More Wednesday Male Beauty

Support JC Penney - Go Shopping!

I've posted a couple of times about the Christiannist onslaught and boycott effort against retailer JC Penney because (1) the company hired Ellen Degeneres as a spokeswoman and (2) because the company included a photo of two gay dads in the Father's Day catalog (see the image above).  The haters are apoplectic because JC Penney acknowledges that gays exist and that we have family values too.  Our family values, however, are not based on fear, self-inflicted ignorance and hatred of others who are different from ourselves.  I have also encouraged LGBT consumers to spend their money at JC Penney  as a way of saying "thank you" to the company for not knuckling under to the hate merchants and Christofascists.

Today I took my own advice and ran by the local JC Penney store before heading down the street to a 4th of July party at a neighbor's home that looks out across Hampton Roads harbor with a panoramic view of the harbor and the U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet at the Norfolk Naval Base.   JC Penney is not a high end designer stre, but I was able to find some nice things and left the store with five items that included some designer names at a great price.  In fact,  wore the Joseph Abboud shorts I bought to today's party.

We as a community need to support those who don't surrender to the demands of our enemies.  I for one will continue to target my spending toward gay friendly companies and businesses.

Chick-Fil-A's Anti-Gay Donations Totaled Nearly $2 Million In 2010

Chick Fil-A = Anti-Gay Bigotry

This blog has previously looked at Chick Fil-A's finding of anti-gay ororganizations based on data available through 2009.  Now data for 2010 is available and it hows that Chick Fil-A has continued to fund groups and organizations that promote anti-gay bigotry and which disseminate lies and malicious anti-gay propaganda.  Personally,  I stopped frequenting Chick Fil-A years ago when I first learned that the privately held business is owned by right wing Christianist extremists.  I sincerely hope that others will join me in this boycott.  Yes their food is good, but part of every dollar spent at a Chick Fil-A store finds its way to an anti-gay hate group.  Here are highlights from the Huffington Post:

Chick-fil-A is quickly becoming more well-known for its alleged anti-gay donations than for its fried chicken.
As reported by Equality Matters and The Advocate -- among other publications -- a newly-released analysis of Chick-fil-A's charitable work has found that the fast found chain donated nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups over the course of 2010.

Among the many groups to receive donations through Chick-fil-A's WinShape Foundation, which was created by Chick-fil-A founder and chairman S. Truett Cathy in 1984, were the Marriage & Family Foundation ($1,188,380), Exodus International ($1,000) and the Family Research Council (also $1,000), Equality Matters reported.

Meanwhile, The New Civil Rights Movement's David Badash presents an even more disturbing figure: that Chick-fil-A has donated an estimated $5 million to anti-gay organizations and hate groups between 2003 and 2010. 

Not surprisingly, the revelation has already sparked a number of impassioned responses from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates and media outlets. "Let's face it: despite what the company's president says, Chick-Fil-A is an anti-gay corporation," wrote Tyler Coates for BlackBook. "And, on that note, I'm just going to have to assume that anyone who spends their money there are completely fine with the fact that an anti-gay corporation not only exists, but pushes money to other groups to continue the widespread practice of discriminating against everyone in the LGBT community." 

Mitt Romney's Tax Havens - How Do You Say Hypocrite?

Click image to enlarge

Mitt Romney talks a good game - at least if one doesn't know the real facts.  But his actions speak far louder.  Click the image above to see some of the ways Romney has avoided or reduced paying taxes.

What Today is Realy All About - The Declaration of Independence

With barbecues and other social events, it's easy to forget the meaning behind today's 4th of July holiday.  I have highlighted the portion of the Declaration of Independence (set out in full below) that still needs work to live up to the document's bold language about equality.  I believe that if he were alive today,the document's author, Thomas Jefferson, would be an advocate for full equality for all Americans.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Obama's White Voters Problem

The increasingly visible racism that is being fanned by the GOP and its Christianist base is one of the hurdles facing Barack Obama in the 2012 election.  And some in the Christianist ranks of the GOP base no longer even try to hide their racism as the image above from a church group in Alabama illustrates as it invites "all white Christians" - the organizers of the event tried to explain away the racism this way:  

Organizers of the "all white" annual pastors conference explained why it's open to only white Christians.  William Collier said, "We don't have the facilities to accommodate other people. We haven't got any invitations to black muslim events. Of course, we are not invited to Jewish events and stuff."  Mel Lewis said, "We have a right as Americans to meet, to pray, to assemble. If someone is offended too bad."

But I digress from Obama's challenge.  There are simply too many whites who cannot seem to put Obama's race aside and support a president whose policies are actually in their own best interests.  Here are excerpts from Huffington Post that look at the issue of white voters and Obama in historical context:

 In the year after the bill that would become the Civil Rights Act was introduced into Congress, the president who stumped for it would be killed, his successor would face serious pushback from within his own party and a cadre of southern senators would spend more than seven weeks filibustering it..  .  .  .  .  The Civil Rights Act formally made it illegal to discriminate in public institutions, employment, union membership and federally funded programs.

Behind closed doors, however, Johnson was pessimistic about the electoral fallout of the law’s passage. "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come," he told Bill Moyers, his speechwriter.

Although though Johnson would win the presidency in a landslide that November -- bolstered by 94 percent of the black vote, a record that would hold until President Barack Obama's win in 2008 -- his concerns about the South proved justified.
 
As black voters flocked into the Democratic fold after the act's signing, white voters -- particularly in the South -- bolted. The 1964 election was the last time a Democratic candidate for president would win more than half of the nation’s white vote.  Richard Nixon would use the racial resentments of southern whites to help propel himself to the White House. The South has been solidly Republican in every election since.

"It's similar to white physical flight, but what we have here with white political flight," said Rick Jones, a political scientist at the University of Louisville.  It's an electoral problem that is especially pronounced for Obama. No president has won the White House with a smaller sliver of the white vote. The president's approval among white voters has dropped below 40 percent, and he trails Mitt Romney with that group by 13 percentage points.

“President Obama does not currently have enough white support to win re-election, even if he retains his minority base from 2008,” wrote David Paul Kuhn at Real Clear Politics. Obama won about 43 percent of the white vote in 2008, but needs about 38 percent of the white vote to win this fall, according to one pollster. (Obama pulled in 80 percent of the non-white vote in 2008.) 

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Will Opposition to Gay Marriage Drive Young Christians from Church?

A piece on CNN that I bookmarked thew other day asks the question of whether the Christianist battle against gay marriage could end up driving young Christians away from church.  Based on the rate at which the so-called millenial generation is leaving organized religion, I would argue that we are already seeing the answer to the question.  And, as the CNN piece suggests, the situation may worsen - at least if one is an anti-gay advocate - as more young evangelicals become increasingly receptive to same sex marriage like their peers.  The irony in all of this is that the Christofascists blame gays for the decline of religion, yet it's really their own foul behavior and hatred and bigoty that is killing the Christian brand.  Based on my own children and their friends, they want nothing to do with denominations that spew constant anti-gay vitriol.  Here are some excerpts from the CNN piece:

As the battle over gay marriage heats up in this election year, one evangelical Christian writer is calling for a truce, fearing that the outspoken opposition to gay marriage among some church leaders could alienate an entire generation of religious youth.

“Evangelicals have been so submitted to these culture wars for so long, so that’s hard to give up,” evangelical writer and speaker Rachel Held Evans, 31, told msnbc.com. But “the majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis.”

A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the generation gap between young Christians and their elders is large, with 44 percent of white evangelicals aged 18-29 in support of marriage equality compared to only 12 percent of those 65 and older.

According to the same survey, nearly 70 percent of young Christians also agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues.  “For young Christians, having gay and lesbian friends is just a part of our life,” Held Evans said. “It’s just really hard for us to see them as mere issues to debate, because we’re talking about our friends here.”

To Held Evans, American churches’ attitude toward gay rights will play an important role in the retention of young Christians. In an article she wrote following North Carolina’s recent vote to ban gay marriage, Held Evans points to data mentioned in David Kinnaman’s book You Lost Me, which shows that 59 percent of teens who were raised Christian abandon the church when they become adults. One of the main reasons, the article says, is the church’s attitude toward gay rights.

While young Christians may be divided on whether gay relationships should be celebrated in the church, Held Evans said, they’re increasingly unified on their stance against legislative action, such as North Carolina’s gay marriage ban and others that will be up for votes this fall.

"Even young Christians who think that gay relationships are not God’s design, a lot of them will still say ‘but I think it should be legal for gay people to get married, because this is America,’” Held Evans said.

“I think the main problem we have is that a lot of the folks voting about homosexuality, voting about gay marriage, don’t know any gay people,” she said. “And I’m certain that if they did, it would change their attitude.”

I guess the cynic in me almost hopes that the Roman catholic Church hierarchy and the Southern Baptist Convention  continue their anti-gay jihad.  It may be the key to killing their foul version of Christianity - something that would be a net gain for the world.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

Argentine President: Equality as Important as Liberty

On this 4th of July, America sadly still has a long way to go before it realizes the stated promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens.  Religious based bigotry and racial bigotry are alive and well - especially within today's Republican party which pretends to love and support the U.S. Constitution - and both LGBT Americans and other minorities are faced with daily discrimination often as a matter of government policy, especially in reactionary states like Virginia.  As a nation, the USA could really stand to learn somethings from other nations and we need to dump the myth of American exceptionalism (more on that in a future post).  A case in point is Argentina where this week Argentina's president (pictured at right) personally delivered the nation's first identity cards to people who legally switched their genders under a law that sets a global precedent.  We hear so much about equality under the law in America, but it is too often a fiction.  My fellow blogger Andrés Duque looks at this inspiring event in Argentina in his blog Blabbeando.  Here are some highlights followed by a video clip (in Spanish):

Argentinean president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner celebrated passage of the world's most progressive gender identity law by inviting a number of transgender leaders and personally handing them their new identity cards. The law was adopted by the Argentinean congress in May by a vote of 55-0 and became law last month after getting the president's signature. It allows transgender individuals to change their name and gender on government documents without having to prove that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery or need for court approval as had been the case before. It also grants government health coverage for transgender individuals who want to undergo a gender reassignment surgery.

[T]he Argentinean president also signed a presidential decree yesterday which put an end to a legal loophole that kept same-sex parents who began raising children before the 2010 marriage equality law passed from registering as co-parents of those children. If I understand correctly, the decree gives same-sex parents that weren't covered by the marriage equality law a full year to legally register their children as their own.

"Today is a day of tremendous reparation," the president said at the start of her speech, "today we do not shout for liberation but instead we shout for equality, which is just as important as freedom." 

Noting that the average age at which transgender individuals die in Argentina is 32, the president argued that part of it was due to the stress of being repressed and ignored and not having any rights and said this would change that.

"I do not want to use a word that bothers me greatly: Tolerance. No. I do not believe in 'tolerance'. To tolerate is to say I'll allow you to be because I have no other choice", she said, "I want to talk about equality and I want to talk about all of you who will now have the same rights I have enjoyed from the moment I was born and the rights that so many millions of Argentinians have enjoyed from the moment they were born. This is the society we want."

Yes, Argentina has its problems.  But as a society its civil laws are become a standard on how ALL citizens ought to be treated.  It's also ironic that while many America consider themselves to be "good Christians"  Argentina is far out stripping the USA from a legal perspective when it comes to treating others as demanded by the Gospel message.  I for one am very much over the hubris and hypocrisy of the Christianists and their boot licking puppets in the Republican Party.  Here's the video:

The Role of Gay's in America's War for Independence

UPDATED:  If you're interested in learning more about The United States's queer past, check out LGBT lecturer Michael Bronski's "Queer History of the United States of America."  It sells for $20.55 on Amazon.com.

For the last fourteen month's I have been writing an LGBT issues column in the print issue of Veer Magazine, a local alternative magazine that covers news, arts, entertainment, dining and cultural events.  Like this blog, my monthly column topics range from political issues to LGBT history.  The July, 2012, column (the print version of Veer hits the newsstands on the 15th of each month) will address the often forgotten role that gays played in winning America's war for independence (the boyfriend came up with the idea).  It is an aspect of American history that for too long has been hidden from the public eye and consciousness. Thus, it's an appropriate topic this 4th of July.  The following are excerpts from the upcoming July, 2012, column - locals can pick up a copy of Veer for the whole piece - followed by additional thoughts:

[M]any of us have heard familiar stories about the Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers.  What we have not heard due to revisionist history and a sanitizing of reputations of many of the nation’s early leaders is the vital role that gays played in winning the United Sates’ independence from Great Britain.  Legislation recently enacted in California seeks to remedy this silence by requiring the inclusion of the contributions of LGBT individuals in the history curriculum.

However, until more progress is made on this front, most Americans remain ignorant of the critical roles played by some individuals who would likely be labeled as gays under today’s understanding of sexual orientation is literally non-existent.  .  .  .  .  Who am I talking about?  Four individuals immediately spring to mind: Major. Gen. Frederich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian military genius and chief of staff to George Washington, his young French assistant, Pierre Etienne Duponceau, Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens.

Yes, it’s true that at the time of the Revolutionary War the terms “homosexual” or “gay” had yet been coined.   But looking at historical accounts and existing correspondence, the major loves of these men’s lives involved those of the same sex.  And what’s even more significant is the fact that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were well aware of the romantic inclinations of these significant contributors to the nation’s war for independence.  

Perhaps the greatest role was played by Frederich Wilhelm von Steuben.  Some maintain that the United States and its formidable military might not exist but for the contributions of this brilliant homosexual soldier from Prussia (modern-day Germany).  Von Steuben was recruited to the American military cause by Benjamin Franklin while he was in France.   For his part, von Steuben jumped at the opportunity since things were becoming too hot for him in Europe due to his many affairs with young men,  

As for von Steuben’s sexual orientation, historian Victoria A. Brownworth has noted that:

That Washington looked the other way with same-sex couples is most obvious in his dealings with Maj. Gen. Frederich Wilhelm von Steuben   .   .  .  Benjamin Franklin who provided the letters of recommendation to Washington, but Franklin was aware that von Steuben had been implicated in relationships with boys and young men and had been expelled from the court of Frederick the Great for homosexual behavior and was on the verge of being prosecuted when he left Germany for France.  .  .  .  Von Steuben’s relationship with Washington was close and there were no conflicts with Washington over von Steuben’s sleeping arrangements at Valley Forge with his young Frenchman, Duponceau.

There's considerably more in the column about Hamilton, Laurens, and Deborah Sampson, who served in the Continental Army disguised as a man under the name Robert Shurtlieff, but readers will get the drift of the column's .   More on von Steuben's many contributions can be found in a piece in the Washington Blade that was written for the gay history project last year.  Here's a sampling from the Blade article:

February 1778: Arrives at Valley Forge to serve under Washington, having informed Congress of his desire for paid service after an initial volunteer trial period, with which request Washington concurs.

March 1778: Begins tenure as inspector general, drilling troops according to established European military precepts.

1778-79: Writes “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States,” which becomes a fundamental guide for the Continental Army and remains in active use through the War of 1812, being published in over 70 editions.

1780-81: Senior military officer in charge of troop and supply mobilization in Virginia.

1781: Replaced by Marquis de Lafayette as commander in Virginia.

1781-83: Continues to serve as Washington’s inspector general, and is active in improving discipline and streamlining administration in the army.

Spring 1783: Assists in formulating plans for the postwar American military.

Washington rewarded Von Steuben with a house at Valley Forge (still in existence and open for visits) which he shared with his aide-de-camps Capt. William North and Gen. Benjamin Walker. Walker lived with him through the remainder of his life, and von Steuben, who neither married nor denied any of the allegations of homosexuality, left his estate to North and Walker. His last will and testament, which includes the line “extraordinarily intense emotional relationship,” has been described as a love letter to Walker.

The nation that von Steuben helped found has memorialized him with numerous statues, including those at Lafayette Square near the White House and at Valley Forge and Utica, N.Y. (where he is buried) and German Americans celebrate his birthday each year on Sept. 17, hosting parades in New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago.

If George Washington was the father of the nation, then von Steuben, a gay man, was the father of the United States military.

Wikipedia also has this:

Steuben was the surname of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794), a Prussian officer who aided the colonials in the American Revolutionary War.  Places in the United States of America named after Steuben include:  Steuben, Maine; Steuben, New York; Steuben, Wisconsin; Steuben County, Indiana; Steuben County, New York;Steubenville, Indiana;Steubenville, Ohio

It is far past time that American citizens learn the real history of  the contributions of LGBT individuals to this nation.  Will the Christiansts scream and throw a fit?  Most definitely - one only need look at their opposition to the LGBT history law in California.  The fact that bigots and demagogues don't like the truth doesn't make it any less the truth.  This country needs to know the truth, not just disingenuous Christianist lies and anti-gay propaganda.