Gay Rights
stcynic | April 29, 2006Jason Kuznicki has a terrific post at Positive Liberty about the legal and personal difficulties he will encounter as he and his husband Scott prepare to adopt a child. Yes, the post rambles a bit, but it really touches on how difficult it can be on him. Imagine this scenario and think about how you'd handle it: his parents do not accept his marriage, his husband's parents do. His parents will not allow his husband in their home, nor will they even speak about it in their home. And now they're going to adopt a child. So does that child have one set of grandparents, or two?
This is the very…
stcynic | April 17, 2006Via Pharyngula comes this article debunking the latest insanity to come from the fevered mind of Paul Cameron. It seems that Cameron's latest claim is that being gay is contagious. It's based on his typically ridiculous attempts at designing studies, which generally rank up there with the "I asked all my friends and they agreed with me" method.
stcynic | April 14, 2006Is this ad illegal?
According to the trial court in Saskatchewan, it was. When Hugh Owens paid to take out the ad in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in 1997, both he and the newspaper were brought up on charges of violating the province's Human Rights Code. Owens was ordered to pay $1500 to each of 3 gay men who filed complaints. Now the Court of Appeals in that province has overturned that decision and upheld free speech, at least temporarily (there are more such cases still going on, such as the Stephen Boissoin case).
The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code is a typically ridiculous set of…
stcynic | April 14, 2006Jon Rowe has a really, really good post on the subject of "gay studies" programs and currricula. As many of you may know, the religious right is up in arms at the moment about a bill in the California legislature that would require schools to teach "the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America.'' I find myself in almost total agreement with him that, while we shouldn't do anything like demanding "equal time", the fact is that gays have had an extraordinarily…
stcynic | March 20, 2006Alain's Newsletter is, much like the Worldnutdaily, home to a variety of religious right loonies. But this essay by someone named Jean Valjean Vandruff may take the cake. It's a virtual cesspool of ignorance capped off by one giant whopper of a lie:
Is homosexuality an inborn behavior? A few years ago, Dr. Simon LeVay, a homosexual, made a discovery - that a brain cell cluster (neuron group INAH3) is smaller in homosexuals than in heterosexuals. He stated, "This small brain cluster 'causes' homosexuality; therefore, it is natural."
This is made up out of thin air, a blatant lie. Not only did…
stcynic | March 14, 2006This time from Agape Press. Let's play a rousing game of "spot the missing logic".
A sociologist and writer says America cannot afford to say no to traditional marriage. Brad Wilcox, co-author of The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, and Morals (Spence Publishing, 2006), believes how U.S. society defines marriage can affect everything from the nation's economy to its citizens' individual rights.
Wilcox, a sociologist from the University of Virginia, is encouraged to note that 19 U.S. states have adopted pro-traditional marriage amendments to their state constitutions, and nine more…
stcynic | February 24, 2006If there is an iron law in politics, it's this: if you find yourself to the right of James Dobson on questions of gay rights, you're a true right wing whacko. But believe it or not, Dobson is taking a ton of criticism from his fellow religious right leaders for not opposing a Colorado bill that would give just a bare minimum of protection to gay couples. And I mean bare minimum - the bill would allow any two adults not eligible to marry to register so they can visit the other person in the hospital, make medical decisions for them and transfer property without having to go through the process…
stcynic | February 15, 2006A new study just published concludes that gay marriage is healthy for gay couples in a number of different ways. This has long been an argument I've made, that social conservatives, if "pro-family" really meant something objective and not merely a code phrase for "get the fags", should be all for gay marriage. Marriage is a stabilizing institution that really does strengthen societal bonds and work for the best of the couple making a commitment:
The report says civil partnerships will reduce the prejudice and social exclusion that gay couples feel and should help to cut the high rates of…
stcynic | February 7, 2006I have often made the argument that gay marriage and interracial marriage are analogous, particularly in the arguments against each (no one outside the KKK thinks interracial marriage should be banned anymore, but the arguments against it were virtually identical to the arguments against gay marriage) and that the modern struggle for gay rights is the logical extension of the struggle for black civil rights in this country. Several black ministers have come out against this analogy and argued against gay rights. Others in the religious right have adopted their rhetoric and expanded on it.…
stcynic | February 3, 2006While I'm showing pictures of people so blinded by religious fervor that they engage in hateful public protest, try these on for size. The first one is from San Francisco, where protestors showed up to scream epithets at gay couples trying to get married two years ago:
The next few are from an anti-gay protest in Chicago. See the originals here.
Disclaimer: Yes, I fully recognize that none of these people are actually advocating violence, and that is better than the examples of Muslim protests in Europe. And yes, I fully recognize that these people do not represent all Christians, not by…
stcynic | February 3, 2006So this guy walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Hey, is this a gay bar?" I know, it sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it's not. After asking that question, 18 year old Jacob Robida went on a rampage:
When the bartender told him it was, Mr. Robida pulled out a hatchet and struck a man in the head, then struck a man who had tried to help the victim, said Capt. Richard Spirlet of the New Bedford police.
Captain Spirlet said that Mr. Robida pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot the man who had tried to help the first victim, then shot a third man across the bar.
The police said…
stcynic | January 25, 2006The UN Economic and Social Council is a group of non-governmental organizations that work to find solutions to social problems around the world and facilitate greater respect for human rights and human liberty. There are over 2100 NGOs involved with the council and recently two more applied for membership, the International Lesbian and Gay Association and the Danish Association of Gays and Lesbians. The United States joined forces with Iran, Egypt, China, Zimbabwe and Cameroon to not only prevent these groups from joining, but to prevent them from even getting a hearing on their application…
stcynic | January 20, 2006One of the great delights in reading the WorldNutDaily is watching them try to hype up completely pointless little teapot tempests into major controversies. Here's a perfect example from this morning's edition, complete with flashing graphic saying "Breaking News" and declaring it a "WND Exclusive" (which, as usual, means the article is so stupid that they're the only ones who would carry it, hence the exclusivity): Furor erupts as 'gay' plays Christian missionary in film (personally, I would have said "Fuhrer erupts", but that's just my twisted sense of humor).
It seems that Chad Allen, an…
stcynic | January 12, 2006I reported a few weeks ago that Ford had decided, despite considerable pressure from the religious right, to continue buying ads in gay-oriented publications. Now it seems that pressure has been turned up considerably. The Worldnutdaily has a report full of empty buzzwords and silliness:
Leaders of 42 pro-family groups have signed a letter asking Ford to honor what the activists see as a previous commitment to stop supporting homosexual advocacy efforts.
It always makes me angry to see religious right organizations described as "pro-family", because what does that make the rest of us? Anti-…
stcynic | January 10, 2006New Jersey has just passed two gay rights bills, which the governor is expected to sign. Both apparently allow gay couples to have similar rights to married couples, one in the area of inheritence and the other for making funeral arrangements. It passed the house 67-6 and the senate 39-0. Expect tonight's weather report on the 700 Club to show a major hurricane headed toward the Garden State.
stcynic | January 6, 2006Jason links to this at PL and I had to comment here:
An executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention was arrested on a lewdness charge for propositioning a plainclothes policeman outside a hotel, police said.
Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, was booked into Oklahoma County Jail Tuesday night on a misdemeanor charge of offering to engage in an act of lewdness, police Capt. Jeffrey Becker said. Latham was released on $500 bail Wednesday afternoon.
Latham, who has spoken out against homosexuality, asked the officer to join him in his hotel room for…
stcynic | December 28, 2005Raj left this as a comment and I thought I'd move it up here. Charles Socarides, a psychiatrist and anti-gay crusader who helped found the "ex-gay" movement, has died at age 83. The NY Times obit is here. As seems staggeringly common among the harshest anti-gay activists - Randall Terry, Anita Bryant, Alan Keyes and many, many more - Socarides' own son was gay. Beyond that, I know little about him.
stcynic | December 24, 2005Here's another case of the British police "investigating" someone for making mildly anti-gay comments:
Joe Roberts 73, and his wife Helen, 68, of Fleetwood, Lancashire, wrote to Wyre Borough Council complaining at their bid to promote awareness of gay issues.
The devout Christians said the council was "pandering" to minority groups and said they felt discriminated against.
Police questioned the couple but decided no crime had been committed...
A Lancashire Police spokesman said: "As a matter of routine, a police officer attended an address in Fleetwood to make further inquiries and to…
stcynic | December 17, 2005Our favorite Utah wingnut, State Sen. Chris Buttars, is back in the news again, but not for his opposition to evolution. This time, it's his opposition to the formation of gay-straight clubs in Utah's public schools. Showing once again the typical connection between creationist activity and the full and, in my view, repressive agenda of the religious right, Buttars is attempting to ban such clubs from schools:
Buttars, a West Jordan Republican, is vowing to push a bill through the upcoming Legislature to outlaw gay-straight clubs in Utah high schools. "I will prevail," he says.
Would you…
stcynic | December 16, 2005Unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard about "Brokeback Mountain", the movie about two gay cowboys starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall. I haven't seen this movie yet, but the more furor it causes among the self-righteous, the more I want to. The religious right is throwing quite a fit over this movie, holding the growing Oscar buzz for the movie up as proof of Hollywood's moral failings. Here's what Gary DeMar has to say about it:
Can we ever sing "Home on the Range" again without the lyrics being spoiled by images of the latest in homosexual propaganda, "Brokeback…