Well said, Sir.

I think the best we can do now is boycott, protest, or leave. There are other countries more willing to treat us as equals, and we really should be boycotting and protesting more here. That stuff changes the world more than one person getting a job ever can. Keep your eyes open guys, that way you can avoid at least some of the battering.

Go peddle your Christian snake-oil in Konstantinople. The only real perve here, is you!

And while you’re there, perhaps you might like to read this about that.

http://www.questioningchristia.....non_h.html

Gagnon is just another homophobe, who like Reverend Haggard, is simply trying to wrap himself up in pseudo-knowledge to hide his real ignorance and bigotry.

You have reached the end of the Internet. There is no place left to go. Now, get the fuck off this queer site, shut your computer off and go do something useful and constructive with your time.

for those interested in Christian response to homo-sex, look up Robert Gagnon.

As I see it what so many people on both sides of the religious issue fail to do is take into account when dealing with the Old Testament is their refusal to place it within the historical context, that being the long standing struggles the Jews faced in their long cultural history. As most scholars of the bible will agree, the Jewish portion of the Old Test, the Talmud, was not written as the events they described happened, nor when they were finally written were they written all at once or in chronological order. That does not mean the text is of no historical value, for it is only be viewing its verses through the lens of the religious struggles the Jews were facing at that time that once can gain any clear and honest understanding of why certain things were written down in the first place.

More than any other issue, much of the perspective of those who wrote the first Talmud were guided by hands who feared their culture and faith would be lost by becoming assimilated among the other cultures they came into contact with, specifically the Philistines and the Babylonians.

While there are several other major themes with the Old Test. the main one concerning their views on homosexuality were not based on the concept that such behavior was sinful or wrong. The reason such verses were written at all was because the Jews feared that accepting such practices, as they were among many of the other cultures they would come in contact with in their long history would cause them to lose their own identity. For that reason when one reads the Old Test. one needs to take into account that it is not a neutral text but contains many purposely written biases that were included in the Talmud in order to support the strength of Jewish beliefs in its people.

To give you the most obvious example of where such bias was used… The story of Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer, much like the people who lived in Canaan when the Hebrews arrived from Egypt. Unlike them the Hebrew were primarily herdsmen. That is why in Genesis Abel’s animal sacrifices was considered more favored by god while Cain’s offering of his crops were rejected. Those who wrote that part of Genesis, wrote it the way they did to explicitly strengthen the idea that their people’s customs, like herding, were more favored by god, compared to the farming tradition practiced by the Philistines and that in order to keep god’s favor they should not take on the customs of other cultures.

As for the verses dealing with homosexuality the situation is a little more complex . Why such verses is in the bible in bible at all can first be in Genesis in the verses dealing with the story of Noah and his sons. In one of the verses it describes how one of his sons had offended Noah for having seen him naked while also naming the people whom they credited that son of being the founder of and who were later defeated by the Israelites and enslaved. Now no real scholar of the Old Test. believes that the story of Noah and that of the offending son was written any time before the Jews conquest of Canaan.

It was not back written just to justify the Jews enslavement of that particular people. Historians believe that the particular tribe was one of many in the region who practiced the worshiping of a mother goddess deity. Also very common within those groups who followed such beliefs was the practice of sexual rituals which also included homosexual acts.

It was not the sexual acts themselves that were meant to be seen as a sin against god, but it was a tool used as a means of preventing the Jewish people from adopting what they saw as a culture and religion that threatened their people’s identity.

Some might claim I’m splitting hairs with such a premise but when there are such examples as King David’s relationship with King Saul’s son there is a real basis to the distinction between love people of the same sex can share with one another compared to the Jews fears that their own faith would replace by the beliefs of others. The worship of the idol Baal is just another such example in the Old Test. where the Jewish people felt their culture was under threat.

As for the New Test. one must remember that for the most part, the first followers of Christianity were also Jewish. During much of the early years where principles of the Christian faith had yet been determined there was a heated debate between Saint Paul and Saint James over how one could become a Christian in the first place. James, who controlled the church from Jerusalem believed that before one could become a Christian one first had to convert to Judaism believing that one needed to be under the convenient god made to Abraham in order to be enjoy the one made by Jesus. Paul, on the other hand, insisted that the second convenient was completely independent of the first therefore there was no need to convert to Judaism even though Paul himself was born Jewish. I think most of you know who won that argument but for those who don’t, it was Paul.

I only bring up that point so that even those who refuse to agree with my previous arguments over the true reason why homosexuality was ever seen as forbidden under Jewish law by continuing to insist that the same laws listed in the Talmud was also meant to apply to Christians is a false premise. Those who continue to insist such I’ve come to the habit of referring to as double dippers.

Hypocrite much?

That sounds like the sort of argument that a pedophile, or incestuous pervert, would say.

There’s no doubt it, Robert. You’re absolutely tight. They are loosing the battle and they’re scared shitless.

Why else would they be throwing so much time, energy and money at this issue?

Their thinking is as antiquated at the flat-world theory.

And, if they were absolutely certain in their belief that God does not approve of SSM (equality) for all human beings and that their notion of “right” will prevail in the end, they would be content to read their bibles and sing hymns of praise to their Lord…and pay us no mind whatsoever.

Oh, I almost forgot. If God and his followers are really that pissed off about gays getting married, he’s gonna put it all right again with the rapture.

So, what are the fundies and magical undies crowd so up in arms about? Where they are going, they won’t have to look down and watch us holding hands or kissing. LOL

Yes! I resort to the term “breeder” when its really necessary. The ex-gays and others who come here to agitate often try to manipulate us but NEVER succeed when they say….”calling straights ‘breeders’ is not going to help your cause”. They want it both ways, just like the religious psychos, always playing the victim card when we bash them back. You know, the reason they come here is simple…they know they’re losing the cultural war. Don’t be dissuaded when they say things such as…”the majority of straight people in the world don’t support same-sex marriage, so it must be wrong”. Its another form of manipulation, part of the dehumanization m.o. that they use with impunity, but its firing back on them. They dismiss seven countries and six states as insignificant, the places where we can marry, and it will continue to grow, its unstoppable.

You can’t!

You won’t!

You shouldn’t!

Stop fighting!

Submit to my authoritay!

I could not agree with you more, Robert. They are emotionally charged, denegrating words that hurt, no matter in what context that they are employed. And had “Obama” had his thinking cap on, he would never have chosen to use those words.

The religious wackos and the far right use pejorative terms like this (and worse)all the time and without even giving it a second thought.

Yet, they get all bent out of shape should anyone dare to call them breeders.

No hypocrisy there. LOL

Hi, even it was said in jest, its no joking matter. Using words such as “pervert”, “incest”, that’s the kind of thing you get from the religious wackos and others on the far right, mostly all who vote republican.

To digress, these are the same people who support the murder of doctors at women’s reproductive centers and who claim they belief in pro-life but many of them support the death penalty because they think its distinguishable from abortion which it isn’t. Capital punishment is nothing more than state sanctioned murder. Oddly, the roman cult is against the death penalty. It gets back to the cherry picking this and that from the bible, same m.o.

Robert, I was completely baffled by “Obama’s” commentary.

Was he mimicking the President and the DOJ to underscore their apparent disdain for the LGBT community, or was “Obama” really mouthing his own condescending remarks about us being perverts are no better than people engaged in incest?

Sign me confused. LOL

Bill, I so agree with that statement. I didn’t advocate for Obama getting elected….in fact I was quite unconvinced. The only reason I did vote for him was to get rid of Bush, the worst of the two evils, nothing more. I didn’t want another four years of fascism. I’ve now returned back to my Green base.

Absolutely right they do and deliberately! Not so long ago, I took one bigot to task on the Leviticus mantra. His response..”oh that’s the jewish part of the bible, that doesn’t apply to christians”. Yet….the right wingers like him use a lot of the old testament to throw at us. What a moron!

Exactly so!

Being the idiot that you are….you might want to check government crime statistics on incest. The overwhelming majority of them are commited by straights, many of whom marry first and second blood cousins, even legal in some states, and in the case of first cousins, …they’re advised not to have children because of birth defects and other abnormalities like “YOU”. A high percentage of incest crimes occur between siblings…usually straight ones.

We don’t need idiot Maoist self-criticism on this question, but we do need honesty instead of Obots pretending they knew all along that he was a bigot. The chuckleheads who advocated voting for Obama helped create this mess because it was obvious from the beginning that campaigns characterized by pandering to bigots, like those of the Clintons, McCain and Obama could not produce LGBT friendly policies. The Obots put partisan politics ahead of the needs of the movement.

Both major parties are infested with bigots, support the racist war for oil, and act as lapdogs for the looter rich, rewarding them with trillions of dollars stolen from taxpayer’s while insisting that working people accept increasingly harsh austerity measures.

They can no more be reformed than banks can be relied on to stop predatory practices or lawyers like Alec can tell the truth.

Both parties are owned by the rich and run by desperate hustlers who pander to them and the religious right. They will never be instruments for change, except, as we’ve seen, to make matter worse.

Working in either the Republican or Democratic (sic) parties, trying to influence them or bartering support for a few crumbs is a vast waste of energy and an exercise in futility and misleadership.

Forget the Democrats. They own the war. They own the recession maybe depression. They own homobigotry, racism and misogyny. They’re as extinct as T-Rex, and like old Rex, way to dumb to have figured it out.

Are you being tongue-in-cheek….or serious?

DOJ brief filed for Obama…

“I’m looking at you Barry Franks)”

You did mean Barney Frank, did you not?

I feel your deep disappointment…and your pain, JosephG.

I can only wonder, now that this man who is the first ever to have achieved the office of President of these United States, would feel about the idea of a gay man or lesbian woman becoming President?

Would “Gawd be in the mix” about that, as well?

“Hello…..civil unions are FULL EQUALITY?”

Robert, that assumption on behalf of Mr. O and our present administration, is as egregious and insulting to LGBT people as telling a black man that drinking from a separate water fountain is “as good” or “equal” as drinking from a fountain reserved exclusively for white people.

Now I’ll hear it, for sure, from all those who hold to the notion that we cannot compare the suffering of the LGBT community to that of the black community. *Rolls eyes*

“You can’t cherry pick this or that and omit everything else to advance your belief system and use it to discriminate. You either believe ALL or you believe nothing.”

Ah. But there’s the rub, Robert.

They do, indeed, cherry pick this or that.

But, the real killer is, they do it with impunity either from the laws of their God…or those of mankind.

That’s why religion is so effective and difficult to do battle with. How does one go about slaying a mythical, fire-spouting dragon?

I have never seen such a discombobulated collection of words and sentences in my life. English much, do you?

“It says on our currency “In God we trust”

So what? Had you taken the time to do a simple Google, you would have found any of a number of articles that dispute and debunk that idiotic “irrefutable proof” you just proffered to get us to buy into your “strait” bigotry and discrimination. Here is but one of many.

http://atheism.about.com/libra....._motto.htm

Then, based on that misstatement, you go on to say, “If we trust in God we need to understand that the bible is is word.”

I love how you Christers lay the foundation for your idiotic arguments on a lie, and then go on to build on that lie with further assumptions and lies. Your bible is no more the word, than the Talmud, the Koran or Ali Baba and the Forth Thieves is.

“As a strait man with a criminal record, finding a job is easy as fighting a gorilla!”

Well, had you paid a tad more attention in English 101, perhaps you might have have had more success in finding a job. Since you did not elaborate on your felon status, one can only assume what that might have been all about, so I won’t go there.

Rather than lecturing the gehys and quoting verse from the bible…perhaps you might want to consider brushing up on your spelling and composition and bone up on your facts (from reliable sources other than the bible), before posting on a gahy site.

Anything less than that, will simply be perceived as an insult to our intelligence.

Thank you for sharing your ignorance with us.

Let’s just be honest, regardless of whichever political party you support we are only fooling ourselves into believing that our hard efforts on the behalf of any political candidate (even if they also happen to be gay… I’m looking at you Barry Franks) will ever bear much fruit. What we have to accept is that while most of those who associate themselves with the Democratic party generally not as hostile towards their gay brothers and sisters as those who see themselves as Republicans, the history of the Democratic Party has shown time and time again that they might promise you the moon, but once elected they do their best to pretend you don’t even exist.

The party itself can barely agree on anything. You have your blue dog democrats, your far left liberals or as they prefer to be called, progressives, the third way, poll obsessed, Clinton moderates not to mention all the different caucus, be it on issues, race, gender as so forth, each fighting within the big tent of their own party to get their issues heard.

We must not forget that ever since FDR, the Democrats have always taken for granted the votes of minorities, daring to even be smug in knowing that we have no other party to turn to.

While we all know that when it comes to the issue of civil rights we can expect little help from the Republicans, at least they’re not hypocritical in the sense that they do not stoop to pandering for our votes when they have no intention of supporting our causes in the first place.

Democrats on the other hand have always insisted that the tent of they’re party is large enough that anyone can find a home there. Once they have won the elections however they so easily forget their past promises in favor of their own personal agendas. SF mayor Gavin Newsome, who wishes to become the next governor of California, is now having to back pedal himself on his support of gay rights in order to increase his own electability.

We in the gay community have long had a love/hate relationship with the Democratic Party. It was under Bill Clinton that the policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was put in place. For the former president to have the nerve at the time to claim that his policy would actually help protect the brave men and women who not only put their lives at risk for the sake of our country, but also take on the additional burden of having to hide such an important part of who they are from the same soldiers who depend on them to watch their backs is an unnecessary tragedy in of itself.

Look at all the damage it cause for the gay movement, instead of protecting our gay service men and women, the number of those kicked out of the military actually sky rocketed under DADT. If anything, Clinton’s so called compromise ended up setting up a court of inquisition within the the army, giving the military the legals justification to pursue their witch hunt against gays in the service.

If that wasn’t enough of a kick in the face to our community Clinton also signed DOMA into law. Which not only prevents us from enjoying the same federal rights of other committed couples, DOMA was the fuel that ignited the the explosion of anti-gay bills in so many states.

Of course Clinton does not bear sole blame for all the setbacks we faced during his years in office. Congress was after all dominated by the anti-gay Republican party and at the time most polls showed that a majority of the general population supported such policies. (If there was one thing Clinton always kept an eye on it was his poll numbers)

As for President Obama, I return to the beginning. Like many other minorities, while politicians might be willing to pander for our votes and donations, we have to accept that as things stand now we simply are not that powerful or important of a political force that the Democrats and most certainly the Republicans would be willing to risk losing the support of any of the much larger voting blocks and activists by keeping their promises to us.

So yes, while we all feel disappointed if not a bit betrayed that so far the present administration has done nothing to keep their promises they made to our community I am not at all surprised by it. The most we can hope for is that if Obama wins reelection, he could, as a lame duck, decide he can risk spending the political capital needed to push for equal civil rights for the gay community, regardless if it means angering many of his own supporters.

Still I will not let myself be fooled into believing that the President would do anything to risk the future of the Democratic Party by giving their opposing Republican supporters a uniting issue that will make then even more determined to see they regain the Oval Office. After all, wasn’t that exactly what Bill Clinton did when he was president.

None of this is meant in any way to say we should start supporting the Republican Party in order to have our civil rights finally recognized. While I see myself as a middle of the road independent who found the Bush years deeply troubling, I do not see how it helps us at all in gay community treating those gay men and women who happen to support the Republicans as traitors or social outcasts. While gay civil rights is important to all of us we must never make the mistake in believing that our sexual identity is the only part of our humanity that matters, though I will admit general society is all too willing to help us pigeonhole ourselves to such a narrow part of our lives.

My point in even bringing up the Log Cabin Republicans is that while many of us disagree with their support of anti-gay candidates, in a sense they do serve a purpose for the gay community as a whole, whether we want to admit it or not. While the left and right are all too willing to throw mud at each other, the fact that there are those who openly support the Republicans in a strange way also helps humanize gay society if only by showing that we’re all not shaped by the same cookie cutter that the religious right love to take a bite out of.

Though I am sure many of you would disagree with that statement it is my belief that people like Neil Patrick Harris (though I am sure he’s not a Republican), who is able to be openly gay without the issue of his sexuality becoming the public’s sole focus on his life, is exactly what our community so desperately needs right now. We are as diverse in culture, views, race, and opinions as are found within society at large, and we need to make sure people know that, if only to disprove all the inane stereo-types that the anti-gay movement are all too willing to use against us. Even so, lets be honest, there are times that the actions and behavior by a a very vocal minority within the gay community make us seem like our own worse enemies.

So what should we do? Do we abandon our support for all political parties knowing they’re all talk and no action. Personally I would have to say no. While it is clear that we will not get the support we so desperately need from the present generation of baby boomers who now dominate Capital Hill, we must remain politically active so when the already more accepting younger generations come into their own we will still have a political voice, though I doubt the apologists that dominate the HRC and the Log Cabin should be that voice.

Until then our focus should be on the grassroots level, and by that I don’t mean continuing to throw away money at the same ghettoized gay organizations who so far have failed to deliver on their promises. While more men and women than ever are stepping out of the closest we often find that we have only stepped into the slightly larger, but still confining closet of our inner gay community. This is not a suggestion that we turn ourselves into a single batch of homogenized vanilla ice cream in order to gain greater acceptance.

It is the very image that we are all white, affluent, youth and sex obsessed hedonists that has done nothing to help gain the support of other minorities, especially in the gay black and Latino communities. Its time to leave the sheltered confines that were once so essential to us in the early years of the gay movement. We must try to overcome our fear of being hated or rejected because of something as basic, and human as our god given desire to give and receive the love

Yes, there are some who will never accept us no matter what given their religious beliefs, but that’s their problem, not ours. Just like our own sexuality, matters of faith can make up the central pillar of how a person views themselves, even if it results in misguided beliefs. To demand they change their tightly held beliefs is as pointless and self destructive as their vain attempts to ‘cure’ us of our love for one another.

Even so there are those members in our community who are just as unwilling to accept the rest of society. As is the case with the religious conservatives who would rather damn us to hell than shake our hand, there are those among us who deeply hold onto the idea that the only way we will ever enjoy the freedom and respect they feel we deserve can only be achieved through isolating ourselves within our own closed cultural bubble, if people have a problem with that they can go to hell themselves. It is an unfortunate tragedy for all society that the media focuses so much attention on the extremist on both sides of the gay issue for it only serves to enlarge the gap between us.

Finally, we should all be proud of who we are and all the progress we have made since the 70′s. There is still a lot that needs to be done and there are problems within our own community that we must address so our opponents cannot use such issues against us but I strongly believe that within the next 10-15 years America will undergo a great transformation by finally achieving the dreams the civil rights movement began so many years ago.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispat.....a.php#more

I really respect Ed Brayton — super smart and level headed blogger.

Tim, from what I know of the law, any American born in a foreign country where at least one of the parents is a U.S. citizen is technically entitled to citizenship, provided that the parent(s) nationality can be documented with either a birth certificate or passport. If his birth were in a U.S. military facility abroad, that would automatically entitle him to citizenship even though he was born out of the country. Obama of course was born on U.S. soil. The naysayers disagree and contend that the birth certificate was a forgery, it clearly is not.

I think the situation with McCain may have been more precarious. He was born in Panama I think. And, it may not have actually been on “US soil” as in on a military base. I don’t remember all the details. His case may have actually been a “technical” violation of the legal requirements for becoming president. The congressional action may have really been required for McCain to just be sure.

I gave Obama money….I gave him support…I gave him my vote….I got NOTHING!

I got LIED TO!
I got MANIPULATED!
I got told to WAIT…WAIT….WAIT!

When Sen. Obama was running…he OFTEN said…”they tell me to WAIT….America will SOMEDAY allow a black president….” He spoke of the audacity of hope…and the URGENCY of NOW…..but as for our URGENCY….well…its just WAIT WAIT WAIT…we can’t take on the REPUBLICAN MINORITY!

My answer…and apparently others here….

I will give NO MORE MONEY
I will give NO MORE SUPPORT
I will give him NO MORE VOTES and I will encourage my friends and family to do the same….I’ll be staying home on election day!
I have taken my name off of his mailing list….and I will HANG UP on anyone who calls supporting him.

SHAME ON HIM FOR HIS SAFE ANSWERS AND HIS FLIP FLOPPING POLICIES….If he gets elected next time…it won’t be because of me!

Tim, how convenient for them. Why didn’t they do the same with Obama after an original birth certificate was produced? The Department of Vital Records knows a forgery from a real one, but that of course isn’t enough to convince the bigots. They also forget his mother was a natural born American citizen, but that doesn’t count I suppose if one is a democrat.