Religious Left

Dave Burk, who teaches consumer education at Geneva High School, reportedly made the comments earlier this month during a talk about consumer tax. Student Jordan Hunter told the Chicago Sun-Times that Burk said: "How would you feel about your tax dollars going to pay some black fag in New York to take pictures of other black fags?" Hunter, who is gay, said: "If he wants to talk about a poor place to put our tax dollars, I think his salary is a poor place to put our tax dollars." Kudos to Pink News Uk www.GayTalkRadio.org a 24/7 LGBTQIA Independent Internet Radio Station. Visit, Listen, Support and become involved.

by Glenis Green Courier Mail, Australia GYMPIE gun lobbyist and former councillor Ron Owen has been ordered to pay a group of lesbians $12,500 in an Anti-Discrimination Tribunal decision. He has been told he must also also issue a public statement acknowledging he offended the town's homosexual community. The tribunal ruled he is entitled to express his homophobic views, but he went too far with the bumper sticker: "Gay Rights? Under God's law the only rights gays have is the right to die." Mr Owen was also ordered to publish a statement in the Gympie Times within 45 days stating that the tribunal had found he contravened the Anti-Discrimination Act by displaying a bumper sticker on a vehicle, publishing a report to the Cooloola Shire Council, making a comment in an interview broadcast on television and publishing a letter on a website - all of which incited hatred, serious contempt for or severe ridicule of homosexuals. He also has to acknowledge his conduct was un...

by Mary Poletti The Missourian COLUMBIA — Rejected by her fundamentalist Christian mother, a young lesbian woman ended her pain by hanging herself in a closet 11 years ago. Now, her faith and worldview transformed by her loss, that mother — Mary Lou Wallner — has made it her mission and ministry to help other Christian gays and lesbians avoid the same painful ending that her daughter’s story had. It’s a message she’ll bring to Columbia this Friday night in cooperation with Missouri United Methodist Church’s prominent ministry to gays in the community. Wallner took her story and its message on the road under the name TEACH Ministries, an acronym for “To Educate About the Consequences of Homophobia,” after her own faith-based homophobia drove a fatal wedge between herself and her elder daughter, Anna Wakefield. After Anna’s death, Wallner and her husband, Bob, began to look more closely at the issues that affected Anna toward the end of her life. After three years and a great deal of pra...

by Mindy Boggs The Huntsville Times We cannot simply dismiss the recent Knoxville Unitarian church shooting with "There's another lunatic among us, and you just never know, so let's beef up security in the parking lot." No, we need to do much more than that. We need to examine "public opinion" and the people and institutions who "shape" that opinion. You do not have to be "crazy," or the town lunatic, to commit murder, as this man did. You just have to believe strongly enough about something. When someone places all responsibility for society's ills (or their personal ills), as they define them, on a group of people who share a different ethnic background, religion, or political beliefs, one may come to hate this group so much, it triggers the desire to commit a crime and "sacrifice" oneself, along with the "guilty" ones. Generalizing, stereotyping, blaming can lead to ideological fanaticism. When we hear it, read ...

by Rachel Charman Pinks News UK The deputy leader of Barking and Dagenham council has been cautioned by police after using homophobic language. Senior Labour councillor Liam Smith is said to have said to a political rival's mother 'shut up you f***ing fat dyke' and 'go back to the farmyard', reports the Evening Standard. Mr. Smith was cautioned by police after the matter was investigated as a hate crime. He was ordered write a letter of apology to Mrs. Connelly. Mrs. Connelly, however, told 24News.com that this apology was 'not worth the paper it's written on'. 'If he wanted to apologise he would have apologised the following day. 'This was only because the police said if he didn't sign the caution he would go to court.' full article As a side note, a commenter stated " Had senior Labour councillor Liam Smith said to a political rival's mother 'shut up you f***ing fat nigger' and 'go back to where you came from'he...

CTV.ca News Staff Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of the founding member of the Westboro Baptist Church, told CTV.ca a group of seven members was turned away when they tried to cross the U.S. border into Canada Thursday night. But she said other members managed to get through at another border crossing, although she would not say how many. Phelps-Roper and her church have outraged Canadians by planning to protest Tim McLean's funeral. Members of the ultra-conservative Christian church claim McLean, who was decapitated by a fellow-passenger on a Greyhound bus last month, deserved his fate. Although no member of the group ever met McLean, they claim he lived an immoral and godless life, just like all other Canadians. full article

by Patrick O'Neill Independent Weekly The Barack Obama campaign opened its downtown Raleigh headquarters July 22 to much fanfare, but just around the corner the same night, the Obama celebration was outdrawn almost 3-to-1 by Jesus. A "campaign stop" of the Jesus for President book tour was led by evangelical progressives Shane Claiborne, 33, and Chris Haw, 26, whose book, Jesus For President, was published this spring by Zondervan. The new movement represents one of the most exciting shifts among Christian evangelicals. The Raleigh gathering at First Baptist Church on Wilmington Street, the 19th stop on a 21-city, 10,000-mile veggie-fueled bus tour, drew a crowd of mostly 20-somethings. Mixed in were old-guard progressive Christians, many affiliated with the N.C. Council of Churches. Claiborne said he offers "a refreshing message for post-Religious Right America," adding some young evangelicals are turning away from the often harsh and unloving messages—such as ...

Editorial The Anniston Star On Sunday, a gunman shot up Knoxville's Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, killing two worshipers and injuring a half-dozen more. Jim David Adkisson, the man police are charging in the shooting, was on a mission. Authorities say he picked the Knoxville congregation "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets." His views line up with the nasty, dehumanizing invective found on countless outlets, including talk radio, Fox News and conservative Web sites. On Monday, police reported that a search of Adkisson's residence revealed three book titles: The O'Reilly Factor by Bill O'Reilly, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by Michael Savage, and Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of ...

BACKSTORY By 365gay Newscenter Staff Anderson County, S.C. -- An 18-year-old, who had told police he was beaten by his father after attending a gay pride parade, was charged Thursday with filing a false police report. Dwight Clark Ables told police last week that his father yelled, swung the bat and tried to “cast the demon of homosexuality out of him.” Investigators said Thursday they had found no evidence to support any of the allegations. full article

Not long ago we heard news about a group of teens stoning a school bus full of young Jewish students , in New York. Today I read about a Mexican immigrant who was killed by a group of teens in Pennsylvania. There has been a rash of graffiti , noose hangings , cross burning and anti-gay hate incidents throughout our country. One must feel distressed over what type of parents are raising these children? Some would say it's high time the parents were held responsible for their children's actions. After all, hate is TAUGHT and is a choice. If a teen doesn't possess sufficient self control or know right from wrong the parents have failed miserably. Of course this brand of hate is not limited to teens. Hate has become a cancer, eating away at humanity from the inside out. If everyone were to cast aside self control and act out on their personal beliefs the world would be in mass chaos. For those arrogantly feeling the need to do so the punishment should be s...

By Pearce Adams The Anderson Independent Mail Anderson, South Carolina - Violence broke out Sunday in Anderson when an 18-year-old man returned home from a gay pride parade and was assaulted by his father. During the assault, the teen's 49-year-old father yelled, cursed, swung a baseball bat, prayed and tried to “cast the demon of homosexuality out of him,” according to the teen's version of events to Deputy S.C. Weymouth, the incident report states. FOLLOWUP/UPDATE full article

On June 27th I provided information on an article regarding the verbal assault on Presbyterian Assembly attendees in San Jose, California. In the article it stated the police were called and refused to respond. The police stated the altercation was on private property so they couldn’t help. I found this unacceptable and wrote the following letter to the Mayor; Mayor Reed, I was shocked today when I read an article stating your police department refused a call for assistance. It would seem on Wednesday evening Presbyterian Assembly attendees were verbally accosted by protestors. When a call was made to your police department, they refused to respond stating the protestors were on private property. Now I'm positive your police department has on file an arrest which was made on private property based on a verbal assault. Police are to "serve and protect". It seems that is no longer true in your city. Here is an article with the full story: http://young-activist.blogspot.com...

The blogs are buzzing with news regarding the death of Jesse Helms. Over at AOL Ken Layne says: " Jesse Helms died today, 25 years too late, but the stench of his rotten career will always linger in the Senate, and over the South." Of course the media makes him sound like some kind of saint. Obviously they have decided to ignore much. In 1988 he said " There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy .” In 1993 he sang “Dixie” in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, “ I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing Dixie until she cries .” He launched a senate filibuster against the declaration of Martin Luther King day. Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.” “We’ve got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by peo...

I’m going to invoke what is probably an over used term; If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny. You’ve probably heard of the term Public Networking website. Many of them are simply forums for folks to speak their minds. Some share information and insight, which can prove invaluable. Being a gay man I primarily visit gay related spaces in the vast volume of Internet spaces. The majority of Public Networking sites I visit are infected with the plague of hate. Indeed, it is rare, that any topic will go without the personal opinion of some rightwinger. Some of which, actually believe the gay spaces are created for them. Personally I’ve never understood that logic but a lot of their logic is a bit fuzzy. Most of them will tell you they are well adjusted, God Loving, church-going Christians who believe the Bible to be the accurate and ultimate last word. But the language they use is anything but Christian. Here comes the “sad but funny” part; I feel sorry for them. To have...

Le Anne Clausen over at Journal of a Young Activist relates a story regarding the Presbyterian General Assembly in San Jose, California. Religious based hate groups were ready to accost the Presbyterians as they returned to the building Wednesday evening. The religious based Bema Ministries were carrying signs and shouting epithets such as "Jesus hates you" and "All Presbyterians will burn in hell". The group arrived a day after the denomination's committee recommendation to the Assembly to delete G-6.0106(b), a clause that excludes gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons in relationships from being ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament. The group brought large signs declaring, "Homo Sex is a Sin," and "Homosexuality is a Threat to National Security," and positioned themselves on the plaza outside the Convention Center. Presbyterian commissioners (voting delegates), youth delegates, and other participants in the Assembly w...

by Dr. Lilly von Marcab IndyBay As cities around the world prepare for their annual Pride celebrations, it is worth considering the "Church" of Scientology's official position on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer people (LGBTQ). According to Scientology, such "perverts" should either be quarantined and institutionalized, or go through extensive Scientology "processing" until once again they have value as human beings. The cult's founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, felt LGBTQ people were malicious, untrustworthy and incredibly dangerous to society. In his follow-up book, "Science of Survival," he establishes a "tone scale," ranging from -3 to +4, for classifying categories of people and evaluating human behavior. "Perverts," as he classified LGBTQ people, fall at 1.1 on Hubbard's scale. He considered them to be extremely dangerous to society. full article

Award winning animated short to original song written by Dave Puls.

By CANADIAN PRESS The Sault Star A former pastor will appeal a human rights ruling that orders an apology and the payment of thousands of dollars in fines for an anti-gay letter published in a central Alberta newspaper. The Alberta Human Rights Commission issued a written order on May 30 stating that Stephen Boissoin and the Concerned Christian Coalition must pay former Red Deer school teacher Darren Lund $5,000 in damages. Boissoin's letter to the editor was published in the June 17, 2002, edition of the Red Deer Advocate. In it, he compared homosexuals to pedophiles and drug dealers. full article

In the wake of reports of anti-gay violence in Jamaica, GLBT equality groups have encouraged a boycott of the island and corporate sponsor Red Stripe has withdrawn its support from Jamaican music events. Radio Jamaica reported that, according to the equality groups, Jamaican society is highly intolerant of its GLBT members, who are at grave risk of being persecuted, beaten, or even murdered, and that the Jamaican government has seemed disinclined to address the problem. A Feb. 24 article in the International Herald-Tribune looked into the issue, reporting on episodes of violence in which groups of men attacked gay men in their own homes with machetes, a police officer came out of the closet in an attempt to dispel anti-gay myths, and the funeral of a gay man was disrupted when a crowd smashed the church windows and then stormed inside to object to the ceremony. All of these events happened in one town, Mandeville. Gays are also encouraged to "cure" their sexuality, or to ...

As Sally Kern and many others have proven. One only needs preface hateful commits with a denial to make them “acceptable”. My following comments are not a threat. I don’t hate anyone and have nothing but love and compassion for my enemy. There now I’m safe and can say hurtful things about whomever I desire. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy? I’ve been getting worried lately, but I worry a lot so maybe it’s no big deal. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve watched how we gays are treated, for a few decades. I only know I am worried about violence. I feel every person has an instinctual “line drawn in the sand”. Once that line is crossed there is no telling what that person is capable of. If you keep pushing and pushing, sooner or later you might reach that line causing the person to react in a way they normally wouldn’t. So after a few decades of seeing the gay community pushed and pushed I must wonder. Will this end up in violence? History is full of examples where the oppressed turned...