Fr. Geoff Gets The True Christian Message

Given my past membership in the Roman Catholic Church and my frequent commentary on the moral bankruptcy and false piety of the Church hierarchy from the Pope on down, I have found Fr. Geoff Farrow's blog most interesting. For new readers, Fr. Geoff came out and gave a sermon urging his congregation to vote against Proposition 8. For this he has been removed from his post and may likely be thrown out of the priesthood. The sad fact is that the Church's position on gays is toxic and causes untold misery to LGBT Catholics in my view so that prissy old queens who transfer their own self-loathing to others can feel better about themselves. It's yet another case where instead of being a force for good, religion is in fact a poisonous evil. Instead of removing the Fr. Geoffs from the Church, Benedict XVI and those like him who preach hate against others should be removed from the hierarchy and priesthood. Here are some highlights from Fr. Geoff's recent comments on his blog:

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I don't particularly feel like a hero, especially after I read the various comments which have been forwarded to me from literally, six continents.

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I believe the real heroes are the millions of brave men and women who's lives have been trampled upon, who have suffered emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical abuse. Having had the privilege of listening to countless people over the years, I have always been amazed at the capacity that the human heart has to endure suffering. Not merely for a day, a week, a month or a year, but, for decades and in some cases for an entire lifetime. I have had the sad duty of officiating at funeral services for many who found the suffering to be--too much. I have sat with grieving parents, brothers and sisters, children of those who have lost someone they loved. These are the real heroes, the men and women and adolescents who against staggering odds wake up and face each day. Who try to carve out a little niche of love in a sometimes harsh world. Who form communities of acceptance and love in the face of ignorance and hate.

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And the Antichrist? He's the one that convinces people to hate in the name of God.

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The last two sentences say it all. Most of those Christianists and pompous Church officials and clergy who daily condemn gays and claim to honor God in reality do not. They instead honor their own egos and pathologies. God made LGBT individuals in his own image and for HIS purposes. Shame on those who claim to know more than God.

Final Thursday Male Beauty

California Teachers Association Donates $1 Million to Fight Prop 8

With the fundamentalists and Mormons mounting nothing shot of a crusade and anti-gay jihad to try to insure the passage of Proposition 8 in California, it is heartening to see that organizations like the California Teachers Association recognize that much more than gay marriage is at stake if the Kool-Aid drinkers are successful in California. Passage of Proposition 8 would be a crowning victory for those who want to amend constitutions to wipe out the rights of minorities. The precedent it would set is extremely dangerous. Who is next if gays can be constitutional made inferior citizens? True, other states have passed anti-gay amendments. But NO state to date has taken such action to eliminate constitutional rights as enunciated by a state's highest court. Here are some highlights from GayAgenda, a new LGBT news web page:

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The largest teacher’s union in California has donated again, giving $1 million to defeat Proposition 8, a November 4th ballot initiative which would repeal the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state.Tuesday’s contribution by the group makes the California Teachers Association the largest institutional donor to the No on 8 campaign. CTA also donated $250,000 back in August to Equality for All, a coalition of gay advocacy and civil rights groups who oppose Proposition 8.

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CTA spokesperson, Sandra Jackson says CTA’s 800-member policy body voted overwhelmingly to oppose the gay marriage ban. Jackson said the issue concerns educators because “teachers teach the importance of equal rights for all.”

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Please help stop the hate and support the “No on 8” Campaign!

Virginia GOP Stoops to New Lows

I have often felt of late that the Republican Party of Virginia is even more reactionary, bigoted and down right nasty than the Party at the national level - even though the Virginia GOP claims to be the party of "family values" and "decency." While the GOP as a whole has sunk to despicable lows in this election cycle, the Virginia GOP has risen to the challenge to prove it is utterly sleazy and racist. The Talking Points Memo has a story that is almost too much to believe in terms of the racial overtones and bigotry now on display by the Republican Part of Virginia. The image above is from a a new mailer from the Republican Party of Virginia. Its hard to believe that any legitimate political party would put out such vile trash, but sadly it is indicative of how the Christianists and lunatic base has remade the Party into something evil. Here are some story highlights (other images from the vile mailer can be seen at TPM):

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In the race's final stretch, much of the real sludge and slime that floats to the surface will be the work not of the campaigns but of under-the-radar operations run by state parties and the like. Here, for instance, is a new mailer from the Republican Party of Virginia that has to be seen to be believed. It hits Dems -- and by extension, Obama -- for wanting to appease terrorists and rogue leaders.

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But the key is the last page, which displays a man who looks like Obama but with the same dark and sinister aspect as the bad actors depicted elsewhere in the mailing. . . . . We asked Virginia spokesperson Gerry Scimeca whether the likeness to Obama was in fact the Illinois Senator, and he said he couldn't immediately say. Asked to defend the mailer, he said: "It's about the fact that the world is evil," he said, referring to the multiple bad actors that populate the planet. "Choosing a president is about standing up to them."

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As Raising Kaine properly notes:

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All Virginians should utterly reject this entire approach to politics, as well as this specific mailer. And we're all still waiting for Bob McDonnell, Jim Gilmore, Bill Bolling, John Warner, etc. to denounce Jeff Frederick and demand his resignation as RPV chair. If not, we can only conclude that they agree with his approach, then vote accordingly.

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I suspect John Warner may condemn this action, but my bet is that Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell, Jim Gilmore and Bill Bolling will not. In fact, it looks like the type of bigotry McDonnell would support based on some of his past low life actions (e.g., the lynch mob atmosphere he helped create in forcing Verbena Askew from the Circuit Court bench because - my heavens - she was rumored to be a lesbian).

More Thursday Male Beauty

Republican Women, Federated's View of Blacks

The ugliness of today's GOP just gets worse and worse. I am truly coming to view the party in its current form as nothing less than an evil that MUST be defeated. These people are beyond horrible. The above photo is via Andrew Sullivan who had this on his blog: This is in an official Republican Party flier:

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The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

Virgil Goode Denies Involvement with Eden's Curve

Not surprisingly, Congressman Virgil Goode quickly denied any involvement witht the gay themed movie, Eden's Curve, written and produced by Jerry Meadors, the artistic director of the North Theater in Danville, which received a $150,000 earmark from the federal budget due to Goode's efforts. Meadows went to great lengths to explain why Goode and his wife, Lucy, are thanked in the closing credits of Eden’s Curve. Of course, even if Goode had no involvement with the movie, many of the Neanderthals in his district will be none too happy now that they know that Goode has a gay Press Secretary who had a part in the gay theme movie. Goode's district includes progressive areas like Charlottesville, but also some of Virginia's most reactionary and backwards areas as well with many Bible beating fundamentalists. Here are some highlights from Charlottesville's Daily Progress:

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U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, said on Wednesday that he had nothing to do with a 2003 art house film that depicts gay sex, violent beatings and drug use. “I never gave any money to that film. Wouldn’t do it,” Goode said. “Haven’t even seen it. Wouldn’t see it.”

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In a bizarre twist to Goode’s re-election bid against challenger Democrat Tom Perriello, news rocketed across Virginia’s blogosphere on Wednesday that Goode and his wife, Lucy, are thanked in the closing credits of “Eden’s Curve,” a gay coming-of-age film that was inspired by a true story that occurred in Danville during the 1970s.

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The film is about a young man who goes off to an all-male college and begins to explore his sexuality, eventually engaging in a ménage a trois with his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend. Afterward, the roommate becomes jealous and savagely beats the protagonist. A poetry professor takes in the injured main character and they begin a sexual relationship of their own. Once their affair is made public, however, the student leaves school and the professor commits suicide.

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Revelations about “Eden’s Curve” emerged at a Wednesday morning press conference convened by liberal blogger and activist Mike Stark. Stark, a student at the University of Virginia School of Law, is best known for getting tackled by several George Allen supporters in a video filmed at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel in 2006.

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Stark said he was tipped off about the film’s connections to Goode because Stark is a nationally known antagonist of conservative Republicans. “Eden’s Curve” is relevant to Goode’s re-election campaign, Stark said, because Goode is a vocal opponent of same-sex mar-riage.“When you stick to the facts, there’s a question of hypocrisy,” Stark said. “Virgil Goode sets forth this vision of family values that excludes, in a vituperative way, homosexuals. … There’s enough smoke here. And there’s certainly the fire of hypocrisy.”

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In 2003, Goode secured a $150,000 federal economic development earmark to help businessman Roy Gignac finance a $3.5 million restoration of the North Theater in Danville. Meadors is the artistic managing director of the theater.

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Goode added that he was unaware of the subject matter of “Eden’s Curve.” He only knew, he said, that Duncan had a role in “some film.” A spokeswoman of Perriello, Goode’s opponent in the Nov. 4 election, declined to comment. “We just learned about this,” spokeswoman Jessica Barba said. “We’re still trying to process the details. We’re not going to comment on this right now.”

Thinking Conservatives: MIAs of the GOP

It's nice to see others recognize what I realized quite some time ago when I resigned from the Republican Party after 8 years as a City Committee member, precinct captain, appointee to a state board, and active worker on the campaigns of numerous GOP candidates. The tide against reason and logic began long before John McCain picked Bible Spice Palin as his VP candidate, but Palin's selection more or less formalized the GOP's abandonment of thoughtful analysis and reason in exchange for the delusional alternate universe of the Christian Right. Living in an area that is home to CBN and Regent University, one all too often comes into contact with the Christianist zombies/robots who either cannot or will not let go of their indoctrination by disingenuous folks like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson (all of whom are usually laughing all the way to the bank). In today's Los Angeles Times, Rosa Brooks has a op-ed column that does a great job at looking at the flight of thinking conservatives from the GOP. Here are some highlights (emphasis in caps is mine):

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Maybe most fun of all, we're getting to watch a steady procession of rats leaving the sinking GOP ship. One by one, the nation's more reputable conservatives have been edging away from the Republican presidential ticket. It started with John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Thinking conservatives -- as of a couple of months ago, there were still a few left -- were distinctly underwhelmed. In the New York Times, David Brooks chastised McCain for "throw[ing] away standards of experience and prudence" by picking Palin. In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer said Palin was "not ready" for prime time. David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, complained that Palin had "thoroughly -- and probably irretrievably -- proven that she is not up to the job." In the National Review, conservative columnist Kathleen Parker said Palin was "clearly out of her league" and urged her to "bow out."

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In the Washington Post, George Will slammed McCain for his "fact-free slander," "substitution of vehemence for coherence" and "boiling moralism." On MSNBC, former Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan admitted that she's not sure who she'll be voting for this November: "Ahh. Umm. I'm thinking it through."

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Then -- more fun -- some conservatives began to actually endorse Barack Obama. Wick Allison, a former publisher of the National Review, wrote that today's brand of conservatism "has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse. ... Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history."

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Christopher Hitchens, who has spent the last five years deriding the Democratic position on Iraq as that of "the surrender faction," endorsed Obama too, concluding "the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and ... both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated."

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Whee! Incredibly, the fun continued. Christopher Buckley, National Review columnist and son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, also endorsed Obama: "Obama has in him ... the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. ... And so, for the first time ... I'll be pulling the Democratic lever in November."

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[I]t's painful to watch. Once, the GOP proudly claimed to be the "party of ideas." They weren't generally good ideas, it's true -- but they were ideas eloquently defended by men and women who believed it was their duty to study history, philosophy, science, economics and international relations and to do the intellectual heavy lifting needed to try to persuade smart people with different views to come around to their way of thinking. That was the GOP nurtured by conservative intellectuals such as William Buckley. Buckley was many things liberals didn't admire, but he wasn't IGNORANT, SAVAGE OR STUPID BY CHOICE.

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But today, as the last few sober grown-ups leave the party, the visible face of the GOP increasingly looks like that of the people who shout "kill him!" when Obama's name comes up, who speak of black men they don't like as "uppity" or as "boys," who think you can't trust a Muslim or an Arab, who think talking about "Barack Hussein Osama" is witty and (I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin and John McCain) who claim Obama "pals around with terrorists."

Thursday Male Beauty

Obama Takes Lead in Virginia

Since the beginning of the year I have maintained that Barack Obama had a very good chance to carry Virginia and the latest polls tend to show that such a view was correct. True, there is still a chance the undecideds will cut for McCain, but if Obama carries northern Virginia and the older large cities by a large margin (e.g., Norfolk went 64% for John Kerry in 2004 and could well go more strongly for Obama with a high turn out), it will be nearly impossible for the reactionary parts of the state to put McCain over the top. Last night's debate performance by McCain probably did not help convince undecideds to vote for McCain based on the numerous focus group results. Here are some highlights from CNN's latest coverage:

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Obama picked up 13 electoral votes when Virginia was moved from the category of tossup state to a state that is leaning toward him. That put him over the 270 electoral-vote threshold needed to win the White House.

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Virginia hasn't gone Democratic in 44 years," said Alan Silverleib, CNN senior political researcher. "But a number of polls -- including our own -- now show Obama up double digits there. And, as the map shows, if Obama holds that lead, it may be enough to put him into the White House." "Conversely, McCain really can't afford to lose Virginia's 13 electoral votes. That state is a key part of the Republican electoral coalition," Silverleib added.

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A new CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation survey in Virginia released Wednesday indicates that Obama holds a 10-point lead over McCain -- 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. "Obama is winning men and women in Virginia, and is doing well across the state east of the Blue Ridge Mountains," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.