Her confirmation hearing was held two months later, on Nov. 19, and her nomination received a favorable vote from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions on Dec. 10. Earlier this month, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed that a hold was being placed on all of the President's EEOC nominees, keeping them from receiving a vote of the full Senate.

Obama granted a recess appointment today to all the EEOC nominees, including his nominee to serve as chair of the Commission, Jacqueline A. Berrien. Berrien, according to the White House, has served as the associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund since September 2004. In announcing the move, Obama said in a statement, ''The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.''

Christianist groups like the Illinois Family Institute (former home to Peter LaBarbera) had turned opposition to "radical activist" Feldblum into a fundraising campaign.

a reposted via JMG

Mallory Wells - Florida Competitive Workforce Act Senate Workshop

2 From 365:

Would partners of gay troops get benefits, too?

By The Associated Press 03.26.2010

Momentum appears to be building for ending the ban on gays in the military. Read more...

Withers: Tinkering around DADT's edges

By James Withers, contributing editor, 365Gay Blog 03.26.2010

Secretary of Defense Gates unveils new DADT rules. Read more...

Via JMG: Where Europe's Denominations Dominate

Here's the European version of the map I posted earlier in the week. Green dots mean more Catholics, blue dots mean more Protestants.

UPDATE: I'm not really getting this map either. Maybe someone can suss out the methodology at the source.

a repost from JMG

Great idea!

From JMG - the kids has balls! Go Derrick!

Students Protest Against Gay Teen Derrick Martin Attending His Prom

While Derrick Martin's high school has grudgingly admitted that they had no rule in place to block him from bringing his boyfriend to the prom, some of his fellow students still don't want him there. In fact, they've held an anti-Derrick rally.

The rally’s organizer, Amber Duskin, sent text messages to high school students Wednesday asking them to show up. The senior said she asked her high school to return her prom ticket money and does not plan to attend because of Martin. “I don’t believe in going up there and dancing with gay guys like that,” she said. “It’s also not just him bringing a boy. It was bringing all this attention to it.” A group of college students also stopped by the rally but not to protest. “We’re for it,” said Carly Nobles, a Middle Georgia College student. “It takes a lot for someone to come out (as gay). “This is a small town. Some of these students are sheltered, and I don’t think they can think for themselves.” Martin said talk at school Thursday was that the prom committee may do away with the traditional “walk through” when students and their dates are announced as they enter the prom. He’s also heard some students are trying to have a separate prom.

Saying they are upset about all the attention, Derrick's parents have kicked him out of the house and he is staying with friends for now. Two bright moments in this story is that tonight Derrick will be the guest of honor at a concert held by the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus. And Derrick also reports that Ellen DeGeneres has invited him to appear on her show.

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reposted from JMG

Politicians: That's Gay

Survey: Californians Now More Likely to Favor Gay Marriage

Since the Public Policy Institute of California began tracking attitudes on same-sex marriage in the year 2000, residents in the Golden State were always more likely to express opposition. But the latest survey, released Wednesday, found that 50 percent of residents now favor it and 45 percent are against it.

make the jump here to read the article

Via B.A.R.

Obama signs health care;
reps push for ENDA

by Lisa Keen

The health care reform legislation President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday does not include any of the pro-gay provisions sought by the LGBT community, yet the measure is expected to help thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS and others obtain coverage.

Other immediate effects of the bill include putting an end to insurers' practice of placing lifetime spending caps on policies and the end of insurance company discriminatory practices against people with chronic health needs, said a statement from the National Association of People with AIDS. (read more)

From JMG: HomoQuotable - Cleve Jones

"I know your values, Madame Speaker, and I know that you strongly support ENDA. Now I want these young people to know what is in your heart. With the knowledge that health care reform has been achieved and that enough votes now exist in the House today to pass ENDA, will you work with Rep. George Miller, Chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, to ensure that ENDA is passed out of committee and brought to the floor of the house immediately?

"I am writing this open letter to you and sharing it with my friends in the Courage Campaign and GetEQUAL communities, thousands of whom will sign a petition to you asking that ENDA be prioritized for passage now. You can read the petition and Americans can sign on to it here. Congratulations again on your historic achievement. Along with thousands of other people reading this letter, I wish you the best." - Cleve Jones, in an open letter to Nancy Pelosi requesting she move forward on ENDA. Sign the above-linked petition, which will be hand-delivered to Pelosi.

RELATED: Yesterday Barney Frank said that ENDA may be brought to a House vote as soon as mid-April.reposted from JMG