Via Shakespeare’s Sister:
for the BIBLE tell me so is an award-winning documentary that looks into scripture and “in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible.” Check here for a listing of current screening locations.
“A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Can you believe this shit? Hell has frozen over. Suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now.” — Kathy Griffin, accepting an Emmy award for her show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.
Reportedly, the show will be censored to edit out part or all of Griffin’s acceptance speech after protests by Catholic League windbag, Bill Donohue. Once again, I’d like to say – Bill, go fuck yourself. Asshole.
This week’s Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 249 has a nice roundup of recent domestic terrorist incidents perpetrated by Christian Terrorists within the United States. They gathered the list to contrast with the silly drum-banging that the Bush Administration did recently about the so-called Muslim terrorist cell from Miami — the guys who had no actual weapons, plan, finances or connections and who could no more have bombed the Sears Tower than I could armed with a shovel.
But check out this big fat list of blood-thirsty, fully armed killers, all of whom have at least one thing in common — they hate the hell out of me.
2001: According to the Feminist Majority Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, Over 170 abortion clinics and doctors’ offices in 14 states and the District of Columbia received threatening letters claiming to contain anthrax. The envelopes had return addresses from the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Marshall Service with postmarks from Atlanta, GA; Knoxville, TN; Chattanooga, TN; or Columbus, OH. The envelopes were also marked, “TIME SENSITIVE: Urgent Security Notice Enclosed.” When opened by clinic staff, all letters contained a white powder with a letter stating, “You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you. Army of God, Virginia DARE Chapter.”
2003: A nurse has been charged with firing a shotgun at an abortion clinic in Asheville before it opened on Thursday, according to police. Brenda Kaye Phillips, 44, a registered nurse, was charged a misdemeanor count of damage to property for shooting at the Femcare Women’s Clinic. The same clinic was the target of bomb four years ago.
2003: Klan leader David Wayne Hull was arrested at his Washington County, Pennsylvania, home on February 13 for allegedly planning to blow up an abortion clinic. Federal prosecutors charged Hull, a forty-year-old Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a small Pennsylvania-based group, with receiving, manufacturing, possessing and transferring a destructive device in violation of the National Firearms Act. At a preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh on February 18, prosecutors accused Hull of trying to buy hand grenades from a witness cooperating with the FBI. According to an unsealed criminal complaint, Hull told the informant he was “going to blow up abortion clinics.” Authorities say that Hull told the informant he made his car a “suicide bomb on wheels.” In July 2002, Hull attended the “Aryan Nations World Congress,” convened by the Pennsylvania faction of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations. He is also a follower of Christian Identity, a racist and anti-Semitic sect whose adherents believe that white people are God’s chosen people, descended from the lost tribes of ancient Israel, and that minorities are soulless “mud peoples.”
2004: A man who was accused of plotting to firebomb abortion clinics, churches, and gay bars was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison. Stephen John Jordi, 36, pleaded guilty in February to a single charge of attempted arson of an abortion clinic. Prosecutors had asked Judge James Cohn to sentence Jordi under a federal terrorism law and sought seven to 10 years. Cohn refused, saying federal sentencing rules require that plots have an international component to be considered terrorism. “This crime was strictly domestic and in no way transcended national boundaries,” Cohn said. Jordi and a government informant bought gasoline cans, flares, starter fluid, and propane tanks the day he was arrested last November after casing several South Florida abortion clinics and talking about bombing one in Macon, Ga., according to the FBI. Prosecutor John Schlesinger said he “respectfully disagreed” with the judge’s decision not to sentence Jordi as a terrorist.
2005: A 24-year-old Shreveport woman and her 18-year-old boyfriend have been charged with attempting to bomb an abortion clinic. Authorities say Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe were arrested and booked into City Jail. Hughes was charged with manufacturing and possession of a delayed incendiary device. Dunahoe was charged as an accessory. Hope Medical Group for Women wasn’t damaged when someone tossed a Molotov cocktail at it about 10:45 the night of December 12th.
2005: A suspicious fire damaged an abortion clinic, and federal agents launched an investigation, authorities said Tuesday. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local authorities in the investigation of the blaze late Monday at the Presidential Women’s Clinic. No one was injured. Details on the extent of damage were not immediately available. It appeared that lighter fluid or some other accelerant was used to start the blaze, fire department spokesman Phil Kaplan said. A July 2004 fire damaged another Palm Beach County abortion clinic and a 2003 blaze damaged one in neighboring Broward County.
2006: Evidence teams plan to put on protective gear and seal the room as they search for any clues left behind on a contraption that investigators are calling a “weapon of mass destruction.” Technicians will be looking for fingerprints and any other evidence that may have been left on the device, which was pumping a mix of water and a caustic chemical into a sex shop when neighbors found it Sunday morning, detectives said. The evidence crew will be breathing the air inside the room, but won’t have any unprotected contact with the plastic jugs, duct tape, and hoses that make up the device. In Waldo, people have held prayer vigils and protests aimed at an adult bookstore along US 301, trying to keep the “Cafe Risque” from opening its doors on time.
2006: A man who told police he made a pipe bomb to attack an abortion clinic was arrested Thursday, shortly before the device went off in a friend’s home while authorities tried to disable it, according to court documents. … Weiler faces four federal counts including making a destructive device and possessing an illegal handgun. He was being held Thursday. Phone messages left at Weiler’s home were not returned. A car in the driveway had a frame around the front license plate that read “Choose Life” and “God is pro-Life.”
Notice that emphasized quote above — according to our federal government, a plot has to have an “international component” to be considered terrorism. WTF?!?!
Why? Any political act designed to terrorize a group of people is terrorism, including all the above incidents, all of which meet the definition far better than a bunch of disgruntled Miami dudes who basically sat around talking smack and not much else.
This is extremely disturbing, and not a hoax, despite today’s date. An “Ex-Gay” event will take place in Marion, Indiana, planned and sponsored by a church in our downtown neighborhood — the Redeemer Presbyterian Church at 1505 North Delaware, Indianapolis, IN., which is also home of the The Harrison Center art gallery, run by our neighbor Joanna Taft, who appears to be a member of the board of the church.
Ministry says it helps gays become straight
Indianapolis Star April 1, 2006Brad Grammer says he gets 120 calls a year from people asking for help in shaking their attraction to people of the same gender.
As director of Hope and New Life Ministries, a small Downtown operation based in Redeemer Presbyterian Church, he helps the callers find counselors or directs them to churches with support groups.
Grammer’s work is part of a network of “ex-gay” ministries affiliated with Exodus International, a 30-year-old Christian organization built on the premise that gay and lesbian people can change their sexual orientation.
For one week this summer, Exodus will make Indiana Wesleyan University the hub of the ex-gay movement when it brings its 31st Annual Exodus Freedom Conference to the university’s campus in Marion. The event is billed as the largest gathering of ex-gays anywhere in the world.
Exodus says the gathering, which starts June 27, will feature personal stories from people who consider themselves to be ex-gays.
“We are not trying to shove this on someone that is not ready,” said Julie Neils, a spokeswoman for Exodus International, which is based in Orlando, Fla. “We are here to say that change is possible because we have evidence of that, with hundreds of thousands of ex-gays that have come out of homosexuality.”
Leaders in Indianapolis’ gay community are wary of Exodus and its claims. They question whether anyone can turn from an orientation they were born with.
And they say perpetuating the idea that change is possible makes family members and public policy makers insensitive to the real needs of gays and lesbians.
“In my congregation, there are any number of people who had been part of the ex-gay movement,” said the Rev. Jeff Miner, senior pastor at Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, a Northeastside congregation that believes committed gay relationships are not contrary to the Bible. “The stories they tell me is that it was an excruciating time in their life when they were trying to be something they could never be.”
Religious leaders and gay rights groups have for years been locked in highly public battles over same-sex marriage.
Grammer said Christians who believe homosexuality is contrary to the Bible have frequently failed to show love and compassion toward gay individuals.
Exodus International President Alan Chambers agrees. He said Christian groups have spent too much energy pointing fingers at gays and making hostile arguments in the public square.
“The truth is that Christ died for all of us or he died for none of us,” Chambers said. “The way you win the battle is that people are changed when you reach their hearts.”
Some mainstream church denominations have opened their doors to gays and lesbians without challenging their lifestyles. Now, there are tentative signs that churches that don’t condone homosexuality are seeing the need to take a softer tone — not on their doctrine, but in how they welcome gay individuals.
Grammer said at least four such churches in the Indianapolis area have established ministries aimed at helping people who say they want to leave homosexuality. He is trying to develop more.
Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, a self-described pro-family lobbying group, said churches with traditional beliefs on homosexuality have been slow to get involved in ex-gay ministries. But more are getting interested.
“As homosexuality is becoming more and more acceptable in the culture, even to the point of being hip or chic — particularly among teenagers — churches are realizing that this may be a growing problem that they need to address,” said Clark, whose organization is among those telling churches about the conference.
The conference includes sessions for married couples in which one spouse struggles with being attracted to people of the same sex.
A youth-day event will point conflicted kids toward the path of heterosexuality. And there will be support groups and educational sessions for parents with gay children.
Miner, with Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, said he feels only a “deep sense of sadness” for the people who will attend.
He says few — those with an ambiguous sexuality — ever change, and many more will find only heartache.
“The message I try to give to people in the ex-gay movement is that if this doesn’t work for you, remember it is not your only option,” he said. “You can be both gay and Christian.”
But Chambers, the president of Exodus, says he is a former gay man who is now married with children.
He says hearing the stories of other ex-gays helped him find a way out.
He expects many who come to Indiana Wesleyan’s campus this summer will find it also.
“I had been told prior to that by people in the gay community that I couldn’t change, that there was no hope for overcoming that,” he said.
“The truth, in our opinion, is that people come out of homosexuality.”
Cheney tries to claim that voting for Kerry will cause another terrorist attack. The terrorist don’t want Kerry in office. They want Bush. He’s the best recruiting tool they’ve ever had, and he has no support from any important country in the world. They also do a lot of business with him through the Saudi Royal Family. Bush makes the terrorist’s job easy, and they’re dying to keep him.
Let me repeat it — you are NOT IN ANY DANGER FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS. The only terrorists you should be afraid of are the Christian Terrorists the blew up the Oklahoma City building, that set off a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics, that sent Anthrax to Democrats and the So-Called Liberal Media. These are they terrorists that are getting away with it… because they’re Republicans. Of course no one’s looking for them.
Salon Magazine has an article about Christian Terrorist Clayton Waagner, the man who was convicted last week of sending over 550 envelopes of fake anthrax letters to women’s health clinics across the country, including Planned Parenthood clinics here in Indianapolis. Prior to the anthrax threats, Waager had escaped prison where he was being held on weapons and stolen vehicle charges, and went on the run robbing banks, stalking women’s health clinics and preparing violent activities against doctors with other Christian terror cells before he was caught on the anthrax charges.
What’s interesting about all this is how Ashcroft’s Justice Department bent over backwards during Waagner’s trial to ensure that his terrorist past and connections to right-wing anti-abortions groups never got brought up, and to ensure that the media didn’t do any real coverage of Waagner’s trial or history. They also worked hard to downplay how much anguish and chaos the anthrax threats created for the people who received them.