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!

 

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.

 

Today Americans United for the Separation of Church and State Filed a lawsuit against South Carolina over their I Believe license plates. Here is the press release from AU:

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today filed a lawsuit in federal district court on behalf of several religious leaders and a religious organization whose First Amendment rights are violated by South Carolina’s “I Believe” license plate.

The new plate features the words, “I Believe,” accompanied by a depiction of a large, bright-yellow Christian cross superimposed on a multicolored stained glass church window.

Plaintiffs in the case include four South Carolina clergy the Rev. Dr. Thomas A. Summers, Rabbi Sanford T. Marcus, the Rev. Dr. Robert M. Knight and the Rev. Dr. Neal Jones as well as the Hindu American Foundation.

The Summers v. Adams lawsuit charges that the Christian plate gives preferential government treatment to one faith. It asks the court to prevent South Carolina officials from producing the plates.

“The state has clearly given preferential treatment to Christianity with this license plate,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “I can’t think of a more flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s promise of equal treatment for all faiths. I believe these plates will not see the light of day.”

The South Carolina legislature unanimously passed legislation to produce the license plate, and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said he is willing to put up the required $4,000 to produce the plate, with the money to be reimbursed by the state later. The legislature has not proposed or made available a similar specialty plate for any other faith.

Gov. Mark Sanford allowed the bill to become law without his signature.

In South Carolina, an individual can apply for a vanity plate less than seven characters long, but symbols and emblems are not permitted. Other specialty plates are created either by DMV approval or through the legislature. Plates approved by the DMV are subject to signification regulations, including “no slogans, names or other text.”

The Americans United lawsuit says the Christian license plate violates the separation of church and state as well as freedom of speech. It notes that other religions will not be able to get similar license plates expressing differing viewpoints, nor can a comparable “I Don’t Believe” license plate be issued.

The lawsuit was filed in Columbia, S.C., in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina.

“The state has made believers of non-Christian faiths feel that they are second-class citizens,” Lynn said. “Under our Constitution, that’s impermissible.”

Attorneys working on the case include AU Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan, AU Litigation Counsel Heather Weaver and AU Madison Fellow Nancy Leong. Aaron J. Kozloski of Capitol Counsel, a Columbia, S.C. law firm, is serving as local counsel.

I wish them success. I notice how none of the states that have these religious plates ever offer such plates to any religion but Christianity, nor do they offer any plates to atheists. What’s more, according to Think Progress, SC is planning on offering the I Believe plates at cost rather than the usual $70 fee they charge for specialty plates. It’s obvious they are promoting Christianity, and that is completely inappropriate.

 

Addendum. A comment has arrived. Ebon said:

I’m curious: Would you object if they also offered plates (at the usual price) to atheists and those of minority faiths? I can just see an atheist plate with the Darwin fish or perhaps that lovely “Coexist” logo I’ve seen you use here.

If they made it fair by offering plates to people of other faiths, and of no faith, (at the same cost, of course) I’d be satisfied. But they insist on only offering plates to Christians, which is a blatant promotion of one religion over another.

 

Kevin Alfred Strom will be a guest of the state for the next two years.

Kevin Alfred Strom plead guilty to one count of possession of child pornography in January and was sentenced to 23 months in prison yesterday morning. The judge rejected his claims that he “unwillingly” possessed the porn and his request that he be sentenced to time served.

Throughout Strom’s trial last year for enticement of a minor and witness intimidation— charges that were thrown out by Moon— the prolific writer, radio broadcaster, and founder of the white-rights National Alliance offshoot, the National Vanguard, has been silent in court, speaking only in January to denounce his portrayal in the media as a neo-Nazi and white supremacist.

“I’ve been in solitary confinement for 16 months,” says Strom. “I ask the court to grant me one minute for every month I’ve been in prison.”

During his statement, Strom said he’s been a good father to his three children, ages 15, 13 and 11, especially his severely autistic 13-year-old son, and that his predicament resulted from “false accusations” by his wife, Elisha Strom.

“I am not a pedophile,” says Strom. “I am the furthest thing from a sexual pervert.” He shared his disgust of pedophiles and child pornographers with the court, noting that he regarded sex as “holy,” and that in high school he was an “absolute straight arrow,” and was called a “prude.”
…..
He explained that the child porn photos found on his computer were fewer than 10 out of more than 100,000, and that they came from an online forum he’d visited that had been “flooded with spam,” including “sleazy, tragic” pictures of children that he deleted. “I possessed them unwillingly,” he told Moon, “but I did possess them.”

“Mr. Strom, this is an unusual case,” acknowledged Judge Moon. “But Mr. Strom, you pled guilty to charges that now you’re saying you’re innocent. I prefer people plead not guilty than put it on me.”
…..
Nonetheless, calling the child porn guilty plea “extremely serious,” Moon sentenced Strom to 23 months in prison and 15 years of supervised release. He did not prohibit Strom from associating with his minor children.

Afterward, Elisha Strom, who had contacted authorities and is the witness Kevin Strom was accused of intimidating, called the almost two-year sentence “a joke.”

During his October trial, she had testified against her husband, saying that she’d returned home to find him naked and aroused in front of the images of two young, white nationalist-movement singers whose heads had been superimposed onto two nude bodies. Moon ruled that was not illegal, and despite Elisha’s claims that Kevin had choked her to keep her quiet, he dismissed the witness intimidation charge.
…..

What a cockamamie excuse for having kiddie porn, but then aren’t they all? At least he’s off the street for 23 months, though that’s not long enough as far as I’m concerned.