NC Family Values Organization: Gays Murder Marriage

As I’ve posted before, the battle for marriage equality is heating up in North Carolina. A state constitutional amendment defining marriage is slated for the polls in May, state senators are now backpedaling from the wording of the bill they helped create, and even a North Carolina Baptist Church is standing up for gay marriage.

Proponents of marriage inequality, however, are launching their assaults against gay marriage, as reported by Queerty.

The North Carolina Family Policy Council, a self-professed “defender of traditional marriage” (as worded on their website), has published its quarterly publication titled Family North Carolina that “doesn’t just single out the gays as murderers of traditional marriages. It singles out the gays and everyone who supports them!”

The bride and groom caught in the crosshairs, which is the featured image for this post, is the image the NCFPC is using in their publication. Apparently, according to the NCFPC, anyone who favors equality is attempting to murder the rights of “traditional” people everywhere. What people like the NCFPC fail to see is that the people in the crosshairs are those who are being discriminated against!

Think about it. In the 1960’s when civil rights for African Americans were at the forefront of this nation’s civil liberties fight, who was really in the cross hairs? The white majority who felt their rights were being infringed upon or the African Americans who were being discriminated against?

Tweeting Ignorance: Ron Paul’s Newsletters

Ron Paul's Tweeted Newsletters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t you just love it when someone makes broad generalizations about a community based upon the actions of a few? I had hoped Ron Paul would prove better than that, even though I knew better. Perhaps it’s his recent rise in the polls, with only a few points separating him from Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, but it seems Paul is falling in step with bad mouthing the gay community just like his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls.

Sigh.

(story via Towleroad)

 

Chicago Cardinal Compares Gay Pride Parade to KKK

This year, the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago was rerouted, and the new route happens to pass in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. This has caused much consternation for the church who fears that they will not be able to have mass that Sunday because the parade will interfere with their services.

The pastor expressed his concern to Catholic Cardinal Francis George, who made the following comments, as reported by ThinkProgress:

Well, I go with the pastor. I mean, he’s telling us that they won’t be able to have Church services on Sunday, if that’s the case. You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism. So, I think if that’s what’s happening, and I don’t know that it is, but I would respect the local pastor’s, you know, position on that. Then I think that’s a matter of concern for all of us.”

Cardinal George has just shown what an idiot he is. To compare a celebration of gay pride to a Klu Klux Klan parade is not only revolting but maddening. The KKK is a bigoted, hate mongering group who used to revel in their parade of men dressed in white sheets. Their parades were about lynching minorities. Their parades were designed to instill fear and spread hate. Their parades included violence and cross burning.

Gay pride parades are about celebration, about being accepted for who you are, and about not being afraid to celebrate being gay. I see no comparison between a gay pride parade and the KKK.

Cardinal George apparently doesn’t agree. Either that, or he just doesn’t get it. The Chicago Gay Pride Parade isn’t a march against Catholicism. In fact, when Chicago’s LGBT community learned about the pastor’s concerns, they met with him and arranged to start the parade at a later time to give the congregation of Our Lady of Mount Carmel the time they needed to worship. If the parade was truly some secret march against Catholicism, they wouldn’t have done that.

Of course, the Holy Cardinal is trying to eat his words now saying, “Obviously, it’s absurd to say the gay and lesbian community are the Ku Klux Klan, but if you organize a parade that looks like parades that we’ve had in our past because it stops us from worshipping God, well then that’s the comparison, but it’s not with people and people — it’s parade-parade.”

Sorry, Cardinal George, you can’t take back your hateful words, and your attempt is weak at best.

And there are some out there who are calling for action. Change.org, an online organization that mobilizes petitions for change, is calling for George’s resignation. Also Equally Blessed, a pro-LGBT rights Catholic organization, stated that George “has demeaned and demonized LGBT people in a manner unworthy of his office. In suggesting that the Catholic hierarchy has reason to fear LGBT people in the same way that blacks, Jews, Catholics and other minorities had reason to fear the murderous nightriders of the Ku Klux Klan, he has insulted the memory of the victims of the Klan’s violence and brutality.”

Thankfully, George is facing the consequences of his actions. Perhaps, the good Cardinal needs to learn a lesson in prudence. I’m sure the Bible has something to teach about that.

DADT Repeal: One Year Later

It’s been a  year since President Obama officially signed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and guess what? The world hasn’t ended. Terrorists haven’t taken over America. Soldiers aren’t being harassed in the showers. Battle-ready effectiveness hasn’t decreased.

In fact, as reported by ThinkProgress, “leaders who opposed the change are embracing it and gay servicemembers are reporting acceptance within the ranks.”

It seems that many politicians and nay-sayers didn’t have faith in the men and women who serve our country. I guess they incorrectly assumed that our soldiers were just as bigoted as they were. Epic fail for them!

NBC Nightly News also did a piece on the DADT repeal last night. Based on the video, I say our soldiers are thriving.

In New Hampshire: Marriage Equality Advocates Fight Back

Yesterday, I posted about the ads currently being circulated in New Hampshire by conservatives who are trying to repeal the marriage equality law in their state. Click here to read that post.

Today, marriage equality advocates, Standing Up for New Hampshire Families, have released their own video asking New Hampshire voters not to take away the right to marriage equality.

As they say in the video, “Freedom is for everyone. Every. Single. Person.”

New Hampshire Anti-Gay Marriage Ads: Gay Families Are Trash

The fight is underway in New Hampshire to repeal the marriage equality law. You may remember that I posted how the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee voted to repeal the law back in October.

Well, according to ThinkProgress, conservatives who favor the repeal of the law have begun their advertising campaign in ernest. A website has been set up that displays banners depicting homosexuals as “trashing” traditional values.

NH Gay Marriage trashes valuesAs you can see from the banner I’ve shared, stereotypes of gay men as hedonistic, scantily clad, dress wearing degenerates are juxtaposed next to a picture-perfect heterosexual family.

I won’t deny the evidence in those pictures. There are some gay men who are indeed hedonistic, who enjoy showing lots of skin, and who dress in drag, but does that make all gay men trashy?

Let’s take a look at a different juxtaposition of pictures, and you tell me.

A picture perfect gay male couple with 2 children

Heterosexual couple promoting "traditional" values?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scantily clad (AKA naked) future heterosexual moms

Traditional grandma and grandpa with granddaughter ready for church?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As these pictures no doubt prove, gay men aren’t the only segment of society capable of hedonism, exhibitionism, or skirting “traditional” family values. The proof is in the pudding, New Hampshire conservatives (and elsewhere). As a human race, we are all capable of letting our hair down and having fun, but that doesn’t negate our basic civil rights to live our lives with the partner of our choosing.

So, those who think gays are trashy, get off your soapbox and take a look at what heterosexuals are capable of. We aren’t perfect, and neither are you.

 

Assault Charges Dropped Against Sequoyah HS Principal

Charged against Sequoyah HS principal Maurice Moser in Tennessee have been dropped, as reported in Queerty.

You may remember my previous post about Moser, who assaulted a student for wearing a shirt in support of starting a GSA on his high school campus. Click here to read the post.

The presiding judge dismissed the case, and as of now, justification for why the case was dismissed has not been released. According to local affiliate WBIR, “An assault charge had also been filed against the student, but it was dropped when Moser agreed not to prosecute.”

I don’t know about you, but I smell a rat (or at least some behind closed doors deals). There were witnesses, relatives of the student and another teacher, who observed Moser’s behavior, yet the charges have been dropped and a threatened counter-suit by the principal against the student has also gone away.

Even though the students at Sequoyah HS have won the right to wear GSA shirts (which I posted about here), this doesn’t feel like a victory to me. I hope the ACLU is still watching this case.

 

District Judges Likely to Rule Against Prop 8 Proponents

The Ninth US District Court of Appeals is currently hearing arguments by Proposition 8 proponents in California. They claim that retired US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who helped strike down California’s Proposition 8, should have recused himself since he is a homosexual.

ThinkProgress reports that “Proponents of the measure [seek] to convince the rather skeptical three-judge panel that Walker was ‘in the same kind of relationship as the plaintiffs’ and was unfit to rule on the question of whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry because he himself may one day wish to wed his partner.”

Apparently, the three judges hearing the case are not buying the argument. One judge, R. Randy Smith, asked Charles Cooper, counsel for the proponents of Prop 8, whether or not “a married judge could ever be allowed to hear a case about divorce?”

Political analyst Ian Millhiser had this to say about the argument being used by the legal counsel in favor of Prop 8:

“if a court were to accept the anti-gay group’s arguments, it would also follow that no judge who is presently in a committed opposite-sex relationship would be allowed to hear this case either. The name of the organization defending Prop 8 is ‘Protect Marriage,’ a name that derives from their bizarre belief that same-sex marriages are destructive to opposite-sex marriages. But if this were true, than straight judges would have a personal stake in ensuring that their own marriages are not undermined by a decision striking down Prop 8 — and thus would also be required to recuse.”

This would mean than only single judges who had no interest in marriage whatsoever would be allowed to hear this case. Obviously, this line of thinking is absurd and hopefully shows that these judges will hand down a decision in favor of Judge Walker’s previous ruling.

Video Response to Perry’s Anti-Gay Ad

Yesterday, I posted about Rick Perry’s new anti-gay, anti-Obama, and pro-school prayer ad that began airing in Iowa. Click here to read that post.

Today, a new video has been released by the Second City Network on YouTube. In it, a godless heathen makes some interesting claims about Perry and his prejudiced ilk.

(video via Towleroad)