Wednesday, February 20, 2013

There is nothing Christian about Rick Scarborough's hate



From Right Wing Watch:

Vision America's Rick Scarborough delivered a guest sermon at the Fairton Christian Center in New Jersey earlier this month where he declared that gays coming out of the closet was a sign that a nation has forgotten God.

But Scarborough quickly corrected himself and apologized for using the word "gay" when he really meant "sodomites" because using the word "gay" is "an abuse of the language." Scarborough went on the predict that, very soon, pedophiles will be referred to as "happy people" and they will have parades and be defended by legislators ... and those who don't think this can happen just need to remember that "twenty years ago, who called a sodomite 'gay'? We had laws in Texas 'til 2002 that we sent them to prison! That was based on the Bible, by the way"

I've got a Facebook friend who speaks in vicious tones about the Bible and Christianity in general. He at times drives me crazy. But when I listen to Scarborough, I can understand his anger.

If Rick Scarborough had said the same things about African-Americans or those of the Jewish faith that he just said about gays, there would be no question about his bigotry. Since when is using the Bible as a crutch an excuse for such abusive language? Bigotry is bigotry, no matter how you attempt to dress it up.

'Focus on the Family dooms its anti-gay argument with deceptive video' and other Wednesday midday news briefs



The above video by Focus on the Family is an example of oblivious ignorance.

From Think Progress:
In a conversation between host Stuart Shepard and Focus’s resident ex-gay Jeff Johnston, the two suggest that “the real agenda” of the equality movement is to “marginalize” Christians for opposing same-sex marriage . . .

 . . . Shepard and Johnston are categorically denying that discrimination is discrimination. They cite various cases of so called “marginalization” of Christians, but none of them even took place in states that have marriage equality. In each situation, it was a business refusing to provide a service to people because of their sexual orientation and then being challenged under state laws because that form of discrimination is illegal. A New Mexico photographer refused to document a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony and lost in court. Bakers in Colorado and Oregon have been challenged for refusing to sell cakes to celebrating same-sex couples. A t-shirt company in Kentucky was found to be in the wrong for refusing to print t-shirts for a Pride festival. None of these states even have same-sex marriage; the business owners simply do not have legitimate standing to discriminate.

The thing is that these folks seem to think that pushing such an argument helps them. Maybe it gets them accolades from folks who already support their point of view. However, in the mainstream, they are practically slicing their own argument to pieces. I say keep it up!

In other news:

Video: Secure in own marriage, unthreatened Delawareans secure equality insteadIn contrast to the above monstrosity of self-destruction comes this very neat and complete video from Delaware citizens who support marriage equality. 

59 Percent of Voters Oppose Section 3 of DOMA - And Section Three is the main part we are attempting to overturn.

The Down-Low Stigma Is Still Prevalent in Urban Gay Media - The Down-Low Stigma is a mess, particularly because it leaves "Woody Allen" types of black gay men like myself out in the cold when it comes to media representation.  Don't get me started when it comes to lack of diversity when it comes to the public images of black gay men.

Bayli Silberstein, Bisexual Eighth-Grader, Speaks Out As Florida School Board Tries To Block GSA (VIDEO) - I adore our young lgbt heroes!

Morse - gays want to convert the workplace using 'their agenda'

Part of me adores Jennifer Morse of NOM's Ruth Institute. Whereas Maggie Gallagher tried to be slick regarding NOM's homophobia, Morse refuses to play such games. She has let her homophobic "freak flag" fly, so to speak, thereby exposing NOM's true angle. Case in point, why she feels lgbt-inclusive nondiscrimination laws are a bad idea:

 
MORSE: Once a person is in the workplace, then they use their position of authority to steer the whole organization towards the larger objectives of the gay lobby which is not limited to making their company and their employer as successful as possible in the marketplace. You know? They’ve got other objectives that they’re working towards and they’re using their positions of authority inside companies to do that. And I think that’s the pattern, and I think that’s, in a sense, the story, for people to see that. And of course for an employer to say “well, gosh, I don’t want you to work for me anymore because the objectives of the gay lobby are not my objectives and you’re taking up a lot of corporate time pressuring us internally to steer us towards the gay lobby, and that doesn’t really do anything for me, and so I want to fire you because of that or I don’t want to promote you because of that because I don’t think you’re really working hand in glove with the overall objectives of this company,” I think they’d have a hard time firing somebody on that basis because of the anti-discrimination law. Or certainly it would be tricky to fire somebody. So I think people need to kind of understand that there’s more at stake than anti-discrimination policy. That those kinds of statutes, those kinds of laws, that kind of case law and so on, it seems like it’s innocent enough, actually carries with it, in its wake, more than people may realize. [emphasis added]

Apparently, Morse has been watching too much Star Trek and thereby has the lgbt community mistaken for the Borg, a community of marauding aliens led by a hive mind.

Members of the lgbt community are not attempting to get nondiscrimination laws passed so that we can easily spread the supposed "gay agenda" in the workplace. It's so that we can work freely unencumbered by the possible ignorance of our fellow employees.