I like the guy who screamed, "God DAMN America!" better

It appears as though president-elect Barrack Obama has begun to sell out the Queer community before he even takes office with the careful selection of a raving bigot to deliver an incantation at his official inauguration. Rick Warren, leader of a superstition-based organization near LA dedicated to the legal subjugation of lesbian and gay people often referred to as a "megachurch" by the corporate media, will attempt to lead our nation in an organized superstitious ritual during the inauguration of our next president. Plans for a public protest have not yet been formalized.

Californians pervert the machinery of democracy to abet religious extremists in an obsessive drive to re-secure special legal status

The state of California, second in the United States following Massachusetts to ensure legal equality for all of its citizens, has suffered a temporary legal set-back in the form of a confusing, discriminatory, and punitive ballot initiative that was funded in no small part by Christian extremists from other states, including the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) in Utah. Although California election officials have not finished counting all the votes, the Christian extremists have already claimed victory in their obsessive drive to re-secure special rights for themselves and those who share their ancient, superstitious beliefs regarding the consensual sexual behavior of legally competent adults. Despite numerous appeals, it appears likely that California's gay and lesbian citizens will once again, at least temporarily, be designated second-class citizens to appease Christian extremists.

Roxborough Has a New Church

According to the Review, it's called St Miriam's of the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, and they are sharing space with the Reconstructionist Mishkan Shalom Congregation at Shurs Lane and Freeland Ave. The fact that neither congregation is preoccupied with abusing gay and lesbian folks is welcome news.

Gavin Newsom Was Right!

It looks like California is going to become the second state in the nation to treat all of its citizens equally under the law. Unless, of course, the apartheid-loving, psycho-Nazi-Jesus-freaks who have appointed themselves arbiters of morality for our entire nation gather enough signatures to put a special referendum on the ballot to nullify the court's decision and then convince enough of their neighbors to vote for it. Governor Schwarzenegger has vowed to uphold the ruling. If he ever had any chance of winning Cali in the general election, John McCain would have shit his pants.

Raging Bigots Stifled By One Courageous Pennsylvania Senator

At the behest of Republican Rasputin-wannabes such as Karl Rove, Pennsylvania, not unlike many other "swing" states, has recently been subjected to repeated efforts by Christian extremists (who receive much of their funding from forces outside the commonwealth) to ratify a constitutional amendment that would relegate our law-abiding and tax-paying gay and lesbian citizens to permanent second-class citizenship by denying them legal recognition of any marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships they might choose to form. Before any constitutional amendment, even bigoted and Nazi-apartheid-like amendments such as this one, can be put to the citizens of Pennsylvania in a referendum, it must be passed by both houses of the legislature in two consecutive sessions with reconciled language. Last session, the House and Senate each passed very different versions and then did nothing to reconcile the versions, putting the Christian extremist bigots back at square one. This session, the extremist forces managed to convince one bigoted freshman lawmaker to re-introduce the failed legislation.

They didn't anticipate the reaction they would receive from Senator Vince Fumo this time around. No one did. Fumo has always believed that gay and lesbian people deserve equal treatment under the law. Now that he's announced he's retiring because of health issues and an ongoing corruption investigation, he apparently feels more free to really say what's on his mind. During testimony before his committee, Fumo informed one Christian extremist who happened to be African American and was speaking in favor of the amendment that Fumo's more conservative colleagues in the Senate would certainly vote to re-legalize black slavery if they could do it on a secret ballot. People pretended to be shocked, but anyone who knows upstate Pennsylvania (anywhere besides Philadelphia and its adjacent suburban counties), knows that Fumo was telling the sad truth, not committing hyperbole as the Daily diplomatically asserts in this op-ed.

After the slavery revelation failed to derail the legislation (which would be surprising almost anywhere besides Pennsylvania), Fumo attached an amendment to the amendment so that it would also outlaw most heterosexual divorces. Up to that point in the debate, the bigots kept asserting that they were not bigots, and all they wanted to do was to protect the institution of marriage. However, when they were faced with the prospect of legislation that might actually preserve a few marriages (on legal paper at least) but would do nothing to subjugate gay and lesbian citizens, they turned around and went home as very unhappy and unfulfilled bigots. The amendment was promptly tabled. The next time it could possibly come up for debate would be after the 2008 presidential election.

Thanks to the infinite fuck-ups and abuses of the Bush-Cheney junta, our beloved country is in a sorry state. It's nice to know (and it gives me hope that we may re-establish democracy on a national level very soon) they don't always get their way.

Undemocratic Leader of Superstition-Based Bigots in Italy Requires Armed Guard After Expressing Hatred Towards Gay and Lesbian Italians

I would never condone violence [for ethical as well as practical reasons], but this is an interesting turn of events in Italy. I wonder if the guy will ever realize how much actual violence, from bullying in primary schools to adult gay bashings that end in comas or death, that his own public hate speech has already legitimized in the minds of its perpetrators?

If She Floats, She's a Witch and We Must Burn Her!

If she drowns, then she's not a witch and we don't have to burn her.

Here's some more free publicity for the gay and lesbian human rights movement.

In spite of my personal belief that organized Christianity is a cultural failure, I admire these folks for trying. If only the people they were trying to reach actually read the Bible and tried to live their lives in accordance with the principles set forth by Jesus. Every time the Soulforce activists are arrested, or even visit one of these parachristian extremist training camps [such as the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary led by Albert Mohler, Jr, the guy who advocates "treating" gay or lesbian fetuses with maternal hormone patches], it ensures a flurry of local media attention and even some national attention. This forces the extremists and the local warlords who habor them to expend money on extra police and court time. This is money that otherwise would be spent discriminating against and persecuting people with whom they disagree.

Jesus Camp

I thought this movie would be funny. It was truly disturbing. [OK, the scene where the still-closeted meth-snorting, hooker-blowing Rev. Haggard tells the cameraperson to "Repent!" was funny and not the least bit disturbing–but only because it does not involve any innocent children.] Were I The Dictator, or even the District Attorney, I would arrest or prosecute most of the adults in this movie for child mental and spiritual abuse.

The documentary follows several preteen children from their home towns to a parachristian extremist summer camp where they are taught that their elders' particular set of peculiar superstitious beliefs and worldview are the only correct ones and that it is their duty to indoctrinate the rest of us into them. One girl reminded me of Mary Catharine Gallagher, but only the pathetic parts of the character, not the funny ones. It was hard to laugh during this movie because I felt so sorry for the actual kids who were its primary subjects. It was so obvious that they were parroting dogma that they clearly didn't understand to win the approval and love of the [very warped] adults in their lives.