I get angry reading about the same tactics over and over again against LGBT civil rights legislation - You just can’t sell me that this isn’t about hate when were seeing these same, hateful “Christian” mistruths and fear tactics used over and over again. When do we develop some good answers to his and his “Christian” peers’ lies and fear tactics?
KALAMAZOO-Less than one month after the City of Kalamazoo Commission voted 7-0 to adopt an expanded human rights ordinance that makes it illegal to use sexual orientation to discriminate in housing, public accommodations and employment, petitions were filed Dec. 31 to repeal it.
City Clerk Scott Borling said that the circulators of the petition had filed over 1,600 signatures. If at least 1,273 of them are valid city registered voters, it will cause the new ordinance to be suspended immediately.
The city charter states that valid referendum petitions require the commissioners to take up the challenge at the next regular meeting which will be held on Jan. 26. They will either repeal the ordinance or place it on a ballot for city voters to decide. The certification process began Friday and the outcome should be known sometime this week.
The American Family Association of Michigan, led by Gary Glenn and Kalamazoo County Treasurer Mary Balkema, a former City Commissioner, submitted the petitions. Glenn has been quoted in local press claiming that the new ordinance would force some people to base decisions that run counter to their religious convictions, as well as possibly violate the privacy of women and children.
Glenn has led every challenge across the state in the past decade to defeat city ordinances that include sexual orientation and gender identity. A circulated flyer of talking points stated, “This ordinance violates the First Amendment rights of religion and free speech of those who oppose cross-dressing and homosexual behavior.”
Glenn has used scare tactics in other ballot initiatives. For example, the title of one of the petition circulator scripts reads, “IS THERE A MAN IN YOUR DAUGHTER’S BATHROOM?” …
First I rant about a lack of an effective counter argument to the same, tired arguments of the conservative “Christians,” and then I sigh. *Sigh.*
News and views for Thursday, December 11th through Saturday, December 13th …
[AL, USA] “A federal judge on Friday sentenced convicted transgender bank robber Jimmy Maurice Lewis II to a term of four years in prison. Lewis, 26, is a transgender individual who was dressed as woman when she robbed the Alabama Credit Union on Alabama 67 in Decatur on Nov. 9, 2007. Lewis has artificial breast implants but still possesses male genitalia, and police and prosecutors say her plan was to rob banks to finance a sex-change operation” — Bank robber gets 4 years: Cash was wanted for sex-change surgery, police say
[CA, USA] A judgment has been reached in Juan (”Auntie Juan”) Valera’s sexual orientation discrimination lawsuit against Costco (”the Anti-Wal-Mart“): “The panel of eight men and four women deliberated for two and a half days before finding that 45-year-old Valera had suffered under a hostile work environment. However, the jury rejected a claim in the October 2006 lawsuit that Valera was a victim of sexual orientation discrimination, that Costco failed to provide accommodations for his needs, and that the company acted with malice.” — Judgment in warehouse store discrimination case: $420,000
[ID, USA] Apparently, it’s been a difficult and trying past 28 years for trans woman Catherine Carlson, and a traffic ticket dispute involving the use of her former male name was “the last straw”: “For nearly a year, Catherine Carlson refused to pay the fine for driving with a suspended license because it was issued to both her and the man she used to be. She went to jail four times over the ticket that includes both her legal name and the one she was born with, Daniel Carlson. She had surgery 28 years ago to become a woman, the gender she believes should have been assigned her at birth … Her struggle for acceptance since the sex-change operation on Thanksgiving Day 1980 has gone on much longer. She chose a life of solitude at a trailer park near the Payette city limits, rejecting a society she feels has rejected her … Dressed in black pants, a plaid shirt and hiking shoes, Carlson is rail thin with long blond hair. Fine lines map her face, she hand-rolls her cigarettes, eats little and survives on nine travel-sized mugs of coffee a day. She lives on a $1,000-a-month Social Security check, suffers from depression, emphysema and a heart condition. “Changing your gender is not going to solve all your problems,” Carlson said … She worked three jobs, saved up about $15,000 to castrate Daniel and get saline breast implants for Catherine. She took estrogen until it became too expensive … Carlson views her struggle against the local justice system as a fight for rights granted to everyone else under the U.S. Constitution, acceptance in the society she has secluded herself from for all these years. “You’re going to have to make me one of ‘We the People,’” Carlson said.” — S. Idaho transgender woman fights use of male name
[MI, USA] The recent, successful repeal of a sexual orientation/gender identity anti-discrimination ordinance by voters in Hamtramck, Michigan appears to have set the stage for a similar effort against a recently adopted anti-discrimination ordinance in Kalamazoo : “Petitions aimed at rescinding a new city ordinance banning discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender individuals in housing, public accommodations and employment began circulating in Kalamazoo churches last weekend. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said Thursday that his organization is supporting the efforts of unnamed local activists toward a 2009 ballot measure to rescind the ordinance … Glenn confirmed that AFAM has a supporting role in the local petition drive. But he declined to name local organizers, saying “determining who their spokesman is is up to them.”“There is a petition being circulated to allow the citizens of Kalamazoo to make the decision on this ordinance, not the politicians,” Glenn said. “Experience proves that in other jurisdictions, ordinances like this have been used to discriminate against and penalize people who believe homosexual behavior is wrong.” — Petitions target new ordinance
[NH, USA] Brianna Cook is suing the PC Connection, accusing the company of gender discrimination in violation of state and federal law after that company declined to hire her: “Cook is a post-operative transsexual with experience in marketing communications and sales, both as a man and as a woman, her suit states. She claims PC Connection officials implied that her hiring was assured, and that a company recruiter later told her she was eventually rejected because she hadn’t disclosed that she had previously applied to the company as a man.” — Transsexual sues over discrimination
[OR, USA] What were members of Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church really doing in Silverton a couple of weeks back protesting the election of its new transgender mayor, Stu Rasmussen? Well, one person evidently thinks it’s all part a devious and subversive transgender agenda and he sets the record straight: “Could this whole affair of protesting Silverton’s new transgender (a man dressing as a woman) mayor be a well-organized set-up to foster and make acceptable transgendering? The Westboro church may be a front organization to make sensational news through “hate messages” under the guise of Christianity, thus undermining true Christianity. … The infinite wisdom of God makes no mistakes. Men are men, women are women. That is the reality now and forever no matter how they dress or alter their bodies.” — Church’s protest could be a setup to make sensational news
[WA, USA] The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is a trailblazer when it comes to the formulation and implementation of policy governing the participation of trans persons in organized athletics: “Before the 2006-07 school year, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association had never fielded a question about transgender athletes. That year, they received four inquiries about whether teenagers with non-traditional gender identities could compete for their schools. Trans issues were no longer out of bounds. “No one had ever asked, so we had no policy” … the 2007 policy talked about “transgender” issues, the revised version referred to “gender identity or expression.” It says: “Fundamental fairness, as well as most local, state and federal rules and regulations, requires schools to provide intersex and transgender student-athletes with equal opportunities to participate in athletics. This policy creates a framework in which this participation may occur in a safe and healthy manner that is fair to all competitors.” The policy says that if questions arise whether “a student’s request to participate in a sex-segregated activity consistent with his or her gender identity is bona fide,” the student may seek review of eligibility through a confidential process, beginning with his or her school administrators. A hearing would then be scheduled before a WIAA committee specifically established to consider gender identity appeals. The committee is to include at least one person from the medical or mental health field who is familiar with gender identity issues … ” — Washington embraces trans athletes
[USA] “The Human Rights Campaign is calling on President-elect Barack Obama to implement numerous non-legislative changes to improve the lives of gay and transgender Americans … The many changes recommended by HRC include expanding President Bill Clinton’s executive order barring discrimination in the federal workplace on the basis of sexual orientation to include gender identity … Other recommendations include … [requiring] that the federal government only hire contractors that have non-discrimination provisions for sexual orientation and gender identity categories … [and] allowing the Internal Revenue Service to provide reimbursements for medical expenses in the gender-transition process through tax-preferred flexible spending accounts. Also, allowing transgender people to change their gender markers on federal documents and records, including passports.” — HRC asks Obama to make pro-gay changes: Requests include expanding non-discrimination protections
[UK/Turkey] “The biology behind the raging-hormone rite of passage known as puberty has long been a mystery. Just as the pimply, mood-swinging teen puzzles parents, the process that sets the teenager off has also stumped scientists. But researchers from Turkey and England say they have discovered one of the master molecules that triggers sexual maturity.” — Research uncovers puberty genes
Conservative, political Christianity is working their religious right constituency to repeal marriage equality in California. Today (August 12, 2008), the American Family Association (AFA) has confronted marriage equality on two fronts:
The first is the AFA Action Alert from Jim Garlow (Pastor, Skyline Church, San Diego, CA Pastors
Rapid Response Team). The AFA is organizing a California Statewide Pastors Conference Call on Wednesday, August 27 at 10 AM. Some of what they want to accomplish on the call:
• Voter Identification Phase (August) - to find out who, among the 16 million CA registered voters, are for Proposition 8 and who are undecided. This canvassing will begin on August 16, and will continue on August 23 and September 6. If you have those within your congregation who would like to participate, please ask them to email protectmarriageCA@4sd.net by early next week including all their contact information, including email, phone, address and zip code.
• Advocacy Phase (September) – returning to those who are for Proposition 8 and those who are undecided. INFORMATION WILL BE PROVIDED IN THE AUGUST 27 CONFERENCE CALL.
• “Get Out the Vote” Phase (October) – returning to those who are for Proposition 8. INFORMATION WILL BE PROVIDED IN THE AUGUST 27 CONFERENCE CALL.
Some of the ways they’re going to identify voters, besides cold calls:
If we lose California, if they defeat the marriage amendment, I’m afraid that the culture war is over and Christians have lost. I’ve never said that publicly until now — but that’s just the reality of the fact.
If the homosexuals are able to defeat the marriage amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, then the culture war is over and we’ve lost — and gradually, secularism will replace Christianity as the foundation of our society.
–Don Wildmon, President of the American Family Association, quoted on OneNewsNow
I’m sure he’s using hyperbole to make his point, but still — I think that his statement says a lot. It would be very wonderful to defeat Prop 8 — seeing it as a win for the LGBT community and marriage equality.
I hate to say though that if Prop 8 fails to pass, I will probably be just as happy to know that conservative Christians will consider this a Culture War movement defining loss for them.
Go Equality For All! Go California!
~~~~~
Related:
* Pam’s House Blend: Equality For All
* Pam’s House Blend tag: Marriage Equality
Last month the City Council and mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan voted to expand that city’s antidiscrimination protections to include discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
When such protections have been enacted in other places in the country, such as Montgomery County, Maryland, it’s much too often the case that opponents are firm and unyielding in their opposition.
But, not in Hamtramck, where Ypsilanti resident Jay McNally has displayed such a generous grasp of the meaning and spirit of compromise to the locals , according to today’s Detroit Free Press [emphasis added] …
To Randy Groseclose, an antidiscrimination ordinance passed last month by the Hamtramck City Council sets a dangerous precedent.
“There’s concern about what impact an ordinance like this would have on traditional family values,” the 31-year-old married resident said, noting, “I definitely don’t support any kind of discrimination.”
To others, including Mayor Karen Majewski, the ordinance is a sign of compassionate governance. “The intention … is simply to recognize and ensure basic human rights, basic equality of treatment under the law for every resident of Hamtramck.”
The ordinance prohibits discrimination in housing, employment and city contracting against a wide range of groups, but its inclusion of protections covering sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression has put the city at the center of an ideological battle.
In addition to local interest, outside groups such as the American Family Association of Michigan and the Triangle Foundation have taken a strong interest in the debate.
Groseclose was one of several people who collected signatures for a petition that could allow residents to vote on the ordinance. The group needed 417 signatures from registered voters and collected close to 600. City Clerk Ed Norris said he expects to finish the certification process by Monday. If the group collected enough valid signatures, the City Council would be able to repeal the ordinance or put it on a ballot.
Sean Kosofsky, spokesman for Triangle Foundation in Detroit, said the fight in Hamtramck is the latest skirmish between those who support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights and those who oppose them. He cited fights over similar ordinances in Ann Arbor, Ferndale, Ypsilanti and other Michigan cities.
He said opponents’ claims that the ordinance would target groups such as the Boy Scouts, Salvation Army and others because of their stances on gay rights are lies. “They’re going to try to pit neighbor against neighbor,” he said.
But Jay McNally, a former Michigan Catholic editor from Ypsilanti, disagreed.
McNally, who considers himself a member of the American Family Association, said council members likely did not understand “the disastrous implications of what the Triangle Foundation has in mind.”
Still, he offered what he considered to be a compromise: McNally said he could support the ordinance without references to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, points Majewski said were “nonnegotiable.”
OneNewsNow quotes Dr. David Stevens, the Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) in their piece Transgenderism — purely psychological?, where he makes a patently false statement about what the Bible says about altering the shape of one’s genitalia. He makes his false statement in a call for not treating transgender people with “immoral” treatments:
“Well, the Bible does tell us very clearly that mutilation of the body is wrong, and it’s sad that these people have this psychological disorder — but it should be treated from a psychological perspective,” Stevens contends.
The “psychological perspective” that Dr. Stevens is referring to is obviously conversion therapy, because he’s rejects the American Medical Association’s house of delegates approval of a resolution in June that supports removing barriers to treat and care for transgender people, as apparently he also rejects the Harry Benjamin Standard Of Care (HBSOC) [of which the purpose of the HBSOC is to articulate WPATH’s consensus about the psychiatric, psychological, medical, and surgical management of gender identity disorders (GID)].
Here’s what Dr. Stevens does say about treatment for trans people in the OneNewsNow:
The CMDA spokesman has taken a look at the recent [AMA] resolution. “They’re calling on insurance companies to provide treatment for gender-identity disorder, which actually is a sex-change operation. Those are very expensive and obviously treat something in a way that really isn’t going to solve the problem, just perpetuate it. [It is] sad that this has happened, but we’re increasingly seeing this happen at the American Medical Association and other professional organizations across the country,” Stevens explains
Lovely.
But hey, back to the headline: The real difficulty I have with Dr. Stevens comments on “mutilation” is that he’s either ignorant of what the Bible says — specifically in a quote attributed to Jesus — regarding changing the shape of one’s genitalia, or he’s lying about it. The quote from Jesus that Dr. Stevens should have been aware of:
For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.
The Geneva Study Bible states this about that verse quoted above — Matthew 19:12 — on how one becomes a eunuch:
A man can become a eunuch in one of two ways: the first is by castration or emasculation, and the other by natural causes, such as a rupture.
There were no genital reassignment surgeries besides castration available at the time the New Testament was written.
For Dr. Stevens to indicate he knows what the Christ and the Bible says about genital mutilation when he obviously doesn’t — well, it takes the underpinning out from his and his organization’s stated beliefs. He’s either intentionally lying about what the Bible says about changing one’s genitalia, or he’s completely ignorant about what Jesus said about changing one’s genitalia.
Either way, Dr. Stevens looks a lot more like an ignoramus than a man with such an advanced medical degree should probably look. It certainly speaks loudly to how little knowledge the Christian Medical & Dental Associations must have even on basic scriptural references to changing one’s genitalia if their spokesperson is Dr. Stevens.
And hey, if some peewee, conservative Christian, medical association — with “Christian” boldy included in its name — doesn’t even know what the Bible states about an issue their commenting on, one can only wonder what this peewee, conservative Christian, association — with “Medical” boldy included in its name — doesn’t know about the medical side of issues it comments on.
~~~~~
Further Reading:
* John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes, Isaiah 56:3-8
I would say it’s a safe bet to make that OneNewsNow avoids posting the term gay in the Associated Press articles they feed to their site by the use of an automatic search-and-replace program. It looks this way because of their embarrassing post of an article that changed the name of Beijing Olympics hopeful Tyson Gay to “Tyson Homosexual” (emphasis added).
Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials
Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.
His wind-aided 9.85 seconds was a fairly cut-and-dry performance compared to what happened a day earlier. On Saturday, Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat and had to scramble to finish fourth, then in his quarterfinal a couple of hours later, ran 9.77 to break the American record that had stood since 1999…
Still, it says something about the American Family Association (the proprietors of OneNewsNow) that they don’t want to buy into the Gay Agenda (that they’ve retitled the Homosexual Agenda) so mcuh that they change every gay to homosexual via auto-replace.
My guess would be that they consciously use homosexual as a term to throwback to when homosexual was listed as a mental health condition in DSM-II. Activist conservative Christians often tend to believe that it’s a Myth That Psychiatry Has Proven That Homosexual Behavior Is Normal, and because they believe that homosexuality should be relisted as a mental disorder because they believe homosexuality is marked by deviant and sinful behavior that’s tied to an identity.
I don’t give a hoot about what you think,
I look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink.
Yesterday, the band Weezer released their official video to their single “Pork And Beans.” The video features quite a few celewebrities, including a couple of famous gender benders. One is comedian Liam Sullivan — also known as Kelly of Shoes fame, and the other Chris Crocker.
I guess I never do take my activist hat off. I watched the video to see the cameos of Kelly, as Liam Sullivan is probably my favorite performer ever (I just love how Liam seems to capture a certain kind of trans experience without trying to “be” transgender) –yet watching the video, surprisingly my eyes welled with tears when Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo embraced Chris Crocker. When Rivers embraced Chris, the lyrics quoted above were playing in the background.
The full, bridge hook and chorus went as follows:
I’m going to do the things that I wanna do,
I ain’t gotta thing to prove to you.
I eat my candy with the pork and beans,
Excuse my manners if I make a scene. I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like,
I’m fine and dandy with the me inside.
One look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink,
I don’t give a hoot about what you think.
I don’t care,
I don’t care,
I don’t care,
I don’t care,
I don’t care,
I don’t care.
Immediately before I watched the video, I’d read a OneNewsNow blog entry entitled Is This Really a Prom? I do care when folk like Pam Clayton writes stuff like this:
So now we are having gay proms? Since the gay agenda likes to compare themselves to the racism felt by African Americans how can they have a dance for those who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or transgender? The event is being held at the National Museum of Mexican Art and is being promoted for the youth ( although adults are also invited). Well isn’t that just wonderful, we have underage children at a prom with Gay adults.
So basically, it’s just that sometimes I feel wearied from anti-LGBT lies and hate, so seeing the acceptance communicated in the Rivers’ embrace Chris caused a pretty emotional reaction on my part.
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
–Martin Luther King Jr.
British actor Paul Scofield, renowned for his stage and screen portrayal of Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons,” died yesterday. Mr. Scofield, the New York Timesnoted …
… made his debut as Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” on the school stage. “I had to wear an embarrassing blond wig,” he said. “But it was a turning point, because thenceforward there was nothing else I wanted to do.”
The American Family Association (AFA) has a new action alert out today. The alert aludes to Ford Motor Company paying for “sex change operations” for transsexuals as part of their employee medical benefits package.
The headline for their action alert is Ford Motor Company offers sex change benefits — When I read the headline, I thought the AFA was objecting to Ford paying for genital reassignment surgery.
But, the alert’s paragraph describing the benefits states:
Ford offers medical benefits to help pay expenses of those who choose to undergo sex change operations. Ford pays for mental health counseling, hormone therapy, medical visits, and short-term disability after surgical procedures for employees who desire to change their sex.
So basically, if one reads the action alert closely, Ford doesn’t pay for sex change operations, they pay for psychological counseling, trips to medical professionals, prescription medication, and time off for recovery after genital reassignment surgery — if a transsexual were to pay for their own surgery out of pocket.
What Ford is paying for with regards to their transsexual employees is in no way new either. The AFA created a deceitful headline for an article “action alert” that just restates Ford’s current policy in an apparent attempt to deceptively keep their ongoing boycott “fresh.”
Clearly, one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that this kind of disingenuously worded “advertising” wouldn’t pass the “WWJD” smell test. Perhaps instead, AFA President Donald E. Wildmon is taking his lessons on advertising copy from the father of lies.
seeing these same, hateful “Christian” mistruths and fear tactics used over and over again. When do we develop some good answers to his and his “Christian” peers’ lies and fear tactics?
First I rant about a lack of an effective counter argument to the same, tired arguments of the conservative “Christians,” and then I sigh. *Sigh.*
[UK] “A Guilford woman has revealed how a sex change [
If we lose California, if they defeat the marriage amendment, I’m afraid that the culture war is over and Christians have lost. I’ve never said that publicly until now — but that’s just the reality of the fact.
I’m sure he’s using hyperbole to make his point, but still — I think that his statement says a lot. It would be very wonderful to defeat Prop 8 — seeing it as a win for the LGBT community and marriage equality. 
, according to today’s Detroit Free Press [emphasis added] …
To Randy Groseclose, an antidiscrimination ordinance passed last month by the Hamtramck City Council sets a dangerous precedent.
OneNewsNow quotes Dr. David Stevens, the Chief Executive Officer of the 
as apparently he also rejects the 
to their site by the use of an automatic search-and-replace program. It looks this way because of their embarrassing post of an article that changed the name of Beijing Olympics hopeful Tyson Gay to “Tyson Homosexual” (emphasis added).
