Right-wingers have some crazy notions about us gays. We're responsible for all sorts of social and natural ills - AIDS, Katrina, no white after Labor Day. And now we're apparently responsible for human trafficking. That's why, according to some social conservatives, California must pass Proposition 8, the ballot measure intended to overturn gay marriage:

Prop 8 Marriage Protection Amendment will help hinder human trafficking of children by reinforcing the social structure of the traditional, nuclear family.
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Most hear of trafficking overseas. Now there is "reverse trafficking". Predators come to the United States to have sex with children.

Prop 8 Impact: Child prostitutes predominantly come from broken homes where girls do not have a stable two parent family. Instead they are either thrown away, run away or lured. If these children had the balance of a mother and a father the chances of them falling into the hands of the predator are drastically reduced.

Reinforcing the natural, traditional family of a mother and father by Prop 8 will help build and maintain sound families protecting children. Much more will need to be done i.e. bringing moral integrity to the culture.

Homosexual marriage sets forth an open door for confusion of what is normal. Homosexual acceptance takes away the stability of the societal standard of mother and father.

And then America will be made up entirely of whores and pimps and God will smite us and send us to hell, where Satan himself will sodomize every last citizen. Unless you vote for Prop 8, which will immediately end all evil in the world and propel our nation to celestial heights.

Hoorah for mass delusions!

Of all the people we've interviewed over the years, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum's one of the most inspirational. And awesome.

A spunky, socially aware New Jersey native, Kleinbaum currently presides over New York's queer-inclusive synagogue, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah.

Aside from her Orthodox upbringing, Kleinbaum cites her background in Yiddish literature as one of the reasons why she chose to become a rabbi.

Said the jarringly young looking 49-year old:

I actually first seriously started considering Rabbinical school while I was teaching Yiddish literature. I thought I could teach Yiddish literature to a community without a religious background, but ultimately Yiddish is so infused with Judaism that it’s really hard to really deeply understand Yiddish just as a language, because it isn’t simply a language: it was embedded deeply in a culture, and that culture included Judaism, and you can’t parse them out without bleaching out from all of them really the power of what they are.

Now, years on, Kleinbaum uses her position and moral authority to fight injustice, like anti-gay legislation. In fact, the good Rabbi found herself behind bars last year for a Times Square protest against Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which prohibits openly gay Americans from serving in the military.

Our editor recently headed over to CBST to chat with Kleinbaum on the nature of religion, how she reconciled her faith with her lesbianism, Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep" and why religious leaders must talk politics.

Read all about it, after the jump…

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Once a rabble-rouser, always a rabble-rouser! Albert Marchena made headlines in Spain two years ago, when he and his boyfriend became the nation's first same-sex military couple to tie the knot. The men have since split.

Fast forward to today and Marchena's again ruffling feathers with a new calendar:

The 2009 calendar includes images of gay men embracing on a church altar wearing nothing but dog collars, a transsexual crucifixion, and a naked angel striking a provocative pose in a cemetery.

Other pictures show naked men within military scenes, including one gay model wearing only chains photographed in front of an army tank.
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Mr Marchena believes that none of the 24 images contained within his Arcoiris calendar should be considered 'blasphemous'.

"I'm promoting tolerance and equality and this is a way of showing that we can all be united in one place, in this case on the pages of a calendar," Mr Marchena told Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos.

Calendars, of course, are far easier templates for achieving unity.

Taking a page from Adolf Hitler and his campaign against "money-grubbing" Jews, Ugandan Bishop Eria Paul Luzinda this week claimed that gays are motivated by greed.

Speaking to school children in Kayunfa, Luzinda claimed his country men have become too captivated by coinage and, thus, have let themselves slip into "immoral" behavior: "Many Ugandans today think that money is everything and are ready to do anything be it immoral, to get it. Because of their greed for money our people have taken on immoral acts like homosexuality and lesbianism.”

If being bent brought in the dollars, we'd be rich by now!

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Maria Triveri, the mother of a gay son, recently wrote an open letter to Republican presidential candidate Sarah Palin in which she urges the politico to have a softer heart for the homos:

I cried for my son when he told me. I didn't cry because he was gay, but because I knew what he was in for-the slurs, the ignorance, the hatred that he would have to endure. I laugh when I hear people say it is choice. A choice? What does someone do, just wake up and say, "Oh, I guess I'll be gay today." Why would someone choose to be gay when there are so many mean-spirited, evil people out there who hate them and seem to think they could change them?

So this letter goes out to Sarah Palin's church, and churches like hers that think you could change my son and other gay people. You want to pray for my son because he's gay? Bless you for wanting to pray for my son. Prayers are good; I say them every day. However, he doesn't need your prayers because he's gay, he doesn't have an illness nor is he abnormal, nor is he not loved in the eyes of my Lord.

If you want to pray, why don't your followers pray that the Lord blesses them with an open heart, tolerance, kindness and understanding? Why don't they ask the Lord to pray for all who are different to keep them safe and loved? That's what a true Christian would do.

Mama Triveri also discusses how her son looked to join the military after the September 11 terrorist attacks. She feared for him not simply because war can kill, but because of the army's prohibitions on openly gay soldiers. Writes Triveri, "…No parent should have to worry that their child is going to be beaten or killed because of his sexual orientation. If you're gay, you're a sitting target. It is open season to make fun of them, ridicule them, or be disgusted by them." Word.

John McCain enlisted Sarah Palin in part to bolster his standing with the Republican party's religious base. Unfortunately for McCain - and Palin - some Catholic leaders are questioning the Alaska governor's spiritual tolerance.

Frank L. Cocozzelli, head of CrossLeft, and his peers today released a statement today scrutinizing Palin's association with the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement Cocozzelli claims has a "long, strong streak of anti-Catholicism."

…Bishop Thomas Muthee, who has spoken repeatedly at the Wasila Assemblies of God Church and personally blessed and anointed Governor Palin in 2005, engages in what NAR terms "spiritual warfare"– with an aim to de-Catholicize communities and nations. "Brazil is occupied by Catholics," declared Muthee in a militant sermon he gave on March 14, 2004 at a United Kingdom church, 'but people are being saved anyway!"

C. Peter Wagner says that the Roman Catholic Church is under the sway of a great demon he calls the "Queen of Heaven."

Top NAR leaders go on spiritual warfare expeditions to try to decrease the power of this "demon."
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"As a Catholic," said Cocozzelli, "I am deeply concerned about Governor Palin's ongoing involvement with Pastor Ed Kalnins and Bishop Thomas Muthee, both of whom are engaged in the anti-Catholic New Apostolic Reformation movement."

In fairness, we do not know what Governor Palin believes. But her involvement with this movement requires us to ask, Does Sarah Palin share this view of Catholicism? Does she view Catholicism as demonic or anything other than a legitimate, international faith?

CrossLeft goes on to demand that Palin either make clear she doesn't agree with NAR's beliefs and to explain why she associates with the "religious bigots of the NAR movement." That can't be good….