Thursday Morning Male Beauty

Lady Gaga Launches 'Born This Way' Foundation

Yesterday at Harvard University Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta launched their Born This Way Foundation. The launch event included a panel with Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Neil Patrick Harris' partner and actor David Burtka. One of the stated goals of the Foundation is to fight bullying - something that will no doubt have the Christianists foaming at the mouth since they want to have free license to denigrate and abuse LGBT individuals and others whom they hate and despise. I applaud Lady Gaga's and her mother's efforts to stop insidious bullying. What's striking is that while the far right malign her endlessly, Lady Gaga practices the true Gospel message of love for others far better than the self-congratulatory, sanctimonious professional Christians and many. many pastors in pulpits. Here are some highlights from the Boston Globe's coverage:

When Lady Gaga stepped on stage at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre yesterday to launch her youth foundation, it was hardly a typical appearance for the pop star who has built her reputation with over-the-top theatrics.

She didn’t hatch from an egg, or appear in a dress made of raw steaks. Instead the 25-year-old Gaga wore a subdued full-length black dress and spoke to a polite audience of students, academics, and educational specialists about the Born This Way Foundation, a nonprofit charity whose mission is to “foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated.’’

The official rollout of the foundation was held at Harvard because the university’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and its Graduate School of Education are offering assistance to the fledgling organization.

Gaga - who was joined by Oprah Winfrey, spiritual leader Deepak Chopra, and Kathleen Sebelius, the US Health and Human Services secretary - is counting on her supersize persona, which has already had a major influence on pop culture, to help encourage and fund the foundation’s programs.

“The goal of the Born This Way Foundation is to challenge meanness and cruelty by inspiring young people to create a support system in their respective communities,’’ she said. “This is about changing . . . the school environment, and not putting the power in the hands of the teachers or the government.’’

The foundation is planning a nationwide bus tour, which it says will teach teens about getting involved in civic groups and allow them to connect with mentors. The “Born Brave Bus’’ will also follow the route of Gaga’s next North American tour.

While yesterday’s Harvard launch was no Lady Gaga concert, hundreds of fans gathered outside in the afternoon snow for a glimpse of the singer.

The star power behind the group immediately makes it one of the nation’s highest-profile efforts against bullying, which has been gaining more attention from education specialists, policy makers, and politicians. Some recent suicides tied to bullying, including the death of Phoebe Prince in South Hadley in 2010, have led to new laws meant to combat such behavior. According to the Berkman Center, 48 states have enacted some form of legislation that requires schools to form bullying policies.

But Gaga said laws won’t make bullying disappear. “There is no federal law that can change these problems,’’ she said. “The only way to solve the problem is to change the environment.’’

In recent years, Gaga has been outspoken on various social and political issues. She campaigned against the military’s now-abandoned “don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy, which allowed gays and lesbians to serve as long as they hid their sexual orientation. She has also advocated in favor of laws allowing gay marriage.

No matter what message she wants to promote, Gaga can wield an enormous virtual bullhorn to attract attention: She has almost 20 million Twitter followers and 48 million Facebook fans.

The Tortured and Dysfunctional Lives of Professional "Ex-Gays"

Have you ever noticed that virtually all of the prominent "ex-gays for pay" have a common theme in their pasts? It seems that nearly every one, whether male of female, has a history that includes alcoholism, drug use, prostitution, molestation, screwed up family backgrounds, or all of the foregoing. And rather than take real responsibility for the bad life choices they made, they without exception want to blame their tortured pasts on being gay. In fact, in my view, the biggest problem driving all of the poor choice behavior these "ex-gays" exhibit is the psychological damage they experienced from their religious upbringings. I've often maintained that raising and LGBT child in a far right religious household is a form of child abuse and most "ex-gays" - many of whom have no careers except playing ex-gay for pay - seem to be very damaged individuals as a result of their religious inner self-hate and self-loathing. To listen to these "ex-gays," no one who is LGBT can lead a normal productive life like everyone else in society. Truth be told, most of us do and given their train wreck like past lives, "ex-gays" would seem to be the last people to advise others on any issue. Jeremy Hooper looks at the bizarre lives of the "ex-gays for pay" in a post at Good As You:

n a recent interview with Christian radio host Janet Parshall, professional "ex-gay" Stephen Bennett did that thing the professional "former homosexuals" always do: He linked a whole host of horrible life experiences and choices to his sexuality, as if unrelated feathers are undetachable parts of the gay bird . . .

It's so telling. Virtually to a person, these career "ex-gays" have backgrounds (or supposed backgrounds) of prolonged drug abuse, alcoholism, family strife, molestation, vicious shunning, obsessions with club life, bulimia, and any number of things with which most people truly would need to deal, if they wanted to advance. These "former gays" then link those other elements directly to their sexual orientations, as if it's all in the same bucket. Alan Chambers does it. Charlene Cothran did it. Melissa Fryrear does it. Janet Boynes does it. We never see an "ex-gay" paycheck-earner who just happened to be LGBT with the everyday, up and down life experiences that are most common among the LGBT population. They are always presented as having been addicted, abused, trapped, entrenched, damaged, broken, stuck in horrible relationships, sex-crazed, lacking ambition, immoral (or at best amoral), and generally hurting -- part of a "lifestyle" rather than a life.

I actually think it does more damage to their cause than they realize. Most modern Americans now know an LGBT person or two. Many more see LGBT people in pop culture. A growing number even realize that the negative cultural elements that do greet some LGBT people are largely the byproducts of decades of forced differentiation and stigma, not innate "brokenness."

More and more people know that Stephen Bennett, despite his pretense of firsthand insight, doesn't speak for the LGBT experience, writ large: He speaks for Stephen Bennett, or at least the professionally-crafted version thereof. Oh, and of course he speaks against the entire field of credible science. So there's that, too.

Santorum Upset That Public Knows He's a Whack Job

The Washington Post has an almost laughable article on how Rick "Frothy Mix" "Man on Dog" Santorum is displeased that much of the public has figured out that he's a sex obsessed prig who cares more about waging a culture war against gays, women and modernity than he does about rebuilding the nation's economy and stabilizing the real estate market. In many ways, Santorum is a bird of the feather with Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell who has done little to address Virginia's economic and transportation woes but who has shown no hesitation pushing the most extreme agenda of the Christianists at The Family Foundation. Santorum should have foamed at the mouth a bit less about gay marriage and women's right to use contraception if he's now concerned that women and sane members of the public see him for the untethered religious extremist that he is in fact. Here are some article highlights:

Rick Santorum does not plan to abandon the fiery Christian rhetoric or the shoestring campaign that got him to where he is today. But as a slate of high-stakes Republican presidential primaries approaches, he is being forced to shift his strategy to beat back perceptions that he is obsessed with controversial social issues and harbors outdated ideas about women.

[I]n Michigan, Santorum lost women to Romney by five percentage points, an edge that provided the former Massachusetts governor with his narrow margin there.

Although Santorum sought to spin the Michigan results as a tie, it is clear that the contest revealed a significant challenge for him. He has been outspoken about contraception, abortion and his wife’s decision to leave her career as a lawyer to home-school their seven children.

They insist that their economic message is being overshadowed by questions about Santorum’s social platform. . . . . Yet in working to shed his image as a hidebound conservative on women’s issues, Santorum risks alienating the network of home-schoolers, evangelical Christians and “values voters” who have powered his rise, first in Iowa and then in a string of February contests.

The challenge comes as his campaign tries to pivot to a more national footing going into Super Tuesday next week, when 10 very different states will hold votes.

Aides say they plan to curtail the mini-news conferences he has often held after events to limit his exposure to the media, which the campaign blames for what it considers a caricature of the candidate as a one-trick pony on cultural issues.

It's telling that campaign aides want to limit Frothy Mix's exposure to the media - I guess he they don't want the public to figure out that Ricky is a serious whack job. Fortunately, I suspect many have already figured out that Santorum thinks its 1912 (or maybe 1212) rather than 2012.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

The Gurus of the Religious Right Who Wrecked the Republican Party

I've written about Frank Schaeffer before. His father was in many ways a founder of the far right Christianist movement that plagues the nation today and that seeks to merge far right religious belief with the civil laws in order to create a Christianist theocracy. Along the way Schaeffer recognized the danger and hypocrisy of the Christianist movement and now actively writes and speaks out to stop its agenda. But given his back ground, his insights and knowledge are most instructive. In a post on his blog he looks at the architects behind today's extremist controlled Republican Party. Here are some highlights:

Romney is a fake religious right "conservative." But the fact that he has to pretend to be to the right of the Pope on "social issues" tells us all we need to know about the intellectual climate inside today's Republican Party.

How did the Republicans get to be this way? Reading and watching media coverage of the 2012 elections you'd never learn the answer. That is because the media seem to have never heard of the intellectuals who fed the movement on far right religious hysteria.

When Rick Santorum - who is the real thing when it comes to authentic hate-driven misogynistic religious delusion -- talks about how the idea of the separation of church and state, as articulated by President Kennedy, made him want to "throw up," he was channeling the late Richard John Neuhaus. He even uses Neuhaus' pet catch phrase "the naked public square" to describe religion being "driven" from public life by "radical secularists" intent on using colleges to brainwash kids into pro-abortion, gay-hugging liberalism.

When Gingrich, Romney and Santorum defined President Obama's reasonable attempt to make insurance companies pay for women's access to contraception as being "anti-religious" and "anti-religious freedom" they were channeling Professor Robert George of Princeton University, Charles Colson, and my late father Francis Schaeffer

[R]eading media commentaries and watching the talking heads on TV you would never know that the radical right's takeover of the Republican Party has its roots in the work and writing of a few men and women who became the enablers of a radical religious ideology that they made respectable in far right circles. You'd also never know that places like Princeton University are providing intellectual "respectability" to radical far right theocrats like Robert George or that "mainstream" evangelicals like the editors of Christianity Today magazine regard far right homophobe Colson as a hero.

George's brainchild: the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience" was published in 2009 as an anti-Obama manifesto, and many Evangelical leaders signed on. It was written as a direct reaction to the Obama Presidency. It was a trap that launched a fishing expedition to find any issue that might gain traction with which to beat the President in 2012. That could have been gay rights, or stem cell research. It turned out to be contraception.

In case you've never heard of George, he's been a one-man "brain trust" for the Religious Right and the Far Right of the Republican Party as well as for the ultraconservative wing of the Roman Catholic Church.

George's trap for the President, the "Manhattan Declaration" was instantly signed by more than 150 American "mainstream" (mostly Evangelical) conservative religious leaders. They joined to "affirm support for traditional marriage" and to advocate civil disobedience against laws contradicting the signers' religious beliefs about marriage and/or the "life issues." The drafting committee included Evangelical Far Right leader Charles Colson.

There are a number of leading American extremist "conservative" Roman Catholics, like Professor George, who are part of a strange, informal, anti-contraceptive, anti-abortion alliance that Santorum has drawn his ideas from

The groups Kreeft, Colson and Neuhaus had in mind to "bring together" were alienated Evangelicals, Orthodox Jews and conservative Roman Catholics, wallowing in their sense of victimhood, to which Kreeft added Muslims. Of course the ultra-conservative Kreeft and extremist Neuhaus were against contraception and equated it with abortion. Thus the logic of their argument was that of my fathers' too: the United States Government was enabling murder, was disparaged as a "regime" that needed to be overthrown.

To the extent that Santorum and the rest of the Republican field this year have alienated most Americans we can thank the "intellectual" enablers of off-the-wall right wing radicalism. Just how crazy are these people? How radical are they?

To plumb the depths of the tortured "reasoning" behind the Roman Catholic Bishop's anti-contraception movement, consider the writing of Roman Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. She's a heroine to today's leading conservative Roman Catholics including to Cardinal Dolan (who is close to Robert George and Colson) and the Vatican. She wrote passionately in defense of the papal prohibition of contraception: . . . intercourse within marriage is a graver offence against chastity than is straightforward fornication or adultery."

And now with Romney (the fake) Santorum (the true believer) and Gingrich (the inscrutably weird) doing all but quoting these religious leaders openly and verbatim, and with the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic bishops parroting their mentor Robert George in anti-Obama rhetoric and with Romney having to pretend that he agrees... the Republican Party is now firmly in the hands of people like George who believe that a madwoman like Anscombe was brave and right to describe contraception as: "contraceptive intercourse within marriage is a graver offence against chastity than is straightforward fornication or adultery." And George and Colson and company are still at it trying to keep the myth alive that President Obama is anti-religion.

Yes, what Schaeffer describes is insane and bizarre, but that is the true face of today's Republican Party and its Christianist/Tea Party base. We are not talking about normal or sane people.

Guns, Forced Ultrsounds and Anti-Gay Bigotry - The Hallmarks of Bob McDonnell

When he ran for governor in 2009 Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell claimed that he was eschewing social issues to focus on jobs and getting the Virginia economy moving again. None of McDonnell's campaign propaganda was true - as some of us stated at the time - but unfortunately too few people listened. This year's session of the GOP controlled Virginia Genaral Assembly has highlighted in bright neon lights the fact that McDonnell lied through his teeth in 2009 and that extremism on social issues is his real agenda. Instead of legislation to generate new jobs and attract new progressive business to Virginia, the session has yielded (i) legislation allowing state funded adoption agencies to discriminate against gays (and others who offend their religious sensibilities), (ii) a repeal of Virginia's one gun a month law which will make Virginia the number one source of illegal guns on the East Coast once more, and (iii) legislation forcing women who seek an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound regardless of whether or not the procedure is medically necessary.

And Taliban Bob has promised to sign all this lunatic far right legislation. Watching Rachel Maddow tonight, Rachel is right that all of this crap needs to be hung around McDonnell's neck as he seeks to satiate his ambition and secure a VP slot nomination on the GOP national ticket. Hopefully, McDonnell will be passed over for the VP slot and, if that happens, he can thank Victoria Cobb and her husband and similar Christofacsists at The Family Foundation for the death of his political career. Here are highlights from the Richmond Times Dispatch on the forced ultrasound bill that McDonnell has pledged to sign:

"Despite the unprecedented public outcry over the past few days, the Virginia Senate has voted to erect new barriers for women seeking their constitutional protected right to terminate a pregnancy," said Jessica Honke of Virginia Planned Parenthood. "The General Assembly should get back to discussing jobs and the economy, and stay out of the business of practicing medicine."

Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, said: “We are pleased that the state Senate today finally passed an ultrasound bill that provides medically accurate information through modern technology to a woman seeking an abortion."

And Cobb, whose husband, Matt is a deputy secretary of Health in the McDonnell administration, issued a political warning of sorts to lawmakers who vacillated in their support of the measures. "Pro-life Virginians have long memories, and they will remember who stood firm during this debate.”

Women's-rights advocates were also taking names. "Women will hold them accountable for this government overreach into their private decisions and their constitutional rights," said Tarina Keene of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. "Women should have the option of having an ultrasound, not forced to undergo a completely unnecessary procedure prescribed by politicians,” said Keene.

Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, used the occasion to call out Republicans who campaigned on a platform of keeping government out of the lives of people, but voted to mandate a medical procedure. "You might try voting the way you're campaigning," he said.

Paul Goldman, a former Virginia Democrat chair, also speculates that McDonnell may have committed political suicide over the linger term - something that sits just fine with me since we do not need politicians in public office who prefer religious extremism and the active dissemination of hate and division over the larger public good. Here are highlights from Goldman's remarks on Blue Virginia:

Amidst all the ultrasounds, it seems to me that there is a deafening silence relative to Gov. McDonnell's hopes to be Mitt Romney's running mate; namely, McDonnell's strange political decision NOT to put a pro-jobs stamp on the 2012 General Assembly.

Conceivably, "His Veepness" could still pull an economic rabbit out of the hat, or even call a Special Session on economic stuff. But this would take a real reboot of his thinking at this point. That's simply amazing to me, given what Romney is likely to want in a running mate.

If McDonnell had put a "Made in America - Jobs #1" stamp on his forehead, he would be the go-to VP choice for certain, once Senator Rubio and former Governor Jeb Bush say no.

The bottom line: Why McDonnell didn't propose some major JOBS, JOBS, JOBS thing this session baffles me. But he didn't. If he had, it would have garnered significant bipartisan support, and even overshadowed the social issues if done right.

We wrote about the jobs angle also last year, in terms of the President and the Democrats. With all the other GOP Governors, except Bobby Jindal, into "wedge" issue mode, the stage was set for McDonnell to go mainstream jobs.

Again, McDonnell seems more worried about keeping the Christfascists happy than he does about the overall welfare of Virginia. Moreover, if this is an agenda for keeping government out of one's life, I'd hate to see what Taliban Bob would back if he wanted government to be intrusive. (Note: as of now, an internal ultrasound like in the image above will not be required, but women will still have to undergo a forced procedure that is in reality aimed solely at intimidation and inflicting emotional distress).

Northeastern University Cancels Chick-fil-A Eatery Plans

This blog in the past has addressed the large amounts of money given to anti-gay organizations by Christianist owned Chick-fil-A. Moneys derived from the eatery are distributed to virtually a who's who of anti-gay organizations whose primary goal is to denigrate and ostracize LGBT individuals. Now, North eastern University - rightfully in my view - has cancelled plans to have a Chick-fil-A restaurant on campus after students complained about Chick-fil-A's anti-gay agenda. Yes, the owners of Chick-fil_A are free to give their money as they wish, but by the same token institutions are free to refuse to do business with corporations that denigrate and seek to indirectly harm their students. I can already hear the professional Christians and members of the Christian Taliban whining that Chick-fil-A is being persecuted. The truth, of course, is that Chick-fil-A and its owners are the ones engaging in the persecution of other citizens. The Boston Globe looks at Northeastern University's decision to kick Chick-fil-A to the curb. Here are highlights:

Plans to bring a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant to the Northeastern University campus have been canceled after the student government denounced the chain over its support of groups opposed to gay and lesbian rights.

In a move applauded by the university, the student Senate passed a resolution, 31 to 5 with eight abstentions, Monday night “stating that the student body does not support bringing CFA [Chick-fil-A] to campus,” the association said via social media.

The Equality Matters website reported that the Atlanta-based company's charitable arm, WinShape, has donated millions to anti-gay causes in recent years. "Based on the outcome of Monday night's senate resolution, Chick-fil—A will not be part of the group of vendors considered for the renovation of the student center," Northeastern said in a statement.

“We are proud of the decision that affirms our university’s commitment to be an inclusive, diverse community that is respectful of all," college spokeswoman Renata Nyul said in another statement.

Northeastern is the latest college campus to raise concerns about the company. The issue has also arisen at New York University, Marshall, and Duke, among other places.

The company did not respond to several requests for comment today. In an interview last month with The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy defended the company and said he was not "anti-anybody. ... Our mission is to create raving fans."

If Mr. Cathy isn't lying - like most Christianists do routinely - then he has to explain why Chick-fil-A and its affiliate are financing groups that are clearly anti-gay. Which to me is certainly anti-someone. I ceased giving my money to Chick-fil-A years ago and hope more consumers will come to realize the bigotry that they are financing when the eat at Chick-fil-A.

Maureen Dowd Excoriates the GOP

At the risk of raising the ire of some of my Republican readers, I could not pass up commenting on a great op-ed column by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times that looks at the tragedy known as the Republican Party. While some readers label me as a liberal, that's not how I see myself. I'm all for fiscal conservatism provided it's not lip service and focused solely on destroying the social safety net. I do favor Obamacare as the far right likes to call it because overall, I believe it will rein in costs and address the fact that the USA has one of the least cost efficient health care system of any industrialized nation where people without health coverage use emergency rooms for their primary care and countless people go without preventive care only then hit the system with one costly health care crisis after another when they could have been avoided in many instances. But what really gets my blood heated up is the effort of today's GOP to force one set of extreme Christian religious beliefs on all citizens - something in direct conflict with the U. S. Constitution. And as a gay man, I am over having my own government discriminate against me simply because I don't live my life the way Christofascists want me to. I believe that my politics are actually conservative by what that term once meant in this country. That said, here are column highlights:

Rick should scat. Mitt Romney needs to be left alone to limp across the finish line, so he can devote his full time and attention to losing to President Obama. With Sanctorum and Robo-Romney in a race to the bottom, the once ruthless Republican Party seems to have pretty much decided to cave on 2012 and start planning for a post-Obama world. Not even because Obama is so strong; simply because their field is so ridiculously weak and wacky.

In the old days, the Republican ego had control of the party’s id. The id, sometimes described as a galloping horse or crying baby, “the dark, inaccessible part of our personality ... chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations,” as Freud called it, was whipped up obliquely by candidates. Nixon had his Southern strategy of using race as a wedge, Bush Senior and Lee Atwater used the Willie Horton attack, and W. and Karl Rove conjured the gay marriage bogyman.

Once elected, those presidents curbed the id with the ego, common sense and reason. But now the G.O.P.’s id is unbridled. The horse has thrown the rider; the dark forces are bubbling. Moderates, women, gays, Hispanics and blacks — even the president — are being hunted in this most dangerous game.

In the latest sign that moderate Republicans feel passé, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine shockingly announced her retirement, decrying “ ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies” and a vanishing political center.

Now Santorum should forfeit his chance after making a far dumber remark: Kids should beware of college because they’ll get brainwashed. . . . Does he think that defining ambition down and asking kids to give up hope is a good mantra? Even Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, who was trying to mandate that women seeking abortions be shamed with vaginal ultrasounds that Democrats dubbed “legal rape,” thought Santorum went too far.

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute,” Sanctorum said. If he is willing to cross that line, the only two possibilities are that he doesn’t understand the nature of the United States or that he wants to do damage to the United States. Neither is acceptable.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty