Living Truths
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A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
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“To use the term ‘restore’ would be wrong,” says Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the archives. “There’s not enough footage for a real restoration. But what we have put together allows people to experience the remarkable culture that existed in Berlin in the 1920s, which was wiped out, of course, by the Nazis. As far as I know, this is the earliest document we have of gays and lesbians being represented on-screen.”This is an incredible piece of LGBT history. This may be the first example of LGBT people being depicted in film. This also may be one of the first steps towards the fight for LGBT equality.
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In light of the extreme rhetoric of that rally, I felt it was important to you remind you of what’s happening in the world that most of us live in. That rhetoric does not represent us in the least. It’s also important that you recognize that the presidential candidates who attended this rally (Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and Ted Cruz) were there to identify with the cause of religious liberty, and they too would categorically reject some of the words spoken at the conference (as well as reject some of the positions advocated by at least one of the speakers outside of the conference).
I also feel confident that, had they known in advance what Kevin Swanson, the conference’s chief organizer, planned to say, they would not have attended the rally. Rachel, as a conservative moral leader, I’ve sat at behind the scenes meetings of groups like Focus on the Family or the Family Research Council, and I never heard one hostile word spoken about gays or lesbians, let alone a word calling for violence or execution. Perish the thought! That’s because those things violate the very spirit of our faith, and, as I stated earlier, it is that faith that informs us and guides us, a faith that clings tightly to the words and example of Jesus.
Where is The New York Times? The Washington Post covered the conference and the candidates’ comments, but didn’t mention the “kill the gays” speech. Not news to them apparently. Several online sources that did focus on the conference placed more attention on Cruz telling Swanson that an atheist shouldn’t be president, or on the unhinged Swanson’s advice to parents that they should drown their children rather than let them read Harry Potter, than on Swanson calling for the extermination of an entire group of people at an event at which presidential candidates spoke.
It’s 2015 and much of the media seem to accept, still, that LGBT people can be talked about this way at an event attended by presidential candidates and that it’s not news. They view it as par for the course, religious conservatives doing what they do. It’s as if they have blinders on. Indeed, if Ted Cruz — or Huckabee or Jindal — attended an event at which the host hinted at mass murder of Jews, African-Americans or any other group it would be a massive media story. He’d be forced to answer questions about it, at debates (and it didn’t come up at the last debate), in press conferences and in interviews non-stop. He’d be pressured to condemn both the comments and the pastor — as when John McCain had to dump Pastor John Hagee in 2008 because of his ugly comments about Catholics — or he’d face the consequences.Signorile goes on to note that the mainstream media is “running for cover” lately after the ridiculous “gotcha” questions whining made by GOP candidates after a recent debate. Hit the link and read his full piece.
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