Tag: Homophobia
Verbatim
If John McCain gets any more hostile toward his Senate colleagues, they might consider having him go through the metal detector before he enters the Capitol.
— The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, summing up Sen. John McCain’s bizarre behavior during the debate over rescinding the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Milbank added that, “McCain’s statement on the floor was roughly one part argument, four parts tantrum.”
Most Americans Blame Churches for Gay Suicide
2 in 3
The number of Americans who believe that churches are partly responsible for gay teen suicides. About four in ten also believe that, “the message coming out of churches about gay people is negative.”
Read a Banned Book This Week
If you need a suggestion for what book to read to celebrate National Banned Books Week, this site has them.
Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982.
Oddly, according to a map posted at the site, most of the clusters of censorship have been along the Northeastern corridor and in the more “civilized” areas of the Midwest.
While some new books joined the Top Ten list of challenged books in 2009 (And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, which acknowledges homosexuality, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which includes drug use, violence, and yes, homosexuality), plenty of old standards continue to irk…someone. These include the highly regarded classics To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
Of course, we actually don’t mind that one book series made the list. That would be Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Don’t tell my 12-year-old niece, but it’s O.K. with me if you don’t read those.
Conservative Olson: All Rights Aren’t Up for a Vote
Olson was probably only allowed to speak without being shouted down because of his conservative creds. After all, he was the man who won Bush v. Gore and was rewarded with the job of Solicitor General under George W. Bush. The entire exchange is great, but the part where he asks Chris Wallace whether we should also put FOX News’ right to free speech up to the voters is brilliant.
The ‘Ick Factor,’ And Why Huckabee Will Never Be President
The New Yorker has profile of Mike Huckabee up that explores the possibility that he may be the Republicans’ “best hope” to take on Pres. Obama in 2012. If he is, there’s at least one quote from the interview on social issues that will likely turn off reasonable independent voters (and any of the few remaining Republicans who are rational) down the road:
I asked him to explain his rationale for opposing gay rights. “I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes,” he said. “Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.” [Emphasis added.]
“Ick” is in the mind of the beholder. For example — and with apologies in advance if you are eating as you read this, dear reader — but imagine just for a second, Huckabee and his wife Janet belly to belly making the beast with two backs, doing the nasty and hiding the salami — fill in your own euphemism, just so long as your imaginary Huckabees are doing it missionary style.
See? Ick. Who wants to think of these two bruisers having sex? No one. And yet, Mike Huckabee — a supposedly serious Republican candidate for president in 2012 — rests the foundation of his justification for the use of constitutional amendments in 45 states and federal laws like the Defense of Marriage Act to restrict millions of Americans’ civil right to marry a picture in his puerile mind of what these people do in bed.
McCollum Paid Presumably Gay Baptist Homophobe $120,000 to Spread Lies
Lies, lies, lies. So many lies that the mind reels and the stomach lurches, trying to keep up. The lies that have been told by Christian extremists in Florida to preserve the state’s archaic and cruel law prohibiting gay adoption should shame anyone who still supports it.
