The Real Gay Agenda

"[L}et’s dispel a few myths propagated by our opponents: They are quick to say “You can be who you want, just don’t force it on us” or “We don’t hate you--we simply wish that you keep your lifestyle away from our children,” plus plenty of other venomous remarks masquerading as tolerance. The fact is that they don’t only want gays and lesbians to shut up--they want us gone. Most would fire up the ovens if they thought they could get away with it, doing away once and for all with the blight of gays and lesbians--let the fires of hell claim those evildoers now instead of at death.

"When the president of the United States talks about the “protection” of marriage, what he’s really talking about is equivalent to a big federal NO stamp placed on the foreheads of each gay and lesbian American. It’s not about marriage--it’s about the need to smack us back down because we’re getting too uppity. When school boards get upset at posters about tolerance or over gay-straight alliances, it has nothing to do with parental choice concerning what their children are taught in school--it’s about their denial that any of their kids could be gay. They don’t want their kids to know about gays, because they wish we didn’t exist. Period. End of story...

"So while the gay agenda might not be clearly defined, there can be no doubt what the antigay agenda is: removal of all things from society that in any way, shape, or form say being gay is acceptable.

"But back to our so-called agenda: Why does no one seem to notice that it’s mentioned only when someone or some entity is trying to oppress us? Gays and lesbians have far more to do with our lives than go around each day trying to promote some ethnocentric ideology...

"Basically, we want the same benefits, rights, and protections as other Americans.

"So there is in fact a gay agenda--however, it’s called by the wrong name. The agenda isn’t gay, it’s American. What all those opposing us don’t understand is that we have the same agenda that everyone in this nation has: to be free while living here. Free to be who and what we are; to have our unions sanctioned with the same benefits; to not fear death or expect to be an outcast at home, work, and school for simply being different.

"Gays and lesbians want freedom, particularly from religious oppression. We want what our founding fathers wanted--a place where all are indeed created equal, endowed with the same inalienable rights, and treated as such."

from "The Gay Agenda Revealed!" by Charles Karel Bouley II
http://advocate.com/html/stories/933/933_bouley.asp

Marry

"I really look forward to looking back on this aspect of our convention [the marriage debate] with some degree of embarrassment for how antiquated it was, where we even have to stand up here and mention that we have some friend who's gay," he said. "Guess what folks? Everybody has a friend, a brother, a family member who's gay. ... You're entitled to every goddamned right that every other American is.

"If you want to defend marriage," Affleck said, "find somebody and love that person, and care for that person, and be faithful to that person, and commit your life to that person, and don't worry about your neighbor's marriage. ... As somebody who, to be perfectly frank, has enough trouble figuring out who to marry, I don't need the federal or state government telling me who I can marry."

Ben Affleck

Thoughts from Bishop John Shelby Spong

"The issue of homosexuality is not a 'moral' issue so much as it is a 'being' issue. That is because all contemporary and scientific data today suggest that homosexuality is not something people choose to do; it is something that a minority of the world's population simply is. It is abnormal only in the sense that it is minority. Prejudice against a gay or lesbian person is thus in the same category as prejudice against those whose skin color is different, or against women or left-handed people. To denigrate a person simply because of who that person is, is evil and yes, I would also call it sinful...

"Above all I think it is time evangelical Christians stop quoting the Bible to perpetrate their prejudices against both homosexuals and women. The Bible is not a medical and health textbook and the level of knowledge available to the ancient people who wrote it compromises its authority. Jesus is even portrayed, you might recall as thinking epilepsy is caused by demon possession. The Bible came into written form roughly between 1000 B.C.E. and 135 C.E. The world has learned much since then. To suggest that the Bible somehow has the answer to complex modern issues like homosexuality and abortion is to be uninformed at best; it is to be malevolent and destructive at worst."

Bishop John Shelby Spong

Sound Familiar

"When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose" (p. 56).

Harry Frankfurt, "On Bullshit" Princeton University Press, 2005

Re Larry Kramer

I've found it hard to say just why I find Larry Kramer such a compelling writer. "Why I love Larry" by Gary Barton from The Advocate, March 1, 2005 reflects alot of my own thoughts.

"I love Larry Kramer. More to the point, I respect him and am enormously grateful to him. I am really sick of people who, out of ignorance or stupidity or fear, criticize Larry for being a loose cannon. Do I agree with everything he has said? No. So what? Does he sometimes rant? Fortunately, yes...

"To those of you who don’t like Larry’s style, get over it. If Larry’s critics put a 10th of the work and passion that Larry has into helping people with AIDS, we would not be in these horrible times.

"Style is not as important as content, and almost without exception, Larry has been right. Read his writings from the early ’80s, and you’ll find how so many of the very things that upset people most have proved to be right. Oftentimes unpopular, but right. He is the kind of leader we need.

"Larry helped to coin and popularize the phrase SILENCE = DEATH.

"Stupidity also equals death."

http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/933/933_barton.asp

Lent

"The purpose of Lent is not only expiation, to satisfy the
divine justice, but above all a preparation to rejoice in God's
love. And this preparation consists in receiving the gift of
God's mercy - a gift which we receive in so far as we open our
hearts to it, casting out what cannot remain in the same room
with mercy.

Now one of the things we must cast out first of all is fear.
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our
capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves. If
we were terrified of God as an inexorable judge, we would not
confidently await God's mercy, or approach God trustfully in
prayer. Our peace, our joy in Lent are a guarantee of grace."

- Thomas Merton, in "Seasons of Celebration"

Ask not for whom homophobia tolls

"Ask Not for Whom Homophobia Tolls" by Warren J. Blumenfeld is an excellent read. It puts the problem of increasing attacks on GLBTIQ people into amazing perspective. A few quotes:

"The poison that flows from diminishing gay and lesbian lives, as the president did again last week, sickens everyone in our society. It’s contingent upon all of us to join together to free our country from this evil."
...

"In the wake of these actions, I cannot help thinking about something Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and abolitionist, once said when he described the dehumanizing effects of slavery not on slaves alone but also on white slave owners whose relationship to slavery corrupted their humanity. While the social conditions of Douglass’s time were very different from those today, nonetheless I believe his words hold meaning by analogy: “No [person] can put a chain about the ankle of [another person] without at last finding the other end fastened about his [or her] own neck.”"
...

"Ultimately, homophobia inhibits appreciation of other types of diversity, making it unsafe for everyone because each person has unique traits not considered mainstream or dominant. Therefore we are all diminished when any one of us is demeaned.

"The meaning is quite clear: When any group of people is scapegoated, it is ultimately everyone’s concern. Today lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are targeted; tomorrow, they may come for you. Everyone, therefore, has a self-interest in actively working to dismantle all the many forms of bigotry, including homophobia.

"I believe that we are all born into an environment polluted by homophobia (one among many forms of oppression), which falls on us like acid rain. For some people, spirits are tarnished to the core; others are marred on the surface; no one is completely protected. Therefore we all have a responsibility, indeed an opportunity, to join together as allies to construct protective shelters from the corrosive effects of bigotry while working to clean up the homophobic environment in which we live. Once sufficient steps are taken to reduce this pollution, we will all breathe a lot easier."

http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/932/932_blumenfeld.asp