Friday Male Beauty

Red States Have Highest Teen Pregnancy Rates

It looks to me that the heavily evangelical Deep South states need to spend less time gay bashing, obsessing over gay marriage, trying to inflict their theocratic agenda on the rest of us and worrying about what law abiding LGBT citizens do in the privacy of their own bedrooms and pay more attention to the fact that delusional abstinence only sex educations do NOT work. Here are a few highlights from Yahoo News:

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Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says. Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen birth rate for that year in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.

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The lowest teen birth rates continue to be in New England, where three states have rates at roughly half the national average, which is 42 births per 1,000 teen women.

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Some experts have blamed the national increase on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception. They said that would explain why teen birth rate increases have been detected across much of the country and not just in a few spots.

More Thursday Male Beauty

Virginia GOP Lawmaker Sponsoring Pro-Gay Bill

In what at first looks like a surprising move given how virulently anti-gay the Republican Party of Virginia ("RPV")has become - i.e., it increasingly functions like a branch of Daddy Dobson's Family Foundation affiliate - Del. Tom Rust (R-Fairfax) filed the bill, H.B. 1726 that would allow Virginia companies to provide life insurance to partners of gay employees. However, once one realizes that Rust represents Fairfax County where GOP elected officials are a vanishing breed, it makes more sense. In addition, Rust is a business owner and apparently has realized that Virginia's anti-gay atmosphere puts corporate employers at a disadvantage on the recruiting front. Would that such rational thinking spread to more in the Kool-Aid drinking RVP. Here are some highlights from the Washington Blade:

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A Republican in the Virginia House of Delegates is sponsoring a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would allow Virginia companies to provide life insurance to partners of gay employees, according to the General Assembly’s web site.Del. Tom Rust (R-Fairfax) filed the bill, H.B. 1726, on Tuesday. The legislation has yet to be assigned to any committee within the state House.

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The bill “allows coverage under a group life insurance policy to be extended to insure any class of persons as may mutually be agreed upon by the insurer and the group policyholder.” Virginia law currently restricts supplemental life insurance coverage to legal spouses and dependent children under 19 or 25 if the child is a full-time student.

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Del. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), the only openly gay member of the Virginia General Assembly, last year introduced a similar bill that would have allowed companies to provide life insurance to the partners of gay employees, but the measure failed in subcommittee.

Proposition 8 Donors Challenge Campaign Finance Laws

UPDATED: As a reader commented, I agree that death threats are not acceptable behavior on any account. I would add, however, that give the extreme dishonesty of the Christianist organizations, I believe that (1) claims of death threats should be checked out and confirmed to not be contrived threats from Christianist allies so that the Christianist/Mormons can play the role of victims (2) there are no reports of physical violence against anti-gay bigots while in contrast LGBT citizens are being physically attacked and in some cases killed as a result of the toxic lies put out by the professional Christian set which create a mindset where violence against gays is acceptable. In short, the Christianists/Mormons can dish it out, but as soon as they have it boomerang back on them they are cry babies. Here are a few highlights from a further Associated Press story on the lawsuit:

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The secretary of state's office and another defendant, the state's Fair Political Practices Commission, declined to comment Thursday on the lawsuit. But Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, the gay rights group that led the campaign against Proposition 8, called it hypocritical for supporters of the measure to try to overturn voter-approved campaign finance laws.

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He said Proposition 8 supporters used campaign finance records during the campaign to threaten gay rights supporters."They've used these records to attack corporations, to attack individuals," Kors said.

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Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which supports public access to government records and meetings, said the lawsuit is likely to be unsuccessful. He said courts have consistently failed to agree that contributors have a right to donate directly and anonymously to a candidate or campaign. He said some states have less restrictive reporting requirements, but they always include disclosure of donors.

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Obviously preferring to keep their anti-gay bigotry cloaked in secrecy, some of the Christianists/Mormons who bank rolled the effort to pass Proposition 8 have filled a federal lawsuit challenging California's campaign finance laws which requires that donors' names over a certain amount be made public so that the public knows who is trying to influence legislation. Here in Virginia, the thresh hold for donors being identified in campaign finance reports is $100.00. Personally, I believe that if someone is afraid to be identified with the causes and issues they support, then perhaps they ought not make a contribution. Not so with the Christianist/Mormon cry babies. Not only are they liars, but now we know that they are cowards as well who want to be able to anonymously take away the civil rights of other citizens. Such a system of anonymous donors is frightening and dangerous for democracy. No doubt they'd like to bring back courts of Star Chamber for gays and other minorities they don't like as well. Hopefully, the court will summarily throw out the lawsuit. Here are some highlights from the Sacramento Bee:

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The Proposition 8 campaign has filed a federal suit challenging the constitutionality of California's campaign finance laws that compel disclosure of personal information by campaign donors who they said have been threatened and harassed.

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The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, cites numerous examples of menacing e-mails, phone calls and postcards, including death threats, allegedly made by opponents of the November ballot measure that banned same-sex measure in the state.

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"This harassment is made possible because of California's unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules," Ron Prentice, chairman of the Yes on 8 campaign, said in a prepared statement.

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Prentice noted that as applied to ballot measure committees, "even donors of as little as $100 must have their names, home addresses and employers listed on public documents."

Thursday Male Beauty

New York Upholds Recognition of Out of State Gay Marriages

A New York appellate court has reached what I believe is the correct result based on past practices and case law and affirmed a lower court ruling that Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano did not violate the state constitution or earlier court rulings when he ordered county departments to recognize gay marriages legally performed in other states and countries. No doubt, Christianists will decry the ruling, but it is the only correct result. At least until the standoff in the New York Senate gets resolved and marriage legislation can be moved forward out of state gay marriages will be recognized. Unfortunately, it will be years before Virginia's vicious "Marriage Amendment" is either repealed or struck down by the federal courts. Here are some highlights on the New York ruling:

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A state appeals court has upheld an unflinching ruling by a lower court that Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano did not violate the state constitution or earlier court rulings when he ordered county departments to recognize gay marriages legally performed in other states and countries.

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The unanimous ruling by the Appellate Division in Brooklyn is the second in a year to include gay couples in the state's tradition of recognizing marriages performed elsewhere even if the marriages could not be legally performed here. In February, an appeals court in Rochester ruled that Monroe County must provide health benefits to the woman who was married to a female county worker in Canada.

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"Marriage has come to New York for same-sex couples," said Susan Sommer, senior counsel with Lambda Legal, a gay rights group in New York City that defended Spano's order against the four Westchester residents who challenged it in court. She said the next step is for the state "to allow same sex couples to marry here at home instead of having to travel to a foreign country or another state."

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A gay marriage bill passed the Assembly but went nowhere in the Senate, where the Republicans who controlled that chamber until this week refused to allow it to a vote. Democrats now control the Senate, but their support for gay marriage is not unanimous.

Christian Right Group Misrepresents Legitimate Research - Yet Again

Recently, Regina Griggs of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) - an organization set up by an funded by major anti-gay Christian Right organizations to help breath life into the "ex-gay" myth which is so important to the Christianists' efforts to deny legal equality to LGBT citizens - has once again and all too typically been lying about real research findings. As more and more research supports the unchanging nature of sexual orientation or in this instance the negative consequences of parental rejection of their LGBT children as found in the recent study, self-styled professional Christians like Griggs attempt to discredit findings that run counter to their religious fanaticism by lying about what the research findings state or selectively quoting from them to yield an utterly different conclusion. Personally, I don't know why the Christianist do not formally adopt a New Nine Commandment standard since they always ignore the Commandment against bearing false witness. Here are some highlights from Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters on Griggs' latest dishonesty:

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In what seems to be becoming a habit, another professor has cried foul over what he calls the distortion of his work by the religious right.Theo Sandfort, Associate Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences (HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies - New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University) said his work is being incorrectly cited.

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Recently, Regina Griggs of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) voiced her displeasure with a recent study conducted in California that said young gays and lesbians were more likely to suffer depression or commit suicide if their parents or guardians reacted negatively to their sexual orientation.

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Griggs also added: Studies in the Netherlands -- where there is an "extremely open society," notes Griggs -- found that although the homosexual lifestyle is affirmed through the culture, the suicide rates have remained steady or increased.

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The "studies" Griggs alluded to is actually one study and it has been cited by the religious right numerous times to claim that homophobia has very little to do with the depression and suicide rate of lgbts. The study, Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders, appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2001 and it looked at psychiatric disorders in gay adults from the Netherlands. . . . Griggs incorrectly cites this study because it had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand (i.e. negative behaviors in lgbt youth in the United States).

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Via email, Professor Sandfort said: There is a difference between the U.S. and the Netherlands in terms of acceptance of homosexuality. That does not mean that there is no homophobia (and homophobic damage) in the Netherlands. It is not clear how difference in climate affects the prevalence of mental disorders. We don't know the final answers, but in the U.S. as well as the Netherlands, homophobia is related to mental health problems.

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He also said that Griggs and others who use the study to claim that homophobia does not have an effect on negative lgbt behavior are clearly distorting his work:" They use data to promote their moral convictions without truly understanding what the issues are. They are not interested in understanding how people's lives are affected by their social environment."

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Sandfort's complaint is not the first time a professor has cried foul about how PFOX distorts his work. Last year, Gary Remafedi, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, complained that PFOX distorted his work on suicide attempts in gay youth.

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Sadly, the bottom line is that fanatics like Griggs care NOTHING about the damage they do to LGBT youth much less LGBT adults. I can assure you that it was homophobia and an all day divorce hearing where I was crucified for being gay that pushed me to my own nearly successful suicide attempt. To Griggs and her fellow Christianists, I - like all other LGBT individuals - are disposable and they care only about their agenda to persecute gays. They are NOT Christians but instead are monsters.

The End of White America?

The End of White America? That's the title of an new article in the Atlantic Monthly the substance of which will no doubt get the Kool-Aid drinking elements of the GOP and Christian Right all a twitter and hyperventilating since they go absolutely crazy over the idea that America may cease to be a white majority nation. These are after all the same folks - or their descendants - who used the Bible to justify segregation and bans on interracial marriage. The only segment of the population that they like less than non-whites and mixed race individuals are LGBT citizens. They do not judge people by their character or abilities but rather only by their skin color, religious affiliation and sexual orientation. In my view, they are what's wrong with America and U.S. politics. And I expect that we will see even more intolerance arise from these self-styled "real Americans" as they seek to marginalize non-whites, mixed race, and gay Americans, all of whom are examples of the dreaded "other." Here are some story highlights:

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Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation. Obviously, steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage complicate this picture, pointing toward what Michael Lind has described as the “beiging” of America.

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As a purely demographic matter, then, the “white America” that Lothrop Stoddard believed in so fervently may cease to exist in 2040, 2050, or 2060, or later still. But where the culture is concerned, it’s already all but finished. Instead of the long-standing model of assimilation toward a common center, the culture is being remade in the image of white America’s multiethnic, multicolored heirs. For some, the disappearance of this centrifugal core heralds a future rich with promise.

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Not everyone was so enthused. . . . [I]in his 2001 book, The Death of the West, [Pat] Buchanan rote: “Mr. Clinton assured us that it will be a better America when we are all minorities and realize true ‘diversity.’ Well, those students [at Portland State] are going to find out, for they will spend their golden years in a Third World America.” Today, the arrival of what Buchanan derided as “Third World America” is all but inevitable.

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You can flee into whiteness as well. This can mean pursuing the authenticity of an imagined past: think of the deliberately white-bread world of Mormon America, where the ’50s never ended, or the anachronistic WASP entitlement flaunted in books like last year’s A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style, a handsome coffee-table book compiled by Susanna Salk, depicting a world of seersucker blazers, whale pants, and deck shoes. . . . But these enclaves of preserved-in-amber whiteness are likely to be less important to the American future than the construction of whiteness as a somewhat pissed-off minority culture.

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Like other forms of identity politics, white solidarity comes complete with its own folk heroes, conspiracy theories (Barack Obama is a secret Muslim! The U.S. is going to merge with Canada and Mexico!), and laundry lists of injustices. The targets and scapegoats vary—from multiculturalism and affirmative action to a loss of moral values, from immigration to an economy that no longer guarantees the American worker a fair chance—and so do the political programs they inspire.

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[T]his white identity politics helped swing the 2000 and 2004 elections, serving as the powerful counterpunch to urban white liberals, and the McCain-Palin campaign relied on it almost to the point of absurdity (as when a McCain surrogate dismissed Northern Virginia as somehow not part of “the real Virginia”) as a bulwark against the threatening multiculturalism of Barack Obama. Their strategy failed, of course, but it’s possible to imagine white identity politics growing more potent and more forthright in its racial identifications in the future, as “the real America” becomes an ever-smaller portion of, well, the real America, and as the soon-to-be white minority’s sense of being besieged and disdained by a multicultural majority grows apace.

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There will be dislocations and resentments along the way, but the demographic shifts of the next 40 years are likely to reduce the power of racial hierarchies over everyone’s lives, producing a culture that’s more likely than any before to treat its inhabitants as individuals, rather than members of a caste or identity group.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

A Page From the Hoover Playbook

I recently posted commentary on the obstructionist tactics currently being utilized by the Congressional GOP to delay and disrupt efforts to pass a comprehensive stimulus package. Not being content with the financial shambles in which they and the Chimperator have left the country, the GOP leadership in Congress seems to be trying to push the nation towards another Great Depression. As is now the norm for the GOP, extreme reactionary ideology is again trumping the best interests of the country and everyday Americans. Harold Meyerson has a new column in the Washington Post that looks at this phenomenon further and which underscores why knowing real history - as opposed to some Christianist rewrite - is absolutely important. Here are some highlights:

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As the nation navigates through the most perilous straits it has seen since the 1930s, policymakers are looking back to the '30s to see which of the paths that Depression-era America embarked upon actually led toward recovery. Well, some of our policymakers. Others, it seems, have seized upon the very policies that deepened the Depression and are repackaging them as solutions for our time.

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In Monday's meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and congressional leaders, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell suggested that instead of providing aid to the states to help them meet their Medicaid and education obligations, the federal government offer them loans. The idea is ridiculous on its face: With revenue drying up, states are already slashing services and reducing their workforces, which only deepens the downturn. The last thing they'd be inclined to do would be to take on more debt at the very moment they're struggling to balance their budgets.

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But back to my original point: This idea was tried once before, in the depths of the Depression. In 1932, Congress appropriated $300 million to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to send to the states for unemployment relief. . . . Unfortunately, Herbert Hoover's RFC didn't offer the funds to the states as grants but as loans. Already all-but-insolvent, many states didn't take the offer. And the economy continued its plunge into the abyss. This is Mitch McConnell's idea of a policy worth reviving.

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Such historical illiteracy can result not only in cures that kill the patient but is also a cause of our current crisis. . . . Wall Street [and the GOP] should have hired a handful of hists (my version of Wall Streetese for economic historians). Those hists might have insisted that the risk models include data from the late 1920s, the last time that America's financial institutions were as highly leveraged and as lightly regulated as they were last year. . . . Unfortunately for us all, it's on the question of how to restore broadly based prosperity that the historical illiteracy of the American elite is at its most acute.

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The business lobby is throwing big money into ads opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to join unions, but one concern it has neglected to address is how the United States can again become a land of broad-based affluence with private-sector unionization at its current 7 percent level. There is no historic precedent for mass prosperity absent mass collective bargaining. The model cannot be constructed.

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Happily, Barack Obama seems to have learned the right lessons from America's economic history. He knows that the stimulus package needs to be big enough to compensate for the collapse of bank lending. He knows that unemployment insurance and food stamps cannot be allowed to run out. He supports the EFCA as a way to boost Americans' incomes.

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The problem is that a number of powerful members of Congress aren't much more historically literate than McConnell. Some Republicans advocate time-honored business tax breaks that have never done anything to jump-start the economy.

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Now is a time when innovative thinking is needed. Sadly, the Christianist controlled GOP is incapable of innovative thinking and will not consider supporting any policies that run counter to the anti-union and anti-progressive mindset of the party's Kool-Aid drinking base.

Rick Warren's Africa Problem

I have consistently believed that, given Rick Warren's huge ego and his propensity to run his mouth bragging, eventually much closer scrutiny would be given to his boasts. It's beginning to happen and not surprisingly, once you look behind Warren's claims, the picture is less than pretty. A case in point is Warren's claims that he's done so much to fight AIDS in Africa. The true story is that Warren's "help" has been to undermine legitimate scientifically based efforts with typical whacked out Christianist abstinence only sex education only. Worse yet, he is in league with far right religious extremists advocating for the criminalization of homosexuality. The bottom line? Warren is a liar just like most of the Christianist leadership. It looks to me like Obama might have done a better jog "vetting" Warren. Obama needs to get some balls and uninvited Warren NOW. Here are highlights from Max Blumenthal's latest column in the Daily Beast that provide the real story on Warren :

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Once hailed by Time magazine as “America’s Pastor,” California mega-church leader and bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren now finds himself on the defensive. President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer has generated intense scrutiny of the pastor’s beliefs on social issues, . . . Warren’s defense against charges of intolerance ultimately depends upon his ace card: his heavily publicized crusade against AIDS in Africa.

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David Axelrod cited Warren’s work in Africa as one of “the things on which [Obama and Warren] agree” on the December 28 episode of Meet the Press. Warren may be opposed to gay rights and abortion, the thinking goes, but he tells evangelicals it is their God-given duty to battle one of the greatest pandemics in history. What could be wrong with that?

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In a word, PLENTY. And Obama and his minions like Axelrod need to admit that the selection of Warren was a massive mistake and cut their loses. Here's the real story:

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[A]n investigation into Warren’s involvement in Africa reveals a web of alliances with right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education. More disturbingly, Warren’s allies have rolled back key elements of one of the continent’s most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Stephen Lewis, the United Nations’ special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told the New York Times their activism is “resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred.”

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Warren’s man in Uganda is a charismatic pastor named Martin Ssempa. The head of the Makerere Community Church, a rapidly growing congregation, Ssempe enjoys close ties to his country’s First Lady, Janet Museveni, and is a favorite of the Bush White House. In the capitol of Kampala, Ssempa is known for his boisterous crusading. Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.

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Dr. Helen Epstein, a public health consultant who authored the book, The Invisible Cure: Why We’re Losing The Fight Against AIDS In Africa, met Ssempa in 2005. Epstein told me the preacher seemed gripped by paranoia, warning her of a secret witches coven that met under Lake Victoria. “Ssempa also spoke to me for a very long time about his fear of homosexual men and women,” Epstein said. “He seemed very personally terrified by their presence.”

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Janet Museveni, who had become born-again . . . flew to Washington at the height of a heated congressional debate over PEPFAR. She carried in her hand a prepared message to distribute to Republicans. Abstinence was the golden bullet in her country’s fight against AIDS, she assured conservative lawmakers, denying the empirically proven success of her husband’s condom distribution program. Like magic, the Republican-dominated Congress authorized over $200 million for Uganda, but only for the exclusive promotion of abstinence education.

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HIV infections were on the rise again. The disease rate had spiked to 6.5 percent among rural men, and 8.8 percent among women—a rise of nearly two points in the case of women. “The ‘C’ part [of ABC] is now mainly silent,” said Ugandan AIDS activist Beatrice Ware. As a result, she said, “the success story is unraveling.”

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With safe sex advocates on the run, Warren and Ssempa trained their sights on another social evil. In August 2007, Ssempa led hundreds of his followers through the streets of Kampala to demand that the government mete out harsh punishments against gays. “Arrest all homos,” read placards. And: “A man cannot marry a man.” Ssempa continued his crusade online, publishing the names of Ugandan gay rights activists on a website he created, along with photos and home addresses. “Homosexual promoters,” he called them, suggesting they intended to seduce Uganda’s children into their lifestyle.

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Warren, in his effort to dispel criticism, has denied harboring homophobic sentiments. “I could give you a hundred gay friends,” he told MSNBC’s Ann Curry on December 18. “I have always treated them with respect. When they come and want to talk to me, I talk to them.”

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But when Uganda’s Anglican bishops threatened to bolt from the Church of England because of its tolerant stance towards homosexuals, Warren parachuted into Kampala to confer international legitimacy on their protest. “The Church of England is wrong and I support the Church of Uganda on the boycott,” Warren proclaimed in March 2008. Declaring homosexuality an unnatural way of life, Warren flatly stated, “We shall not tolerate this aspect [homosexuality in the church] at all.”

Wednesday Male Beauty

Fruits of Christianist Hate

Dan Savage is reporting that eleven gay bars in Seattle have received letters - a copy is set out below - threatening ricin attacks on patrons. Unfortunately, when Christianists are permitted to run unfettered claiming that gays are "destroying the family," threatening civilization, and as per the Catholic Church are inherently disordered, the result is that some of their followers will feel that they have a license - indeed are justified - in attacking and killing LGBT citizens. Yet, we have Obama selecting one of these hate merchants to give the invocation at the upcoming inauguration. These people need to be shunned and exposed for the extremists that they are not embraced. Read the letter and see if you find anything Christian about it. Here's more from Dan Savage:

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Eleven gay bars in Seattle received letters today addressed to the "Owner/Manager" from someone claiming to be in the possession of ricin, a deadly poison. "Your establishment has been targeted," the letter begins. "I have in my possession approximately 67 grams of ricin with which I will indiscriminately target at least five of your clients." "I felt sick when I read it," said Carla, the owner/manager of Re-bar. "It's so vile. It's just hatred. It made me worry for all the other bars, and for my bartenders, and our clientele."

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"I just had the police come pick [the letter] up," said Keith Christensen, the manager of the Eagle, when reached by phone. Christensen had already heard about the letter from other bar owners and managers, and so he didn't open it. "It's probably nothing," Christensen added, "but the economy is really screwing all the bars right now, and the last thing we need is something ramping up the not-go-out mode people seem to be in right now. It's really freaky that someone would do something like this at a time like this." Christensen says he's posted signs at the Eagle advising patrons not to leave their drinks unattended.

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A letter also arrived in The Stranger's offices, addressed to the attention of "Obituaries." The letter's author said the paper should "be prepared to announce the deaths of approximately 55 individuals all of whom were patrons of the following establishments on a Saturday in January." The listed bars are: the Elite, Neighbours, Wild Rose, the Cuff, Purr, the Eagle, R Place, Re-bar, CC's, Madison Pub, and the Crescent. "I could take this moment to launch into a diatribe about my indignation towards the gay community," the letter concludes, "however, I think the deaths will speak for themselves."

Final Tuesday Male Beauty

Dedicated to Benedict XVI

Catholic Church Apologists

I received an e-mail from Sebastian, a Catholic priest who is reportedly gay and who has his own blog found here, that tried to defend Pope Benedict XVI - a man that I admit I personally find to be a hypocritical force for evil in the world - for his handling of the sex abuse scandal and took me somewhat to task for my harsh judgments against the Catholic Church. Among Sebastian's comments were the following:

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No right thinking person believes that the various parts of the Catholic Church have done all that they should have to clean up the mess of child sex abuse. However, credit should be given where credit is due.

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First, Pope Benedict has taken a far tougher stand than his predecessor. As but one example, when Benedict was still Ratzinger, his Vatican office was thwarted in removing the founding head of a large, new, religious order. JPII refused to allow it. When Benedict became pope, the offender - Marciel - was removed from all public ministry and retired (he was then in his 80s and has since died).

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Second, the US bishops have been notorious in their blaming of priests and their unwillingness to confront themselves. They have, by and large, contributed to an anti-gay approach to resolving this problem. However, there is now in place -and has been for several years - a "zero tolerance" for anyone credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

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There is certainly much work to be done. But it is unfair, and perhaps even bigoted, to write as if no work has been done. To pretend that nothing has changed in the last 15 years is simply not true.

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Yes, Benedict XVI has done more than John Paul II. That is because John Paul II did NOTHING except blame the problem on gays (in my view John Paul II is utterly unworthy of the declaration of sainthood that the Vatican seems Hell bent to bestow). And yes, it is true that Benedict XVI finally took action against Marciel. who was a predatory abuser himself. But what about Cardinals Eagan and Mahoney, Bishop Daily, former Supreme Chaplin for the Knights of Columbus, and the 2/3's of the US Catholic Bishops who enabled and/or covered up sexual abuse or threatened and browbeat victims and families into remaining silent? The same goes for bishops in cardinals in other countries around the world. Where is the just punishment of these men? I can think of NO other institution where individuals who so horrifically failed to protect children and minors would not be summarily fired and/or prosecuted. In the Church, they go unpunished and expect to be fawned over and have their asses kissed daily. As a parent of three children, this phenomenon utterly sickens me.

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Removing one or two members of religious orders, accepting cardinal Law's resignation so that he could be given a luxurious post at the Vatican, and launching an anti-gay witch hunt in seminaries in my view do NOT begin to represent the house cleaning need within the Catholic Church. No doubt, it is hard for Sebastian to accept that he has dedicated his life to a corrupt and disingenuous institution, but in my view, unless and until (1) drastic numbers of resignations are demanded by Benedict XVI and (2) Catholic diocese stop fighting abuse victims tooth and claw, the Roman Catholic Church deserves no respect whatsoever. Its hierarchy consists of a bunch of corrupt, self-righteous, hate peddling old men who continue to cause untold pain to straights and gays alike. On those occasions when I attend church with my elderly mother, I feel dirty even being in a Catholic Church knowing what I know about the moral bankruptcy of its leadership.

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Spain Is a Battleground for Catholic Church’s Future

I have posted a number of times about the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to interfere with the civil laws in a number of countries, including Spain. The New York Times has a story that takes another look at the Church's efforts to intermix the civil laws in Spain with the Church's anti-gay, anti-divorce and anti-abortion religious crusade. As the article notes, the Church and its Nazi Pope worry that Spain's embrace of liberalism and modern science and knowledge may spill over to former Spanish colonies which contain a significant chunk of the Church's worldwide membership. One can only hope that modern knowledge and civil equality of all citizens will triumph over the Church's efforts to drag society back to a Medieval mindset. Here are some story highlights:

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The Macías Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain. In an unprecedented decision here, a judge ruled in November that the public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, saying they violated the “nonconfessional” nature of the Spanish state.

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If the judge’s ruling was the latest blow to the Catholic Church’s once mighty grip on Spain, the church’s response showed Spain to be a crucible for the future of church-state relations in Europe.

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For Pope Benedict XVI, who has staked his three-year-old papacy on keeping Europe Catholic, Spain, with its 90 percent Catholic population and rich history, represents a last hope in an increasingly irreligious continent.

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That hope is quickly dimming. Since 2004, the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has legalized gay marriage and fast-track divorce, and it is seeking to loosen laws on abortion and euthanasia. But in response, the church and religious Catholics have been pushing back, seeking a greater voice in public life. The result is that the church is in a full-throated war with the government.

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At stake is the vision of the country: Will Spain join the rest of secular Europe or stand as a final Catholic foothold? . . . Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said of Spain. “It’s a critical point in the church’s confrontation against secularization in Europe and in the Western world.”

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The implications are broader, since Spain, with its 42 million Catholics, remains a touchstone for Latin America. South America alone has 324 million Catholics, the world’s largest concentration.

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[D]uring Franco’s four-decade dictatorship, Catholicism was the official state religion. Until after Franco’s death in 1975, women could not open bank accounts without their fathers or husbands co-signing. Today, they hold many of the highest political offices in the country.

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“Spain changed very, very quickly,” said José María Contreras Mazarío, the director of religious affairs at the Justice Ministry. Today, he said, “Spain isn’t Catholic theoretically, culturally or politically.” In an increasingly multicultural society, he said, the government wants to revise its definition of religious liberty so all religions are effectively equal. Indeed, many see the church as a reactionary force trying to hold the country back.

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The Church IS a reactionary force and I truly hope that it is defeated and perhaps ultimately forced to reform itself, including the dismissal of corrupt and morally bankrupt members of the hierarchy - including Benedict XVI.

California Supreme Court: Break Away Parish Cannot Take Church Property

Legal battles are raging in various parts of the country between break away Episcopal parishes that are attempting to take with them church properties owned by dioceses of the national Episcopal Church. Unlike lower court rulings in Fairfax, Virginia that have relied on a Civil War era statute - that in true pro-discrimination Virginia tradition was enacted to allow pro-slavery Baptist churches to take church properties from the anti-slavery national denomination - to find for renegade parishes, the California Supreme Court has correctly ruled (as have courts in other states) against break away parishes. Candidly, I hope the Virginia appellate courts will reverse the lower court rulings and find the bigoted Civil War statute is not a proper basis for allowing the break away parishes to effectively steal millions of dollars of real estate. It is ironic that Virginia, which was a leader in the fight for liberty in the birth of the USA now more often than not supports discrimination rather than equality and liberty. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times:

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Rebellious congregations that part ways with their denominations may lose their church buildings and property as a result, the California Supreme Court said Monday in a unanimous ruling. The state high court decision came in a case involving the Episcopal Church, but lawyers said it would apply to other denominations as well.

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Several Protestant denominations, including United Methodists and Presbyterians, have faced upheaval over gay rights issues. Monday's ruling, along with similar victories that the church leadership has won in other states, is expected to dampen enthusiasm for such separations.

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In a decision written by Justice Ming W. Chin, the court said the property of St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach was owned by the national church, not the congregation. The congregation split away after the national church consecrated a gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003."When it disaffiliated from the general church, the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it," Chin wrote for the court.

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The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles applauded the ruling even as he held out an olive branch to St. James and other parishes sued by his office The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno said the diocese was "overjoyed" and predicted that the ruling would encourage disgruntled congregations to remain united with their mother churches.

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Because the ruling could affect other denominations as well, several churches joined the Episcopal hierarchy in arguing against the Newport Beach congregation. They included United Methodists, Presbyterians and Seventh-day Adventists."The other denominations who were with us were very pleased," Bruno said.

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Eric Sohlgren, an Irvine attorney who represented All Saints and St. James, said the ruling might deter congregations from joining national denominations in the first place. . . . Asked if the loss of a church and its property might make parishioners reluctant to break from a denomination, Sohlgren said, "I think people of faith make decisions about which church to attend based on theology and doctrine of that church." But he added, "It will certainly create an issue for them to think about."

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St. James was one of about 100 Episcopal parishes that broke off relations with the national church after Robinson's ordination. Disputes over the real estate landed in courts across the country, and most ruled for the church hierarchy.

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Even though Monday's ruling only affects California, the court is influential nationally.The issue is playing out in several states, including Virginia, where a judge last month backed the property claims of 11 breakaway parishes. That ruling is under appeal.

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The Rev. Ian T. Douglas, a professor of mission and world Christianity at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., said the decision probably would have a chilling effect on parishes elsewhere in the country that have left the Episcopal Church in recent years amid doctrinal disputes."The fact that the highest level of court ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church sends a message that it's going to be an uphill battle to try to withdraw properties from the church," Douglas said.

Tuesday Male Beauty

Fighting Off Another Great Depression

Nobel Prize winning columnist Paul Krugman has another piece in the New York Times which ought to send shivers down everyone's back, including GOP members of Congress who seem Hell bent on torpedoing much need stimulus legislation. Unfortunately, signs are that Obama is seeking to placate them rather than hold them responsible for the mess in the first place. The reality is that we've played by the rules of the GOP and the Chimperator - which basically were that there are no rules and regulations - and the result has been disaster. We need prompt action, not playing nice with those who care nothing about most members of society. It appears to be a case of those who created the problem now blocking efforts to fix the problem. A case of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Obama needs to get more backbone. Here are some column highlights which are not pretty:

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“If we don’t act swiftly and boldly,” declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, “we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.” If you ask me, he was understating the case. The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.

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So will we “act swiftly and boldly” enough to stop that from happening? We’ll soon find out. We weren’t supposed to find ourselves in this situation. For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. . . . It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.

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John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment. The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy. But these plans may turn out to be a hard sell.

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In reality, the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years. More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.

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All of this leaves me concerned about the prospects for the Obama plan. I’m sure that Congress will pass a stimulus plan, but I worry that the plan may be delayed and/or downsized. And Mr. Obama is right: We really do need swift, bold action.

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Here’s my nightmare scenario: It takes Congress months to pass a stimulus plan, and the legislation that actually emerges is too cautious. As a result, the economy plunges for most of 2009, and when the plan finally starts to kick in, it’s only enough to slow the descent, not stop it. Meanwhile, deflation is setting in, while businesses and consumers start to base their spending plans on the expectation of a permanently depressed economy — well, you can see where this is going. So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?

First "Moral" Waivers, Now Obesity Waivers, But Still No Gays

The U.S. military continues to struggle to achieve recruiting goals and having already increased the use of moral waivers to allow convicted felons to join the military, now the standards are being relaxed to allow those who are over the weight/obesity standards to enlist. Of course, LGBT Americans are still off limits regardless of who law abiding and physically fit they are so that Christianists and nut cases like Elaine Donnelly can feel superior. The excuse for the newest round off waivers is that Americans are getting more over weight rather than admit that fewer good recruits want to enlist due to the Iraq War debacle. It's pretty pathetic actually. Yet we continue to hear that there will be no immediate action to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell by the Obama administration even though DADT daily forces out qualified service members. Here are highlights from the Christian Science Monitor:

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The waistlines of America's youth are expanding, shrinking the pool of those eligible to join the US military. But an Army program is giving overweight enlistees a second chance – and helping the military with its own expansion. The recently-introduced waiver program allows enlistees who don't qualify for the military because of their weight a chance to shape up after joining. So far, the program has helped the Army make its recruiting goals in what remains a tight recruiting market.

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"We support any service who comes up with a scientifically defensible way of expanding the market [of recruits]," says Curtis Gilroy, director of accessions policy for the Pentagon. Such waivers had been studied for years but the program wasn't implemented until fiscal 2007, when it admitted about 1,500 individuals through the program (just a small slice of about 80,000 recruits).

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The Army has struggled the most with recruiting. Although it has met its active-duty goals in recent years, it has had to issue other waivers and let in more high school dropouts in order to do so. At the same time, the military is expanding through next year. The Marine Corps, which is not using the weight waiver, is growing to 202,000 and the Army will reach its "end-strength" goal of 547,000 this year. Many experts would like to see the military grow even larger to meet demands.

More Monday Male Beauty

Israel PR Disaster Continues to Mount

On Saturday night I detailed how the boyfriend and I found ourselves in the midst of an anti-Israel demonstration while in New York City. The photo at bottom shows what we stepped out into when we exited the show we had gone to see earlier in the day. I continue to believe that regardless of its objectives, Israel has likely set itself up for a PR disaster in terms of the ongoing assault in the Gaza Strip. The destruction and deaths being wrought on Palestians (as seen in the photo above of the legs of the body of one of three Palestinian siblings killed by an Israeli tank shell from Andrew Sullivan) seems to far out weigh the losses suffered by Israel and I fear will further undermine support for Israel and been seen as validating Palestinian grievances. Here are some highlights from the Daily News about the demonstration:

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Chanting "Free Palestine," thousands of Palestinian supporters demonstrated in Times Square Saturday to protest Israel's punishing military offensive in Gaza. The wave of protesters stretched across three blocks, dwarfing the dozens of boisterous supporters of Israel assembled across Seventh Ave.

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"What's happening in Gaza is something that shouldn't be tolerated anywhere in the world," said Bassal Omar, 29, an American-born Palestinian from the Bronx. "It's a humanitarian crisis, and it's just going to get worse."

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Apparently some supporters of Israel are catching on and becoming appalled by the deaths of Palestinian children as evidenced by these comments from J Street:

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Israel has a special place in each of our hearts. But we recognize that neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong. While there is nothing "right" in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing "right" in punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them.

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And there is nothing to be gained from debating which injustice is greater or came first. What's needed now is immediate action to stop the violence before it spirals out of control. The United States, the Quartet, and the world community must not wait - as they did in the Israel-Lebanon crisis of 2006 - for weeks to pass and hundreds or thousands more to die before intervening.

2009 Gay Rights Over All

It's funny how even as I have the continuing feeling that Barack Obama has perhaps played LGBT Americans for suckers, the Christianist wingnuts are foaming at the mouth as to how Obama will further "the gay agenda" and make "homosexuality a civil right." One such diatribe comes from uber-conservative talk radio host and writer Roger Hegdecock at Wing Nut Daily. According to Hedgecock, we gays want our rights to "prevail over everyone else's civil rights." Of course, it is standard fare for the Kool-Aid drinking GOP base to obsess over what other people do in the privacy of their homes and bedrooms. Here are some column highlights:

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If Barack Obama successfully translates his campaign rhetoric into law, 2009 will be the year homosexuality becomes a civil right. During the campaign, Obama said the issue of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights "is about who we are as Americans"

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At Change.gov, under the heading "civil rights," Obama promises legal protection for "gender identity" and "gender expression"; expansion of "hate crime" statutes and homosexual adoption rights, repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" rule for military service. Labeling homosexual behavior a civil right apparently trumps majority rule at the ballot box too.

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For example, in the November election, voters in California adopted Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment which defines "marriage" as the traditional union of one man and one woman. However, after the voters had spoken, homosexual activists started a statewide witch hunt, targeting the Mormon church, getting prominent supporters of traditional marriage fired and boycotting businesses whose owners had contributed to the "YES on 8" campaign. A skillful media campaign painted the voting majority bigots and the homosexual campaign to suppress democracy a defense of basic civil rights.

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Labeling homosexuality a "civil right" also seems to trump everyone else's civil rights. Just as illegal aliens seem to have more "rights" than citizens do, homosexuals claim their "civil rights" prevail over everyone else's civil rights.
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You don't need a weather man to know which way this wind is blowing. Current political commentary is largely focused on the transition from a market economy to socialism. The transition from civil rights for all to privileged rights for the small but politically powerful homosexual left is just as important a "change you can believe in."