On full display in Montana, this week, in this clip about a bill spearheaded by the GOP-Tea "purification" politics:
Special note to Tim Geithner, HUD Secretary, President Obama, and Senator Baucus: is it easier to just offer mortgage backstop credit in fairness (via Freddie and Fannie) in a way so broad that it "rationalizes" the whole market, or is it really more efficient to have x number of regulators trying to (a) find and then (b) redress grievances of unfair lending practices?
The question kinda answers itself...
Showing posts with label Gay Equality - Homophobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gay Equality - Homophobia. Show all posts
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Openly Genocidal Intent in America: Kill the gays
Monday, December 13, 2010
The State of the Union
Gays bigotry. Frank Rich pens a piece on the takedown at and of the Smithsonian that meets or exceeds Andrew Sullivan's knack for words.
Elsewhere, this week, organized gay hate groups, smarting from their designation as such by the SPLC, tipped their hat at an upcoming "start debating, stop hating" campaign to fight the challenge.
I have this to observe, in the big picture, about their manufactured meme on the "loss of religious freedom", due to the 'gay agenda'.
Women have achieved places of power and have been given all the legal rights of men in society. This is not scriptural, in Christianity, on so-called 'conservative exegesis'.
So, have we seen the end of society or the loss of "religious freedom" because of it? No.
It is only the small size of the gay population that makes bigotry supportable, in 2010.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Hate, Fear, Compassion
I blogged about it once before, and it seems that the Kos daily hate mail is brimming with gay fear and hate. It's not new that "faggot" is somehow the worst epithet. But the response is relatively new (I think): "It's okay to come out of the closet."
Meanwhile, flashback:
"Back in the early 50s (I was 14), I used to bowl in the little bowling alley in the American Colony in Nueva Rosita, a mining town in Coahuila, Mexico. We used to snicker and circle any total of 41 pins. It seems that sometime in the early 50s, Mexico City cops broke up a raucous gay party and arrested 41 men. Since then the number has been used to describe gay men in Mexico. He is one of the forty one! In Argentina we call gay men trolos and lesbians tortilleras. I don't know the origin of the former and the latter confuses me as a tortilla maker in Argentina would make omelettes while in Mexico she would make tortillas."
-Artist, photographer, Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Rise of the Indecent Right
Reported today, from Southbend, IN, from the fear-filled town council, who voted down commonsense civil ordinance to offer basic employment nondiscrimination to gay and lesbian citizens:
"I'm pleased the council did the right thing in lovingly opposing special rights for homosexuals," he said, adding, "And I renew the offer to all those struggling with same-sex attraction to come to freedom and come to wholeness."
recalling:
Thursday, October 21, 2010
What should parents tell their kids or their gay kids?
It occurs to me that one of the problems dispelling the "they will and want to teach homoSEXuality to your kids", in school or in mysterious gay recruitment centers, is to actually spell out what gays think parents should tell their kids about 'the ghey'.
Here's my 2-cents (I'm sure there are people more qualified than I). And, face it, parenting doesn't come with a manual so the need is ever present.
1. Don't try to execute a parental duty by asking your kids if they are gay, but create an accepting environment for them to tell you.
Kids listen. They watch. If you make nasty cracks about gay people on TV, disparage "those queers in Provincetown or San Francisco or Fire Island" or wherever, or laugh or chuckle when someone makes a comment about two girls in love or two guys holding hands, you are making a hostile environment for your kid, who may one day need to tell you something.
Some might say it is best to ask your kid, if you suspect. A young kid who is unsure, might feel compelled to lie to a question about it. Now he/she is 'locked in a lie', on top of everything else.
Some might say it's enough to just tell your kids, "It's okay, if you have something to tell me, it's okay if you are gay". But I'd argue that is not enough. On top of the fact that even most nongay kids, but not all, have trouble talking to their parents about their sexual feelings, kids may well look, on average, to regular behavior patterns and other modes of defining and finding a true 'safe space' than accept an off-hand verbal assurance. Actions speak louder than words.
So, the general thought is to do and say what you can indirectly, treat all your kids the same, and let your gay kid come to you with the information, on average.
Notice, if you want, based on your religious precepts or whatever, you can still teach your kids not to be promiscuous or "sexually adventurous", if that is your belief. Tell kids that "gay" is really reserved for people who 'truly, deep down, feel that way', but not for everyone. It's really that simple. The kids will get it.
2. Don't lie to your kids or set up a double standard
If you deliberately impose an information blackout on kids about grownups who are gay or a disinformation regime, then you've broken the scared parenting trust, and it will backfire, if ever the child comes to find the truth.
I also think it is a problem if parents set up a double-standard for their kids, in terms of the truth. If they send a signal or a message that "we love you because you're not like those other gays", that's a mistake. Same if the message is "God doesn't love gay kids, but we love you because you are our son/daughter, nonetheless". That dichotomy is a grave breakdown in authority. It's so much at odds with itself, that the core negativity of it could be internalized.
I'm sure this list could go on. Every parent-child relationship is unique, on top of it.
Still, this is a far cry from "teaching homoSEXuality"; it can be put into a soundbite; and it sidesteps wild cries about "teachable moments" and "promoting [sex] or homosex". What do "we" want parents to teach kids?: don't lie and do actively create an environment in which your gay kid can come to you.
This story, covered by Dan Savage, caught my eye. It's possible that Dan underestimates what I'll call 'best-little-boy-in-the-world-syndrome', after a similar title, or even something more fundamental. Some kids really do live for and seek the approval of adults, of parental figures. That can last well into later years. Paradoxically, perhaps, the "feeling" for a "connection" with a parent often continues even if that parent was physically abusive (!).
So, if someone's cherished relationship with their grandmother was perceived to be 'at risk', and that person has a perceived position of influence with others so that there is a political, intrafamily aspect to "disappointing" or "challenging" a key individual, one could imagine all types of associated behaviors, perhaps even including suicide (there might be all kinds of signs of 'acting out' or other 'cries for help').
However you come to judge all these ruminations, things are changing. But, I'm still struck every time I read a story about those who never told their parents until very late, and parents who replied, "We always suspected, but can't understand why you didn't tell us." Until one truly understands the psychology in a sympathetic way to both sides of that equation, it's hard to answer, 'what should parents tell their gay kids?'...
The Education of Perkins, Gallagher, Brown, Fischer, George, Wilcox... the wayward apostles
LET THEM WHO HAVE EARS TO HEAR
Reminder #459,382,934 to the wayward apostles, October, 2010, a.d., that everyone is a victim of homophobia, not just gays, and sometimes nongay children pay a huge price, including prison, not just expulsion, for the parental leeway given to their fear, hate, and indifference:
(h/t Box Turtlers)
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The absence of malice does not equal the presence of love
This is not the reply I would have written, from Dan Savage, but that is what is great about the diversity of activists that we have. !
And here is the message that I have, shorthand, for Christians like Dan's reader (the religious right is not monolith):
We find, over and over, in practice, that the perceived absence of a malice against gays "in your heart" is not enough. Absence of malice is not the same as the presence of love. And where love does not exist, where love is not asserted, hate of many kinds flourishes.
So what is it going to take, i.e. "what can I do?"?
Concerned Christian parents have to finally come to be able to say these words in the same sentence, "love", "gay kids": As in "God loves gay kids" or "We all must love our gay kids, not bully them, because when tragedy strikes, victim and abuser, they are all our sons". And daughters. Say them in their heart, in their local school, in their voting booth.
Until that time, blaming "Satan" or "someone else" for the extraordinary social stress put on gay kids, made in God's image and called the same as everyone else, is spiritual violence, spiritual negligence, a parental abdication, a willful crime.
Today's Christians, who seek a just society for all, cannot leave these things undone, even as they pray for forgiveness for "things left undone".
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