HE KISSED him briefly in the stands and gave him his Olympic bouquet. Later, outside the glowing blue Water Cube, Matthew Mitcham and his partner, Lachlan Fletcher, firmly embraced, both shedding tears. Next it was his mother Vivien’s turn to hold her golden boy, and more tears fell.
…
Carefully nursing Mitcham’s Olympic bouquet, Fletcher spoke of the incredible journey that the diver had taken to the top. Fletcher has been the one constant over the past two years.
He was his rock when Mitcham retired in his late teenage years suffering anxiety and depression. He watched him become a stunt diver at the Sydney Royal Easter show, supported his fight back into the sport and now to win Olympic gold.
"It’s been so up and down," Fletcher said. "When I first met him, he was pretty unhappy, he wasn’t liking the diving in Brisbane at all, he didn’t want to do it, wasn’t happy being there.
"It took a lot for him to retire and stop doing it because it had been his life for so long. He wanted to try and be happy again. He took time to do normal things that people do.
"Then after five or six months he started to really miss it again and he had the opportunity to dive with Chava [Sobrino, his coach]. He started that and loved it ever since, every second of it, which is great to see him happy all the time."
What NBC didn’t want you to know: Not that Matthew Mitcham is gay, but that he loves, and is loved, and that relationship nurtured and sustained him when he was beaten and down, and brought him back, all they way to the gold. Love does that. What NBC didn’t want you to know wasn’t that Mitcham is gay, but that love does that for gay people too. To know that, is to see republican gay bashing for what it is. Not a principled moral stand, but a crime against humanity.
What you have to understand about the entire gay rights struggle is that this is what was taken away from us for so very, very long, and what the haters are Still trying bitterly to take away from us. Not sex, but love. Vital, nurturing, sustaining, intimate human love. The love that makes us whole, that completes us, that empowers us to reach beyond ourselves to the best within us. That is what was taken from us for so many human generations. That is what we of the post-stonewall generations have been fighting to take back. Our human status.
When the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the sodomy laws the screaming from the hate pews afterward wasn’t about gay couples having sex, but fear the courts would now let them get married. It was the first thing they started yapping about. When bigots like Orson Scott Card say that a homosexual’s highest allegiance is to the society that gives them access to sex, he’s not describing what we are but what he sees us as being. Not human. Humans love, not-humans only have sex. And you can rip the heart out of not-humans, because they don’t feel any pain.
From Our Department Of Credit Where Credit Is Due…
The Log Cabin Republicans have launched a website highlighting prominent republicans who are against California’s Proposition 8 (the ballot initiative that will amend the California constitution to ban same-sex marriage)…
A new Log Cabin Republicans website aims to highlight Republicans who are against Proposition 8 – California’s constitutional amendment which would once again ban gay marriage in the State.
The recently launced website features quotes, bios and interviews of prominent Republicans who oppose Proposition 8 including: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mary Cheney, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, Redondo Beach Mayor Mike Gin, comedian Dennis Miller and Desperate Housewives Producer Marc Cherry. Councilpeople from various cities are also included.
Oh For Heaven’s Sake…Hey Dave…Go Get Me That Boilerplate Apology Form Willya…
NBC, suffering a torrent of bad publicity for closeting gold medalist Matthew Mitcham during its broadcast of the Olympic men’s diving events, has now issued an apology…
"We regret that we missed the opportunity to tell Matthew Mitcham’s story. We apologize for this unintentional omission.”
The Holmes County School District, which was the site of a court battle over the right of students to declare their support for their gay and lesbian peers, has begun court ordered sensitivity training classes for it’s teachers and staff.
Can you spot the difference between these two news stories on this topic?
First, the local TV News station…
Fla. principal accused of gay ‘witch hunt’
Employees of 1 rural Florida school district are starting the new school year by attending sensitivity classes.
A federal judge’s ruling prompted the classes at the Holmes County School District. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the district when a principal banned students from wearing rainbow-colored clothing or other items that he said showed support for homosexuality.
Principal Davis enacted the ban, and suspended students who violated it, after one student told him she was taunted for being gay. Davis told the girl that it was wrong to be gay, order her to stay away from younger students and called her parents. The girl’s friends wore gay pride T-shirts and other clothing in support.
A federal judge ruled that Davis and the district violated the students’ free speech rights by banning the clothing.
Next…365Gay.Com…
Florida school at center of GSA battle begins sensitivity training
Teachers and staff in a Florida school district which was at the center of a long legal battle over gay/straight alliances are back in the classroom – this time as students in sensitivity classes.
The Holmes County School District set up the training sessions after losing a federal court battle in which the judge blasted the principal of Ponce de Leon High School principal David Davis for leading a “relentless crusade” against homosexuality.
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak said in his ruling last month that principal David Davis “embarked on what can only be characterized as a witch hunt. The ruling also said that Davis led “morality assemblies” that ignored the First Amendment.
Davis has since been replaced as principal.
During the two-day trial in May, Davis testified that he believed clothing, buttons or stickers featuring rainbows would make students automatically picture gay people having sex.
He went on to admit that while censoring rainbows and gay pride messages, he allowed students to wear other symbols many find controversial, such as the Confederate flag.
Heather Gillman, a 16-year-old junior at the high school, sued the district with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union after she was told she could not wear buttons, stickers or clothing that supported LGBT civil rights.
After she received the warning, the ACLU last November sent a letter to the school board’s attorney on behalf of Gillman, asking for clarification as to whether a variety of symbols and slogans, such as the rainbow flag or “I support my gay friends,” would be allowed at the school.
The school district replied that it would not allow any expressions of support for gay rights at all because such speech would “likely be disruptive.”
The district then said that such symbols and slogans were signs that students were part of a “secret/illegal organization.”
The problems began in September 2007 when a lesbian student tried to report to school officials that she was being harassed by other students because she is a lesbian. Instead of addressing the harassment, students say the school responded with intimidation, censorship, and suspensions.
Prior to the release of his written ruling, Smoak issued an order that forces the school to stop its censorship of students who want to express their support for gay people. The judge also warned the district not to retaliate against students over the lawsuit.
The AP went one better too…running a story all about how the locals support the principle that started all this, headlined, FL. Town Backs Principle In Gay Student Case. It mentions nothing about the morality assemblies, the fact that confederate flags were allowed to be worn but not t-shirts supporting the gay students, or that Davis said students wearing gay supportive messages would make people think of gay sex, or that the district declared gay supportive students to be part of an illegal secret organization. It did say however, that the townsfolk were sincerely baffled about the judge’s "scathing rebuke", and why the principle had done anything wrong.
The AP also says that "Many in the community support Davis and feel outsiders are forcing their beliefs on them." That would be as opposed to forcing dissenters to keep their mouths shut while they force their piss ignorant beliefs about homosexuality on gay people, their parents and their friends.
Brandon McInerney Shot Larry King. The News Media Will Now Bury Him.
What She Said…
When the kids were killed in the Columbine High School shooting, no one asked what they did to get themselves killed. Every moment of the press coverage was dedicated to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Do we know what Brandon McInerney wore that day? Do we know how he got the gun into school? Do we know what created such rage in this boy of 14 to have him take a gun at point blank range and shoot? Do we know who his friends were, what pushed his buttons, what kind of movies he watched or internet sites he visited?
After all the stink the news media has been raising about the clothes Lawrence wore in school, you’d think he was dressed to go see Rocky Horror when McInerney walked up behind him and shot him in the head. In fact, the day he was killed he was wearing tennis shoes, baggy pants and a loose sweater over a collared shirt.
As a parent, I cannot understand the King’s lawsuit. They are blaming lipstick and glitter instead of the gun and the hand that held it. The message, loud and clear, is the dominant culture can wield a gun and shoot at will at anyone who doesn’t conform. And our Schools should enforce that conformity.
In doing so, they put my son, and anyone like him, at risk. And that really makes me want to scream: How can you miss the point?
It’s the killer, not the killed.
Emphasis mine. And it’s not just King’s parents who are content to put other people’s kids at risk. It’s McInerney’s lawyer, William Quest, who promised out of one side of his mouth, shortly after the first tendrils of his gay panic defense began to appear in the newspapers, that he wouldn’t put Lawrence on trial. Hahahahahaha. It’s a safe bet he’s been behind the media rush to portray 14 year old Lawrence King as a transvestite sexual predator, and taint the jury pool in McInerney’s favor. Even if he doesn’t succeed, without a doubt there will be other dead gay kids because of it.
And perhaps more dead gay adults too. The bedrock of the gay panic defense is that homosexuality is so revulsive that acting violently toward homosexuals is a normal and reasonable reflex. From there it is a simple step to conclude that homosexuals must assume responsibility for violence against them to the degree they are openly homosexual. The gay panic defense is another way of saying Their blood is upon them…
Looks like the parents of Lawrence King have bought into the defense strategy of their son’s killer. News reports I’m seeing this morning are that King’s parents have filed a claim against the school where he was shot to death, asserting that it was their failure to enforce the dress code on their son that led to his death (so far all I see is the AP report, which I’m not linking to because of the blogger AP boycott). In other words, because Lawrence felt himself more feminine then the other boys, and the school allowed him to dress more femininely, the school made him a target.
This is so unbearably sad. The poor kid’s parents seem deathly ashamed of their own son, even in death. He had to know how they felt about him before he died. And maybe that was why some of the teachers at his school took him under their wing as they did. Lawrence’s parents aren’t arguing here that the school failed to protect their son, but that they failed to keep him in the closet. They are granting the premise of their son’s killer and his lawyer, that hate has more right to walk in the hallways of the public schools then gay kids do.
It’s one thing to argue that the school let the bullying that Lawrence endured escalate dangerously. It is another thing entirely to argue that letting Lawrence be openly gay led to his murder. Waving the dress code around is a calculated and disgustingly cynical ploy. It sidesteps the question of whether the code itself embodies discriminatory gender norms. Gay and transgendered children should feel welcome and safe and secure in school too, or they cannot assert their right to an education. Shoving them into the closet, for the sake of the delicate sensibilities of bigots, punishes them simply for existing, forces them to try and learn, somehow, in an environment where they are made to feel deviant, outcast and ashamed.
I read elsewhere that Lawrence’ father has complained bitterly that the gays have turned his son’s death into a cause. As though the safety and welfare of all the other gay and transgendered kids in the public schools isn’t something worth fighting for. It’s one thing to forgive his son’s killer. The boy is only 14 after all. But it’s another thing to excuse him. Many gay and transgendered children know with horrible sickening clarity, some living on the streets because they were thrown out of their homes, that their parents would excuse their killer too. Some would excuse them with great sadness. Some would applaud.
So I’m scanning my Google News headlines this morning, and I come across a tantalizing fragment of what looks like a letter to the editor of the Associated Baptist Press…
Associated Baptist Press, FL – 1 hour ago
(ABP) — Thanks to Dr. David Gushee for his engaging article on Christian ethics as they relate to gay and lesbian Christians.
However, when I click on the link the Associated Baptist Press website tells me…
You are not authorised to view this resource.
You need to login.
I double check to see if it’s a subscription only site and it appears not to be. So perhaps they’re just blocking incoming links. A lot of head up their butt websites do that these days. So I go to the home page of the Associated Baptist Press website and look for a handy search box. There’s one at the top and I enter what I assume is the name of the columnist the person in the Google link is responding to, "David Gushee". I get a handy list of entries, including this…
Editor’s note:The recent series of articles by David Gushee on homosexuality generated an unusual amount of response.
I’ll just bet it did. After all, we homosexuals are one of the seven seals of the tribulation aren’t we? I blogged some time ago about how, according to the Left Behind books, the Antichrist will be the son of a gay male couple…
This came to mind last night, as I read (via Andrew Sullivan) the following Wikipedia entry on Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist in Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins Left Behind stories…
Born in the county of Cluj in Romania, Carpathia’s birth is the product of genetic engineering. His mother Marilena Carpathia, is convinced by parties who are followers of Satan, although she is kept unaware of this, to become the mother of a child who they assure her would change the face of the world. Marilena’s husband, Sorin, and his gay lover, Baduna Marius, provide genetic material to facilitate Nicolae’s conception.
Dig it. LaHaye and Jenkins are telling their readers that the Antichrist is, literally, the spawn of a gay male couple.
And some days I sit here at my computer and wonder if this is what it was like to be a Jew in 1920s Germany, watching the horror coming on the horizon. This is the kind of stuff that gets people killed. Someday, it might well get me killed. Someone with a baseball bat or a gun comes along and takes my head off, because he thinks that gay people are going to deliver the world to the Antichrist.
And LaHaye and Jenkins are hardly alone in this. Variations on this theme are popping up all across the kook pews. The Gays are in league with Satan… Just last week James Dobson was telling his listeners on the Focus on the Family radio broadcast, that same sex marriage was an attack on the family by the very forces of hell itself (via Ex-Gay Watch):
…as you all very well know marriage is under vicious attack, now I think from the forces of hell itself. Now it’s either going to continue to decline, and as I told you in my office a few minutes ago, I believe with that destruction of marriage will come the decline of western civilization itself.
So…yeah…I’ll fucking bet David Gushee’s recent series of articles on homosexuality generated an unusual amount of response. On the other hand, I have to wonder what the Associated Baptist Press expected. Baptists haven’t exactly been in the forefront of calling out all the anti-gay hatemongering that’s been going on for the past few decades. There’s a reason I keep the Baptist part of my own life history at arm’s length.
Anyway, I found the article Google News had linked to, clicked on it, and found I was actually allowed to read it from one of their own internal links…
Editor’s note:The recent series of articles by David Gushee on homosexuality generated an unusual amount of response. ABP solicited these two representative responses — from Peggy Campolo, an advocate for gay Christians, and George Guthrie, a professor at Union University.
Both articles are worth the read, if you can actually get to them. Maybe the links I’ve posted here will work. If not, you’ll probably have to do what I did. (Update: I’ve just tested them and they seem to be working for now…) Gushee writes…
It is clear that insofar as "Christianity" or "the church" is primarily associated in people’s minds with rejection of homosexuals, as poll data shows, our mission as witnesses to the love of God in Jesus Christ has been badly damaged. There are very good missional reasons for Christian leaders to back off of public crusades against gay rights, whatever one may think about the merits of the particular issues under discussion. We must be known for what (who) we are for, not what (who) we are against.
The crux of his article is this, basically…
A church that is in the process of abandoning basic tenets of Christian sexual morality has no credibility as a moral voice in culture. And, ironically, it has no credibility if it decides to abandon the church’s traditional stance on homosexuality.
It’s almost an Only Nixon Can Go To China kind of argument. The problem with it is that at it’s core it’s still pretty damn arrogant. I don’t know of any church that’s saying Hey gang…let’s just throw sexual morality out the window so we can all just have some fun! What’s happening is that some congregations and some church leaders are seeing the old moral codes being challenged by the reality of gay people’s lives and they are finding them wanting. That is leaving many of them to ask questions they’d never thought in their wildest dreams they’d ever find themselves asking, because the Bible was supposedly plain as day about all that homosexuality stuff. If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them…
Simple, no? God says, kill the homosexuals, and you get a free pass on that thou shalt not kill thing. But it’s not so simple if you have a conscience. You don’t see an abomination when you look at that kid who just came out to you. You don’t see an abomination in the love and devotion of that same sex couple next door. If anything, you see the same joy and peace and contentment you see in your own marriage. And so the questions start tap tap tapping you on the shoulder. Not all who wander are lost. These people haven’t abandoned sexual morality. It is in fact because they are moral people, that they are questioning what they’ve been taught all their lives about homosexuals and homosexuality.
Folks like Gushee, who I have no doubt is trying hard, and in good faith, to figure all this out, need to listen to themselves. Because you are willing to willy-nilly toss out thousands of years of Christian sexual morality simply because you see in the love of same sex couples a reflection of God’s love too, you have no creditability as a moral voice. I’m sorry? It’s the folks who cling to ideology and dogma in the face of what their own two eyes can plainly see who have no moral conscience, let alone credibility as a moral voice.
And tucked into Peggy Campolo’s response is the moral truth in a nutshell…
A pastor friend of mine, who has conducted too many funerals for gay children of God who ended their lives because they could no longer live the lie that their churches and families demanded of them, tells of a suicide note left by a young Christian. He dearly loved the godly parents who had accepted him but could not bear the anguish felt when their church excluded them along with him. His final letter to his mother and father read simply, "I didn’t know how else to fix it."
The Times editorial board formulates its positions on ballot measures not only by research, but by inviting representatives of both sides to (separate) meetings with the board. It’s a good forum for probing an issue, and the results sometimes are surprising.
Here is where we win. When the only people who were engaging the gay haters directly were us, they were able to hide the depth of their hate from the rest of straight America. They could claim they were only motivated by a desire to protect children. They could claim that they were only out to protect the institute of marriage in a time of every increasing divorce rates. They could claim they were only motivated by their sincerely held religious beliefs, and not merely animus. That love the sinner hate the sin was always just a thin coat of paint over God Hates Fags was something the rest of America never really got much of a chance to see, as long as most heterosexuals kept their distance from the fight. Now, as more sons and daughters, more friends and co-workers come out to them, they are taking a closer look…
So it went with the supporters of Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution so that gay and lesbian couples no longer could marry. The board already has published its stand on the measure, but the editorial left out some interesting turns in the conversation.
The measure’s supporters are generally careful to avoid appearing anti-gay, probably because they realize that, for all the voter split on same-sex marriage, Californians generally support gay rights. They professed in our meeting to have no ill will toward gay people…until the talk went deeper.
And I expect it didn’t have to go very much deeper…
At one point, the conversation turned to the "activist judges" whose May ruling opened the door to same-sex marriage, and how similar this case was to the 1948 case that declared bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional. According to one of the Prop. 8 reps, that 1948 ruling was OK because people are born to their race and thus are in need of constitutional protection, while gays and lesbians choose their homosexuality. So much for the expert opinions of the American Psychological Assn. and the American Academy of Pediatrics that people cannot choose their sexuality. Oh, those activist doctor types.
In any case, one Prop. 8 supporter said, gay rights are not as important as children’s rights, and it’s obvious that same-sex couples who married would "recruit" their children toward homosexuality because otherwise, unable to procreate themselves, they would have no way to replenish their numbers. Even editorial writers can be left momentarily speechless, and this was one of those moments.
Emphasis mine. As Molly Ivins would have called it, a "whoa moment". It isn’t so much the myth that children can catch homosexuality like a goddamned cold. It’s the image of gay people as almost a separate parasitic species that shocks the conscience. But for these people, it’s just common knowledge. Homosexuals aren’t human.
Aside from this notion of a homosexual recruitment plot — making it understandable where the word "homophobia" came from — this made no logical sense at all. Same-sex couples. whether married or not, already have children. Marriage wouldn’t change a thing about this picture except, perhaps, to model for children that parents tend to be married.
Exactly. But it’s not about insuring that children have stable family lives. It’s not about imparting the virtues of marriage to them. It’s about cutting gay people out of the human family tree. That’s it. There is nothing more noble about their cause then that. If you don’t believe that, spend some time talking to them. Enough time for them to get all their spiels about loving the sinner out of the way, so they can get down to brass tacks.
You may think it was aliens from another planet who came out of that UFO and abducted you in order to perform hideous experiments on your body. But in fact it was the demonic minions of Satan, disguised as aliens, and sent to earth to test your Christian faith. No, really…
Former Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, has recently made it public knowledge that aliens exist and that NASA officials have had contact with them. Dr. Mitchell says that there has been a sixty-year cover-up by our government of the existence and reality of aliens.
No doubt, all this will be used to support evolution and discredit the Bible. The fact remains, however, that science has shown that only micro-evolution (variations within a biological kind such as varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc.) is possible but not macro-evolution (variation across biological kinds or from simpler kinds to more complex ones). The reader is encouraged to read the author’s article ‘The Natural Limits of Evolution’ at www.religionscience.com. Mathematical probability alone has shown that it is not rational, logical, or scientific to believe that life could originate by chance.
Alien beings cannot wait millions of years to evolve complex and necessary organs for survival anymore than species on earth. Imagine a species waiting millions of years for reproductive organs to evolve so that it can finally reproduce!
Then, how do we explain aliens if they are for real? The Bible teaches that Satan and his demons (the fallen angels) can take on take all sorts of shapes and perform all sorts of miracles in order to deceive mankind. In fact, some who have been claimed to be abducted by aliens say that these aliens have told them things that undermine the truth of the Christian Scriptures and the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
This is not say that God cannot create life on other planets, but the point being made here is that the supposed alien contacts popularly mentioned are not actual alien beings at all but the work of dark supernatural forces.
Thus Spake The Conservative Voice. And lest you think this guy is just another babbling street corner nutcase, I’m telling you he’s got credentials…
The author, Babu G. Ranganatha, has his B.A. degree with concentrations in theology and biology from Bob Jones University, and has been recognized for his writings on religion and science in the 24th edition of Marquis Who’s Who In The East.
That’s Bob with a ‘B’ Jones University my man. They don’t hand out diplomas to just any old crank who walks in the door let me tell you. I mean…imagine, just imagine, a species waiting millions of years for reproductive organs to evolve so that it can finally reproduce. Just…imagine.
So now I’ve seen UFO conspiracy theory, Creationism, Darbyist fundamentalism, and right wing conservatism all rolled into one. Who needs drugs when you’ve got reality?
The Difference Between Helping Children And Kicking Them In The Face
PFOX, (Parents and Friends of eX-Gays), would have you believe it’s different from P-FLAG, (Parents and Friends of Gays), in that PFOX supports people who are "struggling with homosexuality" and P-FLAG does not. But that’s not it.
Take a look at this story at OneNewsNow, which begins:
Quoting a recent study, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) is warning of the increased risk of suicide that is linked with young people who identify themselves as homosexuals before achieving full maturity — a process encouraged by many homosexual high school clubs.
The study in question, as it turns out, is a seventeen year old work published in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, back in June 1991. Not exactly recent…but never mind. What PFOX is saying there is that supporting gay teens as they come out to themselves puts them at risk of suicide. Their solution?
Schools should not be encouraging teens to self-identify as gays, bisexuals or transgendered persons before they have matured. Sexual attractions are fluid and do not take on permanence until early adulthood. Rather than affirming teenagers as ‘gay’ through self-labeling, educators should affirm them as people worthy of respect and encourage teens to wait until adulthood before making choices about their sexuality. If teens are encouraged to believe that they are permanently ‘gay’ before they have had a chance to reach adulthood, their life choices are severely restricted and can result in depression.
So says PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs. Note the doublespeak there about affirming them as "people worthy of respect". But how much respect is it, to tell a kid gay kid they don’t have to be gay if they don’t want to? Look again, at what came slyly out of the other side of her mouth there…
Sexual attractions are fluid and do not take on permanence until early adulthood.
Thats religious rightspeak for There Is No Such Thing As A Homosexual. Don’t believe me? Look again…
If teens are encouraged to believe that they are permanently ‘gay’ before they have had a chance to reach adulthood, their life choices are severely restricted and can result in depression.
Permanently ‘gay’. Note both the quotes around the word gay and the word permanently preceding it. You don’t have to be gay if you don’t want to. Change is possible. This is what PFOX wants teachers to tell the gay kids that come out to them, and/or to their peers. Griggs is sliding that under the radar their, in a cotton candy cloud of PFAUX respect. But in today’s hostile school environment, where the word Gay has itself become a generic put-down among school kids, a kid who comes out, almost certainly already knows how impossible change actually is for them.
And that has consequences.
But leaving aside the fact that a 17 year old study was cited as "recent" and was cited as evidence against the existence of GSA clubs, which didn’t exist at the time of the study, this argument also makes a causal claim that can’t be justified by the study itself (see the full text of the study here).
First of all, they make no distinction at all between correlation and causation. If a higher percentage of those who self-identify as gay or bisexual early attempt suicide compared to those who self-identify later, is that a causal relationship or might both factors be effects of some other cause? Griggs makes no attempt to analyze this, it is enough for her that there is a correlation.
It never occurs to Griggs that those who attempt suicide soon after self-identifying as gay do so because that is when they first become aware that their identity is in such stark conflict with societal expectations. As any gay person can tell you, the initial coming out period is the most difficult because it often leads to serious conflicts with friends and family (and that was even more true in 1991 than it is today). She also ignores all of the other far more important risk factors that are obviously more likely to be causal. The study notes:
In 44% of cases, subjects attributed suicide attempts to "family problems," including conflict with family members and parents’ marital discord, divorce, or alcoholism. One third of attempts were related to personal or interpersonal turmoil regarding homosexuality. Almost one third of subjects made their first suicide attempt in the same year that they identified themselves as bisexual or homosexual. Overall, three fourths of all first attempts temporally followed self-labeling. Other common precipitants were depression (30%), conflict with peers (22%), problems in a romantic relationship (19%), and dysphoria associated with personal substance abuse (15%).
There are far more serious risk factors for suicide in the study, all of which are ignored by Griggs and PFOX. For instance, 61% of those who attempt suicide were sexually abused, while only 29% of those who did not attempt suicide were sexually abused. There’s an obvious causal factor. Those who attempted suicide also reported much higher rates of friendship loss due to being gay, drug use and having been arrested. Again, these are far more rationally viewed as causal factors in suicide than the age at which one self-identifies. Griggs ignores all of this because it doesn’t fit her ideological preferences.
But to call it ‘ideological’ ennobles it. This isn’t ideology, it’s hate. A hate so bottomless it will cheerfully let children kill themselves rather then allow them to have the support they need at that critical moment in their lives. What Griggs is saying there to kids, stripped of its PFAUX respect, is that thinking you are gay will make you kill yourself. That is, seriously, the message they want kids who are just coming into puberty and feeling same sex desire for the first time in their lives to hear, and internalize. These feelings are going to make me kill myself. And when they can’t stop themselves from having those feelings, feelings they’ve never had before, feelings that seem to come out of nowhere whenever an attractive classmate walks by, feelings that they have no control over whatsoever, what do you think is going to happen?
Here’s what: Griggs will cheerfully blame those of us who want gay kids to feel good about themselves when those kids take Griggs message, that thinking you are gay makes you want to kill yourself, to heart and actually do it.
And there is the essential difference between P-FLAG and PFOX. One group supports gay people. The other, ex-gays. And it doesn’t get any more ex then dead.
We Didn’t Say “Heterosexual Couples Only” Because That Would Be Obvious
Via Good As You… It’s not that Hollywood can’t come up with any new ideas, it’s that it would rather not pay for the creative talent to come up with them. Thus, the "reality" shows. But on MTV’s pioneering Real World the point really was to have a dispassionate camera eye view on how people interact with each other. Most "reality" made since Real World are really just another kind of game show. And in fact, Real World has itself added some game show elements in recent years.
But with TV audiences getting bored with all the "reality" out there, the Networks are trying to revive some actual game shows. From Good As You I read that they’re now making The Newlywed Game once more. Can you spot the "Heterosexuals Only" sign buried in the game show eligibility rules…?
Eligibility Requirements
The following are the eligibility requirements for contestants ("Contestants") on the television show currently entitled "The Newlywed Game" (the "Program"), which is being produced by Manhouse Productions, Inc. (“Producer”). In order to be selected as a Contestant on the Program, and to be eligible for any prize ("Prize"), you must meet the following eligibility requirements:
A. Employees, officers, directors and agents of Manhouse Productions, Inc., Diplomatic, Embassy Row LLC, Sony Pictures Television Inc., Game Show Network, LLC (“GSN”), Liberty Media Corp. and/or of any of their respective licensees, assigns, parents, affiliated and subsidiary companies and the immediate family (spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, daughter or son, regardless of where they live) or members of the same households (whether related or not) of such employees, officers, directors and agents are not eligible to be Contestants on the Program. In addition, any person closely acquainted with any person connected with the production or administration of the Program is not eligible, if in the Producer’s sole discretion, the person’s participation could create the appearance of impropriety.
B. Contestants must be at least 18 years of age at the time of application.
C. Contestants must be legal residents of the fifty (50) United States or the District of Columbia.
D. Each newlywed team of Contestants must be legally married to each other (legal marriage defined as one that is legally valid in all 50 states of the United States) and, upon Producer’s request, must be able to provide proof of marriage (i.e. a marriage certificate) that shows that Contestants are legally married to each other. As of the tape date of the Program, Contestants must still be newlyweds (which is defined as the period of two (2) years after the date of Contestants’ original marriage to each other).
E. Contestants may not be candidates for public office and may not become candidates before the broadcast of their appearance on the Program, or until one year from the date of their taping of the Program.
F. Producer reserves the right to change any of the eligibility requirements at any time and is the sole judge of the eligibility criteria.
Here…let me help you with it: "…legal marriage defined as one that is legally valid in all 50 states of the United States…"
It’s a safe bet that clause wasn’t in the old rules. You see…same sex couples can legally marry in Massachusetts and California, and even if California’s same sex couples are divorced-by-referendum come November, there will still be at least one state in the Union where same sex couples can legally marry. So in order to keep the homos off the set you can’t just say the contestants have to be legally married anymore.
The last game show I ever really enjoyed was the old Concentration. Way back when I was a kid I’d watch that thing raptly whenever I was home that it was on (it was a daytime show). It was a memory game…you had to build a mental image of where all the little prize pairs were inside a grid and at the same time figure out a rebus as it was slowly being revealed. I think part of the appeal to my budding young geek self was also trying to figure out how the mechanical game board worked. That thing just fascinated me. It was the only game show I ever really paid attention to…although these days I’ll watch Jeopardy whenever I happen across it. I glanced at a few episodes of The Newlywed Game in the 1970s and every time I did I quickly became uncomfortable with it.
Something about the idea of watching young couples in love being made to embarrass each other on TV where the entire nation could watch just didn’t appeal to me. And for each couple that won, three others lost. Part of the intended fun for the audience was to watch the loosing couples have fights during the show. It was horrible. Even the Roman Circuses weren’t that gratuitously cruel. I’ve often wondered how many divorces resulted from that show.
So, in a sense, I’m not altogether unhappy that same sex couples are banned from this atrocity. A couple’s love should be nurtured, not humiliated for laughs and ratings. And same sex couples have it hard enough in this country. But on the other hand, here’s how prejudice will keep its claws in our lives to the absolute very end. Year upon year, decade upon decade, inch by inch by painful bitter inch, we have worked to get it’s taint out of our lives. And for every inch it looses, hate adopts, adapts and improves, and keeps working with what it has to work with. Okay…so now you can be legally married….Ha!…but Not In All Fifty States…! Got you There didn’t we!
If same sex marriage was legal all across the Union they’d find some other way to cull out the homos. Perhaps recasting the show as a contest between genders…er…Birth Genders…who incidentally and merely to heighten the excitement of the game play, have to be newly married also. As I said, I’m not all that unhappy that same sex couples are being kept off this atrocity of a game show. But I emphatically object to the name. It is not The Newlywed Game. There are gay newlyweds, and have been even before same sex marriage was legal. Same sex couples have been getting married for ages, whether or not their government or their communities recognized them. Our relationships exist. Our households exist. Our unions exist. We exist. It is not The Newlywed Game if only heterosexual couples are allowed to be contestants. It is The Heterosexual Newlywed Game.
At the same time I’m reading this…I also came across this little news item from The Netherlands, which has had same sex marriage now for years…
The Dutch civil service has developed a new name for "maiden name" so married gay men won’t feel awkward.
"Geboortenaam" translates to "birth name". It will replace maiden name on official forms, radio Netherlands reported on Wednesday.
The Dutch Language Union hopes it will save married gay men from any embarrassment when taking their spouses surname.
Despite its liberal reputation, Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands have been facing a rise in homophobic attacks over the last few years.
The government has committed to millions of Euros to fighting homophobia in the country.
A recent European poll found the Dutch to be the strongest supporters of same-sex marriage in the EU, with 82% in favour
I’m a tad surprised they didn’t already have a term for "birth name" in Dutch. But never mind. Over there they are trying, really trying, to be inclusive of same sex couples. And this was such an easy one. Just say "birth name" on the form instead of "maiden name". That works too, and doesn’t deny anyone, gay or straight, the dignity of taking their spouse’s name if that’s what they want. Meanwhile, over here in the land of the free and the home of the brave it’s "…legal marriage defined as one that is legally valid in all 50 states of the United States…"
Well Lookie Here…A Visit From Jackson Memorial Hospital…
First…a little GLBT history…
A gay man dies alone in an unfamiliar hospital while his longtime partner tries fruitlessly to get permission to be by his side. It’s a too-common scenario that documents such as living wills, powers of attorney, and domestic-partnership registration are supposed to prevent. But in the death of Robert Lee "Bobby" Daniel, 34, at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in October 2000, none of that mattered, according to a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund on February 27. San Franciscan Bill Robert Flanigan Jr., 34, had power of attorney for Daniel, his registered domestic partner, but was barred from his room and from consulting with physicians because Flanigan was not considered "family" by the hospital, charges the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
The couple had been driving to meet family in northern Virginia when Daniel became ill. He died without being able to say goodbye to his partner. "I have a huge hole in my heart, and my soul, because I wasn’t allowed to be with Bobby when he needed me most," Flanigan said in a statement.
Hospital officials denied any wrongdoing. "We deliver compassionate care to every patient, with sensitivity to the wishes of our patients and their loved ones," spokesperson Ellen Beth Levitt, told The Baltimore Sun.
Flanigan and Daniel, both residents of San Francisco, signed a legal document giving Flanigan the power to make medical decisions for Daniel in expectation that doctors might not recognize Flanigan. Daniel confided to Flanigan that he did not want to go on life support at the end of his life.
Daniel was transferred to the Shock Trauma Center from the Harford Hospital in Havre de Grace, Md. That night, Flanigan sat in the waiting room for four hours while they worked on Daniel but was never consulted about medical decisions, according to the claim. When Daniel’s sister and mother arrived at the hospital, Flanigan was allowed to see Daniel for the first time.
When Flanigan and the family saw Daniel, he was unconscious with his eyes taped shut, and a breathing tube had been inserted, contrary to Flanigan’s requests, according to the claim.
I did this cartoon about the tragedy back in 2002…
I’d only just started adding the political cartoons to my web site back then, and my drawing skills were stunted from years of neglect, but unlike a lot of the other cartoons I did at that time, this one still holds up I think. Reading the story of Flanigan and Daniel had made me livid, and probably that anger lifted my limited drawing skills up a notch or two. I also blogged about it over and over. Flanigan later found the cartoon while searching the web and I’m happy to say sent me a very heartfelt email thanking me for it.
Later, when an all heterosexual jury excused Maryland Shock Trauma for what they did to Flanigan, I did a follow-up cartoon that was pretty lame and I’ve since removed it from the cartoon site. I guess by that time my anger had turned into a weary contempt. Maryland Shock Trauma had finally found a way to give straight juries an excuse to let hospitals stick a knife in the hearts of same sex couples without having to acknowledge their own bigotries. Oh…we were just too busy to let the Not Family Person into the room with that other homosexual…
All of this is to say that if you google the case of Flanigan and Daniel you will likely run across one or more of the pages here on my web site, either in the cartoon pages or the blog pages. Hold that thought for a moment. Because the case of Flanigan and Daniel is not, alas, unique. It’s still happening to same sex couples, who thought, like Flanigan and Daniel did, that their power of attorney documents might actually mean something to gay hating hospital staff…
The family vacation cruise that Janice Langbehn, her partner Lisa Marie Pond and three of their four children set out to take in February 2007 was designed to be a celebration of the lesbian couple’s 18 years together.
But when Pond suffered a massive stroke onboard before the ship left port and was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, administrators refused to let Langbehn into the Pond’s hospital room. A social worker told them they were in an "anti-gay city and state."
Langbehn filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday charging the Miami hospital with negligence and "anti-gay animus" in refusing to recognize her and the children as Pond’s family, even after a power of attorney was faxed to the hospital within an hour of their arrival.
…
Pond, 39, was pronounced dead of a brain aneurysm about 18 hours after being admitted to Jackson’s Ryder Trauma Center. Langbehn said she was allowed in to see her partner only for about five minutes, as a priest gave Pond the last rites.
"I never thought almost 20 years of love and family could be disregarded in an instant," said Langbehn, a social worker who lives with her children in Lacey, Wash.
…
Jackson officials declined to comment, except to say that the hospital follows state and federal laws on patient privacy that can forbid releasing health information to those outside the patient’s immediate family.
The hospital also may limit visitors if a patient is being treated for a trauma, emergency or serious infection, said Valda Clark Christian, an assistant county attorney representing Jackson.
That last statement there from the ironically named Valda Clark Christian is Jackson Memorial Hospital picking up the knife that Maryland Shock Trauma gave it, and anti-gay hospital staff everywhere. Oh…we were just too busy to let that Not Family Person into the room with that other homosexual… Power of Attorney? You homosexuals have no power here…this is an anti-gay city and state…
What Jackson Memorial Hospital is going to do now is play the Maryland Shock Trauma trump card. In the case of Flanigan and Daniel, first they said Flanigan wasn’t family. Then they told him that the power of attorney document had been misplaced. Somehow none of that mattered when Daniel’s Legitimate Family arrived at the hospital because they were let right in and that was when Flanigan was, purely as a matter of coincidence surely, also allowed to see his beloved. When Flanigan sued the hospital finally came up with the excuse that they were just too busy to let Flanigan in. Never mind that they could have still respected his medical directives anyway. They didn’t have to let him into the room to do that. Daniel had a fear of dying with tubes stuck down his throat and that was precisely what the hospital staff did to him. When Flanigan and Daniel’s family were finally allowed to see him, not only were there tubes shoved down his throat, the hospital staff had put Daniel into restraints when he tried to take them out.
That was how Daniel spent his last moments on earth, in the tender care of Maryland Shock Trauma. Because they didn’t give a good goddamn about the faggot in the waiting room and his so-called power of attorney. First they openly told Flanigan that he wasn’t being allowed in because he was "not family". Then they said the power of attorney documents had been misplaced. Then when Flanigan sued they told the jury they were too busy taking care of Daniel to deal with Flanigan too. Probably they were too busy putting the tubes down Daniel’s throat. In any case, the "too busy" excuse allowed the all heterosexual jury to acquit the hospital of any wrong doing. If gay ain’t shit you must acquit…
Jackson’s lawyers surely have their own resources to look up how the case of Flanigan and Daniel went down. But the hospital is covering all its bases apparently. Someone there is doing a little research on the web regarding that case, probably to get a sense of just how the Maryland Shock Trauma excuse card is played. According to my site meter logs, someone at Jackson paid me a little visit the other day…
Nice. Note the search string: "lambda legal flanigan daniels court findings ruling judgement" Too bad you can’t search for your missing sense of human decency on Google. What the Maryland Shock Trauma excuse does is give hospitals the absolute right to disregard anything anyone tells them about patients in their care, whether they’re the "legal" family of the patient or not, whether they are legally married or not, have a power of attorney or a medical directive document. The Maryland Shock Trauma excuse gives hospitals free reign to do to your loved ones as they damn well please, so long as they die of it quickly enough that they can claim they were performing emergency procedures. Nobody’s family rights have to be respected now in any way. But of course everyone understands that it’s only the homosexuals who have no rights a heterosexual is bound to respect.
This is why the fight for same sex marriage is so important. Not that a marriage ring will give bigots any more respect for same sex couples, but that the system will never see our relationships as being equal to those of heterosexuals unless we fight for equality, not some separate but equal civil union status. It’s not about the legal paperwork. Langbehn and Pond had the same legal paperwork that Flanigan and Daniel did, and it conferred nothing. It’s not about the paperwork. It’s about respect. Heterosexuals mate to the opposite sex. Homosexuals mate to their own sex. That’s it. There is nothing more to it then that. If that’s all it takes to make care givers treat loving and devoted couples with less compassion then they’d grant to laboratory rats then the moral problem here isn’t with us. They were a lesbian couple. If the word ‘lesbian’ negates the word ‘couple’ for you then You are the one with the moral problem not Langbehn and Pond. Langbehn, in her struggle to care for her beloved, had more integrity and virtue then any of the runts at Jackson Memorial, who spit on their family while Pond was dying. That’s what this is about. We are not fighting over a word. We are not fighting for a piece of paper. We are fighting for the human status. For the righteousness of love.
A hospital can be a place of hope against all the odds. It can be a place where the human heart takes its ultimate stand against the finality of death. We all die. That we still fight anyway, still love anyway, is either to our glory or just a pathetic conceit. A hospital can be a monument to our capacity to love one another, that even the taint of death cannot take from within us. Or it can be a place of despair, of the end of all things, even love. Yes, sometimes, in the heat of battle, hospital staff have to be left alone to do their jobs. But why even bother, if not for love?
Via Box Turtle Bulletin… They guy who cursed that guitar player who was serenading couples waiting to be married in San Francisco, is Kevin Farrer, who fancies himself a street preacher. He was just helpfully spreading the good news to all the poor sinners standing in line…waiting to exchange vows of eternal love…
According to “Storm Bear” at the Bilerico Project, a marriage supporter was playing a guitar when he “suddenly dropped like a tree” of an apparent heart attack or cardiac arrest. Police immediately swooped in and began administering CPR.
And while that was going on, one of the “loving” Christian protesters was chanting, “Satan Got You!” and “What is the Devil whispering in your ear about now?”
I yelled at the guy, “If you are such a Christian, why aren’t you praying for the guy dying on the concrete?” The protester replied, “God killed him for loving fags!!” The cops even stepped in and told the guy to shut his mouth.
Go read the whole thing. This happened in front of San Francisco’s city hall, I think as same sex couples were lined up for marriage licenses.
Love. People in love doing what people in love have done for millennia in one form or another; swearing to love honor and cherish until death do them part. A guitar player…was he married, or single and just in love with love…serenades the happy couples as they wait. I am desperately single myself, and had I a musical bone in my body, I would have done something like that for the waiting couples. Love has not been kind to me, and yet I am still in love with love. But then the guitar player falls to the ground, and an anti-gay protester with as much Christ in him as Himmler steps forward and shouts at him that the devil has him. Love.
Can we stop now with all that love the sinner hate the sin claptrap? I would like, very much right now, to be there to whisper, not shout, just whisper, something in this guy’s ear at the moment he finds himself on death’s doorstep. Not that the devil has him. Not that the next voice he hears will be the devil whispering in his ear. But softly, that Jesus is there with him now…and that guitar player he once cursed is standing right beside him.
DEAR AMY: I am a gay man living in California. My partner and I have raised a family and have been together for 26 years.
The California Supreme Court recently stated it is illegal not to allow gays to marry. We are thrilled.
Now that we are aging Baby Boomers, we need the protection and rights that married couples have. A proposition to change the California constitution to state that marriage "is between only a man and a woman" will appear on the November ballot, and it only needs a simple majority to pass.
The problem is that four of my best friends are women. It is important to me to know that I have their support of gay marriage. If they vote "no," it will be impossible for me to continue these friendships. I need help on how to handle this situation. — California Gay Guy
DEAR CALIFORNIA: Perhaps you should ask people how they intend to vote on the question of gay marriage before you befriend them. It would save you the trouble of having to sever the relationship later.
I understand your need to have people in your corner, but your friends are already in your corner. That’s what makes them your friends. Demanding that your friendship hinges on what people choose to do in the privacy of the voting booth is offensive.
Furthermore, you seem to assume that your women friends might not support gay marriage. Is this because they’re straight or because women are somehow more likely to want to limit the bounds of marriage? This is a sexist assumption.
I’d suggest that you tread very lightly.
Dear Amy…maybe people should be more honest about what they really think before turning us into the ‘some’ in "some of my best friends are…"
That this guy isn’t sure how his friends will vote told you all you needed to know. I’ve no idea why he’s making a point of their gender…it could be he’s as sexist as you think, or it could be that all his male friends are gay like himself, and he simply said "women" when he meant "straight". I’ve met gay guys who have absolutely no straight male friends at all, but pal around constantly with their straight female friends like they’re all sisters. But the point is he’s not sure how they will vote, and that says it all when it comes to their friendship.
This isn’t about how they’ll vote. This is where push comes to shove and what he wants to know is if they’re with him…in other words, are they really his friends. I’d Suggest that it was treading lightly that got him into that situation to start with. I’ve been there myself and I know the feeling. All through the 70s and 80s and 90s I treaded lightly among my straight friends when I should have been fucking loud and proud and on November 2000 it bit me in the ass, and then again on November 2002 and then again on November 2004 by which time I’d finally wised up and dumped the bastards.
Oscar Wilde was right about true friends stabbing you in the front. I have a lot fewer straight friends now then I did before, but I don’t need to ask them how they’d vote on a same-sex marriage amendment. The people in my life who could only go so far as extending me tolerance because they just couldn’t bring themselves to regard a homosexual as their equal are gone and suddenly I don’t have to wonder who has my back in a political knife fight. Offensive? Reducing this to an issue of voting booth privacy is offensive you drooling lifestyle page hack. This isn’t about how people vote. It’s about friendship. When a gay man has to wonder if his friends might vote to cut off his ring finger come November he needs to know he’s been treading too lightly around them for his own good. If they really were his friends, he would already know.
California Gay Guy needs to live a little louder and prouder around his straight friends. Tell them he’s thrilled. Tell them how much it means to him and his partner and his family of 26 years. He needs to let his excitement be loud and proud. He needs to openly and clearly make his fears about the upcoming referendum known. Then he won’t need to ask his friends how they’ll vote. They’ll tell him, by their expressions of joy and happiness for him and his family, and with their absolute solidarity. Or they’ll tell him with their polite silence on the matter.
Treading lightly is exactly what he needs to stop doing. And if you think gay people shouldn’t get pissed off at "friends" who vote away their basic human rights then you need to grow a soul. Friendship is love, not tolerance.
This blog is powered by WordPress and is hosted at Winters Web Works, who also did some custom design work (Thanks!). Some embedded content was created with the help of The Gimp. I proof with Google Chrome on either Windows, Linux or MacOS depending on which machine I happen to be running at the time.
