Gays and Harding University

Some gay students are ultra-conservative Christian (Church of Christ) Harding University, are using the internet to reach out for help:
The State of the Gay at Harding University

I'm an alumnus from Harding (1983), I went in a Bible Major, and left three years later a gay, atheist socialist :)
It is very oppressive for gays, and there are a lot of gay students there, like many Christian colleges, most of them are sent there by their parents, and they cannot just leave...
I could and did...
Like most fundamentalists, the Church of Christ has no understanding of sexual orientation or identity, only "homosexual behaviors." They are still in the 18th century...
If you are student at Harding.. GET OUT if you can! Go to a public college, they are cheaper! If you can't leave, hang in there, and seek friends and support online and in nearby cities (Little Rock and Memphis)

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2011/03/lgbt-students-at-harding-university-cry-out-for-help-in-web-zine-school-immediately-blocks-access.html#ixzz1FbMVVcmI

Conservative Campus Queers Revolt

Deliverance: The True Story of a Gay Exorcism Critical Eye: Details.com

Deliverance: The True Story of a Gay Exorcism Critical Eye: Details.com

Family Research Council Anti-Gay Rally in Memphis

The Family Action Council is sponsoring STAND FOR THE FAMILY: A RALLY TO CELEBRATE AND PROMOTE THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY, Monday at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis.

Special guests include two anti-gay bigots: Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council and Bishop Harry Jackson, Pastor of Hope Christian Church in Washington D.C. Bishop Jackson led the efforts to stop same-sex marriage in Washington D.C., and Tony Perkins and the FRC have led the efforts of Focus On The Family to oppose civil rights for gays and lesbians.

It should be a lovely "family" event....

Meanwhile, the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center and LGBT groups in Memphis are holding an alternative rally, STAND FOR ALL FAMILIES, at Nashoba Unitarian Church

The Family Action Council of Tennessee oppose equality for LGBT families in TN.

Tony Perkins has political connections with other religious and political extremists, including David Duke and the racist white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens. Here's a picture of Tony Perkins speaking to a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens in 2001!


Perkins claims he didn't know the politics of the CCC, but how could he not see that WHITE CONFEDERATE flag behind him??

Pam's Houseblend: Tony Perkins and White Supremacy

Why are African-American pastors Alton Williams and Bishop Harry Jackson sharing the stage with Tony Perkins? Do they fear gay people more than White Supremacists and Racists

UPDATE: Truth Wins Out--"Pro-Family" vs. Actual Pro-Family

Tommy Simmons, Is This The Best They Can Throw At Us?

American Evangelicals Encourage Homophobia in Uganda

International Uproar over Uganda: Study Finds American Evangelicals Encouraging Homophobia

Christian Reich's War on Gays

The Christian Reich continues to expand its war on LGBT people. In the United States, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have united to make their anti-gay Manhattan Declaration against women's right to abortion and marriage for gays and lesbians.

The Declaration, released last week and signed by over 150 Christian leaders and social conservatives, identifies abortion, gay marriage, and religious liberty as the three most important issues facing modern Christians, and pleads with both believers and non-believers to stand up against the first two and in defense of the third.

Nathaniel Frank does a great job of deconstructing their hypocritical and irrational defense of "traditional marriage" from the civil unions of gays and lesbians: Christian Leaders Scapegoat Gays on Marriage

The religious war against gay people is an international endeavor. In Uganda a bill is being proposed by the parliament that would call for the execution of gays.

Britain and Canada today led Commonwealth protests against a law proposed by the Ugandan parliament which would introduce the death penalty by hanging for "aggravated homosexuality".

The suggested legislation would apply to sex between gay men or lesbian women in which one person has HIV.

The bill also proposes the introduction of a three-year prison sentence for anyone who knows of the existence of a gay man or lesbian woman and fails to inform authorities in Uganda within 24 hours.

Fury at Uganda Proposal for Gay Executions

Furthermore, the Anti-Homosexuality bill in Uganda is supported by U.S. conservative Christians known as "The Family." According to Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, the Family has been very active in supporting Uganda's right-wing government and the anti-gay legislation.

Rachel Maddow on Uganda and the Family

Rick Warren Can't "Take Sides" on Gay Executions in Uganda

Values Voters Summit Highlight: "All Pornography is Homosexual Pornography"

Think Progress had someone videotaping at the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" and they caught Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff for Republican Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), saying some bizarre things about homosexuality and pornography. During a panel discussion on "The New Masculinity", Schwartz denounced pornography as a "blight" and a "silent disease" before stating that it causes young boys to become homosexuals.
Homosexuality is inflicted on people... But all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. And that in fact is what it does. I know couples now who are struggling with the husband's addiction to pornography. It's a terrible thing. And that's what happens. And, you know, if it doesn't turn you homosexual, it at least renders you less capable of loving your wife. And it's something you need to be healed of."
From Huffington Post

What is it about Oklahoma and anti-gay homophobic religious bigots? I was born there, but now I wish the Cherokee had killed off all the White People in that territory!

Read more about Schwartz's homophobic history at Think Progress

See also: The Washington Independent

Republican candidate for Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell cites Michael Schwartz in his 1989 thesis!

Will the Christian Right take down the Republican Party?

Is the Religious Right Dead?

Boy Frank Rich nails the coffin shut on the Religious Right:
The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off

Not sure we can count the religious nuts out completely, like Vampires they seem to creep out when you don't expect them...
They survived PTL and Jimmy Swaggert...

But it is amusing listening to adulturers and drug addicts like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh try to lecture Barack & Michelle Obama on "famlily values" !

Pat Boone: "I Love Gays"

The Christo-Fascists are on their anti-gay warpath, now calling gays "terrorists" for protesting against the religious bigotry behind Prop. 8 in California.

Pat Boone, among others, has called gay rights demonstrators terrorists over on Wing-Nut Daily, but after being called out for his homophobic bigotry, now says "I Love Gays"

You can read more about Pat's Love of the Gays on Pam's Houseblend

Right Wing Watch: "Gays are Like _____"

The Love That Dare Not Speak in TN

Don't Say Gay
A proposed state law in TN, sponsored by Rep. Stacy Campfield of Knoxville, would ban any discussion of homosexuality in elementary and middle schools in the state. Guess the kids in our schools cannot learn about Playwright Tennessee Williams, Poet Lord Byron or Leonardo da Vinci, or Oscar Wilde, or any of the many other famous homos who helped create and shape western civilization. (But I'm sure he wants to indoctrinate kids about compulsory heterosexuality.)

Obama's Gay & Religion Problem (Again)

While Barack Obama gave an excellent MLK speech in which he addressed the problem of anti-gay bigotry in the African-American churches:
Obama's MLK Day Speech

“For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.”


However, as is the case on other issues, Obama’s oratory rhetoric falls a little short in his actions:


Obama Plays Christian Card in S.C. By circulating a “Committed Christian” Flyer, which goes even beyond Mike Huckabee’s Christian-themed rhetoric:
Obama Makes Jerry Falwell Proud

Granted, Obama is responding to the right-wing campaign to paint him as a muslim, but it is troubling that candidates from both parties ignore the separation of church and state and appeal to religious prejudice (pro-Christian, etc.) to win votes.


Obama has another Gay Problem, Obama Enlists another anti-gay black minister to campaign for him:
Obama and Gays Again
Obama took some heat from the gay community for having anti-gay “ex-gay” gospel singer Donnie McClurkin on a “gospel” campaign tour in S.C., but now he has done it again. This time the Obama campaign has enlisted Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a black minister who served as a faith advisor to G.W. Bush, and was also part of the Donnie McClurkin gospel campaign tour.
Caldwell’s church runs an “ex-gay” ministry that claims to cure gays.
The Metanoia Ministry website includes as one of its goals “Support groups for ex-gays and those in the process of overcoming homosexuality.”

Obama may have to win the support of black churches and African-American evangelicals, but does he have to enlist the support of opponents of LGBT civil rights in his campaign??

War on Christmas

Once Upon a Time, The Christian Right Waged a "War on Christmas"

GOP Courts Christian Right

None of the GOP Presdidential candidates would appear at the Human Rights Campaign/LOGO forum to discuss gay issues, but they did climb all over themselves to appear at the ant-gay Family Research Councils' Values Voters Summit" this weekend. Most of the candidates tried to reinforce conservative doubts about Rudy Guiliani, who in the past has had moderate views and positions on abortion and gay rights. "Multiple-Mitt" Romney, a former supporter of gay rights who claimed he would be more supportive of gay rights than Edward Kennedy when he ran for the Senate, is now championing the radical right's anti-gay agenda. In fact, all of the GOP candidates seem to be competing for the most ant-gay award. The Christian Right is not too happy with the leading GOP candidates, especially Giuliani, and their favorite candiate, Sam Brownback, has dropped out of the race because of his extreme positions. However, all of the remaining candidates (except libertarian Ron Paul) have been pandering to the Christian Right because they cannot win without the support of the base of the Republican Party. Some may see the predicament off the Christian Right as good for gays ("Values Voters" Anarchy Good News for Gays">, but even Giuliani is promising to support the Christian Right's agenda, including appointment of federal judges like Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts, and has distanced himself from gay rights and now tells the Family Research Center that he would support a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriages. The danger of Giuliani is that he can appeal to the anti-gay Christian Right and "moderate" voters, making him the GOP's best chance of winning in 2008. The bad news is that he can probably beat Hillary Clinton, who appears to be the Democratic candidate for 2008.

The GOP and the Christian Right

The Christian Reich base of the Republican Party is throwing a temper tantrum! A group the conservative Christian leaders meet over the weekend and are threatening to support a third party if the GOP nominates a pro-choice candidate (i.e, Rudi Giuliani).
Maybe they should save John McCain's faltering campaign. In an interview on Beliefnet, the Arizone Republican presidential candidate said that he would prefer a Christian president to lead the U.S., and that "the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation" ! Evidently McCain has not read the U.S. Constitution, which does not even mention Christianity or god! The Constitution estabished a SECULAR government that forbids (a) religious tests for candidates and (b) the "establishment of religion"! Another reason John McCain should NOT be president!

Falwell Dead--One Less Bigot

The world has one less right-wing homophobic bigot. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority is dead. While it is not polite to speak ill of the dead, in this case I will make an exception. While I sympathize with his family for their personal lost, we cannot ignore the evil of Jerry Falwell’s political legacy. Indeed, Falwell came to symbolize all that is wrong with conservatism in the United States. Let’s not forget that Falwell condemned the civil rights movement as well as Dr. Martin Luther King. Like Reagan, who Falwell helped elect for political power, he supported Apartheid in South Africa. In the name of “Christianity” he supported very un-Christian economic and social policies that hurt the poor and rewarded the rich. Like Osama bin Laden and Islamic terrorists, he called 9/11 God’s judgment upon secularism, feminism and homosexuality. He vilified gays and lesbians for political gain. He attacked the Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state and advocated a theocractic government, which the founders of this secular democracy adamantly opposed. It would be tempting to find some comfort in the death of such a person who has brought so much harm to our democracy and to gays and lesbians, but the truth is that bigotry and homophobia did not die with him. He has left behind an army of holy warriors who will no doubt continue his assault on equality, freedom and social justice. I find no cause for rejoicing or celebration in what our future may hold.

Christian Fascism

Here's a good article by Chris Hedges on The Rise of Christian Fascism and its Threat to American Democracy

Christian "Pro-Life" Group teaches Tipton Students

These Christo-facists seem to be able to get away with anything in Tennessee!

Tipton Students Learn from Pro-Life Group

Ten Commandments in courthouses, Bible classes in public schools, creationism taught as science, and now this...
Will anyone in Tipton County stand up to these nuts?