The Gaytheist Agenda

Of course whatever sentence he gets, if any, he’s still considered morally superior in the eyes of many to the most law-abiding atheist or LGBT person because he’s a “Christian”. From DenverPost.com:

An assistant pastor at a Morrison church has been put on suspension and charged with neglect of an at-risk person after allegedly dumping trash on a mentally handicapped volunteer last year.

According to an arrest warrant, Jason Smoker, 36, asked the unnamed developmentally disabled volunteer at Red Rocks Baptist Church to clean out the church van last year but was dissatified with how the job was done.
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Smoker allegedly had the person lay blindfolded on the parking lot pavement as Smoker poured trash from the bus on top of him. The victim an investigator the incident did not “hurt him physically, but did emotionally,” according to the arrest affidavit.
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According to the church website, Smoker is the church’s facilities manager, who also is responsible for technology, a men’s ministry and an addiction recovery program
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A man like that shouldn’t be in charge of anything involving other people, particularly vulnerable people. Maybe he can get a job cleaning buses, considering he’s so particular about the task.

 

Cornerstone Baptist Church has had a long history of problems involving inappropriate interactions with children. Their practice of proselytizing to and trying to lure pre-teens into vans was just their most recent bout of questionable behavior. The pastor is now attempting to claim that “overzealous teens” were to blame in these actions, which were undertaken without permission of the church. (Read the full interview, with tears in just the right places, if you wish.)

The senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church says the proselytizing that took place at several Colorado Springs schools last month was done by a handful of zealous teenage members acting without church sanction.
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The church came under fire after reports surfaced in April that students on their way to and from Russell Middle School and at least one nearby elementary school were being approached by people trying to engage them in discussions about Jesus. In one case, according to Colorado Springs School District 11 officials, a woman tried to lure a seventh-grader into a church van after school, and the girl went home and told her parents.
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So are those overzealous teens also dressing as women and using the church van when they go on their supposedly unauthorized recruiting trips?

For the past 12 weeks, Cornerstone members have increased their witnessing efforts, signing up nearly 650 people to attend an event at the independent Baptist church this weekend. Miller speculates that the five or six teenagers proselytizing at area schools may have been caught up in the “soul-winning” fervor when they breached protocol. He also said he and church officials have tried to track down the woman in the van, but have had no success.

Miller promises to make sure that church members understand the appropriate way to proselytize, but congregants will still be encouraged to do it, because, he said, that is the commission of Christ. “We will follow our mission to reach the lost and preach the gospel,” he said.
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Sorry, I don’t buy it. I believe everyone was doing just as they were instructed. Go out and recruit like mad for the church. Only when they were caught with their pants down yet again does the Pastor backtrack and peddle this overzealous teens nonsense. Pretty sad he and the other adults not only don’t have the fortitude to accept responsibility for their own actions, but are pathetic enough to shift the blame to children. But don’t get the impression that I’m in any way surprised. Nothing from an IFB church would ever surprise me.

 

A Colorado boy began working to change the law after he decided it was unfair that his friends down the street were not allowed to marry. Though Ethan McNamee is only 9-years-old he has, with some help from his teacher and family, organized a rally and given a speech at the state capitol.

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This was his rally. He had been putting it together since January, reaching out and talking to “millions of political people.” Now it was his turn to address the crowd.
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“I believe I am doing the right thing,” Ethan said. “I hope this rally will make an impact and let our voices be heard.”
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The idea first came to Ethan thanks to his neighbors, a lesbian couple he described as “the nicest people in the world.” He didn’t think it was right they aren’t allowed to get married.

From there, Ethan resolved to support gay couples. He approached Mindy Barton, legal director for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado, to gain support.
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Here are a news broadcast about Ethan and a clip of his speech:

What a commendable young man! His family should be very proud of him. This boy has been raised right.

 

Breaking news from the GLBT Community Center of Colorado:

GREELEY - Allen Andrade has been sentenced to life plus 60 years for all counts related to murder of Angie Zapata.

Judge Marcelo Kopcow on Friday sentenced Andrade, 32, to the maximum 60 consecutive years for the additional charges in the Zapata murder case.

On April 23, a Weld County jury found Andrade guilty of first-degree murder and a hate crime in the killing of Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old transgender woman from Greeley. At that time, he was sentenced to life without parole.

Because Andrade was a habitual offender with prior felony convictions, the law requires him to be given four times the maximum sentence for the three other convictions related to the Zapata case: a bias-motivated crime, identity theft and aggravated motor vehicle theft.

Andrade on Friday received 12 years for the hate crime conviction, 24 years for the motor vehicle theft and 24 years for the identity theft.

“I’ve observed this trial in its entirety and the tragedy inflicted on the Zapata family has been horrendous,” said Mindy Barton, legal director for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado. “The court, by giving the maximum sentence served consecutively, shows the heinous nature of the crime.”

Of course I can’t help but wonder if the RRRW will take up Andrade as their new poster boy to demonstrate how persecuted they’ll all be should HR 1913 should pass. It wouldn’t surprise me. They’d gladly embrace the reincarnation of Attila the Hun if he were to say he hated Teh Gays. That seems to be their only criteria for “moral values” these days.

 
Related posts:
Judge Denies Lesser Charge in Angie Zapata Murder Trial.

Colorado Man Charged With Murdering Transgender Woman

Ooops I got that wrong. It’s actually proselytizing Cornerstone Baptist Church members who are preying on children at numerous schools in Colorado Springs. They’ve even been caught trying to lure children from sidewalks into their vans. Isn’t that what pedophiles and kidnappers do?

A Colorado Springs church with a history of controversy over its attempts to bring children into its fold by saving and baptizing them has been evangelizing recently outside at least one middle school and two elementary schools.

Cornerstone Baptist Church fell into the spotlight again after an incident Thursday near Russell Middle School.

According to Colorado Springs School District 11 officials, a church group tried to lure a seventh-grader into a church van after school, and the girl went home and told her parents. The incident was reported to the Colorado Springs Police Department, but spokesman Lt. David Whitlock said he hadn’t been able to track down a report to confirm details.
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Russell officials recently met with the church’s leader to complain about members coming onto school property to preach the Bible, Naleski said. But rather than stop, church members started proselytizing from public sidewalks outside the school.

The school will seek a no trespassing order if church members resume harassing children on school property, Naleski said, but it will be up to parents to take legal action against the church if their children are approached in public areas outside the school.
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Cornerstone Controversies

JULY 1976: Cornerstone Baptist Church founded by Dean Miller.

MAY 1993: First public complaint from parents that children lured to a carnival were being baptized without their permission.
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1999: Five women reported they had been sexually assaulted as teenagers by Charles Dean Miller, Jr., the church’s music director and senior pastor’s son.

MARCH 2000: Charles Dean Miller Jr. pleaded guilty to two felony counts of sexual abuse of a child by a person in a position of trust. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released from prison on May 9, 2008, and is listed on the Oklahoma sex offender registry as living in Dewey, Okla.

MARCH 2003: The mother of an 8-year-old girl complained to police that her daughter was forced to disrobe and be baptized when she went to an event at the church.

APRIL 2009: Complaints that church members are proselytizing elementary and middle school students on their way to and from school surface after a couple reportedly tell police that church members tried to lure their 12-year-old daughter into a church van after school.
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Targeting children against the express wishes of their parents, school officials and law enforcement? Isn’t that what they accuse us of doing? Maybe it’s because they’re doing it that they imagine we’re doing it. There’s a psychological term for that; projection.

Gays don’t recruit. Religions do. Make sure your children know how to protect themselves from “holy book” wielding strangers in vans.

 

Here are some of the current news stories from around the world.

 

*Zapata family delivers emotional statement and calls for federal hate-crime statutes
*Andrade gets life for murder of transgendered woman.

 
*2,000 LGBT New Yorkers Plan Trek to Albany to support LGBT civil rights.

 
*In MD, a new hate crime law would protect homeless people. This would be the first of its kind in the US. Having worked with people who were homeless, and knowing how vulnerable these individuals can be, I really hope this one passes.

 
*Gay hate crime convictions have doubled in Wales over the past three years.

 
*NH committee recommends killing gay marriage bill.

 

*Man sentenced to six years for attempted murder of “bisexual transvestite”. (Quotation marks from original headline. While the headline and the court say “transvestite”, the fact that the victim was in the process of obtaining gender reassignment indicates she’s transgender. )

 
*Youth pastor allegedly molested several girls and impregnated one.

 

I’m used to the blame-and-shame mentality of the RRRWers, and the way they use it to excuse their utter lack of compassion for fellow human beings. But am I still able to be shocked when I encounter a particularly egregious case of it? Yes, because I have a heart–which they seem to lack. Case in point, Colorado state representative Dave Schultheis.

Democrats were outraged Wednesday morning when Republican state Sen. Dave Schultheis said he planned to vote against a bill to require HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he didn’t think the Legislature should “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.” The Colorado Springs lawmaker then proceeded to cast the lone vote against SB 179, which passed 32-1 and moves on to the House.

Schultheis presents two typical RRRW traits here. The first is dogmatic thinking: HIV/AIDS is the result of “sexual promiscuity”. Women get it by being sluts and men get it from having rampant gay sex. If you’ve heard anything from “scientists” about how you can get it through no fault of your own and/or through other means that’s just Satan lying to you. The second trait is the uncanny desire to heap punishment in one form or another on people they deem “sinful”. And to them pretty much everyone is a depraved sinner.

But it gets worse. Schultheis doesn’t want to punish only those slutty pregnant women .

“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

Wanting a baby to be born with HIV/AIDS and suffer with it seriously for life so it will make the mother feel guilty! That is depraved beyond words. This man doesn’t’ care at all about people, but just wants to make them and everyone around them suffer for what he sees as “sins” and other transgressions. What is it about RRRWers that makes them such twisted, heartless, vindictive, inhumane things?

Yet they still claim to be the “pro-family” and “moral values” party. How anybody takes that seriously is beyond me.

 

Yes, it’s true. The head bigot at one of the nation’s largest busybody groups is finally stepping down from his post as Chairman. Unlike some of my more optimistic peers (Wayne Besen, Bill Browning)I really don’t have hopes that this will usher in a kinder, gentler FOTF. . I’m in the same camp as Barry Lynn and Joe.My.God. ; it will be business as usual at FOTF.

Focus On The Family has attracted millions of followers and drawn in countless millions in $$$ with its rabidly anti-gay agenda (including financing anti-gay legislation like Proposition 8). To a lesser and much more subtle extent it pushes the notion that women are inferior and should be subservient to men because, you know, the Bible says so. Of course misogyny and homophobia are so intertwined with one another it would be surprising to not find them together.

Exodus International, the “ex-gay” ministries run by FOTF, and their traveling “ex-gay” road show Love Won Out, are another cash cow. Changing their formula, and alienating the gay-hating, misogynistic base that has so ardently supported them over the years, would spell financial suicide.

The snake head has been lopped off, but another one just as venomous will probably pop up in its place and business will go on as usual. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I doubt I am.

 

I’m not at all surprised. Focus on the Family is well known for pushing propaganda, half-truths and outright lies as “facts”. So hiring a known plagiarizer would be par for the course with them. From Truth Wins Out:

Truth Wins Out (TWO) today called Tim Goeglein a perfect hire to be the lead Washington lobbyist for Focus on the Family. He resigned from the Bush White House on Feb. 29, 2008, after ex-Fort Wayne News-Sentinel columnist Nancy Nall discovered that Goeglein, while he wrote guest columns for the newspaper, had plagiarized 19 of 38 columns. According to the Colorado Independent, he had used the works of such luminaries as the Dartmouth Review, Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein and the Pope without credit.
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“Instead of hiring a writer with a Pulitzer Prize, Focus on the Family hired one who plagiarized, which reveals the organization’s true character,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Goeglein seems well qualified to work for an organization known for distorting research and confusing fact with fiction. Already the ‘Master of Misquote,’ Goeglein won’t need on-the-job training.”

Focus on the Family is no stranger to controversy surrounding the group’s honesty and integrity. In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused the organization of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back their anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at TruthWinsOut.org .
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Apparently Focus on the Family doesn’t care how unethical you are or how many Biblical commandments you’ve violated–just so long as you aren’t gay. Perhaps they should focus on their own family and take the moats out of their own eyes, instead of worrying about the specks in the eyes of everybody else’s families.

Of course there are the obvious ones that are inherent in the specific laws themselves. Legislation banning same-sex marriage prevents gay and lesbian couples from accessing the 1138 federal rights and hundreds of state rights that are automatically granted to married couples. Such laws also reduce same-sex couples and their families to second-class status. LGBT people have many other laws specifically against them and do not enjoy the same protections others do, mostly due to the efforts of the RRRW.

Just as insidious, and often more dangerous, is the way that anti-gay legislation gives to intolerant people implicit permission to engage in hate-crimes against LGBT people. We’re not protected, and we’re not considered worthy of protection, so we’re fair game. What’s more, in cases where such laws have recently been passed the trend is for hate-crimes against LGBT people to surge. Perhaps the bigots are trying to send us a message, like “Now shut the eff up about your rights and get back in the closet you *****”.

LBGT PEOPLE and their supporters, who have turned out in large numbers to protest the narrow passage of the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California, are turning their attention to increasing incidents of horrifying hate crimes.

On December 13, in the Bay Area city of Richmond, a lesbian woman was gang-raped by four men who used homophobic epithets as they violently assaulted her for almost an hour, before leaving her naked in the street.
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Activists note that anti-gay hate crimes are on the rise nationally. According to FBI statistics, hate crimes directed at people because of their sexual orientation have risen over the past two years–1,017 were reported in 2005, 1,195 in 2006 and 1,265 in 2007.

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Avy Skolnik, a coordinator with the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, noted, “Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks. People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice.”

In 2008 alone, there was a spike in violent crime against LGBT people. Overall, the FBI reported a 1 percent decline in hate crimes in the U.S. last year–but a 6 percent increase in hate crimes against gay, lesbian and transgender people.
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In December, in Brooklyn, a 31-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, Jose Sucuzhanay, was beaten with a baseball bat and kicked by three men, who jumped out of a car yelling anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs.

Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old transgender woman in Greeley, Colo., was found dead in her apartment on July 17. She had been beaten with fists and a fire extinguisher, after her assailant discovered she was biologically male.
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On January 6, 11 gay bars in Seattle received letters addressed to the “Owner/Manager” that warned, “Your establishment has been targeted. I have in my possession approximately 67 grams of ricin with which I will indiscriminately target at least five of your clients.” A 12th letter was sent to the alternative weekly, The Stranger, warning that the paper should be “prepared to announce the deaths of approximately 55 individuals.”
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Yet the RRRWers have been wringing their hands over how persecuted they are. Apparently people have been saying less than glowing things about some of them. That’s obviously much worse than what Zapata, Sucuzhanay, the lady in Richmond, and others endured. (Is the sarcasm emoticon really necessary here? )

SO WHY has there been such a spike in in violent crimes against LGBT people?

Society at large has moved in the direction of supporting LGBT rights, as ideas around sexuality have moved to the left in the past decade. One example of this is the fact that in 2004, the anti-gay Prop 22 in California won by a 14 point margin as opposed to the 4 percent margin of Prop 8.

However, as the trend of tolerance and acceptance has been increasing, so has the growth of right-wing religious organizations that have focused on getting anti-gay legislation passed across the U.S.

And the RRRW can’t stand the thought of losing their “right” to keep us mashed firmly under their boot heels. What’s more, if we could no longer be legally discriminated against the leaders of the RRRW would have to concoct a new “enemy” for their minions to engage in battle against. They have no identity unless they are God’s Christian Soldiers fighting some enemy. Should they lose us it would take great deals of money, time and effort to redirect their hatred to another target. It’s such a pity they can’t fight poverty, homelessness and hunger with the zeal they do our rights and our very existence.

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Prop 8 and similar legislation not only deny civil rights to gays and lesbians, but they give a green light to violent attacks against LGBT people. Anti-gay legislation gives credence to the idea that LGBT people are “immoral,” “unequal” and don’t deserve protection from hate. And the silence of politicians like Barack Obama on repealing DOMA gives a free pass to the homophobia expressed in legislation like Prop 8.
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Unfortunately Obama is, IMO, beyond hope. He’s apparently decided to throw LGBT people completely under the bus in favor of alliances with the RRRW. Essentially invisible token gestures and weak words on our behalf are useless and gain nothing.

 
The effects of anti-gay laws go well beyond laws themselves. They give carte blanche to bigots to keep being bigots and to harm LGBT people. They allow society to look the other way when law-abiding human beings are harmed, and their families are destroyed, simply because of who they are. It’s well beyond time we rid ourselves of them for the good of all.