Category: LGBT

The Big Distraction

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While this country continues – systematically and on a daily basis – to fail its regular citizens, the GOP continues its Trumpist bandwagon to divide the country by distracting everyone with the shiny objects that make up the culture war.

If contemporary Republicans are to be taken seriously, the very fabric of our nation is at risk of being destroyed because a beer brand sent a can of beer to a transgender woman influencer. If contemporary Republicans are to be taken at face value, Target associates should be threatened with murder because the company is allegedly selling bathing suits that encourage “tucking” by boys so they can pass as girls. (The fact that this is just a lie does not matter. It sounds true). If contemporary Republicans are to be given a millisecond of your attention, asylum seekers are no different from “illegals” and must be hated when not feared, but excluded either way.

On the other hand, we have Republicans in congress who gleefully helped Donald Trump add fully a quarter of what constitutes today’s sovereign debt, but now refuse to raise the debt ceiling to pay their own bills because they believe it will hurt Joe Biden and the Democrats.

The Republicans do not care to make America better – they now care only to make America a safe space for their nominally Christian white supremacy. In order to do this, they now openly embrace fascism and say democracy is a failed experiment.

None of this is an exaggeration, as evidenced by the links accompanying each allegation.

Yesterday, sunshine fascist Florida Governor Ron DeSantis began his run for President. I do not know how it will fare because I have long ago stopped pretending to understand what motivates the Republican rank-and-file, apart from its reliance on hatred, division, and the culture war.

I heard him say via a radio report that, “the woke mind virus is basically cultural Marxism.” These are words that mean nothing in that order. This is just shorthand for the terminally online alt-right whom DeSantis is courting. “Woke mind virus” is a term used by cis-gendered older white people to express their misunderstanding, hatred, and fear of anything and anyone even mildly supportive of any ethnic, religious, racial minority or non-gender-conforming person. It is what fuels “all lives matter” and the so-called “Moms for Liberty.”

This is P.W. Botha’s Republican Party. They are the Christianist minority. If they don’t like it, it must be abolished and destroyed. They will bully and legislate the “woke” until they are too afraid to show up or speak up. They will take their AR-15s and threaten to murder the “woke”. They will erase the “woke” because they are little more than nihilist eliminationists pretending to be patriots.

“Cultural Marxism” – can you imagine Karl Marx, a bourgeois German philosopher of the mid-19th century having any inkling of what culture would be like in 2023? This term is not new. It was coined a couple of decades ago by the likes of Botha fan Pat Buchanan. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory because somehow the Republicans have magically paired an obsessive support for Israel with a pretty transparent fundamental anti-Semitism.

This is, I suppose, what one gets when one marries a political party to one set of religious sects and a gun lobby.

I am not someone who thinks that the squad are especially influential or persuasive, but they are pretty good at messaging. I am also not someone who thinks it’s cool to shit on Biden because he’s old. He won in 2020 precisely because he is not busy wasting time on Twitter. But I am someone who believes that immigration is a positive, regardless of someone’s visa status. I believe that gay and lesbian and trans and bi and any other queer or non-gender-conforming person has as much of a right to live a happy life, free from discrimination or violence as any other person. I believe that democracy is good, and that people who say “we’re a republic not a democracy” are idiots, because we are both – a democratic republic insofar as we have a popular vote and no monarchy.

I just sometimes wish that all of this idiocy and hypocrisy would end. This country – where guns are the biggest killer of children – is so deeply sick yet here we are talking about underpants sold at Target and a pretty pedestrian brand of beer.

Michael Knowles at UB’s Thursday Night Pogrom

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The hilariously misnomered “Young Americans for Freedom” right-wing club has invited Michael Knowles – a right-wing polemicist angling to be a dollar-store Julius Streicher for Gen-Z – to speak at SUNY Buffalo. Knowles made headlines literally just this week by calling for the “eradication” of “transgenderism” from “public life entirely,” then whining about coverage that correctly interpreted this as genocidal.

Universities are places of higher learning and by their very nature they should default to the free and open exchange of ideas. This is especially true with state-owned universities, since any act of censorship has direct First Amendment implications. So, the question becomes whether an overt public call for genocide is enough for SUNY Buffalo to disallow Michael Knowles from spreading his eliminationist rhetoric here in Buffalo.

Thing is, probably not. Even the expression of morally depraved ideas cannot easily be silenced.

Instead, this will devolve into a lowest-common-denominator, dumb culture war issue-of-the-week with right-wing commentators decrying how the “intolerant left” is trying to cancel this poor guy who just thinks transgender people don’t exist and should be eliminated somehow. The right will quite overtly find itself defending the free speech rights of a barely-known propagandist who simply rejects the fundamental humanity and existence of an entire group of Americans.

As always with conservatives, they’re punching down at one of the most defamed, misunderstood marginalized populations around.

UB’s YAF chapter endorses this message

I see all the different attempts to silence, cancel, or otherwise to protest UB and Knowles, but honestly what is the best way to combat this genocidal clown? Personally, I would find great satisfaction if Slee Hall was literally filled with people who just laugh hysterically at his every pronouncement and condemnation. Point and laugh at the absurd right-wing blue check who says this with a straight face:

According to the event flyer, Knowles is going to give a speech about how “radical feminism destroys women and everything else.” That’s an oldie but a goodie. Radical feminism – in this day and age? What is this, a Limbaugh bit from 1993? When there’s big bank to be made calling overtly for extermination? Pretty lazy for this guy to take student money and fall back on passé right-wing greatest hits such as “women are men’s property and not individuals with free will.” Maybe they can get Andrew Tate to Skype in from his Romanian jail cell.

Honestly, the best argument for keeping Michael Knowles off campus is that he’s really really bad at this.

This banal, provocatively unbuttoned twit claims that some amorphous “they” is “encouraging” transgender people to “mutilate themselves” to be more like the gender with which they identify, and that this is incompatible with the “radical feminist” idea that men and women are the same. His argument is that normal people are inconsistent when they argue that, on the one hand, e.g., both women and men can be good at math or science, while simultaneously agreeing that “transgenderism” exists as a thing in the world.

This is what passes now for conservative thought? That the left’s belief that a person’s sex chromosomes or genitals don’t affect their abilities or intelligence is somehow incompatible with a belief that in some they might adversely affect how a person interacts in life and how they feel? I mean, what’s one more depressed or suicidal closeted transgender person to YAF and Michael Knowles, right? As long as they don’t have to refer to someone who looks, e.g., vaguely masculine as “they”, it’s worth it, right?

We know all about genitalia, Michael. They don’t affect one’s abilities or intelligence any more than skin pigments do. This UB speech is nothing more than a warmed-over reactionary EIB microphone eruption. Whatever it is, know that it will be as boring as it will be stupid. UB should shut this speech down because it is so fundamentally dumb as to defeat the purpose of higher education. Of what use is a “free exchange of ideas” when the idea itself is so facile? YAF and Michael Knowles, when “conservative intelligentsia” emphasizes the “moron” in oxymoron.

Streicher Knowles is now crying foul at suggestions that he called for the eradication of transgender people, but this is a distinction without a difference. Knowles is just another in a long list of right-wing loudmouths making millions out of spreading fear and hatred – this time of transgender people – all the while pretending like his words are not thinly veiled incitements to commit violence against his targets.

“Transgenderism” is the weasel word Knowles concocted to allow him to feign outrage and demand retractions from entities which rightly characterize his language as explicitly genocidal. He claims that he is not calling for the eradication of transgender individuals or the transgender community – but of “transgenderism.” He claims that “transgenderism” is some sort of ideology, but that’s not how he really defines it. What he is saying is that the state of being a transgender person is not something that exists.

“I don’t know how you could have a genocide of transgender people because genocide refers to genes, it refers to genetics, it refers to biology,” Knowles said on The Michael Knowles Show. “And the whole point of transgenderism is that it has nothing to do with biology.”

“Nobody’s calling to exterminate anybody because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological category,” he added. “It’s not a legitimate category of being.”

See? It’s simple. Since being transgender is “not a legitimate category of being,” it’s ok for UB’s YAF chapter and Knowles to call for the extermination of the very idea of “transgender,” which by definition, (to anyone with a brain sharper than that of a garden slug), includes transgender people. Not being able to countenance people different from him being happy in their own skin, this is Knowles’ last answer. It’s his “final solution,” if you will.

Knowles isn’t clever. He’s just another in a long line of amoral but media-savvy people cashing in on hate. He justifies his eliminationism through a somewhat novel feint – by simply declaring that transgender is a made-up thing that does not really exist. He’ll sue you if you correctly decipher what he’s saying. He doesn’t have to say that transgender people are Untermenschen – they are Niemalsmenschen; not inferior, but non-existent and the bare idea of them is fair game for extermination. What if Knowles decided that “Catholic” was a wholly made-up thing that does not exist in nature. His argument would be that it was not actually genocide for someone to call for the extermination of Catholicism because (1) no one said “Catholics,” per se, and (2) etymologically, Catholicism is a belief and not “genetics” or “biology.”

As he mansplains genocide, Knowles ignores that one cannot have what he calls “transgenderism” without there being transgender people. Whether or not he believes in them is irrelevant, but his argument can be boiled down to: he cannot call for the extermination of that which does not exist.

It is especially galling that the UB chapter of YAF has invited idiot Michael Knowles to speak in Buffalo less than a year after another adherent of the “great replacement theory” came to Buffalo from Binghamton to carry out his retribution at a Jefferson Avenue supermarket. Knowles, for his part, is also a big proponent of the “great replacement theory”.

The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles accused the left of attempting to “radically change American culture” through immigration in order to “flood this country with people who will — are more likely to support them politically.” 

Wow. Knowles is sexist, bigoted, and racist. The YAF trifecta!

What we are witnessing is a reactionary neo-fascist nascent modern pogrom against anything not explicitly ye olde cisgendered. The violent protests and unconstitutional state legislative bans against drag shows is part of this pogrom.

The normalization of professional Fox-hit pundits calling for the extermination of transgenderism-wink-wink-we-all-know-what-he-means is part of this pogrom.

The denigration of anyone or anything having to do with homosexuality as “grooming” is part of this pogrom.

The pogrom itself seeks to completely eradicate and eliminate from America anything and everything that is not explicitly heterosexual and cisgendered from public life, pushing it underground.

Why? Mostly because right-wingers are so deeply triggered by the idea of people not like them being happy; calling someone by their preferred pronouns. The thing that is evident to anyone with an even passing, casual knowledge of history is that pogroms are about violence, expulsion, and murder. There will be more and worse acts of violence against drag queens and gay people and transgender people. People like Knowles don’t think this is enough – they want this elimination and violence to be state-sanctioned, systemic, and final.

They will tell you to your face they don’t want to exterminate transgender people while they’re measuring the camps for bunks.

UB doesn’t have the power to silence Knowles the way Knowles would silence transgender Americans, female Americans, gay Americans, and whomever else he targets. We have the power to ridicule and condemn him and his hosts.

Paladino Homophobically Politicizes 419 Scam Letter

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Here is the text of an email to supporters that Carl Paladino sent Wednesday evening: 

(See email from Glenda below)

Glenda, thank you for writing.  I would like to refer you to Congressman Brian Higgins.

Brian is the Congressman who was the first to jump on the bandwagon of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama to pass Obamacare.  He readily admits that he didn’t read the bill or understand the particulars of its terrible impact on his constituents.  He felt it was more important to illustrate to his moderate constituency that he had evolved to be his own man, arrogant, condescending and blindly allegiant to every and any liberal elitist cause.

Brian knows that people tend to forget his omissions because he is a dupe of the Buffalo News and they “take care” of him.

Of course Brian takes credit for removing the Thruway tolls on the I-190.  So what if he had absolutely nothing to do with it?  He’s a politician and for them it’s ok to lie and make stuff up.  He has to show his constituents that he does something for his paycheck.

Sure he was the motivator behind the unsightly paving of the entire outer harbor.  Too much green attracts bugs and he was trying to deal with the mosquito problem in his own simplistic way.

Many of his moderate constituents, including family members believe that he should be excommunicated for his acceptance and promotion of partial birth abortion, but why pick on him?  Others like Andrew Cuomo and Tim Kennedy also believe that it’s ok to kill a baby at birth.  He believes that a woman has a right to choose murder.

And as for the nonsensical talk that he killed the Bass Pro Project that would have brought an economic boom to downtown retail, he wasn’t alone.  Cowards like Brian have had a tough time facing down the likes of Stan Lipsey, Howard Zemsky and Jordon Levy, especially as in this case when they want to control the State subsidy money and use it for their own ends. For Stan Lipsey the thought of having rednecks with gun racks on their pickup trucks in his area of downtown was too much for the lame and arrogant liberal power broker.  Brian needs the Buffalo News to be on his side to get re-elected and Jordon Levy’s money to pay for his special desires. 

Glenda, Brian likes dancing on the edge for people of your persuasion. He likes to show people that he is not the cowardly planarian that one may think and that he does take responsibility for his actions and those of the stooges that work for him.  I’m sure he will love to hear from you.

– Carl Paladino

It’s typical vicious Paladino, spraying insult and invective every which-way with no real logical thread. Bass Pro, abortion, the Buffalo News, the Thruway, Obamacare – it’s a compendium of fairyland talk-radio outrages. The angry right-wing Buffalo id in all its glory. 

It also drips with a humorless, angry sarcasm. 

What did “Glenda” send to Carl that prompted this dull and predictable outburst? 

From: Glenda KessIer [mailto:glenda.kessler@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2014 11:06 AM
Subject: hello

I am Mr. Glenda Kessler I was directed by your friend at gay site, I am gay, I am from United Kingdom and I want to relocate to your country for an investment project but I did not know how things is done in your country, because I am new, Please can you assist me, just to be my partner in the investment project and get 10% from total sum 1million USD. All I want is your guardians, kindly reply and I will give you more details. Waiting for your swift response.
Glenda. 

That’s right. It’s the opening missive of a 419 advance-fee scammer. 

Why would a 419 scam letter from someone who claims to be gay and to have been referred to Paladino from a “gay site” prompt Carl to immediately invoke Congressman Higgins’ name? Remember in an earlier post I asked, “What do you think Is the genesis of Paladino’s acute hatred and fear of homosexuals?” 

Seriously, this is getting ugly. 

Carl’s non-sequitur lunge at Higgins: is he accusing the Congressman of being gay or something? There is no other reasonable explanation. 

This is a person who gets glowing coverage in Buffalo media, and has actually been elected to a position of trust and authority over a troubled city school district. WTF are we doing? 

Criminalizing Love in Small Town NY

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Jamestown City Council President Greg Rabb has been instrumental in turning the Chautauqua County city known as the birthplace of Lucille Ball into a same sex marriage destination.  When Rabb first proposed the idea in 2012, he was threatened. (More here). 

But it’s been quite the little bonanza for the city, and Mr. Rabb penned this letter to the local paper: 

To The Reader’s Forum:

Marriage equality went into effect almost two and a half years ago. During that time it has been my pleasure as a City Marriage Officer to perform sometimes as many as 10 same-sex marriages per week. Couples have come to Jamestown from as many as 20 different states and every continent in the world. My goal was to make Jamestown a same-sex marriage destination and we have succeeded.

Couples stay in hotels, eat at restaurants, and reserve local venues for receptions including the Lucy-Desi Museum. Doing what is right has been good for business without the city having to spend a dime on promotion but relying on word of mouth.

Every couple has remarked to me how friendly everyone in Jamestown has been and how warmly they have been received resorting in referrals to their friends to get married in Jamestown by an openly gay city councilman.

In addition, we have been fighting poverty by waiving my fee and asking the couples to donate to St. Susan’s Center, our local soup kitchen, providing hundreds of meals each week to Jamestown residents in need. The couples have been very generous writing checks in 100, 200, and 300 dollar amountsall out of state money. I drop hundreds of dollars off to St. Susan’s each week without them having to do anything other than continuing their good work.

I knew marriage equality was the right thing to do and thanks to everyone in Jamestown and beyond it has turned out to be a good thing as well.

I bring this up not to brag about my work but to celebrate this community and the wonderful loving gay and lesbian couples it has been my pleasure to bring together in marriage celebrating their love.

Happy New Year!

Gregory Rabb

Jamestown

President, Jamestown City Council

Everybody wins, right? 

Here’s how one resident responded: 

In order to justify his own personal crusade, he claims, “Doing what is right has been good for business without the city having to spend a dime.” But does that really justify imposing his own personal deviant views on an entire community? Same sex marriage is unfortunately legal in New York State, but Rabb doesn’t stop there; instead, he wants to make our community a magnet for homosexuality.

Frankly, this is offensive, as well as an abuse of office. Again, who authorized our Council President to pursue this goal? Nobody. And it’s questionable whether his self-appointed social experiment is really reaping any economic benefits to the city and surrounding area.

But even if there were financial benefits shouldn’t there be some discussion as to whether we want to pursue this route to economic gain? In Lakewood, there’s discussion as to whether an adult porn shop should be granted permission to do business. No doubt one argument in favor of the porno store is that it helps grow the local business economy, but an argument against it would be the many negative social consequences, such as its potential harmful effects on families, youth, etc. Rabb seems to bypass all discussion in his crusade by using his office to promote Jamestown as a gay marriage headquarters. He says he’s “doing good” and “doing what is right.” Says whom? What’s next, an annual Jamestown gay pride parade with drag queens and transgenders celebrating their perversity? Wouldn’t that generate revenue? Or how about opening up a few gay bathhouses? Surely these would attract more people to Jamestown and boost local businesses.

No thank you. Greg Rabb’s vision for Jamestown is to make it into a gaudy, cheap and tawdry Pottersville. And that’s not “A Wonderful Life.”

Pastor Jeff Short

Jamestown

And another one: 

When a nation founded on God’s principles and greatly blessed by Him turns to brazen rebellion, we know what happens. Old Testament history and prophets’ writings record the glaring example of Israel.

Billy Graham recently said “Self-centered indulgence, pride, and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle. Our society strives to avoid the possibility of offending anyone – except God.”

Ruth Graham once remarked, “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah” (see Matthew 11:20-24). Sodom and Gomorrah were prideful, materialistic, and “gave themselves over to sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust” – becoming a byword through the ages for homosexuality. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with a fiery cataclysm; they were never rebuilt. See Genesis 19, Ezekiel 16:49-50, 2 Peter 2:6, Jude 7.

Extensive research, including by the GLMA, continues finding that homosexuals – even in “gay-friendly” countries like Holland – have much higher rates of disease, drug and alcohol abuse, mood/anxiety disorders, battering, and suicide than heterosexuals.

Recent Dutch research found that even gay men with a steady partner averaged 8 sexual partners per year. 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression, compared to 3% for men overall.

Yet such living is celebrated and called good? “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).

God’s Word is clear about homosexuality (Romans 1:26-28, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:9-11, Jude 7), and Jesus gave the eternal definition of marriage in Matthew 19:1-12.

But many American leaders today have the “Jehoiakim attitude.” This wicked Jewish monarch rejected, cut in pieces, and burned the Word of God.

When a town elects leaders that rebel against God to the point that “same-sex marriage” is proudly extolled, and it becomes a “same-sex marriage destination,” that town has invited God’s judgment. If you think Jamestown has problems now, just watch.

God is saying to the people of Jamestown today, “Wake up and repent, for you have welcomed a Trojan horse!”

Randall S. Braley

Jamestown

Remember that hatred, ignorance, and bigotry is ubiquitous. People will wrap a warm blanket of scripture around their hatred, implying moral certitude. What this shows is that people who are completely unaffected by others’ love want to criminalize it nonetheless. 

How sad for us. 

Village People

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Old guys in cowboy hats pledging an “uprising” over the “homosexual” “agenda” being shoved “down [their] throats”. 

“The people of Utah have rights, too, not just the homosexuals. The homosexuals are shoving their agenda down our throats,” Former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack said at the meeting…

…”State sovereignty supercedes what this judge did,” Mack said. “The Governor needs to get some courage and grip.”

Cherilyn Eager, one of the event organizers, said that people need to speak out.

“We need people to stand up and speak out. We need to get noisy. We need some outrage,” she said. “It is about the sheriffs now coming out to protect the people.”

Mack and Eager asked meeting attendees to call their local representatives and ask them to urge clerks to stop issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

“The way you take back freedom in America is one county at a time. The sheriffs need to defend the county clerks in saying, ‘No, we’re not going to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals,'” Mack said at the meeting.

This should end well. 

 

It’s a Duck Dynasty Christmas

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Liberal Alec Baldwin had a show on MSNBC for a very short time. He called a paparazzo who was harassing him and his family a “cocksucking fag”. Baldwin was swiftly suspended, then fired, from MSNBC. The right sort of shrugged, torn between its animus for Alec Baldwin on the one hand, and gays on the other. 

Liberal Martin Bashir had a show on MSNBC. He criticized Sarah Palin for likening the national debt to “slavery” by explaining what, precisely, slavery was. Specifically, he explained how the complete control of the master led oftentimes to unspeakably horrific treatment of his chattel labor – in one case, scatalogically so. Bashir said Palin should see what slavery really was before making such ignorant comparisons, and that a slavemaster should shit in her mouth. There was an outcry from Palin and the right. Bashir was suspended from MSNBC. He apologized. Palin accepted the apology. He left the network anyway. The right wing was outraged and demanded Bashir’s removal from TV. 

Some bearded person on a so-called “reality” show about very wealthy redneck manufacturers of duck calls has said some hateful and ignorant things about gay people and black people. A&E has suspended him. The right wing have gone ballistic, calling this a PC witch hunt and otherwise bemoaning the degradation of Biblical values, apple pie, Chevrolet, bearded freaks, and hate speech. Duck Dynasty guy equated homosexuality with bestiality and terrorism. He said the blacks had it better under Jim Crow, when they didn’t bitch to him (a white guy) about anything. 

Pretty base, ignorant stuff there. Well within the same wheelhouse as Bashir’s and Baldwin’s misdeeds. (I will note for consistency-lovers that I have not defended Bashir or Baldwin in any way, in any forum, and that I had no complaint of any sort when either of them were fired. To me, talking-head cable shows are a huge part of what is killing American discourse and thought, and I’d just as soon see them all gone.)

But we live in a nation that is sick beyond help – not because of the infiltration of the “gay lifestyle”, but because ignorant bullshit has gone mainstream. 

Never one to miss a chance for publicity, Sarah Palin posted on Facebook: “Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on theDuck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.” (Only Palin could claim that a person who has just voiced intolerant comments like Robertson is being attacked by “intolerants.”)  

Of course, when Martin Bashir made despicable comments about Palin, she didn’t defend him by saying, “Free speech is an endangered species.” Nope, instead she slammed Bashir’s comments as being “vile” and “evil.” And officials at Palin’s political action committee demanded that MSNBC punish Bashir.

First of all, the First Amendment right to free speech was not invoked in any of these cases. The Constitution limits the government’s power – not MSNBC’s, and not A&E’s. Bashir, Baldwin, and Duck Person are all entitled to think and say exactly everything they want. The networks on which they appear are likewise entitled to air, praise, condemn, or remove anything they see fit. 

Secondly, if you believe that Baldwin and Bashir should have been fired, consistency and fairness begs you to think the same of Duck Dynasty guy. If you think that Baldwin and Bashir should both be on MSNBC, then A&E should be boycotted. 

I have seen arguments defending Duck Dynasty guy because he was just repeating what the Bible has to say about, e.g., gay people suffering eternal damnation for their heinous crimes against God. That’s nice. But just because your holy book or religion says a thing doesn’t make it right, does it? Are we to excuse every ignorant and hateful thing that any religion has to say? Like I said, you can believe whatever you want – but when you equate homosexuality to terrorism, you have every right to be accountable for your words – to suffer consequences. Like when you call a photographer a “cocksucking fag”. Like when you suggest that a public figure should have someone shit in her mouth. 

The right wing didn’t have much to say about Alec Baldwin, after all. The only thing they brought up was that GLAAD were hypocrites because they didn’t condemn him (they did). It’s ok to defame gay people if you’re conservative, after all. Not just ok – encouraged. When Duck Dynasty guy defames gay people (and blacks), and gets suspended, they are outraged. When it’s Alec Baldwin, they shrug. To me, defaming gay people is wrong, full stop. 

A few months ago, “cook” Paula Deen was effectively drummed out of show business because her long history of racist thoughts and words came to light. Now, there is a miniature store selling her cookbooks and spatulas in a largely empty plaza in right-wing Clarence. She became a hero to the right because, evidently, saying ignorantly anachronistic things about black people is ok, because “free speech”. Similarly, Duck Dynasty  guy is cheered on the right for saying ignorantly anachronistic things about gays and blacks. 

I don’t see how – and it’s the Christmas season, incidentally – a time of love and cheer – nominal Christians and “conservatives” can go around defending people who have so much hatred in their hearts, thoughts, and words. If conservatism means preserving age-old hatreds, jealousies, and slanders then I don’t quite get why so many people would call themselves that. 

If Duck Dynasty guy is smart, he’ll apologize, A&E will reinstate him, and he can cash out what remains of his 15 minutes of fame. From the looks of it, he and his kin are digging in, standing firm, and telling those “cocksucking fags” and liberals to piss off and, literally, go to hell. 

Merry Christmas. 

 

The Committee to Save Matt Ricchiazzi

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Matt Ricchiazzi. Will he ever learn that the path to electoral success and/or a hack job is paved with hard work, loyalty, and not behaving like a lunatic? 

He started out so promising – fresh face, self-identified bisexual Republican running for Mayor, offering up big ideas. Then he aligned himself with tea party people like conspiratorial truther Allen Coniglio. He alternately endorsed, then didn’t endorse, then endorsed again, Carl Paladino. He ran his sister for city council. He ran for school board but didn’t make the ballot. He ran for state senate, but was ineligible. 

I obtained a series of emails he sent in 2010, where he lectured western New York’s gay activists about what they were doing wrong, with little positive feedback. For example: 

On a serious note, as long as the gay community is bound to the hip of the Democrat Party WE WILL NEVER, EVER ACHIEVE MARRIAGE EQUALITY. Never. If you think any different, then you’re delusional and stupid. We have ABSOLUTELY NO POLITICAL LEVERAGE AS LONG AS DEMOCRATS THINK THAT GAYS DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN. They have nothing to fear if they offend, betray, or insult us.

Further, the Democrats are making too much money off of the gay marriage issue, and they have no monetary interest in giving that up. They recieve donations, volunteers, etc because of this ban, and if we had marriage equality there would be no carrot left to keep the gay community on the Democrat band wagon.

As long as gays demonize ALL REPUBLICANS as being homophobic and racist, why are they going to go out of their way to be nice to people that propagate hate against them, because that’s what you’re doing. Especially considering that those pro-gay Republicans would incur political vulnerabilities within that their party that the other half of the Democrat Party is sure to exploit, it would make no sense for them to do that.

That must be why he’s developing and distributing homophobic political lit. 

Date: Sunday, August 29, 2010, 1:22 PM

Camile,

I’m hardly self-loathing. What do I care if I can’t get married to my partner, if he has to move out of state to find work?

I’m voting for Carl because he’s an awesome guy and he understands how the real economy works. Now, I realize that many of you work for the government or off of government contracts, so you’re not concerned with the real (private sector) economy. But for those of us who don’t want to content ourselves sucking on the government tit, we can’t afford to care about frivolous BS, like the word “marriage.”

Now, if you want to get all hysterical about nothing more than a word, then feel free to go waste all your time and energy being hysterical. But I’m far more worried about the economy and my generation’s economic opportunity and the debt burden with which the current generation of leadership is crushing us, than I am with semantics.

For that reason, Carl is far more in touch with the issues and needs that concern my generation

And, Carl has already said that he would not veto a marriage bill that passes the State Legislature. He would sign it into law, even though he personally does not support it, because that’s how he feels a democracy should work.

Paladino for the people!

-Matt

Over the last week or so, he has invented out of whole cloth a non-existent Republican “committee” (consisting of one member), which was ostensibly holding a lit design contest. Five pieces of fake lit were sent out to an undisclosed roster of politicos and press, all of which viciously attacked either Mark Grisanti or members of his staff.  It culminated on September 10th with this: 

It’s not persuasive, it’s not pithy, it’s not funny, it’s not anything except an opportunity for Ricchiazzi to inflame homophobia.  Now recall that all of this stems from the Grisanti camp’s refusal to give Ricchiazzi a job. 

Think about how pathetic this is: a kid who’s gay or bisexual is so  upset over not getting a job that he’s spent the better part of the last year spreading lies about Grisanti’s behavior during that bar fight in the Falls, he’s developing idiotic political literature attacking Grisanti and his aides, and he develops the homoerotic piece of literature shown above for the sole purpose of getting conservative-minded opponents of same-sex marriage angry. He is so self-loathing, so opportunistic that he chooses to inflame anti-homosexual passions. 

The guy Ricchiazzi is supposedly trying to help – Kevin Stocker – told Channel 4 that he finds the ad offensive. Ricchiazzi emailed Channel 4’s Lou Raguse to say that he “saw” the lit and that his “committee” thought it was brilliant. 

And that’s not all. Ricchiazzi’s efforts in this instance are so clumsy that it’s gotten tons of attention as the “most anti-gay” piece of literature never sent. HuffPo, BuzzFeed, Politico have all covered this piece of lit. But the best information comes from BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner, via Twitter: 

The pornographers who produced the images from which Ricchiazzi obtained the images for the mailer shown above posted this: 

While everyone at CorbinFisher is flattered the self-described “Committee to Save the Erie County Republican Party” would select two of our company’s images to represent all-things-gay, the persons/person considering the unauthorized use of our images, in violation of registered copyrights, should be aware we take the protection of our intellectual property seriously.

Whichever group or individual took a break from furiously manipulating themselves to the collection of CorbinFisher gay erotic images they apparently maintain on their computer should be aware use of the images without our prior written consent is a violation of our copyrights.

Certainly, having all heard of occasions in which self-professed family values advocates have vehemently opposed same-sex marriage rights while at the same time adopting “wide stances” in airport restrooms, employing male prostitutes as European vacation luggage carriers or mile-high methamphetamine-smoking partners, and shamelessly pursuing sexual favors from pages in the halls of Congress, it doesn’t quite surprise us those behind the “Committee to Save the Erie County Republican Party” would readily have access to a number of our sexually explicit, gay-oriented images.  Nonetheless, we’d politely ask they discontinue attempts to insert our copyrighted images in to their distributed political material, and instead stick to secretly pleasuring themselves and battling their internal struggles with guilt and shame over the sexual orientation they are unable to come to terms with, like so many other outspoken opponents of gay rights are so good at doing.

So, Ricchiazzi can’t get hired, he can’t properly get a YouTube hit piece up, he can’t get traction for his fairy tales about the Falls bar fight, the Senecas want nothing to do with him, Stocker has disavowed any involvement with him, he’s alienated and angered the gay community, and he’s burned just about every bridge he’s ever tenuously built. What a waste. 

 

Happy Anniversary

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Perhaps you saw this image floating around on the Facebooks this week.  Not only is same-sex marriage the right thing to do from a civil rights perspective, but it’s good for business. Treating fellow citizens like equals is really something of a no-brainer, and it’s important to note that the biggest homophobic, anti-SSM group, the “National Organization for Marriage” has decided that the best strategy is to pit African American voters against the LGBT community, and to go back to the “Obama radical” well, which has been dry for some time. 

I’ve come to the personal conclusion that one’s support of same-sex marriage is tantamount to a test of intelligence. A gay couple getting married has no bearing whatsoever on anyone else. It’s simple but true to say that if you don’t like same-sex marriage, don’t get one. Religious freedom and your own conscience do not, however, deserve to be codified as a prohibition on others’ behavior. 

Just because certain Jewish people keep Kosher, doesn’t mean every grocery store and restaurant has to follow those laws. 

And so it is, a year later, there’s a lawsuit pending brought by same-sex marriage opponents, and the execrable patronage mill called the “Conservative Party” has made repeal of the act a mission. 

As we celebrate the anniversary of this victory for civil rights and common sense, don’t forget the local electeds who would have denied this basic right to LGBT couples. 

Assembly: 

Robin Schimminger, Jane Corwin, Dennis Gabryszak

Senate: 

Michael Ranzenhofer, Pat Gallivan, George Maziarz

It's Legally OK to be Gay

3 comments

Pride flag is raised!

Photo by Flickr user Whitney Arlene

Defamation – and its synonyms “slander” (spoken defamation) and “libel” (published defamation) – is generally defined as a false statement of fact that causes harm to a person and his reputation.  Obviously, its more complicated than just that, and the law is different if you’re a public figure or a private person. 

In New York, “a statement has defamatory connotations if it tends to expose a person to ‘public hatred, shame, obloquy, contumely, odium, contempt, ridicule, aversion, ostracism, degradation or disgrace, or to induce an evil opinion of [a person] in the minds of right-thinking persons.'”  A plaintiff suing for slander must show that he has suffered damages unless the alleged statement is considered slander per se. 

Slander per se, until recently, included “statements (i) charging [a] plaintiff with a serious crime; (ii) that tend to injure another in his or her trade, business or profession; (iii) that [a] plaintiff has a loathsome disease; or (iv) imputing unchastity to a woman”… the Appellate Division Departments, including this Court in dicta, have recognized statements falsely imputing homosexuality as a fifth per se category.”

Because of changing social perceptions and changes in both federal and state laws concerning homosexuality, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Third Department recently ruled that the inclusion of homosexuality among the per se categories imputed some sort of shame or disgrace, and ruled that it would no longer be considered defamatory per se. 

This little, barely-noticed ruling, is yet another step in the massive societal shift that has been taking place over the last several decades whereby homophobia has gone from being the statutory norm to, itself, a subject of shame and sometime criminality. While the people who rely on, and profit from, hatred and fear are having their last gasp, at least in New York State, we can say we’re doing the right thing. 

It’s Legally OK to be Gay

3 comments

Pride flag is raised!

Photo by Flickr user Whitney Arlene

Defamation – and its synonyms “slander” (spoken defamation) and “libel” (published defamation) – is generally defined as a false statement of fact that causes harm to a person and his reputation.  Obviously, its more complicated than just that, and the law is different if you’re a public figure or a private person. 

In New York, “a statement has defamatory connotations if it tends to expose a person to ‘public hatred, shame, obloquy, contumely, odium, contempt, ridicule, aversion, ostracism, degradation or disgrace, or to induce an evil opinion of [a person] in the minds of right-thinking persons.'”  A plaintiff suing for slander must show that he has suffered damages unless the alleged statement is considered slander per se. 

Slander per se, until recently, included “statements (i) charging [a] plaintiff with a serious crime; (ii) that tend to injure another in his or her trade, business or profession; (iii) that [a] plaintiff has a loathsome disease; or (iv) imputing unchastity to a woman”… the Appellate Division Departments, including this Court in dicta, have recognized statements falsely imputing homosexuality as a fifth per se category.”

Because of changing social perceptions and changes in both federal and state laws concerning homosexuality, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Third Department recently ruled that the inclusion of homosexuality among the per se categories imputed some sort of shame or disgrace, and ruled that it would no longer be considered defamatory per se. 

This little, barely-noticed ruling, is yet another step in the massive societal shift that has been taking place over the last several decades whereby homophobia has gone from being the statutory norm to, itself, a subject of shame and sometime criminality. While the people who rely on, and profit from, hatred and fear are having their last gasp, at least in New York State, we can say we’re doing the right thing. 

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