More Saturday Male Beauty

NOM's Misplaced Efforts to "Protect Marriage"

I don't know about you, but I almost vomit when I hear self-enriching, money whoring Maggie Gallagher and Tony Perkins and others like them whine about "protecting the sanctity" of marriage. Right behind that in my book is the bullshit mantra that children need a mother and a father. Well right out of bigot extraordinaire Sally Kern's own back yard we have an example of what NOM is so busy allegedly protecting. The headline of the article is "Bethany Couple Arrested on Bestiality, Drug Complaints." Oh, and yes, these stellar examples of marriage are legally married and have three children - or at least they did until the children were taken at least temporarily into state custody. Yep, these two get to marry and are deemed worthy by Christianists to be parents, but same sex couples do not. It's beyond f*cked up. Here are some highlights from the Oklahoman:
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Edward James Double, 35, and his wife, Brandy Teresa Double, 35, were jailed on complaints of bestiality, exhibition of obscene materials to minor children, maintaining a disorderly house, possession of illegal drugs and soliciting sexual conduct with a minor.
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Three dogs and four children were removed from a home and a Bethany couple arrested after police officers found bestiality videos and evidence a girl staying with the family was solicited for sex, police said.
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Three boys and a girl, all younger than 15, were taken from the home at 6710 NW 26 and are in state custody, Bethany Police Chief Phil Cole said. He said in his 20 years as a police officer in Bethany he has heard of only one other bestiality case, and that was more than a decade ago and involved a mentally ill man.
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“We've recovered videotape of people having sex with animals,” Cole said. “It's disgusting. And we pray that none of the kids have been molested.” . . . .

Cole said video recordings were found of a couple having sexual relations with a dog. He said the recordings were made in the master bedroom of the home.

Funny How The Hate Groups Fail to Counter SPLC Label with Specitics

As noted in several posts, the hate merchants at Family Research Council and American Family Association have been shrieking and wailing over the fact that they have been - justly in my view - labeled as registered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. We've seen various disingenuous statements that Christianis are being labeled as haters and other broad brush efforts to malign SPLC who these folks would have people believe has become a tool of the "gay agenda." God forbid that theses veracity challenged groups try to counter the specific charges laid by SPLC. The reasons, of course, is because they cannot and their only defense is to throw up smoke and mirrors and hope the main stream media is too lazy to look at specifics (sadly, something that is typically a safe assumption). Blogger friend Alvin McEwen has a good post at Pam's House Blend that looks at specific instances of why SPLC was right on target. In his post, Alvin looks at some of the "Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality" that has been disseminated by AFA and its kindred purveyors of hate and how Robert Stienbeck at SPLC laid out the untruthfulness of the allegations. Many readers have no doubt seen similar refutations before, but it is worthwhile to look at them again so that one is prepared to counter statements by the ignorant which may use such lies as justification for positions hostile to full LGBT equality. Here are highlights from Alvin's post:
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Myth: Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.
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Steinbeck - Fischer is referring to a 1989 Journal of Sex Research article by the late researcher Kurt Freund, who concluded that homosexuals were not any more disposed to pedophilia than heterosexuals — a finding exactly opposite to what Fischer suggests. Fischer constructs the 33% figure from Freund’s research by assuming that every case of men molesting boys is committed by a “homosexual” man — a conclusion rejected by virtually all legitimate sex researchers. As Freund said, since most pedophiles have no sexual interest in adults of either gender, terms like “homosexual” and “heterosexual” don’t apply at all. It is the child’s prepubescent nature, not his or her gender, that attracts this type of “fixated” pedophile
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Myth: Same-sex parents harm children [who engage in more promiscuity].
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Steinbeck: A study Fischer cites was conducted in 2001 by professors Timothy J. Biblarz of the University of Southern California and Judith Stacey of New York University. . . . In an E-mail to Hatewatch this week, Stacey blasted Fischer’s misuse of her research. “They are misrepresenting our 2001 article … by cherry-picking out of context one finding we mentioned that came from one very small British study,” she wrote. “Even so, their claim that children raised by lesbians are more sexually adventurous is also inaccurate. In the small study we mentioned … it was only the daughters who were sexually active a bit earlier than daughters of straight moms. Boys raised by lesbians were less sexually active than sons of straight moms!
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Myth: Homosexuals don't live nearly as long as heterosexuals [we supposedly die 20 years early].
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Steinbeck: Again, Fischer ignores that the authors of that 1997 study updated it in 2001, pointing out that advances in treatment of HIV-AIDS even at that point had significantly improved the expected longevity of those infected, which would inevitably narrow any gap between gay and straight life spans caused by the disease. Moreover, the authors explicitly rejected the attempts of anti-gay organizations to construe the 1997 observations to justify denigration of gays. “These homophobic groups appear more interested in restricting the human rights of gay and bisexuals rather than promoting their health and well being,” the authors wrote in their 2001 update.
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Myth: Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.
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Response: Fischer omitted the fact that the GLMA clearly say that these behaviors are not indicative of the lgbt orientation but reactions to homophobia of society: GMLA: Depression and anxiety appear to affect gay men at a higher rate than in the general population. The likelihood of depression or anxiety may be greater, and the problem may be more severe for those men who remain in the closet or who do not have adequate social supports. Adolescents and young adults may be at particularly high risk of suicide because of these concerns.
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You get the drift: outright lies and deliberate distortions of research and then blaming the victims of bigotry for their ensuing reactions to the unrelenting denigration and discrimination. And these bastards wonder why they were labeled as hate groups? Again I ask, WWJD?

Saturday Male Beauty

Obama and the Democrats: A Deficit of Purpose

I frequently get beat up by defenders of the Liar-in-Chief and the feckless Democrats because I expect accountability and want things done. The common excuse - and I got this again just yesterday on a piece I wrote on Bilerico - is that the Democrats never had 60 votes in the Senate. Actually, they did briefly, but even that ignores the fact that the Republicans got things done (albeit often bad things) under Chimperator Bush without 60 votes and have done a brilliant although short sighted job of blocking Democrat efforts. The question is how have they done it. I believe it comes down to two things: party discipline - something unknown to the Democrats - and a clear purpose and willingness to play nasty to further it. It drives me to distraction that the Democrats have been so spineless and allow themselves to be screwed by the GOP over and over again. And the problem starts at the top in the White House. The New York Times looks at this ongoing problem in an editorial today. Here are some highlights:
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A sense of resolve and a clear purpose should not be partisan commodities, yet, in Washington, only the Republicans seem to have them. They know exactly what they want and pursue it with ruthless efficiency: preserve all the Bush-era tax cuts, no matter the cost, and make sure President Obama gets nothing done.
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In the last few weeks, Republicans have blocked or vowed to kill: an extension of jobless benefits; the first real arms reduction treaty with the Russians in nearly a decade; the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”; and, most significantly for the nation’s financial future, the expiration of unnecessary and expensive tax cuts for the rich.

Where has the president been through all this, as the sand runs out on a Congress with two Democratic majorities?
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[I]magine if he had taken to the airwaves, raised his voice and said he would not allow tax cuts for the top 2 percent of households when the money could better be spent on creating jobs? There are limits to this kind of jawboning, of course, and he might still have lost the battle. But at least the public would know the president has core positions.
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A new CBS News poll shows that only 26 percent of Americans support continuing the high-end tax break, which in the 2008 campaign Mr. Obama unambiguously vowed to end. In the absence of presidential leadership, the Republicans have a much stronger hand. The dismal November jobs report, which showed that average wages grew by a Scrooge-like penny an hour and unemployment rose to 9.8 percent from 9.6 percent, made unemployment benefits a more valuable hostage.
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This need not have happened if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats had forcefully asserted their agenda before the midterm election and held a vote on the tax cuts.
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It may be that Mr. Obama still believes that bipartisan gestures can overcome extreme policy differences. But the rest of Washington woke up from that dream long ago. It has become a snare.

The Missing Element in the DADT: That Gays Are Human Too

Opponents of LGBT equality go to great lengths to dehumanize LGBT individuals - it's a tactic long used by the Christian Right that bears a striking resemblance to the game plan used by NAZI propagandists against the Jews. Naturally, it's easier to justify mistreatment of those who are some how "other" or less than fully human. In the debate over whether or not DADT should be repealed, there's be huge focus on the sensibility of bigots and chaplains (a position that perhaps ought to be dropped from the military ranks completely, in my opinion even though my "father in law is a former Army chaplain), but almost no commentary on the lives and emotional/psychological costs DADT inflicts on LGBT service members. Are the opponents of repeal just grand standing to the toxic Republican Party base or does their opposition suggest something far more disturbing: they don't see gays as human beings. The Plum Line in the Washington Post looks briefly at this phenomenon and here are some highlights:
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One thing that's been oddly missing from the debate in the Senate over repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell is any discussion of the moral and human dimensions of this story, at least as it concerns the gay service-members themselves. The discussion has mostly focused on how straight troops will be impacted.
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Indeed, when Senator James Webb today asked the Service Chiefs a simple question about the gay human beings impacted by this discriminatory policy, everyone at the hearing acted a bit startled. Webb asked: What should we do with gay patriotic Americans who have already served our country for years, and want to lead free and open lives? Everyone looked uncomfortable, as if Webb had gone way off topic.
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Matthew Yglesias today wonders what on earth opponents of DADT repeal are thinking. As he says, at bottom this debate is really about whether we are going to treat gays as "free and equal citizens of the country," or whether they're "some kind of subordinate class."
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So here's my question: Is it possible that one of the things holding up repeal is that many people simply haven't had an up-close view of the ugliness of anti-gay bigotry, and aren't willing to believe the push for equality for gays is on a moral par with other major civil rights battles?
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[I]t seems to me that the broader discussion has been largely antiseptic and lacking in moral urgency and historical depth. I wonder whether it's because people have mostly been insulated from the ugliness of anti-gay bigotry. I'd be very interested to hear from others on this.

The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Closet

Jack Drescher, M.D., is a member of the LGBT Committee of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry and has long been an advocate for ending homophobia and life in the closet. He has a good piece at Huffington Post that looks at the toll DADT takes on closeted members of the military. His analysis likewise describes the phenomenon that many in the LGBT community have taken for varying periods of time in their lives: denial of who they are and strenuous efforts to adopt a life/persona that will be deemed acceptable by family members, church and the larger society. I for one am guilty of this inasmuch as I went through mental gymnastics for years trying to convince myself that I really wasn't attracted to other males that fit the parameters of "my type," got married and had children, and continued in this illusion of authentic life until I simply could no longer do it. The irony, of course, is that many of the opponents of DADT repeal both in the military and in Congress are likely doing the same thing I did for decades by deluding themselves as to their true self. The hostility is a mere transference of their own self-hate. Unlike these people, however, I never allowed my efforts of denial to lead me to actively harm members of the LGBT community or to opposed equality under the civil laws. Here are some highlights from Dresher's piece:
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While repeal would cause little harm, numerous critics have detailed both the financial and security costs of continuing DADT. There are psychological costs as well. . . . To avoid discharge under DADT, these young people engage in a series of mental and behavioral gymnastics. One cadet admits he learned "how to be a good actor." Another, tired of "hiding" her sexual identity, publicly resigned after two years at the Academy.
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"Acting" and "hiding," common ways of describing life in the closet, and are surface manifestations of the underlying psychology of maintaining secret identities for long periods of time. While gay people are not the only ones who hide secrets, the gay closet has unique features.
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Gay people often spend long periods of their lives unable to acknowledge their own homosexuality to themselves or to others. Beginning in childhood and throughout adolescence, being "tagged" as gay can lead to teasing, ridicule, family rejection and even violence. For aspiring young cadets, being gay means giving up dreams of a life of service to one's country. So they, like many gay people, treat their same-sex feelings as an unpleasant fact they would rather not know about themselves or admit to others. They keep those feelings out of awareness and separated from their public personas.
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The solution to one problem, however, creates others. Constant hiding takes its toll. It is painful to continuously hide important parts of the self or to always keep parts of the self separated from each other. As a way of hiding, they may choose to adopt public, heterosexual identities. This leads some closeted gay people to heterosexually marry yet lead secret homosexual lives.
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However, the mental effort needed to maintain a double life sometimes leads to errors in judgment and engaging in compromising situations, which may explain the parade of married, anti-gay public figures who have been arrested for public lewdness or outed by indiscreet male prostitutes.
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When hiding becomes too painful, some people come out. They do so even though the benefit of being a whole person risks exposure to the social stigma attached to homosexuality.
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Why come out? One ex-cadet who did said, "I have lied to my classmates and compromised my integrity and my identity by adhering to existing military policy. I am unwilling to suppress an entire portion of my identity any longer." The case for repealing "don't ask, don't tell" and choosing psychological unity could not be expressed any better.

Friday Male Beauty

Catholic Test Question - Truth from the Mouths of Children

This photo from Joe By God needs little commentary. The answer truly looks like something my children might have written, especially the younger two.

Admiral Mullen Shows Honor and Integrity - Obama remains Missing in Action

While I never trusted the Pentagon to not try to skew the DADT report, I have been overall pleased with it. Moreover, I have been impressed with some of the military leadership who understand - without directly stating it - that DADT is an assault on the U.S. S. Constitution and the supposed guarantee of equality and religious freedom for all citizens. If DADT is not repealed, the U. S. Senate will be confirming to the world that America and it's Constitution are a fraud. Via America Blog here are remarks made by Admiral Mullen when challenged by John McSenile:

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"With all due respect, Mr. Chairman and Sen. McCain, it is true that, as chairman, I am not in charge of troops. But I have commanded three ships, a carrier battle group and two fleets. And I was most recently a service chief myself. For more than 40 years I have made decisions that affected and even risked the lives of young men and women.
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"You do not have to agree with me on this issue. But don't think for one moment that I haven't carefully considered the impact of the advice I give on those who will have to live with the decisions that that advice informs. I would not recommend repeal of this law if I did not believe in my soul that it was the right thing to do for our military, for our nation and for our collective honor."
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And meanwhile what's the Liar-in-Chief doing? According to the Washington Blade, NOTHING! The man is proving again and again that his honesty and truthfulness is ZERO. All those campaign promises meant NOTHING. Here are highlights from the Blade:
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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he’s unaware of any attempt by President Obama to convince fence-sitting senators to support “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal following the release of the Pentagon report on the military’s gay ban — but said Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made calls to influence lawmakers.
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Asked by the Washington Blade on Wednesday whether the president has been reaching out to senators following publication of the study, Gibbs replied, “Not that I’m aware of.”
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I stand ready to work on the campaign of any Democrat that will challenge Obama for the 2012 nomination. If that challenger is credible, I know MANY folks who are ready and waiting to drop Obama like a putrid hot potato.

McCain Exudes Bigotry At DADT Hearing

John McSenile apparently wants to be the poster boy for why there need to be mandatory retirement ages for members of Congress. The man is clearly losing his grasp on reality and action the exact opposite of how he once promised to act if the military brass found that it was time for DADT to be thrown on the trash heap of history. McCain is - in my view - a tad too hysterical on the issue and it does make me wonder once again if there might not be something to a friend's conjecture that McCain was sodomized while a POW in North Vietnam. Indeed, McCain's shrillness reminds one of self-loathing closet cases like Robert Knight and Peter LaBarbera. McSenile seems virtually obsessed with finding any flimsy reason to ignore the Pentagon report that blows his concerns out of the water. Here are highlights from Think Progress on McCain's shameless behavior as well as a video clip of McSenile's refusal to accept findings that run counter to his own bigotry:
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From the very first DADT hearing in February 2010 to today’s session, the Senator refused to consider the views of the witnesses before him. This morning — after reviewing the overwhelming positive DADT report and listening to the pleas of the leaders to end the policy in the lame duck session — McCain went further, openly implying that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen was not living up to the expectations of leadership because he did not ask the troops if they favored repealing the policy.
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Significantly, all of the leaders in front of the commission — Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Working Group chairmen Defense Department General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson and Army Gen. Carter F. Ham — disagreed with McCain’s approach of polling the troops about the policy. “I can’t think of a single precedent in American history of doing a referendum of the american armed forces on a policy issue,” Gates said, asking, “are you going to ask them if they want 15 month tours, are you going to ask them if they want to be part of the surge in Iraq?” McCain didn’t name a single “great leader” who favored a referendum.
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Nigeria to Indict Dick Cheney, Interpol to Issue Arrest Warrant

While it would be far better if Dick Cheney - and Chimperator Bush - were facing indictment for war crimes, I'll settle for any threat of arrest if Cheney takes his sorry ass out of the USA. In my view, the man is pure evil and deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail. One can only dream of seeing Cheney in a Nigerian jail which somehow I suspect would not be up to the standards to which he's become accustomed. Related to this story on MSNBC last night, however, is news that the Liar-in-Chief has been involved in strong arming foreign governments and judicial systems to block prosecution of Bush White House operatives for international crimes such as torture. Once again, Obama proves that his entire campaign was a lie and that the American people were played as suckers as rarely before. I for one hope he's challenged for the 2012 nomination and defeated. I am way past done with the man. Business Week meanwhile has details on Emperor Palpatine Cheney's legal problems. Here are some highlights:
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Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said.
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Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in an interview today at his office in Abuja, the capital. An arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” the world’s biggest international police organization, he said.
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Last week, Nigeria arrested at least 23 officials from companies including Halliburton, Saipem, Technip and a former subsidiary of Panalpina Welttransport Holding AG in connection with alleged illegal payments to Nigerian officials. Those detained were all freed on bail on Nov. 29.
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Authorities in the West African nation are probing Halliburton, Saipem and Technip for the alleged payment of $180 million in bribes to win a $6 billion liquefied natural-gas contract. Panalpina is being investigated for illegal payments it allegedly made to Nigerian customs officials on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
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The plans to file charges against Cheney were reported earlier today in the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper. Femi Babafemi, a spokesman for the commission, confirmed the plans to file charges when contacted by phone today in Abuja. He wouldn’t comment any further.
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KBR and Halliburton agreed to pay $579 million in February 2009 for bribery payments in Nigeria that stretched from 1994 to 2004.

More Thursday Male Beauty

Victim of Sex Abuse by Priest Receives $30 Million Vedict

If the Roman Catholic Church will not do its own house cleaning of pedophile priests - and the bishops, cardinals and Popes who enabled them and covered up abuse - then perhaps the only way to force reform is through huge judgments in favor of abuse victims. That seems to be the thinking of a Delaware jury that awarded $30,000,000 to a man who said he was sexually abused more than 100 times by a Roman Catholic priest. Moreover, the jury levied $3 million of the award against the priest's parish. Obviously, no amount of money will restore the damage suffered by this victim. However, the severe financial punishment meted out to the Church will hopefully force reform - if not at the volition of the Church hierarchy, then by demand of insurance cariers who may be rethinking issuing liability policies to the Church and its parishes. Here are highlights from the New York Times:
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A jury in Delaware on Wednesday awarded $30 million in compensatory damages to a man who said he was sexually abused more than 100 times by a Roman Catholic priest — the largest such award granted to a single victim in a clergy abuse case, victims’ advocates said.
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In an unusual outcome, the jury decided that the parish where the abuse occurred, St. Elizabeth in Wilmington, must pay $3 million of the damages, while the perpetrator is liable for the rest.
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It is usually the diocese or the religious order, not the parish, that is held responsible for damages. But the Diocese of Wilmington, which covers all of Delaware, declared bankruptcy last year just as the lawsuit was going to trial, so this lawsuit as well as more than 100 pending lawsuits against the diocese was frozen.
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The jury is set to hear evidence on punitive damages on Monday. Thomas S. Neuberger and Stephen J. Neuberger, father-son lawyers for the plaintiffs, say they have saved the most damning evidence for this phase, and that the award to the plaintiff could grow substantially beyond the compensatory damages.
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St. Elizabeth parish is a large church with an elementary school, a high school, and three resident priests. The Rev. Norman Carroll, the parish pastor, said he could not talk about the case because it was continuing. Mr. Vai, the plaintiff, testified that the parish was negligent in his abuse. He said that when he was a small boy being hauled up the stairs to his abuser’s bedroom in the rectory, he was spotted by another parish priest, who is now a diocesan official. The official, Msgr. Thomas Cini, testified that he was unaware of the abuse. Another witness testified that other priests in the parish were aware of Mr. DeLuca’s behavior.
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The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a Catholic priest who was an expert witness for the plaintiff in this case and many others, said, “This was egregious because of the level of direct knowledge imputed to priests who lived there at the time.”
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What is truly egregious is the fact that the current Pope and the many, many bishops and cardinals involved in cover ups still hold their positions - and that sheeple still bow and ass kiss to such morally deficient individuals.

More Creation Museum Insanity

I really wonder what mental illness, serious head trauma or serious mind altering drug use afflicts the far right Christianists in their headlong rush to embrace ignorance and - I'm sorry to say - downright insanity. I've mentioned the Christianists' evolution denying fantasy world as represented by the Creation Museum in Kentucky before. Now the "museum" and its supporters are achieving new levels of untethered insanity with plans to build a "full-scale wooden replica of Noah's Ark based on biblical descriptions." Yep, they're using the same Bible descriptions as the basis for their "replica" that have proven wrong in so many ways ranging from being off on the dates of supposed historic events by hundreds of years and minor things like the belief that the Sun revolved around the earth. One truly could not make up stuff this crazy. Oh, did I mention that they plan to have dinosaurs on their ark? Here are highlights from WLWT-TV:
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The Creation Museum will announce details Wednesday afternoon of its planned expansion. Answers In Genesis, which built and operates the religious-themed attraction, plans to build a full-scale wooden replica of Noah's Ark based on biblical descriptions. The $24.5 million project will be constructed by the same team that built the Creation Museum.
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"We see a full-scale, wooden ark as something so significant that it will shake up this nation," Ham said. "It would be a clear reminder to America about the truths of the Bible. The building of a huge ark is a unique and powerful opportunity to reach millions in our nation (and around the world) with a bold statement: God's word is true."
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The new park will be built on land owned by the museum, which presents an account of the origins of the universe and life that matches the book of Genesis. This interpretation of prehistory is generally at odds with scientific consensus . . .

Why Gays Are Good for Business

I have written here and here about how backwards the Hampton Roads area is socially and culturally and its overall unwillingness to embrace diversity and tolerance. With a population of 1,658,292 people one would be inclined to expect a somewhat sophisticated population, but old ideas and too much deference and pandering to conservative religious elements continue to plague the area. Added to this is smothering atmosphere is the self-imposed closet that haunts the large numbers of gays in the local military forces under DADT - a phenomenon that spills over into the private employment sector as well. The result: a brain drain of the college educated and a natural reluctance on the part of progressive businesses to locate in the area.

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Some have recognized that things need to change if the area is to prosper long term. As a result, in January, 2011, a group of senior communication, public information and public affairs professionals from government, military, key employers, businesses, colleges and universities will hold a meeting to discuss and collaborate on issues that will hopefully help address the negative findings of a Brookings Institute study that found Hampton Roads to be “old, slow and not too bright” and in need of action to address “brain drain” and a lack of economic AND cultural diversity.

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Given this background, I found this video clip from the NGLCC national dinner - which I had the privilege of attending as a representative of HRBOR, currently the only NLGCC affiliated chamber of commerce in Virginia - to be of interest. It looks at why gays are good for business. Would that more of the business community and political leadership would buy into this concept. Here's the clip.:

Thursday Male Beauty

The Crisis of Homeless LGBT Youth

Among the growing casualties of state and local government spending cut backs are homeless LGBT youth, many of who are homeless because they were disowned by their "loving" Christian and Mormon parents. As a parent, I truly cannot understand WTF is wrong with a parent who would disown their own child because of an unthinking, simpleton like devotion to the writings of ignorant people of 2000-2400 years ago. Once again, religious belief displays itself as a true evil. In New York City, LGBT youth make up a staggering percentage of the homeless youth population. Nonetheless, the city of New York is proposing drastic funding cuts to agencies that provide much needed services to these youth. With winter setting in, the situation is a crisis. David Mixner looks at the impending disaster on his blog. Here are some highlights:
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The prestigious and legendary Ali Forney Center in New York City has been a safe place for homeless LGBT youth for years. They have dozens of beds for the young people, many kicked out of their homes for being a LGBT youth. In addition, it is a place in which they can seek counseling, a shower, a place to read, use a computer or just feel safe from the horror of being young and homeless in New York City.
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The day after Thanksgiving the city of New York notified the Ali Forney Center that because of our economic times they would be cut by $143,000. Other outreach centers for LGBT youth also were being cut including the Bronx Community Pride Center which is losing 50% of its funding. There is a real crisis in this city with homeless LGBT youth. There are an estimated 1,500 LGBT youth homeless on any given night in this massive city. These young people often have been rejected by their families, their communities and off their spiritual base.
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In many ways, the entire struggle for our freedom and full equality is so that another generation will not have to experience the tears, suffering and pain of our past journey. They are our future and our hope. With their rejections from their families and friends, we all have become their guardians. We cannot become so absorbed in our everyday battle for freedom that we fail to protect our young ones that are around us today.
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[T]his Christmas make a donation now to the Ali Forney Center or The Bronx Community Pride Center or to both to help out in this crisis.

2 Million Lose Unemployment Benefits As Holidays Arrive

Ebenezer Scrooge looks pretty loving and charitable compared to the Congressional Republicans who are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits for 2 million Americans - even as they threaten to block ALL legislative action unless and until the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of Americans are extended. The cost of unemployment benefits is $18 billion. The cost of the tax cuts for the 1% richest Americans is $700 billion. But guess which expenditure the GOP insists be payed for while the bigger ticket items gets funded via deficit spending. It's ridiculous, but guess who is missing in action in terms of using his bully pulpit. You guessed it, the spineless Liar-in-Chief. The man truly makes Jimmy Carter look like the most forceful of presidents. Nancy Pelosi condemned the GOP's f*cked priorities but not so the White House. With the threat from the GOP Senate contingent one would think Obama would finally get his head out of his ass, but apparently not so based on his smiling idiot routine when discussing his meeting with GOP representative the day before - where NOTHING was accomplished. Here are highlight from the Washington Post on what the GOP is doing to real, everyday Americans. It's obscene and readers need to read the full article to see what is happening to people whom the GOP apparently sees as less than human since they are not multi-millionaires (and people ask why I left the GOP?):
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Shawn Slonsky's children know by now not to give him Christmas lists filled with the latest gizmos. The 44-year-old union electrician is one of nearly 2 million Americans whose extended unemployment benefits will run out this month, making the holiday season less about celebration than survival.
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Things used to be different for Slonsky, who lives in Massillon, Ohio. Before work dried up, he earned about $100,000 a year. He and his wife lived in a three-bedroom house where deer meandered through the backyard.
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Then they lost their jobs. Their house went into foreclosure and they had to move in with his 73-year-old father. Now, Slonsky is dreading the holidays as his 99 weeks run out.
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The GOP didn't pay any political price for stalling efforts earlier this year to extend jobless benefits that provide critical help to the unemployed - including a seven-week stretch over the summer when jobless benefits were a piece of a failed Democratic tax and jobs bill. But bad publicity because the benefits end over the holidays has long been forecast.
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Ninety-nine weeks may seem like a long time to find a job. But even as the economy grows, jobs that vanished in the Great Recession have not returned. The private sector added about 159,000 jobs in October - half as many as needed to reduce the unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, which the Federal Reserve expects will hover around 9 percent for all of next year.
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"When you try to apply for retail or fast food, they say 'You're overqualified,' they say 'We don't pay that much money,' they say, 'You don't want this job,'" she said.

Illinois Legislature OKs Civil Unions for Gay Couples

Despite the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church, the Illinois Family Institute and other professional gay-hating groups, the Illinois Legislature has passed legislation which will provide same sex couples with most of the rights of marriage. Of equal positive import is the fact that Gov. Pat Quinn has indicated that he will sign the measure. Like it or not, the religious based anti-gay bigotry promoted by the Catholic Church and others who have a total disregard for the separation of church and state are slowly and steadily losing the larger war for gay civil rights. The irony is that the more the Christianists and Church hierarchy engage in hate mongering, the more rapid is the disengagement of younger generations from organized religion. As in the immediately previous post, the foes of gay equality blame gays for the decline in religious affiliation and the increasingly negative view of Christianity yet it is these self-enriching opportunists and and the morally bankrupt Church hierarchy who are the ones actually accelerating religion's demise. Here are highlights from the Cleveland Plain Dealer on yesterday's legislative events:
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Civil unions for same-sex couples would be allowed in Illinois under historic legislation the state Senate swiftly sent Wednesday to Gov. Pat Quinn, who is expected to sign the measure. The bill would give gay couples the chance to enjoy several of the same rights as married couples, ranging from legal rights on probate matters to visiting a partner in a hospital that won't allow anyone but relatives into a patient's room.
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The Senate voted 32-24 after the House, viewed as the toughest hurdle, passed the measure on Tuesday. . . . Sen. David Koehler said he sees the issue "through the eyes of a father who has a gay child," a daughter who "doesn't have the same rights" as his other children.
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But Sen. Chris Lauzen questioned, "Why civil unions now?" when the state reels from high unemployment, home foreclosures, a huge state debt and social services in disarray.
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Sen. John Jones said he has a "lot of good gay friends" that he respects and supports, but civil union "is the wrong path to take," particularly now when state leaders should be focused on fixing state finances and putting people to work. "Rome is burning, folks, and we're sitting back watching it burning," Jones said.
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"We have a chance here, as leaders have had in previous generations, to correct injustice and to move us down the path toward liberty," said sponsoring Rep. Greg Harris, one of two openly gay lawmakers, his voice breaking with emotion. "It's a matter of fairness, it's a matter of respect, it's a matter of equality." Opponents charged that civil unions are a "slippery slope" that will erode traditional family values.
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To the Republican opponents who whine that "Rome is burning," the reality is that as long as the laws support inequality, Rome has already been lost and only a false imaginary image exists. The Constitution guarantees equality under the law whether one is gay or straight, Christian or non-Christian and it's beyond time that elected officials start making this guarantee real to all citizens.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Maggie Gallagher and Professional Gay-Haters Continue to Play the Victim

The whining and disingenuous crocodile tears flowing from Maggie Gallagher and similar whore-like professional Christians who are making themselves rich by peddling anti-gay hate seems to know no end. Now, Ms. Gallagher - or to be more accurate Mrs. Raman Srivastav (her husband of Indian descent and a Hindu) - is gnashing her teeth and whimpering that LGBT Americans and the Southern Poverty Law Center (which registered Ms. Gallagher's National Organization for Marriage as an anti-gay organization) are working to define Christianity as bigotry. The charge, of course is utterly untrue, unless one practices the very real bigotry which is a hallmark of the corrupted form of Christianity practiced by Ms. Srivastav/Gallagher which seems to utterly disregard the bulk of Christ's Gospel message. Ms. Srivastav/Gallagher found a sympathetic ear with the Catholic News Agency that is about as lacking in objectivity as Fox News or perhaps the Klan's internal newsletter if one exists. Here are highlights from Ms. Srivastav's fantasy world ramblings:
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The Southern Poverty Law Center’s classification of pro-family groups as hate groups is the “next phase” of a gay rights movement which seeks to redefine Christianity as bigotry and to shut down honest debate, pro-family leaders warned.
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Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the board for the National Organization for Marriage, spoke about the SPLC article and list in a Nov. 29 interview with CNA. She called it an “absurd distraction” and a “very sad” move for “a once-great civil rights organization.”
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“What we’re seeing now is the next phase of the gay rights movement,” she warned. She noted homosexual rights activist Dan Savage’s claim in the Washington Post that the country should get to a point where same-sex marriage isn’t debatable.
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“This is part of the unfolding process of attempting to redefine Christian teaching on sex and marriage as the moral, legal and cultural equivalent of racism.”
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“I do believe this is the goal of the architects of the gay marriage movement,” Gallagher stated. “And they’re making it very clear.
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Gallagher noted that the Southern Poverty Law Center did not name her organization as a hate group “but even the Washington Post got confused” by its article. Responding to the Law Center's accusations that some groups listed had spread falsehoods, she said she did not see anything that “would remotely cause us to be included in this report
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“We need to face squarely the goals of this movement, the rhetoric of this movement, and the fact that this is an issue,” Gallagher remarked. She added that Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic bishops have made clear that “it doesn’t get better” if opponents of same-sex “marriage” stand down.
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“The next fight is going to be whether or not our religious institutions and parents and schools are going to be stigmatized in the public square as racists, and face legal disabilities that racists face.
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Obviously, Gallagher/Srivastav has been hanging around Tony Perkins - when her lips are moving she's lying. That's right, she's a big fat liar (literally and figuratively) who makes a tawdry whore look reputable.

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P.S. According to Wikipedia, Gallagher/Srivastav is a former unwed mother and married Raman Srivastav in 1993 and has two children.

FRC Admits It Wants it's Religious Beliefs Written Into Nation's Laws

I have long argued that the Christianists want to subvert the U. S. Constitution and enshrine their particularly toxic and divisive religious beliefs written into the nation's laws. Indeed, they want their beliefs to trump the U. S. Constitution and destroy the right of freedom of religion for all others. Now, this agenda has been confirmed by Family Research Council's Senior Vice President, Rob Schwarzwalder, who flat out stated as much in the context of FRC's vociferous - and dishonest - opposition to the repeal of DADT. The irony, of course, is that the Christianists are quick to demand draconian punishments for those who they claim subvert the Constitution yet they themselves are arguably guilty of treason. Jeremy Hooper at Good As You has these comments on Schwarzwalder's theocratic goals:
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Rob Schwarzwalder, comes right out and admits the obvious: That opponents of open service want their personally-held faith views written into law. Period. . . . What the hell is your point, Mr. Schwarzwalder? We're talking about the U.S. Constitution here, not anyone's personal prayers!!
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Here, via FRC's blog, is some of Schwarzenwalder's in theory potentially treasonous batshitery if held and acted upon by members of the U. S. military who have sworn to uphold and defend the U. S. Constitution which, last time I looked, barred the establishment of any particular religious dogma as a national religion:
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The objections many men and women in uniform, and their families, have toward allowing homosexuals to serve in the Armed Forces are not grounded in “feelings.” . . . Homosexuality is described as a sin against God in both biblical Testaments. Those of us who believe the Bible’s commands transcend time and any society’s “growing acceptance” (Sec. Gates’ phrase) will remain opposed to the “mainstreaming” of homosexuality, period. That’s a moral statement, Mr. Secretary. It’s not a feeling. It will not change until the Bible changes, which is, for the record, never.

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The bottom line is that Christianists in the military either need to get onboard the concept of freedom of religion for all - including gay Americans - or else they need to get out of the military as soon as their current tours end. To me, it would be a case of good riddance.

Wednesday Male Beauty

New York Times: Repeal DADT Now; Shame on Republicans

As I have noted many times, the only real justification for DADT has always been religious based prejudice and a desire on the part of conservatives - especial those who allege to be Christian - to punish LGBT Americans for their failure to abide by Christianist morality. Never mind that the very U.S. Constitution the military is sworn to uphold claims to grant religious freedom to all citizens. Of course, under DADT that alleged guarantee has been a lie - like much of what America pretends to stand for but doesn't afford to LGBT citizens. In its main editorial today, the New York Times states that it's time for DADT to be remanded to the trash heap of history and it also slams GOP members of the Senate who who seek to ignore the Pentagon report and cling to religious discrimination. Would that John McSenile, Lindsey Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen, and others in the GOP who prostitute themselves to the Christian Right would take heed. the Here are some highlights:
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After nine months of study and regular leaks, the Pentagon’s report on repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law was hardly a surprise. Most soldiers long ago came to terms with the thorough and frank report’s conclusion that allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly poses little risk.
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Nonetheless, it was bracing to hear Defense Secretary Robert Gates call directly on the Senate to vote immediately to repeal the ban. If Congress dawdles yet again on eliminating this longstanding injustice — as several Republican leaders vowed to do on Tuesday — Mr. Gates believes an impatient court system will step in and order an end to the discrimination. That may turn out to be the only way for the military to move forward on this vital issue, but it would stand as history’s rebuke to lawmakers who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the nation’s social change and the military’s role in it.
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Some of the resistance to repeal is based on religious or moral objections to homosexuality, and the report made it clear that the Pentagon is not trying to change anyone’s deep-seated beliefs. It is simply making it plain that regardless of those beliefs, all members of the military must co-exist and respect each other.
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It is shameful that Republican lawmakers are not as respectful of the values enunciated on Tuesday by Mr. Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who firmly supported eliminating what Mr. Gates called a “legally and morally fraught process.” Those lawmakers are already gearing up to repudiate the report and stymie repeal. Representative Howard McKeon of California, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, questioned the accuracy of the survey and said he would do everything he could to defeat repeal.

How DADT Repeal Came to be Hostage of the Lame Duck Session

As many of us hold our breath and wonder whether or not DADT repeal will finally happen in the lame duck session of Congress, it's important to remember how we came to be in the current posture of things: Democratic Party spinelessness and a constant string of lies from the White House. Not that the Democrats will accept any of the responsibility. Thus, it is hopeful to look back on some of the bullshit that has emanated from the Democrats in the lead up to this 11th hour do or die situation. A case in point is the whining of Andrew Tobias, DNC Treasurer (pictured at left). Tobias exemplifies the phenomenon of it being easier to blame someone else rather than admit that your team has been called out for being utter screw ups, if not two faced liars. As many may recall, Tobias has sought to place the blame for the growing rift between the Democrat Party and many LGBT Americans who are sick to death of the Liar-in-Chiefs lies and the overall spinelessness of the Congressional Democrats on LGBT issues. Oh, and did I mention all those broken campaign promises? No, Tobias would rather blame it all on John Aravosis and America Blog and by extension other LGBT bloggers and activists who refuse to drink the DNC's Kool-Aid and cheer lead for Obama like HRC.
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The truth is that some of us - like John - want action, not cocktail party invites and "access." Tobias needs to get his head out of his ass and wake up to reality. Most of the LGBT community is smart enough to recognize when they are being conned and are just plain tired of it. If the DNC and Democrat Party have problems with their LGBT constituents, they need only look in the mirror to find the cause. If DADT repeal fails to pass, the Democrats haven't seen anything yet in terms of LGBT anger. Joe Sudbury had a piece earlier in the month on America Blog that looks at Tobias' efforts to deflect blame from where it belongs which bears revisiting. Here are some highlights:

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DNC Treasurer Andy Tobias joined in the comments section last night of John's latest post about the DNC's, and White House's, growing gay problem. And he wasn't very happy.
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The DNC's Tobias, a series of 11 comments spanning into the early hours of the morning, blames John for the increasingly strained relationship between the gay community and the Democratic party: As these comments show, you are being quite effective in turning people against support of the Democrats. That, by definition, helps the Republicans.
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So, John is to blame for the Obama administration's infamous DOMA brief last June comparing same-sex relationships to incest and pedophilia. Right. I remember how hard John worked on that brief. Oh, right, it wasn't John who wrote that brief. Obama's Department of Justice did, and Obama's press secretary said the President stands behind it.
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And I suppose it's John's fault that President-elect Obama invited famed homophobe Rick Warren, who was an outspoken supporter of Prop 8, to give the invocation at the inauguration.
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It was also John's fault that Senator Durbin said this week that the Senate may not take up the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" next year, even though our community has been repeatedly told that early next year DADT will be repealed, as the president promised.
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Tobias is the top-ranking gay official at the DNC and his comments really gave us some insight into the way that organization thinks. He blamed Aravosis for turning people against the DNC. Apparently, in the world of Andy Tobias and the DNC, John's gay civil rights advocacy is helping the Republicans. All we're asking is for Obama to keep his promises to the LGBT community. All we've done here at AMERICAblog is report whether or not those promises have been kept.
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If any Senate Democrats break ranks and fail to vote for DADT repeal, it will be interesting to see how Tobias tries to play that situation. I'm sure anyone and everyone will be to blame except the White House and the Congressional Democrats.

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Old Dominion University Seeks to be Hub for Research on Rising Sea Level

It's a bit surreal to watch as Virginia's insane Attorney General Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli seeks to discredit climate change even as one of Virginia's largest universities positions itself to become a leader in rising sea levels as a result of - you guessed it, climate change and global warming. On the other hand, it IS comforting to know that there are some rational thinking residents in the Commonwealth - they just tend to not be Republicans. As we've noted before, eastern Virginia has huge problems facing it as sea levels rise as polar ice melts. Norfolk is a particularly vulnerable city as shown in the photo where million dollar homes have the tidal waters encroach them - the street is totally submerged - during a recent storm that coincided with high tide. Here are details from the Virginian Pilot:
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Old Dominion University plans to unveil an initiative Thursday to become a national hub for research, teaching and expertise in rising sea levels related to climate change.
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The directive from ODU President John R. Broderick comes as the Navy’s top oceanographer, Rear Adm. David Titley, is scheduled to speak Thursday night in Norfolk about the threats of climate change and how the Navy is preparing to cope with them.
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“We are forced to take very seriously the scientific evidence that predicts the ocean’s rise of 2 feet or more before the end of the century,” Broderick said. “It’s as if we live in a climate-science fishbowl here on the Virginia coast.” Given its swampy, low-lying nature and the fact that land is slowly sinking, Hampton Roads for years has been forecast to be the second-most vulnerable region to elevating seas on the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, behind only New Orleans.
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The reality is, coastal waters are rising – by between 15 and 17 inches over the past century – making shoreline areas more susceptible to storms, flooding and tidal surges.
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“We want to get more involved in this issue. And frankly, given our location in an urban, coastal environment, we’re in a unique position to do so.” ODU does not have a climate-change adaptation plan, Atkinson said, “but we’ll probably have to do that.” Titley, the Navy oceanographer, is scheduled to meet with ODU faculty and environmental experts involved in the initiative before his speech Thursday to go over Navy research.
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ODU grapples with reality while Kookinelli tries to make the world conform with his untethered lunacy. Blue Virginia has a related story here that looks at the problems Washington D.C. will face with rising sea levels.

Family Research Counsel Continues to Prove "Hate Group" Label Accurate

Even as the Pentagon rolled out its detailed and many month long study on DADT, the gay-haters at Family Research Council ("FRC") rolled out their own doctored and fraudulent poll of the military which purports to find the exact opposite of the Pentagon study. Never mind, of course, that FRC had to skew and hand pick its poll sample to favor much older and retired military and "family members" in order to rig a result that would on its face seem to support its religious based opposition to DADT repeal. Jeremy Hooper at Good As You summarizes the flaws of the FRC "poll":
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A new Family Research Council survey purports to show that "almost 63 percent of active duty and retired military families oppose overturning the policy prohibiting open homosexuality in the military." But honestly, about all we need to know can be found in these two lines:
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43% [of respondents] are supporters of the Tea Party movement (3,691 people).
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Demographically, 62% are pro-life, 70% support traditional marriage 70% are historical contributors, 45% are male and 71% are 50 years of age or older.
FULL POLL DATA: http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF10K46.pdf
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Nearly 3/4 are over fifty? 43% support the Tea Party? 70% support the code-worded concept of "traditional marriage"? Plus retired and active, servicemember and family member, are all tossed together as one big block of respondents? Puh-leeze! This is nowhere near a fair sample.
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Combine this sample with the weighted questions about "open homosexual behavior," and what you have is more of the same kind of obfuscation that landed FRC on the Southern Poverty law Center's latest hate groups list. The mainstream media should accept it in the same way.
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Then, of course there is more on the details of the lies that Tony Perkins put out on Hardball earlier in the week. Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin demolishes Perkins' dishonest effort to fool viewers into thinking there was any even remotely legitimate study to back up FRC's lies. Here are some highlights: *
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The study was not “refuted,” in Perkins’ terminology, simply because the finding was not considered to be significant, not even by its authors. The study, “Behavior patterns of child molesters” by W.D. Erickson, N.H. Walbek, and R.K. Seely which appeared more than twenty years ago (1988, to be exact), didn’t set out to determine the sexual orientation of child molesters. The study, of 229 convicted child molesters in Minnesota, (which, by the way, was never intended to be nationally representative in any way) was focused on the types of sexual contact the men engaged in with their victims — vaginal or anal penetration, oral contact, and so forth. In this particular sample, 63 victims were male, and 166 victims were female.
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Perkins completely misquoted it. Perkins said that 86% of men who abused children -- without regard to gender -- said they were gay or bisexual, a claim that the authors specifically did not make.
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FRC, however, took a single sentence from a study that did not try to investigate the sexual orientation of offenders, and amplified a throw-away line as though it were the entire study’s reason for being. And because it didn’t investigate sexual orientation, it’s illegitimate to to amplify one lone throw-away sentence into “overwhelming scientific evidence” — those are Tony Perkin’s words — that gays are a threat to children.
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The reason the FRC is legitimately a part of the SPLC’s list of hate groups is their penchant for taking one line from a study out of context, and present that single sentence as being somehow more significant than the tons of studies that experts in the field of child sexual abuse have conducted through the ages.
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Once again, lies, bogus studies and polls and bearing false witness against others are FRC's principal stock in trade. If FRC represents what a Christian is like, then I surely want to run screaming away from Christianity. As recent studies show, I am not alone in that assessment as younger generations increasing identify as having no religion.

Complete DADT Survey Results

The full Pentagon study on DADT repeal is out and overall it is very positive for those who support of the Christianist backed DADT policy. Not unexpectedly, professional gay-haters like the folks at FRC and ass kissing GOP members of Congress (in addition to John McSenile and the Palmetto Queen, Lindsey Graham) are in hyperventilation with spittle spraying all about. Andrew Sullivan summarizes the report findings as follows:
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And the report is absolutely clear that straight servicemembers by large majorities have few problems with openly gay servicemembers. 69 percent of them acknowledge they have fought or worked alongside gay men and women already. A staggering 92 percent of those were fine with lifting the ban. Again: when you know someone is gay, all the fears and stereotypes tend to evaporate.
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Likely adding to the hysteria of repeal opponents is the statement made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates who urged Congress to act before the courts do so. Here are highlights from the wonk room at Think Progress:
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Secretary of Defense Robert Gates offered the strongest endorsement of the Pentagon’s Working Group study of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell this afternoon, warning opponents of repeal that if they “choose not to act legislatively,” they are “rolling the dice that this policy will not be abruptly overturned by the Courts.” “It is only a matter of time before the federal courts are drawn once more into the fray, with the very real possibility that this change would be imposed immediately by judicial fiat –- by far the most disruptive and damaging scenario I can imagine, and the one most hazardous to military morale, readiness and battlefield performance,” he said, urging Congress to “pass this legislation and send it to the president for signature before the end of this year."
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Obviously, the existence of the report will make it far more difficult for courts to find that there is any rational basis - indeed any basis - for DADT except religious derived discrimination. Among the report details is a summary of the policies of other nations. As the chart above demonstrates, it is down right embarrassing that Azerbaijan is more progressive than the USA in terms of its policy on gays in the military. Here is the full survey report (NOTE: it's a huge document and loads slowly).