Speak Compassion

It seems that I again, fail to understand how supposed men of god seem to react against the very god they claim to love. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have one thing in common. The common theme of their religions is nonviolence. Despite the teachings of these religions, we have war and violence.

When it comes to gays, it seems that violence just gets worse. Just the news of a gay pride parade in Jerusalem has thrown Ultra Orthodox Jews into riots, setting fires and fighting with police. Why? I have my doubts it is based on any brotherly love or any love at all. It is based in hate. It is based on fear and intimidation. These men think that if they threaten gays and lesbians, we will go back into the closet in fear and shame. We will not. I am happy to say, despite threats of violence gays in the Holy Land are standing tall for what it right and just. I pray no one is hurt and no one is killed, but I also pray for freedom from such unjust practices.

At last years attempt at a pride parade, Orthodox Jews and Muslims threw human feces and bottled urine at gays and lesbians. Three people (all gay) were stabbed and killed. This is how far they will go to intimidate, threaten and drive us into shame and they do it in God’s name. I am not sure what God they have been praying to, but it is no god I believe exists.

While I understand their protests, no protests should include violence against fellow men. Violence solves nothing and leaves bitterness and pain everywhere.

Tony Perkins with a little help from Peter La Barbera at Americans for Truth is still propelling the call to arms mentality about Gay men. Despite the fact it is based on lies and twisted science La Barbera and Perkins continue to spread the myth that gay men are more likely to molest children and that boys molested will become homosexual. A myth called the most dangerous by MaleSurvivor.org

As I have said before and will say over and over again, these myths are dangerous to children because the propel misinformation about childhood sexual abuse. This isn’t about La Barbera or Perkins trying to educate people, it is about the call to arms. The easiest way to get American to hate a group of people is to tell them they are after the children. This is what the Nazi’s did to the Jews. This is what segragationists did to blacks. This is not education folks, this is hate speech based on lies and misrepresented science.

LaBarbera has proven over and over again that he is not out to present the truth as his mission states, he is out to make a call to arms. He is out to make gays and lesbians the enemy, and that tactic will lead to violence. La Barbera and Perkins should be ashamed of themselves.

More about this subject can be found below:

Religious Propaganda of just plain ole hate

The Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute

Are gays a threat to our children?

Crisis Center (Myths about child molestation)

Penguins, Pedophiles, and Paul Cameron

Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation 

Recently, I got some emails warning me my crediblity would be damaged if I let an anti-gay blogger link to my site. I thought about these emails for a few weeks and just kept repeating the statement from Gandhi in my head: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

There is this notion of “us vs. them” and I see it and sometimes I suppose I am part of that which promotes it. I feel it is a necessary evil at times. The whole us vs them scenario leaves out the fact that in the end we still need to share the same earth, yet hold on to our beliefs. We will never find a way to do that as enemies, but we could as friends.

How can we demand as GLBT folks that anti-gay people learn to live with us, if we refuse to live with them? I am happy that an anti-gay website links to me as a “buddy”. I am flattered, but I also see a value to this. It is an example of being the change you wish to see in the world. I am happy to say I regularly exchange emails with some who would be called anti-gay even by me. I realize they will never go from anti-gay to at best not anti-gay if we as GLBT continue to treat them as enemies.

To be the change you wish to see in the world, you must realize that nonviolence is much like investment banking. You gotta spend money to make money. The theory is the same for nonviolence but it is “Spiritual Investment Banking”. In other words if you want peace, you must make peace. If you want love, you must give love. If you want respect you must give respect. If you want forgiveness then you must learn to forgive. These are not easy to do, but it is what I strive for in my life.

I cannot say that in my plight to make the world less violent for GLBT folks that I am perfectly nonviolent in my words or my interactions with anti-gay people, even sometimes I am not perfect with pro-gay writers, hell even my own writers here on this blog. It is in our imperfection that we learn to find perfection. In other words, we learn from our mistakes. I am happy that an anti-gay blogger see’s me as a “buddy”, it is much better than being seen as some of the other colorful things the same blogger says about gay people. I will point out that this blogger refers to us as “gay buddies” when she wants to make peace, but “homosexual murderers, child molesters and predators” when she wants to scare the rest of the world about being gay. I can honestly say I am none of the above, so I must just be one of the “gay buddies“.

It is considerably harder for someone to say awful things about friends than it is to say such things about strangers or enemies. If we were all to be friendly and nice to these people (in the process of pointing out their lies) would it make any change? I believe that it would.

World Net Daily columnist Kevin McCullough has an interesting theory about gays and marriage equality.

Apparently we gays hate God.

In a recent column( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52633), he draws an incredibly interesting (albeit irrational and sex driven) theory about why we gays are pushing for marriage equality:

“No longer satisfied with practicing the unspeakable perverse sexual pleasures that their hearts seek in private bedrooms, they wish to be able to do so in public. They are also suffering from such immense guilt over their sexual behaviors, because they know inherently that the actions they perform are in fact unhealthy, that they will go to any means necessary to try and shut down the voices in their heads that tell them it is wrong.

They wrongfully believe that the guilty voice within them is an echo of a prudish state that seeks to limit their freedoms. They wrongfully believe that the judgment they feel is emanating from “Bible thumpers.” And what they fail to admit is that the voice that condemns them the loudest is never a human voice – but in fact the voice of their own conscience informed by the truth of the God who created them.”

And basically Kevin wraps it up by saying:

“Radical homosexual activists hate marriage because fundamentally they hate God, and the guilt of both drives them to extremes.”

World Net Daily isn’t exactly a gay positive publication (and that is the understatement of the decade for those of us who have seen it) and Mr. McCullough is not exactly a gay positive individual. On occasion, he has said some unsubstantiated things about the gay community. And he has never backed any of it up with proof:

“The “alphas” in homosexual relationships, be they men or women, are many times recruiting younger partners. A vast percentage of those who enter the homosexual life do so after having been sexually initiated by an older person of their sex – be it consensual or not – it usually has the feel of enticement or seduction.” - The ‘Gay’ Truth, May 30, 2003

Also, his activities attacking the gay community go further. In an earlier post, I made reference to a situation regarding David Parker’s war with his son’s elementary school in Massachusetts.

Parker created a media event last year because he was upset that his son brought home a b0ok showing a same-sex couple. Parker escalated the situation until he was arrested. A year later, Parker’s son was involved in a fight at school with a friend over a cafeteria seat. School officials were quick to stop the situation and notified the Parkers and the parents of the other child.

But almost a month later, a press release was sent out claiming that Parker’s son was attacked by a gang of students because of his father’s fight against the school.

McCullough was one of the initial spreaders of this story (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50669).

Now the school was quick to refute the claim about the fight involving Parker’s son (http://www.lexingtoncares.org/ChildsAltercationUnrelated.html).

But no one, McCullough included, who claimed that Parker’s son was attacked because of his father’s anti-gay stance apologized or addressed the lie they told.

That is the caliber of “Christian” McCullough is.

I am sorry if I sound mean but McCullough’s claim about gays hating God disturbs me. It makes me angry because it was God who led me to know that I am perfect in His sight as a gay man. If it had not been for Him leading me and guiding me through my coming out process, I would not be here today.

McCullough’s nasty claim is an anathema to me. His arrogance reminds me of a childhood friend who, when I got the best of him in sports, would tell me that his loss didn’t matter because he was a Christian and was going to heaven while I was going to hell.

Mr. McCullough, some of us in the gay community may distance ourselves from religion because of people like you attempting to bogart the throne of God like you are a bouncer at some celestial nightclub, but we never distance ourselves from God nor his love of us.

Despite attempts to legislate our lives, you will never legislate our faith. God loves us for the gay, lesbians, bisexual, or transgender creations that we are.

And we love God.

Links to spiritual gay groups:

www.operationrebirth.com

http://www.soulforce.org/

http://www.gaychristian.net/

http://www.christiangay.com/

http://www.whosoever.org/

This is nothing more than a separate but equal type of status. This is the courts saying: you deserve the rights, but your still not good enough, in love enough, or something enough to call it what everyone else calls it. This is the court slapping gays in the face and saying Hey, you are still second class to the rest of the known world.

The court gave the legislature 180 days to get those rights either by marriage or by civil unions. It is well known that Civil Unions are not equal to marriage so it is a contradiction to say we deserve the same equality, but then not give it to us.

Excerpt:

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the equal protection clause of the state’s constitution requires that “committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the
civil marriage statutes.”

They followed that with the action that although they think we deserve equality, they are not willing to give it to us…. Insulting to say the least.

Next, we spend the next 180 days debating gay marriage in the Garden State. If this is anything like 2004, we will see hate crimes rise in that state as the right wing comes out with their demonizing campaigns about how evil we are. That will lead to violence and I predict now, a surge in hate crimes. When will this society learn? Why didn’t we learn from the 2004 election where hate crimes rose from the rhetoric of the right against gay marriage. I care less about the ruling than I do the violence that will come from the debate to get these rights from the legislature.

I pray for those who will be hurt from this decision.

UPdate:  In my reading today, I stumbled across this article by a guy who agrees with me in the issue.  He of course frames it much better since he is a pro-writer and I just dabble in writing.

Americans for Truth, the website devoted to pointing out every negaitve with no positives about GLBT folks has been posting even more one sided lies about GLBT folks.  Box Turtle Bulletin, which I consider one of the best sources for information in science against the religious right has posted some great information about this……read more….

I am collecting a grouping a quotes from anti-gay forces, Nazi-propaganda and anti-desegregationists. Since this job is very time consuming, I ask anyone interested in helping seek out the quotes and more importantly formatting them into a usable file, email me for instructions.

I am putting all of them into a database so I can cross reference them with other hate speech from previous generations. Submissions should be in an excel, filemaker pro 6 or text file with the following fields or headers:

• Quote
• Writer/Speaker
• Topic: (keywords)
• Genere (one of the above: anti-gay, antii-jewish, or anti-black)
• Source: Must included a link or reliable source of the information

If you are interested in searching the net for quotes and cutting and pasting them into a format I can import into the database of quotes, please contact me for instructions.

My goal is to show the think between ant-gay, anti-black and Nazi propaganda. Since this is a long process, any help would be appreciated, but the format is key to making this work….

For the record, just giving me the quotes isn’t that helpful.  I really need them in the format above so I can easily import them and use them.

Are we in Mississippi circa the 1960s?

I ask that question because of a column I read today by conservative Michael Reagan entitled: Conservatives don’t hate gays, just agenda .

Mr. Reagan is commenting in blogger Michael Rogers and his outing of in-the-closet Congressmen in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal.

Mr. Reagan’s piece is the usual load of nonsense about “the gay agenda” and such but he does something I found very interesting.

These comments are from the column:

I know a lot of gays who live in California. Most of them are not supportive of gay marriage. Most gays are not supportive of the radical gay issue of punishing the Boy Scouts because they won’t allow homosexuals to be scoutmasters . . .

Liberals take it as an article of faith that conservatives hate gays. That’s absolutely untrue. What we don’t support is the radical gay agenda. We are utterly opposed to gay marriage, homosexual scoutmasters or promoting the gay lifestyle in our schools.
And, as I said, most gays agree with me and not with Rogers on these issues.

Now I am a gay man, but I am also a black man. Therefore, I am very sensitive and extremely cognizant about several things when it comes to issues of race and the like.

The thing that strikes me about Reagan’s column is how he sounds like the racists in the 1960s. You know who I am talking about. The ones who would say things like:

“Our niggras were alright until them Yankees up north and that N A A C P and the rest of them outside agitators got ‘em all riled up.”

It seems that the phrase “radical gay agenda” has replaced “outside agitators” but the connotation is still the same.

I wrote Mr. Reagan a letter expressing those very concerns. I don’t think he will write me back. But if he does, I am anticipating that he will talk about how dare I compare the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to today’s gay rights movement. How dare I say the two are similar.

But Mr. Reagan, how can the movements not be similar when the ignorance of their opposers are pretty much the same?

It seems in my last post I incorrectly identified a child as 14 years old and he is actually 15 years old. That appears to by the only thing I needed to correct, everything else in my post I firmly stand behind as my opinion. Sorry for my mistake.

To clarify a few thoughts from me.

My last post about Stacy was a bit harsh on her and had more of my anger than I like to show. I am human. I agree with Gandhi that being nonviolent is a journey and we will always fall.

That issue and what I stand behind is that in my opinion (regardless of my poor ability to spell check) I feel that people like Stacy Harp, Rev. DL Foster, Americans for Truth, Peter La Barbera, Matt Barber, James Dobson, Stephen Bennett and many others like them are helping to cultivate a climate of hate where intolerance, fear, and shame paint a very inaccurate picture of gays. That culture of fear, shame and intolerance directly leads to violence. They can deny it all they want by claiming they have not done a thing, but the fact is, and is well document on my site and others, that these individuals are cultivating and nurturing a climate where gays are a target, viewed as an enemy, and driven into closets of fear.

While I know for fact, Stacy Harp and those like her are good people with good hearts, their issues with homosexuality lead them to actions that are immoral and lead to violence. This must be stopped and it cannot be stopped by anything but nonviolence. While many of my faithful readers think I am crazy, Stacy and even DL have a place in my heart. I would have any of them to my house for dinner and my door is open to them to talk. I will not support their actions as I feel they lead to violence and death for many GLBT people. I would hope that someday, my dream of a peaceful world will come for GLBT folks, it will not happen until the hate rhetoric stops.

They can attack me all they want, I will not stop this quest to end the climate of hate and violence I fully believed is fueled by their hate rhetoric. This can only be done by exposing them to the light of public opinion. It has worked against Fred Phelps, it will work on them too.

After reading the news over the past few years, it would be almost impossible not to see how bullying in the schools is leading to murders. Columbine was one example, but we have seen countless school shootings that have spurred from the bullying of kids and often that bullying is based on real or perceived sexual orientation.

Now we see another case in the UK of a student who went over the edge and murdered another boy because of bullying. This is a sad case and their is nothing but victims all around. I have a hard time calling a 15 year old a cold blooded killer. (Although it appears some of the right wing people expect me to call him a homosexual killer, I am not going to do that). This case, like all cases of violence involving children is only filled with victims.

The assailant in this case is a young 15 year old boy who wanted to have sex with another boy, when the younger boy refused and threaten to tell everyone the older boy was gay, the boy hit him with a frying pan repeatedly, and stabbed him repeatedly. This is a saddening scene of violence. Peter La Barbera is reporting this over at Americans for Truth and trying his best to blame the kid’s homosexuality. Stacy Harp is calling this young 15 year old a homosexual murderer. I call all involved what they are, victims. No one is winning any wars, cultural or otherwise by using kids to do it.

This older child is that, a 15 year old child. A victim of bullying and who knows what else. With all of the supports out there for children who feel they may be gay or lesbian, why is this kid flipping out and killing other kids just at the threat of being exposed for being gay. Who taught him that being gay is so horrible that just the threat of exposure would lead him to such violence? (answer that question for yourself).

Anti-gay activists want to look at this incident as evidence of how evil gays are, but refuse to look at the underlying cause of this problem. This kid was 1) being bullied and terrorized about his “gayness” 2) just the threat of exposing his sexuality was enough for him to silence his victim. How did we as a society, get to this? How did we get to a place where just the threat of being called “gay” leads to violence? What makes a kid feel so negative about being gay (which should not be a big deal anymore) that he would go over the edge like this?

Notice this post has more questions than answers. I don’t have the answer except nonviolence. We need to teach kids a new way to solve their issues. We need to teach kids being gay is not a big deal and that they shouldn’t bully others about it. Teaching kids not to bully on the basis of sexual orientation would solve a lot of issues, but it would also save lives.

My heart goes out to this boy’s family, although other news sources have used the boys names, I respect these are minors and did not. You can find their names in the articles I have linked to but I myself recognize these are children and will treat this as such.

SF Police To Step Up Patrols Following Homophobic Attacks In The Castro
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

October 17, 2006 - 3:00 pm ET

(San Francisco, California) A meeting Monday night between police and residents of San Francisco’s mostly LGBT Castro neighborhood brought a commitment that street patrols would be stepped up following a series of attacks.

About 100 residents attended the meeting, several telling personal stories.

Mark Welsh said he was attacked as he walked from work to his car 

“I was attacked from behind and hit in the back, neck and shoulder, which knocked me to the ground … As I fell to the ground, they proceeded to kick and punch throughout most of my body.”

Throughout the beating and robbery Welsh said his attackers “kept calling me a faggot, many a time.”

When they finished robbing him they sexually assaulted him.

Two other attacks fit the same pattern - beatings, robberies and then rapes.

“The gravity of the situation, where men have been - for lack of a better term - raped, that’s new. That’s something that we’ve never had before,” said Sgt. Chuck Limbert.

But some people who live in the area said the beefed up patrols may not be enough. They’ve formed a neighborhood watch program called Castro Community on Patrol. 

It will distribute self-defense material and free whistles for people to blow if they are attacked.

©365Gay.com 2006

Unlike the religious right, I applaud Condi Rice for recognizing the partner and family of newly sworn in AIDS Czar, Mark Dybul.  Condi made it a point to recognize his partner and his partner’s family, including calling his partner’s mother his “mother in law“.

I can understand the religious right feeling like this tramples their beliefs and I do have some sympathy for that, but their religious beliefs should not trample this man’s accomplishments.  It should not trample this man’s family just because “they” don’t think it is a real family.  

The real shame should fall on them for not celebrating this man’s accomplishments.  I know that I am lucky enough to work with a crew of people who would never exclude my partner or my partner’s family from my accomplishments.  Why should our government exclude people’s beliefs.   This man, Dybul believes this is his family and the religious right should respect that.  Of course they don’t, since they think the world is all about “their” beliefs and no one else’s.   Dare anyone cross the line and believe something different and have other respect it like Condi did.

Congrats to Condi for her respect for this man’s beliefs.

Of course the religious right isn’t without criticism for having a gay man do anything but stay in his closet.  Some ugly quotes from them:

“We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” Peter Sprigg of the American Family Association. 

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has made a clear statement of the problems with the FBI’s 2005 hate crime statistics.  President Joe Solmonese states:

“While providing valuable data, today’s hate crimes report is incomplete,” added Solmonese. “It is critical that all jurisdictions treat these crimes seriously and report hate crimes statistics to the FBI and the public. We need to ensure the safety and protection of every single American regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Read the whole statement here

The FBI released hate crime stats for 2005 today.  The stats show that hate crimes on the whole fell about 6%.  Race was the major bais crime and gays fall in about third highest on the list below religion.

Hate Crime Statistics, 2005, includes the following information:

• There were 5,190 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2005.
  Intimidations accounted for 48.9 percent, simple assaults for 30.2 percent, and aggravated assaults for 20.5 percent. Six murders as well as 3 forcible rapes were reported as hate crimes.
• Of the 3,109 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, 53.6 percent were directed at individuals, 9.8 percent were against businesses or financial institutions, 8.9 percent were against government, and 6.8 percent were against religious organizations. The remaining 20.9 percent were directed at other, multiple, or unknown victim types. Damage/destruction/vandalism was the most frequently reported crime against property, accounting for 81.3 percent of the total.
• Of the 6,804 known offenders reported in 2005, 60.5 percent were white, and 19.9 percent were black. The race was unknown for 12.3 percent, and other races accounted for the remaining known offenders.
• The majority (30.0 percent) of hate crime incidents in 2005 occurred in or near residences or homes; followed by 18.3 percent on highways, roads, alleys, or streets; 13.5 percent at colleges or schools; 6.6 percent in parking lots or garages; and 4.3 percent at churches, synagogues, or temples. The remaining 27.3 percent of hate crime incidents occurred at other specified locations, multiple locations, or other/unknown locations.

So, what is the problem with these statistics?  Two of the largest reporting cities, did not report.   These stats do not reflect New York or Phoenix.    So what good are these numbers when they do not reflect the whole of the issue?  New York had more than its share of hate violence in 2005, but this report doesn’t reflect that.   New York also has a higher population of GLBT folks in it, so why is that not reported or reflected in this report?

Members of the anti-gay forces are already using this incomplete information to intimidate and mock the gay community saying we “exaggerate” the problem of violence against gays.  I would ask this man, how many is enough for their to be a problem?  Doesn’t it matter if it is one person’s life or millions?   Is one life not worthy of protection?

One of the major challenges to collecting hate crime data on Gays and Lesbians is that many do not report the crimes for fear of being “outed”.   In many cities hate crime against GLBT folks are not even tracked or reported to the FBI.  The numbers are not a true reflection of the violence against GLBT folks in this country.

I will add to this thought of the day that if I can find this information on reporting flaws, then so can people like DL Foster, a man who claims gays are not victims.   DL is doing nothing to help stop the violence and he is against adding gays to the Federal Hate crimes act.   He is against teaching kids about tolerance of gays, and he is against anti-bullying laws that protect kids from being bullyed based on real or perceived sexual orientation.  So, if DL Foster isn’t trying to stop the crimes, doesn’t want to help prevent the crimes then that must mean he silently approves of them.   Until his actions meet his words, he is silently nodding his head in approval of hate crimes.  Of course this is just my humble opinion. 

This newest report also shows what I have been saying all along.  Hate speech does lead to hate crimes.  Since September 11th, we have seen an increase in the amount of hate speech about muslims.  This report also show the increase in hate crimes against muslims.  

“[I]t is clear that there remains a growing atmosphere of fear and hostility toward American Muslims, Arab-Americans and South Asians,” this year’s report concluded, noting that recent public opinion surveys have likewise shown a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment among the general public here.

It is more clear each year that whatever group is getting the most hate speech is also the one with the rise in violence.   As long as we permit as a society that some population can be demonized, dehuamnize and made the enemy, violence will follow that.   Words can kill is the lesson to be learned.