Tag Archives: haters

Weekend Update 4/16/16: Republicans shielding sex criminals (again and again and again)

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I’ve written a few times about the case of former Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, who has pled guilty to charges of trying to illegally conceal large cash transfers he made to pay millions of dollars in hush money in order to prevent the public from learning that while he was a high school wrestling coach he molested at least four of the boys under his supervision. The sexual assaults occurred long enough ago that due to a statute of limitations on such crimes, Hastert can’t be charged with the molestation. (Which prompted the Daily Show to point out, “You’d think something as awful as molesting children would have no statute of limitations”, because things like parking tickets have no statute of limitations, for example.)

There was one interesting little twist this week as Hastert’s sentencing date approaches: The judge in Dennis Hastert’s hush-money case says that if the former House speaker wants letters of support considered during his sentencing, they must be made public. Hastert’s lawyers have drummed up 60 letters of support from various people asking the judge for leniency. However, those letters have been submitted under seal, keeping the identity of the letter writers and the contents of the letters private. Presumably because most of the people (if not all) who wrote the letters only agreed to do so on condition of anonymity. Because no one, particularly no elected official, wants to go on record supporting a child molester. The judge has rightfully pointed out that ordinarily such leniency pleas are part of the public record.

I’ve been harping on Hastert because he was an anti-gay politician when he was in Congress, going so far as to, after promising the parents of Matthew Shephard (who was murdered in a gruesome hate crime) to help pass a hate crime’s bill, actually did everything in his power to kill it (and succeeded). Some reporters have tried to claim that Hastert wasn’t that anti-gay, or at least not as anti-gay as some of his fellow Republicans. Michelangelo Signorile begs to differ: How Dennis Hastert Demonized Gays as Predators While He Was the True ‘Super-Predator’

The records show that Hastert’s office kept a legislative file titled “Homosexuals,” filled with policy statements from social conservative groups like the Traditional Values Coalition and the Family Research Council that criticized same-sex marriage and Clinton administration efforts to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. The file also includes a 1996 Weekly Standard article, “Pedophilia Chic” that warned that “revisionist suggestions about pedophilia” were being embraced by the left…

…What was curiously not in Hastert’s files, according to the Politico report, was anything about the scandal that enveloped former GOP congressman Mark Foley, who was exposed in 2007 for having sent sexually explicit messages to teenage boys in the House page program. Hastert in fact was accused of dragging his feet in dealing with Foley’s activities, his office having known about it for months but either covering it up or simply not acting with the speed expected from the office of a House member who was so concerned about child predators.

New York Daily News front page breaking the scandal
New York Daily News front page breaking the scandal (click to embiggen)
Hastert, of course, isn’t the only Republican who demonized some people’s sexual lives while engaging is sexual misconduct himself: Cosponsor of Tenn. Transphobic Bill Accused of Sexual Harassment Not just accused—the accusations have been around for months—what has finally happened is the Attorney General’s office has found sufficient evidence against GOP Rep. Jeremy Durham that the rest of the legislature felt compelled to act, and has exiled him to an office in another building and essentially quarantined him from any contact with woman on any legislative staff position. I am very amused at Think Progress’s headline earlier this week about it: The Surprising Sexual Harassment Scandal Accompanying Tennessee’s Anti-Transgender Bill, because the only thing that any reasonable person should find surprising about this is that his fellow republicans have taken any action against their fellow family values champion at all.

And remember those statute of limitations laws in various states that shield child molesters, while letting other, far less severe crimes be punished many many years later. You want to know how those laws came to exist? Disgraced Former NY Assembly Speaker had affairs with at least two women — one a lobbyist, the other a former assemblywoman, court papers show According to records unsealed this week, former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had affairs with two women, one of whom is a former aide turned lobbyist who was hired by the Catholic Church to pressure legislators against a bill that would have extended the time period in which victims of molestation could sue their attackers. Sheldon dropped his support for the bill once his former aide/mistress began lobbying against it. So the sex criminals being shielded were pedophile priests whose victims didn’t speak up while they were still children. Again.

And I have to ask once again, why do any of us ever take any of these anti-sex, anti-gay politicians seriously? There is not one single case of someone using a trans rights law to try to sexually assault someone, but there are hundreds of cases of anti-gay, pro-family elected officials molesting children, sexually harassing or assaulting people, having extramarital affairs, taking their same sex “photographer” who also happens to live with them on taxpayer-funded junkets, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

What you like, what other people like…

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How to be an adult: eat what you like to eat, don't eat what you don't like, and mind your own damn business about what other people eat.
How to be an adult…(Click to embiggen)
I was rather amazed at a conversation that went past one of my social media streams: one person said, “What? You mean candy corn is supposed to look like real corn???” and another said, “I had no idea! Why had no one ever told me?” and a third said, “This changes everything I thought I knew!” And all three were people who said they loved candy corn and always had.

I was too busy being flabbergasted that someone who was smart enough to operate a keyboard, was apparently an adult, had survived many years of having to defend their love of this strangely polarizing candy, had never realized that the little candies are essentially caricatures of kernals of corn (sweet corn, maize, et cetera). Seriously? How can you never at least ask, “Why is it called ‘candy corn’?”

mystery-seed-104-2Okay, to be fair, I realize that there are people who go through life without ever seeing seed corn or feed corn. They may have seen corn on the cob and actually eaten it, but otherwise the only time they’ve seen corn is processed corn kernels cut-off the cob by a machine, then canned or frozen before being cooked and served. And those cut kernels don’t look like a full kernal of corn. It’s similar to the time when I was talking to someone about popcorn and discovered that they had never realized that the seed in popcorn were actual dried corn, the same plant (though a different cultivar or subspecies) as is canned and sold as corn. Or the time that I had to explain to someone what the phrase “seed corn” meant—they had never known that the vegetable they were eating were actually the seeds of the corn plant!

I don’t know what it is about candy corn that gets some people up in arms. I’m not saying that I don’t understand that some people like it and some don’t. What I don’t understand is why some people dislike it so much that they make other people feel defensive about liking candy corn.

I don’t happen to be one of the great fans of the candy. I don’t dislike it, but it doesn’t really do anything for me. When I was a kid, I liked the color and the shininess of the candy. It probably helped that it was a seasonal thing that was only available around Halloween time. But I would gladly let me sister eat nearly all of it herself and not feel that I was losing out. Yes, that means one of my sisters is one of those people who absolutely adore candy corn.

I sometimes take comfort in that fact that people can get militant about something like candy. Because when I read about things like this: Hate group (World Congress of Families) looks to criminalize gays on global scale my initial reaction is a combination of fear and depression. Then I realize that a lot of their supporters are just being as irrational as the folks who hate on candy corn. Which isn’t to say that none of this hatred is real: Dallas Police Seek Public’s Help In Solving String of Brutal Anti-Gay Attacks or Trans Woman Run Over With SUV In Possible Hate Crime Is 17th Murdered This Year or Study finds LGBT people not reporting hate crimes because they happen so frequently.

The kind of irrationality that makes people trash others over candy is part of the reason that folks either stand by silently while nutjobs at the World Conference of Families spout off their hate, or why people can look at death and rape threats hurled about by GamerGaters and make the ridiculous claims that there are two sides to the argument.

Hint: if a group is resorting to death threats, rape threats, doxing, and bomb threats, that isn’t an argument. It is a crime. That “side” is the perpetrator. Period. The other “side” are victims. Period. If you claim that it is a “side” then you are an accessory after the fact to a crime. Period.

And you’re being ridiculous and childish. As childish as someone getting angry at people over a candy preference.

And it’s so silly. It isn’t like we’re talking about something truly important.

Oppressed oppressors, part 3

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CBbs1thUsAALYOrMat Staver is the head of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, featured speaker at several Values Voter Summits over the years, a man who has gone to court many times defending laws that discriminate against gay people, and someone who as recently as June has testified to congress about why gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people shouldn’t be included in anti-discrimination law, and has many times on his radio show praised laws in places like Russia and Uganda that criminalize gay people and even talking about gay people. For example, last year he was on another radio show, ranting about those Christians who have said that gay rights and marriage equality are losing battles. “To assume that you can go against the created order is hubris, it’s arrogance, it’s dangerous and it is not something in which we can simply say, ‘the battle’s over, we need to figure out how to coexist.’ There is no coexistence.”

“There is no coexistence.” If he insists that his side can’t co-exist with us, that’s another way of saying either we have to cease to exist or he does, right? And I’m pretty sure he isn’t suggesting that all true believers (his side) should commit mass suicide.

When Staver says “there is no coexistence” that means he’s ultimately willing to kill. The reason Staver’s organization encourages things like Uganda’s kill-the-gays laws, and talks up the rhetoric of how dangerous we are to society is because he believes we should not be allowed to exist. Which means killing us. Or at least, scaring us with a credible enough threat of death that we all go back into the closet.

Just like the people who regularly go to Seattle’s old gayborhood (Police investigating weekend hate crimes on Capitol Hill) every weekend (‘Not one more’ — March strikes back at anti-queer violence on Capitol Hill), the aim isn’t to kill each and every queer person, it’s to scare the rest of us back into the closet. When rightwing Texas preacher Rick Scarborough announces that he’s willing to be burned to death to oppose gay marriage, he doesn’t mean that he’s going to set himself on fire; he wants to whip up fear and anger so that people who agree with him will do horrible things to some of us to frighten us into silence.

It’s the same tactics used by the hate leaders who radicalized Dylann Roof into shooting nine innocent people in a church in Charleston: making members of the majority believe that a historically oppressed minority somehow has all the power. Roof told the lone adult survivor of his shooting, “I have to do it. You’re raping our women and overrunning our country.” In a country where white police officers gun down unarmed black children in the street without facing murder charges, he believes that black people are the ones threatening the existence of white people.

Similarly, in a country where:

  • 1500 queer children are bullied into committing suicide every year,
  • where thousands of queer children are thrown out onto the streets by so-called Christian parents whose religious leaders have told them they have to show tough love,
  • where the authorities don’t investigate those parents for child neglect,
  • where the numbers of homicides of LGBT people have climbed to record highs,
  • where more than half of hate-motivated murder victims are trans people of color,
  • where state legislators are rushing to enact religious-belief based “right to discriminate” laws,
  • where in most states it is perfectly legal for employers to fire someone simply because they think the person might be gay (and where landlords can evict gay tenants or refuse to rent to them, et cetera),
  • where queer people are 2.4 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than jews, and 2.6 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than muslims,
  • where the number of hate crimes against all groups except lesbian, gays, trans, and bi people is going down while all categories of anti-queer hate crimes remain the some or are rising,
  • where the overwhelming majority of elected officials at the federal, state, and local level are Christian (far out of proportion to their percentage of the population),
  • where state and federal tax dollars are funneled into “faith-based” charity organizations that are often allowed to discriminate in how they administer those tax-funded activities,
  • where religious schools are often supported by tax dollars diverted from public schools,
  • where high school kids are threatened with expulsion for wearing “Gay OK” t-shirts to school after a bunch of Christian bullies beat a gay classmate (but the bullies weren’t punished),
  • where a public school teacher responding to an incident of anti-gay bullying read a book about acceptance to his class, then was forced to resign for “promoting homosexuality,”
  • where Christian organizations rally and raise money to combat anti-bullying policies unless said policies include exemptions that allow their kids to bully gay kids in the name of their faith,

…Christians are claiming that queers are persecuting them.

Seriously? Not being able to bully, discriminate against, and torment their gay neighbors is oppression?

Get them to the church on time

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AlaMarriageThe New Yorker calls it “The Moment for Marriage in Alabama,” while the Religion News Service says, “[the] Handwriting [is] on the wall for gay marriage.”

And they’re both right, at least in the big picture sense. Though we must remember the proverbial warning about counting chicks before they’re hatched. It is clear which way the arc of history is going, but Alabama shows us yet another example of how smooth sailing isn’t in the immediate future—even though In 17 Words, Justice Clarence Thomas All But Declared Marriage Equality Inevitable.

Lots of people have drawn a parallel between the Alabama Chief Justice’s declaration that state officials don’t have to follow the federal court orders about marriage equality to George Wallace’s refusal to let schools integrate racially back in the 1950s. Enough people have drawn that parallel that now op-Ed prices are being written to claim that it isn’t merely “Alabama being Alabama.” According to those pundits, this is somehow not merely prejudice but a manifestation of a deeper-seeded conflict between local and state control versus federal control.

The only way you can make such a ridiculous argument is to be completely ignorant of the history of the struggle for racial equality. Because the argument that it wasn’t prejudice but rather a states’ right claim is exactly what Governor Wallace and the other opponents of segregation and the civil rights movement claimed at the time.

Alabama isn’t the only state where officials are fighting tooth-and-nail against equality for gay people, so in that sense it isn’t just Alabama being Alabama—but it is most definitely bigots being bigoted. If the opponents of LGBT rights were merely (and really) concerned with local control, they wouldn’t (at the same time as they’re making these states’ rights arguments) also be passing state laws to overturn individual cities’ gay rights ordinances.

So, the haters are gonna hate. They’re going to lie and defy. They’ll impede and interfere. But in the end they’re going to lose. Justice will triumph. Equality with reign. Love will prevail.

So, get those lesbian and gay couples to a church, chapel, or courthouse, and let love win the day! And then, let’s dance!

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here!)

Lies of the Devil Talkers

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Pastor Manning is once again misquoting the Bible to bash gay people.
Pastor Manning is once again misquoting the Bible to bash gay people.
Let’s all heave a big sigh, because Pastor Manning and his church sign are at it again.

This week the sign says, “When the homos bullied the poor and needy in Sodom like they do in Harlem, Jesus fire and brim-stoned them,” and then cites three Biblical passages: Ezekial 16:48-50, Leviticus 20:13, and Genesis 19:24-? – the last one is cut off, as it doesn’t quite fit into the lit up part of the sign.

The first thing to note about these Bible verses is that all of them are in the Old Testament, where Jesus does not appear, as he hadn’t been born yet, and is not the person speaking. One could argue that it might not have been the intent of the Pastor to imply that Jesus is being quoted in those verses, but given the context of why this sign is saying this particular message now (which I will get to), that argument is wrong. So, the first lie in the sign is the notion that Jesus said anything about homosexuals at all. Jesus did not at any point at all in the Bible.

So, what do those verses actually say? Continue reading Lies of the Devil Talkers →

Oh! That explains it!

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I’ve mentioned before that I used to be active on Queernet, which was run as both a Usenet group and a mailing list. And because I posted and/or replied to other people’s posts on there a lot, I more than occasionally got hate mail. Because even back in late 80s/early 90s ultraconservative haters trolled the net looking for people to spew vitriol at. And one of those trolls was a member of the Westboro Baptist Church clan, usually logging in as Ben Phelps. And every single hate mail that he sent to any of us on that list included some reference to butt sex.

Even when he was yelling at bisexual women, lesbians, or people who identified as straight allies…

Continue reading Oh! That explains it! →

Weekend update: wolf in sheep’s clothing edition

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(Source: musingsfromunderthebus.wordpress.com)
(Source: musingsfromunderthebus.wordpress.com)
Mars Hill Church, a cult-like evangelical megachurch/ denomination headquartered right here in the Emerald City has had a really, really bad summer. Scandals about lead Pastor Mark Driscoll plagiarising most of the content of several of his books, the church spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy one of Driscoll’s books onto the New York Times best seller list, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for specific disasters overseas, then sending only a few hundred, raising millions of dollars for a Jesus Festival that was supposed to happen last weekend, but was simply never scheduled or organized, ordered members to shun other members who raised questions and taking further action to defame said former members, threatening legal action against former members based on spiritual covenants signed by the former members, suing former associate pastors who try to find work in other churches under non-compete clauses in employment agreements, and so on, and so on.

It got so bad that former members staged protests after Driscoll said all the charges were coming from anonymous people. And an evangelical interfaith cooperative that Driscoll co-founded kicked out Driscoll and the entire Mars Hill organization. Numerous evangelical conventions and similar events where Driscoll had been a lead speaker have suddenly removed him from the schedules and/or removed all mention of him from their web sites. 21 former Mars Hill pastors lodge formal charges against Mark Driscoll, and now the New York Times is reporting that Mark Driscoll Is Being Urged to Leave Mars Hill Church.

As I said before, all of these transgressions are serious problems. But all of these these things are merely symptoms of a deeper issue. Mars Hill claims to follow the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus had something to say on this issue: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” (Matt 7:16-17)

When an organization is producing this much unethical and immoral behavior, it isn’t a matter of just one bad person. Even though I firmly believe that Driscoll is a narcissitic bigot and con man, he isn’t the only problem. He’s the leader of this church, but that doesn’t explain the financial shenanigans, lies, and violations of law at the National Organization for Marriage. Or the lies told by Save America. Nor the crimes against humanity and related actions by evangelical leaders such as Scott Lively. Or scamming tax-payers for millions in tax breaks for a creationist museum.

The evangelical fundamentalist theology is inherently hateful, fearful, and toxic. One of the evangelical movement’s central tenets is that in god’s eyes everyone isn’t merely imperfect, but infinitely wicked. And rather than seeing god’s love as infinitely merciful and compassionate, they see god as being so consumed by wrath at sin that only by killing his own son could he even consider being merciful.

They have scripture they quote to rationalize this belief, but other Christians read those same scriptures and come to a different conclusion. Evangelicals hold their fellow humans (and often themselves) in utter contempt, ignoring Jesus’ teachings about compassion. When you combine that with the anti-intellectual, anti-modernist mindset of most fundamentalists, it is no surprise that so many of their leaders and institutions are corrupt, because the followers are infinitely susceptible to being hoodwinked.

Anti-gay organization twists bad metaphor into hyper-pretzel

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Jeremy Hooper over at GoodAsYou.Org explains the new argument the haters are urging their supporters to use: Ruth Institute (former NOM affiliate): Same-sex marriage is as much of a wedge as interracial marriage bans.

The argument they are pushing is: “allowing same sex couples to marry is exactly the same as prohibiting interracial couples to marry.” If you don’t read that closely, it sounds like they’re finally agreeing with one of our arguments, but look again (and go look at the confusing graphic that accompanies the meme they’re trying to get their people to post everywhere).

Because interracial marriage bans prevented people from marrying who they wanted to merely because the color of one half of the couple’s skin didn’t match the other was bad. Most everyone agrees the interracial marriage ban was bad. And the Ruth Institute agrees. But, they say, allowing same-sex couples to marry is just as bad because it prevents straight women from marrying gay men if they want to. And so forth.

That’s literally their argument.

Which is wrong on so, so many levels. Allowing my husband and I to legally marry does not prevent any gay person (closeted or not) from entering into a marriage with a straight person if they want. It doesn’t. If they want to do that, they can. I don’t know why they would want to, but they can.

Allowing someone to do something doesn’t prevent other people for doing it.

The closest you can get to any “logic” in this argument is that if marriage equality is not available anywhere, it increases the odds that people will be closeted, and it makes it slightly more likely that unsuspecting straight people will get married to closeted gay people, and probably suffer a lot of heartache later on.

I think Jeremy is right: desperation is making them lose their minds.

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Responding to the devil talkers

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http://harlemagainstviolencehomophobia.mydagsite.com/the_story
A parents group started a fundraiser in response to the hateful church signs.
I hadn’t planned to spend nearly all last week talking about the very un-Christian actions of some so-called pastors. It just happened to several stories came to light at the same time. There are a few people who have done more than talk and spread the word, and I think those folks deserve our thanks.

A group of parents in Harlem, tired of the many hateful messages appearing on a church sign in their neighborhood (and the hateful sermons of the pastor there), have started a campaign to raise money for the Ali Forney Center: Harlem Against Violence and Homophobia. The Ali Forney Center is a non-profit dedicated to helping homeless LGBT youth. The Center provides a safe, home like environment for kids on the street who are not welcome with their families because they are gay. They’re asking people who are upset about the messages from Pastor “Jesus Would Stone Homos” Manning to donate to the center.

I can’t think of a better way to respond to such hate, than to send some love and support to some kids who really need it.

Another person from Pastor Manning’s neighborhood, inspired by the trans woman who dared an anti-gay lawmaker to stone her in January, Jennifer Louise Lopez went to the door of Pastor Manning’s church and told them that she was there for her stoning. She took a video of her conversation with the person who answered, and has posted it:

(And the first time I posted this, the embedding worked, but later it turned into gobbldeguck, so click here to see the awkward moment.)

It’s funny how uncomfortable and timid people become when confronted by the meaning of their words. I do wonder why there is so little outrage from mainstream America at the outright incitement to violence of Pastor Manning’s most recent church sign, though.

Meanwhile, the leader of the God Hates Fags Church finally died this week. I’ve already seen some people repeating the early speculation that he might have had a change of hear late in his life being reported as if it is true, even though there is not one single shred of evidence to support it. In fact, the person who is probably the world’s expert on the church (she wrote her doctoral thesis on them after spending a few years attending their services every Sunday and even traveling with them on a couple of their road trips to picket funerals) has pointed out that the leader was probably excommunicated simply because he was dying. The church’s theology includes the firm belief that Jesus is returning any day now, that the “elect” alive right now will not die. If someone who is alive “now” does die, then they aren’t going to heaven because of this last of the last days belief. The church hasn’t held a funeral for any of its members since 1986, and has excommunicated each of the members that have died in that time.

Anyway, Rachel Maddow did a wonderful Not-An-Obituary for the guy, “Pseudo-religious hate-cult leader fails, dies.” You really should watch it, because it isn’t about their hate, it’s about the good that it brought out of the rest of the world.

MSNBC.com
I would embed the video, but WordPress.com won’t let me for some reason. Click on the “watch it” link in the paragraph above.

Good luck with that (haters gonna….)

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So some of the usual suspects (*cough* American Family Association *cough*) have gotten something in a twist because Google is endorsing the “radical” notion that people shouldn’t be executed just for being gay. That’s the issue that kicked off the Legalise Gay campaign, in case you didn’t know.

So these people, who claim to follow that guy who said “love your neighbor as yourself” and “why do you worry about the speck in your neighbor’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own?” are calling for a boycott of Google because Google is opposed to mortal violence against gay people.

Boycott Google? That’s going to be interesting.

Let’s forget about products like smart phones running Google’s Android OS, and services like GoogleDocs and such, and just think about their core business: search. So, who are they going to use? Bing?

Not that they can’t, but here’s the thing: a couple of decades back Bing’s owner, Microsoft, decided that maybe they should have a lobbyist go down to the state capital here in my home state (which is also Microsoft’s home state) because that’s what successful companies do. They polled their employees, including managers and executives, about what the lobbyist should suggest the legislators do. The overwhelming consensus: pass some statewide Gay rights law.

Not lobby for a tax break (that sort of thing would come later), but lobby for Gay rights.

And that’s what they did. Even now when the company (IMHO) has lost much of its way and become just another lumbering short-term profit making beast, it still sponsors and supports gay events, provides health benefits to same-sex partners, lobbied for the full domestic partnership refendum a couple years ago, the marriage equality referendum coming up for a vote soon, and in pretty much every way is at least as supportive of Gay rights as Google.

Yahoo, like most other large tech companies also has gay-friendly corporate policies and has sponsored gay rights events. It’s difficult to find a large tech company in the western world that hadn’t twigged to the fact a bit ago that one way to attract and retain talented employees is to be inclusive and supporting of, among others, gay employees.

So for search alone, they’re going to be hard-pressed to find an alternative that isn’t supportive of gay rights. I don’t see how a boycott is even possible.

As an aside, for the allies and defenders of the AFA and their ilk, getting angry because a company or person suggests that maybe gay people shouldn’t be executed just because they love who they love? That is advocating violence against gays. It isn’t a misinterpretation or distortion. It is exactly what they are doing.

And exactly what you are defending.