Rock for Equality is a national event to demand equal Social Security benefits for all LGBT Americans. This year we will rally on April 11th in Los Angeles to demand equal benefits for our LGBT seniors. Please join us in raising awareness about one of the most under recognized and harshly consequential issues in the LGBT movement! Join us at Rock for Equality.
(A shorter version of video is also available.)
Apparently bigotry trumps family for some allegedly “pro-family” types. Catholic Charities in D.C., the same folks who ended their foster care program over the pending law that legalizes same-sex marriage, will now cease providing health care benefits to employee’s spouses lest they be required to give them to one with Teh Gay.
The Archdiocese of Washington has been battling the D.C. government for the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians since D.C.’s same-sex marriage legislation got rolling last year.
One major point of contention: Once gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, the Archdiocese—which employs plenty of locals through Catholic Charities—will be required to provide health benefits to same-sex spouses, an act which it says would fly in the face of the Catholic church’s teachings on homosexuality.
The solution? No spousal benefits for anybody.
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I wonder why Catholic Charities isn’t whining about the fact that they’re already providing health care benefits to gay people. It’s obvious they know they have gay and lesbian employees by the fact that they’re instituting this ridiculous and hateful policy. Why aren’t they demanding their right to refuse to provide benefits to these employees? It would be a natural extension of their “religious freedoms” after all. Then again, I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas….
Here’s the memo:
I am writing to you to inform you of an important change to our group health care benefit plan that will take effect on March 2, 2010 due to a change in the law of the District of Columbia. It is important to note that the existing health coverage of current employees will not be affected by the change. New employees and current employees requesting revisions in benefit coverage will be affected by this change.
Catholic Charities will continue to honor the health plan coverage that current employees have as of March 1, 2010. As of March 2, a new plan will be in effect that will cover new employees and requests for benefit changes by current employees. …..
We sincerely regret that we have to make this change, but it is necessary to allow Catholic Charities to continue to provide essential services to the clients we serve in partnership with the District of Columbia while remaining consistent with the tenets of our religious faith.
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Actually if Catholic Charities were truly remaining consistent with the tenets of their religious faith they would be denying benefits to the divorced and anybody who’d had premarital sex, among others. But they choose to target gay people and pretend they’re just upholding their religious tenets while they ignore all of the other “sinners” in their employ.
Ultimately Catholic Charities will screw hundreds, even thousands, of straight people in their quest to stick it to the gays. Once again they prove they aren’t about charity but instead about pushing their personal flavor of religion on everyone. This is yet another reason I detest such organizations receiving any taxpayer money. If they’re going to push their arbitrary religious dogma on employees and/or service recipients they don’t deserve a penny of support from the very people they are harming in the process.
White House officials met with secularist and atheist groups for the first time in history. Of course since religious groups have lost their exclusive access to the WH they must have tantrums over the event.
The supporters of Proposition 8 realize how poorly their side argued their case in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger. So now, like monkeys, they are pulling yet more poo out of their backsides and flinging it in hopes that something will stick to the wall.
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The potential harms they cited included giving bisexuals a legal basis for pursuing group marriages and unmarried fathers an incentive to abandon their children.
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Bisexual means a person can be romantically and sexually attracted to either gender. It doesn’t mean they’re inclined to fall in love with both at the same time. Of course the bigots like to push the notion that it’s the latter because then they can also pimp their slippery slope fallacy. OMG, if we allow same-sex marriage it might lead to POLYGAMY!!! Yeah, and people might start squeezing the Charmin too. Please people, protect the toilet paper and vote NO on Gay.
As to the claim that same-sex marriage would give unmarried fathers an incentive to abandon their children…that’s pure horsecrap. There are already millions of “deadbeat dads” out there and it has absolutely nothing to do with same-sex marriage. It’s high time that heterosexual people stop blaming gay people and gay unions for the failings of heterosexual relationships.
A student in a Maryland middle school refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Her teacher mocked her and called her names on the first day, and had the school police escort her to the office on the second day. It’s a good thing the girl wasn’t doodling on her desk….
Yet another Christian is crying “persecution” and filing a lawsuit because he thinks they shouldn’t have to share public space with others, or be pestered with the opinions of those who think differently. Perhaps a secured commune would be a better place for him.
Finally, this “Christian” charity will stop providing aid to Haiti if they won’t turn from their evil Voodoo ways and convert to Christianity. This is exactly why I despise most “faith based” charities–they don’t truly want to help but only to push their religion on others. The aid they provide is only a vehicle to gain more bodies for their god. There is nothing moral about what they do.
Of course they’re already being held up as martyrs, as were their MA counterparts before them. But the plain fact is that Catholic Charities chose to end its foster care program in DC, just as CC in MA chose to cease adoption services in MA, because they didn’t want to obey laws every other agency is subject to. Nobody “forced” them to do anything.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has ended its 80-year-old foster-care program in the District rather than license same-sex couples, the first fallout from a bitter debate over the city’s move to legalize same-sex marriage.
Catholic Charities, which runs more than 20 social service programs for the District, transferred its entire foster-care program — 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members — to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families. Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), the D.C. Council member who chairs the Committee on Human Services, said he didn’t know of any problems with the transfer, which happened Feb. 1.
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So that’s that. Despite former threats that children would be left wandering the streets and DC would implode because of Teh Gays, the entire caseload is already being served by another agency. Granted it’s another “faith based” provider, but I suppose I can’t expect perfection. At the very least they show no overt signs of being as bigoted as their CC counterparts.
Edward Orzechowski, president and chief executive of Catholic Charities, the archdiocese’s social service arm, said the group is optimistic that it will find a way to structure its benefits packages in other social service programs so that it can remain in partnership with the city without recognizing same-sex marriage.
Asked if that meant looking at ways to avoid paying benefits to same-sex partners or ways to write benefits plans so as not to characterize same-sex couples as “married,” Orzechowski said “both, and.”
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Translation: Catholic Charities wants to flaunt the law and still keep taking taxpayer dollars–including those of the people whose rights they’re directly violating. So much for the “moral values” instilled by religion.
Various pieces from around the Internutz.
How the most religious states fare.
Classically Liberal dissects multiple reports and studies to show what I’ve long known, and have reported more than once–that God and religion simply aren’t the answer to society’s woes.
While Judge Considers Same-Sex Marriage Case, House Church Leader says the Verdict Doesn’t Matter
A church leader declares many Christians have lost their way, and turned Christianity into a crusade against others rather than an effort to bring others to Christ and seek God’s Kingdom. It’s nice to see one of them speak up since our voices go largely ignored when we say it.
Gay harassment, bias crimes often go unreported
This isn’t anything most of us don’t already know, but it bears repeating because it’s urgent, and because the RRRW tries fervently to ignore/deny it.
How the Game is Played
You probably saw the NYT article that claimed 50% of gay married men are in “open marriages”. What you didn’t see is how they distorted the study, and outright lied, to once again smear gay couples. Read the facts at Truth Wins Out.
Anita Bryant and Me
One person’s encounter with the original “OMG won’t somebody please think of the children?!?!” anti-gay Liar for the Lord.
Loving, committed same-sex couples cannot get married in most US states. Opposite-sex couples who are complete strangers, on the other hand, can do so with no problem whatsoever. This is the “sanctity of traditional marriage” we’re always hearing about? Gay people’s rights are being sacrificed to “protect” this?
(Hat tip, ZackFord Blogs)
This is good news indeed.
SALT LAKE CITY—A film distribution company has bought the rights to a documentary about the Mormon church’s role in a California ballot initiative to ban gay marriage.
Filmmaker Reed Cowan says “8: The Mormon Proposition” will hit theaters this spring and a DVD will follow. Cowan says he sold the film’s North American distribution rights to the newly formed Red Flag Releasing.
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It’s rare that we feel a movie important enough that we’ll shell out the exorbitant fees theaters are now charging for tickets–it’s been more than a year since we’ve gone–but we will be there when this movie is in our area. Of course we’ll also get the DVD when it comes out.
“I think it’s a very important issue to us, not only gay marriage, but the issue of separation of church and state,” said Federbush. “We saw it at Sundance and felt it connected with the audience.”
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“I’m pretty excited,” said Cowan, a former Mormon who is gay. “Now the film does truly go on to be seen all over the United States and people can decide for themselves.”
I’m excited too. This is a movie that needs as much exposure as possible.
Keep in mind that every reputable professional organization states that homosexuality is not a disorder, but is a normal orientation like heterosexuality. They also firmly denounce so-called “reparative therapy” as ineffective and potentially harmful, given that sexual orientation is not changeable. None of that matters to people like Brian Fischer, who rely not on facts but the opinions of ancient sheepherders. These opinions have been deemed “holy”, and are therefore something people like Fischer can use to add a sheen of respectability and authority to their own personal bigotry.
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It might be worth noting that what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I’d be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.
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Riiiiight. Because HIV/AIDS can’t be contracted through heterosexual “behavior”. 
According to the CDC, the fastest growing group of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses is among heterosexual women of color. It’s time, for the good of all, to bury the myth that AIDS is a “gay disease”.
If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.
Homosexuality is not a mental illness or an addiction. It does not need “therapy”, particularly not from charlatans pushing pseudo-science and demeaning lies designed not to help but to manipulate and even torture.
Secondly, I’m afraid you’re simply wrong about the Bible’s perspective on the law and homosexuality.
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I don’t give a fig about the Bible’s perspective on homosexuality or the Koran’s perspective or any other “holy” book’s perspective. We do not live in a theocracy and our laws should not be based on anybody’s interpretation of “holy” books or religious doctrine. If they were, well, just look to modern day theocracies to see how life would be.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told “Christians don’t hate gay people. Christians don’t bear any ill will toward gay people. No Christians in America want to see harm come to gay people.” Blah blah blah. Sorry, I didn’t buy it before and I’m not buying it now. There are far too may people like Brian Fischer proving just how much Christians do hate gay people and want to see them harmed.*
* Please don’t attempt the “Not a True Christian” line. He’s one of you. If you don’t like what he’s doing in the name of your religion speak out against him or stew silently, but don’t try to disown him to make yourself look better.
Religion Dispatches brings us this excellent piece which shows more people are realizing just how much the Mormons put into the travesty of justice known as Proposition 8.
On Wednesday, January 20, in a federal courthouse in San Francisco, plaintiffs in the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger trial challenging the legality of California’s Proposition 8 introduced two documents (over strenuous objections from the defense) indicating close but cautious coordination between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Yes on 8 campaign.
The documents, according to plaintiffs’ witness Gary Segura, a professor of political science at Stanford University, indicated a desire on the part of the Church to create “plausible deniability or respectable distance between the church organization per se and the actual campaign.
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Of course they wanted to create “plausible deniability”. They couldn’t maintain the facade they keep promoting that Mormons are benign and loving toward everyone if they were the major players in a campaign to eradicate rights from a minority group, could they? But that’s where their passive-aggressive nature comes in. They love gays. They really, really love them. They love them so much they want to attach electrodes to their groins (if they’re Mormon gays), beat them for kissing in public, or eradicate their rights via a campaign of hateful lies.
Documents compiled by Mormon supporters of same-sex marriage—including campaign time lines and donor profiles—show that LDS Church ecclesiastical structures, resources, and relationships were fully mobilized to generate the majority of volunteers and donations for the Yes on 8 campaign, even as Church members were coached to handle their Mormonism carefully in campaign contributions and activities.
There was nothing plausibly deniable about the Church’s relationship to the Proposition 8 campaign when, in Sunday meetings on June 29, 2008, a letter from Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Thomas Monson was read over the pulpit of every Mormon congregation in California urging Church members to “do all you can” to support the ballot measure.
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Speaking of letters, lets not forget the blackmail attempt signed by Mormon Mark Janssen and others.
“Make a donation of a like amount to ProtectMarriage.com which will help us correct this error. Were you to elect not to donate comparably, it would be a clear indication that you are in opposition to traditional marriage. … The names of any companies and organizations that choose not to donate in like manner to ProtectMarriage.com but have given to Equality California will be published.”
Nice folks working on the “pro-family” side. They probably all get a set of brass knuckles when they sign up.
The Church-coordinated fundraising drive intensified in late August, when select LDS Church members identified as potential large donors were invited to participate in conference calls with members of the Quorum of the Seventy, a high-ranking Church leadership body. (Mormon Yes on 8 campaign observers believe that tithing records were used to identify call participants.) On the conference calls, high-ranking church leaders encouraged potential large donors to individually contribute $25,000 to protectmarriage.com.
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And they donated like the good little worker bees they’re trained to be. Take Stephen Samuelian, who donated $100,000, for instance, or Charles and Gloria Pope ($60,000 between them–and their own daughter is a lesbian). Of course they’re only a few of the thousands of Mormons in Base8. (The estimates that about 75% of the donations to Yes on 8 came from Mormons are pretty much dead on from what we’ve discovered. If you don’t believe us, see for yourself.)
That’s when Nadine Hansen, a Mormon veteran of the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment, initiated an effort to document the extent of Mormon funding for the Yes on 8 campaign. During the ERA campaign, Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson had shared with Hansen fundraising disclosure sheets from an anti-ERA group that had raised money in California. Using church directories, Hansen was then able to identify “all but one or two” of the ERA donors as Mormon. Sensing that the Church was pressing ERA-era strategies into service once again, she prepared to undertake the same donor-identification project for Proposition 8 at the Web site mormonsfor8.com.
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The Mormon church is very good at mobilizing its minions, and their methods work. Don’t ever fall for their cries of persecution when called on it, or pretense that they did nothing.
Mormon volunteers were coached to avoid disclosing their ties to the LDS Church. “When we went to our training meetings, they said, don’t bring up the fact that you’re Mormon. Don’t wear white shirts and ties; don’t look like missionaries. When you go out [canvassing], bring a non-member friend. When you’re calling people, don’t say I’m a Mormon,” says Laura Compton.
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More Lying for the Lord. Strange how those who claim to be on the side of righteousness and truth feel the need to engage in so much subterfuge to achieve their desired results.
On October 8, LDS Church members in California attended a special meeting broadcast from Salt Lake City by satellite to wards and stakes throughout California and to BYU students with California ties. Encouraging Church members to think of the satellite broadcast as though they were “sitting in [a] living room having a confidential talk,” high-ranking LDS Church officials, members of the Quorum of the Twelve and the Quorum of the Seventy, introduced Church members to the final voter persuasion and get-out-the-vote “phases” of the campaign, asking members to use social networking technology to “go viral” with their support for Proposition 8 and commit four hours each week to the ground and phone campaign.
A primary source of Mormon messaging during the Proposition 8 campaign was the anonymously-authored “Six Consequences if Prop 8 Fails” document, which went viral across Mormon social networks after its introduction by email in mid-August and was utilized as a training document and handout in the Mormon-coordinated ground campaign. The document alleged that the legalization of same-sex marriage would eventuate in the teaching of same-sex marriage in public schools and the elimination of religious freedoms. Mormon legal scholar Morris Thurston described this as “untrue” and “misleading” and urged the LDS Church to discontinue its further dissemination.
As it turns out, the “Six Consequences” propaganda piece was indeed concocted by a Mormon. Big surprise. Not.
Highly centralized and hierarchical LDS institutional structures, widespread experience with door-to-door proselytizing, disciplined messaging among former missionaries, and extensive social networks that facilitated viral messaging, combined with a religious and cultural tradition that assigns enormous value to obedience to church authorities, service, discipline, and sacrifice to create a potent political force that was no secret to those within the culture.
It’s no secret to many of us outside the “culture” now, anymore, thanks to Prop 8. All the green jello and funeral potatoes in the world won’t ameliorate the harm Mormons have done to LGBT families.
“They did not want to be outed,” Hansen relates. “And yet they were with ones with all the organizational skills. And whether its because [the Church] is concerned about tax-exempt status or they want to avoid bad publicity… they want to do it and not have anyone know they do it at the same time.”
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If they wanted to harm others in anonymity perhaps they should have donned white hoods. As it stands they can deny and play the victim all they want, but LDSinc is now inextricably linked with Prop 8, and with hatred.
Two new sections are up in Base8, the searchable Proposition 8 donor database.
Are you searching for a new or used car? Do you require service for your car ? Are you seeking parts so you can fix it yourself? Do you want to do any of the above without giving your money to anti-gay bigots? The Automotive section is the place to look.
The Food & Beverages section is indispensable. Considering the fact that people eat and drink every day, we have ongoing opportunities to avoid funding our own oppression.
Looking for your favorite brand of soft drink, cookies, cheese, meat products, frozen food…?
You’ll find brand names (Coke, Frito-Lay, Hormel, Jelly Belly, etc.) under:
Food & Beverage Processing/Mfg/Wholesale DistributionFor food growers (where you’ll also find many instantly-recognizable brand names), see:
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and HuntingFor supermarkets, bakeries, convenience stores, and anywhere else you can buy food or drinks to take home, see:
Food & Beverage Retail Stores & OutletsFor bakeries, also check:
Event PlannersRestaurants (including fast-food joints), coffee houses, and bars/pubs are in:
Eating & Drinking Places
Another section is coming soon!
