The Daily Huff: Old News edition

Well, there’s a regular pleathora from the huff. First, we have a city employee calling her friend gay while testing an email. What a classy broad. Offended by that? Yeah. Me too. At least she was “reprimanded quickly”. The employee claimed they meant gay in the old-timey happy way. Sure.

Next on the docket, a youtube video “Rated T For Tolerance”, the most misnamed movie since The Neverending Story. A teenager raps (badly) about how being gay will get you sent to hell, that it’s a choice, and not to believe the media. It breaks my heart to see a fellow Christian so misled. Jesus taught Love. God is LOVE. Why can’t people understand this?

Chris Sprouse, Superman artist, is leaving the company since noted anti-gay author Orson Scott Card is coming on to write a story. I’m a Marvel Girl myself, but c’mon DC. Get with the times. At least they’re not condemming Sprouse for leaving. Granted, they’re not dropping Card either…

Right in my backyard, a lesbian couple’s fight for adoption rights has become a fight for marriage rights. Sadly, my state has had a ban since 2004. This however, could be the turning point. My future brother in law is only not married to his boyfriend because of this ban. It would lift my heart to see it overturned.

A florist is refusing to do her long-time customer’s wedding due to “Her relationship with Jesus.” What hurts is that this wasn’t some random florist. This was a woman the couple had been buying from for years: they considered her a friend. This is the worst kind of bigot: the kind that refuses to see what is right in front of them. Oh, but she’ll take their money, no problem.

Religion gets no better when a gay youth is exorcized by his parents. When will people learn THIS CRAP DOES NOT WORK? It’s the year two thousand and FRIGGAN THIRTEEN! Why not grab some leeches and suck it out? Or is sucking to queer for you?!

To end on a high note, Mexico gets a gold star for declaring anti-GLBT speech not protected speech. As a patriot, I’ll disagree with you, but you still have the right to your speech. As a supporter of peace and love: YAY! Bueno!

The Daily Huff

Well, my Daily Showing may have been iced last night, but at least there’s the Huffington post!

AOL runs Huff news in its feed daily. This morning I found two stories about religion and homosexuality. The first was heartening: A grandmother standing up in front of her pastor and the whole congregation on behalf of her grandson. Quote the Huff:

A kid that attends the church and is in high school is gay, and apparently his parents wrote to the pastor asking what should be done about this. The pastor took the letter the parents wrote, and read it to the entire congregation, outed the kid, and told everyone that they would "work together to address this problem of homosexuality."

My grandmother stood up at this point, said "Thereare a lot of problems here, and him being gay is not one of them." She apologized to the boy, then walked out the door. She just got back from turningin all the stuff she was responsible for for the church's yard sale and BibleSchool activities.

So, not only did the Pastor out the kid in front of the community, he condemned him. The pastor (and I use that term loosely) was apparently pretty ticked off, but Grandma is sticking to her guns. You go Grandma!

This type of thing saddens me beyond belief. The Church is supposed to be a place of love and acceptance. Even if you believe being Gay is a sin, to publicly shame this child is beyond the pale. It could easily end in an attack on him by ‘pure’ Christians, schoolmates, or God only knows.

If this turns into a suicide, I hope that pastor is tried for murder.

At least the kid has ONE family member he can turn to.

I know the pain of an intolerant pastor. I have all but stopped my church attendance because of his views on homosexuality. “Gays will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.” These are words that have been spoken at my church by the man on the pulpit. It makes my heart ache that such a man of God could be so misled and wrong. In everything else, he is a model pastor, dedicated to his flock. If I were Gay, would he have outed me thus? I think not. I think he would have had more kindness and discretion…all while considering me a sinner.

The other story is equal parts sad and hilarious; sad that a man can say such nonsense and be believed, and hilarious in that someone in this day and age can believe women on the pill are full of dead babies. Kevin Swanson, another candidate for Pastor of the year Quote the Huff:

Said Swanson:

What’shappening is they want homosexuals to be able to be involved in adoption andfoster care as much anybody else. So picture a nice little home-school family,just trying to do the right thing. An anonymous tip comes in, social servicesswoops in, they grab the kids in the year 2022, and the kids get remanded intoa home with homosexuals, and these particular homosexuals happen to be tiedinto NAMBLA and other things.

I am so sick of hearing about how NAMBLA is entrenched in the gay community and all gays are pedophiles. More straight men are pedophiles! In fact, 90% of pedophiles are straight. You don’t have to be gay to molest little boys. You have to be SICK. He also implied that gays will burn Christians at the stake. That’s not what flaming means, buddy.

Oh, but the fun with Swanson doesn’t end with the homosexual community. Quote the Huff:

Meanwhile,Kevin Swanson has made Right Wing Watch headlines two more times since hisinflammatory "burning at the stake" comments: for claiming that women on birth control have wombs "embedded with dead babies", and for saying that allowing gay Boy Scout troop leaders islike allowing convicted child molesters and serial killers to teach in preschools.

Wha—Jhu—Haps---Sorry, just having a Grandpa Simpson style breakdown. I mean…HOW CAN SOMEONE BE THIS DUMB?!

Worse yet, how can people BELIEVE HIM?!

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Actually…I like this planet….YOU get off!

Another celebrity, another foot in mouth

Rapper T.I. has recently made a comment that...well, read it for yourself.

"Man, I will say this, the funniest joke I ever heard Tracy [Morgan] say during a stand-up was, 'C'mon man, I think gay people are too sensitive. If you can take a dick, you can take a joke.' [Cracks up laughing.] That shit was funny to me. And it’s kind of true." While T.I. makes clear that he supports anyone’s sexual preference, he then connects, in his opinion, a current oversensitivity among gay people with a consequential and ironic offense of the First Amendment. "They’re like, 'If you have an opinion against us, we're gonna shut you down.' ... That's not American. If you're gay you should have the right to be gay in peace, and if you're against it you should have the right to be against it in peace."


Free speech does not equal hate speech, which is what anti-gay rhetoric is.  Yes, as an American, you have the right to say it.  But we have just as much right to fight back.

In Michigan, you could be fired for being gay--Help do something about it!

I just received this message from the Equality Michigan Action Network.

If your boss thinks you are gay you could actually lose your job. We know that sounds impossible but in Michigan it's the law. Civil rights laws protect us from many forms of discrimination — based on your race, gender, religion, age, sex, weight or marital status — but not if you are gay or transgender.

What's worse? Just last week, Representative Tom McMillin (R - Rochester Hills) introduced a bill that would outlaw Michigan cities from implementing nondiscrimination policies that are better than the outdated state law, as 15 cities already have.

Please tell Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger that we shouldn't have to change ourselves, he should change the law.

We need as many people as possible to send him this important message.

That’s why a coalition of civil rights organizations and everyday Michiganders are coming together to launch a campaign to change the law. We need to protect all Michigan jobs by ending discrimination, of any kind.

Thanks for stepping up,

Denise Brogan-Kator and the Unity Michigan Coalition

Please, if you live in Michigan, help us to send this important message!

Quotable: "Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues"

"Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues" is a collection of true(ish) stories of...well, the weird.  One quote from the closing of a story by Claudius Reich, about a bombing targeting homosexuals in London struck me.  The story itself is called 'Dragon's Teeth' and is worth a read, as is the anthology on the whole.
This is what captured my attention:


     "Y'know, I keep forgetting how many people want me dead.  While homophobia has had a horrendous impact on the lives of me and mine, it's [the bombing, which killed several people] rarely this damn visceral.So much of the worst of it was during childhood and adolescence--While you don't get over that, not unscathed, nonetheless that was still half my lifetime ago.  While I remain braced against fools acting hateful--when you're on the Better Dead list, though any given minute will likely be uneventful, you don't drop your guard--most days, the problem's absent or at worst negotiable.  I don't cry easily.  That some scumbag out there, who hates me for something that's properly none of his damn business, can make me sob, pisses the hell out of me.  That my anger is merely the shield arm, protecting older wounds, makes me seethe.  That there's nothing I can do--no cure, no defense in or from this fallen world--enrages me most.
     I';d love to be left alone in a room with this bomber, or Pat Buchanan, or the guys from Laramie--just me and my steel-toed Docs and more righteous fury than I know how to live with day to day.  There are those who've harmed me and mine in ways I can neither fathom nor condone walking freely upon this earth.  I have seen the face of mine enemy and I'm more than ready to rise up and smite him.  I yearn to see him put down like a rabid dog.  I hope I get to watch.
     Unfortunately, I imagine that's how the bomber felt."


I don't know if it's appropriate, but replace the word 'Homosexuality' with...well, almost any oppressed minority, and I think it still works.  In my case, that minority is Jewish.  I'm not in daily danger from wearing a Star of David, nor do I expect to be harassed on the street (at least, in that part of MI where I live) like my gay friends might, but knowing that people out there want me dead is still terrifying.  There are people who would kill me first, as I'm the result of a 'mixed blood' marriage.  That links me with my friends....with the community at large in a way some people won't (not can't) understand.  Another quote comes to mind...

"First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me."  

~Pastor Martin Niemöller


We have to stand united.

E-mail from the office's of Governor Rick Snyder.

I just got this email in response to a pro gay marriage plea I sent MONTHS ago to Michigan's Governor, Rick Snyder.

Ms. Lax [yep, my real last name!],

Thank you for expressing your views supporting same-sex marriage.  The Governor asked that I respond to you directly on his behalf.

In case you were not aware, more than 58 percent of Michigan residents who voted in the November 2, 2004 election voted in support of Ballot Proposal 04-2.  That proposal constitutionally established that the “union of one man and one woman in marriage” would be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or “similar union for any purpose” in Michigan.

Again, thank you for contacting the Office of Governor Rick Snyder, and if I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Sincerely,

Janelle A. Arbuckle

Constituent Relations Specialist

Office of the Governor

Constituent Relations Division