Over at the Pandagon blog, Pam Spaulding has a really interesting blog post commenting on a recent New Yorker article on married men who cheat on their wives with other men.
I especially liked the response of one of her readers to the article and to her thoughts.
This article underscores several facts: First, that masquerading as heterosexual, not marrying a same-gender partner, is what demeans traditional marriage. Second, that masquerading as heterosexual demeans Gay identity and distorts society’s perception of it. Third, that masquerading as heterosexual is an ultimately selfish act that can conceal contempt and hostility toward heterosexual spouses. Fourth, that masquerading as heterosexual reinforces heterosexism as a societal norm. Fifth, that Gay activists are crazy if they see someone’s “right” to be closeted as compatible with equality goals. The closet symbolizes deception, shame and fear, and none of those words are synonymous with pride.
Joke posts about Falwell I posted in the past that are getting traffic now that he’s died. No guarantees on the quality of the jokes…
The Theological Significance of Tinky Winky
5 Reasons Tinky Winky Can’t Be Gay
The Top 13 Reasons Jerry Falwell Thinks Your Favorite TV Character is Gay
The Batty Hymn of the Repugnant
Top Ten Jerry Falwell Pet Peeves About TV
And while we’re at it, some of Jerry’s Actual Greatest Hits—quotes from the man himself.
“AIDS is God’s punishment to gays.” – Jerry Falwell
“If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.”
“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”
“Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.”
“There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
“AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers.”
“Textbooks are Soviet propaganda.”
“The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America’s free enterprise system and our economic stability.”
“(9/11 is the result of) throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad…I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.”
“The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.”
“It appears that America’s anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men’s movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.”
“When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved in Adolph Hitler were Satanists. Many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together.” – 700 Club, 1-21-93
“You know, one of the great misnomers in our society is the term `gay.’ That somebody who is involved in something that is leading to suicide, where the V.D. rate is 11 times that of others, which are almost driven and ashamed and fearful and confused and psychotic and all the others that we read about plaguing this part of our society. The term gay is the most serious misuse of the English language. They’re not gay, they’re very, very depressed and miserable.” – 700 Club, 5-6-82
“When you see the rise of blatant open homosexuality and lesbianism, what you also know is God has given a society up…and we’re at the mercy of the elements, the mercy of war, the mercy of economic disaster.” – 700 Club, 4-26-93
“The radical left is doing everything they can to destroy the moral fiber of America. They want to do away with the family. I am absolutely persuaded one of the reasons so many lesbians are at the forefront of the pro-choice movement is because being a mother is the unique characteristic of womanhood, and these lesbians will never be mothers naturally, so they don’t want anybody else to have that privilege either.” – 700 Club, 5-18-93
“[Vice President Gore] recently praised the lesbian actress who plays ‘Ellen’ on ABC Television…I believe he may even put children, young people, and adults in danger by his public endorsement of deviant homosexual behavior…Our elected leaders are attempting to glorify and legitimize perversion.” People for the American Way, “Hostile Climate”, 1998
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television minister whose 1979 founding of the Moral Majority galvanized American religious conservatives into a political force, died Tuesday at age 73.
Falwell was found unconscious and without a pulse in his office at Liberty University, the college he founded in Lynchburg, Virginia, said Ron Godwin, the school’s executive vice president.
Though paramedics tried to revive him at his office and en route to Lynchburg General Hospital, “Those very timely and very efficient and effective efforts were unsuccessful,” Godwin said.
Godwin said he had breakfast with Falwell Tuesday morning and said they talked about the future.
“He seemed to be in good spirits,” Godwin said.Godwin said they finished breakfast about 9:50 a.m. ET and Falwell went into his office. He was found there about 11:30 a.m. ET.
The minister, who had a history of heart trouble, was pronounced dead of heart failure at 12:40 p.m. Tuesday, his doctor, Carl Moore, told reporters. He had been hospitalized twice in early 2005 with acute onset pulmonary edema, or congestive heart failure, and at one point was placed on a ventilator.
Moore said it was “a little early to speculate” on what caused Falwell’s death, but said he did have a heart condition.
It’s okay, Tinky, you can come out now.
“Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle – we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.” – Michele Bachmann, (R) Minnesota 6th District.
I’m pretty damn happy, myself, thanks. In fact, I’d say I’m downright gay.
From a local Washington state news report:
GIG HARBOR, Wash. — Restrictions on the use of school security videotape have been tightened after images of two high school students kissing were shown to the parents of one of the girls, officials say.
Keith Nelson, dean of students at Gig Harbor High School, said he saw the students kissing and holding hands in the school’s busy commons, checked a surveillance camera and showed the parents the tape because they had asked him a few weeks earlier to alert them to any conduct by their daughter that was out of the ordinary.
They then transferred their daughter to a school outside the Peninsula School District, which lies northwest of Tacoma.
Both girls said their privacy was invaded and denied doing anything wrong. Neither was identified by name in an article published Thursday by The News Tribune of Tacoma.
The kiss amounted to a quick “peck,” said the girl who remains at the school, a 17-year-old senior described as the daughter of a News Tribune employee.
“We weren’t doing anything inappropriate, nothing anyone else wouldn’t do,” she said.
Nelson said students could not have any expectation of privacy in a crowded place and maintained that he would have taken the same action had the students kissing been a boy and a girl.
An internal investigation into a complaint from a student — it was unclear whether the complaint came from one of the girls — established that Nelson had not violated district policy, Assistant School Superintendent Shannon Wiggs said.
Even so, Principal Greg Schellenberg said, school surveillance videotape may now be used only for security monitoring and discipline for actions such as trespassing, vandalism and fighting.
Kissing and other public displays of affection were at the time and remain violations of school rules, but violators will first be given warnings and will be disciplined only for a second offense, Schellenberg said. In addition, school employees are barred from sharing surveillance video in response to an open-ended parental request.
“It’s not our normal practice,” Schellenberg said. “It’s not going to happen again.”
In the case of the kiss, he added, “the same information could have been portrayed to the family without the video.”
Nelson said he respected the change in policy but added that he believes his first obligation is to parents.
“They’re paying good money for us to make their kids good citizens,” he said. “Whatever that means to the parents, I’ll do it.”
Aside from the girls saying there wasn’t anything to it – what if there was? Who the hell are the school officials to report this to parents? This is a punishable offense? I’m thinking back to the girl I made out with in the bathroom in drama club in high school… holy crap.
That’s the problem with surveillance culture – there’s so much that can be misinterpreted from a video.
Advance Indiana continues to follow up on the story I noted earlier of the brutal hate crime beating murder of Aaron Hall in Crothersville, Indiana. Gary Welsh reports the criminals are being charged lightly given the bias and brutality of the crime, and may even get off with an outrageous manslaughter conviction. Read the details.
Gary also notes that no major Indiana media outlets are picking up what should be a national news story, and that no GLBT organizations have made public statements about the crime.
In another post, Welsh has uncovered more details about the connection between one of the killers, Garrett Gray, and his father – Terry Gray, the county deputy coroner. He also notes that Hall’s body was discovered in Terry Gray’s garage 10 days after his death.