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I used to tolerate and "accept" people "of faith". Never, ever again.
Millions of people of faith voted AGAINST Prop 8, and yet you profess that you won't tolerate or accept any of them?
That's just plain idiotic.
And the phrase is COULDN'T care less, you ignorant bigot.
take note people!
For years, the gay community has pooh poohed the accomplishments of Rev. Troy Perry because he is a man of faith and makes no apologies for it. You may not know this, but Troy is one of the plaintiffs that originally sued the state of California for his right to marry his partner and ended up winning the Supreme court case. In all it's eagerness to claim the victory, Troy's name was barely uttered by the Gay Political establishment. Now that it's time to confront the religious bigots, the one person who can speak the language has been essentially left out of the conversation. Maybe the gay community needs to get over it's own phobics and look to it's strengths to win this war and not just rely on self appointed "heroes" who most of the time just fall short.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087...
WOW! He pardons a guy that fucked the banks and lied to the Feds! I thought banks needed help !?!
As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing cuter than a happy, very well fed lion.
Ayan Hirsi Ali talks about this exact issue from a woman's perspective in her autobiography.
And the Bible says in four places that π is equal to exactly three, not close to three, not three and a little bit more. It is shocking that the public schools continue to teach π = 3.1415926535 without presenting "the other side of the controversy."
I basically think its a bullshit excuse.
I am an openly gay man serving as the senior pastor of a large church. I have served on the denomination's LGBT rights group. I have driven all over rural New England talking to people and sharing my story, often in hostile meetings. I've put up with bigots and homophobes every day of my professional career with as much grace and politeness as I can muster. I teach students to be accepting and tolerant of glbt persons. I might not be the outrageous flamingly out activist that you wish me to be, but every single day, I try to be a gentle presence in my community, helping to change one person's heart at a time.
So David, and Sling, thats what I do to work for change every day. My stone might be small, but it is mine. How do either of you judge what I do when you really don't know me? I offered a small comment to encourage you, David....perhaps your call is more public than mine...does that make it better? I'm working for change the best way i know how with the limited gifts to do so I have been given, in the way that makes the most sense to me to do. It is not all going to happen at once, and it will take longer than any of us wish it to.
Good luck, David in your work. And to you, Sling Shot, you should be careful not to throw around such attacks when you really don't know who or what you are talking about.
Before he became pope, Joseph Ratzinger made outrageous statements such as that gay relationships cannot be loving, that when gay people try to have laws outlawing gay sexual behavior rescinded, no one - not even the church - should be surprised when people react violently against them. He has stated that gay couples do violence to their children by raising them in their homes. He has attacked our relationships, has attacked laws that legitimize our love and laws that give our relationships rights and protections. He has called our relationships a danger to society and to the institution of marriage (is marriage a prison?). He has called us intrinsically disordered. He continues to propagate falsehoods and lies about us and our relationships. Yet he is the head of the Roman Church.
He is also excommunicating women who have the audacity to be ordained and he is in process of excommunicating a priest who celebrated an ordination mass with newly ordained women.
His predecessor in the papacy was no better, railing against a gathering of gay people from around the world who had the nerve to come to Rome during a "Holy Year" that the pope had declared. He outrageously accused their presence in Rome of being unfitting and an attack on the church.
It is quite clear that to be the head of the Roman church, one must be a man who is both homophobic and sexist. I cannot help but question the behavior of such men who brush off decades of research and discoveries with such nonsense and lies; and I cannot help but think that their behaviors and statements and indeed beliefs are expressions of not only a deep bigotry, but of also a deep pathology.
If such leaders held these beliefs in private, it would be one thing. But when they use their influence and their office to propagate discrimination and lies, they are a danger and a harm to people around the world. And they propagate their discrimination and lies not only in their statements and speeches, but also by their appointment of like-minded leaders to carry their homophobic message throughout the world. I think it is quite clear that such leaders are exercising a form of sexual abuse because they attempt to to instill in GLBT youths the feeling that their sexual natures, behaviors and thoughts are evil and disordered, that they are in danger of eternal damnation and that there is no place for them in the church if they rejoice in their sexuality and live sexually fulfilling lives.
And so I agree that the pope and his fellow bishops and other such religious leaders are fair game for attack when they espouse such things. They are not keeping their bigotry to themselves. They are imposing their bigotry like a cancer on our community and our youths and our society.
Such a queen.
All these religious bigots should be shown the facts of civil discrimination and bigotry in society.
John should go on the Hucksters tv show. Would ol' Huck be BRAVE enough to have the other side in for a chat? Rachel does it all the time, but she is brave! Huck is too chicken to try and talk to a gay rights advocate.
I would also like to see Hanity confronted. Call your agent!
Although I don't believe in Heaven and Hell, if there is a Hell then I think that they will all end up there much to their amazement.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
If congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, then how can any state make a law and enforce it if it is formed from and through religious sentiment and is championed by members of the religious community? Proposition 8 and all other anti-gay measures are all based on religious doctrines by selectively reading and interpreting biblical and other religion based passages to justify religion based prejudice and less than equal treatment of LGBT peoples.
Therefore, I am protected from religious bigotry and have equal access to all the benefits and responsibilities offered to all human beings... Its that simple....
All the arts and sciences were breaking away from religion when the Constitution was developed. Jefferson and his countrymen had huge libraries of European, even French, books. Of philosophy, science, the natural sciences, art, architecture. There is evidence the parts of the 3 Branches of Government contained Native American organizational principals...yea, they were Deists. In the Age of Enlightenment.
George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1789.
I sometimes wish there was an "activist" god that would smite these fundies, especially their leaders, with great vengeance and furious anger.
I stopped letting the OMD (old men in dresses) who call themselves our "Leaders" dictate anything to me about sexual morality when John Paul II led the way in stopping their pretense that women have an equal place in society. When the unspeakable crimes against children were revealed it wasn't the last straw for me; it was the horrific confirmation of a decision I had already made.
And please notice that I said "I am a Catholic." Not an ex-Catholic, not a lapsed Catholic, not even "raised a Catholic". And don't you DARE call me a "Cafeteria Catholic." I take my Baptism seriously, I consider my Confirmation one of the most important moments of my life, and I still hold Roman Catholic theological beliefs about the Trinity, the relationship between faith and works, and on the nature of Scripture. This is MY church, and if the OMD want me out they can damn well formally excommunicate me.
Not that they have either the guts or the time to start excommunicating common members who think the same way I do. They can't afford to lose that many members. Hypocritical jerks.
(Can you tell I have Issues?)
When I lived in Dallas, the religious-right use to use a similar line on me. They often told me that they didn't believe in tolerance so they could discriminate, but I believed in tolerance so I should put up with their prejudice. It was hard for me to come to the conclusion that people earn respect and tolerance. I lived by that belief for the remainder of my time there and I'm happy to be back in Chicago where most of us respect and tolerate one another without a thought.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALe...
Its time our community, the gay community make this connection for them... its time to use this new f word, fascism when dealing with this christian fundamentalist movement... who would so easily take another Americans right to happiness from them!
Its time to brand these bigots and their republican enablers for what they are FASCISTS!
And by that I mean there places of worship and there worldly possessions both their fraternal and personal possessions... its time to replace the designation "fagot" for the designation "fascist" on all things fundamentalist!
In others words... fundamentalism = fascism
Now you hear the "islamo-fascist" oxymoron, Gingrich calls gays demonstrating for their rights "fascists", the wingnuts have long called Sen. Clinton "Hitlery". The terms have no meaning.
And remember the meme, "As soon as one party compares his opponent to Hitler, he has lost the argument."
Better to hit them where it hurts and call them "enemies of Christ"--that's a lot closer to the truth.
expand on why I believe fascism is alive and well in the current
republican party and among their christian enablers.
Have a safe and fun filled holiday
Yours
Rick
Rick
Houston
So yeah, the gay rights movement....YAWN....the LEADERLESS gay rights movement....always more concerned about a seat at the black-tie table, only to still happily lap up only the crumbs and the leftovers, never get fed the same meal. Sad, isn't it?
CAN I MAKE A SUGGESTION, A NOMINATION
FOR SOMEONE TO BE OUR NEW "LEADER"?
I think DAN SAVAGE would be amazing.
He's smart, articulate, fierce, and doesn't back down easy. He knows his shit. He can be funny and charming, too.
He's also in a committed gay relationship, with children. He is someone who is DIRECTLY affected by all current events going on. And he can speak with a passion against the hatred and inequality.
SERIOUSLY, DAN SAVAGE -
WOULD YOU BE UP TO THIS TASK?
We need your help!
P.S. Oh, by the way, the other person I have in mind is Michaelangelo Signorile, although I was somewhat disappointed when he was debating with Maggie Gallagher recently. He did not deliver as I know he could. Dan Savage is too much of a, oh I don't know, pussy?
"We as a group have become tolerant of intolerance."
I do not think you possibly could have made a more contradictory sentence. In essence, you are calling for action to fight.... people like yourself. Incredible.
There is no way to make nice with a conservative short of abject capitulation. This is the thing that liberals constantly fail to understand. "Agree to disagree" is not in the conservative vocabulary. Nor is, "You go your way I'll go mine." This is why we are so constantly amazed when conservatives fail to make reasonable deals (think Mitch McConnel threatening the Democrats unless the Dems do as he says). It's always all or nothing for the hard-core conservative because he has invested his entire self image in not being wrong. EVER. His is a black and white mind. Either you love me or you hate me with all your soul (and vice versa). Conservatives are incapable of understanding grey areas (well they do understand it: a grey area is "weakness"). Until we understand this simple fact...Really understand it, we will always be taken aback by their words and actions. They do not give in, they do not make nice. They cannot do, since to do so is to abandon themselves to chaos and madness. That is why they cannot be trusted to hold to an agreement or tell the truth. For them, all that matters is winning (reconfirming their world view) at any cost. Because losing (ever being wrong) is shameful and shame cannot be borne.
The essence of any society and democracy is negotiation and give and take: I gain a little, you gain a little and nobody gets everything they want. How do you deal with people for whom there is no quarter? They are pirates: they take no prisoners. Everyone dies. And this is the thing: they see nothing wrong with this (think Ted Stevens' continued inability to understand that taking free stuff in exchange for his political actions is wrong. Ethics is for suckers). That's why the Wall Streeters keep taking public money and using it for their own bonuses and their own ends: they see nothing wrong with that because all the money is THEIR money. You were enough of a sucker to GIVE it to them, they see no reason at all to use it for anyone's good but their own. They can't. They are sociopaths and con men to the core. They cannot really imagine anyone else as a real person. Theirs is the emotional mind set of a two-year-old: me, me, ME! Gimme! Want! Want NOW! There is no reasoning with them since reason is nothing more than another way to con you.
Until liberals realize we are not dealing with rational actors will will always lose. The crazy guy always wins because he has no off button. There is no "too far, no farther." They are sociopaths pure and simple.
Here's what's funny about your statement; nearly every single religion asserts that it's path is the only right/real/correct path. Virtually without exception they all make an outright claim that (his/their/etc) path is the "only true path". So when you use words like "only true" and "his" to identify your religious affiliation, you are actually making the MOST generic statement about your religion possible, and are in no way identifying your religion from the many many religions practiced in the world. That's like me telling you that you should know who I am on this blog comment because I used a keyboard to type it... doesn't make too much sense does it?
Sadly, it is actually this mutual-exclusivity, or "INTOLERANCE" written into all of the books of religious docterine that makes organized religion so combustible.
I'm a 39 yr old, hetero married woman on the east coast, who went to her first ever rally/protest of any kind just 2 weekends ago, in support of the fight for gay civil rights. I am so utterly horrified that the rights of a minority were upheld by the court and then yanked away by such a slim majority. And in the same night we elected Obama.
I haven't yet heard a single non-religious reason to 'define marriage as the union of one man & one woman'. If we truly have freedom of religion in America, doesn't that include freedom FROM someone else's religion? If dogma is the sole reason for prop 8, shouldn't that automatically make it unconstitutional?
If not, can't the various versions of Christianity band together and put through legislation that a drugstore can't discriminate in hiring against advocates of faith healing who refuse to dispense any medications whatsoever? That every public school student must pass a test on the 10 commandments to graduate? That this is a Christian nation. Or heck, codify a whole Christian version of Sharia law? You know they want to.
I love the idea of calling out people's DHRBs. Brilliant. How do we get that term to go viral? Like Truthiness?
Can you imagine an African American respecting someone’s DHRB that the Bible justifies slavery?
I can't imagine it, but I can find it on the internet!
No, not kidding at all. Must be seen to be believed. Even then, you'll think it's deliberate parody until you've read a few of her other posts.