Survey: Acceptance Of LGBTs Declines Among Young

The Stonewall Inn where some say the battle for LGBT
rights officially began.

In what ought to be disturbing news to all in the LGBT community and certainly LGBT rights organizations, a survey shows that for the second year in a row the percentage of Americans accepting of members of the LGBT community declined.  The decline included the younger Americans who heretofore have been more accepting.  The survey did not come to any set conclusion for the decline although references were made to the general normalization of hate and intolerance that has been a hallmark of the Trump/Pence regime and its pro-Christofascist, anti-gay policies. Personally, I believe fault also lies with organizations like Human Rights Campaign ("HRC") and Equality Virginia ("EV") here in Virginia.  In the case of EV, when not shaking down gay and lesbian Virginians for money, burning bridges with top pro-LGBT officeholders, EV's main activities are focused on the transgender community to the seeming exclusion of the rest of the LG and B components of the community. I am not anti-transgender, but other than the general need for non-discrimination laws, the issues of the transgender community are not synonymous with those of gays and lesbians. In an era where many now feel comfortable being open white supremacists, having LGBT rights organizations pretending that they are the same does a disservice to all of the involved groups. LGBTQ Nation looks at the disturbing survey findings:

A new survey shows that young people’s support for LGBTQ people has dropped for the second consecutive year.

The Harris Poll and GLAAD just released the results of their yearly survey in their Accelerating Acceptance report.

The survey was conducted this past January and involved 1970 respondents, including 1754 non-LGBTQ respondents. They were asked about whether they would be comfortable with an LGBTQ person in various situations, like having an LGBTQ doctor, their kid having an LGBTQ teacher, or a family member coming out.

Among non-LGBTQ people, 49% were comfortable in all the situations, the same percentage as last year. Two years ago, though, 53% of non-LGBTQ people were comfortable in all situations, a drop that coincided with the start of the Trump administration.

But the drop was more pronounced among 18- to 34-year-olds. 63% were comfortable in all the situations two years ago, 53% last year, and 45% this year.  Young men’s drop in support was even more dramatic. 62% were comfortable in all the situations two years ago, but now only 35% are. Support for LGBTQ people in each individual situation either stayed the same or dropped since two years ago. 34% of straight people said that they would be uncomfortable if their child learned about LGBTQ people at school. This year, 39% said they would be uncomfortable.

Among 18- to 34-year-olds, 39% said that they were uncomfortable in that situation, up from 27% two years ago. Young adults were 50% more likely to say that they would be uncomfortable if a family member came out this year compared to 2016.

“So it is surprising to see a notable erosion of acceptance for the LGBTQ community, which counters many of the assumptions we make about their values and beliefs. In this toxic age, tolerance – even among youth – now seems to be parsed out.”

“The sharp and quick rise in divisive rhetoric both in politics and in culture is now having a negative influence on younger Americans and coinciding with an alarming pattern of anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of GLAAD.

“As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, LGBTQ people and allies must urgently address today’s cultural crisis by being visible and vigilant.”

New strategies and efforts are needed - as is new leadership at leading LGBT rights organizations, particularly Equality Virginia to which I have ceased all financial support.  I stopped giving to the even more out of touch HRC years ago.

The False Equivalency of "Outing" Lindsey Graham and the "Lavender Scare"

A piece in Politico tries, in my view, to falsely equate those who are insinuate or flat out state that Senator Lindsey Graham is a closeted gay - I've called him the Palmetto Queen myself - with those who hunted down and "outed" and fired gays back during the so-called "Lavender Scare" of the 1950's.  Society of today is far different than six decades ago, not the least because thanks to Lawrence v. Texas handed down in 2003, same sex relationships no longer carry the potential of a felony conviction.  Then of course, there is the legality of same sex marriage - something the far right wants to reverse despite public support - spousal benefits for same sex couples, the ability to file joint tax returns, and even full adoption rights for same sex couples in some states.  In short, outside of Christofascist circles and GOP politicians who prostitute themselves to them, the social stigma (or lack thereof) and legal jeopardy of being gay nowadays is in no way comparable to the 1950's and 1960's.  Thus, saying those speculating on which team Graham plays for are no better than J. Edgar Hoover - himself a closeted gay - is simply is simply not true.  That said, the piece does look at the ugly history of government persecution of gays.  Here are article highlights:

In March 1953, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover prepared a secret report for Sherman Adams, President Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff. The document concerned Charles “Chip” Bohlen, whom Eisenhower had nominated to succeed George F. Kennan as ambassador to the Soviet Union. A career diplomat, Bohlen had served as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s interpreter at the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the Allied powers ceded control of postwar Eastern Europe to Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. Bohlen’s involvement at Yalta made him suspect in the eyes of some Republicans, led by Senator Joe McCarthy, who tried to paint him as not only soft on the Soviets but also gay.

Washington at the time was in the grips not only of the Red Scare, but a more destructive (and less-remembered) “Lavender Scare.” In the popular imagination, communist disloyalty was intertwined with sexual immorality; communists were more likely to be “sexual deviants” and vice-versa. “I don’t say every homosexual is a subversive and I don’t say every subversive is a homosexual,” Nebraska Senator Kenneth Wherry had warned in 1950. “But a man of low morality is a menace in the government, whatever he is, and they are all tied up together.”

Bohlen, (who was, in fact, straight) was eventually confirmed as ambassador to the Soviet Union, and went on to have a long and distinguished Foreign Service career. He was later immortalized as one of the postwar “Wise Men” of American diplomacy.

Moral disgust was not the only consideration that made being gay a disqualifying trait for government service at the time; gays, it was widely believed, were also uniquely vulnerable to blackmail. So reprehensible was being gay, the thinking went, that a gay person would rather betray his country than risk exposure of his shameful secret.

Fast-forward over six decades to the present, and the same smear tactics are being employed, again in service of a dubious narrative involving supposed corruption of presumed gay people by a hostile foreign power. Except this time, the inquisitionists are not reactionary Republicans, but supposedly enlightened progressives.

Jon Cooper, chairman of a Democratic Super PAC which purports to be “the nation’s largest grassroots Resistance organization,” tweeted that “a Republican” had told him “he doubts [Graham] is kowtowing to Trump (and indirectly Putin) because he’s being blackmailed over his sexual orientation (an open secret) or even financial corruption. Rather, he thinks it probably involves some pretty serious sexual kink.” And that same day, MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle speculated, “It could be that Donald Trump or somebody knows something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham.”

Last January, after Graham had positive words for Trump following a meeting with senators at the White House, comedian Chelsea Handler tweeted the following missive to her 8.3 million followers: “Hey, @LindseyGrahamSC what kind of #$%&-sucking video do they have on you for you 2 be acting like this? Wouldn’t coming out be more honorable?” She followed that up in October with, “If you’re wondering why Republicans took a sick day today, it’s probably because it’s #NationalComingOutDay. . . . And this week, the Washington Blade, the capital’s LGBT newspaper, put Graham’s smiling mug on the cover of its “50 Most Eligible Bachelors” issue.

[O]f all the Americans who did betray their country by committing espionage for a foreign power, there is not a single example of a gay person blackmailed into doing so. A 1991 study found that in the 117 spy cases discovered since World War II, only six involved gays, and in none of these was sexual orientation a deciding factor. That same year, asked about the impending outing of his spokesman, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney referred to the blackmail rationale as “an old chestnut” used to bar gay people unfairly from serving in sensitive government positions. To claim today, baselessly, that a closeted gay person is being blackmailed into working against his country, retroactively validates the Cold War persecution of gays, who could be denied security clearances until a 1995 Executive Order by Bill Clinton reversed Eisenhower’s mandate.

The sad irony is that the only informing some gay men and women did during this time was under duress from their own government, which pressured them into identifying fellow gay people so that they, too, could be purged.

In one of the few cases where the Soviets did try to blackmail a closeted gay man, their plans backfired. When the virulently anti-communist newspaper columnist Joe Alsop visited Moscow on a reporting trip in 1957, the KGB lured him into a honey trap with an attractive young agent and took photographs of the ensuing sexual encounter. Confronting Alsop with the dirty pictures, the KGB men demanded that he work on their behalf back in Washington. Yet rather than cower and do the Soviets’ bidding, Alsop archly asked for copies of the photos depicting him in flagrante delicto, hurried straight to the U.S. Embassy and revealed everything that had happened, including his history of gay experiences. Over the rest of his long career, despite knowing that the Soviets could have exposed him at any moment (and they tried), Alsop not only never softened his strident anti-communist views, he became even more assertive in espousing them.

It seems never to have entered the fevered imaginations of Graham’s antagonists that the reason he has changed his tune about Trump is not to protect the secret of his scandalous peccadilloes, but because of something even grubbier: politics. Graham is, after all, a Republican from a deep red state where Trump is popular with the people Graham needs to win re-election. But such quotidian explanations do not suit our increasingly conspiratorial times. . . . By stooping to gay baiting, the McCarthyism of the “Resistance” has come full circle.

Facebook: The Number and Rate of People Coming Out Increasing

Click image to enlarge

Surveys have shown that the Millennials are leaving religion in droves.  Now, Facebook has more bad news for the Christofascists and professional Christian crowd: the number of people coming out via Facebook is increasing at a significant pace and looks to perhaps triple in the coming year.  Making this news all the worse for these hate merchants is the reality that as people come out there is a ripple effect of friends and families rethinking the homophobia that has been a staple of the "godly folks" propaganda machine.  And as more people become gay accepting, the fear of others to come out diminishes and hence the accelerating rate.  Towleroad looks at Facebook's findings.  Here are excerpts:

Facebook reports that more than 6 million people have come out of the closet as LGBT on the social media network to date, including 800,000 who have done so in the past year. Furthermore, they report that the rate at which people are coming out is increasing, as are the numbers.

The social media network released the data in response to National Coming Out Day.  They write:

Over the past year, approximately 800,000 Americans updated their profile to express a same-gender attraction or custom gender. Further, not only has the total number of Americans who have come out on Facebook risen dramatically, but so has the number coming out each day. As the chart demonstrates, the number of people on Facebook coming out per day is on track to be three times what it was a year ago.

This graph also shows periods in which there are sharp increases in the number of people coming out on Facebook. The most obvious increase is seen following the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, indicated by the red vertical line. On a typical day, one out of every ten people who change their “interested in” status on Facebook do so to reflect a same-gender interest.

Another interesting data set shows the number of people who are out as LGB or T state by state, revealing that New York and Nevada have the most out people, while states in the deep south (not surprisingly Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana) have the least amount of out people:

This is all good news for progressives.  For the Christofascists and their political whores in the Republican Party it ought to be a wake up call that their anti-gay agenda is a form of slow suicide. 

The Rise of Social Liberalism: Time for a GOP Reality Check

Recent surveys have found that America is becoming more socially liberal - a reality lost on the Republican Party as it remains in a Fox News/Rush Limbaugh bubble.  For Democrats, its likely a positive development because by remaining slavish political whores of the Christofascists, the GOP will drive away more and more voters who simply are over the GOP's embrace of ignorance (and racism and general bigotry).  The growing acceptance of gays is only part of the phenomenon as more Americans walk away from religion entirely.  A column in the New York Times looks at the issue.  Here are excerpts:

There is a fascinating phenomenon taking shape in America: As the country becomes less religious, it is also becoming more socially liberal.

It makes sense that these two variables should closely track each other, but the sheer scale and speed of the change is astonishing.

After a Pew Research Center report earlier this month found that “the Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing,” this week Gallup released a report that found that “more Americans now rate themselves as socially liberal than at any point in Gallup’s 16-year trend, and for the first time, as many say they are liberal on social issues as say they are conservative.”

Gallup found this week:

“The upward progression in the percentage of Americans seeing these issues as morally acceptable has varied from year to year, but the overall trend clearly points toward a higher level of acceptance of a number of behaviors. In fact, the moral acceptability ratings for 10 of the issues measured since the early 2000s are at record highs.”

Acceptance of gay or lesbian relations is up 23 percentage points over that time. Having a baby outside of marriage is up 16 points. Premarital sex is up 15 points. Divorce and research using stem cells obtained from human embryos are both up 12 points.

At the same time, the death penalty is down three points (within the four-point margin of error) and medical testing on animals is down nine points.

This change poses a particular challenge for the Republican Party and its national aspirations, not so much at the congressional seats, many of which are safe, but for presidential candidates.

Part of the issue, as the likely candidate Jeb Bush put it last year, is that for a Republican to become president, he or she would have to be willing to “lose the primary to win the general” election.

It was a catchy phrase and everyone understood what he was saying: Don’t allow the Republican debates and primaries to drag you so far right that you will never be able to recover in the general election. But the problem is that there is no way to compete in the general without first winning the primaries securing the nomination.

Republicans are now involved in another election season that feels like the movie “Groundhog Day”: trying to out-conservative one another to be in the good graces of Republican primary voters, who in many states can be disproportionately religious and socially conservative.

Iowa and New Hampshire would be only the first two of a 50-state slog through a Republican electorate that is not necessarily where the rest of the country is — or is going — on religiosity and social liberalism.

There is only so much skipping one can do. At some point, the candidates must face the most conservative voters and one voice must emerge.

This process has not been kind or general-election-friendly for the Republican candidates in the last couple of cycles. But there is no indication that most Republicans — either candidates or voters — have drawn the necessary lessons from those defeats.

Gay West Virginia High School Athletes Attend Senior Prom as Couple

While there is much yet to be accomplished in the realm of gay rights and gay acceptance, things have traveled light years from when I was in high school. For one thing, when I was in high school, being gay was literally still classified as a mental illness. That did not change until three years after I graduated and was in my third year of college. Similarly, no gay would have dreamed of going to the prom with a same sex date.  Instead, I and so many others played the game of trying to be what family and society expected.  Yes, there were those I would have loved to have gone to the prom with (all boys and none of whom ever knew my feelings), but instead I  asked girls to the prom both years that I went to the prom and conformed to expectations.  I tried desperately to conformed to expectations for another 32 years.  Thus, I find it so amazing to read the happy story of two high school gays (pictured above) who got to do what I never did - go to the prom as a couple in love.  Here are highlights from Out Sports:

It's prom season at high schools across the country, a special time that until recently has been reserved for straight student couples. A sign of growing acceptance and change took place in West Virginia on Saturday night.

The Mussleman High School senior prom was held at The Heritage Hall in Inwood, West Virginia. Among the couples attending were Michael Martin, a Mussleman senior, and his boyfriend Logan Westrope, who attends Hedgesville High School.

Michael was a four-year starter on his school's soccer team, making all-state as a goalie. He is also an all conference swimmer and tennis player. He told his coming out story on Outsports in December, in what was our most-viewed story of 2014. Michael will attend Wilson College in Pennsylvania this fall, major in Environmental Sustainability and play soccer. Logan plays tennis for Hedgesville High School. He will attend Penn State University and major in meteorology. The two have been dating for four months.

"We knew this would be a night to remember," Logan told Outsports. "We walked in, checked in with our tickets, and were off to have fun!  At first we were both a little hesitant to hold hands, not knowing how the rest of the student body would react. But after a short while, we were always next to each other and danced together the whole night.

"Some of the slow songs we danced to were 'Stay With Me' (Sam Smith), 'See You Again' (Wiz Khalifa), and 'All of Me' (John Legend). At the moment when the slow songs played, we would just stare into each other's eyes and would think of how lucky we are to have each other.

"We didn't hear any negative comments about Michael and I. A lot of people would come up to us (especially the girls) and say, 'You both are so cute!' or 'You guys look great!'  Once we left the prom, I remember Michael saying to me in the car, 'Logan, this is our last prom and I'm so glad I got to spend it with you.' I couldn't have asked for a more perfect night."

Congratulations to Michael and Logan.  I am very happy for them.  Meanwhile, a part of me is sad that I missed so much in my life.  I hope and pray that what Michael and Logan experienced will soon be the new normal in this country.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Approves Same Sex Marriage

Yet another major Protestant denomination has voted to accept same sex marriage and recognize committed, loving same sex relationships.  Whether the move will help staunch the exodus of younger generations from religion (and Christianity in particular) will remain to be seen.  Regardless of how that issue plays out, the move by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will likely add pressure to other denominations grappling with society's changed views on gays and gay relationships. The New York Times looks at the vote.  Here are highlights:

After three decades of debate over its stance on homosexuality, members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted on Tuesday to change the definition of marriage in the church’s constitution to include same-sex marriage.

The final approval by a majority of the church’s 171 regional bodies, known as presbyteries, enshrines a change recommended last year by the church’s General Assembly. The vote amends the church’s constitution to broaden marriage from being between “a man and a woman” to “two people, traditionally a man and a woman.”

The Presbytery of the Palisades, meeting in Fair Lawn, N.J., put the ratification count over the top on Tuesday on a voice vote. With many presbyteries still left to vote, the tally late Tuesday stood at 87 presbyteries in favor, 41 against and one tied.

The church, with about 1.8 million members, is the largest of the nation’s Presbyterian denominations, but it has been losing congregations and individual members as it has moved to the left theologically over the past several years. There was a wave of departures in and after 2011, when the presbyteries ratified a decision to ordain gays and lesbians as pastors, elders and deacons, and that may have cleared the way for Tuesday’s vote.

With many conservative Presbyterians who were active in the church now gone, as well as the larger cultural shift toward acceptance of same-sex marriage, the decisive vote moved quickly toward approval, according to those on both sides of the divide.

Plenty of moderates and conservatives, however, have chosen to stay within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of the nation’s historic mainline Protestant denominations, which has its headquarters in Louisville, Ky. Ministers who object will not be required to perform a same-sex marriage.

Other religious denominations that have officially decided to permit their clergy to perform same-sex marriages include the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Churches and, in Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America left it open for individual ministers to decide.

Pope Demotes Anti-Gay U.S. Cardinal

Pope Francis made good on rumors that he was going to demote anti-gay bigot Cardinal Raymond Burke.  Burke has been leading attacks of Francis for what the far right elements of the Catholic Church is a betrayal of the Church's long obsession with sex and demonization of anyone who doesn't comply with the Church's neurotic dictates on sexuality and women.  Time reports on Burke's demotion.  Here are highlights:

Pope Francis has demoted a conservative American cardinal who has criticized his leadership of the Catholic Church.

The pontiff removed Cardinal Raymond Burke as the leader of the Vatican’s highest court and appointed him to a ceremonial position as chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a charity group, according to a press bulletin issued Saturday.

That is a significant demotion, according to the National Catholic Reporter. “The position of Patron of the the Order of Malta is usually given to a retired cardinal, or as a second task to an active cardinal,” Michael Sean Winters writes. “It has almost no responsibilities.”

The move was not a surprise, as Burke, the Vatican’s highest ranking American, had said last month that he was going to have a new post.

The outspoken, conservative bishop — who pushed for the Vatican to revise and water-down its recent, tentative step toward greater acceptance of LGBT people — has butted heads with the pope since the Argentine was elected last year. Last month, he compared Pope Francis’ leadership to “a ship without a rudder” during an interview with a Spanish magazine.

Hopefully, Burke will be only the first of the reactionaries to be demoted.  

85% Of Young American Catholics Support Gays

While the Vatican appears poised to knuckle under to the bitter old men in dresses assembled in Rome for the special synod on the family despite the apparent demotion of anti-gay bigot Cardinal Raymond Burke, a huge problem remains looming for the Church in America: 85% of young Catholics support gay rights and 75% support marriage equality.  That's the finding of a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The main support for the Church's institutional homophobia and mistreatment of gays (and divorced and remarried Catholics) is in the over 65 age bracket, the bracket that is dying off.  Literally.  Thus, the irony is that the far right "purists" in the America Catholic Church need to face the reality that, if the Church doesn't change, they will ultimately become a small minority branch of a black church centered in Africa.  Given the white supremacists views of older far right Americans, its hard to not find this trend as a delicious irony.  Karma can be a bitch.  Here are highlights from Pew:

Fully 85% of self-identified Catholics ages 18-29 said in a 2014 Pew Research Center survey that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with just 13% who said it should be discouraged. Older age groups are less likely to favor acceptance. But even among Catholics ages 65 and older, 57% say that homosexuality should be accepted.

 Some of these differences may correlate with the frequency of church attendance. Our research has found that older Catholics attend Mass more frequently than do their younger counterparts, and that Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly are more likely to say that homosexuality should be discouraged than those who do not. But even among churchgoing Catholics of all ages – that is, those who attend Mass at least weekly – roughly twice as many say homosexuality should be accepted (60%) as say it should be discouraged (31%).

Similarly, despite the church’s continued opposition to same-sex marriage, most U.S. Catholics (57%) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally wed, according to aggregated 2014 Pew Research surveys. And again, younger Catholics are particularly likely to express this view. Three-quarters of Catholic adults under 30 support legal same-sex marriage, compared with 53% of Catholics ages 30 and older (including just 38% of those 65 and older).

 Given that a major it of the Church's funding comes from North America, it will be interesting to watch the Church's growing financial problems, especially where shuttered churches and Catholic schools are becoming more common.  Those who would "save" the Church will be the death of it.

Is Pope Francis Demoting Viciously Anti-Gay Cardinal?

A prior post looked at the viciously anti-gay statements made by Cardinal Raymond Burke who up until now has held the post of chief justice of the Vatican's Supreme Court.  Among other things, Burke said parents should keep children away gay relatives:

“If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are — reason teaches us that and also our faith — then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person?”..."We wouldn’t, if it were another kind of relationship — something that was profoundly disordered and harmful — we wouldn't expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it. And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil.”

Now it appears that perhaps Pope Francis has had enough of Burke's batshitery and Burke may be about to get sacked from his high position and relegated to a minor and  largely ceremonial post as patron to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.  In an interview, Burke seems to have confirmed that the demotion is in the works.  I for one hope that the rumors are true and that perhaps through Burke's demotion, Francis is seeking to send a strong message to the reactionary elements in the Vatican.  With some 80% of young American Catholics believing that homosexuality is socially and morally acceptable, bitter, nasty old men like Burke (who is likely a self-loathing closet case) are hastening the death of the Church in America.  Here are excerpts from the National Catholic Reporter:

U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a former archbishop of St. Louis known for his rigorist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, has reportedly confirmed rumors that Pope Francis is planning to remove him from his influential post as the chief justice of the Vatican's Supreme Court.

Burke is reported to confirm the rumors, which have attracted attention in recent weeks as a sign that Francis may be preparing a tonal shift at the Vatican, in a piece Friday by BuzzFeed News.

The rumors in recent weeks have speculated that Burke, currently the prefect of the Vatican's Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, would be moved to the largely ceremonial post of patron to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Burke, who took up the Vatican role in 2008, has made news frequently in recent days voicing disapproval with the direction of a worldwide meeting of Catholic bishops, known as a synod, taking place at the Vatican from Oct. 5-19.

He has voiced staunch disapproval in particular to a landmark document released by the synod on Monday, which called on the church to listen more widely to people's concerns and to apply mercy more generously.

Burke has said in interviews that the document was "not of the church" and that Francis should issue a clarification reaffirming traditional Catholic doctrines.

The Apostolic Signatura is the Vatican's highest court and is widely responsible for ensuring the proper administration of justice in the Catholic church. The Knights of Malta is a lay religious order that seeks to aid people in need around the world. 

Burke also previously served as the bishop of La Crosse, Wis. A native of that state, he has been known through the years for his staunch conservative positions. In one instance in 2009, he called on U.S. bishops from his position at the Vatican to withhold Communion from pro-choice Catholic politicians. 

Francis previously removed Burke in December from an influential position as a member of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, the Vatican office responsible for advising the pontiff on bishop appointments around the world.

Sunday Evening Reflections

Our photo that appeared in the Daily Press

This weekend was incredibly busy and once again reflected the almost bi-polar reactions to gays in Virginia and Hampton Roads in particular.   In today's Daily Press (subscription only) the boyfriend and I were one of three same sex couples featured in an article on gay marriage and the rapidly changing legal landscape.  While some of the comments on the online version of the article that began on page 1 of the front section of the paper were enlightened, some were not - one suggested next we'd be demanding incest with our children be legal - and reflect what in my view is the growing separation between the views of the educated and more affluent toward gays and the diametrically opposite views held by the uneducated and lower classes.  It's as if today's lower class whites - much like the lower class whites of 50+ years ago who were openly racist - need someone to look down upon in order to feel good about themselves.  Once it was anti-black discrimination that inflated otherwise pathetic egos, today it's homophobia that has become the route to a sense of superiority for those who otherwise have little or nothing about which to feel superior.  And disturbingly, those who have to cling to their white skin and heterosexuality to feel good about themselves are the core of today's Republican Party of Virginia.

Why do I say this?  Because without exception, the boyfriend and I have found acceptance and friendship with educated and affluent residents of Hampton Roads.  Yesterday we were included in the funeral service for the mother of a friend at historic Bruton Parish in Colonial Williamsburg (amazingly her mother had lived to be over 102 and had been born just 8 days after the Titanic sank).  The ceremony was followed by a family dinner where, as is the norm, we were included as part of the extended family.  Then today, we held a "meet and greet" for two candidates for Hampton City Council at our home and almost everyone (i) had seen the article in the paper and (ii) was overflowing in their congratulations and best wishes for our wedding next week - including an Air Force general and his wife.  The new norm even in Hampton, Virginia is for the educated and middle/upper middle class to accept gays and gay marriage without a moment's hesitation.

One has to wonder if homophobia will increasing be confined to the lower classes and the uneducated.  As noted before on this blog, fundamental religious belief tracks directly with lower levels of education - Episcopalians and Evangelical Lutherans are at the opposite end of the spectrum - with Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses at the very bottom of the heap.  I'd be interested in readers' experiences.

 

Gay Acceptance and Diversity at UVA

Students in front of UVA's main library

From time to time my Alma mater does me proud.  It has changed greatly since I first started at the University of Virginia ("UVA") more than 40 years ago and by some estimations is among Virginia's most progressive universities despite its often preppy image.  Even back in my day there was an LGBT student group not that I ever had the courage to admit to myself that I was gay much less attend a meeting.  Now, a story in Out Sports underscores just how far things have come - it's a message that the Virginia GOP needs to wake up to.  Here are highlights and some photos:

What is diversity? Students at the University of Virginia wanted to show that it is more than a buzzword and to make the campus more inclusive. Along those lines, three students created an awesome Tumblr, "We Are All UVa," where students took photos holding placards talking about their experiences, good or bad.

Parker Camp, a varsity swimmer who told his coming out story on Outsports last month, saw the Tumblr and got inspired. He got four teammates to come up with this terrific photo:

 

 

The other gay swimmer is open and comfortable on the team but did not want publicity, so we are not identifying him. Nor are we going to tell you who is gay or straight, since not caring is the whole point of what the athletes did with the photo. Swimmer Brad Phillips said this to Outsports:

"Taking the photo with them was the least I could do to prove to them that our friendships are unaffected by their coming out.  But I'm pretty sure the only reason Parker asked to hold the sign was to hide how fat he's become since our season ended!"

"We Are All UVa," modeled after a similar project at Harvard, is really wonderful and worth your time. As one of the creators told the campus newspaper: "Diversity includes the differences we can't see. It's more than race and ethnicity. ... Diversity is meant to be [an] inclusive concept; the point of challenging it is that it can be a very polarizing conversation."

No doubt, if Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation, Christofascist dominatrix to the Virginia GOP, has gotten wind of this effort she will be acting as if someone peed (or worse) in her Cheerios!  I also enjoyed these photos:

Click image to enlarge

Kudos to these students at UVA!!