Page 259
-
We Will Not Be Erased…
It’s been said that telling our stories is what will make the biggest difference in the end. It’s easy to see the statistics that have changed since more and more people have come out and more and more of our loved ones have changed their minds about support for our equality.
-
Dan Savage a hypocrite? Not even close…
The religious right wing clearly have no clue what bullying is really all about. A speaker, known for his “straight”, sometimes “salty”, talk, at a public forum, is not bullying you when he says your religious beliefs are bullshit. He doesn’t have you cornered against a locker, trapped behind the auto shop building, or head down in the commode in the bathroom stall. He isn’t threatening you with physical harm, not even the promised threat of “getting you later” after school. The right wing thinks all these kind of interactions are not bullying, especially if religiously motivated, but a speaker at high school assembly, who points out logical and factual inconsistencies in the way you behave is the bully and a hypocrite? Bullshit.
-
Re-defining ‘Bully Pulpit’ — Pastor sends chilling message of violence
Many have heard and seen Pastor Sean Harris’ shouted exhortations about “squashing like a cockroach,” the first signs of gender-variant behavior in children. Fewer have seen his searing denunciation of transgendered persons as “an affront to God.” … and I have counseled at least three GLBT young adults who have attended this church. They all said they heard similarly hateful messages there, which not only drove them away, but also pushed them into depression and self-harm, even suicide attempts …
-
South Africa’s constitutional review of its sexual orientation rights is shocking
Since the end of Apartheid and the inception of South Africa’s new constitution some twenty years ago, the country has been lauded for its lead on the entrenchment of anti-discrimination rights that renders it one of the few in the world to protect sexual orientation and gender identity in its Constitution. Gays and lesbians (LGBTI) enjoy full equality in South Africa. Notwithstanding this South Africa has never managed to escape the brutality of rampant homophobia which is underscored by the high incidence of so called “corrective” rape in its townships, the deployment of an anti-gay ambassador to homophobic Uganda, and its failure to lead the decriminalization of homosexuality in the rest of Africa.
-
We are now all members of Billy Graham’s church… whether we like it or not
The last time I checked, I never signed up for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I don’t even like his church, yet he thinks I should be forced against my will to live by its rules. Do we now make our civil laws based upon Christian Sharia? Do we all have to follow his version of the Bible or be punished by government? And if this is the case, are we really a free country? Are we really much different than Iran, or is it only by a matter of degrees or a matter of time until these so-called “Christian Supremacists” get their filthy and corrupt paws on all of our laws?
-
Gay and Christian? You’re not alone.
When I left home in the fall of 2008 and started school at Harvard, I was amazed at how much openness and support there was for LGBT students on campus, mainly because it was worlds apart from the conservative Christian church in Kansas that I’d come from. Back home, gay issues were never discussed, every family and every wedding was heterosexual, and the few people who eventually came out waited until they had moved far away. The message was largely unspoken, yet crystal clear: If you don’t fit into a heterosexual identity, you aren’t welcome…
-
Dan Savage and the truth about homosexuality and the Bible
People get bullied because of who they are: how they look and act, what they say and do. … The people who walked out during Dan’s talk were not separated from their peers by anyone. They were content to do that themselves. They were not frightened or cowed. They were offended. … And they were pleased to show their intolerance of Dan’s words by protesting against them in the manner they did. Theirs was not an act born of suffering.
-
Wise up, Dustin Lance Black!
The moment I saw Dustin Lance Black’s headline in the Hollywood Reporter all my admiration came a-tumbling. While one cannot disregard the work of the screenwriter turned activist and its impetus on marriage equality, his latest critique of President Obama, and worse yet its luminous abode engorges like an unwelcome cloud on a sunny day. As an activist in the community, I want to clearly disassociate myself from the ominous loom of Black’s threatening blur…
-
Is ‘gay’ a religion?
The parroting purveyors of pious propaganda cannot claim that they weren’t warned; that if they continued to oppress reality their religious view would be openly challenged until becoming obvious that theirs is an insanity based on completely uncorroborated myths. It can hardly be denied that human beings want, even need, something to believe in, but must that be delusional? Couldn’t it be as real as life itself; something that fills the void in the human spirit and yet we overlook it because it is so obvious that we continually miss its reality…the fact which makes us alive, makes life worth living, and creates life?
-
Michigan high school graduation speaker disinvited because he is gay
High school graduation should be a time of optimism, family, and hope for the future. But one Michigan school has turned it into a time for controversy and backwards thinking. The Sacred Heart Academy’s high school in Mount Pleasant, Mich. has decided to rescind its invitation to their graduation keynote speaker, the older brother of one of the graduates and an alumnus of the school. Why did they decide to not include this young man with strong ties to the private Catholic academy? Because they found out he is gay.