Posts by Michael Jones
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The Catholic Church's Program to Cure Gay People
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How Gay Does Adam Lambert Really Need To Be?
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Polls in New Jersey Say Bring On the Gay Marriage
Why Gay Adoption Matters in the Florida Governor's Race
Published November 18, 2009 @ 06:39PM PT
Florida is one of two states that have instituted bans on adoption for LGBT families, sharing the dubious honor with Arkansas. Thankfully, there's movement in Florida to overturn this out-dated law that not only fosters homophobia, but punishes children by keeping them away from healthy families.
First a judge last year in Miami ruled that the ban on gay adoption was illegal. Then came word this week that a candidate for governor in Florida, Alex Sink, supports overturning the ban.
That's huge news, in part because Alex Sink's opponent in the Governor's race -- current state Attorney General Bill McCollum -- proudly defends the ban on gay adoption and believes that homosexuality fosters depression and psychological illness. Those are McCollum's exact words in a lawsuit filed to keep the gay adoption ban in place. Seems like he'd rather have children languish in America's foster care system than see them placed with qualified and outstanding parents.
To be clear, nearly every single study on adoption shows that not only do children do well when they are placed with LGBT parents, but they in some cases outperform children raised by straight parents. Moreover, massive numbers of studies show that gay parents are just as gifted and qualified to raise children than straight parents.
Sink's comments underscore that very fact, and place Florida children above partisan social issue politics. McCollum's words and deeds, on the contrary, keep children from being raised in healthy homes, and hold them hostage to a right-wing agenda hell-bent on using faith instead of science and the principle of equality to best determine state adoption policy.
The End of the Road for Carrie Prejean
Published November 18, 2009 @ 10:06AM PT
Turns out that if you make at least eight sex tapes, then ask your boyfriend to lie about your age in them, then say that it's very Christian to get a boob job, and finally tell Larry King that he's being inappropriate for simply asking basic journalistic questions, you might find yourself on the defensive. And that's right where Carrie Prejean, the former Miss USA pageant contestant of "opposite marriage" fame, is finding herself these days.
Her latest setback? The National Organization for Marriage -- the conservative anti-gay organization that scooped Prejean up after her gay marriage comments at this year's Miss USA contest -- has disassociated themselves from the former beauty queen. After all, it's kind of hard to espouse traditional family values with a side order of lewd sex videos.
And the hits just keep on coming. According to Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate, Prejean has also had her invitation rescinded to speak at the GOP's Capitol Hill Club, a fancy pants conservative private club that caters to Republican lawmakers inside the Beltway. Even Meghan McCain got in on this story, saying that Prejean exudes hypocrisy.
"I find it even more disturbing that as long as you oppose gay marriage, filming yourself having sex is taken more lightly," McCain wrote for the Daily Beast. "Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in this kind of thinking? And hypocrisy is something the Republican Party can’t afford to have right now as the GOP struggles to find its identity."
Justice Scalia is Talking Sodomy Again
Published November 17, 2009 @ 06:54PM PT
He may arguably be the U.S. Supreme Court's most conservative justice, but for a man who likes to sell folks on traditional family values, Justice Antonin Scalia sure does like to talk about sodomy. His latest riff on the subject comes courtesy of an Ohio State University conference on the Constitution, where Scalia said that since the nation's founders didn't write sodomy or homosexuality into the U.S. Constitution, there's no good reason to think that people deserve the right to love whoever they choose.
Boy, if only the nation's founders had written that U.S. Supreme Court justices could be term-limited! Especially ones who go duck hunting with torture-loving ex-Vice Presidents.
Justice Scalia prodded folks who believe that the Constitution is a living document. "Did any provision of the Constitution guarantee a right to abortion? No one thought so for almost two centuries after the founding. Did any provision in the Constitution guarantee a right to homosexual sodomy? Same answer," Scalia said, according to the Associated Press. It's a line he's used before, so three cheers for soundbytes that last more than a year.
Female Country Music Stars Love Them Some Gay Marriage
Published November 17, 2009 @ 08:33AM PT
*crickets*
OK, so it doesn't make the best punchline. But it is true that several country music superstars are making bold steps to speak up for LGBT equality. The latest is Dolly Parton, who not only said she's cool with gay marriage last week, but also dropped a bit of a sucker punch in the direction of Pastor Joel Osteen, who himself went on national television a few weeks back and said that homosexuality "wasn't God's best." Parton said that if Pastor Osteen were genuinely religious, he wouldn't be judging LGBT folks.
Huh, turns out that God's best may be a bunch of country music divas.
Military Chaplains Agree: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Hurts U.S. Security
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:30PM PT
A group of retired military chaplains are lending their voices toward a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," writing in a publicly released Q&A that the U.S. military's policy of not welcoming openly gay and lesbian soldiers is hurting national security. The chaplains also cut straight to the core of the anti-gay argument that openly gay and lesbian soldiers would harm unit cohesion, concluding that gay troops pose no threat to military morale.
The chaplains have history on their side. Though it's not well known, President George H.W. Bush actually put a stop to military discharges based on sexual orientation during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. The result wasn't the doomsday scenario painted by organizations like the Center for Military Readiness, that views openly gay and lesbian soldiers as a pox upon the military. Instead, there was no documented negative effect on unit morale, cohesion, good order, or discipline.
And that was twenty years ago! If our soldiers could handle a military with openly gay and lesbian soldiers in 1990, what would stop them in 2009 or 2010?
European Homosexuals are Recruiting in Africa?
Published November 16, 2009 @ 09:12AM PT
Nary a day goes by without the situation in Uganda getting worse for LGBT people, with the country's parliament considering one of the most homophobic and anti-gay pieces of legislation this side of the 1600s. Worldwide condemnation of Uganda's proposed "Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009" has sparked protests outside of Ugandan embassies, calls for global days of prayer to reject the bill, and action by U.S. politicians, including Rep. Tammy Baldwin who sent a scathing letter to the U.S. State Department calling Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill "appalling."
In the face of such worldwide scrutiny, one might think the President of Uganda would sound a more conciliatory tone. Far from it. Instead, President Yoweri Museveni has taken a hard line against LGBT rights, urging passage of the anti-homosexuality bill and accusing Europe's LGBT population of trying to recruit Africans to become homosexual.
President Museveni, speaking to a group of Ugandan children this weekend, said that Uganda's youth should fight hard to reject the forces of homosexuality.
"I hear European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa," said President Museveni. "We used to have very few homosexuals traditionally. They were not persecuted but were not encouraged either because it was clear that is not how God arranged things to be."
Sure, one-third of Ugandans live below the poverty level. But what does that matter when there are European homosexuals to stave off.
A Collection of Celebrities for Gay Marriage
Published November 15, 2009 @ 09:23PM PT
Turns out that when Shepard Fairey isn't being harangued by the Boston Police Department, or facing the wrath of the Associated Press, he's doing some very cool things for marriage equality. Fairey, the artist behind the iconic Obama image, has joined with a cadre of celebrities to create some artwork for gay marriage.
Maybe the best way to picture it is if a bunch of famous people went to art class. Fairey provided them with the image -- a powerful, fist in the air shot that became synonymous with gay marriage activism last year in the fallout from the passage of Proposition 8 -- and the celebs doctored them up. Some just gave signatures, others added some color and images and funk.
But all of them will be sold to benefit equality, with proceeds going to a southern California-based organization called FAIR. Virginia Madsen's image is there (and pictured here). Renee Zellweger's, too. And Ricki Lake, Robert DeNiro, Pete Wentz, Pamela Anderson, Chris Evans, and Natalie Portman, to name a few more.
Hands down it looks to be the largest collection of celebrities for marriage equality. Sadly, you won't find Jon Voight there. He's too busy hanging around with Rep. Michele Bachmann and accusing President Obama of moving the country toward socialism and causing "civil unrest."
But you will find dozens of other celebrities raising money for a good cause, and sending the message that same-sex marriage is one of the foremost civil rights issues of our time. And that's a sentiment that's easy to unite behind.
