Monday Male Beauty

Buju, Bye Bye?

An op-ed in the Jamaican Observer looks at the situation of anti-gay reggae singer Buju Banton who is currently cooling his heels in a federal lock up in Florida on a charge to purchase 5 kilos of cocaine with an intent to distribute the drug. It's a serious charge and as I have said before, given Banton's lack of remorse over his grossly homophobic lyrics in Boom Bye Bye, I find it difficult to find much sympathy for him. Indeed, perhaps some prison time might give him time to reflect on his vile homophobia. One thing I want to make clear - I am not anti-Jamaica. Rather, anti-homophobe. Here are some highlights from the column:
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LET'S remind ourselves of the rules: (1) If you break the law you should be punished; (2) freedom of speech is the greatest human right that we have; and (3) if the law is an ass, speak loudly about it and seek to change it.
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Mark Anthony Myrie, aka Buju Banton, aka Gargamel, was last week remanded in Federal custody in Miami, Florida by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and charged by the US Attorney with conspiracy to possess, with intent to distribute, some five kilos of cocaine. Buju faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted.
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He is as controversial as he is conscious: his 1993 song Deportees criticised Jamaicans who went abroad but never sent money home; Tribal War condemned political violence; and Willy, don't be silly promoted safe sex. Buju -- as his recent Grammy nomination (his fourth) for his ninth album, Rasta Got Soul will attest -- is one of the greatest reggae artistes out there.
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But Buju, who is also world famous for his anti-gay rhetoric and his 1988 song Boom Bye Bye, which was allegedly written (when he was 15 years old) in painful response to a widely reported man/boy rape case in Jamaica, is destroying his career. The lyrics called for the burning of homosexuals "like an old tyre wheel", and the international gay community responded by protesting against his every performance since -- essentially making it difficult for him to make a living.
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While Buju may be the poster boy for political incorrectness pertaining to gays, he is not the only offender. Elephant Man sang, " Two women in bed/ That's two Sodomites who should be dead." Bounty Killer told listeners to burn "Mister Faggoty" and make him "wince in agony", while Beenie Man suggested that we "hang chi chi man with a long piece of rope".
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"We don't believe that the state should be pushing down people's bedroom doors to find what they do there, because if you push it down today to enforce laws that relate to sexual activity, you will push it down tomorrow for some other purpose. So we are not going there."

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Jamaica is a gorgeous country and I found the people to be wonderful when I traveled there twice years ago on business. However, until the Jamaican populace condemns lyrics such as Bantons, I will continue to urge people to boycott the country. There are many other beautiful tropical destinations where murdering gays is not glorified in the local music.

The Faux War on Christmas

As part of their campaign to depict themselves and fellow Christianists as constant victims of persecution, the lunatic far right have in recent years whined about the secularization of Christmas and the efforts of retailers to not offend non-Christians during the Christmas holidays. The professional victim set care nothing for the religious freedom of other Americans and would prefer to force all citizens regardless of the religious faith to have to give obeisance to Christian traditions. With the Christianists, it is ALWAYS all about them and to Hell with everyone else. If these whiners spent half as much time engaging in Christian charity work with no desire for reward, Christianity would have a far better image in the USA. CNN looks at this concocted faux war that has one purpose: to line the pockets of the professional Christians with money. Here are some highlights:

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Americans are in a war that pits the politically correct against Christmas carolers, some say. They say it's a battle that plays out in the halls of Congress, retail stores and public schools across the country, and it's one that's been raging for years. Republican Rep. Henry Brown of South Carolina introduced a resolution this month asking that the House express support for the use of Christmas symbols and traditions and frown on any attempt to ban references to the holiday. So far, the resolution has one Democrat and 72 Republicans as co-sponsors. The House hasn't taken it up, but the chamber adopted similar resolutions in the past.
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Barry Lynn, an ordained minister and executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, isn't keen on the prospect of congressional action. "Resolutions like this come up because there is this bizarre view by some members of Congress that there is a war on Christmas and that they have to be the generals in some responding army," he said. "My advice to the lawmakers would be promote any religion you have through your private acts, and don't try to 'help' the baby Jesus by passing a resolution on his behalf. It is arrogant and ridiculous at the same time," Lynn said.
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In California, Tea Party activist Merry Hyatt is trying to get support for a ballot initiative that would require that public schools give their students an opportunity to hear Christmas songs. (Parents could opt out for their children).Lynn said the move violates the principles of church-state separation. "It's not being anti-Christmas to recognize that most Christmas carols are really hymns, and a hymn is a prayer set to music."
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In Washington, Republicans have taken up the war on Christmas as their own battle. "Republicans and conservatives have definitely gained a lot of political points by pointing out some of the silliest and more extreme examples of political correctness," said Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Center.
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But Republicans also should worry about pushing it too far, he added, because the American people believe in "good liberal thoughts" like "diversity and different people all being treated the same." It's OK to attack political correctness, he said, but the GOP must be careful not to come off as "anti-minority or against diversity." The attack can backfire as well if voters think their representative is more committed to protecting Christmas than protecting jobs or economic stability, Smith said.

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The reality, of course, is that the GOP IS against minorities and diversity. Increasingly, if one isn't a white Bible thumper typically from the South, the GOP wants nothing to do with you.

More Sunday Male Beauty

USA Doesn't Have Monopoly on Christian Extremists

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Outside of East Africa, it sometimes seems that the USA has a monopoly on far right Christian extremists who use the Bible to justify almost any kind of brutality. Obviously, such is not the case as evidenced by a Christian group in Wales in the UK - using the term "Christian" loosely it would seem - has come out in support of the proposal in Uganda to execute gays. The group, Christian Voice, says that the murder of gays is fully justified by the Bible. As are slavery, polygamy, the murder of women and children and countless other atrocities if one takes a literal application of the Old Testament as literal truth. The message of the New Testament gets totally over looked as do inconvenient passages, some even ascribed to Christ himself. These people continue to make religion something horrible and source of evil rather than good. Here are some highlights from WalesOnline:

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THE Welsh leader of a Christian campaign group has spoken out in support of the death penalty for homosexuals. His comments come almost a month after Uganda proposed a law that would make gay sex punishable by a life sentence or even death.
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In a statement that will outrage human rights groups, Stephen Green, the director of campaign group Christian Voice, claimed: Gay people who have sex knowing they are HIV positive should be given the death penalty because they have “committed murder”; Capital punishment is acceptable because it is ordained by God in the Bible; Britain’s laws “promote perversion” because they do not make homosexuality a criminal offence.
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Green’s organisation is urging other Christians to “support the Ugandan people in their determination to rid their nation of foreign homosexual proselytisation”. It claims gay westerners are travelling to the country to “convert” Ugandans. Green added: “This law is an understandable reaction to the pressure from human rights activists and homosexuals who are coming to the country as sex tourists.”
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Last night vicar-turned-MP Chris Bryant, who represents Rhondda, said: “Ignorance is one thing but deliberate ignorance is quite another. Aids is caused by a virus not by anybody’s sexuality and if people keep on propagating these myths then many more African people will die of Aids. “It is comments like this that mean some people will grow up in Wales worrying about their sexuality and worrying that if they tell other people they will be verbally and physically assaulted.”

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I continue to be amazed by people who - as pointed out by MP Chris Bryant - eagerly embrace ignorance and who blindly and mindlessly cling to a few random passages in the Bible to justify murder. The West condemns Islamic extremists, yet we have the Christian equivalent in our midst and too few have the courage to condemn their hate and lunacy.

Vatican's Right to Sovreign Immunity Being Tested

First and foremost, the Vatican is the headquarters of an international religious organization, not a sovereign nation in the typical sense even though it controls a postage stamp size piece of real estate within Italy. Yet this fiction that the Vatican is a sovereign nation has allowed it to dodge responsibility and liability for the many sins of its subordinate national churches and dioceses. But for this, victims of predator priests would be able to perhaps win big jury awards against the Vatican which has knowingly maintained a policy of secrecy and cover ups to protect priests and other religious personnel who have sexually abused children and youths. It is truly a case of using legal technicalities to avoid much needed accountability and legal liability. A story in the Irish Times looks at this situation as more calls are coming in Ireland for both criminal and civil actions against the Catholic Church in the wake of the Murphy Report that looked at the long pattern of sexual abuse and cover up in the diocese of Dublin. In another development, The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin - who seems to be one of the few high clerics in the Church world wide that has any moral integrity - threatens to ask the Vatican to fire four offending bishops if they do not resign. First, some highlights from the Irish Times story:
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WHEN US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited the Vatican in February 2005, she was caught off guard by Cardinal Angelo Sodano. After discussions on Iraq, the Middle East and religious liberty, Sodano asked her if she could do something about an irksome court case in Kentucky. As reported by John Allen, veteran Vatican correspondent for the US National Catholic Reporter ( NCR ), Sodano explained that the case, a class action to make the Vatican accountable for child sexual abuse by priests in the US, was a violation of the internationally recognised principle of “sovereign immunity”.
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The Vatican, as a recognised state, cannot be subject to the jurisdiction of other states, an extension of the old British maxim rex non potest peccare , the king can do no wrong. . . . Rice replied that it was for the Vatican to assert immunity in the Kentucky court itself, and it has pleaded immunity successfully in, by Allen’s reckoning, some two dozen US cases.
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Among those cases where the Vatican successfully pleaded immunity is the long-running Alperin vs Vatican Bank , a case originally filed in San Francisco in 1999. The plaintiffs are Serb, Jewish, Roma and Ukrainian concentration camp survivors and their relatives and organisations representing over 300,000 Holocaust victims and their heirs. Their claim is for the return of some $50 million of the treasury of the Ustashe, the genocidal, Nazi-collaborating government of Croatia that, according to the US state department and others, was illicitly transferred to the Vatican, the Franciscan Order, and other banks after the end of the war.
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In 2007 the Vatican got itself off the hook, leaving the Franciscans alone to fight the case, a ruling that puts the deeply anomalous position of the Vatican in sharp relief – while it may not be sued, an international Catholic order, and indeed any other international religious body, may.
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In order not to jeopardise that valuable position, Vatican sources admitted to the NCR , the Holy See remained reluctant to enter into the details of sex abuse policy in the US. Indeed, Colm O’Gorman argues most plausibly that the failure of the Vatican to promulgate a mandatory worldwide code of conduct, with a reporting requirement – particularly important in the developing world – stems precisely from a fear of acknowledging its authority over national churches and implicitly conceding that priests and bishops, whom it appoints, are actually its agents in a legal sense.
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In the wake of the Murphy report, it is arguable that while Ireland should maintain a strong relationship at diplomatic level with an organisation representing one billion faithful, it is worth considering whether that should necessarily be conducted on a state-to-state basis. With all that that entails.

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It would be most ironic (and well deserved) if the first place the Vatican was to lose its status as a sovereign state was Ireland, a one time Catholic bastion. As for holding members of the Church hieracrhy accountable, Archbishopm Martin continues to be a loud, lone voice in the wilderness in terms of realizing the same old lame apologies will no longer suffice. Here are highlights from the Irish Independent:

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THE Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin will seek to have four bishops fired by the Vatican if they refuse to step down over the Murphy report into child sex abuse cases in Dublin. The dramatic development emerged as one of the embattled bishops, Martin Drennan of Galway, accused Dublin's Archbishop Martin of calling his integrity into question.
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The three other bishops facing calls to go are Dublin auxiliaries, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, and the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Jim Moriarty, a previous auxiliary in Dublin. The prospect of their resignations moved a step closer yesterday after school principals demanded all four should step down as patrons of hundreds of primary schools.
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The Irish Primary Principals' Network (IPPN) also wants the four bishops to be accountable for their actions -- or inactions -- in discharging their child protection responsibilities. Taoiseach Brian Cowen also waded into the row, firmly backing Archbishop Martin's stance and saying it was "a time for leadership and accountability" from the Catholic Church. Mr Cowen said: "The resignation of Bishop Murray is a welcome indication that those who are in positions of leadership and responsibility in the Church are facing up to their responsibility in the light of the very clear findings of the Murphy Commission."
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Last night a senior Dublin priest openly sided with Archbishop Martin and said that more resignations of bishops named in the Murphy report were "inevitable." Fr Joe Mullen, chairman of the Dublin Council of Priests, said: "If they don't resign or if this moment that we're in doesn't move in a way that seems to be fuelled by forgiveness and justice and a sense of recognition of hurt and hope for healing, then maybe we'll all be retiring, if not resigning".

Sunday Male Beauty

A Decade of Con-Men

UPDATED: This statement on FDL was too good to pass up since it gets to the very issue described below:

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Barack Obama gets his Mission Accomplished banner day, hits the airwaves, and blows smoke up America’s enormous-because-it-won’t-get-off-the-couch ass:
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While perhaps unfairly targeting Tiger Woods, Frank Rich has a great column in the New York Times that looks at the first decade of the 21st century as the decade of the con man/woman, although most of the con artists seem to have been men, except for Sarah Palin who sets a new standard for living in an altered reality. Ranging from Woods' false image of the perfect family man to the snake oil used by Bush/Cheney to take the country into a needless war Iraq, to the legal con games utilized by Wall Street to enrich a few while destroying the financial markets, Rich does a great job at describing what was in many ways a truly perverse decade. Not surprisingly, his column ends with a look at Barack Obama who to many is beginning to look like yet another con man - slick with words but devoid of substance. Perhaps receiving to little condemnation is the news media that time and time again failed to engage in true investigative reporting and allowed so many of these debacles to come to pass. Merely parroting what politicians say and reciting corporate ad campaigns is not investigative reporting. Hopefully, in the next decade there will be more media focus on the truth or lack thereof of what is being said by those in all segments of society. True patriotism is asking hard questions and not merely going with the flow. Here are some column highlights:

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If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).

People wanted to believe what they wanted to believe. Tiger’s off-the-links elusiveness was no more questioned than Enron’s impenetrable balance sheets, with their “special-purpose entities” named after “Star Wars” characters. Fortune magazine named Enron as America’s “most innovative company” six years in a row. In the January issue of Golf Digest, still on the stands, some of the best and most hardheaded writers in America offer “tips Obama can take from Tiger,” who is typically characterized as so without human frailties that he “never does anything that would make him look ridiculous.”
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As cons go, Woods’s fraudulent image as an immaculate exemplar of superhuman steeliness is benign. His fall will damage his family, closest friends, Accenture and the golf industry much more than the rest of us. But the syndrome it epitomizes is not harmless. We keep being fooled by leaders in all sectors of American life, over and over.
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The most lethal example, of course, were the two illusions marketed to us on the way to Iraq — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and some link to Al Qaeda. That history has since been rewritten by Bush alumni, Democratic politicians who supported the Iraq invasion and some of the news media that purveyed the White House fictions (especially the television press, which rarely owned up to its failure as print journalists have).
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Much of the country, regardless of party, didn’t want to question its leaders, no matter how obviously they were hyping any misleading shred of intelligence that could fit their predetermined march to war. It’s the same impulse that kept many from questioning how Mark McGwire’s and Barry Bonds’s outlandishly cartoonish physiques could possibly be steroid-free.
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Republicans incessantly fell for family values preacher politicians like David Vitter, John Ensign and Larry Craig. Fred Thompson was seen by many, in the press as well as his party, as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Karl Rove was widely hailed as a mastermind who would assemble a permanent Republican majority.
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But these scam artists are pikers next to the financial hucksters. I’m not just talking about Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Ken Lay, but about those titans who legally created and sold the securities that gamed and then wrecked the system. You’d think after Enron’s collapse that financial leaders and government overseers would question the contents of “exotic” investments that could not be explained in plain English.
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But after a decade in which two true national catastrophes, a wasteful war and a near-ruinous financial collapse, were both in part byproducts of the ease with which our leaders bamboozled us, we can’t so easily move on. This can be seen in the increasingly urgent political plight of Barack Obama. Though the American left and right don’t agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image — a marketing scam designed to camouflage either his covert anti-American radicalism (as the right sees it) or spineless timidity (as the left sees it). The truth may well be neither, but after a decade of being spun silly, Americans can’t be blamed for being cynical about any leader trying to sell anything. As we say goodbye to the year of Tiger Woods, it is the country, sad to say, that is left mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out.

Why Two Black D.C. Pastors Support Gay Marriage

In this area of Virginia one typically sees black pastors being cynically being manipulated to carry water for the Christianists at The Family Foundation and similar "pro-family" organizations that dislike blacks and Hispanics almost as much as they hate gays. I am continually astonished that most of the black religious community seems oblivious to the fact that (1) they are being used by those who care nothing about them, and (2) those using them are modern day descendants of the pro-slavery and pro-segregation Bible thumpers who used a literal application of selected passages of the Bible to justify slavery and segregation. These - in my view - misguided pastors are doing exactly to gays what was done to them by their Christianist manipulators. Thus, it is refreshing to see black ministers like Dennis W. Wiley and Christine Y. Wiley who support same sex marriage and reject the perversion of religion championed by the anti-gay Christian Right. Here are highlights from their op-ed in the Washington Post:

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Our church is the first and only traditional black church in the District of Columbia to perform same-sex unions. We conducted our first two union ceremonies, one gay and one lesbian, in the summer of 2007. The rapid political developments that followed in our nation and our city have made us optimistic that by the summer of 2010, same-sex nuptials will be not only blessed by churches such as ours, but also sanctioned by law in the District.
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After that first ceremony in our church, we were pleased and relieved; many members and guests told us how beautiful the service had been. But not everyone who attended shared this feeling. After most of the guests left, one longtime parishioner approached us, shaking. In a voice filled with rage, she asked how we could desecrate the sanctuary with such an ungodly act. She vowed to no longer be a member of our church.
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After leaving our congregation, she contacted denominational leaders and local newspapers, including The Washington Post, to complain about our "immoral" behavior. She also took us to court in an unsuccessful attempt to recoup two years of tithes because, in her opinion, we had misled her in presenting ourselves as a "real" Baptist church.
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For us, the courage to perform same-sex unions is in keeping with the proudest traditions of our Baptist and congregational heritage. Within the Baptist tradition of freedom and autonomy, Covenant Baptist Church has a long history of progressive ministry emphasizing social justice, service to the community and inclusion. Several years ago, our congregation unanimously adopted a vision statement that we recite together every Sunday morning as a reminder that "all are welcome, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, gender, age or sexual orientation."
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Through Bible study, reflection on theology and history, and experience, we had come to believe that it was unjust to deny same-sex couples the opportunity to consecrate their relationships in the same way that we allow opposite-sex couples to. Before the ceremony in the church, each of us had performed a same-sex union ceremony elsewhere. But this was our home. The church had voted to become an inclusive congregation. How could we justify treating same-sex couples as second-class citizens?
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The conservative strand of black religion is evident in what Harvard professor Peter Gomes calls "bibliolatry" -- the practice of worshiping the Bible rather than worshiping God. It is also found in a "literal" interpretation of the Bible that focuses more on the letter of the text than on its spirit, and concentrates on passages about domination, oppression, hierarchy, elitism and exclusion rather than on the major themes of love, justice, freedom, equality and inclusion that run throughout the Bible.
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While the church was a refuge from the horrors of racism and played an empowering role in African American history, it also taught black people to repress behaviors -- especially sexual behaviors -- that might attract unwanted attention, appear uncouth or seem threatening to white people.
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A final piece that shapes black attitudes toward same-sex marriage is the preoccupation with racism in the black community. This obsession, although justifiable, has led to a failure to appreciate how racism is inextricably connected to all other forms of oppression. Those who fail to see this connection may resent the comparison of gay rights with civil rights. But as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Many new members are joining the church, excited by our vision. The couple for whom we performed the first union ceremony at our church are still together and doing well. And the man who aspired to the ministry was ordained a few weeks ago and is now a chaplain supervisor at a local hospital. Some who disagree with us have condemned us to hell. But we believe that God has granted us the courage of our convictions.

The Rev. Dennis W. Wiley and the Rev. Christine Y. Wiley are pastors of Covenant Baptist Church in Washington. They are co-chairs of the organization DC Clergy United for Marriage Equality.

How the White House Has Misjudged the Political Landscape

Like many, I am far less than happy with President Obama and the Congressional Democrats. I know many progressives who at least currently are saying that they will vote against Obama in 2012 - which assumes that he doesn't face a much deserved primary challenge. The White House has been both tone deaf and arrogant in its dismissal of the concerns of the liberal wing of the Democrat Party and as I have felt for some time now has very badly misread the political landscape. Obama was elected because people yearned for change yet they have received only more of the same old crap. Indeed, the president's name may need to be changed to "Creigh Obama" in honor of Creigh Deeds' horrible misreading of the political landscape in Virginia this past election. Robert Cruickshank has a piece on Fire Dog Lake that looks at this phenomenon that I believe is right on point. Here are some highlights:
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As progressives on and offline continue to debate the future of the health care reform bill, attention is finally shifting to the underlying factors that have gotten us into this mess in the first place: namely, the mistakes of the White House.
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The fact is that Democratic electeds, the president first and foremost, have completely misunderstood American politics in 2009. I’m not talking just about the failed and senseless efforts at bipartisanship, though Obama’s underestimation of the level of control Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the teabaggers have over the Republican Party hasn’t helped.
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Instead I’m talking about the inability of the White House to understand the changing nature of the American left. The late 20th century experience of a marginalized and weak left has been replaced during the 2000s by a much more powerful and popular movement. The White House’s unwillingness to treat that movement as an equal partner is damaging not only the health care bill, but the political fate of Democrats in 2010 and, potentially, 2012.
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In particular, progressives – activists and voters – need a clear, signal victory in order to avoid complete 1994-style demoralization. Something big and bold, something clearly progressive that forced moderates and conservatives to concede something important, something that will give more people a reason to rally to Obama’s defense when he is in a difficult place.
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Comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of the Grijalva proposal would achieve this. Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell would achieve this (and repeal of DOMA would be a grand slam). Firing Geithner and Summers would achieve this. Breaking up some of the big banks would achieve this. And yes, a public option of some kind would have achieved this.
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Instead we have a White House and a Senate Democratic leadership that still believes we live in the 1990s, where the "left" is weak and has little popular support. They’ve not understood the transformative effect of the 2000s and Bush in particular, who helped create a genuine American left with real and widespread popular support for the first time in 40 years.
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The White House hasn’t yet grasped that some basic and timeless rules of politics still apply: that you have to deliver something to your supporters to keep them on board. Something that excites them, something that gets them motivated. Ever since 1993 Democratic presidential Administrations have assumed those rules are in abeyance, where supporters will stay on board out of fear of Republicans, unwilling to act on their beliefs or frustrations out of an internalized belief that America is a conservative place hostile to progressive values.
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There were a number of instances in 2009 that showed Obama doesn’t quite grasp political realities, and the snowballing collapse of health care reform is just one element of that misunderstanding. Until he sees progressives as genuine partners, Obama will face declining political fortunes.