Tag Archive for 'GLBT'

Same-sex marriage bans ran rampant yesterday

While both the country and this state were able to take many positive steps forward after yesterday’s elections, there were also seven very negative and discriminatory steps backward. Yesterday, SEVEN states were so concerned with my ability to get married that they voted to ban same-sex marriage. They actually added discrimination to their state’s constitutions.

Since when does a state, lead mostly by a bunch of old white guys, have any say in who I marry? Who the hell do they think they are? Someone like me marrying someone like my girlfriend is such a horrifying thought to them that they are actually writing this ban into their state’s constitution thinking it will remedy all their marriage problems and protect all future marriages. Hate to break it to you religious fanatics, but gay people actually have nothing to do with the breakdown of the so-called “sanctity” of marriage. I would say it has more to do with infidelity, poverty, alcoholism, and spousal abuse. Why don’t they outlaw those things instead? Just make it illegal to get a divorce. There. Fixed.

And besides, don’t most religions teach LOVE and ACCEPTANCE? I don’t think Jesus said “love thy neighbor– unless they’re gay.” There are no ifs, buts, or unless’s attached to acceptance. Either you accept someone 100% or you don’t, and any conditions placed on this so-called acceptance is merely a personal attempt to justify discrimination and hypocrisy. And people wonder why I don’t go to church.

Anyone who still upholds the “Homosexual Agenda” argument against same-sex marriage needs to take a look at some of their political and religious leaders. Foley and Haggart sure have an agenda. As do lots of Catholic priests. Not to mention the fact that the Homosexual Agenda argument stems from a satirical essay whose parts were taken out of context. Satirical. Meaning not serious. Which anyone would know if they actually read it.

That’s some back-asswards logic you’ve got Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Lets not forget Ohio is only exempt from this list because they’ve already banned it. My own state can take my taxes but god forbid they let me marry the person I love and give me the same legal rights as every other married couple.

Alas, same-sex marriage bans only make us fight harder, live more proudly as who we are, and make us realize how little some people really understand their religion.

To end on a positive note, voters in South Dakota rejected a ban on abortion, what would have been the toughest abortion law in the country. As I always say, what business do men have telling women what to do with their own bodies? We promote Viagra and Cialis all over the place and then act offended by the existence of abortions? Good job South Dakota, way to see through that nonsense. And you can sleep soundly knowing that English is now the official language of Arizona.

Gay Pride Month Series Part I: The Homosexual Agenda

Gay PrideThis weekend many GLBT people will be marching in their respective cities, making their presence known, and celebrating their pride as a community.

HA!

I’m not falling for that, and neither should you. We all know there’s an underlying motive for this silly “Pride” thing.

For starters, what’s to be proud about?

We are NOT proud because:

  • we were born this way
  • we have found love in this crazy world
  • we want to be true to ourselves

We ARE proud because:

  • we want to take over the world
  • we want to ruin the sanctity of marriage and destroy all existing heterosexual relationships
  • we want to adopt children with the sole purpose of turning them gay
  • we want to defy God’s intentions and live a life of eternal damnation in the depths of Hell

The list goes on and on, and it started to get a little complicated. We needed something to keep it all straight for us (no pun intended.) Thus, the Homosexual Agenda was born!

You’ve probably heard the term before, maybe from some scary right-wing organization that believes gay people pose a greater threat to our country than our murderous and entirely incompetent “President.” But do you really know what the gay agenda is? What we’re really trying to accomplish with our lifestyle?

Military Funeral in Greensboro, NCIt’s important that you know because our lovely friends from the Westboro Baptist Church (and other like-minded organizations) will be in town for the event. We only get to see these happy people once a year when they come to the Pride parade and give their childen signs to hold that are full of hatred. You can also find them at many military funerals holding signs like “Thank God for IEDS.” And boy do they like to talk about our Agenda! Okay maybe “talk” is the wrong word. More like scream “You’re going to hell! Save yourself!” as we peacefully walk down the street. They strongly believe the Pride March is a wonderful opportunity to teach their children that God hates mostly everybody.

So now, to make sure you can hold your own and defend our Mission, without further ado I present…

The Homosexual Agenda (aka “Gay Revolutionary”) by Michael Swift

In 1987, Michael Swift was asked to contribute an editorial piece to GCN, an important gay community magazine. A decade later this text, printed in the Congressional Record is repeatedly cited, apparently verbatim, by the religious right as evidence of the “Gay Agenda”. The video Gay Rights, Special Rights, put out by Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition cites it with ominous music and picture of children. But when the religious rights cites this text, they always omit, as does the Congressional record, the vital first line, which sets the context for the piece. In other words, every other version of this found on the net is part of the radical right’s great lie about gay people.

This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.

We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.

Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.

All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.

All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.

Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.

We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators,your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.

There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.

We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.

The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence–will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.

All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.

The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.

“We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.

“We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.

Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

Stay tuned for Part II: Why “Because The Bible Says So” argument doesn’t stand up.

Letter to the Editor of C-BUS Magazine

Summer issue of CBUS MagazineDear C-BUS Magazine,

I picked up the Summer issue a couple days ago while stopping by the Coffee Table in the Short North before heading to a hair appt. with my gay hair-stylist (which will prove to be ironic once you see my complaint.) It was the first time I had looked at the magazine and I especially enjoyed all the career articles. I almost came to the conclusion that it was a good magazine and I’d read it again.

The good view I had was quickly smashed when I skimmed over the June calendar at the end and saw there was absolutely zero mention of Pride weekend. It was also completely left out of the Great Outdoors section. For a city such as ours that has such a prominent population of GLBT citizens, this was very disappointing. I noticed ComFest was mentioned in both the Great Outdoors and the calender at the end. Surely most Columbus residents know that Pride and ComFest always happen on the same weekend? They go together like Republicans and indictments. Plus, the entire month of June is considered Pride month, it could have been mentioned anywhere on the June page.

Even if you don’t attend either of the events that’s not a reason to be clueless about them happening. I didn’t go the Memorial golf tournament but I definitely knew it was going on every time I drove around the Dublin exit on 270. The weekend-long traffic mess in the Short North has to be noticed.

So was this a conscious and discriminatory move to leave it out or is CBUS Mag. honestly unaware of its existence? For now I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but advise you to do more research next time you put a calendar together with the intention of “Connecting Columbus.” Here are a couple links to get you started:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,_Ohio#Fairs_and_festivals
* http://www.stonewallcolumbus.org/events/Default.aspx

Sincerely,

HOMO 101: A Community Panel Discussion at Capital University

Thanks to JG for passing this on to me! This info can be found on the ACLU Ohio events calendar:

This sure isn’t a class you’ll find in the course availability anytime soon. “That’s so gay,” has become a popular catch-phrase uttered by students at high schools and on college campuses to describe something as abnormal or stupid.

Some conservative politicians warn of the existence of a ‘radical homosexual agenda’ aimed at destroying the moral fiber of our nation. Some right-wing religious groups firmly believe and advertise that, “God hates fags!” What has brought about all of this hostility toward those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender? Is it based on facts or hatred, fear and ignorance? It’s time to separate truth from fiction!

This panel discussion will explore the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Community from all angles. The following individuals from Capital and the central Ohio community will be on hand to share their thoughts pertaining to their respective area of expertise:

  • Lynne Bowman, Executive Director, Equality Ohio
  • Chris Hetzer, Capital Student
  • Kurt Keljo, University Pastor, Capital
  • Gloria McCauley, Executive Director, Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization (BRAVO)
  • Dr. Michael Torello, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Capital
Tuesday, January 24, 2006, 7:00pm
Kerns Religious Life Center
Refreshments will be provided
For additional information, contact: chetzer@capital.edu

Homosexual Agenda 101

After I posted that last article, I realized I wasn’t entirely sure what the “Homosexual Agenda” really was, technically. Since it is apparently playing a large role in my every day motivations and decisions, I figured I should research a little bit. Here is the entry for “Homosexual Agenda” in Wikipedia (a free, open-source encyclopedia, I highly recommend it):

  • “Authored by Michael Swift and first appearing in a February 1987 issue of GCN (Gay Community News), this essay is often titled The Homosexual Agenda, though the original title is Gay Revolutionary. It has been repeatedly cited by members of the Christian right as evidence that the gay community seeks to dominate and destroy “traditional” American family values. Often, however, the crucial first line, “This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor” is left out, as was the case when the essay was entered into the Congressional Record. Some extremists even claim that this first line was added after the fact, in some attempt to conceal the “truth”. Though clearly full of anger and vengeance, the essay is important in claiming the equality of the oppressor and oppressed: that all of us are capable of the evil we despise.”

I recommend reading the full essay (it really isn’t that long at all.)

In conclusion, let’s see if I can make a connection here… Michael Swift: Homosexual Agenda. Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal. Study your Swift history!!

Exploring the Homosexual Myth… by Rev. John Smid

This is quite entertaining, if you don’t mind reading a bit. There was something on GMA this morning about this topic, and I found this little bit of “truth” on the Love in Action website. They turn gay people straight in the name of Jesus. Here are my favorite parts, and I made it super easy to read by highlighting my favorite words and phrases:

  • There is no such creation as a “gay” or “homosexual” person. There is only homosexual attraction and behavior; accordingly, there can be no change from a sexual identity that never existed in the first place.
  • If we know the truth about these matters, then why do we accept the cultural definition of homosexuality? When non-Christians and Christians use the term “homosexual,” they often think of a person who is innately different from other types of people. We wonder how someone might have become a “homosexual”. Families and friends of those caught in homosexuality go deep into grief and despair because they cannot imagine how their loved ones go there, and they believe it is a lifelong prison from which there is no escape.
  • Mr. and Mrs. Jones came into my office grieving over their son’s ongoing homosexuality. They cried as I attempted to help them understand the real issues surrounding their plight. I asked them about their other children. “Well, John, our other son, lives with his girlfriend,” they replied. In an attempt to bring some reality to them, I asked why they were not so concerned about John. The truth became evident; they knew that there was hope for this other son either to marry his girlfriend or to leave her and get back to a moral life. Their son struggling with homosexuality, however, was in their minds and heart destined to remain a “homosexual”.
  • If we define homosexuality as an identity, and inborn characteristic or a hormonal imbalance, there is no answer or hope. If, however, we call it what it really is - a struggle with sinful desires and behavior - then throughout Scripture we’re given ways to handle it.
  • As we battle with proponents over the idea that “homosexuality equals identity,” we lose ground by using their terminology. We lose more ground as we seek to put forward a solution based on the terminology of their lie. The truth is there are no homosexuals.
  • There are over 100 ministries in the United States devoted to helping people and their families practically and biblically process through the dilemma of homosexuality (Exodus International, www.exodus-international.org).
(Are We Having Fun Yet???)
What Does Rev. John Say About
What Happens When a Person Leaves Homosexuality?

  • Many people we see at Love In Action International who struggle with homosexuality can tell of the heart-wrenching pain of waiting for a “change” that never comes. They struggle with feelings of rage, confusion, rejection, abandonment and hopelessness because their prayer for change was based on a lie. They are asking God to change them from something they never were in the first place.
  • The first step of the process is to move away from the subtle lies of the Enemy and take back the truth in our communication and thinking. God can and will bring progressive freedom from struggles with homosexual thoughts and practices as we begin to adjust our thinking and the thinking of those to whom we minister the truth. Jesus declared, “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
  • Biblical change from homosexuality requires that we respond correctly to the message God speaks of in I Corinthians 6. This message of repentance will bring forth the truth that will, in fact, set people free from this kind of bondage. When we begin to see homosexuality as a sin, a behavior and a wrong mindset, then and only then can we find forgiveness and freedom.
(Rev. John will you please share some closing thoughts?)
  • There is no such thing as a homosexual! There are many individuals, however, who struggle intensely with homosexual temptation and addictive behavior. Once we get the message right, then we will be effective in ministering to those caught in this kind of deceptive bondage.

©2001 - Rev. John J. Smid
John is the
Executive Director for Love In Action International and has worked with this ministry since 1986. John left his homosexual lifestyle in 1984.

might as well kick it off with comment #1, featuring: polygamy.

I cannot help but laugh in irony when I see headlines like this one from BBC News:
Eight Arrests in U.S. Polygamy Sect.”

I love that situations like this are never brought up in arguments about the “sanctity of marriage.” Or with celebrities especially– they’re allowed to marry and divorce as many times as they want since they’re famous and pretty. Society seems to accept that it’s just naturally how they are right? Nobody’s going on E! or Access Hollywood to argue against their lifestyle.

So maybe that’s what we need to do to gain marriage rights… become rich and famous members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! Anybody wanna try it with me? Come on, how often do you get to visit Utah?