The Gaytheist Agenda

Bigots in South Carolina’s tourism agency yanked funding for an ad campaign designed to lure LGBT tourists from overseas. Of course the ads had already gone through, but they still refused to pay the nearly $5,000 fee for them. Now a S.C. LGBT rights group is going to pay the debt for them.

Thursday, South Carolina Pride Movement stepped in, placing its own version of the ad on its website and inviting people to contribute to pay the state debt.

The rejigged ad now says South Carolina Will Be So Gay.

“We feel it is our duty to keep the word that the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recs, and Tourism gave through their contract with ARMO Worldwide and we intend to raise the necessary funds since they have refused to pay their bill,” said Ryan Wilson, President of SC Pride.

“Someone needs to rise above and do the right thing, and the GLBT community of South Carolina should be the ones to do it, and the SC Pride Movement is going to take the lead,” Wilson said.

“South Carolina may not be “so gay” currently but we are going to show the world that we can be and we WILL BE so gay, and gay friendly some day!”

Wilson said that if it raises more than the $5,000 necessary to pay ARMO it will benefit the SC Pride Festival and Parade.

Atlanta, Boston and New Orleans also were part of the ad campaign. None of those cities backed out.

Good on them!

 

I’m vying for Best Religion Blog on the 2008 Blogger’s Choice Awards. Of course I realize this is hardly a religion blog but they didn’t have an atheists/agnostics category so what could I do? Worse yet they don’t have anything remotely appropriate for LGBT bloggers so TGA is also nominated in Best Blog About Stuff. I’m going to have to suggest some new categories to whoever runs the awards….but enough about that for now.

If you enjoy The Gaytheist Agenda would you be so kind as to cast a vote? (There’s also a button on the sidebar that will take you to the site.) I’d greatly appreciate it, and I thank you in advance.

 

I’m so used to them being far more progressive than us, but it seems even they have their share of homophobic nitwits lately, as evidenced by Lillian Ladele, and now Graham Cogman. He’s a police officer who (like many of his ilk) believes his “deeply held religious beliefs” give him the right to be a complete bigot, as well as an impenetrable shield from criticism for doing so.

Graham Cogman, a constable with 15 years experience, is taking action against Norfolk Police as he claims he was victimised for refusing to wear a pink ribbon on his uniform to mark a “gay pride” event, and for questioning the force’s stance towards gay men and lesbians.

The 49-year churchgoer, who circulated emails to officers quoting the biblical stance on homosexuality being a sin, claims he is being singled out because of his beliefs. The force has responded by saying it will not tolerate any “homophobic behaviour”.
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His complaint stems from a circular email sent to officers in early 2005 encouraging staff to wear a pink ribbon on their uniforms during Gay History Month.

After receiving the email, PC Cogman sent a reply to his fellow officers featuring biblical quotations about homosexuality being a sin. He objected again the following year when a similar email was again sent to officers.
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Cogman isn’t being victimized here, he’s pretending to be a martyr. His department was asked to voluntarily wear pink ribbons in support of gay pride month. He could have simply chosen not to, but instead he chose to use the department’s e-mail system to circulate anti-gay propaganda. He’s not an innocent victim here, and he is not being targeted for what he claims.

“The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult,” he said.

“I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith.”
…..

No, you hold a bigotry that you hide behind a faith. It’s hardly the same thing. But then again people like you have a hard time discerning the difference, sadly.

 

Let it never be said that I don’t give praise to religious individuals where it’s due. In this case it is most definitely due. Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California is raising his voice to call for the separation of church and state, at least when it comes to the debate over marriage.

INSIDE THE FIRST AMENDMENT

By Charles C. Haynes

First Amendment Center
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In a letter last month, Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California directed his clergy to “encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service and then being blessed in The Episcopal Church.”
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“There are a lot of benefits in getting out of the legal marriage business,” the Very Rev. Brian Baker told The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee in reaction to the bishop’s letter. “This way the clergy and the couple can focus on the spiritual blessings the church has to offer and not the political stuff.”
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Maybe the bishop is on the right track: Separate secular from sacred by drawing a bright line between civil arrangements and the sacrament of marriage. Each state would limit itself to defining marriage as civil benefits for committed couples (as mandated by state law) – and each religious group would be free to define marriage according to the tenets of its faith.
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Ending this church-state entanglement wouldn’t end the gay-marriage debate. But it might serve to reframe the issue by focusing on civic arguments for and against extending government benefits to same-sex couples. In my view, it isn’t the business of government to preserve the “sanctity of marriage.” Nor is it the business of government to dictate the meaning of marriage to any religious community.

At the same time, no religious group should be allowed to impose a religious definition of marriage on the rest of society. Various faiths in the United States define the sacrament of marriage in various ways. The establishment clause of the First Amendment should bar government officials from making public policy solely on the basis of a theological conviction about what constitutes “marriage.”
…..

I think the bishop has it just right. People can get their civil ceremonies wherever they choose, and if desired go to a willing church for a spiritual blessing for their union. Marriage is, after all, not strictly a religious institution no matter how much certain religious individuals and groups try to claim it is.

Mr. Haynes has it right too. It’s not the business of any religious group to impose its definition of marriage on the nation at large as different groups have different definitions. I’ll forgive him his failure to mention that people without faith also have their own definitions of marriage as I assume it was an oversight (but a common one).

Sadly I don’t see it happening. It’s far too rational, and fair, a plan.

 

More than once I’ve had the question posed, “Why do LGBT people find it so hard to ‘come out’?”. I’ve explained to such individuals the dangers faced by LGBT people when coming out, such as potentially losing their friends, family,homes, jobs, and even their lives. The problems are magnified for teenagers, who are under the authority of their parents. This story illustrates all to clearly the dangers some individuals face when coming out.

Violence broke out Sunday in Anderson (S.C.) when an 18-year-old man returned home from a gay pride parade and was assaulted by his father.

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During the assault, the teen’s 49-year-old father yelled, cursed, swung a baseball bat, prayed and tried to “cast the demon of homosexuality out of him,” according to the teen’s version of events to Deputy S.C. Weymouth, the incident report states.

About 2 p.m. Wednesday, the teen said his father punched him when he returned to the house for clothes that he left on Sunday, the report states.

The teen told deputies that his father “has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat Sunday,” Weymouth said in his report.

…..

Deputies, who have not been able to make immediate contact with the teen’s father, report that both incidents are under investigation.

As noted in my Press Release Roundup last week, as many as 40% of runaway and homeless youth are LGBT. So the above story is far from unique, and all too tragic.

Now people might just have an idea why it’s so hard to come out, and just what is at stake.

 

I’m quite used to bigotry by now, and to the outrageous ways people act because of it. But after reading this story I could only shake my head in amazement that anybody could have such ludicrous notions.

An Italian court has ordered the government to pay 100,000 euros (£79,919) to a man who had to retake his driving test because he was gay.

Danilo Giuffrida, now 26, told doctors he was homosexual during a medical examination for military service.

The information was passed to the defence and transport ministries.

Mr Giuffrida was told to repeat his driving test or have his licence suspended because of his “sexual identity disturbance”.

Mr Giuffrida passed his test for the second time but his licence was renewed for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

A court in Catania, Sicily, ordered the ministries to pay damages on the basis that Mr Giuffrida’s constitutional rights had been breached and that homosexuality could not be considered a “mental illness”.

The judge said the actions of the ministries showed “evident sexual discrimination”.

They actually believed that not only was Mr. Giuffrida potentially a poor driver just because he was gay, but that his license required more frequent renewals as well? Where do people get these bizarre ideas?

Never mind. I’d rather not know. I’m just glad Mr. Giuffrida got a good settlement. I also hope that, though the story doesn’t mention it, the involved employees got the shaft. They certainly deserve it.

 

Yet another homophobic bigot has refused to do her job because of her “deeply held religious beliefs”. She even took the matter to court…and won.

Lillian Ladele, 47, can expect a large payout from Islington Council after she was bullied and threatened with the sack for asking to avoid civil partnerships because of her deeply-held religious beliefs.
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The ruling that employees should not be required to act against their consciences has implications for the 18,000 same-sex ceremonies conducted nationwide each year and could encourage other registrars with strong religious beliefs to take a similar stance.
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After the ruling, Miss Ladele spoke of her relief: “I am delighted with the decision. It is a victory for religious liberty, not just for myself but for others in a similar position to mine.

“Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully or harass people over their religious beliefs.”
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Now why is it that any time you attach “deeply held religious beliefs” to something you can get away with it, even if it would otherwise be considered unacceptable? Would I be able to claim “deeply held religious beliefs” any time I don’t want to deal with certain groups at work, for example? Or is it only certain classes of people against whom one is legally allowed to have “deeply held religious” intolerance toward?

Rod Liddle says it a little more bluntly:

Crucial to its judgment was Ladele’s “Christian faith” which, she insisted, precluded her from giving a professional blessing to sodomites. I don’t know what would have happened if she had told the tribunal that she wasn’t a Christian or a Muslim or of any other faith but just hated poofs. Probably she’d have lost.

Of course she would. But cloaked in the guise of “deeply held religious beliefs” homophobia sounds righteous. Just over half a century ago racism sounded just as righteous, as did opposition to interracial marriage. Times may change, but the modus operandi of bigotry changes little, if any.

 
Hat tips to Ebon and The Freethinker.

 

Many people are familiar with Godwin’s Law.

“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin’s Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.

Not as many people are familiar with Poe’s Law.

Poe’s Law relates to fundamentalism, and the difficulty of identifying actual parodies of it. It suggests that, in general, it is hard to tell fake fundamentalism from the real thing, since they both sound equally ridiculous. The law also works in reverse: real fundamentalism can also be indistinguishable from parody fundamentalism. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to be so over-the-top that they think he’s a “deep cover liberal” trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes.

Well, I hereby announce Buffy’s Law:

Homophobes who quote Paul Cameron, or any source that cites Paul Cameron/The Family Research Institute, instantly lose all credibility in their attempt to demonize LGBT people.

Of course I’d never propose a law without an explanation so here’s the background. Paul Cameron uses his credentials as a psychologist to give his irrational homophobic bigotry an air of authenticity. The RRRW gleefully quotes his “research” far and wide as evidence that gay people are everything they’ve always claimed–promiscuous, disease ridden, incapable of committing, pedophiles, etc. But here’s what the RRRW (and Paul Cameron) aren’t telling people.

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On his curriculum vitae, he describes himself as a “Researcher/Clinician.” According to the web site of the Nebraska Department of HHS Regulation and Licensure, his license as a Psychologist has been “inactive” since 1995.
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In the mid-1980s, the gay press labeled Paul Cameron “the most dangerous antigay voice in the United States today.”2,3,4 Here are some important facts about him.

* On December 2, 1983, the American Psychological Association sent Paul Cameron a letter informing him that he had been dropped from membership. Early in 1984, all members of the American Psychological Association received official written notice that “Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists” by the APA Board of Directors.5 Cameron has posted an elaborate argument about his expulsion from APA on his website, claiming that he resigned from APA before he was dropped from membership. Like most organizations, however, APA does not allow a member to resign when they are being investigated. And even if Cameron’s claims were accepted as true, it would be remarkable that the largest professional organization of psychologists in the United States (and other professional associations, as noted below) went to such lengths to disassociate itself from one individual.

* At its membership meeting on October 19, 1984, the Nebraska Psychological Association adopted a resolution stating that it “formally disassociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality.”6

* In 1985, the American Sociological Association (ASA) adopted a resolution which asserted that “Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism” and noted that “Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research.”7 The resolution formally charged an ASA committee with the task of “critically evaluating and publicly responding to the work of Dr. Paul Cameron.”

At its August, 1986 meeting, the ASA officially accepted the committee’s report and passed the following resolution:

The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research. Information on this action and a copy of the report by the Committee on the Status of Homosexuals in Sociology, “The Paul Cameron Case,” is to be published in Footnotes, and be sent to the officers of all regional and state sociological associations and to the Canadian Sociological Association with a request that they alert their members to Cameron’s frequent lecture and media appearances.”8

* In August, 1996, the Canadian Psychological Association adopted the following policy statement:

The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality.

* Cameron’s credibility was also questioned outside of academia. In his written opinion in Baker v. Wade (1985), Judge Buchmeyer of the U.S. District Court of Dallas referred to “Cameron’s sworn statement that ‘homosexuals abuse children at a proportionately greater incident than do heterosexuals,’” and concluded that “Dr. Paul Cameron…has himself made misrepresentations to this Court” and that “There has been no fraud or misrepresentations except by Dr. Cameron” (p.536).9

In other words, Paul Cameron is simply a bigot with a PhD and an anti-gay agenda. He hasn’t an ounce of credibility to anybody other than other anti-gay crusaders such as himself.

Additionally, Cameron’s Family Research Institute has been designated an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because they “go beyond mere disagreement with homosexuality by subjecting gays and lesbians to campaigns of personal vilification”.

So from now on when you hear anybody quote Paul Cameron, The Family Research Institute or anything that cites their “research” you can tell them they’ve already lost, and cite Buffy’s Law.

 

Previously I wrote about the RRRW boycott of McDonald’s over their support of Teh Homosexual Agenda. Now it seems that American Family Association has it’s panties in a bunch because not only will McDonald’s not back down, but they have the audacity to speak the truth.

A spokesman for McDonald’s restaurants says those who oppose same-sex “marriage” are motivated by hate.

Earlier this month, the American Family Association (AFA) called for a boycott of the hamburger giant because of the company’s promotion of the homosexual agenda. The AFA took issue with McDonald’s refusal to remain neutral in the culture war.

But in a recent Washington Post article, McDonald’s spokesman Bill Whitman suggested that those who oppose same-sex “marriage” are motivated by hate. However, AFA Founder Don Wildmon disagrees and says McDonald’s has bought into rhetoric used by homosexual activists.
…..

Well gee, Don. What else would you call it when you oppose equal rights for an entire class of people for no legitimate reason? When you deride, castigate and persecute that group of people as a matter of habit? When you go out of your way to keep that group permanent second-class citizens in their own nation? I myself can’t think of any word other than hate, and it seems many other people find it a fitting term as well.

They spread homophobic propaganda on their website, complete with phony statistics from none other than Paul Cameron. They even have the audacity to defend their use of the articles and claim they’re “impartial insurance information”. Riiiiight. (Hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin.)

 
Addendum: On further research it turns out that the Robert Bland, the Chairman and Founder of Insure.com serves on the board of directors of the Illinois Right to Life Foundation. I’m even more convinced that article is on their Website as part of a political agenda, despite their denials.