Two bills in Maryland

Posted on February 23, 2011 by David

I’m sure that everyone is aware that our neighbors across the river are about to enact marriage equality; as I write this on Wednesday, the Maryland Senate is engaged in debate on SB116, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act. All indications are that the bill will pass and be signed into law, and we look forward to congratulating Maryland on this victory for fairness and justice. This will only make our own Virginia look more backward and embarrassing, as is sadly consistent with our civil rights history.

If you look at Equality Maryland’s website, marriage equality is only one of their primary goals for this legislative session. The other is HB235, the Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act. According to a February 2 article in Baltimore Gay Life, the bill, the same one introduced in 2010, “adds gender identity to anti-discrimination protections already granted on ‘the grounds of race, sex, age, color, creed, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation or disability.’ Discrimination would be ‘prohibited in the areas of employment, housing, credit and public accommodations.'” This would make it essentially identical to the Montgomery County ordinance passed unanimously in 2009. (That ordinance was unsuccessfully challenged by a local hate group originally organized to derail Montgomery County Public Schools’ medically-accurate human sexuality curriculum. You can find our extensive reporting on that debacle here.)

So far, so good, right? So why does every Maryland Transgender advocacy group appear to oppose this bill? The answer is that it’s not the same as last year’s bill. Continue reading →

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Good and evil, PFM style

Posted on February 18, 2011 by David

Here we go again, with the Chuck expressing shock, shock, that his “worldview” is perceived by the recipients of his tender loving counsel as hateful. How could anyone object to The Manhattan Declaration, he wonderingly asks, when it clearly includes “an affirmation that gays and lesbians possess a God-given, ‘profound, inherent, and equal dignity’?” As we pointed out here, including an “affirmation” that is directly contradicted by the presupposition that GLBT people are inherently broken and inferior is meaningless. It’s the equivalent of an “apology” that begins “I’m so sorry that you’ve chosen to be hurt by what I did.”

It’s not a surprise, then, to see in this essay a bizarre redefinition of the terms “good” and “evil” as Chuck attempts to defend Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who excommunicated a Catholic hospital, from this column by Nicholas Kristof: Continue reading →

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All that matters

Posted on February 10, 2011 by David

A reader writes to The Daily Dish on “who would get married for the tax benefits”:

My boyfriend and I did exactly that last year. We’ve been together for 10 years, cohabitating for 6 and just bought a house. We ran the numbers and found that it would benefit us financially to get married. The tax break was the sole reason we did it. We will continue to run the numbers each year and if it becomes financially beneficial for us to get a divorce we will do so.

I assume the family values folks would view our marriage as valid even though it meant no more to us than any other financial decision. It had all the solemnity and emotion of opening a savings account. Still, we’re straight and I guess that’s all that matters.

She’s right. In a bizarre and vulgar form of idolatry, they worship genitals. Insert Tab A into Slot B. Or, in the verbal stylings of Robert P. George, “acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction.”

These are some classy folks who have really transcended our “animalistic” origins, don’t you think?

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Next up: Gay ninjas

Posted on February 9, 2011 by David

Some Wednesday amusement (via Joe. My. God.): Apparently, there’s an annual event in Florida called the Gasparilla Festival, and Eugene has discovered it. Sort of.

The comments are the best. I love it when folks from other parts of the country can’t quite believe he’s real. Anyway, the Gasparilla Festival turns out to be quite the disappointment.

i live in tampa and quite frankly most gay people i know stay away from gasparilla. it has become quite the drunken heterofest over the past few years..

The streets of ybor [neighborhood in Tampa] later on at night are riddled with little hetero boys with camera phones held high in the air trying to get a nip flick from the drunk girl that has 150 other guys crowding her trying for the same thing.

Regarding Eugene’s line “Organizers started by purposefully making the parade route zig-zag so no one could call it a ‘straight parade'”

I never heard of anything like this going on but the streets are zig-zagged because it follows the shoreline. Has this person even ever been to Tampa?

..somehow I don’t think it’s the HOMOSEXUAL pirates who are screaming “SHOW US YOUR TITS” at women.

Finally, me:

He’s real, alright. But it’s all about the money. He doesn’t actually believe any of the defamatory and frankly, violence-inciting crap he says, and has admitted as much in private.

The problem with Eugene isn’t that he’s a tormented, self-hating pedophile, which is how he appears. The problem with Eugene is that he’s a very clever, amoral sociopath who doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as he can line his pockets. His behavior may be amoral, but so far it’s not illegal. He has a tiny little following of gullibles and haters – he actually laughs at them – who can keep electing him because he represents a tiny little district. With redistricting this year that’s about to change. Write me offline if you want to learn about his opponent(s).

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Serving without honor

Posted on February 8, 2011 by David

Speaking of christianists who feel themselves entitled to Super-Extra-Special Rights, here are the words (via Wayne Besen) of a soldier who was no doubt encouraged by the treasonous musings of our own Chuck Colson:

Maxey went on to write that he has a higher commitment to God than to the Department of Defense — and that if officials there are upset with his comments, they can “learn to deal with it.”

If he has a higher commitment to God than to the Department of Defense, there’s a solution to that: he can resign or be discharged. He signed up to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States of America, and when he did that he made a commitment to follow the orders of his superiors in the Armed Forces, not the orders, real or imagined, of any other entity. Just as all the gay and lesbian soldiers in the Armed Forces have been doing lo these many years – even though doing so required them to sacrifice their integrity and the basic human rights of their loved ones.

I have but two words for these insufferable infants (primarily because I have deleted the ones inappropriate for a G-rated site): Grow up.

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Redemption

Posted on February 7, 2011 by David

Finally:

Now Haggard wants to be clear: He supports civil marriage rights for gay couples. “The word marriage is a big deal to people of faith,” he says. “We’ve made it sacred. That’s why I believe that churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples should have total freedom to have whatever types of unions they believe as godly. But I think that we as a democratic society, as a constitutional republic — if we don’t respect individual civil liberties, then we’re making a horrific mistake. The church is in the early stages of another ‘the earth is flat’ crisis. I say to all religious people that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry on the subject. Or we’re going to be embarrassed in another 10 or 20 years.”

There’s some difference of opinion over the question the Advocate asks on its cover: Can you forgive Ted Haggard? I think his advice to “religious people” is good advice for us all. If nothing else, his story shows that at least some of the time, those who behave in ways that harm us are actually in need of rescue. Here’s another story of someone who decided to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. “To be a safe person. And to try to be aware of the meaning behind what’s being said – and what’s not being said.” This interaction could have taken a very different direction.

Ted Haggard is on a journey that isn’t over yet. I’m not saying, as some others have, that he’s “really” gay, and that to complete his redemption he needs to admit it. No. That behavior is just as oppressive and presumptuous as that of the “ex-gay” charlatans. What I’m saying is that he has the capacity, because of what he knows, to become a tremendously powerful ally. We should give him the chance to do that.

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Why we need PFLAG, continued

Posted on February 1, 2011 by David

The Loudoun Out Loud event last weekend was a huge success; great turnout and enthusiasm that I think even exceeded expectations. Lori Stevens and the other organizers of this project have just done a fantastic job meeting this need. This is wonderful news for Loudoun families.

Especially after years of being dehumanized, bullied and derided by this or that pontificating scold. And those folks, I’m sure, don’t like it much. A few of them – anonymously, naturally – are expressing their displeasure online. This is not always hateful, but then again, it often is. I’m pretty sure I know what hatred looks like, and while it may be true that we can’t really know the heart of an antagonist, I think this is also true: If it looks like coffee, smells like coffee, and tastes like coffee, chances are it’s coffee, and not some fabulous new kind of beer. Hateful comments directed at individuals (not removed) and possibly defamatory comments identifying me by name (removed by the editor presumably for TOS violations) appeared on the Loudoun Times-Mirror site, and were rightfully criticized. That didn’t stop someone from posting this: Continue reading →

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