Posts Tagged → gay
Beating that dead horse? You bet
Religious freedom is specifically protected in the US Constitution’s First Amendment. It is one of the hallmarks of American liberty, one of our claims to fame.
Enter liberalism AKA fascism.
If you are Brendan Eich, founder of Mozilla, and you believe in the Bible and you vote that way, and you donate money to causes and candidates who represent that view, why…you are FIRED. Yes, fired for your religious and political views.
If you are Elaine Huguenin of Elaine Photography in Albuquerque, New Mexico, you are now in violation of a state law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual behavior. So Elaine was sued because she didn’t want to photograph a gay wedding. Our super lame US Supreme Court refused to stand up for Elaine’s rights.
Wedding cakes for same-sex couples have also become cause celebre.
So apparently it is now against the law to believe in the Bible, to follow the Bible, and to follow your religious conscience. It appears that it is now illegal to be against gay behavior. And it appears that you can be fired for being insufficiently supportive of gay behavior. Is it against the law to be against gay behavior?
My question is, Can a gay baker be compelled to make a birthday cake for an anti-gay activist? Like, say, anti-gay Westboro Baptist members?
Like so much of this issue, the whole thing stinks to high heaven of double standards. Tolerance for one should be tolerance for all. First Amendment rights are clearly under attack by the very fascists who proclaim themselves to be the most tolerant and open minded of all.
American rights are being lost, and I will keep beating on this dead horse, until it gets up and starts running like it used to. Giddy up!
Lesbian activist Camille Paglia speakin’ the gospel
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/19/paglia-duck-dynasty-uproar-utterly-fascist-utterly-stalinist/?onswipe_redirect=no
Lesbian activist Camille Paglia calls gay activists “juvenile, fascist, Stalinist, intolerant…” And she’s right.
People like me, who strongly support a person’s right to be who they are born to be, straight or gay, without harassment, intimidation, penalty, are now personally penalized for holding Biblical views.
Is this free speech? Is this protected religion? Duck Dynasty guy got railroaded because he believes in the Bible. Wow. Folks, are you paying attention? Your religious views are no longer protected. But everything else is protected, even if it has nothing to do with the founding of America. We are in a fight, people. It’s a good fight. Better win it.
Is pro-gay political community anti-Bible bigotry?
Duck Commander guy says what he thinks about gay sex. A bit too graphic for me, but he’s entitled to his opinion. His views are basically based on explicit Biblical values. Next thing ya know, he’s being attacked as a “bigot.”
OK. I understand that a gay person doesn’t want to hear those views. I’m also sure that people who follow the Bible don’t want to hear the views of pro-gay sex advocates. If there’s parity in life, then there’s equality here, too.
Right?
Doesn’t this Duck Commander guy deserve the same First Amendment rights as other Americans? And if his views are “wrong,” then are his opponents anti-Bible bigots?
I’m trying to figure this issue out. It seems filled with double standards and bullying by political advocates who just cannot accept that other Americans disagree with them. And that disagreement results in severe career punishment.
If it’s wrong to punish someone’s career because they are perceived as gay (how does one ascertain that a person is, in fact gay? What’s the level of proof?), then why is it OK to punish someone’s career because they hold traditional Biblical views?
It is one thing entirely to support a person’s right to be who they are. It’s another thing entirely to say everyone is equal, except for you. It’s equality for everyone, or for none. Tolerance for one, tolerance for all, right?
The Duck Commander guy has zero equality, apparently. So much for First Amendment rights or protecting Biblical views.
Framing the Issue, Defining the Person
Although I spend most of my work time with muddy boots out in the field, I obviously have a passion for government policy and issues. My college and graduate school degrees are in government (and economics, and statistics, and history, and…and…), so “big issues” have always motivated me. And thus, I write about them.
As a sound policy advocate, I am always wrestling with framing an issue or defining the person behind an issue, say, in a public race for office.
One of the aspects of this process I am getting better at is understanding what motivates someone else who sees it differently than I.
And here is my conclusion: Power, power, and more power over decisions, resources, and people is what motivates the vast majority of people who take a stand on something. Especially in politics.
Take, for example, last week’s decision at the Boy Scouts of America. In my mind, the decision to allow gay people is not an issue. After all, how would I know someone is gay unless they tell me? I could not care less about who is gay, or straight, and in fact I enjoy the presence of a number of gay people because they are funny, smart, and entertaining. I have nothing against gays. But what I do have an issue with is talking about sex with my kid, and who does it, and why.
And so, the political advocates of being gay say they have a right to talk about their sexual preferences any time they want, and I respond that now I know how women feel when meatheads make stupid comments that can be construed as sexist or come-ons. There is just zero room for discussing sexuality or sexual preferences in public or with kids not your own. And so I frame this issue naively, thinking it is about what is best for kids (knowing that adults who also object to having sexuality pressed upon them can take refuge in myriad anti-sexual harassment laws).
Every kid should have a sex-free zone drawn around them. And yes, talking about your sexual preferences is S-E-X-U-A-L.
And thus are parents like me unfairly defined as bad, bigoted, evil, cruel, etc. The issue has been framed in a way that automatically makes us “bigoted” if we disagree, thereby removing our ability (power) to defend our ideas. But I prefer to frame it in a way that protects kids, my kids, from being sexualized. And thus, I will stand my ground and say “leave the kids alone.”
Gay people who want to hang out at my house and debate this, or have dinner, or play cards, are welcome any time we know you are arriving.
BSA Policy Should be Zero Tolerance for Sex
It hurt to send this to my son’s Boy Scouts troop leader today. Ben is a wonderful man and an important part of our son’s life:
“Hi Ben.
I don’t care who is gay.
And no one has a right to talk about sex with my son Isaac.
Sex has no place in the BSA.
The moment that a teenager or adult talks about sex with my son at a BSA event is the moment I file a lawsuit against BSA for sexual harassment and then withdraw from the troop.
The correct policy should have been a zero tolerance for sex, period. Talking about sexual behavior is innately sexual. It’s an innately private subject without any legitimate purpose around kids.
You are and have been a fantastic troop leader. I’m very sorry to send this to you. But I must protect my son. Isaac has a right to be free from sexualization by older kids and adults. The new BSA policy says that someone has a right to sexualize my son. That’s wrong, and the BSA is now looking like an unsafe place, the wrong place for my son.
Josh”
Stepping Across the Barricade: I’m 47, Married, Religious, and Love My Gay Friends, Daggonit
Stepping Across the Barricade: I’m 47, Married, Religious, and Love My Gay Friends, Daggonit
By Josh First
July 31, 2012
Preface:
1) I do not hate, dislike, or otherwise work against homosexual people.
2) Since my college years I have known casually and also been close friends with many gay people, both women and men. I love my gay family members as well as a couple of my gay friends.
3) I am not gay, I am not attracted to men, but rather have always had a “thing” for older women. Now that my marriage is closing in on 20 years, I’m finally getting what I always lusted after: An older woman.
4) I have stood up for gay people, in the office during my professional career and during social situations in college, since I was in my teens.
5) If I were to see a gay person being physically attacked for the simple reason that they were gay, they could and always can count on my immediate involvement and intercession on their behalf. I’ll physically defend your right to be gay and free from harassment and assaults, and I’m a tough brawler.
6) I believe that people are born gay, that it is not a choice at least most of the time, and that God made gay people the way they are; more power to them. Someone had to fill Isaac Mizrachi’s shoes, and it sure isn’t going to be a knuckle dragger like me. I admire anyone defending our nation with a gun, gay or straight.
7) Be gay if that’s what you are. Live. Be. Enjoy the free air as much as I or any other person enjoys it. You are just as entitled to it as any other human. I don’t care if you are gay.
And…8: During the two times I have run for public office (U.S. House PA-17th District, 2010, and PA Senate – 15th District in 2012), I have taken open, strongly worded policy positions against discrimination against gay people in the work place, in the application of government benefits, and in equal protection of the laws of the land.
Given the forgoing, you would have to be a lunatic to say that I am anti-gay, bigoted against gays, or somehow an anti-gay crusader.
And yet, all these things have been said about me, and much worse, over the past week since I dared to raise a nuanced policy discussion about preventing the sexualizing of children. In sum, to recapitulate what started the ruckus, I support the Boy Scouts of America policy of not sexualizing their kids. In terms of gay people, it means that open displays of sex, discussing being gay, gay-ness, gay acts, and other human sexuality in general are all off limits, forbidden, and utterly unacceptable. Because these are, after all, children. This applies to gay, straight, and pedophile adults. Think what you want, but keep your thoughts to yourself.
My child is not going to be a battleground in this culture war issue. Homosexuality is sexuality, and sexuality of all sorts does not belong in the scouts nor around little kids. People pushing sexuality make me uncomfortable for obvious reasons, whether they are straight or gay. Sexuality is a private matter. Kids and sex don’t mix.
Sexuality is sex; it is not race, religion, etc. no matter how much culture war proponents want to say it is. That’s the problem with culture wars. Demands are made of others to suspend belief, suspend reason, suspend debate and just kowtow, or die.
Once again, to recapitulate, it is my opinion that talking about sex or sexuality with children who are not your own, especially in the Boy Scouts-type setting, is unacceptable. Adults, sex, and kids do not mix.
Unless the kids are yours and you are parenting them by describing human sexuality. Or, if you consent to having the “birds and the bees” be described for your kids at school by a professional in a public setting.
A few reasons probably account for the heaps of criticism on the position I took. First, gay people generally want to be accepted like anyone else (why wouldn’t they?), and they mistakenly believe that someone is singling them out for unfair treatment in a policy discussion like this. A second reason may emanate from straights who support gays’ right to be free from intimidation, harassment, and discrimination, and these fine folks believe, mistakenly, that any criticism of gays (even criticism that is leveled equally at both gays and straights) is automatically unfair and out of bounds. Another reason may be simple politics, as in “I will attack you and destroy you and harass you and demean you and lie about you if you say something I disagree with.”
Reading those comments, we had all three reasons at work.
What does it mean to be gay?
Well, being gay means that you are attracted to people of your same sex or gender.
Only you know how you feel about sex, unless you tell someone, or act flamboyantly in ways that convey your sexuality (or perform sex acts where others can see them). For gay men, this may mean acting effeminate, dressing in women’s clothes, or adopting modes of communication that tell other men that they are attracted to them. For straight men, conveying your sexuality usually results in charges of sexual harassment. At the very least, you’ll have been known to have ‘hit’ on someone.
The point is, unlike skin color, which is obvious to all but the blind and accounts for race and ethnicity, and religion\creed, which can be observed many different public and private ways, being gay or straight is not something that can be publicly observed under normal circumstances.
Which is one reason why I supported adding being gay or being perceived as gay to Pennsylvania’s anti-discrimination laws.
The bottom line is this: Sexuality is not race, ethnicity, religion, or creed. Human sexuality is a thing unto itself, and usually it is taboo. We have taboos against incest, sex with animals, and until recently, homosexuality. In recent times, we recognized that private sexual relations between consenting adults are their own business, and that they must be accorded the same protections as anyone else when there or out in public.
In free societies, we ensure that minorities of all sorts are free from discrimination, because discrimination undermines the promise of equal protection and opportunity for all citizens. Minorities are defined as being different than the Protestant majority formed by the Europeans who settled America. If someone tells you over the phone that they are African American, you can then later on compare them to a European American’s skin color and see the difference, and measure their minority status. Religion is often strongly correlated with race and ethnicity, and ethnicity is often strongly associated with certain names. Thus, many names (Goldberg, Rosenberg, Stein, McCloud, etc.) give a hint about the person’s place of origin, potential ethnicity, and religious affiliations, however tenuous or committed.
Gays have the misfortune of being in a category that should be protected, but which cannot be easily verified, at least without the removal of some clothing and the performance of acts that must by necessity for all citizens occur only in private among consenting adults. Verification is going to be a challenge.
There are those of us Americans who are raising our kids to be both tolerant of others, including gays, and also be religious and modest. This means they are taught that some subjects cannot be discussed in public, but that everyone is entitled to the American dream. It means that we expect others to display the same inhibitions that we exhibit, and to respect our boundaries as they expect us to extend respect to them.
However, American public life is increasingly coarsened and with it the standard for public discourse is lowered. One measure is how Hollywood continues to abuse its power of persuasion and suggestion with movies glorifying violence and sadism. Another example is the blurring of private and public lives, where innately private acts are displayed in public. This means that some people now believe that they may, nay, even must, be able to force upon you their own beliefs, practices, and thoughts. Even if they are offensive to you as much as you accord them the right to be and do what they will. They demand such respect even while simultaneously stating that you yourself believe in only stupidness and bigotry.
Which gets to the conclusion of this essay: Tolerance is a two-way street. And tolerance does not mean acceptance. No one has the right to demand that someone else adopt their way of thinking or risk being called a bigot. You cannot do it with religion, and you cannot do it with sexuality. People have a right to have comfort zones, to have beliefs. Gays have a right to be free of discrimination. And parents have the right to say that they do not want Little Johnny knowing that men are attracted to each other like Mommy and Daddy are, and all the discussion that such attraction entails. There is no easy answer to this, as one side must gain and the other must by necessity lose in such a situation. Picking sides means no further dialogue, with each side manning its barricades. Some friends have let me know which side they are on, and they exclude me from that side, which I think is both illogical and unnecessary.
I like to view myself as someone who has stepped over the barricades and extended a hand of friendship to the other side. Demanding that I drop my discomfort, or that I kowtow and say certain words to make someone else feel as though they have won, well, that just prolongs the conflict, because it’s not right. Given the preface above, I wonder how many gays will say the same for my religious belief system. Or am I the only one who needs to be tolerant?
Boy Scouts of America: Straight, Narrow, and Correct
Boy Scouts of America: Straight, Narrow, and Correct
By Josh First
July 19, 2012
The Boy Scouts of America still believes that it is wrong to sexualize children, and they get kudos for that self-evident necessity.
Today the BSA is attacked in an editorial by the Patriot News, the regional newspaper for central Pennsylvania, on this issue. By excluding men, women, and “children” who openly profess their (gay) sexual habits to little kids, the BSA is allegedly an oppressive organization, according to the staff at the Patriot News.
This issue has nothing to do with bias, oppression, or discrimination any more than sexual harassment between adults has anything to do with bias, oppression, or discrimination. Sex is sex is sex. Gay or straight, sex is sex.
And it is just plain wrong to sexualize children. It’s called pedophilia when adults do that. Adults hauling kids out into the woods to talk about sex is the beginning of pedophilia. Pedophilia is rightly criminal.
If being gay were like having non-Caucasian skin color or a different religion, there would be an issue. But being gay is just like being straight: It’s about sexual behavior. Sexual behavior is a deeply personal, private thing. The only way someone is going to know that you are gay or lesbian is if you tell them. When you tell them, you’re talking about sex.
Despite thoroughly covering the subject, the Patriot News staff haven’t learned anything from the Sandusky child-rape affair. The main lesson from that catastrophe is that adults, sex talk, and kids just do not mix. It leads to sex between adults and kids; it leads to pedophilia.
If it’s sexual harassment for adults to talk about sex with other adults who don’t want to hear it, then it’s the very definition of criminality for an adult to talk about his or her sexual interests and activities with little kids.
Especially in a remote setting. In tents. Away from parents. Away from other adults.
And how do little kids know they are gay, anyhow? Unless they have been sexualized by an adult already, little kids just don’t know what sexual behavior is yet. Recently, a little boy was kicked out of school for singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It” in front of other kids, and especially in front of little girls. If responsible adults know that sexual behavior has a place that isn’t in school or public, then why do we have adults pushing for adults to explain the mechanics of their sexual behavior to little kids in a tent in the woods?
BSA maintaining a non-sexualization policy is the right thing to do.
If advocates of gay and lesbian lifestyles want to get their message across, then they should invite others to join them in a neutral, public place to present their views. If the public shows up to hear what they have to say, then that’s their audience. If no one shows up, then that’s their audience. Or, in the alternative, they can do what my wonderful gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, and family members do: Live by example.
My neighborhood has many gay and lesbian citizens living here, and they are fantastic, exemplary citizens. Great neighbors. I trust them around my kids.
But I would not trust them, or any straight adult, who wanted to take my kids away to the woods to talk about sex. That would make me mad. I would be suspicious at least. What would be next, a physical demonstration of their beliefs? Like what Jerry Sandusky did?
The Patriot News needs to issue a recall of their opinion piece on this subject; recant their faulty logic and twisted thinking. Whatever your opinion is about people who are gay and lesbian, and I council tolerance, the place to discuss and discover one’s sexual interests is not in a BSA tent with a Scout leader or chaperone showing you the way.
Sexual harassment for real: Jesse Jackson sued, by a guy
Somehow the mainstream media forgot to mention that racist rabble rouser Jesse Jackson is being sued for sexual harassment. And by a guy, no less.
Jackson’s unfettered ability to move about freely among mainstream media reporters without taking any questions on this affair demonstrates that if you stay on the Plantation, then you will be taken care of.
If you are a Herman Cain, an independent thinker, why then nothing you say or do can clear your name, and the mainstream media reporters and talking heads will hound you to the ends of the earth. Thus demonstrating why so many Americans have lost faith in the mainstream media (NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN etc.).
And demonstrating why Cain’s popularity and fundraising are soaring, despite the attacks.
Maybe if Jesse Jackson becomes a Republican, he’ll benefit from the same effect helping Cain. C’mon, Jesse, give it a spin. Get your real freak on.
Read the gross details here:
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/gay-ex-employee-alleges-sexual-misconduct-bias-by-rev-jackson-and-staff.php