Cuadra Found Guilty of Murder - But Was Justice Done?

Last week former Virginia Beach escort and porn star/producer Harlow Cuadra was found guilty of first degree homicide in the murder of rival porn producer Brian Kosis. Although there has not been a much local media coverage of the trial - even though he and his partner according to court testimony made over $500,000 a year running a male escort service in generally conservative, Republican dominated Virginia Beach (with a client base that according to locals included high military brass and Washington, D.C., political players) - I have followed the murder trial of Harlow Cuadra online, partly because of the local connection and partly because I question whether or not an openly gay individual can receive justice in the courts. Especially in rural/conservative areas like Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania, which is hardly a progressive area of the country. My own experience with the courts here in Virginia where judges allow gay bashing to take place during hearings (even though it is forbidden under the Canons of Judicial Conduct) and allow their own religious bigotry to trump their duty to be an unbiased tribunal unfortunately suggests that being gay and being before a judge and/or a jury puts one in an uphill battle posture at best.

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For the record, I never knew Harlow beyond seeing him dance once or twice as a male dancer in a gay club a number of years back. I'm not even certain if I spoke with him at the time or not. Of those few people I know that knew him, the consensus seems that he wasn't the type to commit this type of brutal crime. The verdict of these same people on his partner, Joseph Kerekes , however, was quite different. They seemed unanimously convinced that Kerekes was all too capable of such violence. At his trial, Cuadra blamed Kerekes for killing Kocis. He said he was inside Kocis' residence talking to him when a jealous Kerekes stormed inside and slashed Kocis' throat with a knife. Kerekes pleaded guilty to second degree murder last December, thus admitting he was involved in the murder if not in fact the actual murderer.

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Suffice it to say we will probably never know the real truth of precisely what went on the night Kocis died and whether Harlow told the truth about Kerekes killing Kocis. Meanwhile, based on the homophobia and improper judicial conduct I have seen first hand in the Virginia courts will leave me with the nagging doubt that just maybe Harlow was innocent of first degree murder and that the jury instead based its verdict based on his sexual orientation.

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I look forward to the day when one's sexual orientation will be irrelevant to one's fate in a court of law. That day has yet to arrive in Virginia or I suspect in conservative areas of Pennsylvania.

"Protecting Marriage" Lies

The anti-gay Christianist and Mormon organizations have gone to great lengths to disseminate the message that they are not anti-gay and are merely motivated out of a desire to "protect marriage." Sadly, many in the media out of a combination of stupidity - remember, anchor are typically hired for looks, not intelligence - and laziness let these disingenuous statements go unchallenged and do not look at the true actions of the alleged "Christian" organizations and the professional Christian set. In reality - if one will bother to look - is that their actions and opposition to ANY rights for gay citizens tell the true story. Right Wing Watch has a story that looks at the intentional and totally disingenuous lengths these false Christians go to in order to blur the lines between civil rights and religious rights in their effort to deceive the voting public. Here are a few highlights:

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There are many different definitions of marriage. For most Americans, marriage is a couple’s public commitment to love, care for and take responsibility for one another and for their families. As a legal matter, marriage is a civil institution regulated by state governments, an institution accorded recognition and protection in a variety of ways. Marriage is also a religious institution, defined differently by different faiths and congregations.

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In America, the distinction can get blurry because states permit clergy to carry out both religious and civil marriage in a single ceremony. Religious Right leaders have exploited that confusion by claiming that granting same-sex couples equal access to civil marriage would somehow also redefine the religious institution of marriage. Like many other Religious Right political strategies, this is grounded in falsehood and deception.
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It is important to note that there are denominations and congregations whose religious views embrace marriage for loving and committed same-sex couples. In the absence of civil marriage equality, clergy from those denominations and congregations are essentially made unwilling enforcers of inequality, because they cannot offer all the couples who come before them the same services.

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This memo focuses on the Right’s persistent, purposeful blurring of the distinction between religious and civil marriage. This blurring serves several of the Right’s purposes: it falsely frames marriage equality as a threat to churches’ freedom, independence, and integrity, and it encourages voters to think they must choose between religious liberty and the constitutional principle of equality under the law.

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Those who portray civil marriage equality for same-sex couples as a grave threat to churches’ religious liberty are not being truthful or consistent. There are no high-profile campaigns to make divorce or remarriage illegal, or claims by church leaders that legal recognition of second or third marriages -- or interfaith marriages, or civil marriages between people of no faith at all -- is somehow an assault on their own religious liberty.

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Also telling as to the real agenda of the Christianist/Mormons are the remarks made recently in connection of extending partner benefits to employees, something that has zero involvement with marriage rights. As noted in a prior post weasel look alike Gary Bauer made the following remark recently which demonstrates that the reality is that our foes want us to have no legal right whatsoever or better yet be targeted as inferiors:

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Gary Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative advocacy group, said that if Obama extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers, he would "provoke a furious grass-roots reaction, reinvigorate the conservative coalition and undermine his efforts to portray himself as a moderate on social issues."

Saturday Male Beauty

Daily Show Teaches What Journalists Should Being Doing But Don't

There has been a great deal of chatter about the ongoing confrontations between Jon Stewart of the "Daily Show" and “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer in which Stewart has basically shredded Cramer and revealed the lack of serious reporting that goes on all too much of the time by those in the mainstream media. Had the media done its job and asked hard questions instead of fawning over members of the Chimperator's regime the whole Iraq War debacle could have been avoided. It is nothing less than an indictment of the main media outlets that Stewart - who is on a comedy channel for God's sakes - does a better job in looking at serious issues. In fact, many young voters I know watch the Daily Show precisely because it does take on the established news media's ass kissing approach to those they should be holding accountable.

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Locally, our news media is beyond pitiful and it is little wonder that both the Virginian Pilot and the Daily Press are in financial trouble and slashing jobs right and left. For years both papers have been operated more as advertising platforms instead of news outlets and now they are baffled as to why subscriptions are falling. The answer is easy: they report little serious news and most coverage of national or world stories are a day or more old. Meanwhile, serious readers have already found that news via other sources, principally online. One of the wonderful thing about the blogosphere is that news junkies can get much faster information than waiting for the print media. In addition, the blogosphere it is beginning to put serious pressure on lazy reporters and journalists to start doing their job. Only with an aggressive and competent news media can bad policies be nipped in the bud. Hiring news anchors because of their pretty faces instead of their minds and competence needs to change. The New York Times took note of the meeting of the adversaries here and ought to take a lesson out of Stewart's play book itself. Andrew Sullivan has a good analysis of why Jon Stewart and those like him are important:

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Stewart - that little comic with the Droopy voice for Lieberman - is actually becoming an accidental activist. Why he matters, is why South Park matters. He, like Matt and Trey, do not leave aside their own profession from scrutiny: they have the actual balls to take it on. There is a cloying familiarity among many cable show hosts and television personalities. We all have to get along, even though some of us may believe that others of us are very much part of the problem, rather than the solution. And what Stewart has done is rip off that little band-aid of faux solidarity for a modicum of ethical and moral accountability.

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It's not enough any more, guys, to make fantastic errors and then to carry on authoritatively as if nothing just happened. You will be called on it. In some ways, the blogosphere is to MSM punditry what Stewart is to Cramer: an insistent and vulgar demand for some responsibility, some moral and ethical accountabilty for previous decisions and pronouncements.

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Whether or not the MSM will wake up remains to be seen. It would be wonderful if anchors and talking heads would start asking hard questions and challenging those who pretend to be "experts" but in fact are nothing more than opinionated windbags or religious nutcases.

Pope Admits Mistakes; Catholics Decline in Wisconsin

As I have noted in other posts, membership in the Roman Catholic Church is falling in many areas of the country. While an influx of Hispanic immigrants principally in the Southwest has so far protected the Catholic Church from overall significant declines in membership, I suspect that as those immigrants become assimilated and in some cases more educated, devotion to the Church will wain as in other demographic groups and regions of the country. A Church leadership that continues to have a 12th century mindset and which takes positions in direct contradiction with medical and scientific knowledge will almost guarantee that alienation of the new immigrant group will occur over time. The Pope's grudging admission that he made mistakes - and is clearly NOT infallible - in connection with his dealings with Holocaust denier, Bishop Richard Williamson, doesn't even scratch the surface of things about which Benedict XVI and the Church hierarchy need to admit error. The Church's treatment of gays is certainly another area where profound wrongs have occurred yet the Church continues to denigrate and demonize LGBT individuals. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:

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LONDON, March 12 -- Pope Benedict XVI, acknowledging "mistakes" that he "deeply regretted," issued an unusual letter Thursday attempting to quiet a storm of protest over his embrace of an excommunicated bishop who denied that Nazis killed Jews in gas chambers. The letter also appeared to be a broader attempt to answer recent criticism of his papacy.

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The pope suggested that the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson could have been avoided with a simple Internet search. Church critics have said that his handling of the issue exposed a bungling Vatican bureaucracy and that this and other recent errors threatened to disillusion some of his followers.

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In an interview before the letter was published, George Weigel, a papal biographer and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, said the Vatican operation is "dysfunctional." Benedict "is not well served by the apparatus at the Vatican," Weigel added. "I think it is going to change. It has to change."

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The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center, said that it was "insane" that the Georgetown basketball team had a bigger media operation than the Vatican. . . . Reese said that one out of four Catholics born in the United States has left the church, which should be "working on how to make the Gospel intelligible to people in the 21st century." But the handling of the Society of St. Pius X, he said, makes it appear that the pope is consumed with a small group who seek a return to old Latin rites.

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Meanwhile a story in the Greenbay Press Gazette illustrates the hemorrhaging of members that is occurring in many parts of the Church in the USA., fueled I believe by the Church's refusal to (a) punish members of the hierarchy involved in the sex abuse cover up and (b) move into a 21st century level of knowledge and modernity. Here are some highlights:

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Wisconsin's fish fry tradition at Catholic churches has no problem reeling in large crowds, but a national religion survey shows that fewer people are filling pews in churches of all faiths. The American Religious Identification Survey, released this week, shows a 10 percentage point decline in the past 18 years in the number of Wisconsinites who identify themselves as Catholic — 29 percent compared with 39 percent in 1990.

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The changes have long been evident. Parochial schools are consolidating. Some parishes have dissolved, and the church continues to grapple with a shortage of priests. Nuns, who at one time ran local hospitals and schools, have all but vacated their posts.

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Disillusionment with the church in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandal and some financial scandals also have contributed to declining rates of Catholics in Wisconsin. The state has had its share of cases, most recently with the 2004 sentencing of Father John Feeney for molesting two youths in 1978 while he was at St. Nicholas Parish in the town of Freedom. "The church looks like a hypocritical institution for some," Carey said.

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I continue to believe that only sustained massive losses of members (and money) will force the Catholic Church to make long needed changes. The chances of such changes occurring under Benedict XVI I rate as somewhere between slim and none.

Out Proud and In Elected Office

EDITOR NOTE: I did a post earlier in the week about Anthony Niedwiecki's election to the Oakland Park, Florida City Commission. Anthony's husband - Waymon Hudson - who I got to know at the Blogger Summit in Washington, D.C., last year has a column at The Bilerico Project that recounts how Anthony (and Waymon) conducted the successful campaign as out and proud gays. Pam Spaulding has republished Waymon's column at Pam's House Blend, and I am doing the same here because in my opinion it speaks directly to how all of us need to live our lives and conduct political campaigns in order to open otherwise closed and bigoted minds. I am very proud of both Anthony and Waymon and again congratulate them on the election victory. Here is Waymon's column in full:

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The past few days have been a whirlwind here in sunny South Florida for my husband Anthony Niedwiecki and me. Hopefully you've heard by now that Anthony was elected to the City Commission in Oakland Park, a part of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Area, in a resounding victory with over 65% of the vote cast. Even more exciting, as the top vote getter in the three open seats, Anthony will become Vice Mayor in 2010 and Mayor of the city in 2011 (it's a rotating mayorship based on votes).

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It was a long, tough campaign against a well-established opponent who has previously run for State Senate, and had the support of some of the current (and not always LGBT friendly) commissioners.

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I am so proud of Anthony and the campaign we ran. We made our family (our marriage, foster son, and extended family) a strong part of our campaign and challenged people to face their ideas about what family and "family values" really means. We were out, proud, and passionate about our community. I think by the overwhelming vote for Anthony, we see that many people got the message.

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I wanted to talk about some of the decision we made about being so open and why I think it worked for us, as well as the impact it had in changing minds and hearts about our community in general.

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Of course, this is all just our experience and not a blueprint for anyone else. But I will say that I am proud and humbled by the response to our personal story from voters and supporters. Even if we hadn't won, it would have been a huge victory in visibility.

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And remember, I'm focusing on the LGBT angle here, but we ran a broad, issues driven campaign about what mattered to everyone in the city, while weaving in a strong message of equality for all residents. So let's run through some of the "advice" we got and how we responded to it.

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YOU"RE A LITTLE "TOO GAY"

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This was some of the advice we got early on in the process. We had both been longtime activists for the community here in South Florida, from the startling incident at the Fort Lauderdale Airport where a worker played a death threat aimed at gay people over the intercom system, to the ensuing harassment when we fought back against it, to organizing the massive response to the bigoted words of Mayor Naugle of Fort Lauderdale. Being "less open" isn't who we are.

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We decided early on that we would embrace our activist nature and use it as positive part of Anthony's campaign. He's always fought for what he believes in, which is what would make him such an amazing leader for our city.

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We actually used Anthony's work against Naugle as an example of how small-minded, divisive actions can distract from other issues in a city and how it can have serious and chilling effects on the atmosphere of a city.

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We made his work for the equality of all residents one of the five main points of the campaign and people responded with respect and support. It was so amazing to see the newspapers reporting the results and identifying Anthony as both the top winner and a gay activist. It sent a strong message to South Florida.

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FORGET THE "FAMILY VALUES" VOTERS

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Many people told us to not even bother with large parts of the voter pool, especially those "value voters."

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Again, that's not who we are.

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We decided to take the "family values" argument and make it our own. In fact, it was another one of our five main campaign points- dedicated to family.

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We refused to accept that our relationship and the family we had built with our foster son was not a family. We never shied away from talking about our life. We attended events together, met voters, answered questions, invited people to our home, and made our life an open book.

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In the week before the election, during the televised public comments at the last commission meeting before voters went to the polls, Anthony stood up and thanked "his husband Waymon for all his support", moving many (including me) to tears.

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I think this had some of the most profound effects on people. It was amazing to hear from extremely conservative people who told us how moved they were by our family and how we had forced them to think about their biases and beliefs. One of the city's most notorious former candidates who had run an extremely anti-gay campaign in past years even became an avid supporter of Anthony, knocking on doors and encouraging people to vote for Anthony.

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That's change I can believe in.

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STAY AWAY FROM "CONTROVERSIAL" LGBT ISSUES

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Obviously this little gem of advice didn't sink in with us. During Anthony's 18 month campaign, we decided to show people the kind of leader Anthony would be and how he would use the platform of his office to create change for all people.

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Anthony spoke out and lobbied against the Florida adoption ban, talking about our life with our foster son. He pushed the current city commission to pass a resolution against Amendment 2, the horrific amendment that looked to dismantle relationship recognition in Florida, and spoke about it everywhere he went. He even made the public promise to fight against the Amendment after it passed and preserve our domestic partnership rights in South Florida.

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He was a leader in Oakland Park and Broward County in fighting for the expansion of non-discrimination policies to include both sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

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He even issued statements and calls directly from his campaign when Westboro Baptist Church announced they where coming to Oakland Park to picket a local gay-owned theater.

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We didn't shy away from going to California and getting married. The local papers even ran stories and pictures about it, which we happily linked to from his campaign site.
Running for office didn't mean he had to tone down his activism- it gave him another platform from which to fight and do the right thing.

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GIVE UP THE MINORITY VOTE

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We all heard the horrific, racist blame game that happened after Prop 8 and Amendment 2 passed. It was no different in Florida.

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Many people thought we shouldn't even try to make in roads with the African-American community, especially the religious community. Once again, that view proved wrong.

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Anthony had already been a regular part of the speakers with the Urban League that traveled to talk about Amendment 2, and we continued to reach out to all voters in the city for his campaign. We went, together as a family, to African American churches and community picnics, and just shared our lives with them.

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The response was amazing and moving. It showed the blindness many in our community have when it comes to other minorities. We all want the same things for our cities and neighborhoods, for our families and homes.

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And we all want someone who will fight for our rights, which is what everyone saw in Anthony.

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OUT AND PROUD

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I think what we saw in this campaign was that you can be an out and proud activist for our community and still be viable as a candidate. It might even give you the advantage of being known as a fighter and someone with strong beliefs and values.

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By taking what could be used as a negative against us and making it our part of our own campaign, we took away the some of the power of anti-gay bias.

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Did we lose some voters for being so out? Perhaps. But with over 65% of the vote, it's clear that the vision of the campaign, which included a strong equality messages, was approved by large numbers of voters.

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When made part of a larger progressive agenda (we talked about environmental stewardship, taxes, smart growth, community involvement, etc), LGBT issues made sense to many people that had never really gotten it before.

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By seeing that families come in all shapes and sizes, voters got to know the humanity of LGBT people and not just see the "scary" idea of those that are "different" from them pushed down their throats from other sources.

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And that's a victory in my book no matter what the election results were.

Friday Male Beauty

Afghan Court Secretly Sentences Student to 20 Years

In yet another example of the fu*ked up mentality of religious fundamentalists and why Afghanistan is yet another black hole from which the USA needs to extricate itself, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh (pictured at left), a student journalist has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country's highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence. His crime? To download article on women's rights. I'm sorry, but why the Hell are we squandering money and lives of Americans when this is how those in a supposed friendly regime behave. As I have said before, religious fundamentalists no matter the religion are a clear and present danger to society and the world. I increasingly wonder if the world would not be a far better place if all religion ceased to exist. The UK's Independent has a story that describes this travesty of justice. Here are some highlights:

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Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country's highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence. The 23-year-old, brought to worldwide attention after an Independent campaign, was praying that Afghanistan's top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defence lawyer. . . . .Instead, Justices issued their decision in secret, without letting Mr Kambaksh's lawyer submit so much as a word in his defence.

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Afzal Nooristani, the legal campaigner representing Mr Kambaksh, accused the judges of behaving "no better than the Taliban". Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into Afghanistan's legal system and 149 British soldiers have died there since 2001, but experts admit that state justice is still beyond the reach of most ordinary Afghans.

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The Supreme Court's decision means Mr Kambaksh's best hope is now a presidential pardon, which will force Mr Karzai to choose between fundamentalists in his government and the rule of law. It has also raised serious questions over the millions of dollars spent on Afghan justice reforms since 2001, which appear to have been wasted. Mr Nooristani said: "The whole system is corrupt. Even with more investment, the system won't work." Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women's rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

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Western diplomats insist they have been lobbying hard to have the case reviewed. But critics say their softly-softly tactic hasn't worked. "The Afghans know the money just keeps coming no matter what they do," said an American lawyer in Kabul. Even if Mr Kambaksh wins an 11th-hour pardon, there are thousands of people just like him, convicted illegally, with no recourse, support or international scrutiny.

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[A] spokesman for the British embassy said: "We have serious concerns about the fairness of Mr Kambaksh's trial. We continue to call on the Afghan state to comply with the international human rights standards, to which it is a party – this includes the right to a fair trial."

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In my view, I am beginning to believe that it is time for the USA and others to pack up and leave Afghanistan. These people are insane and no amount of money and American lives will turn the mess around.

Obama Needs To Find a Back Bone to End Anti-Gay Discrimination

The New York Times has a story that looks at the ongoing discriminatory treatment dished out to same sex couples by the federal government when it comes to employee benefits. It clearly provides another picture of why DOMA must go and it also shows the idiocy of Obama's worries about getting GOP support on health care reform and other issues. By now it should be obvious to even the worse simpleton that the GOP is NOT going to cooperate with Obama and the Democrats on anything no matter what lip service they may give. The reality is that Obama and the Congressional Democrats have the votes to proceed on any manner of issues and they need to grow some balls and/or a backbone and proceed without the GOP which is increasing irrelevant except for the simpering behavior of the Democrats who love to participate in circular firing squads as Rachel Madow describes it. I also wish someone would call anti-gay discrimination for what it is: discrimination based on religion which is already barred by both the federal laws and the U.S. Constitution which overrides DOMA. Obama, the Congressional Democrats and the Courts need to tell Christianists like Gary Bauer - who looks like a would be pedophile in my personal opinion - to go Hell with the religious based discrimination. Here are some story highlights:

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Just seven weeks into office, President Obama is being forced to confront one of the most sensitive social and political issues of the day: whether the government must provide health insurance benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

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In separate, strongly worded orders, two judges of the federal appeals court in California said that employees of their court were entitled to health benefits for their same-sex partners under the program that insures millions of federal workers. But the federal Office of Personnel Management has instructed insurers not to provide the benefits ordered by the judges, citing a 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act.

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But the federal Office of Personnel Management has instructed insurers not to provide the benefits ordered by the judges, citing a 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act.

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Mr. Obama is in a tough spot. If he supports the personnel office on denying benefits to the San Francisco court employees, he risks agitating liberal groups that helped him win election. If he supports the judges and challenges the marriage act, he risks alienating Republicans with whom he is seeking to work on economic, health care and numerous other matters.

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In Ms. Golinski’s case, Judge Kozinski said that federal law authorized the Office of Personnel Management to arrange health benefits for federal employees and their family members. The law, he said, defines the “minimum requirements” for health insurance, but the government can provide more.

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Judge Reinhardt confronted the question differently, and concluded that the Defense of Marriage Act, as applied to Mr. Levenson’s request, was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment guarantee of “due process of law.” “A bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot provide a rational basis for governmental discrimination,” Judge Reinhardt wrote.

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Judge Reinhardt said the denial of benefits to same-sex spouses would not encourage gay men and lesbians to marry members of the opposite sex or discourage same-sex marriages. “So the denial cannot be said to nurture or defend the institution of heterosexual marriage,” the judge wrote.

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Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative advocacy group, said that if Mr. Obama extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers, he would “provoke a furious grass-roots reaction, reinvigorate the conservative coalition and undermine his efforts to portray himself as a moderate on social issues.”

More Thursday Male Beauty

Christian Cure for Homosexuality

A view of how the bogus Christianist gay "cure" programs work - or more accurately do not work - can be found via an article from Sydney Morning Herald and follows freelance journalist Katrina Fox (pictured with her partner at left) as she attends Living Waters, a self-described "international ministry that offers courses to help people who suffer from a range of sexual problems or brokenness, including same-sex attraction." Ms. Fox's experience sounds like so many other accounts concerning the lunacy of these programs that do nothing other than to inflict emotional harm to attendees and self-satisfaction to the self-hating gays who parade around claiming to be "ex-gay" but who are in reality "ex-gay for pay." Here are some highlights from Katrina's experience:

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It's 9.30am on Saturday morning and I'm waiting for Living Waters' one-day Grace and Sexuality Conference at the Wesley Mission in Sydney to start. There's around 60 of us in attendance, old and young, from a range of ethnic backgrounds and my gaydar has honed in on a few fellow queers.

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Brookman, according to the conference brochure, has been "transformed from homosexuality" and leads the Living Waters ministry from its headquarters in Ramsgate with his wife Ruth. "I was living a double life as a pastor and immersed in the homosexual scene in Darlinghurst," he tells us. "I know what it is to live in utter brokenness and shame."

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Homosexuality is a "handicap" but healing our "brokenness" is as simple as "yielding our lives to Jesus", he adds. Although it wasn't easy, Brookman says he has turned his back on the "homosexual lifestyle", but admits it is a struggle every day. After a talk by Ruth Brookman on how she forgave her husband's sexual indiscretions with other men and they now live happily as a heterosexual couple, it's lunchtime. And I'm still gay.

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But for those who leave ex-gay programs, unsuccessful in their quest to become straight, depression and suicide are common, according to Anthony Venn-Brown, a former Assemblies of God preacher, author of A Life of Unlearning and leader of the Freedom 2 B[e] organisation that offers support to gay and lesbian Christians. Venn-Brown went through several ex-gay programs before embracing his homosexuality and is adamant such programs don't work. "You can't recover from your sexual orientation," he says. "You can deny and suppress it but you can't change it. Trying to be someone I wasn't caused great stress, a sense of failure and shame that eventually led to depression."

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Brookman and Lind say they are now heterosexual, despite still finding men sexually attractive, and couldn't be happier. Living Waters runs a 30-week course for people "struggling with same-sex attraction" although both men admit it's often necessary for a person to complete the course three or four times to really "get it".

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Spending the day with people who continually reinforced the message that a core part of my identity is "broken" or a "handicap" or an addiction to be overcome didn't exactly fill me with joy. . . . I'll take dancing naked at Coogee women's pool with a bunch of hot sheilas chanting "We All Come From The Goddess" any day. Or the Mardi Gras Parade. Because I'm still gay.

DADT Witch Hunts Continue - 11 Gays Fired in January

I realize that I go off about DADT regularly, but the policy is so ridiculous and given all the dedicated, loyal and competent gays and lesbians I know in the military, it burns me up that this policy continues to exist. It's sole purpose is to please anti-gay bigots and professional Christians who do nothing but spread lies and false information about LGBT Americans. It also angers me that Obama and weak knee Democrats are not moving aggressively to repeal this discriminatory policy. Further insult is added by the fact that even as gays are being forced from the military, felons and mental morons are being recruited. Here are some highlights from the San Francisco Chronicle:

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The Army fired 11 soldiers in January for violating the military's policy that gay service members must keep their sexuality hidden, according to a Virginia congressman. Democratic Rep. Jim Moran said he has requested monthly updates from the Pentagon on the impact of the policy until it is repealed.

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In a statement released on Thursday, Moran said the discharged soldiers included an intelligence collector, a military police officer, four infantry personnel, a health care specialist, a motor-transport operator and a water-treatment specialist. "How many more good soldiers are we willing to lose due to a bad policy that makes us less safe and secure?" asked Moran, a member of the House panel that oversees military spending.

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The White House has said President Barack Obama has begun consulting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen on how to lift the ban. But the administration won't say how soon that might happen or whether a group of experts will be commissioned to study the issue in-depth, as some Democrats have suggested.
Likewise, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill support repealing the ban but have not promised to press the issue immediately.

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While Obama and Democrats dither, careers continue to be ruined. All so that Elaine Donnelly and similar nutcases can have orgasms over keeping gays stigmatized. It is disgusting.

Thursday Male Beauty

Catholic Leaders Battle Abuse Bill in New York State

As the New York Times reports, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church continues to put money and covering the fat asses of bishops and cardinals who enabled or covered up the sexual abuse of minors ahead of all else. Even more incredibly - or perhaps not given what an abominable organization it has become - the New York State Catholic Conference is trying to depict the Church as being persecuted. Truth be told, the Church leaders from the Pope on down did wrongful things and they need to pay a heavy price. The hypocrisy of the hierarchy clearly shows no limits and demonstrates what a foul cesspool the Church has become. Would that the dear bishops and cardinals had given the slightest thought to protecting children rather than predatory priests in years gone by. One can only hope that more thinking members of the Catholic laity will vote with their feet and leave an increasingly corrupt and morally bankrupt institution. Here are some story highlights:

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If signed by Gov. David A. Paterson, a longtime supporter, the bill would at minimum revive hundreds of claims filed in recent years against Catholic priests and dioceses in New York, but dismissed because they were made after the current time limit, which is five years after the accuser turns 18. Similar legislation has passed in Delaware and in California, where a 2003 law led to claims that have cost the church an estimated $800 million to $1 billion in damages and settlements.

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“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church,” said Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, a group representing the bishops of the state’s eight dioceses. He said that Cardinal Egan and Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn visited Albany this week to voice their opposition, and that a statewide network of Catholic parishioners had bombarded lawmakers via e-mail.

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Many children’s advocates say guilt, shame and fear of the emotional toll on family members have often deterred victims from reporting sexual abuse until well into adulthood. The revelations of past abuse by priests that became a national scandal starting in 2002 prompted some to seek redress, only to discover they were barred by the statutes of limitation.

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Marci A. Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University who has argued that states should remove all statutes of limitation on child sex abuse claims, said the principle is comparable to the way industrial pollution is treated under the law. “The consequences of toxic pollution may not be known or felt for years after the fact,” she said. “The same is often true for children who are sexually abused.”

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Senator Thomas K. Duane, a Manhattan Democrat and the bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate, said he was “extremely optimistic” about its chances. He said that opponents’ claims of unfairness were not compelling, and that warnings of bankruptcy for religious institutions, which he dismissed as unlikely, missed the point. “It’s not about money,” he said. “It’s about giving people the right to seek justice.”

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As an institution, the Catholic Church from Pope John XXIII on down made a conscious decision to sacrifice the safety and welfare of children through secrecy and cover up efforts. The Church needs to be severely punished for its moral bankruptcy. Nothing means more to the Church hierarchy than money, so how better to get the message across.

Foreclosures up 30 Percent in February

Conditions in the housing and mortgage markets continue to fester and in my view continue to underscore the fact that until the housing market stabilizes efforts to stimulate the economy will not bring the desired results. Not only are foreclosure rates up, but the number of homeowners who now owe more than their homes are worth continues to grow as foreclosures further depress property values (at a CLE seminar yesterday on foreclosure and bankruptcy issues, it was noted that Virginia is now in the top 10 states with the number of homes with negative equity). Between fear on the part of buyers that they may pay too much for a home and mortgage lenders that are not making loans even to good credit risks - despite receiving billions in tax dollars - I don't see a turn around anytime soon (personally, I believe lenders who received bailouts that have not used the funds to make new loans should be compelled to return the funds). We are truly continuing to reap the whirlwind of the GOP mantra that marketplace greed is good and regulation is bad. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite halts on new foreclosures by several major lenders, the number of households threatened with losing their homes rose 30 percent in February from last year's levels, RealtyTrac reported Thursday.

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Nationwide, nearly 291,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month, up 6 percent from January, according to the Irvine, Calif-based company. While foreclosures are highly concentrated in the Western states and Florida, the problem is spreading to states like Idaho, Illinois and Oregon as the U.S. economy worsens.

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The rise in foreclosure filings came despite temporary halts to foreclosures by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and major banks JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America. Those companies pledged to do so in advance of President Barack Obama's plan to stem the foreclosure crisis, which was launched last week.

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Nearly 12 percent of all Americans with a mortgage - a record 5.4 million homeowners - were at least one month late or in foreclosure at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That's up from 10 percent at the end of the third quarter, and up from 8 percent at the end of 2007.

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Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida had the nation's top foreclosure rates. In Nevada, one in every 70 homes received a foreclosure filing, while the number was one every 147 in Arizona. Rounding out the top 10 were Idaho, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Oregon and Ohio.

Shakespeare's Patron and Possible Lover

The Guardian has a new story about the discovery of a new portrait of the third Earl of Southampton - Shakespeare's patron and the "fair youth" addressed in his sonnets. The story goes on to discuss the debate between historians as to whether or not Shakespeare (at left) was gay and whether or not the Earl of Southampton was more than merely a wealthy patron to Shakespeare. Interestingly enough, a new exhibition of Elizabethan clothing and cross-dressing in Shakespeare opens at Shakespeare's Globe, London, in May. I can just imagine the angst among the Wildmon clan at the American Family Association which will have to boycott all plays by Shakespeare should it turn out the bard was gay. :) A copy of the newly identified painting can be found here. Here are some story highlights:

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"My God," I thought, "could this be the third Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's patron and, perhaps, his lover?"' The features, as Cobbe points out, 'tally strikingly with those of the famous de Critz portrait of Southampton, dating from 10 years or so later'. The equally celebrated Hilliard miniature, in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, also bears a telling resemblance to the Cobbe portrait.

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Experts who have studied the facts now agree that the portrait is undoubtedly the earliest known image of the third Earl of Southampton - Shakespeare's patron, the 'fair youth' addressed in his sonnets - somewhere between the age of 17 and 20 and painted at exactly the time those first few sonnets were written.

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In the portrait by an unknown artist, dating from the early 1590s, the teenage Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, is wearing lipstick, rouge and an elaborate double earring. His long hair hangs down in very feminine tresses and his hand lies on his heart in a somewhat camp gesture. Unlike all the other extant portraits of Southampton, who later chose to be depicted as a rather more macho courtier and soldier, this is much more the face of the androgynous creature the poet ambiguously called the 'master-mistress of my passion' in the twentieth of the 154-sonnet cycle.

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The Shakespeare scholar, Sir Frank Kermode, former professor of English at Cambridge, who has been to Hatchlands to see for himself, says: 'The portrait already has considerable intrinsic historical interest, and if you believe that the young man addressed in the sonnets was Henry Wriothesley there is the additional thrill that this could be the face that Shakespeare fell in love with, perhaps wishing its owner was a girl. The magnitude of the thrill depends on how much you think the identity of the young person matters to the poems. Many think it matters a lot.'

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[T]he opening poems in the cycle express ambiguous sexual longings for an effeminate youth, traditionally identified as Southampton, Shakespeare's patron at the time, and his host in London and Hampshire when the plague closed the London theatres. W.H. Auden, for instance, argued that the sonnets unequivocally showed that his 'Top Bard' was (like himself) gay. Others have gone further, and suggested that Shakespeare, the father of three children by his wife Anne Hathaway, must have had a gay affair with Southampton.

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Whatever the truth about Shakespeare's sexuality, which seems likely, as was the case then as now in the theatre, to have been flexible, the dramatic discovery of the Cobbe portrait of the young, effeminate Southampton is bound to relaunch a tidal wave of debate. Given the strong feelings these arguments arouse in the field of Shakespeare studies, which has recently seen a voguish penchant for investigations into Elizabethan cross-dressing, . . .

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Expect GOP Lunatic Base to Call For Steele's Head

In what appears to be a free wheeling and rather candid interview with GQ, embattled RNC chair Michael Steele states some views that will likely have James Dobson, Tony Perkins and other members of the far right base of today's GOP writhing on the floor in convulsions and ultimately (when they regain control and stop wetting themselves) calling for Steele's immediate dismissal. Even though Steele's statements in many ways denotes the direction in which the GOP needs to move if it ever hopes to regain majority support. In short, Steele seems to have some grasp of reality and the fact that American society is changing whereas Dobson, Limbaugh and others like them are totally untethered from objective reality. Here are some highlights from the GQ interview that will have Christianist heads exploding (questions posed to Steele are in bold face):

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Why do you think so few nonwhite Americans support the Republican Party right now?’ Cause we have offered them nothing! And the impression we’ve created is that we don’t give a damn about them or we just outright don’t like them.

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Do you have a problem with gay priests who are celibate? No, it’s your nature. It’s your nature. You can’t—I can’t deny you your nature.

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Let’s talk about gay marriage. What’s your position? Well, my position is, hey, look, I have been, um, supportive of a lot of my friends who are gay in some of the core things that they believe are important to them. You know, the ability to be able to share in the information of your partner, to have the ability to—particularly in times of crisis—to manage their affairs and to help them through that as others—you know, as family members or others—would be able to do. I just draw the line at the gay marriage.

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Do you think homosexuality is a choice? Oh, no. I don’t think I’ve ever really subscribed to that view, that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. Um, you know, I think that there’s a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can’t simply say, oh, like, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being gay.” It’s like saying, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being black.”

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So your feeling would be that people are born one way or another. I mean, I think that’s the prevailing view at this point, and I know that there’s some out there who think that you can absolutely make that choice. And maybe some people have. I don’t know, I can’t say. Until we can give a definitive answer one way or the other, I think we should respect that.

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Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion? Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

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You do? Yeah. Absolutely.

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I hope Steele is wearing a bullet proof vest when the Far right wingnuts get wind of this interview - not that many of the trike me as GQ readers - and that he watches his back It will be most interesting to see how this all plays out. Oh, and I suspect that the Nazi Pope will NOT be happy with the gay priest remarks.

Connecticut Bill on Restructuring Catholic Parishes Pulled

There has been a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Christianists and Kool-Aid drinking Catholics about a bill introduced into the Connecticut Legislature which would have modified the laws allowing Catholic parishes to incorporate. A draft of the bill can be found here. While the bill would have restricted the ability of diocesan bishops to control parish property and activities, the bill would also have provided shelter to protect parish facilities owned by an incorporated parish to avoid liability for debts of the diocese which would be a separate legal entity - particularly large monetary debts arising from sex abuse lawsuits resulting from lax supervision and cover ups by the Church hierarchy.

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Typically, most states consider property of parishes to be owned by the diocese and controlled by the bishop. This sets the stage where even though parishioners raise money for and finance the parish, the diocese controls the assets which could be subjected to a judgment against the diocese. Publications like OneNewsNow and the Christian Post and jerks like William Donohoe of the Catholic League have been hysterical over the proposal and foaming at the mouth. One NewsNow - which always depicts Christians as being persecuted rather than the persecutors that they are in reality - even went so far as to describe the bill as follows:

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"The two co-chairs of the committee -- incredibly powerful men, Representative Mike Lawlor and Senator Andrew McDonald -- are the two openly gay legislative champions of same-sex 'marriage,'" he notes, "so this does feel like it's a sort of revenge, a payback against the church for leading the fight against same-sex marriage." Wolfgang believes backers of the bill are angry with groups who helped advertise and support Proposition 8 to protect traditional marriage in California. Among those groups was the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization.

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As the Harford Courant is reporting, the bill has been pulled from consideration. Given the misrule that has gone on in most dioceses and the Vatican sponsored cover up of the sexual abuse of minors, the bill is probably a good idea to protect innocent parishes. Here are some highlights from the Courant:

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More than 4,000 Catholics from around the state stood in the drizzle on the north lawn of the state Capitol this morning to protest a bill that would have changed the way the church governs itself.The bill, initially scheduled for a public hearing today before the legislature's judiciary committee, was pulled amid questions over its constitutionality.

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John Garvey, dean of Boston College's law school, said that the bill as drafted is, indeed, unconstitutional."It violates the First Amendment rule that the legislature cannot dictate the structure of church government," Garvey said.It's also unconstitutional for a second reason: the bill as drafted singles out the Catholic church.

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The bill would have would have created lay councils of seven to 13 people to oversee the finances of local parishes, relegating Catholic pastors and bishops to an advisory role. It quickly became the most contentious issue of the 2009 legislative session.

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McDonald said the bill came about after conversations with a constituent seeking a greater role for the laity within the Catholic Church. That constituent, Tom Gallagher of Greenwich, said he was motivated by his love of the church and concern over declining membership, the priest sexual-abuse scandals, parish closings and two cases of financial impropriety at churches in Fairfield County.

Gay Ducks Derail Repopulation Plan

The Christo-fascists always like to proclaim that homosexuality is unnatural and that it does not occur elsewhere in the animal kingdom. The only problem is that the claim - like so much of the bile put out by the professional Christians and the 12th century thinkers at the Vatican - is untrue. This story from the Scientific American is but one latest example of the fact that like it or not, homosexuality DOES occur among some 1,500 species. Not, of course, that the Christianists ever let the truth get in the way of their anti-gay misinformation campaign. Here are some highlights:

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Why are all the good Blue Ducks gay? That's what Cherry, the last remaining lass of her kind in Britain, may be asking herself after two male prospects that might have helped her perpetuate the species fell for one another instead of for her. "They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with," Paul Stevens, the warden at Arundel Wetland Center, tells the Telegraph.

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The boy birds, Ben and Jerry, were introduced to Cherry, but to no avail. " . . . Feathers flew, however, when Ben and Jerry were shacked up together. "To our surprise, the two males really took to each other and it was obvious that they really liked each other," Stevens said, adding: "Ben and Jerry do make a lovely couple."

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Ben and Jerry aren’t the first gay members of the animal kingdom. Roy and Silo, penguin residents of the Central Park Zoo in New York City, mated there a decade ago — among the 1,500 species that have been observed engaging in homosexual activity.

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The other linked story in the Scientific American had this additional information that no doubt makes The Peter and Laurie Higgins and similar professional anti-gay crusaders go ape shit:

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Homosexual behavior is common in nature, and it plays an important role in survival. . . . researchers are finding that same-sex couplings are surprisingly widespread in the animal kingdom. Roy and Silo belong to one of as many as 1,500 species of wild and captive animals that have been observed engaging in homosexual activity. Researchers have seen such same-sex goings-on in both male and female, old and young, and social and solitary creatures and on branches of the evolutionary tree ranging from insects to mammals.

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many species seem to have ingrained homosexual tendencies that are a regular part of their society. . . . . Researchers are now revealing, for example, that animals may engage in same-sex couplings to diffuse social tensions, to better protect their young or to maintain fecundity when opposite-sex partners are unavailable—or simply because it is fun. These observations suggest to some that bisexuality is a natural state among animals, perhaps Homo sapiens included. . .

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There's a lot more, none of which will make Christianists happy. But then, in my view they are an intensely unhappy lot who seek to inflict their own mental hang ups and misery on others.