The Disingenuous Resurrection of Pastor Ted Haggard

I am continually amazed at the efforts of the Christian Right to rehabilitate liars and frauds such as former "ex-gay for pay" Michael Johnston - who Wayne Besen and I exposed as a fraud in August of 2003. The latest attempted resurrection involves Ted "I'm into Male Prostitutes and Drugs" Haggard, formerly the pastor of the mega church, New Life Church, in Colorado Springs. All I can assume is that some of these folks like Haggard are so used to living well of of the snake oil they have peddled for years that they have no other marketable skill. Or at least not one that will support them in the comfortable style in which they are accustomed. Why anyone would want or trust Haggard to be the pastor of a church again is beyond baffling. It's just plain bizarre. But then so is so much of the Christian Right lunacy. The Colorado Springs Independent has a story on Haggard's attempted resurrection back into the pulpit. Here are some highlights:

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Nearly three years after his downfall, Ted Haggard rises again in Colorado Springs. . . . The scandal-plagued pastor fell into an extended depression after he and his family relocated to Phoenix in 2007, following the very public exposure of his liaisons with a male escort and his purchase of methamphetamines. According to the terms of an agreement he signed with his former church, Haggard was not only banished from New Life but also — in a provision more typical of TV westerns and medieval decrees — forbidden from ever returning to the state of Colorado.

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So virtually no one expected to find Haggard and his family back in their comfortable Colorado Springs home, less than a mile from the mega-church that started nearly 25 years ago as a basement gathering of worshippers. Gayle, Ted's wife for the last 30 years, has written a book called Why I Stayed, which is slated for January release by Christian publisher Tyndale House. Ted, meanwhile, has begun speaking at churches around the country and recently posted to the Internet that he's "motivated for the first time in 2.5 years to re-enter full-time ministry."

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Indy: So I understand you met earlier today with some people who want to start a church here in Colorado Springs?

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TH: They're a couple who want to do a church plant amongst the Hispanic community. And so we spoke with them about where we felt the greatest need was for a significant Spanish ministry, which is right there around the Citadel area — that geographical area of the city would be a great place for some more significant Spanish ministry. There is some real good Spanish ministry right now, but based on what I'm seeing on the news and what I'm hearing from the newspaper, they have some significant problems with gangs, and violence and things like that, and sometimes ministry can help that.

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Somehow I think I'd believe the BS lines of a crack whore before I'd believe Haggard. I suspect he and his wife Gayle want back on the gravy train that they enjoyed for so many years. As for why anyone would want him to head up a church, they must be as delusional as Haggard. I guess some people want to be duped and ripped off.

Bob McDonnell: "I'm not apologizing"

In the video set forth below GOP candidate Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell had the opportunity to confirm that he no longer adheres to the far right batshittery set forth in his thesis written while he was a 34 year old student at crackpot Christianist Pat Robertson's CBN University (n/k/a Regent University) yet McDonnell chose to disclaim none of it. Of course, knowing Bob McDonnell and his puppeteers at The Family Foundation - Daddy Dobson's Virginia arm of the gay hating Focus on the Family - and at Regent University, McDonnell will never disavow his thesis statements: to do so would send the wingnuts in Virginia into convulsions and also cause them to stop contributing money and grass roots labor to his campaign. On top of that, I believe that McDonnell truly believes everything he wrote in his thesis. He simply does not get the fact that as a public official, be it as Governor or as a member of the Virginia General Assembly, he does NOT get to force his religious beliefs on all other citizens.

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Thomas Jefferson who drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom - which is STILL Part of the Code of Virginia - must be rolling over in his grave at the prospect of McDonnell and his allies in the Christian Taliban possibly gaining control of the Governor's mansion. McDonnell and his Christianist allies are exactly the type of people Jefferson condemned so eloquently:

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[T]he impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical. . .

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I cannot state it any better than Jefferson. Taliban Bob needs to look in the mirror and understand that Jefferson was writing about people like McDonnell and his masters in the Christian Taliban.

More Saturday Male Beauty

Senator Harry Reid Endorses National Equality March

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I am pleased to see that more and more people and organizations are signing on as endorsers of the National Equality March scheduled for next weekend in Washington, D.C. I hope that the endorsement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as set forth in the letter above will translate into real action as opposed to hand wringing and gutlessness that will only yield more years of inequality to LGBT Americans. As we have learned from Barack Obama, lofty words mean nothing if legislators and other elected officials lack the backbone to take real action and introduce and pass legislation that will grant full equality under the civil laws to LGBT Americans.

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At this point, I believe that LGBT Americans need to make it clear to both the White House and Congressional Democrats that the LGBT ATM machine will continue to remain shut down unless and until real legislative advances occur on ENDA, the Matthew Shepard Act and the repeal of DADT and DOMA. Talk and pretty letters are cheap. We want concrete action.

The High Price of Being a Gay Couple

Gay activists see the issue of same sex marriage as an issue of full civil equality as citizens and similar treatment as other life partnered couples. The Christianists, on the other hand see the issue of one where they expect all other citizens to live their lives according to Christianist religious views and to Hell with the freedom of religion rights of others. And because gays do not conform to the Christianist religious belief system, the Christianist goal is to have us penalized and punished in as many ways as possible so as to signal to the world our inferiority. In an article today the New York Times confirms that religious based discrimination against same sex couples is very costly from a financial perspective given the number of rights and benefits LGBT couples are denied since they cannot legally marry in most states and because the federal government refuses to recognize their marriages even in states where same sex marriage is legal. The Times analysis focuses only on the financial cost of legal inequality and does not venture into the emotional and psychological cost to gays who are faced with daily discrimination and bigotry because of religious based discrimination written into both state and federal laws. Here are some story highlights:

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Much of the debate over legalizing gay marriage has focused on God and Scripture, the Constitution and equal protection. But we see the world through the prism of money. And for years, we’ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number — a couple’s lifetime cost of being gay.

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It was much more complicated than we initially imagined, and that’s probably why we’ve never seen similar efforts. We looked at benefits that routinely go to married heterosexual couples but not to gay couples, like certain Social Security payments. We plotted out the cost of health insurance for couples whose employers don’t offer it to domestic partners.

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Here is what we came up with. In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.

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These numbers will vary, depending on a couple’s income and circumstance. Gay couples earning, say, $80,000, could have health insurance costs similar to our hypothetical higher-earning couple, but they might well owe more in income taxes than their heterosexual counterparts. For wealthy couples with a lot of assets, on the other hand, the cost of being gay could easily spiral into the millions.

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Heterosexual married couples can transfer an unlimited amount of assets to each other during their lives and at death without paying estate taxes. Everyone else, including married same-sex couples, must pay federal estate taxes on amounts that exceed the 2009 exemption of $3.5 million. Many states also levy their own estate or inheritance taxes, though same-sex couples may be shielded from those in states that recognize their unions. Our couple lived in New York, where the estate tax exemption is $1 million. And though New York recognizes marriages performed elsewhere, that recognition does not extend to state income or estate taxes.

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Even married same-sex couples are encouraged to create a number of documents that try to replicate the protections and rights of heterosexual marriage because their unions are not universally recognized. In the worst case, our gay couple spent $5,500 more than their heterosexual counterparts on their additional paperwork. That included a revocable living trust, which is more difficult to contest than a will, and what is known as a pour-over will, which ensured that anything left out of the trust would be included. They also each set up financial powers of attorney, health care proxies, living wills and a domestic partnership agreement.

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Again, the ONLY true justification behind this disparate treatment of same sex couples is religious based discrimination. Because we do not adhere to Christianist religious views, we pay a price literally for merely being who God made us to be. Clearly, under any literally reading of the U.S. Constitution such religious based discrimination should be illegal.

Ralph Reed's "Christian Coalition 2.0" Hits Florida

The Advocate has a story about Ralph Reed, former leader of the Christian Coalition once based out of local nutcase Pat Robertson, CBN University complex, opening a Florida branch of his new Faith and Freedom Coalition to energize social conservatives and financing Republican state campaigns in Florida (and I'm sure make Ralph a nice buck or two along the way).

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The irony to me , of course is that Reed - who I meet several times back in my GOP days - is in my view a self-hating closet case. Each time I met him and was in close proximity to him my gaydar went off the charts (I will concede that he was cute in person back in the day). Thus, I classify him with Robert Knight and a few other bete noire figures of the Christian Right who are a wee bit too frantically hysterical about the issue of homosexuality unless they them selves have some issues about their sexual orientation. Here are some story highlights:

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Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, formalized plans last week to open an affiliate of his new Faith and Freedom Coalition in Florida, with the goal of energizing social conservatives and financing Republican state campaigns. The new coalition, which was created last weekend, plans to organize conservative voters and pour cash into high-profile races such as the Republican senate primary between Governor Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida house of representatives, according to the News Service of Florida .

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“Florida is the largest of a half-dozen states where the Faith and Freedom Coalition now has chapters, which some have dubbed a 2.0 version of the Christian Coalition, intended to draw younger, Internet-savvy social conservatives,” reported the News Service of Florida.

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Reed was hired by Pat Robertson two decades ago to serve as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition. He later became a lobbyist, and was connected to the Jack Abramoff scandal.

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Like a bad penny, some of the fixtures of the Christianist camp just keep reappearing - making money off the sheeple and grasping for power and influence are just too much for them to pass up. Ralph is definitely once such bad penny.

Rio Wins 2016 Olymic Games

With all of the media hype of Obama's advocacy for the 2016 Oympic Games to be in Chicago, it's ironic - but in some ways totally logical - that Chicago lost out to Rio. Don't get me wrong. I love Chicago and think it is a wonderful city and the financial impact of having the games held there would have been benificial. On the other hand it is about time that a city in South America was selected for the Olympic Games. Brazil in particular is fitting because it has the potential to become a powerhouse, especially with the huge new oil reserves discovered offshore. Rio, San Paulo and other cities are modern and I believe the games will showcase the county's potential. One other aspect that AmericaBlog brings up is the fact that the USA is increasingly seen as an unfriendly country when it comes to foreigners and I can just imagine what foreigners think when they see the birthers and teabaggers in full anti-immigrant rant. Here are a few thoughts from AmericaBlog:

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Between the absurd tax that Congress is slapping on to foreign visitors and the generally horrible interrogations when arriving, maybe people don't realize what an unattractive destination the US has become. I've watched it myself and have been floored with how nasty and aggressive US immigration can be compared to other countries. I've entered around 50 countries across six continents and can say the US is near the bottom. Nobody is asking for the US to drop safety procedures, but really, entering the US is a miserable experience for many. That needs to change.

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Even 20+ years ago when I traveled extensively overseas for an oil company coming back into the USA could be an unpleasant hassle compared to many other countries - and I was an American. I can only image the hassle that foreigners now receive. The other thing that this decision by the IOC has revealed is sickness of the USA hating GOP base. This video shows some celebrating Chicago's loss of the Games.

Saturday Male Beauty

Judge: Prop 8 Campaign Must Release Campaign Data

In a ruling that will cause the freepers and Christo-fascists and Mormons to go berserk, a federal judge has ruled that the sponsors of California's same-sex marriage ban must hand over some internal campaign records to lawyers seeking to overturn the voter-enacted initiative. I suspect that such records will (1) possibly reveal improprieties and campaign law violations, (2) violations of IRS laws by the Mormon and Catholic Churches, and (3) expose the names of bigots who prefer to hide their bigotry since they lack the courage to publicly stand behind measures that strip other citizens of legal rights - much like the anonymous commenters I encounter on this blog (and whom I do not publish because of their cowardice). I fully believe in full disclosure of campaign contributors and believe that groups should not be able to bundle donations so as to hide the identity of contributors from the public. Here are some highlights from the San Francisco Chronicle:

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Denying a request to shield the information, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker said the Protect Marriage campaign had failed to show that providing private e-mails, memos and reports would inhibit the political activities of gay marriage opponents or subject them to unbridled harassment.

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The judge agreed with lawyers for two unmarried same-sex couples who have sued to strike down the ban, known as Proposition 8, that confidential communications between the campaign's leaders and professional consultants could reveal a rationale for denying gays the right to wed that is relevant to the case. The lawsuit argues that the measure was motivated by hostility toward gays and as such must be struck down as inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equality.

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"What was decided not to be said in a political campaign may cast light on what was actually said," Walker said. At the same time, the judge said the couples' lawyers must limit their fact-finding request to cover only central issues and individuals, including Mormon and Catholic church representatives who served on the executive committee that oversaw the campaign. He also left open the possibility that he would restrict public access to the documents.

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An example of the kind of information the plaintiffs are seeking is discussions showing that the campaign decided against running ads stating that marriage must be reserved to a man and a woman to foster responsible parenting since that is an argument Protect Marriage's lawyers are making now to uphold Proposition 8, Dusseault said.

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Depending on how and when the internal information is disseminated, its contents could revive the hostility some gay marriage supporters directed at Proposition 8's financial donors after the ballot initiative passed in November.

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I suspect we already know the reasons behind the Prop. 8 campaign: animus towards gays and unconstitutional religious based discrimination. And again, if one doesn't have the guts to publicly support a measure such as Prop. 8, then maybe they need to rethink their support for the measure. The law should not shield bigots from public view.

2009 LATINO BUSINESS EXPO

I will be spending the day between 10:00AM and 3:00PM at the 2009 Hispanic Business Expo - the only down side is that it's being held at Regent University which offered space and set up free of charge in an what I view as another example of its effort to down play its scary Christian Right image. One of my firm's marketing initiatives is to market to community segments ignored by larger law firms and the rapidly growing Hispanic community in the area is a logical choice, particularly since my amazing office manager/head paralegal is totally bilingual. Although my mother grew up bilingual in Central America she unfortunately never pressed me and my siblings to learn Spanish. Also as a member of the Hispanic Chamber, the firm receives website promotion.

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I have found that competent, reasonably priced and respectful legal services go a long way in attracting clients, especially those who face a fair amount of discrimination from "main stream" law firms that all too often are overly impressed with themselves. The other market segments I am focusing on are obviously the LGBT community and also the Indian community since we have a large number of immigrants from India in the region. I find that people - gay, straight, Hispanic, Indian or Asian - are all just people. If more people would recognize that simple fact and treat others as they would like to be treated, the world would be a far better place.

More Friday Male Beauty

Foundation for Reconciliation to Hold Memorial to Gay Suicides

Over the decades and centuries it is impossible to calculate the number of gay suicides that have occurred as a result of the homophobia and anti-gay rhetoric disseminated on a near constant basis by various religious denominations, including the Church of the Latter Day Saints a/k/a the Mormon Church. I am constantly amazed at the manner in which "godly Christians" close their eyes to the deaths that they cause and act as if LGBT individuals were something less than fully human. To my mind, anyone so callous about the misery and deaths they cause is anything but a true follower of Christ. In recognition of the harm that the LDS has done to gays, The Foundation for Reconciliation, a group working to foster greater understanding between the church and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population, will hold a memorial service for victims of gay suicide. Here are some highlights from the Salt Lake Tribune:

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During the LDS Church's semiannual conference this weekend, one group will hold a memorial service for gay and transgender Mormons who have committed suicide.

*The Foundation for Reconciliation, a group working to foster greater understanding between the church and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population, will highlight the plight of some Mormons who have felt despair -- in some instances, to the point of ending their own lives -- over LDS teachings that being in a gay relationship is sinful. The service is Sunday at 7 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 569 S. 1300 East, Salt Lake City.

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On Nov. 4, the one-year anniversary of California's passage of Proposition 8 outlawing gay marriage in the Golden State, the group plans to deliver, by handcart, its "Plea for Reconciliation" petition to LDS headquarters. The group is gathering signatures online, at www.ldsapology.org.

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The foundation also reports that it has a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with Gov. Gary Herbert to discuss potential legal protections for gay and transgender Utahns.

Hundreds Leave James Kennedy's Uber-Christian Anti-Gay Mega Church

For many years Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and its Coral Ridge Ministries were a pillar of the reactionary far right element of the Christian Right. From advocating the sexual orientation was a choice and marketing the books and videos of discredited ex-gay fraud Michael Johnston, Coral Ridges and "Dr." D. James Kennedy were always in the forefront of gay bashing, disseminating fraudulent information, and pushing for a hate based far right Christian agenda. Like Focus on the Family's James Dobson, Kennedy was in my view a demagogue who encouraged a cult of his own personality and who made a living and garnered power by peddling an unloving, hate based version of the gospel message. It is interesting that in the wake of Kennedy's death, his kingdom at Coral Ridge seems on the verge of disintegrating - something that would be a net gain for the world. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:
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MIAMI -- Hundreds of congregants have left a pioneering megachurch in Florida to form their own congregation because they were unhappy with leadership at the church that's seen as a bedrock of the religious right.

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The action by the unhappy members at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church was the culmination of a feud between loyalists to an evangelical luminary, the Rev. D. James Kennedy, and his replacement as pastor, the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian, a grandson of the Rev. Billy Graham.

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[T]he move is a dramatic split. Kennedy's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, joined many longtime Coral Ridge members, including church elders, the organist, choir director and hundreds of choir members, in deserting the congregation they helped build.

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Former Coral Ridge elder Jim Filosa joined the new church. He and his wife were disciplined by Coral Ridge for taking part in a campaign to remove Tchividjian. "A year from today, if you call me, you're going to say to me, 'It was an interesting place at one time, but it's now up for sale,'" he said of his former church.

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Under the leadership of Kennedy, who died in 2007, the church was a forerunner to modern evangelical megachurches, a fiercely conservative voice on social issues including homosexuality and abortion, and a powerful political voice. Tchividjian, 37, took over earlier this year. While he has shown no sign of theological differences with Kennedy, he has rejected politics as the most important force for change, and his sermons have not focused on divisive issues.

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Personally, I believe that a total collapse of Coral Ridge would be a positive thing. It's ironic that the principal criticism of Kennedy's replacement is that he doesn't disseminate enough hate and fails to try to merge religion and government as was the case with Kennedy who worked to stoke the "Christian nation" myth.

Friday Male Beauty

‘Hair’ Closes for One Day So Cast Can March in NEM Rally

When the boyfriend took me to New York earlier in the month after a prior meltdown, we had the good fortune to be able to see the musical "Hair" and I posted about the experience and the activist work of lead actor, Gavin Creel, who co-founded Broadway Impact. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to get a message from Creel himself. As the New York Times is reporting, the musical will close down for one day so that the entire cast can travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in the National Equality March. Once again, the momentum for this action came from Creel (pictured at left). I am excited about attending the March - the boyfriend bought us bus tickets on buses being run up to D.C. by HROC, a local LGBT groups for which I prepared the organizational documents. I expect it should be a long and crazy day. It will be especially fun since I will have press credentials! Here are some highlights from the New York Times:

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Playwrights and producers have used scathing commentary, heartbreaking drama and sharp satire to score political points about war, torture, presidents, AIDS, race relations and women’s rights with New York theater audiences. Now the Broadway musical “Hair” is expanding the concept of stage activism by taking to the streets and urging audiences to follow. The producers canceled a Sunday matinee so that the cast and crew could attend and perform at a march for gay rights in Washington on Oct. 11.

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That unusual — and expensive — decision to skip a popular weekend performance at the beginning of the theater season originated with the show’s star, Gavin Creel. “I said, ‘My God, we have to go, we have to go,’ ” Mr. Creel recalled when he first heard about the rally late last spring.

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[I]n May Mr. Creel met Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, when he came to see “Hair” with Dustin Lance Black, author of the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Milk.” At a party afterward for the release of the cast recording, they all talked about the Oct. 11 National Equality March that Mr. Jones was helping to organize. The rally’s organizers say they are seeking “equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states” for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.

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[A]t the heart of “Hair” is a political message about equality, justice and freedom, and that everyone involved “knew what they were signing up for.” The Sunday matinee was canceled and a Monday-evening performance on Oct. 5 was added. Ticket-buyers could trade in their seats for another performance or get a refund. The cast and crew were essentially given the day off, although, as it turns out, Mr. Creel said he thought that nearly everyone in front of the curtain and many who work behind it plan to go to Washington.

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Blunt appeals from the stage to attend the rally seemed inappropriate, but during the final number, when the audience is invited to dance onstage, cast members now hold up homemade signs about the Oct. 11 rally that say: “Our tribe is going. Are you?”

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At the same time, Broadway Impact is organizing at least 20 free buses to take people from New York to the rally and back. Performers like Sutton Foster, Audra McDonald, Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris, as well as the casts of “Hair” and another Broadway musical, “Memphis” (opening Oct. 19), have each donated the $2,400 needed to rent a bus. The tribe will be on one of them.

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Again, it should be an interesting adventure. At times, I truly believe that activism and this blog have saved my life - with help, of course from the boyfriend, my youngest daughter and my family and office staff.

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NOTE: Others seeking to attend the March from the Hampton Roads area can still purchase bus tickets at the HROC website.

Former UVA Law Professor Describes Anti-Gay Bias at Law School

A reader sent me a link about this story a little while back and in the chaos of earlier this week I never got to talking about it. Now a new post on UVA Law Blog goes into great detail about the 1985 denial of tenure to a professor at the University of Virginia Law School because he is gay. I graduated from the Law School in 1977 and I hate to say it, but I can well believe Professor Eskridge's allegations. During my time at UVA gays remained pretty much invisible both at the student level and definitely at the professor level. Yes, there were suspicions about some faculty members, but everything remained under the radar. Fortunately, things at UVA have changed markedly and the University has at times led in the push for domestic partnership benefits and the Law School requires would be employers recruiting on campus to agree to a non-discrimination policy vis-a-vis students' sexual orientation. Personally, I believe most law firms lie about applying the policy in reality, but at least the Law School endeavors to stop discrimination. Here are some story highlights:

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Maybe the history of homophobia at the Law School - gone now, of course! - didn't start and end with the students. William (Bill) Eskridge is a law professor at Yale who teaches Constitutional Law, Legislation, and Sexuality, Gender, and the Law, but he used to teach at Virginia back in the 1980s. Mr. Eskridge is gay. And last week, he gave testimony (opens a .doc file) to the House Committee on Education and Labor on the pending Employment and Non-Discrimination Act of 2009, which would "bar sexual orientation and sexual orientation and gender identiy discrimination in the workplace by states as well as by private employers."

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According to Mr. Eskrdige, the ENDA is a proper exercise of Congress's authority 14th Amendment . . .Why is this law needed? Well for one thing, Mr. Eskridge alleges that the Law School denied him tenure because he is gay: For an example explained in my statement, I was denied tenure at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985 based in part on my sexual orientation. The hysterical behavior and deployment of anti-gay epithets by key state officials indicates that the decision was influenced by anti-gay prejudice. The inability of state officials to explain their decision without engaging in libel underlines the irrationality of the state discrimination and its vulnerability to equal protection attack.

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After the committee’s report was ratified by the faculty, blood was in the water. For the remainder of my tenure at the University of Virginia School of Law, I was harassed on a regular basis by faculty colleagues and parts of the law school’s administration. Several faculty friends and at least one member of the committee explicitly urged me to get out of Charlottesville as quickly as possible, partly because there was so much hatred toward me on the faculty and partly just for my own mental sanity and physical safety (during the tirade by the chair of the committee, I believed that he was going to assault me). So I visited at the Georgetown University Law Center in academic year 1987-88 and accepted a permanent position there in 1988. . . .

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[S]hame on the Law School if his allegations are true. From reviewing Mr. Eskridge's accomplishments, its seems like the Law School lost a great scholar.Thanks to Hunter of Justice and an anonymous tipster for bringing this to our attention.

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LGBT employees in Virginia continue to have no protections whatsoever from employment discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Out attorneys in large law firms in Virginia continue to be few and far between and closeted gay attorneys in large local law firms live in daily fear of being fired. That's right ZERO protections. The passage of ENDA is desperately needed to protect citizens in backwards states like Virginia where we will have to wait possibly decades before the state moves out of the Dark Ages.

Dallas Judge Paves Way for Gay Couple to Get Divorce

In what may be the spark for a challenge to Texas' ban on gay marriage, a Dallas judges has ruled that the ban is unconstitutional and that her court has jurisdicition to hear a divorce case involving a same sex couple married legally in another jurisdiction. Judge Tena Callahan's ruling that the Texas' bans on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law will no doubt get many freepers and Christianists foaming at the mouth and writhing with convulsions. God forbid that equality under the law actually mean equality. Personally, I have always believed that anti-gay marriage bans and discrimination against gays is unconstitutional both under equal protection arguments AND under freedom of religion guarantees. Here are some highlights from the Dallas Morning News:

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In a first for Texas and a sweeping rejection of the state’s ban on gay marriage, a judge has cleared the way for two gay Dallas men to divorce.

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A voter-approved state constitutional amendment and the Texas Family Code prohibit same-sex marriages or civil unions. And the Texas attorney general had intervened in the two men’s divorce case, arguing that since a gay marriage isn’t recognized in Texas, a Texas court can’t dissolve one through divorce.

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But Dallas state District Judge Tena Callahan ruled Thursday that the state's bans on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law. She denied the attorney general’s intervention and said her court "has jurisdiction to hear a suit for divorce filed by persons legally married in another jurisdiction."

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In a prepared statement, Attorney General Greg Abbott said he would appeal the ruling “to defend the traditional definition of marriage that was approved by Texas voters. “The laws and constitution of the State of Texas define marriage as an institution involving one man and one woman. Today's ruling purports to strike down that constitutional definition — despite the fact that it was recently adopted by 75 per cent of Texas voters.”

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I applaud Judge Callahan for her courage and straight forward reading of constitutional guarantees. The majority has no right to vote away the rights of minorities and anti-gay marriage amendments have created a very dangerous precident.

Senator Lindsay Graham Denounces Glenn Beck

South Carolina's closeted princess Senator Lindsay Graham took the unusual move of condemning Faux New's Glenn Beck and the birther movement. Would that more members of the GOP leadership - gay or straight - would wake up to the lunacy of the majority of the current GOP base. Ms. Graham is hardly a favorite of mine, but it is perhaps encouraging that even he is waking up to the fact that the public perception of the GOP is being severely damaged by the mindless and bigoted behavior of the base, including the birthers and the tea party crowd. Here are some highlights from Huffington Post:

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.) offered unusually blunt assessments of the fringe elements of his party and conservative media on Thursday, calling the popular and bombastic Fox News host Glenn Beck a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to American values.

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Appearing before a crowd of Washington's elite power players and opinion-makers, Graham spoke largely without filter, offering acidic takes on subject well beyond Beck. The Senator called the birther community that questions the president's U.S. citizenship "crazy" and implored them to "knock this crap off" so the country could get on to more important matters. I'm here to tell you that those who think the president was not born in Hawaii are crazy," said Graham, who went on to dispel another myth: that Obama is a closet Muslim.

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Graham also ventured to call "crazy" a recent article on Newsmax, laying out how a military coup could overtake the Obama administration.

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Reflecting comments made earlier in the day by his colleague and close friend, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Graham said he was deeply worried about "the passions of cable TV" whipping up the emotions of the public. "If you get rewarded for being a jerk you are going to keep doing it," he said, before labeling "Talk radio, MoveOn.org, and the 24-hour news cycle" as the main culprits in polarizing the nation.

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Unless and until a majority of the GOP Congressional leadership likewise grows some balls and condemns the lunatics and bigots within the GOP base, I suspect the slide in the Party's image with the general public will continue.

More Thursday Male Beauty

More Scape Goating of Gays By Vatican; Church Remains Blind to Causal Effect of Celibacy Requirement

The ever wonderfully disingenuous Catholic Church hierarchy is at it again trying to blame all of the Church's sex abuse scandal problems on "the gays." Never mind that likely one-half of the predator priests were STRAIGHT or that many experts believe that the priestly celibacy requirement in and of itself breeds repressed sexuality problems all too ready to overflow. First, Pink News is reporting on the Vatican's latest effort to deflect blame and depict gays as the sole predators. Here is a sampling of the usual noxious bullshit:

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A Vatican official has said that the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was caused by gay men preying on teenage boys, rather than paedophilia. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, read out a statement after a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva. He said: "Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

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The statement also attacked other religions, with Tomasi saying that most US churches embroiled in abuse scandals were Protestant, adding that the problem was also common in Jewish communities.

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The statement was released after the International Humanist and Ethical Union accused the Holy See of covering up child abuse. International representative Porteous Wood said: "The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far.

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Well, timing is everything and just as the duplicitous Archbishop Tomasi was spewing bullshit, Raymond Lahey, former bishop of Antigonish, Newfoundland (pictured above), was arrested on child pornography charges. Oops!! I guess the Vatican's excuse isn't exactly fool proof. The Globe and Mail has coverage on Bishop Lahey's "problem" and here are some highlights:

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Raymond Lahey, who served years in the upper levels of the church in Newfoundland, helped it stickhandle its way through these scandals during his long tenure in the province. He was never personally implicated in the abuses. But news that the former bishop of Antigonish, who resigned on the weekend citing personal reasons, had been arrested on child pornography charges resurrected the church's ghosts.

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He would not speak about Mr. Lahey, who was taken into custody in Ottawa Thursday afternoon, saying it would be irresponsible to speculate about his former bishop. Mr. Lahey was born in St. John's in 1940 and ordained as priest in 1963. He studied canon law in Rome and pursued post-doctoral studies in Cambridge, England before returned to his native province, where he spent the next 22 years.

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While in Nova Scotia, Mr. Lahey negotiated an historic settlement with victims of sexual abuse by priests. He was not implicated in the abuse and, announcing the settlement in August, he told the public that his diocese had “been taking steps to protect children and youth.” The apparent disconnect between that statement and this week's allegations, which have not been proven in court, shocked some observers. Ronald Martin, who launched the class-action suit that prompted the settlement, told the CBC that the allegations were “the ultimate revictimization.”

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As I have maintained for years now, a thorough house cleaning of the Church hierarchy is needed and until such times as it occurs, the Vatican has no moral standing on any issue. Another interesting article comes by way of a flash back from the National Post in reaction to Bishop Lahey's arrest. Here are some highlights which again show that the Vatican is not being truthful (imagine that):

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The breaking child-porn scandal regarding Raymond Lahey, former bishop of Antigonish in Nova Scotia, sent me down memory lane to this column ... Jonathan Kay National Post Friday, March 05, 2004:

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On Feb. 27, two major reports were released documenting the extent of American priestly abuse between 1950 and 2002. The numbers are staggering. All told, 4,392 priests were alleged to have sexually abused 10,667 children. That works out to about 4% of all priests in ministry, a figure many times the rate of that for Protestant clergy. The most obvious explanation for the discrepancy is simple: Protestant ministers are allowed to take wives. Catholic priests are not.

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Some trace the Catholic child abuse epidemic to the disproportionately high presence of homosexuals in the ministry. There is some truth to this: Of the alleged abuse victims identified, 81% were male, just 19% female. . . . . All in all, homosexuals -- who are believed to account for at least one-third of Catholic priests -- are thought to be responsible for about half of all priestly sex abuse.

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But even if you remove homosexuals from the equation, the data yield an abuse rate among straight priests of about 3%, which is still extremely high. Clearly, the problem spans gay and straight clerics alike.The root cause of the abuse epidemic, as a variety of researchers have concluded, is that Catholic seminaries seem to both attract and incubate sexual deviants and disturbed closet cases. Or, as Harvard Medical School associate professor Martin P. Kafka more gingerly put it in a recent report delivered to the Vatican: "The [available] data suggest that Catholic diocesan priests are a relatively distinct and atypical group of male sexual offenders.

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Driving all this is the formal requirement that Catholic priests be celibate. On one hand, the restriction serves to attract men who are ashamed of their sexuality for one reason or another, and are looking for a socially acceptable means to repress it. On the other hand, by insulating priests from the normalizing influence of a monogamous, adult relationship (gay or straight), it permits them to surrender to their dark fetishes unimpeded. Men who remain single through their middle-aged years often sink into a sort of self-indulgent weirdness.

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The Vatican will never willingly admit that its celibacy policy - which was initiated to keep more money under the control of the Church - is at the heart of the sex abuse problem. Just as the Church was centuries behind the curve in accepting scientific knowledge (and still is for that matter), no one should expect truthfulness from the Vatican any time soon.

Gays To Help The Disadvantaged and Sick in Conjunction with National Equality March

I received a press release from the Empowering Spirits Foundation, Inc. ("ESF"), a non-profit, non-partisan grass-root based civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, whose members engage in service-oriented activities in communities typically opposed to equal rights. In working side-by-side with non-LGBT neighbors these neighbors may come to see similarities rather than differences in each of themselves and members of the LGBT community, engage in dialogue through non-confrontational means, and come to promote equality. I have often said that by putting a face and personality out to people - as opposed to some stereotype - we have the best opportunity to open hearts and minds. Here are some highlights from the press release:

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The Empowering Spirits Foundation (ESF), a national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization will hold its “Proud Hearts Reach Out” service events across the nation on October 10-11, 2009, in conjunction with Coming Out Day and the Equality March on Washington.

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The ESF has partnered with Habitat for Humanity, the American Cancer Society, the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society, MyOutSpirit.com, and others to engage in service oriented events designed to allow LGBT individuals to work side-by-side with non-LGBT members in an effort to open up communication between both sides.

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“ESF is proud to be working with various organizations to address many of the major issues facing Americans today; affordable housing, inadequate healthcare, and a lack of funds for neighborhood revitalization,” said A. Latham Staples, President and C.E.O. of the ESF. “Regardless of whether you are gay or straight, these issues affect everyone. And for those in the LGBT community who are unable to attend the national march, this is a great opportunity to help others in need, and in doing so we can engage in dialogue through this non-partisan manner in an effort to promote understanding and equality.”

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We are a part of this community, our families are here. Our well-being and our lives are intertwined with everyone else in the community. And our spirituality demands that when we can help, we do so, while our integrity demands that we aid without hiding who we are.”

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What: Empowering Spirits Foundation’s “Proud Hearts Reach Out” events

Where: Nationwide, 36 states

When: Saturday, October 10, 2009, & Sunday, October 11, 2009

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Volunteers are asked to visit www.empoweringspirits.org to R.S.V.P. For more information on the San Diego event or an event being held in any other city please visit www.empoweringspirits.org, email events@empoweringspirits.org or call (858) 523-8201.

Thursday Male Beauty

Project to Block Appointment/Re-Appointment of Anti-Gay Judges In Virginia

Virginia is one of a small number of states where state court judges are appointed by the General Assembly. Unlike federal judges where appointments are lifetime, Virginia judges come up for reappointment. Given the current rampant homophobia in the Virginia judiciary it seems time to begin a project where dossiers can be assembled on judges that have displayed homophobia and refused to abide by the Virginia Canons of Judicial Conduct and submitted to gay friendly members of the General Assembly as ammunition for opposing the reappointment of such judges. Coupled with this would be an effort to make sure that complaints are filed with the Virginia Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission to further document the behavior of judges. While the Commission seems generally worthless from my experience, still I suspect it must report the number of complaints received against any particular judge up for reappointment.

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To start this project, I would like to hear from anyone who would like to get involved and it will also be necessary to come up with forms and other documentation so that we could have consistent information, etc. I am also going to make some contacts with the ACLU, Equality Virginia, and other LGBT rights related organizations to see if (1) we can have a coordinated effort state wide on this front and (2) assemble a list of gay friendly allies in the General Assembly that would be well positioned to bring up a judge's homophobic conduct and failure to abide by the Canons of Judicial Conduct.

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Obviously, the other thing that will be needed is for LGBT Virginians who have been mistreated in court by biased members of the judiciary to take the time to contact this new organization and share their story so that a file can be built up on each homophobic judge. It will take some time to get this project off the ground, but in time it can hopefully (a) assist in blocking reappointment of bigoted judges and (b) become a deterrent to homophobic judges by its mere existence.

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Let me know your thoughts and whether you would like to get involved (e-mail me a michaelinnorfolk@gmail.com). Also, be thinking of a name for the new organization. So much injustice is done to LGBT litigants virtually daily by anti-gay judges and it is time that we devise a mechanism to strike back and work to have these judges removed from office and/or not reappointed.

Minneapolis Church Votes to Leave ELCA

UPDATED: This afternoon I had the occasion to talk with an ELCA pastor about the parishes voting to leave the ELCA because of it recent vote to accept partnered gay clergy. This pastor was saddened by such moves and agreed with me that the intellectual dishonesty of those who seek to literally apply arguably anti-gay Bible passages while ignoring many more Bible dictates was appalling. Indeed hypocritical. The other things that this pastor pointed out were (1) that 90% of ELCA parishes will feel zero impact from this move since no parish can be forced to accept a partnered gay pastor and (2) by leaving the ELCA or withholding money from the national church body, the main punishment falls on mission work and other worthy charitable work. Thus those "punished" are not even those with whom the homophobes are upset.

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Roanoke, Virginia, apparently does not have a monopoly on modern day Pharisees within the Evangelical Lutheran Church - now an ELCA parish in Minneapolis, Minnesota has voted to split from the national church over the recent vote to allow partnered gay clergy and to give recognition and ministry to committed same sex relationships. As I have asked in prior posts, are the good members of St. Paul Lutheran Church applying the same literal biblical application to all other passages in the Bible as they say should apply to anti-gay passages? I suspect we know that answer - of course not, only the gays get special mandatory literal application of a few Bible passages. I suspect St. Paul's has any number of divorced and remarried members and that countless other Bible passages are ignored when found to be inconvenient for the heterosexual members of the parish. In short, the homophobes at St. Paul's are hypocrites and bigots like the ones at St. John's in Roanoke. Here are some highlights:

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A Minneapolis church is just the third in the nation to vote to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In a bold move over the weekend, St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church of Minneapolis voted overwhelmingly to leave the ELCA in protest over last month's vote to allow the ordination of gay clergy members who are not celibate. It was the first of two votes required to make the move.

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We're profoundly saddened by this. We really didn't want to leave a denomination we've been a part of and various predecessor bodies for 130 years," said Pastor Roland Wells. Pastor Wells said 96 percent of his congregation voted to split from the ELCA.

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So far that church in Minneapolis is one of only three in the country to begin the process of leaving the ELCA. The other two are in Arizona and Virginia.

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It is always easier to hang on to one's bigotry than to open one's mind and consider that past ways of thinking were in error. Some people just seem to have the need to have someone to look down on and condemn to stroke their own egos and sense of self-righteous. History will not be kind to St. Paul's when the day comes when their action makes them akin to segregationists of the 1960's.

A Heart Felt Thank You to My Readers

I've explained in part what came down over the last few days in terms of my melt down. What I have not properly recognized is the incredible outpouring of messages of concern and support from the readers of this blog. Some have left comments, others have e-mailed and some have even called by phone. One reader even called the Norfolk police and set them to looking for me not realizing I was in Hampton and already being taken care of prior to transfer to the facility I stayed at.

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I cannot tell you how much the support of all of you has meant to me. Between the boyfriend who is so amazing), my family, local friends and my blogosphere family I am indeed blessed. From the outset of this blog, it has been my goal to share my journey and that includes the good, the bad and the ugly - and the last two days definitely fell within the ugly realm. If and when I do write the book I'd like to write, I do want to share my experiences so that hopefully others will see they can ultimately prevail despite some very dark days and rough roads.

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Thank you to all who have been so wonderful in this rocky time.

Desmond Tutu Denounces Use of Religion Against Gays

Once again retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has place himself as a counterweight to the abundant number of gay hating African bishops within the Anglican Communion. Tutu - as usual - doesn't mince his words and speaks what I believe is in keeping with Christ's gospel message which the modern day Pharisees seek to pervert. Often for their own gain and/or egocentric gratification. Tutu made these comments supporting gays for the opening of a peace summit in Vancouver, British Columbia (one of my favorite cities in the world). Here are some highlights from XtraWest:

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Retired Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu has denounced the use of religion to spread fear of homosexuals and those foreign to us. “Religion has often been used diabolically to encourage all kinds of awfulness — xenophobia and homophobia,” he said.

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He made the comments by video from South Africa Sunday at the opening of the Vancouver Peace Summit: Nobel Laureates in Dialogue. Tutu could not attend the summit in person due to a back injury.
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His comments were made on the day he and the Dalai Lama became the inaugural recipients of the $100,000 Fetzer Prize for Love and Forgiveness. The Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Fetzer Institute, founded by broadcaster John Fetzer to promote the power of love, compassion and forgiveness, conferred the award.

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Tutu’s statement against homophobia comes as the worldwide Anglican Church continues to be divided over the issue of same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay clerics. The first Anglican blessing of a same-sex relationship in an officially approved rite took place in Vancouver.

Wednesday Male Beauty

Pentagon's Top Journal Calls for Repeal of Military Gay Ban

An article in the upcoming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, which is published for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is according to the Boston Globe recommending a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell ("DADT"). As I have advocated before many times, DADT is nothing more than legally sanctioned religious based discrimination and needs to be repealed immediately. With all of the new findings and knowledge on sexual orientation, the U. S. Military - like religious denominations - needs to get with the 21st century and tell Christo-fascists like Elaine Donnelly and Tony Perkins that religious based bigotry has no place in the civil laws or the Code of Military Justice. Here are some highlights from the Globe story:

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An article in the Pentagon’s top scholarly journal calls in unambiguous terms for lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, arguing that the military is essentially forcing thousands of gay men and women to lead dishonest lives in an organization that emphasizes integrity as a fundamental tenet.

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The article in the upcoming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, which is published for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was written by an Air Force colonel who studied the issue for months while a student at the National Defense University in Washington and who concludes that having openly gay troops in the ranks will not hurt combat readiness.

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The views do not necessarily reflect those of Pentagon leaders, but their appearance in a publication billed as the Joint Chiefs’ “flagship’’ security studies journal signals that the top brass now welcomes a debate in the military over repealing the 1993 law that requires gays to hide their sexual orientation, according to several longtime observers of the charged debate over gays in the military.

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After a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly,’’ writes Colonel Om Prakash, who is now working in the office of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. “Based on this research, it is not time for the administration to reexamine the issue; rather it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.’’

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The article, an advance copy of which was provided to the Globe, is likely to increase pressure on President Obama to fulfill his campaign pledge to work with Congress to overturn the 1993 law commonly referred to as “don’t ask, don’t tell.’’

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Representative Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Iraq war veteran, is lobbying for a hearing - possibly later this year or early next year - on legislation that he has proposed that would repeal the ban. The bill has 176 cosponsors; there is no similar legislation pending in the Senate. Arguing that the law “has been costly both in personnel and treasure’’ - the cost of discharging service members and recruiting replacements, including those with language or other specialized skills - Prakash lays out a case in his article for why he believes the time has come for repeal.

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Prakash cites the examples of other militaries - including in Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Canada - that allow gays to serve openly. “There was no mass exodus of heterosexuals, and there was no mass ‘coming out’ of homosexuals,’’ he said. Prakash also points to recent examples of gay soldiers - including battlefield leaders such as a Marine Corps captain - whose sexual orientation has been known by others in their units, to no discernible effect.

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Elaine Donnelly has her panties in a wad over the article - which is no big surprise. I just wish she'd go buy herself a vibrator or find some other way to get orgasmic other than trashing LGBT members of the military. In fact, maybe she and Victoria Cobb from The Family Foundation can buy some sex toys in bulk and leave gays to live our lives as full citizens.