Pope Francis Warns of ‘Culture of Hate’ Targeting LGBT People

Pope Francis remains utterly inconsistent on the treatment of LGBT individuals.  He recently hatred directed at LGBT individuals and stated that that government leaders targeting LGBT people remind him of the Nazis.  Yet at the same time, the Roman Catholic Church's dogma that demonizes gays and refers to us as "intrinsically disordered."  I'm sorry, but Francis doesn't get to have it both ways especially when he, as Pope has the power to change the Church's position by pronouncing "ex cathedra" a new position on homosexuality by relying on Roman Catholic doctrine that a Pope speaking ex cathedra on issues of faith or morals is infallible.  The reality is that Christian missionaries (and Islamic fundamentalist) exported anti-gay hatred across the globe and until all religious leaders reject this agenda of hate, LGBT people will continue to suffer, sometimes losing their lives. A piece in The Advocate looks at Francis' welcomed statements and his failure to change the Church's condemnation of gays:

Pope Francis said on Friday that government leaders targeting LGBTQ people remind him of the Nazis.

In Rome, the pope warned members of the International Association of Penal Law, "I confess that when I hear some speeches by someone responsible for public order or a government, I am reminded of Hitler's speeches in 1934 and 1936,” according to CNN.

"They are typical actions of Nazism which with its persecutions of Jews, gypsies, people of homosexual orientation, represent a negative model 'par excellence' of a throwaway culture and a culture of hate,” he continued.

Francis did not refer to any specific governments, but LGBTQ people are subject to persecution all over the world. This month alone, five men in Malaysia were sentenced to caning and jail time for attempting gay sex. Ugandan police rounded up more than 100 people at an LGBTQ-friendly bar in Kampala. Activists went on trial after being arrested at a Pride march in Ankara. Marriage equality was overturned in the Cayman Islands. And trans women of color continue to face an epidemic of violence in the United States.

DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke . . . . said she hopes Francis’ remarks “are also understood to be applicable within the Church, and that Catholic leaders who say hateful, disparaging and dehumanizing things or act to limit the human rights of LGBTQ people and others immediately change their ways.” [M]any point out that the Catholic church’s teachings on LGBTQ issues have not changed. As The Advocate reported in April, Francis “has also said gay priests are not welcome in the church. He has met with gay and transgender people who described his manner as loving and supportive, yet he has said same-sex couples don’t meet the church’s definition of family and denounced gender-affirmation procedures. The church remains intractably opposed to same-sex relationships; Catholics with same-sex attractions should never act on them, according to church doctrine.”

Is Francis a hypocrite?  You decide, but I am inclined to say "yes."

The Global Backlash Against Gay Rights - Homophobia As A Political Tool

Pulse massacre victims remembered - St. Pete Pride Parade

Later today, Donald Trump - who I refer to as Der Trumpenführer - is reportedly scheduled to sign a so-called "religious freedom" executive order.  The order has nothing to do with protecting religious freedom for all Americans but instead would grant special rights and privileges to Christian extremists - the Christofascists, if you will.  If the order is as expected, Christofascists will be granted a license to discriminate at will against LGBT individuals and possibly others who do not conform to Christofascists' religious views.   The driving force behind the effort?  Obviously, the religious based hatred of Christofascists toward anyone and/or anything that challenges their beliefs or underscores the fallibility of the Bible, a work first authored by ignorant, uneducated, unknown Bronze Age authors.  The other is the political opportunism of Republicans and reactionary politicians and autocrats who see fanning homophobia as a means to motivate Christofascist voters in America, and scapegoat minorities  to retain power in Russia, much of Africa and parts of South and Central America.  A lengthy piece in Foreign Affairs looks at  the anti-gay backlash and the poisonous religion  dogmas and political whores/autocrats who care nothing about the lives they harm so long as they remain in power.  Here are highlights:

No revolution worth its salt comes without pushback. The fight for gay rights—widely regarded as “the fastest of all civil rights movements” (over a short period of time, 20 nations have come to recognize same-sex marriage and an additional 15 now allow same-sex civil unions)—is no exception. A shooting rampage last June at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a terrorist who had expressed loathing for the LGBT community, was the deadliest assault ever on the American gay community and attests to the viciousness of this pushback. But that was only one incident. In recent years, there has been a global backlash against gay rights that runs from the United States, through many parts of the global South, to Russia and other parts of the post–Communist world.

The opposition to gay rights comes in two strains and reflects what the Pew Research Center has called “the global divide on homosexuality.” In Western Europe and the Americas, home to the world’s most democratically advanced states and the largest and most sophisticated gay rights movements, the gay backlash takes the form of a counter-revolution designed to intimidate the gay community and roll back gains in gay rights. Across Africa, the Middle East, and much of the post–Communist world, the parts of the globe where democracy, civil society, and human rights are either in short supply or struggling, the gay backlash consists of a “preemptive strike” meant to stop the gay rights movement before it can gain its footing. This involves passing legislation that criminalizes or re-criminalizes homosexuality and that bans the promotion of homosexuality. Both strains, however, serve to fuel anti-gay violence and discrimination, and have exposed the political, rather than cultural nature of the backlash. 

In Europe, there have been massive protests against same-sex marriage, especially in Catholic-majority countries. . . . The protests were for the most part peaceful, but at least one demonstration in May 2013 turned violent, forcing the police to use tear gas and batons to disperse demonstrators.

Across Latin America, the gay backlash has been felt most profoundly in Brazil, where the highest court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2011. Since then, Brazilian legislators have retaliated with a plethora of anti-gay bills that call for redefining the family to exclude homosexual couples, for establishing a national day of “heterosexual pride,” and for banning “Christ-phobia,” or the desecration of Christian symbols. The ban targets the provocative floats mixing religious imagery and sexuality typical of Brazilian gay pride parades. Although these bills don’t really stand much chance of ever becoming law (for one thing, they are of dubious constitutionality), they contribute to the homophobic culture that underpins Brazil’s massive problem with gay killings.

It is in the United States, however, where, along with liberal democracy, the strongest backlash against gay rights can be found. We can count three distinct waves.  The first began immediately after the rise of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s and entailed nothing short of moral panic. Its most dramatic manifestation was country singer Anita Bryant’s “Save the Children” campaign, which succeeded in overturning an anti-discrimination ordinance enacted in Dade County, Florida, by depicting homosexuals as pedophiles. A second wave of backlash crashed in the late 1990s. Between 1998 and 2012, some 30 states enacted constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

A third wave arrived in 2013 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, a 1997 law that barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. A virtual tsunami of legislation intended to undermine LGBT rights has ensued: 254 anti-gay bills have been introduced, 20 of which have become law. In the first half of 2016 alone, 87 bills that could in theory limit LGBT rights were introduced, a steep increase from previous years. The bulk of these laws are justified as measures to protect religious freedom. The passage of bills of this kind has increased by at least 50 percent every year between 2013 and 2015.

Russia’s “gay propaganda law,” enacted in 2013, has also earned its share of infamy. It punishes anyone who promotes homosexuality with jail time and fines. So broadly written is the law that, in principle, it outlaws pride parades; public displays of affection by same-sex couples; gay newspapers and magazines; gay-themed literature, television, and films; and symbols of the LGBT community, such as the rainbow flag. Even an admission of homosexuality, unless the admission is made in order to denounce homosexuality, can be considered illegal.

Darker still is the picture across Central Asia and the Middle East, where the gay backlash has unleashed a nasty wave of anti-gay violence. Since March, more than 100 gay and bisexual men have been reported tortured, held in camps, and killed in the semi-autonomous Russian Republic of Chechnya. For several years now, the world has been horrified by the ghastly antics of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which has been beheading gays and throwing them from rooftops in the territories that it controls. . . .

What is causing the global gay rights backlash is less clear, since societal acceptance of homosexuality in most countries has never been higher. A popular sociological explanation is that increasing visibility makes LGBT people an easier target for anti-gay rights activists. . . . Although this visibility has had a positive effect, leading to greater acceptance of the gay community, the normalization has also galvanized staunch opponents. As Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told The New York Times, “As the majority of society becomes more tolerant of LGBT people, some of those who are opposed to them become more radical.” 

Another popular explanation is the enduring strength of homophobia, which flows from the cultural heterosexism embedded in most religions. Public polls show that societal acceptance of homosexuality is intimately linked to levels of social and economic development and rates of religiosity. The higher the religiosity, the lower the acceptance rate of homosexuality, and vice versa.

Decidedly less noted, and therefore less understood, are the political roots of the gay backlash. By openly embracing anti-gay violence and extremely homophobic legislation, many autocratic regimes across the world are doing what such regimes have done for centuries to groups as varied as Jews, heretics, and various ethnic minorities: scapegoating a socially despised minority as a way to consolidate power, to justify conservative policies, and to distract from other issues.

The governments of Egypt and Iran, for example, employ anti-gay violence in a way that is strikingly similar to the way terrorist organizations, such as ISIS, use violence. Beheading and hanging gays is as much about punishing individuals as it is about intimidating a community or an entire group of people. Russia’s “war on gays” is more a reflection of President Vladimir Putin’s desire to crack down on civil and political liberties than it is an expression of homophobia in Russian culture. Before Putin’s rise, Russia had decriminalized homosexual activity immediately following the fall of Communism.

Although homophobia in Africa is often seen as an “ancient hatred,” its history is surprisingly short. A study by Human Rights Watch revealed that roughly half of the world’s remaining anti-sodomy laws are holdovers from British colonial rule. . . . Leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe discovered that they could score political gains by condemning homosexuals and demonizing homosexuality as a “Western perversion.”

Politicians in the West, but especially in the United States, have also found that exploiting hostility toward homosexuality can score them political points, especially around election time. . . . Karl Rowe, the architect of George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, put same-sex marriage referenda in as many states as possible for the sole purpose of mobilizing so-called value voters. That year, 11 state anti-gay marriage referenda were put to the voters, including in the very important swing state of Ohio.

U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his pledge at the 2016 GOP National Convention to protect LGBT Americans from violence and discrimination, ran on a platform described by gay Republicans as the GOP’s “most anti-LGBT platform” in the party’s 162-year history. . . . While these anti-gay stances no longer have the popular political appeal that they once had, they still serve the useful purpose of keeping social conservatives within the GOP’s fold.

If there is a silver lining to the gay backlash, it is that the backlash is forcing the international community to confront the issue of anti-gay violence and discrimination. . . . faster and more effective change could come if the international community took a stronger stance against those regimes inclined to use gays as a political scapegoat and to employ homophobia as a political tool.

African Bishops Embrace Ignorance and Threaten Schism

The one place in the world where conservative Christianity is growing is in Africa, since the continent has the conditions most needed for growth: a poorly educated and ignorant population.  But the ignorance isn't confined to the members in the pews.  In Africa, the bishops of the Anglican Communion - and I would argue the same applies to the Catholic Church - are so stupid they fail to realize that homophobia, not homosexuality, is a European import and they ignore modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation.  And that doesn't even begin to address the issue that the human genome project has shown that Adam and Eve never existed and that "The Fall" never occurred, thus eliminating the need for a messiah.  As they threaten a schism in the Anglican Communion, the question is are they really as ignorant as they seem or is this some sick power play for control over their ignorant followers.  Religion Dispatches looks at the looming show down between knowlege and modernity and ignorance and bigotry.  Here are excerpts:

“The issue of gay marriage is threatening to split apart the Anglican Communion ahead of an important summit in Canterbury in England next week,” according to the Christian Post, “with African and Asian leaders threatening to walk out on Archbishop Justin Welby.

Welby has been hoping to preserve the communion in the face of conservative outcry over the backing given same-sex marriage by liberal bishops, including leaders of the American Episcopal Church.

The Daily Mail’s Jonathan Petre reports:

The row has torn the Church apart for a decade – with conservatives accusing liberals of abandoning the word of God by backing openly gay bishops and marriages for gay couples – and the Archbishop wants to broker a deal to allow both sides to co-exist peacefully.

But insiders said a hardcore of eight to 12 conservative archbishops from Africa and Asia are preparing to quit the meeting on the first morning unless the liberal Americans ‘repent’ or the Archbishop throws them out.

In what would be a massive challenge to Archbishop Welby’s authority, the conservatives, who represent some of the biggest of the 38 individual Churches in the worldwide ‘Communion’, are then likely move to their own headquarters nearby for the rest of the meeting.

While they are unlikely immediately to break their historic ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury – the nominal head of the Communion – they would boycott future official meetings and set up a parallel church, drawing away traditionalists from the Church of England.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that feelings are running so high that the three most powerful leaders, the Archbishops of Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, were last week on the brink of snubbing the meeting altogether, but were persuaded to attend by colleagues still hoping to force concessions from Welby.

Sources said they have lost patience with the Archbishop’s refusal to discipline the liberals for ignoring official policy urging them to refrain from creating gay bishops or approving gay marriage without widespread agreement.

Personally, my inclination if I were Archbishop Welby would be to let them walk and immediately cut off 100% of funding from the modern elements in the Anglican Communion.  Indeed, I would go further and have all western aid to reactionary religious institutions cut off as well.  The embrace of ignorance and demagoguery needs to carry a very heavy price.

First Circuit Denies Scott Lively's Petition To Dismiss Crimes Against Humanity Suit

Christian terrorists are not the only purveyors of hate and violence.  There are others who use religion to convince others to engage in acts of discrimination and anti-gay violence.  Most of these hate merchants - James Dobson, Rick Warren, Tony Perkins, and Brian Brown are but a few - hide under the banner of "family values" and "bible believing Christians."   Among the worse, however, is Scott Lively who, while delusional by most standards, has exported anti-gay hate and animus on a level matched by few especially to ignorant populations in Africa.  Indeed, Lively's action caused him to be charged with crimes against humanity.  Today, Lively's petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit seeking the dismissal of such charges - the lower court refused to dismiss the charges - was denied.   This means that Lively will have to stand trial and one can only hope that his foul deeds will result in a conviction.   A piece in the Washington Post looked at Lively's foul activities.  Here are excerpts:

Scott Lively is an obsessively anti-gay American evangelical minister. He is, according to National Journal, “perhaps the most extreme” of a network of U.S. evangelicals who, having failed in their crusade against all things gay at home, travel abroad to connect with anti-gay activists and arm them with arguments that, for example, homosexuals will seduce their children, corrupt all of society, and eventually take over the country. You don’t need to take my word for it; read Lively’s manifesto here. It’s a 2007 missive to Russians suggesting they “criminalize the public advocacy of homosexuality,” i.e., use state power to force gay people into the closet. This is something Russia actually did last year (rather indirectly, but quite effectively).

Lively has traveled to Russia to explain the gay menace. He also been involved in similar efforts in Latvia. (You can read about that and much more in National Journal’s commendable article.) And he has been active for years in Uganda, a place where persecution of gays has taken a turn for the worse — partly, it seems fair to suppose, thanks to his efforts. 

Perhaps it’s easier to understand why this is not an easy free-speech case if I change “homosexual” to “Jew.” Suppose I travel to a country where a vulnerable Jewish community faces a hostile and volatile majority; I connect with anti-semitic demagogues, some of whom are politically influential; I equip them with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other anti-semitic propaganda; I warn them that an international Jewish cabal will prey on their children and take over their country; I and advise them to forcibly repress Judaism. If I do all of that, what am I doing? Something more morally and legally complicated than merely exercising my First Amendment rights in the marketplace of ideas, that’s for sure.

If Lively wins, he’s a right-wing hero; if he loses, he’s a martyr. Either way, this case has potential to spread his fame far and wide and inspire imitators. He might succeed in commandeering the Supreme Court as his stage. All pretty enticing for a nut case from the fever swamps. Now, here’s what should be happening. Christians — especially evangelicals, and above all evangelicals who oppose gay marriage but insist they are not anti-gay (you know who you are!) — should be publicly repudiating what Lively is doing. . . . They should treat Lively the way white blood cells treat a bacillus, walling him off before he discredits evangelicals more broadly — as surely he will.

The Sad State of Gay Rights in Africa

In most countries in Africa, the term "gay rights" describes something that is almost nonexistent.  Gays face persecution in the majority of Africa's countries and Mauritania, Sudan and Nigeria have death penalties for gays.  While corrupt governments claim homosexuality is a western import, the truth is that homophobia is the true western import that was brought in by the British and fanatical Christian missionaries.  Sadly, given Africa's largely uneducated population (a prerequisite for religion to thrive), new waves of Christofascists are finding the continent to be fertile ground for their message of hate as they steadily lose the culture wars in America and the educated west. As has been the case so often in the past, religion works to prop up despotic regimes.  The Advocate looks at the abysmal state of affairs in Africa.  Read the entire piece for all the depressing details.  Here are excerpts:

Homophobia thrives in most countries in Africa, making the continent an oppressive place to live for countless LGBT people. 

Months after Uganda's Constitutional Court overturned its Anti-Homosexuality Act, which prescribed life in prison for many instances of gay sex, nearly identical legislation returned — this time in the Gambia.

In October, Chad took up a sweeping bill that calls for 20-year prison sentences for those percieved to be LGBT. 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to institutionalized hatred for lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people in Africa.

Apparently, the Chadian government didn't get the memo about the international and financial impact Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act had on that nation during the six months it was in force, before being overturned on a technicality in August by the Constitutional Court in the capital city of Kampala.

After Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni signed the act into law in February, the east African nation became the target of international criticism and saw nearly $200 million in aid donations from Europe and North America vanish. Gone in a matter of weeks were substantial portions of government aid contributions from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and by March, the U.S., which also canceled a scheduled military exercise between U.S. and Ugandan armed forces. By summer's end, the White House announced that it would deny visas to certain Ugandan officials, that it was scuttling plans for an HIV and AIDS research program at a Ugandan university, and that the country would no longer be the location for a planned $3 million health institute in east Africa.

Now, however, with a foreign policy portfolio bulging at the seams and antigay legislation on the African continent looking more like a potential back-burner issue, those same human rights groups aren't taking any chances. Groups such as Amnesty International and Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights First are urging the president and the State Department to use the Uganda experience to similar effect in Chad.

"Following the U.S.-Africa Summit in August, where President Obama met with African heads of State to discuss strengthening economic and democratic ties between the United States and Africa, it is time that the United States make clear that the future of these bilateral relationships will be damaged by the enactment of antigay legislation," says HRF's advocacy counsel for LGBT rights, Shawn Gaylord. "We hope that the State Department will respond deliberately, as it did when Uganda passed its antigay law, with a plan to respond to the passage of these bills."

Three African nations expressly call for capital punishment for those convicted of same-sex sexual contact, often labeled a "crime against nature," "sodomy," or, in a nod to the colonial origins of such harsh antigay laws, "buggery." Those nations are Mauritania, Sudan, and Nigeria. 

A staggering 32 countries in Africa criminalize same-sex sexual contact with jail time: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

How to Help
There are currently two bills before the U.S. Congress that aim to prioritize the protection of LGBT people worldwide as a key facet of U.S. foreign policy initiatives, explains HRF's Gaylord.

"The International Human Rights Defense Act would establish a Special Envoy on LGBT rights in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the State Department, ensuring global LGBT rights remain a key foreign policy priority," Gaylord tells The Advocate. "The Global Respect Act would ban foreigners who have committed or incited basic human rights violations against LGBT individuals from entering the United States."

Human Rights First recommends three ways for Americans who care about LGBT equality to pressure the government to act against homophobia in Africa:

"American LGBT people and allies can call their congressmen, congresswomen, and senators and ask them to support these two important pieces of legislation," Gaylord says. "There is also a petition online sponsored by the American Jewish World Service that asks President Obama to appoint a Special Envoy on Global LGBT Rights."

Finally, says Gaylord, "local human rights groups and LGBT community groups in Africa are always in need of additional support from the international community. People can reach out to them directly to find out the best ways to become involved."

The Gay Divide: Victories in the West and Renewed Repression in the East

In the euphoria of watching anti-gay laws crashing down in America and other modern nations (a term that in my view does not include Russia and some of the former Soviet Republics since they are largely governed as feudal dictatorships), it is easy to forget that LGBT people in other parts of the world are facing a horrific backlash prompted by factors that vary from (i) American Christofascists exporting hate and homophobia to nations with ignorant and gullible populations, (ii) continued Islamic fundamentalism, to (iii) the cynical use of homophobia by near dictators to distract their countryman of the failures of their rule.  Vladimir Putin, of course, falls into this latter category.  Uganda and other African nations fall into the first.  A piece in The Economist looks at the sad divergence in what is happening to LGBT people.  Here are excerpts:

THERE was a teenager in Arizona in the 1970s who “could no more imagine longing to touch a woman than longing to touch a toaster”. But he convinced himself that he was not gay. Longing to be “normal”, he blamed his obsession with muscular men on envy of their good looks. It was not until he was 25 that he admitted the truth to himself—let alone other people. In 1996 he wrote a cover leader for The Economist in favour of same-sex marriage. He never thought it would happen during his lifetime. Yet now he is married to the man he loves and living in a Virginia suburb where few think this odd.

The change in attitudes to homosexuality in many countries—not just the West but also Latin America, China and other places—is one of the wonders of the world (see article). This week America’s Supreme Court gave gay marriage another big boost, by rejecting several challenges to it; most Americans already live in states where gays can wed. But five countries still execute gay people: Iran hangs them; Saudi Arabia stones them. Gay sex is illegal in 78 countries, and a few have recently passed laws that make gay life even grimmer. The gay divide is one of the world’s widest (see article). What caused it? And will tolerance eventually spread?
 
The leap forward has been startlingly quick. In the 1950s gay sex was illegal nearly everywhere. In Britain, on the orders of a home secretary who vowed to “eradicate” it, undercover police were sent out to loiter in bars, entrap gay men and put them in jail. In China in the 1980s homosexuals were rounded up and sent to labour camps without trial. All around the world gay people lived furtively and in fear. Laws banning “sodomy” remained in some American states until 2003.

Today gay sex is legal in at least 113 countries. Gay marriages or civil unions are recognised in three dozen and parts of others. In most of the West it is no longer socially acceptable to be homophobic. Gay life in China is now both legal and, in cities, undisguised. Latin America is even more gay-friendly: 74% of Argentines and 60% of Brazilians believe that society should accept homosexuality.
Yet there are still parts of the world where it is not safe to be homosexual. Extra-judicial beatings and murders are depressingly common in much of Africa and in some Muslim countries. African gangs subject lesbians to “corrective rape”. In some countries persecution has intensified. Chad is poised to ban gay sex. Nigeria and Uganda have passed draconian anti-gay laws (though a court recently struck Uganda’s down). Russia and a few other countries have barred the “promotion” of homosexuality.

This is partly a reaction to the spread of gay rights in the West. Thanks to globalisation, people who live in places where everyone agrees that homosexuality is an abomination can now see pictures of gay-pride parades in Sydney or men marrying men in Massachusetts. They find this shocking. Meanwhile some homophobic Western preachers have gone to fire up anti-gay audiences in Africa, and American conservatives offer advice to countries thinking of drafting anti-gay laws.
 
By taking up arms against an imaginary Western plot to spread perversion, Vladimir Putin and Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan doubtless hope to distract attention from the corruption and incompetence of their own regimes. But they have picked their scapegoats shrewdly: 74% of Russians and 98% of Nigerians disapprove of homosexuality.

Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism, at least in the long term. Urbanisation helps. It is easier to find a niche in a big, anonymous city than in a village where everyone knows your business. Gay life in the Indian countryside is still awful; in Mumbai or Delhi it is much easier, despite being illegal.

Emerging countries in Asia and Latin America have generally grown kinder to gay people as they have grown richer, more open and more democratic. The hope is that as Africa and the Arab world catch up, they will follow suit.

What could help spread tolerance? If the past half-century is any guide, the prime movers will be gay people themselves. The more visible they are, the more normal they will seem. These days 75% of Americans say they have gay friends or colleagues, up from only 24% in 1985. But it is hard to be the first to come out in a country where that means prison or worse.

For those who cling to the notion of progress, it is hard to believe that tolerance will not spread. After all, gay people are not demanding special treatment, just the same freedoms that everyone else takes for granted: to love whom they please and to marry whom they love.

 Note again the importance of living one's life openly and in the process dispelling the lies and stereotypes our enemies work to keep alive.   Living totally "out" both socially and professionally has not only allowed me to at long last come to self acceptance, but I suspect the husband and I help changes some minds on a daily basis.  Step out of the closet and change your life and change society.

NYT’s David Brooks, WaPo’s Michael Gerson to Speak at Top Antigay Gathering

It's not just the GOP that prostitutes itself to far right Christofascists.  Top columnists for the New York Times and the Washington Post seemingly suffer from a similar affliction.  As TwoCare.org is reporting,  David Brooks of the New York Times (also a National Public Radio commentator) and Michael Gerson of the Washington Post will be attending and speaking at the four-day annual conference known as The Gathering that starts tomorrow at  the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel in Orlando, Florida.  As noted in a recent post, The Gathering and its main participants are the largest exporters of anti-gay hate and animus across the globe.  One has to wonder how much Brooks and Gerson are being paid to participate in this gathering of hate merchants and extremists.  Here are article highlights:

Recently, government-encouraged outbreaks of mob violence against LGBT persons in countries from Uganda to Russia, and draconian new anti-gay legislation in those countries too, have gained growing media notice – some of which has focused on the role American evangelicals have played in inciting such hatred.

But the American culprits are not being funded from the margins. Tens of millions (possibly evens hundreds of millions) of dollars for that project is coming from the foundations whose representatives assemble yearly at an event known as The Gathering, where multimillionaire and billionaire evangelical funders of the culture wars from the families DeVos, Coors, Prince, Maclellan, Friess, Ahmanson, and others, and heads of the mammoth National Christian Foundation – gather, dine, and strategize.

This Thursday September 25th, at the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel in Orlando, Florida, an evening series of briefings will kick off the premier funding event of the evangelical right in America, a four-day annual conference known as The Gathering. Scheduled to speak at the conference are David Brooks of the New York Times (also a National Public Radio commentator) and Michael Gerson of the Washington Post.

It’s an invite-only event, reserved for speakers and heads of evangelical foundations that dole out over $200,000 a year. Foundations associated with The Gathering now dole out upwards of $1 billion dollars annually.

Giving a presentation at the Thursday evening kickoff will be Terry Parker, a board member of the nonprofit that hosts The Gathering and also a co-founder of the National Christian Foundation, which is now the 12th biggest charity in America by one ranking and whose anti-LGBT funding pattern is so extensive that I’ve written a small encyclopedia to profile some of the more egregious anti-gay groups NCF bankrolls.

Could leading New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio columnists and commentators really be planning to speak at an annual event that, in financial and legal terms, is probably the epicenter of anti-gay rights evangelical activism from the U.S. to Uganda to Russia ? The answer is yes.

Are they aware of what they’re participating in (and implicitly supporting by lending their names to the event) or have they been conned ? We may never know the truth but we can safely assume the answers will lie on the “ignorance” side of the dilemma.

But such high profile mainstream media patronization of The Gathering raises the question: if such esteemed NYT, All Things Considered and Washington Post columnists and commentators – who have been granted their big and influential media platforms because of their supposed penetrating level of insight, can’t parse mainstream evangelicalism from what’s going on at The Gathering, why should we – or Washington and New York elites – pay attention to their opinions on religion and politics ?

What little respect that I had for Brooks and Gerson is now totally gone.  One has to wonder if the Times and Post realize the sleazy, theocratic thugs their columnists are whoring themselves out to. 

Judge Orders Anti-Gay Scott Lively to Stand Trial for Crimes Against Humanity

As noted frequently on this blog, one of the ugly fruits of religion - especially far right Christianity and Islam nowadays - is hatred of other and the desire to criminalize or kill those who do not subscribe to the frightening beliefs of these foul individuals and their cults.  For American Christofascists, one of the favored targets of their venom is the LGBT community and, as they lose the culture wars in America, their work to export their foul beliefs overseas, especially to ignorant and uneducated areas of the world such as Africa.  Now, in a stunning development, Scott Lively, who is believed to be an architect of Uganda's "kill the gays" bill has been ordered to stand trial in federal court for crimes against humanity for his anti-gay efforts.  Lively, of course, is only one of many "godly Christian" hate merchants and one can only hope that Lively will be convicted and that addition Christofascists will find themselves on trial down the road.  For too long Americans have refused to see conservative Christianity for what it is: a pernicious evil.  It deserves no special preferences under the law. Here are highlights from Gay Star News:

For the first time, a federal US judge has ruled a persecution of LGBT people is a crime against humanity.  This sets a precedent ensuring the fundamental human rights of LGBTI people are protected under international law.

It comes as a Ugandan LGBTI advocacy organization filed a lawsuit against prominent US anti-gay extremist Scott Lively. 

Accused of helping to play a part in the persecution, arrest and murder of gay people in Uganda, Lively’s lawyers requested to dismiss the lawsuit. Michael Ponsor, the US District Judge in Springfield, Massachusetts, said: ‘Widespread, systematic persecution of LGBTI people constitutes a crime against humanity that unquestionably violates international norms.’

‘The history and current existence of discrimination against LGBTI people is precisely what qualifies them as a distinct targeted group eligible for protection under international law.  ‘The fact that a group continues to be vulnerable to widespread, systematic persecution in some parts of the world simply cannot shield one who commits a crime against humanity from liability.’

The lawsuit states Lively collaborated with key Ugandan government officials and religious leaders that allegedly resulted in the introduction of the ‘Kill The Gays’ bill. 

The founder of Abiding Truth Ministries, Lively has made a career of stirring up anti-gay feelings in the USA and across the world.  He co-authored The Pink Swastika, which suggests ‘homosexuals were the truth inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities’ and the rainbow flag is a symbol of the ‘end times’. In 2007, Lively also toured 50 cities in Russia where he is accused of recommending a ban on 'gay propaganda'.

Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, said: ‘Today’s ruling is a significant victory for human rights everywhere but most especially for LGBTI Ugandans who are seeking accountability from those orchestrating our persecution.’

Uganda Court Annuls anti-Homosexuality Law

In addition to losing nearly two dozen law suits in America seeking to uphold anti-gay marriage bans, the Christofascists have now also suffered a defeat in Uganda where that nation's constitutional court has invalidated the "kill the gays" law that was inspired by and advocated for by American Christofascists exporting homophobia (and its attendant lies and propaganda) to the ignorant and uneducated Ugandan populace.   I suspect that hate merchants like Scott Lively, Tony Perkins, and fat tub of lard Rick Warren are weeping and ranting at this 100% correct ruling.  Here are highlights from the BBC on this most welcome development.

Uganda's Constitutional Court has annulled tough anti-gay legislation signed into law in February.

It ruled that the bill was passed by MPs in December without the requisite quorum and was therefore illegal.

Homosexual acts were already illegal, but the new law allowed for life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality" and banned the "promotion of homosexuality".

Several donors have cut aid to Uganda since the law was adopted.

Ugandan government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said the government was still waiting the attorney general's advice about whether to challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court.  He added that the ruling showed to Western donors that Uganda's democracy was functioning very well and that they should reinstate any aid they had cut.

The Ugandan authorities have defended the law in the past, saying President Yoweri Museveni wanted "to demonstrate Uganda's independence in the face of Western pressure and provocation".

The challenge to the law was brought by 10 petitioners, including academics, journalists, both ruling and opposition MPs, human rights activists and rights groups.

"The retrogressive anti-homosexuality act of Uganda has been struck down by the constitutional court - it's now dead as a door nail," the AFP news agency quotes prominent journalist Andrew Mwenda, one of the petitioners, as saying.

Sadly, Uganda was better ruled as a British colony than it is under the corrupt, incompetent and down right ignorant  regime currently in charge.  Not surprisingly, given the lack of an educated populace and the general ignorance of much of the population, evangelical Christianity and Roman Catholicism are currently flourishing in Uganda.  Perhaps Michelle McQuigg should consider emigrating to Uganda - she'd likely fit right in.

American Missionaries Largest Export to Uganda: Homophobia

I have looked at the vile export of hatred to Uganda by American Christofascists before, but it is a story line that needs repeating because many of the same players are now targeting additional countries ranging from Russia to parts of South America.  Wherever these Christofascists go, their main export is hatred, homophobia and the embrace of ignorance.  Worse yet, they prey on populations who seemingly cannot see the evil of the Christofascists' intentions.  A piece that looks at the documentary film, “God Loves Uganda” traces the foul road map favored by the exporters of hatred.  Here are highlights:

In his documentary “God Loves Uganda”, he [Roger Ross Williams] traces the fervent homophobia to American missionaries.  The documentary focuses on the involvement of International House of Prayer, young missionaries and evangelicals Rick Warren, Scott Lively and Lou Engle in Uganda.

With Uganda’s turbulent past, Idi Amin’s murderous reign and the civil war, leaving a wake of destruction throughout the country, compiled with the country’s battle with HIV/AIDS it was a ripe destination for American missionaries and aid workers. In a Vox interview William explains, “Uganda was the perfect place for people from America to move in and help rebuild. [The Americans] did a lot of great work, but they also came in with a specific ideology of faith: that the Bible reigns supreme.

The rhetoric brought by evangelicals and missionaries has had an explosive impact. In a conference attended by thousands of Ugandans, American evangelicals, self-proclaimed “experts” on homosexuality, warned Ugandans of the evils of homosexuality.  Scott Lively, author of The Pink Swastika, animated to the crowd the supposed desire of gays to take over the world, recruit young people and how their existence destroys society by increasing divorce, child abuse, and HIV/AIDS.  He goes further stating, the legalization essentially means condoning “molestation of children or having sex with animals.” 

There are several layers to the American involvement starting with the doe-eyed missionaries to well-endowed calculated neoconservative think tanks like Institute on Religion and Democracy.  Conservatives, the American evangelical community and fundamentalists feel they have lost significant ground in the US “culture war”, therefore they moved to where they can win and they are.

Ugandan politicians have encouraged this fervor of homophobia, partially because it is a distraction. It is easier to pin the ails of a country on a minority group than on the true issue – failure of government. It doesn’t hurt that many of these hate-inducing organizations are pouring millions of dollars directly into politicians and religious figures with little to no accountability, unlike foreign aid. 

Atrocities keep occurring in the name of religion, usually carried out by a well-intentioned devotee, slavery, colonization, the holocaust and now murder inciting homophobia. This isn’t about whether homosexulity is moral or immoral but about people bumbling into different cultures and societies carelessly spewing rhetoric without considering or an understanding of the impact.

Religion needs to be driven from the public square and driven from the formulation of public policy.  A true review of religions fruits shows that the legacy of death, destruction - genocide in some instances - and unreasoning hatred far outweighs any periphery charitable endeavors.   Yes, nowadays there are decent denominations and good Christians, but sadly, they are in the small minority across the spectrum of the centuries.

While LGBT Rights Advance in America, Repression Is Winning Across Much of the Globe

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia (and Transphobia).  And while LGBT Americans have reason to celebrate over recent advances in the cause of LGBT equality here in America, we need to be mindful of the horrors faced by individuals in much of the world.  In far too many nations, being gay can lead to imprisonment or even the death penalty. In other nations, gays need fear being physically beaten simply for being who they are.  What fuels such oppression?  Religion first and foremost, adding to the proof that over the centuries, religion is a principal cause of evil in the world.  And jumping on the band wagon are opportunistic politicians like Vladimir Putin and Yoweri Museveni who fan homophobia as a ruse to distract their oppressed citizenry from the abject failure of their policies and the rampant corruption that is a hallmark of their regimes.  Yes, the politicians who use homophobia in this way are despicable, but it is ignorance embracing religion that sets the stage.  A piece in The Daily Beast reminds us of the plight of gays in other parts of the world.  I hope readers will stop and take a moment to remember the plight of our brothers and sisters around the world.  Better yet, make a donation to an organization seeking to aid them.  Here are article excerpts:

Google “Idaho” and “gay” in an average American’s mind, and you’ll get some strange results.  Maybe something about Idaho becoming the 19th state to legalize same-sex marriage (although an appeals court has put the ruling on hold for now).  Or maybe something about Governor Butch Otter’s wife, Gay, or his name, which is very gay.

To LGBT activists elsewhere in the world, IDAHO has a very different meaning: the International Day Against Homophobia, which takes place this year on Saturday, May 17.  IDAHO—recently renamed IDAHOT to include transphobia in the acronym—is, as the name implies, an international day of parades, flash mobs, toothless political pronouncements, and other statements in support of the idea that LGBT people deserve to be free from violence and discrimination.

The fact that most Americans have no idea that the day even exists should give us pause, especially as the hard-won gains here seem to be provoking a backlash all around the world. Our ignorance and isolation is itself part of the problem.

U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, as well as the directors of UNAIDS and the UN Development Programme, have all issued statements.

Some IDAHOT events are being planned and executed under threats of violence and persecution.  In China, for example, Fan Popo, a leading LGBT activist and director of the documentary film Mama Rainbow, told me that all but one of this year’s IDAHOT events have been shut down by the government—and the one that went on (on May 16) took place while the organizer was in a police station.  In South Africa, where the legal regime is favorable to LGBT people but social homophobia is on the rise, a full day of films, panels and performances in planned for Johannesburg.  And in Russia, a flash mob is set to take place in the center of St. Petersburg, coordinated by Coming Out St. Petersburg, one of the organizations targeted by the Putin regime.

But not much in the United States.  All that’s listed so far is a party in Omaha and a grassroots “day of action” in New Orleans.

There are many reasons for this relative lack of attention.  Typical American exceptionalism, for one.  Who cares in Kansas about what happens in Kyrgyzstan?  We don’t do “international” here.

Another reason is the American nonprofit industry, with behemoths like the Human Rights Campaign focused on their own agendas and development campaigns. These organizations don’t raise money by being part of a vast international network; they raise money by branding themselves and their initiatives.  IDAHOT doesn’t generate ROI.

Yet while Americans may be unaware of homophobia around the world, homophobes around the world are quite aware of Americans.

First, there’s our own homophobia-for-export industry.  On May 19, PBS will air the film God Loves Uganda, which exposes the work of American evangelicals to spread lies about LGBT people in Africa.  The same people—Scott Lively, the World Congress of Families, the Alliance Defending Freedom, Exodus Global Alliance, and many more —  have also spread their venom in South America, Russia, and elsewhere.  I won’t go into the details here; watch the film to see the evidence for yourself.

Second, there’s the increasing power of the homosexuality-is-Western meme, particularly used as a wedge issue by opportunistic politicians. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is the best known example—he recently blamed the crisis (if that’s what it is) in the Ukraine on “gay Nazis.”  But the same meme has appeared in such far-flung places as Brunei, Kyrgyzstan (there it is again), Tanzania, and Jamaica.

Dan Savage’s encouragement notwithstanding, things are not getting better.  In many parts of the world, they are getting worse.

Uganda is just the beginning.  Elsewhere in Africa, new anti-gay laws have been proposed in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.  Anti-gay violence has been increasing across the continent.

Likewise, Russia’s “Anti-Propaganda Law” has caused a spike in anti-gay violence in Russia, and similar measures are to be proposed in neighboring countries Kazakhstan, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, and, yes, Kyrgyzstan.

Nor are things “getting better” in Asia.  China has recently cracked down on LGBT activists, arresting nine in a sweep on Wednesday, and four more on Friday.  The tiny sultanate of Brunei, as reported in The Daily Beast, has implemented a harsh form of shariah which threatens women, gays, and non-Muslims.
[W]hile we in the United States face inward and celebrate the remarkable cascade of good news on marriage equality and other issues, LGBT people in many parts of the world are literally and justifiably afraid for their lives.  Some of this deterioration is a backlash against the high-profile progress of gay rights in the United States and Europe, some is instigated by Americans themselves, and some is political opportunism. 

Africa: Homosexuality Isn't Some Western Invention

One of the current favorite ploys of corrupt and incompetent African rulers who are desperate to distract their ignorant and uneducated populace from the severity of their misrule is to play the gay card and depict homosexuality not only as a threat to "authentic African social norms" but to also claim that it is a western import that has corrupted traditional African society.  The claims, of course, could not be further from the truth and the state the case for the argument that many African countries in actuality were far better off as colonies of European powers than under corrupt, incompetent self-rule.  Further intensifying the poisonous mix has been the propaganda of American Christofascists and charlatans like Scott Lively and Rick Warren.  A piece in The Advocate shines the spotlight on the fact that homosexuality existed in Africa long before the European conquest and that the homophobia we see today is the true western import.  Here are excerpt:

The claim by some African leaders that homosexuality is a Western export — used most recently by Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni to defend his country’s brutish legislation — doesn’t even pass the laugh test. But to get beyond guffaws, it helps to read Boy-Wives and Female Husbands, by Will Roscoe and Stephen O. Murray, published in 1998. The book, which draws in part on older ethnographic studies, catalogues so many varieties of indigenous African homosexuality that it makes the range of Western sexual identities seem positively narrow. The myriad examples of Boy-Wives and Female Husbands suggest that, of the competing forces of homosexuality and homophobia, only the latter could plausibly be an import.

» The Fante people of Ghana believed that people born with heavy souls — of either sex — would desire women, while those with light souls would desire men.

 

» In Akan society, lesbian affairs were “virtually universal”; some women purchased extra-large beds to accommodate multiple partners.

 

» Among the Zande of southwestern Sudan, a warrior who chose to marry a boy paid spears to the boy’s parents, addressing them as gbiore (father-in-law) and negbiore (mother-in-law).

 

» The Ovigangella people of Angola used the term kuzunda to describe a type of mutual masturbation in which the glans are rubbed against each other. “Solitary masturbation is so unfamiliar... that not a single word exists for it.”

 

» In Ashanti society, older boys penetrated younger boys or engaged in reciprocal anal intercourse (known as jigle keton).

 

» The Lovedu people of Lesotho were ruled by queens who were required to take wives and even assembled female harems.

 » In South Africa, migrant workers often took male partners, who became known as “mine wives.”

Homophobia and fundamentalist religious beliefs both rely on the same thing: ignorant populations that can be manipulated by the power hungry be they wearing pastor robes or seeking political advancement.  Sadly, when  individuals like Uganda president Yoweri Museveni make statements like the one noted above they are relying on the ignorance of their own populace but also announcing their own ignorance and stupidity to the world.  In fact, this basic theory applies across the broad be it Vladimir Putin making the foul claims or some fundamentalist pastor someplace in Bumfuck America.

The take away?  The importance of knowing true history and being able to challenge the batshitery of the "godly folk."  As for Museveni, he might just as well have "I'm a fucking moron" tattooed across his forehead.  He makes a trained circus dog appear to be the height of intelligence in comparison.