Now playing in four states, virtually identical ads designed at heading off marriage equality at the ballot box. These ads are merely a retread of the template created to defeat marriage equality in the Proposition 8 ballot referendum of 2008 in California.
They are all produced by the kingpin of anti-gay politics: Frank Schubert. They are all premised on the foundation of one basic lie: that a state implementing marriage equality will compel the state to teach children in public schools all about gay marriage.
It won’t
But…no. That is not the foundational lie. The bedrock here is Homosexuals Will Rape Your Children…
If it was just about teaching school kids that some couples are same-sex then where could the venomous hysteria possibly be coming from, the bottomless rage? These people are spending millions all over the country, the couple in this ad appearing in one state after another, just to darkly warn that Dick and Jane might learn about Adam and Steve…?
No…just…no. First of all, these people don’t even believe that homosexuals are capable of forming stable long lasting relationships. The possibility that same-sex couples might get married and form households, and that school children might learn that this happens in human societies does not concern them and that is not the warning they are broadcasting in these ads. The sly implication in all of them is the schools are now going to teach children how to have gay sex. And, to the degree same-sex marriage normalizes homosexuality, that the entire motivation for it is to leave children open to the idea of having sex with homosexual adults, thereby recruiting them into homosexuality. This is what the homosexuals want. Not to be married, but to have access to your children.
That is what’s being said, between the lines but well heard all the same, in every single one of those ads.
There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to anti-gay propaganda. Ever since Anita Bryant it’s been predatory homosexuals want to recruit your children because that’s the only way homosexuals can reproduce. The packaging of the lie changes, but it’s always the same lie.
In 2006 Romney went on to stop the publication of an anti-bullying guide for public school students, because the term “bisexual” and “transgender” were used in a passage discussing harassment against students. These and other actions were a stark turnaround from when Romney had, in his Senate run in 1994, told gay activists that he was better on gay issues than Ted Kennedy, claiming to support an array of rights for gays and saying that his voice would have more weight on the issue than Kennedy’s.
What seems clear now, looking at Romney’s record, in which he made a lot of promises to gays in those early years but never delivered, is that the pandering he did was to gay activists and the voters of Massachusetts, as the devout Mormon used that state as a stepping stone to the presidency.
This. Romney’s constant verbal flip-flops and outright lying over the years make him appear to be a total panderer. But he isn’t. Look at his record, both in and out of public office. There’s the man. Bigoted. Cruel. Predatory.
If you’re still committed to vote for this man admit it…you don’t care that he’s a brazen in-your-face liar. You care about something else. Maybe it’s the president is a darkie. Maybe it’s the homosexuals are after your children. Maybe its rape is a gift from God. Whatever.
You’re going to vote for the liar. Because he shares your moral values.
Unbelievable. Barack Obama called Libyan President Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf today to thank him for his support.
This is the day after US Ambassador Stevens was murdered at the consulate.
And, the Islamist killers may have been tipped off by elements within Libya’s security forces
Media Matters reports in regard to the above:
As USA Todayreported, the White House said in a statement that Obama called Magariaf to thank him “for extending his condolences for the tragic deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, and two other State Department officers in Benghazi.”
You see now, in the information network streams, decent people all across the political spectrum looking at all of this in disgust. What you need to understand is it doesn’t matter anymore. They’ve lost all concern for how they appear to people outside the bubble. All they care about now is whipping up the rubes, and themselves. But here’s the thing…the rubes know they’re being played and they don’t particularly care. It’s all about dancing the tribal war dance now. Because the lizard brain is all they have left of themselves inside.
This is what hate does to people. Your gay neighbors have seen it for decades now. Hate does not share power within a person’s heart. It will make you throw everything fine and decent inside of you overboard, the minute, the second any of it gets in its way. And then all that is left inside is the steady beat beat beat of the tribal war drums. You have stopped being a person. Now you are just a tool of hate…dancing, jerking, stumbling onward to its drumbeat.
Rep. Steve King, one of the most staunchly conservative members of the House, was one of the few Republicans who did not strongly condemn Rep. Todd Akin Monday for his remarks regarding pregnancy and rape. King also signaled why — he might agree with parts of Akin’s assertion.
King told an Iowa reporter he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.
“Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way,” King told KMEG-TV Monday, “and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.”
A Democratic source flagged King’s praise of Akin in the KMEG interview to TPM. But potentially more controversial for King is his suggestion that pregnancies from statutory rape or incest don’t exist or happen rarely. A 1996 review by the Guttmacher Institute found “at least half of all babies born to minor women are fathered by adult men.”
And so it goes…
Don’t assume he’s merely nuts. Of course he’s heard of minor girls getting pregnant. He isn’t stupid…at least not in that sense. This is how you fight a culture war. In this discussion the only fact that matters, the only fact that is real, is that women cannot be allowed control over their own bodies. That is the prerogative of men. That is the only fact that matters.
Facts are either your soldiers or theirs. When confronted by opposing facts, you kill them. It’s war after all.
No…Not “Goodbye Dad.” A Dad Loves His Son. You Are Not A Dad.
This is making the rounds on Facebook and over at Truth Wins Out…
My own Dad ended his life badly, by way of robbing banks. I’ve said before that if I had to choose between being raised by him and being raised by any of these self styled godly men, I would unhesitatingly choose to be raised by the honest crook.
Strangers can gay bash you, they can take your life from you, but only family can chew your heart up and spit it out. But consider not only the man who wrote this. Take a moment to wonder about the person, most likely but not necessarily someone who gets up behind a pulpit every Sunday, who taught this man to hate his own son so terribly much.
Put aside for a moment if you can, your feelings toward this man. Think about the kind of person who teaches parents to hate their children and considers it righteous. Think about the kind of person who does it as a campaign strategy and considers it patriotic. What do you say to someone like that when they tell you about their deeply held moral values?
It’s important to know just what this zealotry from Bryan Fisher, Maggie Gallagher, Dan Cathy, et al., does to everyday people. I’ve never done drugs, was an excellent student, an obedient child (far less trouble than many of my classmates), didn’t drink until I was 22 because it terrified me, and have had just 1 speeding ticket in my life. Yet I am still seemingly deserving of this terrible act of hate and cowardice that one person can place on another. 5 years on and I am still doing fine, though this letter saunters into my mind every once in a while. When it does, I say without hesitation: F**k you, Dad.
There was a poem I read many years ago…I just tried to Google it and couldn’t…I think it was about a PFLAG mother attending a gay pride march with her son, seeing all the other lost children standing on the sidelines, watching the march go past, and upon seeing her their faces light up with a painful joy at the sight of a parent proud enough of their gay child to walk with them publicly. But behind that joy she saw also a hopeless longing. Would you be my mother…? So many lost children she sees as she walks with her own son, and she could not take them all in. It isn’t just the children who have to be carefully taught to hate, it’s the parents too. When the likes of Bryan Fischer, Maggie Gallaher, Dan Cathy, et al., speak of family values, laugh in their face.
[Update…] Fixed the Towleroad link.
[Update…] In the comments, Alsafi found the poem I was referring to, Here. Amazing how it stuck with me so long, even after I’d forgotten nearly all of its words. Which I guess just goes to show that words are just the stepping stones a poem takes you somewhere on. It’s the somewhere that’s the thing, the imagery it conjures up, not the words.
[Update…] The link the reader sent me is broken now. Luckily the Wayback Machine is there to help. Whoever it was that wrote this…thank you…it is pure gold
San Diego Pride Parade – July 18, 1992 – author unknown
There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them
and only a handful of us.
The screamed and they shrieked and they cheered as we passed
yelling, “Thank you. It’s great that you care!”
Loudest of all and clearest of all
were the screams that emerged from the eyes
of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them
who watched as we marched down the street.
I carried a sign that stated most clear
my love for my son who is gay.
She stared at my sign
piercing my heart
with her pain.
I left the parade and moved to her side.
I held her in both of my arms.
Her sobs were intense and I tightened my grip
as she whispered her secret to me.
“My mom has disowned me since she found out.
She says I’m not right in the head.
She says that I’m weird
that I’m one to be feared
that I’ve caused her to suffer such pain.
Do you think that you could
Do you think that you might
Just be my mom for today?”
There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them
looking for parents they’d lost.
There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.
But only a handful of us.
Writing fiction is hard. Writing good believable human dialog is very hard. You have to have an ear for listening. I sat in a jury box once, on a case where the accused was charged with a very horrible series of crimes against an individual. One of the places where the prosecution lost me was when the alleged victim testified their attacker said something to them and it sounded more like bad dialog from a low budget crime movie then anything anyone would actually say in the middle of a violent kidnapping and robbery. I’m not saying I’m the world’s greatest listener, and you can’t always tell when somebody is making things up, but I suspect that for most of us it’s pretty obvious when someone is trying to invent dialog, write a scene as it were, and they’re no damn good at it.
You will die tonight. You will die tonight. You will die tonight. Yeah. Right George. Maybe it’s God’s will that you can’t shut the fuck up like your lawyer probably wants you to if he’s any damn good.
On My Honor, I Will Do My Best, To Hate The Stranger…
Bill Browning argues that there was no secret committee…that it was just a hastily assembled pile of bullshit they threw together because they were getting pressure from some pretty big sources to rethink their cheapshit prejudices.
I don’t believe them. Their story has too many holes in it to be remotely believable. This is a spin put in place to cover their ass at the recent blowback they’ve been getting as opinions change on gays and lesbians. There’s more holes in their statements than a block of Swiss cheese.
I’m inclined to agree…this was the first thing that crossed my mind this afternoon when I saw the stories about this go by in the news stream. But it makes no difference. You had to know this organization, whatever noble work it initially set itself out to do, had become corrupted by hate long ago when they started in earnest kicking good kids out of their ranks when they dared to be honest about themselves. Prejudice and morality do not co-exist within the same heart. Whether or not the BSA leadership is lying through its teeth about this secret committee is beside the point. They are lying to every kid they take into their ranks now, and to their parents, and to their country.
I would like to point out since it seems to be getting lost in the conversation here that it’s not just gay kids that the BSA deems unworthy but also atheist kids. Basically what BSA is pushing is a mindset that gay kids and non believing kids cannot aspire to the moral character of a boy scout. It’s a mindset they’re determined to keep pushing on kids, both straight and gay, believing and non-believing. Picture a Cub Scout happy to belong to his troop, working hard for his badges, winning the approval of his parents and troop leaders. Picture that kid as a teenage Scout, at the threshold of adulthood, coming to terms with his sexual orientation. He’s gay, he knows it, he’s not sure what it means for him and the adult life ahead of him but he’s at the point now where he knows he is gay. And because a Scout is brave and a Scout is trustworthy and a Scout is honest he comes out to those he trusts most. And for his trouble he’s kicked out of the organization that taught him the moral values he now holds. What’s the message here? The message is obvious: you are not worthy to wear this uniform, because you are a homosexual. And homosexuals Are Not And Can Never Be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
Forget all the values we have taught you. You have failed them all. You are not worthy to bear them in your heart. That’s an absolutely disgusting attack on the self worth of children, but also on American society. It is enforcing, under the guise of teaching important moral values, nothing more noble then cheap bar stool prejudices, teaching fear and loathing of neighbor against neighbor, and starting it young. You’ve got to be carefully taught…
Prejudice and morality do not co-exist within the same heart. One will eventually drive out the other. As long as Scouting teaches kids to distrust if not hate each other outright, whatever other moral values they claim to teach are rendered moot in the process. You cannot teach both moral character and prejudice at the same time.
There’s a good Huffington Post article making the rounds now, by another professor at the University of Texas…this one an actual professor of sociology as opposed to “associate professor”. Money-quote here:
Had Regnerus walked down the hall and knocked on my door, I would have been happy to explain that stress and instability harm children in any family context. Love and support help children to thrive and succeed. Pseudo-science that demonizes gay and lesbian families contributes to stress, and is not good for children.
Just so. Robert George is probably having a good laugh right now at the fast one he’s just pulled, of kicking the kids of gay parents in the teeth even as his and other homophobes’ concern for their welfare is taken for granted by the corporate news media.
Reading this something that was nagging at me finally clicked. Mark Regnerus is basically Paul Cameron, but with a job at an actual University. Bear in mind, Cameron’s evil genius is in his ability to deftly gerrymander his data while making it seem like his conclusions are purely and honestly arrived at. His original claim, the zombie lie that never dies, that gay men have vastly shorter lifespans, is the classic case in point. When you look more closely, you see that all Cameron did was select a data set that guaranteed he’d get the outcome he wanted. But you have to really look at what he did to see that was what he was doing, and there of course, is the rub.
Eventually intelligent people of good will would see though it and dismiss it as junk science, but people of good will were never his audience. In the end what he was doing, was giving the kook pews something to wave around as proof that persecuting homosexuals is just good public policy and no, they’re not just saying that because they’re a bunch of knuckle dragging bigots.
Stripped away from all its formal academic pretenses, what you see is Regnerus is doing what Paul Cameron has always done: deftly select just the data that will give him the answer he wanted in the first place, in such a way as to appear to the casual observer that he’s not deliberately biasing the data. This is the essential Paul Cameron technique. Mark Regnerus is just another Paul Cameron, but with a University office. Maybe Paul should send him a diploma from ISIS. Grant him a PhD. This was as good a thesis as anything Paul himself could have produced.
Fischer’s political activism, however, began years before the advent of same-sex-marriage laws. In fact, his preoccupation with family dysfunction seems to have started with his own…
Fischer didn’t volunteer anything about his mother, but, when pressed, said, “My parents divorced when I was about twenty. It just rocked my world.” His mother, who worked as an interior decorator at a furniture store, was “chronically late,” and the bus driver on her route to work would always hold the bus for her. Eventually, he said, “my mom fell for the bus driver,” deserting him, his father, and his younger sister. “I don’t want to go into it,” Fischer said…
A former leader of the religious right in Boise who was friends with Fischer for twenty years before Fischer cut him off…a common theme in Fischer’s friendships apparently…said that Fischer, “had a deep-rooted disappointment in his father, for not being strong enough”, which Fischer denies. But over the years Fischer has been relentless in his belief that women should have no power or even a voice in church matters, time and again either leaving a church or being forced out over issues of gender and women’s role in religious life. It may seem too pat to lay all of this on Fischer’s inability to let go of what his mom did, but the obvious connection isn’t always wrong either.
I could sympathize with Fischer…after all I’m also the product of a “broken home”…except that he’s made a career out of punishing other people’s families for the sins of his own. I made peace with dad long ago. He was not the best of examples but mom loved him all the same and she did her level best to raise me as well as any kid ever got raised despite the scorn and contempt self righteous moral scolds like Fischer heaped on her. All in all I am very glad it was mom who raised me and not dad after the split. But for all his faults and crimes I loved him and only wished he would let mom show him a better way to live after all. But mom did her best for me, not just telling me that better way but living it in front of me every day, and everything I am today I owe to that.
Still, let me say absolutely that if I had to choose between being raised by dad or by the likes of Bryan Fischer I would without hesitation choose to be raised by the thief rather then the bully.
Last Nov. 15, the Ruth Institute, a project of the NOM Education Fund, published the first eight paragraphs of an essay by anti-gay activist Michael Brown that asked what topic even far-right radio host Rush Limbaugh might be afraid to bring up in the face of “political correctness.” The part of the essay on the Ruth Institute website didn’t say what that topic was, but gave a “Keep Reading” link to a site run by an openly gay-bashing hate group, the American Family Association.
There, it took readers another three paragraphs to get to the red meat: “Could it be that the [Penn State] sex abuse scandal involved a man allegedly abusing boys, meaning that the acts were homosexual in nature? And could it be that even Rush Limbaugh didn’t have the guts to address this? (Contrary to the protestations of some, a man who is sexually involved with boys is a homosexual pedophile; a man who is sexually involved with girls is a heterosexual pedophile.)”
Note…The Ruth Institute is a project of the NOM Education Fund. So here is another example of NOM, via one of it’s arms, slyly waving around the rhetoric of a hate group. The SPLC article goes on to note…
To NOM’s many critics in the LGBT community, this is par for NOM’s course. For more than a year now, gay rights activists have alleged that NOM is playing a shell game, avoiding the most egregiously false defamations of gay people on its own website, but linking directly to others who don’t. The charge had enough impact that Maggie Gallagher — who co-founded NOM in 2007, is past chairwoman of the board, and remains a key NOM spokeswoman — felt forced to respond.
In a Dec. 9 post entitled “A Link Is Not An Endorsement,” Gallagher said such an argument “would lead to the absurd conclusion” that NOM agrees with the editorial positions of The New York Times or The Advocate, an LGBT newspaper. She didn’t mention the fact that the anti-gay article “leaders” on NOM’s site are almost always presented without any hint of criticism and, to all appearances, do seem to be endorsed by NOM. Some are simply republications of essays without any introductory commentary, while others feature laudatory introductions.
For example…
Just this Dec. 7, for instance, NOM’s Ruth Institute posted a gushing recommendation for a book titled Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk, a jeremiad by Mathew Staver, head of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel. “Anybody who cares about the future of our society should read this book,” NOM said.
The 2004 book that NOM says “gives you real answers” isn’t further detailed on the NOM site, but it is jam-packed with precisely the kind of misinformation that Gallagher suggests she abhors. Perhaps most remarkably, the book claims that “29 percent of the adult children of homosexual parents had been specifically subjected to sexual molestation by that homosexual parent, compared to only 0.6 percent of the adult children of heterosexual parents… Having a homosexual parent(s) appears to increase the risk of incest with a parent by a factor of about 50.”
Staver’s citation for this hair-raising claim is remarkable — a debunked 1996 article co-authored by Paul Cameron…
…
Again and again, NOM seems to come back to pedophilia…
Go read the whole thing. It’s something that needs to keep being pointed out about NOM, over and over and over, because by now it should be obvious that NOM is in fact just playing a shell game. We are not a hate group, because we didn’t actually write any of the hate propaganda we keep feeding the public…
Every time Gallagher or Brown gets on TV, smiles into the camera, puts on their best look of innocence and says that they bear their gay neighbors no hate it needs to be pointed out that if they don’t, they sure like trafficking in it.
If I ran a political action committee dedicated to outlawing doors that lock, and I quoted voluminously from the writings of burglars, funded burglary educational groups, linked to the web sites of burglars and spoke glowingly of the posts on breaking and entering, invited burglars to my conferences and my political rallies, how convincing would I be if I told you that I found burglary abhorrent, that I only want to outlaw locking doors because I want to prevent children from getting accidentally locked out of their homes?
Jim Garlow was on Daystar TV’s “Celebration” program to promote his recent book “Miracles Are For Real,” but before the discussion about his book began, Garlow and hosts Marcus and Joni Lamb spent several minutes talking about President Obama’s statement last week in support of marriage equality.
Garlow weighed in, declaring that religious liberty and “the radical homosexual agenda” were on course for a head-on collision in America because “they cannot both exist in the same nation at the same time.”
Because persecuting homosexuals is a sacrament more vital to one’s own salvation then being baptized. If homosexuals can live their lives in peace we might as well close the church doors and wait for the rapture because salvation just isn’t possible anymore.
Oh, but he’s not through yet…
Garlow warned that advances in marriage equality will eventually force the Christian church underground because the gay agenda is all about “coercion, and crushing, and taking away our liberties and freedoms.” But nonetheless, Garlow said, Christians must be willing to stand up and speak out in opposition even though “we are coming into an era where it could cost us everything, including our lives”
Whereas homosexuals don’t have lives. And if they do our relentless incitement of religious passions toward them certainly isn’t costing any of them theirs.
Sean Harris, pastor of Berean Baptist Church on Glensford Drive, said he does not advocate hitting children and wishes he could take back a remark encouraging fathers to punch boys who act effeminately…
…and let’s just forget completely about that part about cracking their wrists…
…But he defended his belief in the need to reinforce traditional gender roles in children. “If I had to say it again, I would say it differently, no doubt,” Harris said Tuesday. “Those weren’t planned words, but what I do stand by is that the word of God makes it clear that effeminate behavior is ungodly.”
Preaching at parents that they need to break the bones of their gay kids however being the epitome of godliness. So long as you say it differently. As the twig is bent so grows the tree…so parents I give you special dispensation to crack those dear little twigs back into Straightnesswhen you see them going limp…
Coming Soon To A fundamentalist Church Near You! Pat downs for recording devices, and petitions to make taping anti-gay child abusive rants in church a class one felony punishable by stoning…
Dan Savage offended some Christian teens when he told them “We can learn to ignore the bull—t in the Bible about gay people.”
…
After many students walked out of the speech, one of whom appeared to be crying, Savage said, “It’s funny, as someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back.”
Right on cue the usual suspects wing up the noise machine…
Fox News reports that Savage’s comments upset the executive director of GOProud, a gay conservative group.
“Dan Savage should apologize for his comments and should apologize to the high school students in attendance whom he called ‘pansy-asses,’” Jimmy LaSalvia told Fox. “It is ironic that someone whose claim to fame is fighting bullying would resort to bullying tactics in attacking high school students who were offended by his outrageous remarks.”
There is so much to unpack here. Firstly, the headline. This is that right wing propaganda everyone has bought into over the years, that the only authentic Christians are the right wing bigots and everyone else is just faking it. How many of the kids who stayed to hear what Savage had to say, regardless of what they thought of it, also identified as Christian? We don’t get that information in any of the mainstream news stories I’ve seen on this. No, no…it was Christians, capital ‘C’ who walked out and who Savage tossed a going away insult at. Those were the only Christians in that auditorium that day.
Secondly, Savage didn’t stir up anything…that bubbling open sewer that calls itself the moral majority needs no stirring, it is always on the boil. This incident wouldn’t look more like the usual case of right wing manufactured outrage if those kids were wearing t-shirts that said “We Are Here To Take Offense At Anything You Have To Say”. I am expected to believe that none of the kids in that group who walked out knew who Dan Savage was or what his positions were on sex, gay sex, and the bible am I? Right. Pull the other one.
Suddenly it’s We’re Not The Bullies, Dan Savage Is The Bully, Because He Insulted Us!!! Yes. Yes he did. And a well earned insult it was too. In the Twitter fury that followed, LOLGOP Tweeted: “I’ve not yet met one conservative Christian who is considering suicide because of bullying as thousands of LGBT youth do every day.” Just so. It is grotesque to watch the right wing noise machine compare Dan Savage’s crack about the kids walking out of his talk to what gay kids deal with every day of their lives, usually at the hands of kids like the ones who walked out. This from The Christian Post:
The 17-year-old California student, whose name was not given, told CitizenLink’s Karla Dial that Savage said people using the Bible to justify their views on homosexuality being a sin often cite Leviticus and Romans in saying that “being gay is wrong.”
“Right after that, he said we can ignore all the ‘B.S.’ in the Bible,” the student told CitizenLink, which is affiliated with faith-based organization Focus on the Family.
The student said she suddenly reacted by blurting out “That’s bull!” before storming out of the auditorium along with several other students. Savage reportedly called the students pansies upon noticing their exit.
That passage in Leviticus Savage was telling them was BS, and which the student there is righteously affirming, calls for homosexuals to be put to death, adding “Their blood is upon them”. Yes, we can throw death threats at our classmates and we’re just quoting the bible, but if you call us pansies you’re a bully.
Look at what this tells you about the mindset here. It was a rash of gay kids killing themselves at the beginning of the previous school year that prompted Savage to start his “It Get’s Better” campaign, which has never gotten anything but raspberries from the wingers. Yet now they rise in a righteous howl of anger at a small group of fundamentalist kids being called pansies. Look at it. No…really look at it. These are people who just can’t figure out why tormenting gay kids to death would be such a big deal with anyone other then it’s some kind of political posturing. The way they see it we’re posturing so they get to posture too. That gay kids are being made so miserable by the torrent of hatred being directed at them that they want to kill themselves just doesn’t seem like it should be such a big deal to the wingers.
And the reason for that is simple, obvious, and sickening. The way the right wing sees it, if the kid is gay then being treated like human garbage is what they should expect. Because they are.
Think I’m engaging in hyperbole there? When did you ever see the kind of outrage on the right toward the tormenting of gay kids that you are seeing now being directed at Dan Savage after he called the fundamentalists who walked out of his talk “pansies”. When have you ever heard a winger get upset at gay kids being called that? Cut me a break. They call gay people that and worse all the fucking time and they don’t particularly care if gay kids get called names or not. Who is fighting tooth and nail to prevent anti-bullying campaigns from specifically protecting gay kids from being bullied? The same people who are bellyaching about what Dan Savage said to a group of fundamentalists, that’s who.
How often do I have to see this before I’m allowed to call it what it is? The way the right wing sees it, the way fundamentalist bigots see it, it is only natural to treat gay kids like human garbage. Because they are. God hates them. My bible tells me so and if yours doesn’t you are not a Christian. Make no mistake, the outrage here isn’t entirely manufactured, but if you think it’s out of sympathy for the kids Savage insulted you are still not getting it. The problem isn’t that Dan Savage insulted a group of fundamentalist kids. It’s that he told them to leave their gay peers alone, using language they routinely use against their gay peers. He stood up for the gay kids. There’s where the anger is coming from.
Brutalizing gay people is one of their most cherished religious sacraments. You mess with that and you will hear the gutter scream like they are being crucified.
[Update…] “Theirs was not an act born of suffering. It was a proud show of disdain.” – Christian author John Shore.
And Just Who Exactly Are You Hiding From Mr. Zimmerman? No…It Isn’t Black People…
So Zimmerman is out of touch. Nobody could have predicted this obviously. Here’s my two cents: What I have been seeing, admittedly from a distance and in second third and forth hand telling, is a man who is fundamentally stupid in some ways, has anger problems, but is remarkably quick witted.
Consider: if he shot that kid after he had him down on the ground and the kid was crying out for help, and then told the first witness on the scene that he was the one crying for help, that says a lot. A very disturbing lot. Stupid people can still be very quick witted like that. Especially if they’ve had a lot of practice at it. My hunch is he’s been good up until now at getting away with things. And this time his lack of internal brakes finally took him into a very bad place and he’s out of his depth and now he’s afraid.
This is what I see…from a distance…second, third and forth hand…take it for what it’s worth: He was never hiding from black anger. He knew what he did that day. He knew. It’s been replaying in an infinite loop over and over again in his thoughts. What he did. What could happen to him if people find out. The public posturing is that he is afraid of black revenge. No. He has been in hiding all this time from the law. It isn’t black anger he’s afraid of. It’s the Florida gas chamber. Remote as that possibility may be in actuality, because let’s face it, the kid was black and this is Florida, it’s been looming over him ever since he pulled the trigger. Pulled the trigger on a teenaged boy who was crying desperately for anyone to come help. He knows what he did that night.
This sudden escape…his attorneys backing out…I’m guessing there is evidence out there that is terrifying him right now and that these lawyers just don’t want their names remembered in what is to come.
[Update…] I’m reading now that Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey may charge Zimmerman as early as today. This is interesting:
Corey has indicated in recent weeks that she might not need a grand jury to bring charges against Zimmerman.
My hunch here since Zimmerman’s lawyers announced they lost contact with him has been that there is evidence out there that he hoped or trusted the Standford police would simply ignore once he claimed a “stand your ground” defense. Then the shooting of Trayvon Martin became national news and that evidence is still out there and it is terrifying him. I think Corey saying she did not need a grand jury to press charges is indicative that she has that evidence. Of course I could be spectacularly wrong about all of this. Like everyone else in the nation (except Zimmerman and Corey) I know what I know many steps removed from the actual evidence. But this seems to fit. Also this from Zimmerman’s former lawyers:
Lawyers Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig on Tuesday expressed concern about Zimmerman’s emotional and physical well-being, saying he has taken actions without consulting them. They also said they do not know where Zimmerman is.
“You can stop looking in Florida,” Uhrig told reporters. “Look much further away than that.”
At a guess…he’s no longer in the country. His father is a retired judge. Be interesting to know if Zimmerman’s former lawyers had any talks with the father before they bailed.
[Update…] I’m reading now that in Florida you can’t charge someone with first degree murder without a grand jury indictment. So whatever Corey has, or thinks she does, it seems it’s not enough for that.
Thing is…she would know what a high hurtle she is facing because of “stand your ground.” If it’s not a serious charge with evidence to back it up then it may as well be no charge at all.
[Update…] He’s in custody so I hear, which means he didn’t flee so far after all. Why is lawyers lost contact with him and one of them said “look much further away” beats me. But he has a new lawyer who I’m hearing was calling “stand your ground” a license to murder just a few days ago. But a good lawyer defends their client regardless of personal belief or they don’t take that client on. Zimmerman is charged with second degree murder, which as I understand it in Florida is you didn’t plan it, but you did it deliberately nonetheless. I’ve heard nothing so far about the evidence she has.
I’m wondering what the autopsy showed. I keep hearing that Trayvon Martin was found face down on the grass. The witnesses say they saw, unclearly, two figures, one on top of the other and then there was a shot. One witness, who was later “corrected” by the police says she saw Zimmerman on top and then heard two shots. So did the autopsy show that Martin was shot in the back? Was the bullet found? Was it in the ground below Martin or somewhere else? Did Corey spend all this time knowing the evidence at least supported second degree murder but trying to find evidence to support first degree murder and she decided she could not successfully prove that much?
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