More Tuesday Male Beauty

Calvin Klien's new b/f - dedicated to Don Feder and Mike Huckabee

Wingnut Lunatics: Don Feder and Mike Huckabee

It is almost frightening how untethered the far right Christianists are becoming. First there's Don Feder posting another anti-gay screed on WingNutDaily alleging that civilization will be surrendered if same sex couples are allowed to marry nationwide. This lunacy is matched by Mike Huckabee who wants to turn the United States back over to God and Jesus. Both Feder and Huckabee are little better than Demagogues and Huckabee obviously cares nothing for the U.S. Constitution which bars the government from establishing an official state religion. Both men in effect want nothing less than a Christianist theocracy. It is downright bizarre that Huckabee can continue to be viewed as a serious contender amongst many within the GOP base (who claim the worship the Constitution almost as much as the Bible) given his contempt for constitutional government. First, some of Feder's verbal diarrhea (NOTE: in the article he turns the estimated 87,000 attendees at Glenn Beck's whitestop into 300,000):
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Memo to conservative defeatists: Surrender on gay marriage is surrender on marriage – which is surrender on the family and, ultimately, surrender on civilization.
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But while America turns back to God, Beck turns his back on God's law. Hey, that's catchy!

A guest on the "O'Reilly Factor" in early August, Beck was asked, "Do you believe that gay marriage is a threat to the country in any way?" Answer: "No I don't. Will gays come and get us?" Apparently, this jocularity was meant to belittle the bumpkins who oppose turning marriage into a free-form institution.
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Beck then quoted his hero, Thomas Jefferson (who thought the French Revolution was groovy): "If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket what difference is it to me?" Apparently, demolishing the institution of marriage, and undermining the family, should be matters of supreme indifference to those fighting to save America from the clutches of Obamaism.
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Beck is one of a growing number of conservative opinion makers who are either agnostic on the issue or have decided to earn tolerance-points with the establishment by backing here-come-the-grooms. They include The View's Elizabeth Hasselbeck. ("I actually support gay marriage.") and Ross Douthat, poodle conservative of the New York Times op-ed page, whose hair-splitting here makes the late William F. Buckley Jr. sound coherent. Then there's Ann Coulter who's speaking at Homocon, . . . and the Republican congressional leaders who are falling all over themselves to attend a Sept. 22, D.C. fundraiser for the Log Cabin Republicans.
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This unwillingness to fight for the family, on which civilization depends, is another sign of the failure of modern conservatism. The right can win a thousand battles against big government and lose the war for America's future, if it surrenders on marriage and the family.
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Offering competing models, socially sanctioned, undermines heterosexual marriage. Two men engaged in what used to be described as unnatural acts, become the legal/moral equivalent of a man and woman (husband and wife), joined by faith and tradition, doing society's essential work of childbearing and child-rearing.
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Homosexual activists (among the most driven ideologues on the planet) will insist that all churches perform same-sex ceremonies – and push for withdrawal of charitable tax status of those that refuse. Hate-crime laws will be applied to the ministers and priests who preach Leviticus or Romans 1:26-27. In Europe and Canada, clerics have been hauled before human-rights tribunals for defending their faith from the pulpit.
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Unfortunately, many conservative intellectuals have lost sight of a crucial fact: American exceptionalism rests on three pillars – faith, family and freedom. Remove any one, and the entire structure collapses.
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Funny thing - I didn't realize that I am a "driven idealogue." I would also note that Massachusetts where same sex marriage has been legal the longest has the lowest divorce rate. But then. objective facts are meaningless to folks like Feder. It's also noteworthy that Feder continues to push the myth of American exceptionalism. Somehow, I don't think God judges any of us based upon our nationality. Our prejudice and bigotry, yes. Nationality or sexual orientation, not at all.
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As if Feder's bile isn't bad enough, we have Mike Huckabee fraternizing with Lou Engle - who supports the execution of gays in Uganda - making it clear that he wants to turn the USA into a Christianist theocracy. Here are highlights from Huffington Post on Huckabee's lastest bullshit:
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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wants to turn the United States back over to God and Jesus. Huckabee actually said this in a just released 60 second commercial for Lou Engle's "The Call." In the spot Huckabee says, "Fast and pray and turn this nation back to God, as Jesus is our only hope."
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Governor Huckabee should know that the Constitution is very clear about the separation of Church and State. Take a look at the commercial; it's unbelievable:

Navy Ready to Move Ships if Hurricane Earl Shifts West

For residents of southeast Virginia a good indicator of whether or not a hurricane is believed headed to strike the area is watching to see what the U.S. Navy does with its ships based in the area. Since the likelihood of damage is less if the ships head out to sea and sail out of harm's as opposed to staying tied up in port, whenever the Navy expects a serious hurricane risk, the fleet is ordered to sea. This afternoon, the Navy said it was preparing to send out the fleet if Hurricane Earl shifts westward - a shift that would bring heavier winds and increased storm surge to the area. Like everyone else in the area, the boyfriend and I will be watching and waiting to see what happens. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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The Navy was preparing its ships to leave Hampton Roads if conditions deteriorate as Hurricane Earl moved farther from north of Puerto Rico this morning and began churning its way toward the United States.

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In Hampton Roads, the Navy is at Hurricane Condition Four, meaning destructive winds are possible within 72 hours, according to a news release. Navy personnel and families were being urged to review their checklists and evacuation plans in case the Earl's track changes, bringing the Category 4 storm and its winds of 135 mph closer to shore.

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Also this morning, lifeguards along the Oceanfront had to raise the red flags and restrict swimmers to waist-deep water, said Capt. Tom Gill of the Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service.

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In Hampton Roads, the Coast Guard set the port condition for "Whiskey," meaning hurricane-force winds are expected by Thursday, a news release said. The same port condition was set in Wilmington and Morehead City, N.C.

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On Monday, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management urged Hampton Roads residents to review their evacuation plans and make sure their hurricane preparedness kits were stocked.

Tuesday Male Beauty

New Zealand Denies Exodus International Affiliate Non-Profit Status

Many countries allow charitable organizations some sort of non-profit status provided that they document that they offer educational and non-profit motivated benefits to society. Unfortunately, in the USA many of the far right Christianist organizations hide behind the smoke screen of such educational endeavors when in reality their stock in trade is hate and prejudice - not to mention interference with the civil rights of other citizens. Worse yet, they peddle bogus science and in reality serve as PR arms for theocrats who want to subvert the U.S. Constitution - particularly the constitutional ban on an established religion. Part of this cesspool of faux charities is Exodus International - the largest purveyor of the "ex-gay" myth - myth used repeatedly by Christianists in opposing full civil legal equality for LGBT citizens. It seems that in New Zealand some people are waking up to Exodus' foul agenda and Exodus Ministries Trust Board's application for non-profit status was not renewed. Indeed, the conclusion was that the organization was "not performing any public benefit, because being gay is not a mental disorder and does not need curing." Would that the IRS would exercise such forthright thinking. Here are some highlights from GayNZ.com:
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The Charities Commission says the Exodus Ministries Trust Board is not performing any public benefit, because being gay is not a mental disorder and does not need curing.
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The trust is affiliated with the United States-based Exodus Global Alliance, which promises "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ". It has had charitable status for more than a decade, but that status has now been removed by the Charities Commission under a regime introduced in 2007.
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The trust claimed it had a legitimate point of view and provided support to homosexuals during "very difficult times". It said a comparison could be made with Rainbow Youth having charitable status, "clearly an education provided by Rainbow Youth Inc. would be from a preconceived point of view, ie that homosexuality and other forms of sexuality are perfectly normal for some people."
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The Charities Commission disagreed.
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The full Commission decision can be found here. Among other things the Commission noted that the American Psychological Association found reparative therapy to be unethical and that all major mental health associations held that such "ex-gay" therapies were not effective and, indeed, could be harmful. I have long advocated that regulatory boards in the states need to crack down on "ex-gay" ministries and, better yet, yank the licenses of therapists who engage in such programs. Maybe New Zealand's example will be the beginning of a trend. Of course, that would mean that Alan Chambers and other ex-gays for pay might need to find legitimate employment.

Stanford Study: Children of Gay Parents Do Just Fine

Another study by a top flight university has shot another major whole in the Christianists whining that children need a mother and a father in order to develop properly. This time the study is from Stanford University and it confirms what was found by a recent study done at the University of Virginia. The bottom line is that other than Christianist witch doctor like experts, there is no credible evidence to back up the anti-gay parent talking points recited ad nausea by Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Tim Wildmon, Robert Knight and the other parasites of the professional Christian organizations. They can whine all they want but their opinion - and that's all it is - boils down to two things: religious belief and bigotry. Oh, and maybe a desire to live well without having to have a real job. Here are highlights from Stanford University News on this latest study:
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In nearly every discussion, debate or lawsuit about gay marriage, the talk at some point turns to family values. Do gay couples make for good parents?
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The answers usually depend on who's giving them, and come dressed in anecdotes and colored by bias. But Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld brings something new to the conversation: facts and figures derived from the country's largest data bank – the U.S. Census.*
In a study published this month in the journal Demography, Rosenfeld concludes that children being raised by same-sex couples have nearly the same educational achievement as children raised by married heterosexual couples.
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"The census data show that having parents who are the same gender is not in itself any disadvantage to children," he said. "Parents' income and education are the biggest indicators of a child's success. Family structure is a minor determinant."
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Rosenfeld's study shows that children of gay and married couples had lower grade-repetition rates than their peers raised by opposite-sex unmarried couples and single parents. And all children living in some type of family environment did much better than those living in group housing. Those who were awaiting adoption or placement in a foster home were held back about 34 percent of the time.
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"My research makes clear that there's a huge advantage to kids to be out of the care of the state and into the care of any family, even if the family is not perfectly optimal."
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Most personal decisions about gay marriage are based on gut feelings, religious beliefs and individual experiences. Rosenfeld knows his research isn't going to change the minds of most people opposed to same-sex unions. But he has added new data to the debate that helps debunk assertions – whether based on a lack of knowledge or some unfounded fear – that children raised by gay couples cannot thrive.
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To me, the real hysteria from the Christianists is due to the fact that, if their views on gays are proved wrong, what else in their fragile house of cards religious construct will likewise be proved wrong. Once their false religious construct begins to fall, their entire bogus "Biblical world view" comes crashing down. And rightly so.

More Monday Male Beauty

What Does It Mean to be Gay and Middle Aged?

For those of us who came out in mid-life, we have no first hand knowledge of what it means to be young and gay. Oh yes, we see young gays around us at events and may read about it, yet we will never know what it is to be gay and out before finding ourselves in middle age. As I have remarked on occasion, "I was a has been from the moment that I came out." I suspect that getting older isn't easy regardless of whether one is gay or straight. However, given the emphasis on youth and beauty in the gay world - I find it hard to even find male beauty photos of older men despite google searches - the tribulations appear to be worse. I don't feel any older than when I was 29, but the mirror tells me otherwise. The Guardian has a story from the north of England that looks at the question of what it means to be gay and in middle age. Here are some sometimes humorous highlights:
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On Sunday at Fac251 in Manchester, promoter Paul Cons is reviving Flesh, his famous gay club of the early 90s for one night. As well as raising money for the Albert Kennedy Trust and the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund it's going to be a nostalgic night for older Manchester gays.
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"As well as creating an amazing party, I would love Flesh to be the start of a conversation about what it's like to be gay in your 30s, 40s, 50s in 2010. I think it's a good moment to look back at your youth, celebrate it, reflect on it, but also look at where we are now and where we're going."
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This set me thinking. I'm a staggering 51 – too old for alcopops yet too young for Midsomer Murders. So I asked my more mature gay followers on Twitter how they felt about middle age and got very different responses, from "It feels shit . . . Hate getting older, thank goodness for Botox, beauty therapists and booze," to "Really nice. I wish I could go back and slap the 17-year-old me though." Others asked why a gay man's experience of middle age would be any different from anyone else's.
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What had become of us? Of the 10, six were partnered up, two were single and two were dead. Four had moved to the country, one emigrated to Australia and three remained in London. Four had gone bald. Two had taken cocaine in the last year (and complained that it wasn't as good as it used to be). Three of us had contemplated adopting children or approaching lesbian friends with turkey baster in hand but it had all been talk and no issue resulted. Five had dogs, of which four were small and camp. Three had been out to a gay club in the last year
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Back in the days when my pleasure-seeking friends and I were out at Bang and Heaven and the Pink Pussycat every night of the week (and rather putting ourselves about) we viewed anyone over 40 with suspicion. If they dared to approach us, they would get the full force of our disdain. They were desperate and musty and just wrong. Nightclubs were for young people like us, and those coffin dodgers had no business being there.
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The difference, I conclude, between gays and straights when it comes to mid-life is that gays don't feel bound to fulfil certain roles. Why should we? Having lived our lives on the boundaries of society's norms we feel able to negotiate our way through the experience of ageing.
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The consensus is that middle-aged gays are happier than they were in their youth. . . . If my theory is right, Flesh on Sunday will be a fabulous event, throbbing with portly middle-aged northern gays at one with themselves at last but still able to cut a rug on the dance floor.

Tory MP Crispin Blunt Admits He's Gay - Wife Traumatized

The caption of this post is seemingly the type of headline that Maggie Gallagher, Pope Benedict XIV, Tony Perkins, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, and other opponents of any rights for LGBT citizens like to see. Otherwise, they would not claim gays can be "cured," endeavor to denigrate LGBT individuals at every turn, and oppose all recognition of same sex couples and relationships. Instead of accepting that homosexuality is a naturally occurring sexual orientation as recognized by all legitimate medical and mental health associations, these bigots - who like Maggie Gallagher all too often benefit financially from their very public homophobia - seem to enjoy forcing LGBT individuals to live in the closet and disastrously try to be straight. I know all about this first hand. I fell for the anti-gay bullshit, married and struggled for over two decades trying to deny reality. The ending was very messy and I suspect my ex-wife felt much like Ms. Blunt. And who is at fault? My vote goes to those who viciously and often cynically disseminate endless anti-gay rhetoric - not Crispin Blunt or his wife Victoria. Both of them are victims of the ignorance and bigotry of false Christians and professional Christians who drive people to do precisely what I and MP Blunt tried to do. Here are highlights from the Daily Mail:
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The wife of prisons minister Crispin Blunt is 'completely traumatised' by his admission that he is gay. The couple have separated after nearly 20 years of marriage following Mr Blunt's shock confession on Friday that he has been living a lie. Friends say Victoria Blunt - a former banker, and the daughter of a wealthy American - felt betrayed because she had sacrificed her career and used her fortune to support her husband's political life.
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Mr Blunt, MP for Reigate in Surrey since 1997, went to such lengths to conceal his homosexuality that he risked claims of hypocrisy. His election literature and profile on the Conservative party website sold him to voters as a husband and father of two. And in a Parliamentary debate, he once claimed homosexuality is 'not equivalent to heterosexuality'.
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Friends have revealed Mr Blunt took the decision to come clean about his sexuality after Liberal Democrat Treasury minister David Laws was forced to resign earlier this year when it emerged that he had been paying taxpayers money in rent to his gay lover.
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'The Laws episode was decisive,' says an acquaintance of Mr Blunt, 'because Crispin saw that the fire storm which descended was nothing to do with Laws' homosexuality and everything to do with his deceit.' Mr Blunt, uncle of actress Emily Blunt, felt 'envy' as the Laws affair unravelled. 'He saw and envied David's liberation,' says the acquaintance. 'It started him thinking that he could do it as well. It was like watching a dry run of what he knew he would have to go through. Laws is like a new man since he came out.
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The news also came as a complete shock to Mr Blunt's privately-educated children, 18-year-old Claudia and Freddie, who turned 16 last month. Both children have just sat their GCSEs and A-levels, another factor believed to be involved in the timing of Blunt's revelation. 'Crispin had battled with his conscience for years because of his wife,' the acquaintance said. 'His children are now well into their teens. He realised that it was now or never.
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'He's felt an awful lot of guilt at the hurt that his announcement has caused within his family but more than anything now, he feels utter relief.'
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I wish all in the Blunt family the best of luck as this difficult issue and process continues. I suspect I know all too well the guilt that Mr. Blunt is likely feeling. There will be a lot of assignments of guilt, but the real guilty parties are those who knowingly - and with no remorse - create the atmosphere where men and women feel compelled to try to be someone who they are not.

Mosque Opponents Are Aiding Taliban Recruitment

Personally, I believe that the far right opponents of the proposed Islamic community center WANT and endless war against Islam. They, like the delusional Chimperator George W. Bush did while in office, believe that they are on an anti-Muslim crusade. Their handiwork, however, is aiding Taliban recruiting efforts and in the process likely to be endangering the lives of U.S. service members in Afghanistan - not to mention American civilians who could be targeted for another terror attack. Sadly, with the Christianists and far right elements of the GOP - e.g. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, et al - I doubt they give a damn about the lives of innocent people that their vitriolic posturing might endanger. Rather, it's all about scoring perceived political points and satisfying their own Islamophobic inclinations that allow them to feel superior about themselves. It's disgusting and puts the worse aspects of the USA under the spotlight of the international media. Newsweek looks at the damage being done by these self-professed, but false patriots. Here are some highlights:
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Taliban officials know it’s sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that’s exactly what they’re wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. “By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”
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America’s enemies in Afghanistan are delighted by the vehement public opposition to the proposed “Ground Zero mosque.” The backlash against the project has drawn the heaviest e-mail response ever on jihadi Web sites, Zabihullah claims—far bigger even than France’s ban on burqas earlier this year.
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Zabihullah also claims that the issue is such a propaganda windfall—so tailor-made to show how “anti-Islamic” America is—that it now heads the list of talking points in Taliban meetings with fighters, villagers, and potential recruits. “We talk about how America tortures with waterboarding, about the cruel confinement of Muslims in wire cages in Guantánamo, about the killing of innocent women and children in air attacks—and now America gives us another gift with its street protests to prevent a mosque from being built in New York,” Zabihullah says. “Showing reality always makes the best propaganda.”
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“I expect we will soon be receiving more American Muslims like Faisal Shahzad who are looking for help in how to express their rage,” says a Taliban official who was a senior minister when the group ruled Afghanistan and who remains active in the insurgency. As an indication of the anger that is growing among some Muslims in the West, this official, who requested anonymity for security reasons, mentions the arrest of three Canadian Muslims in Ontario last week on charges of plotting to build and detonate improvised explosive devices.
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The more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get,” Zabihullah predicts.
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So, the next time you hear an Islamic bigot mouthing off, please take the time to point out to them that they are aiding and abetting the enemy - something sometimes called treason.