Jun 28
2007
Kevin| Category: Uncategorized |
Someone named Donna Garner at Americans for Truth about Homosexuality was just looking for trouble and of course, she found it. She writes that she typed in Gays and Lesbians on the Walmart book site and behold! she found 576 items. How horrid! What does Donna Garner write?
Wal-Mart still has some cleaning up to do before it can say it is not supporting the gay and lesbian agenda.
What she wants is for Walmart to erase the history of every single book that mentions gays and lesbians!
She also gives a link to the Baptist Press (which I will not give) so that one could write to Walmart about this. Anyway, I typed in Christianity into the Walmart bookstore and got 50751 hits. It appears that Walmart has a bigger agenda in terms of supporting Christianity than it does supporting the gay and lesbian agenda! I say contact Walmart about their obvious support for a specific religion…
What Donna Garner doesn’t understand is that Walmart sells books of all kinds. You don’t find most of these in their stores (where would they fit all 50751 books on Christianity????). Maybe she should look for a book on ‘common sense’ (of which there are 206).
What would probably horrify Donna Garner a bit less than her search for gays and lesbians is that if you type in sex, you get 1363 books; wicca, you get 317 books; pagan, 205; fundamentalism, you get 183; Judaism gets 2180; Buddhism 1375; and a whopping 46 books on Mormonism.
It appears that Donna Garner wants Walmart to erase all books that even mention gays and lesbians. And you can bet that someone who works for the rabidly anti-gay Americans for Truth about Homosexuality will also start calling for Walmart to get rid of all books on all religions except for her beloved form of Christianity.
Here are some things that Donna Garner should be spending her time looking up and possibly even reading:
Books on tolerance, 115; free speech, 56; democracy 2275; happiness 881; and finally, there are a couple of books on ‘mind your own business’!
Jun 13
2007
JoeBrummer| Category: Cross-Posted, Hate Crime Laws |
Cross posted at Replace the lies With Truth
A new report released today shows that baised related crimes motivated by the individual’s perceieved sexual orientation are just as comparable to other groups who are already protected by Federal hate crime protections.
The Advocate reports:
A new report released by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School shows that crime rates against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are comparable to other groups already covered by federal hate crime laws. The “Comparison of Hate Crime Rates across Protected and Unprotected Groups” shows that on average, 13 in 100,000 gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals per year report being the victim of a hate crime, compared to 8 in 100,000 African Americans, 12 in 100,000 Muslim-Americans and 15 in 100,000 Jewish-Americans.
“Often, people try to pass off [the lack of legal protection for gays] as ‘Oh, it’s not as big a problem as race-based hate crimes,’” says Rebecca Stotzer, a research fellow at the Williams Institute. “But when you actually look at the rates and you think of it as a risk per person, you can see that the numbers are actually much more even between groups that are protected versus those that are not.”
The new report was based on a 2004 study by Williams Institute Faculty Chair William Rubenstein, but current hate-crimes legislation before Congress and the availability of more data prompted an update to the report. The U.S. Senate is presently considering the Matthew Shepard Act which would extend legal protections to the LGBT community; an identical bill passed the House of Representatives last month. The bill proposes expanding current federal hate crime laws to include actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability. Current law only defines race, color, religion and national origin as protected categories.
“This report’s findings provide a new perspective that should inform policymakers who are deciding whether to include hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity in federal hate crime laws,” noted M. V. Lee Badgett, research director of the Williams Institute. “The numbers show that hate crimes remain a serious problem for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities.” (Padraic Wheeler, The Advocate)
Jun 13
2007
Kevin| Category: Uncategorized |
…from under the rock that he has been hiding (I’ve posted a slightly different version of this at my blog). The other day I noticed an award was given to what could be called an anti-gay blog (that I will not name here). It was given by the “Gay Christian Movement Watch” (the original blog entry that won for this week was about Dr. Out and Proud–now I wonder who that might be???). I took a quick look at who gave out the award. I didn’t notice until today that it is run by no other than DL Foster–the ex-gay. DL Foster ‘disappeared’ back in December. I’ve never heard what happened, but regardless, he is back. And doing the same damage he did earlier–out to kill the gay and lesbian movement. If you remember, DL Foster is one of those ex-gays who blames his own bad decisions on being gay. Instead of accepting that he made bad decisions in his life (drug use, alcohol abuse), he blamed gayness’ for it. Of course, now the good reverend has been cured. He has spent his adult life trying to convince people that he is straight by pointing out how bad it is go be gay.
Here is the mission statement for his new organization:
Gay Christian Movement Watch is a nondenominational ministry whose mission is to monitor, analyze and publish (MAP) the activities, leaders and public positions of the gay christian movement.
GCM Watch acts as an educational and empowerment tool for Christian academia desiring to better equip students and faculty to appropriately respond to the new face of doctrinal fallacy championed by homosexual religious groups and their allies.
GCM Watch seeks to facilitate intelligent discussion regarding the gay christian movement and enlighten the broader Christian constituency through careful research and examination of movement’s various adherents.
Our foundational text is the Bible and our worldwide is balanced between the traditional scriptural understanding where applicable and progressive revelation where applicable. We believe that, where applicable, reason, logic and evidence is to be used to defend the faith given by Jesus Christ and recorded by holy men of God who were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Please direct questions or comments not suitable for the blog commenting system provided, to gcmwatch@yahoo.com
Media inquiries only: please contact founder and principal contributor, Pastor DL Foster at 404-326-1414. Contact information for other contributors will be forthcoming.
You can see the problems already–he claims he is going to be doing ‘careful research and examination,’ but that remains to be seen. He couldn’t do it before. Maybe he has learned some new tricks.
(more…)
Jun 07
2007
Kevin| Category: Uncategorized |
Today Stacy Harp copies a bit of news from Israel–that relates to gay human rights:
Israel’s Knesset on Wednesday voted in favor of two bills that would severely curtail the homosexual community’s ability to flaunt their perverse lifestyle before the rest of the country.
The first bill would provide the Jerusalem City Council the authority to ban any public event that would offend public sensitivities in the holy city. Israel’s homosexual community has been trying for more than a year to hold a gay “pride” parade in the capital.
The second bill calls for banning mass homosexual public events anywhere in Israel.
Both bills passed their first reading by a large margin, but must now go through two additional readings before passing into law.
Gay community leaders called the bills an assault on democracy in Israel.
So what words of wisdom does Stacy Harp give on this bit of news (that isn’t law yet, by the way)?:
…may the USA follow in Israel’s footsteps.
I am a pretty nice guy. I don’t mind having decent discussions with people on a variety of issues, and especially on gay and lesbian human rights. I try my best to discuss things rationally and calmly (although I will be the first to admit that sometimes I have a hard time doing that when someone calls me a sodomite!). The main reason I do this is because I think I might have some effect on these people. Maybe if they could see gay people as people, then their minds would possibly change, or at least they would quit calling for violence or the institution hate policies. But Stacy’s one line comment makes me realize that she is really lost. From her statement, she wants gays and lesbians to go back into the closet. She wants us to pretend we are not who we are. She also supports the blocking of all gay pride festivities in this country. She states she is a counselor, but what kind of a counselor supports this?
“May the U.S. follow in Israel’s footsteps”? What Stacy doesn’t realize is that by supporting these proposed legislation, she opens her own beloved religion to the same hate that she herself spews. Do you think the Israelis want Christians running around proselytizing to Jews (as she most recently did in her trip to Israel)? Do you think they want Christians controlling some parts of their ‘holy’ city? What does she think would ‘offend public sensitivities’ in Israel more than that? Not only will this proposed legislation not permit gay people to be gay and open about it, it could block any religion other than Judaism to have a public face. It would most certainly block any type of Muslim festivities, or marches on civil rights for all people (including the Palestinians).
Maybe Stacy will get her wish for Israel, but I am not going to stand by and let her get her wish here for the U.S.
Jun 07
2007
Kevin| Category: Uncategorized |
…the spaying and neutering of dogs and cats. Yes, I know you were expecting me to say gay marriage, or gay adoption, or gay rights. But according to one Republican in California’s State Assembly, it is a bill that would require everyone to spay or neuter their pets.
If we asked Randy Thomasson (a Californian fundamentalist), or Peter LaBarbera what might spark more phone calls, you can guess they would say the gay marriage bill. At least that is what they would want you to believe. But sorry–
As lawmakers this year consider hot topics like health care reform and redistricting, one Republican assemblyman said Levine’s bill had sparked more letters and phone calls from his constituents than any other issue.
–even more than the issue of gay marriage? It appears that Republican voters just aren’t interested all that much any more in the fear mongering that goes on. And this story fits in nicely with the Republicans in the State Assembly that made absolutely no comment on the passing of the non-discrimination bill. If you ask me, I see a trend here, and it isn’t one that Thomasson and LaBarbera are going to like.
