31 August 2010

6 Ways Religious Frauds Try to Make Gays and Lesbians Straight | | AlterNet

6 Ways Religious Frauds Try to Make Gays and Lesbians Straight | | AlterNet:

1. Rubber-band therapy
2. Healing touch therapy
3. Beat your mom to death -- with a tennis racket
4. Get face-to-face and crotch-to-crotch
5. Subliminal messages
6. Shock therapy and ... torture
Make no mistake: every major, reputable professional psychological and medical association has stated that not only is there no evidence supporting the possibility of changing somebody’s sexual orientation, but that such programs harm those involved; depression and suicide are all-too-common in the ex-gay world.


i just finished reading the article again and all i can say is that it made me physically nauseous...especially the 6th method, shock and torture (emphasis added to highlight the "christian" barbarism of it all):

Last year, the Kansas State Collegian printed the tragic story of “Thomas Swanson,” who recounted how his father tried to "beat the gay out of him" before handing his son over to a conversion therapist. During therapy sessions, the counselor told Swanson he already had AIDS and was going to die. But after several sessions, the counselor moved to aversion therapy methods:

After he was seated, each of his hands was strapped to the arm of the chair and softball-size ice blocks were placed in each palm. Then photos of men touching appeared on the screen. At times a heterosexual couple was shown, and the ice was removed. The ice was left on his palms, causing freezing pain, as many photos of homosexual men were shown.


But the ice therapy didn’t eliminate the same-sex attractions. So, his counselor upped the intensity:

Swanson was again strapped to the chair by his hands. Again photos were shown, but this time, there was a level of intimacy that had lacked in the previous sessions.

The men were embracing or perhaps kissing on the cheek and Swanson received intense amounts of heat transferred through gel pads applied to his hands.

“Now it was the burn sensation,” Swanson said. “I still had, for a few years, a huge pink mark across my hand because it would literally burn your skin.


Of course, the ice and heat didn’t work. The next step was electricity:

Very very thin needles were inserted into my fingers, on all 10 fingers, still strapped down, and then the rest of my body was strapped down because they knew what was going to happen,” Swanson said.

As the man turned on the electricity, the pain was so horrible, Swanson still cannot understand why his mother sat in the lobby and did not race to rescue him as he screamed.....

“Electricity was excruciating,” Swanson said with a look of intensity. “I have no way of describing to people how hard I screamed; it was excruciating pain. The pain was horrible, I would lose bowel control, consciousness, mental capacity, so many things with the electricity.

thanks, "mom" (not MY mother, thank GOD!!!). how sick must a parent be to allow such heinous torture to be inflicted on a child and not intervene? in CHRIST'S NAME? I. DON'T. THINK. SO.

now, if you'll excuse me i need a shower...that is if i can find the brillo pads and bleach to wash the hatred off of me.

14 August 2010

Marriage Equality: Which Video Defines It Best? (via HuffPost, natch)

Marriage Equality: Which Video Defines It Best?









if i don't stop watching/reading these articles and don't stop getting myself all worked up over the "fierce advocate's" abdication of advocacy, i'm likely to have an aneurysm before our wedding on 9/30/10.

Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois Senate Candidate, Pledges To Create Senate Progressive Caucus

Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois Senate Candidate, Pledges To Create Senate Progressive Caucus

While his candidacy has been defined, primarily, by his close relationship with the White House and his family's troubled finances, Giannoulias has gradually carved out a niche as a rising progressive voice.


really? a progressive with close ties to this white house? who knew there was one of us that was acceptable to the WH after gibbs' gaffe.

12 August 2010

The Winds of Change Are Blowing: Marriage Equality/Nate Silver Edition

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage Appears to Shift at Accelerated Pace



"In April, 2009, when we last took a survey of gay marriage polls, we found that support for it had converged somewhere into the area of 41 or 42 percent of the country. Now, it appears to have risen by several points, and as I reported yesterday, it has become increasingly unclear whether opposition to gay marriage still outweighs support for it.

Here is a version of the graph we produced in 2009, but updated to include the dozen or so polls that have been conducted on it since that time, as listed by pollingreport.com. I have also included opinions on gay marriage from the General Social Survey, which asked about gay marriage as long ago as 1988."


people get ready, there's a change a-comin',
don't need no ticket, you just get on board.

11 August 2010

BREAKING: Lt. Col. Fehrenbach Files TRO To Stop his DADT Expulsion!




Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (emphasis added):

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and Morrison & Foerster LLP (MoFo) filed a request for a temporary restraining order on behalf of their client, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, seeking to block the Air Force from discharging him under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the discriminatory law barring gay and lesbian service members from serving openly and honestly. The filing in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, seeks a court order preventing the Air Force from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach, arguing that the government cannot establish that his continued service on active duty hinders “morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”

The General Counsel’s Office to the Secretary of the Air Force confirmed to MoFo and SLDN that the Air Force Personnel Board recently reviewed Lt. Col. Fehrenbach’s case and has sent a recommendation to Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley’s designee. According to Air Force regulations, had the Board recommended to retain Lt. Col. Fehrenbach no further action would have been required by the Secretary or his designee (AFI 36-3206 Chapter 6.10 and Chapter 6.10.1). Although SLDN and MoFo understand the Secretary has delegated his authority to act on the Board’s recommendation, Secretary Donley has the power to step in and retain Lt. Col. Fehrenbach. Without action by the Secretary, the Board’s recommendation is expected to stand and Lt. Col. Fehrenbach could be discharged within days.

A request for a temporary restraining order asks the court to prevent irreparable injury to the plaintiff and preserve the status quo until a more complete hearing can be held on the merits of the case. If the court grants the request, the Air Force will be prevented from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach until a full hearing can be scheduled. The Fehrenbach case is among the first to challenge a discharge under DADT by applying the so-called Witt standard. In the case of Air Force Maj. Margaret Witt, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit – which governs the District of Idaho – held that discharging a service member violates the Constitution unless: (1) the government advances “an important governmental interest;” (2) the government shows the intrusion “upon the personal and private li[fe]” of a service member “significantly furthers that interest;” and (3) the government shows the intrusion is “necessary to further that interest.”


09 August 2010

A Gay-Rights Advocate on Marriage Ban, Celebrity Divorce - TIME

A Gay-Rights Advocate on Marriage Ban, Celebrity Divorce - TIME

I broke up Al and Tipper Gore. And Sandra Bullock and Jesse James. No, I am not a 50-something masseuse or a tattoo model with a thing for Nazi outfits. I'm just a gay man who's about to celebrate his second wedding anniversary. Apparently, my marriage is a menace. According to the Family Research Council, "Gay marriage threatens the institutions of marriage and the family."

For the past two years, I've tried to deny it. But faced with the prospect of even more finger-pointing in the wake of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's Aug. 4 ruling against California's Prop 8, I've decided to come out and come clean. I'm claiming the pinko-threat label and wearing it with pride, like the Miss California USA tiara that Carrie Prejean wore until someone leaked those eight videos of her touching her pro-opposite-marriage private parts. Yes, I am responsible for the sorry state marriage is in. The Gores' "shocking" split was no surprise to me. Blame me for breaking America's sweetest heart. (I'd like to take credit for Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston's off-again engagement, but honestly, who except Bristol didn't see that coming?) Jenny and Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford, Mel and Robyn Gibson, Speidi — I put them all asunder. I'm here. I'm a home wrecker. Get used to it. (See a photographic history of the gay-rights movement.)

I'm an anti-nuclear-family activist. I think I was born this way. Just ask my divorced-after-four-decades parents. I'd been working on them for what seems like a lifetime. Since they unleashed me on state-sanctioned nuptials in 1966, the U.S. divorce rate has nearly doubled. Gay apologists may say the culprit is the rise of no-fault divorce. But this is America, damn it, and someone somewhere must be at fault. That someone is me.

Real Americans agree that I'm dangerous. In "Gathering Storm," an ad produced by the National Organization for Marriage, a paid actress — but no doubt still a real American — with Sue Sylvester's haircut says I want to change the way she lives. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig voted to amend the Constitution to save the nation from my unholy matrimony. The thrice-divorced Rush Limbaugh warned that "gay marriage would destroy the American family." And, of course, what about the children? I am incapable of "providing a safe and secure and emotionally stable environment" for them, said Family Research Council co-founder George "Rentboy.com" Rekers. (Is there hope for the American marriage?)

I must admit, though, that the thrill is fading. It's getting too easy. Larry King is on his eighth shot at wedded bliss, and I've had a pretty good record with the Best Actress Oscar winners. I want to move on to pre-emptive attacks. I should try getting a proposition passed to ban ugly marriages. Surely the state has a legitimate interest in keeping the hideous from going forth, not to mention multiplying, and I'm sure I could get at least 51% of voters to agree with me. Those who say California's gay-marriage ban should stand make a completely logical point: majority rule should always trump minority rights — activist judges and their equal-protection clause be damned. I mean, what the unattractive do behind closed doors is O.K., I guess, but I don't want to have to see it. And I certainly don't want my tax dollars to promote the homely lifestyle.

Or should I just let them be? If two repellent people want to wake up next to each other every morning for the rest of their lives, it might turn my stomach, but is it really any of my business? It must be hard enough for them to get through the day — there are reflective surfaces everywhere — without having the federal government against them. Allowing dog-faced marriage doesn't mean I love my husband any less, and banning unsightly unions wouldn't give me a better chance at till death do us part. So relax, ugly people; you're free to pursue happiness with the appearance-challenged person of your choice. Love is love, after all, and that's beautiful enough.

08 August 2010

backlog...

well, crap on a cracker...

to my lone reader: please accept my apologies! i promised to start doing this daily but the best laid plans of mice and men and such...SO, here are links to the stories in the "drafts" folder at blogger...

Rachel Maddow: Odd quiet from defeated Prop 8 supporters:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



Rachel Maddow: Prop 8 Case Relied on Two Witnesses Tied to George Rekers | Video Cafe

Prop 8 Ruling Exposes Democrats' Weak Support For LGBT Community

Prop 8 Ban Reactions

Target Apologizes For Political Donation To Group Supporting Anti-Gay Candidate

carry on.

epic battles throughout history:

David vs. Goliath
Tezcatlipoca vs. Quetzalcoatl
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Ali vs. Foreman, Frazier, Liston, Holmes, Marciano...

and now, the epic to end all epics: BOIES vs. Perkins




shorter version:

03 August 2010

The Anti-Defamation League's Ground Zero Mosque Hypocrisy - The Daily Beast

The Anti-Defamation League's Ground Zero Mosque Hypocrisy - The Daily Beast

The ADL calls itself “the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency.” Coming from an explicitly Jewish organization, that’s an audacious claim. But it’s an inspiring one, too. The ADL was born in 1913, after a Georgia jury falsely convicted a Jewish factory owner named Leo Frank of murdering a Christian employee. The men who defamed, and later lynched, Frank were anti-Semites. But they were not only anti-Semites. Three months after Frank’s murder, some of his tormenters met on Georgia’s Stone Mountain to refound the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that would now dedicate itself not merely to terrorizing African-Americans, but to terrorizing Catholics and Jews as well.

What if white victims of African-American crime protested the building of a black church in their neighborhood? Or gentile victims of Bernie Madoff protested the building of a synagogue?


Against this backdrop, the founders of the ADL made their organization a kind of mirror image of the Klan. If the Klan saw anti-Semitism as one component of the struggle to maintain white, Protestant supremacy, the ADL would make its opposition to anti-Semitism one component of the struggle against white, Protestant supremacy. If bigotry was indivisible, anti-bigotry would be indivisible too. “The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people,” declared the ADL’s charter. “Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.”

IOKIYAR...for frack's sake.

FROM: http://www.addictinginfo.com/politics.htm BY MATT DESMOND

BILLS REPUBLICANS HAVE BLOCKED OR ATTEMPTED TO BLOCK SINCE OBAMA BECAME PRESIDENT !


Senator Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill

Benefits for Homeless Veterans

Health Care

Health Care for the 9/11 First Responders who got sick from being at Ground Zero...

The Jobs Bill

MURRAY'S HOMELESS WOMEN VETERANS BILL

Small business lending bill

Financial reform

Stimulus Bill

Oil Spill Liability

Political Ad disclosure bill

Immigration Windfall Oil profits tax bill

Oh yeah and when republicans controlled all 3 branches of government, they

1. deregulated the markets,

2. created 2 wars,

3. killed 6000 Americans,

4. destroyed schools via NCLB

5. made higher education unaffordable,

6. dismantled the NEA,

7. shipped American jobs off to India and China,

8. let New Orleans and millions of Americans get washed away in a natural disaster while they went out for ballgames and birthday cakes ,

9. hunted endangered species from helicopters,

10. shot their own hunting party members,

11. ignored warnings of impending terrorist attacks

12. oversaw the largest expansion of government in history

13. created a department of "FAITH BASED INITIATIVES" in direct violation of separation of church and state

14. tried to use the constitution as a weapon of discrimination

15. squandered our surplus,

16. overspent $7 Trillion, and

17. chanted DRILL BABY DRILL despite clearly not having emergency plans for future disasters.

02 August 2010

More Republican Hypocrisy

NOT. ONE. VOTE. to move to an "up or down vote" (another republican't battle cry wrapped in hypocrisy).

the grand old party of NO is willing to jump up and down, scream and cry and wail about the horrifying effects repealing the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% would have on "small businesses (although they're not accurate in their assertion), but when it comes down to REAL help for small businesses, via extending credit (which is repaid, WITH INTEREST BTW), the republicant's show their true hypocritical colors.

REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS: WHY DO YOU HATE SMALL BUSINESS?

Congress.org - : Key Votes

On the Cloture Motion
07/29/2010
Senate Roll Call No. 221
111th Congress, 2nd Session

Rejected: 58-42 (see complete tally)

The Senate rejected ending debate on this bill that aims to expand the availability of credit to small businesses. The Senate may work more on the bill this week





Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?

absolutely fascinating...dvr set.

Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?

Ker Than

Published July 27, 2010

The recent decoding of a cryptic cup, the excavation of ancient Jerusalem tunnels, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The new clues hint that the scrolls, which include some of the oldest known biblical documents, may have been the textual treasures of several groups, hidden away during wartime—and may even be "the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple," which held the Ark of the Covenant, according to the Bible.

Randy Rainbow "The Morning After Chelsea's Wedding"

oh, meow...hiss AND spit!