Sunday, May 6, 2012

Via JMG: UNSHOCKING: Prosperity Gospel Televangelists Are Ripoff Artists

Here's just a little of what the New York Times says about televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch.

Mr. and Mrs. Crouch have his-and-her mansions one street apart in a gated community here, provided by the network using viewer donations and tax-free earnings. But Mrs. Crouch, 74, rarely sleeps in the $5.6 million house with tennis court and pool. She mostly lives in a large company house near Orlando, Fla., where she runs a side business, the Holy Land Experience theme park. Mr. Crouch, 78, has an adjacent home there too, but rarely visits. Its occupant is often a security guard who doubles as Mrs. Crouch’s chauffeur. The lavish perquisites, corroborated by two other former TBN employees, include additional, often-vacant homes in Texas and on the former Conway Twitty estate in Tennessee, corporate jets valued at $8 million and $49 million each and thousand-dollar dinners with fine wines, paid with tax-exempt money.

Here's the part you may find the most infuriating.

Ms. Koper and the two other former TBN employees also said that dozens of staff members, including Ms. Koper, chauffeurs, sound engineers and others had been ordained as ministers by TBN. This allowed the network to avoid paying Social Security taxes on their salaries and made it easier to justify providing family members with rent-free houses, sometimes called “parsonages,” she said.

In case you're wondering why Mr. and Mrs. Crouch maintain separate side-by-side luxury mansions in multiple cities, I remind you of this.

In September 2004 the Los Angeles Times reported that in 1998 Crouch paid Enoch Lonnie Ford, a former employee, a $425,000 formal settlement to end a wrongful termination lawsuit. At that time it was reported that Crouch had had a homosexual encounter with Ford. TBN officials acknowledge the settlement, but contested the credibility of Ford who is a convicted felon.

Labels: con men, crime, liars, religion, ripoffs, scam artists, scams, television

Reposted from Joe

Tricycle Daily Dharma May 6, 2012

Joyful Energy

We can get greater energy out of love and joy than out of hatred. Hatred is so off balance. You blow your adrenals in one minute, then you're shaky and weak. But if you're joyful, you'll get an endless source of energy.

- Robert Thurman, "Rising to the Challenge: Cool Heroism"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Via AmericaBlog Gay:

Finding acceptance of homosexuality in the Bible

Leonard Pitts, Jr.:

Vines is a Christian, a 22-year-old Harvard undergrad raised in a conservative evangelical church in Kansas. He is also gay and says he grew up being taught that the Bible condemns his sexual orientation. He took two years off from school to research and study whether or not that assertion is true.

The result is "The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality." It's a video -- you can find it online with a simple Google search [see video below] -- of a speech he gave in March at a church in Wichita that has become a minor sensation. Small wonder. Vines' speech is a masterwork of scriptural exegesis and a marvel of patient logic, slicing and dicing with surgical precision the claim that homophobia is God ordained.

So effective is the video that after viewing it, Sandra Delemares, a Christian blogger from the United Kingdom who had, for years, spoken in staunch opposition to same-sex marriage, wrote that it "revolutionized" her thinking.

Via Syrinx: We will always love her no matter what

In the universe next to ours, a woman emails her sister:

Hey, sis, good to hear from you.

Have you seen Elyse lately? I wondered if she talked to you. Did you know what's been happening at our place? You will have to tell me you are surprised. Elyse came out as straight. So our household has been in a bit of an uproar.

Well, of course we are supportive. Debs and I are very conventional parents but we have always supported our daughter's choices and we will always love her no matter what. We may express concern, that's what mums do, but we will always support her. And she is a good kid, we just never saw this coming.

Click here to make the jump here to read the full article at Syrinx

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma May 5, 2012

How Do You Practice?

I used to think that to become free you had to practice like a samurai warrior, but now I understand that you have to practice like a devoted mother of a newborn child. It takes the same energy but has a completely different quality. It's compassion and presence rather than having to defeat the enemy in battle.

- Jack Kornfield, "The Question"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Friday, May 4, 2012

Via JMG: "Ex-Gays" Cancel Conference

The "ex-gay" industry has been rocked to its core this year. First the head of its most infamous group announced that not one person had ever actually been "cured." Then the researcher who authored the most widely cited "ex-gay" study recanted his findings and apologized to the gay community. So maybe it's not surprising that nobody wants to attend an "ex-gay" convention.

In what seems like the logical extension of the recent trend, Exodus International has decided there were not enough people interested in attending their Love Won Out conference scheduled for later this month to justify the expense. Conference attendance has been trending downward, with their last conference bringing in barely 400 people. This is down from nearly 1000 in Exodus’ headier days. In November, XGW reported on a secret meeting held by Exodus president Alan Chambers to come up with ways to rebrand the organization in the wake of social and financial collapse. Since then events have occurred which seem to validate that scenario. The cancellation of this conference, the first time we know of since either Exodus or Focus on the Family held the event, appears to provide more evidence of their decline.

As everybody here doubtlessly knows, "ex-gay" therapy is a con job, a scam, a cash-cow designed to separate self-hating homosexuals from their money. It's sort of brilliant, really. You're never "cured" so you just have to keep paying and paying and paying. It's like Jenny Craig, but without the delicious cardboard aftertaste.

Labels: "ex-gay", con men, Exodus International, frauds, liars, scams, still totally gay

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: The Avengers Plus One

Labels: Barack Obama, GOP, Osama Bin Laden

reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Google Nods To Keith Haring

Today would have been Keith Haring's 54th birthday.

Labels: AIDS, art, gay artists, Google, Keith Haring

Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Slate Nails The Savage Flap

Slate writer Amanda Marcotte gets to the root of it:

The American right is undertaking a huge project of trying to put right-wing politics beyond criticism by shouting "religious bigotry" any time someone gets in the way of their political agenda. If they can create a consensus that it's somehow off-limits to criticize teaching that gay people are subhuman as long as you wrap it up in religion, that gives them a huge political advantage. Taken far enough, merely stating out loud in public that you don't believe gay people are evil could be cause for the fainting couches to be pulled out and accusations that Christians are being oppressed. Sounds ludicrous? Well, consider that we're currently debating whether or not it's oppressing Christians to accurately state what's in the Bible. Anyone who is actually supportive of gay rights shouldn't be playing along with this feigned umbrage. It won't stop until opposing anti-gay actions is considered completely off-bounds on the grounds that it's an attack on religion.

Bingo.

Labels: Dan Savage, fakery, LGBT rights, religion

Reposted from Joe

Via AmericaBlogGay

NC anti-gay amendment meant to "protect caucasian race" from multiplying dark people

The wife of a North Carolina state senator, who's supporting the anti-gay Amendment One in the state (a constitutional amendment that will ban gay marriage, civil unions, and domestic partners) reportedly told a poll worker that the amendment is intended to help protect the caucasian race from all those dark people who keep multiplying. The woman allegedly disagrees with the report, says her remarks were taken out of context, but admits to using the word "caucasian." She probably said: "I would never use the word 'caucasion' as that might sound racist." Uh huh.

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma May 4, 2012

Don't Get Mad, Don't Get Even

If we want to succeed in life and bring about a more peaceful world, we must learn to control our emotions and not to be affected by a moment of anger.

- Master Hsing Yun, "Don't Get Mad, Don't Get Even"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Via Faith in America:

Group asks for apology from Southern Baptist head
SBC president compares gay affirming Americans to Nazis

Faith in America is calling upon Bryant Wright, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, to apologize for incendiary speech that compared affirmation of gay and lesbian people to Nazi propaganda during World War II.

"It is really inconceivable that a person of such prominence within one of America's largest Christian denominations could utter such a comparison," said Brent Childers, executive director of Faith in America. "It is beyond shameful and it makes a mockery of the faith he professes."

In a Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012 sermon entitled "When Homosexual Behavior is a Big Issue", Wright stated that anyone who believes same-sex sexual orientation is God-given or that sexual orientation can't be changed is believing a "lie of the devil" that has been repeated so much that now a majority of the public believes it – saying that was a lesson learned from Nazi Germany.

In his sermon, Wright said it makes him "really shudder" at the thought of faith leaders who affirm the dignity of gay and lesbian people, saying they are teaching "what God says is evil is really good." In addition, he makes the following statements:

"When man all of a sudden decides what God says is sin or evil is really good, that is blasphemous behavior. That is calling God a liar."

"When man says that homosexual desires are God-given and that a person can no more be changed than you could change the color of their skin, this is one of those common lies of the devil that is repeated so much over and over again that now the majority of American public believe it is true. We learned from the Nazis in World War II in how they approached propaganda. They believed wholeheartedly that if you repeat an outrageous lie over and over again it becomes more and more believable to where the public as a whole finally will embrace it. We saw that in World War II."

Yesterday, CNN and a number of other media outlets reported on a pastor of a Baptist church in North Carolina who had apologized for his comment in a sermon that said boys who appear effeminate should have their wrists broken.

Childers said he understands how a pastor might say something in a sermon that they may not want communicated on the media airwaves but that the posting of Wright's sermon on his web site demonstrates that Wright apparently has no problem with espousing such rhetoric to the public. He said Wright, as a national religious figure, must be held accountable for publicly espousing and promoting that kind of hostility toward gay and lesbian people, especially the rejection and hostility faced by LGBT youth and families.

"Wright’s association of those who affirm lesbian and gay people with Nazis is intentional, even if perhaps unconscious," Childers said. "He obviously wants to paint those who affirm gay and lesbian people to be about as bad as possible, as bad as Nazis."

"But think for a moment what the parent of a gay or lesbian child hears. They hear that treating their child as a natural, wonderfully created child is somehow of the devil and that to embrace their child's sexual orientation is as evil as Hitler. And that if they believe otherwise, they are calling God a liar.

"So parents hear that they must reject their children. Kids hear that it is OK to bully their evil gay or lesbian peers? And young gay kids hear that suicide would be better than a life of rejection and condemnation. This is the kind of physical, emotional and spiritual violence that Wright is inciting within our society.

"Bringing such violence to bear on our neighbors makes a mockery of a faith that emphasizes love and compassion above all else. If Wright feels like shuddering, he should think about the consequences of bringing such violence against children and families."

Last year at the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Ariz., Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler stated before convention delegates that he did not believe sexual orientation was a matter of mere choice and that "we as Christian churches have not done well on this issue."

"I wonder if Wright considers his colleague Albert Mohler someone who is spreading "outrageous" lies as the Nazis did?" Childers asked. "And I wonder if Mohler would consider Wright's words a job well done?"

Faith in America is a nonprofit organization that works nationally to educate the public about the harm caused to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, especially LGBT youth and families, when religious teaching is misused to justify stigma and hostility. Brent Childers, who serves as executive director, is a former Southern Baptist and former Religious Right adherent.

NOTE: Wright's reference to Nazis can be viewed at the following web page beginning at the 29:30 mark:
http://rightfromtheheart.org/series/the-everest-of-christian-belief-part-1

Mohler's comments from the 2011 SBC annual meeting can be viewed here:
http://hereiblog.com/transcript-commentary-al-mohler-on-homosexuality-sbc/