Tag: Gay Politics

Hate Crime Victim Ryan Skipper’s Rep, Tom Feeney: No Need for Hate Crime Bill

Trish
Let the party begin! Rep. Tom Feeney rings the bell opening the American Stock Exchange.

This just in from Vicki Nantz, an independent film maker planning a documentary on Ryan Skipper, whose March murder in Central Florida is being investigated as a hate crime.

I recently wrote U.S. House Representative, Tom Feeney, Republican of Central Florida, and asked him why he does not support federal hate crime legislation that includes the gay and lesbian community. Why are acts of brutality, physical assaults and murder, which are meant to intimidate and terrorize the LGBT community, not included in our current, or likely-to-be-passed federal hate crime laws – the legislation that President Bush has promised to veto. I received written correspondence yesterday from Feeney that included the following:

…”I do not support specialized punishment for particular mentalities. This idea singles out groups for special treatment…When someone is murdered because the killer does not like the color of their skin, that killer deserves harsh punishment; but the killer deserves it because the victim is a human, not because of the killer’s hateful thoughts…Justice ultimately ought to be based on the fundamental worth of a human being and not the thoughts of the specific criminal…I hope in the near future crime legislation can be voted on that protects all equally and punishes the offender for the crime committed and not the thoughts in his mind.”

And yet Feeney and the other overwhelmingly Republican, antigay hypocrites like him have voted in support of federal legislation that does punish people for the thoughts in their minds. The following is part of the U.S. Code, federal law currently being followed in this country:

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 113B

CHAPTER 113B—TERRORISM

(1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and…

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…

Clearly, hypocritical Representative Feeney, President Bush and the American religious extremists who decry inclusive hate crime legislation as being “thought crime” legislation reveal much behind their own selective, hate-filled thoughts. It is that same base thinking that led to the murders of Matthew Shephard and Ryan Skipper, and the dozens more LGBT murders and innumerable of acts of brutal violence that most people have never bothered to know about.

Use your voice. Use your votes.

Thanks Vicki. We agree with everything you said and find it particularly upsetting that Ryan’s own representatives, and those of his family and friends, can’t see the need for hate crime legislation.

But Tom Feeney’s words mean nothing. Feeney was among a group of fellow members of Congress investigated by the FBI because they were known by jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be for sale.

Feeney, former speaker of the Florida House, is one of three men who were U.S. House members when they accompanied Abramoff to Scotland on trips that included rounds of golf at the legendary Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews.

The others: former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who is serving prison time for corruption related to his Abramoff relationship, and former House Republican leader Tom DeLay, who was indicted in an unrelated Texas fundraising case and is under investigation in the Abramoff case.

Pentagon Planned to Turn Enemy Troops Gay

Trish

The Pentagon’s 1994 plan to devise a “gay bomb” is making new headlines.

More significant than whether the Pentagon has really abandoned the plan is what their research proves: sexual orientation is biologically determined — not a lifestyle choice

The DOD requested $7.5 million over six years to develop the “weapon,” which they hoped would chemically alter straight enemy troops so they would become attracted to each other. Theoretically, the hostiles would become distracted by their new relationships and stop paying attention to blowing us up. Later, morale would suffer as Joe breaks up with Jim, and Jim’s friends all tell him he’s so much better off because everyone knows Joe is jerk. Then one of them starts going out with Joe. And so forth.

The official line is that almost as quickly as the idea was hatched, it was scuttled. But the Sunshine Project, which monitors such hair-brained Defense Department activity via the Freedom of Information Act, says that ain’t so.

[Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond] went on to state that the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate, based out of Quantico, actually used the “gay-bomb” idea as a marketing tool in a CD-ROM from 2001-2002 and that “the Pentagon… submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country.”

More significant than whether the Pentagon has really abandoned the plan is what their research proves: sexual orientation is biologically determined — not a lifestyle choice. That fact could blow up more Republican and Christian right fund raising campaigns than the best placed bomb, gay or otherwise.

Update on GOP Gay Ex-Congressmen Accused of Chickenhawking Page Boys

Jon Ponder

Former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Florida, who was forced to resign last year after he was caught sending X-rated emails to congressional page boys, is reportedly returning to his career as a real estate broker. He is remembered around Palm Beach for once netting a $500,000 commission on the sale of a golf course to a local school district.

Former Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who was for years the only openly gay Republican in the House, has been cleared by the Justice Dept. of charges he was overly avuncular with pages. In particular, he was found not to have behaved inappropriately with youngsters on a wilderness camping trip in 1996. Kolbe had already announced his retirement before the charges were made.

There is at least one allegedly closeted gay Republican remaining in the house, Rep. David Drier of California.

Celebrating Anita Bryant: The Mother of Gay Rights

Trish

You’d have to call Anita Bryant, the former beauty queen gone anti-gay zealot gone born again Christian gone divorced gone bankrupt orange juice spokesperson, a reluctant hero. But a new exhibit in South Florida does just that, commemorating the 30-year anniversary of her crusade and its monumental unintended affects.

Anita Bryant in 1977: “I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children”

In 1977, singer Anita Bryant successfully campaigned to repeal a Dade County ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians. [The recently called home Rev. Jerry] Falwell came to South Florida in support and two years later created the Moral Majority. Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly quickly joined Falwell in becoming outspoken opponents of gay rights.

“This is where they all had their stage debut,” said Jack Rutland, executive director of the Stonewall Library & Archives and organizer of the exhibit “Days Without Sunshine: Anita Bryant’s Anti-Gay Crusade…”

“In a completely unintended way, Anita Bryant was about the best thing to happen to the gay rights movement,” said John Coppola, exhibit curator and former head of exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “She and her cohorts were so over the top that it just completely galvanized the gay rights movement.”

Rutland goes so far as to call Bryant the mother of the gay rights movement…

Bryant, now 67, declined to comment when contacted at her Anita Bryant Ministries International Inc. in Oklahoma City.

That’s probably because Anita herself hasn’t fared so well.

Singing from the age of two, Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America beauty pageant. She had three big pop hits: “‘Til There Was You” (1959); “Paper Roses” (1960); and “In My Little Corner of the World” (1960). In 1960, she married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey, with whom she eventually raised four children. She became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1969, and nationally televised commercials featured her singing “Come to the Florida Sunshine tree”, and opining that “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine”.

…concerns over homosexual recruitment of children inspired the name of Bryant’s political organization, Save Our Children. Among Bryant’s assertions during the campaign were “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters.”

Bryant was also a pioneer on the receiving side of getting “pied,” as the YouTube video above shows. Before she took that pie in the face during an anti-gay press junket, such tactics were rare. So anyone who enjoyed seeing Ann Coulter pied should really thank Anita for leading the way.

But Anita’s fortunes took a dive after she spoke out.

Her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission also was allowed to lapse because of the negative publicity generated by her political campaigns, the resulting boycott of Florida orange juice, and, at least reportedly, because of her divorce.

Her marriage to Bob Green failed at that time and in 1980 she divorced him. She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990, and they have tried to reestablish her career in a series of small venues. Commercial success has been elusive, and they have left behind them a series of unpaid employees and creditors. They filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas (1997) and in Tennessee (2001).

Who knows? Without Anita’s St. Bernard analogies and parental paranoia, gay people might still be in the closet. At the very least, she was fun to make fun of. Actually, she still is.

Christians Wait Until Cheney Infant Is Six Days Old Before Attacking His Gay Parents

Jon Ponder


Six days after the birth of his grandson, the Republican Party’s Christian base launched a vicious attack yesterday on Vice Pres. Cheney’s gay daughter, Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe. The assault came from Concerned Women of America, an anti-feminist organization that promotes homophobia, which issued a statement denigrating the relationship between Poe and her son, specifically, and all adoptive parents, in general.

“[The] President’s number two, right hand man, Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly rebels against his superior, makes a public mockery of the President … and clearly holds to a different set of moral standards and beliefs.”
— Concerned Women for America

CWA is upset because the caption of a photo of the vice president and his wife holding the baby posted on the White House website read, “[The baby’s] parents are the Cheney’s daughter Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe.” The group objects to this description of the Cheneys’ family arrangements, but the tone of the the statement is unusually bitter and mean-spirited, especially considering the fact there is an blameless infant at the bullseye of their attack:

If the Vice President and his wife Lynne are joining their daughter Mary in playing this homosexual game of “house,” then all have chosen their roles and designated lesbian lover Heather Poe as the “Daddy.”

Everyone knows there can only be one REAL biological Mommy. We are all grown adults. Playing “house” is a game for children, not for The White House or the Vice President and his wife.

Got that, adoptive parents? You’ll never be REAL parents to your children, so you might as well ship them back to the orphanage.

What is so hypocritical of this Administration is its “double-speak.”

President George W. Bush held several presses conferences calling for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the God-ordained institution of marriage between one man and one woman, while homosexuals pushed for the union of two men or two women to be equally recognized as real “marriage.”

However, the President’s number two, right hand man, Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly rebels against his superior, makes a public mockery of the President and the current Administration he is supposed to represent, and clearly holds to a different set of moral standards and beliefs.

When President Bush stood on the victory stage several years ago after being elected into office by values voters, Mary Cheney was on stage as well with her lesbian lover, Heather Poe. It was a slap in the face to the values voters who had just elected the duo into office. That wound has never healed.

While this little innocent child Samuel David Cheney deserves every fighting chance at life, the sins of two women, Mary Cheney and Heather Poe, have deliberately denied the Vice President’s grandson one of the most basic human rights of all: the right to a Daddy and a Mommy.

I say shame on the White House, shame on the President and shame on the Vice President for allowing such a caption to be “officially” added onto the White House website and such a beautiful photo of two happy grandparents and their new grandchild.

Predictably, the author of this homophobic screed is a bisexual:

[Stephen] Bennett lived the homosexual lifestyle for over 11 years with over 100 partners, until he finally left it all in 1992. Today, Stephen is happily married to his wife Irene of almost 14 years.

(According to his bio, Bennett also operates a website that apparently provides resources and support for Christians who are shunning their gay children and relatives. What would Jesus do, indeed.)

Vice Pres. Cheney is the Bush administration’s designated attack dog. In 2003, for example, he famously went so far as to potentially jeopardize national security when he directed a campaign to out a covert CIA specialist in weapons of mass destruction, Valerie Plame Wilson, after her husband accused Pres. Bush of lying in his State of the Union speech about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities.

But chances are slim that the vice president will seek revenge against Concerned Women of America over this assault on his family. CWA is too important to his ever-dwindling political base. His daughter, her partner and their baby are merely collateral damage in the political wars.

New Cheney Grandchild: GOP Cognitive Dissonance Runs Amok

Trish

Above, Lynne and Dick Cheney hold their sixth grandchild, Samuel David Cheney, the son of Mary Cheney and her wife, Heather Poe.

Bush press release titled, “President Calls for Constitutional Amendment Protecting Marriage,” issued Feb. 24, 2004:

After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization. Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity.

Bush: “Ages of experience have taught that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society”

On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse. If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America.

…An amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly. The amendment process has addressed many serious matters of national concern. And the preservation of marriage rises to this level of national importance. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honoring — honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife. The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.

Poll: Solid Majorities of Christians, Conservatives Favor Covering Gays in Hate Crime Law

Jon Ponder

Gallup:

Much of the organized opposition to the expansion of the hate crime law has come from conservative religious groups, while the nation’s top Republican leader, President George W. Bush, has suggested he will veto the legislation if it reaches his desk. But there is little evidence from these data to suggest that a majority of Republicans, conservatives, or more religious Americans are opposed to the new law.

Favor % Oppose %
Republicans 60 34
Independents 69 27
Democrats 75 21
Conservatives 57 37
Moderates 74 22
Liberals 82 15
Protestants 65 30
Catholics 72 23
Other Religion 74 23
No Religious Identity 74 25
TOTAL 68 27

Source: Gallup

Why Wasn’t Mary Cheney at the White House State Dinner for the Queen?

Jon Ponder

Her baby is due in “late spring 2007” which, granted, is now, but it seems hardly anyone has noticed that Mary Cheney, the vice president’s lesbian daughter, and her partner, Heather Poe, were not on the guest list for the state dinner at the White House honoring Queen Elizabeth this week.

Mary’s non-gay sister Liz and Liz’s opposite-sex married partner were at the dinner.

Mary’s non-gay sister Liz and Liz’s opposite-sex married partner were at the dinner, as were, of course, her parents.

Mary Cheney has said her baby is not a political prop, but you have to wonder if it was decided that the presence of the vice president’s hugely pregnant lesbian daughter at an event honoring the Queen of England was a bit too off-message for the ultra-rightwingers who run the country.

Let’s hope that Mary and Heather were at least allowed to eat in the pantry and then peek through a doorway to watch all the fun.

American Family Association Defaming Hate-Crime Legislation

Buck Banks

Disturbing distortions: I suppose it would be way too much to ask Donald Wildmon, head of the arch-conservative, hyper-religious American Family Association, not to lie. When it comes to pushing his homophobic agenda, facts become irrelevant in his efforts to stir up his constituents about hot-button issues.

If this Thought Crimes law passes, your right to share politically incorrect parts of your Christian faith could, in fact, become a federal crime.
— Donald “Wildman” Wildmon

His latest target is H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which has been introduced in the House of Representatives and is headed toward a vote. Wildmon wants his legions of religious zealots to believe that, “If this Thought Crimes law passes, your right to share politically incorrect parts of your Christian faith could, in fact, become a federal crime,” he wrote on the AFA’s Web site and included in an e-mail alert today.

According to Wildmon’s view, “‘hate crimes’ laws inevitably leading to ‘hate speech’ laws targeted specifically at Christians and other faith groups who hold traditional beliefs on homosexuality.” Yeah, and smoking pot inevitably leads to mainlining heroin and following Islam inevitably leads to a life of terrorism. While Wildmon would like to have his followers believe that embedded in this bill is some poison pill that will undermine the entire Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our society, it is instead a bill that provides funds to local law enforcement to prosecute hate crimes.

The only catch is the $5 million annual alottment is held by the U.S. Attorney General, who provides the dough in the form of grants when communities apply for it. But hopefully by the time the bill is made into law we will have a new, competent AG. The bill effectively gives smaller and rural communities access to funds to pursue hate crime investigations and prosecutions that they might otherwise not be able to afford.

And these crimes are not merely calling someone names. Crimes covered under the statute are serious, violent, often involving guns or weapons, and always resulting in serious bodily injury or death.

What I think really galls Wildmon is the bill’s provision that adds gender, sexual identification and gender identity to the list of real or perceived attributes — including race, color, religion and national origin — that constitute the basis of hate crimes. He blames Democrats and gay activists for this assault on the family and the church, but his arguments, based as they are on lies and distortions, only serve to deceive his already deeply misguided followers.

One of Wildmon’s more blatant lies is calling the legislation a Democratic Party bill that he says the Dems are passing to make good on unspecified campaign promises to gay activists. While indeed the bill is sponsored by John Conyers, D-Detroit, it has 112 co-sponsors, among them such Republican stalwarts as Christogpher Shays of Connecticut, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Mark Kirk of Illinois and others.

So get on board with H.R. 1592. It’s a good law, and one that we hope will help deter hate crimes.

Checklist: Is Your Husband Gay?

Trish

As a public service to help other women avoid becoming the next Mrs. Gov. Jim McGreevey or Mrs. Rev. Ted Haggard, there’s a new book and handy checklist. Bonnie Kaye has produced, “Is He Gay? A Checklist of Women Who Wonder.”

Editor’s note: Shouldn’t that be, “A Checklist FOR Women Who Wonder?”

Anyway, listen up if you have that nagging feeling hubby just isn’t all that into you. Or your best friend. Or your sister.

“The Gay Husband Checklist”

1. If your husband thinks you are a nymphomaniac or “pushy and aggressive” because you want sex twice a week.

2. If sexual activity steeply declines within the first few years of marriage.

3. You’re always more sexually aggressive than your husband.

4. If your husband is turned off by the thought of touching your vaginal area or performing oral sex on you.

5. If his best friend is gay.

6. If he hangs out in gay bars.

7. If he enjoys watching gay porn movies and surfing gay porn Web sites.

8. If he is excessively homophobic, mocking and imitating other gay men.

9. If he brags about gay men complimenting him on his looks.

She left out number 10, but I think it’s, “If your husband has seen Brokeback Mountain six times but you’ve seen it eight.”

I have to ask about numbers 6 and 7. Can you say, “Duh?”