Last week I was out walking around the Back Bay-South End area of Boston and I passed one of my favorite people watching venues, the First Church of Christ, Scientist. The architecture and layout of the complex is amazing. The mother church is the large domed structure in the distance. Designed in the 1960s by the firm of renowned architect I.M. Pei, the 14-acre Christian Science Plaza along Huntington Ave houses the offices of the Christian Science Monitor and includes a reflecting pool and fountain that make it one of Boston's most visually recognizable sites and a popular tourist attraction. The elevated reflection pool makes the surrounding edifices appear floating in this sea of architectural tranquility. This reflecting pool is truly an engineering marvel. More under the rainbow...

                       

A few days ago, I came across this All Things Considered piece about yet another effort by fringe pentecostals and charismatics to "touch" their areas.  In this case, it's "Light the Highway," a campaign to pray over I-35.  Churches from Laredo to Duluth have joined in, and according to this outfit's Web site, they're trying to get similar efforts going along other major highways.

Looks innocuous, right?  Well, not to this radical lefty, tongue-talking, holy-rolling, charismatic Christian Dem.  

Isn't Obama the candidate who featured an "ex-gay" preacher, and when confronted about it, shoved a gay preacher at the very beginning of his "gospel tour" to be largely ignored - and did NOT remove the "ex-gay" preacher?  How "progressive" is that?  And why has it gone off the news radar?  There are a lot of folks for whom that was a really big deal.  Like me.  And that's why Obama will never get my vote.  

Fine, I'll expand my point...

(Updates moved beyond the cut)

Growing up, when a black child is confronted with racial bigotry and discrimination and needs a sympathetic shoulder to cry on or sympathetic voice to give them support and comfort, the child generally has a parent they can turn to. Most black children have atleast one black parent, a parent that likely suffered from the same bigotry and discrimination, if not worse. Likewise, a Jewish child confronted with religious bigotry and discrimination generally has a Jewish parent to whom they can turn to. For the gay child however, this generally is not the case. A gay child generally does not have a gay parent that has has similar experiences facing the same type of bigotry and discrimination. Indeed, the gay child may well face bigotry and discrimination from their own parents if their sexuality is revealed.

When I first heard that sentiment expressed many years ago, it was like being hit by a ton of bricks. I wish I could remember exact wording of how it was said. I don't even remember who said it, though I believe it was either Ellen Degeneres or her mother Betty. It is this lack of a natural support mechanism that makes surviving childhood difficult for so many gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered.

God delivered me from homosexuality...

No, Mr. McClurkin, God did not deliver you from homosexuality, nor did she any of your fellow "ex-gay", "I have seen the light" counterparts. God (nor anyone or thing else) needs to deliver anyone from homosexuality. Perhaps though, what is needed is deliverance from self-righteous, guilt ridden, hypocritical theocracists.

You are NOT ex-gay. You have simply allowed a bunch of bigots who use their religion as an excuse for their hatred to push you back into the closet under the guise of what they try to legitimize by calling it “reparative therapy”.

Arlington Public Schools is being sued by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays for refusing to distribute their fliers to high school students.

McLEAN, Va. -- An organization that provides support for people who renounce their homosexuality is suing a northern Virginia school system for refusing to distribute its fliers to students.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Alexandria by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), accuses Arlington Public Schools of infringing on its First Amendment rights by arbitrarily refusing to allow distribution of PFOX materials.

Jim, over at Box Turtle News attended the "Love Won Out" conference in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this month. I can only imagine what it was like, but I'm sure I'd be loathe to subject myself to it. And that's a shame, because I don't know first hand what's said and done at these conferences. Fortunately, after taking what was probably some very necessary time to digest the experience, Jim has begun posting a series of essays about what he saw and heard at the conference. He begins with an explanation about why he chose to attend.

I often say that you should never take anyone’s word for anything if you can observe things directly for yourself. So if I’m such a show-me kind of guy, if I believe so strongly in going directly to the source, why should I let my perceptions about Love Won Out be shaped by what others are saying? Why am I not practicing what I’m preaching in this case? The more I thought about it, the more obligated I felt to go directly to the source itself — just like I always try to do with everything else.

PFOX is infiltrating in my kid's school district.

A flier from a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, or PFOX, has started a controversy in Silver Spring.

The flier was handed out during homeroom to students at Montgomery Blair High School.

News4's Miguel Almaguer reported that gay students at the high school said the group behind it is homophobic.

The school said it had no choice but to pass it out.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the people in the Religious Right need to be strapped into chairs and forced to watch "Brokeback Mountain" over and over again until they finally "get it."  What they need to "get," of course, is something the rest of us figured out long ago: that when you teach gay people to hate themselves and to deny the truth of their sexuality, more than just the gay people wind up as victims.  Whole families - spouses and children included - can have their lives ruined and worlds turned upside down when gays feel the need to enter into sham marriages as a result of religious and societal pressure then find they can no longer deny their own true nature.  

I found this article "His God Doesn't Hate Fags" in the Chicago Reader curious.  I think Kate Hawley did a good job wallowing into this territory, which she has done before here on Colorado Senator Salazar's comments on James Dobson's media empire.  Perhaps introducing this new, and conflicted figure, to the fore.

Thou shalt not compare anyone to a Nazi, particularly Hitler. That, it seems, is the cardinal rule of rhetoric, whether your opponent has made a film about global warming or has turned up at the Reichstag fire with a bag of marshmallows.

Indeed, it can be a careless charge to levy. Used casually, stupidly, it sanitizes the Nazis of their earth-shattering horror. Used with any seriousness or accuracy, it is seen as overkill, undercutting the argument and raising ire on all sides of it. Calmer heads will object, almost reflexively, when the Hitler card is played; I have seen endless internal debate on the liberal blogs when the inevitable Nazi/Republican comparisons are made, and this is one of the few things progressives can do that can grab the attention of the establishment media, no matter how misleading the charges can be. You undoubtedly remember the fiasco surrounding the MoveOn video contest, and others.

On Jan 5, I posted a news item on my site about a virulently anti-gay pastor being busted while out trolling for cock. He is now being defended by the ACLU in what they are calling a gay rights case.

(cross-posted on the BetterCA blog)

The millionaires, billionaires, and corporate Interests bankrolling the Prop. 75 campaign have launched a new television ad which began airing in Los Angeles today. The ad features a paid political consultant, a republican congressional candidate and extremist activists deceptively posing as typical teachers, police officers and concerned citizens who support the governor's  measures.  See this is the problem when you don't really have the support of the very people you claim to be working for.  You don't have every day teachers, nurse, firefighters and police officers to support you, and to stand up for your initiatives.   Instead, you have your political hacks play dress up, and put them in misleading ads.

Halloween is over, it's time to take off their costumes and reveal their true identities: