More Tuesday Male Beauty

ODU Gay Cultural Studies Invites You to a House Party

The boyfriend and I are hosting a house party in support of the Old Dominion University Gay Cultural Studies endowment effort this Friday at 5:30 PM. Our goal is to fund an endowment that will provide for a permanent post-doctorate position at Old Dominion University ("ODU"). Information on the goals of the effort can be found here. The speaker at the event at our home will be Dr. George D. Greenia, Professor of Hispanic Studies at William and Mary. Dr. Greenia (pictured below) is most famous locally for his pioneering efforts in bringing LGBT programming and organizations to his culturally conservative campus during the Reagan era of the 1980s.

We hope that peninsula readers will try to attend. Here are details:

When: Friday, June 10, 2011 at 5:30 Pm to 7:30 PM

Where: Michael Hamar & Barry Menser's House

To RSVP: Click Here

Southwest Virginia.Wants to Change Its Image

I have mixed emotions about a story in the Richmond Times Dispatch that looks at efforts in Southwest Virginia to change the region's image and attract "entrepreneurs and high-tech businesses." The goal is meritorious and I feel for many in the region who suffer from the harsh economic realities that many municipalities face. The one aspect that those trying to recast the region's image doesn't seem to address is the social and cultural backwardness of the region and its intolerance towards those who are deemed "other." Yes, the region is physically beautiful and there are many good people in the region. But, when a region is anti-black, anti-gay, anti-immigrant and far right Christianist in its mindset, attracting progressive business is going to be difficult. Here are some story highlights:
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Heartwood officials say Southwest Virginia will change the nation's negative perception of Appalachia. "Give us three years," said Chuck Riedhammer, the marketing director with a $1 million budget to promote the new facility, a regional artisan center set up as a gateway to Southwest Virginia's arts and culture.
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Our No. 1 objective isn't even tourism," said Todd Christensen, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Commission, which is overseeing the project. "Our number one objective is to develop a quality of life that's going to attract entrepreneurs and high-tech businesses to the region."
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Heartwood is designed to bring all of the region's cultural assets under one roof. The theme of what's included, from artisans and musicians to local foods and outdoor recreation sites, has become almost a mantra: "authentic, distinctive, alive."
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Tamra Talmadge, spokeswoman for the Virginia Tourism Corporation, said Heartwood packages the generations-old culture in a new form at a time when tourists, particularly of the millennial generation, are craving authenticity.
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I continue to believe that Southwest Virginia's biggest problem is the strangle hold that the Christianists have on the region. Having visited Martinsville back when I was representing Michael Moore in his lawsuit against the Virginia Museum of Natural History, as an LGBT individual, suicide would seem a positive option rather than living long term in the area. I suspect innovative and progressive business would view the region in a similar negative perspective.

Sexual Misconduct - It's Alright If You're a Republican According to Eric Cantor

It's the hypocrisy of the GOP that makes me want to vomit. Case in point: Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor who is demanding the resignation of Congressman Anthony Wiener based on Weiner's incredibly stupid "sex-ting" of inappropriate photos. Cantor obviously applies one standard to the GOP while demanding a far different standard of Democrats. Remember " I was hiking the Appalachian Trial" GOP Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford who was in truth boinking a mistress in Argentina? Or maybe you remember Nevada U. S. Senator John Ensign who was having an affair with the wife of one of his staff members? Still not remembering? How about Louisiana U. S. Senator David Vitter who was a client of the D.C. Madam as well as hookers in New Orleans? In each of these three instances, Cantor failed to call for the resignation of the individuals involved - even though their conduct was far more egregious than that of Wiener. Instead, he said that the decision lay with the individual involved and their constituents. But in the case of Wiener, Cantor wants a resignation. Let's be clear. I am NOT defending Wiener's stupidity. But Cantor's hypocrisy is nauseating. The Hill has coverage on Cantor's hypocritical double standard. Here are some highlights:
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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called on embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign a day after the New York Democrat admitted to having sexually charged online relationships with six women, none of whom are his wife.
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“I don’t condone his activity. And I think he should resign,” Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said after an event in his district Tuesday, according to the Daily Progress. Cantor is the first leader in either party to call for Weiner to step down
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Cantor upped the pressure on Weiner Tuesday, breaking with Republican leaders who preferred to stand out of the way as Democrats tried to untangle the mess. While GOP leaders had remained silent on the matter, the party machinery has been working to stick Weiner’s troubles to other Democrats.
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The National Republican Congressional Committee has pointed out which politically vulnerable Democratic incumbents are recipients of Weiner campaign cash, and one, Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) already has said she dump her Weiner contributions.
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Frankly, in my opinion, Cantor is an embarrassment to rational, thinking Virginians. I view has a whining little worm who while not as insane as Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli, is morally challenged at best even though he talks about so-called family values just like Ensign, and Vitter. Residents of Cantor's district need to wake up and vote his sorry, lying ass out of office.

Tuesday Male Beauty

The Very Real Chance of Another Great Depression

An article in the New Republic has an unsettling analysis of why the USA could be heading towards another Great Depression - what's truly upsetting is that the main underlying cause should the worse case play out is that we NEVER learn from history. The article parallels the mistakes made in the 1930's with political/economic actions today and indicates we are making the same mistakes all over again. Leading the way in the march toward the potential fiasco, of course, is the GOP which never seems to want to avoid repeats of past disasters. A sure mark of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Not that there is much doubt that the GOP is increasing controlled by the insane. Democrats, however, have no excuse for lacking the political will to speak out against such stupidity. Here are some article highlights:
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When the financial system was on the edge of melting down back in the fall of 2008, there was much talk in the punditocracy of a second Great Depression. The story was that we risked repeating the mistake at the onset of the first Great Depression . . . Instead, however, we acted, and these days the accepted wisdom is that the TARP and other special lending facilities created by the Federal Reserve Board prevented a similar collapse that saved us from a second Great Depression.
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But this view badly misunderstands the nature of the first Great Depression—and may, in fact, result in the country suffering the second Great Depression that the pundits claim we have averted.
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Allowing the cascade of financial collapses at the start of the first Great Depression was a mistake. However, there was nothing about this initial collapse that necessitated the decade of double-digit unemployment that was the central tragedy of the Great Depression. This was the result of the failure of the federal government to respond with sufficient vigor to mass unemployment. Indeed, the economy only broke out of the Depression when the federal government undertook massive deficit spending to fight World War II.
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Then, as now, politicians in Washington were obsessed with the budget deficit. They never would have countenanced such spending, apart from the threat to the nation posed by Hitler and the Axis powers.
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Unfortunately, the country seems destined to follow the same course in the current slump as it did in the 30s. The May jobs report should have provided the sort of stiff kick that is needed to revive discussion of additional stimulus. Instead, it seems to have barely shaken Washington’s ongoing obsession with deficits.
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In policy circles, there seems to be an absurd faith that demand in the economy will arise out of nowhere if we are just virtuous enough in reducing the deficit. That is not the way the economy works. Demand must come from some discrete source and it is very difficult to see where that might be if the country continues on a path of deficit reduction.
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To see why this is the case, first note that nearly 70 percent of demand in our economy is from consumption, but consumption has been growing slowly for two reasons. The first is that the economy has been creating few jobs. Furthermore, in a weak labor market workers do not have the bargaining power to push up their wages. The slow growth in jobs and stagnant wages mean that most families, who get nearly all their income from working, are seeing little growth in income. Slow growth in income means slow growth in consumption.
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The second factor depressing consumption has been the continuing deflation of the housing bubble. To date, the decline in house prices has destroyed nearly $7 trillion in housing equity. And prices are still falling. . . . The loss of this wealth will lead homeowners to cut back their consumption further in order to rebuild their savings.
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With these other sectors accounted for, this leaves the government as the only remaining candidate for boosting the economy. But additional stimulus is not even on the agenda in Washington. Instead, we are seeing cutbacks at all levels of government. These cutbacks led to a loss of 29,000 jobs in May. The pace of job loss is only likely to increase when states impose another round of cuts on July 1, the beginning of a new fiscal year for most of them.
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Moreover, there are more factors pointing to slower growth than faster growth going forward. In addition to the state and local cuts kicking in next month, the new fiscal year for the federal government begins October 1. This is also likely to involve further cuts in spending. And the payroll tax cut is scheduled to end 3 months later, as is the extension of unemployment benefits. At some point, the pain of high unemployment across the country may lead to some new thinking in Washington, but until that time, welcome to the second Great Depression.

Gay Rights Are Human Rights

While motivated by recent anti-gay incidents in South Africa, the Los Angeles Times has an editorial that makes the argument that needs to be thrown in the face of anti-gay politicians and professional Christians who are little more than the daily purveyors of hate and ignorance: gay rights are human rights and that those who oppose gay rights are opposed to human rights. I'm sorry, but too much hate, violence and misery have been the principal fruits of religion - I suspect religion has ruined more lives than it has bettered - to continue to give bigots a free pass to spew lies, untruths and bigotry. The Christianist version of "religious freedom" ends when it tramples on the civil rights of others. Here are column highlights:
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When it comes to gay rights, South Africa is something of a paradox. Legally progressive, the country allows gay marriage and, in its Constitution, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Gay groups flourish — soccer clubs and church organizations included — and middle-class gay men and women live relatively openly.
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But in some parts of the country, particularly in rural areas and townships, the progressive laws collide with deeply traditional views of homosexuality as un-African and as an import from the decadent West.
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The violence in South Africa is a reminder that the struggle for gay rights is a global one. A gay rights demonstration in Moscow was disrupted last month by counter-protesters, and Russian security forces detained people from both sides of the protest. In Jamaica, homophobic lyrics in dancehall music have been blamed for violent attacks on gay people.
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On the other hand, some countries have progressed further faster. A decade ago, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. Since then, nine more have followed — and the U.S. was not one of them.
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[A]s in South Africa, paradoxes exist. Although the United States has made much progress on gay rights, Human Rights Watch last month picked American pastor Scott Lively, an outspoken critic of homosexuality, for its homophobia "Hall of Shame,"
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While the progress is encouraging, the brutal violence in South Africa is a reminder of how much still needs to be done worldwide to show not just governments but communities that equal protection for gay people is not a Western convention, not a modern fashion, but a human right.

More Monday Male Beauty

No Opt-Out for Opponents of Gays in Military

While visiting troops in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Gates made it clear that religious extremists and bigots in the U.S. military who have their panties in a major wad over the repeal of DADT will NOT have the option to opt out of the military and seek an early discharge. To do otherwise would send a dangerous signal that white supremacists, anti-Muslim and/or anti-Hispanic bigots, and others who discriminate against their fellow citizens should be entitled to special rights as well. As members of the U.S. military, service members are to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution, including the Equal Protection Clause and the right to religious freedom of ALL citizens, not just the Bible beaters. Reuters has coverage on Gates' statements. Here are some highlights:
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly told Marines on Sunday that they won't be able to opt out of their enlistment just because they disagree with a government decision to end a ban on gays serving openly in the military.
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Gates, who is on a tour of Afghanistan to bid farewell to the troops before stepping down at the end of the month, was quizzed by a Marine sergeant about the controversial policy during a question and answer session at a base in southwestern Helmand Province.
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"We have not given the Marines a chance to decide whether they wish to continue serving under that. Is there going to be an option for those Marines that no longer wish to serve due to the fact their moral values have not changed?" he asked. "No," Gates responded. "You'll have to complete your ... enlistment just like everybody else."
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"The reality is that you don't all agree with each other on your politics, you don't agree with each other on your religion, you don't agree with each other on a lot of things," he added. "But you still serve together. And you work together. And you look out for each other. And that's all that matters."
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If we do this right, nothing will change," he said. "You will still have to abide by the same rules of behavior, the same discipline, the same respect for each other that has been the case through all the history of the Marine Corps."
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In some ways I suspect that some of the homophobes in the military are scared shitless not that gays will come on to them, but that gay service members may out perform them and thereby burst their egotistical bubbles. It's sad that some only feel good about themselves when they are looking down on someone else.

City of Hampton Diversity and Pride On June 11th

While many in the Hampton Roads LGBT community are still feeling the afterglow of Sunday's very successful Out in the Park event, it's important to remember that on Saturday, June 11, 2011, from Noon to 6:00 PM, the City of Hampton, Virginia will hold it's second annual Diversity and Pride event in Millpoint Park on the downtown Hampton waterfront. The event may not be as glitzy as Sunday's event in Norfolk, but I can assure folks that last year's Hampton event was a lot of fun and that this year's event should be even better.
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I hope readers who were unable to make the event in Norfolk will make a point to attend this Saturday. I will be attending and will be working a booth for the law firm and the HRBOR booth as well. For more information on Saturday's event go to: www.diversityandpride.com.

CDC: LGBT Teens More Prone to Risky Behavior

The results of a new Centers for Disease Control report further confirms what we've heard before. Namely, that LGBT teens are more likely to engage in risky, health threatening behavior than their straight counterparts. Sadly, the report claims to "not know" what causes the more self-destructive behavior in LGBT teens. I suspect that we all know (as do the reports authors) the real cause: anti-gay societal bigotry against and incessant attacks by Christianists on LGBT citizens. Being constantly told one is evil, going to go to Hell, called a deviants - the whole litany of lies and hate that I and others in the LGBT blogosphere write about all the time - takes a heavy psychological toll. Worse yet, efforts to start GSA's and implement anti-bullying policies that would help these LGBT teens are consistently opposed by the modern day Pharisee of the Christian Taliban who want the special right to abuse and denigrate others. It's unfortunate that the survey questions utilized did not ask the question the researchers probably did not what to hear answered. Then it would have been harder to close one's eyes to the fruits of religious based hate and bigotry. Here are highlights from Huffington Post:
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Gay and bisexual high school students are more likely than their heterosexual classmates to smoke, drink alcohol or do other risky things, according to a government study released Monday.
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Based on anonymous surveys of 156,000 high school students, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study is the largest by the government to look at sexual orientation and behavior in teens. It echoes similar findings in some smaller studies.
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Gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported worse behavior in half to 90 percent of the risk categories, depending on the survey site. Why? CDC officials don't know for sure: The survey didn't ask kids why they smoked or attempted suicide or did other things that could be dangerous.
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But gay, lesbian and bisexual students deal with stigma, disapproval and social rejection. "Many risk behaviors are related to how people feel about themselves and the environment they're in," noted the study's lead author, Laura Kann of the CDC's division of adolescent and school health.
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About 4 to 10 percent of heterosexual students said they attempted suicide in the previous year. For gay and lesbian students: 15 percent to 34 percent. For bisexual students: 21 percent to 32 percent.
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It is far past time that the members of the Christian Taliban and professional Christian set be held accountable for the fruits of their foul handiwork. By not seeking the answer this important question, our enemies will take the report results and no doubt twist them around and use them as proof of the dangers of homosexuality.

Monday Male Beauty

Vouchercare Is Not Medicare

Paul Krugman has a column in the New York Times that looks at the reality of the GOP proposal to "reform" Medicare. It seems the GOP extremists are growing increasingly testy over news reports that accurately describe what would really happen to Medicare - a program relied on by countless senior citizens. I'm not saying that reforms to the program are not need. What I am saying is that it would be nice if members of the GOP had the balls to tell the truth about what their proposal would mean for so many of the elderly - and their families who will have to take up the financial slack that would hit their family members. Sadly, honest and the GOP seem to be increasingly mutually exclusive - I guess they think they are like the Christianists who have deleted the Commandment against lying from the Ten Commandments. Here are some column highlights:
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What’s in a name? A lot, the National Republican Congressional Committee obviously believes. Last week, the committee sent a letter demanding that a TV station stop running an ad declaring that the House Republican budget plan would “end Medicare.” This, the letter insisted, was a false claim . . .
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Comcast, the station’s owner, rejected the demand — and rightly so. For Republicans are indeed seeking to dismantle Medicare as we know it, replacing it with a much worse program.
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I’m seeing many attempts to shout down anyone making this obvious point, and not just from Republican politicians. For some reason, many commentators seem to believe that accurately describing what the G.O.P. is actually proposing amounts to demagoguery. But there’s nothing demagogic about telling the truth.
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[Y]ou can name the new program Medicare, but it’s an entirely different program — call it Vouchercare — that would offer nothing like the coverage that the elderly now receive. (Republicans get huffy when you call their plan a voucher scheme, but that’s exactly what it is.)

Medicare is a government-run insurance system that directly pays health-care providers. Vouchercare would cut checks to insurance companies instead. Specifically, the program would pay a fixed amount toward private health insurance — higher for the poor, lower for the rich, but not varying at all with the actual level of premiums. If you couldn’t afford a policy adequate for your needs, even with the voucher, that would be your problem.
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And most seniors wouldn’t be able to afford adequate coverage. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found that to get coverage equivalent to what they have now, older Americans would have to pay vastly more out of pocket under the Paul Ryan plan . . . the typical senior would end up paying around $6,000 more out of pocket in the plan’s first year of operation.
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Vouchercare, by contrast, would simply hand out vouchers of a fixed size, regardless of the actual cost of insurance. And these vouchers would be grossly inadequate.
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Yes, Medicare has to get serious about cost control; it has to start saying no to expensive procedures with little or no medical benefits, it has to change the way it pays doctors and hospitals, and so on. . . . . But with these changes it should be entirely possible to maintain a system that provides all older Americans with guaranteed essential health care.
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Canadian Medicare, then, looks sustainable; why can’t we do the same thing here? Well, you know the answer in the case of the Republicans: They don’t want to make Medicare sustainable, they want to destroy it under the guise of saving it.

Catholic Bishops Still Seek to Avoid Accountability for Sex Abuse

Here in the USA, the Roman Catholic Church continues its jihad against LGBT equality even as more and more evidence of culpability of the Church hierarchy in the molestation of children and youths comes out in countries literally all around the world. Once again I find myself asking myself why anyone listens to these bitter old men who in many cases ought to be behind bars? In Belgium, the Church is faced with over 500 abuse complaints which led to at least 13 suicides. Meanwhile, Amnesty International is accusing the Vatican of breaching its obligations under international law to protect children from sex abuse. First these highlights from the Montreal Gazette on the debacle in Belgium:
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BRUSSELS - Belgium's Roman Catholic Church vowed Monday to compensate the victims of pedophile priests as lawsuit threats loom after a child abuse scandal that has rocked the Church for more than a year.
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Accused for months of showing little compassion for the victims, the bishops and heads of religious orders deplored the abuses that were documented last year by a Church-backed commission, which revealed nearly 500 cases involving Church workers that took place over several decades, resulting in 13 suicides.
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Some 80 abuse victims are already mounting a class-action lawsuit against the Belgian Church and the Vatican, accusing religious authorities of negligence by turning a blind eye to the crimes committed by predator priests.
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A lawyer for the Belgian victims, Walter Van Steenbrugge, is holding a press conference on Wednesday to present his case against the Vatican and the Belgian Church.
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Last month Van Steenbrugge charged that while Pope Benedict XVI and Belgian Church leader Andre-Joseph Leonard say they were fighting sex abuse, "they are doing quite the opposite — protecting abusers, hailing their protectors, excommunicating those who denounce the facts."
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Then there are these highlights from a Huffington Post story on Amnesty International's allegations against the Vatican:
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VATICAN CITY (RNS) Amnesty International has criticized the Vatican for falling short of its commitments to protect children from sex abuse. "The Holy See did not sufficiently comply with its international obligations relating to the protection of children," the human rights group said in its latest annual report, released on Friday (May 13).
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"Increasing evidence of widespread child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy over the past decades, and of the enduring failure of the Catholic Church to address these crimes properly, continued to emerge in various countries" during 2010, the report said.
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Amnesty said the Vatican had failed in its obligations as a party to the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, by "not removing alleged perpetrators from their posts pending proper investigations, not cooperating with judicial authorities to bring them to justice and not ensuring proper reparation to victims."
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So why are these despicable old men still given deference and respect?

2011 Out in the Park a Huge Success

This morning began with torrential rain and violent thunder and lightning. Needless to say, all of us who have worked to support and put on Out in the Park 2011 in Norfolk's Town Point Park through labor, financial support or both were fearful that the event would be a disaster. Then, less than an hour before the opening of the event the rain ceased, the sky began to clear and a multitude of people came out and made the event a huge success - likely the largest, most upscale and amazing pride event ever in this area. One thing that was remarkable was the diversity of those attending: young, middle aged, old, black, white, Asian, gay, straight, transgender - even young straight couples pushing their toddlers in strollers. I'm still waiting to hear crowd estimates, but Town Point Park was largely packed. Between manning a booth for the law firm and floating around listening to some of the acts or watching the Pride boat parade along the waterfront, I saw people I had not seen in years. The photo below is of one of the acts, the D.C. Cowboys.

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I continue to believe that the event was significant for this region. Set out below is an op-ed piece that I wrote in Altdaily.com that ran a week ago:
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It will be the first time that Hampton Roads has had a major LGBT Pride event in a prominent center stage venue. There are those in the LGBT blogosphere who have argued that LGBT pride events should be a thing of the past, and suggested that the LGBT community needs to move on to focus its resources on other issues. That judgment is not applicable here in Hampton Roads. There may be some truth to the referenced argument in progressive states and cities where LGBT citizens live their daily lives far more openly. They have won their long, hard battles for legal recognition of their relationships and enjoy employment non-discrimination protections among other legal rights. But that argument does not apply here in Hampton Roads or Virginia as a whole.

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Here in Virginia, we live in a far different legal/social universe. We live in a society where the so-called ‘culture wars’ rage unabated. At least for the Republican side of the aisle in the General Assembly, the Attorney General’s office and the Governor’s mansion, stigmatizing LGBT Virginians and supporting discrimination are a matter of official policy. In this context, an event such as Out in the Park plays a very important role for both the LGBT and the larger community.

First, from the LGBT perspective, even if individuals do not attend, a large local LGBT pride event provides a subconscious sense of solidarity. Sadly, in this region far too many individuals still feel forced to live in the closet, whether they are members of the military or employed in the private sector. An event like Out in the Park also allows teens and youths to realize that they are not the freaks or misfits some among the Christian Right and elsewhere would have them believe themselves to be. And of course, a successful pride event is a great deal of fun and can give a feeling of empowerment to those not treated fully as equals under Virginia’s laws. * For those outside of the Hampton Roads LGBT community, Out in the Park will provide a venue for a useful learning experience. The first lesson to be learned is that the LGBT community is not monolithic. Rather, the LGBT community is diverse with a whole spectrum of individual types and social, racial and professional backgrounds. Indeed, we are just as diverse and varied as any other segment of society. Secondly, this LGBT pride event can educate businesses to the fact that they are overlooking a very significant segment of the community in their marketing plans and business models. Here are a few economic tidbits often drowned out by the anti-gay mantra coming from some pulpits and politicians in Richmond:
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LGBT consumers are twice as likely as the national average to be (i)managers or professionals, (ii) have an average household income of over $85,400, (iii) have more disposable income than typical households and had an estimated combined U. S. domestic purchasing power of $743 Billion in 2010, (iv) make up the most stable and reliable segment of the tourism market, and (v) are extremely loyal consumers for those who market to the LGBT community and/or support LGBT causes.

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Lastly, a major pride event like Out in the Park helps the Hampton Roads region, which was described last year in a Brookings Institute study as old, slow, and not too bright, to put aside its dowdy image and instead showcase the region’s diversity and acceptance of citizens of all walks of life and cultures.

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With the event now successfully behind us, I believe even more what I wrote in the op-ed piece. We CAN make change even in backward states like Virginia, but to do so we need to work as a united community to do it. This event brought so many diverse elements of the local LGBT community together in a way never seen before. The boyfriend and I are proud that we had the privileged of playing a small role in the venture.

Sunday Male Beauty

Learning to Stop "Praying Away the Gay"

CNN news anchor Don Lemon has a column on CNN that I missed when it first came out. I identify with what he talks about: learning to stop trying to "pray away the gay." I tried to pray myself straight for nearly four decades and never confided in anyone about the inner conflict that haunted me constantly. Sadly, I was raised in a religious tradition where the cultivation of self-hate and guilt is incessant and, as a result, mental gymnastics and denial became ever present. I truly believe that raising children in such a religious environment is a form of child abuse. Not that I hold any resentment towards my parents - given the time frame of my youth, most people had no clue as to how damaging things were for me and others like me. Today, we know differently, and more need to oppose the evil aspects of religion. Here are highlights from Lemon's column:
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By age four or five, I was too young to sexualize my infatuations but I knew that everyone else, including my family and friends, would think it was wrong. Perhaps it was the conversations I overheard from adults around my hometown of Port Allen, Louisiana, who'd mimic gay people, calling them "funny" or "sissy" or "fagots."
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Perhaps it was Sunday mornings at our Baptist church, where preachers taught that liking someone of the same sex was a direct and swift path to hell. And that if that person would just turn to the Lord and confess his sin, then God would change him back into the person He wanted him to be - a person who only had crushes on the opposite sex.
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All of which meant that, from a very early age, I began to think I was dirty and that I was going to hell. Can you imagine what that feels like for a kid who was just learning to read and perform basic arithmetic? It was awful. And talk about guilt - I was a Baptist attending Catholic school!
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I prayed the silent prayer for God to change me every chance I got until I started attending college in New York. That's when common sense began to take hold and I realized that no amount of prayer would change me into something that wasn't natural to me.
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So many of us, especially in the black community and in churches, tend to think that religious teachings happened word for word as they were written in Scripture. I think that's naïve, even dangerous. That type of thinking - or non-thinking - keeps many religious people enslaved to beliefs that they haven't truly stepped back from and examined. That type of thinking causes people who are otherwise good to shun and ostracize young gay people.
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Imagine if we had allowed Christian doctrines and teachings that supported slavery, segregation and the subjugation of women to pervade our society all the way up until the current moment. What kind of world would that be?
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I'm no longer the member of any church but I do believe in a higher power. It's time for us, especially black people, to stop trying to pray the gay away and to get on our knees and start praying that the discrimination of gay people ends.
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What we're doing to our young gay people now is child abuse. It's plain old bigotry and hatred. And if African-Americans don't know what that feels like in America, I don't know who does.

"Faith and Freedom" Conference Proves A Gay Bashing Marathon

Whenever the fundies gather they like to wrap themselves in religious faith and depict themselves as the guardians of freedom. The disingenuousness of the latter guise is mind boggling since in truth, they abhor freedom. At least for anyone but themselves. Their idea of freedom is that they and their fellow extremists get a free rein to inflict their beliefs and prejudice on everyone else. Their version is akin to the NAZI regime's idea of freedom. And true to form, the latest gathering of these Christo-fascists at the inappropriately named "Faith and Freedom" conference in Washington, D.C., disproportionately targets LGBT Americans as the preferred whipping boys and girls. Yep, to listen to these haters and psychopaths, we the number one threat to the nation and freedom. Would that these folks would take a good look at themselves in the mirror. Think Progress LGBT has a couple of stories on the targeting of LGBT Americans by these un-godly folks. In one, gay parenting is attacked. In another, the certifiably insane Michelle Bachmann rants about stopping gay marriage. Would that similar efforts were directed at the nation's real problems - most of which have been caused by GOP/conservative polices and misrule. First, the assault on gay parenting and adoption:

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Speaking at the Faith and Freedom conference yesterday, Renewing American Leadership chairman Jim Garlow compared same-sex couple adoption to children losing their parents on 9/11:
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GARLOW: Our President gave a speech a few days ago in which he said, ‘the tragedy of 9/11 was that it robbed so many children of having a mommy or a daddy. Well, you know something Mr. President, your failure to defend marriage and to redefine marriage means that everybody who is under that redefined marriage will lack either a mommy or a daddy and that is morally wrong.
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What's really morally wrong is the hate and bigotry of Garlow who like so many in the cottage industry of professional Christianism makes a living denigrating and stigmatizing others. WWJD? Surely, not what Garlow is doing. And then we have more of Michelle Bachmann's anti-gay verbal diarrhea. How anyone can consider this lunatic a potential presidential candidate is frightening. Here is a sample of her screed:
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Yesterday, during a speech before the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington DC, potential presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) recounted her unsuccessful efforts to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage as a state legislator and praised Minnesota’s current lawmakers for taking “that torch” and adding the issue to the 2012 ballot.
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Bachmann urged other states to pass similar amendments ahead of the election, proclaiming, “this is the time” to outlaw same-sex marriages:
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BACHMANN: Minnesota is the first state that has decided that this issue will be on the ballot in 2012, the state of New Hampshire will be taking this issue up as well, and other states. This is the time. And so I want to encourage all of you at home, if you don’t have a similar amendment, consider this in your home states. I believe this is the time to do it. So I just want to say thank you to those who continue to carry that torch.

Religious Leaders: GOP Budget Gies Against Christ's Teachings

I have frequently noted how members of the GOP at all levels - and their professional Christian allies - wear religion on their sleeves, claim to worship Christ and his message, and then act in manners 100% against the social ministry teachings of Christ. It's hypocrisy raised to an art form. If one wants to see modern day examples of the Pharisees so consistently slammed in the Gospels, look no further than the leaders of the GOP and self-satisfied, hate filled bigots of the Christian Right (Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Bryan Fischer and others of that ilk immediately spring to mind). They are beyond disgusting in their hate and hypocrisy, but rarely are they called out by the media. As Think Progress is reporting, some religious leaders finally got the balls to condemn these hypocrites and the GOP's Ryan budget for the monstrosity that it is - indeed, how it violates the teaching of Christ. Would that more people - especially news anchors - would call these liars and hypocrites out. Here are some highlights:
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While religious conservatives and Republican political leaders gathered at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington this weekend, another group of religious leaders held a small gathering across the street to warn against the perils of the Republican Party’s fiscal priorities.
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Four members affiliated with the religious group Faith In Public Life held a brief press conference during FFC’s afternoon intermission to denounce the GOP’s adherence to the philosophies of anti-government, anti-religion author Ayn Rand. The leaders — Rev. Jennifer Butler, Jim Wallis, Rev. Derrick Harkins, and Father Clete Kiley — asserted that the GOP efforts to cut funding from many anti-poverty programs while balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest Americans were not in line with Christian values:
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What we’re saying in the faith community, across the spectrum, is that a nation is judged — our Bible says — by how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable. Period. That’s what God says to us. That’s God’s instruction to us. To be faithful to God, we have to protect poor people.
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Religious leaders have recently spoken out to House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) — both of whom are practicing Catholics — telling them that the cuts in their budget disproportionately target poor Americans and are thus out of line with Christian and Catholic teaching.
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As I have noted before, I don't want to be called a Christian if being Christian means engaging in the conduct of the GOP leadership and the Christian Taliban. Their true gods are hate, greed, callousness, and hypocrisy. If they are Christians, then count me out.

Saturday Male Beauty

Out in The Park Is Tomorrow

Tomorrow from Noon to 6:00 PM, Out in the Park will take place in Norfolk's Town Point Park. This year's event will dwarf past pride events in the area and has a $70,000 budget. Those who have never attended an Out in the Park event should make a point to check out this year's event. Those who were less than overwhelmed by prior years' events need to understand that the 2011 event is a quantum leap from past efforts. Over 77 vendors will be present as well as a much more upscale slate of entertainment. I'll have a booth for the law firm, as will HRBOR and the Old Dominion University LGBT Cultural Arts endowment committee I'm working with. NOTE: The first LGBT boat parade will take place at 1:00 PM. Here's a schedule of events:
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12:00 to 12:20 Narissa Bond
12:20 to 12:50 Julie Clark Band
12:50 to 1:00 Welcome by HR Pride President/National Anthem by HR Men's Chorus
1:00 to 1:30 Boat Parade
1:30 to 1:45 HR Men's Chorus
1:45 to 2:15 Sydney Devereaux, Myke Riley & Diana Ross
2:15 to 3:00 Suzanne Westenhoefer
3:00 to 3:30 DC Cowboys
3:30 to 3:50 Awards/ACCESS/TACT
3:50 to 4:00 Naomi Black
4:00 to 4:10 Jennifer Warner
4:10 to 5:00 DJ Lady Miss Kier
5:00 to 5:45 Wicked Jezebel
5:45 to 6:30 Rah Element
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For more information, see: http://hamptonroadspride.shuttlepod.org/Default.aspx?pageId=962332

Norfolk Police Raid New Gay Bar on It's Opening Nigh

After receiving telephone calls from patrons who were there (some of whom I know quite well), I have communicated with both the Norfolk City Attorney's office and the management of Jack's Attic, a new gay friendly bar in Norfolk, Virginia, about the police department's apparent storm trooper like conduct in raiding Jack's Attic on it's opening night. The City claims - in typical form - that the club did not have required permits while the club's management is adamant that they were not in violation of any city requirements and that there was NOT any entertainment in the second floor. I will be meeting with management of the club on Monday and hope to be able to give a further update next week as to who is telling the truth.

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I can say this: Having experienced anti-gay harassment by Norfolk police officers personally first hand some years back - activist Wayne Besen was with me at the time - I unfortunately tend to find claims of thug like behavior by Norfolk police officers only too credible. In my own case, Norfolk Police Internal Affairs seem far more concerned with covering up misconduct of police department officers as opposed to protecting the rights of wrongfully harassed citizens. As for the Chief of Police, it was virtually impossible to even talk to the man. Here's what WVEC-TV reported which parrots the City's version of events:
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NORFOLK--Many people are upset after Norfolk police are called to the grand opening of Jack's Attic on Granby street in Norfolk. The new gay and lesbian bar opened Thursday night on the second floor of Jack Quinn's Irish Pub in the 200 block of Granby.
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The city's bar task force tells WVEC.com that the establishment did not have a special exception for entertainment on the second floor. Jack Quinn's was warned not to hold the event, but according to police they held it anyway in spite of the ordinance.
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The task force says it was forced to take action and police moved in citing the bar for the violation.
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I would also note that given Norfolk's many crime problems, it would seem to be far more useful to citizens to have police officers on the street stopping crimes and vandalism (they often won't even take reports of property damage from vandalism) rather than harassing a gay friendly business establishment.

Home Depot Tells AFA to Shove It

The registered hate group, American Family Association ("AFA") has launched another one of its boycotts - which are really aimed at getting the organization's name in the press and at shaking down the ignorant and uninformed - this time taking on Home Depot for it's gay friendly policies. In AFA's view any corporation that recognizes the LGBT community as a significant market segment and adopts policies of acceptance and diversity is open game for AFA's never ending message of hatred. Thankfully, as Right Wing Watch is reporting, Home Depot has apparently told AFA it can take its boycott and put it where the sun doesn't shine. Here are some highlights from Right Wing Watch (NOTE: The Christian Taliban state that "those who are caught in this trap of homosexuality are in the clasp of Satan"):
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[T]he American Family Association has been running a boycott against Home Depot because the company "has chosen to sponsor and participate in numerous gay pride parades and festivals."
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Today, the AFA's Executive Vice President, Buddy Smith, traveled to a Home Deport board meeting to present the company with a petition bearing nearly a half-million names of those who have vowed to stop shopping at Home Deport stores until the company decides to "remain neutral in the culture war."
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But according to this update Smith gave to Bryan Fischer today, it sounds like the Home Depot Chairman Frank Blake basically told the AFA to take a hike and reiterated their commitment to promoting diversity. Smith was especially troubled by this stance because, as everyone knows, "those who are caught in this trap of homosexuality are in the clasp of Satan"
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I'd say that if anyone is in the clasp of Satan, it's the folks at AFA who have turned Christianity into something foul and hated based.
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Del. Bob Marshall Again Proves He's a Hate Filled Bigot

Just as Victoria Cobb and her fellow haters at The Family Foundation never miss an opportunity to denigrate LGBT citizens and push for a Christian Taliban theocracy, neither does Del. Bob Marshall (pictured at left) - one of the authors of Virginia's heinous anti-gay Marshall-Newman Amendment. Marshall has admitted to wanting to drive gays from Virginia and continually displays a mindset that suggests he'd support so-called ethnic cleansing of gays and other populations he doesn't like if he thought he cold get away with it. Like Cobb, his message is consistently one of hate and intolerance and one can only pray he's delusional enough to try to run for the U.S. Senate and get a thorough ass kicking. The Virginian Pilot has details on Marshall's latest anti-gay screed which was triggered by the Richmond Federal Reserve's decision to fly a rainbow flag during Pride Month. Here are some highlights:

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A flap has developed over a flag flying outside the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in recognition of Gay Pride Month. The prominent perch for the rainbow pennant has drawn the ire of Del. Bob Marshall and the Family Foundation, who have opposed the expansion of gay rights in Virginia.
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Marshall, a Prince William County Republican, wants the flag removed, reasoning "the front of a federal building is not a commercial or political message board."

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In a letter to bank president Jeff Lacker, Marshall demanded that the flag be taken down, claiming that homosexual behavior is bad for the economy, "shortens lives, adds significantly to illness, increases health costs" and "promotes venereal diseases."
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Fortunately, others in the Virginia General Assembly recognize that LGBT Virginians are citizens too. Delegates Adam Ebbin and David Englin from Northern Virginia have responded to Marshall's bigoted demands. As the Lakeridge-Occoquan news reports, Del. Ebbin took on Marshall's bigotry:

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Ebbin said in a statement: “Sadly, it’s no shock to learn that Bob Marshall has once again attacked the dignity of Virginia’s LGBT population. That he would attack the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond for flying a flag that promotes equality, tolerance and acceptance tells us all we need to know about Delegate Marshall’s priorities. Across the Commonwealth, LGBT Virginians, their friends and their families are celebrating this week as the start of a month where we express pride in who we are and what we have accomplished as a community."

Friday Male Beauty

USA's Largest Corporations Made $170 Billion Yet Paid No Taxes

Let's face it - the USA's tax code is beyond screwed up. As Forbes is reporting, twelve of the nation's largest Fortune 500 companies, while making $170 billion in profits during the period of The Great Recession, paid NO taxes. That's right, zero! The GOP, of course, would have you believe that businesses are over taxed. While this may be true in some cases for the little guys, the big corporation with in some cases obscene profits are paying little or nothing even as more and more homeowners find themselves wiped out financially. It drives me to distraction to watch as idiots in the Tea Party movement remain blind to the fact that they are being sold down the river by Republicans. Add to the list of fools, the Christianists who are more concerned about stigmatizing gays than looking out for the future of the nation. Here are highlights from the Forbes story:
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Yesterday, I wrote about how the GOP is falsely pushing the argument that America’s corporations are overtaxed. I included some great data courtesy of conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett whose New York Times piece did an extraordinary job of putting the lie to the Republican assertions.
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Today, and not a moment too soon, the non-profit Citizens For Tax Justice (CTJ) has put out their findings revealing that twelve of the nations largest Fortune 500 companies, while making $170 billion in profits during the period of The Great Recession, paid an effective tax rate of negative 1.5%.

Yes, you read that correctly. Not only have these twelve companies paid zero in taxes for the years 2008-2010, they actually received tax subsidies that added $62.4 billion to their bottom lines.
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The companies were chosen by the CTJ . . . include – in alphabetical order – American Electric Power, Boeing, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell International, IBM, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo and Yahoo.
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According to the study, not a single one of these companies paid an amount even close to the 35% statutory tax rate. In fact, the tax rate paid by Exxon Mobile, when spread over the full three years, was only 14.2% – a full 60% below the 35% rate that corporations are supposed to be paying. And if we take a look at what Exxon paid over just the past two years, it totals a mere 0.4% on their pre-tax profits of $9.9 billion. And get this – Exxon Mobile paid the most in taxes of any of the twelve companies on the list.
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We, as voters, also have a duty to react when the GOP majority in the House of Representatives tries to tell us we need to reduce this phantom corporate rate from 35% to 25% so that these corporations can pay even less in taxes while they pocket even greater amounts of taxpayer money via corporate subsidies.
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Worse still, Boehner, Ryan and friends have the unmitigated gall to make their pitch while asking the rest of us to give up the social programs that are so essential to most Americans. Seriously, people, do we need an anvil to fall on our heads before we get it?
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This chart from Think Progress tells it all:
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John Boehner and GOP Fight Foreclosure Relief

For almost four years now, I have said over and over again that unless and until the residential housing market is stabilized, there will be no overall recovery of the U.S. economy. The collapse of the housing market has resulted in billions of lost equity on the part of consumers, countless families losing their homes, and countless lost jobs in housing related industries. One would think that fixing the foreclosure disaster would be priority number 1 with both houses of Congress. But such is not the case. Banks and lenders were bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars yet they have not passed any benefit on to home owners. Nor has Congress demanded any real accountability. In the case of the GOP, one would even think that the Congressional Republicans want the housing market to continue to spiral downward -probably hoping for political advantage. Never mind the families and lives being destroyed and damaged. Huffington Post has a piece that looks at John Boehner's efforts in particular to fight meaningful foreclosure relief measures. Like most in the GOP, Boehner wears his religiosity on his sleeve but acts in a most un-Christian manner. Here are some highlights:
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Regina Moore has lived in her Hamilton, Ohio, home, in the heart of House Speaker John Boehner's district, for 50 years. Her husband passed away in 2005, and in 2008 she took out a new $72,000 mortgage so she could afford to pay her medical bills. She had a steady job, having worked at the Champion Printing Company in Cincinnati for more than two decades. Her monthly payments on her $86,000 home amounted to about $450.
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It was a simple mortgage for a simple home -- no exploding payments or swimming pools. But last year, at the age of 70, Regina lost her job, and her $1100 a month Social Security payment wasn't enough to make ends meet.
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While Jeff, a local housing group and a lender ultimately helped Regina modify her mortgage so she could stay in her home, many of her fellow Ohioans haven't been so fortunate. Hamilton, about 45 minutes outside of Cincinnati, has one of the highest foreclosure rates in Butler County. And Butler County has been a foreclosure hotspot for years. Along with the Cleveland and Columbus areas, Cincinnati and its surroundings have seen the predatory subprime binge come and go and now watch as the crumbling job market pushes more and more homeowners into financial ruin.
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"In the beginning, we really saw more loans that we thought had predatory features," said Sister Barbara Busch, a Catholic social justice worker who serves as Executive Director of a Cincinnati-based homeowner advocacy group called Working In Neighborhoods . . . n 2010 we saw a large number of unemployed, where the loans themselves weren't so bad, but people had just lost their jobs."
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Others who work with struggling homeowners say the same thing: The initial wave of mortgage problems was due to people unable to manage exotic or high-risk mortgages, but the current problem simply involves people losing jobs in a weak economy who can't pay their bills.
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These are homeowners who have done everything right in the sense that they were careful about the kind of mortgage they got, they didn't buy a property they couldn't afford, but now they're facing long-term unemployment."
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Over the past three years, lawmakers across Ohio have pressed for foreclosure relief, often crossing party lines to do so. But Boehner has never joined the effort. When Rep. Steve Chabot, a fellow Republican whose district borders Boehner's and shares many of its economic hardships, backed a 2008 bill to grant relief to homeowners in bankruptcy courts, Boehner refused to sign on.
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the House Speaker made the case for his opposition to foreclosure aid in a recent appearance on CBS News' Face The Nation. "Over the last couple years, Congress has really set up four programs to help with those mortgage problems," Boehner told CBS' Harry Smith. "And unfortunately, none of those have worked. And all they've really done is dragged out the length of time for the market to clear the problems."
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"If people are trapped in houses where they can't pay their mortgage but can pay something, you can prevent areas from becoming desolated by foreclosed and abandoned homes, which drive down prices for everyone," said economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning research group.
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And Boehner consistently votes with Wall Street on major policy issues. He voted in favor of the bank bailout in 2008, and opposed financial reform legislation in 2009 and 2010, even as he socialized with such major financiers as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in an effort to raise campaign cash.
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[U]nlike other TARP programs, including Obama's HAMP initiative, the Ohio government actually requires banks to sign a legally binding contract with the state, creating clearly defined obligations: the bank gets money, but the mortgage must be modified. But the program has serious flaws. Jeff said he couldn't understand why it took seven months for his mother's paperwork to be approved. It wasn't terribly complicated, he said; either the numbers worked, or they didn't.
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Big banks, by contrast, are frequently combative throughout the entire foreclosure process. The Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio (LASSWO) is currently suing Bank of America on behalf of 12 families, including at least one in Boehner's district, for filching on loan modification agreements that it made during an October 2009 in-person "borrower outreach" program in Cincinnati. The Treasury Department sponsored the event as part of its HAMP program.
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Boehner rebuffed efforts to divert some of that federal funding to help borrowers in foreclosure litigation. As the vote approached, Boehner's spokesman, Michael Steel, launched a broadside against the entire effort.
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The article continues, but you get the drift. As for Bank of America, from what I have seen of the way it treats legitimately distressed homeowners, I would personally never do business with the ban again. I encourage others to likewise avoid it like the plague. Lies, incompetence and unreasonable conduct are the norm in my opinion.