Teaching your kids to hate

I took these pictures off of this web site.



This drives me crazy.

Parents took their kids to protest the marriages in New York. It was pretty much a hate rally.

They are teaching their children to discriminate. And to hate.

It is no coincidence that most of the pictures on the web site are kids of color. The point is that their parents have faced discrimination, and now have some degree of protection from discrimination (although institutional discrimination still is prevalent), yet they think it is OK to teach bigotry to their kids?




Do you really want to teach your child that it is worse for me to love somebody and to commit my life to being with that person than it was for that man to murder the young Jewish boy and cut him up?

Do you realize that this is what makes people like Steve Mullins and Charles Butler think its OK to murder someone like Billy Jack Gaither in 1999 in Sylacauga, AL; or Chris Gaines and Robert Porter and Nichole Kelsay to murder Scotty Joe Weaver in 2004 in Baldwin county, AL.

Father, what if this child is gay?




These women took this child by the hand and are see nothing wrong with showing him how to discriminate.




Like I said, it just bothers the stew out of me to see people teaching their children to hate. This is 2011. We should love one another.

Pride - here and there

Two historic Pride events took place this weekend.

One was in Bessemer, Alabama, where the first Gay Pride in the city's history was celebrated. Word is, this will be covered in this week's Western Star, so I won't upstage them. But if they print a story, I will copy it here. If they don't, I will report.

The other was in New York. This is my favorite picture of that event.

Photo credit Vivieene Gucwa flckr

The Pride in New York was historic in that they were celebrating marriage equality!

The following are reactions from crazy folk about the victory (all are from JoeMyGod over the last few days)

Pat Robertson says that God will destroy America because of this.

The Catholic League's Bill Donahue says it will lead to multiple husbands.

But unless there is a constitutional amendment, we will continue to have an uneven playing field, one that is ripe for further exploitation. Once marriage is separated from procreation, and Tom and Dick are allowed to marry, there is no principled reason why Tom, Dick and Harry can't do so. After all, wouldn't it be discrimination to say no to Harry?

Bryan Fischer, American Family Radio host, said we have fangs.

'The gay-rights groups have shown their fangs. They want to silence, yes, destroy those who don't agree with their agenda.' Homosexuals are rapidly cementing their position as the number one perpetrators of hate crimes in American today."

Linda Harvey, World New Daily writer, says

"This 'freedom' will include much more than a perpetual pansexual pagan party. It will, and already does, include libel, slander, intimidation, corruption of youth, revolt in congregations, suppression of parental rights, revision of language, disease, loss of employment and loss of life. Oh, and did I mention public sex, the porn explosion and public nudity? Welcome to entitlement sex."

Jason Adkins, Minnesota Marriage Coalition spokesperson, lied,

Marriage between one man and one woman has served mankind for all of recorded history...

Peter LaBarbera tweeted

Every homosexual activist victory (eg, same-sex *marriage* in NY) is a rebuke to our biblical heritage. Why should 'God Bless America'?

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said

The so-called religious protections that were tacked on to the bill will ultimately do nothing to protect the religious rights of New York citizens.

On twitter, @almightygod tweeted

Gays will be getting married in NY, so I guess I'll need to send them some tornadoes. Hope I don't miss and hit Kansas

Maggie Gallagher, in the National Review said,

"The National Organization for Marriage has committed $2 million to persuading Republicans: Voting for gay marriage has consequences. Sad that the N.Y. GOP has caved. Consequences to be continued."

Matt Barber of Liberty Council tweeted

Gay "marriage" silliness: sad for NY. Sad for America. Yet not unexpected. We mock God & He obliges. Buckle in. Rough ride ahead.

But, here are the facts.

New York marriage more than doubles the number of Americans who live in states where marriage equality is. This chart comes from Box Turtle Bulletin.



In 50 years we have come from being a nation where homosexuality was criminal in every state, to where our relationships are recognized as equal in 6 states. But still only 11% of the country (by population) is treated with equality. We still have a ways to go. Maybe we can move faster now. More than half of Americans support marriage equality, and there is no good reason to believe otherwise. None.

Headed toward marriage equality

Yesterday was a banner day for equality, and two stories in The Birmingham News reflect this.

On the front page is the story about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voting to allow non-celibate gays to serve as clergy.

Actually what they voted for was to evaluate candidates on the basis of "calling, gifts, preparation and suitability."

There is no mention of sexual orientation or sexual ethics in the proposed language.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the nations 10th largest Christian church in the United States, with 2.8 million members.

A majority of the church's 173 U. S. presbyteries still must approve the policy change. Two years ago, 94 presbyteries voted against the change.

Here is the news as reported on the church web site.

The church did, however, vote to retain their discriminatory definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.

But progress is slow, especially in churches, so let's celebrate this small (huge) victory.

In an unrelated action (but related to yesterday's post), the Presbyterian assembly voted to "refrain from holding national meetings in states where travel by immigrant Presbyterians or Presbyterians of color might subject them to harassment due to legislation."

Good for them!

In other marriage related news, and probably the biggest story, is that a federal court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. The ruling only applies to Massachusetts, which challenged DOMA on the basis that it forced discrimination on the state's same sex married couples. But it gives encouragement to other states that permit same-sex marriage, and gives heart to the LGBT community at large.

It is unclear as to whether the ruling will be appealed. The U. S. Justice Department would file the appeal, but President Obama has stated that the law is discriminatory and wants it overturned. So let's just see how that plays out.

Here is the DOMA decision. You can click on "full screen" to read the entire thing.

DOMA Decision

Here are reactions from pro-equality organizations.

Equality opponents are blaming SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan (who filed a brief in the case for upholding DOMA when she was solicitor general) for deliberately sabotaging the case.

Levi Update and Flag of Equal Marriage

Someone said I have been "curiously silent" in covering the Michael Jackson circus. I've just been watching the media (and the public) make a fool of itself and was especially amused when on CNN some anchor type led a discussion as to whether the media was devoting too much time to the story and making the claim that their 32 seconds of Iraq coverage was balance.

But I do wonder, is the interest in today's memorial service that people are showing based on some kind of true connection, or is it just that they want to be part of a phenomenon or what? I mean, if Michael Jackson (or Elvis) unleashes the kind of response we are seeing among people who do not really know the man, then it seems that something is really missing in their lives. I mean, he's filling a void that should really be filled by something else.

OK, that's my take.

Levi Johnston is trying to return to normal life, after visiting New York ("I don't like New York. There's too many people.")

He gets to see son Tripp a few times a week and plans a book because "there are still many untold stories about the Palins," according to his bodyguard and publicist, Tank Jones.

Photo from GQ

Levi is probably the only sane one of the bunch and my former criticism of him had more to do with his association with Sarah Palin than him being a self described "F*ckin' redneck." I mean, we deal with "f*ckin' rednecks" on a daily basis down here. And apparently his attitude toward children has changed (fatherhood does that), so maybe he listened to me.

This is pretty neat. The Flag of Equal Marriage.

They are adding a star to represent each state that assumes marriage equality. The stars represent the states in order of admittance to the union, beginning in the top left corner. On the most recent flag the stars are: Massachusetts - #6 - May 17, 2004, Connecticut - #5 - Nov 12, 2008, Iowa - #29 - Apr 24, 2009, Vermont - #14 - Sep 1, 2009, Maine - #23 - Sep 14, 2009, New Hampshire - #9 - Jan 1, 2010.

If the flag had been around in 2008 we would have seen California's star (#31) light up and go dark again during that year.

It might be a long time before Alabama's star is lit, but we are #22, and would appear just before Maine.

We want the flag of equal marriage to be complete, with all 50 stars lit up. We see three ways equal marriage, as we define it, could be achieved:

• Every individual state could pass a law allowing same-sex marriage.
  
• The federal government could repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and allow same-sex marriage at the federal level, overriding all state-level bans.
  
• The term "marriage" could be removed from state and/or federal laws, turning all "marriages" into civil unions in the eyes of the government. PLUS, same-sex civil unions would need to be recognized in all 50 states or at the federal level.

Our protest flag helps you track our progress toward completion of one of these three goals.