More Tuesday Male Beauty

Dick Armey - GOP Will Push Social Issues If They Retake the House

If there is any doubt that the GOP has become a sectarian party - even in the wake of a religious based bigotry induced suicide of 15 year old Billy Lucas mentioned in the last post - Dick Armey is spouting the Christianist party line when he says that social issues will be back on Congress' agenda if the GOP recaptures the House of Representatives. Armey - who has embraced the Tea Party lunacy - obviously cares nothing for the long term prospects for the GOP and would rather prostitute himself for short term wins even if it means losing the younger generations and the future. The country's infrastructure can be falling apart, the economy can be in a free fall, millions are losing their homes, and all the GOP cares about is abortion and denigrating gays lives. Indeed, this branch of the GOP wants nothing less than a Christianist theocracy. Here are highlights from the Christian Science Monitor:
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"Tea party" advocate Dick Armey, chairman of Freedom Works, says that if Republicans take control of Congress in November’s elections, changing policies on social issues like abortion will be on their agenda.
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Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said in June that the next president “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues” so that the nation’s debt and deficit problems could be solved.
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When asked Monday at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters about the possibility of a truce on social issues going into the presidential campaign, Mr. Armey said, “A truce? No. These are issues of the heart. People are not going to turn their hearts and minds away from things that they have so heartfelt.”
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As a former Republican, I shake my head in disbelief at what has become of the GOP. The extremism of the GOP seems to be only intensifying.

Another Gay Teen Suicide - More Blood on the Hands of James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, et al

This type of story both saddens me beyond description and at the same time enrages me to the point where I truly hope many among the professional Christianist set find themselves with a special place in Hell. These parasitic false Christians in my view literally have the bloods of teen gay suicides like that of Billy Lucas on their hands. As a parent myself, I cannot say that I would not want to engage in some murder myself in the wake of losing a child because the religious based and Christianist fueled homophobia and anti-gay bullying. My heart goes out to Billy's parents and family and I hope that somehow they can get through this horror. Meanwhile, every single one of the Christian Right talking heads clearly care nothing of the lives the end and the families that are traumatized as a result of the poison the "godly Christian" set disseminate virtually every day. With every passing day I find myself wishing that Christianity would just plain die if this is a sample of its fruits. Oh, and WTF were the school administration and teachers doing about this horrible bullying? It sounds like Billy's parents need to be consulting legal counsel and preparing a crippling lawsuit against the school division (I'd name the principal personally as well). WXIN-TV 59 and WTHR-TV 13 both have coverage of the tragedy. First highlights from WNIX:
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Greensburg, Ind.-- He was a teenager who didn't quite fit in. His classmates said Billy Lucas was bullied for being different. The 15-year-old never told anyone he was gay but students at Greensburg High School thought he was and so they picked on him.
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"People would call him 'fag' and stuff like that, just make fun of him because he's different basically," said student Dillen Swango. Students told Fox59 News it was common knowledge that children bullied Billy and from what they said, it was getting worse. Last Thursday, Billy's mother found him dead inside their barn. He had hung himself. Students said on that same day, some students told Billy to kill himself.
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Principal Phil Chapple doesn't deny that students are bullied in the high school, but he said he didn't know Billy was one of the victims. "We were not aware of that situation," said Chapple.
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It's clear though, on a memorial page created in Billy's honor that many people knew students bullied him. We found comments like "everyone made fun of him." "They said stuff like 'you're like a piece of crap' and 'you don't deserve to live.' Different things like that. Talked about how he was gay or whatever," said Swango.
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It's a common problem inside Greensburg High School that goes way back. "I was bullied several times because I was gay. I was called f**, queer. i was thrown up against lockers. I would tell the school officials about it and they would dismiss it," said a former student who did not want to be identified. He is 21 years old now and the awful memories of high school came rushing back when he heard about Billy's suicide.
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WTHR goes on to report in part as follows:
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"He was threatened to get beat up every day," friend and classmate Nick Hughes said. "Sometimes in classes, kids would act like they were going to punch him and stuff and push him." Chappel said that no one had been punished for picking on Lucas, and that bullying had not even hit their radar.
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Friends of Lucas say that he had been tormented for years. "Some people at school called him names," Hughes said, saying most of those names questioned Lucas' sexual orientation, and that Lucas, for the most part, did little to defend himself. "He would try to but people would just try to break him down with words and stuff and just pick on him," Hughes said.

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School staff need to be fired and the school system hit with a huge monetary judgment. If these bastards won't look out for all students because it is the morally right thing to do, then let them do so in order to keep their insurance carriers from dumping them. I hope all of the anti-gay bigots like Maggie Gallagher are pleased with their handiwork. Responsibility for Billy's death lays directly at their feet.

Tuesday Male Beauty

Lady Gaga, MVT Awards and DADT

Perhaps Barack Obama needs to watch Lady Gaga in action when it comes to being a "fierce advocate" for LGBT equality. He obviously was not listening when she shouted out to him from the podium at the National Equality March nearly a year ago. Indeed, he hasn't listened to hardly anything the LGBT community has been saying, apparently preferring to be BFF with Rick Warren and other anti-gay bigots. Not only did Gaga win a record 8 Video Music Awards, but she arrived on the red carpet with four service members (see photo above) impacted by the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. Her messages to U.S. Senators: repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" next week. Jim Webb, are you listening? Check out Lady Gaga's web page here with its link to the SLDN website.

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Besides Obama, maybe HRC and other members of "Gay, Inc." should take a page for Gaga and stop the groveling so that they can have "access" and schmooze at cocktail parties.

Zero Major Gay Changes by Obama This Term

To say that Barack Obama has been a major disappointment from the prospective of LGBT Americans who believed his campaign lies - I mean promises - would be a case of understatement. Other than passage of the Hate Crimes legislation (which in reality does nothing for the vast, vast majority of LGBT citizens), Obama has accomplished nothing during the almost first two years f his administration. Worse yet, if all of his half-measures and lack of leadership result in major Democrat losses in Congress, the coming two years can be written off as well. We in the LGBT community will have been cynically and disingenuously suckered and played for fools. Fools who wanted to believe that Obama was honest and actually meant even a fraction of his statements on LGBT issues. Yes, Harry Reid has announced that the Senate will now take up the DADT repeal legislation in Congress, but even if passed, the legislation does not guarantee repeal or set any real time table. John Aravosis has a column at America Blog Gay that sums up the sorry situation quite well. Here are some highlights:
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With the imminent demise of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise that did not, in any case, repeal DADT (even though the NYT and other lazy journalists like to claim it did), and the imminent demise of the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, President Obama is about to have accomplished a record zero of his top promises to the gay community. A record that, if we lose the House, will likely remain at zero for the next six years, . .
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[A]fter all the pandering by all the pro-Obama apologists who said that we were wrong to ask the President to address our community's needs during his first two years in office, that we were wrong to warn of the imminent loss of a Democratically-controlled House, and how that loss would stymie gay rights progress for years to come, and that we were wrong to suggest that this President would never, ever get to addressing a real repeal of DADT and DOMA, and the passage of ENDA - after all that, it turns out we were right.
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Barack Obama is on the precipice of accomplishing a grand total of none of his major promises to gay and lesbian Americans in return for our supporting his candidacy with our votes and our money. I'm not smelling change.
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It clearly was Barack Obama's choice not to move ahead with any of his major promises to the gay community in the first two years of his administration. No one else is to blame other than the President for that simple decision. That decision may have killed any chance of ever passing ENDA, or repealing DADT and DOMA, for the entire four years that President Obama in office. It was Barack Obama's choice not to even touch DADT until this year, and then not to push for a full repeal, but rather some make-shift compromise that may, or may not, lead to some kind of change in the policy at some future date (though what kind of change, for the better or the worse, isn't a guarantee). We simply weren't important enough, and now it appears we are getting nothing.
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So what was the point of voting for President Obama, over Hillary, for example, if you're gay? If he wasn't going to keep his top promises to our community, then how was he any better than Hillary, or any other Democrat running at the time? Does anyone honestly think Hillary wouldn't have appointed more gays than any previous administration? Does anyone honestly think Hillary wouldn't have signed the Hate Crimes bill? President Obama has done nothing on gay civil rights that any other Democrat wouldn't have done in his stead. Such is not a definition of fierce advocate. It's the definition of business as usual.
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[A]s I've written before, I'm not a big fan of being betrayed by friends, even when I know my enemies would have treated me worse. I expect my enemies to treat me like a pariah. I don't expect my friends to do the same. And in many ways, it's worse when the indifference, and the lies, come from a friend rather than an enemy.
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If gay voters want to hand their money and their ballots over to someone who won't keep his major promises, who won't significantly advance the cause of their civil rights, who will outright work against those promises as we attempt to advance our civil rights in courts of law, but who at least won't be as big a bigot as John McCain, then they are certainly welcome to support him with all their hearts and wallets.
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I expect politicians to at least try to keep their major promises. I never said they have to succeed. But they have to at least TRY. Our fierce advocate seems fiercely indifferent. And I fear that an increasing number of Democratic voters now share his indifference.
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I believe that John is 100% on target and that many incumbent Democrats will be voted out of office on November 2, 2010 because of Obama's failed leadership. Again, we need a primary challenge to Obama in the lead up to 2012.

Enabler of Child Rape, Benedict XVI to Slam Gay Rights in UK

In yet another example of how conservative Christians want special rights so that their beliefs and views trample the civil rights of other citizens - including the right to NOT believe in the Christianists' foul version of Christianity - child rapist enabler/protector Pope Benedict XVI is expected to attack the United Kingdom's equality laws. God's Rottweiler believes that the rights of gay hating Christians should be paramount to all else. The institutional Roman Catholic Church sickens me beyond description and I have come to believe that a world without this evil institution would be a far better places. The amount of misery and the number of needless deaths this institution has caused over the centuries is beyond calculation. It is dumbfounding that a Church that refuses to clean its own dirty laundry in terms of the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children and youths has the audacity to attack anyone or anything. Benedict is, in my opinion, a very evil man. Here are highlights from Politics UK on Papa Ratzi's pending trip to the UK:
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Britain's equality laws shouldn't overshadow Christians' rights to express their religion, the Pope will imply in a speech on Friday. . . . . The comments are likely to stoke controversy over Britain's equality laws. Earlier this year, Chris Grayling faced outrage when he defended two Christian B&B owners who refused a room to a couple on the basis that they were gay. Mr Grayling was subsequently demoted to junior minister in the new government.
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The apparent attack on the UK's equality laws will further inflame passions around the visit, the first of its kind in 28 years. The Pope is visiting UK in his capacity as head of state of the Vatican City, rather than as the head of the Catholic Church, so the trip is being allocated taxpayer funding - a decision vehemently opposed by campaigners.
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The 'Protest the Pope' campaign, consisting of numerous humanist, secular and human rights organisations, will hold protests on Friday and Saturday. The groups have argued that the Pope's trip should not be treated as a state visit given his role as a religious leader and the Catholic Church's stance on issues including abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Many are also incensed by reports that child abuse in the Church was systematically covered up by the authorities.
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Recent polls have indicated that the Church's views on these issues are not widely shared by British Catholics
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I agree with the protesters' position. The Vatican's status as a "state" dates to a deal struck with the fascist regime in Italy in the run up to World War II. Benedict is as much a "head of state" as I am. It's bullshit, and the Church, not tax payers, should bear the cost of the trip.

Christianists Continue to Conspire on Perry Appeal

It's instructive in a number of ways watching the gyrations and subterfuge that "godly Christians" will resort to in their hysteria to find a vehicle to force the state of California to appeal the ruling in Perry V. Schwarzenegger. The latest plot may involve an effort to push the state's anti-gay Lieutenant Governor, Abel Maldonado (pictured at right), to file an appeal while Governor Schwarzenegger is out of the state. The hatred of gays borne by these people truly knows no limit and their willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain religious based discrimination in the nation's laws is revolting. As I have said before, these individuals - and the parasites within the professional Christian organizations - have nothing but contempt for the civil rights of other citizens. It's all about them and their intolerant beliefs. Think Progress has details on this latest last ditch effort. Here are highlights:
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Today is the deadline for California to join the anti-gay groups appealing Judge Vaughn Walker’s opinion striking down Proposition 8, and both Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) have indicated that the state will not do so. Prop 8’s supporters, however, think they have an ace in the hole — the state’s Lt. Governor: A group of conservative leaders led by former attorney general candidate John Eastman have asked to meet with Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado to discuss his support of an appeal in a federal court suit regarding Proposition 8.
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[T]here is some question whether the proponents of the measure have standing to argue the case before the court [the 9th Circuit]. The Attorney General and the Governor clearly have authority to file the appeal. But, both Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger have refused to do so based on their personal opposition to Proposition 8.
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It’s difficult to imagine that Maldonado would actually do such a thing, however. For one thing, he presently has much more important matters to deal with. Not long after Schwarzenegger left for China, a massive gas explosion occurred in San Bruno, California. As the state’s acting governor, Maldonado has been quite busy dealing with this tragic development.
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Moreover, filing an appeal that Schwarzenegger has consistently and publicly opposed would be nothing less than a declaration of war against the highest ranking official in his state. If the governor had to fear that every time he left the state his decisions would be overruled by Maldonado, Schwarzenegger would be discouraged from traveling outside of the state even when it was in California’s interests for him to do so. Simply put, it makes no sense to have crucial policy decisions rest upon where Gov. Schwarzenegger happens to be sleeping tonight.
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Nevertheless, the anti-gay activists offer one entirely cynical reason for Maldonado to abuse his temporary powers as acting governor: the upcoming election. As one anti-gay activist puts it, “more than a few conservatives are still angry with the Lieutenant Governor for votes while he was in the California Legislature. The simple act of filing this appeal could wipe away many bad memories.”
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Should Maldonado file an appeal, it would seem that Schwarzenegger could void the filing upon his return. Obviously, we can only hope that Maldonado opts not to play ball with the Christianists.

Monday Male Beauty

A "go-go boy" from the Glitter Ball

New York City - "Promises, Promises" and the "Glitter Ball"

We head back to Virginia this evening and it’s been a truly great trip. Yesterday we saw “Promises, Promises” and Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenowitz were each great in their roles. After the show we stopped for cocktails at the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis Hotel - originally owned by John Jacob Astor – and it’s mural by Maxwell Parrish which depicts flatulence. The mural (at far bottom of post) is said the be the result of a bet where Astor challenged Parrish that he could not paint a picture of the indicated subject. The faces of the guards - which feature Parrish's own face - indicate that he won the bet.

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Later after a light dinner we went to the Monster Bar where there was a party called the "Glitter Ball" the proceeds of which were to benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights – the organization funding the plaintiffs’ case in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Please consider going to AFER's webpage and making a donation. There were a number of show business people in the crowd and a number of them sang some of the disco themed songs of the evening. And there was definitely some major league eye candy (see photo below). Among the show business crowd was Randy Jones (pictured above), one of the original Village People who sang, as one might expect, "YMCA."

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It will most definitely be dull and depressing to be back in Tidewater Virginia with its all too prevailing backwardness, religious based ignorance and prejudice. We are lucky that the boyfriend’s client base and our friends and neighbors do not fit the norm for the area, but I nonetheless have to wonder how long we will want to stay in the area once we lose our elderly parents. Life is too short to live it surrounded by ignorance and bigotry.

Glitter Ball eye candy.

King Cole mural