April 05, 2008
Leno unapologizes to Ryan Phillippe
Posted by: Chris
Jay Leno is trying his best to have it both ways in the flap over whether he was gay-baiting actor Ryan Phillippe during a "Tonight Show" interview.
Leno had noted Phillippe's conservative Baptist upbringing and his first role, playing a gay teen on the soap "One Life to Live." Then Leno tried to be funny -- always a risky move on his part, if you ask me -- and said, "Give us your gayest look." Phillippe responded, "That is so something I don't want to do. Are you just going to embarrass me tonight, or ... ?"
Here's the clip:
That led to a handslap from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for Leno's "misguided use of adolescent humor" and kudos for Phillippe from GLAAD director Neil Giuliano for refusing to take the bait.
Leno dutifully apologized by press release, insisting, "In talking about Ryan's first role, I realize that what I said came out wrong. I certainly didn't mean any malice. I agree it was a dumb thing to say, and I apologize."
Came out wrong? Hard to see how he was misunderstood and within days, Leno was unfiltered and unapologizing (listen here), whining about "political correctness" and the rigors of being a comic today. After all, he claims to have gay guests all the time and he never makes fun of their relationships. (I'll bet "some of his best friends are gay," too, and he invites them over for dinner and everything.)
Woe is Jay.
March 28, 2008
Apology accepted
Posted by: Chris
Here's something you don't see every day.
Remember that outrageous quote from Peter Sprigg, policy VP at the Family Research Council, about why they oppose immigration rights for gay Americans?:
I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.
I'll take a smidgen of credit, ever so humbly, for being the first to publicize that whopper on the blogosphere. Since then, Sprigg has shown up on dozens of blogs and websites for gay rights organizations.
Now, lo and behold, he taking it all back:
In response to a question regarding bi-national same-sex couples who are separated by an international border, I used language that trivialized the seriousness of the issue and did not communicate respect for the essential dignity of every human being as a person created in the image of God. I apologize for speaking in a way that did not reflect the standards which the Family Research Council and I embrace.
That's refreshing, especially his professed wilingness to at least see the human toll that legal inequality can take. Sure it might not be genuine, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I only wish Sprigg and his fellow travelers would pause long enough to consider what might have motivated that original quote, and whether causing pain and heartache in the lives of gay Americans, his fellow Americans, is really what Jesus would do.
Sprigg goes on to say that FRC opposes the Uniting American Families Act because, "FRC does not believe that homosexual relationships are the equivalent of marriage." Fair enough, but why should that preclude any legal recognition at all for same-sex couples? If Sprigg really respects our dignity, he would see there's no harm in letting us be together with the one we love.
(H/t: Immigration Equality)
March 27, 2008
Say whaaaa?
Posted by: Chris
I've read this article twice, about how upset some Marylanders were when a small town council member responded to a question about school bullying by noting the higher incidence of bullying of gay and gender-nonconforming kids:
At a town hall meeting in Clarksburg last week, Councilman George L. Leventhal said many victims of bullying are gay after a resident commented about that her daughter was being bullied at school.
‘‘It was totally inappropriate,” said Kathie Hulley, president of the Clarksburg Civic Association. ‘‘If the County Council is going to come out to a town meeting and somebody in distress asks a question, to go off on a tangent, which has no bearing to what she was asking, is really bad.”
Councilman Marc Elrich, who also attended the meeting, said ‘‘I don’t know why [Leventhal] went there.”
Huh? Were they upset because the remarks suggested the daughter was gay? Or minimized her victimization if she wasn't? The article never says, dancing around it in some sort of silly suburban code.
Even more bizarre than the reaction to Leventhal's answer was the rambling question he was responding to:
During a question-and-answer segment, Derwood resident Valerie Ricardo described how her daughter was being bullied at an area middle school. Ricardo went on to discuss the county’s anti-discrimination law covering transgendered individuals, and also discussed her fears of being approached by ‘‘a man with an exaggerated walk, a female walk” and ‘‘evil intent in his eye.”
‘‘So I want to say that the risk is real and I think that we need to take these situations of violence and bullying and crazy situations for what they are and begin to do something about it,” Ricardo ended her statement.
Double huh? So we feel sorry for her daughter -- and we do -- and we blame it on men who prance a bit too much?
Can anyone else translate this for me?
March 20, 2008
Say whaaaa?
Posted by: Chris
UPDATE: At the end of the post.
"I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society."
That's how Peter Sprigg, vice president of policy at the Family Research Council, explained the conservative group's opposition to the Uniting American Families Act, which would allow gay Americans the same right straight Americans have to sponsor a foreign partner for citizenship here.
Just in case you wondered…
(Video here; Spriggs quotes at 1:37)
UDPATE:
Immigration Equality linked to this post earlier today, and later the group's director Rachel Tiven issued this statement:
Unfortunately, the Family Research Council's preference to export lesbian, gay, bisexual and trangender (LGBT) Americans prevails. This policy continues to separate people who love each other, but of course Mr. Sprigg's group doesn't care about that.
I hope, however, that the Family Research Council realizes that when we 'export homosexuals' we also export talented men and women who have made incredible contributions to this country and its economy - THAT is 'destructive to society'. LGBT Americans who are forced into exile from this country are researchers for companies like GE and Pfizer, nurses in the Midwest, teachers in our inner cities and sons and daughters of aging parents who depend on them for care.
The Family Research Council might not care about our families but current immigration laws are 'destructive' to America and I hope that is something they do care about.
March 13, 2008
Sally Kern's growing urban myth
Posted by: Chris
THREE UPDATES: At the end of the post.
Remember the tape that surfaced of Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern railing that the "homosexual agenda" represented "a bigger threat" to America than terrorism and Islam and will be "the death knell of this country"? Well it's gone mega-viral, resulting in a cottage industry of rumor and half-rumor to sort through.
First there was the allegation first made in the comments section of a local news story about the controversy that Kern and her husband Steve, a Baptist minister, have a adult gay son named Jesse who they tried to "scrub" from her legislative profile. The Kerns denied their son is gay, according to Queerty:
Our son is not gay. We would still love him if he was, but that would not change the fact that homosexuality is a chosen life style and that we would pray for our son to have a change of heart. My heart goes out to the many parents who have lost sons to AIDs [sic] and other STDs. Those kinds of deaths are tragic because they could have been avoided.
There was no sourcing by Queerty for the Kerns' alleged denial, just as there was no sourcing on the original rumor.
Queerty nonetheless went on to report that a Jesse Jacob Kern, who may or may not be related to Sally and Steve Kern, was arrested for attempted oral sodomy in June 1989, a charge that was later dismissed. At least the charge and dismissal are sourced, although the connection between alleged son and parents is not.
Separately, on page 112 in the comments section to another local news story about the Kern flap, someone identifying herself as Elizabeth posted a letter to Kern she said was written by her teenage nephew Tucker, whose mother was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The long letter (available in the jump to this post here), is incredibly powerful to come from a teen, chastising Kern for claiming gays represent a greater threat than the type of terrorism that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City:
Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.
That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.
As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worst than terrorism.
The letter was so powerful that it's been quickly posted on blogs like OMG, Pam's House Blend and Daily Kos, as well as the blogs for gay rights groups like the Victory Fund and the Human Rights Campaign. Unfortunately, no one has any sort of evidence authenticating the letter, much less Tucker and his aunt Elizabeth. Both OMG and the Victory Fund told me in response to inquiries that they have no idea if the letter is legit, and I have a similar inquiry into Pam Spaulding.
To their credit, the Daily Kos diarist warned there was no verification and Pam's House Blend indicated the source was the comments section to the News 9 story. But more ought to be done to clear up whether the letter and these individuals are legit.
It's really unfortunate, of course, if the letter is a fake. The points about the comparative risks of terrorism and the "homosexual agenda," and even the domestic threat from Islamic extremism vs. Christian extremists, would be perfectly valid even if they weren't made by a teenager who lost his mother in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.
I'll update you if I learn more; in the meantime, all these good folks would be well served by a big fat disclaimer on the letter from "Tucker."
FIRST UPDATE:
Turns out Sally Kern is creating some urban myths of her own, particularly her claim to having received death threats -- which turned out to be false. (Via Joe!My!God!)
On the "Tucker" letter, Pam Spauling confirms that someone named "Dagon" posted the letter on her blog and I've sent an inquiry to that person, whoever he or she is. This is starting to really smell…
SECOND UPDATE:
I've now heard back from "Dagon," who originally posted the letter from "Tucker" on Pam's House Blend. He indicated that he has no additional information that would validate the letter and in fact has "reservations" himself about whether it is legit.
GayPolitics.com, the Victory Fund website, has added a bit of a disclaimer to its post on "Tucker's" letter, but the HRC blog has not.
THIRD UPDATE:
I contacted HRC about reservations concerning the "Tucker" letter and the org's blogger posted this somewhat vague update to his Tucker post:
This week has seen an intense amount of coverage regarding Rep. Sally Kern's outrageous comments. Numerous sources have provided a wide array of information. As always, we've tried to keep focused on the very important facts and we're still trying to verify some reports. We're trying to track down the origins of this letter we linked to in this post...as are a number of other sources.
Do we think he's banned from using the "CC" word and linking here? :)
March 12, 2008
The Sally Kern hate show
Posted by: Chris
Have you heard the appallingly hateful speech by Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern to a group of fellow Republicans? The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund took audio from the speech and spliced it an emotional response that tells Kern, "We are listening":
Some of the highlights (actually, lowlights) of Kern's screed include her allegation that gays represent "a bigger threat" to America than terrorism and Islam and will be "the death knell of this country."
Kern actually alleges that homosexuality has "deadly consequences for those people involved in it," from higher rates of suicides, illness and shorter lifespans. There are, in fact, higher rates of suicide among gay youth, but no reputable science or sociologist has attributed it to supportive groups like Gay-Straight Alliances, which Kern claims is "ruining these kids' lives." Instead, the guilty party is the bigotry and rejection these youth face from people like Kern and the schoolyard bullies who parrot them.
It's interesting that the Victory Fund -- rather than the Human Rights Campaign or the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation -- has taken the lead on calling Kern to the carpet, but it makes sense considering how Kern is spinning her attacks now that they're so very public. The AP reports:
Kern said she was primarily concerned about "the aggressive movement" to support gay candidates across the nation and in Oklahoma, where a gay candidate is seeking a statewide office.
Well that was one focus of her tape-recorded speech, in which Kern -- the wife of a Baptist preacher -- accused homosexuals of "infiltrating city councils." Shades of anti-Semitism anyone?
One aside: It's ironic to hear Kern complain that gays are trying to "get" or "indoctrinate our children" as young as two-year-olds, when we know that it's conservative Christians who have long insisted that public schools join in their indoctrination of children to their private (and bigoted) religious beliefs. In fact it was Kern who introduced the "Religious Viewpoints Discrimination Act," which was an attempt to stop Oklahoma schools from teaching evolution.
Victory Fund director Chuck Wolfe, a friend of mine, has issued a strongly worded open letter to Kern, accusing her of "hate speech":
The point is this: your words have consequences. Ask Judy Shepherd — her son, Matthew, was viciously murdered ten years ago this week by people who think like you. Ask the parents of Lawrence King, an openly gay eighth-grader who was gunned down in school last month by a classmate whose fear was stoked by words like yours. Just this past fall, Steven Domer, a 62-year-old gay man was brutally murdered right in your home state of Oklahoma.
I'm not a huge fan personally of blaming anti-gay speakers with murders and violent crimes that go far beyond what they are advocating; it's a tactic that the otherwise remarkable Mel White has overused in the past. But in Kern's case, the rhetoric comes pretty close to the mark, actually identifying homosexuality as a greater threat than the terrorists, who we all agree should be killed on spot.
Probably most depressing was the news that Oklahoma Republicans reacted to the news by giving Kern a huge ovation in a party meeting since news of the speech went public. It reminds me of the rousing response that the head of the Tennessee GOP got from fellow Republicans after a release that used Barack Obama's middle name and the "turban photo" as a bludgeon to accuse him of being soft on Israel.
If this is the direction of the Republican Party, then I couldn't be happier I chucked my membership a decade ago.
January 24, 2008
Did he say it? You decide.
Posted by: Chris
UPDATE: At the end of the post (before the jump).
The Roman Catholic Bishop for Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands is now denying that he ever linked homosexuality with child sexual abuse, an issue which has of course crippled the Vatican's moral authority on issues of human sexuality (and more).
"I have not in any way compared, nor wanted to compare, nor do compare homosexuality with the abuse of minors," Tenerife bishop Bernardo Alvarez told a Canary Islands television station on Tuesday. "The abuse of minors is morally a very serious sin and judicially it is a crime," he explained.
Not only did Bishop Bernardo Alvarez in fact compare homosexuality to the sexual abuse of minors, he tried to dig himself out by blaming the victims of child sexual abuse for seducing their abusers. In the earlier interview, published last month in the newspaper La Opinión, Alvarez argued that homosexuality is actually a sort of sexual novelty like, according to him, sexual interest in minors.
When the reporter called him out on the obvious difference between a consensual gay relationship and child sexual abuse, the good bishop went on to make the outrageous claim that a good number of 13-year-olds clearly desire sexual relationships with adults and can, in fact, seduce them. How an institution with so fundamentally twisted ideas about sexuality can continue to stake a moral claim on any subject relating to human sexuality is beyond me.
Here's are the bishop's own words. Caveat: the translation from Spanish is my own, and they last sentence or two was especially tricky for me. The excerpt in original Spanish follows after the jump.
What do you think about homosexuality?
I think that the first thing to do is to distinguish people from the phenomenon. People are always worthy of the greatest respect. If a person, for some physiological reason chooses this way of life, they deserve my highest respect. Another issue is whether or not homosexuality is or is not a virtue. We must be very careful now because it cannot be said that homosexuality is suffering or suffers. It is not politically correct to say that homosexuality is a disease, malnutrition, or a distortion in the natural way of being. That was the reading in any dictionary psychiatric ten years ago, but today we cannot say it.
It is crystal clear that in this connection, my thinking is that of the Church: maximum respect for the person. But logically, I believe that the phenomenon of homosexuality is something that harms people and society. Eventually we will pay the consequences as they have been paid by other civilizations. I am not suggesting that homosexuality be repressed, but there is room between suppressing it and promoting it. I believe we must promote education. The values of femininity and masculinity must be inculcated in children. You can tell us these values are backward, but we believe that these values respect freedom but at the same time guide people.
Can sexuality be guided [by the church]?
People cannot be left to fend for themselves. Why not do the same with violence or with other impulses human beings have? Furthermore, only 6% of homosexuals are the result of biological issues. We must not confuse homosexuality as an existential need of a person, with that which is practiced as a vice. The person practices [homosexuality] like child abuse is practiced. He does it because he is attracted to the novelty, a different form of sexuality.
The difference between a homosexual relationship and abuse is clear.
Of course. But why is the abuser of children sick?
To begin with, an abusive relationship is not consensual.
But there can be minors who do consent, and in fact, such do exist. There are teenagers who are 13 years of age and are perfectly OK with it, and in fact wish it. Included are those who can provoke you if you're not careful. This thing of sexuality is more complex than it seems.
UPDATE: Rex Wockner, whose Spanish is definitely better than mine, offers what I'm sure is a better translation of the bishop's last answer:
There can be minors who consent to it and, in fact, there are. There are 13-year-old adolescents who are minors and are perfectly in agreement and, what's more, wanting it. Including, if you're not careful [if you let your guard down], they provoke you. This thing of sexuality is something more complex than it seems.
The original interview excerpt (in Spanish) follows after the jump.
December 13, 2007
Huckabee doesn't heart gays
Posted by: Chris
Mike Huckabee's surge to the top of GOP polls in Iowa and nationwide has brought the expected scrutiny of his record and, ironically for a candidate courting social conservatives, it is on those same issues that he is withering a bit in the spotlight.
First came Huckabee's outrageous statement from his 1992 campaign for U.S. Senate in support of quarantining people with AIDS.
"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.
"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."
Advocating quarantine would have been outlandish enough in 1982, when HIV first emerged, but it was flat-earth territory to do so a full decade later -- six years after Surgeon General C. Everett Koop confirmed the already accepted view that casual contact could not spread the virus.
Huckabee's citation to the Kimberly Bergalis drama is a red herring; even if health care workers with HIV posed a risk, and it turns out they did not if they followed simple protocol, his support for "isolating plague carriers" was not limited to those in medicine.
Given the opportunity last week to distance himself from those views, Huckabee made clear that he's more concerned with being seen as a Mitt Romney flip-flopper than with alienating moderates. At a news conference, he said:
“The one thing I feel like is important to note is that you stick by what you said,” said Huckabee. “I’m not going to go around changing my opinion on everything.” …
Contesting those who say it was “common knowledge” in 1992 that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact, Huckabee said the nation was in “real panic” after the case of a patient contracted the disease from a dentist.
What's most striking is that Huckabee acknowledges the "panic" surrounding the AIDS virus but rather than clarifying how he didn't fall victim to it, he essentially advocates it as valid justification for public policy, even when the science was clearly to the contrary.
There's also no question, of course, that Huckabee's ridiculously harsh view about AIDS was informed by general animus toward gays, since he also said in that 1992 questionnaire, "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."
As off-the-wall as Huckabee's views may sound, they were within the mainstream among Arkansas conservatives at the time. I know because I come from a family of conservative Arkansas Republicans. Born and raised in Little Rock and just across the river in Memphis, I regularly debated a very intelligent uncle over whether AIDS could be spread by mosquitoes and whether it was, as Billy Graham had said, God's retribution against homosexuals. I was no bleeding heart, but my views were nonetheless seconded by no one.
Huckabee's refusal to budge from his 1992 views on AIDS, while endearing him to hard-core conservatives like my kin, risks alienating not just moderates but Republicans who want to nominate someone who is electable. Worse yet, in avoiding at all costs appearing like Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani, who have flip-flopped the other direction on social issues, Huckabee invites an even more damaging comparison: to the current occupant of the White House.
Whatever currency he gains with conservatives by rewriting the science of AIDS and sticking to inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric, he undermines his credibility with Americans -- including many Republicans -- who want a president who will unite the country and not stick stubbornly to views even when all evidence is to the contrary.
We've seen what happens when a president buys into public panic -- in Bush's case about terrorism and "weapons of mass destruction" -- ignoring the data and the qualifiers put on the most dire warnings from experts. The last thing Americans want -- or need -- is another president like that.
October 30, 2007
Ignorant quote of the day
Posted by: Chris
"I educated the whole people in my country but I could not educate my adopted daughter. I felt very regretted with her and that the lesbian case happened in family. I and my wife will send a complaint to court to deprive her of any will and property of my family.
"I and my wife adopted her while she was 18 days in 1988 and she used my family name from that time. She brought her girls to my house and slept together with them. We are concerned that one day her girls take bombs and poisonous materials to our house and we all will die. Who knows in advance? I have five children and one adopted daughter."
— Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, on why he has initiated legal proceedings to abandon his adopted lesbian daughter
Ahh yes. The ever-present threat of lesbian terrorists sneaking bombs and poisonous materials into the houses of leading politicians. Who ever imagined that threat would reach so close to the seat of power in Cambodia?
Good thing Hun Sen acted quickly. Otherwise the Lesbian Avengers might have operated a terrorist cell from within the happy kingdom.
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